Category Archives: Interviews

DANDY WARHOLS SURREALISTIC ‘MONKEY HOUSE’

May 4, 2009InterviewsDANDY WARHOLSJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: I got to be pretty friendly with Portland’s Dandy Warhols during 2003, hanging out with them at their hotel, the Bowery Ballroom, and again later, for a piece in High Times – a match made in marijuana heaven. Besides putting a spin on avant-garde artist Andy Warhol’s name, they were easily one of the most beatnik bands I’ve ever encountered. The Dandys were a closely-knit troupe that used royalty monies from the song Bohemian Like You to build a large Portland designing/ recording warehouse space called the Odditorium.

They gained a modicum of aboveground fame when leader Courtney Taylor-Taylor revelaed the dramatic tension between him and Brian Jonestown Massacre’s confrontational oft-drunk psychopath, Anton Newcombe, on winning ’04 Sundance Festival documentary, Dig! After ‘03s Welcome To The Monkey House, a slight musical departure reliant more on synth-based new wave glam, ’05 follow-up, Odditorium or Warlords of Mars, retreated back to heavier guitar treatments, and ‘08s Earth To The Dandy Warhols was released independently online. This article originally appeared in Aquarian Weekly.

It’s 3 p.m. on a Monday afternoon at Tribeca Grand Hotel in Manhattan and Dandy Warhols’ diminutive Zia Mc Cabe is still hung-over from washing down six Corona’s with several shots of Jagermeister following last nights’ first of two shows at Chinatown’s Bowery Ballroom.

But at least she got to perform. A month earlier, the Dandy Warhols were scheduled to play The Conan O’Brien Show, but the New York blackout staled that and the band found themselves walking through Time Square, taking pictures, watching pissed off Hilton Hotel customers sleep on the streets, and visiting midtown club Siberia until 5 a.m.

Perhaps it was best to meet Ms. Mc Cabe first since she most profoundly captures the liberal bohemian attitude of hometown Portland, Oregon. Spending her formative years living in a log cabin forty-five miles north of Portland in a Battleground, Washington, hippie community, the kittenish keyboardist watched her mother grow grass, raise horses, and feed ducks.

“Now I live in the ghetto, but (bandmate) Pete lives in the up and coming Pearl District where ex-hippies grew up and became responsible,” she shares as guitarist Peter Loew grabs a couch seat next to us.

Loew spent three childhood years in England, coming back to the States in eighth grade wearing bellbottoms and sports shirts while other students had preppy Levi’s jeans on.

Adds Loew, “I had an English accent so I didn’t fit in. I was a complete outsider which affected what I ended up liking.”

Creating surrealistic music in the clean, floral-accented, pristinely renovated city along the floral banks of the Williamette River, where high end art galleries juxtapose low end counterculture art (screen printing, cheap jewelry), became a serious passion for Portland’s daringly darling Dandy Warhols.

“Influences are everything, not just music,” Loew maintains. “There’s a lot of ideas that get tossed around and 90% never happen.”

After the Dandy Warhols’ formative indie debut, Dandy’s Rule OK, drew attention from major labels, the band signed with Capitol Records and released ‘96s narcotic aural tapestry, Come Down.

“We were listening to My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Spiritualized – things that were ‘comedown’ music for people who didn’t listen to dance music,” Loew recalls.

When I speak to lead singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor days later, he suggests, “We try to do what no one else is doing. The way to do that is find something obsolete or unfashionable or at least not what current trends (dictate). We have a signature feel but not a signature sound. Our first (Capitol) album was, ‘Wow – shoegazer’s been out for five years. No one’s made the perfect shoegaze record. By the next record (Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia), if you didn’t have a turntable, you weren’t cool. So we decided to make a 1971 record in ’99. This time, no one was making records for yachts off the coast of Monaco, so we did our Smooth Operator.”

Inspired by Simon & Garfunkle’s “The Sounds Of Silence” as a pre-teen, Taylor became infatuated with learning how to properly structure and compose songs. But this led to “strange social skills” in public.

“Anytime a song was on, which is 80% of your life, I was constantly tuned out (to my surroundings). I’d be in a supermarket with elevator music on and if there was a part of a song that had power to it or chord changes, those chords would move me. I’d distinguish between parts of the song I liked or didn’t like – which is why are songs are so repetitive and simple,” Taylor explains.

For the Dandy’s twisted take on Sade’s “Smooth Operator,” christened “Welcome To My Monkey House” (a title taken from the Kurt Vonnegut novel about sexual repression), respected surrealist painter Ron English combined band namesake Andy Warhol’s yellow banana image with the Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers metal zipper for the cover art.

Recoding began at London’s Sphere Studios, notoriously enough, on 9-11, across the hall from where Duran Duran were finishing a comeback album. That led to several Taylor co-productions with the English new wave icon’s keyboardist Nick Rhodes. Fellow Duran Duran member Simon LeBon added tenor backup to the funky “Plan A.”

“Courtney’s reflecting the worked up nostalgia of the ’90s pre-Y2K and 9-11. It was more fun then and we had less to worry about. We had a simpler life and problems were smaller,” Mc Cabe insists.

“We’d made a well-produced indie record that was very organic. When it was remixed (by Jeremy Wheatley), it got changed. It’s still tight, but the songs are individually sectioned instead of flowing into each other,” claims Loew.

One song inariably altered was the first single, “We Used To Be Friends,” which got chopped up in a machine-like manner, changing the feel of the original version. Though the band seemed skeptical of the Capitol-sponsored remix results, a skeletal lo-fi version of “Monkey House” may be released next year.

Taylor asserts, “I’ll try to achieve the same level of surrealism with less musicality. The theory explores how far you could reduce the musicality to make it seem bigger before you start losing the musical-ness.”

Delving further, the silly robotic “I Am A Scientist” leans towards Oingo Boingo’s ’80s electro tomfoolery while the ethereal “Heavenly” and the hallucinogenic “I Am Over It” provide shimmering mindbending escapades. “Monkey House” also contains a clandestine dialogue-driven short film. The End Of The World As We Know It, which derides ’00s national election fiasco, re-examines the WTC disaster and mocks the impending apocalypsic furor.

At the second Bowery Ballroom show, the tight combo displayed unfailing confidence. They enjoyed stretching their lesser known songs by taking a built-in groove and drawing it out, developing a single beat over the course of a jam, then gradually altering the glistening pseudo-psychedelic surrealism contained therein.

Donning vintage wool golfer’s hat, Taylor looked relaxed as he strummed 6-string elegantly, encouraging spontaneity during the swirly extended mantras.

Mc Cabe, wearing a ripped T-shirt with the Rolling Stones trademark tongue emblazoned by an American flag, handled assorted keys with care, shaking a tambourine or maracas to fill out the lathered arrangements.

Loew sported black eyeliner and a black T-shirt with PUNK spelled out in frizzy pink lettering, adding requisite 6-string and a touch of bass.

Behind the busy frontline sat De Boer, bare-chested with wild Afro flailing, punctuating the deeply penetrating reverberations while intermittent slide projections and ’60s soft porn flashed on the rear walls.

While in Toronto days beforehand, the Dandys, sans Mc Cabe, visited High Times promotional party for the just-released film, Pot Luck.

Taylor boasts, “We had the Rice Crispies treats, banana nut bread, and chocolate chip cookies. Everything had that nice, fatty, oily, crispy pot butter taste. They were all just genius. I ate more than I ever had in my life.”

This autumn, the Dandys will open for legendary rocker, David Bowie, a likeminded artful dodger whose ’70s masterpiece, Hunky Dory, celebrated Pop Art conceptualist Andy Warhol as gleefully as the Dandys do. Bowie admires the wry dry cynical wit of Taylor, claiming he “has me in fits from the moment he opens his mouth.”

That’s high praise from Ziggy Stardust.

In retrospect, Taylor rationalizes, ” I analyze my own insecurities and deal with my own petty problems through music, I’m a therapist for myself. I experience the world even though my disposition is to be afraid of things I try to overcome.”

CLINIC LET OUT ‘INTERNAL WRANGLER’

May 1, 2009InterviewsBRIT ROCK, CLINICJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: The attacks on the World Trade Center not only ruined my beer book deal with office-damaged Avalon Publications, but forced up-and-coming Liverpool band Clinic to postpone a live date. On the rescheduled date a month later, the surgically masked loons truly kicked ass at Bowery Ballroom. Though they never caught on in a big way, the resourceful Clinic continue to churn out albums and hit the road. ‘02s Walking With Thee outdid the bands’ debut and ‘04s Winchester Cathedral gave hope for bigger club dates. ‘06s Visitations found ‘em in fine form but I never got serviced with ‘08s Do It!

Formed in ‘97 by vocalist Ade Blackburn and guitarist Hartley, then quickly fortified with the addition of percussionist Carl Turney and bassist Brian Campbell, Liverpool-based Clinic spike cinematic lo-fi garage-psychedelia with a collage of jazzed up funk, dub reggae, and punk vagaries. Leaning on rock’s past for inspiration and ideas, but breaking new ground with a truly unique stylistic mesh, this art-damaged British quartet enjoys triggering different audience reactions by being perfectly confusing. Just as some of their ambiguous song titles can’t quite be pinned down, Clinic manage to flaunt kitschy eccentricities in an interesting, wholly accessible, yet equally obtuse manner.

A self-released ‘97 debut single humorously taunting U.K. media-hype, “IPC Sub-Editors Dictate Our Youth” secured Clinic’s position as one of England’s most profound new combos, leading to the ‘98 follow-ups “Cement Mixer” and the Velvet Underground/ Suicide-influenced “Monkey On My Back.”

Signed to Domino in ‘99, the primal post-punk confection “The Second Line” (somewhat reminiscent of late ‘70s underground linchpins Kleenex with its affectionate disjointed harmonies and murky bass bluster) set the stage for the engaging long-player, Internal Wrangler.

Loud melodica saturates buzz-toned, electronica-spiked “The Return Of Evil Bill,” beat-thickened bloozy swirl “T.K,” and the dark-hued surf guitar-laden title track. A driving sixty-six second ball of flame, “C.Q.” fully invests in early punk amateurism, retaining the same unbridled urgency and raw expediency of the gremlin-like “Hippie Death Suite.” Moody change-ups include the embalming, organ-droned “Distortions” (a somber-toned, weepy ballad right in line with Velvet Underground’s Nico-sang “Sunday Morning”) and the calm oceanic seduction “Earth Angel.”

I spoke to Turney over the phone a few days after their first U.S. tour began in Boston. We were to have met at Hoboken’s Maxwells prior to a show, but the unjust World Trade Center terrorist attacks took care of that.

AW: Though your band may be from Liverpool, you stave off Beatles and Echo & the Bunnymen comparisons by going off on a more psych-garage tangent.

CARL TURNEY: We distance ourselves from being completely retro by drawing from unusual sources and going one step forward. Hopefully, it’s something new.

Melodica gives some songs a dub-reggae Linton Kwesi Johnson atmosphere.

That’s it. It comes from Augustus Pablo and Jamaican influences like that. We like the actual effect of the instrument. It jumps out in a way you wouldn’t normally expect to hear on a record. We take influences and distort them so there’s no identical reference. We think a lot of the current guitar stuff is a bit cliché now so we try to put a twist on things. We try to be inventive to keep your ear fresh.

“C.Q.” reminded me of the snotty ‘70s punk X-Ray Spex once dabbled in.

It’s a crazy ragtime shuffle with a bit of sirens at the beginning. There’s a punk-jazz mixture as well. We have broad tastes in music. We read about what records influenced our favorite artists, then delve deeper. Shangri-Las records and Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound broadened our listening scope and suddenly we realized there’s an enormous amount of records we don’t own that have influenced people we like.

Was your family into rock music?

My parents listened to tame commercial ‘60s music like the Beatles. But I branched out to the Velvet Underground and ignored the pop thing. We’ve been listening to the Nuggets collection. And “2nd Foot Stomp” is a bit more New Orleans-type marching band sloppiness with reverb added for that psychedelic effect.%0

HUGH CORNWELL RETURNS IN ‘BLACK HAIR, EYES & SUIT’

May 1, 2009InterviewsHUGH CORNWELL, STRANGLERSJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Would you believe the only time I’d get to experience former Stranglers front man Hugh Cornwell in concert, he’d come up sick. He told me that was the first time sickness prevented him from playing. Anyway, this ’99 phone interview with the ‘70s punk legend proved he was still full of piss and vinegar.

Although vocalist/ guitarist Hugh Cornwell’s former band, the Stranglers, dabbled with aggressive melodic pop more often than pure punk, their ‘76 debut, Rattus Norvegicus, was embraced by the same young, countercultural nihilists the Sex Pistols and the Clash inspired. The Stranglers instrumental prowess, engaging song structures, and subtle lyrical restraint gave them an expanded compositional scope even the spike-haired, heavily pierced, three chord punk crowd could get into.

Through the course of a dozen studio albums, the infamous British combo constructed such fine, memorable tracks as: the rousing rock-related anthem “Get A Grip On Yourself” and the spiffy, organ-doused chant “Something Better Change” (compiled on The Collection 1977 – 1982); the sinsiter “Ice Queen” and the Industrial-driven “No Mercy” (from ‘85s Aural Sculpture); and the gleeming new wave-ish dancehall blaster “Nice In Nice” and, perhaps their most compelling piece, the resilient summer anthem “Always The Sun” (from ‘86s Dreamtime).

In ‘88, Cornwell released Wolf, his first solo project. Eleven years hence, he strikes back with the feisty Black Hair Black Eyes Black Suit. Still full of piss and vinegar, and as witty as they come, Cornwell keeps the beat stompin’ on the harmony-laden “Nerves Of Steel,” the hook-filled pop gem “Endless Day Endless Night,” and the shimmering “”Hot Head.” Ghoulish organ penetrates staccato guitar and a deep bass groove on “Long Dead Train” while the soft, contemplative “Jesus Will Weep” makes amends in a sea of orchestral tranquillity. As for Cornwell’s future, he claims his next album will be “extremely psychedelic.”

After conducting this interview from a phone at some Boston venue, Cornwell got sick and missed his Mercury Lounge show in New York City the next night (apparently the first date he missed in 25 years). But he’ll be back, acoustic guitar in hand, to do some solo sets in the near future.

AW: How do you remain so vibrant and motivated after twenty years in the music business?

HUGH CORNWELL: I’m hungry. (laughter)

Do the Stranglers still exist as a band?

They got a new singer who couldn’t play guitar. So they got a new guitarist as well. Everyone’s disappointed with what they have achieved since I left.

Compare your solo work to the Stranglers records.

The song style is pretty much the same, but it’s more guitar-oriented. As I’ve gotten older, words became easier. My lyrics are more about what I want to write about. Practice makes perfect.

Does the album title, Black Hair Black Eyes Black Suit, refer to you in anyway?

No. Actually, it’s a line taken from an old Robert Mitchum movie. He’s a suspect in a strangling case where people say they think they saw a man in a black suit with black hair and black eyes. The detective says, “yeah, well there are about two million people that fit the description.” The song ended up being about the triumph of bureaucracy in our lives, and male domination, unfortunately.

So you feel women are discriminated against?

Absolutely. And it can’t be good. There’s a poet friend of mine who described it as the dull, deafening drone of male domination.

What about bureaucracy?

However much you try to achieve, people are constantly embattled with bureaucracy. It hinders the creative process and enters every facet of our life.

How has it affected your career?

On day to day things, I find it hard to cut through the bullshit. In fact, the word bureaucracy is another synonym for bullshit. Isn’t it?

In the Stranglers, your stage shows were wildly frantic. You’d take the stage nude at times.

There was a lot of testosterone going around.

How has the British scene changed since the ‘70s punk era?

The Brit scene has been dominated by dance music for the last ten years. Now, people are rediscovering songs, which is what I do.

What music did you listen to as a kid?

When I was young, I was into everything: Arthur Lee and Love, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks. As I matured, I got into Velvet Underground, the Doors and Surrealistic Pillow.

On VH1, Chrissie Hynde said she almost joined the Stranglers.

Yes. She used to come to our early gigs and our manager wanted her to join as a singer. I said, “We already have two singers.” It didn’t happen, did it. (laughter)

There seem to be a few personal reflections on Black Hair, like “Jesus Will Weep.”

Oh yeah. That’s about me splitting up with a girlfriend.

Does “Nerves Of Steel” relate to your tenacity?

It’s like a modern day “Get A Grip On Yourself.” It’s about confronting life. But I’d hate to think all my stuff is taken so seriously.

I thought “Not Hungry Enough” might be about a young artist who doesn’t have the desire to carry on.

No. It’s a theory I have. Wars only start because people have full stomachs. When they’re hungry, they’re too busy trying to put a roof over there heads, getting food, and someone to cuddle. When these criteria are met, they get greedy and want to create wars.

Has liberal leader Tony Blair helped out the minorities and poor people in England?

He seems to be working out. I spoke to someone in Los Angeles who said the only reason the American economy is on its feet is because Reaganomics worked. It made sense. It takes ten years for an economic system to filter through. We won’t know if Clinton did good until another ten years. Whatever policies a politician brings in, you’re not going to see the fruits of them for a generation.

If you weren’t involved with music, what would you be doing now?

I’d probably be painting nudes.

COOPER TEMPLE CLAUSE ‘KICK UP THE FIRE, LET FLAMES LOOSE’

May 1, 2009InterviewsCOOPER TEMPLE CLAUSEJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Out of Berkshire, England, came prog-rock revivalists, Cooper Temple Clause. Though less known in America since forming ‘round ’98, these prescient Brits knew how to effectively make lengthy jams that rocked out and rarely meandered. Their instrumentation, light years beyond unseasoned indie rockers, caused a minor revival of technical guitar efficiency and acrobatic playing a la Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. After this ’04 interview, they belatedly released ‘06s lesser Make This Your Own on a stagnant major label. By ’07, it may’ve been over for the boys, but future generations will come to appreciate their dynamic cognizance and multi-tiered complexities.

Standing out against the media-hyped balladic pop pabulum and melodramatic emo geeks getting mainstream love, awkwardly fanatical British idiosyncrasies Cooper Temple Clause have somehow found an eager audience ripe for their cunningly austere, nimbly executed rock abstractions. Relying on cleverly unraveled premonitions dug deep into diligently constructed settings, this durable Reading-based sextet designs elusive epics art-damaged headbangers and post-grunge anglers dig.

Taking their busy moniker from a straight-to-video film to avoid the single word name deluge of Brit-pop idols such as Blur, Oasis, and Pulp, Cooper Temple Clause laid down their first spontaneous tracks for two formative EP’s at a windowless pig farm converted into a backwoods studio. The first, Hardware, includes concert staple “Devil Walks In The Sand” and lovely ballad “Sister Soul” while its impulsive follow-up, Warfare, sports the nifty instrumental “Mansell” plus an early acoustic take on the mighty “Panzer Attack.”

But it was ‘02s ambitiously diverse See This Through And Leave (made in a proper studio), with its co-mingled Krautrock-sniped electronics, techno-Industrial beats, free Jazz integrity, and metal-edged defiance, that put these gangly schoolyard chums in England’s Top 10. Lead singer Ben Gautrey, guitarist-lyricists Dan Fisher and Tom Bellamy, plus bassist Didz Hammond, keyboardist Kieran Mahon, and drummer Jon Harper, decisively challenged preconceived notions of studio authenticity by creating daringly serpentine arrangements gratefully lacking expendable overblown solos. Due to some silly visa photo shenanigans, Cooper Temple Clause never got to tour America for this precocious masterpiece.

Instead, the belated American debut, ‘04s hauntingly confounding Kick Up The Fire, And Let The Flames Break Loose, finds the adventurous combo moving further away from conventional rock territory, maintaining the absorbingly languid moodiness prog-rock scapegoats Pink Floyd and Radiohead explore alongside the roughneck resilience bluesrock dissidents Led Zeppelin implore. Throughout, Gautrey’s portentously downtrodden lyrical disposition arouses suspicion, as the despairing Love-struck “The Same Mistake” transiently fades into the galloping, yet caustic, psychedelic choral anthem “Promises, Promises” and the conscientiously implosive Goth-derived “New Toys.” Enduring hemispheric mellifluence, the uncompromising 10-minute neo-Classical “Written Apology” builds to a loud, thick crescendo, as saloon piano plinks and orchestral synthesizer lushness re-invigorate mounting dramatic tension.

I caught up with the otherwise good-humored Gautrey as he was “getting domesticated” just days prior to recording what will become CTC’s third full-length.

AW: How will your third album differ from previous endeavors?

BEN GAUTREY: We’ve come a long way from being six mates mucking about not taking responsibility for their actions. (laughter) To be honest, the way we write, it never goes according to plan. We’ll have to see what happens. With the second album, we realized a sense of melody in the band that was lost on the first album. So we tried to get a stronger melodic sense. We’ll try to make the third record more punctual. We’re looking for songs that work live because with Kick Up The Fire the songs were born out of the studio. So we never got a chance to amend the songs. We built them up with the flow and went with the spirit and how it felt. We had to learn to transpose them live when it came to touring the record. So we want to get that sort of energy back in the studio.

Throughout Kick Up The Fire, your band employs succulently eerie moodscapes and ethereal movements to perfectly counter louder, guitar-driven segments.

It’s a challenge. We always want to make each album sound different from the last. There’s only two ways to go. You could go for prog and make 12 to 15 minute songs which we can be real keen on with your ice skating and King Arthur-like Rick Wakeman or you could try to make shorter songs to see what happens. We definitely want to tour a lot so we want to make songs that work live. Who knows? We could end up with epic songs.

You mentioned Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman. I grew up loving prog-rockers such as Soft Machine, Hawkwind, and King Crimson. Do these bands affect your muse?

No. Out of all those bands we only have one prog-rock album. We’re into Pink Floyd. And even with Pink Floyd, it was only Pipers At the Gates of Dawn and Dark Side of the Moon that struck the six of us. Maybe The Wall, but definitely Pipers with Syd Barrett. He was a big inspiration for the band, especially Dan Fisher, our guitarist, who says Syd Barrett was his first guitar hero.

“Into My Arms” seems to have a surreal solemnity closer to Pink Floyd’s ’83 album, The Final Cut, which came later than the albums you discussed.

We didn’t get heavily involved with that one… Syd was featured in an Underworld video recently, which is quite strange.

I didn’t know that. Considering Cooper Temple Clause’s relative youthfulness, every member shows uncanny instrumental restraint.

We’ve played live more than any UK band. They use hype and the press machine to get rolling. They play maybe ten gigs to crowds of 2,000 because they’ve been praised by a magazine or hailed as the greatest band ever, whereas we didn’t like that and found that very fake. We come from the school of thought where we like to find out and make our own decisions if we like a band despite newspaper coverage. Some of our favorite bands tour a lot like in the ‘70s. Back then, it was up to the fan to go to your gig and determine if they liked you because you were available. A lot of these new bands aren’t available and you can’t get a clue if you like them until you buy the record.

How long has your band operated its own rehearsal space?

We had our first rehearsal space we could use whenever we wanted when we were 16. It was next to these pigs on the farm. But for the first album, we went to an expensive studio thinking it’d be amazing. You know, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was recorded there and sounded great. We realized by the end of recording that we didn’t feel comfortable. We enjoyed our own rehearsal space. For the next album, we moved around the corner from the pigs and next to the owls. We started building a studio, which was vital to pick up our own sound. We weren’t disturbed there. Nearest shops were five miles away. We were out of the way. It was difficult to leave. Just six of us and our producer without anyone else hearing it. No people turned up to disrupt or give their penny’s worth. It was a very honest album, more focused and coherent than the first. We had the great luxury to build, record, write, and mix an entire album. We’re going back to that studio Monday.

Did you have much time to record the first album?

We played local venues and got signed quickly. Half of it was written in the studio. There were three years between writing the first to last song. We’re proud of it but some songs felt out of place with each other. It’s disjointed.

There’s more unity, trust, and sense of purpose now.

We’re not scared to tackle different sonics because we’re such big fans of the music we listen to. That inspires us. We don’t want to be just a guitar heavy band. We want to create something new. We’re sick of bands from the last five years just aping styles from years ago. That’s so derivative and unexciting. Artists we admire, like Bowie, Aphex Twin, and Radiohead, try to do something new without becoming predictable. All of us write the songs. It’s a great mini-democracy. Some are into Sonic Youth, Pavement, Grandaddy, Breeders and Pixies. Others are into Godspeed! You Black Emperor or classic Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. The dance freaks are into Squarepusher and Kid Kaola, going back to Kraftwerk. Even grunge and Brit-pop edge their way into our music – from Nirvana to Massive Attack.

HILLY KRISTAL’S BOWERY HAVEN CBGB CLOSING

May 1, 2009InterviewsCBGB, HILLY KRISTAL, VINYL ON HBOJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: I was lucky enough to be liked by CBGB head honcho, Hilly Kristal. I doubt he’d remember my name if he were still alive. But he knew my face.

When Kristal opened CB’s 313 Gallery next door around ‘92, he hosted Smug Magazine’s 1st anniversary party, where I met and got stoned with Steve Bloom, editor of High Times – which led to a 20-years-plus writing gig at the glorious pro-marijuana publication. Months afterwards, Kristal cleaned out CBGB’s cement-floored basement space, put in a pizza oven, and had cool parties and shows downstairs.

I remember how proud Kristal was when he showed me and my friend, Rich Farnham, the basement space. I had blood all over my white t-shirt from getting jumped by some sexless assholes upstairs earlier that night. But Kristal didn’t even take notice of the blood. He probably thought I was moshing.

High Times threw a great party in CB’s basement and I burnt Joey Ramones’ hand passing him a doobie. I also recall Steve Bloom stopping an ugly altercation from happening that evening. My friend, photographer Dennis Kleiman, nearly got his ass kicked for no reason.

I must’ve seen over a hundred shows at the now-defunct CBGB club. And I hung out with just as many kick-ass rock bands in the small backstage area.

Anyway, back to Kristal. I mentioned how he liked me. But he could be a tough motherfucker if he needed to. I remember neighbors got the club fined for noise and when someone opened the back door for air on a sweaty night, he pulled the door closed with a vengeance and seriously reprimanded the offender. He often hung out at the entrance watching television and playing bouncer – a true hands-on manager. He was a man of good size and he didn’t take shit. Needless to say, I miss that old son of a bitch now.

The following interview took place months before CB’s closed down in October 2006.

Lower Manhattan’s Bowery section may lose its most iconic hotspot, CBGB, the dingy landmark nightclub run by aged-in-the-wool entrepreneur Hilly Kristal. A rent dispute could force the closure of this hallowed dank space unless a judge sympathizes with transplanted New Yorker Kristal, an unlikely underground rock ally whose weathered face, rugged exterior, and large frame resemble a lumberjack instead of an independent music savior.

“BRC (Bowery Residents Committee Inc.) is my landlord. They don’t own the building, but they have 33 more years of a net lease for a non-profit organization. They save the homeless, got $30 million from the city, state, and federal government last year, and paid the owners a stipend. There’s flop houses upstairs,” Kristal submits.

Studying Classical music in Philadelphia during the ‘50s, Kristal lived on a Central Jersey farm, studied opera, got to sing at Radio City Music Hall, managed Manhattan’s Village Vanguard (meeting legendary Jazz figures Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, and Carmen Mc Rae) before working for Ron Delsener’s Central Park Music Festival.

By the early ‘70s, Kristal opened still-thriving venue, CBGB, whose initials stood for Country BlueGrass Blues. Soon, a bunch of unkempt young musicians took advantage of Kristal’s policy of playing original songs as the obliging proprietor offered Sunday evenings for the fledging locals to develop their craft, helping the burgeoning punk scene get its propitious initiation. The Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, Television, Dead Boys, Heartbreakers, and a host of less-known acts got their first true exposure at Kristal’s rustic, unfinished venue, giving hope to inexperienced talent willing to breakaway from the snobbish exclusionary prog-rockers then clogging flailing mainstream American radio.

These minimalist marvels embraced the simple, elementary ‘50s approach towards rock and roll, bashing out compelling, if instrumentally rudimentary, tunes for a small audience of anti-hippies, neo-hipsters, social outcasts, and curiosity seekers. Intrigued by the virtue, persistence, and work ethic the early roughhewn punks revealed, Kristal continued booking bands whether or not they had signed record deals. By the late ‘90s, Kristal had expanded CBGB to include adjacent CB’s Gallery and an oven-kitchen basement space, CBGB Lounge, for parties and events.

“One of the bars inside CBGB may be the oldest in the Bowery. Next door and downstairs I built myself. It was good for therapy. Knocking down walls with a sledgehammer. It’s like taking out frustrations on someone you hate,” the straight shootin’ Kristal divulges.

Critical music listeners found the greatest drawing card to be CBGB’s powerful sound system, constructed precisely for their discriminating ears.

“Way back I got Charlie Martin, who still lives around here, and Norman Dunn, to build it,” Kristal offers. “Now we have a system places two to three times bigger would love. We have a lot of headroom, which specifically means, you don’t run it all the way up. You could play with it at lower levels to tune in and get the best sound. Also, the shape of the room – elongated – allows for better sound because there’s enough clutter, beer signs, posters, and plaster, that breaks it up and adds to it. I paid for that sound system for over ten years. Even today, record companies want to hear and record their bands here.”

Though Kristal’s club continues to prosper, and as CBGB boutique clothing line gains a foothold in the apparel market, the owners of 311 and 313 Bowery have now proposed an exorbitant rental hike threatening current operations.

“Last spring, three representatives cam around and said, ‘After we get the Certificate of Occupancy, we’ll be asking $55 a square foot,’ which adds up to $38,000 to 40,000 per month,” Kristal explains. “As of now, the only money owed is in the hands of a judge. No one could touch it. Over three years, we didn’t get a bill, but we paid rent. Each year, it went up a little bit. Come February, they said we owed $95,000. That includes interest. My attorney said, ‘You don’t know if you’re gonna get a lease.’ So now it’s in the hands of a jury. The judge told both parties he wants to work it out and said they can’t charge interest on money not being billed.”

When asked if he’d like to retire from the business, Kristal shoots back a puzzled look and asks, “Why?”

“When we started CBGB, Country was not just Nashville. It included folk and early Bob Dylan as part of the scene. Bluegrass had a lot of fiddlers conventions. Folk was at the top of the charts, but now the people doing that type of music are considered alt-Country.” He further recalls, “There were still bums and derelicts hanging around so it didn’t really work out. I gradually got into Jazz bands until discovering all these new bands that didn’t have anywhere else to play. Everything was easier in the ‘70s. But I made a policy that the only way you could play here was if you made your own music. That’s not a way to make a lot of money, but my interest was devoting time to developing talent, no matter how crude. The Television and Ramones Sunday evening shows. Later on, we did hardcore on Sunday afternoon to get the kids out. It was good.”

Kristal looks back with fondness highlighting some of the great moments CBGB entertained. “When the Shirts and Talking Heads auditioned the same night, to me, it was wonderful. They both had a way to go, but that was a major happening. One recent memory was John Cale (ex-Velvet Underground) during the Christmas season playing two sets, one at 2:30 AM. They wouldn’t let him off the stage. It was packed. Finally, he got out his cello.”

One of the crazier nights he remembers was when outrageous locals the Dead Boys blew English punks, the Damned, off the stage. Also, the Plasmatics, led by breast-y powerhouse Wendy O. Williams, often fascinated Kristal. But it may have been Patti Smith’s early ’74 shows that put the club on the map shortly after its December ’73 opening. One thing all these acts had in common was bringing unbridled enthusiasm back to what was fast becoming a stale rock scene. Though Smith, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Country star Alan Jackson have recently sold out CBGB, its main function continues to be exposing newer, less renowned artists. Kristal’s genuine affection and appreciation for hungry acts remains admirable. He has audaciously avoided being a corporate sell out, holding on to integrity much the same way the Ramones, Patti Smith, and Talking Heads have.

Though cigarette companies, at times, have offered substantial advertising dollars, Kristal never accepted their proposals. On a related issue, he says, “I don’t smoke now, but I used to smoke four packs a day. At first, I didn’t like the way the mayor banned smoking in clubs, but it is working.”

A sincere humanist, Kristal retains a mild modicum of anti-establishment idealism. That same enduring individualism extends to his thoughts on political topics. Kristal is at odds with the city’s handling of noise pollution despite crediting former mayor Giuliani for lower crime rate.

“Giuliani was lucky New York’s economy reflected the country’s in ’92. Then, he found national recognition for the way he handled 9-11. He spent lots of money to rid crime. The problem I see is with the apartments. He did things with too broad a stroke. He was a little careless and insensitive to the poorer population. He may have done some good things, but he worried about the sound of music bothering people outside the clubs. What about the sound of loud trucks going by?”

Recently, CBGB clothing and gear have gained international attention. T-shirts, hats, key chains, tote bags, etc. opened eyes at boutique shows at Manhattan’s Jacob Javitz Center, in Vegas, London, and soon, Barcelona. He sells to store chains and competes well against brand names and smaller competitors.

Just don’t fuck with the big ol’ man. I once saw Kristal get pissed off on a muggy July evening when a few kids opened the backdoor for fresh air. He slammed the door shut, yelled at the culprits, then explained how the noise (music) disturbed neighbors and drew police attention when the sound reached the alleyway.

Recently, Underground Garage host Steven Van Zandt and Nike have gotten into the act to save CBGB. The renowned Little Steven (solo artist/ Springsteen guitarist/ The Sopranos gangster) got his Renegade Nation to host a Million Pug March on June 11th as part of Project Save CBGB, steering clear of the rental dispute to focus instead on landmark preservation. Meanwhile, Nike got into the act and will stage a Central Park Run with entertainment provided by Joan Jett, the Donnas, and Fountains Of Wayne. They’ll donate $1 of each race entry to Project Save CBGB. Furthermore, Kristal is gathering some big name bands to play benefits in August.

With all this attention being paid to his club, how does a famous club owner spend his nights in the Big Apple?

“I go home and read a book or go to a movie or theatre with my girlfriend.”

NICK CAVE COMBATS ‘ABATTOIR BLUES’ WITH ‘THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS’

April 30, 2009InterviewsBIRTHDAY PARTY, NICK CAVEJohn Fortunato

Foreword: I was very excited and anxious to meet fascinatingly gloom-obsessed artist, Nick Cave, in ’04. He had been leader of radical post-punk denizens, the Birthday Party, in the ‘80s, receiving further critical acclaim fronting the Bad Seeds thereafter. With his son playing compute games in an adjoining room, Cave and I had a demure conversation. It was a low key and quaintly informative session. After this interview, Cave gained wider audience acceptance under the guise of Grinderman, whose eponymous ’07 album was almost as tremendous as the Bad Seeds ’08 triumphant Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

I’m sitting with Nick Cave at his exquisite 57th floor suite atop Ground Zero’s haughty Millenium Hotel in Manhattan as every wacky means of conveyance crosses by the half-curtained windows. There’s a blimp, private airplane, and glider hanging above the Hudson River, which is filled with a wandering tugboat, lumbering barge, and silver ship. Under the faded gray sky, these aircraft and vessels are nearly as striking, though not as barren, as Cave’s stark murder ballads, bleak tone poems, and vertiginous allegorical fugues.

An Australian rhapsodist living in England since the mid-‘80s, Cave gained underground fame leading Melbourne’s much-admired Birthday Party. He then went solo, fronting the more gloomily dour Bad Seeds, a talented troupe of post-punk liaisons including ex-Magazine bassist Barry Adamson, Einsterzende Neubauten guitarist Blixa Bargeld, and Birthday Party refuge Mick Harvey on drums (subsequently converting to keyboards-guitar). Although personnel has shifted and changed over the course of two decades (the addition of Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis being exceptional), Cave’s seedlings have grown in directions far and wide, beyond the mortality tales and morbid witching hour blues imbibing his spiritual rouse.

To mark 2004, Cave simultaneously dropped two stunningly inventive works, the uplifting Gospel-drenched orchestral meditation, Abattoir Blues, and its astoundingly diversified counterpart, The Lyre Of Orpheus.

Still consumed with the death marches and doom-y fixations of yore but increasingly in touch with his inner feelings, Cave wanders into the apocalyptic abyss with epic grandeur. However, being a father (son Luke accompanies him for this Big Apple trip – which includes a solo piano stint on Letterman crooning majestic emblem “The Mercy Seat”) has likely given the stately troubadour unduly resolve and better introspective awareness.

Looking dapper wearing white dress shirt and brown trousers, the black-haired, sullen-faced Cave projects a demurely conservative image his English-teaching father and librarian mother might endorse.

Though a regal poignancy underscores Abattoir Blues, its moribund titular snicker proves Cave hasn’t lost his wry sense of humor. But he seems strangely surprised when I plead ignorance to the descriptive French appellation.

“An abattoir is an animal slaughterhouse,” Cave informs. “Oh no. Yankees won’t know that? There goes my chance to break in America again. They’ll go, ‘what’s this? I don’t understand the title.’”

Baring his charcoal-stained soul on the divine salutation “Get Ready For Love” and harrowing “Hiding All Away,” Cave’s darkly hued evangelical elegies match revelatory religiosity with secular lovelorn eloquence. Singing soulfully like guru David Bowie circa Young Americans, Cave despairingly moans through confessional threnody “There She Goes, My Beautiful World.” But it’s the anesthetized dirge, “Messiah Ward” (‘they keep bringing out the dead now’), that truly consumes this maddeningly haunted minstrel.

“For Abattoir Blues, I got a Gospel choir in during rehearsals. They’re a fundamental part of the record. We didn’t hire an arranger to get some singers to stick on top of what we already did. It’s not that situation,” Cave insists.

Regarding The Lyre Of Orpheus, Cave commingles horror epics, uncommon love-struck serenades, and transcendental mysticism in a thoroughly convincing manner. Reluctantly reminiscent of Tom Waits’ foreboding post-midnight hexing with a snaky Captain Beefheart beat redolent of Cave’s Birthday Party daze, the ominously portentous title track absorbs the nebular omens these prestigious standard-bearers once thrived upon. More caustic may be the seemingly rejoicing “O Children,” a mildly didactic pledge of imminent universal allegiance.

Less serious, yet just as intently meaningful, are nifty South of the Border voodoo quickstep, “Supernaturally,” and sinisterly feverish cash-grubbing “Easy Money,” which finds Cave begging to high heavens for legal tender: ‘rain that ever-loving stuff on me.’ His earthy croaked groan infiltrates the melodramatic piano lullaby, “Babe You Turn Me On” – perhaps his most straight up love song yet.

When I speculate the upbeat flute-laden acoustic swagger of “Breathless” would suit theatrical singer Anthony Newley as well as now-deceased L.A. firebrand Warren Zevon, Cave casually quips, “They can have it.”

As for comparisons to craggy cigarette-and whiskey-soaked baritone Tom Waits (and the strange coincidence that, he too, concurrently released two long-players, ‘02s Blood Money and Alice), Cave notes, “I wouldn’t have that so, but there goes. I like Tom’s later stuff, but I wouldn’t say, lyrically, he’s an influence at all. I see my songwriting coming from the same tradition as his, which is the narrative folk ballad.”

In fact, correlating Cave’s dusky phantasms to ‘60s Beat Generation-informed folklorists Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan could be justified. The obliging Cave grants the latter his due recognition.

“I don’t know anyone who’s not influenced by Dylan or Blues music, whether they know it or not. Anyone who feels they have the right to write lyrics other than ‘yeah baby’ or ‘come over here good looking’ has some debt to Dylan,” Cave maintains. “He was responsible for singer-songwriter-musicians sitting down and writing their own lyrics and (he laughingly gibes) I think he has a lot to answer for.”

Though he admits having an affinity for radical recondite contemporaries The Fall, Pere Ubu, and Public Image Ltd., more significant than these subterranean heroes is cultural icon, Elvis Presley, whose perplexed rockabilly primitivism gets lost beneath Cave’s overwhelming Goth leanings.

“He was hugely influential. Elvis was a great performer and a large figure in my life. I always loved the way he sang – his whole career actually,” Cave infers.

A candid glance at Cave’s back catalog proves meritorious. After ‘84s swamp-rooted bedrock debut, From Her To Eternity, and ‘85s Elvis-obsessed Delta Blues-derived, The Firstborn Is Dead, ‘88s Tender Prey offered his best known composition, the mesmerizing chanted mantra, “The Mercy Seat,” plus cryptic jailhouse clang, “Up Jumped The Devil,” and uncharacteristically, vaulted ‘60s garage-psych Farfisa jingle, “Deanna.” Two years hence, The Good Son retreated into lulling symphonic sedation broken up by emphatic testimonial spiritual, “The Witness Song.” Following overwrought Henry’s Dream, ‘94s ethereal Let Love In re-invigorated this terminally nocturnal jongleur. Using his deepest gruff baritone croon, he dispensed steely-eyed waltz, “Do You Love Me?,” a veritable calling card countered by durably feisty turnabout, “Thirsty Dog.”

“I try to write as simply as I can. That’s what the writing process is about. Going back to these huge fucking songs I keep writing and editing them down, simplifying, and clarifying. On the one hand, I want to be comprehensible in the language I use to understand the narrative makes sense, but at the same time, leaving them ambiguous enough that they allow you to feel like you’d listen to the song again,” he claims.

Drifters, strangers, and vagrants inundate ‘96s prophetic Murder Ballads, a loosely thematic string of forlorn eulogies boasting tremendous uniformity. Aussie pop queen Kylie Minogue tremblingly shutters through “Where The Wild Roses Grow” alongside Cave while bedeviled diva PJ Harvey shares the mike on the traditional “Henry Lee.” Next, wayward seafaring creatures and pirate’s ghosts prowl Cave’s grave melancholic respite, ‘97s serendipitous The Boatman’s Call, appropriately preparing his accolade of grim reapers for ‘01s solemnly ecclesiastic No More Shall We Part, which swells with a pious sincerity the sanctified epiphanies of ‘03s Nocturama confirms.

“There’s always a bit of religion in what I do,” he confides. “I feel it’s my duty to put forth my own personal questioning of the belief in God. It’s an antidote for me against blind, fanatical, brutal, ugly, homophobic, one-eyed views of God being pushed down people’s throats, especially in America. Mine is an open, healthy belief. But it’s not my viewpoint of God to encourage people to blow up buildings or start wars.”

Conceding his immense interest in The Bible, Cave also drew strength from ‘70s glam-rock lynchpins whilst growing up Down Under.

He avows, “I just really like rock and roll. I like the feeling it gave me upstairs in my bedroom singing into a broomstick playing Bowie, T. Rex, and miming to their music. It gave me a feeling beyond anything I’d felt before. It continues to do so.”

Despite crafting bucket loads of staggeringly lonesome arias and ravishingly sonorous incantations, the exalted Cave refuses to revisit past endeavors once the sessions finish.

“I don’t listen to my records afterwards. I know how to play songs off them live, but I can’t remember what certain songs are about,” he concedes. But the scholarly bard suddenly perks up when recollecting cherished literary idols such as Melville, Auden, Nabokov, Thomas Hardy, Dostoyevsky, and Ted Hughes. “They totally affect the writing of the songs, as everything does, including the worst music, because you know you don’t want to do music like that.”

So why’d Cave unload two full-length albums on the public instead of one double-album set in ‘04?

“To make it more manageable for the listener. It’s not the kind of world to dump double LP’s on people anymore. Back in the ‘70s, you could. They still respected musicians enough then to allow them those indulgences. But it’s too much to ask for now. The psychological difference is you only have to play one of these records to get a complete picture. You don’t have to listen to both all the way through to get an understanding of what the whole thing was about.”

Cave will be doing soundtrack work for a musical score he wrote, The Proposition, which begins filming September ’04. His acclaimed novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel, and bit parts in obscure movies such as Johnny Suede (playing an aging albino rock star), Ghosts of the Civil Dead (psychopathic prison inmate), and Wings of Desire, have kept him busy on the side.

CAPITOL YEARS PILLAGE ‘JEWELRY STORE’

April 30, 2009InterviewsCAPITOL YEARSJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: I should note that Capitol Years brainchild, Shai Halperin, is the brother of semi-famous pop critic and celebrity hound, Shirley Halperin – a good friend of mine who let me write for her ‘90s underground rock zine, Smug Magazine (and whose husband, Thom Monahan, produced Shai’s band). While Shirley went on to co-write informative marijuana chronology, “Pot Culture” with ex-High Times editor, Steve Bloom, brother Shai continued to live the indie rock ‘n roll lifestyle. Despite not having a new album out in three years as of June ’09, Capitol Years scored big in the subterranean music world with ‘05s Let Them Drink and ‘06s even better Dance Away The Terror.

Moving from the collegiate confines of his New Brunswick-based Rutgers University digs to the city of Brotherly Love, multi-instrumentalist Shai Halperin got a 4-track and unveiled ‘01s promising full length debut, Meet Yr Acres, in the guise of Capitol Years. Originally intended for release under the rhyming moniker, Shai, Son of Eli, a term coined by his friend out of respect to Halperin’s Israeli father, he settled on the catchier, attention-grabbing Capitol Years for the sake of convenience.

Though strictly a solo affair, Halperin had previously gained local exposure playing Jersey clubs with bassist Dave Wayne Daniels in what he calls “the less good, more offensive” Mastercaster. Joining both for the current touring and recording unit are guitarist Jeff Van Newkirk and drummer Sir Kyle Lloyd.
Now as a fully functional quartet, the Capitol Years return with the illuminating 6-song, 19-minute Jewelry Store EP (Full Frame Records), expanding upon the overall range and compositional efficiency of Halperin’s previous ‘solo’ endeavor.

The frenetic opener, “Jet Black,” features some of Halperin-Newkirk’s most visceral guitar work while Daniels’ bass booming bottom on the title track underscores its sinister ‘60s garage sound. In fact, the latter song and the fuzz-toned “Japanese Store” would fit in comfortably alongside many superfine Nuggets era no-hit wonders.

Conversely, “Lucky Strike” finds comfort adapting the Strokes sterling post-punk-influenced chug-a-lug rhythm and snappy eclecticism. As an added reward, Halperin’s penetrating vocal inflections and creamy caterwauls uncannily recall the strange magic of Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne at certain junctures.

How’d you come up with the flashy band name, Capitol Years?

SHAI HALPERIN: I was ready to put the debut out as Shai, Son Of Eli, but at the last minute, I didn’t want the focus to be on one person. I had floated the name, Capitol Years, around in my head. The name is sort of fishing for some attention people may be clever enough to think is witty and interesting. There wasn’t any thought for it to be like the Beatles’ Capitol Years. It was just a cool name to garner attention like REO Speedealer did, but they got sued (for its proximity to arena rockers REO Speedwagon).

Compare the debut to the Jewelry Store EP.

Half the songs on the debut were done on digital 4-track and converted to 8-track without the thought of releasing them. It has potential, but the means by which it was done is scrappier. I could have treated the audio better. I recorded it in my own studio apartment. So I sang softly so neighbors wouldn’t hear and it transferred to a certain style. The EP was recorded with a whole band after four or five weeks of touring and has a lot of energy. There wasn’t too much composing or sculpting. We tried to capture what we’d been doing on tour. There’s not too many overdubs or double tracking. Song-wise, some parts are as old as the first album. The material fits the mold of a rock band as opposed to someone sitting at home thinking weird thoughts and making weird songs. We had another song we could have finished and ten more we could’ve done, but we took the best material. It’s basically the quickest, cheapest thing we could have done.

I love how the rumbling, echo-drenched “Train Race” seeps into a psychedelic Beatles groove but then gets chastened by chaotic Sonic Youth guitar suss.

That’s a combination of things. It’s at the end of the record because it’s different from the other tracks. The other songs are more blues-based. That track’s more modern soundscaping. It’s our concert closer. We do outlandish standing-on-the-bass drum guitar solos. It’s a fun one.

JOHN BUTLER TRIO ENJOY ‘SUNRISE OVER SEA’

April 30, 2009InterviewsJOHN BUTLER TRIOJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Environmentally friendly, politically-charged Aussie, John Butler, is a post-hippie jam band freak whose ’04 album, Sunrise Over Sea, enlarged his overseas audience to the point where he headlined small US clubs and opened for O.A.R. at Manhattan’s spacious Hammerstein Theatre. Though he has since cut off his trademark dreadlocks, Butler’s Trio remains active on the grassroots level, releasing ‘08s funkier Grand National to good reviews.

Concocting a tasty stew mingling plaintive Celtic-Gypsy folk, crude backwoods acoustical leanings, rustic Blues, downbeat reggae, and cosmopolitan hip-hop, the John Butler Trio manage to coalesce these ostensibly disparate styles without becoming tritely hackneyed. Intricately pleating open-tuned 11-string guitar, lap steel, and banjo into indefatigably expansive arrangements with the greatest of ease, John Butler’s eager admixture encourages open-ended spontaneity and multitudinous instrumental exchanges.

Born in the barren farmlands outside Los Angeles to a Greek-Bulgarian mother and Anglo father, Butler’s family headed south to San Diego before immigrating to Australia in 1976. Firstly imbibing ‘80s new wave Goth, the dread-locked sandy-haired 29-year-old Aussie-American began busking the streets of Fremantle by the ‘90s, selling DIY Celtic-Indian instrumental cassette, Searching for Heritage, to a few thousand early fans. After ‘01s official debut, Three, and ‘03s fittingly live retrospective, Living, Butler enlisted two new musical partners and decidedly condensed the enduringly elliptical escapism of yore for ‘04s prudently trimmed Sunrise Over Sea, his most variegated set yet. The only time he drops neoteric reductionist impulses comes during 10-minute closer, “Sometimes,” where its quietly frail calmness implodes halfway, as murky organ, amped-up guitar, and loud drums override the initial fretless upright bass elasticity until once again slipping into spellbinding ethereality.

Feeling more comfortable with his newfangled trio, Butler’s recruits, reggae percussionist brother-in-law Nicky Bomba and bassist Shannon Birchall, obligingly relinquished Three’s esoteric ephemera for more incisive constructions. At their most contemporaneously pliable, the indelible “Betterman” and, to a lesser extent, the empathetic redemption, “Seeing Angels,” fit alongside workings by nu-folk idol John Mayer and cagey Americana codger Chris Whitley. Butler’s flexible baritone bobs and weaves through the percolating “Company Sin,” resoundingly relishing social relevance in the mode of Dave Matthews. Funky soul strutter “Zebra” brings Cajun clatter to an irresistible groove and, somewhat inversely, orchestrated strings embellish the supremely grandiose “What You Want.” Circular banjo solidifies the entrancing mantra, “Born To Ramble.”

Though stateside customers may only be familiar with introductory 6-song EP, What You Want, containing auspiciously ominous 9-11 anthem “Something’s Gotta Give,” slippery slide-saddled sliver “Pickapart,” and the Beatles downcast psych sloth “Across The Universe,” the full length masterstroke, Sunrise Over Sea, will doubtlessly garner serious attention.

Hopefully, Butler will gain the same wide-screen exposure fellow Down Under denizens Men At Work and Midnight Oil received in their ‘80s apex.
Opening for mighty jam band O.A.R. at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom post-Thanksgiving, the conquering trio’s mesmerizing overtures clustered synchronal rhythms inside distended guitar-latticed labyrinths with casual aplomb. Seated to the right of the stage, Butler assiduously strummed acoustic, frequently adding strikingly electrifying slide radiance to sumptuous ancillary passages. Busybody Bomba strenuously slammed skins, keeping the crowd enthralled with an avalanche of mammoth solos as Birchall dug bass chords deep into the fusillade. At the conclusion, Butler and Birchall broke out bongos and the sagacious threesome created a truly hypnotic tribal tuft.

Who were your formative influences?

JOHN BUTLER: I listened to the Cure and Smiths as a kid, then got into Jane’s Addiction and the Beastie Boys, Soundgarden and Tool. Then recently, I got heavily into Bob Marley. I think Gillian Welch is amazing. She opened my eyes to roots-based Country.

Someone claimed the earthy acoustic number, “Damned To Hell,” was ‘a tip of the hat to Gillian Welch’s Appalachian folk revival.’

She’s so inspirational. When I first heard her, I thought, “This is something I’m going to have to investigate.” Her music resonates inside me like any good soul music would, whether by Gillian or Aretha Franklin. It comes from a pure place.

“Treat Yo Mama” seems to come out of the Chicago Blues tradition originated by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.

The slide guitar always had its roots in Country, Blues, and Hawaiian music. It’s just never been commercially successful. Because of the homogenized popular music scene, what makes it to radio is debris instead of the fine cream. But there’s a huge Blues scene in Australia, believe it or not. It’s an amazing scene with some awesome players, covering a range from Mississippi John Hurt to recent artists. One big influence has been singer-songwriter-guitarist Jeff Lang, who taught me how to mix guitar playing with songwriting.

On the other hand, “Betterman” may be your most accessible song, as its vocalizing and easygoing appeal seem closer to John Mayer or Damien Rice’s acoustic pop than traditional folk.

It’s probably the most digestible track. It’s a contagious song we originally put on Three. But it was only released independently in America so it didn’t do any business. It barely got to see the light of day in the U.S. even though it was a big Australian hit. We re-recorded it with the current band because I wanted to make it radio length and I felt it could be a good single. The live version lasts about twelve minutes with an improvisational jam inside it. We deliberately produced it down to fit the time limit radio would allow. We’re here to infiltrate the music scene. (laughter) I don’t think we’re being artistically compromising and I feel the song translates well to a lot of people.

“Zebra” seems to touch upon racial unity.

It’s also about my career in Australia. Some people thought they had me sussed out as a political pawn. But it’s about showing many sides to people. You can’t judge a book by its cover. We could either be nice at times, or be dickheads.

How do your compositions generally come together?

On the first few albums, I’d get out ideas for the other musicians and make really jammy songs. The lyrics are written down and the musical arrangements were done beforehand but I enjoyed making them stretch out real free form. This album is more crystallized. Sometimes lead breaks would turn into instrumental jams we tried live. I usually have strong ideas how I want the music to sound. If the improvisation isn’t going the right way, I refocus and try to get the final expression.

Is it difficult to mix urban Rhythm & Blues with rural Country in such a uniquely universal manner?

There’s a few people doing it, like G. Love’s done it well. It’s hard to be a roots musician and not be affected by rock and roll and hip-hop nowadays. I see a connection linking hip-hop to the Blues. Roots music comes from a mixture of cultures, from African to Irish. Country songs have a similar offbeat rhythm as reggae. From Elvis Presley to the Beatles, you have to be brave enough to take risks. It’s sad people are so bloody conservative these days.

Do you benefit musically from sharing an Australian and American heritage?

I have to honestly say no. Don’t forget the Beatles were highly influenced by American music but were from Britain. When you have a country like America that invented Blues, Jazz, and rock and roll, it’s hard not to be impressed with those innovations.

Nicky Bomba adds infectious rhythms to your most exciting fare. How has his experience as a reggae artist been helpful?

I intended to have a better relationship with reggae music. I knew his music well so I wanted him to play on the album. I have lots of respect for him and our musical chemistry just exploded.

Does your appreciation for nature and sociopolitical activism affect your music?

It’s definitely about what’s going on around the universe since that’s what’s inside of me. My relationships and environmental politics are in there. It just makes sense to me.

You’ve protested against uranium mining and denounced the destruction of trees.

It’s hard not to be concerned. Those are common sense issues. Clean air and water are not so much environmental issues as they are major concerns for everyone.

Since you wear dreadlocks currently, could I inquire as to whether you’re interested in Rastafarian teachings?

My spirituality is difficult to pigeonhole. I’m into so many Spiritual things. Global happenings and the information age influence me like everyone else. I like to find out about religion and beliefs. It interests me. Like most people now, I find my own recipe.

What would you like to accomplish next? Will you have time to pursue other arts?

I’m always trying to pursue my art career so I want to paint more. Musically, there’s so many avenues. I’m into reggae, hip-hop, folk, and Blues. There’s an acoustic metal influence I’m starting to explore. I just want to hone my craft and try to speak a thousand words with one line.

BURNING BRIDES ‘LEAVE NO ASHES’ BEHIND ‘FALL OF THE PLASTIC EMPIRE’

April 29, 2009InterviewsBURNING BRIDES, PHILADELPHIA ROCKJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: I got to know the Burning Brides pretty well during 2001 to 2003. I had originally interviewed Dimitri for Aquarian Weekly and thereafter met them at a show and invited them to sleepover following a sold out Mercury Lounge gig. I also took Dimitri and his now-wife Melanie out for pizza in their old hometown of Philly with my wife and kids. The following piece never ran in High Times so it’s being posted here in front of the earlier Aquarian Weekly article. Needless to say, the Burning Brides are true marijuana advocates.

When former Shakespearean off-Broadway actor Dimitri Coats dropped out of Julliard School of Arts with dancer-bassist Melanie Campbell, they settled in South Philly’s drug-addled neighborhood and formed the Burning Brides, combining Black Sabbath’s antediluvian metallic soot with grungy Goth brashness. When the City of Brotherly Love’s lecherous lifestyle became overbearing – inspiring Coats to pen the crunchy mindfuck “King Of The Demimonde” about a now-deceased dope dealer – they moved to serene Northern California.

“All roads lead to heroin and speed eventually. So I stick to beers and joints,” guitarist-vocalist Coats affirms. “Weed’s not the enemy. It’s been there for me and never let me down. But I steer clear of drugs that almost ruined my life.”

Image result for BURNING BRIDES FALL OF EMPIRE After several years toiling away rehearsing for small gigs, the Burning Brides recruited drummer Jason Kourkounis and released ‘01s brazen Fall of the Plastic Empire on tiny File 13 Records. They opened for elite rockers Queens Of The Stone Age, Marilyn Manson, and A Perfect Circle, signing to larger label V2 along the way.

But a plush tour bus and monetary rewards haven’t softened Coats’ feisty resolve, as he wryly quips, “Isn’t weed supposed to mellow you out?”
Hooking up with producer George Drakoulias (Black Crowes/ Tom Petty), the Burning Brides return with the brash Leave No Ashes. Brutally snarled raging anthems such as “Alternative Teenage Suicide” (a fictional Vietnam soldiers’ gay love tryst) and the bludgeoned boogie “Heart Full Of Black” find Coats searing with vengeance even if his composing method appears hippiesque.

Coats’ confirms, “Marijuana is an extremely useful creative tool for writing. I’m best when baked. Every song I’ve written stoned on the couch 4 AM when everyone’s tucked away. I approach songwriting like stoner poetry – many cool images threaded together that are hopefully related, tell a story, and fit the music’s mood. It’s a dada approach.”

An organic weed snob, Coats enjoys inhaling Blueberry, Snowbud, Trainwreck, and Shiba Skunk from a vaporizer to get only “the pure crystal THC extract.”

“As a singer, the vaporizer doesn’t affect my throat as much. It’s a cleaner high, like smoking hash. You can function on it,” Coats maintains. “And it tastes good, too. You can get the flavor of your favorite strain.”
Now ensconced near Cali’s Redwood Forest, he’s trying to acquire a green thumb.

“I don’t grow yet, but I’ve taken care of gardens. Marijuana is an antenna to alien life forms. You have to respect those tentacles. Bat shit’s extremely good fertilizer. But you got to spend time. You can’t water them and walk away.”

During Leave No Ashes recording, Coats received Drakoulias’ herbal support.

“He’d say, ‘Are you fired up yet? The vaporizer’s not cooking. We making a rock and roll record here or what?’”

Scarily, Coats nearly got busted prior to the Burning Brides recent tour.
“I got pulled over in California when I had three pounds of kind bud in the back. I told the cop I didn’t live anywhere and was in a rock band. He just gave me a speeding ticket.”

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BURNING BRIDES BEGET ‘FALL OF THE PLASTIC EMPIRE’

Though Burning Brides singer-guitarist-keyboardist Dimitri Coats is an avid Beatle fan, you’d be hard-pressed to find any trace elements of the Fab Four’s freakbeat in his trio’s blistering punk-metal oeuvre. Instead, Coats’ blood curdling groans and savage moans rise above brash hardcore, psychedelic Goth, feedback-drenched noise-rock, musty grunge grooves.

After Coats (an ex-off-Broadway Shakespearean actor) and bassist Melanie Campbell (a modern dancer with ballet experetise) dropped out of New York City’s Julliard School for the Arts, they founded Burning Brides, settled in Philadelphia, recorded tracks with drummer Mike Ambs, and got snatched up by indie label, File 13.

Their bloodied, but unbowed, debut, Fall Of The Plastic Empire, piles dark-edged mantras such as the metallic “Pastic Empire” and the grinding “At The Levity Ball” on top of grungy melodic pop such as the hook-filled rollercoater ride, “Arctic Snow” and the Sabbath-meets-Beach Boys “Blood On The Highway.”

Throughout, the blunt immediacy of Coats’ stream of consciousness verbal assaults evoke bleak imagery and near-Apocalyptic visions. On the cacophonous “Plank Of Fire,” his siren-like bellowing cuts through the ear-splitting guitar-bass-drum calamity with the desirous conviction of Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander and the scorch-throated haphazard slacker attitude of Kurt Cobain.

This sense of unguarded post-adolescent anxiety thrives on “Glass Slipper,” another brutal attack bristling with appropos chaotic menace. Though less ferocious, the fucked-over disconsolate condescension of “Stabbed In The Back Of The Heart” slithers along with nearly as much abrasive fury.

The fact that the Missouri-born Boston-bred Coats has moved around like a vagabond may have some bearing on his hardened lyrical outlook. Even after finally settling in a tough Philadelphia neighborhood (the seedy section below South Street), Coats has had to deal with the frustration of getting sucker punched for no reason. To add insult to injury, Campbell once got her purse snatched. But through it all, these admitted Cure fans have managed to open for Marilyn Manson (“He’s a really sweet guy,” Coats justfies) and tour cross-country.

Did anyone in your family inspire you to become a musician?

DIMITRI COATS: My grandmother was an opera singer in Poland. I met her before she died. She didn’t have many teeth left. She had turned into an alcoholic bag lady with twenty cats who fed neighboring pigeons. She sang to me once and it was incredible. She broke into a perfect wall shaking, glass breaking prelude to some opera.

What’s with the cool Burning Brides moniker?

We wanted a name that was dark and beautiful and rolled off the tongue well, like the Flaming Lips. There’s a whole phenomenon in ancient India where they’d throw a widow into a funeral pyre with her dead husband while she was still alive. Hence, the name.

Were there any political implications affecting the title of Fall Of The Plastic Empire?

I look at it as gazing into a crystal ball and predicting the current state of music. This plastic pop they’re calling rock will eventually crumble like it did before Nirvana came along. We need a pop or death metal band to shake things up. Going back to the Beatles, they could use any color on their palette. They’d go from “Helter Skelter” to ”Honey Pie” in three seconds. That’s what great artists like David Bowie and the Rolling Stones can do. It’s what good dynamic art is. We throw everything that inspires us into the mix. We’re not gonna rope ourselves off in one corner like some bands do.

I like the neo-psychedelic edge some songs have. Do you listen to the ’60s-based Nuggets collection?

Yeah. I got that. I just smoked half a joint and listened to the Kinks Face To Face. I work at the Philadelphia Record Exchange. It’s a great record store with a bunch of old heads who collect rare psych. I’ve been inundated by that stuff. The boss is J.C., the guitarist in the Strapping Fieldhands. He drew the skeletons on our inside cover.

I thought your most dynamic song was “Arctic Snow.” It had a delectable emo feel.

I’m not a big emo fan. That’s just me tapping into a Wipers song. It started off as a slower ballad. Then, I detuned it, sped it up, and thought, ‘Hey. This is like the Wipers!’ I gave it a Beatles chorus and a Slayer ending.

“Elevator” has a rambunctious hardcore tension reminiscent of Black Flag or the Misfits.

That’s a bout an elevator ride down to hell; a Faustus time to pay up ‘thing’ Christopher Marlowe wrote about. He’s a scientist who’s frustrated because he can’t explain the Wonders of the World through science. So he sells his soul to the devil. He gets to expereince wonderful things, but has to pay when the clock strikes midnight.

How do you usually go about creating your songs?

I sit around, get stoned, listen to records, then I can’t contain myself anymore and pick up the guitar and all the records I’ve been listening to pour out. It could be the Bee Gees and Odessa meets Venom. Rock and Roll is a superior artform. It was refreshing to enter that world after coming from such a high art background. There are no rules. We could do what we want and feel like we’re 18 again.

What did veteran producer Brian Mc Tear add to the project?

He’d recorded Mazarin and he has a real pop sensibility. We knew there’d be a lot of dynamic melodies on this record. He was good at suggesting where harmonies should go or where a lift with a tambourine should be. He’s also a decent musician who makes you feel comfortable in the studio. He’s like, ‘Go ahead. Get stoned.’

BUZZCOCKS ROCK CHI-TOWN

April 29, 2009InterviewsBRIT ROCK, BUZZCOCKSJohn Fortunato

Talk about meeting one of your favorite artists and then getting to hang with him before and after a sweat-drenched sold out gig. That’s what happened in 2003 when I visited Chicago to do a brewpub tour and catch Peter Shelley’s lifelong punk-pop outfit, the Buzzcocks, across the street from historic Wrigley Field. One of the friendliest and least conceded artists I’ve encountered, Shelley had just signed with indie icon, Merge Records, and released an enjoyable eponymous Buzzcocks disc he was supporting by touring the US and beyond.

Inarguably a seminal ‘70s punk legend, Buzzcocks vocalist-guitarist Peter Shelley continues to compose exuberant rockers and perform thrilling live shows well into his fifties. Along with former bandleader Howard Devoto (who went on to form Magazine with Barry Adamson), then-bassist Steve Diggle, and long-departed drummer John Maher, the Buzzcocks delivered the frenzied 7” Spiral Scratch E.P. in ’77 just as The Clash, Sex Pistols, and Damned began defining the exciting British underground scene. Sans Devoto, Shelley took over lead responsibilities, Diggle moved to guitar and vocals, and then-newcomer Steve Garvey plucked bass on British-only albums Another Music In A Different Kitchen and its resplendent ’78 follow-up, Love Bites. The most pop-rooted, melody-related combo of the initial Brit-punk era, these inspirational Manchester natives reached an early zenith with the delightful A Different Kind Of Tension, culling the masterful Singles Going Steady from priceless 45’s prior to disbanding in March ’81.

Rumors persisted and finally Shelley and Diggle assembled a new rhythm section for ‘93s admirable Buzzcocks comeback, Trade Test Transmission. Though falling short of that triumphant masterwork, ‘96s fine All Set and ‘99s slight turnabout, Modern, then set the stage for ‘03s far better 12-song eponymous collection. Its disillusioned footstomping opener, “Jerk,” begs for forgiveness in a facetious manner. Streamlined harmonies graze the confrontational “Wake Up Call” while the sun-drenched “Driving You Insane” debates decisive resolution and the dual guitar-injected “Sick City Sometimes” grapples with metropolitan demise.

Adjacent to Wrigley Field at Chicago’s Metro, the Buzzcocks appease long-time fans and curious indie kids by unleashing a marathon 27-song set. Shelley, sporting white-dyed short-spiked hair and shaking his left leg to the groove, flails his axe through bottom heavy versions of classic punk treasures like the maladroit teen anthem “Boredom,” the ominously calamitous “Something’s Gone Wrong Again,” and the giddily tactless “Oh Shit!,” preparing the sweat-drenched anticipatory audience for sped-up, kinetic takes on newer fare. Diggle handles lead vocal chores on a few energetic rumblings while carrot-topped bassist Tony Barber and durable drummer Phil Barker (both onboard since ’93) provide stampeding rhythmic thunder. During their 6-song encore, the seasoned quartet roll through the exuberant snot-nosed diatribe “What Do I Get” and the hyper-sexual ditty “Orgasm Addict,” allowing the drunken moshpit to sway beyond its former parameters.

AW: You’re still able to write biting lyrics about personal politics. New songs like “Useless” maintain the same urgency and resonance as the Buzzcocks early punk material.

PETER SHELLEY: Well. I think if people treated each other properly, the world would be a better place.

I’d hate to be on the other side of “Jerk.”

I was dating a Brazilian girl and while I was doing the album, it was actually the day after I recorded the lyric for that song, she pissed me off. So I had a good row and wrote more lyrics. Then, the song “Morning After,” the night before I was supposed to do lyrics for the song and I had no idea what to do. So I got a bit drunk and the next day when I was getting my hair done in the morning with an awful hangover I came up with “Morning After.” So that’s what the song is about.

The flashy “Keep On” has the sonic immediacy and ‘keep on keepin’ it real’ lyrics I crave.

For that one, Tony came around one evening and said we need some more sounds and he programmed up the drum machine beat. I started playing guitar and we got a couple ideas. He took the ideas back and then made it into a working model with bass guitar.

Is it easier to construct songs nowadays?

It’s easier to get a general idea to let a song hang together. But it’s mainly the lyrics that are hard. You only have one verse and one chorus, but each time you sing the verse you have to come up with new words. That’s why I always wait until the last moment to try to commit as to what kind of song it’s gonna be.

Seminal artists such as Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, and Mick Jagger have lost their edge. What’s the driving force that keeps your songs fresh?

I don’t know. It’s almost a form of mania. You get this idea. It’s like an itch you wanna scratch. Even when you walk around the street you have notes in your head consuming you.

You’re mindful of writing efficient songs.

It’s not like I apply myself to write a song. I just find myself distractedly doing it. When Howard and I started doing the Buzzcocks, strangely we weren’t part of the Manchester scene. We didn’t hang out with those musicians. There was a thriving pop scene, but we decided we didn’t want to do that. If we did that, we wouldn’t be able to do what we wanted because we’d have to do covers and then we’d get used to the money. So we decided on punk.

On the new album, both “Stars” and “Lester Sands” were co-written with former Buzzcock Howard Devoto. Were they recent collaborations?

No. “Lester Sands” was written in ’76. It appeared on a Time’s Up bootleg which we’ve subsequently released legitimately and it even has a video clip of the gig. So it’s been a demo we never played live. When I thought this should be an aggressive album, I thought that song would help the aggression. In 2000, I met Howard and we talked about the Buzzcocks 25th anniversary in 2001. I thought maybe we could write some songs together. The first one was “Stars,” which was actually a medley of a lot of Buzzcocks samples. So we did that and the other songs drifted off into other routes.

Mark Perry’s cheap, photocopied rag, Sniffin’ Glue, documented the ’77 punk scene well.

Punk was supposed to be about deciding on what you want and then going ahead and doing it. Mark was using a Xerox machine instead of going to the printers. He’d copy as many as he could sell. It was all about being a participant in your culture rather than a passive consumer… doing your own clothes.

Punk icons the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, and Buzzcocks seemed united for the cause of self-expression.

Later on, it became a more disorganized thing. In the early ‘80s, the new wave became a little more extreme and the melody got thrown out along with anything to capture my interest.

Perry claimed the punk scene died by ’78, but that’s when America began accepting the aforementioned bands.

I don’t know. In some ways, it was a generous construct. That’s why at the beginning it was labeled punk. Then, it quickly became new wave, which had more to do with what bands looked like rather than sounded like. Punk was like a religion, a belief system which was about your own personal freedom and making things happen by doing what you wanted to do. We organized within ourselves because we didn’t have a chance to get booking agents. There were a lot of people around at that time who wanted to do things. So we networked ourselves. All of a sudden everyone seemed to believe there was acceptability. We actually inspired people.

There was a mutual respect amongst punks.

Oh yeah. We did enjoy the Sex Pistols and they often said we were their favorite band as well. There was a lot of camaraderie. It’s strange now. In England, it was easier not to work than work. So giving up work to form a punk band seemed ideal. And bands like the Sex Pistols haven’t worked since. (laughter) I dropped out of college twice – the Bolton Institute of Technology – for electronics.

Perhaps the most consistent early album the Buzzcocks made was 1980’s A Different Kind Of Tension, which had crisper production.

We tried a different technique with Jamal, the drummer, and Steve Gall, the bassist. We worked out some bits of tangled verses and middle 8’s until we got very good verses. Then, it was stuck together. Everything is quite regimented. And the next thing that came out was my solo album, Homosapien, which was actually a precursor to Tension.

Amazingly, some Homosapien tracks were written in 1974.

I’ve always written and some of those ideas were only half written at first. Every now and again I go back and see what I’ve got. The Homosapien album started out as demos and it was decided that it was finished and we didn’t need to go back to the studio to do again. And we did a few more songs.

Tell me about lost albums like ‘80s Brit-released Cinema Music & Wallpaper Sounds.

It was on Groovy Records, but never actually made it to America. It was a bit older and had drum machines. We were messing about and there are cool noises on it. There’s one called The Free Agents Album. It was very experimental in an industrial way that came out on that label. Also, a solo album, Sky Yen, with oscillating electronic sounds (consuming Germanic techno). I actually met someone who had that LP on this tour. It was just me, recorded in ’74, under my name.

I know you were initially inspired by T. Rex, David Bowie and Eno, but were pre-punks like New York Dolls and Stiff Little Fingers influential too.

No. Alice Cooper was at the time because there’s something perverse about people leaving the building while you’re playing… that kind of reaction. And the Stooges and the Sparks (were influences).

CALEXICO IMBIBE ‘FEAST OF WIRE’

April 29, 2009InterviewsCALEXICO, JOEY BURNS, JOHN CONVERTINOJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Dual Calexico front men Joey Burns and John Convertino continue to release sundry albums, singles, and EP’s when not backing up other musicians as respectable sidemen. Mixing Spaghetti Western with Mexicali blues in an unfettered way, Calexico have refined their approach and now garner minor mainstream attention. After this ’03 interview, they released ‘06s more straight-ahead Garden Ruin, their most successful chart record. But I prefer ‘08s marvelously campestral Carried To Dust, featuring Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam and Tortoise’s Douglas Mc Combs. Who knew in ’95, when I caught them live at Mercury Lounge under the banner of Friends Of Dean Martinez, that they’d make so many musician friends and overcome indie rock obscurity.

Living humbly in Tucson’s expansive Southwest environs since joining cosmic rocker Howe Gelb as Giant Sand’s rhythm section for fascinating underground treasures like ‘92s Ramp, ‘94s Glum, and ‘00s Chore of Enchantment, South Bay Californian Joey Burns (vocals-bass-guitar-cello-organ) and Oklahoma-bred John Convertino (drums-vibes-marimba-organ) first set off on their own leading samba-inspired side project Friends Of Dean Martinez to record ‘95s instrumental The Shadow Of Your Smile.

Making Craig Shumacher’s local Wavelab Studios their own desert retreat, the twosome concurrently gained a solid reputation recording and touring with singer-songwriters Richard Buckner, Barbara Manning, and Victoria Williams before embarking on another fascinating joint project.

As Calexico, the dynamic duo wandered through elliptical Jazz-noir on the ’98 American debut, The Black Light, creating dusty sun-soaked imagery perfectly complementary to the wide open terrain of Arizona’s sprawling arid wilderness. Offering less variation than future endeavors and only one true mariachi number – the trumpet-punctuated, string-laden “Minas De Cobre (For Better Metal)” – this developmental cinematic affair found its multi-instrumental proprietors knee-deep in ethereal splendor. Delving further into surreal ‘60s-inspired spaghetti Westerns, ‘00s cryptic Hot Rail brought crisper Latin Jazz rhythms and poignant Mexicali Blues into the kaleidoscopic blend.

But Calexico’s most diverse, cohesive effort was just around the corner. The exquisite Feast Of Wire brings sturdier ethnic flavoring and better detailed settings to more concise arrangements. The accordion-led folk ballad “Sunken Waltz” slides gently into the lucid acoustic sway of “Quattro (World Drifts In).” The mysterious “Black Heart” aligns Ennio Morricone’s dirgey spaghetti Western themes with Portishead’s downbeat trip-hop influence while Paul Niehaus’ pedal steel colors mariachi border songs such as the punctual string-soaked instrumental “Close Behind” and the sympathetic “Across The Wire.”

Recently, busy-bodies Burns and Convertino remixed tracks for England’s Two Lone Swordsmen and Goldfrapp and worked on indie rocker Jenny Toomey’s new record of Franklin Bruno cover versions. Available on-line at www.casadecalexico.com, but not in stores, the 68-minute live set, Scraping, gathers mostly improvisational San Francisco performances.
I spoke to Burns via the phone while he was in Germany.

AW: Who were your early influences and how’d you get your start in music?

JOEY BURNS: I grew up with my brothers playing music and listening to major radio artists Led Zeppelin, Kiss, and the Beatles. I played jazz in high school and Classical in college to further my knowledge. I was intrigued by it and wanted to dive in as deep as I could. After college, I wound up working for SST Records and played in some L.A. bands. That’s when I met Giant Sand. They needed an upright bassist. I had a flexible schedule working at the label. Being at a record company, you can understand why I’d want to leave. That’s also when I met Victor Gastelum, who does a lot of our albums’ artwork.

He provides stark imagery for the music contained within.

He’s dealt with a lot of personal shit. He’s looking to combine different elements that aren’t necessarily on the same poster in the same room. He grew up going to punk shows, worked at SST, and he’s good friends with Raymond Pettibone. So he had that critical biting commentary on the social aspects of what’s going on around him. His parents are Mexican-American so he grew up in a tight blue-collar family with traditional values. He’s part of an interesting Los Angeles community of artists and musicians.

How did Calexico come about?

Black Light was recorded in ’97 and came out of home recordings of the vinyl-only German release, Spoke, which was gonna be the band name until a d.j. at our WFMU acoustic set told us a different band used the name. Things began to take shape. That album was inspired by our move to Tucson and seeing all these combinations of influences making connections between film composers Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota with Link Wray, surf music, twangy Country Western, mariachi, and Latin Jazz from New York. Lyrically, the album was influenced a lot by writer Cormac Mc Carthy. The next album was an extension of that, developing more ideas of that combination of Spanish mariachi and delving into European influences like Erik Satie. John was listening to a lot of his stuff and took inspiration and started playing melodies on accordion. We even got Chicago musician Rob Mazurak to sit in on “Fade,” which is a long 8-minute song. We even made fun of ourselves with “Ballad Of Cable Hogue,” which takes the idea of being a spaghetti Western band and turning it upside down. We even made a silly video to go along with it. It captured the attention of Europeans. So we did a lot of touring after those records. That’s why we took our time making the new one.

Feast Of Wire has more varied moods and different soundscapes.

The records we buy are diverse. We’ve always been interested in different types of music besides punk or rock. There’s Country, Blues, swing. Over the years, we’ve branched out more. We’re listening for different sounds, rhythms, and expressions. That’s the result of much traveling. Last night I was in Paris hanging out with the group, the Gotan Project. They’re a bunch of d.j.’s and electronic musicians combining beats and samples with Argentinean tango players. They do an interesting mix of bringing traditional form into more contemporary electronic forum. They e-mailed John and I to remix one of their songs with instruments as a cover song or an interpretation. The press, audience, musicians, and labels over here (Germany) are open-minded and always welcome different things.

“Attack El Robot! Attack!” is a Jazz-smitten departure reminiscent of Soft Machine intruding upon the Latin Playboys best Mexicali material. Unlike most Calexico compositions, it’s not earthy and folk-grounded.

We’re trying to get different sounds and environments. It was clearly going away from more traditional stuff. The Jazz element and the improvisational aspects helped carry us out that way. John’s drumming is fluid and spontaneous subconsciously. This, combined with putting a drum machine on the record just to fuck with that sound and distort it, took it elsewhere to meet us in the middle.

How much of your arrangements are improvised and intuitive versus prepared and pre-constructed?

A lot is made up from minimal sketches. Then, we’ll bounce ideas off each other til we get form or at least improvise on a take of a song. So we have a very open skeletal version of the song. From there, I could tell where parts might grow dynamically depending upon if I feel like putting words to it or keeping it instrumental. I like the experience of being in the studio and allowing each aspect of the construction to be made from ‘being in the moment.’

“Close Behind” is a beautiful pedal steel instrumental with mariachi trumpets.

That rhythm comes from spaghetti Westerns and took that form all the way – add strings, orchestral bells, and timpani. We’d been talking about doing that in the past and we’ve done some song like that on a tour CD once and people seemed to like it. We had fun doing it in a different way without being so minimal and filling out the orchestration.

“Sunken Waltz” makes good use of the accordion.

That’s always been an instrument John and I have had a certain attachment to. His father, before he past away, was playing the accordion and piano more from an Italian background. My grandfather gave me his accordion before he died. He comes more from a polka background going all the way back to upstate New York. He played parties with his dad who played fiddle. There’s more of a German-American background there. It’s interesting how the instrument pops up in France, Germany, and Ireland and the influence bounces around the globe depending on the culture making use of it.

How’d the gentle acoustic seduction, “Not Even Stevie Nicks,” get named after the vampish Fleetwood Mac singer?

After playing guitar, I was thinking of Fleetwood Mac Rumours for some strange reason. In the song, I’m thinking of this priestess.

It sounds more like Fleetwood Mac’s next album, Tusk, to these ears.

That’s John’s favorite Fleetwood Mac album. At the same time, Stevie Nicks’ name kept popping up, whether in the news or by someone professing their love for this mysterious personality. I went to a friend’s house and it’s almost a shrine dedicated to her. There was a scarf hanging over a portrait picture of her. One of our friends says she has a house in Scottsdale, Arizona. I know Linda Ronstadt lives in Tucson and was wondering if these people travel in the same circles…probably not.

BUILT TO SPILL ISSUE ‘ANCIENT MELODIES OF THE FUTURE’

April 29, 2009InterviewsBUILT TO SPILL, DOUG MARTSCHJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: There’s been a lot of indie rock guitarists who’ve tried emulating then reconfiguring Neil Young’s wiry electrical tone. One of the best and most efficient is Doug Martsch, head honcho of Built To Spill. Perfect From Now On (done in its entirety during an ’08 tour) became their certified masterpiece and the band has toured relentlessly since then, slowed down only temporarily in ’06 due to drummer Andy Capps untimely death. After a folk-blues-styled ’02 solo debut, Now You Know, Martsch got the band in the studio for You In Reverse, an adequate ’06 disc Warner Brothers delayed for two years. As a big fan of Martsch, I remember being quite pleased and relieved when he told me he liked my penetrating questions.

Built To Spill frontman Doug Martsch is a man obsessed with sounds. Growing up in rural Idaho cut off from city life made him appreciate the “little things” more and probably informed his lyrical themes investigating alienation and loneliness. He bought a collection of weird records at local “happening stores” when punk took hold, amassing a bunch of ‘80s SST albums by stalwarts the Minutemen and the Descendents.

“I’d listen to the radio as a kid. Queen and David Bowie made an initial big impression. Then, I got into post-punk like the Butthole Surfers, Camper Van Beethoven, the Replacements, and Dinosaur, Jr.,” he recalls.

When Martsch moved to Boise, he was intrigued by State Of Confusion, a local hardcore band. “They were older and I’d hang out and go to their practices. They let me sing at some shows around ‘85 or ‘86. I had a fanzine and their lead singer booked time and made demo tapes. That made a huge impression on me. Their drummer quit, so I played bass and the bassist went to drums. We started learning some of my songs, became a band, and moved to Seattle, the nearest cool place.”

Taken in by the straight-edge punk contingent, they became very serious and practiced a few hours a week. As the newly christened band Tree People fell into place, Martsch was given free reign to release a few swell albums.
“We were at our peak for Guilt Regret Embarrassment on K Records. I like that better than the last few Built To Spill records. It was really perfect at the time,” he says.

Although Martsch moved back to Idaho following Tree People’s demise, the exposure the Seattle scene offered and the knowledge he gained there helped set up his next project. Sure, they may not be properly classified as a grunge act, but Built To Spill has the same slacker attitude, post-punk ambition, and refusal to submit to commercial consideration many of those Northwest bands desired. And while the Pixies, Sonic Youth, and the Melvins all played an obvious part influencing the Seattle grunge scene of the early ‘90s, Kurt Cobain’s untimely shotgun suicide left behind a teen-spirited trail of tears that ruined the scene’s momentum and led directly to a less desirable second wave of pop-derived, out-of-the-area-code knockoffs like Florida’s Creed and Matchbox 20 to fill the ever widening gap.

But unlike their Washington State neighbors, the resilient Built To Spill has managed to survive, continuously unloading decisive statements of purpose throughout the ‘90s. So despite Nirvana’s demise, Soundgarden’s split, Alice In Chains’ transgression, Hole’s current uncertainty, Mudhoney’s undeserved below-the-radar status, and Pearl Jam’s willful Separatism, Built To Spill keep plugging along thanks to a stubborn refusal to admit rock and roll is dead or that electronica, hip-hop, and lounge-core have taken over.

Following the independently released debut, Ultimate Alternative Wavers (where Martsch assumes a timely slacker pose on “Nowhere Nothin’ Fuckup”), ‘94s more concise, fully-formed There’s Nothing Wrong With Love found Built To Spill perched on the cusp of national underground prosperity. On ‘97s Perfect From Now On, Martsch took several calculated risks on a few distended guitar-hewn epics and then finally settled on a stable rhythm section consisting of bassist Brett Nelson and drummer Scott Plouf.

By ‘99, the brilliant, undeniable masterstroke Keep It Like A Secret turned the heads of critics, fans, and fence sitters alike. Besides the charging “Sidewalk,” possibly Martsch’s greatest achievement, it offered the investigative “You Were Right,” which strung together Classic Rock clichés dispelling the utopian hippie culture and malignant hedonistic idealism grange bands had also begun to deride (‘you were wrong when you said everything’s gonna be all right/ you were right when you said you can’t always get what you want/ you were right when you said a hard rain’s gonna fall/ you were right when you said we’re running against the wind’).

But Martsch downgrades the implied messages of his songs. When asked if new songs such as the reserved, somber “You Are” and the piano-based, flute-laden acoustic retreat, “The Weather,” were his most personal reflections yet, he deflects, “I don’t know. I don’t notice those things. Lyrics are less meaningful than getting a good sound. Those songs in particular do make concrete sense, but an abstract sense still persists. I may manipulate things more than I’m aware of, but it’s intuitive. I don’t think of the emotions.”

Self-effacing in its titular glory, ‘01s Ancient Melodies Of The Future finds Martsch refining his approach with more neo-orchestral embellishments and a touch of the Blues (check out the slack-chorded opening and slide glissando of “Happiness” and the bloozy Spaghetti Western guitar-motifs-gone-awry pervading “Don’t Try”).

“Brett’s a great Blues guitar player. I’ve always taken something from him. On Keep It Like A Secret, I started getting into the Blues, specifically Fred Mc Dowell. I played all the guitars on that record.” He also points out, “There’s even a little slide influenced by George Harrison.”

Quasi’s Sam Coomes dropped by the studio to lay down a catchy Roxichord beat above the heavenly scree and decorative backwards tape loops of “Strange.” Recalls Martsch, “I played with guitars for that song, but it didn’t sound cool. It was like a bad R.E.M. rip-off. So I hired Sam (to play keyboards).”

A Beatle fan with a keen sense of pop history, the orchestral mist of “The Host” and “Alarmed” conjure memories of the Fab Four’s Magical Mystery Tour period.

“The mellotron stuff is inspired by the Beatles” he quips. “I wanted thick sounds you couldn’t get with the guitar, unless it was distorted. It was mostly a practical decision.”

Drifting along rather casually, “The Weather” trades the wankering guitar fury of Neil Young’s “Cortez The Killer” (covered on ‘00s Live album) for an acoustic pulse more in tune with that aging rockers’ Harvest days.

Meanwhile, the sassy country bumpkin, “Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss,” is a peppy turnabout which would fit in well alongside long lost ‘70s pop drifters Emitt Rhodes or Thunderclap Newman. From its pulsating acoustic origins to its overblown distorted closing, the ominous transcendence and cathartic lyrical runs of “In Your Mind” cut through a psychedelic melody in a swirly, circular manner.

Of the latter, he insists, “I originally thought it would sound good with minimal guitar-voice-drums. But I messed around with it and made up lots of parts.” The result is one of Built To Spill’s finest achievements, mischievously incorporating surreal imagery to a vexing wave of eerie instrumentation.

Over the years, Built To Spill have fooled around on a few cool split singles and loaded up some rarities for the neat compilation The Normal Years. Along with fellow Boise-based band Caustic Resin, they released a ‘95 Up Records EP that featured a few stretched out opuses like the advice-smitten “When Not Being Stupid Is Not Enough” and the instrumental “Shit Brown Eyes.” According to Martsch, the best split single included a Heavenly song Built To Spill covered, which he claims “was a beautiful song and fun to record. It was a fluke. I remember I got a good recording even though I’m not an engineer.”

But, he explains, “Although Warner Brothers would allow me to do that, I have no extra tunes lying around. I’m proud of our albums. The side things bummed me out. If I don’t go into the studio, be serious, and spend time, it’s not worthwhile.”

Spoken like a true perfectionist, indeed.

True fans should do their best to search for the two fabulous collaborative side projects Martsch did with indie-eccentric Beat Happening wunderkind Calvin Johnson (with some assistance from post-rock noise geek Steve Fisk). Both ‘94s God Don’t Make No Junk and ‘96s Don’t Tell Me Now are equal to or better than the albums each artist has made with their permanent bands.

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