”An Interview with Party Mountain” by Dan Bollinger

Party Mountain & Dan Bollinger:

A Conversation

In my ongoing mission to expose the life behind the scenes of Carleton’s native music groups, I was fortunate enough to sit down with Emir Murathanoglu of Party Mountain, a quartet that began last spring. I hope this exposé sheds some light on the highs and lows inherent in the rock star lifestyle at Carleton.

So Emir, how long has Party Mountain been a thing?

It’s been a thing for about three months now — school wise — not counting this summer. We really hit our peak like week six last spring and now we’re trying to just regroup from what we were before. We were really a crowd pleaser at FarmStock.

How many gigs have you had so far?

One, FarmStock.

Oh well how many practices have you had?

No more than six or seven tops: once this term, fve times last spring.

Do you have any plans to play this term?

Eeeehh, we had plans but then half of our band decided to leave (laughs). So now we’re looking for some young talent.

So in total how many people are in the band currently?

Currently, four are like the core group, or creative masterminds of the group. But we probably need someone to play keyboards or guitar or something so we probably need one or two more people in that band.

So how many instruments do you have now?

We have a bassist, a drummer, Evan on trumpet and ... who plays saxophone? Justin! Justin! Justin the sax and Evan on the trombone, f**k it, the trumpet.

Do you have a logo or anything? What’s your marketing scheme like?

Our marketing scheme is like in our frst FarmStock concert and I think Stu yelled “Party Mountain!” and did this hand move thing where you imitate a mountain with your hands.

It’s a mountain. If you like put your elbows out. It’s a mountain of party.

So that’s how the name arose. From Stu Loury…

Um no. We were like “hey guys we’re Party Mountain,” and Stu was like “PARTY MOUNTAIN” (raises hands in the O shape again) and it was great.

Oh, so how did you come up with Party Mountain?

We were in the practice room trying to come up with ideas and I think it was Evan said, “Party Mountain.” And Jackson in all his Jackson-ness really liked that idea and we all realized that it was a cool name: we couldn’t come up with anything better so we just decided that we would be Party Mountain.

So if you had to describe your type of music in one sentence, what would that be?

It’s ... mind-expanding … instrumentals. It’s all about mind-expanding instrumentals. Straining on, pushing your limits of what you think is music and what you think of not music. It’s basically pretty standard funk songs (laughs). It’s more on the funky side, but this term we’re trying to be less classic … I don’t know ... we’re trying to play less normal stuff than we did last spring. We were trying to be a crowd-pleaser last spring. Now we’re trying to hit our musical peak by doing something different. We want to surprise Carleton, you know? We’re going to surprise Carleton with some Mountain Party, Party Mountain.

So are you accepting auditions to join Party Mountain?

Of course! If people are interested we are a very established band looking for new people.

Are you in any need of a below average guitar player with an above average sense of humor?

Are you trying to be in the band, Dan?

Emir, thank you for being here.

Dan, this was a great interview, thank you for making me heard. Party Mountain (raises hand in the O-shape for the fnal time).