photography by Ben Bass
Love me nots by Lexi Drexelius So now you wait for flirtatious goddess bombs and frou-frou candy gals of citrus whip. Let eye contact linger over semi seconds and eyelash flutters that break your smile and turn heads away. Let lips most of all be pumped and puckered, sighing on rosy sedation of clandestine whispers and double takes. I’m giving up lyrical embrace, separate peace. I’m not second-hand shit, but your lightning eyes. Look up to me and I’ll turn away. Turn to taste and breathe a bitter-born sweet. Blush with anger, but you’ll see bliss and I’ll be bashful. Don’t pierce your lips. Forget loaded notes, watchful sighs. Adjust your bra strap. Fix your tights. Bend over not under. See night in those eyes. You say that’s silly but I say jerk. Splash water through your face. I take time. This and that. Purse searching, closet opening, consumer dream. Accessories folded in your ears – glossy, dry, mini, hidden, uptight, too tight, reckless, prudish, seersucker, velvet, sting, sultry, angel of sin, you teasing witch, oh hag of addictive light. Don’t wear sequins, be a saturated gem. Wake up and brush off blackened sleep that flips your eyes backwards. Day dream upside down and whistle a happy tune. Silence, and communicate with a smile, a tear, a ripped jean. If anyone says you dream too much, dream them up and light a fire of Vaseline, toothpaste breath, and moss petals. You’ll thank them for the incense and walk away. If anyone hits you hard with body piercings, tattoos, or 100 degree burns, smother them with SPF 30 and throw a nose ring down their spine. It will shake. Lick you lips with joint hesitation. You could say goodbye to love or you could love to say goodbye
No More Jealousy by Chloe Forsting When you kiss her, I can see A sun spark into existence From the short sweet happy friction Where your lips have met And inside me a thousand stars appear From behind dissolving clouds Sparkling quiet divine dust in the dark
story and art by Alex Major
Spirit Rot by Jeff Hamilton
They Say Piranhas Can Pick a Cow Clean In Under a Minute But That Ain't Shit Compared to Black Friday Moms on a Pallet of Playstations by Taylor White I’m trying like hell to get these Guitar Hero 3 boxes out onto the floor. I got probably sixty of them, maybe fifteen make it to the electronics department. Emptied out like rations to disaster victims. An irate black woman tugs on my shirt. “If it’s called Black Friday, how come I ain’t get no special deals?” I don’t get it. Is it exhaustion playing tricks on me? Did she just say that? Where’s the gag? What is this? I see her husband, but he doesn’t have a camera. Customer service trains you to put your soul in a box, never take offense, and go with the easiest response. “I don’t know. Is there anything I can help you with?” “No. Barack Obama 2008.” She shouts it over the crowd. The real message here isn’t for me so I turn and leave. I don’t have time for this. On my way out of the crowd a stuffy elderly white woman responds almost as loud “He didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance!” My breaks have been scheduled for me, and they are strict as prison guards about it. I’m in the break room, and there’s food. Barbecue and sides. It’s nearly unlimited so I load up. Fuck it. If greed is okay then so is gluttony. Christmas movies play non-stop on the TV. There is no escape. I’m sitting there staring blankly at CG Ebenezer Scrooge, thinking about the inevitable battle of words and ideals during the next six weeks. The newspapers and facebooks will be rampant with articles and clever pictures, all claiming to be in the true spirit of the holiday. Do we focus on the family or do we focus on the shopping? Are we being sure to Shop Local? Are we Keeping Louisville Weird? Are we spending money at farmer’s markets and children’s craft stores and small businesses? And it’s a good thing I can get Pumpkin Spice Latte anywhere because I’m craving one like a mad bastard. The traditionalists want us gathered around a golden glazed turkey, paying homage to grandma and cranberry sauce. The holidays are about being with loved ones, roaring fires, Burl Ives. The Christmas everyone claims to have grown up on; the Christmas that is perpetually fifty years prior. And the fundamentalist weirdoes throw their self-minted nickels in. And the pagans remind us of the Yule-time winter festival. And the Jews are doing their thing quietly. But the plastic lawn nativities and church gym LARP activities remind us: Jesus is the reason for the season. It occurs to me that Christmas hasn’t changed. Holidays aren’t magical things that exist on their own. We created them. They represent us. And is Christmas any less commercialized than Halloween? or Valentine’s Day? or Independence Day? If there is a way to make money off of Veteran’s Day you bet your ass someone is doing it. We commercialize our holidays because we’re commercialized people. We’re born and bred to be consumers. We shop to celebrate, we shop because we’re depressed, we shop for fun, we shop because we just deserve it. Christmas never lost its religion. It reflects our religion. Most Holy Capitalism. The Bottom Line is God. I can’t get mad at Black Friday anymore. Black Friday is exactly what it’s supposed to be. It’s the opening of the gates signaling the frantic rush to the trough of consumerism. And that’s how we love it. We wouldn’t want it any other way. The sales are on, bitches!
Waste Away by Brian Wolf
Wrong Door Raid by John Beechem I hear a sound It’s the heaviest slamming door BOOM! But it slams open Not shut, and it takes the frame Out with it Splintered wood Sounds like broken rulers Metal and tree exploding together Broken windows The crunch of boots on glass Like when mi hermana Chews lemonade ice Voices of angry men They are the worlds’ Scariest gym teachers but with Black bullet-proof vests And machine guns One of them points the barrel Of his gun at me I see into its black mouth Wait for its lead breath Time stops Lets me imagine everything I Ever could have Ever done To make this happen Like when I was three, Our gold fish looked bored so I climbed up on the couch Put him in a cup Brought him to some water Pooled next to our house’s Front side-walk Dropped him in Went back inside Hours later, Mi hermana Asked where he went When I told her, we went out to look He’d baked in the Afternoon’s sunshine No more pets for three years Mi hermana teased me for it Pushed me into puddles for years This could be the vengeance of Pisces Or when I was nine, and my family and my friend Carlos’s family went camping at the lake together His hermana was friends with mi hermana I’d known Carlos since before I could remember He felt kind of like an hermano or cousin But also very much not like my cousins so when we snuck off to our hiding spot in the Woods I dared him to take his swimsuit off and he did. And I was not afraid so when he dared me, I did too and we saw all of each other Exciting, dangerous, and kind of Roller-Coaster Scary, as we dug for bugs and rocks and stared We thought we were so sneaky Our mothers came and found us with Swimsuits half on and half off Pulled on from the moment
We heard the crunch of twigs They were red-faced and angry Carlos started crying, I closed my eyes In shame and walked out of there Mi hermana never found out, but Carlos and I could only see each other at school When our sisters and their mothers went out, Carlos and I had to stay home with our Fathers or abuelitas This could be our mothers’ wrath Or it could be because of Mr. Brisby’s test in October, it was about the New England Colonies, and witches, and American Indian Tribes and I knew it all, because I like to read and the Tribes had very cool names like Iroquois and Pequot . Amelia sat next to me, and she barely knew any of it ‘cause reading is hard for her, and Mr. Brisby is a jerk and Makes her feel stupid for it, so she Doesn’t really try but everyone likes her, ‘cause she’s Good for the other teachers, and She asked me to let her cheat so I did, because F- Mr. Brisby, right? We didn’t get caught. I let her copy Made her get a couple wrong on purpose I know how to make it not obvious and I like Amelia, and don’t want her to get in trouble. So maybe did the school catch on and this is what they do to sixth-grade cheaters? These days, this could be Mr. Brisby’s Goon-squad But when I come to, I’m on the floor shaking in my sleep clothes, and someone is taking Hand-cuffs off me. My mother is crying, my Father is cursing under his breath The angry gym teachers are bristling mustaches and grunted apologies, thought we had drugs One of them cusses and says something about “Illegals” and mi hermana tells him we’re not, and my father curses at her and tells her to Shut up Crime Scene by Natasha Shellhouse Hammer above chest, breathing suppressedpressure persists, hammering begins. Crack, crack, and cracked me open. Through a hard exterior holding me superior; superior to those who have lust dripping from their chin when they surface from in between my thighs, to those who hang from my hips, to those who kiss at my feet, to those who only get one chance to fuck me - then thrown on the street. Hand forcefully pressed through the hole banged, into my chest, weaving through my guts nothing but warm and squishy on the inside.
photography by Ben Bass
Scratching and clawing Bleeding, internally. Out of me, you ripped what was guarded so skilfully Heart hanging heavily on the outside of me. Beating violently, dying love. Torn up. Entrails. Guts in shreds. You watched me gather them; Holding, coddling, and cradling. You gazed at the grotesque scene, looked straight through me and said, “Now you’re the one left in shreds.”
Winter by ニッキ⌐□-□ I’ve always been the odd one out in my age, in the fact that I take much more comfort in the winter season that I do the summer season. I love having an excuse to hole myself up in my home, shut out the people outside and snuggle with my laptop. There is a comfort in the familiar cold, the sting of the cold on your cheeks when you step outside, the silence a blanket of fresh snow brings. When you’re out there it feels like you’re alone in the world. I don’t know if that’s more terrifying or reassuring, but I like the feeling. Last winter I worked a job I hated. It was nothing special, some stupid frozen yogurt company that someone decided to open a franchise of. The owner had a severe Napoleon complex. He was a stout man and a bit of a skeeze. He had an all-female staff, save for one male employee. He was a holier than thou type, thought that he was better than his employees if they had differing opinions. You know the type, the insufferable combination of Catholic and Republican that thinks that they are right, no matter what you argued with. In truth he was someone just like the rest of us, he went to college and got a useless degree that he can’t use, and turned to creating and owning businesses instead of trying to put his architecture knowledge to use. The only difference is, he was successful. The job wasn’t hard in the slightest. The shop was self-service, and the customers were mostly nice. I started at the beginning of summer, and we were busy every day that I worked, customers pouring in like sweat down your face in the heat, settling in the store like the pooling of moisture at your lower back. It was fast-paced. I thrived on it. It was fun. The weather got colder. Less customers came in. People were leaving because they couldn’t deal with not getting enough hours. People were getting fired because the store couldn’t afford as many employees. People were leaving because the owner was becoming an unbearable asshole. I started smoking more. Instead of smoking on the way to work and on the way home, I started smoking on my breaks. I started taking an extra smoke break after that. Like the bitter coldness of winter, I took comfort in cigarettes. The smoke was pretty, I enjoyed the taste of the tobacco. The nicotine fix was endearing. My breath started to smell bad. My cough got worse. My clothes reeked. My car was filled with water bottles that had turned a dingy sewer water brown, filled with multiple cigarette butts. My friends were disgusted. I remained apathetic. It got colder. I started drinking. I would be so exhausted and fed up after work; not enough people to do the work that was expected of us in a timely manner. The constant feeling of eyes on us, cameras all over the store to watch our progress, catch where we screwed up, yell at us or ignore us the next time we were due into work. The owner was emotionally abusive to us. He was a good man, deep down. He just had issues like everyone else. It got even colder, the time shifting and the sun setting earlier. Even less customers. I started drinking even more. Multiple nights and weekends I would go to my best friend’s house to find comfort in shitty malt liquor that I couldn’t even stomach to finish. Eventually I switched to beer, my stomach rotted to the core with Four Loko and Mike’s Harder. I shared with my friend. I smoked more pot. I smoked even more cigarettes. There is a familiarity in winter for me. I’m most comfortable then. I like holing myself up with my friends and fading away from my own thoughts and consciousness. The cold stings, keeps you awake, keeps your bones chilled. And you know that you feel. The alcohol warms you up, keeps your stomach and face hot enough to where you don’t care about having to step outside for multiple smoke breaks. The nicotine makes you feel like your anxiety is subsiding, that you’re helping yourself. You’re not really helping yourself, you’re just easing your addiction; you’ve fucked your mind into thinking your anxiety and nicotine addiction are one in the same and by treating one you’re treating the other. The pot…the pot just helped to make you happy. To keep your spirits lifted, to keep you feeling elated and feeling like a cloud, like nothing can touch you. I was fired after a no call no show from complete apathy. I was overworked and under paid and tired of my boss’ bullshit. I quit buying packs of cigarettes in February. The smell is still sweet, it arouses something inside of me, memories and old friends and my parents and just the feeling of home. It’s summer now. There is no familiarity in summer for me.
Leopold Zimmerman Leopold Zimmerman the new album featuring “Big Love” and “Art of the Argument” buy or download it today leopoldzimmerman.bandcamp.com facebook.com/leopoldzimmermanofficial
Photography: Franey Miller Model: Alexx Richter Makeup: KitKat McKyle Hair: Matthew Tyldesley Styling: Megan Wilde
Spacewhale Cowgirl by Custat
art by Kennedy Schuck
MA TURNER x R CLINT COLBURN interview by R Clint Colburn
interview by Ma Turner
Ma Turner and R Clint Colburn’s friendship blossomed almost a decade ago over a mutual love of making visual art. The two began their sound friendship in the final years of Warmer Milks (2008), then in Quick Boys with Jason Schuler (Heavy Sleeper, Wretched Worst, Cadaver In Drag). The two eventually went on to form the band CROSS. Today Turner and Colburn perform alongside Schuler as Human Process. 2013 was a busy year for Ma. Not only did he release several cassettes via other U.S. labels (Animal Disguise and Nostilevo) but Turner also started a new group called Salad Influence with Joe Mangum (Elsinores) and Paul Eldred (Dr. Paul, CROSS) as well as a new cassette label called Brave Captain. Apparently this wasn’t enough. Turner made an album every month that was posted digitally via his bandcamp page. Early 2014 he will be releasing twelve handmade box sets featuring each recording along with bonus tracks spanning twelve cassettes via the Brave Captain imprint. The boxes will be on display at Institute 193 gallery in Lexington this February. A compilation LP of tracks from the box set (titled “ZOZ COLLECTION”) will be released said month by the Sophomore Lounge label. Smell here: zozmaturner.tumblr.com and here: maturner.bandcamp.com C- Hi, I’m… M- Hi, I’m Ma Turner and I’m happy to be here. C- What if you gave everyone out there your manifesto? M- Um. You wanna know what my manifesto is? C- Yeah. M- “Total Freedom”, “Do What Thou Wilt”. C- You wanna talk about the occult? M- Um. C- What ‘s your fascination with the occult? M- Initially it was growing up with Christianity and the occult was the “opposite”. It was taboo in my household. My gateway was the mainstream take on Satan worship. Satanism was popular in the early 80’s, like pentagrams, witches, spells, and human sacrifice, all that shit, all very sensational stuff to a kid. Basically it was scary yet fascinating to me at a young age and then I got into skateboarding in 1985. I started buying Thrasher Magazine. Skateboard culture was full of skulls and demons, lots of shit informed by the “dark side”. I dug the imagery so much. It began to mellow me out on it being a scary thing and drew my mind in to the power behind it. Then skating got me into punk and underground music, which you have shit like Christian Death, Bauhaus, dark stuff with those symbols involved. Then of course you have heavy metal/thrash, which is nothing but SATAN. What really got me was reading about Jimmy Page’s obsession with the occult and also that scene in The Doors movie where Jim is chasing around that witch in her apartment, they’re all jacked up, drinking each others blood, having insane animalistic sex. But seriously, there was something untouchable about it that I wanted in on. From elementary school through early high school, I made up fake rock bands and drew these elaborate album covers where I would place these supposed opposing ideologies/symbols . The first band I made up was Christ Thunder. That was in like 1988. They were a Christian metal band then eventually started ping ponging back and forth between Jesus and Satan as their ruler. Around ’91, I started drawing this fictional band called The Garden Party. Total chaotic values, very influenced by Sonic Youth’s Sister and Evol albums.. I know there are many other groups I made up but those two stick out to me. As I got older I started reading more and more about the occult but it’s only been in the past two years that I’ve truly started realizing the value it adds to my life. C- What images are you drawn to and how does it relate to your visual art and music? M- The cross is the first symbol that I started actively drawing, being that it was a symbol that
means something and I’ve always drawn it for a reason. Also pentagrams, upside down peace signs, I don’t draw right side up peace signs. C- Yes. M- I want to convey that this is a BROKEN crucifix inside a circle. Right side up. C- Do you see images whenever you make music? MNo but I do get the same feeling that I do as drawing or seeing a symbol. It’s all the same fucking thing. One’s going in and one’s going out and it’s all infinite. The feeling I get from symbols (which is why I draw them because there is a power in them) is the same feeling I get making music. The act of creation is occult power. Once again, both are the same. C- I want to talk about how your creative process, musically, can either be premeditated, like “I want to make this and I’m going to do it this certain way” or a “purist, in the moment, there in the bedroom” approach. I mean, what makes you stop or stay on a specific point? M- Not to sound like a broken record, but it’s all the same to me. When I actually think about what it is I’m doing is when I get in trouble, I have to just be feeling. I don’t have a “pure” versus “impure” mode with creating. It’s all pure. I keep going back to the duality. It’s the driving force. C- Your music goes in a lot of different directions, it covers a lot of ground. Do you compartmentalize? M. Fuck yeah. I like to have things in a certain place to get work done. Like when I do dishes, I have to have my little set up going, everything in its place. But once I get started, I get lost in the water flowing over my hands, the texture of soap on glass and metal. C- Into a meditative place, yeah.
M- Yes. I compartmentalize on a technical level. If it’s a drawing, I start with the size of the paper and what mood I’m in. I like to finish what I start on right then and there so if I feel bold, I will approach the whole sheet of paper as one deal. But if I’m feeling sheepish and unsure about the process, I start marking up the page with different areas, make little boxes, grids to set the drawing up so the action as a whole doesn’t feel as daunting. Musically I have to separate ideas solely based on the fact that I make music alone as well as with other people. Solo writing and recording is similar to drawing in that I compartmentalize based on what mood I’m in. Group performance is a whole different deal. I’m a part of a larger idea, which is CROSS MUSIC to me. Salad Influence, Human Process and my solo material is all CROSS MUSIC. CROSS is no longer a physical act but it is certainly a mindset in which I operate in performance. C- What do you get out of playing CROSS MUSIC? M- It’s real. C- What is the feeling? MWhat I believe directly correlating with what I am doing in the moment. I believe you can make art and music and it can be dishonest, it can be a lie. I can’t speak for anyone else but I can do things proficiently, I can do things well but I can also do those things while not being honest with myself. C- Picasso said that art is a lie that can help us see the truth. Whenever you get to the point of defining success in art, you want to feel honesty in what you do but in that translation, it has to be a lie. It’s nothing that is tangible, it’s just a feeling. The art helps us to see the truth within ourselves. M- I have the capability of doing audio or visual or writing work on many levels but there’s the stuff I do that is honest or… C- I would say you don’t settle for anything that’s not honest. M- I’ve tried. C- Think of all the drawings that you’ve ripped up or burned and tell me about that feeling and that feeling verses recording music and having it pressed, released and put out in the world. The difference between permeance and impermeance. Whenever you can make something go away, how does that make you feel? M- If I’ve ripped up or burned a piece of art, I usually feel sad because it was most likely done under negative circumstances. Letting that negativity get the best of me is no good. It’s doesn’t even matter that it’s gone. What matters is that I destroyed something that I cared about enough to allow it out of my mind into the world. I’m fortunate to experience that sadness though. It means not all is lost (laughs). IF the intention is to recycle, then great, go for it. Then again, it all ends up being a part of the process. WE ARE THE PROCESS. C- You do that with music as well. You cut… M- Noise not music. I don’t care about the musicality as much as the SOUND of it. As you were saying the other day about your visual process, getting lost in the medium itself is the obsession. Yeah, I play “songs” whether it is Salad Influence or on my guitar at home, but everything is noise, everything is sound. You could tell me there’s no more notes or chords in the world, burn every piece of music and it would still come back through the shuffling of feet on concrete, a car driving by, water running. Music gets in the way of noise. Salad Influence is al-
ways a direct reference to when I was 14, being stoked about getting to where I am now. Jamming, drawing, writing, the point is to not lose that feeling in the adult world. Fortunately something you or I don’t have to worry about. We got it. We have what we made. It’s important and I want that importance in my life. C- Let’s talk about your solo stuff some more. Would you say it’s a compulsion? I would. The way you create and how open ended it is? I know you on a personal level, but on a stranger’s perspective, it’s a pretty wide range, spectrum of a person. M- Not to be a dick, but other’s perceptions is not my place to dwell on. At one point, I thought about that hard and started the longest running band of my life (Warmer Milks) as a direct result of that thinking. I was sick as a listener, as an outsider, I wanted a wider spectrum, my whole things like “you really fucking feel that way 24-7”, bullshit. Like, you can’t explore this and retain your integrity… C- to your “genre”. M- Fuck genre. That shit is dumb but good question. More people need to ask each other that question. C- That’s why I asked. M- It comes down to doing whatever the fuck you want. It’s something to celebrate. C- It’s something to celebrate for sure. M- When we made music as CROSS or make music as Human Process, it comes across as streamlined but it’s funny how we operate on an anarchic, chaotic, free plane, way of looking at things. If we want to throw a wrench in something, we have that right. Fucking sick. With Ma, the primary reason its’ all over the place is because I don’t have to explain a single thing, it’s just me. I don’t think about anything really at all other than what feels good. The more I do it, the more it becomes automatic. I push record and there’s times where I don’t even know what I’m gonna do. I know plenty of others do the same. C- Do you think there’s freedom in that? To paraphrase Agnes Martin, she said clearing the mind of all thoughts leads to a feeling that’s more pure. M- Yes. When you push record on a recording device with only a few things/instruments in place with no map, it’s crazy. It captures whatever hits the air. Yes, there’s a level of falling back on certain “moves” but I do it so much that certain actions I make deviate over time. I’m drawn to a constant workflow of that mentality. C- What are the differences between what you would make in the past and what you would make now? How do you feel about your history of making things? M- I used to have a lot more hang ups, created too many limitations, didn’t free myself up enough. If it was truly unique and I couldn’t directly correlate it with something I’d heard, seen or read before, I felt weird about it. Going back to how things are heard, whether its me listening to my own sound, someone else listening to my sound, or vice versa, it all comes down to enjoyment, non enjoyment, pleasure, pain. You either enjoy it or not. I enjoy something or I fucking hate it. Yeah, there are different styles, instrumentation but I’m working towards erasing that whole idea of difference. It’s all one lightning bolt. I want everything in my life to be one surge. C- Let’s talk about Human Process. What do you get out of it. M- For starters, it’s with you and Jason Schuler. We meet up once a week in the morning. We get to start that day together. Get away from the night rock zone shit. Secondly, the analog synth aspect. I use digital on my own, and while I make sound on anything in front of me, it’s nice to get in to older machines with my friends, stir up the dust. Most importantly, it’s a spiritual, meditative action. We’ve all three played together under many different guises and this
feels like the sharpest knife yet. There’s not much discussion about what it’s supposed to be. No rules yet it’s precise and very US. C- I like the openness of feeling safe enough to allow whatever comes out that day to be. It does something good to my psyche. We get disoriented about how long we spend playing, recording. You know you’re doing something right when you get lost outside of time. Getting things out and documenting that process is important to go back and understand yourself in chronological order if you need to(laughs). M- For sure. Going back through my stuff is painful half the time (laughs). C- Talk about that. M- Fuck. I’ll know on one level that it was good and real and that it happened but then it’s so raw that it takes me right back to a specific feeling I’m not so juiced on experiencing again. It took me a long time to not wretch every time I heard the name “Warmer Milks”. C- What’s in a name? M- Years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds full of life and death and all kinds of shit. C- Sure. M- If you’re in a certain head space, you’ll soak in every gross detail. I don’t think it’s a positive activity. Make stuff now. Own your actions and keep moving, take things in stride. I finally had to realize that there is great stuff in yesterday and that I have to high five the cosmos regardless of what emotion is occurring. C- I know if Warmer Milks never happened, I’d be in a different place. M- I’d be in some boring ass indie rock band wearing tweed. C- Tell me about Brave Captain? M- It’s a small underground cassette label ran by myself and Joe Mangum (Elsinores, Salad Influence). We’re up to seven releases: Salad Influence, J Marinelli, Elsinores, Trans Sub, my solo stuff, list goes on C- What’s your vision for Brave Captain in the future? MMake more tapes, move into vinyl in 2014, reissue stuff we loved as kids in the region and beyond, stay out of the internet’s way, not make any unnecessary “upgrades with the times”. The main motivator is to do things on a ground level, something that is “at home”. You hit a point where you realize you like what you’re doing and outside of working with friends, you just have zero interest
in “shopping” music to business labels, rather have complete control of something you truly care about. We make what we can afford to make and it carries itself. Once again, it’s all about that lightning bolt, that surge. It’s a home. I feel the same about Sophomore Lounge. Family. Animal Disguise is no longer operating but it’s always gonna be a home. For me, Rampart (RIP) was a big inspiration living in Lexington. Trevor Tremaine (ATTEMPT, Matt Duncan Band, Hair Police) ran it for quite some time and it got me juiced to see things I made come alive on tape. C- What drives you to create in a day? When do you feel the need to put your psyche into creating something outside of your head? M- I think that all of my art is informed by drugs. (massive laughter) M- Obviously both art and life inform one another. With music, art and writing, I can either fly blind or take the wheel completely. In my day to day, it’s hard to retain control of my emotions. They take over. I’m either bummed or manic. Some call it bipolar. Sure, call it that. Doesn’t matter, I’m an adult and I have to stay on board. It’s not horrible every day but the older I get, the rougher it is to handle. C- The more on top of it you have to be. M- Yes. But there are ways to not drown. It goes back to the occult. Joe Mangum rules He nailed it., he says to me, “LOGIK=MAGIK”. Same fucking thing. The gateway there for me is art. Going to the post office or fuck, getting out of bed, that is hard for me some days. It’s the public, and I’m inside my head the whole time and my mind won’t shut up. Someone looks at me weird when I’m walking down the street. I go home, lock the door and lay in bed all day crying. Art provides me with a skin to get past that. Clearly there are other things, making healthy lifestyle choices, checking in with loved ones, but art is only thing that has been there for me my whole life. I can’t make informed decisions without first consulting with what I create. C- If you had to describe yourself to an alien, what would you say? M- I know I’ve dropped this on you a million times but I read a quote, it was from a skateboarder or a heavy metal dude or Rollins or someone but the quote is “I do this because I have to”. I don’t make stuff because it’s “fun”, I made stuff because it’s a requirement for my stability as a living creature. I’ve tried to escape it, need to “get with it”, be a khaki dude hanging out at Applebee’s watching organized sports, believing in politics, giving a shit about Oprah or Good Morning America. I’ve craved being one of those characters in a No Trend song but I always blow it and drop out. Then again, the aliens already know all this. Duh. C- Twilight Zone of going to Target. M- That shit is tight. C- If you had to tell an alien about how the world is… M- I’d apologize. Then after some face rips, discuss ocean flora, weather, LSD, Manson. C- Hopefully the aliens would look like ocean flora. M- Exactly. We’d discuss what is left on Earth that is truly wonderfully. You know though, we’d mostly be talking about what their planet is like cuz we’re gonna be on their ship, leaving this place. “Are you malevolent? Benevolent? Is it gonna hurt? Will it feel good?” C- In a few words, describe the past, present, future. M- Waves crashing against a bed of rocks. Beauty and insanity. There are so many pockets you can hang out in with beauty and insanity. I feel like you gotta stay crazy because the world is crazy. The current
is wild. You have to adapt. It can be rough but its what makes you YOU. C- Without the unknown, we lose our imagination. M- You’re fucked if you’re not just a little out there. Ride a crazy wave, ya know. If you’re just trying to be normal, doing whatever everyone else is doing at this moment, it’s total suffocation. I want crazy cuz that’s beauty. C- My name is Clint Colburn, and I am looking at my shoes. M- I like your shoes. C- Thank you. M- Do you see your art as a voice for anything specific? CMy art just poses questions to the viewer. The questions might be different for them than what I’m getting out of the piece but the point is to idle the mind, to go away, and let the unknown surface. I really don’t want to limit anyone’s mind because I know there is power happening there. Everyone can get what they want out of their lives and I don’t want to give anyone answers. Everyone’s answer is personal. Truth is in the eye of the beholder. I pose questions for my own self-discovery. Imagination is how things are built. People create to see around the corner. I could only hope that the viewer’s imagination leads them to a place of truth within themselves. I’m really interested in my dream life. The feeling I wake up with resonates throughout my day. A lot of the time, its not images, its just a feeling that lasts. I wonder how my mind processes this stuff and I try to go to the same place when I make art. Right before you fall asleep, you’re kind of in between both worlds. There’s a lot to discover in that state, between the conscious and unconscious, and I transcribe that. That discovery is the most powerful thing in myself. The point is to not understand it, but to explore and move through it, we’re just processes. Consciousness is something to pay heed to. M- Last night I took a nap and I had a nightmare in which I tried to scream for help but I couldn’t make a sound. Eventually I started to moan and it woke me up. I couldn’t move once I opened my eyes. I performed some music mere hours after this and was anxious to get on stage to deal with the feeling I had from the dream. Didn’t matter that I was in front of people or whatever, it was really about working this out through creation. Do you get this in your painting? C- Yeah, it’s my whole life. My entire life is a string of cause and effect - of transformations. I was in a car wreck when I was 19 and honestly don’t remember much from the following one and a half to two years. I was in shock. It threw my mind into a spiral of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and psychosis. The way I worked through it was by exploring my psyche - my mind became my obsession because at that point in my life, it was dire. The more aware you can be within a moment, the closer you can get to a pure place within yourself. That frees you to transform. I take the BE HERE NOW approach. That’s where power is. That’s where life is. That’s where fragility is. Nothing exists outside of it. What happens within those passing moments strung together is a creation of self. Knowing that the past is just an illusion and that your mind doesn’t have to be a prison of the past is total freedom. M- You feel that’s where you found your sanity? C- That’s where sanity is. The past is insane and how true do you allow the past to be? Those feelings attached to experience can send you into a negative spiral and lock you in. The way that I find my way out of those trains of thought is by working my mind back into the moment though art and sound, obviously a good conversation, my girlfriend Erin, my brothers, friends and family. To be aware of a moment is paying heed to the life that you have.
R Clint Colburn is a painter and sound manipulator currently residing in Lexington with his girlfriend and two cats. He talked with Ma last Thursday about sanity, feng shui, CROSS, and his new musical project with Turner and Schuler, HUMAN PROCESS. His 2013 can blow your mind here: www. rclintcolburn.com
M- It’s funny we talked the other day about our early drawings, as children. For me with what I was doing, it genuinely felt like freak zone shit. My folder of scratch was closed to the world. I would never show anyone, friends, my mom. If anyone came over, I would hide my art because I felt like an oddball. It was a SECRET. When I was around 11 years old, my mom brought me along with her to work because she couldn’t find a sitter. We were in the elevator of her building and a folded up piece of paper I’d been drawing on all day fell out of my pocket. A woman picked it up for me and I thought I was going to shit. “She is going to know how fucking weird I am.” What I did on my own felt so alien. I couldn’t relate it to anything else. It was my worldview and everything outside of that was American Pepsi Suburban life. You mentioned when you started drawing, you weren’t jazzed about showing it to other people. C- My drawing is a product of the way my mind works. As a child, I discovered drawing - called it doodling back then - through escapism. It was my escape to a world I created where rules don’t exist, and the beauty behind it heals wounds. It drew me into the moment. It’s how I dealt with institutions. If there’s something around you that you can’t control - the classroom or the church - and you don’t want to hear what is going on, or you don’t want to be there… this is where I went. Sitting in church, I’d draw on the bulletin, covering all of the content (on the bulletin itself and, in turn, everything around me). I discovered the world of creation on a small, intimate scale. Never thought about why I did it until later, it was just what I did to deal. Now it’s more a part of my life, my day to day. I know that in order for my mind to be healthy, I need to practice creation, however that comes. I’m obsessed with mediums. I’m addicted to the process: whatever comes out, comes out. I move forward. I don’t pay attention to other’s perceptions of my work anymore - because I look at what I do and have just as many questions. I look at my past work like I would look at anyone else’s work. I’m just a viewer of that moment in time, and what I see in the work is always changing. I have no pride or shame attached to what I’ve done, because it’s all a part of the process. I’m more concerned with creating in the moment. M- Showing your art in public. What’s the reasoning? C- This is what I do. To be part of a world, I guess, and to share something with the world. My hope is that someone will look at something I’ve done and will dream, will imagine, will question, will lose themselves in it. M- There are many types of places to show art. Various gallery types and sizes. From your living room to a widely known space. From a few people flipping through your sketchbook to people all over the world traveling to see what you’ve made. C- I treat everything the same. I take my opportunities. On my end, I’m not very good at anything but making art. No good at social networking. It’s weird for me as an introvert, a person that doesn’t really have a technological voice. My voice comes through images. I believe everyone has the ability to show the self through mark-making, art…creation. We create and destroy externally and internally constantly. The gateway to enlightenment is to transcend and lose the self. M- At the end of the day, wherever it goes, it goes. C- I ride that wave on the outside. There is something for everyone and there are people in the world that are into all sorts of shit. I’m not concerned with trends. For me, as far as latching
on to something, be it a movement, a style, etc. I don’t think it can ever be an honest way to represent my ever-changing self. I put stuff out there in hopes that it catches eyes and makes a connection. It’s about giving, not taking. M- What about the idea that certain “middle persons” whom allow their walls to be adorned with art might represent something that is not pure. Perhaps they are interested in things on a monetary scale alone. Also are these same places alive with arms open to the public on a scale larger than just upper/middle classes, regardless of education, social connections? Does your work combat any of these attitudes? C- The way I see any room showing is, in essence, four white walls. Whoever is running that business, gallery, wherever, gets to choose what they put on these white walls. Some opportunities have fallen into my lap, and I’m glad they’ve asked for work of mine to show. I’ve shown out of my own apartment, in a living room, a gallery in Chelsea and so on. I’ve shown everywhere where there’s a wall and someone wants me to put a piece up. I’m glad they asked me. I don’t know their political stance. To be concerned about something I really don’t want to understand that much about isn’t me. I‘m stoked on people creating. That is all. I don’t like large groups of people. Art openings are hard for me to do. I prefer small gatherings of people where I can be myself. Make those moments meaningful for myself and/or someone else.
I don’t like wasting time, formalities. I’m not saying I don’t participate in those things; there are sacrifices that we all make. It’s not distaste for people, I just prefer meaningful moments. If I go to an art show, I prefer to avoid the opening and go in some form of downtime, to really get into what the artist is presenting, sans distractions. I have cheese at home and wine gives me a headache. M- “I didn’t come here to have a good time”. Totally. Tell me something about “setting up scenarios that are built for creation” in your world. C- The apartment I share with my girlfriend (Erin Eldred, artist) is based around creation. If we want to make stuff or someone wants to come over and make stuff, it’s ready. M- That set up gives me the same feeling as preparing for the first day of school as a kid: clothes laid out, backpack on the bed and opened up reveal all of my writing and drawing utensils, notebooks, folders. Basically a fresh start. Walking into your apartment, this feeling is every day. The level of organization and feng shui shines. C- This is an awkward apartment. Second story, rooms are oddly placed and sized. Erin and I have played the game of moving things around at least 20 times. It‘s gradually happening all the time. Living for simplicity, functionality. It’s up there as one of my favorite forms of creation, moving things around with my girlfriend. M- How would you describe yourself to an alien? C- I would just stare at myself in the mirror. Interconnectivity. Infinite potential in life. M- It’s a great feeling, a lifesaver, thinking of the unknown. C- If I didn’t have the openness towards the unknown, I would view my time as a prison. Fear of the unknown breeds hate - hate breeds war. No friction. Flow like water. Fela Kuti. M- What’s your internal logic moving from CROSS into Human Process? C- What’s in a name? We’re always moving. I think that I seek more of “my own world” where I don’t know the format. Human Process is about you, me and Jason (Schuler) exorcising within a moment, things that need to come unhinged, that are in our subconscious. M- CROSS was primarily a rock n roll band to us. Standardized power chord, bass, drums driven. Do you feel rock n roll lost the plot with the feelings you just described? C- I just moved into a realm that helps me to continue to express myself and to feel lighter at the end of the day. I found magic in the dynamic of CROSS and am still very connected to all of it’s dimensions- but sometimes you have to close a chapter, and start anew. To be conscious of why I make sound is something I often ask myself. Being aware of a sound and matching it to the way I feel is a very sensitive act. When both hit on the same plane, it’s magical- total harmony. That’s why I do it. It feels pure. At my most honest, I’m chasing that feeling in all actions of life. Human Process continues that search. It’s an open-ended action with infinite potential for the unknown to exist. M- I hit the point in CROSS where I knew I was doing a quality thing that people appreciated but at the end of the day you have to follow what you’re truly stoked on inside. If you have to shed a layer and grow new skin, so be it. C- It ran its course. In the beginning, we expressed ourselves, completely opened up to
self-discovery. After that, we came out of it with people expecting a “genre”. The name CROSS transformed from a crazy experimental deal between the two of us into a “sound”, the “rock band that I’m in” instead of a natural growing process. I was never a “genre”. Still not. M- Amen. C- The whole point of CROSS is the acceptance of death. Facing the scary, dark, mortal questions within yourself. It was letting go of every fear. It’s very strong to me. M- “CROSS MUSIC” C- Yeah, it became a language between us that was greater than it’s parts- a powerful symbol to me, and it means something different to everyone. We all bear the weight of being mortal. That was how we communicated the predetermined. M- CROSS represented me finally coming to terms with the worship of symbols, portals, and doorways. CLIMBING THROUGH windows inside myself, you get the picture. Warmer Milks flirted with that mindset but we never fully synced up with an ideology. Perhaps my memory is faint, but I always felt kind of alone in reaching out beyond the surface on a “mindfulness” plane. CROSS was saying “DEATH” and saying it loudly. Human Process is nothing but exorcism. C- Being honest with myself is crucial to creation. I’m not taking the backseat to anything. I’m not along for some unconscious ride. It’s all about controlling a space to the point where you can let everything else go and see what surfaces. It’s important to me. It’s important to you. For our sanity. We all have to make our own purpose. I want more, I wanna go deeper. If I’m not wanting that, then I’m like the plant that hasn’t been watered- I just die inside. What’s the point? My world is in creation. It links me closer to the ones that I love and want to be there for. To be the person that I am.
ALBUM REVIEWS
ALBUM REVIEWS
ALBUM REVIEWS
ALBUM REVIEWS
Sharp Star by Sharp Star sharpstarmusic.bandcamp.com As an asshole Louisvillian, when I first came across these dudes from Paducah, I was not expecting much more than the band that plays live music while you eat pizza on a Friday. Please come beat me up, I was wrong. Sharp Star melds post-grundge (think Live, not Creed) with really catchy pop sensibilities, making for quick, danceable rock. Plus, chief songwriter and vocalist Ethan O’Daniel kind of sounds like Ian Astbury. Check out stand out track “Safe With Me”.
Big Machines and Peculiar Beings by The Debauchees thedebauchees.bandcamp.com Louisville indie pop group The Debauchees are on a mission: to get your grumpy ass in the mood to dance. Like honestly half these songs are about either moving around or wishing they were moving. Sydney Chadwick’s vocals are smoky and inviting, while Cameron Lowe and Sydney Chadwick bring on tha funk on drums and bass, respectively, A solid debut album, and it definitely got me at least thinking about dancing. “It’s All Endorphins” is by far the best song. Check it out on SonaBLAST! records.
Martyrs by Olsen Twin Peaks olsentwinpeaks.bandcamp.com Joined at the hip across a thousand miles, the “twins” Joe and Matt of Olsten Twin Peaks grace us with their operatic first album Martyrs, influenced by the French horror film of the same name. Elements of industrial metal, visual kei, black metal, and dance are stripped, ripped, and reassembled in to threatening sonic beasts like “Martyrs (Becoming Gods)” as well as groovy little monsters like “Get Thee Behind”. I cannot even wait for a physical release. Coming soon?!
Pot Brownies on Christmas by Various Artists evictionrecords.bandcamp.com The weirdo collective over at Eviction Records are sure feeling the Christmas Spirit in this holiday spectacular. Niles Kane, Harpy, Maxwell Jump, Scottless, and Bo Behave contribute to this joyous holiday mix included classic hits “Hawaiian Shirt” and “Generation” which may or may not be a Who cover? The warm fuzz fuckery of Pot Brownies on Christmas perfectly simulates the feeling of getting high as fuck in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve and then realizing moments later your hair is on fire. Order your copy today!
Frankfort rap trio Basement Up bring us their third EP and in their own words, “In an over saturated art form we are increasingly mindful of quality.” Each beautiful beat fits seamlessly and Phorensicz, Matty Ritch, and Allen Poe drop more real shit in these five tracks than most emcees will in 20. “Broken Dreams” is an espcially touching song. These guys truly love hiphop and are making music for the right reasons. I wish them luck on their journey out of the basement.
ALBUM REVIEWS
OH WOW WE LOVE FINDING COOL NEW MUSIC IN THAT TOBACCO MAGAZINE MAYBE SOME COOL PEOPLE SHOULD SUBMIT THEIR ALBUMS TO TOBACCO.ZINE@GMAIL.COM?
ALBUM REVIEWS
Who They Thought We Were by Basement Up basementup.bandcamp.com
ALBUM REVIEWS
The good thing about any electronic music, especially vaporwave, is if you start early , you’ll learn quickly and eventually find your own style. The producer behind NASA ULTIMA is indeed still just a kid, nothing wrong with that. However, aside from “Up in the Clouds”, Chapter 3 doesn’t espcially stand out in any way. The ideas are there, but are hidden beneath the lazy “sample everything” mentality of vaporwave. Plus that damn Windows startup noise. More original production would have saved this album.
ALBUM REVIEWS
[CHAPTER 3]新婚旅行 DELIGHT by NASA ULTIMA nasaultima.bandcamp.com
a show review by Cory Fusting
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We held an open call in May for Louisville bands to donate a track to this project. The call went viral with the help of Louisville MUSICulture, Leobeat, Never Nervous and Louis ville Music News re-posting our press release. We ended up receiving tracks from 46 bands by the deadline, over 2 plus hours of local music . It was overwhelming, yet extremely awesome to say the least. An open call was also made for artwork and the wonderful local artist and longtime friend Matt Humble painted an amazing picture of the Bell of Louisville for the cover. The decision to use cassettes was based on our love for releasing on odd dead formats, I grew up listening to everything on cassette and they will always sound better than a cd to me and vinyl was just not an option for this release. We did not forget the computer savvy crowd too; we included a card for an Mp3 download of the entire tape.
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Primary goal of Gubbey Records is to expose eclectic and obscure artists from Louisville, Ky. We are not going for the largest acts in the city. We are trying to shine light in the darkest corners.
Tobacco Magazine gets with David Rucinski and asks all those hard-hitting questions about putting together Head Cleaner, 46 traxx of tasty Louisville tunes.
Head Cleaner vol. 1 and 2 can be found at Modern Records and Astro Black Cult cords. Other Gubbey Rec Rereleases are stocked at ords local record stores, as all well as www.gubbeyrecords.net .
2001 Frankfort Avenue Mon - Thu: 11:00 am - 8:00 pm Fri - Sat: 11:00 am - 10:00 pm Sun: 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Sean and Tyler over at Modern Cult Records give us their top four album picks for the month
Thurston Moore & John Zorn - @ (Tzadik) These multifaceted titans finally decided to step into the studio and record this set of live freely played duets for guitar and alto sax. Having mingled in similar circles for years, it’s hard to believe they hadn’t done this before. Being a long time fanboy of Mr. Moore’s immense catalog, the news of this collab peaked my interest. I’ve had mixed feelings on much of Zorn’s own output, feeling like he falls back on many of the same trodden tricks quite a bit without appearing truly “free”. This record found me surprised at Zorn sounding largely fresh and exciting. The two engage in an abstract textural yet intimate and moody conversation from the get-go. Thurston’s scrapes, jabs and semidrones prod Zorn to flow from frantic flurries to more trad scalar lines to purrs and key clicks and back in attention keeping ways. All with plenty of space to breathe. These tracks capture 2 veteran weirdos that can still get perfectly off the cuff, together and apart.
Wolves In The Throneroom - Anno Domini: BBC(Southern SessionsLord) 2011
One of the more accessible black metal bands, they seem to appeal to a wider audience more than similar acts. Godspeed You! Black Emperor even invited them to All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2010 to rave reviews. Just two songs for this session recorded at the Maida Vale studio, from their last album, “Celestial Lineage”. The first cut, “Prayer Of Transformation”, starts off as doom and drone, picking up for the vocal delivery, and settling back to that slower, sludgy pace after each verse. “Thuja Magus Imperium”, more traditional black metal, is a raw, dynamic, emotional performance. Vinyl only release.
Bardo Pond - Peace On Venus (Fire Records) Philadelphia’s psychedelic rock act have released over a dozen proper albums. They run the gamut between free improvisation, space-rock, shoe-gaze and noise. This time out they are back to the loose, heavy dirges similar to their last release for Southern Record’s Latitudes series, Yantra. Brothers Michael and John Gibbons on guitars are joined this time by Isobel Sollenberger’s singing and flute, bassist Clint Takeda, drummer Jason Kourkounis and Aaron Igler on synth / electronics. Opening with “Kali Yuga Blues” is a plodding, hypnotic piece. Heavy, blown-out, a sense of sadness follows Sollenberger’s voice.as the guitars wail and feedback. “Taste” is a stripped down shoe-gazer, quieter and minimal in approach. The third track, “Fir”, returns you to the heavy tom and snare pace, chunky and somewhat reminiscent of Jesu at their heaviest. “Chance” is a sprawling intrumental, exploding from acoustic guitar intro to settle back to a similar trace-like pace that pervades the rest of the album. Jerking and noisy, “Before the Moon” closes out the album, heavy-handed Kourkounis pacing the guitars for another vocal mantra.
TOBACCOMAGAZINE.NET
front cover art by Casie Lewis back cover art by Yoko Molotov