LA RECORD ISSUE 103

VOL. 5 NO. 4 • SXSW + COACHELLA 2011 • ISSUE 103

DAEDELUS WIRE FAUST SWANS DÁVILA 666 MIKE WATT WIZ KHALIFA AUSTIN PERALTA TOKIMONSTA PENNY-ANTE RAINBOW ARABIA FANCY SPACE PEOPLE HUNX AND HIS PUNX CLEVELAND CONFIDENTIAL AND MORE

TOKIMONSTA

by THEO JEMISON WHITE FENCE by AARON GIESEL

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WIRE Chris Ziegler

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SWANS Chris Ziegler

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FAUST Dan Collins

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NICK WATERHOUSE Lainna Fader

AUSTIN PERALTA Lainna Fader and Miles Clements

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FANCY SPACE PEOPLE Chris Ziegler and Dan Collins

RAINBOW ARABIA Daiana Feuer

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WIZ KHALIFA Rebecca Haithcoat

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DÁVILA 666 Kristina Benson

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MEN Daiana Feuer

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SUEDE Chris Ziegler

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HUNX AND HIS PUNX Chris Ziegler

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DAEDELUS Lainna Fader

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TOKIMONSTA Kristina Benson

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MIKE WATT Daiana Feuer

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THE GOLDBERG SISTERS Dan Collins RT AND THE 44s Daiana Feuer

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER — Chris Ziegler — chris@larecord.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER — Lainna Fader — lainna@larecord.com EXECUTIVE EDITOR — Daiana Feuer — daiana@larecord.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR — Kristina Benson — kristina@larecord.com NEW MUSIC EDITOR — Dan Collins — danc@larecord.com ARTS EDITOR — Drew Denny — drew@larecord.com BOOKS / COPY EDITOR — Nikki Bazar — nikkib@larecord.com COMICS EDITOR — Tom Child — tom@larecord.com FILM EDITOR — Lainna Fader — lainna@larecord.com DESIGNER — Sarah Bennett — sarah@larecord.com WEB DESIGNER — Se Reed — se@larecord.com INTERNS — Annette Badalian, Shane Carpenter, Joseph Engel

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ACCOUNTS Kristina Benson, Lainna Fader, Chris Ziegler CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Steven Carrera, Ron Garmon, Geoff Geis, Jason Gelt, Sean O’Connell

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CORRECTIONS

CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER Evan Whitener LOGISTICAL SUPPORT Ryan Clark, Chris Jackson, Charlie Rose Cover Photograph — Lauren Everett Poster — Ward Robinson and Jun Ohnuki

The lettering on the Melvins poster in issue 102 was by champoyhate. The illustration of Nobunny should be correctly credited to themegoman. The illustration of Death should be correctly credited to Luke McGarry. L.A. RECORD apologizes for the errors!

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WIRE Interview by Chris Ziegler Illustration by Joe McGarry Wire did a million things by taking guitar-bass-drums music as close to the minimum as they could and then rebuilding it according to rules of their very own. Their newest Red Barked Tree can stand resolutely beside their classic first three LPs and they will be performing on Saturday at Coachella. Singer Colin Newman speaks now from an Italian hotel.

You said once that you only ever received two pieces of advice about music and that they were both horrible. Somebody told you that you’d never make it playing your own material and somebody else told you never to go to America because it would destroy your band. Has anyone ever told you anything about Wire that turned out to be true?

Colin Newman (vocals): Oh…blimey. I remember that first thing because that was before I was ever in a band and I was horrified at the idea of only being in a cover band. The second was actually given by Arthur Brown.

He had The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in the ‘60s. He told me on the first American tour the band broke up because some of them found drugs and some of them found girls and probably the other ones found religion or something. It sounded all quite totally crazy to me.

The first time you came to America, did you find it to be the land of religious and sexual temptation as Arthur Brown had warned you?

Absolutely not. The very first time I came to America we had a famous tour of one city.

In fact, one club: CBGB’s in the summer of 1978. We had a residency for, I think, four or five nights, something like that. It was the strangest thing. We stayed in a Holiday Inn and we’d play two shows some nights. That was back in the days when people would engage you in conversation to hear your lovely English accent. The world is so different now.

As a British person going in, you have all these ideas about what America’s going to be like.

What are those ideas?

Like you could have 24-hour television and that it’s all fantastic. There was 24-hour television but none of it was fantastic.

You’ve said you were monitoring things and predicting trends and that it seemed that on the horizon a very Wire-y time was ap6

proaching, and that was one of the reasons you wanted to reactivate Wire. What sorts of things have happened on planet Earth to make this an appropriate climate for Wire to exist?

What’s really important and very good with this album and this current phase is the fact that there are other bands of that generation that have come around and done the comeback thing and everybody looked at it and thought, ‘Yeah, that was quite nice. Well, what else have they got?’ Well, they don’t really have anything else. They aren’t really a band.

They’re just doing it because someone said, ‘Well, if you do this, you can get quite wellpaid for it.’ And I’m not being super-cynical because someone who’s never really made any money out of anything deserves to get it. But because Wire never really went away in that way, we’ve never really done the comeback.

Suddenly people are thinking, ‘Now, hang on, that lot is really good and they never really stopped being what they are.’ It’s almost like if you keep doing something long enough eventually you’re going to get recognized for it. We have things in Britain that we’ve never had, just in terms of the level of exposure.

You’ve said there are two kinds of people who make music. On the one hand you have traditionalists and for them, preserving a tradition is more important than whatever trend is going on. The other kind is people who relate more to the general context of creativity—they just want to do what they do and don’t care about ‘authenticity.’ Where do your own sympathies lie?

I’m not really a traditionalist, I don’t think, personally. I think Wire as a band and me as an artist are kind of anti-traditionalist. It doesn’t belong to a long tradition. It just is what it is in itself. So it has to relate more to the creative moment. Every artist hopes—and this could be pure arrogance—that you’re somehow

plugged into the moment, the zeitgeist…that you’re doing something that makes sense. Just saying it isn’t proof that you are it but that’s what one hopes for.

Bruce said he thought orthodoxy had settled into punk by the end of 1977. Do you feel that’s true? If so, what was it like before that?

There was no world without orthodoxy before. It was just different orthodoxies. What he meant was that punk had become orthodox by the end of 1977. Every genre becomes its own means of strangulation. The most important people in genre music are the people who create it and the people who escape it.

The rest are sort of the lumpen ones who are just going along because they’re with it this week.

Which do you feel closer to: the creator or the escaper?

Probably an escaper.

You’d rather be remembered as an escape artist than an innovator?

It’s not about innovation. You’re going to get put into genres whatever you do, so finding your way out is a different kind of innovation.

I certainly wouldn’t make any claim to having created a genre. Creating a genre is a very specific thing and it’s very scene oriented. It’s people who take the energy from the genre who then escape it. That’s exactly what Wire is in relationship to punk. It’s not escaping “to.”

You just know that there’s somewhere else to be and it becomes almost entirely a matter of gut instinct, I would say.

Is that something you can hone? Or do you just need a certain kind of gut?

I don’t know if you can hone it. When it comes to pure creativity, I always feel like I’m an evil genius or an idiot. Probably both. I think that people who create should be more in contact with their gut in terms of what they feel they ought to do and if they don’t feel anything, I

don’t know what to say. But you need your brain. You need your brain after, not before.

You need your brain to figure out what you did and whether it was any good. You don’t need your brain beforehand to decide what to do. You just do what you feel like.

How does formal education fits in? Does that privilege the head over the gut?

I don’t know because I’ve never had formal education in music. I’ve had formal education in art but I was a complete failure as an art student. I think formal education is useful for brain training but it feels to me that creativity comes from an entirely different place than from where the thinking about it comes from. I guess the only thing I can say is to try and get them in the right order. That’s more of an American problem than it is a British problem: the idea that people think they need to know how to play before they can do anything. Whereas I don’t think that British people have ever really worried about that too much. Sometimes they don’t have to. It’s almost pure innocence. You sort of pick it up as you go along. Virtuosity really doesn’t help apart from being able to play other people’s music. If you’re playing your own music, virtuosity is neither a help nor a hindrance. Well, probably a hindrance because you’re just going to play everything you know. You’re being a cover band.

You said once that in terms of general artistic development, you felt that America lags behind the U.K. Even though American artists may sort of start new trends, it’s the British who will pick it up and run with it.

I don’t think that America lags behind. The Brits are very good at selling American culture back to Americans. I mean, look at the Beatles and everything from then on. I mean, techno in the ‘90s is a great example. I mean, techno completely took off in Europe but it got decimated by grunge in North America and then INTERVIEW

had to kind of find a way back. I wouldn’t say that America doesn’t innovate. That’s rubbish.

And I wouldn’t say America lags behind. I just think that sometimes things are out of phase.

I think Wire is a band that doesn’t really do that. There’s a lot of formality to rock that we just don’t use—specifically the American forms.

What American forms?

It’s like—what’s the difference between the Ramones and Wire? And with Wire, it’s probably less chords.

And less leather.

Yes, less leather. The Ramones were reductive but they didn’t really throw away the rock ‘n’ roll thing. Whereas Wire quite happily would throw that away because it didn’t mean as much.

You said that Wire has always responded to new things—what are you drawing meaning from in 2011?

One of the great things about the album is the reinvention of a mode of working and that is basically the result of hip-hop. Hip-hop has been so powerful in music production. And I say “hip-hop” in terms of methodology and I think anyone who makes music understands that very well. The whole basic tenet of hip-hop is that you take a bunch of difINTERVIEW

ferent things that don’t really belong together and you shove them together. That’s been refined and refined and refined over a number of years until basically a large percentage of music is made by assemblage. You can make rock music that way just as you could make any kind of music that way. It doesn’t necessarily have to come from different sources. It can come from playing in the same band.

What hip-hop producers have you found inspiring?

Well, you’d have to go back to really the beginning, like the first time I heard—I’m slightly drunk so I don’t remember any of those names. Stuff like De La Soul. Things that were just obviously made out of bits of other people’s records. In the mid ‘80s that was just really refreshing because you couldn’t stand in a room and play that. It had to be created by that method and that methodology led to all the sort of break-based music. Drum and bass came out of that in terms of methodology but it added a level of speed, so it was not only the things themselves off the records that you couldn’t actually reproduce but they were also edited at a speed that humans couldn’t play either. So that was a totally brilliant idea. I liked all that as ideas. It was fantastic. You know the first time I heard “Time Stretch” by Roni Size

it completely blew me away. So that kind of stuff. But there becomes a point where that becomes so assimilated into the general culture that it’s just stuff, you know, and you have to figure out how to be fresh again.

You said you aren’t a musical generalist because if you listen to everything you lose artistic perspective. Now that the Internet has made everything available to everyone all the time, is all perspective gone?

What I’m saying is that it is very difficult. I’m absolutely terrible. I can give something two seconds of my attention and decide that I’m never going to listen to it again, ever. So I’m just a musical fascist.

What makes you hit pause after two seconds?

It’s not really about genre. It’s about content, you know? Some things I just don’t like. I can’t even put my finger on it. And I like some stuff that’s completely cheesy and some stuff that’s quite kosher. I have extremely broad taste in music.

What is the most party-friendly Wire song?

Like for kicking back with a girl?

No idea. Why, are you trying to make it with somebody?

Like if you want to have people over— throw on some Wire records.

Well, I don’t know. But it has changed. In the

‘70s, if you had girls at a Wire show they’d usually been dragged along by their boyfriends but now we get quite a lot of girls, which is good.

Is that progress in Wire or progress in society?

I think it’s probably progress in everything, really. I think it might have something to do also with the fact that we do sometimes get girls up the front and they’re not there because they think you’re sexy but because they’re checking it out. And they’re all in bands.

Did you ever experience a bunch of girls up front checking you out because they thought you were sexy?

Certainly not—no, is the short answer to that.

WIRE WITH THE ARCADE FIRE, ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, DAEDELUS, RAS_G, THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE, SUEDE AND MORE ON SAT., APRIL 16, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVE. 51, INDIO. 11 AM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. WIRE’S RED BARKED TREE IS OUT NOW ON PINK FLAG. VISIT WIRE AT PINKFLAG. COM.

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FAUST Interview by Dan Collins Illustration by champoyhate If German progressive rock bands of the early 70s were members of the Weasley family from Harry Potter, Can would be Ginny Weasley, Cluster would be Bill, Kraftwerk would be Percy, and Neu! would probably be the one who studies dragons … but undoubtedly, Faust would be the twins. The sly pranksters of the Krautrock set (who hate the name ‘Krautrock’), Faust have always been known for musical larks, marketing scams, and instrument destruction across a career that’s spanned 40 years and seriously nurtured the fame of billionaires and redheads in the process. We caught up with one half of Faust over Valentine’s Day weekend.

Your new album, Something Dirty, sounds so modern with its harsh distortion, like the noise bands of the last ten years or so. Have you been influenced by any modern bands? Or is this the kind of music you’ve always been making?

Zappi (drums): Of course I’m influenced by modern music.

You hear new music, whether you want to or not. But mostly I’m influenced by marching music because my father was in a marching band.

Is the title in any way a tribute to Sonic Youth’s Dirty?

There are some definite Sonic Youth-isms on the album— ‘Tell the Bitch to Go Home’ even sounds like a Sonic Youth title!

Jean-Hervé Péron (bass): You’re asking a subjective question— were we influenced by Sonic Youth? And you want me to confirm or infirm the hypothesis, and so I will infirm it! I mean, of course, we are influenced by everything—I am influenced by the sounds of cement mixers in the street, and from Sonic Youth, and from my mother singing to me in the womb before I was even born! So yes, I can say that we were influenced— but once again, we are a group of five individuals who come together, so it is impossible to be influenced by anything, because we are not united.

Your new lineup includes artist Geraldine Swayne and James Johnston from the Bad Seeds—how did you meet them? And does Swayne play an accordion, as I saw in some recent photos? You can’t hear them on the album.

JHP: I met them at a concert in Paris, and the accordion got broken at a wild stage show, that’s why it isn’t on the album.

How did it get broken?

JHP: I am old, and my memory is not what it used to be.

Remember that on stage, we are in a different state of mind, a chaotic state of mind, like a trance, and it is easy for things to get destroyed.

For better or worse, your music is normally described as ‘Krautrock,’ a genre which you have described in interviews as a wide spectrum of sounds, with Kraftwerk as one extreme side of the spectrum and Faust as the other. How would you describe the Faust side of that spectrum that makes it Kraftwerk’s polar opposite?

Z: I don’t like the name ‘Krautrock,’ it’s just a meaningless word for German bands that play rock music. However, I think our music originates more from spontaneity than Kraftwerk’s music does.

JHP: With Kraftwerk, they are a band that has a goal and a path, and they prepare. Faust is something that is always of the moment, always chaotic, a group of individuals that come together—from France, from northern Germany, from southern Germany, from Austria. That is why we will never be popular!

We were always full of extreme chaos!

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Do you feel more of a kinship, then, with English bands such as Hawkwind, that were more chaotic and less somber?

JHP: Hawkwind?! I don’t want to sound arrogant, but … I don’t think that there is any other band like Faust.

I thought all German bands of the ‘Krautrock’ era were good friends who hung out together all the time, recording on each other’s records at Conny Plank studios and befriending Brian Eno together.

Z: We didn’t have any contact whatsoever with other German bands from this time. We met Brian Eno once, but that’s the end of the story.

How important were rock critics in the 70s to inspring your enthusiasm and success at music?

JHP: Criticism comes after the work. I don’t think critics have impacted our music one way or the other—it’s their job. But the feedback we get from friends—I hate the word ‘fan’ because it is short for ‘fanatic,’ and I prefer the term ‘friend’— there’s been lots and lots and lots of young people that came to us and said, ‘Thank you for what you have presented to us, thank you for the new music that you have opened our eyes to.’ And every time, I am confused, because we never realized that we were doing anything special. Now, it makes me happy. I am very proud that the music we have made has apparently inspired a few people and given them strength! And this is why we keep on doing it, because it can’t be wrong.

They are so close to us! When you see the stars in their eyes, and the big gleaming smiles they have when they meet us— that’s where the energy flows! This is the way I like it. I want to give and to get and to give and get and give.

Faust has served as a backing band for a wide spectrum of other artists, from Slapp Happy to Tony Conrad. Who do you remember most fondly?

JHP: If I had to name three events in my life that affected me the most profoundly, I would have to name the birth of my children, my journey through the Sahara, and my work with Tony Conrad. He had some definite ideas about simplicity— no changes at all, whatsoever. I guess you could call it ‘rock music’ because it has drums and a bass, but he was so insistent that nothing change whatsoever. At one point I decided, OK, I will play this same note, but I will play the harmonic minor, basically the same thing—you can hear it on side two of the album. And to see Tony—you could tell that just this one tiny change really disturbed him!

Your Outside the Dream Syndicate album with Tony Conrad is perhaps his most accessible. Did Conrad recruit you because he intended to make a ‘rock album,’ or did it just happen that way?

Z: No, he had a definite plan beforehand. He wanted to have

short, hard beats. During the recordings he often made mistakes on the violin, and as a result we had to play the tracks over and over again. I was dreaming about them at nighttime.

JHP: That’s the idea of Tony Conrad. He’s not trying to reach something with complexity. It’s totally the opposite. You can reach ecstasy, you can reach a trance state of mind if you repeat the same thing over and over and over, until the word or the sound you are producing or the thought are totally irrelevant.

It’s like a donkey carrying you over thousands of kilometers.

It’s just a carrier, a pretext. If all you have to do is ‘BAM boom BAM boom BAM boom BAM boom’ for over an hour, obviously your body will keep doing this, but your mind will start INTERVIEW

going through all kinds of phases. First you feel like laughing hysterically! You think, ‘Shit, this can’t be true! We are here in a studio going boom boom boom boom—it can’t be true. It’s ridiculous!’ And then you keep on doing that, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. And then you go one level higher and you ask, ‘Why? WHY am I doing this?’ And then one level higher: ‘What’s so good? Why do I KEEP on doing it?’

And one more level: you go through pain. My fingers were bleeding and I broke two strings on the bass while playing this live concert, so physically, it’s pain. So you go above this, and then you reach ecstasy, you know? Your body is here, but your mind is wandering.

INTERVIEW

Let’s talk about Slapp Happy, which their own members have described as ‘naïve rock.’ They had a much more conventional sound than the Faust sound, yet you guys were basically their backing band on their first two albums at the same time you were recording your own pivotal works.

JHP: Oh yes. I have more than one face, and there’s a part of me that likes songs, and while on the surface with Slapp Happy it seems to be conventional rock music, if you listen closely there is a twist. And with their lyrics, if you only pay slight attention, you might not hear it, but if you read them, if you examine them, there is always something odd, a twist. So I was very proud of my work there.

Your own music, while definitely avant-garde, sounds less psychedelic than, say, classic-era Can. Were you not very interested in making music to take mushrooms to? Perhaps you guys took different drugs than your peers?

JHP: Some of us in Faust were very interested in excess, and in pleasure, and in taking many drugs. And some of the members in that lineup of Faust were very intellectual, and wanted not to take anything and did not want to be involved with this.

Who was who?

JHP: Noooo—I am not going to go there!

I think it’s clear which camp Zappi falls into.

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“We took the same drugs as our peers in those days. I think we just took more.”

Z: I thought we were making psychedelic music at that time. We took the same drugs as our peers in those days. I think we just took more.

When you started, you were one of the first ventures for the fledgling Virgin Records, who sold The Faust Tapes for 49 pence and got the album to number 12 on the charts.

But then after all that attention and care, Virgin dropped Faust after a few albums.

What happened?

Z: We wanted a German cook during the recordings, but we didn’t get one.

JHP: We can’t blame Richard Branson for dropping us. I remember him being a very pleasant, very nice person. We took advantage of their kindness, I think. We were always having orgies and throwing parties, and we always left the bill with Virgin. We took advantage of their secretaries …

What was the name of the secretary from Virgin? Mary?

JHP: Her name was ‘Mary,’ and she was the secretary of the Virgin office when they were on Portobello Road. She was a very dedicated person, and we had a lot of ‘communication’—let’s put it that way!

Johnny Rotten said in an interview, ‘They’re quite the commune, Virgin. A load of groupies as secretaries ...’ Was he telling the truth?

JHP: I agree! I can tell you, man, it was a beautiful time at the Virgin office. Richard Branson did something fantastic. He was the brain on the financial level, and he also knew how to make people feel good and keep the maximum of the efficiency in a very relaxed way. He wouldn’t call his secretaries and say, you know, ‘Behave and go back to your typewriting machines!’ He knew they were working and keeping everybody happy, so what do you want more?

What was it like recording at the Manor?

JHP: We were invited by Virgin Records to go and record at their studio which was called the Manor, and it was an old manor with a large Irish wolfhound named Bootleg! If I had just had the right recording machine, I would have loved to record his heartbeat, because those big dogs have a very irregular beat.

Sometimes I thought, ‘Hey Bootleg, oh, oh, oh, he’s dying!’ Because his heart would stop for like one, two, three, four, five seconds, like, no beat, and then suddenly, BOOM BOOM BOOM! And then stop again. It was really impressive. I also remember once in the 10

studio, Keith Richards entered the room and I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t tell who he was, so I told him to fuck off! I think he was quite upset by this.

Were there any bands, maybe even bands on Virgin, that you were ashamed to be associated with? Mike Oldfield perhaps?

JHP: No. Mike Oldfield was a very good musician and honorable person! I can’t think of any group on Virgin I didn’t like. Henry Cow, Kevin Ayers, Kevin Coyne … all those people were highly respectable, dedicated, engaged people to their art. Tubular Bells was recorded in all the off-times of the Manor studio. Faust would work during part of the day, and Mike Oldfield would move in during the night when we would leave the studio and do his work, bit after bit after bit. And if it became ever so popular, certainly most of the reasons are because it’s something that lots of people needed and wanted. And it’s good!

The song ‘Jennifer’ is about a girl from that village, right? Many people consider that Faust’s most romantic song.

Z: Yes. And yes, Jennifer was a real girl.

JHP: In this little village, this very small village, I don’t remember the name [Shipton-onCherwell—ed.], there were a couple of young people, and obviously we were more interested in the young ladies, and one of them was called Jennifer.

Z: She used to watch us from the park there.

She had red hair and was very shy.

JHP: And she had magnificent ginger, red hair. And she had a strong life attitude. She was always beaming, and saying, ‘yes, yes, YES!’ to life, and this impressed very much Rudolf—he’s dead now, so rest in peace—but he was really impressed by this, so he made a song. The lyrics are not very romantic, not very sentimental, but listen to the instrumental part in the middle of it, that breaks my heart! I think it’s highly emotional.

How did you react to the era of new wave and punk rock that immediately followed that era? Did you get along with the Sex Pistols’ generation of musicians?

Z: In the beginning punk and new wave was just simply rock music, but later I started to feel its brutality.

JHP: The raw energy that these bands had— they VOMITED their emotions! They didn’t mind to use very crude words to express the feelings of their generation, which was going through pretty hopeless times. They did it with such ruthlessness that I almost envied them!

You’ve definitely embraced the music to come out of punk, but aside from recording with the hip-hop artist Dalek, you seem to have avoided connecting with hip-hop.

Why is that? Most people in my generation would say hip-hop was at least as creative and rule-breaking as punk.

JHP: Maybe here there is a generation gap. I was confronted with the punk movement at a time when I was much younger than I am now. And I am confronted with hip-hop in a world which is all digital, using a vocabulary with which I cannot identify, and where the political and social background are totally different. For me, I cannot compare the two of them—one touched me very intense, because I was young and probably eager to receive such in-sources, and the other one—I don’t want to negate the potential of hip-hop, and maybe it sounds stupid, but fuck man, it’s not for my age! I don’t get it. I don’t get it. It’s too fast! It was great to work with Dalek because it was a confrontation and it was extremely challenging. But when you are confronted with the music, I don’t get it. It’s my fault. It doesn’t move me the same as punk does.

Yet Faust has at one point done music that was similar to hip-hop sampling.

With The Faust Tapes you took snippets of songs and strung them together, and in some ways it is that arrangement that makes the album compelling. So why haven’t you gone further in the direction of sample-based music?

JHP: Oh, OK, now I get you. I get you. We have not been interested too much in sampling things. What we have done is used elements of something that is now very common: field recordings. This we like very much, but we don’t use it that much. When you say ‘sampling,’ it has a different resonance in my head: I would record the sound of a breaking of a bottle, and I would ‘sample’ it and put it on a MIDI keyboard. And we don’t like this. We don’t like it; we don’t use it. But we do use pre-recorded tapes of something of nature, something human, something industrial, whatever—sounds of things that we find interesting. But not as a sample! It’s part of the music. It’s not one little bit that we use. If it’s thunder, it’s longer than just ‘baroom!’ We try to use it as an instrument, not just as a quotation.

And this is why you never embraced electronic music either?

Z: For me, it wasn’t really music I could concentrate on. For me, it’s functional music.

JHP: Faust is about anarchy and chaos, and for us, being locked into anything is too much oppression. We’re not a band that wants or needs borders. If you brought a drum machine into Faust—into any incarnation of Faust—in five minutes I think you would have a sledgehammer and the whole thing would be smashed!

You guys don’t even have the border of being one band anymore—youv’e split into two completely separate Fausts, with you and Zappi being one camp and Hans Joachim Irmler heading up the other Faust. Considering that the other Faust’s last album was Faust Is Last, what does the other entity of Faust think about your new album?

JHP: You are talking about the fact that there are two Faust entities? That is correct. There are two Faust entities. I don’t know why, but we have grown in such a way that our energies cannot be contained in only one group.

The differences are too strong now. Both of them are a facet, an aspect of Faust. And we do get along okay. And we leave each other in respect. We don’t interfere with each other.

And we have no sympathy for each other! But no one is saying bad things about the other.

But their last album was called Faust Is Last, which was marketed as the last Faust album ever. Aren’t they making presumptions that affect you?

JHP: I think it’s better you ask these questions of the other Faust. There are two entities of Faust, and nobody is fighting about the name, or who’s the right Faust or the wrong one.

Let’s keep it that way! There hasn’t been a lawyer between us yet, and I don’t think there will be one ever. I wish all the best to any entity of Faust who plays in the spirit of Faust. It’s up to the audience to see how they react to one or the other entity of Faust. I don’t know what they think about our music, and you will not know what I think about their music!

If the other Faust came out with a new album, and I were to ask you to write a 250word review of it, you would refuse?

JHP: Oooh … um….

This isn’t hypothetical! Want to write a review of the upcoming Faust album for L.A. RECORD? JHP: I would probably be diplomatic and say, ‘I’m very busy at the time; I can’t do it!’

FAUST’S SOMETHING DIRTY IS OUT NOW ON BUREAU B. VISIT FAUST AT FAUST-PAGES.COM. INTERVIEW

NICK WATERHOUSE Interview by Lainna Fader Photography by Lauren Everett Nick Waterhouse makes vintage R&B records like Dam-Funk makes funk records and he does it on his own label PRES Records Co. with the help of the Tarots, the Naturelles, and Mike McHugh’s Distillery in Costa Mesa. He speaks now from a curb outside of the Black Boar in Eagle Rock after a long day of recording and right before DJing a set of killer soul and R&B 45s that made people go crazy.

What’s special about the Distillery? Why do you record there?

It’s the only place where I can do what I really want to do. Mike and I really connected when I was 16, when I met him. Before I met him, I was like, ‘Fuck! All this music that I’m into … there’s nothing like this in Southern California right now, period. I will never find it!’ But then there was the Distillery, six blocks from the house I grew up in. I went in and recorded there and just started hanging around. He was so tickled that I would go out and buy these books about recording studios like Muscle Shoals and come in and be like, ‘MIKE! This is your board! This is your mic pre-amp!’ He’d give it back to me and say, ‘I never knew that Bill Putnam built this board for whoever.’ I was very fortunate. I could’ve been the kid who bought a ProTools setup when I was 17.

Everyone I know was telling me to do that. I just forced myself to not know any other way.

I fooled around with digital recording when I was a teenager and I hated it all. I just wanted to go back to the Distillery. If I buy a record that was recorded at J&M Studios in New Orleans, I can pick it out by the sound of the snare drum cuz the room has a certain reverb.

I can pick out Distillery recordings, too. And the Distillery is sentimental to me. Whenever I came home for Christmas or Thanksgiving I went to the Distillery the same way I went and saw my parents. A year before I made ‘Some Place,’ I was super depressed and I just decided to reread that Peter Guralnick Sweet Soul Music book again. I was gonna think about Dan Penn. I re-re-listened to a bunch of James & Bobby Purify and was like, ‘Man, Dan Penn was one of the best white guy songwriters.’ I INTERVIEW

got real excited about him and started reading all this shit. ‘We were just a bunch of white guys, driving around in my car. I didn’t have any friends in high school. I was totally delusional thinking I was Bobby “Blue” Bland.

During the day I was this weird little honky white boy and at night I’m driving around and it’s like Danny “Blue” Penn and his Pallbearers doing R&B songs and we didn’t know any better. We’re just in the middle of nowhere. We had this studio we hung out at and all we cared about was playing music.’ They’re in a cultural wasteland with a bunch of hicks who hate them. Total weirdos. And they had this studio Muscle Shoals. And I was like, ‘I’m in Orange County, I have no friends except for my band, all I care about is playing music, and this is also a cultural wasteland.’ Then I got this studio—the Distillery—that has a Muscle Shoals board and I’m like, ‘Shit! This is a sign! I gotta go back!’

Why did your mom’s soul influence win over your dad’s punk influence?

There’s like a certain breed of R&B records that—it’s like when people say, ‘I will always be in love with my wife. It was just a matter of time before I met her.’ There was always this one sound that was always hinted at all these records. You hear it on ‘Chain of Fools’

by Aretha Franklin. You hear it on all these old John Lee Hooker tracks. When I was 17, I finally heard the original version of ‘Watch Your Step’ by Bobby Parker—there’s slightly distorted guitar and a heavy back beat, but I always liked the groove instead of out-and-out rocking songs. It has the energy of what appeals to people who like punk rock music. I think there’s this big hang-up on people talk-

ing about genres or eras. The best advice I got was in high school when I had this teacher who said, ‘If you want to be a writer, read a bunch of books and decide what you really like and just read those books over and over again and you’ll gestate that.’ You should never think you’re imitating it—it’s more like you learn to speak that vocabulary.

What is this vocabulary? What can you say with it that you can’t say any other way?

I didn’t choose it—it just kind of happened to me. It just started happening to me one day because one day I wanted to see this guy Gene Ludwig who was a white organist from Pittsburgh: the Jimmy Smith disciple. He was like 60 or 70. I was like 19. I remember—this was such an elevating moment for me—he said, ‘I guess I’m going to put my stamp on this because everyone else has,’ and he played ‘I’ve Got a Woman’ by Ray Charles. It’s very similar to the Jimmy McGriff arrangement and he never recorded it, but it was this thing that was live, in front of me, and it hit such a spot for me. He was doing all these things—he was using all these licks that weren’t imitations but in the same scale and it was so fucking deep and so insane. I felt like I—I got the chills.

I was shaking. The adrenaline—my pupils probably dilated. I was so ready and I felt so happy and it just felt so life-affirming. After that happened, even when I talk to people about it, I start beaming. I’m smiling right now. It was such an amazing moment. It still feels that way for me. I’m sure I could’ve gone and seen Radiohead play a show if I was some other kid and had the same feeling, but it didn’t happen that way for me. That’s one of those moments where you’re being formed

without knowing it. You feel it but you don’t know why it’s happening. That’s how I ended up with my vocabulary. I wanted to find that feeling again.

Robert Gordon said in It Came From Memphis that if people are meant to find a certain kind of music, they will. How does that connect to what you’re saying?

Yeah! I agree. That’s why I don’t believe in trying to oversell anything. I can’t tell you how many people talk to me about pressing 45s.

It’ll happen—you have to trust it’ll happen.

Like look at the Penny & the Quarters song ‘You and Me.’ Numero Group issued it on one of their comps and it’s a pretty beautiful but kind of standard vocal rehearsal from an unmarked tape they found in Cleveland.

They put it on a CD, and now you can find it in that Blue Valentine movie. On YouTube it’s got like 400,000 listens and they still don’t know who the artist even is. It’s a onemicrophone rehearsal tape, probably recorded in someone’s living room. It’s an amazing song—but did anyone, at the time they were making that, think anyone would ever hear it?

No, probably not.

When you were driving around L.A. dropping off your 45, did you get them in any freak record stores no one knows about?

No. We were trying to find those. It’s really funny to be selling to record nerds. ‘Arguably, dude, I’m doing the same thing that you liked that was out like 50 years ago and done the same way, but you’re afraid?’ I still don’t understand it. It’s been a 60/40 thing where shops say, ‘We don’t do that.’

Why are people so resistant to believing this kind of music can be made today?

13

“Shorter. Harder. Sharper. Get scarier.”

I don’t know. I had a terrible night the other night because I had a really big argument with someone who’s known me for some time and it helped me realize they didn’t understand me at all. They were going to a certain show for a contemporary group that I will not name and saying things to me about how I’m incredibly close-minded or stuck in blah blah blah.

Well, what’s the difference? People now are like, ‘Well, this sounds like a mid-90s record or this is an early 80s record or this is a cool shoegaze band.’ All those people wanna be like, ‘Oh, you’re a fucking retro dude.’ Something that happened in 1962 is pretty much the same thing as something that happened in 1986 because both of them are OVER! Even if it was made last year, it’s still over, it’s done.

Everything is done. I don’t believe in linear time. It’s a language—it’s all a language that continues to exist. To have someone that’s really into a group that sounds like Siouxsie and the Banshees tell me that I’m stuck in the past is so misguided and so confusing. If you’re doing it now, and you’re doing it with feeling, there’s nothing that’s not new about it. Arguing this whole myth new vs. old is such faulty logic. Like I said, I didn’t choose to work in this method, it chose me. For people to get hung up on that is so silly. It’s like in high school when someone says to you, ‘I’m really into existentialism.’ It’s such a shallow philosophy and it really diverts from the actual issue at hand—what the result is. For people to be scared of something for being old, or for the methodology being different, it’s very alienating to me. Among anybody that’s around now, I identify most with Dam-Funk. The ideal. It’s really funny for me to hear people say, ‘Man, that guy’s such a biter—he thinks it’s cool to do blah blah blah in 2011.’ You are seeing a very small fraction of what his entire career and life has been like. Uninformed and unengaged people who are gonna take something like that and try to be negative. He’s trying to do something in a vocabulary that some people wanna call ‘dated’—or ‘outdated’—but as long as he’s generating new music it’s not going to be outdated! That’s not how it works!

Is it hard to find people who want to make this kind of music with you?

I kind of have to bait everyone to do stuff with me. I seem like the crazy person on the corner, I guess.

You seem pretty calm to me.

I’m really calm, but nobody ever believes me!

I had to make the record to even get a band.

It was Matt and Pedrum from the Allah-Las and [my friend] Kyle and I just dubbed everything else. I hired Ira, the sax player. I had to pay him to show up. And I produced it. I just made the record cuz I wanted to make one re14

cord. I was not real happy with that situation up in San Francisco. I felt like I was trying to push something over a hill. I’d get people that I’d meet them at an R&B or a soul night and they’d be like, ‘I’m super into this music!’ ‘Well, let’s make some music then!’ And they’d show up and lay out their guitar pedals and say, ‘I’m really into the Jesus and Mary Chain.’ I have eclectic taste but I’m also really only focused on this one way. My ex-girlfriend said I drove her insane because I have unreal expectations for myself.

What are your expectations for yourself?

How do I say this? I kind of like this because it maybe makes me sound like one of those crazy Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson guys from the old days who are like, ‘I have no peers.’ I just don’t really see anyone I can compare myself to. I compare what I want to do to the works that I really admire. I want to make a record that will challenge Ray Charles. I’ve really taken things apart and felt all these things.

I don’t want to do it unless I’m doing it the right way. I guess I figured out the right way, so now it’s about finding people who will go the right way with me.

Your sax player Ira is Ira Raibon from the Fabulous Souls—how did you get him?

I didn’t find out about that until the session. He mentioned that he had played with a bunch of people. Right after the Fabulous Souls he came back to L.A. and was already kind of buddies with Maurice White. He was in the first era of Earth Wind & Fire—right before they were doing the soundtrack for that Melvin Van Peebles blaxpoitation film.

They were all from L.A. but when they went to Indiana, some club promoter hired them to do a residency—at the time it seemed like a really good idea to stay in Indiana for eight months but then he ran out of money and came back. I was looking for horn players and was just gonna hire a session guy but I have very specific things in mind and someone gave me Ira’s number. He had just done a session at the Distillery. Maybe he got set up when they were doing Andre Williams’ album. I decided to send him a little CD with some sample records. I put a Five Royals track and a Little Willie John song that I really like—I wanted that syncopated horn feel. He called me back and was so excited and said, ‘I was playing this for my wife! This is like what I used to play!

When I was a kid, I used to see Johnny Otis in L.A. in the 50s and 60s!’ When he showed up we had a real good time. I brought a case of beer and he ended up hanging out far later than he probably should have. He’s definitely a part of the sound of the label. We did another session with him—the one you came to— and he was like ‘OK, call me when it’s time for the next one!’ When you first came in he

was playing real sweet and smooth and it took ten or fifteen takes to get him into the mentality to play the way that he used to. I was like ‘No, Ira, we’re gonna play this harder. Shorter.

Harder. Sharper. Get scarier.’ By nature he’s a real smooth motherfucker. He wants to do some lovemakin’ solos. But when it came time to cut the B-side, I said, ‘We’re just gonna do this live, man. Play how you play.’ It was really exciting to him, I think, because it was a club setting again. I think he had been doing a lot of session work where it’s like, ‘Play your sax in the midnight 8-bar solo here and that’s it.’ But on ‘Some Place’ I wanted to showcase him and he was in it. In the moment. It was very cool.

Did he give you any insight into making music from the ‘old world’?

No. Well, I’d ask him about things. The thing with asking older musicians ‘Tell me about the good old days’ can get pretty lame. Everybody’s sort of forward-moving if they’re doing anything worthwhile. You can tell that this guy is just a professional. He’s phenomenal.

I almost feel bad because I went back and listened to his stuff he did on his own. His bio talks about how he has a vocal range of like six octaves. He’s a phenomenal, soulful singer.

Totally in the vein of 70s breezy soul—very virtuosic. I can’t help but think, ‘Man, it must be weird for him to have this little white kid here howling away in front of him when he could sing that really easy.’ That’s part of the charm. That’s how it works. He’s an asset—a big part of it. Everybody kind of needs a little directing, and I think that’s where my talent comes in.

If the Turn-Keys are a studio invention, what can we expect from your live show?

I got this group called the Tarots together.

This girl Natalie and me have this total platonic non-abusive Ike and Tina kind of relationship. We’re like musical soulmates.

Mega-soulful Mexican girl from Oxnard or something who’s got such a hardcore background. She has it, and she doesn’t over sing, and she sings the right way and it’s not total bullshit like most contemporary R&B. And she runs the girls, the way it should be done.

Why is this the way it should be done?

When I say ‘should be done,’ I mean my vision—my ideal. I’m not saying it’s better than anyone else. The first hurdle is to break the mentality of what people are conditioned to operate within. I think about all these musicians, people aged 15 to 30 who are in a band.

Ostensibly there’s this rote, standardized way of approaching being in a band. This attitude that’s being reinforced culturally that probably started in the 70s. It’s like when you’re a kid: ‘That person’s gonna be a doctor,’ ‘This kid’s

gonna be a lawyer,’ ‘This one’s going to play rock ‘n’ roll.’ It’s really easy to not consider that you can go making music a different way, or living your life a different way. The first challenge is pushing past that. It’s the same way all contemporary R&B ends up sounding like the lovechild of Stevie Wonder’s vocal style and Luther Vandross—where everybody has to do like seven octaves. Like fuckin’ Mariah Carey or R. Kelly stuff. It doesn’t have to be that way for everyone, but nobody remembers that. When you listen to someone like Duffy or R. Kelly’s new album that’s ‘retro-soul’ or even Raphael Saadiq, there’s this vocal styling that got standardized in the 80s and then every artist that was supposed to sing ‘soulfully’ kept going with that. That’s how you end up with Christina Aguilera singing fucking ‘You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.’ If you want to think about contemporary soul singers, the problem is they were all very individual singers but their approach became the standard to the point where no one ever thought about an Irma Thomas or a Little Willie John or a Garnet Mimms—those vocal stylings disappeared. It’s kind of like when you find—when you look at evolution, it’s like a breed of bird just died out. Instead of nature being at work, you had companies pouring insane amounts of money into artists who sounded like that and anyone who sounded like anything else was not acknowledged. So why is it right the way Natalie runs the Naturelles? It’s right because she has something—it’s not like she went to singer camp, or ‘American Idol.’ It’s like the difference between someone who’s technically good and someone who understands the feel.

You’re a very well-dressed man—what’s the nicest piece of clothing you ever found in a Huntington Beach thrift store?

I haven’t found shit in Huntington. In Long Beach though, I will say, at Meow—it’s really interesting. The other thing I really like about clothes is the regionalism of vintage shopping. In Huntington you don’t have shit but in Newport or if you go further up to Long Beach you have stuff I like—because you have people who had a little money to spend and usually that means people who have died probably in the 80s or 90s, and left their wardrobe from prime time. At Meow I got an amazing suit that was originally from a New York tailor that’s very famous named Chip. Charcoal three-button suit from Meow.

Huntington never gave me anything.

NICK WATERHOUSE AND THE TAROTS’ ‘SOME PLACE’ 45 IS OUT NOW ON PRES. VISIT NICK WATERHOUSE AT NICKWATERHOUSE.COM OR PRESCO.TUMBLR.COM. INTERVIEW

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SELECT MACY’S / ALL RITMO LATINO STORES CHARGE: 800.745.3000 OR ONLINE AT TICKETMASTER.COM ADVANCE TICKETS FOR MOST SHOWS ARE AVAILABLE TO AMERICAN EXPRESS CARDMEMBERS VIA WWW.TICKETMASTER.COM

FANCY SPACE PEOPLE Interview by Dan Collins and Chris Ziegler Photography by Ward Robinson The Fancy Space People are led by No-Ra Keyes (of the Centimeters) and D’on Bolles (of the Germs, Celebrity Skin and 60 million more) and currently include X-Orb-X, Bri-On, Shonn, Saratonin, guest Earthling Paul Roessler, and DANNEE. But they’re truly led by space aliens who direct No-Ra and D’on to deploy glitter rock toward the total fancification of Earth. Their selftitled EP is out now, thanks in part to Billy Corgan.

Author John Keel warns that extraterrestrials always screw over the Earthlings they use for these kinds of projects.

What steps have you taken to prevent being screwed?

No-Ra Keyes (vocals): We’re busy screwing Earth people right now!

Don Bolles (guitar/vocals/synths/etc.): I don’t know why I always get those missions!

How did you find the actual people in Fancy Space People?

DB: It’s an all-volunteer force! It’s like emergence theory.

But it’s emergence reality. Like Bri-On. He came to DingA-Ling every time. We didn’t wanna try him out—‘What if he’s bad? He’s our friend! We’d lose a friend and a customer!’ We’d had other drummers, and after every show Bri-On would say, ‘That guy’s alright, but I could do that ten times as good, seriously …’ No-Ra said, ‘Bri-On, I like you—I don’t want you to be in the machine that is Fancy Space People!’

NK: When Bri-On used to come to Club Ding-A-Ling— we’d write bulletins and tell people to wear weird outfits, and no one ever did it except Bri-On. He’d come with like a plate taped to his head cuz we told him to, and just be sitting at the bar. So I was afraid to put him in the band!

How did the Psychedelic Furs’ Mars Williams play teeth on your album?

DB: It’s like when Frank Zappa played a bicycle on ‘The Steve Allen Show.’ He’s invisible—did you know?

Do people always think he’s late to things? ‘Where’s Mars?’

DB: And always some smart-ass points to the sky—‘It’s right there.’

What human body part do you want to record next?

DB: Our leaders are sensitive about us talking about probing human bodies. That’s not a good subject.

Your former bass player was subsumed by invisible psychic creatures called ‘mojos,’ which then attacked you. How do you fight off psychic attack?

17

“Everything I do with Fancy Space People is … great! My mind … isn’t actually … controlled by anything else …”

NK: I got rid of them by climbing a mountain in the Angeles National Forest. I read Psychic Self-Defense by Dion Fortune and it said the only way to get rid of these things is to climb a mountain. And wash all your clothes.

You talk about ‘parasites’ in your title track—are those the same as mojos?

DB: The parasites are the humans. We always thought there was a battle between good and evil going on. The good aliens wanna depopulate Earth in a good way and the bad ones wanna depopulate the planet by having the humans continue to indulge all their worst qualities and ruin their own planet so no life can enjoy it again, except maybe some vile insectoid thing. It’s kinda creepy!

What’s the good way to depopulate Earth?

DB: Getting everyone to move up to another vibrational dimension. Or to physically leave the planet and colonize elsewhere. We explore these themes in a lot of our stuff, and themes that relate to these things in literature and culture on Earth. Like the ‘Frankenstein’ song we have—what are we trying to say? It doesn’t sound like some cosmic space message of world-altering import to me, but who are we to say? The beings have been right so far—right down the line. They told us how to make the songs good. And they ended up good! I hate most songs—I hate most music!

But these are good songs. I’m happy to put my name on them. I can’t honestly say we sat down and made them, but I’m proud to say they’re ours. We already know what the next album is gonna be called—Xxenogensis 2.

And the next is gonna be Castle Sounds of the Electrical West. That’s us getting back to our roots. And the next one is Back to Monolith.

It’ll have us all cavorting like naked apes on the cover while a glittering monolith comes out of a ruptured planet.

You once soloed note for note over tons of garbage 70s rock I was DJ-ing. Does it pain your mind to be so polluted with garbage 70s rock?

DB: Not as long as you got competing vibrations to cancel that out. You can actually mutate any of these vibrational patterns once you get them in your brain.

Does this make your listeners especially pliant and obedient?

DB: They pretty much are pliant and obedient enough for our liking. That’s all we require. They listen and the message just gets to ’em—we’ve done our job.

What’s the most pleasant way your mind was ever controlled?

INTERVIEW

DB: Everything I do with Fancy Space People is … great! My mind … isn’t actually … controlled by anything else that I don’t … voluntarily … want … it … to … be … controlled by. Whoa! Wait a minute … what time is it?

So what commands should we await?

DB: It’s already been thoroughly implanted.

The guitar solo will actually reboot your entire operating system. See, the space brothers concocted their language from snippets of pop songs—that’s why it sounds like stuff from the 70s, 60s and 90s. Cuz it takes a long time to get their planet. No-Ra and I had it pointed out to us by the space brothers— the songs most popular on the radio contain the most retardedly infantile onomatopoeia.

‘Ooh ooh!’ ‘She loves you, yeah yeah yeah!’

‘Tweedle-ee-eedle-ee-dee!’ What the hell? We were at Norm’s in Huntington Park—home of Slayer, where we record—and listening to the radio, sure enough they were right. Every song had some dumbass onomatopoeia that was the hook. It was revelatory. It’s like glitter-rock baby talk! The closest thing we got to a universal language. We were like, ‘What are the denim-wearing beardmen gonna think of this thing?’ They made these smirky sounds. ‘We got it taken care of.’ And they were right!

Are you ever worried you’ll do too well and be regarded as glitter gods by primitive Earthlings?

DB: I used to worry till it started happening—now we’re into it.

I noticed your space masters directed you to use parts from Linda Perhacs and the MC5 in one of your songs. What other alchemical combinations of primitive rock ‘n’ roll have they suggested?

DB: We just do what strikes their fancy. Usually they’re right. We have other songs we haven’t done in the set yet. They’ve been having us go for a more succinct approach. We have an anthem for Fancy Space People— well, not an anthem. I don’t think we expect anyone to sing it at fancy sporting events.

If you had to be tragically killed during a fancy sporting event, how would you wanna go?

DB: Curling. It just seems a very manly way to die. Or chess. Getting a brain aneurysm while paying three-dimensional chess. You could explode like Scanners.

The late great Matty Luv says that guitar solos have been found by the state of California to transmit venereal disease. Are your guitar solos catching?

DB: We’ve found you can transmit all sorts of things. We transmit—as I’ve been coming to understand more and more—almost as many messages to the people of Earth through the guitar solos than the actual lyrical content.

Maybe even more! Glitter rock is the universal Earth language. It did a lot better than Esperanto. Esperanto, for any of your readers who don’t know, was at one time proposed as the universal language everyone would learn besides their own, instead of some imperialistic pig language being imposed on everybody. What happened to Esperanto is very simple—it’s sort of like what happened to the music business. It’s just excess shit nobody needs. The word for ‘fork’ in Esperanto is ‘forko.’ I rest its case. And it needs some rest, too. Glitter rock has taken over and rightfully so.

No-Ra, the Centimeters are one of the few bands to ever play a mental institution— NK: Our experience playing in a mental institution? It was a princess party, so we got there and there were all these castles and pink balloons. We had a song called ‘I Am Insane.’

It was very melodic, and I found that people in institutions only respond to things with beats.

DB: They loved Celebrity Skin when we played Camarillo!

Did they pay you anything?

DB: They paid us pretty well! They’re crazy!

NK: And there was cake at the end. I never desire to play a mental institution again, but I did play an old folks home and we really hurt the old people because their hearing aids were breaking down the whole time we were playing.

Don, after the great Dr. Bronner’s Soap wrongful arrest trial, did you end up with more money than you lost being in jail?

DB: That enabled us to make some of our initial recordings, and enabled us to begin our record, which now … exists.

Is that a sustainable business model?

DB: We’ve got a song—speaking of products—that’s just WAITING to be picked up

by Nissan!

NK: About Dr. Bronner—I always felt them helping us helped them too!

DB: They sold more soap than ever! When I went to tour the factory, the workers stopped and cheered! ‘We just got an order for more soap than we’ve ever sold! We never got anything like that before!’

NK: Because Don told the L.A. Times he had the skin of a 15-year-old.

DB: The complexion of a 15-year-old! ‘Germ Busted for Soap’ said the headline. And the next one was, ‘Germ Free!’

Who is your least favorite Germ?

Bri-On (drums): Don. DB: I was gonna say besides me!

What’s the best record Billy Corgan owns?

DB: Fancy Space People. He’ll sit there with an acoustic guitar and you think he’s just acting like he’s playing because there’s a record on, and then you realize he’s really playing all that—it’s kind of humbling.

NK: He’s really good at advice. He’ll come out of nowhere.

DB: Oh yeah! The major thing he said about our record production—he came in the studio and listened to ‘Pleiadian Youth’ and said, ‘You know what? This has to sound like Kiss’ Destroyer.’ And we all went, ‘Oh—the man is right.’ We kinda knew that, but we couldn’t put it in such a succinct sentence.

Do you feel the spirit of Sky Saxon even more in your music now than when he was alive?

NK: I believe he’s part of the Fancy Space People in a way. It was from his memorial show that Don left his cymbals behind, and that’s how we met Billy.

DB: And I sang half that stuff. Billy was like, ‘Toooo hard!’ I was like, ‘This is great! I’m hearing this famous guy sing back-ups for me on a Sky Saxon song off a paper with lyrics on it in front of millions of people!’ Sky was a weird guy—he was like a teenage rock star till the end.

NK: A rebelder. Rebellious elder. Don is a rebelder, Kim Fowley is a rebelder, Sky—I don’t think Sky and Kim got along.

DB: You can only fit so many rebelders.

Who is the most obvious extraterrestrial you ever met at a show?

NK: I asked David Liebe Hart if there were any space aliens at Club Ding-A-Ling and he said, ‘No, but I have noticed an Omegan woman there.’ They’re the enemies of the Korendians, which David Liebe Hart is. ‘A large blonde woman—definitely Omegan.’ So I asked her and she immediately responded, ‘Honey, you didn’t know that? The little green men come and get me every night!’

FANCY SPACE PEOPLE’S SELF-TITLED EP IS OUT NOW ON STARTONE. VISIT FANCY SPACE PEOPLE AT FANCYSPACEPEOPLE.BANDCAMP.COM. 19

DÁVILA 666 Interview by Kristina Benson Illustration by David Forth

Dávila 666 is a garage punk band from Puerto Rico who sing in Spanish over fuzzed-out guitars and a rollicking rhythm section. Bassist A.J. joins us to talk about the benefits of always being able to see in 3-D and the benefits of always doing what you wanna.

I was looking at the video for ‘Tu.’ Do a lot of Puerto Rican bands make music videos that depict them performing cunnilingus on their girlfriends and then killing people?

A.J. (bass): Maybe reggaetón artists do videos of like shooting people and shit but I think we’re the only ones killing our girlfriends in the countryside.

How did you get your girlfriends to agree to that?

They like it! They said they like it! We did that video like two years ago. It was like my best friend—she died, and that was her house in the countryside. We always hung out there when we were kids and we wanted to do a memorial for her, so we went there.

On one of your albums you had a Santerían altar with a bunch of candles and a gorilla mask and a gun? Whose gun was that?

Well, we put all the stuff on it that involved our culture.

A gun, 3-D glasses, a gorilla mask, and potatoes are representative of Puerto Rican culture?

Yeah! It’s part of how things is! In Puerto Rico, it’s live by the gun and die by the gun, you know what I mean? And it’s always good to see everything in 3-D. Tell me you would not love to see everything in 3-D. We always make potato soup. You never tried potato soup?

What about the gorilla mask?

People think we live in the jungle so we want to make a parody of that so we put the monkey mask.

Did you have to get a new Puerto Rican birth certificate? You know the Department of Homeland Security awhile back said that 40 percent of the cases of fraudulent IDs to get in the country were people posing as Puerto Ricans. So they invalidated all the birth certificates issued before July in 2010. Does it feel like Puerto Rico is the Nigeria of the United States?

We fucking hate that! We are like a fucking colony—we are one of the last standing colonies in the fucking world. We can’t vote for the president of the U.S., or for nothing. Not nothing! We vote in the primaries for the first time which is politics bullshit because why they let us vote for Hillary or for Obama but not for the president, you know? They let us vote in the primaries of that, because I don’t know why. But at the same time, people here in Puerto Rico are not aware of politics in the United States. In the primaries they only vote for who the prettiest.

So they voted for Hillary over Obama?

INTERVIEW

Yes—Hillary won here! Cuz she’s a woman.

People here don’t know what the fuck is happening in U.S.A. politics. There are 3.5 million Puerto Ricans here, in New York there’s 7 million, in Chicago 4 million and in Florida 4 million. I think there’s like 3 in L.A.! We have a friend in L.A.—Blaque Chris. He’s half Puerto Rican like you.

Are there are other garage bands in Puerto Rico now?

In the 60s there were the Scavengers—a really popular garage band. But in this era we’re the first ones doing what we do. Now there’s Los Vigilantes, Los Podridos … it’s getting really good. In the past it was more punk rock but now we’re getting more dance. Kids here are really hungry for music so everyone is starting a new band. You don’t need a studio—you buy a 4-track, you hook up your computer.

That’s what I like about these times. Everybody could record what they want in their house. Me and Carlito used to do hip-hop together, but our dads were playing rock ‘n’ roll and we loved it since we were kids. In the 1990s, we were playing rock—post-punk.

But in 2004 we had gangsta-rap music. We got tired of that and decided to do a rock ‘n’ roll band and that’s how we started doing Dávila. I made the beats and Carlito rapped.

Now I’m the bass player. I used to play guitar, and I switched. I just started playing bass in Dávila. You don’t need to know anything to play an instrument to play with us—you just go with it!

Puerto Rico--and Cuba too--are so small but there’s such a rich musical culture. Why do you think that is?

I think it’s our African roots. We are a mix of native Indians, Africans and Spaniards, so we have that rich influence from the African people. Like American blues, soul, rock ‘n’ roll, all that influence from Africa. Cuba and Puerto Rico, we have like a close relation for years— we are like family and our flags are almost the same. We helped for the Cuban revolution against Spain—sent a lot of soldiers and helped for the revolution. When the Cubans were free and tried to help us, we didn’t have a chance because then it was the Spanish-American war and that got more fucked up. For us it’s not that happy. People think we’re happy, but we’re a colony. Nobody is happy to be a colony. We didn’t ask to be part of the U.S.— we were invaded.

They gave citizenship to Puerto Ricans so that they could be drafted in WWI to guard the Panama Canal.

Yes, exactly! They make us U.S. citizens to go to war, and in Korea, in WWI, do you know

how many Puerto Ricans have died in U.S. wars? It’s crazy. These days, we have a lot of people who want to be free, independent, but mainly there’s like two big parties. One that wants to be part of the U.S. and one that wants to be—como se dice? a commonwealth.

But it doesn’t matter what the people think here, it all depends on the U.S. We have been part of the U.S. before Hawaii or Alaska. They don’t want us. They don’t want us to be part of the U.S.—they made that very clear, and they make more money off us like a colony. If we were a state, we’d have more rights. Every states have their own laws and rules and they don’t want to give us that power. It’s never going to happen. We gonna stay a commonwealth—as much they can do. They do voting here, whatever that bullshit, but it gonna stay the same.

We have been like this for more than a hundred years, no change. We don’t have senators, we don’t have nothing over there. We have these stupid thing called like commissioner of Washington but it’s stupid—that guy can go over there but he can’t do shit. They want to make people look happy and they invade us with their economy, Burger King and all this commercial shit. Puerto Rico is full of all that.

Burger King, malls, all our local economy has been fucked up because of all these big enterprises. If you have like a local drugstore, you can’t compete with Walgreens or CVS. That’s one thing I love about Cuba. No McDonald’s, no Burger King. So pure.

Here you have Walmart, K-Mart—everything that is in the U.S. is here and it’s sad cuz all the money they make out of the industries get out of Puerto Rico. Nothing stay here.

All of your songs are in Spanish—why?

Everything is in Spanish. We think in Spanish, and that’s the best way for us to express ourself you know?

Do you feel like English speakers might be missing out?

I don’t think so because music is a universal language. If you have the feeling, the melodies, if you like it, that’s it. It’s about the feeling. Maybe they are missing the lyrics but that is part of everything.

What’s Puro Vicio? A documentary all about Dávila 666?

A friend of us is documenting all our tours.

He has a company called Puro Vicio that does film and videos, art, design, projections. He’s like the seventh member of Dávila—he always goes with us on tour. He has been with us the whole time and we’re doing a documentary of five years of us on the road.

Has he filmed anything you’re afraid he’ll put in the final video?

No, because that would not be fair. You have to show everything. We’re not ashamed of anything, not even the bad things. He needs to put everything.

Will you let your parents see?

Why not? They know who we are—we don’t have nothing to hide and they respect who we are. We want him to put everything—even the craziest shit that happens. You will see!

What can you get away with at a show in Puerto Rico that you can’t get away with in the U.S.?

We do what we wanna—it doesn’t matter. We have played here in places like on TV where they tell us we can’t say bad words or do some bullshit and we do it anyway. We do what we want and they can’t do shit because it’s live. Or they try to not say the 666. They say, ‘This is Dávila’ and we always say, ‘No, this is Dávila 666.’ Over here, there are a lot of conservative people. Even though we have all this crazy shit and everyone is drinking crazy and doing crazy shit, people are religious and have Catholic traditions. But everyone is so hypocrite, you know? I think in the U.S. we can do more whatever we want than here.

A lot of Catholics in Puerto Rico but also a lot of Santeríans, right?

A lot of our grandparents are Catholics but at the same time they practice Santería. I remember seeing when I was a kid—my grandmother has this Indian statue, like fucking huge, more bigger than me. And she’d put all this food to it. And every time I woke up I smell all this rotten food. It was all the food that Indian had had over the weekend and he couldn’t eat it. Everybody over here has a saint, and it depends—they do this ritual and this priest gives you a saint. I don’t know who is my saint—I haven’t done that yet.

Is there a patron saint of Dávila 666?

I don’t know if you can give a band a saint.

I think you have to be a person. Over here you can’t get going with that like it’s a joke because people take it very serious. And we respect that.

L.A. RECORD AND THE GIRL WITH THE BIG HAIR PRESENT DAVILA 666 WITH LAS ROBERTAS, CLOROX GIRLS, AND TIJUANA PANTHERS ON FRI., MAR. 25, AT PSYCHO BEACH PARTY AT BLUE STAR, 2200 E. 15TH ST., LOS ANGELES. 9 PM / $10 / 18+.

LARECORD.COM OR GROOVETICKETS.COM FOR ADVANCE TICKETS. DÁVILA 666’S TAN BAJO IS OUT NOW ON IN THE RED. VISIT DÁVILA 666 AT MYSPACE.COM/DAVILA666.

21

MEN

Interview and photography by Daiana Feuer We sat down with MEN at a coffeeshop. JD Samson, Michael O’Neill, and new member Tami Hart are on a mission and so their songs are happy and exciting but the message is serious. They keep it very real. We tune into this interview shortly after the band discussed sticking pot cookies up their butts.

Do you have a favorite tag-word?

JD Samson: Recently I’ve been saying ‘Girl.’

I’ll be like, ‘Giiiirrrll.’ Even to the keyboard.

We usually have a word we say a lot. Like ‘shart.’

Michael O’Neill: We like doing accents. I know it’s not really a word but we find our way like talkin’ like we’re in tha South. Tami’s from Carolina so it kinda catches sumtimes.

JS: Sometimes we’ll talk in accents when we’re talking about money or serious stuff. ‘Oh I wanted to tell yoo, when yer playin’ that part in that sawng, it’s kinda too lawd.’

MO: It makes it easier to take because I want to hear you say whatever you’re going to say right now, even if it hurts me.

Do you like the song ‘Jolene’?

JS: Yeah. She’s a lesbian.

TH: I heard she has full-sleeve tattoos too.

JS: She does. She wears long sleeves all the time—never shows her arms. I know somebody who had sex with her.

[All gasp!]

TH: Nuh-uh.

JS: She teaches knife-throwing.

Dolly Parton?

JS: The person who had sex with Dolly Parton. She’s really serious.

TH: On her obsessed fan website, I read that she says she only has two—one is an angel and one is something else. But I’ve heard that really she’s covered.

What were you doing on a Dolly Parton obsessed fan site?

TH: I wanted to know! I wanted to know about Dolly’s arms.

Do you like Patti Smith? You have that line ‘Free money.’ ‘... My gift to you is a mercy fuck, free money free money,’ to be precise.

JS: That was a direct reference which we love!

Emily Roysdon, our collaborator, wrote the lyrics for that song, ‘Life’s Half Price.’ We did some acoustic sessions, and I felt like I was embodying Patti Smith a lot.

Money comes up in a few songs—why?

JS: Every single song. I didn’t even realize it when we were writing it but by the end of it I was like, ‘Oh my god, every song was somehow about money.’ We were writing the record during the financial crisis. It was a scary time financially and I was confused about how I was going to make money.

Money became this avenue to discuss all kinds of things like power and love and that kind of was the thread that went through all of those things. I talked about it in therapy.

I personally grew up in a mixed-class family. I was confused about where I would belong and that still happens to me. I feel 22

like I’m really trying to keep up all the time and it’s hard. I didn’t realize how hard it was until I started writing about it in everything I did! Even if the song was about how queer people have to spend more money to have babies.

Do you feel like your life is dictated by money?

JS: We’re in our thirties now and all of a sudden money means something different. We’re trying to save up so we can survive the rest of our lives. It’s scary.

MO: The decision to be musicians or artists … well, this is what we feel we are born to do and what we want to do but there’s no money in it. We grew up similarly—in middle-class families where making money was crucial.

My parents’ message was, ‘You’re good at guitar but what are you going to do to make money?’ And yeah—they’re still right.

I don’t know anything about love.

MO: What is love?

JS: I was thinking today how I want to go to a website that gave free love advice. I was thinking about that in the shower.

Is there anything free about love?

JS: I think there can be. Sometimes love can be very freeing but sometimes it can feel very much like jail.

MO: The shitty thing about love is that you’re giving yourself up. And I think in a lot of ways that’s the opposite of freeing. You are sacrificing to be with someone you love. In a way I think it kind of stunts personal growth because you’re working on a growth with a partner instead of yourself.

JS: ... That was really nice, what you said.

MO: Are you mocking me? Because if you are, you gotta mock me with a Southern accent.

record was depressing and I was like, ‘Whoa, it is kind of depressing.’ It’s just realities. Some of them are really depressing. Most of them are. But they are set to happy music. We’re creating this reality that is aware there are burdens. I’m reading The Tao of Wu. It’s by RZA. That book is awesome. There’s all these quotes from Eastern philosophy and there’s one about listening. It takes someone seven seconds to decide that they’re going to say what they’re going to say. They go over it seven times in their head before they say it. Just remember, it’s a lot easier to break the glass than to build the glass. It’s basically that we should think of everybody speaking as this thing that they’ve created and thought about and it took them a lot to put that energy out to do it. We should take it as a gift and listening is our gift back, instead of smashing their gift of speaking.

Wait, what am I trying to say?

“Money is the new love.”

JS: When we decided to put out a record and make this our job, that was a really big decision and that also has a lot to do with it. You can make music all you want but you have to decide to make it your job.

MO: You have to quit your job to make it your job, which was difficult.

JS: That’s why this record took three years to make because we had to make money in between. MONEY! How do you know when you’re in love?

JS: I have this crazy thing physically that happens when I’m in love. My ring fingers—both of them, where my nail is, it hurts. It’s really weird. Under my nail. It’s happened more than once. I’m a lover. I’m usually in long relationships. If I love someone I don’t really ever stop feeling a lot for them. I’m not like, ‘I love you,’ and the next day I don’t love them.

Are you good at admitting you’re in love?

JS: I admit it when I’m in love, but I’m not a U-Haul person, like, ‘We’re going to get married—I just met you.’ Lesbians are known for shacking up after five minutes. I try and take a while to move in.

MO: The prospect of experiencing love can make me feel embarrassed or self-conscious.

Knowing I’m in love is when I don’t care, when I’m not looking at myself from the outside. How am I acting? What am I doing? But just being in it completely.

TH: I love love. I fall in love almost every day.

But I like to shack up with one special person.

TH: I would just like to quote Dee-Lite. ‘They say depending on how you see a thing, you cage your mind or you free it.’ ... That’s ‘Good Beat.’ She just wants to hear a good beat.

JS: And I may just want to quote George Michael. ‘Freedom.’

Is that the part you want to quote?

JS: Wait, how does it go? ‘Freedom, I won’t let you down, but I will not give you up, Freedom. Gotta have some faith in the sound. It’s the one good thing that I got.’ I might also quote Eminem.

Not from the song about beating someone?

JS: No, it’s the song about how music is his life. [Looks down solemnly.]

MO: It’s pretty amazing. So much of music is about love and everybody can say the same thing over and over again and it never gets old. Like: ‘I love you.’ ‘What is love?’ ‘Is this love?’ ‘Love is—’ JS: [sings] ‘Love hurtssss!!’

MO: Love is a winding road. Love is a long road.

JS: [sings] ‘Why don’t we do it in the road?’

MO: ‘Love is a battlefield.’ C’mon, it never gets old!

JS: Yeah it does. That’s why we don’t write about it. Money is the new love.

Is it the artists’ responsibility to lessen the burdens of life for their audience?

JS: I don’t think our attempt is to lessen the burden, but just to realize the burden and admit the burden. Someone asked me if my

That you’re lessening the audience’s burden and in return they’re giving you the gift of listening instead of smashing you to pieces.

TH: We’re lessening the burdens of queer youth in small Midwestern middle-American towns. MEN can’t live in a commune in Detroit and make music because they have to get the message out. Which is why I was psyched to play with them. When I left South Carolina, I had to get out of there or else I would be ... I don’t know what I would be! I just think it’s important. All this gay bullying is still happening. There’s a relevant message.

MO: I was just thinking about being a teenager and wanting to be a musician. I’m lucky to be able to do this and tour and be a musician. Even though there are a lot of things that could have prevented me from doing this, but I feel like it’s important to pass the torch. ... If some 13-year-old kid jamming out in his room gets inspired by our music and ends up doing his own thing, that’s pretty awesome.

MEN ON SAT., MAR. 26, AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 / $12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. MEN’S TALK ABOUT BODY IS OUT NOW ON IAMSOUND. VISIT MEN AT MENMAKEMUSIC.COM. INTERVIEW

DAEDELUS Interview by Lainna Fader Photography by Lauren Everett Daedelus is a perfect Victorian gentleman who makes beautiful records about wars no one cares about, and the virtues of handmade clothing. 2011 marks ten years of his recording, celebrated now with the release of his latest Bespoke on Ninja Tune, as well as a third Magical Properties tour, and shows at SXSW and Coachella. This is truly his year, as it should be. He speaks now from Susina Bakery about this world’s many failings and the oncoming alien battle we’re all going to face.

You said Bespoke is a ‘term employed to mean an item custom-made to measure.’

Do you miss when the craftsperson hadn’t been replaced by the assembly line?

Absolutely! Entirely. Conceptually, and in every possible way, I agree. Certainly our lives are easier now. Can you imagine living in a city where there’s only one person who makes shoes? And there’s only so many sizes of shoes, and if you’re not that size of shoe, you gotta make your own. Or if you don’t like the style? Too bad! But it really is for the haves and have-nots. If you have money or influence or power you can get things you want and if you don’t you’re stuck. At the same time, things were made to be purposeful. It’s absurd that we use these devices— cars, phones, and whatnot—that aren’t really made for us. They’re made for some version of us—some estimate of us—but when it comes down to it they don’t really fit. I’m left-handed, so I feel it all the time. Just trying to use a butter knife somewhere and realizing, ‘This is a right-handed butter knife!’

It’s very uncomfortable. And there’s only like 20% of us, so of course they don’t take us into consideration—much less the unique snowflake of yourself. I know—okay, there’s the cliché of being doomed by technology, our children will have some other understanding of technology, and we’re doomed to never being hip to it. Which is fine. But it isn’t even made for them. It’s made for some weird perfect person that doesn’t even exist.

What one-of-a-kind hand-made object do you own and love most in your life?

A lot of the suits that I have. It’s funny— this record is about clothes. And one of the reason it’s about clothes is because there are so few things in my life that are handmade.

Well, the caveat to that is my wife is very crafty, and she makes me things all the time.

Things I don’t share with the world as much as coats. Coats are easy. Coats I wear out— some of these coats date way back—70 or 100 years—but they’re not super easy to wear on stage cause they fall apart. But the fact that I know someone put their spit and vinegar into it makes it mean a lot. My wife’s stuff is the same way—she’s made me things that’ve blown me away. Certain Valentine’s Days or anniversaries—I’m just astounded. I love it, but it’s tough to stand up to it! I can write her a song but I’m not very crafty.

How would your music be different if it was made by hundreds of Dickensian child laborers in a beat mill in the north of England?

Perfect! It’d probably be awesome—child laborers tend to do wonderful things. Put a hundred kids in a room and an amazing song comes out. It’d probably be just as playful, but maybe a little more downtrodden than my music. My music is a little more optimistic. I imagine I’d get more sad songs. But you know, tiny hands do great work.

Nobody said that now we’re the children of hip-hop the way a lot of British bands were the children of rhythm and blues.

What do you think the metaphorical children of Daedelus would be like?

25

“Maybe all of music is a failure ...

So if people were so inclined to do something influenced by what we’re doing? It’s a messy group of us, isn’t it? There’s a lot of continuity to the L.A. sound—a lot of similar mindedness. Something about hip-hop, for instance—we’re bred on commercial airwaves. We have radio—Power 106, The Beat, K Day—it’s really easy to have a really focused lens. Each year, throughout the ‘90s, you can point at three or four songs—the big songs in each year. The big meaningful group-thought songs and names. We don’t have that anymore. Sure, there’s radio, but it’s really so spread out. Internet kind of provides an interesting juxtaposition. I think all the children these days are going to be really schizophrenic. People who are into music and birthed from this … it isn’t going to be three of four bands that really form a person anymore. I’ve already seen it. People go through stylistic changes. Baths is the perfect example, making kind of abstract noise, kind of techno, went to a beat concert— And it changed everything for him?

Yeah, and he’s already flowing away from it. It’s good. It’s the natural progression of things. It is harder to rally the troops when there’s no banner to raise.

What hardships and challenges do you think musicians who come after you will never know? What successes will they never know either?

The machinery of their demise is going to be largely dismantled. You have everyone on a pretty even shake, whatever they can summon, be it nepotism or actual talent or whatever it is. The machinery that they build—the commercial machinery, the payola, the ancient systems of how music is disseminated—are all gone. We’re moving back to a patronage system like in classical music.

If you have a thousand to ten thousand fans, you can pretty much make a life at this, depending on what range they want to spend on you and how many concerts they want to go to. We’re living in a world with billions of people and they’re pretty much up for grabs.

People in the farthest reaches of the Internet.

There’ll be fans of this odd music. I’ve experienced this very generously myself. I played a show in Malaysia and met my number one fan out there. It’s awesome. So they’re not going to know that failing of the system, which is a good thing and a bad thing.

Do you think not knowing about the failing of the system would make them more fearless?

At first. I think there will be a more people making music who aren’t professional musicians. Which is cool. It’s already that everyone’s in a band anyway, and it’s a lot 26

less daunting than art or something where you need to have a truly unique idea. With music you can put your slight variation on a well-trodden path and it can be something significant. Can you imagine the terror—I think about it for kids who are just getting interested in music. There’s no safety net, there’s nothing. Even just getting notoriety.

I was the beneficiary of a lot of weird moments in time. Like Myspace. I was featured on that page once and it got me hundreds of thousands of listeners in single days. Not to say that means anything now, but it did then, for a brief moment. I got a feature on YouTube early on. But does it mean anything currently? Not necessary. But if you can imagine like a kid now, you don’t get features on Facebook or Soundcloud.

What’s the best they can hope for?

I think people—if they live a little harder— have a lot of fun. But making a career out of it? You have to be really savvy, make a lot of connections, and be doing something really significant that stands out and alone.

That’s terrifying. Do something significant that has depth and meaning and it resonates.

I think that purity means something. The whole pop system really rewarded whatever was kind of like slight changes to a formula. Maybe a slightly different color hair.

Brunettes. Blondes. Then it all just kind of fades away. But it’s for the best. Music as we knew it was only thirty or forty years old—a modern invention. It’s like communism—or democracy. A failed system.

We asked the Monks about the biggest relevations they’ve had in their lives and they said, ‘The idea of being in love is a revelation because you become more than just yourself.’ Is that why love is so valuable?

Because it’s the only way for people to get outside themselves?

On the one hand, I’d totally agree. I just love the swooping romanticism of it. I disagree as well because I don’t think we can ever transcend ourselves. Wow, that sounded spiritual. I mean traveling, sure, but not really outside of yourself. I think that love is a form of—I don’t think it’s a chemical imbalance but—it’s a form of concentration, of going outside of yourself. It’s a form of being just simply because you can quiet yourself. Ourselves are so overly important, and we make such a big deal out of things. It’s very temporal, our lives. If you can make a significant impact in someone’s life, much less a lot of people’s lives, it’s a form of love. It’s a form of gift. If you can really be in a concentrated love affair, it takes up all your attention. It’s like you’re still there, but you’re gone. Not to sound stalker-ish. Ha ha ha!

Strangeloop is into the idea of searching for the divine through technology. What’s something that you’re searching for?

There’s a wonderful thing about jazz—or about live music—where you can quiet yourself in the same kind of way as love and really reach a lot of people and you can be in such a crazy moment where you’re kind of bringing something down, like lightning or rain. It’s like a very natural force. It’s quite like magic. You can have a moment where you’re not brainwashing people nor are you yourself exactly there. You’re conducting something.

You’re being a grounding force for something very powerful when it really works. As much as I love technology—it aids me in every single way, and honestly if the AC went out I’d be pretty low on work since I don’t have any other skills—if it did go down—it is also literally just a tool. The meme of it, the metaphor of it, is what quickly connects us. It’s our organs, externalized. So if you can just find that other organ, that sensory organ, you get that telepathy thing going and it’s crazy what you can do. I really like that stuff.

You’ve said you’re into civility marred by acts of terrible violence. Why? So many ways that it expresses itself. The modicum of decorum. The idea that we coexist with all these people all the time and we impact them in all kinds of horrible ways we can’t figure out all the time. A single gesture, a single snipe, a single bad comment on YouTube … and suddenly someone’s life can travel terribly out of control. Butterfly effect.

But not like the movie. Totally unlike the movie! We’re always impacting people. It’s a crazy game of pinball. In the real world, what I’ve seen, simply being part of the military industrial complex of America is a headtrip and a half. If you travel even a small bit you see how much our culture invades other places.

We invented cool basically. Certainly other countries have ideas about fashion and things but it was always something about the high class and the low class. Every once in a while someone from the lower class might impact the upper echelons. America somehow invented the idea of rock ‘n’ roll cool—this idea of heroin chic. It’s the craziest, most terrible device that’s ever been propagated. This hipster meme that’s been circulating around the world—not necessary from America but it’s all the same. Different ideas but in the same sellable box—it’s terrifying! And people are living and dying over this stuff! We should all be farmers raising our own livestock.

You’ve said that electronic music should have heavier subject matter than parties and drunkenness—why? What makes you think it’s important to pursue heavier topics?

I love having a good night and sometimes a good night means—wherever you’re at on the intoxication scale—you need to be open.

Willing, able, whatever it is. I’m a participant. I’m not gonna call any names cuz I’m part of the issue but if you allow yourself to dream a little bigger and imagine the audience is more than just a bunch of liquor sponsors … If you think of them as something that has more capacity for emotional depth they’ll surprise you as well as fulfill you. I’ve been very surprised. I don’t mean to be emo, but some of my records that I want to be about darker places. That’s what we deal with. We’re dealing with stories to a certain degree. If we don’t try, it’s a failure of music.

A lot of music I really love—like jazz, for instance. Charles Mingus was a big influence on my younger musical years. None of the songs are about anything I can sympathize with—they’re about race, the 1950s, the 1960s, struggle—but it’s something you can immediately relate to because the music is so powerful. But I have no conditioning to put myself in that place. Same thing goes with all the film scores that I love from the ‘50s and ‘60s—John Berry, Michel LeGrand—these movies are about assassinations and intrigue and I get swept up like anybody does. I really want my records to do that but I think they’ve always been failures.

Why do you think your records have been failures?

In that way that electronic music is maybe a failure, or maybe all of music is a failure. I feel sometimes—it’s very easy to think that it’s all hoodwinking yourself into thinking that it all has meaning. You meet a few people occasionally who do seem to be really moved.

But I’ve poured so much weird minutiae into my records—so many odd storylines. I feel like I’m so obvious that I don’t want to speak on it because it’s practically screaming off the songs and I don’t think anyone really gets it or understands it. I think that failure is a gift though. At least I hope so. I’m certainly betting a lot of my life around it.

What’s the hardest part about finishing an album for you now?

The powers of ten thing kind of happens a lot. All aspects of finishing or making a song are the same as finishing a record. The beginning of it is really hard, the end of it is always really hard. Knowing when it’s done is really hard. There comes a certain point with music and especially with records that you have to surrender it to somebody. You give it to the label, you have to give it to an artist to do the cover, you give it to a video artist. Your perfect little sphere of influence—your bespoke piece—your creation—gets hemmed INTERVIEW

. I think that failure is a gift, though.” and altered by somebody else and sometimes it feels like they’re ruining the cut of it, the feel of it. It’s intrusive. It’s violent.

And yet at the same time it produces the children, the thing, the actual product, the sum of something more than yourself, and that’s what makes it powerful. I can only wonder what it must be like for bands, where somebody has this beautiful melody in their head and then it gets crazy altered—ruined—by someone else in the end. As an instrumentalist, you must understand, you can play as part of an ensemble sometimes or you can be solo, but music gets changed by area. Or when your hands are tired, or your throat doesn’t let loose the notes properly. There’s something real to that—something terrifying. You always have to surrender yourself.

How did you learn to let go?

I did—in my young musical life, as a classical musician—everything in the service of the music. Always trying to serve the music. Maybe at some point it’s so egotistically muting—it’s so difficult to find a voice in that thing because you’re so in service of the song which is beautiful but a lot of the songs you play in that world are a hundred, two hundred years old, and they almost speak the language that we are digesting, talking. Eventually in that music you find a freedom that is comforting and beautiful. I don’t know. Have you tried playing any music?

I played piano when I was a kid. I really didn’t like the style of the teacher, and begged my parents to let me quit. I guess I hated it so much I blocked it from my memory how to play anything at all and now of course I really regret it. I’d like to learn again.

It never ends, of course.

I went to high school with a lot of musicians, so I’m kind of thinking I should learn how to play music rather than just write about it.

Well, those people—they all went through a period of time—at least from the way I know them—where there was a lot of confusion morally, musically, and then finding something that clicks with them. Sometimes it’s worth being a little confused and abandoned. It makes for good fertile soil to till.

Were you in a music academy?

I was a history nerd. I got really excited about your last record because it’s a soundtrack to the Boxer Rebellion. That’s so cool!

Nobody cares, though.

Why doesn’t anyone care about the Boxer Rebellion?

INTERVIEW

Not to go back to old stories, but people don’t know that there was a modern war fought with magic. It’s so crazy. Why isn’t anybody talking about this?

What war is the most creatively inspiring?

In a lot of ways, the Crusades—terrible as they were. They were fought for the stupidest reasons. But they are incredibly interesting in terms of the intrigue, the deception, the chaos. You have these great empires that kind of didn’t necessarily compute. They were founded on very different principles but they existed in the same time period and were all mixing and mashing. Huge fluxes in culture.

It’s the terrible thing where war does breed a lot of invention, a lot of cultural exchange.

The oncoming alien battle that we’re going to have—either in movie form or real-form, hopefully—it’ll be terrible but imagine all the great things we’ll be able to create. As a child of history, you must know that the slinky comes from war, same thing with silly putty.

These great things that have affected so many lives just … falls down stairs for them.

What inspires you most that doesn’t come from within you or within music?

In the context of this record, it’s really fashion. It’s funny because the record doesn’t really talk about fashion. It talks about the have and have-nots and some sadnesses and some joys but it doesn’t really talk about fashion.

But fashion is a mute muse. You wear it and it says so many strong things without saying anything unless you wear terrible words across you or you’ve gone that direction and are wearing Abercrombie & Fitch and shouldn’t be saying anything at all. I’m not trying to insult anyone. It’s amazing how it has become an individual idea. These mass produced items made in these countries’ bright tiny hands—China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam especially—we have this crazy dialogue going on of really instantaneous ideas—design, how many units should be made, how cheap, how to propagate it around the world. Kids are wearing what’s in one country is a political statement, but they’re just wearing it because it seems right. These thing are swirling around so fast, and the smallest things can set off—it’s like ikebana but everyone’s wearing it. Everyone’s wearing flower arrangements. It’s crazy.

When you take it really seriously, and see what people are saying in these coded languages, it’s extremely impactful. It’s extremely similar to music—music says so many things without actually saying it, if you want to listen.

What’s the most ornate hat you own?

I have a topper that is my go-to but it’s a little unfortunate—I love it very much and it’s old so I don’t feel as bad—but it’s beaver skin.

Beaver fur—resistant against water, hooray!

It’s weird to wear animals but beside that it’s just a beautiful piece. Everyone’s heads were really small back in the day—everyone was small and had tiny heads because they were so malnourished. I found it in Canada were everyone was beefier—lumberjacks, maybe— but it’s old. It’s very old and I still wear it on occasion. Very rarely to shows. It’s delicate.

When you played bass at comedy nights at Largo, what three notes worked best to save a flopping punchline?

Well, the truth of the matter is that if you have a flopping punchline, you have a flailing stand-up comedian and you can see the fear set in as soon as it starts to fall flat. The real good comics just hide it completely and move on to the next profession—the comedians who are mid-range tear into the audience and get angry and do a little routine to get it back. The real inexperienced ones rip into anything around them with flailing arms and sometimes that flak came our way. It’s surprising, the people who died a lot were professionals. Or comedians who weren’t standups.

Like that gentleman from ‘Kids in the Hall,’ the gay fellow….he had a legendarily terrible time. And that guy from ‘Seinfield’—Larry David—it was terrible. Terrible comedian.

No jokes were funny at all. Jokes from a different time. Largo’s more alternative comedy and people like Zach Galifinakis and Patton Oswalt would kill—they’d slay. Nice people, too. Paul F. Tompkins—so wonderful. Maria Bamford—super good as well, never had any issue. You could tell the people who were really stand-up comedians and knew their craft and people who just wrote jokes. A big difference. The three notes that would save them would be me, the guitarist, or the drummer— the Mashnotes, basically. I looked like Abraham Lincoln at the time. I had a crazy beard that may have been a bit Lincoln-ish so I’d get that a lot. The guitarist looked like Buddy Holly but miniaturized. Scrawny dude. Ben, the drummer and guitarist was a bit of a larger guy and had a teddy bear demeanor and comedians can be very cruel to save themselves.

Did they ever turn on you?

Oh yes, very much so. It’s okay though—it was part of the gig. It was an amazing gift to get on be on stage and see how these people operate. Such a different world. Largo is such a special place. This was a spell ago. I was playing there twelve years ago? Crazy.

You’ve said in an interview that your proudest moment was when an 8-year old sent you a letter telling you how he had played ‘A Mashnote’ over and over again on a roadtrip, driving his dad nuts. What is most rewarding about warping the minds of children with your art?

I think I mentioned the misfit child thing earlier and how I think I felt a little out of touch in high school and how that was a gift but I also so desperately wished that at any moment when I was younger I had someone that A) would tell me that everything was going to be all right and B) make my weird sound and find my own voice. I was very confused for a very long time about sound—how it was made—and I didn’t feel any strong mentorship for a long time until dublab came around and I felt a lot of freedom there to create. All the ‘90s, I was so alone and so lost and I loved certain sounds but I was so marginalized. The rave community had no mentors.

If you had one, how would it have changed the course of your musical development?

It would’ve absolutely—I had great teachers but in terms of actual mentorship, in terms of moving forward—I’ve taken a long path, and I like that. I feel like I’m only able to still be around because of that long path. But if I had known at an early age that maybe to just be myself and make my weird sounds and that would’ve been okay. And even to have just had someone, good or bad, be critical. I’ve met so many young music makers who are so advanced at such a young age—Shlohmo, Baths—these enormously talented young kids. Flying Lotus. I met him at a young age and he was honest and great and it just made sense to see him shine like he is. I think it would have changed a lot but it’s so hard to know. Maybe I would have quit a long time ago. Having to live up to something is a terrible curse.

What kept you from quitting?

I had nothing else. There was nothing else.

Now I have my wife—that’s something. But there’s nothing else. I’m not prepared for any other career. Maybe I could be somewhat useful as a janitorial something, a manual laborer. But I’m terribly fixated on this thing, and it’s all I have. It’s important to have a battle.

DAEDELUS WITH WIRE, THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE, RAS G AND MORE ON SAT., APR. 16, AT COACHELLA, AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81800 AVE. 51, INDIO. 11 AM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. COACHELLA. COM. AND WITH TOKIMONSTA AND SHLOHMO ON SAT., APR. 23, ON THE MAGICAL PROPERTIES TOUR 3 AT THE GLASS HOUSE, 200 W. 2ND ST., POMONA. DAEDELUS’ BESPOKE RELEASES TUE., APR. 11, ON NINJATUNE. VISIT DAEDELUS AT DAEDELUSMUSIC.COM 27

THE GOLDBERG SISTERS Interview by Dan Collins Photography by Ramon Felix

Precocious over-educated hipsters generally HATE it when actors jump into music. After all, how could someone who wakes up at 4 AM to be on “My Name Is Earl” ever truly know the ecstasies and agonies of seeing a band close out the Echoplex? But actor Adam Goldberg, most famous for getting stabbed by a Nazi in Saving Private Ryan, proved to everybody with 2009’s LANDy that he can make an album in his spare time as good or better than what most kids in Echo Park do all day. With his newest project, the Goldberg Sisters, he and a slightly-solid lineup of musical recruits have woven together an intricate album that puts a psychedelic sheen across the treble-timbered sounds of the 70s.

You’re not new to music: ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic nearly derailed your acting career.

I’m still bitter about it! That’s the sad part. My schadenfreude can outlast twenty-plus years.

In 1988 I was asked to read for this movie called Super 8 and ‘play a young budding Woody Allen type!’ I was beyond ecstatic, so I went in and I read, and then I got a callback.

I spent that summer with this young director shooting five scenes to show the studio. I had really put my heart into the thing, and I got the call towards the end of the summer that it wasn’t happening. I went off to college, and when I came home, I saw that this movie starring Weird Al Yankovic called UHF was playing—and in the credits it was the same exact production company, it was the same producer, everything was the same—it was clearly the movie they chose to do instead of what could have been my launch to stardom!

Much as Weird Al’s film catapulted him to leading man status, Super 8 would have forever cemented my career instead of relegating me to character actor-dilettante-bon vivant.

UHF was filmed in Tulsa, and you also spent some time in Oklahoma on the Flaming Lips movie.

At the end of 2002, I had a couple friends who knew the Lips, and they would say, ‘Steven Drozd wants to meet you,’ which was pretty amazing because I was fairly obsessed with them. Then Steven and I had this mutual sycophantic Through the Looking Glass moment. Steven admitted that he had had a man-crush on me—that he kept a list of his top ten man crushes, and that I had made it to number two on the list, right below the Belle & Sebastian guy ...

Stuart Murdoch? I have a man crush on him.

Who doesn’t? I would do Stuart Murdoch in a heartbeat! But anyway, I started hanging out with all those guys, but mainly Steven. I had asked them as a whole if they wanted to do music for this movie I was about to shoot, I Love Your Work. Ultimately only Steven could do it, and I needed music immediately because there’s a musical sequence in the film. I ended up writing most of the scene music for the film. When he’d come into town he’d kind of take my demos and re-record them. That was the first time Steven and I had worked together musically. And then a couple years later, in 2005, it was like my first stab at saying, ‘OK, I’m going to try and pull together all these recordings.’ Because at the time I had pulled together X amount of recordings, and I didn’t know if they were demos, or going to be re-recorded. In a couple instances, I went to Norman, Oklahoma, and just had Steven add drums to a couple of songs I had already recorded, and then we did three from the ground up— interestingly enough, not the song ‘BFF’ which people often attribute him to having being a part of, but was just me. I say often, meaning eight INTERVIEW

people, because nobody really knows that song!

But in the world that revolves around me, everybody knows that song. So that was it: that was our musical collaboration. And then I was in the Christmas From Mars thing.

How many instruments do you play?

Mainly guitar and keyboards. I’m really crude!

I came to playing guitar really late. I sort of had assumed I was this one thing—I would just be this music fan. For the most part, it was like I woke up one day and I was 23 years old, and I bought a guitar, Tascam, digital delay, reverb pedal, wah-wah pedal, and an amp and started recording shit. It sort of came out of nowhere. I swear you can listen to a tape from 1994 when I was just starting out and, sadly, while I think my songwriting has improved considerably, I don’t think my playing has changed. I’m part prodigy, part thwarted moron.

You’d talked about your love of the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson. Is that what it is?

That you know how to use the studio to get around your admittedly limited abilities?

There’s no question that the studio is a far more comfortable place for me. I’m trying my fucking darnedest to get something that resembles that feeling across with this live thing, whether through making loops and having some sequences … I’m surrounded by fucking effects and a big guitar board. And I have a keyboard board, a little percussion board at my feet, a thing for my vocals—I’m not using this shit all that much, most of it ends up being employed on one outro for one song, but it looks good! I’ve never been a lead guitar player. I think I have a guitar sound, but for the most part, I’m a rhythm guy, I’m a rhythm piano guy. I use them as songwriting implements; I feel I have a good grasp of sound and I can communicate sound, and I have a really good grasp of the technology, and I feel like I can whip up a pretty interesting recording.

And I can do it really often—like, just last year, I opened up a stupid Tumbler page as an exercise in OCD, but I think it’s actually helped me write the record. Every other day I have to make a recording.

‘Shush’ seems to have emerged as the single of the record, and I think it signals the difference between this and the last album.

LANDy was compared a lot to the Beach Boys, but when I hear ‘Shush’ I hear a serious glam rock streak—especially when the falsetto hits.

That was completely unintentional. I didn’t set out to do it. … There was a piano riff in that song that was eventually pulled from the mix, but as I was playing it I was thinking, ‘Wow, this sounds like a glam song, like a T. Rex-ish type of riff.’ So I’m like, ‘Fuck it, let’s do a glam rock song!’ So we fully took it in that direction, and I’m really happy with that, because it really was just this thing on a solo

piano, so the fact that it became a big glistening guitar thing is cool—can you hang on one second? I totally heard some weird random thing around my house. Sorry, I had like a weird thing happen a couple weeks ago, and I’ve basically been completely fucking paranoid ever since. There was a guy standing in our fucking kitchen at 3 a.m. that woke my girlfriend up, and basically we have not been the same since. You can just add to the article that I’m becoming a paranoid schizophrenic.

How did you get him out of the house?

I heard her screaming, and my girlfriend doesn’t scream, like ever—she’s much tougher than I am. It was pretty terrifying. I came bolting down the stairs with my fucking 65 Gibson 330 in my hand—ha ha. And there was this dude who looked like the guy from the Facebook movie, not the main guy. In fact, for two seconds as I was fueled with testosterone and completely out of my mind, I remember trying to postulate whether or not, and why, if so, the guy from the Facebook movie was in the kitchen. I started fucking screaming at him at the top of my lungs, and aggressing him with this guitar, and he just had no affect. He didn’t respond to my girlfriend screaming and crying hysterically, and didn’t respond to me, you know, really out of my mind. You want to tell your readers, we created a site called douchebusters.com where Roxanne made a sketch for anyone who has information about this douchebag. Anyway, he finally backs up and goes, ‘I’m sorry, sir!’ Which first of all I think was implicitly insulting my age, not to mention that he completely destroyed our lives, at least for the evening. And he receded out into the yard into the darkness. And then I slammed the glass sliding door as hard as I could, and went to lock it at the same time, and my finger got caught in there, bled profusely, had to go to the hospital, got stitches, and luckily I can still bend it. That’s my life!

Are you sure he was making fun of your age? You haven’t aged much since I’d see you in movies in the 90s. In your song, ‘Don’t Grow,’ was that a command to yourself?

It’s going to happen all at once, and it’s going to freak me out. It kind of started to happen in the last year—I still don’t really have wrinkles, but you can see where they’re going to be, and it’s not a gray hair you can pluck anymore.

The good news is that I feel worse than ever and I feel older than ever. And I feel like now when I sing, I feel immediately like it’s me. I’m not sort of thinking about it like I used to. I know what my schtick is, even if it’s similar to something else. I had always wanted to sound like Elvis Costello or Chet Baker! I guess the harbinger of things that are maybe coming I would venture to guess is the song ‘The Heart Grows Fonder.’ There’s a part of me when we did that song, I said literally, ‘Next time I want to do an America album.’

The band America?

The band America. That’s what that began to remind me of. I can’t deny there’s kind of a Jeff Lynne-y thing happening. It’s funny—I was never a fan, but I’ve now fully embraced the fact that he possesses me. If you’d told me fifteen years ago, I’d be like, ‘Whaaat?’ I had this really vitriolic thing about ELO! I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stand them! And of course in the end, I’ve made this baroque-y pop shit.

Their stuff is far more complex and intricately produced, but I can’t deny their influence. But it’s only because they were doing their version of the Beatles, and everybody in a way is channeling their version of the Beatles.

Why don’t you get Van Dyke Parks to arrange? He did Inara George recently.

Look—I have dreams about Ringo Starr being my drummer, but I think you have to do your own version of it. I feel like with my stuff, it’s ambitious and it completely falls short. But it’s done on my own terms and it’s where I am and represents my skill level. So when there are certain successes, like the arrangement on ‘Don’t Grow,’ that’s a success to me that I want to take credit for! It also means you have to take credit for not knowing what you’re doing easily half the time, and feeling like you’re out of your element.

If you could take your studio skills and focus them on another musician, who would you like to take a crack at using to make an Adam Goldberg album?

The only one I’ve thought of is Claudine Longet! I really want to write music for her! I mean, the woman has been fully in hiding, so I don’t anticipate that happening. But I love the idea of doing that. But at the same time, I really enjoy the visceral experience of playing, and I’m getting better! I’ve been practicing scales and shit.

What’s your favorite minor scale? I like the mixolydian, because it’s like ‘The Jetsons.’

Here’s the thing: anything that’s in Latin, forget it! I’m happy that I can play a pentatonic scale and play it backwards—and I prefer to play it forwards and record it and then reverse it in post! Can I tell you what that question reminded me of? Remember in Manhattan, when Diane Keaton and Woody Allen are on the lunar surface, and she’s like ‘How many of the moons of Saturn can you name?’ And he’s like, ‘None of them, and luckily it never comes up in casual conversation.’

I don’t remember that part!

Go back and see it, because you were just Diane Keaton!

THE GOLDBERG SISTERS’ SELF-TITLED ALBUM IS OUT NOW ON PLAY IT AGAIN SAM. VISIT THE GOLDBERG SISTERS AT ADAMGOLDBERGDILETTANTE.COM. 29

RT & THE 44s Interview and photography by Daiana Feuer

The three members of RT & the 44s sit inside RT Valine’s farm house drinking whiskey at 12:30 PM. Perched on a steep, hidden Highland Park hilltop, RT tends his chickens and goats and busks around town with his band for a living. On this particularly dry and sunny February Saturday, the band will continue leisurely emptying a bottle until nighttime, then play the final set at the Echo Country Outpost. RT has a voice reminiscent of Johnny Cash. Swimmy plays the washboard and Brendan plays a standup bass made from a washtub, a drum head, and a few nuts and bolts. The band’s country bar sing-alongs stir up devils, toddlers and grandmas alike.

Did your common fashion sense play a part in the band coming together?

RT Valine (vocals, wood ‘n’ wire): I think it’s ‘old shit.’ We play instruments cobbled together out of garbage and wardrobes cobbled together out of garbage. This was my gay uncle’s jacket. [To Swimmy] Did your lady get you that one?

Michael ‘Swimmy’ Webb (washboard): I found this one up in Arrowhead at the Pendleton store.

Brendan Willard (banjobass): I stole this vest from a 3-year-old’s birthday party. It was a dress-up theme. I think the buttons are elk.

How is ‘old shit’ new again?

BW: Old shit’s been happening for a while but we noticed that the response became much easier. We’re the perfect band for the recession. We’re not going to turn anyone away because their guitar only has two strings on it.

We’re probably more inclined to invite them to play with us.

RV: I like that about folk music or whatever this whole thing might be. It’s inclusive.

You’re trying to involve people, and that’s where it gets special. You’re not just playing to other musicians. You’re playing to people that aren’t necessarily interested in hearing something exclusive. Maybe that’s what is refreshing. If it is connecting with people, maybe it’s because it’s simple and basic and dictated by the parameters of being flat out broke. Can’t get crazy with a Korg and make beats when you’re somewhat limited by finances. They hear the music that’s being processed in music factories and it’s nice when someone can take it back to a little more basic, and experiment with that.

Where you get your microphone cans?

RV: You can make a microphone out of a can and a little Piezo transducer with a sprickler.

Trying to bring DIY to every element of the group. Trying to keep it simple. I guess there it gets a little more complicated.

BW: Here’s another good thing about the band. I’ve been in a lot of bands I wouldn’t expose a 3-year-old to or my mother. We’ve been doing a lot of busking and we regularly have little strollers roll up. It can be rowdy bar music or we can play a preschool.

RV: We have old people buying the record too so we have to tell them, ‘Hey, there’s a couple unsavory phrases there.’

How do DIY principles create an inclusive environment?

30

RV: It lets people know that everyone can do this. You don’t have to have a $1,200 Martin guitar. You can play that dime store guitar that your grandpa gave you, even if it doesn’t stay in tune. You can still have fun. I didn’t feel good playing a lot of these songs in L.A. before. I’d go out and play ‘Nine Pound Hammer’ and ‘Wrong Side Of Trouble’ and people weren’t that receptive to it. Ten years ago, there was a different thing going on. A lot of people were image-conscious and self-conscious and not necessarily going to start singing along. But lo and behold people let down their guard.

Some crowds are still tough—they don’t want to sing along and you really got to break them down. But then other folks are more receptive and that’s where the magic starts—when you get everyone involved, and it’s not just a dog and pony show: ‘Aren’t-we-cute?’

concept. It’s about perspective. Sometimes we’re only seeing things through a certain eyehole, so to speak. I believe everything is relative. Everybody has got a bad day. Some people’s days are relatively worse. Just take joy that we get to be on this planet and be a human being here and not get too caught up in why or who put us here—‘Did I pay up my insurance policy on the afterlife?’ It’s a pretty good opportunity just to be humans, so enjoy it. The fact we get to taste and smell and we have cannabinoid receptors in our brains.

MW: I just like to keep my life as simple and uncomplicated as possible. I like to work as little as possible. I enjoy my free time as much as possible. I try to keep an open mind about as much stuff as I can—music and philosophies. Kind of really take in influences from bits and pieces of everything.

control the parents. We’re the drunk clown at the moon bounce. You hire the clown and he smells like whiskey.

Why is death a recurring theme in your songs?

BW: It’s not something to be afraid of—maybe to embrace that a little. A lot of these songs about death are catchy. You sing along, stomp your foot. That’s the way I see it. Death is not such a big deal.

RV: It goes back to trying to appreciate the chance we’re given here, for whatever reason.

It’s a great opportunity to love each other and have fun with each other. Death isn’t that scary because in the meantime we’re all together and we all have to take that trip so might as well enjoy it. We should only take care of the people we care about—the people we love.

“They’re all memorable shows.

Except the ones we don’t remember.”

Brendan, do you tune your bass with a wrench?

BW: Yeah. I use a box wrench but I always lose them at the end of the evening after we play ‘Stiff Drink’ and someone passes whiskey around.

Swimmy, how long have you been playing washboard?

MW: Almost a year. I’d done the DIY thing a little and played bass and tinkered on some other things and RT was like, ‘We’ve got this Cold Springs show that Brendan booked for his birthday, and he asked me if I wanted to play washboard.’

BW: We’d been at it like a week or two, and I thought, ‘We might as well book our first show.’ That’s as far out of town as we’ve been.

RT has all these animals to take care of.

RT: It’s tricky to get away from the critters.

Does your lifestyle and music stem from some particular philosophy?

RV: Things are overcomplicated? It’s nice to simplify things and try to be, again, inclusive, not exclusive. I read this Mao quote the other day—about this frog at the bottom of a well only being able to see the sky at the top of the well. Only seeing this one thing. I like that

RV: The goal of entertaining people is to make them feel happy, not try to impress them necessarily. Some groups have a different agenda.

There is no agenda with us aside from giving people a good time, break down any guards— maybe that includes getting them drunk first or during.

BW: After the grandmas and kids are gone.

RV: That also thrills me. The kids love it. They don’t understand the words—thank God, cuz half the songs are about death. But all the way from the toddlers to the grandmas, we’re making people happy.

BW: A little girl in South Pasadena the other day, she heard half a song and soon as we finished, she rolled right up and pointed at my instrument and said, [impersonating a sassy 4-year-old girl] ‘What’s that?! I like what you guys play.’

BW: We had her, the 2-year-old in a stroller and the 90-year-old woman in a wheelchair with a blanket, who listened to the whole 50minute set. We set up at a crosswalk by the Metro Gold Line, so the train comes through and we hold people hostage. People can’t cross the street so they’re forced to listen for a little while, and if we can draw the kids in, then they

BW: That’s the beauty of this scene that we’ve been around lately. All these people doing great things coming together supporting one another. These shows at the Outpost—a whole community is there, building up.

Who is the live audience on ‘Stiff Drink?’

BW: That was at Hyperion Tavern. We thought it was better with the live energy.

RV: You really need the people clinking their glasses. The Hyperion show was special. People were swinging from the rafters. There’s a few live ones on the album but the rest of the tracks we recorded in the house. We tried to do it exactly as we play it. No added tracks.

Are the live ones from memorable shows?

MW: They’re all memorable shows. Except the ones we don’t remember.

RT & THE 44s RELEASE SHOW FOR THEIR SELF-RELEASED, SELF-TITLED ALBUM ON FRI., APR. 1, AT THE ECHO COUNTRY OUTPOST, 1930 ECHO PARK AVE., ECHO PARK. CONTACT VENUE FOR DETAILS. ECHOCOUNTRYOUTPOST.COM. VISIT RT & THE 44s AT MYSPACE. COM/RTNTHE44S. INTERVIEW

SWANS Interview by Chris Ziegler Illustration by champoyhate

Michael Gira grew up in L.A. but left a trail of blood and fake semen behind him when he split for New York City and started the great annihilator known as SWANS. After a slow and beautiful transition from primitive brutality to brutal beauty, SWANS went nova on Soundtracks for the Blind and ended for more than ten years.

Now Gira has awakened SWANS again. He speaks from between Texas and Tulsa.

Can you describe the full-page ad you took out in Slash magazine?

Michael Gira (guitar/vocals): My friend Bruce Kalberg who published NO Magazine with me—he had taken an ad out in Slash which was just his face, and he’d shaved a strip down the center of his head and taped a piece of liver to it. So he just had this liver on his head. Sort of a comment on mohawks, I guess. We’d go around to shows at the Whisky or the Masque and Bruce would be wearing his liver. He was known as ‘Liver Head.’ We were doing little art antics around the time of the punk rock thing, and I took out a full-page ad in Slash— and that’s how I met the wonderful Claude Bessy, too, when I went to pay for that ad!

But in this ad, I had someone put a straight-

woulda been a bad thing for me to do, but I liked them a lot. I forget why it didn’t work out. We just got drunk and I screamed a lot while they jammed. Little Cripples’ first show was at the Deaf Club in San Francisco and I remember Bruce Loose out in the audience while we were opening for the Bags. I was friends with Alice—we had a little romantic relationship at the time. It was nice. She was the prime fox of the whole scene as far as I’m concerned. The alpha—what would you say for women? That mater fox.

What did the police do when they broke in to the Hermann Nitsch performance you were helping with that one wild night in Venice?

I think they shut it down! They were pretty

‘Hey! There’s the guy with the penis!’ jacket on me and I was sitting sort of profile to the camera with my legs up—naked—and I made a very large like three-foot long penis out of plaster. I made it look like it came from my crotch and swooped out and then back into my mouth, and I was kind of glaring at the camera. I was really into make-up at that time—like film make-up; I was looking at that as a possible way to make money—and I modeled it after Boris Karloff in The Mummy.

So I had this gloppy sort-of mummy face.

And I thought I did a really good job! I had this fake semen dripping out of my mouth— basically I was performing oral sex on myself—and I was looking at the camera, and the large caption under the photo was HERE I AM THINKING OF YOU. Did anyone recognize you later?

It was meant to be anonymous! But the next week, I’m going out to shows and everybody’s like, ‘Hey! There’s the guy with the penis!’

How did you transcend your reputation as ‘the guy with the penis’?

I guess the band—people liked it a lot. But then I left. And around that time, I went up to San Francisco to audition for Flipper. It INTERVIEW

shocked. There were all these carcasses and blood everywhere and everyone was completely drunk. It was on the ground floor and the blood was seeping out the door on to the sidewalk, which is why I think they came.

How does it affect one’s artistic aspirations to spend a night ankle deep in blood?

Oh—Hermann Nitsch was wonderful! The total all-consuming visceral experience was very influential on me. But I wouldn’t wanna do anything like that. I’m an American and with these rock instruments, we used that as one influence. Along with the Stooges and Throbbing Gristle—it was just one aspect.

There were all kinds of influences.

When you started SWANS, what were you sure you didn’t want to do? What did you feel no longer needed to be explored?

You don’t really sit down with an agenda and try and figure out how to make music that way.

In a negative way, you could say if it sounded too punk rock, it would go. We wouldn’t do that. Or if it sounded too regular rock ‘n’ roll.

Certainly no solos. And often times no chord progressions. If it sounds right or has a certain sexuality and it’s propulsive … you go with

that. At the time, the Stooges were a huge influence, but we didn’t wanna sound like that.

There was something in that music that really spoke to us, but we didn’t wanna imitate that.

On the first album my favorite was ‘We Will Fall’—the real slow one.

You’ve often said you want music to atomize the listener—why?

More like if you picture a worm on an anvil and you slam that anvil with a sledgehammer—that’s how I wanted it to be. From the worm’s point of view.

Where’s the desire to disintegrate come from? Is that death? Life?

It’s just—wanting to get laid, basically. The analogy I use now is it’s like Tantric sex.

You’re constantly building and resisting the urge to … expunge. Slowly building and building and then when the final cataclysm occurs, it’s pretty gratifying. It should be like that.

Is an appreciation for Tantric sex the one thing you and Sting have in common? He can reportedly fuck for 14 hours.

That sounds really macho—now I withdraw the entire commentary.

You said once that at a SWANS show, the audience’s job is to sit there quietly and docilely—like ‘bipedal cows.’ What do you suggest we do to be more helpfully cowlike?

I much prefer now they behave like mildly narcotized monkeys.

You said when you write, you don’t set out to have an effect on the reader—you set out to have an effect on yourself. Is it the same when you write music?

You don’t think about the listener. You think about the singing itself. It’s funny. A lot of European interviews start from the point of view of what you’re trying to say with the music, which doesn’t make sense to me. I’m more experiential—it’s how I want to the music to be felt. There’s a lot of implications from the lyrics, but you don’t start out with an aesthetic.

That’s how they’re trained to think, right? A lot of American university students are, too.

It’s a typical university way to look at things.

I like to dive in and make shit happen. The painter Francis Bacon is such an inspiration to

me. He was a highly literate incredibly sophisticated individual, but he didn’t start painting … he just had a canvas there and he just started working, and these amazing images grew organically out of who he was.

He said, ‘Art must deepen the mystery.’

What do you think?

It’s kind of pompous for me to describe myself as something like that. But he was great.

His day was amazing. He’d drink all day and way into the night and converse with his intellectual carousing sexual deviant friends.

Like long drawn-out conversations and eating and talking. And then he’d go out and cruise for rough trade. And then he’d get home at three or four in the morning and paint, and he would sleep somehow. And he did this for like forty years.

Who was the last person you met who made you quake in your boots?

Johnny Cash. Country musicians are very respectful of their audience. They cultivate them in a real personal way. Go shake hands with them and stand up at the merch booth. I do that now, too. I kind of learned it from the way they treat their audience—respectfully.

So I was lined up with people waiting to shake his hand. He’d have like a ten-word conversation with everybody and shake their hand, and he was wearing this polyester shirt kinda too tight for his overweight body, and he was covered in sweat, and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘How are you doing, young man?’

And I said, ‘He-e-e-y, Mr. C-c-c-cash …’ and he crushed my hand with this huge shovel of a hand. And then he moved on.

Did you ever have any serious offers when you said you’d cut off your pinky for $250,000?

No! And I was really chagrined. I expected I would. That woulda set me up. But I probably would have invested the money and now it’d be gone and I’d be one less pinky.

Do you wanna renew that offer right now?

No, I’m a little more attached to it now.

SWANS’ MY FATHER WILL GUIDE ME UP A ROPE TO THE SKY IS OUT NOW ON YOUNG GOD. VISIT SWANS AT YOUNGGODRECORDS.COM. 33

AUSTIN PERALTA

Interview by Lainna Fader and Miles Clements Photography by Theo Jemison

Pianist Austin Peralta has been traveling jazz’s interstellar space ways since he was 15 and his new album, Endless Planets, hangs naturally in the Brainfeeder universe. He speaks now about life and death and the few feelings worth feeling in between.

How did it feel to be the first and last jazz band ever introduced by Gaslamp Killer yelling at the crowd to ‘MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE’?

I think this is what it needs. Jazz can be so stuffy and the audiences can be so pompous that it needs that kind of reception, it needs that kind of audience, it needs that kind of energy. It needs to make people feel like they’re having a deathgasm. And it can be through jazz—why not? Who’s to say that punk rock is more hardcore than jazz? It’s not true.

Why is your ensemble called Deathgasm?

What is a deathgasm?

It came to me a few months before the album release show. That was sort of the debut of Deathgasm. I had seen this film called Enter the Void by Gaspar Noé and I had been interested in the Tibetan Book of the Dead long before seeing the film. I felt like music has the power to evoke spiritual places akin to death or the orgasm or love or whatever. I just thought, ‘Fuck it, let’s call it Deathgasm.’

As a jazz musician, how do you think you fit into the Brainfeeder universe?

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I think Lotus, coming from the Coltrane family, is deeply rooted in the jazz tradition and he feels an affinity for it. I would even consider him a jazz musician in a more post-modern sense. He wants to make that very much a part of his universe, the Brainfeeder universe, and as you saw with Cosmogramma, clearly there’s that influence. It’s also a way of saying that we’re not trying to uphold genre boundaries. All music is acceptable; it’s all part of a bigger plan. All these different musics can say the same thing and they’re all inter-related.

Flying Lotus said the sound of Brainfeeder is the sound of the seeker—someone trying to understand this world through music.

How are you trying to understand?

I guess I would start by saying that for me, music has always been the way to connect to reality or to the world. It’s been my life—ever since I was 5, that’s what I’ve been doing. So it’s a very natural way to get in touch with both myself—emotionally, spiritually—and the world. I couldn’t pinpoint it to something specific but it’s always been there for me.

Do you consider yourself to be a spiritual person?

Absolutely. Not in the sense that I follow a specific religious doctrine, but I feel like I’m in touch with the cosmos in a spiritual way and mostly through music. I think music is deeply spiritual and can take you to cosmic places.

You got started playing classical music first.

Why the switch to jazz?

I still continue playing classical to this day, but around age 10 [after playing for about five years] a friend of mine gave me this CD of jazz pianist Bill Evans, who played with Miles Davis, and I don’t know—something clicked. Before that I was very turned off to anything besides classical music and then once I heard that, I was sort of bit by the bug, if you will. Ever since that moment I’ve just been trying to learn how to play it and going out and playing in jam sessions and whatnot.

How many instruments do you play?

I really play the piano as an instrument. I can mess around on soprano saxophone and play a little bass and a little drums, but you know—nothing that I am proud of.

In Miles Davis’ autobiography, he said that the Fender Rhodes has only one sound,

and that sound is itself. Are there any other instruments that are that individual—that embodied in one sound?

In a sense, every instrument, if you play it authentically, is the embodiment of itself.

For me, soprano saxophone is a very unique sounding instrument and it can only be itself.

Sort of like an Indian snake charmer.

What does it mean for an instrument to sound authentic?

I guess it’s necessitated by the performer in that they are coming at it with a sense of their own musical authenticity. They have at least a decent know-how of the instrument in order to express their ideas but then they take that beyond just the technical aspects to create something truly honest and musical.

How does Strangeloop’s aesthetic suit your music? Why do you work so well together?

First and foremost because we’re really great friends and we’ve known each other for several years. We met at a coffee shop two blocks from here actually. I walked outside with my coffee and there was this guy sitting there and he just started ranting to me about the Apocalypse. I just nodded my head and he took that 35

“The dream life is half our fucking existence.” as a cue to launch into a tirade. I thought, ‘You know, this must be a like-minded cat.’

So we ended up connecting through that and it was serendipitous and it totally worked out and we’ve been best friends ever since. I felt like the record [Endless Planets], before I asked him to participate, it had something missing.

I said, ‘I’d love to tie this together with some of your work.’ A melding of the acoustic and the electronic worlds.

Is that what you’re working towards?

I think everything is possible and anything is acceptable to me. Anything can be used to create the art. I’m not trying to create limits or box it in.

Sonny Rollins said that jazz is unique in that it can absorb all these different types of music and still be jazz. Do you think there’s ever a point where it will absorb too much and not be jazz?

No. Absolutely not. I completely agree with him. I haven’t heard that before, but I think that’s a beautiful statement. I think that’s what jazz means. It means everything. It means, ‘Fuck it.’

Do you believe in life after death?

I do but not in an egoistic sense. I think that in order for a body to be alive in the first place, there must be some energy keeping it alive.

In the sense that matter cannot be created or destroyed, once the body perishes that energy will continue to exist in some form. Not that it is me or you but that the energy will continue to exist and will recycle itself.

Have you ever had an out-of-body experience?

A couple times. Mostly through music in those rare moments when you’re caught in an improvisation or something and you just reach transcendence and it’s no longer you and the instrument and the audience but it just becomes pure connectivity to the ‘Other’ from whence the music derives. That and I’ve also had some strange sort of astral visions or projections. I’ve tried to practice astral projection and it’s very difficult. But there’s been some moments in the early morning when you’re sort of in that liminal space that I’ve found myself leaving the body and like actually getting freaked out and reeling myself back in.

Is that something you can teach yourself?

From what I’ve read, yeah—in the sense that you can command your physical body you can also command your astral body. It’s definitely fascinating to me.

I had a horrifying dream the other night where my teeth were all falling out one by one and I woke up totally freaked out and anxious and paranoid. When’s the last time you had a hard time distinguishing reality from a dream?

I have that all the time. Sometimes when I’m dreaming I’m convinced it’s reality. But it’s funny because the lines do blur. A lot of times 36

I’m sitting around in what I think is physical, waking reality and I’m like, ‘Man, this is very dreamlike.’ And in that sense I don’t place one higher than the other or in a hierarchy. I think they’re both equal parts of a continual reality and have as much importance as the other.

Has it ever freaked you out when you can’t tell the difference?

Not really. It’s all just as real or ‘unreal’ as the other. I know we place so much importance on physical life but who’s to say that this is more important than the dream life? The dream life is half our fucking existence.

In an interview, the director of Enter the Void said he enjoyed the idea of doing a movie that would portray a collective dream, like flying saucers or a collective need for people who need to believe in flying saucers. Why do people need to believe that there’s life after death?

I think the notion of life after death is very tied into the notion of the infinite. Without the infinite, to me at least, this would seem so pointless—if it was just this and that was it.

I think the very fact that there is this means that there is the infinite. You can’t have one without the other.

Why do you think it’s important to find meaning in your life?

Life without meaning is a very dark thing. I’ve been there and I’ve struggled with it for years actually, just being in a dark place. When you have the love and the music—which I think are the same thing—it imbues your life with a sense of meaning and a sense of place. Despite how foreboding it can be, we’re supposed to be here. This is a beautiful thing even though it can be dark.

When you get to a dark place how do you get yourself out of it?

I guess just by going through the darkness.

Plunging as deep into it as you can to come out the other side with the wisdom of what you’ve gained.

Do you think it’s important to go through these tough experiences?

Everyone has a different relationship to reality and the universe, but to me it’s definitely helped even though it was very difficult.

Sometimes I’d say, ‘Why the hell is this happening to me?’ But in retrospect it’s always a learning experience and well worth it. I wouldn’t change a thing.

John Coltrane said that he thought most musicians are interested in truth. What are you interested in?

All these words that we’re throwing around like ‘spirituality,’ ‘truth,’ ‘love,’ ‘music’—to me, they’re all synonyms. Life after death, infinity, truth, God—whatever you want to call it—that’s all what music and any art is getting at. True art is truth.

How do you get closer to truth?

I don’t know—by trying to remove your ego

and authentically engage with the source that provides you with the inspiration. Acting like a conduit for that higher energy to come through. Not being egoistic and trying to act as a secretary for a higher force. Being open.

You were already touring Japan when you were 15 and 16, which are formative years for everyone. What did you learn?

It’s funny because you’re right. I was so young.

I’m still young, but looking back I was almost too young to know what I was doing in a way.

It was very surreal. I wish I didn’t receive such high praise at a young age. It got to my head and I had to have a few reality checks since then to put myself in place and realize I always have things to learn. It’s hard as a young person to get your praises sung so highly. The ensuing years have provided me with a much better sense of perspective.

I read that you didn’t promote the first two records you released in Japan because you didn’t have total creative control. How have you been able to make sure that you have total control over your art?

Well luckily after that I haven’t encountered that problem. Those records were controlled by a producer so they weren’t my artistic vision. That’s precisely why I don’t promote them. But with Endless Planets, I produced it and wrote it entirely on my own and then gave it to Flying Lotus. He’s an incredibly open-minded guy who’s all about artists’ visions and he’s not trying to tamper with them which is why I respect him so much.

He just said, ‘I’m going to give you a platform to do what you wanna do.’ That’s what Brainfeeder is.

I didn’t realize the album was finished before you took it to Brainfeeder.

Yeah, it was finished and I was looking for someone to put it out. David [Strangeloop] introduced me to Steve [Flying Lotus] and I got a call the next day and he said, ‘I love this.

I want to put it out.’ It took awhile, about a year. It’s still a small label but they’re growing rapidly and doing great things.

I’ve always thought that Brainfeeder is kind of like a younger generation’s and a different generation’s Impulse! Records in that there’s kind of a distinct vision and everyone involved is friends and collaborators. Do you see it that way?

More and more it’s like [Flying Lotus] is letting all kinds of different voices speak. This is why it’s hard to classify Brainfeeder because it’s becoming this real open platform for artistic dialogues in so many forms. There’s a photographer on the roster, visual artists, a whole array of musicians from all different genres.

What’s the next direction for Brainfeeder?

I’m not exactly sure and it might be better to keep it a surprise. It’s definitely going to defy categorization. We’re going in all sorts of great directions.

Back to Bill Evans. He used to get annoyed when people would pick apart jazz intellectually because he said for him it was a feeling and not a theorem.

I completely and utterly agree. I hate when people get caught up in overanalyzing the harmonic sequence and all that. I don’t mathematically plot my music. I feel something and I just go with it. Having knowledge of the history is good, but once you have that knowledge your music is breaking all the rules.

What do you feel when you play jazz?

I feel the same thing when I’m surfing or making love—it’s just beauty. It’s all the same thing. It’s not a specific feeling, just one of warmth and happiness and love.

We saw your album release show at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock and I get the impression that a lot of musicians would have a hard time keeping up with you. Who have you worked with that you’ve had a hard time keeping up with?

I still practice a lot of classical music and I’d say I have a hard time keeping up with the composers’ demands, such as Chopin or Rachmaninoff. I’ve also worked with a lot of exceptional jazz musicians who have very much pushed me. I had the chance to perform with Chick Corea years ago and that was incredibly intimidating. I was so young—I was 15 and not anywhere near his level as a musician.

Any time I work with great jazz musicians of a high caliber it always pushes me. But any different musical setting presents its own musical challenges. Playing on a hip-hop session or working with Strangeloop. Everything is different and every situation has its own unique challenges. I could be afraid of these challenges but I force myself to address them for the sake of bettering myself.

John Coltrane said people thought he played angrily. But to him, what he was doing was playing every idea in his head all at once and it was all pouring out in search of the one perfect idea. How close have you come to that feeling?

I have experienced what I think he’s getting at. It’s weird because I’ve been playing before and things that would appear as anger in the music aren’t anger. It’s just another side of how profound the universe can be when it gives you information. It manifests itself in many different colors, but they’re all beauty to me.

With Coltrane, everyone has their own process, and he had his process of playing everything he heard at once to sort of find the one ‘essential,’ is I think what he called it, but it’s definitely not anger. It’s visceral exploration.

It’s so passionate, it’s so fiery, but it’s love.

AUSTIN PERALTA’S ENDLESS PLANETS IS OUT NOW ON BRAINFEEDER. VISIT AUSTIN PERALTA AT AUSTINPERALTA.COM. INTERVIEW

RAINBOW ARABIA Interview by Daiana Feuer Photography by Grace Oh

Rainbow Arabia has been signed to a techno label. Tiffany and Danny Preston sure don’t make techno, but they are making a new kind of electronic music that is not really like anything else, and that is why people will say it sounds like all kinds of things. The world is in for a futuristic look at pop music and it’s called Boys and Diamonds.

How do you make beats?

Danny Preston (keyboards/beats): The beats on the computer—we have a sample library of tons of sounds, of actual individual percussion sounds, kicks, snares, and compile our own kits and then play them. We’re not just playing a sequencer, we’re making it from scratch.

You know MPCs? A virtual MPC. We’re putting our own sounds into it and make stuff.

Tiffany Preston (guitar/vocals/beats): On our first EP it was, literally, we hit a button on Danny’s Arabic keyboard so it was like drrrrrr!

So much easier.

DP: ‘Omar K’ was the name of a sound.

They’re unique sounds. You don’t know where to find those 1990s Arabic keyboards. But then I moved on—that was that.

The new beats are pretty intricate. Does this make it difficult to pull off live?

TP: We play with backing tracks, so it’s easy for bass and drums. But it was complicated to make. When you have members to play with, one person is in charge of beats. It takes a lot of time when you want to change a part— DP: —versus electronic guys. They perform and they sit there with their laptop. They know what they’re doing. They know these programs really well. They’re creating loops and manipulating them live and tweaking stuff. But it’s a different mentality. They’re just creating this energy and they’re tweaking it whereas we’re trying to deconstruct and create a new song and pattern rather than a constant driving thing. We’re trying to make some room for improvisation. Making some space in songs. Her singing, her playing guitar, me playing keyboards … it can be different every time. We play stuff that has to be performed live and trying to stick it exactly where it’s supposed to be—we’re trying to get away from that a little more with our live set.

TP: There’s still so much to do. For us, electronic music is a new thing. That was something we were trying to get across.

DP: I think people get we’re not ‘electronic artists.’ We’re this new hybrid of electronic music.

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Maybe knowing less about something brings something new to the table.

TP: True. Working within your limitations can work for you.

DP: Or having less knowledge. ‘Oh, that sounds like a house techno track.’ ‘Well, what’s that? What’s dubstep?’ All these genres, I had to research what makes each genre and elements of it.

Did you figure it out? I can’t sometimes.

DP: Well, the main ones—techno, drum and bass, house ... but there’s a hundred subgenres under each one. Someone has to show me the right stuff. Being on Kompakt is cool because we got to really listen to some great techno.

TP: It was awesome getting signed by a techno label. They took a risk with us because we don’t really fit on their label. Danny did a remix for Pictureplane and they really liked it.

It was funny because it was kind of techno.

When he was making it I was like, ‘Oh my god, I feel the bubble machines.’ They got a hold of it and asked us to do a reinterpretation of a Field song and they liked that too.

What caught their attention?

DP: ‘Blind,’ probably—that sequenced four on the floor.

TP: We started getting into straighter beats with the kick—kch kch kch. We’re still going in a pop direction. That’s where my head was.

What do you mean by writing songs now?

DP: We weren’t writing songs before. We were just going for this vibe or attitude or energy with the first two EPs. It wasn’t about the song, it was about the music. The energy and the sound more than songs. But now we’re looking at songs. Our inspiration has always been Sublime Frequencies—that attitude. It’s so awkward and punk and dancy—all this at once. That’s what we were going for. But now we’re thinking more—rewriting and coming up with more hooks.

How do guys communicate when you’re making a song?

DP: That’s our worst times together.

TP: Usually Danny will start on a song and then when he’s at work and I’m off on a day, I’ll work on my part. Then he’ll come home—

DP: —and we’ll argue about it. We have to work together sometimes because we have to agree and compromise on things.

TP: We become a slave to the song. That happens a lot. We’ll be working on a song for so long and we just can’t trash it because we worked so long on that beat but the song’s not coming together and we’re trying to save it.

So I’ll just sing whatever or do whatever and it comes out halfway decent. There’s a couple like that on the record. But a few happened quickly and naturally.

DP: ‘Without You’ was a long harsh journey.

We reworked that song so many times but I knew that was a good song. She went through hell with that song. ‘Papai’ was a song and then we threw the vocals out and just jammed on it. The song in the middle that’s this dark thing … it went through so many incarnations. Then we did that end part that ended up being the coolest. It’s a journey.

TP: The reward is when it’s done, it’s finished and we can move on and wait for the critics to get bent out of shape. Do we need to change up our vibe? I feel like we’re being negative.

DP: No, we’re not—we’re kind of explaining our journey to the record. Because it was dark, right?

What do you think he’s trying to do with music? What do you think she’s trying?

TP: We have the same goals in a sense. Danny is trying to develop his skills and getting all the technology under his belt. He always has this aesthetic to his music and his playing but he’s becoming more solid at a style.

DP: She’s making it more interesting than what I would do. Making it more edgy, making it more approachable to everybody with her vocals and guitar playing. I lay down the element of the thing and she puts all the extra flavor that grabs people. The voice that makes everyone a part of what we’re doing. You’re going to be the front person in the magazine and I’m going to be in the back corner, which is how I want it to be.

Let’s say ‘MTV Unplugged’ came back into vogue—could you do these songs acoustically?

TP: I’ve thought about that. It’s kind of a bummer because we’ve become slaves to our computer. I look at those bands that can bust out their guitar and play a song. That doesn’t really work with our songs. It wouldn’t come across the same for sure.

DP: You’d have to play it differently, that’s all.

TP: But we don’t have the kind of song chord progressions in our music. It’s filled with a lot of percussion and arpeggiations and hooks, unless you have another guitar player.

DP: We’re more composers than singer-songwriters.

TP: Totally—the way we write a song is completely backwards. The vocals come last. The progression comes last where we’re worried about ‘what kind of cool sounds can we put in there that would be like a percussion sound?’

DP: Layering things—that nails it, right there.

Rather than singer-songwriting ‘A SONG’ and then having a band play it, we’re composing a whole thing.

TP: It’d be really hard to do a cover. That’s a step we want to go—working on our progressions.

Do you think there’s nature in technology?

Has technology become nature or natural in a way?

DP: I think there’s a naturalness to it. More so than it was because it gives you more tools and more ability to be creative. Instead of being limited you can flourish—anything can grow out of it. That’s natural—that’s spiritual because your mind can be limitless in a way.

That’s what’s amazing about it. Endless possibilities what you can do with technology.

TP: The challenge is learning how to use it right.

RAINBOW ARABIA WITH SPOEK MATHAMBO PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS ON FRI., MAR. 25, AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $10-$12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO. COM. RAINBOW ARABIA’S BOYS AND DIAMONDS IS OUT NOW ON KOMPAKT. VISIT RAINBOW ARABIA AT RAINBOWARABIA.COM. INTERVIEW

WIZ KHALIFA Interview by Rebecca Haithcoat Illustration by Lisa Strouss

Dressed in a denim blue letterman jacket, a white hoodie emblazoned with the image of James Dean, and red Converse, Wiz Khalifa looks as American as apple pie. That’s fitting since his rise to prominence is an updated version of the American dream—after a less-than-salutary relationship with his first major label, he spent a couple of years independently building an army of fans on the internet before signing with Atlantic last summer.

After the Venice Beach shoot for ‘Roll Up,’ a single from his upcoming debut album on the label, he talked about Ninja Turtles, the paparazzi, and, of course, women and weed.

What’s the first tattoo you ever got?

It’s on my left arm; it’s my first rap group. I don’t ever tell anybody. I keep that under wraps. I was 16. But I don’t regret it cuz they were all my family members. It was just our first rap group name, and I tattooed it on me cuz I just loved it.

Which tattoo hurt the most?

Probably my back. The back of my neck hurt really bad too. But I don’t really feel it on my face. Not too much sting. The hands! I don’t have my feet yet. But I will. I usually don’t tell people the next ones I’m gonna get cuz I don’t want nobody to try to do it first. People are tricky.

Curren$y told me his friends get them for him because he’s afraid getting tattooed will hurt too much.

Oh yeah! He told me that if he could just go to sleep and wake up with his whole body tattooed, he’d be cool with that—but he doesn’t want to go through the pain.

What was it like when you first met Benjy Grinberg, president of your label--Rostrum Records? He’s been with a long time.

I was a kid—I had no clue about anything, and he basically just took advantage of a young mind and pimped me for everything … I don’t even make money off of this stuff.

Nah, I met Benjy when I was probably like, 16, and he heard my music through one of his friends that he went to high school with.

I had a couple songs that I’d recorded at the studio called ID Labs—and I WOULD still record there, but it got kinda hot. That’s like the little monument now in Pittsburgh—the main studio everybody records at. So through me workin’ there, he heard my music, and was like, ‘Yo, you kinda hot; you look cool, whass up?’ You know what I’m sayin’? And I was like, ‘Whass up?!’ And we made some records together. He let some other people who had opinions back then hear the music, and he was really happy with the reception and the work that I was puttin’ in, and I was happy with the business that he was handlin’ and the opportunities I felt like he could provide. And we just went out on a limb and rocked with each other! I was really, really young, and he had experience working with different artists, but the situation was pretty much totally new to both of us, and it ended up workin’ out pretty solid.

What’s your strongest memory before 16?

Dang! I don’t know! It was all pretty much buildin’ up to like, you know, just me … evINTERVIEW

erything was about music. I was always in the studio, and things didn’t really start paying off until later on. My early years were just me bein’ a normal ass kid, and like working really, really hard—my friends not understandin’ why I was goin’ to the studio instead of fuckin’ off.

Tell me about you as a kid.

I was just like, real crazy. Like, outgoing, always shouting stuff out, yelling things through the house. Wild things—about turkeys, and unnamable stuff. I was just crazy—I was in my own little world.

Did you have imaginary friends?

Nah, I didn’t have imaginary friends. I had a lot of toys that I would make fight each other all the time. [Makes pow-pow-pow noises.] Ninja Turtles were popular, Captain Planet was poppin’, Power Rangers were poppin’. Totally watched those cartoons; I totally LIVED those cartoons. I got a Ninja Turtle on my leg! [Pulls up his left pant leg.] I WAS a Ninja Turtle at one point. I got this tattoo like, four years ago.

What kind of music did your mom listen to?

My mom listened to everything—she listened to a lot of rap music, though, more than my dad did. Because when I was in like third grade, I remember my mom buying me [Tupac’s] Makaveli for Christmas. SHE wanted Makaveli, but she just bought it for me so she could listen to it. She had all the dirty versions

routine?

It got to a point where it was kinda crazy. Like pumpin’ gas and buyin’ chips, turned into me having to take hella pictures, or tryin’ to escape. But it’s cool—it’s good to have that love and know that people admire me for what I do, and wanna greet me with positivity instead of fuck me up.

What about paparazzi out here?

OH my gosh, paparazzi out here! It’s new. But it comes with the game. I never looked at myself as important enough to take pictures of me drinking Vitamin Water—I just look at me like a normal guy. But if you guys wanna take pictures of me fuckin’ buyin’ shorts, cool.

You’ve said a couple of times you don’t think of yourself as being on people’s radars—like Kanye or Jay-Z. When did you start to notice that tide turning?

Well, probably now—cuz I said their names!

Ummm—just as more and more people started reaching out, rapping over the record [Black and Yellow] and going to big markets and they play the song every couple of minutes; I was like, ‘I KNOW people’s hearin’ that.’ But for me, I’m just so into the work, and trying to be better than myself, that I don’t really even look at that other stuff.

It seems like the decision to release ‘Roll Up’ was a strategy geared towards further break-

I’m still bein’ me—I’m not compromising anything—we have no choice but to really capitalize off that buildup and buzz.

Are you concerned at all about losing that rabid underground audience?

Nah—when the album comes out, it’s gonna make everything clear. Everybody’s gonna understand what music comes with it. But to sell the album and open it up, I do need those new fans. If I have just the same fans, I’ll have the same success. I’ll be doing the same things. You can’t be scared to make big records. So when I go out and reach and grab those new fans, and I keep my old fans still entertained … it’s a funny relationship, but at the end of the day, the people who understand it are the ones that I’m kinda doin’ it for.

What’s your response to detractors who say all you talk about are women and weed?

I say they’re right! But if you take the time to really really dissect it, and find the genius inside of it, then you’ll figure it out! And if you don’t care to take the time, then I don’t blame you for that, either. I feel like different people are into different artists for whatever reason, and sometimes it takes a long time for you to really understand where an artist is coming from or what they mean. I just gotta do what I gotta do to remain long term. And maybe, you know, whether it’s this year, next year, year

“I totally lived those cartoons.

I was a Ninja Turtle at one point.” of CDs, but my dad didn’t want me listening to the cuss words. My dad listened to more old-school music—like ‘70s, old school rap, early ‘90s rap. My mom was like Too Short, Snoop, Tupac.

Is she excited that you’re working with Snoop?

She loves it. I try to call her every time I’m with somebody, but she never picks up the phone!

Do you still live with her when you’re in Pittsburgh?

Yeah—I made sure in Pittsburgh that I have a house that everybody can function in. My mom stays there, my uncles stay there, my cousin stays there—Will, who’s my tour manager, lives with me when I’m there. Everything is consolidated.

How do people treat you in Pittsburgh when you’re just going about your normal

ing into the mainstream. How do you see yourself straddling the divide between the hardcore Taylor Gang’ [Wiz’ longtime name for his fans] and your new audience?

It’s gonna be the same. Anybody who’s willing to grow, and willing to be a real fan and see the whole movement succeed, is gonna see how it pans out. The album is definitely gonna make things more clear, but I’m not gonna leave it up to the album. Like ‘Black and Yellow’ was a great song, and people didn’t think that it would do as well as it did just based off of how hardcore it might’ve sounded or how edgy it was. It wasn’t really as poppy as most records, but it sold as much as those pop records. Even when we released it, we only thought of it as a set-up record, so I think when we calculate it and put these mainstream records out and

after that, I could still win that person over as a fan because they might just not understand it right now.

Thanks for letting me crash your video shoot.

Thanks for crashing! Hopefully you sat in here long enough to get a contact high.

WIZ KHALIFA WITH HEALTH, KANYE WEST, MEN, PJ HARVEY, TAKE AND MORE ON SUN., APRIL 17, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVE. 51, INDIO. 11 AM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. COACHELLA. COM. WIZ KHALIFA’S ROLLING PAPERS RELEASES TUE., MAR. 29, ON ROSTRUM/ATLANTIC. VISIT WIZ KHALIFA AT WIZKHALIFA.COM. 41

SUEDE Interview by Chris Ziegler Illustration by Amber Halford Suede fell out of bed into Britpop and Britpop controversy about Blur and bisexuality and who was doing what to who in what direction, but between episodes of public drama was glammy rock ‘n’ roll in the most classic English tradition. After years off duty, Suede is substantially re-united (without Bernard) and active and playing their first stateside gig at Coachella.

How did Suede and Metallica ever get together for all-night rock sessions?

Brett Anderson (vocals): Our press agent sorta said, ‘Hey, Kirk Hammett is a big fan— should we get you together?’ So we went out to San Francisco to Kirk’s place and spent a lot of time being a bit naughty and playing songs in his basement. He had a studio—a little bit of a jamming room. I remember running through ‘Metal Mickey,’ we did a bit of T. Rex—we were off our faces, anyway. He’s a nice chap!

Kirk said he was struck by how normal you were and how you didn’t spank your buttocks once.

I should have spanked my buttocks. He was probably very disappointed. ‘This can’t be the real Brett Anderson. He’s not spanking his buttocks.’

What Crass lyric is so close to the front of your mind at all times that you can sing it to me right this second?

‘Do they owe us a living? Of course they fucking do!’ I love Crass. Feeding of the 5,000 was one of my favorite records growing up. I love that record. I love all the artwork. Talking about bands that draw you into a world—Crass really created their world, and it was a really confrontational, intelligent, political world. I really responded to it as a young teenager.

INTERVIEW

What part of the Crass ethos do you hold most dear?

I don’t live on a commune in Essex. But it opened my eyes—if it’s done right—how powerful political music can be. I never wrote overtly political music, but I did write music that dealt with not like party politics, but themes of poverty and alienation and I used that in songs—that was possibly inspired by Crass.

How was Suede a political band?

Dealing with the politics of life. Setting our songs in a real social context. I never wanted to be a writer who waved flags for a political party, but listening to the songs you can tell I was brought up as a member of the workingclass, and you can tell the songs have a very strong left-wing bias.

You said you felt there hasn’t been a definitive genre of music invented in the U.K. in the last decade, and that you feel music is meant more to placate than provoke now. Why? I do very much feel that’s the state of things. I can’t see that the last decade has created its own genre, which is a terrible shame for that generation. Not to say there hasn’t been great music.

There’s amazing music! I love discovering new bands and there’s a great wave of new bands.

But the biggest cultural development of the last like ten years was computer technology. It wasn’t anything to do with art and music, and

that’s a shame. Even in the 90s, we had dance music—definitely a 90s genre. Maybe people have become too knowing. There’s too much of a structured sense of what’s cool and what isn’t, and that comes from magazines constantly publishing lists which contain the same five Beatles albums and this kind of thing. There’s this constant pressure to comply with this very sort of rigid set of accepted rock albums. So bands are too afraid to go outside those reference points. I sense this real fear in the music industry. A lot of it is because the industry has become a lot more corporate. People won’t take risks anymore. In the early 90s—that’s the only time I can talk about because that’s when I started—magazines were putting unusual bands on the cover. Magazines put Suede on covers before anyone had ever heard of us. Commercially, that was very ill-advised—but at least it suggested they had a sense of purpose. Now I get the sense people only back who they think are gonna win, regardless of if they actually think it’s any good or not. They will back who they think are the winners, and they will write good reviews for the bands they think are gonna sell lots of records whether they like them or not, and I think that’s a fucking terrible way to be. People are too afraid of not being cool? Or getting it wrong? No one’s willing to get it wrong. No one’s willing to stick their neck out and become a hated figure. No one’s got

that kind of confidence. Everyone’s too willing to comply. It’s a terrible thing. But things go in cycles, don’t they? Maybe it’ll move into another period where people are taking chances.

When is the last time you suffered Stendhal syndrome?

At the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. I was looking at the Toulouse-Lautrecs, which were absolutely amazing. I’ve never been a huge fan of Toulouse-Lautrec before, but seeing the paintings in the flesh—as it were—is just so amazingly powerful. They’re so beautifully observed. I’m not sure if I actually experienced Stendhal syndrome, but I’ve read about it and it’s an extreme reaction to beauty—that’s the closest I can imagine it to be.

What’s it actually feel like?

Like drinking too much coffee. Slightly restless euphoria. Or maybe I’m getting it confused with actually drinking too much coffee.

I’m a huge fan of art. I spend a lot of time in galleries and that’s my favorite period of art as well—the post-Impressionists. Paul Gauguin and those artists. I love all the medieval painters as well. People like Bruegel and Cranach and Holbein. There’s something incredibly primitive about it—Bruegel’s ‘Return of the Hunters’ is so atmospheric. What I really like about Holbein is he’s such an amazing draftsman and a great observer of human features.

43

“You can’t live that lifestyle forever and wanna remain alive.”

He could completely capture a person. You’re looking at someone who lived 500 years ago but it could be someone passing you on the street. They’re so real. I love that about Holbein’s paintings.

Did you want to try and observe things that carefully in Suede songs?

It’s difficult in the framework of pop music. It isn’t a very subtle medium. It doesn’t have as much as fiction or fine art. You’re in a very rigid structure—melody and rhyme and rhythm and those things are constricting you. I don’t think pop writers can ever take it to that depth of observation. But what pop writers can do is engage at an emotional level that other artists can’t do. The pop song, when done right, is incredibly powerful. That’s partly to do with the simplicity as well. Truth in music is incredibly important, but artifice can be incredibly important as well—that’s something I’ve done quite consciously. Lots of the songs I’ve written for Suede have been deliberately superficial but perversely enough there’s a kind of truth in that. A sketch is powerful because you fill in the missing pieces. You fill in the framework yourself. If it’s too full, there’s no space for you to interpret it.

Francis Bacon said, ‘The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.’

Absolutely. One of the most important quotes ever about creativity. Something I’ve learned through mistakes over the years is it shouldn’t be too clear what you’re doing. Sometimes the sketch is so powerful because of the room for interpretation. As soon as you know what something is about, it somehow kills the mystery. And mystery is so important in music.

That allows the song to have life beyond what it was intended for. When a writer’s writing, they have a very specific thing in mind, but they don’t know about the life of the listener.

The listener applies his life to the music and there’s a new interpretation. That’s why a good song has so much power. It reaches into people’s lives. But to do that, there needs to be a sense of mystery. I’ve always tried to do that with detail. There’s this whole thing with great songwriters saying songs should be universal, but I actually think songs should be opposite—strangely specific and set in a place to make them real. I mean, still allow space for interpretation.

44

You said once that Suede writes about the used condom, not the beautiful bed. That kind of detail?

That’s not my favorite quote I ever said—but it keeps coming back. It must resonate with people’s vision of what the band is about. It’s quite a crass way of saying it, but I suppose it’s got some sort of truth. I always wanted to document the sort of grubby side of life.

I didn’t want to talk in rock cliché. ‘Baby, I love you!’ clichés. I wanted to sing about the world I saw around me, and the world I saw around me was the used condom. It was the dusty street, the flickering TV. It was that use of detail and the fact I was born in the U.K. that made me write about the U.K. in detail, and it became distorted into the cliché of what became Britpop later—but it was never this nationalistic, jingoistic intention. It was just a desire to write about the world I saw around me.

Did you have to feel like you were living a Suede song to write a Suede song?

I don’t feel I deliberately changed my lifestyle.

But I didn’t rein myself in. I felt justified in writing what I was writing—the right thing to do for my artistic vision was live the lifestyle I was singing about, but it’s kind of a chickenand-egg thing. I was living that, obviously.

But you can’t live that lifestyle forever and wanna remain alive. Things have to change.

I championed—well, I documented it, and then you realize that what you’re documenting is quite harmful.

Did you think you were going to end up on a prison ship like Dan Treacy?

Well, toward the end of the 90s, things started getting quite dark. Life was definitely changing. I thought, ‘Well, maybe we need to veer away from something.’ I always feel I’m slightly on dodgy ground when people talk about this whole concept of the artist as a damaged character—it’s such a powerful cliché that people really wanna believe in, and I think there’s so much great art made through clarity and sobriety. The damaged artist casts a huge shadow people sometimes can’t see beyond. Me personally, as an artist now I feel much more in control of my art.

Much more driven. Certainly more than I did ten years ago. But people need to believe in that sort of figure.

Jason Pierce said he started Spacemen 3 because of people like Roky Erickson and Alex Chilton—that he felt he could do what they did because they were flawed and not professional and perfect.

It’s the ultimate DIY ethic, isn’t it? The ultimate punk thing? Saying it doesn’t matter how incapable or damaged or all these pejorative adjectives you wanna apply—not you can still create art, but it almost makes your art more interesting or valid or gives it an edge you wouldn’t have if you weren’t damaged? Someone like Ian Dury—the ‘cripple as artist.’ It gives the audience a fascination, I think.

You said you were making music to find community in a fucked-up world. Did you ever find that community?

It’s always a search for some sort of community, isn’t it? There’s a line from one of the old songs, ‘New Generation.’ ‘We take the pills to find each other.’ A search for human … ownership or whatever. I don’t know. It’s strange to say because I’ve always conducted my career and Suede’s career almost as outsiders.

I’ve never felt accepted by the music industry.

I still don’t. I’ve never felt part of any sort of gang, and I never really wanted to be part of any gang. The only gang I’m part of is this weird disparate group of non-members—the ‘others’—and I’m quite happy in that role as well. I don’t jealously look at other people’s lives and wish I could be like that. I don’t have that search for community I used to have— maybe I realized the reality of things.

Does that mean it’s not out there? That it was never there? Can bands create these communities anymore?

That’s the definition of a decent band. They create a community. When I answered your question, it was in a personal sense. Whether I’ve found a community. But hopefully Suede as a band created a community. That was one of our real intentions—I loved bands like the Smiths who had this world you went into, with the sleeves and the reference points.

You very much immersed yourself. I wanted Suede to have that sense as well. Almost a strong Suede way of being. The Suede army, as someone once said.

If you didn’t find community, what did you find?

It made my life. It gave me all those things we were talking about earlier. It gave me everything. Gave me purpose in life. I wouldn’t ever advise anyone to do what I did! I’ve been incredibly lucky in my career.

99 percent of people who go into music won’t be as lucky. It is a lot to do with luck!

The fact I’ve met Bernard Butler—little things! I might never have met him, and we never would have written those songs and Suede would have been a very different band. I never just say, ‘This is what you should do!’ I was just confident and stupid enough to do what I did, and it just sort of worked! But some of the decisions I made—they were pretty rash!

Is it necessary to commit totally to being creative to be good at being creative? To jump in with no safety net?

Absolutely. You’ve gotta let yourself out there.

I didn’t even have an instrument to fall back on! ‘I believe I got enough of a voice to say something interesting, and I’m gonna do it.’

Confidence verging on stupidity that happened to pay off!

Does pop music defend the brave and stupid?

I think so. You have to push it as far as it’ll go.

Part of the reason the public loves pop music so much is the drama of the story. You have people who have no idea about the drama and just wanna listen to Phil Collins records and that’s fine, but there’s a whole other group of people that love the back story—how it’s made and why people fall out and fall in love.

It’s almost treating the world of music like you’re watching a soap opera and people love that.

Why do people fall in love?

Probably some sort of chemical function. I don’t wanna be unromantic about it but it fulfills a necessary function for the human race.

SUEDE WITH THE ARCADE FIRE, ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, DAEDELUS, RAS_G, THE HENRY CLAY PEOPLE, WIRE AND MORE ON SAT., APRIL 16, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVE. 51, INDIO. 11 AM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. VISIT SUEDE AT SUEDE.CO.UK. INTERVIEW

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HUNX

AND HIS PUNX Interview by Chris Ziegler Illustration by themegoman Hunx blew out of the desert right into the hearts of millions of teenagers everywhere, hyphenating years of admirably trashy Rip Off-style rock ‘n’ roll with his world-famous stint as one of the four heads of Gravy Train!!!!

His new record on Hardly Art is all Kim Fowley-cum-Phil Spector teenage tragedy rock and it sounds like Kenneth Anger’s Kustom Kar Kommandos looks. He speaks now while naked on Valentine’s Day. Where did you get the world’s tiniest leather-daddy jacket?

There’s this store down the street from my store called the Antique Center—I just saw it like, ‘Oh my god, I need that.’ His mom just gave it to me! I priced it at $50 because I feel anyone who wants to spend $50 on that is a really cool person and deserves it more than I do. But it wouldn’t even fit on a dick. Maybe a baby dick. Like a small man’s penis.

Like midget size?

Midgets could have a big one. You never know.

What animal print best shows off your manhood?

Leopard print! I’m over zebra. I’ve done all the animal prints. I think I’m one of the only men who wears animal print. I like getting it at thrift stores. I wore my Frederick’s of Hollywood one-piece underwear set all the time until someone stole it in Paris, and I just bought this silky men’s underwear at a thrift store the other day and I was wondering—is it gross to buy underwear from a thrift store?

But I always do it. I usually wash ’em. I don’t wanna have scabies again. I had to do this toxic treatment like nine times. It can cause brain damage.

What’s the most pleasurable way you ever damaged your brain?

Probably huffing Lysol. I think I wanted something else, but that’s all I had. I’ve just done spray paint, Lysol, whippits and that spray cleaner stuff—that’s the best! The lens cleaner’s what got me started. I don’t do it anymore, but every time I see a duster I kinda wanna huff it. It’s probably how an alcoholic feels when they see a bottle of whiskey.

What’s your best broken addiction?

Shopping? That’s up there. Doing pills and shopping at the same time. I’d take a bunch of painkillers and go to the drug store and walk around for hours and spend like $100 on stuff I didn’t need.

What’s the best present your high self ever got your sober self?

A tiger statue. I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ If you have money to spend, it’s better to go shopping when you’re high, but if you’re poor it’s not a good idea.

Are you at your sexual peak now?

I’m on my third sexual peak.

What’s a sexual valley like?

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That’s me being a weird celibate person for months on end. Then I think sex is disgusting. I had it in December and was like, ‘I’m never gonna have sex again!’ and I was totally grossed out by it. Then in January I had sex with like eight people.

Who broke the sex ban?

This footslave guy. He rubbed my feet for like an hour. It was a dream situation. The first time was in my bedroom but then I started going to his house because he had a flatscreen TV. I’d make him do my laundry and stuff and watch something really stupid like ‘Desperate Housewives.’

Mozart had a song called ‘Lick My Ass.’ Are you as dirty as Mozart?

No, he didn’t! It’s called ‘Lick My Ass’? He wanted his ass to get licked?

He also was into people shitting.

Wow—that’s cool. I’m not into shitting. I wrote this song called ‘I Vant to Suck Your Cock’ and the other side is gonna be called ‘Monster Mouth.’ So take that, Mozart!

What is the fastest way to your heart?

Candy. A lot. They gotta look cute, too. But I like sour candy.

If you had to die at the climax of a party you had organized, how and when would you want to go?

I always thought it’d be cool if my best friend kinda … killed me out of nowhere. Like I didn’t even know there was drama and they reached over and stabbed me. To death. It just seems like a surprise.

You’re so cheerful—you like candy and surprises!

I just think it sounds cool. I don’t wanna think about dying a slow painful death or killing myself, so it’d be cool if my friend just reached over and killed me.

Where if anywhere would you be uncomfortable showing your dick?

Anywhere my mom is, even though she’s already seen it—internet lurker! She was like, ‘Are you a porn star?’ I just told her it was for art. And that I couldn’t control it being on the internet and she got over it. I had to like really keep my Facebook on lockdown cuz I have 2,000 friends and most of ’em are people I don’t know, so once in a while someone would tag a naked photo of me and I’d have to rush to a computer to untag it in hopes that my mom wouldn’t see it. But I just saw

her and she told me she’s over Facebook, so I’m relieved. Now it’s on—tag away, people.

I actually used to have this strange obsession of taking naked pictures of myself. This is before cell phones. I had this camera with this really shitty remote and I would set up scenes of me with like giant stuffed animals, and I’d get a boner and take a million photos and I made this little binder of them.

Do you miss just having songs delivered to you by people begging to write for you?

I really do like it in a way. It’s a cool thing people don’t do anymore unless they’re huge stars. Like teen stars or pop stars. I’m really into it, actually. I’m still kind of doing that here and there—with Fred Schneider. I just recorded another album alone and played all the instruments, and I feel like people are like, ‘Whoa—you can play guitar? And drums?’ I think it’s slightly like a gay guy thing. As in how guys kind of back in the day … I don’t know if it’s like that anymore, but you know how people were like, ‘Oh, girls can’t do things.’ Like, ‘He can’t play! He just dresses crazy and acts nuts.’ But I can do it!

What else are you great at?

Being funny. I like comedy but I feel like everyone I know who’s a stand-up comedian can’t carry a normal conversation. They’re just always like trying out their routine while I’m trying to tell them something important.

I don’t wanna be like that. Sometimes on stage I can’t stop talking.

I heard you were rolling on the ground begging people to piss on you.

That is most likely a true story. The worst is if I get really high before a show, cuz then I was lying on the ground begging my band to slow down.

Why don’t you travel with like a nice lawn chair to lounge on?

Good idea alert!

Can we take a moment to acknowledge Michelle Santamaria who is now playing in your band? Who L.A. loved in the Pinkz and Bitchschool and Loli & the Chones?

Isn’t Michelle so great? Her guitar playing kills me. It made me cry. When we were recording, some of the songs were really sad.

I just got really into singing about sad stuff.

I’m not trying to make people cry, but after so long, you wanna sing about something kind of serious.

‘Blow Me Away’ is about your father?

Yeah, that’s about my dad. I feel like if you love someone and they die, the nicest thing you can do is write a song for them. Just to help me get over something—or I don’t know. It just feels really respectful.

Is it true you wake up in the middle of the night and do demos of sad songs you don’t remember in the morning?

Yes—that’s what I recorded an album of.

One’s called ‘Say Goodbye Before You Leave.’

It’s about Jay Reatard. I was so bummed.

Did you ever think of doing like the plaster-caster thing and selling collectible Hunx dildos?

I really wanted to sell whips! When we were on tour with Jay and Nobunny, Nobunny had this little whip and I stole it and I’d whip everybody. I woke up one day with a whip in my handbag like, ‘What happened last night?’ Actually, I’m really tame in my life now unless I’m on tour.

What’s the scariest state?

I almost got murdered for being gay at a Dairy Queen in the middle of Texas. Then Brontes got a blow-job at the next truck stop.

We were on tour with our friends V.I.P.—an all-gay rap group. It was actually two fathers and two sons, the people who wanted to beat us up. A double father-son attack team!

What’s the opposite of this? The most romantic experience in Texas?

What happened at the next truck stop.

L.A. RECORD PRESENTS HUNX AND HIS PUNX WITH SHANNON AND THE CLAMS AND GRASS WIDOW ON FRI., APR. 8, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $10-$12. ATTHEECHO.COM. AND ON WED., MAR. 16, AT BRGR SXSW AT TRAILERSPACE RECORDS, 1401-A ROSEWOOD, AUSTIN. 1 PM / FREE / ALL AGES. AND ON SAT., MAR. 19, AT THE VOLAR/IHATEROCKNROLL/ COLONEL ABE PRESENTS SHOW AT TRAILERSPACE RECORDS, AUSTIN. TRAILERSPACERECORDS.BLOGSPOT.COM. HUNX AND HIS PUNX’ TOO YOUNG TO BE IN LOVE IS OUT NOW ON HARDLY ART. VISIT HUNX AND HIS PUNX AT MYSPACE.COM/ HUNXSOLO. INTERVIEW

TOKIMONSTA Interview by Kristina Benson Photography by Theo Jemison

Tokimonsta is a piano-student-turned-producer who makes beats for Brainfeeder.

Her new Creature Dreams EP comes out in May and fans of her All City and Art Union releases will be happy to know that she picks up where she left off. Toki speaks now about girls, touring, and the danger of knowing too much.

You said you started listening to hip-hop because you grew up in Torrance and you didn’t want to be like the other kids.

The kids I grew up with were listening to Green Day and Blink-182 and stuff. I felt like there was more to music than that. When I found hip-hop—even at that point West Coast gangsta rap or New York rap or local underground hip-hop, like L.A. hip-hop—I found something that really spoke to me.

That was an age where hip-hop didn’t have this weird hip-hop-pop fusion. Hip-hop was very much its own category, and not pop. It could get popular and not the same. I found it fascinating—it’s not even just the lyrics.

When I listened to rap, I didn’t listen to the rhymes—just the cadence. Which is probably why I make beats. I liked the idea of instrumental music a lot. With early rap, you just heard how they could kind of rock the beat with their rhymes.

You said in another interview that you like things that are really chill or really angry.

What’s missing from the middle?

I pull from really diverse things that are polar opposites. I think people feel like they have to maintain a certain consistency—like all their music should sound like one style and it should all sound the same. That’s not how I am. One minute I might listen to bossa nova, but I also love death metal or something random. With my music and taste, I suppose it’s just a matter of how that translates into my music, since I’m just a product of my influences. And my influences and who I am is like the calm and the crazy. There really is a middle but I draw from the opposites.

You said you were an ‘unfocused student of classical piano,’ but you stuck with it for ten years. Why? That was by force. It wasn’t willingly so I don’t think I was a very good student. With my family, it’s a running joke that I couldn’t play a single song from beginning to end. That’s because when I like to play music, I actually only like to play the parts of the songs that I like. It’s like my early rudimentary form of sampling, I guess—only taking the parts I like and then playing them until my family went berserk on me.

But Mozart did that—he just called it ‘Variations on a Theme.’

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I should bring that up to them! They always say, ‘You’re a musician now but you weren’t very good at playing piano!’ I try to kind of convince them there’s a reason why I played piano the way I did, but it doesn’t quite click with them.

What do you think you got out of piano lessons that you bring to your music now?

Musical sense and musicality. I have that music theory kind of ingrained into me. Because I had piano lessons, I’m able to translate my taste in music into actual musical notes. I kind of came from the hip-hop scene originally and most of the beatmakers I knew didn’t know how to play an instrument. They were just really good at doing the drumming and picking samples. I felt I had the opportunity to play more complex melodies, more layers. Maybe my music doesn’t have the razzle-dazzle and as many effects as some other people, you know, but it’s really technical—I kind of brought the technique to what I was playing instead.

Do you ever feel hindered by knowing so much theory?

It has definitely placed a box around how I approach music. I really taught myself not to be bound by the rules. There are things you’re taught that work and things you’re taught that don’t work. The inspiration I had was just from looking outside. I realized someone like Sun Ra—who can play very straightforward, very musical jazz—never felt obligated to theory. He went really out there and the stuff that came out was so meaningful. Even with my peers and friends and the people at Brainfeeder, it’s not like many of them took lessons and learned to play instruments. Except Austin Peralta. That’s different. You get more creative the less you know, so with people who never took piano or any kind of instrument as a kid, the way they approach music is really refreshing. They’re not just going the way they were taught because they were never taught a specific way.

Mary Anne Hobbs referred to you as one of her favorite ‘female producers,’ and I think every time I read something about you, it’s like this main point: She’s FEMALE and she MAKES BEATS! Does that get old?

It does get old pretty fast. The way that people referred to me was, ‘She’s a female beatmaker,’ but it’s not even that—then they go, ‘Oh

she’s Asian,’ so it gets compounded. ‘She’s an Asian female beatmaker.’ It’s like, ‘Come on!

I’m so much more than that!’ As a musician, you don’t want people to focus on superficial things—you want them to focus on the music, you know? I don’t want people to really get stuck on these really kitschy points. Who gives a fuck if I’m a girl? Who gives a fuck if I’m this or that? What matters is if the music is good or not. One thing good about this scene in particular is it’s not like any of us are plastered on TV where your fans rely on how you look. It’s kind of a faceless scene—unless you go out a lot, when are you ever going to see these artists? You realize people can’t rely on what you look like, so they have to rely on the music. I’ve had conversations about this with Steve [Ellison, a.k.a Flying Lotus]—about how it really bothers me that people want to find a theme and kind of run with it. Like with him: ‘Oh you’re Alice Coltrane’s grandnephew or whatever.’ But if something like that gets someone to say, ‘This sounds interesting—a female beatmaker? I’ll check it out!’ and that person likes it, I guess it’s not a bad thing. It could be a blessing in disguise. My whole career I’m sure I’ll just have to struggle to get people to focus more on the producer aspect and less on the female aspect.

Do you think it matters if there are other women in music?

I just don’t want to be stuck in a box and be about femininity and woman power and all that … the music matters the most. I guess it doesn’t matter, I suppose? If they want it to matter, that’s cool too because at least I know that some people will be more motivated by seeing me—a girl will be more motivated by seeing other female musicians. I know a few little girls that have spoken to me and are like, ‘How do you even get started making beats?

How do you get into it?’ If they see I can do it, they might be motivated to try a little harder.

When I was an undergraduate, one of my voice teachers said to me that she quit singing opera professionally because she became a slave to her voice—her voice had become so important that she as a person wasn’t important anymore. Do you ever feel that way about music?

I’ve kind of come to terms with the fact that people don’t pay for music anymore so most

of my income is from playing shows. It’s exhausting and I feel like I don’t exist when I’m on tour. It’s fun and not fun at the same time. On tour you kind of feel like you’re in limbo. I’m starting to get a little better at making tracks when I’m away. I feel like people glamorize it. ‘You get to go to all these foreign countries—travel!’ Yeah, but I don’t really get to look at anything! You meet a lot of really cool people—which is one good thing. And very inspiring.

How do you approach live sets? Is it different than what you put out as recordings?

When I play live I use Ableton and a controller and it’s like arranging music live. It’s more like live remixes of my own music. You pick and choose what you want to play—put one drum pattern onto a different song. The audience can feel more involved that way because being behind a laptop is kind of a cold visual aspect. I’ve done this live set so many times that I have it at a level where I can turn off the music and talk to the people in the audience. I did that at Low End Theory for my birthday. There was a couple that was dry-humping in front of me, and I called them out and poked fun.

Why does your music arouse such wanton sexual impulses in the audience?

I didn’t know my music brought this out of people. I’m still on that tip where I want people to relate to it more emotionally. To make people a little bit more sensitive to themselves.

If they hear something and it makes them want to move, or that song makes them think, ‘This is what I want to listen to when I’m in love!’ or something like that … that would be more rewarding to me. Let’s put it this way: If the world ever gets underpopulated, I guess I could do my part to help.

TOKIMONSTA WITH DURAN DURAN, HEALTH, KANYE WEST, KODE 9, MEN, PJ HARVEY, TAKE, WIZ KHALIFA AND MORE ON SUN., APRIL 17, AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO FIELD, 81-800 AVE. 51, INDIO. 11 AM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. TOKIMONSTA’S CREATURE DREAMS EP IS FORTHCOMING ON BRAINFEEDER. VISIT TOKIMONSTA AT TOKIMONSTA.COM. 51

MIKE WATT Interview by Daiana Feuer Photography by Ward Robinson

Mike Watt is a wise man. The Minutemen bassist rediscovered nature some time ago riding a bicycle around San Pedro. But there was a time in his life when his leg kept falling off. He’s full of facts about birds absorbed from Stooges drummer, Scotty Asheton, over the years—knowledge he relishes like a librarian. Watt recently released Hyphenated-Man, an existential opera and surreal expression of Watt’s head broken into 30 mirror pieces, each piece inhabited by a creature from a Hieronymus Bosch painting: 30 evil beings that reside in a man’s mind, rather than reality.

You seem to know about a lot of things. Do you like to learn?

Well, the drummer of Stooges is way into nature—Scotty. He teaches me a lot. When I started riding bicycle again, maybe 38 years old, I started riding and listening. This guy moved to Atlanta and sold me a 10-speed for $5 and every morning early, hardly anybody out, I’d ride and I started hearing things that I didn’t really hear before, like birds, even the ocean. We got wild conures from Chile, and these parrots got free and started their own flocks. I got a car when I was 16 and I stopped riding bicycle. I said, ‘This is for little kids.’ I was an asshole. I figure myself to have been one. The car just separates you so much.

Instead of the rhythm of the motor it’s your own rhythm pedaling, but it was rough on my knees—so about eight years ago I started kayaking every other day and that’s a listening thing too, when you’re at sea. You have to be kind of conscious but you’re part of this thing.

You get out past the breakers and there’s dolphins, sea lions and pelicans. Pelicans have no song. They’re quiet. No song. Maybe as a baby they do, but not the adults, none. They’re the only bird I know like that. I saw an albatross once. They’re giant, wow. Some albatrosses don’t land for five or six years, the wandering albatross. Birds are interesting.

Is it important to commune with nature?

It is. We forget about that. We can’t even see the stars because of the lights. In the old days, the stars was everything.

What wisdom can you learn from the birds?

Well, shit—they can fly! So it’s kind of a transcending quality there. They have a weird spirit resonance—maybe cuz they can fly, maybe cuz they’re eye creatures. They’re really about INTERVIEW

looking. I just think they’re amazing. When I was young I was way into dinosaurs. And now they’re pretty convinced dinosaurs weren’t lizards—they were birds. So maybe that’s part of it, our little versions of dinosaurs.

What wisdom have you gained from seeing the world change?

There’s plenty to learn. Life’s about learning.

You get it too figured out, you’re going to miss out on that. What’d Scotty tell me? He was talking about birds, and he said, ‘Mike, you got to keep the child’s eye of wonder.’ So being around a little bit, that’s what I’ve gained.

There’s always someone around who has something to teach me. Younger people, older people, middle ones like me. Work against getting cynical and fed up with everything.

Any advice about falling in love?

I think getting into it is OK. Try to be genuine with it. There’s so many archetypes that are pushed on us about what it’s supposed to be. I think everyone has their own idea about that so you have to find that inner voice in you that’s genuine to those feelings. I don’t really understand it as being a planned-out thing.

A lot of it is having compassion and helping somebody when they’re in a nightmare.

I remember once my knee went out in high school in the field and everyone was laughing at me. This one guy went and scooped me up and ran with me in his arms to the locker room. His name was—we didn’t have first names, really—his name was Castaneda, I remember. He could hardly speak English.

He was just the sweetest guy to do that for me. Beautiful. This was 35 years ago and I still think, ‘Where is he now?’ He didn’t have to do that and didn’t expect anything from it. He just wanted to—he had to, and that was very sweet, very loving.

That’s the grander kind of love. Is romantic love similar?

Yeah—he put himself out there. Everyone was laughing but he followed his own prerogative.

It was brave and romantic love is brave in some ways. Willing to share with somebody and be honest about it—not have an agenda for some other shit, not using it Machiavelli, but just pure feelings. Both are similar. Do you mean also physical? A lot of times when people are physical, I don’t know if there’s a lot of love involved. It’s a personal thing. It’s interesting. It’s a big force in the world.

Aside from getting a job, it’s what you’re supposed to do.

Love is, yeah. The hermit thing is kind of frowned on.

How is being a musician related to love?

It’s weird in a way. It’s expression and almost like foisting yourself, which isn’t too generous.

It’s like ‘the possibility.’ You fall in love with the idea of possibility. You do something and maybe it gives you an angle on trying something else out and you love the interest that can pull you into that. It feels like genuine expression of yourself and not doing the same-o trot-out-some-march. If you can engage something in real time and be what you think you are. But because of ‘possibility,’ it’s what you can become too. You can change, maybe even transcend. Sometimes that’s an idea of love—transcend some very brutal reality. You can do that with expression. John Fogerty wasn’t born on the bayou, but when you hear that song you think he’s on the bayou and he’s got all these images going that are very romantic and it’s OK. They become allegorical.

‘Proud Mary,’ I never thought it was about a river boat. He’s talking about the universe and the wheels turning. Things can end up

like that. That’s how I do it and keep at it and don’t get all jaded or think this is just to service a lifestyle—which is what? Shit-hoarding objects? There’s something about creating the works, especially now. The gigs are important, too. I’ve done that a long time and still will, but the works—for someone like me who never had children—the closest thing is these works. In a way you make them, but then they have a life of their own. They’re a lot like children. They’re here after you. When you’re not here you can’t do gigs anymore. But if you do works ... For example, Bosch’s paintings. If he just talked about those things, I wouldn’t be here getting help from him with my imagery. So I’m grateful he made some works.

What’s your allegory? What do you romanticize?

Being a middle-aged punk rocker, it’s this idea of being combatant in the culture—playing the stuff no one else will play, shit like this. It’s kinda still like from when I was first a punk rocker. I still have that romanticized idea. Not like you’re better than anybody but you’re going to get out there and play your songs.

You’re going to make a gig. It’s like a little mission. If you look at it that way, it’s not “I Love Lucy”—this week mayonnaise, next week pizzas. You have an ensemble, you try to make an interesting conversation. You have to fight against expectations or then it just becomes shtick and people are sleepwalking. The whole idea of being awake. That’s why when we first got involved with the movement, it was like, ‘These guys can hardly play but they had this energy to be expressive.’ Actually we never thought of music as expression. We thought it was, ‘Oh, this is how we hang out.’ We never thought, ‘Oh, you might have some kind of feelings that you might need to get out.’

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‘Mike, you got to keep the child’s eye of wonder.’

Is it about making noise?

It might be noise. It depends where you are, what people think is noise or what’s music. What’s that called? Aesthetic. Before the Minutemen, me and D Boon, after school, we would jam along to records. Then with punk it was like, we’re going to write some songs, we’re going to play in front of people.

That was a whole different idea. I didn’t know about clubs until punk. I’m 13 in 1970 so my teen years is arena rock. You’re in the dark sitting very far away. We didn’t think we could be part of that, although I ended up playing big pads later. When you went to a punk club, you could imagine doing that. The first thing I said to D Boon was, ‘Man, we can do this!’

They’d be in the audience after they played. It was a whole different scene and this intense way of wanting to be individuals. I didn’t see that with arena rock. It was distant and far and a version of hearing the record. The band was an 1/8 of an inch high. I didn’t even know the bass had thicker strings, I was so far away.

I never saw one up close. The first few years I just played a guitar with four strings. I just left two strings off. Music wasn’t as accessible to young people as it is now. It was probably worse in the 1950s and 60s. Although in the 60s there was a big garage scene and playing clubs, but it got lost in the 1970s when rock got so huge. After punk, counterculture never died. It goes down a little but it wasn’t like the 1970s—just only arena rock. You could play backyards and you had to play covers— ‘Great White Buffalo’ by Ted Nugent for half an hour. You had to play stuff that people knew. Like the 1930s with the swing bands, the whole idea of singing your own song was not happening. That’s why the punk movement wasn’t a style of music. It was a way of thinking about it. 1970s punk in Hollywood was different from the hardcore of the 1980s.

In the 70s it was more like artist people being experimental, kinda being anti-rock ‘n’ roll.

Is electronic music anti-rock ‘n’ roll?

These guys playing laptops and stuff? Trippy.

At the end of the day, it’s all sounds. Just maybe the sound’s already made and they’re pushing the buttons. I hate to be too judgmental because so many places in life, people can’t pick.

People have only so much control over their life, so when they go to a gig, they should be able to pick. I know they can only pick from what’s available but I try to be loose and not so heavy about the heavy shit-shit-shit.

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Speaking of heavy shit—this opera, Hyphenated-Man, you kind of go through every kind of shit in a person.

Those little men—I used Bosch in creating those creatures but I was also thinking of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. The scarecrow, the tin man and the lion, they’re the farm hands. ‘You were there! And you were there!’

And Dorothy is tripping out. I know a man wrote it, L. Frank Baum—and it seemed like she was tripping out on ‘Look what guys do to be guys?!’ That’s the big heavy thing on the ‘midlife crisis’—guys start worrying.

Is this your midlife crisis?

In a way, midlife is not that bad. The body is lamer but there’s some real good things. You have experiences you don’t have when you’re younger. A lot of guys are plugged into a situation a long time. I have been with music, but my dilemma comes up all the time. What’s the next thing I’m going to write? It’s not like I had to wait until midlife. Every time the last record got old, I have this crisis. How do I reinvent myself? Is it time to reinvent? What’s it about? My life half full, half empty? I think it’s important to think about these things, but to pretend you’re 20 again is a freak-out. That’s what some guys do, get the convertible.

Is your glass half full or half empty?

I’ve got a lot of projects right now because I’m fearful of half empty, or more than half.

When you get a really good idea and you know it’s good, are you ever worried that it’s your best?

I’m worried about dying before I get the good shit out. One of the best records I played on was 25 years ago with the Minutemen— Double Nickels on the Dime. 26 years now.

27? 26 and a 1/2. It was the summer of 1984.

That shit is scary. Whether you get it together, whether people will like it. It’s like never leaving school—you have to get up in front of class and read your stupid report. Some people are born entertainers, like Ig, James Brown, John Coltrane—it seems they can plow into it and they don’t get scared.

Do you get scared?

Totally! But I’ve been doing it a while so there’s some momentum that pushes me through the doubt nightmare. Just saying something’s about middle age sounds gross. I remember being a kid. We knew old, we knew young, we didn’t really think about middle. As you get into the twenties, middle sounds really lame—then it’s there. The body part is lamer,

but the experience part is not. I would not want to go through the young shit again. The twenties? No way! So stupid. It’s hard but you got to learn by making mistakes. That’s how you get experience for the other days, if it doesn’t kill you.

What’s going on with your knee? You were wobbling hardcore.

It’s fucking lame.

Can you tell me a really bad knee story?

Yeah, fuck, every time— How about one of the worst?

Once it went out on stage and, of course, my whole body collapses. My bass is still strapped to me so when I go down to the deck, it follows me down and this peg hits me in the tooth and knocks it all the way back and I go into deep shock. I put my leg back together and no more pain, right, so I reach into the back of my mouth and pull my tooth forward and back in place. And it didn’t die.

You just put it back?

Yeah—I felt it under my eye. They’re long, your teeth. I pulled it back. [Since you can’t see Watt’s physical demonstration, imagine a loose fence post still attached at the top being yanked back then pushed back down so it’s vertical like the others again. The logic behind that game at the fair where you throw a ball at a big mouth is based on real teeth mechanics.]

Do you have to put your knee back in place often?

I did that time. This knee today is more ligaments.

Were you like Forrest Gump as a child?

It came more and more in my teens. Early twenties I had to have surgeries. I have this disease where parts of your body grow at different speed so all the geometry gets fucked up. It’s a congenital gift.

Do you fear judgment? Do you believe in the afterlife?

Whenever you deal with another human being you should be aware of that idea, really. That would make for a better place, conscious of the moment and not waiting for the hereafter. If in the moment we could think, ‘Hey, am I treating this person OK?’ And hopefully they’re thinking the same thing, instead of putting it off. People get caught up in trends and what’s supposed to be and they can’t feel what’s right. A little humility. That’s what the afterlife judgment is supposed to be for—to make people a lit-

tle more humble. Some use that philosophy as another stick to beat over people’s heads and say they’re better than others who don’t agree with them.

Isn’t the intention to help you navigate your life?

That gets taken to weird things. Humility: ‘Whoa, I might be wrong.’ People are afraid of doubt or collaboration. It’s tricky. There’s no easy way in it. But it seems like a lot of the ways we take are pretty fucking brutal with each other, which I don’t think is so cool.

Who is your favorite ‘man’ in the opera?

I like wheel-bound-man. In fact, there was a big change. I had him in the middle and I was going to end with man-shitting-man but I was thinking, ‘Man, thank you, Mr. Bosch for little creatures but I don’t want to get caught up in the big picture, reading left to right and so judgmental.’ I thought, ‘Let’s lay back here—people can be very bad to each other and you have to be conscious of that, but it’s too cynical of a thing for me.’ So in the studio with Tony I said I want to change the order and put wheel-bound last. In a wheel, maybe you get another shot. Like the kid on a skateboard, you fall off you can get back up— not forever off this gameboard. Some of that last judgment stuff is just too heavy.

Is there a man with the most of you in him?

All of them. They’re all different parts of me. I try to describe it as a mirror broke in my head in 30 pieces. So it’s kind of a funhouse mirror. Things are distorted and, obviously for the drama of the piece, I weirded out—but they’re all part of me. Even the lame things. I don’t want to be the man-shitting-man.

But isn’t that brave to admit it?

That’s the only way you can change—confronting certain shit. That’s the whole thing too about confronting myself. If there’s one message that comes out, I really think everybody has something to teach me. My life is for learning so it’s OK being where I’m at—this part of the classroom at this point in time.

MIKE WATT AND THE MISSINGMEN WITH LE BUTCHERETTES ON FRI., MAR. 11, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $10$12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. MIKE WATT’S HYPHENATED-MAN IS OUT NOW ON CLENCHEDWRENCH. VISIT MIKE WATT AT HOOTPAGE.COM. INTERVIEW

The New Fidelity “California Summer” New 7” Single on White Vinyl Out Now

Available in Europe through Butterfly Records or in the US mailed to your door for $7 Email info@newfidelity.com for Paypal instructions

ALBUMS

EDITED BY DAN COLLINS

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ALBUM REVIEWS

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THE INTERPRETER: ANDY CORONADO Chris Ziegler THE INTERPRETER: REBEKAH RAFF Kristina Benson

ART

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POEMS BY TIM PRESLEY CLEVELAND CONFIDENTIAL Chris Ziegler BOOK AND ZINE REVIEWS THE INTRUSION Gabe Hart

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ALBUM REVIEWS

A.D.L.R.

ELSA HENDERSON

Foam on the Waves of Space-Time...

Non Projects Foam on the Waves of Space-Time… is as complex as its title suggests; it’s a gentle exploration of classically-informed ambient electronics, warped beats, drone minimalism, and astral jazz, with hints of early Aphex Twin and Squarepusher seeping in quietly. This is a.d.l.r.’s debut and the third release on Anenon’s budding experimental electronics label Non Projects, and fits naturally alongside the worlds of My Hollow Drum and Brainfeeder as it oscillates between thrilling chaos and sleepy softness. a.d.l.r. starts out with pulses of gorgeous shimmery synth textures and lovely barely-there breaths woven in with “Supreme Sunlight” before gliding through “Tactility of Time,” which sounds like time itself being uncoiled and stretched apart. Most remarkable is “The Softest Shade of Purple of a Powdery Hue,” an asteroid-dented trip through the cosmos accented with rhythmic thuds and echoing pops, as if Teebs rode the drone of Roland Kirk’s “Celestial Bliss.” “Personal Grids” is much more boisterous and aggressive, with haunting processed vocals chiming in. Closer “The Systems” drones and buzzes in waves across a.d.l.r.’s cosmic landscape. Chances are you’ve already missed out on owning Foam on the Waves because only 100 cassettes were made in the first edition, but luckily a second of 100 red tapes is on its way. ­—Lainna Fader

Akron/Family has never not gone big, and this newest record, written on the side of a Japanese volcano and recorded in an abandoned Detroit train station, is no different. In typically AF fashion, the band hits its most astronomic high on track one—the first chords of “Silly Bear” strike you like a lightning bolt that billows its way right through you, and before you know it, you’re off on a metaphysical journey, the kind of trip that makes you feel like you’ve released your inner holographic power animal (a la Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light).

The music itself feels like it’s been raised on heavy doses of richly hued, stylized folk music mingled with Americana and garage-y bits like those the rubber city of Akron, Ohio, has become famous for in the last half decade. However, it would be unfair to pigeonhole the band into such limited categories, because one thing that always sets Akron/Family apart is their ability to completely change up the style and shape of each piece of music they play in a matter of minutes: cataclysmic moments separate those sheens of beautiful harmony from these carefully extracted gems of unsterilized tribalized pop. But this is a “journey,” and the record maneuvers along an arc that closes with smaller-sounding songs, such as “Fuji II,” which possess an abundant and opulent beauty. Sonically this effect is similar to the beating of E.T.’s heart as, at the end of the movie, he finally gets to go home. ­—Gab Chabran

ELSA HENDERSON

ALLAH-LAS “Catamaran” 45 PRES Record Co.

VALERIA HERRADOR

AKRON/FAMILY

S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey Of Shinju TNT Dead Oceans 58

Two cool-cloudy-creepy songs that come from the secret side of the 60s—the kind of songs they bootleg cuz no reputable company cares to be aware, from the kind of bands who come and go in the space of one weird lonely howl. Greg Shaw once said this kind of thing was bottomless,

and I agree—it’s music that goes down forever, and Allah-Las don’t mind a night dive, so here we are.

I feel like we’ve got two separate but converging sounds at work with this 45. First, we’ve got British bands whose only conception of America was as a lawless Bizarro World where the surf smashed right into the swamp and tough old bluesmen protected themselves with loaded pistols and hoodoo, and so they wrote to sound like that—Nashville Teens, early Pretty Things, and the Animals, when no one was there to tell Eric Burdon to take a deep clean breath. And second, we got American bands who already had lawless bizarro-land installed in their heads—“We’re ALL heads,” as a wise man once said—and just tried to fake straight long enough to not get arrested on the way to the record company, which is Safe As Milk Beefheart, 13th Floor Elevators, the Seeds, Fred Cole’s Lollipop Shoppe, etc. Allah-Las are somewhere in between, and what that gets us now is laid-back lope-along songs that (like the Elevators, or like a chunk of junk you peel out of the muck at the beach) are just wriggling with secret life underneath. “I’m gonna get you, girl… ” they sing only once on A-side “Catamaran,” but they should sing it about sixtysix times (like the Troggs surely would have) because it seizes perfectly the menace and romance of a monster in love. Nice bristly guitar line and organ played most likely by a single thorny thumb—possibly producer Nick Waterhouse?—elevates this way past the “like surfsville, man!” (or “like creepsville!”) vibe that sinks a lot of these bands. B-side “Long Journey” crabs along under a cool tick-tock rhythm line and fuzz guitar kinda like “Journey To Tyme”—all the same journey, anyway. Beware or possibly enjoy.

—Chris Ziegler

IGOR JACKSON

LISA STROUSS

AMANDA JO WILLIAMS

AUSTIN PERALTA

Migrating from the populated and frenetic, sweaty plains of her recent live performances, Ms. Jo Williams has descended into dank, wooded forests; the sun is fading. Here, there’s a walloping loneliness in her voice, as if there may not be anyone out there anymore, and even the crickets have gone quiet. This is rough; like haunted field recordings from a quiet apocalypse, her tiny guitar and warbling singing often the only instruments, save for reverbsoaked, ambient sounds. Despite the howls in the distance, she remains a mystic, skirting some line between aged contemplation and the weird, awesome rambling of young children when left to their own devices.

And from that mixture comes something difficult and joyful. There is an expansive, a hopefulness, that constantly overwhelms whatever encroaching darkness is suggested.

Near the end of ‘Homeheart,’ her nonsense chorus is suddenly visited by a quick shock of percussion. On “Blue Toy Airplane,” she’s joined by her young son who duets on lyrics about Trader Joe’s balloons, and it’s just too fucking cute, really. In other contexts, it could seem like a throwaway song, but coming late in the album as it does, it repurposes everything as a type of ghost-filled lullaby.

If the woods go quiet, fill them with noise.

—Gerard Olson

Brainfeeder is a label of ever-expanding invention, the cosmic heir to the pioneering spirit of Impulse! Records and StrataEast. Like those jazz giants before them, Brainfeeder thrums with a collective energy, synthesizing each artist’s unique sound and story into a single, shared cosmology. To those reared only on squelching electronics, Austin Peralta’s Endless Planets must seem to exist somewhere out on the periphery of that universe: pure, instrumental jazz beyond even Ras_G’s solar-myth approach. Peralta picked up piano at age 5 and was already touring internationally while the rest of us were grappling with the intricacies of parallel parking. Endless Planets is the 20-year-old’s first album released stateside, and one that more readily recalls jazz history written by Charles Mingus and Max Roach than records spawned in the alternate reality of Madlib’s Yesterdays New Quintet. More often than not, Endless Planets laces up its desert boots and treads the same territory as McCoy Tyner’s Sahara, sandy winds blowing hot across “Capricornus” and “Algiers.” Peralta strikes with speed, fast-fingered flourishes bubbling up from the currents of “The Underwater Mountain Odyssey” and a sweet solo sapping “Ode to Love.” But Peralta also knows when to recede into the background of his band, which has the young, eminently talented Zane Musa on alto sax, Ben Wendel on tenor and soprano sax, Hamilton Price on bass and Zach Harmon on drums. There are celestial electronics courtesy of Strangeloop and the Cinematic Orchestra, too, but Endless Planets isn’t about bridging electronic music and jazz. For Peralta, and Brainfeeder, they’re one in the same.

—Miles Clements

Mary’s Big Feet EP NocturnalSol

ALBUM REVIEW SUBMISSIONS L.A. RECORD invites all local musicians to send music for review­—anything from unreleased MP3s and demos to finished full albums. Send digital to danc@larecord. com and physical to:

P.O. Box 21729 Long Beach, CA 90801 If you are in a band and would like to advertise your release in L.A. RECORD, email lainna@larecord.com

Endless Planets Brainfeeder

ALBUM REVIEWS

DAVE VAN PATTEN

BABY DEE Regifted Light Drag City

There’s a huge back story behind this album: how Baby Dee was friends with Andrew W.K., and one day Andrew moved to a new loft in Brooklyn and couldn’t lug his grand piano up the stairs, so he gave it to Baby Dee and then produced her album in a full-on New York manner with hardwood floors and models everywhere and Vincent Gallo smiling down from above—but pinch that bilious loaf from the colon of your mind! Truth is, they had to make up a sexy byline because Regifted Light is a straight-up classical music record, with nary an Icelandic House Beat to weaken it on its way to an NPR soft-sell. But you know what? If you really listen with open ears, this album is a fabulous classical album. I mean that both in a sublime/transcendent way and in a sitcom, gay-best-friend way: in a way, it’s a musical, anchored by vocal ditties straight out of an offBroadway play (once again, the Big Apple!), most of which sound a bit like the delivery from Oklahoma but with a Bootleg Theater sense of smirk, especially in “The Pie Song,” in which a tenor rants about wanting to chow down on some fucking pie! You need the levity, because quite a bit of this album is instrumental chamber symphonies somewhere between Gershwin and the Kronos Quartet: not groundbreaking, but enveloping and luscious.

And in just the right crowd, maybe they could get a party started.

—Dan Collins

DAVE VAN PATTEN

BART DAVENPORT Searching for Bart Davenport Tapete ALBUM REVIEWS

Something golden, something new: a dozen songs borrowed to craft an album stunningly hued.

This East Bay veteran bard marks his 5th successful solo voyage with Searching for Bart Davenport, an eclectic collection of songs intended to seamlessly stitch the fabric of Davenport’s heterogeneous career into a cohesive full sail. Each chosen tune serves as a reflective marker, collectively building a beguiling homage to the peers and looming legends that nurtured the Davenport narrative. Gently radiating through the background are the neo-psychedelic vibrations of Broadcast, Norwegian folk-pop duo Kings of Convenience, and Davenport peer Greg Moore’s criminally inconspicuous sidecar Sandycoates.

Vision quest supervisors range from the truly ‘Incredible’ Stringband to silky chanteuse Bridget St. John, multi-faceted David Byrne, and late great Arthur Lee’s Love.

There are subtle differences of spirit channeled here, but the core distillate is a unifying theme of subversive soul-folk seduction. It’s never quite often and frequently rare to slip into a record of cover songs so captivating! When listening to Searching for Bart Davenport, these songs’ imperceptible fusion with the faint blue glow of a beloved Marantz is an exploding fantastic inevitable.

—Mae Moreno

the tracks on End It All also feature playfully futuristic beats that commune with Beans’ fast-paced musings. The juxtaposition of past and future within each song jars listeners because it doesn’t sound natural. Typically when hip-hop refers to the past, it’s through samples. Beans’ absurdist flow refers back to some kind of past element of humanity (and yes, also to 1980s hip-hop legends) while looking forward. It’s no wonder he tapped TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe to sing on “Mellow You Out,” as that dude’s band also perfectly combines past, present and future as a representation of New York City. On the Grandmaster Flash-inspired “Air Is Free,” Beans proclaims “I’m retro in the sense that it’s good.” And it’s good because like the dreams of the past, its promise can’t be contained. Maybe the song’s a political diatribe, but Beans takes the song so many places, throughout so many of his synapses—at the end you know you just heard something familiar, but you also know you couldn’t keep up. That’s a Beans song.

—Jeremiah Griffey

LAUREN BENSON

BENBENEK Jesus A Go-Go self-released

TOMMY STEWART

BEANS End It All Anticon

After never really feeling 2007’s Thorns, I approached End It All with a sense of cautious optimism. But when I pressed play on “Superstar Destroyer” and my 11-month-old son started dancing that primitive baby dance (the one where babies just bounce up and down) for the first time to something other than “Twinkle Twinkle,” I knew Beans still had it. When he’s at his best, avantrap’s cantankerous godfather hits on some kind of primordial level, spewing freely associated elements of his surrealist id. But many of

Bedroom-rocker Benbenek has come out with a great Christmas album, Jesus a Go-Go, just in time for Easter! Less a gift for our savior than a celebration of motorized Long Beach livin’ (song titles have our narrator cleaning out his car and giving a shout-out to Golden Burger), Jesus a Go-Go really taps into what it’s like to drive around the LBC, staring at neighborhood church marquees and reminiscing about 70s television.

Even the cover songs evoke classic rock radio: his version of Van Halen’s “Runnin’ With the Devil” mashed up with Dave Essex’s “Rock On” over lazily jangled Strange Boys guitar (and outof-the-box GarageBand drums) is one of the best tunes on the whole shebang, until you get near the end of the album and hear his unironic take on “More Than a

Oh, if the road was a rabbit for Elmer Fudd, he would take a deep breath of L.A. city air and declare touring season aloud, and then probably hack up a lung. Just as these issues are going to Austin, so am I. After all, I play in the band the Cigarette Bums and we’ve got a new 7” out and really enjoy the trips.

While touring, we’ve had the chance to meet bands like Boats!

(Sactown, and playing Redwood March 18 and San Diego the March 19th), Numerators (TX), Dead Ghosts (Vancouver and playing Psychic Lunch / Play Pinball Showcase in Austin the 19th), Clorox Girls (PDX and Long Beach!), Bare Wires (San Francisco officially playing SXSW), Midnite Snaxxx and Religious Girls (both Oakland). Some of these have agreed to take part in a recording project we’re starting.

Vacation Vinyl in Silverlake found us a cheap tape manufacturer and someone suggested the idea of putting out tape compilations featuring rarities from rad bands. Coming up is a tape split with the Cigarette Bums and the Numerators, an M31 tape (San Fernando Valley drone—awesome), and hopefully a Lovely Bad Things 45 in the next few months. I thought of calling the project Sylvia Plath’s Sounds & Platters and having the logo be an oven, akin to Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine. Bands that tour and pick up this zine are encouraged to email thecigarettebums@gmail.com for a submissions address if they too would like to be a part of this new venture. The goal is to pass out the comps for free amongst the bands who can then distribute and sell them.

I’ve always been a fan of garage rock that’s so good, it can’t stay cooped up in a garage. I’m going to be highlighting some great showcases for people to possibly check out while in Texas—or to Google when they get back home.

While down in Austin, if you want to get a taste of what happens on the west coast, be sure to check out the Burger Records party over at Trailer Space Records with some of my favorite bands like Jaill, Shannon and the Clams, Mean Jeans, Hunx and his Punx and King Tuff who’re all gonna boogiewoogie on your brain! They’re also hosting a day-time house party at 500 W. 51st St on Friday the 18th and a night-time house party at 3104 Birdwood Ave with an array of awesome bands from everywhere. And after that, Burger is bringing everyone back with them—like Feeding People, Summer Twins, Cosmonauts who have a new 12” out on Permanent Records in Chicago, Audacity, Apache and King Tuff along for the ride with shows every day culminating in San Francisco at Thee Parkside March 27 where Oakland animals Nobunny and Midnite Snaxxx will also be making appearances.

Also recommended by me for Texas will be the Smell (DIY all ages Los Angeles venue) and KXLU (real independent FM) showcase at Domy’s Bookstore, DJ Dirty Needles (Crispin McCabe) from San Francisco’s SFitall two day event starting March 18th at 2307 Manor Drive, Austin, TX, with tons of great rock ‘n’ roll bands. I was going to talk-slash-hype the FYF shows back in Los Angeles at the Echo and The Eagle Rock Center for the Arts with Strange Boys, Fresh and Onlys, White Fence (Tim Presley of Darker My Love), and Thee Oh Sees starting March 22 to the 25—but this article is long enough. Best of luck to everyone out there, and if you go through AZ, leave that shit at home!

59

Feeling.” The sounds themselves are psychedelic, or at least as Monkees-esque as on previous releases (this being a bedroom project, I can’t really tell what parts are hand-crafted and what are lifted directly out of old sir Douglas singles, but I’m too po-mo to care). The jangled grooviness coupled with the warped production techniques mean most of these tracks would fit quite snugly on a mixtape with White Fence and Ariel Pink, though Benbenek’s bizarrely insightful lyrics (“There’s gonna be a new shelving unit in this town!”), coupled with that gentle voice, belie the wisdom of his age. But enough smoke blowing—“asparagus the drama” and just go listen.

—Dan Collins

LINDSAY SALAZAR

BIRDS OF AVALON self-titled Bladen County

With their third full-length endeavor, the Raleigh, North Carolina quintet Birds of Avalon truly

LAUREN BENSON

AWOL ONE The Landmark Fake Four Inc. L.A RECORD has admired Canadian producer Factor for a long time, and for about a year now, we’ve been waiting for a shot at covering a project between him and one of L.A.’s many great local hip-hop talents—so it’s with great satisfaction that we announce the release of Factor’s third collaboration with Awol One, The Landmark. To toast this thing with the proper sense of celebration, we pass the mic to Adam Weiss, founder and master of ceremonies at Hipsters Who Heart Hip-Hop. 60

come into their own. The self-titled album is a well-articulated exploration of their identity. The swirling Summer of Love psychedelics are matched evenly with the reverbheavy crunch of the spouse-wielding twin guitar attack of Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler at the album’s outset, most notably on “Xarardheere” and “Invasion” respectively. Transitioning at its halfway point, the album takes on a decidedly more progressive tone. It is interesting to surmise whether or not the band’s sojourn into this ethereal nature is done in some small part as a playful nod to their namesake, or just a mere coincidence, but either way the exercise is executed with great skill. This reality is none more evident than in the Eastern-infused “Diggi Palace,” with its sitar rhythm and hypnotic interludes. Syncopated drums and a hard-driving guitar accompanied by Craig Tilley’s haunting vocals from behind the drum kit are at the core of “Pim Pom,” a high point of the album’s progressive turn. If it can

be said without seeming totally clichéd, the men and woman of Birds of Avalon saved the best part for last: “Spiders on the Line” and “Shadowy End” are not just the sum of their parts, but rather separate statements that showcase their mastery of genre while allowing these artists to explore their senses of self.

—Paul Rodarte

DAVE VAN PATTEN

CIGARETTE BUMS D-Train EP self-released

I think I have to start this review with an incredibly bold statement.

Something like, “Awol One is hiphop’s Tom Waits.” Or “This is an indie rap classic, a masterpiece, Awol One’s best album since sOULDOUBT. “Sitting down and listening to this album gave me the same feeling I had the first time I sat alone in my room and read Bukowski’s Factotum. It seems so gritty in its dark honesty, but as you scratch beneath the surface, you see the vulgar beauty in his prose. Much like Bukowski, Awol is a seedy, raw, drunken poet whose truth hits you like a hammer.

Yet there’s a streak of humor that make Awol’s lyrics very human and sincere.

Awol is a master at crafting words that every man can relate to.

Awol raps (and in the case of “The Landmark,” even sings) in such an honest way— it’s hard for me not to focus this review solely on his lyrics alone, but that wouldn’t be giving The Landmark its justice. Just as crucial in this album is a man by the name of Graham Factor, otherwise known simply as Factor, the Canadian producer whose production is often categorized as “folk-hop” due to the obvious influence of indie folk rock as well as obscure 60’s/early 70’s psych rock on his sound. Even if you aren’t a “hip-hop head” per se, and more of an indie kid, you’ll still be super into Factor’s production. TRUST! The album opens with “Coming to Town” which hits you with a classic Pinback-style beat, and then Awol hits you with his signature weary voice, with lines like “I don’t have time to start a rebellion/I only have time to kill this beer.” Then comes “Perfect Opposites,” which doesn’t even read like hip-

The last Cig Bums’ 45 sounded like early (loose, lo-fi and loony) Fugs stuff, with a love song called “Jailbird” not too far in sound or sentiment from “Slum Goddess.”

But now the Bums—fronted by our columnist Steven C.—go loud, fast and electric. Their best is their craziest, with sax honking and guitar soloing and everybody shout-singing and drums splattering everywhere; when they get really rolling, they roll right off a cliff.

Momma was Redd Kross’ Born Innocent and Daddy was Oblivians’ Popular Favorites but they were never around, so the babysitter was Gories’ Houserockin, who let the kids get away with anything, for better or worse. Better is the crazy, worse is when they get too loose or get into arrangements that squish the energy, without which we got no power. This is rock ‘n’ roll like a bucket of puppies: they bark and bite and bounce around, but they don’t always get where they

hop track: Awol pretty much sings, almost reminding me of early Beck as he says lines like “laugh until you fucking cry, and cry until you fucking laugh.” On “Never Gonna Take Us Out,” Fake Four label head Ceschi Ramos fills in on the chorus as Awol angrily lists the different ways people try to kill him: “They try to shoot me and they miss/stab me, it only gets me pissed/running me down and try to drown me/but I drank the lake, it was astounding.”

But by far my favorite track on the album is “People on Drugs”—I spent two days trying to find out where the chorus was sampled from, only to find out that it’s actually Awol singing. Trust me this is VERY shocking. Then we have the closing track, “Alive” which is probably the most dark and twisted and depressing love song EVER, with lyrics like “I can’t wait ‘til we’re husband and wife/ and when you’re teaching me how to trust again and love is much more than just lust again, and when the cave that I lived was moldy and dark/and the pile of ground beef that I call my heart.”

This project was released by Fake Four, who are constantly putting out creative music that strays super far from what’s popular yet still manages to stay relevant. Not one Fake Four release has disappointed yet. Even more so, not one Fake Four release has failed to surprise the shit out of me with how amazing the music is, and Awol One and Factor’s The Landmark is no expectation. Do yourself a favor and go to fakefourinc.com and buy this album NOW. You can thank me when you see me at the Gold Room.

Swag, Adam Weiss aka AdamantiumMC (Hipsters Who Heart Hip-Hop) ALBUM REVIEWS

wanna go. “Goin’ Nowhere” is the charmer for an endless riff and everyone charismatically flippin’ out, and “D-Train” goes chasing right after—they’re both pound-poundpound 60s-style punk (Figures of Light, the Spades—bands more into breaking rock than playing it).

“Odyssey” is the slow-mo conceptual one with a shredding solo that comes in like a disoriented hesher crashing through the studio drywall. Nice jump from first 45; they make another of same distance after this one and we’re officially in the crazy business.

—Chris Ziegler

LINDSAY SALAZAR

COMMON GRACKLE

The Great Depression Fake Four Inc. It’s not very often that I hear a song that instantly hits me and I need more; this was the case when I heard the title track off the new release by Common Grackle. The beats that Factor constructs are heavy and ominous yet mellow, while Gregory Pepper has his way with the lyrics, going extremely deep one moment, then getting playful with his rhymes at others.

While mixing hip-hop beats with singer-songwriter stylings isn’t exactly new, the approach Common Grackle takes is extremely fresh. The musical elements span the spectrum: “At the Grindcore Show” is a humorous piano ballad about a bad trip at a weird scene, but “Please Stop” is extremely psych-folk, and “Magic Beans” seems like an “Ode” to the early career of an Echo Park musician known for extreme genre mashing. Cameos by artists Ceschi and Kool Keith bring some additional hip-hop flavor to a few of the songs. There’s a rare substance here that you don’t often find in music anymore. The Great Depression is a heavily melancholic album in its approach, but it’s this melancholy, filled with slapstick one-liners and downtrodden humor, that sets the mood for the creative albeit sometimes short songs that make up this album.

—Zachary Jensen ALBUM REVIEWS

DAVE VAN PATTEN

DAEDELUS Bespoke Ninja Tune

Bespoke marks Daedelus’ ten year anniversary as a recording artist, and he’s celebrating in style. This is a conceptual album literally about custom-made, well-tailored clothing, reflecting his romantic imagination and obsession with threads from the Victorian era with songs called “Sew. Darn. Mend.,” “Suit Yourself,” “French Cuffs,” and “In Tatters.” It’s a beautiful record; Daedelus’ talent has always been most evident in his impeccable timing and his instinctual ability to weave together cinematic samples, found sounds, his own instruments, and a range of human vocals into one tight piece that can be constantly folded and unfolded. Every track has a different guest singer—the Daedelus hall of fame line-up?—like Bird and the Bee singer Inara George, whose airy vocals are backed by operatic, processed samples on the sinistersounding stand-out “Penny Loafers.” There’s also an appearance by master rapper Busdriver, here singing with surprising strength and elasticity on the hyperactive “What Can You Do?” This is an incredibly sophisticated and accessible record-commercial, but in a Brian Wilson kinda way. It takes colossal experience and skill to make something that sounds this effortless and natural. Bespoke is a high-point of Daedelus’ discography—fans will find the sounds they know and love, but this is the record that’ll open the minds of new listeners worldwide.

—Lainna Fader

COLIN AMBULANCE

DANIEL MARTIN MOORE In the Cool of the Day Sub Pop

Do you like songs about Jesus? You might refrain from more modern acts like Jars of Clay or Third Day, but if you grew up going to church, maybe you have a fondness for some of the old hymns. That seems to be the case with Daniel Martin Moore, whose new album, In the Cool of the Day, mixes classic spiritual music with a few of his own compatible compositions. The instrumentation is tasteful—a rootsy blend of acoustic guitar, piano, upright bass and other stringed implements. But what makes the set stand out are Moore’s simple-yet-poignant voice (which brings to mind folkie Tom Brosseau) and the twists he takes with some of the classics. The album starts out a capella, with Moore intoning “All Ye Tenderhearted,” an original song that could be mistaken for one from a hymnal. The upbeat “Dark Road,” an old gem by G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, with some additional lyrics by Moore, is a bluegrass gospel jam that might have fit nicely on the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Moore does a surprising take on “In the Garden,” crooning the spiritual standard over a jazzy piano that sounds like how Vince Guaraldi would have played it. But perhaps the most captivating track on the album is Moore’s spare performance—just his yearning voice and a gently picked acoustic — of the quintessential hymn “It Is Well With My Soul.” If there are record players in heaven, the recently departed Charlie Louvin is likely spinning this and smiling.

—Thomas McMahon

DAVE VAN PATTEN

DAVID LYNCH

Good Day Today/I Know Remixes EP Sunday Best Unless you’re wrapped in plastic and washed up on some distant shore, you’ve probably caught wind via a blog somewheres that David Lynch released a single, “Good Day Today.”

Though this is not the first time we’ve seen Lynch step into the electronic music scene, this new release has been getting a lot of press since it’s A-side was randomly posted on Soundcloud way back in November.

To tell you the truth, it’s been a bit of a dog and pony show. The publicity surrounding the event even

People have been glum this winter. On several occasions over the past few months, I’ve reluctantly found myself in pessimistic conversations about the state of a scene which so recently seemed unassailably vibrant.

The loss of Echo Curio is still fresh, and suddenly we’re also contending with the defections of crucial figures: Michael Nhat has just played his last Los Angeles show, and Jon Barba split for the Bay without saying goodbye. Things are looking so dire that Whitman is telling his Facebook friends that he might abandon his career as a tape label mogul to join a reality series called ‘The Real Cougars.’

On February 26, though, we got an event that put everything in perspective: the L.A. Lottery League’s Big Show. Inspired by a league in Cleveland, the Big Show was the culmination of a month-long experiment in collaboration. Former Clevelander Sean Carnage—along with Nhat, Dalton Blanco, Deseret Rodriguez, and Jim Smith—organized the extravaganza. On January 29th, 12 new bands were formed randomly from a pool of 48 local musicians chosen by this so-called ‘Council of Chiefs.’ Each group was composed of people who had only just met each other, and each had a month to compose and rehearse a 10-minute set for the show.

I was fortunate enough to be a participant. Through the process, I made three new friends and significantly broadened my musical horizons. Putting together a new project in a month was a unique and daunting challenge, but it was a uniquely rewarding challenge to pursue. At Project Infest, we were blown away by the creativity of 11 other groups who had risen to the same challenge with talent and ingenuity.

New genres were birthed by bands with disparate members. The flamboyant No-No Jammers, for example, incorporated nursery-rhyme repetition and chunky funk guitar into a loosely ‘bedroom disco’ framework to get something that was somehow both comfortably familiar and intriguingly alien.

Behind a frontman whose Jarvis Cocker looks were foiled by a low-key and steady flow, Fooly Cooly discovered a lounge-cool aesthetic that could easily become 2012’s version of chillwave if explored further. One band, First You Were There And Now You Are Here, made a strangely sensible mash-up of the sounds made by its members’ regular bands that alternatively swayed and exploded over a marvelously proficient set.

Other groups excelled through force of charisma. Tookie Binky slayed with her stream-of-conscious rambling as the singer of the ‘experimental’ Pure Breeds Don’t Bite, and P.O.P. (Positive Outreach Program) provided an auto-tuned hip-hop spectacle with a manic energy that recalled Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s near-immolation during ‘Ghetto Superstar’ at the 1998 MTV Awards. Capping the night was the ironically pompous metal band Brohammer, whose scripted, crowd-taunting performance was modeled after cage matches in the WWE. Everyone was incredible. On what seemed like the coldest night of the year, at the Big Show there was no trace of the dourness that had fueled the discontent of the past winter.

Now, we can bury the clouds in anticipation of the approaching spring. If the results of the first L.A. Lottery League are any indication, the potential of our vast underground is only beginning to be tapped.

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Here’s some good news on the local jazz front—it looks like the Jazz Bakery will be getting a permanent home after all. Thanks to the persistence of local jazz doyenne, Ruth Price, the Bakery will be returning to Culver City next year with help from a $2 million Annenberg grant. In the meantime they’ll continue to host shows around town including a spoken word event with Luis Alfaro and pianist Bill Cunliffe on March 24th at the Culver Events Center as well as presenting guitar legend Jim Hall at the Musicians Institute on March 26th—one of the most regal 80 year old, 6-stringers still touring the globe. Over at Catalina’s jazz club, dashikiclad sax master Pharaoh Sanders will be blasting his free-jazz fury March 17th through 20th—one of the few John Coltrane disciples still stalking the stage. For something completely different on the same stage, Kurt Elling will bring his pomade croon April 20th to the 22nd. There should be enough soul patches in the crowd to fill a hot tub. I hope the bartender makes a good martini.

On March 6th avant-conjurer Adam Rudolph will bring his Organic Orchestra to the Electric Lodge in Venice Beach. His ensemble will not only include woodwind icon Bennie Maupin (Bitches Brew, Headhunters) but also tow-headed skate-ratson, Austin Peralta. Peralta’s recent Brainfeeder release Endless Planets rattles across jazz history with glimpses of ‘50s quartal harmonies, ‘60s free jazz and glistening ‘70s smoothness. His impeccable command of the 88 has been on display since he was a pre-teenager. Now that he’s no longer a child prodigy, Peralta has stepped up his game, bringing deliberate, jack-hammering piano without the cheekpinching novelty.

May 3rd will be the ten-year anniversary of Billy Higgins’ passing. Higgins’ contribution to jazz drumming was immense (Ornette Coleman, Dexter Gordon, Charles Lloyd) but his contribution to L.A. is even greater. His Leimert Park club, the World Stage, still continues to host weekly jam sessions, a tradition that has provided a swinging center-point to one of the most culturally rich blocks in Los Angeles for decades.

On March 26th saxophonist Dale Fielder will bring his Donald Byrd/Pepper Adams homage to their cramped stage. Fielder, a local journeyman, has made it a personal mission to hip the world to the sounds of baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams—a challenging task but well worth the time.

Bill Frisell, ethereal guitar hero, will be playing in the dark to accompany a series of Buster Keaton shorts at UCLA on April 2nd. For some old school floor stomping the French Quarter’s own Preservation Hall Jazz Band will be walloping Royce Hall’s stage with tubas and crawfish on May 12th.

Madeleine Peyroux, French chanteuse by way of Georgia and Brooklyn, will sing at the Luckman Arts Complex on April 9th. Her Billie Holiday vocals combined with a fedora-sporting backing band make for an interesting show—deliberate and pure with torch-singer shades, minus the heroin and squalor.

Down in O.C.: Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard will present their own ensembles at Segerstrom Hall on April 3rd.

Easily the most challenging of the Marsalis brothers (plus Spike Lee’s go-to composer) splitting stage time should be well worth the drive down to Costa Mesa.

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spawned an official video competition that garnered several hundred entries from all over the world. And rightfully so! Like most anything Lynch touches, “Good Day Today” is infused with uncommonly dark cheerfulness painted over a grotesquely infectious back beat.

And despite the fact that this song is guiltily danceable, the enigmatic filmmaker’s calling card is immediately apparent in its unmistakably somber composition and detached vocals. The B-side, “I Know,” is pure Lynchian delight, a bruised and raw, black-coffee-and-cigarettes blues jam, complimented by certifiably kooky Lynch vocals. For this EP’s remixes, formidable electronic acts, such as Boys Noize, Underworld, Sasha, Ratcliffe and more, have all put their spin on both tracks. The result is a garishly fluorescent, electroinfused buffet of house, techno and ambient takes on Lynch’s originals.

This record is a guaranteed sell—we can only hope that a great little indie label like Sunday Best was able to benefit from all the hoopla.

—Camella Lobo

with keyboards and processed guitars building up to a lingering refrain, “I can’t walk away/you can’t walk away at all.” It would be easy staying put in this fabricated aural world. But once “Chinatown” ends, and you’ve given in to the sound, Bejar’s lyrics begin to distant themselves from that world. He tears down and rearranges all of the era’s associations, leaving them in ruins still just recognizable enough. On top of a funk beat, Bejar might utter such incongruous lyrics as “Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, animals crawl towards death’s embrace.

Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, unspeakable! In a morning, on a Sunday, just wasted in the rain!”

This lyrical/musical tension plays throughout, with sense of inevitable resignation emerging over the span of 9 songs. “Bay of Pigs,” an 11-minute ambient dance epic, sums up the entire album.

It’s about what happens when you stop looking out across the water, at the boats coming and going, and finally have to deal with the ground below your feet.

—Greg Garabedian

understated keyboard tones give these songs a modern “bedroom indie” feel, the album concludes with numbers that sound more “riot grrl.” “Modified My Knife,” the sole guitar song on the record, builds tension by touching on the rhythms and attitude of Reject All American-era Bikini Kill. The payoff for this tension is closer “For the Bond,” which sounds a bit like a subdued version of Kathleen Hanna’s other band, Le Tigre.

These songs go together in an alluring way, and as a whole they create an arc that makes In Manila feel substantial and complete despite its brevity.

—Geoff Geis

TOMMY STEWART

ELLIOTT CAINE SEXTET Hippie Chicks on Acid self-released

SIMON TRAN

DESTROYER Kaputt Merge

“All sounds like a dream to me” Dan Bejar exclaims on Kaputt’s title song about chasing girls, drugs, fame, and less specific unattainables. His words are matched, in this and the rest of the album, by a surprising, but involving 80’s pop music idiom drawing from Roxy Music, New Order, Vangelis, and smooth jazz. Casual listeners might shrug it off as novelty, but they’d be missing the point. The generational nostalgia is obvious, but Bejar’s not replicating a sound merely to look back. He’s using the era’s style to explore themes of personal fantasy, escape, and reluctant acceptance. Kaputt’s production is silky, every fluid note creating its own unique atmosphere, where saxophones hover in the air, and the playing so precise it’s almost difficult to think these songs weren’t discovered in a Top 40’s time capsule. “Chinatown” is the perfect opening song,

DAVE VAN PATTEN

EAGLE AND TALON In Manila self-released

Eagle and Talon’s In Manila is a succinct success. The EP, the band’s first since Reggie Watts joined the original duo of Kim and Alice Talon, serves as a quick and enticing tour of an aesthetic that is as multi-faceted as it is minimalistic. Impressively diverse considering its minuscule 14-minute length, each song provides an attractive and potentially fruitful avenue down which the newly expanded band can go in the future. “In Manila” has a relaxed disco feel and keyboard tones that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Near East gift shop.

The flowing and string-propelled “Ruen Pair” begins modestly before a breakdown ushers in a magnificently hypnotic section that recalls prime-era Stereolab. While

One look at those classic Reid Miles designed album covers adorning countless Blue Note records of the 50s and 60s and it’s generally assumed that those guys were hopped up on Chesterfields and more than a few pulls off a cheap pint of whiskey. Nonetheless local trumpeter Elliott Caine has summoned the hard-bop gods with his propulsive sextet and saddled them with a title and cover evoking some rather horrible flower power imagery. Recorded live at Alva’s Showroom in San Pedro, Caine leads his band through over a half dozen straight-ahead swingers aided by great local instrumentalists like vibist Nick Mancini who pummels each note with his lightning-quick mallets, particularly on the simmering “No Way Out” and spacious “Little Rio,” while saxophonist Carl Randall provides a raspy-toned boast over driving waltz “Paying the Price.”

Caine, who has been tearing up southern California stages for decades, displays his refined sense of swing and grounded writing skills throughout the record with articulate Lee Morgan-esque passages over the disjointed harmonies of “Defiance” and crisp ballad work on the deliberate “A DifferALBUM REVIEWS

ent Beauty.” Caine’s sextet has recorded a confident set of hardbop, highlighting a great venue and some of the more captivating sidemen in town but, seriously, who chose that cover?

—Sean O’Connell

COLIN AMBULANCE

IF BY YES

Salt on Sea Glass 100% WOMON

TOM CHILD

GESTAPO KHAZI Written In the Will CS Burger

Dunno how you can call your band surf-punk when you’ve never set foot on Beach Boulevard; dunno how the Adolescents and Descendents had chops and composition and fuckin’ personality at like age 13 that still annihilate all these modern mopes who couldn’t even have got on the back side of one of them “New Wave!” budget samplers clueless labels put out to scam kids who didn’t care to find out where actual records were sold.

Tell me who is who? So thank you, Gestapo Khazi, who don’t even necessarily DO surf-punk (well, “Scramble Like Dogs”) but who can still out-lead, outreverb, out-drum and out-freakout all these bros in bright colors. This starts at total California punk—Adolescents, T.S.O.L., Agent Orange—and unravels into like Flesh Eaters, Middle Class, Germs, early Wipers, early Dicks, all those awesome hostile fringe bands who repulsed new wave on contact. (Dicks had a whole song about it; probably Gestapo does too.) Surely this woulda been part of the SST or Frontier discography had time turned out different; instead, it fragments across a bunch of independents. This tape collects some of those GK vinyls (“Escalator,” “Open House”) and adds some ferocious and ferociously bleak four-track demos. (“Shadow of the Pines,” with some unhinged Jeffrey Lee Pierce vibes.) A tape actually worthy of night cruises down OC surface streets.

—Chris Ziegler

ALBUM REVIEWS

If By Yes is a transcontinental collaboration between vocalist/ violinist/triplet Petra Haden and Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto and the recently reformed Plastic Ono Band. Haden’s melismatic trembles swirl amid a symphony of pulpy bass, electronics and subtly pulsing dance beats nimbly produced by Honda. Together they have created an album of effortless movement where the vocals ride like a sedate passenger on a highspeed train—spidery guitar lines and shifting keyboards fly by like small towns, each with their own characters and conflicts, appearing and disappearing just as quickly.

Amid the ethereal charm David Byrne sings a few choruses and Nels Cline drops in with his banshee-ax to make inimitable waves.

The rest of the instrumental work is done by members of pop maestro Cornelius’ band: Yuko Araki on drums and Hirotaka “Shimmy” Shimizu on guitar. The result is exactly what one might expect from all those musicians in cahoots: pop structures wrapped in velvet reverb, snug multi-layered vocals and space-lounge gauze.

—Sean O’Connell

LINDSAY SALAZAR

JEREMIAH JAE Rappayamatantra EP Brainfeeder

Jeremiah Jae’s spirit curls up when he listens to radio rap. It’s an involuntary reaction not to the style but the substance—the autotuned odes to anatomy, the excess in every possible sense. His Rap-

payamatantra EP isn’t a response to that overindulgence; rather, it’s an expression of otherness, a pseudo-rap statement meant to connect his mostly instrumental DXNCE EP and his upcoming full-length Raw Money Raps.

Musically, Jeremiah Jae is Teebs’ foil—he refracts the snowy beauty of Teebs’ found Christmas sounds into hissing feedback and bass that climbs up your wall like an eightpound spider. “Kings Bop” explores the deepest recesses of man, like some kind of dubbed-out jazz echoing from a jungle cave while a walkie-talkie crackles with foreign-language chatter. “Guns Go Off” is the first track with Jae as MC, a reflection on the perils of getting trapped in time. “$easons” chisels away at the prison walls of the mind; “Stones Passage” hangs overhead like a warbling UFO before dissolving into doo-wop.

None of Jae’s rhymes will lodge themselves in your brain, but his music will: gnarled knots of sound that scrape clean the grime from your skull.

—Miles Clements

invaded by foreign women (“With Loue to Toune”), and sometime her keyboard turns into a merrygo-round (“So Lillies”). We don’t know for sure what’s deliberate and what’s a mistake. At the end of “Me Are More Than I Need,” she’s saying something like, “I wanna paint myself greeeen—” and then the recording cuts off accidentally, but now it’s on purpose. People walking by the windows don’t notice the bells chiming. Is it a dream? Once I even felt cool water splashing softly against the speaker (“Je Vivroie Liement”). There is another, 150-trackper-song Julia Holter, but you’ll meet her some other time.

—Daiana Feuer

WALT! GORECKI

MAGII CHRISTINE HALE

LUIS AND THE WILDFIRES Heart-Shaped Noose Wild

Anna Badua

JULIA HOLTER Live Recordings NNA Tapes

Warning: This is not Julia Holter, but it is. This Julia Holter floats up to outer space, her keyboard spinning slowly (“Days of You”), and you may not recognize her. Celebration. Live Recordings is the “lofi” Julia Holter who captures the moment on a room mic. Despite its more minimal approach, Live Recordings has many dimensions, like a room with thin walls—and the neighbors make noise (“Did You Attend”). Some things happen outside the window as well as inside, some are mundane, and some are strange (“Pushkin, Inconsolably”). Imagine Julia writing masterpieces in her apartment, when suddenly a lawnmower passes by her window—and it passes by her neighbor’s window, and the next person’s, and the next person’s, everyone writing masterpieces but not necessarily recording them. This lawnmower is the thread that binds them. It’s their very existence, and Holter’s recorder is on. Holter is occasionally

a) destroy and b) demonstrate how the Wildfires can chew through anything. But the originals (“Give Me a Chance,” “I’m A Man,” “No More Days”) really show how sharp a rock ‘n’ roll band this is. I say this so much, but if you’re in bed right now listening to the Sonics or Bunker Hill or whatever else Norton reissued this year—well, this comes from the same strange place, and it’s REAL, and it’s here right now! Rippin’ record from a band you’ll one day tell strangers you totally saw all the time.

—Chris Ziegler

It’s a wild land where Savage Kick meets Teenage Shutdown—lotta beer cans on the ground, lotta screaming coming out of scary-looking shacks. This is where Luis and the Wildfires are now kings, straddling the hardest-assed Sun rockabilly and the most primitive fringe of 60s punk. What’s this mean to you? A stand-up bass and a singer who drinks and shouts until he falls over. (“I fall down, I get up,” he promises on here, and he’s right.) I’ll just be simple here and tell you that when guitarist Andrew Himmler steps out of the song to just whip the hell out of any slow-moving living thing in range with an effortlessly vicious solo, and when singer Luis Arriaga can’t help himself and lets some drunken inhuman howl splash all over the studio mic—well, that’s what I wake up and get out of bed for. We got a Johnny Burnette level of unsafe rocking and a Charlie Feathers level of unsafe living in effect at all times here. This is rock ‘n’ roll that leaps up a notch every thirty seconds and splits time between solos with lyrics like “Please forgive me, friends…” and “No-nono-no-no-no-no-no …” The covers (including a menacing Tom Waits and a frantic but faithful reading of Joy Division’s “Digital”) are here to

Into the Forest with Magii EP self-released L.A. is still reeling from the aftershock of February’s Lottery League project, the Dada-esque mix-andmatch in which Elders of the Smell/ Pehrspace scenes forced members of different existing bands to form new bands with surprise new lineups, to write new songs, and to play a showcase, all in a madcap event that start to finish took literally one month. Normally with projects like this, process and theory (and fun!) run high while quality music falls at the wayside. But Magii, whom fellow project members describe as “one of the best bands of the whole dealimabopper,” went past the homework assignment and turned in the extra credit of an actual EP—and it sounds amazing!

Art Arellanes (normally one-man rap crew Bizzart), Matteo Himes (M31), Joaquin Pastor (Masks), and famed L.A. RECORD columnist Geoff Geis (Pizza!, Big Whup) had more or less never met before late January, so it’s insanely impressive that they could figure out their interpersonal chemistry quick enough to record an EP’s worth of songs. The best of the bunch is the title track, “Magii,” which basically has Arellanes free-forming over a seemingly tight electro groove that has the keyboard set to “Camille Saint-Saëns”—but the sliced-up Omnichord on “Help! My Walrus Is Broken!” sounds great with that songs’ three-part male harmonies, 63

THE INTERPRETER

ANDY CORONADO Curated by Chris Ziegler Photography by Ben Hoste

Andy Coronado (White Shit, Wrangler Brutes, Monorchid, Skull Kontrol) presents here his list of “Beltway Outsiders”— D.C.-area bands that were never a part of the famous Dischord-and-friends hardcore punk world.

DEATH PIGGY LOVE WAR EP (DSI, 1984)

FURY “RESURRECTION” EP (THD, 1989)

“Dave Brockie’s pre-Gwar outfit Death Piggy suffered from the fact that they were trying to be funny guys in a climate that was distinctly humor-unfriendly. Songs like ‘Ceramic Butt’ and ‘Bathtub in Space’ make me chuckle as I type. Brockie’s vocals here are a dead ringer for Gibby Haynes and the music is less psychedelic than the Buttholes but comes from the same ‘making fun of punks’ school—always a good thing.”

“These guys were in Swiz and Ignition, who weren’t beltway outsiders in the least, but this side project deserves special attention. It was 1989 and Fugazi were king—skillfully played post hardcore was the sound du jour. This record came out of nowhere—pure shambolic hardcore bombast that barely stays in time and completely falls apart at the end. They never played a show and never practiced. Chris Thomson’s first attempt at singing in a band and his finest moment— he sounds like he’s ad-libbing the whole thing. Shawn Brown’s bass playing sounds like someone handed him the instrument and a giant question mark appeared above his head—like if you had handed a caveman a cell phone. I was living in San Diego at the time and this record became everyone’s ‘I’m a fucking lunatic! This is what I listen to!’ badge of pride. Everyone wanted their band to sound like this band but they couldn’t cuz they PRACTICED.”

NUCLEAR CRAYONS BAD PIECES ... LP (OUTSIDE, 1984)

“This is where the only freaks in the entire high school formed a band because there was no one else to play with. ‘OK, the “Duckie” guy will play guitar, piano-tie guy will play drums, hippie ‘Neil from The Young Ones’ will play bass—and goth girl from drama class, you sing.’ They make you feel awkward and embarrassed at first but then you quickly realize that you are the asshole and they are beautiful, honest, and devoid of ego. ‘Overpopulation’ is the jam, but every song here grows on you. Looking at the pics of them in Banned in DC when I was a teenager, I really just wanted the Faith to just jump over from the other page and beat the stuffing out of these charlatans. Anyway, they managed to put out a single, an LP and a comp all on their own Outside Records without help from the eye-rolling reins-holders of the DC scene. Bernie Wandel went on to play bass in the first incarnation of the Henry Rollins Band and made an appearance in Henry’s dream journal ‘Black Coffee Blues,’ where he was unceremoniously punched in the fucking face when he came knocking at Henry’s front door.”

UNITED MUTATION RAINBOW PERSON LP (DSI, 1985)

“Name: A+. Art: A++. Music: eh… When I first heard about UM as a teen, I expected them to fully live up to their name and blow my balls apart. I picked up a copy of the Fugitive Family EP and was expecting Void’s little brother. I mean, the record scraped in to becoming a part of history with its catalog number: Dischord 10 7/8. The ‘7/8’ is kinda telling—like, ‘We really don’t wanna besmirch the family name, but you guys are our friends and all—how ‘bout this?’ I’ve listened to Fugitive Family 70 times and I couldn’t hum one song. Mike Brown’s vocal’s are distinctly original for the time—between Pushead’s Septic Death screech and Cannibal Corpse’s cookie-monster ridiculousness, but predating both. I made a shirt I still wear to this day that is graced with the cover image. They made great strides by this EP. The music is way more complicated and memorable, and Mike Brown’s singing bears a strange resemblance to H.R.’s. They petered around for a couple more years and then faded away…”

WHITE BOY “SAGITTARIUS BUMPERSTICKER” 7” (DOODLEY SQUAT, 1977)

“One of the area’s first ‘punk’ acts, White Boy were the father-son team of James and Glenn Kowalski with stage names ‘Mr. Ott’ and ‘Jake Whipp.’ A notoriously aggressive live act, the band released this record themselves and were cited by many DC laureates as an early life changing experience. The record came out when punk was less defined by a certain sound—it sounds like a bar boogie-blues band with a dude singing about how he wants to puke all over things. The behind-the-scenes exploits of White Boy proved to be more scandalous than anything Mr. Ott ever sang about when he ended up going to prison for a string of child molestation and child pornography charges. Baaarrrrffffff…”

INTERPRETER

NO TREND WHEN DEATH WON’T SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM LP (WIDOWSPEAK, 1985) “The ultimate D.C. outsiders. No Trend were notoriously hostile towards the entrenched D.C. hardcore/revolution summer establishment and took their anger nationwide. Lydia Lunch put together this collection of tracks from several records. Singer Jeff Mentges belts out the most believable and thoroughly disgusted first line you’ve ever heard on a record: ‘QUICK!! TWO SECONDS TIL NONEXISTENCE! SO WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WAAAAAANT!!!!’ Gives me chills every time I hear it. I love No Trend as much as they hated all of us. Their ultimate fuck you was the terrible final album they shit out for Touch and Go, intended to fuck with their audience’s expectations. It managed to do so quite effectively.”

9353 To Whom It May CONSUME LP (R&B, 1984) “Where do you begin? They shoulda been bigger than Jesus but have completely been excluded from the history books. Total weirdo gothpop with dark and funny lyrics are delivered in Bruce Merkle’s bizarre alternating falsettos and baritones. Former Double-0 axeman Jason Carmer’s brilliant guitar playing is stripped from its hardcore roots and freed to deliver wonderful delay pedal psychedelia. Like No Trend, these guys were antagonizers and you got the impression that something just wasn’t quite right with the singer. I found that out firsthand when I met him. He had been living in a wooded area by the freeway in Arlington with four dogs. He told us he had just been evicted from his camp by the cops and he’d had to shoot two of his dogs in the head because he couldn’t care for them. He had the other two dogs with him and after he told the story he split and left the dogs with us. Right after he left, both dogs started violently vomiting and they collapsed. He’d poisoned them. Sick motherfucker. Great band, though!”

WICKED WITCH “FANCY DANCER” 7” (INFINITY, 1985)

“When I lived in DC, you could find this record anywhere for 50 cents. They even had it at Safeway. Everyone I knew had it. You had to buy it because it looked awesome. If you went to a party, it was always deliberately placed in the front of the host’s pile of 7”s. But did we listen to it? Hell no! Richard Simms was a one-man band who apparently pressed a shitload of these things. The A-side’s ‘Fancy Dancer’ is a freaky funk number that is almost uncategorizeable. The B-side’s ‘Y Wood U Call It Rock?’ is a heavy metal rock jam from another planet that sounds like it was recorded at the wrong speed. Awesome!”

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and “Love Me, Tender” almost achieves 80’s film ballad poise. Together, they make you wonder why L.A. RECORD goes apeshit for imported producers like Factor, when our own kids are drooling with untapped creativity!

—Dan Collins

CHRISTINE HALE

MATTHEWDAVID International EP Brainfeeder

Sound collagist and Leaving Records label-head Matthewdavid brings lush organic textures, warped samples of field recordings, and carefully manipulated hazy beats to his first Brainfeeder EP. These sounds are comforting like yuk.’s warm wilderness in A D W A; Matthewdavid too captures the lo-fi ambient calm of the natural world and the feeling of getting lost in it. Atlanta’s Dogbite lends mellifluous vocals to the dense title track, complimenting the gentle hisses and snaps and bells of mysterious origins. “All You’ll Never Know” starts off swirling and breaks into light and playful beats before shooting skyward with “Motion Trouble.” The dreamy, understated vocals in “Leaving / Gone” make for a beautiful sendoff.

International is probably Matthewdavid’s most conventional release to date—he’s put out a 10”, a couple cassettes (one with Sun Araw!), and CD-Rs packaged in limited edition hand-painted floppy disks—but it’s also his most promising, a gorgeous precursor to his full-length Outmind that’ll make you feel like you’re floating through the air.

—Lainna Fader

If you’re one of those infectiously sun-shiny people walking around this planet, then Atlanta’s Mermaids might be the band for you. I’m not usually one of those people. But Tropsicle, Mermaids’ debut album, still managed to shine a warm ray of happy jangles into my formerly gloom-trodden Saturday afternoon.

Let’s just get this out of the way— yes, Mermaids is ceremoniously towing the chillwave line that is so eponymous with the dearth of indie rock output these last couple of years. However, these guys aren’t some stripped down, lo-fi bedroom band. Their melodies are intentional, forceful and layered with complexity. It’s apparent from Tropsicle’s unapologetically joyful opening track, “Holiday,” that Mermaids do not give a shit about your broken heart or bad luck with chicks. This record is more likely to compliment a cocktail garnished with a buffet of fresh fruit, a polka dot beach blanket and a bottle of SPF 75 for you goth types.

Its sunshine is completely merciless.

Even “New Year’s Tears,” a seemingly downtrodden song that appears about halfway through the track list, quickly builds into a crescendo of upbeat, jaunty ballads. It thrashes from happy to sad, laughing to crying, like a teenage mood swing. Though I think Mermaids might initially fare well with the Vampire Weekend and Shins constituency, the band runs the risk of becoming little more than a chillwave moment in time unless they diversify their sound. However, this is coming from someone who now feels sun stroked from listening to an album called Tropsicle in its entirety seven times in a row.

—Camella Lobo

MIA DOI TODD Cosmic Ocean Ship City Zen

MERMAIDS

Tropsicle Pretty Ambitious 66

A particularly blustery L.A. sunset provides a fine setting to hear Cosmic Ocean Ship. The sky is red and the wind blows sand in your eyes and it adds a little something when Mia Doi Todd sings “I am the ocean...” like a mermaid during “Under The Sun.” The whole town will collapse, but any shred of panic simply goes away as she switches Romance

shoegaze “It’s Always Different,” but even this lives up to its name and constantly reverses course, leaving cascading lo-fi echo everywhere, like a boat spreading a circle of waves while doing a three point turn. It’s a microcosm of the album as a whole, which somehow finds rampant division (Acoustic pining? Hot tub smoothness? A sixteen-minute song about motorcycles?) and fits it into a consistent production whole of reverb, mumblings, and sluggish guitar. My favorite tune of all is perhaps the simplest, “Dreamitar,” basically a Mazzy Star intro that got derailed on its way to the song and is slowly spooling onto the floor. Good work, boys! If this is tyranny, lock me up and take away my internet.

—Dan Collins

PEG LEG LOVE self-titled self-released

PAPERCUTS Fading Parade Sub Pop

LISA STROUSS

NIGHT CONTROL Night Control describe themselves as “noise-pop,” and while that could mean anything this side of Sonic Youth, here the sound matches the tagline without imitating any of its forebears. And it’s trippy as hell, too—imagine the Cluster-y soundbath of RV Paintings, or the fauxIndian gloom of Pocahaunted, but with just a little more bite, a little more rhythm, and a little more, um… whoa, is this song nothing but a drum solo decorated with slippery backwards-masked sound collage thingies? Many of these songs are recorded at odd speeds and shoved into a lo-fi murkiness.

It makes this album impossible to absorb even after repeated listening, like if Raymond Carver wrote a detective novel that you couldn’t put down. Truth be told, some of the best tunes on here are the accessible full-on rock jams, like the almost-

has worked and toured with those dream poppers, who also recently made the leap to Sub Pop. “Winter Daze” ambles along with a melancholy piano procession that recalls Radiohead’s “Karma Police.” Fading Parade would serve equally well as the soundtrack for a red-eye flight or a stroll on a foggy shore.

— Thomas McMahon

WALT! GORECKI

DAVE VAN PATTEN

Tyranny City Zen

ACTUAL ALBUM

ANNA-CLAIRE SIMPSON

languages and various degrees of Afro-Latin chillout rhythms from tune to tune. The percussion swirls rhythmically on her cover “Canto De Lemanja”—oh, and she’s transformed into a bird. Is that a guitar shredding suddenly? Yes. This album is uplifting. During “Gracias a La Vida,” we become grateful for life’s gifts, our eyes, our hearts, her voice, which all sound much lovelier in Spanish. We’re still experiencing that windy L.A. sunset, remember—does not this green grass now look especially green? Does not this graffiti on the wall take on the vibrancy of flowers in a meadow? Am I floating?

Everyone on the street smiles at you now, and you smile back because no one is creepy anymore, as long as this record plays. More Spanish on “La Havana,” amid trickling piano and a guitar that seems to roll over as she pulls us onto her “cosmic ocean ship,” where we are rocked softly by harp, soothed despite our existential crises. She says “ocean” again during “Rising Tide,” her environmental tune. And of course, there’s plenty love to go around, especially in France, it seems.

—Daiana Feuer

For his fourth Papercuts album, San Francisco’s Jason Robert Quever moves up the indie label ranks from Gnomonsong to Sub Pop. But don’t expect a more polished affair.

If anything, Fading Parade sounds murkier and more enigmatic than its predecessor, You Can Have What You Want. Although much of the new album was recorded in a studio with producer Thom Monahan (Beachwood Sparks, Vetiver) and Quever’s live band, it retains the feel of a solo bedroom recording. Quever’s vocals are more whispery and muted than ever — you’d think he was singing through a blanket half the time. (Normally, I would quote some standout lyrics, but I can’t decipher enough of them.) Still, his pop hooks cut through the haze, and several of the songs here are played at an energetic clip. Opener “Do You Really Wanna Know” kicks off with a thumping bass line and soon launches into a surprisingly triumphant chorus. “I’ll See You Later, I Guess,” with its haunting organ, begs to ring out in a cathedral.

“Chills” bounces around an irresistible Moog or Mellotron riff, then shifts into a bridge that sounds like a Pet Sounds demo. “Wait Till I’m Dead” could easily be mistaken for a Beach House number—Quever

Listening to Peg Leg Love’s S/T debut feels like driving fast and wearing sun glasses minutes past dusk, while holding between your inner thighs a favorite liquor or beer. Juxtaposed with the leather jacket, bad boy sound is the poetic and clever lyrics of musician/artist Ilir Zeneli.

Some favorites of mine in this respect are “Luxury of Zero” and “Red Horizon,” while other songs are heavy, driven by Susan Raygoza’s basslines, such as “Weekend” and “Big City.” Throughout the album, however, Travis Moore reminds the listener that less is more through his minimalistic and creative drumming, which consistently provides the slow rhythmic pulse required for a drunken evening strut. This album would make the perfect soundtrack for an urban western epic. Keep your ears wax free for Peg Leg Love; you won’t be disappointed.

—Steven Carrera

LISA STROUSS

RAINBOW ARABIA

Boys and Diamonds KOMPAKT The husband and wife duo return with a new album on the influential ALBUM REVIEWS

electronic German label, Kompakt.

Boys and Diamonds, with its “ambient-tube” and skipped beats in syncopation, fits well into the context of a label that has been known for this kind of sound in the past, like rainfall in a dimly lit hidden disco oasis, back lit slightly by the melding hues of pinks, oranges, and purples that float in the sky. Danny Preston’s production allows the listener to get lost in the music’s ethereal abstract cultural dexterity, which blends European minimalistic electronic music with African and poly-cultural sounding percussion. Tiffany, the other half of the duo, travels to a different place with her otherworldly, effusive vocals, which lend buoyancy to each part of the music.

The bright electronic keyboards and samples that accompany the beats may cause you to daydream, wishing you were twirling in a dark room full of neon lights reflected off shiny geological formations. But through all this, the record still provides listeners with enough ‘pump’ to make them move as only RA is able to do, in a uniquely sly and sexy way.

—Gab Chabran

is these tracks that keep the entire album from sinking into that ever nebulous shoegaze label. Yes, I absolutely love the forbearers of all things shoegaze and yes, I even love some of the latest reincarnations of the genre; however, many of these new bands fail to realize that some of the pivotal Shoegaze albums of the 90’s were merely snapshots of one phase in those bands’ musical progressions.

These kids get it. The Light, the Way has the feel of band’s journey and exploration of a musical landscape, and hopefully progression.

—Gabriel Aguirre

ELSA HENDERSON

SHARK TOYS/ PLASMA CENTRE “Mutate Mutation”/ “Flippin’ Toads”/ “Voodoo King” 7” Scotch Tapes

ELSA HENDERSON

SECRET ALPHABET

The Light, the Way self-released Hear those lush reverberated cacophonies coming out of Highland Park? That is Secret Alphabet, and this four-piece band drones and smashes its way through its latest offering, The Light, the Way. Reviews of the band liken them to Spacemen 3 and the Jesus and Mary Chain, and from the opener, “Dirty Magazine,” you can tell those influences will pave the way for what is in store for the rest of the album: fuzzy-distorted guitar riffs hovering over simple steady drumming and droning bass lines. The standout cuts for me were “By Design,” “Something in the Air,” “What’s Your Name?” and “27”—on these tracks, the melodies really expand and the guitars become more distinct, complementing the monochromatic landscape of the album. It

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The new Shark Toys / Plasma Centre split cassette singles are exactly the sort of thing that hits the centers of the brain that make you want to dance around the room and break shit at the same time. On “Mutate Mutations,” Daniel Clodfelter’s running guitar licks combine with the not-so-subtle space-aged keyboard work of Rina Garcia to keep the track punchy—these, plus their dueled lyrics, make for a fun, easyto-listen-to track. Plasma Centre’s contribution of “Voodoo King” was a perfect fit, with the vocals taking backseat to a whole lot of well-placed noise that makes each instrument feel like it’s creating a drum beat of its own. If you love post-punk and pop collisions, bands like Shark Toys and Plasma Centre will likely become fast favorites.

The only track that was difficult to get into was “Flippin’ Toads”--even as a fan of under-produced, raw acoustic recordings. It seemed like it was a memo of an idea of a song, quickly recorded so the band could come back to it later. Luckily, the two other tracks are strong enough to make the single well worth your money.

—Nikol Hasler

VALERIA HERRADOR

SUNSHINE FACTORY

“Lower Away” 7” Culdesac Kids Having heard the Sunshine Factory demo prior to this release, I was eager to check out their first official release “Lower Away” on Culdesac Kids Records—which is the label’s debut release as well. The A-side/ title track “Lower Away” evokes a mellow and dreamy beach feel that is a good counterpoint to all the aggressive punk and garage influenced surf music that has overtaken LA. The title track is a story of a failed relationship, thoughtfully narrated, while the music has a slight indiepop positive feel to it that gives it a hopeful “not the end of the world!” touch. The B-Side, “Tidal Waves” (a stripped down version of their original), shows some vocal diversity with the changing of lead singers and the prevalence of extremely smooth back-up harmonies. References to the ocean are snuck in throughout the songs in a fun way that captures a visual mood. The songs are very simplistic in nature, but it’s within this simplicity that the band is able to show off their musical talent for quirky yet well-arranged compositions that are easy on the ears. A song that employed more electronic instruments would have been good, but this release does give you just enough to want to hear more from this fairly fresh band.

—Zachary Jensen

SIMON TRAN

THE K-HOLES self-titled HoZac

The K-Holes are witches in punk clothing that bring strangled messages forgotten long ago by modern society. By combining the most pri-

Nashville, Tennessee, has a long and lustrous music history, though candy-ass country has been its most high profile export in recent decades. It also has the dubious distinction of claiming that spangles-and-white-fringe Edward Scissorhands lookalike, Jack White, as a patron saint. Things might be looking up in Music City, however, with the ascension of Infinity Cat Records, one of the best new garage rock labels in recent memory. The label’s roster features an impressive list of garage punk bands, including Heavy Cream, Jeff the Brotherhood, and Natural Child.

The latter two acts take inspiration from the shaggy, freespirited hard rock of the mid to late 1970’s. Picture the “Dazed and Confused” soundtrack reinterpreted by a contemporary garage act and you’ll have a rough idea of their vibe.

You imagine these guys driving home from band practice in Camaros, wearing sleeveless t-shirts and mutton chop side burns and puffing on big fat doobies, while Sweet or Slade boom from the 8-track. They’re not exactly retro rock, mind you. Their homage to ‘70s hard rock is often filtered through a modern sense of humor and dipped in wry belligerence, elevating them into the snotty terrain of punk.

Natural Child has only released two seven-inches to date, but if these guys can keep their mojo working, their debut LP is going to be a doozy. Their songs, including the lude-andbooze fueled trucker’s jam “White Man’s Burden,” and the hilarious “Crack Mountain” (with chorus, “I just wanna smoke crack with my friends”), are truly in a league of their own.

Jeff the Brotherhood’s “U Got the Look” seemed like a hit in the making when their debut LP Heavy Days was released, and sure enough, it can now be found on the Cedar Rapids soundtrack alongside tracks from the likes of Okkervil River and Golden Earring. But if that enables Infinity Cat Records to fill its coffers and pump out more great punk rock records, then that’s A-OK with me.

As for Heavy Cream, picture a Southern-fried Runaways and you’ll get the picture. There’s a guy in the band, but he’s outnumbered by three girls, and he doesn’t sing, so he doesn’t count. This is girl punk all the way. Their debut LP Danny bursts with insolence, bile and attitude. Their song “Pretty Baby” features the memorable lyric, “creeps like you make me puke,” and in “Keep it Cool,” the ladies woo slovenly guys everywhere with the line, “I don’t care about your hair or the tattoo on your arm, but the barbecue stain that’s on your shirt really turns me on.” Like a modern incarnation of Suzi Quatro’s Pleasure Seekers, who crowed about being able to quaff 16 bottles of Schlitz in their timeless “What a Way to Die,” Heavy Cream are hateful, angry party girls who will drink you under the table and then steal your wallet and cell phone.

Catch the new Nashville this very month when Natural Child plays two dates, March 22 at the Echo (with Strange Boys and the Fresh & Onlys) and the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts on March 24. We can only keep our fingers crosses that we’ll get a chance to see Jeff the Brotherhood (who passed through town with Ty Segall last year) or Heavy Cream sometime soon.

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mal, relentless forces of nature with a relatively palatable (or at least familiar) punk/goth façade, the K-Holes have created the scariest new music I’ve heard in a long time. Sometimes they sound like Christian Death—with Jay Reatard instead of Roz on vocals—or the Lost Sounds with Siouxsie Sioux instead of Alicia Trout; they’ve got a saxophone that sounds like a nightmare velociraptor, and drums that hack away at the foundation of civilization. But really no amount of comparisons can explain the K-Holes, because this band emanates something much more powerful than the sum of its parts. This is music that inspires the behavior of heathens: topless dancing, violent sacrifice, Bacchanalian orgies, and New Year’s cleansings.

The K-Holes are Santero Punk, and like the Cuban slaves (Santeros) who outwardly worshipped saints syncretized to their West African gods to avoid imposed conversion to Catholicism, the K-Holes have created outwardly praise worthy goth/punk tunes that pay homage to forces far more powerful than even rockn-roll. Like a Santeria service, this album may leave you mounted by a spirit that compels you to act like you normally wouldn’t.

—Vanessa Gonzalez

SIMON TRAN

THE BEETS Stay Home Captured Tracks

Sometimes someone screams in your face and you recoil and respond with furrowed brows, “Stop yelling at me!” But sometimes someone screams in your face and you throw your hands around their shoulders, hop up and down and scream right back in good-hearted camaraderie!

The Beets’ new album Stay Home definitely inspires the latter scenario.

Its opening track, “Cold Lips,” clocks in at only 1:18 and is a raw garage gem evoking “Let It Bloom”—era Black Lips with Joe Genaro of Dead Milkmen on vocals. If every track sounded like this first track, I would be in heaven, but instead, the album keeps me grounded with a bunch of slower, melancholy numbers, only proving the Beets can do it all.

Standouts include “Hens and Roost68

ers,” a nostalgic lament which opens with the lyrics, “One day I was just a little yolk, then I grew up bigger and I broke.” But the Beets never lay it on too thick. There’s even a good amount of nonsense, like the track “Watching T.V.” which seems like a Beets-style homage to Black Flag’s “TV Party.” Overall, Stay Home is an excellent album that lo-fi garage fans are sure to enjoy.

—Vanessa Gonzalez

DAVE VAN PATTEN

THE NATURAL YOGURT BAND Tuck In With...

Now-Again

LAUREN BENSON

THE GOLDBERG SISTERS self-titled Apology

If you’ve just discovered that Adam Goldberg is a musician, let me warn you: listening to The Goldberg Sisters is not like hearing Dogstar.

From the glam-tinged “Shush/Ooh La La” to the Robyn Hitchcock fiddle-psych of “Don’t Grow” to the protest rock of “Skin of the Patriot,” the sheer loveliness of The Goldberg Sisters can be a traumatic experience, and you’ll probably have to absorb it in phases. The first stage is disorientation: was this lush, complex rock music really made by the guy who Matthew McConaughey called a “geek” in Dazed and Confused? The next phase is disbelief: “There’s no way Adam Goldberg could write such studious, well-crafted songs, so bandmate Aaron Espinoza of Earlimart must have ghost-written it!”

Once you realize that, no, Goldberg wrote and arranged all these songs himself, plus sang lead and played the majority of the guitars and keys, you turn to Phase Three: Anger.

“Man, fuck the Hebrew Hammer!

Who is he to pick up a guitar? And he sings like John Lennon!” It’s hard to accept that someone can direct his own films AND make a better record than, say, Mogwai. But let me assure you, as someone who’s been there: it’s worth it to reach the Acceptance Phase. Sure, this album is very much an homage to its 70s influences, and who knows, he may not be able to pull it off again. But when you hear that voice sing those great words over these strong songs, you’ll be glad to accept the truth inherent in the band name—Goldberg has enough talent for two people.

—Dan Collins

My ears have served me right: these are the familiar sounds of childhood television. This English duo has taken a genre called “library music,” a term used for the music that was licensed to British television shows like Benny Hill and Monty Python, (and later, “The Ren and Stimpy Show”), and brought it into the modern era.

The modernization lends itself to acid jazz, funk and synthesized heavy beats, as well as some exquisite organ solos that leave your brain spinning.

As the tracks progress, some become psychedelic jams, as with “Clocks,” which could easily demonstrate the plight of the experimenting teen in an after-school special. Perhaps to prove its Englishness, the album contains a slew of numbers called “Biscuit.”

Some of it teeters a bit on the noise genre, but it always finds its way back more of a lounge feel. I’m not sure if I’d spend too much time listening unless I were throwing a cocktail party, or making a movie that needs a nostalgic soundtrack. One thing’s for sure: after a few plays, this record will leave you feelin’ groovy, whether you like it, or not!

—Rita Kassak

to song style about five times in five minutes, going from bossa nova to the Band to Growlers-esque calypso to joke rap, with interludes involving preachers, static, and giggles that add up to an experience remarkably similar to We’re Only in It for the Money, if only Zappa had grown up in the South and done more coke.

You’ll be scratching your head, saying, “Is that really the Strange Boys playing full-tilt ska?” and then Ryan Sambol’s voice whines in, removing all doubt. It’s hard to tell whether this truly signals a new world of creativity for the Strange Boys, or whether it’s all a joke meant to lead up to the more straight-ahead harmonica instrumental that concludes the single, but I really hope it’s the former—if so, it would be a game-changer for the Strange Boys, proving that the addition of Mika Miko’s Jenna DeWitt and Darker My Love’s Tim Presley to the band’s lineup has been as pivotal as Nicks and Buckingham were to Fleetwood Mac. Then again, maybe the Strange Boys just intentionally weirded-out Side A just to get people to listen to Side B, “The Jungle,” recorded by their friends Natural Child. And yes, “The Jungle” is a great sing-along with a catchy guitar cadence, and it’s nice to promote your friends. But “American Radio” is a chrome-plated megaphone of destiny!

—Dan Collins

DAVE VAN PATTEN

THE TWO KOREAS Science Island Randy Vicar

VALERIA HERRADOR

THE STRANGE BOYS/NATURAL CHILD “American Jungle”/ ”The Jungle” 7” Scion AV

It’s official—modern garage punk is all about Frank Zappa. “American Radio,” the new Strange Boys single, literally flips the dial from song style

By their own proclamation, the Two Koreas are Toronto’s finest purveyors of glacial garage beat muzik. If you are confused as to what this new, if not self-created, subgenre might mean, you are not alone— but after you listen to Science Island, the first release from these Megacity avant-garde darlings in three years, you might begin to gain some understanding. “Midnight Brown,” the album’s first single, is driven by a handsome garage rock rhythm that goes straight for your heart, anchored by Stuart Berman’s vocals that are strongly reminiscent of The

Fall’s Mark E. Smith. However interesting the band’s coining of the term “glacial garage” may be, still more interesting is its juxtaposition to beat muzik. An explanation of this relationship, if there is one, can be heard most aptly in the record’s “Haunted Beach.” The foreboding march of Jason Anderson’s keys drives the beat of this post-punk explosion. But just when you think the Two Koreas are solely planted only on their soap box for glacial garage supremacy, they slip you their indie-rock gem, “Majored in Swimming.” At over nine minutes in length, it is by far the magnum opus of their return. Whether it is glacial garage, beat muzik or even indie-rock, the Two Koreas are purveyors of a fine album.

—Paul Rodarte

STEVEN FICHE

TONY COOK Back To Reality Stones Throw

Disco didn’t kill funk, it just mutated it—shaving the sharp edges off Eddie Hazel’s downright dangerous guitar and filling that space instead with wiggling synths. It did the same to Tony Cook. The longtime drummer for James Brown’s J.B.s, Cook was witness to disco’s growth and hard funk’s hard times.

Cook eventually went out on his own, intrepidly merging disco and funk into the kind of boogie you can hear igniting Funkmosphere every Monday. Assembled by Stones Throw head Peanut Butter Wolf from tracks Cook recorded from 1982-1986, Back to Reality is a lost classic reborn precisely in time for the modern funk renaissance. DamFunk himself appears on “What’s On Your Mind,” gliding smoothly over a heap of synths as he attempts to untangle some mixed signals.

“The Weekend Life” flies the funk down to the Caribbean with what sounds like steel drums processed through a Casio keyboard; “The Rap” pops open some proto-hiphop that hits you “everywhere, even in the underwear.” Cook’s is a sound equally conceivable as a soundtrack to Russian propaganda cartoons and 8-bit racing games. When he ditched drums for machines, he beALBUM REVIEWS

came a producer always in search of a hit record. Now he has it.

—Miles Clements

sound journey through memory and dreams that feels at the end like a meditation.

—Tom Child

ANNA BADUA

THE SUMMER OF FLUX

Radio Anthems for the Newly Disenfranchised Architects + Heroes Radio Anthems for the Newly Disenfranchised is an album that defies easy categorization. Its nine instrumental tracks slip between Eno-esque electronic blurps, postrock, jazz and abstract textural exploration, at times sounding like Boards of Canada, at times like Prefuse 73 or something from similarly minded Warp artists.

The album opens with “Something,” one of the more straightforward tracks on the album, its piano chords gently easing you in, at times sounding like an OK Computer interlude. “Now All is Ever” ups the experimentalism with a nervously glitchy sampled guitar alternating between two chords as ominous rumbles are brought up in the mix, punctuated occasionally by a high pitched whirring insect noise sounding like David Lynch’s sound design. “Love Letter to Oklahoma (Part 2)” dips nearly into Daft Punk territory, minus the dance, sounding less like a love letter to the heartland and more like the kind of thing Goblin would play as a Dario Argento heroine snuck around some hidden passageway. Of course, not everything is monstrous—some tracks are beautiful jazz numbers, and piano lines about, but perhaps it’s no coincidence that things close out on a slightly edgy note with “Magical Dracula Powers,” reminiscent of the kind of track Doseone might rap over. Radio Anthems for the Newly Disenfranchised sounds like waking up into a slightly confusing day, never staying in one place quite long enough to be comforting, never getting explicitly dark enough to be truly alienating. The Summer of Flux navigates this tension expertly, producing a 24-minute

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LISA STROUSS

YUCK

self-titled Fat Possum If Yuck was around in ’95 they would’ve easily landed a spot on the Clueless soundtrack. This grungy bunch is an acid flashback from the 90’s, Stoner Travis’ dream come true and Cher Horowitz’s worst nightmare.

Plucked from different corners of the earth (Scotland, Hiroshima, London, and... Jersey?), Yuck’s self-titled album is surprisingly fluid, embodying that dreamy lo-fi feeling that’s big in today’s indie scene. What separates it from most is Yuck’s ability to pair rich, droning guitar riffs with upbeat, airy harmonies. A mellow throwback, if you will—think Sonic Youth meets the Pixies with a pinch of Guided by Voices. The album opens with “Get Away,” a heavy guitar driven song supported by washed out, whiny vocals. It’ll grab you by the shoulders, sit you down, and demand that you finish the rest of the record. A powerful first few songs are followed by several upbeat and melodic tambourine induced numbers, including recently released, “Georgia” and “Suicide Policeman.” “Rubber” ties it all together, providing the groggiest, loveliest seven-minute ending possible. Imagine that drawn out Sonic Youth guitar dragged along by the entire band chanting, “should I give in?” until the whole thing turns into complete noise. Dust off your teen angst and blast this through your headphones like it’s 1995, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Maybe it’ll make you feel like a virgin who can’t drive, maybe it won’t... Whatever. All I know is Yuck’s sound is far from what their name implies.

—Chelsea Green

Various Artists Jon Savage presents Black Hole: California Punk 1977-1980 Domino You can take this definitive, accept-no-other comp as proof Jon Savage loves your pesthole of a town as much as I do. A few weeks after my talk with the acidulous rockcrit, this honest-tomerch CD landed over the transom Royally Mailed from Wales; a place about a dissimilar to California as the methane canyons of Neptune. In the liners JS relates just how he developed a taste for this snotty sub-species of popular culture. This critical bent has something to do with the spiritual distance between Portobello Rd. and the Valley, a span that can shrink to the size of a bad penny upon walking into some punk rock dive a half hour from H’wood and finding Mick Jones of The Clash within. Then as now, the underground music scene was furtive, widely scattered, and seemed to possess some secret about life in California no one else knew or cared about. Well, the broad outlines of this rough beast of a riddle can be heard on these twentyseven tracks. Alternate takes of anthemic stuff like “Forming” by The Germs and X’s “We’re Desperate” bulk curiously small alongside tuneful bricks like “I Hate the Rich” by The Dils or The Avengers’ “We Are the One” still fit to hurl at any barricade. The Consumers’ “Anti Anti Anti” wouldn’t sound out of place in the original Nuggets box and The Randoms’ “A-B-C-D” is as punk as ABC gum, which is its whole problem. Despite the braggadocio you hear on “Trouble at the Cup,” Black Randy never shot a cop, but then again, he didn’t wind up playing one on TV either, so that makes the ham acting on Ice T’s records even less believable in retrospect.

“Solitary Confinement” is a too-brief onslaught from The Weirdos, who personified everything fierce about pre-hardcore L.A. punk. The Sleepers’ “Seventh World” does the same job on L.A. 1960s garage, channeling homemade1967 Electric Pruno as this-minute now-sound. California punk’s scabrous message- that life in the American Elysium was and remains a big bowl of bland homogenized fuck – was entirely too much for U.S. record labels to admit, even to make a Glenn Beckian buck off the market for anger. One wonders if our new micro-moguls will show the same restraint, once the music begins to bang once more. Which, judging from turn of recent events, ought to be any minute now.

Roy Head and The Traits Treat Her Right Dynamite # 101 Amoeba Hollywood was offloading this punky-looking, no-barcode CD for about one third catalog price last time the Playmate and I wandered down the Oldies aisle. Before we get to the Play button, all you really need to know about the vigorous Mr. Head is 1) he’s from Three Rivers, Texas, and 2) the dumber species of oldtimey rockcrit used to call him “the white James Brown,” which not only shows the writer’s ass in two colors, but also unforgivably slights Wayne Cochran. His manic rockabilly act recorded on at least a half-dozen labels before the star went country, with his greatest achievement being the bedroom anthem “Treat Her Right,” covered since by Otis, Bon Jovi, The Boss, The Killer, The Commitments, and Tom effing Jones (among many others), which reached #2 on both the Billboard Pop and R&B charts in 1965. The Playmate tells me his son Jason was one of the better contestants on Season Six of American Idol, but I was almost certainly stoned at the New Beverly at the time and so took little notice. Suffice to say, this man could not only sing, but dance just as good as the Nicholas Brothers could walk (YouTube him and see). These tracks display mastery of a personalized R&B assault every bit as memorable as those of Eric Burdon or Wilson Pickett, if far less celebrated. The job Head does on the equally familiar “Got My Mojo Workin’” fairly reels the mind, conjuring up alt-vistas of a world where he wound up fronting for The Litter or Quicksilver Messenger Service. Or if someone at Elektra had shown the wit to ring Roy up five minutes after they found Jim in the bathtub. These thirty tracks were recorded for TNT, Renner, Gold Star, Scepter and many other labels, but derive from a knockoff compilation hawked out the back door by Scepter the year “Treat Her Right” hit. This son-of-a-bootleg release hit #122 on the album chart and makes you feel thankful for the occasional larcenous impulse.

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L.A. RECORD SXSW CHEAT SHEET SXSW can be (and should be and also will be) a complete ball of confusion, so in the spirit of helpfully de-confusing you, L.A. RECORD has compiled this cheat sheat for shows, parties, showcases for SXSW this year! Listings subject to change without notice, and more to come online! Send time, date, place, and pertinent info about your official or unofficial SXSW party to kristina@larecord.com in order to be considered for inclusion on LARECORD.com!

WEDNESDAY MAR. 16 THURSDAY MAR. 17 GUITARTOWN/CONQUEROO PRESENT KICKOFF 2011 AT THE DOGWOOD Andy Friedman, Wagons, Leslie Stevens, Syd Straw, Michael Des Barres and more 4:30pm | Free | 21+ BURGER RECORDS AND L.A. RECORD PRESENTS BRGR SXSW 2011 AT TRAILER SPACE King Tuff , Conspiracy of Owls, Personal and the Pizzas, Hunx And His Punx, Peach Kelli Pop, Wrong Words, Apache, Shannon and the Clams, Audacity, Cosmonauts, Break, Devon Williams, Dreamend/Marshmellow Ghost, Bad Sports, Mean Jeans, Jaill, White Mystery, Feeding People, Summer Twins, Types, Guadalupe Plata 2pm | Free | All Ages

TROUBLE IN MIND AND SAILOR JERRY PRESENT SXSW SHOWCASE AT THE SHANGRI-LA The Hex Dispensers, the Night Beats, Cheap Time, The Paperhead, Wounded Lion, The White Wires, the Wrong Words, Wax Museums, the Mean Jeans, Personal & the Pizzas 12 pm | Free | 21+ IHEARTCOMIX OFFICIAL SXSW SHOWCASE AT THE BEAUTY BAR She Wants Revenge, Miami Horror, Diamond Rings, the Death Set, Violens, Pacific!, Dirty Ghosts, Beni, Picture Plane, Pipes, Jessie and the Toys, Big Freedia, G-Side, Frankie Chan, Database 8 pm | Official Showcase | 21 +

L.A. RECORD / VOLAR RECORDS/I HATE ROCK N ROLL/THE COLONEL FORCEFIELD PR AND TERRORBIRD PRESENT AT TRAILERSPACE Wax MEDIA PRESENT THE 4TH AN- Museums/Unholy Two, Dávila 666, NUAL SXSW DAY PARTY AT RED 7 Pujo, Blood Beach and many more tUnE-yArDs, Toro Y Moi, Weekend, 1 pm | Free | All Ages Generationals, Braids, Screaming Females, Violens, Lord Huron, The OTHER MUSIC AND DIG FOR FIRE Soft Moon, The Death Set, Lower PRESENT THE 2011 LAWN PARTY Dens, Nite Jewel, Rainbow Arabia, AT SXSW AT THE FRENCH LEGAPictureplane, Cloud Nothings 12 TION MUSEUM Edwyn Collins, Low, pm | Free | All Ages Sharon Van Etten, Twin Shadow, Cass McCombs, Papercuts, Ted Leo, ELEPHANT PRODUCTIONS/INFER- Lia Ices, Janka Nabay, Olof Arnalds, NO FILMS PRESENTS SLAB X SLAB Hanni el Khatib 1 pm | Free | All FEST AT ZEN Peter Pants, Bad Wolf, ages So Many Wizards, The Long Tangles, Terri Lord, Charlie Belle, A Good CMRTYZ RECORDS, PSYCHIC LUNCH Rodgering, Heavy Love 11 am | RECORDS, AND HOZAC RECORDS Free | All Ages PRESENTS SIIICK SXSW AT 1112 E. 6TH ST Prison, Manic Attracts, I AM PR AGENCY + WHB PROMO- Quintron & Miss Pussycat, Unnatural TIONS PRESENTS RAP ROCKS Helpers, Christmas, Fungi Girls, Dead SXSW AT SPEAKEASY The White Ghosts, Strange Boys, VoltREvolt, House Band, Das Racist, Shinobi Hunx and His Punx, Paul Cary, Thee Ninja, Jared Evan, Hollis Brown, The Oh Sees, Xray Eyeballs, Dizzy Eyes, Upperclassmen, Click Clack Boom, Butts, Cheap Time, Guantanamo BayBodega Girls, Ra The MC, Rocky watch, Brandon Daniels & The Chics Business 1 pm | Free | 21+ 3pm | Free | All Ages TREEHOUSE DIDDLY AT CHEERS SHOT BAR Fletcher C. Johnson, Floating Action, Lesands, The Growlers, The Moondoggies, Big Light, These United States, Tim Easton and The Freelan’ Barons, Or the Whale, The Lines, Bears of Blue River 12 pm| Free | 21+

FRIDAY MAR. 18

SATURDAY MAR. 19

CAROLINA CHICKADEE PRESENTS AMERICAN ROADSHOW REVIVAL AT THE WATERLOO ICEHOUSE Mike Stinson, Jeremiah & The Red Eyes, Driftwood Singers, Roses Pawn Shop, Malin Pettersen, Brennen Leigh, Leslie Stevens, Gram Rabbit, HOZAC SXSW 2011 AT BEERLAND Billy Eli 11 am | Free | All Ages Mickey, Heavy Times, Outer Minds, Peoples Temple, Fungi Girls, Xray MESS WITH TEXAS PARTY AT THE Eyeballs, the Shrapnells 1 pm | EAST SIDE DRIVE IN Dead Milkmen, !!!, Odd Future, Surfer Blood, Ted Free | 21+ Leo (solo), Thee Oh Sees, Deer Tick, EVERLOVING AND L.A. RECORD Off!, Screaming Females, Strange PRESENT THE EVERLOVING PARTY Boys, Fresh & Onlys, Dávila 666, AT DESIGN WITHIN REACH Vacant Big Freedia, Lemuria, Dom, Esben Lots, Light Pollution, Herman Dune, and the Witch, Devin Therriault, the Adanowsky, Shannon and the Growlers, We Barbarians 11:30 am Clams, Ebony Bones, The Growlers, | Free with RSVP | All Ages Hanni El Khatib 1:30 pm | Free | All Ages PANACHE SXSW SHOWCASE AT THE MOHAWK Quintron and Miss BURGER RECORDS PRESENTS Pussycat, Ty Segall, JEFF the BrothTHE BURGER RECORDS DAY-TIME erhood, the Strange Boys, Pujol, HOUSE PARTY AT 3104 BIRDWOOD Natural Child, the Woggles, Turbo Conspiracy of Owls, Shannon and Fries, Fergus and Geronimo, Prince the Clams, Apache, The Pizazz, Au- Rama, Anamanaguchi, Paul Cary dacity, Devon Williams, Barreracu- 1:10 pm | Official Showcase | All das, Cosmonauts, Jaill 4:30 pm | Ages free | all ages GOLDEN RATIO TWO SYLLABLE RETHE A.V. CLUB PRESENTS MARCH CORDS UNOFFICIAL SHOWCASE AT INTO SOFTNESS 2011 AT THE MO- GYPSY LOUNGE Ava Luna, Savoir HAWK Baths, Sharon Van Etten, Ted Adore, Dinosaur Bones, Beat ConLeo, Wye Oak, Gentlemen Jesse And nection, The Forms, Candy Claws, His Men, Small Sins, Low, Chikita Headless Horseman, Holiday Violenta, Maritime, An Horse, Tris- Shores, The Dig, Stepkids, Distracten, No Joy 12 pm | Free | 21+ tions 3 pm | Free | 21+ JAXART/TWO SYLLABLE OFFICIAL SHOWCASE AT SOHO LOUNGE Distractions, Shimmering Stars, Slow Animal, Holiday Shores, Candy Claws, Speculator 8 pm | Official Showcase | 21+

MEXICAN SUMMER + GORILLA VS BEAR AT KLUB KRUCIAL Shabazz Palaces, White Denim, Cass McCombs, The Fresh & Onlys, Star Slinger, The Soft Moon, Lia Ices, Grimes, The Vacant Lots, Brain Idea, DJ sets by The Samps, DJ Sober 12 pm | Free | 21+

STEREOGUM PRESENTS LAST NIGHT IN TEXAS AT THE PUREVOLUME HOUSE Das Racist, Cults, Owen Pallet, Puro Instinct 11 pm | Free with RSVP | 21+

LAMEBOOK/TEXTS FROM LAST NIGHT/ REGRETSY/CHUCK NORRIS FACT/PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE WFMU AT SXSW PRESENTS AT NOTES PRESENT THAT INTERNET BARBARELLA El-G, Sun Araw, PARTY AT RED 7 White Arrows, Soft ROKY ERICKSON’S PSYCHEDELIC Whitehorse, the Endtables 8 pm | Healer, Skiggy Raps, Flying Turns, Learning Secrets, DJ Kosher Dillz, ICE CREAM SOCIAL AT THREAD- Free | 21+ DJ DNS, Mickey Schiff (of White ArGILL’S Roky Erickson, Peter Buck, The Riverboat Gamblers, J Mascis, OTHER MUSIC AND DIG FOR FIRE rows, DJ set), The New Movement PRESENT THE 2011 LAWN PARTY with Lamebook 8 pm | $5 | All Peelander-Z 12 pm | $10 | 21+ AT THE FRENCH LEGATION MUSE- Ages NEW L.A. FOLK FESTIVAL AND UM !!!, James Blake, Cults, Grass TRAILER FIRE RECORDS AT SHAKE- Widow, Lower Dens, Anna Calvi 1 SPEARE’S Damien Jurado, Leslie pm | Free | 21+ Stevens, Olentangy John, Driftwood Singers, Hi Ho Silver Oh 12:30 pm| TEEPEE RECORDS 2011 SXSW OFFICIAL SHOWCASE AT HEADHUNTFree | 21+ ERS Iron Age, Lecherous Gaze, SPACELAND, ORIGAMI VINYL, Sweet Apple, Night Horse, Weird ANTI- AND L.A. RECORD AT THE Owl, the Main Street Gospel, MonSHANGRI-LA Austra, Frankie and do Drag 7 PM | Official Showcase the Heartstrings, Superhumanoids, | 21 + Hanni El Khatib + more TBA 8 pm | Free | 21+

THE INTERPRETER

REBEKAH RAFF Curated by Kristina Benson Photography by Theo Jemison

HARRY PARTCH DELUSION OF THE FURY — A RITUAL OF DREAM AND DELUSION (CBS, 1971) “My favorite quote of his is ‘carry a shrine with you whereever you go.’ I got to play and perform in the Partch band, using the first kithara he built with his own hands. Harry Partch is probably one of the most interesting artists I have come across. His parents were missionaries in China but had to leave cuz of the Boxer Rebellion.

They ended up in New Mexico where he heard songs from Native Americans outside his bedroom window. He read Hermann Hemholtz’s On the Sensation of Tone, and developed an alternative tuning system—43 tones to the octave! He built 23 of his own insturments to accomodate the tuning. He said that he is a philosophical music man, seduced into carpentry. He used wood, metal, strings, artillery casings, glass carboys, wine bottles—he loved his liquor and his sovereignty. Most of the instruments were inspired by Asian and Greek instruments. Playing his music is a visceral experience cuz you have all those notes ... more consonance, more dissonance. The first inklings of me wanting to be hands-on with electronic music was spawned by his work—it is in this medium that experimentation is most accessible to me.”

ALICE COLTRANE TRANSFIGURATION (WARNER, 1978)

“Alice, Alice, Alice! So much admiration! There’s a rare depth to her. She studied classical piano and jazz, played gospel organ in church ceremonies, made various trips to India and devotedly studied Hinduism and Eastern philosophy—and oh, how she played her harp! You can hear the Indian, the gospel, the classical, the jazz and spiritual ponderings.

She turned it all into a sound of its own—sounds transcending geographical boundaries and unifying the human spirit—which I think is a wonderful goal to have as a composer/performer. You hear someone’s spirit in their music, and she has such a deep one.”

RAVEL PIANO CONCERTO IN G: CONCERTO FOR LEFT HAND (PRO-ARTE/SINFONIA, 1982) “I’m a harpist, so yeah—Ravel! As a classical composer, Ravel does great justice to the harp and to music. In 1929 Ravel took a trip to the U.S. and ended up meeting George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. These two pieces, while quite different from each other, were composed between 1929-1931 and are the last of his major works.

Both sound as if they are influenced by jazz, especially the Piano Concerto in G. The Concerto for Left Hand is only one movement and was commissioned by a pianist named Paul Wittgenstein who lost his right arm in WW1. The piano is played with the intensity of Franz Liszt, which is crazy cuz it’s for one hand. I hear changes that remind me of Erik Satie, but again Ravel had such a sound of his own.

Humans are so affected by their enviroment so it’s interesting to study what was going on at the time, the people they interacted with, their family situation and the political situation.”

INTERPRETER

You are probably most familiar with Rebekah Raff as the harpist who helped so many of the tracks on Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma come to life, but she’s also performed for such popular artists as Kanye West and Britney Spears and added her talents to L.A.’s Hip-Hop Orchestra.

TERRY RILEY A RAINBOW IN CURVED AIR (COLUMBIA, 1969)

“Terry Riley is considered a key figure in a movement going on back to the 50s and 60s and 70s referred to as the minimalist movement. He’s also one of the most important pioneers in tape-looping and tape-delay feedback systems. Riley experiments with two reel-to-reel tape machines, feeding and routing the magnetic strip in various creative ways. This album is his most popular album and is result of various recorded live performances layered and edited together. His performances developed into a long overnight ritual in which a room was rented out and he’d have tape machines looping and then he’d play organs, saxophones, and percussion. People would bring their sleeping bags and tents and sleep and hang out through the night while the music was playing.”

AHMED ABDUL MALIK EAST MEETS WEST (RCA VICTOR, 1960)

“I found this record the same day I found the Batik record. This man is a Sudanese bassist and oud player. Before he made this record he played bass with Thelonius Monk, Coleman Hawkins and Randy Weston, among others. On this album, he mostly plays both the bass and the oud, which is a lute-like instrument. He explores the folk musical traditions of North Africa, Egypt, Sudan and Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, and fuses them with jazz. This record also has Benny Goldman on sax, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Johnny Griffin on trombone. There are violins, and a 72-string kanoon, which is an insturment native to the southern part of the Arabian peninsula. It’s a beautiful listen.”

VARIOUS BALI: GAMELAN AND KECEK (NONESUCH, 1989)

“The gamelan is a type of percussion-dominated musical ensemble from Indonesia. It’s a very rhythmic and repetitious music often accompanied by dance and poetry and singing. Then there is kecak, one of the most far out musical things and as I understand a more recent development in Balinese music. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece is performed by a circle of performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting “cak” and throwing up their arms, depicting a battle from the Ramayana. It’s a dream of mine to visit Bali and Java and play the gamelan, walk in the forest, eat the food, smell the the forests, meet the people. I hear the people have a great reverance for the arts and nature. Someday ... sigh.”

RALPH TOWNER BATIK

(ECM, 1978)

“I can’t believe I heard this record for the first time a couple weeks back.

Ralph Rowner is a classically-trained pianist who took up the 6- and 12string guitars. He also was interested Indian classical music and American folk music and jazz, and cites Bill Evans as a huge inspiration. This album is acoustic and of original compositions and if I must put a label on it, I’d say it’s avant-garde jazz. The drummer on this album—Jack de Johnette—is one of my favorite drummers. His sense of tone is as great as his sense of rhythm and it shines here.”

VARIOUS FOLK AND CLASSICAL MUSIC OF KOREA (FOLKWAYS, 1951)

DOROTHY ASHBY THE RUBAIYAT OF ...

“This record has both folk music and classical music of Korea. The folk songs are so soulful. The lyrics speak of love love had and love hindered cuz of greedy governments or bitter elders. There is one song that is just so bluesey. The farming songs sound brighter and not as sad. Then there is the classical music of Korea, which is used as a ritual music. It’s more meditative and played with a traditional Korean orchestra made of wood, metal, string and stone to symbolize nature, honor it and honor Korean kings. The genre of classical music represented here is called ahahk, meaning ‘elegant music.’”

“Dorothy Ashby is a classically trained harpist who played be-bop and funk like no one else played it on the harp. On this record, she infuses her songwriting with funk and traditions from Japanese and Arab music.

She teamed up with arranger Richard Evans who helped her out with the Afro-Harping LP. Rubaiyat refers to a form of Persian poetry that uses quatrains, and she is no doubt inspired by Persian potery like the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám. Listen on and hear her jamming on the koto—a six-foot-long 23-string Japanese instrument, and she makes it funky!”

(CADET, 1970)

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NICOLE DISSON Interview by Drew Denny Photography by Ammo

Producer and actor Nicole Disson takes theater out of the ‘theater’ and drops it out of the sky into places like the rooftop of the Standard Downtown. Her March performance of her one-night-only THE SERIES put L.A. RECORD alumni like Julia Holter in strange new performing environments and gave visiting businessmen tons to think about.

You’ve got a thing for rock operas, eh?

I was talking to Rachel Kolar. She and her partner in crime, Lauren Brown, were reviving a script that she wrote called NEW. Those past two years I was working at a brand-marketing firm as my second or third job. I thought I’d come on board as director of marketing so I could apply all this knowledge I’d gained in my day job to something I cared about. I succeeded in finding corporate sponsorship which was my first money deal—you know, not a trade. I brought the Standard on. Got Million Dollar Theater—a 2,500-seat house.

We worked endlessly for months. There were only two shows but it was so special. It featured different musicians. I performed in it as well—a minor role but super fun. Around that time—April of 2010—I felt it was time for me to spearhead my own independent project. I was starting to see what my friends were doing and join their team and help build up the projects but not feel like I was taking on enough risk. … I had been doing cover shows, like I would do an entire show dedicated to Gershwin or Ella Fitzgerald. Becky Stark inspired me—she did a show at Largo and asked me to sing the opening and closing

we could merge the nightlife-social element of L.A. that people flock to endlessly with the performing arts. Basically, I wanted to use the space and the budget to give the performing arts a new platform in L.A. to be produced and to be seen more aggressively than how they are at a theater or a dance hall or a museum. Not that those places aren’t frequented but … sometimes it’s hard to get people to come. So I launched THE SERIES, and that was just a really crazy wild experiment. August of 2010 was the first one and it was so exciting and so fun and so nerve-wracking. I didn’t know if anyone would come. We were taking people on this ride on the rooftop through all these performances.

No dancers drowned in the pool?

No! There were glitches, but we learned from everything. The second one featured a sixteenpiece orchestra. The talent has continued to grow, and I’m really excited about the people who have come on board. It’s a great concept, but at this point I want to further develop it.

Refine it. The cast is huge for this next one! It’s gone from ten names to … I don’t even know!

I don’t know if there’s anything like this going on in L.A.

What was your plan for the March THE SERIES? D’arcy French-Myerson is directing this one.

Our theme is ‘Sound Off’—the relationship that sound has with social interactions, exploring the different dynamics of sound in a social space through musical performance, sound installations, and some intriguing multimedia performances. We’ve got an amazing cast! Julia Holter, Aaron Drake, Jason Grier, Tearist … two clowns, there is a sign language performance, some movement …

Have any hotel guests accidentally stumbled into any of your performances?

The show caters to art enthusiasts, but the hotel welcomes and is open to guests, businessmen, people looking for a good time, the general public ... The businessmen have been—not problematic but funny. They love the dancers in the pool. You hear women talking in the bathroom about ‘that weird thing with the people talking over there!’ I have people planted, listening to audience reaction.

People were coming back again and showing their friends where to go. People are picking up on it. But each one is its own show that’s never gonna be done again.

“I like to make a good moment.

It’s a bit of a drug in itself.” songs. I realized I had found my niche. Instead of show tunes, it was standards. That’s what I enjoy singing. All the while I was finding opportunities to perform. I wanted something bigger. I was shooting independent shorts for friends but it seemed like live events was where it was going on for me. The Standard approached me about really wanting to work on something else together—they liked my work and said they’d continue with me. From a marketing standpoint I realized I could really leverage this. I thought of this as an opportunity to help build their image by doing what I really wanted to do, which was more curating and producing than promoting.

By making a show that was site-specific and avant-garde. It was an experiment to see how INTERVIEW

Like a recurring group show for performance?

It’s more like a great party where everyone who’s involved invites their friends to enjoy pieces they’ve created with artists that they’ve never worked with before presenting it for the first and only time on a rooftop in the middle of downtown L.A.!

Has the hotel ever gotten scared?

They totally think I’m crazy, but they’ve been great. They all love me and laugh at me but that’s part of my job. I really present to them what I want to do. I don’t try to brush anything under the rug. I respect their space. This is our theater. And we‘ve really been working together to use the space in a way that is seriously unorthodox.

What’s different about producing an ‘art’ event in a commercial space versus an art institution?

I have zero interest in promoting a party for a brand launch or something. They want people to come to the space. They need some energy up in there. I thought, ‘How can we use this quirky rooftop Downtown with this beautiful view? Let’s get a dancer in the pool, a performer in the elevator, an actor in the fire pit!’ When I lived in London, I saw a wide variety of theater, and the stuff that moved me the most wasn’t in the theater—like a play in an old abandoned tube station. Or this Argentine troupe with acrobats performing in an old bank. I really respect, love and enjoy traditional theater, of course. People don’t re-

gard this city as a theater hub but there are so many performing artists here who are innovating and who are hungry to work!

You’re a theater girl at heart?

I want to work in the theater again at some point. I like to make people laugh, to give them the opportunity to be self-reflexive and if it can be a cathartic experience, even better!

While THE SERIES was going I started NOMERICA with Ana Calderon—which was really fun. No American music Thursday nights at El Cid. Then I did this show at the Soho house in West Hollywood—I brought Mandy Kahn on as my writer and Mecca Andrews as my choreographer/director. We created this character Susan, and it was our opportunity to test this in front of a live audience. I got a standing ovation which I was pretty surprised by. I did this long melodramatic classical monologue then I did a zany dialogue with the audience and I had a three-piece band and I jumped on the bar and sang ‘Love for Sale’ and did a full dance piece in four-inch heels.

I like to make a good moment. It’s a bit of a drug in itself. To have an audience. To navigate their emotions, take them from really quiet to really loud. It’s an incredible gift and it’s what I love to do. Part of why I produce is because I can give myself an opportunity to perform! It’s hard for me to sit and wait for someone else to give me an opportunity. I find ways to create my own stage. In turn, it’s led me to giving a stage to a lot of others.

Do you learn from studying or from trying?

I think there’s value in both. I learn from watching people every day—both mistakes and achievements. It’s trial-by-error, but I’m young and I have a lot to learn. There are things I’ve done—even in the past two years—that I’m like, ‘What?’ But it’s all good.

I’m just now growing in to my own skin. I’m not a veteran! I think I’m up-and-coming.

NICOLE DISSON PRESENTS THE SERIES ON TUE., APR. 12, ON THE ROOFTOP OF THE STANDARD DOWNTOWN, 550 S. FLOWER ST., DOWNTOWN. 8 PM / FREE / 21+ / RSVP AT DTLA@STANDARDHOTEL.COM. AND NOMERICA! EVERY THUR. AT EL CID, 4212 W. SUNSET BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 10 PM / FREE / 21+. VISIT NICOLE DISSON AT NICOLEDISSON. BLOGSPOT.COM. 77

PENNY-ANTE Interview by Drew Denny Photography by Aaron Giesel

Penny-Ante started just about the same time as L.A. RECORD, at the other extreme of printed matter—instead of one page every week, they’d release giant beautiful books full of original art and writing and creative expression and even wedge in a unique CD of music, too. Now after three giant volumes, Penny-Ante’s Rebekah Weikel is releasing a series of original prints as Penny-Ante this spring.

I’ve always revered Penny-Ante publications as these beautiful gems containing tidy genealogies of all the messy stuff I like. Why did you start making them?

It was 2005, I was young, bored out of my mind, and had five grand to burn. Since then … more burning.

What about you personally? Where were you before Penny-Ante?

Pretty lost, as anyone in their early twenties should be. Left school, flew across the country, ended up outside Boston for a few months, then somehow found myself in a Christian philosophy program/shelter. For twelve dollars a day, you got fed and a bed which sounded good to me. The program’s New York branch was full, so I ended up in their Rochester, Minnesota, branch. I shared a basement with the only other stayer, a 4’11” photographer that was all sorts of mixed up between drugs and her Southern Baptist upbringing. We were forced to listen to these Francis Schaeffer tapes every morning for a few hours and after a while, we both went totally insane. We were stuck in Flat Town, USA in the dead of winter, and the only thing to do was wonder at the enormity of the Mayo Clinic and walk around Silver Lake. Irony? I did indeed make it to the only show that came to town: Jars of Clay. It’s funny. We actually ended up on their tour bus after the show somehow. Big party.

Lots of Evian water. After the snow melted, I came back to California, got a job and settled into a nice quiet life on Sawtelle Boulevard across from the Yamaguchi Bonsai Nursery.

Then I gave birth to Penny-Ante, and everything got fucked up again.

How? Where has Penny-Ante taken you?

Out and in of love … and to Tokyo, too. I went out there with Simeon Coxe—I was working as Silver Apples’ manager at the time—and I don’t think Tokyo will ever leave me. Our visit to the Meiji Shrine was something unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Breathtaking. We stayed there almost four hours, in silence. You couldn’t talk. It was just too beautiful.

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Does Penny-Ante create its community or did a community create Penny-Ante?

The community came first. I just came in quietly and stood in the back and took notes. I do feel very strongly about preservation. Penny-Ante has always been my attempt to document people and things I fear might get lost.

How did you happen upon this particular bunch of L.A. artists? Who were your first friends here?

It’s tricky to say, really. When I was living on Sawtelle in West L.A., I met a girl named Phoebe at a house party. We both had jobs we hated and not too many people in our lives we felt a connection with. We clicked easy and it was the beginning of a new era.

Every night, she would pick me up around nine after she got off work and we’d drive east on Sunset. We did this for almost a year and it was an incredible time in my life. We were open to anything and we entered every situation without fear. We didn’t know anyone, we had no one to please, we just didn’t give a fuck—we were looking for an escape and we found it. Eventually, we came across Little Joy and Joe McGraw, who later found me my place in Hollywood. On Kingsley and Sunset.

So I guess you could say Phoebe and Joe were my first friends in L.A. It stayed that way for quite a while. I think I came to Los Angeles at just the right time, and I plan on leaving at the right time too.

How about Jason Yates?

Jason and I met via email in late 2005. I had contacted him to contribute to book #1 and he was the first person involved to pick up the phone and call me. Somewhere in that first conversation, it was decided he was going to do the cover for the first edition. A few months later, he came out from Arizona to Sawtelle to make some art for the release show and in that time, a quasi-familial relationship was formed. I say ‘quasi’ only because he made me a bit nervous. In fact, he still makes me nervous … that’s probably why I like working with him so much.

Why didn’t he do the third edition?

When I first started on three, both our lives were in flux. Jason had a baby on the way, had just been picked up by Circus Gallery, and his art career was on the rise. My dad died, my mom’s mental illness was getting progressively worse, and I holed up indoors with a chip on my shoulder. I think there was a semi-silent agreement made between the two of us that he was not going to do the cover … but since, we both have agreed that his disconnect from Three was the best thing for the both of us. I recently went down to visit him and his wife [artist Coco Yates] in Encinitas, and we had a nice fireside chat on the matter. I think we both feel satisfied with the cover’s outcome.

My dad died in November, and my mom’s marrying her rehab counselor. We should order some drinks.

Indeed we should and will, Drew. My mom passed last September. Let’s watch the sun come up.

Now Jason’s back on board and you’re releasing a series of prints— I’m currently working with Jed Ochmanek, Hedi El Kohlti, Jason Yates and New Yorkbased artist Jiminie Ha. The prints are in production now and will be available by April. In terms of exhibiting, plans are pending.

What else are you releasing this spring?

Dream Warfare 3—a film by artist Jason Triefenbach, released in a limited DVD format.

Why the sudden format flip-flop?

My relationship with the Penny-Ante ‘comp’ books tired. Personally and professionally, a lot has happened in the past few years that left me with a strong desire to abandon the past. I’m looking forward to the freedom in working with varied formats and Jason’s film seemed like a good opportunity to do so.

I hear Triefenbach somehow made you leave a performance with shards of glass stuck in your arm—is that what it takes for an artist to get a publisher’s attention?

Maybe mine. I don’t necessarily prefer to bleed, but yes—I’ve come to terms with the fact I’m only attracted to people and things that make me nervous.

Who are the people behind the journal Animal Shelter? What’s the relationship between Penny-Ante and Animal Shelter? You seem to overlap in a healthy sort of way.

Hedi El Kohlti edits Animal Shelter. Ashley Nelson—a dear friend of mine—gifted me a copy of the first Animal Shelter a couple years back. I just found it to be exquisite.

Since then, I’ve spoken with Hedi about possibly coming on board as publisher of his next issue.

What excites you about artist, writer and musician Andrew Arduini?

He’s immaculate, in person and in the courtesies he takes with words.

What’s your favorite poem?

In song, ‘When the Ships Come In’ by Bob Dylan. And close to anything by Bertolt Brecht.

Was Beuys right? Is everyone an artist?

I have a deep-rooted respect for Joseph Beuys and his ideas, yes. We, as free people, can paint a society by the choices we make and our action—both large and small.

Jack Heard asks if every ‘one’ is an artist, is every ‘thing’ an artist?

You could say so. Whether an animate or inanimate ‘thing,’ ‘it’ affects. ‘It’ has its place and position in the world and its size of effect on the whole—depends who it comes into contact with.

What is the role of print publication in today’s society? Wait, don’t answer that …

How do you get by without selling ads to pot clubs and sensual masseuses?

Good credit.

PENNY-ANTE’S PRINT SERIES AND JASON TRIEFENBACH’S DREAM WARFARE 3 DVD WILL RELEASE THIS SPRING. VISIT PENNY-ANTE AT PENNY-ANTE.NET. ART

CLEVELAND CONFIDENTIAL Interviews by Chris Ziegler Photography by Ward Robinson Smog Veil’s long-awaited issue of the Rocket From the Tombs tapes refers to 1970s Cleveland as ‘punk rock ground zero,’ and every single word there was chosen very carefully. This ‘dying industrial city’ birthed some of the most enduring and ahead-of-its-time rock ‘n’ roll of the twentieth century, from originators Rocket From the Tombs to punk mainstays like Dead Boys and the Pagans to overdriven outsiders the Electric Eels. Now several of those ground zero survivors—Mike Hudson of the Pagans, Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys and Rocket, and Bob Pfeifer of Human Switchboard—are touring to support their books on life in Cleveland (and its after-effects). They’ll be doing a spokenword panel at the Grammy Museum with special guest David Thomas, singer of Rocket and later, Pere Ubu. When was the last time the three of you were all in the same room together?

Mike Hudson (vocals, Pagans): About two hours ago at UCLA. Bob Pfeifer (vocals/guitar, Human Switchboard): Or sometime in the late 70s.

Cheetah Chrome (guitar, Dead Boys and Rocket From the Tombs): Probably some party.

One of those parties where the Electric Eels would show up dressed like Nazis?

CC: I don’t remember that ever happening. I don’t remember them ever coming to a party.

The only time I ever saw ’em was at gigs like the Extermination Nights. Three great bands playing in a small room that was poorly attended.

How did growing up with the famous horror-host Ghoulardi prime you for what was about to happen in Cleveland?

CC: Not at all. Though that was the first place I heard ‘Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow.’ He did play some good bands.

MH: It’s just part of the Cleveland culture. Like the Indians. They’d lose every fucking game.

That’s where we were coming from. You couldn’t do nothing. We were raised to believe that about ourselves.

CC: If you tried to leave Cleveland, you’d fail.

MH: You’d die!

So what was an actual day like in the Cleveland of the 70s?

MH: Just like everywhere else!

But none of this music happened anywhere else.

CC: It was nothing special. I didn’t get up and create wildly in the morning and then go out to navigate a conversation with Peter Laughner and David Thomas and then finish it off by kicking Dave E.’s ass.

Why wouldn’t the media in Cleveland support what you were doing?

MH: From the Ramones on down or the Sex Pistols on down, you couldn’t get played on the radio. We had a manager that would buy radio time to promote our shows, like us and the B-52s or something. And they wouldn’t let him use our music as the background music on our own commercials! They said if we used that, people would turn the radio off!

BP: You have to remember what happened—we’re talking about how by the mid-70s, record companies had got corporate and people could bankroll their way through. Before that, you’d have the Stooges and the Dolls, Alice Cooper—Alice Cooper’s ‘Eighteen’ was probably the most influential song on us of all time.

CC: And they’d play that on the radio all the time!

BP: By the time we came around, it was corporate already. It wasn’t just Cleveland at that point. It was the world. Listen—if Epic had put the money behind the Dead Boys like they did to make Meatloaf break in Cleveland, the radio woulda played ’em. These guys kissed ass to the right people so they got played on the radio. Just like what happened in every city in the country. You had a big-level promoter like Michael Stanley and the press all tied together, so something by the Michael Stanley Band gets the push. It all came down like that. It was the same everywhere.

Mike, didn’t the Pagans mount a sustained campaign against Cleveland’s WMMS after they wouldn’t play you on the air?

MH: They asked us to come down there one day and they come out with like a cardboard box and shitty plastic lighters with their logo and T-shirts—like what the fuck are we? A tribe of primitives? So we wrecked up the place. They had painted their logo on the side of their building downtown—their buzzard logo—and we’d go into the building with pink paint and

You said you feel now that culture and media have aligned themselves so that nothing is permitted. When I was interviewing all of the other guys, they were talking about how they felt like culture and media in Cleveland wasn’t really permitting the kind of music they wanted to make. Is there a connection?

David Thomas (vocals/saxophone, Pere Ubu and Rocket From the Tombs): Oh, I’m not sure that’s an exact quote. I mean, nobody’s not allowing you to do anything. I’m terrifically free. I’ve always been perfectly free to do exactly what I want. Now the issue that people don’t like to deal with—and maybe Cheetah and Mike and Bob were not dealing with—is that while you’re free to do anything you want, it doesn’t mean that anybody is going to buy it. Freedom is there. I’ve always said exactly what I’ve wanted to say but I’ve accepted the consequences, which is that people don’t like it and they’re not going to buy it. Well fine! That doesn’t have anything to do with freedom. You are free. So this notion that media and culture are conspiring against you is pure bullshit, if you’ll allow me to swear for a moment. It’s really irritating. I find it maddening and I have no tolerance for that point of view. I am free and I can say what I want to say and I’m willing to pay the consequences.

As somebody who actually worked for local media around Cleveland at the time that all of this was starting, was the local media hostile to Cleveland’s early punk music?

They didn’t care and why should they care? I was in the media sort of and I cared so it’s not like everybody. It’s just the mainstream. The mainstream tends to not like that sort of stuff at first. Also, in comparison to the rest of them, we were pretty amateurish. That was part of our ethos. We didn’t look good and we didn’t have good equipment and we didn’t wear spangly clothes and we didn’t thrust our groin at the audience and things like that.

We weren’t as good. I’m not as good as Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga’s far more talented than I am and always will be, but it’s whoever you want to pick. Sting is far more talented than I am. That’s OK. I find comfort in that. They’re successful because they’re better than I am.

I’m successful because I’m not as good as they are. What’s the problem?

In Clinton Heylin’s book, you say you felt that everything interesting in the 70s was 1973, 74 and 75, because that was the time the first generation grew up in which rock ‘n’ roll was always present.

Probably what I was talking about was that was the generation where the analog synthesizer really came into its own. That was the first generation where this concrete sound had already been established and synthesizers were coming in and the whole narrative voice of music had changed and that was the generation for whom it had changed. We were the ones who had the tools, who had the training from people like the Velvet Underground and John Cage and Terry Riley and all of that to take this and move somewhere with it.

What was the advantage of having direct contact with people like that?

Well, many of us—I never did—but many of us saw the Velvets at a small jazz bar in Cleveland. La Cave. That was the big changing point in the whole scene. We were doing ‘Sweet Jane’ in 1974 but we had learned it not from Mott the Hoople but from somebody’s bootleg cassette recording live from La Cave. And ‘Foggy Notion’ and all of that stuff that you had to know back then. In 73 and 74, you had to know ‘Foggy Notion’ and ‘Sweet Jane,’ which hadn’t even come out on the official bootlegs yet. Cleveland at that point was very tuned in because of the record stores and all the musicians, including me, worked in record stores. There was a vicious competition to have everything before anyone else: the latest Tangerine Dream album or the latest Amon Düül or the latest Silver Apples or whatever. If your store didn’t have it or even had it a day after the next store

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CONTINUED ON PAGE 84

BOOKS

83

Mike Hudson, Bob Pfeifer and Cheetah Chrome

DAVid THOMAS

wait on the roof till it was night, then dump the paint on the mural. One day or two days later, they’d fix it back up—and we’d go back up again, you know? Guerilla warfare.

You’ve said there was a big divide at the time between the ‘art’ crowd and the ‘rock’ crowd. What would have happened if there wasn’t a divide like that?

MH: Well, it wasn’t unusual to have a bill with the Dead Boys, the Pagans, the Styrenes and Pere Ubu—so even though I talk about that in the book, the real divide was US against THEM. We all hated the Michael Stanley Band. That was more the thing than any division between us.

CC: I’m trying to think how to put this kindly … the art crowd in Cleveland was very pseudo-intellectual. I’d play into it. I’m not a stupid person and I don’t want you to talk down to me. So I just used to fuck with them.

Play dumb. You know, mispronounce words or make jokes that they wouldn’t get. They took themselves very seriously.

You called Clinton Heylin’s From the Velvets to the Voidoids ‘the revenge of the nerds.’

CC: That was written by one side, you know? The people who grabbed him as soon as they heard he was writing a book on Cleveland to make sure they got theirs and we didn’t get ours.

MH: Some guy who wasn’t even fucking there. The Pagans got mentioned one time in a quote by Michael Weldon.

What got left out?

CC: It’s all in my book!

BP: I skipped that book. I heard it was really bad!

In that book, David Thomas says the most interesting things in music in the 70s happened because it was the first generation who’d always grown up with rock ‘n’ roll.

MH: We were rock ‘n’ roll kids.

CC: In the book I tell the story of it. In the 50s, we had all the package tours coming through—Alan Freed and all that. There was already music there.

MH: I can remember being two or three years old and my mom would keep the radio on all the time. I’d be hearing the Coasters and Elvis and all that when I was an infant, you know?

How does it warp your mind to hear music like that as an infant?

MH: How’d it warp yours?

BP: It’s Ghoulardi again.

Lester Bangs once wrote, ‘Like most punk bands, the Dead Boys are probably too drunk to get it up anyway, are scared shitless of real S&M and conceive of sex as a

then you were just cut. It’s like Charlie Parker and Lester Young in Kansas City in the early 40s, you know—when Charlie Parker first got onstage and Lester Young cut him to pieces. It really was that vicious. So there was this incredible availability of everything in the world that was any good at all. It was in Cleveland record stores and that really was the most significant happening of the time. That, Velvet Underground at La Cave and Ghoulardi were the three main things.

How did Ghoulardi prime your minds for what was coming?

It was the way he was really out in front in understanding the media. If you watched Ghoulardi, you understood that the media and the people on television or radio or writing in newspapers or whatever were just a bunch of clowns who didn’t know anything and were trying to lie to you. As a 12-year-old kid learning that viscerally from some guy on television that all the parents in town and the media hated and thought was a boob and bad for youth … Learning that viscerally was far different than studying it in some book at school or some French philosopher or something. We learned that at the core, right from very early on. Also what you learned about the narrative vehicle: the singer is the mediator of the musical experience and the role of the host-mediator is to introduce conflict and storylines that run possibly parallel or at odds or contradictory … Now these are all sophisticated narrative forms, and again we learned this all viscerally through Ghoulardi. I did an essay on this. If you look at Electric Eels and Mirrors and Rocket From the Tombs—those were basically the three bands that created the Cleveland sound—all of them used that weird host-mediator functionality to warp and control the audience’s perception of a particular song and that’s really the thing that defines it.

What was your first durable conception of reality and your place in it? When was the first time you thought, ‘This is how I feel about the world and this is how I will interface with it?’

I’d say when I was old enough to start driving around and going down to the flats and being able to see behind the curtain of reality.

What was behind the veil?

That’s one of those secrets. Philosophers have been dealing with that for thousands of years. You think I’m going to tell you?

I thought maybe I’d get lucky.

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dirty little business.’ Can you confirm or deny any of that?

MH: Lester Bangs could be a real fuckin’ asshole!

BP: People gotta understand—Lester wrote about himself as much as he wrote about the music.

What don’t people understand? What’s been paved over?

MH: The thing people don’t understand is all of us—even though we haven’t seen each other for years, we got a chance to talk and be together, and what people don’t understand is we did what we did to amuse ourselves. To entertain ourselves. It wasn’t with the idea that one day we’d be out in L.A. and some guy would be interviewing us—that didn’t even occur to us!

What would have happened to you if you’d never played music?

CC: I’d end up like everyone else in my family. Factory jobs or something.

MH: Working in factories, doing low-level time, dealing dope, stealing cars.

Didn’t you fund your records with drug money?

MH: We all did that! Who was gonna come after us? We had no conception anyone would ever be into this. Bob’s record, my record— no idea. We just wanted to make records cuz it seemed like a cool thing to do.

Do you have any of your own records left?

BP: Cheetah’s stuff is still owned by a corporation.

Still?

BP: Forever! What do you think?

Mike, at the end of your book you say what really mattered was the work—that’s what will stand.

MH: That’s for the guys like you to decide.

CC: We just enjoyed doing it.

BP: You don’t have a choice. You do what you do, and that’s how it comes out and that’s how it is.

THE CLEVELAND CONFIDENTIAL SPOKEN WORD AND BOOK TOUR WITH CHEETAH CHROME, MIKE HUDSON, BOB PFEIFER AND SPECIAL GUEST DAVID THOMAS ON THUR., APR. 14, AT THE GRAMMY MUSEUM AT L.A. LIVE, 800 W. OLYMPIC BLVD., DOWNTOWN. FREE / 7 PM / ALL AGES. GRAMMYMUSEUM.ORG. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE CLEVELAND CONFIDENTIAL BOOKS AT RIGHT.

No, you’ve got to sort it out for yourself.

What is so evocative about the old Aeronautical Shot Peening Company? It comes up a lot in writing about this time.

God. It’s hard to explain. It was down on Old River Road across from Pirate’s Cove.

Number one is that it really looked weird.

It had a pastel angular sort of façade. Literally across the street from the Pirate’s Cove was a ballast dump where the ore boats would dump ballast and we’d go out there and lay in the ballast between sets and next door was the Aeronautical Shot Peening Company and it just made weird sounds. It would make weird explosive synthesizer sort of sounds all through the night. It was like Universal Vibration. There was a wall out by the former Nike Missile Base on the shoreway to the south. If you’re driving along there’s a wall that had a very faded white on black sign that said “Universal Vibration” in very big letters and you could never find it if you looked for it. But if you were driving along and by some impulse you looked to the south then you would see it. And you’d say to your friends, “I saw this really weird thing,” and you’d drive along, saying, “Oh, it’s here somewhere,” but you couldn’t find it. But the next day, if you were driving along and an impulse grabbed you and told you to look south, you would see it. Well, that’s very evocative.

That would change the course of my whole life if I had something like that in the town in which I grew up.

Well, gee, it’s a shame you didn’t grow up here back in the 70s.

THE CLEVELAND CONFIDENTIAL SPOKEN WORD AND BOOK TOUR WITH CHEETAH CHROME, MIKE HUDSON, BOB PFEIFER AND SPECIAL GUEST DAVID THOMAS ON THUR., APR. 14, AT THE GRAMMY MUSEUM AT L.A. LIVE, 800 W. OLYMPIC BLVD., DOWNTOWN. FREE / 7 PM / ALL AGES. GRAMMYMUSEUM.ORG. CHEETAH CHROME’S A DEAD BOY’S TALE IS OUT NOW ON VOYAGEUR PRESS. MIKE HUDSON’S DIARY OF A PUNK AND BOB PFEIFER’S UNIVERSITY OF STRANGERS IS OUT NOW ON POWER CITY PRESS. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE CLEVELAND CONFIDENTIAL TOUR, VISIT SMOGVEIL.COM. BOOKS

LIFE KEITH RICHARDS (LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY) Keith Richards claims to have been awake for more hours than any man, but he has also probably been asleep while standing up more than any other man too.

Through 550 large-type pages Keef stumbles his way around drug busts and overdosing friends to set the record straight about all the shenanigans he has been accredited with—there was no blood transfusion, he wasn’t concussed by a coconut, and he has yet to snort the ashes of any of his family members. After shelling out nearly $7.5 million for half of the Glimmer Twins’ spotty memories, it is understandable that Little, Brown and Co. may want a book they can sell to Costco by the pallet. Thus, albums like Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request are almost entirely ignored in exchange for extensive discussions of the potency of Merck cocaine and Mick Jagger’s diva needs while people like Brian Jones seem only slightly more significant to the history of the Rolling Stones than Gene Pitney. Nonetheless the book is charming.

Richards survived, stitched together with bandanas and skull rings, and has the stories to prove it. Those interested in entertaining tales of excess and jokes about Mick’s dick should look no further. For those interested in, say, the music the man created, it might be better to check out Victor Bockris’ biography, an equally substantial door-stopper that addresses the music that afforded Keith the ability to own a speed-boat named Mandrax.

—Sean O’Connell

TOUCH AND GO: THE complete hardcore punk zine ‘79-’83 TESCO vee and dave stimson

bill brewster and frank broughton

(Bazillion Points)

(BLACK CAT)

Although Touch and Go is now known as a path-breaking indie label, it used to be one of the punkest zines on the planet. A product of the Midwestern hardcore scene, with Meatmen leader Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson at the helm, the zine was founded in Lansing, Michigan, in 1979 (the eponymous label came a number of years later). The zine was published, DIY-style, for four years and hit all the high notes of the American hardcore scene: Black Flag, X, Bad Brains, Minor Threat (as well as some imports, e.g., Crass and Wire).

Bazillion Points has now reissued the zine’s entire 22 issues in book form, and it’s an amazing compilation of punk history and historiography (if you read between the lines) that captures the punk rock canon in its nascent years, when punks still took shit from jocks and the Warped Tour wasn’t even a spermy blip in the future ballsack of the big-box “indie culture” that predominates today. If you like your punk history straight from the source and unfiltered, there’s no single collection that you could do more wrong with.

—Kevin Casey

Forty-six interviews with ground-breaking DJs, from 60s “Modfather” Jeff Dexter to northern soul discbreaker Ian Levine to Grandmaster Flash (no addendum necessary) to disco dolly Nicky Siano (who was actually fired from Studio 54 for being too drugged out). A lot of partying, mixed with first-time listening revelations, gear talk and crate digging expeditions make for a deceptively interesting book. Imagine, oh just imagine, you don’t know anything about acid house. Then DJ Pierre breaks it down for you—“People had on nice Paisley shirts, that’s what was in, and a solid colour pair of pants, the slacks, with some shiny shoes. And your shoes had to be slippery, ’cos if they wasn’t you couldn’t spin. So everybody would have shiny shoes, and you’d put salt on the floor, or powder …” “Baby powder?”

“Yeah, so they could spin real good. And then the pants have to be baggy. And the haircuts were sharp.”—and you think, Man, I could get into that acid house. Baggy pants! Baby powder! Yes, each chapter a tidy little vignette of a “scene,” and scattered in between, photos, recommended listening lists and xeroxes of old fliers.

These interviews aren’t as insane, hostile or cosmic as ours, but they’re done with a brute force persistence that uncovers plenty of facts and occasional insight.

‘Were you doing a lot of drugs then? Yes? What drugs?’

I paraphrase but not by much, A better resource than a read.

—Howe Strange

THIS COOK BOOK IS MADE FOR JESUS SUSAN CIANCIOLO

No, Susan Cianciolo is not an overzealous 5-year-old with a new box of crayons as the drawing on the cover of this cookbook would indicate, but her daughter—Lilac Sky—is. Cianciolo is a fashion designer/artist whose latest venture is a zine/cookbook collaboration with her daughter, who drew not just the cover but many of the background images for recipes such as pancakes, pizza and “easy fish.” The zine is full of both author- and daughter-drawn food doodles, photos and newspaper clippings overlayed with Cianciolo’s recipes scrawled like grocery lists on paper from mini spiral notebooks. Most recipes are generic like “soup” and “cookies” without actual measurements so to allow for flexibility and customization, but others (like the British ones, interestingly), are more specific. The last five pages of the zine aren’t recipes at all, but 6x10 grids of photos she took of the farms, the stores and the food as well as of her toddler daughter eating the food (or in some cases, wearing it). An interview with the author printed at the beginning of the zine gives Cianciolo a chance to provide background on why cooking is so important to her identity and her lifestyle. For anyone trying to grow tomatoes in their apartment or wanting to make a quiche out of the vegetabledrawer leftovers, “This Cook Book Is Made for Jesus” is a great starter kitchen companion. (blog. tinyperson.jp/2009/12/this-cook-book-is-made-for-jesus.html)

KIYOSUMISHIRAKAWA MORISHITA NO ATARI KOTARO KATADA I arrived at Ooga Booga the day that they were removing the Zine’s Mate window display which featured more than 50 Japanese zines of all sizes, papers and themes. Kotaro Katada’s caught my eye from the pile to be sent back because it was housed in a 7x9” manila envelope, each with a different doodle on the front. I grabbed the one that looked like a spaceship (or maybe a cloud raining lasers?) and removed the half-page saddle-stitched zine to find that the cover was a photo of bras hanging on a rack in front of a yellow stucco wall. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to read Japanese, so many of the neon words photoshopped over the inside images are lost on my eyes, but the subject matter covered in the 24-pager is universal—undergarments. Besides a small numBOOKS

THE record players: dj revolutionaries

ber of random collages of cute Japanese girls on TV and screenshots from brightly colored blogs, the zine is mostly comprised of voyeuristic photos of underwear, pantyhose and bras drying in windows and on apartment balconies. Some are clearly taken through drapes or tree leaves with foliage taking up the majority of the shot, others are zoomed in for emphasis. They all seem to represent the “airing out one’s dirty laundry” metaphor, but without any textual context to these images (translator help anyone?) I can only use them back to meditate on how the gap between our personal and private lives is diminishing. Limited to only 25 copies, Katada’s zine is pretty low circulation, but each issue comes with a full-page insert poster of what appears to be the motherlode: an upper-class balcony filled with racks of granny panties, knee-highs and black dress slips. (zinesmate.org/?page_id=7060)

somehow that really impressed me: shelagh delaney, john osborne and morrissey ethan swan I’m going to be honest. I picked up this zine because it said “Morrissey” on the front. Thankfully, Ethan Swan’s essay-turned-zine did not disappoint. Swan (currently of NYC-based band Silk Flowers) published this decade-old term paper B-side late last year, but its analysis of Morrissey’s relationship to two British playwrights—Shelagh Delaney and John Osborne—is timeless. It’s no secret that much of Morrissey’s songwriting was inspired by books and films, which he long claimed were his only escapes from reality. But the deeper stories behind these specific influences are known only to superfans or British drama enthusiasts. Through diligent research of interviews, reviews and cultural anthologies, Swan’s essay is an almost obsessive look at the ways that Delaney’s and Osborne’s plays (1958’s A Taste of Honey and 1956’s Look Back in Anger, respectively) have manifested throughout the Pope of Mope’s career. It contains some heavy theoretical shit about the Smiths alongside half and full-page hot pink monochrome stills from music videos and movies. Though the subject begs for pretentious rock-nerd talk, Swan instead makes some interesting connections between Morrissey and his Mancunian forebearers. Appropriately published on both the 50th anniversary of A Taste of Honey’s debut and the 25th anniversary of the Smith’s first single, Somehow That Really Impressed Me might just be considered the ultimate Morrissey fanzine for adults. (somehowthatreallyimpressedme.blogspot.com) 85

an excerpt from

The Intrusion

a novel by GABRIEL HART with ILLUSTRATION BY GITANE DEMONE Gabriel Hart is a member of Jail Weddings. His new novel is to be released soon by Tru-Vow Publishing. Gitane Demone is a solo artist and former member of Christian Death.

What is it about Winter that makes our most suppressed and scarred-over hearts of hearts scream for liquor? We shiver like orphans, abandoned to the elements. Clumsily we test our last ounce of strength swinging down the sledge on the bell at the carnival, catapulting our imagination into that ascending ball we naively visualize our own temperature rising.

It is with this well-intentioned delusion that we go a long way. BING! One grand epiphany induced by this edible ether—whatever form it takes, we’ll take. We lift again something heavy but this time to our lips. In determined waves it floods first our mouth, playfully crashing though every orifice while diminishing every dormant complaint stillborn in the gate of our throat. We unconsciously hold it there like a dam, refusing to let the initial warming of our skull end but only for the most undocumented hair-split second before we allow this liquid lava do its real work – its medicinal descent down the countless sieves of our windpipe, feeling it climbing to every bottom, coating, rushing to every deprived trembling cell, each taking the role of an egg and the spirits the sperm, longing to complete each other in a tail-eating drama old as time itself. A whole-body metamorphosis has taken place. We are warm, our fists are clenched, and we are ready to swing again!

But what is it about Spring, now that we are finally warming up, ice turning into glistening pools, birdsong no longer choked by the chill, brilliant botanical births from each suspended seed, that still makes us howl for alcohol? This time it is means for celebration, not emergency. We are now wholly conscious —we have realized it was the coldest Winter yet and we have survived yet another one.

What else more appropriate than to indulge in what made this all possible? This time we drink with a full heart and fresh eyes, taking in the Technicolor scenery. The world in fact looks even brighter with every sip of new nectar!

But of course even the freshest eyes spoil the fastest, and any additional moisture gives life to any pregnant spore on our cornea.

Our sips quickly grow to gulps, our goblets to gallons, our gift to greed, wanting to hold the world suspended in such perfect utopian display that we clumsily shatter the glass case it’s presented in, taking it out, hugging it till it gags us. Here is when Summer comes and the answer this time is in the question. We don’t stop to think or even casually relish, as we have been overcome – abducted even – by the very spirit we sought to seek solace in. The warmth we once craved has cracked into an unbearable heat, drying the grasses, draughting the lakes, burning our skin. Again, our only escape is to continue this flooding of the soul inside the human buoy. Gaunt, we now 86

resemble skeletons as the alcohol seems to flow right out our ribcage or trickle through our pelvis and sometimes right back into the cup again, our thirst never quenched. We hold parties which go on for days and this in and of itself is the nucleus of the special occasion. No one cares that you were born or how old you are, as long as you are alive enough to lift the sweating brim to your chapped lips.

The Sun has now become the enemy, threatening to boil our beloved brew till its ultimate evaporation. We retaliate by drinking as fast as we can until the ...

Fall. We now have a worm’s eye view of the compromised trees that would have sheltered us in Summer had we not been irreparable elsewhere all the time. Their leaves teasingly fall in slow-motion almost to imply our own hovering recognizance. Whatever was up is now down, begging to join us in our own descent. The only way to soften this fast-approaching premature night is with more alcohol, to fade contrast and make what has spiraled out of control even that much more surreal. We are spun with the wind into blurred leper dervishes, settling again where we couldn’t care less. With every sip we almost egg-on the death of the day, knowing comfort in the anonymity of a depth obscured. Slurring in sterling tongue riddles, realizations ignorant to our distant human forms but not meant for anyone but our own droning choir.

Fall ushers in the endings of festival to make room for more private explorations of chemical endurance.

I remember the ground rushing up to meet my silent screaming face, limbs flying wildly as if grabbing thin air would somehow break my fall. I had made my usual zombied rounds, randomly retreating to the pitchblackest corners of the neighborhood, so attracted to something they held, a brain-eating hunch that something was always waiting for me in the darkest, most labyrinthine paths of total dead air, the sheer blindness of it all turning aphrodisiac. This pheromone magnetism led me to a junkyard of sorts in a deep crater from the surface streets behind shadows of shadows, through bottomless cornea-tricking black static delight. It was a storage lot of odds and ends for movie props—bathtubs, toilets, cars, dressers, wet bars, grand-dad clocks, all stacked and teetering in imperfect rows or half-fallen, creating a wondrous tunnel system for someone as drunken and adrenalinesick as I. My drinking began at noon and was now entering a zone where time did not exist.

I had my fire-haired girlfriend with me and had already hit her in the face, and the mere thought of why she was still by my side was making me even dizzier. By the time she tried to convince me in vain that there was nothing in the recesses of this angular ocean of incon-

sequential artifact, I was already swallowed up in it, becoming a mere echo as I panted feverishly, a coal miner on all fours insisting on the most dead end direction away from any and all shine. Never a moth seduced by the light when I could be an all-knowing rodent, molesting all mystery.

But an evasive flash of streetlight made me ascend finally, back to the streets of human garbage I was obligated to find some kind of vague camaraderie with but never before could a festival conjure up this much hate and violation in me. I had to exit this noxious scene, the last sane cell in me policing my balled fists into my pockets and my bow-legs on the imaginary line home. That chain-link wall, towering yet feeble with all those diamond holes of possibility was the only thing separating me from freedom and the further pin-balling by the roaring rapids of this bohemophiliac stream. It could have been pure brick and mortar and I would have still found a way to walk through as a ghost, which I was well on my way to becoming. Dark skinned musclemen in yellow jackets had other ideas for me, jumbling my agitated frequencies farther, telling me the exit was the entrance, and should I try to pass through they would take me down. So it was clear. No choice but up.

This was not some gawking aquarium! I am a man, not a fish! I have arms, legs, and a sizzling fuse surrounded by fire! I ran towards the fence for my final descent when I felt hands all over me, a public molestation for all to witness in their hypnotized pussyfoot paralysis. They all gasped like we were fireworks as the violence turned consensual. They felt my freed fists swing, turning pure porcupine as I threw myself on that fence to see what sticks. Everything adhered as I shoved one boot in any sympathetic hole while kicking them off me with the other. I reached for the top, pulling the rest of me up. Now a smirking gargoyle about to show the world what it means to fly.

My destination was not for the stars but for the cold unforgiving ground. Not only did I jump ... I twisted, turning airborne like an epileptic high diver, hearing stuttering screams from the crowd below, gasping from all directions as the ground rushed, anxious ... I managed one last spastic revolution in to finally land limp on my back and the side of my imploding face. I heard rubber on asphalt stampeding when adrenaline reanimated me.

I rose like a rusted tin man and ran up the hill for my life like a suffocating, slow motion nightmare running in hungry sand, making every last cracked cell work one more time against their will, as right at this moment everything was the enemy. I deflated right where the horizon bites the sky, reduced to a silhouette of wheezing grey matter.

Even leveled to this sort of subtraction my whole being was still determined to compete with the skyline itself. Paralleled but nonetheless suspended on a lower rung. I lay there becoming part of the pavement and even this was not enough, no more comfort in clenched fists as they quickly became claws and physics be damned, began to scrape, dig, and fiend at the immortal cement, ripping fingernails then ultimately flesh. My concluding loosing battle where the ground had instead dug into me. I lay there surrendered, sobbing, ignorant to motives, confused whether I was trying to excavate a hole to bury myself or was I territorially pissing my final mark on the night, finger painting my last masterpiece in sacrificial gore? Who needs a reason when the intention, and for that matter the opposition, was this solid ...

I woke up in a fetal position, hands in my leg pits, the itchy prick of the grass my bed of nails. Look what I can do. Raising one eyelid the ball slowly followed up to a sky that was spinning out of control, akin to the view of what the ground might look like to a skydiver miles up—only that man would have the luxury of a parachute to whip such hazardous surrealism into a safer, slower, more streamlined descent. I, on the other hand, am going the other direction altogether, starting from the unforgiving Earth and now falling into the bottomless, lidless sky in a voracious vertigo, the ground where I lay almost pushing me ... I could close my eyes but then the vast static would only quickly form demon’s heads exploding, dark recess sex torture of only the most inconceivable depredates, and God forbid—my own face, so no. Most thoughts are indeed involuntary but these have no organic origin either, the only sense I can make is that they are being thrust upon me by an unknown entity. Stratosphere still spins. I try looking lazily towards the opposite direction of the taunting revolution, counterclockwise then quickly back clockwise, and at least it slows to a series of skipping, blurring 3D afterimages, though the guts churn until the bile boils. There is no escape, even when you are falling into something as wide open as the sky itself. This is not a hallucination. At best, it will pass, but only after its full puppet-string manipulation of time, making one frightfully analyze each second till it cruelly stretches out into minutes, becoming longer, stronger, spiral staircase deeper with each tremor. I ask myself, “Are you cold or just convulsing?” not wanting to know the answer. Foraging for any vague happenstance of temporary suicide, but should I actually be given a bird’s eye view of my empty vessel like they show in the movies and explain in metaphysics, I know I would quickly wish it permanent, as I ask myself in volcanic agony, though I have felt it a million times—how did this happen?

BOOKS

COMICS

CHRISTINE HALE champoyhate

RYAN QUINCY

DAVE VAN PATTEN

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COMICS

shea M. gauer

TOM CHILD

LISA MOUSE COMICS

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THE INTERPRETER

DIMITRI SIMAKIS Curated by Lainna Fader Photography by Suki-Rose Etter Design by Dimitri Simakis

Dimitri Simakis, a.k.a. “Ghoul School,” is an excavator of lost and terrible VHS gold and co-founder of Everything is Terrible!, the blog that edits down video for found footage freaks worldwide. With a monstrous library of clips of awful movies, unintentionally hilarious infomercials and bizarre instructional tapes, EIT! trolls all—sometimes in person wearing cloaks or monster suits. Here are some of his best VHS finds.

DEADLY PREY (DAVID A. PRIOR, 1987)

SOMEWHERE IN TIME (JEANNOT SZWARC, 1980)

“A delicious Rambo sundae with The Most Dangerous Game sprinkles, Battle Royale fudge and a homo-erotic cherry on top. Every line ... Every goofy face … You have no idea what’s going to happen next, and it constantly reminds you of the fact that this movie is completely genuine. We did a screening of it at Cinefamily, and I can honestly say it was one of the greatest nights of my life. We were so lucky to have had the film’s star—and director’s brother—Ted Prior do a Q&A and he could not have been a nicer dude. Watching him cry with laughter as he sat by his 8-year-old son turned it into a religious experience. Watch this movie and tell me you wish Ted Prior wasn’t your dad.”

“This very well might be the single greatest thing in the world, and it’s still such a mystery as to how or why it exists. From what we can piece together, it’s a short film played at a wedding reception for a young LARP couple, and it tells a tale as old as time: heroine can’t stop looking at a painting of a nerd in an African art gallery, nerd pulls heroine into painting, heroine and nerd look at each other and smile a lot. Enter evil gay painter who tries to paint—paint-rape?—heroine to death. Nerd saves the day by killing gay evil painter, and then nerd and heroine live happily ever after. As insane as it is, they say in under fifteen minutes what most couples can’t express in a lifetime.”

TODD WEEKS’ Enjoying Karate Volumes 1-5 (VARIOUS WORKS)

“The great Pinky of TV Carnage fame first hipped me to this dude. All we knew was that Todd Weeks is a 40-something, balding man who jumps around in his basement while questionably-aged girls hit him with foam tubes for hours on end. One day I get a call from my buddy Scott saying his grandmother’s plumber makes these ‘weird martial arts tapes.’ I knew right then it was fate and Mr. Weeks and I became the best of pals. And by that I mean we talked on the phone once. He even scores every tape by putting himself in the bottom of the screen, violently hitting bongo drums and guitar stings. ‘Hypnotic’ is a good way to describe it and you cannot deny the originality.”

15 MINUTE IT (MATT CARTER, 1999) “Not a week goes by that I don’t think about the one that got away.

Her name was 15 Minute IT, and I may never see her beautiful face again. Before You could Tube, we were handed a tape from a friend of a friend who made a remix of Stephen King’s IT, focusing primarily on the 50s greaser/bully/best character ever, Henry Bowers. The editor’s name is Matt Carter, and I owe this guy a fancy night on the town for opening my brain. As odd as it sounds to me now, back in 2000 the idea of someone taking a silly movie and remixing all its most awkward moments was unheard of. For reasons unknown, God mysteriously took the only working copy—that we’re aware of!—away from us years ago, and trying to recreate it all based on memory in Final Cut lacked soul. All the fancy computers in the world can’t beat the magical timing of someone editing VCR to VCR.”

MARK & SHERRY’S WEDDING VIDEO

FILM

DINOSAUR ISLAND (FRED OLEN RAY, JIM WYNORSKI, 1994) “A classic in the ‘Hootiere Cinema’ (or ‘Hooter Cinema’ for the classless) genre of the early 90s. Not really sure why they made so many movies where breasts played such an important role during this period of time. Think about it for a second—there’s actual sex, then hardcore porn, then Spice Channel porn, then softcore porn, then cable TV edits of softcore porn. That’s weird and gross, right? Anyway, a group of Army fuck-ups crash-land on an island filled with ancient horny stripper bimbos who’ve never seen a man before, and there is a disturbing amount of dick and boob puns. I was pretty obsessed with this movie as a pre-teen, and you might even say this was the movie that made me a man.”

HOLLYWOOD COP (AMIR SHERVAN, 1987) “I think of this as an experimental film more than a movie. Thanks to a closing video store in Athens, Ohio—pretty much everything we got that day turned out to be a classic, and it was the first time my friends and I all said to each other, ‘Dudes, let’s spend the next decade of our lives alone in our rooms watching insane shit like this while missing out on sunlight, human interaction and fun.’ Now here I am: an adult who sometimes posts for a blog, and who occasionally tours the country with his friends dressing up like some merry band of pranksters who try and blow people’s minds with our ‘culture jam.’ Wait—we were talking about a movie? Oh yeah—it’s about a cop from Hollywood and a bunch of crazy stuff ensues. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some crying to do.”

(MARK & SHERRY?, 1991)

SHERLOCK: UNDERCOVER DOG

“If every DJ or film dweeb has their one and true Holy Grail, then this is my Holy Grail’s Ark of the Covenant’s Crystal Skull. The day was July 28, 1991, and it was the happiest day of Sherry’s life. Mark, on the other hand, appears to have either a rock in his shoe or a switchblade in his mullet. Hey-oh! Nonetheless, Mark wants to go on a murder spree and could not be more uncomfortable. It gets way too real during the reception’s climax as Sherry performs quite the bridal striptease in front of a bunch of children and elderly. Mark is a rock through all of it, and I admire him for not giving a fuck. I was so moved that I turned it into a spec video for TV on the Radio, hoping that any day Dave Sitek would be begging to shoot some hoops. Instead, we got a cease-and-desist from the groom himself and YouTube pulled it, the cowards. I just hope Mark and Sherry are happy, wherever they are.”

“This one puts a delightful spin on the—let’s face it—bore-a-thon that is Sherlock Holmes by replacing the lead role with Sherlock … wait for it... ‘Bones!’ He’s a foul-mouthed, one-eyed Scottish mutt who appears to have a severe drinking problem! This is the kind of movie you sit around watching with your best buds, wondering if you’ve ever been this high. And then you remember you have a drug test coming up and haven’t smoked in weeks. This film played a big role for our next big project which I am happy to announce for the first time in public: ‘Everything Is Terrible! Presents: Doggie Woggiez Poochie Woochies!’

Commodore Gilgamesh and I are getting in the shit with it alright now, and we plan on having a rough—RUFF!—cut by the summer to show all you puppies, if we don’t die in a sea of poochies first. It’s going to be redogulous. Woof.”

(RICHARD HARDING GARDNER, 1994)

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NANCY ANDREWS Interview by Lainna Fader Illustration by Luke McGarry

Nancy Andrews is an animator of wonderful films that explore perception and consciousness through bird-woman cyborgs, space monkeys, and spiders with faces that are equally inspired by the physiology of insects, the intersection of nature and technology, and her own brush with death. She just premiered a new short film at REDCAT at a screening of two of her latest animations, “Behind the Eyes Are the Ears” and “On a Phantom Limb.” She speaks now from the coast of Maine about her early days making earrings out of photos of slabs of beef, what she learned from floating between life and death, and why she wants to be friends with a crow.

‘On a Phantom Limb’ brings us into your near-death experience during surgery, with black paper ripped away to reveal the words ‘I thought I’d died’ scrawled under.

I read something online about your brush with what-lies-beyond, and I was wondering what you felt when you thought you’d died. Were you scared?

It was like a great party. I felt incredibly drunk without any of the bad side effects, I was floating around the room looking into people’s faces and I felt connected to everyone.

But you weren’t afraid when you thought you were dead?

is almost no way to prove the reality of any moment ... how do we know that we are not dreaming? Or in a hallucination right now?

You’ve said ‘Monkeys and Lumps’ is about our relationship to the unknown. What is your relationship to the unknowable? How does it make you feel to not be able to know something?

I think it would be incredibly boring to think you knew everything. And it’s one of those— I’m interested in science and what we can learn from it but I’m also very suspicious of that as a steady diet and not recognizing that there are other ways of knowing and not knowing.

What made you begin to make films?

I became interested in Super 8 when I was a kid. My father would document family events—holidays, birthdays. I saw movies when I was 11 and 12 years old—Charlie Chaplin on PBS—and my fifth grade teacher in Thousand Oaks, Mr. Grossman, was a huge influence. He brought films and theater into the classroom as part of our studies and as a treat. Mr. Grossman was friends with Larry from the Three Stooges and I think he was also friends with the Marx Brothers. At that time, these gentlemen were getting quite old.

We made Larry hand-puppets with paper-

“I guess I love mystery—life without mystery is boring.”

No, I felt great. It was a great party, and I felt totally drunk. The overall experience was horrible, but that particular feeling was fantastic.

I had to use my imagination to understand what it is. I have to either base it on—‘I’ve heard that sound before, it is this.’ Or ‘I haven’t heard that sound before,’ and then you try to work out what it is. At some point you start adding in what you already know with what you don’t know and a lot of things we just ignore because we know already what it is. Whenever you’re in a less certain situation, you have to participate in reading your environment.

Do you believe that during those moments when the difference between life and death are at their most arbitrary, there’s a vision of truth unavailable elsewhere?

I think life and death are always arbitrary.

We think we control such things, or someone controls such things, but I don’t know, it might all be dumb luck or no luck.

What do you know about reality that the rest of us don’t, having little or no experience floating between life and death?

Reality, I think, is less stable than we like to believe. Not only is it incredibly subjective— we might agree on certain things but we probably see most things differently, through our own lens of experience and sensory focuses, but also after hallucinating a lot and believing those hallucinations to be true, I realize there INTERVIEW

I guess I love mystery—life without mystery is boring. I don’t want or need to know everything about the unknown but I like to think about what we don’t know, and all the assumptions. We live in a society where you can google almost anything and therefore we can know everything. But the fact is there’s an awful lot we don’t know. We know a very little bit about what’s in the ocean, for example.

Why are people more interested in looking to outer space as an alternate place to live instead of looking into the sea?

It’s a sense of adventure, I guess, that people wanna go somewhere where they think can hold promise, whether it’s going to California in the westward movement or exploring the Arctic regions or the Europeans exploring Africa when they didn’t know what was there. I think we tend to think of the ocean as known but I don’t think it is known and I just think people think of space as maybe somewhere they could live in a comfortable way. I don’t think people think of living underwater as being very comfortable.

Where would you rather live?

I love where I live right now.

Hey! If you had to choose between going into space or going into the ocean.

Oh my god. It’s a nightmare, I think. I’m kind of exploring it a little in this new comic book I’m working on. The moon, I guess. The moon—that’s the current subject for me.

maché heads, and my teacher brought Larry to class. Larry was in a wheelchair. I have a picture of us together. We also watched cartoons. In college I was a photo major. This was in the original punk and new wave eras of the late 1970s. I went for a junior year in England in a pretty conservative school in the post-Ansel Adams era when beautiful pictures of the moors were considered the only way for fine art photography. I was taking pictures of sides of beef hanging at the market and making earrings from the photos that I cut out. I also made a jump suit with clear pockets for pictures related to plastic surgery. My teachers were not so impressed. For my senior project I did a series of pictures that I took before and after my open heart surgery. Again, teachers not so impressed—except for Ann Fessler, who was very supportive and a big influence at the time.

What films inspire you?

There are so many films that inspire me. My favorite era is probably the 1930s. People were just figuring out the genre thing and transitioning from silent to sound and from theater and vaudeville to film—there are so many fun, funny, great films in that decade. Also, I love Georges Melies, Alfred Hitchcock, Agnes Varda, John Waters, Yuri Norstein, Jan Svankmajer, Looney Tunes cartoons, and Fleischer Bros. animations, and film noir.

What are you interested in outside of art?

Books, things I observe in nature, neurology, mysteries of psychic phenomenon, history, outer space, new technologies that interface with humans. I love music, so many artists— Stevie Wonder, Sergio Mendez and Brasil ‘66, Janelle Monae, Staple Singers, Al Green, Herb Alpert, soul music/gospel, Michel Legrand, Jackson 5, the Carpenters, Linda Smith, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, Adelle, Gnarles Barkley, Carl Stalling, Nino Rota, George Gershwin, Kurt Weill, John Cage, Pierre Henry.

A computer just beat two champions at ‘Jeopardy.’ What do you think or hope will happen when computers gain the power of creative thought?

I’m not convinced that that’s ever going to happen. I don’t think computers will ever really be able to be artists and have a mind to be creative. I think people would like to think that, but I don’t see that ever happening. Computers can do all kinds of things, but gaining the power of creative thought? I’m not so convinced.

What was your most memorable encounter with a spider like?

My brother collected a huge tarantula on a picnic when we lived in California. He brought it home in a tupperware container and released it in the backyard, I was terrified to go in the backyard—for weeks I thought it was out there waiting for me.

What is your attraction to birds? What’s your favorite bird and why?

Birds became an important image to me after the ICU. I saw them as a go-between of earth and heaven and perhaps life and death. The crow has long been a symbol of death, and birds had spiritual significance in Egyptian art, and in Christian art they often carry banners that direct us to other worlds and to heaven. We have a group of crows near our house, and I am interested in animals that live close with humans, animals that we barely take note of because they are just there, but I would love to have a crow as a friend, but it hasn’t happened yet.

NANCY ANDREWS’ “ON A PHANTOM LIMB” AND THE IMA PLUME TRILOGY IS AVAILABLE ON DVD AT NANCYANDREWS.NET. VISIT NANCY ANDREWS AT NANCYANDREWS. NET. 93

My boyfriend always smells like onions and won’t shower before sexing—what should I say to him? He is very self-conscious about it. — Polly, Koreatown Amanda Jo Williams: It sounds like he is not your right mate, as his scent is wrong for you. He needs to find a girl that smells like a food that goes well with onions, like steak, or just about everything, except you.

Ras_G: Keep It 100 and tell him 2 wash his ass ... no love lost ... but u gotta wash yo ass first.

Is it wrong to steal toilet paper from work? — Ivan, Eagle Rock AJW: Yes. Stealing will get you in trouble sooner or later, and toilet paper isn’t that expensive. Unless you have extreme social anxiety and can’t really handle going into stores where strangers lurk. If this is the case, if you give a homeless person who is soliciting outside the market enough money for a beer, he/she will go in and get you a roll, most likely.

RG: I have thought about this many a times haha—shout out 2 everybody I work with haha!—especially when u down 2 that last young half a roll of TP but i try 2 avoid the trife life and just buy mine.

Cultivated by Daiana Feuer L.A. RECORD has decided take advantage of a tiny bit of the 50,000 years worth of accumulated creative wisdom floating openly through the city and so we are starting a column where you can send in questions and we will get you answers from the people who made the best records in your collection. Now instead of wondering what Kim Fowley would think of your love life, you can actually find out! Send future questions to Daiana Feuer at daiana@larecord.com. L.A. RECORD guarantees nothing but the absolute reality of all answers. This issue we talk to Ras_G, beat dominator and traveler of spaceways, and Amanda Jo Williams, steely-eyed folky-tonk wildness wrangler.

I want to have a threesome, but how do I ask my girlfriend so that it seems like her idea? — Jim, Highland Park AJW: Don’t be manipulative. It will bite you in the butt. If you’re too insecure to risk getting dumped because you asked for what you wanted, well ... Are you a sex addict? Why do you need two vaginas? Are you okay with having a threesome with another man? If you are healthy in the mind, and she doesn’t want a threesome, find someone most suitable to your needs and wants.

RG: Keep it 100 with your girl—tell her u wanna have a threesome. If she’s down u gotta super freak on ya hands. (But u would know that already—haha!) But be cautious 4 what u ask 4 ... She might be like, ‘Yeah, i wanted to fuck your best friend and your baby brother for the longest time— LET’S DO IT!!!’ Which will have u feeling like WTF? Or she might have a girlfriend she been checking out which might have u Timothy Leary (tripping out) like is my girl trying 2 be on vagina diet? Or the idea alone may gross her out. But overall making it seem like it’s her idea is some JEDI shit. Good luck.

‘I love the opportunity to talk about private parts.’

What’s the difference between a tampon and a dildo?

— Matthew, West Palm Beach, FL AJW: Good question. I love the opportunity to talk about private parts. For one, tampons generally have a smaller girth than dildos, unless a woman has a man that is against big dildos, for fear her vagina will get too stretched and no longer be a tight squeeze ‘round his penis. Both a tampon and dildo can be used to ‘get off’ but the reason a tampon was invented was to absorb a woman’s menstrual blood when it gets flowing once a month. If your girlfriend is new to using tampons, make sure she doesn’t keep the same one in for over 24 hours or she could die from toxic shock syndrome. TSS is a lot like rabies. To summarize, tampons take away vaginal moisture, whereas dildos increase vaginal moisture.

RG: ‘C’MON SON!!!!!!!!’ — ED LOVER What is reality? — Mariah, Echo Park AJW: Reality is how you choose to see what’s around you, how you use your inside faculties. You are in control. Basically, it is your insides outside. Believe in all possibilities and be humble and kind. From there you will create a harmonious reality swirling around you.

The birds will sing your song.

RG: Reality is whatever u believe it 2 be … Some peoples realities are myths 2 others and some peoples myths are some peoples realities.

Why do I smoke so much weed? Is that ok? — Jesse, Laguna Beach AJW: It is never okay to do too much of anything, unless it’s sex. You may be smoking too much weed because you’re not inspiring yourself to be creative and productive. What do you like to do? Think back to childhood and try to remember what made you most joyful.

Now, do it again. It could lead you to your right path.

RG: I love the Herb. Ask anybody that know _G. I say it’s OK. Can two people be in a relationship if they don’t like the same music?

— Sally, Los Feliz AJW: Anything is possible. Say a guy loves to listen to sweet folk music and his girlfriend loves to listen to hard, thrashing metal music. This could indicate he wants to be dominated by her, wants her to tie him to the kitchen sink and whip him, slap him, punch him, etc. It gets him off, it gets her off. Differences can make for fun adventures.

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RG: Yes they can—sometimes it’s good, it can bring a different vibe to your relationship. Like sometimes I wanna listen 2 Suga Free (pimp shit) then I wanna listen to Art Ensemble of Chicago or Sun Ra. Two very different extremes but they make me a whole being and balance my vibe out. But I know my girl don’t wanna hear Suga Free and she might wanna listen 2 some shit I would never listen 2 Beyonce or some shit like that. It’s a good thing I say.

How do I know I’m not dreaming? — Sam, Silver Lake AJW: You don’t know. This could all be a dream.

RG: How do u know your not in someone else’s dream and when they wake up your life’s over?

My hippie boyfriend wants to have an open relationship. I love him and he says he loves me, but does it mean he loves me less since he wants to sleep around? Can ‘free love’ coexist with real love? — Flower, Echo Park AJW: It sounds like he wants his cake and to eat it too. I’m not saying open relationships can’t work, but this sounds like he has the power and is selfish. He could be too insecure to be alone, and needs to have a girl waiting for him at home. Because he knows you won’t leave him, he is going to do what he wants and explore sexually with others. He best use protection. You best leave him and find someone who shares your idea of commitment. Respect yourself and never fall short of that. You’re only 20 and there will be many more loves you experience until one day, you may meet the one you want to spend the rest of your life on Earth with.

RG: U Should love that person more than ever. He/she didn’t and does not lie to u so he/ she respects u and cares enuff that he/she kept it 100, which a lot of guys and girls would not do nowadays. If he/she didn’t love u or care he/she wouldn’t even tell u he/she was out sleeping with anybody. I have friends who have wives and multiple girlfriends and as along as everybody keeps it 100 with each other, it’s never been anything but peace.

If the world is going to end in 2012, why should I keep going to work?

— Billy, Pasadena AJW: Who said the world is going to end in 2012? The Mayans? No, they didn’t. Grow up and take responsibility for your life. Nothing ends and nothing begins. Your life on Earth is a blessing. Do the job you said you were going to do before you got here.

RG: My homey Mono/Poly twitted a good response 2 this that i read last week. He wrote ‘It’s end of the world for the caterpillar and a new beginning for the butterfly.’ Now I ask— where do u stand?

WISDOM