Non-Human Places : Metalux Interview by DNML

Went to the record store today and drooled over the 19 dollar KK Rampage / Metalux split.  I'm too broke to buy it (that's what I'm telling myself), but it made me want to share this interview that I did with one of my favorite "bands" Metalux.  If you don't know already, Metalux is a duo comprised of Jenny Graf and M.V. Carbon.  Currently, J. Graf is busy in Baltimore with her other band Harrius (who blew my puny mind when I saw them live), and makes films, and does a billion other things such as "the guitars project" (It would take too long to explain, so just go to www.metalux.cc and check it all out.)  Carbon is in NYC doing strange and beautiful solo stuff every day and taking time out to play with experimental heavies like Tony Conrad, Carlos Giffoni, and Richard Hoffman of Sightings among many others.  Oh and Metalux is recording a new record coming out.  If you find out when, let me know.

Note: I did this interview about a year ago for a zine called Wet Noise, that my pal Jail did.  The zine was about queer and non-male noise arts, so that's why I'm asking creepy questions about gender, and some of the info is slightly out of date. 


D: How did Metalux begin?

JG: Metalux already existed on a box, and maybe in a box.  It was pre-fabricated, but nobody knows about that.  Carbon and Bridgette (the first two members of Metalux) saw it while looking at a stopped frame of a film Carbon shot in Chicago.  There it was; a box, with the word Metalux.  It was lurking around in the industrial zones where all the strong weeds grow.  Bridgette played a hand-made instrument with a motorized unit that played a wire.  Carbon played cello, I started playing with them half a year later-drums with contact mics running through some pedals.

D:  What are you scheming as of late?

We are recording a new record that will be out sometime soon.  We also have some video projects in mind.  And we want to spend more time in the woods.

MVC:  Jenny is working on finishing up a movie called Proud Flesh.  We just got back from an amazing tour in the U.K.  Metalux is planning on touring again in the near future but we are still figuring that out right now.  I've been busy in NYC collaborating with Tony Conrad
on various projects and we have been recording a lot of material which we plan on sorting out this summer.  I have also been working with Luke Calzonetti (of Child Abuse ) on a project called Bad Faces.  I'm working with Carlos Giffoni on a project called Jackal Blade, and I have another project called Violent Raid which has a record out on Shinkyo.  I've been spending a lot of time painting, and as Jenny said we are trying to spend more time in the woods whenever possible.  I'm hoping to shed a couple of layers of city skin by the end of summer.

D:  Describe some elements of your collaboration process.  What process/techniques work for you? ...and how does collaboration change when you work with others (Weise, or Twig....etc.).

JG:  We don't have a fixed process of collaborating, although it feels very familiar.  It has mutated over the years since we started.

LIVE- we work together best without a lot of parameters.  Although we have also played from scores and a lot of people seem to like that especially when it means they can recognize a song from a recording.  We just toured with a large group throughout the UK:  Yellow Swans , Evan Parker ,C.Spencer Yeh, John Wiese, Paul Hession, John Edwards, Lee Stokoe (Culver) and we all played together for two 50-minute sets for 7 nights.  I think that experience made me learn more about my own interests and abilities as well as those of Carbon's.  People bring out different things in each other just as in conversation.  Have you ever listened in on a conversation a very close friend is having with someone?  I am usually surprised at what that friend is saying.  I think it is important to eavesdrop on friends once in awhile just to affirm that you don't know as much as you think you do about him/her.

UNLIVE- We sometimes pass things back and forth for editing or mastering/mixing.  Sometimes we record something and do nothing, but much of the time we like to create a splice somewhere.  Sometimes I feel like I am a weaver, weaving strands of sound together.  I enjoy the mixing and mastering process very much with Metalux.  One thing that is great with us is that we don't argue about how to approach something.  We are both willing to let go of an idea or to try something that doesn't feel "right" right away. 

I think we both enjoyed working with Twig and we might kidnap him again sometime.  He taught me a lot about how to keep robbers away from the touring car.  He showed me how to put a very dirty sock on top of a bowl or some other food container on the dashboard.  Robbers can't break into a car that has that in the window.  We wrote some really great song structures using Instant Music (TM), a commodore 64 program.  Twig played the songs by moving the cursor along with a joy stick, which is an interesting gesture to see on stage.




D:  Would you describe any elements of your music/selves as gendered in any particular way?

MVC:  I like to think the music comes from a non-human place.  When I perform I definitely don't feel human.  I like to feel like I'm coming from an unearthly place.  A lot of our songs are about environments, sensations, or abstract descriptions.  Things that don't possess gender in the English language.

JG:  Here are certain kinds of gestures, actions or sounds that if performed in front of people (most people, it seems) it is like wearing a gender neutral tarp...like the white sheet that most ghosts used to wear.  When a performer wears this ghost tarp, it is difficult for the listeners and players to enter into the sound/performance in a definite way.  Gender has so much to do with how people identify with every experience.  When I make music I think of myself as a creature.  Carbon and I are highly sensitized to each other.  We can feel each other subtly shift modes without looking or talking (and even in the silence before and between playing)  and because we do that we are able to symbiotically perform that way.  Again, this is why I call myself a creature when I make music in Metalux.  I don't think there is such a thing as gender neutral, but it is fun to pretend that it exists.  I think there are just so many different ways of being that it is impossible to categorize.  Gender is in the eye of the beholder anyway, but if one wants to call oneself more male or more female, or a creature, on should feel free.

I feel lucky to work with Carbon because she and I don't pin things down and kill them in order to gain understanding.  In fact,,one thing that I think is at the root of our approach is that for the first 6 months of practice, Bridgette Wilson (the first Metalux bassist), Carbon and I didn't talk about the music at all.  We would meet at Bridgette's loft, drink coffee or something and then play for 3 hours or so.  Then we would just disperse.  It all just seemed like an illusion of a practice.  Having just moved from NYC to Chicago, I thought maybe it was some weird Midwestern thing not to talk about what we played.  And I do think that is partly it.  Chicago wasn't fixated on defining itself in the same way NYC and East Coast places was, so people weren't spending tons of time analyzing things verbally.  Most of my epiphanyt moments watching people perform (or act) happen when people stop being people and also stop playing their assigned gender roles.  What is interesting is when they become vessels for something else, for a thought.  I find that more sexually/spiritually stimulating anyway.

Some people who influenced me in this way are:  Aileen Wuornos, Tina Turner (the first female pop icon I related to), Linda Montano (the first artist I related to), Prince (my first concert), Ohm Kalsoum (the Egyptian singer), Augusta Graf (my grandmother) and also various people I have known personally. 

D:  What color is your house?

JG: Inside? Coral (between orange and pink)

MVC:  I live at West Nile, a large warehouse space below the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn.  The walls are stacked high with white cinder blocks.  The ceiling is vaulted corrugated metal, which does wonders for acoustics.  Our kitchen is a stage and we frequently host performances.

D:  Who have you been into lately?

JG:  I live in The greatest City in America! At least that's what the bus stop benches say in Baltimore.  There are people doing things here that I don't think are happening anywhere else, and if they are, great!.  More important, is the context in which things happen.  I am totally down with the style of happenings here.  In backyards, in alleys, in basements, in bedrooms, and very little middle man ning.  A lot of collaborative living, filming, working as well.  I will tell you mostly about Baltimore stuff happening since it is less likely that it gets out into the mainliner veins of the media industry.

D: names?

JG:  Have you ever heard any of Blaster Al Ackerman's stories on cd or vinyl?  You can hear tracks on Ehse .  Ehse is a Baltimore label and everything on there is capable of blowing your mind (depending on the way the wind is blowing).  I like Leprachaun Catering and Trockenesis and Little Howling Wolf for a start.  Twig, Caleb and Chiara Giovando just started a label called enleseries.  A person can custom order sides of a record from a catalog of about 20 different artists.  The records are hand-cut using a lathe so each one sounds slightly different.  You can hear the grooves which is really lovely and creates nuanced variety in each disc.  Metalux has a track on there but there are so many great musicians that you may or my not know of who have tracks there.  I like the Beastmaster and the Hans Grusel tracks a lot. 

There are people making films here too.  Catherine Pancake just finished Black Diamonds, a film about strip mining in W. Virginia.  It is a very powerful documentary  that she dedicated very many years putting together.  She has traveled a bit with it and included the W. Virginia women activists as speakers.  But I have very much respect for Dan Conrad who has invented many different instruments since the 70's.  He has these incredible light boxes that shift shape and color, one of which he plays as a color instrument.  I played with him several times and it is an amazing experience. chromaccord.net is his website and he just finished a dvd documentation of the lightboxes.  He happens to be Tony Conrad's brother too.

MVC:  When I see live music, I am really interested in the approach.  I feel like there are so many connotations that can come along with particular instruments and I like to see people who are successful at diminishing stereotypes.  Sometimes I feel like the approach for the audience needs to change too.  I am surprised that after all these years the tradition for watching a band is to stand or sit facing them.  Some of my favorite performances that I've seen in the last year have been Keiji Heino w/ Thurston Moore, Audrey Chen, Zeena Parkins , Phil Niblock , Spencer Yeh, Little Howling Wolf, Radio Shock , Imaginary People, Fashi Mello, Sightings, No Neck Blues Band, Z's, Exceptor, IdM Theftable, Carlos Giffoni, Susie Ibarra , and Robert Ashley's Concrete.  This week I have been listening to stuff by Nam June Paik, AMM, Subotnik, Ariel Pink, Grace Jones, Television, Yoko Ono, and Christian Marclay.



XOXOXOXO
hope you like it.

DANIMAL

My Own Private Idiocy - An Interview with Sightings' Mark Morgan

Awesome drawing I did of Sightings.



Sightings are in my opinion , the most exciting thing going in music today.
Their music is often called difficult , and I suppose it could be , if it weren't so fuckin' groovy. Sightings take ugly , austere and often alienating sounds and distill them into something beautiful , sexy and almost soothing. It's like alchemy , with every essential element being in perfect balance.


They are the only band I've ever where multiple couples in the crowd were making out against the stage (What was up with that anyway? Too much fucking PDA Montreal , too much PDA.) It was kinda fuckin' gross.

I headbanged so hard at one of their shows that I cut my forehead on the monitor , but who fucking cares? Sightings are worth some bloodshed and memory loss.



I emailed back and forth with their guitarist/vocalist Mark Morgan and this is the result.


.

___________

Chloe : I read in an early interview that on hearing Sightings your mom said “It was more musical than I imagined.”
Were her expectations based on previous projects you had or on something else?

Mark Morgan: I think it was based on the fact that my practice space (i.e bedroom) was directly above the kitchen when I was in high school so when mom was making dinner, she'd often be subjected to my haphazard guitar playing. Or she would be subjected to me yelling, "GODDAMNIT, I FUCKING HATE THIS THING!" Sometimes I'd be playing rather loud and I would occasionally hear, "MAAAAAAAARRRRRRRK, TURN THAT DOWN! YOU'RE KILLING ME!"

So, her early exposure to Sightings probably sounded more musical to her than my bedroom guitar journeys because I managed to bullshit my way into being in a band with two other people who have a bit more skill than myself. May I point out that since the interview you quoted took place, I recently cued up our "Electrician" cover for mom thinking that maybe this would be something she'd sort of "get." It takes awhile for the guitar to come in and when it did (mind you, it's not a particularly abrasive tone), she asked, "that's you, right? why do you do that?"

C: So , why DO you do that?


MM: It's in the DNA. I just feel compelled.

C: How haphazard would you say your playing is nowadays compared to then?

MM: Definitely less haphazard. It'd be quite an achievement to not improve in some manner after 18 years of playing.



C: Speaking of chance , how much of your sound is born of the equipment you use? Did you have a sound in mind , and build your arsenal accordingly or was it a more organic thing where you used the gear that was readily available and crafted the sound from what you had on hand?

MM: The idea of chance in regards to a finished tune is going to vary from song to song. Most stuff is set in stone with all the turns and stops-or lack of them-and others not so much. One or two of us might always be improvising at certain moments within a certain song but someone else will have a locked in part to give the song some sense of having an anchor. And even within that element of improvisation, I generally feel there's always a certain sense of, ya know, "this is a song." Take "This Most Real of Hells" for example as it's one of the more random sounding recorded tunes in the last few years. There's no way that song will ever be played the same way twice but it's always kind of...the same. This is a result of the fact that Jon's drum part does not change and Richard and I are still always playing the same type of patterns. Where the breaks appear is going to vary but I'm assuming anyone with a familiarity with that song would know what it was on any given night we play it.

In regards to my sound, I guess I had some general sense of wanting a tone that was exciting to me. I don't think I ever acquired a pedal with the mission of "I need that early 80's compressor sound" or "I need something that will allow me to effortlessly sound like Jimmy Page." All the effects acquisitions are just randomly finding stuff through friends or stores or whatever. When I first started I had a pretty standard fuzz, one delay and a wah wah. I got bored after awhile and started finding other pedals that I could use in conjunction with what I already had and it built from there into pedal chain eternity. I sometimes feel like a goof for having 8 or 9 pedals and then I'll occasionally see some dude who looks like he jacked a Guitar Center. At that point, my excesses don't seem that excessive.

C: I see you many of those guitar center jackers , and I always wonder how they remember all their settings for each song.
it’s like abstract math.


You know , when I watch you play I can not understand AT ALL what you are doing . In fact , and please don’t be offended by this , the first time I saw sightings I almost seemed as if you were touring your guitar , rather than playing it. Yet the sounds were consistent with the album.
I think it was one of the more mysterious things I’d ever seen in a live music context

Care to share the how and why of your playing style?



MM: Probably the biggest influences on my playing style is sheer fucking laziness and to a slightly lesser degree, a certain level of retardation in grasping basic guitar technique. In the beginning, I took lessons for about nine months when I was in high school and I absolutely loathed the idea of having to practice for hours upon hours to become even moderately competent. Pathetic, right? Anyway, while attempting to learn whatever song I had to play for my teacher, I'd end up spending more time trying to make some horrifying sound come out of my tiny Hondo amp with no effects pedals. It wasn't necessarily that I had formulated some belief that noise was king but rather this just seemed the easiest route to auditory satisfaction.


C: Do you consider yourself a stubborn person then?

MM: For the most part I would say that I'm not stubborn. Generally pretty easy going. Or so I claim.

c: Well then I guess we can all be thankful for your teenaged walk on the the stubborn side.


Do you feel like the music you make follows a certain tradition?

MM: Yeah, definitely. Wait, do you want me to speak for my own stylings or the band in general?

C: Let’s hear about both , where do you place your playing and your band within musical tradition?

MM: I always hate trying to figure this shit out. It's not that I think we're unclassifiable but rather there's been so many things that have had an effect on me personally that it's hard for me to sift through my mental files. You tell me.

>

C: Well I hear echoes of Brainbombs and Royal Trux in your early stuff......

MM: I like Brainbombs and Royal Trux but I'm not sure if they ever had a serious influence on us collectively. A problem for me in sorting this out is that there are things that I'm into that may have influenced me but there is also music I love that I'm pretty sure has never filtered down to my playing because I'm either too incompetent to integrate that style or I just merely have no desire to do so. Making something sound like say, Throbbing Gristle, pretty easy. Making something sound like
George Jones, pretty impossible (for me) but would I want to anyway?

Two big things for me early on in the band were Fushitsusha and crappy punk rock of the Killed By Death variety. Keiji Haino's guitar sound and playing was crucial but I also had a desire for more traditional/forward motion. Also, the idea of garbage can production was a big thing. Take that Sick Things record for instance. If they went into some big studio and laid the tunes down, it would definitely not have had the same impact as the 4 track (or one track?) stuff they ended up doing. Of course, there's tons of other records/bands that have inspired me too but do we really need a list?



C: What about current music ? Do you feel Sightings are part of a movement or scene right now?

MM: As far as being a part of a scene or movement, god, I hope not. There's probably nothing worse in a rock interview than some yahoo talking about how his band dwells alone in their own little sonic temple but I'm going to have to be that very yahoo. Sure, there's current music I like and all but I genuinely feel that I haven't seen a band that's quite like us (may the reader decide if that's good or bad)and I'm just more into particular, individual groups that do whatever it is they gotta do and aren't completely beholden to a genre-OK, not always true but whatever. For instance, most noise bores the crap out of me but then when I see someone like Aaron Dilloway play, I'm truly inspired and moved because his music consistently delivers the frayed and tattered goods and there's always an amazing sense of dynamics. Yet, what I'm involved with and what he's doing are pretty different things.

In the end, I've never felt comfortable with gang/group mentalities even though I consider myself a fairly sociable guy. Maybe it's some only child shit on my part.

C: I’m not an only child but am loath to be part of any group or club myself. *shivers*

What current stuff are you listening too these days ?

MM: This isn't all hot off the presses (man, that's going to be a total old man saying in a few years) stuff but some fairly recent releases I've liked are the recent Animal Collective record, Nyogthaeblisz , Group Inerane , Group Doueh and random stuff on Raster Norton. The last No Neck show I was was pretty awesome.

C:“Hot off the presses”.... Do you have any concern that many kids *already* don’t know what that means today?
An article that CBC ran about a year ago said that 48% of teens in the US didn’t buy a single cd in 2007.

MM: Well, less merch sales for us. Doesn't help our tour finances.

C: Are Sightings planning on touring in 09?

MM: I'd like to go back to Europe in the fall. We shall see.

C: Lots of bands I know prefer touring Europe to North America , what’s your prefrance and why?



MM: Europe. Why? More money, more castles (I’ve never actually seen a castle in Europe but I like the possibility that we might actually drive by one), better food and hospitality, accents and learning how to say “thank you” in 15 languages.



The only advantages that I see in touring North America is that we get to use our own amps and we have more friends to catch up with.



C: Do you personally and/or does Sightings as a group have any specific tour rituals/routines?



MM: Shitloads of coffee (the best coffee shop I've ever been to on tour is Phil's in the Mission in SF. Unbelievably fucking mindblowing stuff; even cheap ass Richard was willing to pony up 4 bucks for one cup).

We used to go to Cracker Barrel a lot until we got vibed out of one in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

C: What happened ?

MM: I kind of have no idea. After 15 or 20 minutes of no water, no waitress and no "hello", we just said "fuck it" and left. Also, I vaguely remember a few fellow customers (although, could we have been considered customers when no transaction between us and Cracker Barrel Inc. took place?) kind of staring at and checking us out which is utterly confusing because we’re just three dumb ass white guys in t-shirts and jeans. It wasn’t as if the Why Be Normal Brigade sat down and started loudly discussing the pros and cons of daily self administered enemas.


C: You were mentioning a few weeks ago that you guys are recording in March— what are the release plans??

MM: Oneida's label Brah stepped up to the plate but I'm not sure what the release plans are. We'll record in a few weeks and after that, I'm staring into the void of "no clue". Fall release at the earliest.

C: Do you have any other musical plans/ projects on the horizon?

MM :I have this other band called Key To Shame which is me and my buddy Pat. We both play guitar and just make it up as we go along each time we play. We've been doing it since the summer and I think we've recently achieved some kind of musical cohesion. Probably will get out a record at some point.


C: How do you feel about the future?

MM:The future of the of the music I'm involved with? I can't predict, just hope it continues to feel rewarding

The future of the world? It's probably going to suck. Hopefully they can save some electricity for us.

C: what inspires you?

MM: Women, communication (or lack thereof), good music and my own private idiocy.

C: Are you satisfied?

MM: I just took this test and this is what came out:

"Thanks for taking our quiz.
Dissatisfied
Unhappy people often score in this range. A score in this range means that changes are needed. If conditions are improving and the person is starting to meet his or her goals, this level of dissatisfaction may not last long or may not be of concern. However, scores in this range that persist over time often point to substantial unhappiness."

I think I'm making the changes that are needed though.

Touch and Go vs. The Future

Tuesday , music fans all over the internet learned of the huge scalebacks at Touch and Go. No more pressing and distribution , no more new releases for the time being , massive lay offs.

20 some labels were pressed and distributed by Touch and Go , Drag City , Kill Rock Stars , and Merge being some of the more recognizable names. Closer to home for me, Lovepump United , a label that my own band is on , had just begun a p&d deal with them this January.

It's easy to imagine a domino affect on some of those distroed labels , but what of other small labels?

I'm worried (paranoid??) that when a 27 year old label , that is well know and well regarded and has a reputation for being fair and a sizable back catalog of some pretty popular bands has to make such extreme cutbacks other labels are gonna start being much more cautious.
And what's worse than caution in independent/underground music?


Pundits have been saying for a few years that physical format music is dead (nevermind the bands that enjoy producing an object rather than just digital files , and all us dorks who enjoy having those objects rather than a hard drive full of low quality sounds that could die any day) and that in the near future bands will make their money on licensing deals. Well , where does that leave bands making more difficult , challenging and un-commercial music?
Or bands who simply don't WANT their songs to be used ad hoc jingles???

Now more than ever is the time to show your support for the bands , labels , distros and stores that matter to you. Buy a record today.



Carrie Brownstein on NPR : Touched and Gone


*************
What's I'm listening to : Drag City recently reissued the first 2 Royal Trux albums on beautiful vinyl so I gladly replaced my scratched-to-shit CD versions. This shit still sounds daisy fresh 20 years latter. Royal Trux are an obvious influence on so many of the most interesting bands around today.

Mammal " Let Me Die " on Animal Disguise == serious darktime jams, I'm finding it perfect drawing music so I guess my recent drawings will all be demonic.

Raccoo-oo-oon s/t on Not Not Fun. Looks like the boys started getting rock before they called it off. I'm excited to witness the greatness that the ex-members will surely grace us with.

I've also been listening to the 8 x 7" box set on Rock is Hell that i picked up awhile ago when i was in Germany. I'd been avoiding listening to the whole thing cause the unlabeled disks don't jibe with my ocd. I'm glad I loosened up.


And lots of Throbbing Gristle , cause they fit pretty well with the cold and cabin fever.

Nothing super new cause I've been kinda broke myself the past few months but I am about to go on a record binge!


What I'm reading : We Are DEVO! -- Nice look at the early years.

CLASSIC WEIRD NIRVANA JAM #1 – CURMUDGEON (LITHIUM SINGLE B-SIDE)

Yeah yeah, I know nirvana is too rock for many, but I wanted to do some quick pieces high-lighting some of their best weird songs, so people who are more into the spacer jams could dig some Nirvana songs. My first entry is Curmudgeon, a song which was the b-side to the “top 20 smash hit” Lithium single and sadly was later remixed and fucked up by some idiot who does “modern mastering” aka “killing all sound range” mastering for the With The Lights out box-set version. I’m not sure of the exact date, but I think this single came out very late 1991 or early 1992 when Geffen were sweating balls on what could be the next Teen Spirit.

OK, enough of that intro, boring talk, to the song we go! Shortly after Nevermind was getting huge, Kurt was really confused, partying a lot and he starting to write weirder and deeper songs that would appear on In Utero, which is hands down one of the best rock records of the 90’s....way way better than Nevermind. After Nirvana was mixed and mastered to the bands unliking, the band was desperate to make raw and direct music that harkened back to the Bleach/Incesticide era of the band. Thank got they went back to the raw, since I can’t even listen to Nevermind anymore, who thought it was a hot idea in mixing to sample drum beats with samples and put chorus on the guitar all over the album.....some moron, maybe his name is Andy Wallace!! Everyone is better off with the Nevermind demos or even the boombox jams on the box set.

Maybe I’m talking about Nevermind too much, back to the jam...this song, along with the Jesus Lizard split 7” track (Oh The Guilt) were recorded with Barrett Jones at the Laundry Room. Upon further research of this song, I learned Laundry Room was in fact a laundry room in Barrett Jones’ basement and he was just some guy with an 8-track Dave Grohl was friend with. Awesome. For this session, the band decided to improvise and jamout a song and Curmudgeon was written on the spot. Interestingly, this song was never performed live by the band, one of the few to have this honour.

OK, time to talk about the actual music finally. You can probably tell I love Nirvana too much already. So, the song moves along at a semi-fast and perfect pace with a heavy, thumpy drumbeat reminiscent of Floyd The Barber, kicked up a level with Dave Grohl’s supreme drum skills. Krist Novoselic lays down some heavy string bends on a totally fuzzed out bass. Even though people always talk about KC, those other dudes played such a huge part in the flow and timbre of every song, and have been under-rated, kind of like the other dudes from The Jimi Hendrix Experience; everyone knows any Hendrix shit without those 2 dudes is just not the killer Hendrix shit you need to hear and head-bang to.

Now to the star of the show: KC...Kurt lays down some totally phased out, heavy as fuck, sludge guitar, probably the closest he comes to noise-rock jammage on any Nirvana song in their whole catalogue. He kills the mic on this one, does some wicked stretchouts of words that seem to go on forever and some totally throat-shredding screams that sound raw, direct and primal, the way only a basement tape can sound. When you think about the time in their life, being hyped beyond belief and kinda freaking out about it, it was awesome to see that they decided to just get together, jam the fuck outta some killer riffs, and drop it to 8-track. (M. McLean)

MP3 LINX

just go to youtube and look it up....i’m sure some fan has a sick video of them playing along to it on acoustic guitar or something. Actually maybe look up “Curmudgeon Lithium” to get the proper mix first!!!

”OBSESSIVE // REPULSIVE” (part 1). <<>>

I find it ironic that: sitting on the floor of my bedroom, surrounded by three walls and a closet lined with artifacts from more than half of a life spent on absorbing outsider music / culture and the active stock of an on going label, that I have a hard time coming up with modern groups or artists that I am just in awe of, or continuously blown away by from an “audience” point of view, while discussing the lack of such entities with a friend. Of course, the conversation started with a past example of Pantera. Not on my end though, mine is kept secret for now, as it would probably be considered much worse by most readers of the corner of the internet.

I don’t want heroes, but I truly enjoy the experience of being a fan, it feels rare. It’s incredibly rewarding to be heavily involved with so many things that you love, but isn’t it also a blast to be completely removed once in awhile, having the opportunity to indulge in the “dorking-out” endeavor? It’s not so easy. You want your band to play with the new one you just heard about or saw. You want to tell them how much you love them, but then they find out who you are (or you can’t help but offer) and their next record comes out on your label 6 months later.

Attempted here, this time around, is the declaration of obsession with projects and their objects, that have (little to) nothing to do with me, at least for now, and also fit within the parameters of this space. (current or currently relevant at least). And: Probably keeping it short because, it’s late. and also: because lately I am late (a lot).



TYVEK = TVK, TYVJK, etc. (from Detroit). Sometimes there’s these bands that have a truly strange damaged sound, but can somehow pass as a completely digestible “rock” or “punk” band. Or maybe: Sometimes there’s these very easy to listen to “rock” or “punk” bands that have these parallel aspects that are incredibly crooked or skewed. Tyvek don’t play very loud, and at heart, it’s fairly upbeat and catchy garage style stuff, but it’s their approach makes them so appealing to me. The gear sounds faulty, perhaps not as in tune as it should be, the vocals have an urgent yet appropriately “bored” tone to them, and the broken tape machine fidelity honestly seals the deal.

So: when friends ask “What new bands have you been digging?” – they’ve been rolling off my tongue a lot, usually with like-minded weirdos saying “Oh my god I know!” (right Chloe?).

One might argue that this band is receiving more than enough attention already, or that they are just another off shoot of the new weird “fucked up” pop scene (Times New Viking, Eat Skull, and so on), but speaking as a member of the human species that spent a good deal of time infatuated with Crypt and Estrus style groups in the 90’s (see Teengenerate, The Rip-Offs, etc) as well as art damaged punk and overblown noise rock, Tyvek are haphazardly skirting between two areas that I adore, and I can’t wait to catch them live. Check them out and then pick up the “Summer Burns” double 7” on Whats Yr Rupure and “Sidewalk” 7” on M’Ladys before they are gone forever, but buy more than one copy, because you’re liable to run the grooves down to nothing in ecstatic repetition. Recommended for ANYONE.

HARRY PUSSY (later material, now accessibly existing as a CD entitled “You’ll Never Play This Town Again” on Load Records – Miami, FL from 92-97). Harry Pussy’s “genius” is the most depressing series of recordings ever. Usually a band cuts a few disgustingly perfect records and then fizzle out, but Harry Pussy arguably did the complete opposite. There are countless records their first 2/3s of existence that are more “noise” than anything else, or just absurd guitar jamming that seems to just be there to annoy. Maybe it was, or: maybe I am being an asshole. (I don’t mean to be, I like things about almost every single one of those early singles).

However, at some point, I finally stumbled across a live recording (which I later pinned down to be a live 10”), and it was a completely different band. Perhaps 10 year before their time, Harry Pussy had crafted a unique brand of noise-rock / no-wave: two thick guitars that played highly jazzy and fastly noodled riffs with loud tumbling / stumbling / flailing drumming from Adris, while her voice would go from high pitched and ear-piercingly shrieking to deep guttural growls in split second. I was in love, and over the next couple of years, I slowly acquired some various later records that blow my mind to this day: their split with Frosty is incredible, for example, and I burned the 10”, a tour LP and some of the last singles for friends over and over (with hopes of one day getting a hold of them and offering to release a CD of all of that material (everything that’s not on the “Ride a Dove” and “What Was Music?” CD’s, which ironically is EXACTLY what Load Records did last year, out of nowhere. (slightly before, I found some old referenced to Menlo Park possibly doing it)).

What depresses me about how incredible this specific era is, is that I hardly know anyone that likes it, mostly because everyone had more than likely developed their own opinions by then, or are too young to even know who they even are. All too often, their name comes up, and people seem disinterested, saying that (or asking if) they just sorta masturbated on their instruments and did noise shit all the time – so I have to burn that same series of releases, and 9 times out of 10 they are blown away. It’s really exciting that these songs are actually available for people to hear now. I myself haven’t picked up the CD yet. Having all of the records on it and a DIY version of the same exact disc has made it less than tempting, but I have this self-centered ideas that at least 75% of the sales have resulted from my constant praise of their work over the years, and will eventually grab when there’s no one else around to convince to do so instead.

There are countless small things to note, things that make me smile and happy every time I listen to or pull them out to share with someone. You know, things that some lame wikipedia thing doesn’t fully show the person that just Soulseeks’ their “record collection”. The “”Fuck You” tour LP doesn’t say Harry Pussy anywhere on it. I’ve seen some copies that at least have a stamp on the white center labels, but mine doesn’t even have that. There’s a single that is purposefully designed to look like a bad punk record, a split 7” between two fake bands: Radiation Nation and The Toxic Drunks (and the art is complete shit, bad (aka perfect) ink pen on white, copied – you can find this in $1 bins all over the country instead of as a “Harry Pussy” 7’ on Ebay, trust me. And I myself just finally / recently scored a copy of their posthumous double 12” “Let’s Build A Pussy” on Blackbean and Placenta, perhaps the most annoying record of all time: digitally tempo changed clips of Adris screaming, stretching a few seconds over entire sides of each LP. You would think I am kidding, how did someone legitimize doing that? Yeah, they all sold, but wow. And: The cover art for “Ride A Dove” is unbelievable. At their finest moments, Harry Pussy still hold their own. Loud, fucked up weird bands constantly come and go, but few can even compare.

Absurd:


JACKWACKER (“Things From Inside Your Body” LP (Black Velvet Fuckere) // Indiana early / mid 90’s) – One day, a few years ago, when he was working at the local record shop (Eastside Records, which hasn’t been more than a five minute bike ride away in the past 8 years), good friend Dirty Dan (see: George Moshington) gave me a call because I “needed’ to come in and buy this LP that came in with the Revolver order.

Me: “Jackwacker? Fucking terrible name”. He assured me it was right up my alley, completely disgusting guitar noise / rock. When I got there and saw the cover, I was even more skeptical. Actually, that’s not true, the first thing I thought was, again: “Ugh, Jackwacker? Fucking terrible name”. The art looked like a bad central NJ mosh / metal band (like a b/w version of something on Acme, Edison, Ferret, ect), and trust me, I was there, so I would know (besides, Endeavor has funny song titles and good lyrics, pfft).

See:


I remember getting home and listening through the whole thing, honestly thinking it might have been a joke, in the sense that it was claiming to be lost recordings from the band’s existence in the early 90’s, and yet it was more devastating brutal and adventurous than 90% of what “weird” bands come up with today. A guitar and drums duo, with vocals here and there, Jackwacker played in this style that can only be poorly linked to (a combination of): Lightning Bolt, Sightings, Harry Pussy (see above!), Unwound and Today Is The Day. …I am listening to this right now, god it’s so good. I wonder how often I unknowingly rip this off? (shh shh shhhh). And the LP is not a universal wall of nonsense, there’s a great deal of catchy songwriting under the guise of severely damaged speakers and drums that are being demolished.

In the most appropriate manner, seeing as some nutso put this out, they have a myspace and some of their ancient live videos online! Check them out! http://www.myspace.com/jackwacker



I would be willing to be my life that it is very easy to get this record from the label still, therefore, you should. You figure if you are releasing an LP 13 years after a band breaks up, and few people had ever heard of them outside of the Midwest, that there’s bound to be an unhealthy supply of them sitting around,… but that’s the kind of insane and sick things you do when you are obsessed with all of this stuff (see: myself and friend Matt Colgrove, we’re doing an LP of a band’s 2001 demo, that played live under 10 times, no one has ever heard of, which we’ll be stuck with for years. Why do it? We want to. A better question: why not? (Those with reason need not answer).


That’s all for this time around. No set plan of attack thus far, maybe things like this sometimes and completely other things at others. Vague enough? Please feel free to get in touch for any reason what so ever, and thanks to Chloe for getting this thing together and rolling. I think it’s completely exciting, and there’s few people out there that I have as much faith in / admiration for, as I do her.

James Fella | Gilgongo Records PO Box 7455 Tempe, AZ 85281 USA