The Blackmail » Music

Mars Attacks

gabe — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:05:03 +0000

Words: Gabriel Knowles Images: Gift Of Gab

“It’s important for me to express my views, I don’t know if I look at it from a standpoint of needing to express things that other artists or musicians aren’t expressing. At the end of the day as a rapper and an artist with a voice – I’m an observer, so when I observe, I interpret what I observe. I’m not going to put anybody else down or talk about how hip-hop sucks or it’s dead or any of that shit!” If he wasn’t such a gifted lyricist Gift Of Gab you’d have to wonder if the voice behind Blackalicious is cut out for hip-hop. He’s nice, perhaps too nice, illustrated by his reluctance to outright criticise the vacuous path that mainstream hip-hop has taken, despite my best attempts.

“At the end of the day I see what I see and I interpret what I interpret. It’s important to me that when I do my music I’m being who I am.” The rapper explains from his Oakland home in northern California.

“I don’t ever want to come off like I’m trying to preach but as an artist you need to have things to communicate about. You need to be an observer of people, places and things. It’s not like I sit down and say I want to be political or socially conscious. I’m just a human being and if I see something and it moves me I’ll probably write about it. I just think it’s important for us to raise the level of consciousness and consideration of these things.”

And then there’s the notion that the man christened as Timothy Parker is a sci-fi nerd, a concept based the titles of his solo albums including his latest release Escape 2 Mars and his first 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up as well as early Blackalicious tracks like the prophetic Sky Is Falling. True to the form of all good online rumours, it’s not quite true. Fortunately there’s a deeper meaning behind the constant references to deep space.

“I’m always interested in consciousness expansion. I’ve always been interested in what we know and what we don’t know and how much we know and at the same time how little we know. And what else is really out there? What do we not know?” Gab poses. “We live in a universe with infinite expansion, with no beginning or end. If you look into the sky it has no beginning or end. When you look into the sky you’re looking into infinity. So what do we really know? How limited are we? People like to think the-be-all-and-end-all is to be a human being on planet earth. Where have we really been in the span of the universe which is limitless? So I’ve always been interested in consciousness expansion more so than space, higher awareness.”

Existential questions aside, Gab has never quite received the same acclaim for his solo work as he has for his role in Blackalicious, despite his rapid fire rhymes remaining a constant. Perhaps it’s due to audiences finding the Blackalicious collaborations with Chief Xcel slightly more palatable, or maybe it’s just that hardcore fans haven’t taken to futuristic, electronic tilting beats from Hednodic and DNAE BEATS. In any case you get the sense Gab sees it as all part of a bigger picture anyway, a metaphysical picture to be precise.

“A solo record is a different experience for me because I’m working with different producers and I’m getting out of my Blackalicious comfort zone” begins Gab, “I kind of equate it to travelling, I mean I live in the Bay Area which is one of the dopest places in America but I still love going to New York, Chicago, Sydney, Brisbane, I still love to travel but Blackalicious is home. We’re actually working on a new Blackalicious record right now, we’re like seven tracks in, it’ll be out in 2011. It’s always good to be able to travel and experience other things and musically work with other producers and vibe off of their chemistry, it’s always a healthy thing.”

It was on his actual travels that the seeds of Escape 2 Mars were sown, with Gab becoming acutely aware of the role that we all have to play in protecting the planet.

“On Escape 2 Mars, the title song, which is really about global warming came about when Blackalicious did a fundraising tour for global warming and around that time I saw an Inconvenient Truth and that’s when I wrote that song. So at that point that’s what was in my head.”

“I think it needs to be a world thing. I think that countries that are all about themselves, it’s like a gang mentality, it’s like gangs flying flags. At the end of the day we’re all part of the human race and we’re here on this planet. I think that America has the same role that Australia has, or Mexico, or Cuba, or all of Africa, everyone has a role to play. It’s our planet.”

Gift Of Gab plays Oxford Art Factory in Sydney on June 11, X&Y Bar in Brisbane on June 12 and The Corner Hotel in Melbourne on June 13

Gift Of Gab

Next story: Everyday Objects – Matt Hinkley

Ace Of Spades

tristan — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:25:28 +0000

Words: Gabriel Knowles Images: Lemmy The Movie

Lemmy Kilmister is, quite possibly, the only true proponent of rock ‘n’ roll on the planet right now. The man most well known as the frontman and bassist of Motörhead is a throwback to the time before marketing mattered most – a Jack and Coke drinking, Marlboro smoking, straight talking rock star in the every sense of its definition. He also, quite literally, actually plays rock ‘n’ roll music with his rockabilly band The Head Cat. At 62 years of age Lemmy still tours and records non-stop, which for filmmakers Greg Olliver and Wes Orshoski has its ups and downs as they spent three years documenting him. Gabriel Knowles talks to the two New Yorkers about working with one of music’s greatest characters.

“Greg and I were working on another project in 2006,” Orshoski explains of the project’s roots. “I have a past as a music journalist and I’d interviewed Lemmy for Billboard magazine and what interested me at the time from talking to him, wasn’t Motörhead even though they had Kiss Of Death out. It was that he’d just re-released this rockabilly record with The Head Cat. I couldn’t stop listening to it, man, it was all the songs he grew up loving like Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash and Kyle Perkins and it opened up a whole new realm in my head of who Lemmy is.”

“We’d made a pact while we were working on this other project and we happened to be in Ireland so we went to this pub to come up with ideas and it wad the very first idea that popped into my head. And it just became perfect the more we talked about it and even better as we worked on it because Lemmy is one of a kind. By the time we finished the film that point was driven home even more, how unique he is within that rock scene. I know it sounds cliched but he’s the last of a dying breed. He’s one of the last great rock stars.”

“He only does what he wants to do all of the time. You don’t know a single person like that who lives entirely by their own rules, it’s impossible to do that in todays society but he does it.”

And so with their subject locked in Olliver and Orshoski spent months trying to track the great man down for a meeting that, according to Olliver went surprisingly smoothly. “We met with him and his people to pitch him the idea so we had a business meeting at the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Los Angeles. That meeting consisted of us all drinking heavily and listening to Lemmy tell stories and it went really well and he gave us the green light.”

“We spoke about five minutes of business and then we spent four hours straight drinking,” Orshoski adds, “Lemmy had to excuse himself at one point and Todd, his manager, said that’s the longest he’s ever seen him sit in a business meeting.”

While that very inability to sit still has seen Lemmy drive Motörhead for 35 years and exert a lasting influence over heavy metal, it’s not much good when you need him to stay put according to Olliver. “Lemmy’s always on the road, we shot so much stuff with him on the road we realised we needed some shots of him at home which was hard because those days are few and far between. He never has downtime, he comes home from touring for a few days and then he gets bored and goes and plays with his other band.”

Fortunately when it came time to call in the interviewees Lemmy’s four decades in the music industry, which included stints as Jimi Hendrix’s roadie and as a member of the pioneering space rockers Hawkwind, they had no problems.

“There’s some obvious people like Metallica, Guns N Roses and Dave Grohl that he and Motörhead have influenced. But we also tried to go outside the box, we got people like Jarvis Cocker and Peter Hook from Joy Division and New Order. At one stage Peter Hook told us about how New Order would rip off Hawkwind.” Orshoski recounts.

But the hardest part for the filmmakers was yet to come, for they still had to show Lemmy the finished product.

“We had to take it to his apartment in Hollywood to show him. To be honest we were nervous because he can be so unpredictable with his moods and his mood dictates what he likes a lot of the time. He watched it and we were watching his face the whole time and he was smiling, laughing and miming himself in the movie. In the end he was really happy and gave us a big hand shake and said ‘good job boys!’.”

Lemmy The Movie

Lemmy premieres at the Sydney Film Festival on June 4

For your chance to win a double pass to Lemmy just email prize@theblackmail.com.au and tell us what Lemmy’s real name is.

Next story: Unbridled Enthusiasm – Darren Knight

Do It Yourself

tristan — Mon, 03 May 2010 01:03:01 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Violent Soho

When Violent Soho left for the USA towards the end of 2009 to say they didn’t have much of a profile at home was an understatement. Their first release was capped at just 1000 pressings because money was tight, probably because they’d spent it all traversing the east coast of Australia playing shows. Their resolute refusal to sign with a local label probably didn’t help either, but then they didn’t feel like being backed into a corner by a label only interested in making a quick buck.

“The reason we never signed in Australia is because we never found anyone at that time who was going to give us the support we needed to get to another level,” guitarist and singer James Tidswell admits of their lack of representation down under before Primary vocalist and guitarist Luke Boerdam picks up the thread. “We met so many labels, and we said no but not out of arrogance, but we weren’t going to work with someone that has no idea. What this shows is it’s actually possible for bands to be bands and just put their heads down and write music and tour.”

Now based in Brooklyn, the Brisbane raised four piece noise/grunge/punk band are going from strength to strength. Comparisons to the Pixies and Nirvana probably help but it has been the involvement of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore that’s taken them to prominence in northern hemisphere.

“We had a period of time where everyone in the UK and the USA started sending us messages asking why we weren’t signed. People in the industry over here where checking us out and nobody in the Australian industry was checking us out.”Boerdam explains from the bands temporary home. “So we came over here but Thurston had contacted our management already and offered us a deal before we got here. We did a whole bunch of showcases and we got offered lots of deals but obviously we went with Thurston. It didn’t matter who offered deals after that.” Considering that one label arranged for them to spend time with Rick Rubin the lure to still go with Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label must have been pretty strong.

“We love Sonic Youth and Thurston’s general involvement in the arts is really great. All the bands we love he was connected with.” Tidswell elaborates. The DIY aspects of those types of bands have also obviously had an impact on how the band operates. “We’ve always done everything as a DIY thing.” Bassist Luke Henery says. “There might be some people in Brisbane who don’t like what we’re doing. When we first started it was all about doing things local and the music community. There are going to be some people who don’t like the idea of us being on a label.”

If that’s a real concern for some fans, it needn’t be. As a band who spent a good five years on the road touring Australia in between full-time work commitments, including 70 hour road trips to play just three shows, they don’t seem too fussed to actually have some money at their disposal. In fact apart from the late model van they’ve bought to cross the States over and over you’d never that Universal fronted Ecstatic Peace a bunch of cash to get them going. And at a time when the manner in which so many bands are styled is as, if not more, important than their output it’s nice to see an act just being themselves.

Luckily for Violent Soho that’s just what their new label want them to keep doing, they even hooked them up with legendary producer Gil Norton to help on the bands recently released, self titled album. If first opinions are anything to go by it should be alright.

“Thurston said that ‘it sounds like making out with the devils daughter, all in all, good times,” drummer Michael Richards laughs.

Violent Soho is out now.

Violent Soho

Next story: The Pilgrimage – Lisa Dempster

Don’t Rest

tristan — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:15:48 +0000

Text: Digby Woods Images: The Laurels

What time is it? 3 o’clock? Sweet, right on time. Walking into the Townie Bar in Newtown, my eyes scan the scene for two people in particular. I’ve seen photos of them. Not good photos, but good enough that I’m able to make a distinction between the two. The first, Luke O’Farrell, has longer hair, and the second, Piers Cornelius, has shorter hair. That’s it. Anyway, as far as I know, they’re both pretty much the same. They both play guitar, they both sing… oh, and they’re both in this ripping Sydney psych/shoegaze band called The Laurels. You may have heard of them.

Now where are they? Wait, I think I see them. Yeah, that’s definitely them. The slightly slumped posture and English tan from working in a call-centre all day, head fixed down from habitually looking at guitar pedals all night. They may not look like My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3 or Chrome but they sure as hell sound like it, and with an LP somewhere in the works, you’ll want to get familiar, if only so you can brag that you were a fan ‘from the beginning’. Come on, let’s go over and say Hey!

Digby Woods: I was reading a recent interview you did, and you were talking a lot about Conor Hannan (The Laurels’ bass player) and how he sits under a tree and meditates. Now was that just taking the piss, or does he often meditate and stuff?

Piers Cornelius: Yeah, it was just stuffing around. He probably meditates more on the couch, in front of the television.

Luke O’Farrell: He likes Law & Order.

DW: So he’s not a Buddhist or anything?

PC: I think he was a while, a bit.

LOF: Yeah, he used to be a bit of a hippy.

DW: What happened? I thought that once you go hippy and you don’t go back, like going black.

LOF: Yeah, I don’t know though. I guess now he’s more of a punk. He’s still about the love, he’s just angry now. He’s an angry young man.

DW: Join the club.

PC/LOF: (laughs)

DW: Now both of you do the vocals, but does one of you write more than the other or do you both contribute equally?

PC: It’s just split down the middle, we split the songs we do half/half, some of Luke’s, some of mine.

LOF: We’ll do harmonies on each others stuff, sing on each others songs. It’s always been equal, just split down the middle the whole time.

DW: Do you write lyrics together?

PC: Nah, not really.

LOF: They’re kind of similar, they’re about the same sort of stuff I guess.

DW: I first saw you when you supported A Place To Bury Strangers at Oxford Art Factory back in February or maybe March. Seeing both of you at the same time, both psych/shoegaze bands, and just listening to all the others out there, I get the feeling that the shoegaze sound concentrates more on the instrumentals rather than the lyrics. Do you think there’s an element of truth to this?

LOF: It started out that way when we were always concentrating more on the music than the actual lyrics, but now that we’ve experienced life a bit more we’ve got more stuff to write about. There was early stuff, and that was like, I don’t know, when we were 16 or 17, and we listen to some of those now, and yeah, they’re crap.

PC: They just sound really strange.

DW: Why is that?

LOF: Just from a different time.

DW: You don’t relate to that anymore, that time you were in?

LOF: It’s nice to have that captured, that’s why we wanted to go back and re-record those songs, but I don’t know, I guess it was just a different outlook at that point in life. We used to be very anti-social.

DW: And now you’ve changed, you’ve come out of your shell?

LOF: I don’t know. I think it was about wanting to come out of our shell, and these days, songs are about wanting to go back into your shell (both laugh).

DW: Going back for a second though, it’s fairly obvious that instrumentals take precedence over lyrics in the psych/shoegaze/etc genre – there’s always the same kind of fragmented lyrical style. Is this a deliberate choice, or is it simply the result of having too many pedals?

LOF: I kind of view the instrumental part and the lyrical part as having the same importance now, probably not when we first started writing lyrics, but now actually trying to write lyrics. I used to just write throw-away lines about shit, but now I really want to express what I’m feeling, and you can do that with the instrumentation as well, you can make it sound like how you’re feeling, but it’s very texture-based, like all the different guitar pedals, you’re trying to get different tones and textures and make it sound bigger.

DW: I just listened to one of your new songs, ‘Black Cathedral’, and that sounded much more intense than any of your previous songs. I’ve only listened to what’s on your MySpace, but comparing ‘Black Cathedral’ to one of your original songs, ‘Wandering Star’, it seems as if your artistic direction is more focused now.

LOF: Yeah, definitely. Like ‘Wandering Star’ is from when we were a lot younger, and just in that time we’ve started listening to heaps of different music, just a lot more loud and abrasive, and I guess that’s influenced the direction of the band as much as the experiences we’ve picked up.

DW: What kind of bands?

LOF: Sonic Youth, a band called Chrome…

PC: A lot of punk stuff.

LOF: Yeah, a lot of punk, just like lo-fi ’80s to early ’90s punk.

DW: Is ‘Black Cathedral’ representative of the sound of your future album?

LOF: Yeah, I’d say it’s about where we’re at now. We’re going to do an EP and that’s got some of the old stuff and then new stuff, like ‘Black Cathedral’, so it’s a bit of a cross between the two styles.

PC: Yeah, all the recording sessions that the songs were taken from were a bit of a mish-mash, like we’d start recording old songs and the recordings were taking a really long time, then we’d start writing new songs that we liked more, and then we kind of finished off the old ones half-heartedly because we weren’t into them that much anymore. So we decided rather than putting out an album with half the songs we don’t like anymore, we’d just do an EP with the new stuff.

DW: So the album is to be released in the future, and you’re going to give a taste of where you’re at now with this EP?

LOF: Yeah, I’d put it like that. I’d like to do an album by the end of the year but I don’t know how feasible that is.

DW: Have you still got uni constraints and things like that?

PC: Conor is the only one that goes to uni.

LOF: He’s actually at uni right now, he goes to uni every day.

DW: Every day?

LOF: Every day, like he’s doing his thesis, or his PHD, so he’s becoming a doctor. Not an actual doctor, a doctor of history, or philosophy.

DW: So what’s his thesis on specifically?

PC: It’s on the Black Panthers, that type of stuff.

LOF: Yeah, he’s really into all that stuff, like his Honours thesis was on MC5 and like the Hat Movement in Detroit and shit.

DW: Really? What got him into that?

LOF: I don’t know.

PC: Yeah, I’m not too sure (laughs).

DW: So is Conor the only one with uni constraints?

LOF: Kate (Wilson – The Laurels’ drummer) was at uni for a bit, she was becoming a vet, but then, yeah (laughs), she dropped out. And we both went to uni for a couple of semesters, but just couldn’t do it.

DW: Where did you go to uni?

LOF: I started out at Wollongong Uni for a semester and then went to Sydney Uni for, like, a semester.

DW: I’ve heard Wollongong Uni is quite big on partying and stuff.

LOF: Yeah, but I didn’t really know anybody at uni, so I wasn’t really big on the partying, and then I just stopped going to lectures, and then I just stopped going altogether (laughs).

DW: What about you, Piers?

PC: I went for a little bit, mainly to get youth allowance, and then I realised I’d probably rather work than do essays (both laughing).

DW: Do you guys still work on the side, or are you a full-time band now?

PC: Nah, we’re still working.

LOF: Yeah, in a call-centre.

DDW: I swear, I think call-centres have the highest ratio of ‘struggling artist’ employees out of any other job.

LOF: Yeah, like pretty much every band in Sydney has at least one member that works in a call-centre.

PC: Conor used to be a team-leader.

LOF: Yeah, he got me my job (both laugh).

DW: Was that weird, or was he just like, “yeah, do whatever”?

LOF: Oh, everyone loved him because he was so slack and he wouldn’t get anyone in trouble, and then eventually they just stopped giving him shifts because of that.

DW: At the moment, The Laurels seem to have a somewhat understated reputation. Do you prefer that at this point, or are you ready to make the leap into the full glare of the spotlight?

LOF: I’m content at the moment, I like how it’s going, taking things at this pace. I like most of the shows we get to play, just generally having fun. It’s just our gear fucks up a lot at the moment, so it would be nice to have some money to fix that.

PC: It’s nice just having your friends at the venue you’re playing. I don’t think we’re really expecting to blow up or anything. That would be really weird if all of a sudden you were playing to people you’d never seen before.

LOF: It’s just nice having your friends there to hang out with after the show.

DW: Do you think it’s a hard thing to deal with, that higher level of fame?

PC: I reckon it would be pretty easy, if you’re not stupid…

LOF: If you’re level-headed about it.

PC: If you let it go to your head when you’re at that level, you just become an idiot. It would actually be easier to be at that level and have roadies carrying your amps and setting them up for you.

LOF: Yeah, that would be lovely (both laugh),

PC: But, yeah, if it makes you become a dickhead then I’d probably prefer not to have that happen.

LOF: I reckon we’d stay pretty grounded. I’ve seen it happen to bands around us, where they start to get a bit of success and it goes to their heads.

DW: I’ve only listened to about five of your songs, because you’ve only released that 7”, but do you tend to sink a lot of emotion into your songs?

LOF: Well, like ‘Wandering Star’ was written when I was still living at home with my parents, but once you move out and move into the world, you start seeing a lot of bad shit, or just experience a lot of shit, and I don’t know, I guess you try and put that into words and into music.

PC: I guess all the lyrics are true about ourselves, like we’re not singing about partying and just getting fucked up for the sake of it or whatever. We don’t just come up with funny words that would sound catchy. We just write what we think.

DW: So it’s not a deliberate intention to put emotion into it, it’s just talking about things that have happened?

LOF: Well, it’s definitely emotional, like the way I see it now is it’s just a release, like if the song’s about something shit that’s happened and you get up on stage and you yell for half an hour, get it all out, it’s just a big release.

DW: So it’s kind of like therapy in a way?

LOF: Yeah, I would say so.

PC: And it’s really good therapy when the people that the song is about turn up to the show (both laugh).

DW: I wouldn’t even know what you were singing about because I can’t…

PC: Make out the words…

DW: Well, yeah. So, are you evolving beyond that ‘wall-of-sound’ style?

PC: We’re sort of like that live, like when we first started we just wanted to not really be able to hear anything, but now we want it more separated.

LOF: Just so you can distinguish the individual parts behind the big woosh of noise.

PC: And the EP, we turned a lot of the vocals up from the level they normally are when we play live, just so you can hear more harmonies and the actual lyrics and stuff.

DW: I remember reading in an interview in which you were asked, “What is your album going to sound like?” and you just said, “It’ll sound like us live, but you’ll be able to hear us.” (Both laugh). But do you deliberately craft your songs to evoke a specific response from people, or do not really care how people react?

PC: I don’t think about that when I’m writing the songs, and I think generally people just sit down, which is fine if you want to chill and watch it, that’s cool, but we’d rather make people go home and think rather than mosh or slam-dance or whatever.

LOF: I’d much rather just play to people sitting on the ground.

PC: When I stand up at shows I just get a really sore back.

DW: I know eh, and people are crowding around you so you can’t really move and stretch or anything. Anyway, I love asking bands this next question, especially emerging bands: What do you think about free music downloading or music piracy or whatever you want to call it?

LOF: I think it’s pretty sweet.

PC: Yeah, it’s how we found out about a lot of bands.

LOF: It’s how a lot of people heard us when we just put our demos up for free download.

PC: We’ve always had our demos up for download off MySpace.

LOF: But now MySpace changed it.

PC: Yeah, you select free download and it doesn’t go anywhere.

LOF: We’re going to hopefully have our own site where we can just host all our own demos.

DW: Did The Brian Jonestown Massacre initially inspire you to start playing?

LOF: I don’t think it was necessarily just them, they were in a wave of bands that we were listening to at the time when we first started writing songs. Like, the really early stuff we used to do is more inspired by that style of music, like ’60s poppy stuff.

PC: I think the main thing that probably interests us about them now is the whole putting-your-songs-up-for-free-on-your-website. Like it was pretty cool finding a band like that when you were a bit younger, that just put up all their stuff and you could just listen to everything all at once.

LOF: Yeah, that was so handy when they had that all on their site.

PC: And then because they did that you’d go out and buy their records, which is what people who like music do anyway if they download stuff. It seems the only people who complain about people downloading music are the record companies, not the actual artists.

LOF: Well, some artists, like The Killers and Lady Gaga and all that sort of shit.

DW: And Lily Allen.

LOF: Oh yeah, what a whiny bitch.

PC: The only ones who complain are the ones who need to maintain their expensive lifestyles.

DW: Speaking of expensive lifestyles, how do you guys travel?

LOF: He (Piers) just bought a van.

PC: It’s a Tarago.

DW: I remember those, yeah, soccer-practice and shit, awesome. So you can fit five people and all your gear in that?

PC: Yep, and last time we took our housemate down to Melbourne with us, because he takes all the girls.

LOF: Yeah, he gets all the girls there.

DW: He gets them or he takes them?

PC: He just goes off with them (both laugh).

DW: Do you have any non-musical influences on your music?

PC: Bill Hicks.

LOF: Yeah, Bill Hicks.

PC: Uh, nature (laughs).

DW: When did you get into Bill Hicks?

PC: I guess we were 16 or 17.

DW: So you’re fans of comedy then?

PC/LOF: Yeah.

DW: Was Bill Hicks the first comedian you listened to?

LOF: Probably one of the first, yeah,

PC: He was the first one I heard that was actually talking about interesting stuff, not crap.

LOF: And I like Monty Python’s stuff as well.

PC: Yeah, I really like Monty Python. The Dude as well, from The Big Lebowski, definitely another non-musical influence.

DW: The Dude should be in everyone’s list of influences. So what kind of music have you guys had on high rotation recently?

LOF: At the moment, stuff like The Saints, Chrome, we’re still always listening to The Beatles and My Bloody Valentine.

PC: Muddy Waters.

DW: 2010. What’s going to happen this year?

LOF: Hopefully I won’t have to work in a call-centre for much longer. They say the customer’s always right, but that’s not necessarily true.

PC: Yeah, it would nice not to have to work for a bank, but they support you while you buy your guitar pedals and stuff (both laugh).

Visit The Laurels for future tour dates and info on their upcoming EP.

Next story: One Of A Kind – Dion Kovac

Brain Waves

tristan — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:15:41 +0000

Text: Laila Sakini Images: Benjamin Lichtenstein, Tristan Ceddia & Adam Biesot

Community radio stations are fundamental for so many reasons; broad (and narrow) casting marginalised voices, providing advertisement-free listening, and supporting musical experiments like Noise in My Head (NIMH). For since its inception in 2005, Michael Kucyk’s 3RRR program, has evolved into a hub of music knowledge, attracting contributions from international big boys including Michael Rother (NEU!/Harmonia), DJ Lovefingers, Beppe Loda and Tim Sweeney alongside a select few local talents. In a celebratory fifth year anniversary vein, Laila Sakini met with NIMH dreamer Michael Kucyk to revisit some of the shows magic moments, discuss future ventures and pay homage to the contributors that help to make NIMH such a rare treat on Australian airwaves.

Laila Sakini: What made you decide to start NIMH?

Michael Kucyk: When I first found 3RRR in the last few years of high school, it was the best feeling ever. I’d be hauled up in my bedroom working, constantly hypnotised by interesting music. There were a few shows that I was totally fanatical about, so I kind of built this affinity with the station just by being a listener. The thought of doing a show never really entered the equation. One of the shows I was deeply into was Woody McDonald ’s Wig-Wam Bam. I started contacting him because we shared an interest in garage rock, girl groups, prog and punk stuff and he later invited me to fill in for his show while he went to the US. I did graveyards and filling for most shows on the grid for a few years before getting a show.

LS: A variety of sounds can be heard on the program; house, balearic, psychedelic, disco, techno, italo, etc, yet it remains free from any genre labels. How would you describe your program to someone?

MK: It’s hard to describe as the show is always evolving. I just want to play good music. The show is driven by trying to represent music that isn’t getting played on any other program on any other station, in Melbourne, in Australia or even beyond. I would hope that a lot of people are hearing things for the first time and if they’re familiar with something it’s hopefully presented in a new context. I guess we mainly play a lot of mental and physical music, rather than emotional. Occasionally it’s this really disorienting spacey soundtrack stuff, sometimes it’s this ‘other’ music that kind of re-programs your heart beat, but not in an emotional sense. Someone once labelled it “rhythms from the other limits”. I always like that.

I’m definitely influenced by a lot of people around me and that’s the main reason why the show has changed format over the years to accommodate guest mixes by various DJs, record collectors and artists. I’m always contacting potential contributors who do something really unique. For instance I loved Gavin Russom’s homemade acid tracks but knew he was capable of making a cool mix of free jazz and psychedelia. Similarly, Canyons put out this mental 12” on DFA that had limited radio potential in Australia and I knew that having them on the show would present them on a platform where their brilliance would be recognised. The criteria varies but every guest is well considered. Lots of touring DJs drop in but I’ll only select people whose mixes or music inspire me.

LS: Compared to other music programs on Australian radio, the format of your program is less talkback, more continuous music, why do you adopt this approach?

MK: The timeslot dictates the format a lot. Who wants to listen to some punisher chew listeners’ ears off about some obscure French library record at 10pm on a Sunday night? The show isn’t about individual songs and their typical beginning, middle and fade out structures. You need to think about it more broadly. Brackets as a whole and how the music is threaded together to form an experience. I hate stopping the groove. I want listeners to be able to tune in and slip away. This is far more engaging than being constantly fed useless information. It’s a real privilege having this freedom at 3RRR.

LS: You have travelled globally on record hunts, and are an avid collector and discogs addict, how far have your gone to get a good/rare record?

MK: We’ve spent a fair bit on records over the years but that’s cool. There are some really good record stores in Australia – Liquorice Pie in Melbourne, and Revolve in Sydney. Other than that I mainly buy online. I reckon I’ve developed a sleeping disorder by sitting on Discogs and Ebay burning the retinas until 2am most nights. I try to go on record buying trips every year. Going to Tokyo and hitting up 30 record stores a day – that’s pretty excessive. Once in Chicago I went so far into the deep south, I completely fell off the grid, and gun shots started ringing in the neighbourhood. Hardly worth it for a Bohannon LP. Or maybe it was. It’s all part of the experience and the record does have two killer cuts.

LS: Current top five records?

MK: At the moment. Not of all time:

Dominik Von Senger – The First LP
Steel Mind – Boss Man 12”
Ash Ra Tempel – Starring Rosi LP
East Wall – Silence LP
Reese & Santonio – The Sound/YOU CAN’T TELL US HOW TO PLAY OUR MUSIC! 12”

LS: Could you share some program highlights from the past five years?

MK: Misha from P.A.M.’s first guest spot really opened doors in my mind. Brian Damage was his alias and Brian first introduced us to acid [house music]. Even while absorbed in his live to air mixes, Misha would never stop making art or goofing around. Doing sleeve faces, rearranging signs in the studio, shooting videos, making collages. CAN are probably one of my favourite groups of all time so interviewing Holger Czukay had me shaking and feeling nauseous. I remember thinking he was being really hostile during the interview but that was my own paranoia. Listening back he was really friendly and pretty hilarious.

LS: Considering the calibre of some of the past guests I imagine you have ticked off a few artists from the wish list, who’s left?

MK: I’d love to host exclusive mixes from Yamantaka Eye and Daniel Baldelli knowing that they are gods and would create something really special. There are some incredible DJs in Tokyo that I really want to get involved in the show but they aren’t easy to communicate with – Nozaki, Hikaru, Watarude, Taro, and KZA. It would be great to interview any member of Throbbing Gristle only the broad subject matter is a little daunting. So many projects, so many aspects.

LS: What are your plans for the development of the program? There are talks of a NIMH t-shirt series???

MK: We’re just going to keep doing what we do. We’re going to find more interesting music and continually uncover gems. We’ve just had a stream of great guest mixes from DJ Jus-Ed, Justin Vandervolgen and Sal P and are expecting futures from LA based space wanderer Eddie Ruscha, and Flemming Dalum who owns the biggest collection of italo on the planet. Hopefully that wish list that we talked about before gets more realistic. I really like the idea of doing a commemorative t-shirt so Josh Pethereick is working on something now that we’ll package with a mix and a poster. I’d like to do Noise in My Head slip mats too.

LS: NIMH seems to be a team effort, with regular contributors playing their part almost every week. Also many listeners may not know that there is often a group of friends at the station with you while you are on air, how is this presence conducive to good radio?

MK: I used to do the radio show alone and it’s a pretty daunting exercise, having yourself being broadcast to an audience that you can’t see. I started inviting people in to keep me company, and before I knew it became a regular thing of ordering pizza, drinking and playing records. Now every Sunday is a celebration. I definitely feel like that’s present in the way the show is presented, I definitely sound a lot more excited, than when I was sitting there alone.
Three DJ buddies Biscuit, Bell-Towers and Michael Ozone pop in randomly with new record acquisitions. Individually they have a huge impact on me so it’s great to share this with listeners. Each DJ has a really unique approach. Bell-Towers leans more towards synth pop and Italo, his cuts are quick and dry. Biscuit is this wizard who can mix any two tracks for eternity and lives in a deep house. Michael Ozone digs a lot of new beat and slow music with these dark afro grunts, and always runs these amazing live vocals through the mixer. Noise In My Head is never a dull moment when these guys pop in.

LS: You have the same frequency as Chicago’s iconic WMBX radio station, known for its 1980s ‘Saturday Night Live Ain’ No Jive’ program. Can you draw anything from this spooky coincidence?

MK: Maybe the spirit of WBMX is in this show? When I found this parallel I was mind blown! It’s a validator!

Catch Noise In My Head every Sunday on 3RRR, 102.7FM from 10pm-12am. Or visit www.noiseinmyhead.com to download podcasts and check out playlists.

Next story: A Beautiful World – Aaron Rose

Breaking Free

tristan — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:02:27 +0000

Text: Digby Woods Images: Stefan Duscio, Michael Spiccia & Synaesthesia

The Black Ryder was birthed in 2007, the musical love child of Sydney-based Aimee Nash and Scott von Ryper. They immediately set about crafting an entirely new sound, one that could be separated from the vagaries of whatever critics think ‘post-psychedelic’ is. 2008 saw them launched into the public eye, with a slew of coveted support acts for the likes of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Charlatans and The Raveonettes. At the end of 2009, they released their much-anticipated debut album, Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride, cementing their reputation as a force to be reckoned with. Don’t look now, but a new decade is underway and The Black Ryder looks poised to do some damage.

Digby Woods: You just came back from playing at Playground Weekender. How did that go?

Scott von Ryper: The festival was a great place to hang out, I don’t know if it was as well populated as they would’ve hoped, but it feels pretty good when you’re walking around and it’s not too crowded. The show felt great though.

DW: How did you come to choose the name The Black Ryder? Is there some deeper significance that the general public isn’t aware of?

SCR: It’s influenced from Tom Waits’ ‘Black Rider’. It’s a stage production, almost a musical. Tom Waits did the music and William S. Burroughs did the writing, and it’s quite an amazing kind of production. So we’re influenced by that a little, and basically Aimee (Nash) came up with the name and it’s something that just felt right.

DW: Speaking of influences, your album title, Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride, is obviously inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s classic, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Are both of you big fans of his then?

SVR: Yeah, both Aimee and I are big Hunter fans. It just seemed to make sense and fit in with what was going on with us at the time, and how the whole [album] kind of got put together.

DW: Does Hunter’s philosophy apply only to your creative process or do you subscribe to it in your everyday lives as well?

SVR: Well, I think it applied to our creative process and in a way the non-creative side of putting a musical project together.

DW: Musical project?

SVR: At the time I didn’t say ‘band’ because it wasn’t a band when we started, it was really just a recording project. Aimee and I started, and then other people got involved as they came by the studio. When we started we didn’t have any backing or anything, and we pretty much just launched into recording thinking they could be demos, and we kind of just kept making it happen along the way and turning that into the album. And to be honest it wasn’t until very late in the game, when the album was pretty much finished, that we finally found someone that we were happy with, that was going to put it out. But it was really just us on our own for a long time.

DW: But then you struck a deal between EMI Australia and your managing company, Original Matters, that allowed you complete creative as well as distributive and marketing control over your music. Did this take a while to put together?

SVR: From the idea of it to when it finally happened, no, it didn’t, not in the scheme of things. It did happen on the tail end of things though, we weren’t lucky enough to strike midway through the process. We went through a lot of ups and downs in terms of people wanting to get on board, getting behind the album, and then once we started talking to them, we just didn’t feel like it was the right thing.

So there were lots of ups and downs through the recording process, which can be quite distracting if you let it be. In the end we were just so thankful, because our original vision was to release something on our own label (The Anti-Machine Machine), and we did that, but with the benefit of having the distributive power of a major (label) behind us.

DW: Was Original Matters already in play with EMI, or did you have to shop around first?

SVR: Yeah, they have ties with EMI in terms of some of the other artists they manage, so I guess that was the other reason why it wasn’t as hard as it could have been, because there was a lot of trust going on between some of those blokes at the company (EMI) and some of our folks, so a lot of the game playing just didn’t need to happen. What they said was what they did, and the same on our side, and that’s all we ever ask for. It’s amazing though how often that just wouldn’t happen. So, yeah, there were ties in place, which made it that much easier.

DW: So was that a refreshing experience from what you’d had to deal with in the past?

SVR: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s always refreshing when you meet people on the business side and they feel completely genuine, and you find out that they are, and they mean what they say and do what they say. Unfortunately it just doesn’t happen a lot. So it’s great when you do meet those people.

DW: Your album has created a lot of buzz with both the public and the critics, but you were introduced to the world as a ‘live’ band, opening for Brian Jonestown Massacre and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Was there a certain pressure then to make the album live up to the hype that had been created?

SVR: It was more inspiring than anything else, for two reasons: one, because it was the first time people had heard our stuff and it really inspired us to get back in the studio and get cranking again on the rest of the album, and two, it inspired us in terms of what we learnt in the rehearsal room versus the studio. That allowed us to go back with a fresh set of ears and work out what we could tune up or what we could do differently. And sometimes it’s not until you play those songs to a live audience that you can feel whether it works or not. It definitely made a difference.

DW: Now that your album is out though, you must have the pressure of expectancy on you, like, “What’s your next move?” or “What sound are you working on now?” How are you finding that?

SVR: There’s a massive pressure, as soon as (the album) comes out, because there’s such a short time frame on everything now. On the business side of it, we just want to focus on releasing the album in as many places a possible, and on the creative side we want to play in all those places. So it never really stops, you can never get to that point where you say, “Okay, the album’s done, now we can just sit back and relax and hope people like it,” because there is always something going on. It’s quite healthy though, because if you just sat back and waited, and your whole satisfaction was based on what people thought of it, then you might be in a bit of trouble if people didn’t think too much of it.

DW: Do you think you’d be in the same position now if BRMC hadn’t come along and forced you to get the band together, in a sense?

SVR: It’s hard to say whether it would’ve happened in the same time frame. I think whenever something like that happens, where an opportunity arises and you’re given a deadline when you didn’t really have a deadline before, other than the one you’ve given yourself, it definitely spurs you on. It you’d been working for a year already on sounds and toying around in the studio, it’s very easy to lose that urgency of finishing. You don’t want that urgency, but sometimes it’s good for something to come along and give you a bit of a kick up the arse.

DW: As an artist, you just want to keep experimenting and building on something, and you don’t know when to stop, right?

SVR: For sure, and those bands that we played with, a lot of them were bands that we knew, or knew of, who had asked us to play with them and had never seen us, so of course we wanted to make sure that we played really well. So that was really inspiring as well, it gave us that drive.

DW: Your sound has been described as a mixture of psychedelic and shoegaze, however, certain songs such as ‘The Greatest Fall’ and ‘Sweet Come Down’ show a clear country/blues influence.

SVR: Well, those two songs in particular are so incredibly out there, in terms of being labelled as a psychedelic, shoegaze band, and I actually enjoy that, because if anyone were to try and label us as simply that, these songs provide a clear retaliation to those people thinking we just do that kind of sound.

We get a lot of comments quite often, because it goes both ways. There are people who are very much into psych/shoegaze music who would hear ‘Sweet Come Down’ and think it’s quite radical, and at the same time, people who don’t know that kind of genre at all would listen to ‘Sweet Come Down’ and love it, and then be drawn further into our evil world, the one that could be labelled as more traditional psychedelic/shoegaze music. I’d like to be responsible for that, to bring a few people across that weren’t initially into that genre.

DW: ‘Sweet Come Down’ is quite a literal title when looking at the overall soundscape of the album, as it provides just that effect from the previous guitar-belting of the first few tracks. How much attention was paid to the album’s emotional flow?

SVR: The flow of the album was quite important now that we think about it because there are quite a number of different feelings on that album, we wanted to have that road-trip feel, that slow come down at the end.

To me, ‘The Greatest Fall’ is a ’50s track with this dark kind of feeling, and then ‘Sweet Come Down’ is a very dark country track, and then it moves into something, not psychedelic, but kind of trippy in a way, like ‘Burn & Fade’ and ‘Rise’. So the flow is important to make sure it all fits together well.

DW: How did ‘Sweet Come Down’ come to be chosen as the song for your video debut?

SVR: Well, we decided very early on that we didn’t want to do singles, and we really felt that the album needed to be treated as a whole. For ‘Sweet Come Down’, both Aimee and I, and the director, Michael Spiccia, had a clear vision of what the visual aspect of that track should be, more than some of the others. To me, what we ended up with in terms of the visual aspect of the song, was exactly spot on to what it should have been. We’re all really happy with it, and Michael just nailed it in getting the feeling of the song.

But you’re right, certain people would wonder why we would go out and make a short film for that song, and I guess it was partly to be a little bit confronting, because it’s not what people would expect. In another way, it was the perfect visual element and introduction to the band. It kind of says straight up, “We are not what you’ve heard and not what you expect.”

DW: In saying that, do you feel that ‘Sweet Come Down’ is representative of the album as a whole?

SVR: I’d probably have to say, no, it isn’t, but I think that without it the album would not be what it is. I think it was an important element to have in the album, but it’s certainly not a great representation on its own of what the album is.

DW: Your album has a seamless quality to it, in that while each of your songs is singularly crafted, such that they clearly stand out from each other, I was still able to listen to the entire album as if it was one song.

SVR: Well, that’s a really great compliment to us, because that’s exactly what we wanted to do, and to be honest, we spent a lot of time crafting it, not only each individual track, but also understanding how those tracks work with each other and thus represent the album as a whole.

So, as I said, to hear people actually come out and say that, or when I see a review that doesn’t get put off by the fact that (the album) may go into different territory, then that’s very satisfying for us. It could’ve gone either way I guess, but we just decided that was what we wanted to do and we hoped that people would want to take that trip with us.

DW: I can’t imagine this kind of paradoxical production was unintentional, was it?

SVR: Certainly not, I think right from the start, the first three songs that Aimee and I wrote together were all incredibly different from each other, and we were confronted with this possible problem of “What does this thing sound like?” and “Which one of these songs is the sound of the band?” and “What should we decide to try and do for the future?” Or should we just ignore that, just keep going and hope that everything kind of sits in well together and thus by doing that we’re creating something new? Obviously we decided to take the latter approach and that’s the way we went.

DW: And that obviously influenced your ‘no singles’ approach?

SVR: Well… yeah, I mean, being in previous groups and understanding some of the pressures you go through when you are being asked to do radio singles and focusing everything on one track, it’s something that we learnt we didn’t want to do again. That’s why we went out there right from the start and said, “This is what we want to do.” We didn’t want to try and be a radio band, or a singles band, we just wanted to try and make a really good album.

DW: I know we already discussed genres, but it seems like there has been a revival of the kind of psychedelic/shoegaze sound, not only in Sydney, but Australia as a whole. Do you think this gives credence to the idea that psychedelic music is a revivalist genre?

SVR: I actually agree with you. When Aimee and I were playing in our previous group before this (The Morning After Girls) we spent a lot of time touring overseas, and it was something that was quite apparent to us when we returned home after a good period of time that the scene had changed quite significantly. There are a lot of bands here in Sydney that are playing music that we really love, and I guess you could be right in that there was some kind of revival of that kind of genre.

Certainly I didn’t feel that there was much going on in that way before, we were spending so much time overseas, but when we came back it felt like there was a lot going on. And I still feel that, it doesn’t feel like it has reached its peak and dissipated. It just feels like something amazing happened and a lot of great people found each other. I think that is what it’s all about really, that there are people who have probably always loved this music but something magical happens at some point where these people find each other and get together and form bands, and then those bands meet each other and then those band members form side projects, and the side projects form side projects, and all of a sudden you have a scene.

That’s kind of what I feel has happened here and is still happening. So despite the issues we have in Sydney with live music venues and all sorts of stuff, and Melbourne as well, the scene has survived and thrived and is getting bigger.

DW: It seems like a very co-operative genre.

SVR: Very, and that’s something we discovered for the first time when we were touring overseas with our previous band, that there’s this great community and family of people that share this love, and you can travel anywhere and if you’re into that music, they just accept you with open arms and they want to listen to your music and put you up in their house. It’s quite incredible, to be honest, and it’s a great feeling.

The Black Rider’s debut album, Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride, is out now through EMI Records.

Next story: And So The Story Goes… – Self Titled

Big Fish

tristan — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:02:18 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Carine Thevenau & Pond

By the sounds of things the psychedelic revival is well and truly happening in Perth right now. Tame Impala, The Silents, These Ship Wrecks and Pond are all at the forefront of a style firmly on its way back. The fact that those bands all share common members might just have something to do with all the noise they’re making.

“We live in a pretty close community with a bunch of different bands and friends who are all really involved in each others music making. we’re all constantly in each others faces telling people what’s good and what’s not. There’s no real separation between any bands, the names shouldn’t even really be there.” Pond’s Nick Allbrook says on a typically sunny Perth day.

“Between us, Tame Impala, The Silents and These Ship Wrecks there’s this thing where everyone plays in everyone else’s band at some point. When we play something fun like Laneway we just get everyone up. There’s no sort of scene like you’d normally say there’s a scene, everyone’s got so much time to hang out and inspiration to make music.”

“We started in this band called Mink Mussel Creek and then we all moved into the same house and lived together. So we all started in the same band but them moved into different bands, we still have this great big communal thing going on.” Allbrook explains of the bigger crew that he and fellow band mates Joe Orion and Wes Goldtouch are a part of.

“The three of us write and record everything. But live there’s any number of fun folk that can pop up. Our friend Jamie plays keyboard all the time and then some other people come up and play bongos. At Laneway we had a designated dancer and confetti popper offerer.”

“It just became this big incestuous band list. It was always pretty loose.” Orion adds.

While they don’t steer away from the fact the acts are all sonically coming from roughly the same place, they do seem keen not to get pigeon holed as strictly psych.

“I bring a bit more folk, Jay brings the pop and Nick just brings the James Brown/Prince vibe. Whilst we all have that similar mind set we bring different aspects to the band. Which is why we can play pretty much any genre. We’re finding out that we can play anything, we bring influences from wherever we want and then Pondify it up.” Orion drawls with just enough effect to know he’s at least half joking.

For what it’s worth Orion’s confidence isn’t misplaced. Ponds latest release Frond may well be steeped in psychedelic and pop overtones but there’s more than just two layers at play. Distorted guitars are complimented by bouncing keys, chanted vocals, gospel choruses and epic arrangements.

“This one took us ages because our friend Sam Ford works at a studio, he also plays in The Silents and he’s a shit hot producer so he let us do it for minimal cost if we did it when the guy who owned the studio wasn’t busy. So he’d call us on the spur of the moment which was usually really late. We’d go in for a couple of hours or all night depending on how late we could stay up, so it took us a fuck load of time because we didn’t get to have good stints in there.” Allbrook explains.

“We’ve done more fucked up late night sounding things, this one we got our heads done and got all into pop and making a pop record. So we concentrated hard on that and making it the best we could so we could combat the late night demons.”

They may have conquered them but the late night lifestyle obviously isn’t the most conducive for holding down gainful employment, as illustrated by their shopping habits according to Allbrook.

“We’re all quite frugal. I just found out you can get a garbage bag full of bread from this place down the road at 12.30 every night. And you can go into Coles with a North Perth Growers Mart bag and buy a carton of milk and put all their fruit in your North Perth Growers Mart bag and say you bought it all across the road. So you get free fruit and piles of bread, all you’ve got pay for is beer, grass and milk.”

“And you can say that, I don’t think they’ll read it but I reckon the glory of the Coles police coming to my house would be worth it anyway!”

Pond’s latest album Frond is out soon, the first single Cloud City is available for purchase now.

Pond

Next story: Bewitched – Charlie’s Widow

What’s The Rush

gabe — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:02:07 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Tristan Ceddia

Much is made of the apparent lack of time taken by Eddy Current Suppression Ring to record their critically acclaimed and award winning albums. Urban legend dictates that their debut was wrapped up in an afternoon over a few beers and word that their latest release Rush to Relax was done after only six hours in studio. Bassist Brad Barry tells Gabriel Knowles why those stories aren’t strictly true.

“We weren’t 100% sure we were making the album but in the end everything turned out to be good enough to be used for the album. It was only because we had enough new songs to record that we that we figured let’s just start recording and see what happens and if we have to have another couple of goes at it another day we would have done it. In the end it just turned out that what we had was very usable.” Barry aka Rob Solid explains from his home in Melbourne.

“You can spend years and years in the studio and not be happy with the results. I figure if you capture the songs in their infancy there’s still some nerves about whether or not you’re going to pull the song off. If you catch a bit of that rather than running the song down and catching it after it has lost its new pizazz I think that’s great.”

“Just going into a rehearsal studio where we would jam anyway you feel like you’re playing it not for the first time but when it’s new so you don’t want to stuff up and you’re concentrating on trying to play it right rather than just knowing it.”

Brevity always seems to have been a core component of the band. Their first song infamously recorded ad-lib into a dictaphone during a Christmas party at the vinyl factory where the other band members Brendan Huntley and the Young brothers – Mikey and Danny, all worked. They followed that track up with two albums, the first self titled and a second entitled Primary Colours, both of which relied heavily upon terse garage punk to make their mark. Their songs of minimal length left lasting impressions on both fans and critics alike and culminated the band picking up the prestigious AMP award in 2009, a testament to their philosophy of just doing what they think is best.

“We never do anything we don’t really want to do and we’re always happy with the stuff we do and what we have done.” Barry confirms.

“It’s always good, even just jamming is good. I guess you feed off your live shows with the interaction with the crowd and the feedback where as with your album you don’t get that. That’s why we try to capture that live sound as much as we can when we record the albums because that’s what we enjoy the most.”

Rush to Relax is however, a departure of sorts from the blueprint of strictly short and sharp songs. A few tracks stretch far beyond the usual three and half minutes and one even enters the previously unimaginable dimension of a ballad. As if by way of evening things up there are still a couple of numbers that come in at an intense minute flat. Despite moving into new territory the unmistakeable twang of Eddy Current is ever present. Even the twenty minutes of beach sounds at the end of the album doesn’t seem out of place, in fact it almost seems symptomatic of the album title until Barry dismisses that theory.

“That ties in with the song and not necessarily the theme of the album, it’s just about relaxing at the end. It’s almost subliminal, you don’t know it’s on but then when you sink into you realise relaxing is good.”

Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s third album Rush To Relax is out now.

Next story: Wild Thing – Mike O’Meally

Max Health

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:16:42 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Health

It seems odd that during this day and age a band could still trace their success back to a cassette tape. Californian noise rockers Health are one band that can claim exactly that.

“We never directly met the people who did our label but it was through DIY touring and leading people we met to this cassette tape we had for sale on the Internet through this small label run by a 16-year-old kid who lived in the desert. That tape made its way to this guy in England who was a fan of ours and this band we know were touring Europe and stayed with this guy who played them the tape and they told Jake from Lovepump United. It turned out it was the fifth or sixth time someone had told him about us so he got in touch from there.” Bassist John Famiglietti recounts of how they managed to get in a position where a label would help them record and possibly even sort out some tour accommodation.

There may be glimpses of subtle punk undertones in their latest offering, Get Color, but that’s not what draws comparisons to punk legends and DIY pioneers Black Flag. It was the bands willingness to hit the road without really knowing if they had a place to play or stay that brought those.

“There’s been this history ever since the time of Black Flag with bands booking shows all over the US and then staying in some kids basement. It was much easier for us though because Black Flag pioneered it. It’s much easier to set up shows via email.” Famiglietti laughingly acknowledges.

“Those DIY tours, no matter how small or ridiculous or grueling, through them is how we made our connections and met our record label and everything that came later. And so many friends that we met in the DIY days are now in successful bands or doing this or that, all the friends we made there were incredibly huge for the band.” Famiglietti goes on. “Even in England where we had this ridiculous idea to do a DIY UK tour and on that tour we met important press people who championed our band and allowed us to get a foothold in London.”

Their DIY aesthetic can be firmly traced back to their roots at the seminal Los Angeles venue, The Smell. A stalwart and beacon for getting things done with limited resources for over 20 years, The Smells reputation has regathered momentum in recent years thanks to the likes of No Age, Captain Ahab and a core group of acts who have shown a dedication to regularly filling the place.

“All over the States there are DIY venues that are traditionally illegal, converted warehouse spaces and The Smell is one of those places in LA that’s very professionally run by this guy called Jim Smith. It has always been a Mecca and what the scene is based around, there are other venues but The Smell has always been there.” Famiglietti explains.

Health are such a quintessentially cross-genre band you can almost see them shuffling mp3′s, like so many of their peers, the influences and pigeon holing terms come think and fast. There’s their industrial side, the side that saw the quartet troupe around on tour with Nine Inch Nails for a while there. But then there’s the slightly disco infused and electronic pop aspects that somehow find a way to sit amongst the obligatory no-wave, post-punk injections. A dose of melody coupled with some deliberately ambiguous lyrics and you’re just about there.

“Our music isn’t lyric based, we don’t want personal lyrics that tell a specific story. We don’t want people to relate to a song in that way, we’d prefer people to take in the music. It’s also makes the music more universal. We don’t think it’s necessary to know to enjoy the music.” Famiglietti offers before admitting that future records are likely to include copies of the lyrics due to such a strong demand.

Despite that he feels that the band have been able to retain a sense of timelessness to their music by drawing the focus away from the vocals, in much the same way that Krautrock forerunners Neu! have done.

“We had dinner with the guy from Neu! in Hamburg, all of us were at the same table and he was mentioning these Neu! records because we were talking about how we wanted to do something with no bass and he was telling about all his records that had no bass. We actually didn’t realise it was him until afterwards though!” The bassist pipes up excitedly, even if the details of the day seem exactly etched into his memory.

And what ever happened to the original tapes? “I don’t even have one of those tapes anymore, at the time the $5 for gas was more important.”

Health are touring nationally from February 24 until February 27, 2010.

Health

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Ye Don’t Say

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:02:46 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Yeasayer

Yeasayer are a band that hold an enviable position of being as revered by the traditional, printed matter critics as they are by a new wave of numerous, vociferous and exclusively digital critics. The release of their first album All Hour Cymbals, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink effort pegged into the world music category that actually sounded good, was lauded far and wide as fantastically progressive record. But with success comes expectations and with their second record Odd Blood days away from release there’s a good chance die-hard fans are in for a shock, least of all because Yeasayer scraped together the money and time to get some decent production this time around.

“I felt like some people wanted us to recreate the first album and we could have done that and made it for $1000 and taken the money that the label gave us. But we really wanted to take that money and say OK let’s pour it into this album and make a step up that shows that we care and produce the hell out of it.” Anand Wilder explains from the bands base in Brooklyn. “I don’t value some lo-fi, cheap sounding aesthetic. If you’re going to do that just use a four track.” Despite their penchant for traditional instruments from the world over Yeasayer are far from purists, admitting that most of their music is composed on a computer and if they can achieve the same result digitally then that’s their preferred technique.

Pockets lined with money the band headed to upstate New York and decamped in Woodstock to set about recording an album in the very same house they were living in, thanks in part to a conveniently located basement studio. “It was great, it was a lot more luxurious than the last one which we were doing all ourselves and then at the last minute we had five days to mix the entire record. This one was four months were we didn’t have to work day jobs so we could get perspective. And then we spent some time touring where we were able to test out some of the new songs live and figure out if songs needed a bass line here or some live drums there.” And with songs in the bag they headed back to Manhattan and got Odd Blood properly mixed. The result is a more polished and cleaner sounding album that Wilder is bullishly standing by.

“We didn’t really care what people thought. If you think about it too much then you might start pandering too much. We thought how can we screw with people expectations? So we thought people are probably expecting another psychedelic, acoustic, folksy kind of camp fire song album. So how can we flip that on people and say this is the same band but maybe we’re playing this guitar part with a synth now and maybe the drums are a lot louder and more rhythmic and maybe the vocals are a little louder. We were playing with expectations and trying to come with something that was aesthetically very different than the last album. We would rather do something very different and completely fail have people think we’re hacks than repeat ourselves and have people pat us on the back for making All Hour Cymbals Part Two.” With early reviews alerting fans that they have indeed taken a different tack do they still not care what people think? “I read some things, I feel like it might be a love/hate record which is fine with me.” Wilder admits.

Prior to recording Odd Blood there was noise from the Yeasayer camp that the new album wouldn’t contain any songs longer than three and a half minutes in a concerted effort to move away from the sprawling sound that marked their debut offering. In the end though, only three of the ten songs on the new album made it under the mark.

“I think rules are meant to be broken, that was one of the things we set out to do. Write shorter songs and produce songs in a sparer way and not go overboard with layering. We have a few songs under 3.30 which is exciting for me. It was really trying to pick a style and stick with it or break the rules entirely.” Wilder responds before explaining further.

“I think we retained the multi-layers but I think on this one you can perceive the layers a little bit better. It’s a little more audible, there’s more clarity to the sounds whereas the last one you had this idea that there was a lot of things there but maybe you couldn’t hear them in the hazy mush of reverb. We wanted to make a much drier sounding record, something that was more along the lines of our live show, that would have more live energy and the prominence of the subby bass and the percussion coming to the fore and also the lead vocal being more defined and not covered by harmonies.”

So with their endevours to delve into a poppier sound complete, it doesn’t seem too far fetched that they’ve got something planned for next time around. Which Wilder confirms.

“I’d like the next album to have zero repetition whatsoever and really only have three or four elements going on at one time. Or maybe just have one element that’s replaced by another element. Or maybe just abandon song structure all together and put out an ambient record. I feel like we’ve left ourselves open to do whatever we want, I think if we put out an album of folky protest songs I don’t think people would be completely surprised.”

Odd Blood is out on February 9, 2010 through Spunk

Yeasayer

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