And so to boldly go where no obscure lo-fi music blog has gone before: an interview with David Charleston aka Lenn9o9n. You’ve heard the music (see ‘Relining Coffins’ below) now have a sneak peek through the keyhole into the brain of the man behind it…

DG: Probably an obvious question, but where did the inspiration for the name Lenn9o9n come from?

“One after 909″ is one of the first songs he wrote as a teenager. I don’t idolize him, I just empathize with his ambitions, torment, love, anger.

DG: When did you start writing music and why?

2003. I think the Brian Eno quote on people who buy Velvet Underground records turn into musicians works really well here. At the time I had a cheap keyboard and didn’t know a single chord but had a lot of curiosity in how to recreate the sounds I was hearing. Bands like the VU, Suicide, Silver Apples helped me realize I didn’t have to be very complicated, so that helped with my confidence in not knowing anything.

DG: You move around a lot… how does the changing geography affect your song writing?

It hurts more than it helps because I’ve never been in a position these past 5 years where I saw a good opportunity to be in a band. I’ve built this wall around me with the MIDI sound and while I think it’s helped me improve my mixing skills, there is very different emotion brought out with stringed instruments and playing with other people.

DG: Crash helmet on. Hit me with your infuences.

Grew up on hip hop with the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul being the “holy trinity”. Then in the summer of 2001 I bought every Beatles, Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett album I could find as well as classics like “What’s Going On”, “Songs in the Key of Life”, “Stand!”, “We’re Only in It For the Money”, “Surrealist Pillow”, “The United States of America”, “Pet Sounds/Smile”. I was 17 and in awe. It was an amazing time. Then the indie thing kicked in later that year with me finding the E6 collective, For Stars, Grandaddy.

DG: Is it true you’re going to make a full-length record exclusively around the cello? Is there any instrument you wouldn’t use?

Well, my wife still hasn’t bought that cello for me (belated bday gift)…hopefully next week. I think almost any instrument can be used. Some, of course, have no business in certain songs. Like the way Nico talked about how dreadful it was to hear those flutes in “Chelsea Girl” without her permission. And I have a have strong distaste for anything that sounds too synthy. Ironic, but take New Order…so much of their music is garbage to listen to because the whole time I just have this idea of what “Blue Monday” accomplished.

DG: How do you do what you do with a keyboard?

I hate the fact there’s a set pattern for it but most of the time the complete songs I finish are done with me on MIDI piano through garageband. I record the basic track and then just experiment from there with the final goal to scratch the piano track and have something that sounds completely different. It’s an experiment every time and takes patience/concentration. There’s a reason of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes has gotten where he has the last 7 years. He works his ass off and isn’t afraid to sit down for 14 hours straight and put his heart/soul/mind into a track.

DG: Last record in your collection you’d sell to fund a drug habit?

Someone once said that the happiest they’ve ever seen me was singing to the Beatles. The White Album. It can never be worn out.

DG: What makes you mad?

The food industry of plant gene modifications and slaughter houses, media hacks of the left and right, anti-drug/homosexual legislation, pro-lifers who won’t adopt (actually, anyone who won’t adopt), ugliness/cynics, people trapped in their religions/idealogies so far that they don’t see every human/animal life as a result of circumstance but more a part of their singular system of speciesist/classist hierarchy. The idea of evolution is the most empowering idea we can all share, besides a common respect for creation and the unknowns it provides.

DG: What makes you grin?

Loving your enemies and I’m a sucker for underdogs in sports.

DG: What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

“Leavin’ Blues”. I tried putting it on “Relining Coffins” but it didn’t work out.

DG: Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

Beatles 1968.

DG: Shuffle your iPod – what are the first 5 songs?

Bill Hicks – There’s a Ledge Beyond the Edge
Cat Power – Cross Bones Style
Ice Cube – The Nigga You Love to Hate
Erykah Badu – Time’s a Wastin
BS 2000 (Adrock from Beastie Boys) – Ajoqueso

DG: Describe your own music in just 3 words?

Thick, layered, familiar,

DG: What’s your favourite film?

I quote Big Lebowski way too much.

DG: What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen?

Probably a UFO sighting while under the influence in 2003 w/ two other friends who commented on it at the same time.

DG: Point us in the direction of a friend’s band?

Zakk Zielke has so much f’ing potential. He’s really opening himself up to so many different avenues of music. I think if he stopped right now and just decided to make an album it would be brilliant.
play #2 http://cllct.com/release/traumaqueenep

DG: Favourite line from a song?

“And we will love like a field of fire and we will go where we don’t belong.” – For Stars – Field of Fire

DG: If you could time travel, where would you go?

November, 1963 Dallas and I’d put up video cameras everywhere. Lock ‘em up for a few years. Watch the government lie to everyone and then completely destroy it’s credibility from the inside out by sending a copy to every news publication in the world.

DG: What’s your recording set-up like?

One cheap Yamaha YPT-300, a couple decent mics. Now that I have a guitar and a house, I’ll start opening up my acoustic side. Mandolin, cello, and whatever else I can fit into the equation.

DG: What are your future musical plans?

I think embracing lo-fi as much as possible. I really love that hiss of early E6 records, lost John Lennon tapes. I love home recordings and when you put a stereo effect to it by isolating each track in it’s “perfect” place the result can be magical. I’ve taken the easy way out with the piano/synths, it’s time to step up to the music I’ve cherished for so many years. 99% is guitar/string instrument based.

DG: Where can we find your music on the internet?

I really only update stuff frequently on cllct. the last link is the place i posted all my stuff from 03-07. some really disastrous stuff in there. even the first version of “alli” called “jessica” and “leavin’ blues” track i was talking about.
http://cllct.com/family/lenn9o9n
http://myspace.com/charlestonplease
http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=259087&T=1639

Say hello to the newest member of the Quixodelic Collective – FailedSitcom. You may have stumbled across his unique blend of folk and electronic beats over at CLLCT, or even caught the really cool ‘Mortlake’ on DG8. But for those of you who haven’t heard of him (and even for those of you who have), I threw some pretty random questions his way to find out a little bit more.

DG – Where did you get the name FailedSitcom from?

FS – It comes from a song called “The Toss and Turn” by the rapper Pedestrian, there’s a line in it where he says: “like our lives are lines out of failed sitcoms.” I remember listening to that track on an old MiniDisc whilst standing near the sea whilst on holiday in Whitby and it kind of stuck with me ever since. It also seemed suitably self-deprecating.

DG – You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

FS – The Books – Lost and Safe

DG – Who is your favourite artist?

FS – Lynda Barry

DG – Haha. I rarely back someone I know to questions like these. I guess it’s a good sign that there are plenty of great things to discover out there. What would you say have been the been the biggest influences/inspiration for your own musical endeavours?

FS – I was probably most influenced to start producing my own music by Dan The Automator. Around the time that I was starting to listen to music I borrowed my brother’s copy of Gorillaz first album and then devoured everything he had done before, I remember being particularly into his work with Deltron 3030.

Knowing that he was the “producer” and therefore responsible for the way these records sounded was when I realised you could create music without necessarily being a musician. A lot of his collaborators, particularly DJ Shadow, were also a big influence in those early days and are certainly responsible for the hip-hop element to my music.

Nowadays my obsession with The Books definitely informs a lot of what I do, so much in fact that I often have to consciously avoid certain things to separate myself from them. I certainly aspire not only to their seamless use of samples alongside traditional instruments, but also their ability to make the experimental easily accessible.

DG – What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

FS – I’m probably most proud of Edith Blake. With it’s fragments of samples and real instruments playing off of each other, it feels like it captures a lot of things that I’d been aiming for before but never quite pulled off how I’d intended.

DG – I really love the way you fuse electronic beats with organic folk instruments. How do you go about writing a song?

FS – I like to write the lyrics first, this means that when I start writing the music I already have a feeling for what kind of structure is going to work. After that I tend to just sit down with an instrument (my guitar more often than not) and lay down some kind of melody to sing over. Everything sort of develops organically from there.

DG – It definitely seems that there are three ways to go about writing a song – the lyrics first approach, the melody first approach, and the song pops into your head fully formed approach. Would you say that lyrics are the most important part of what you do? What sort of things do you like to write about?

FS – I do think lyrics are fairly important, but I guess from a song-writing viewpoint it’s just that they just help inform the feeling of the rest of the song and where it should go. One such example is when I when I was sitting in my favourite teashop and at a nearby table a toddler was going “b… b… b…” for what felt like an impossibly long amount of time, before ending with “biscuit!” I knew I had to use it and that everything else in the track should just slip playfully around my impersonation of what I had heard him chanting.

A little while ago I made a pact with myself that I’d only write songs about things that I love, not only does this help me make the kind music that I want, but it forces me to notice how much there is in the world that I love and hopefully it makes me appreciate it more. This means that I tend to write songs about nature, small details and people that are special to me. If I feel that I’m writing about the same things all the time, I just acknowledge that I’m obsessed with these things and that I simply must embrace them.

DG – Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

FS – I didn’t really have any when I was a teenager (my friends described by room as minimalist), but when I was younger I had a poster of Yoshi that I remember my parents getting from a petrol station.

DG – Haha, well I can kinda hear the Yoshi influence in your electronic blips and boops.

If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

FS – Pretty much any brass instrument, I was part of a junior brass band when I was really young but couldn’t actually play my given instrument (the cornet). I guess I was just there to look cute at fundraisers. I really wish I’d practiced and paid more attention now.

DG – I got given a cornet too as a kid and I was terrible at it, but I also regret not paying more attention to it. Have you ever considered collaborating with people that can play brass? Or could you ever see Failed Sitcom existing in a band set-up?

FS – Whilst I would love to have brass on some tracks, I rarely go out of my way to collaborate with others.

Failed Sitcom is me living out my control freak fantasies, I know roughly how I want everything to sound so I just do everything myself. This sadly makes playing live an impossibility without either teaching other musicians parts that I hardly remember how to play myself, or relying heavily on the original recordings. I must say that neither option appeals a great deal to me.

With that being said, there has been talk of a musical project between myself and few friends. We sadly live much too far apart at the moment and rarely see each other, but I hope to see something come of it one day.

DG – Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

FS – Here goes:

Paul Giovanni – The Landlord’s Daughter
John Cale – The Endless Plain of Fortune
Tom Waits – Cemetery Polka
Electric President – We Were Never Built to Last
Hanged Up – New Blue Monday

DG – Describe your music in three words?

FS – Collage, folk, pop.

DG – “Collage”… I think that’s a brilliant description of what you do.

When did you first start writing your own songs?

FS – I guess I first started messing around with sounds about six years ago, these were mostly experiments in sampling found sounds and recording my guitar using a pair of headphones. I’m not sure if any even survive.

DG – Favourite smell?

FS – The general dampness after a heavy downpour of rain.

DG – Favourite book?

FS – The Master & Margerita by Mikhail Bulgakov

DG – Do you have any recurring dreams?

FS – Not any more, but I used to have one where I was being pulled up out of a pit of zombies in a cemetery by my brother before the rope broke. I woke up as they pulled me limb from limb, or at least that’s how I remember it.

DG – Favourite track from Daydream Generation 8?

FS – A couple of days ago it was Chakra by Tuck Son, but right now it’s Trip (To Heaven) by Maureen Sill.

DG – I’m with you 100% on both of those. You’ve heard a LOT of music on CLLCT over the last few months, and I know you’ve been asked this before, but for the benefit of people who haven’t visited it can you recommend any other musical gems they should start with?

FS – There are so many great artists and releases I’m missing, but here are a few favourites:

The Yataris – Fun Summer
Dirty Merlin – CLLCT Vol. 1
Kenny Hamilton – Good Boy
Simon Piler and The Atom Band – A DISASTER
box_ – hello special glowing world
Insomniatic – A Penny Dredful for All (…and songs to drink tea too)
Like A Villain – Flight I took to Antarctica once

DG – What’s the first thing you remember?

FS – Trying to open my third birthday present, but being unable to get through the paper so my mum opened it for me. It was Playmobil Truck.

DG – What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

FS – I use my MacBook, a simple firewire interface and record everything with a single condenser microphone. I have a few physical instruments that I can’t play particularly well (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, ukulele and glockenspiel) and I sequence everything else in Ableton Live .

DG – What kind of drunk are you?

FS – I act appallingly and hide under tables.

DG – What are your musical plans for the future?

FS – Hopefully a new EP, it’s mostly theoretical right now but I have started writing some lyrics and should be recording shortly.

DG – Got some websites of your own we can visit?

FS – Why certainly:

http://cllct.com/art/failedsitcom

We caught up with Paul Le Keux somewhere in another stratosphere altogether…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

-’Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the first psychedelic movement 1965-68′ …four discs of joy.

2 Who is your favourite artist?

Gustav Klimt… or Robert Crumb if it comes down to fun over pleasure.

3 Favourite chord?

-’E’. It worked throughout Bo Diddley’s career so it’s alright with me!

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

-Yes… everyone wants a challenge.

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

-Conservative, but only because it was the better of two evils.

6 Favourite fiction writer?

-Evelyn Waugh.

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

-William Blake, Bettie Page, Peter Cook, Sun Ra and Les Dawson.

8 What pisses you off?

-Provincial ignorance and small-town fear.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

-’Oh Child’ because it sounds like it was written by Leadbelly rather than myself. I didn’t write it… I received it.

10 One wish – what would it be?

-My family and friends would be happy throughout their lives.

11 Favourite band?

-Even if they were all written out in front of me, I still couldn’t decide.

12 3 websites worth checking out?

-www.psychedelicartists.org, failblog.org and daydreamgeneration.com (duh).

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

-’Full Metal Jacket’ movie poster, Elvis Costello and Jodie Foster (I really loved her up until ‘Nell’).

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

-When my friend tried explaining what a nut allergy was to a non-english speaking waiter at a restaurant. His life was in their hands.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

-Saxaphone

16 Preferred mode of travel?

-I find bus journeys pleasing as long as their not stuck on the motorway.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

-’Sea of Love’ -Cat Power
-’Talk About It’ -Mighty Diamonds
-’Thieves Like Us’ -New Order
-’Eternal Light’ -Teenage Fanclub
-’Rock Me Mama’ -Arthur Crudup

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

-Snowmen. They are a monolith to the magic of christmas.

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

-The Stones at Wembley before it was pulled down. I’m not usually a fan of big stadium gigs, but Mick and co were on fire that night (and I didn’t have to pay for the ticket).

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

-I can’t really think of any. All hold meaning and pleasure. I’m not hip enough to decide what is culturally embarrassing anyway.

21 Favourite drink?

-Red wine.

22 Drug of choice?

-It was ecstacy, it’s now red wine.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

-Kestral.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

-Impressively bronzed.

25 Are you good at any sports?

-No

26 Last book you read?

-’The Electric Koolaid Acid Test’ by Tom Wolfe

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

-What time is it?

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

-My girlfriend is gorgeous. I wonder if she’s up for a bit.

29 Describe your music in three words?

-Soulful, retrospective, zero-gravity.

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

-My girlfriend, to find out if i’m good in the sack.

31 Favourite comedian?

-Either Bill Hicks, Frankie Howerd or Woody Allen… I’ll go for Woody.

32 What colour is your front door?

-Deep red.

33 Favourite film?

-Twelve Angry Men

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

-’A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can get its trousers back on’. -Mark Twain.

35 Favourite subject at school?

-Art

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

-I’d like it to be Robert Mitchum but i’d probably end up with Hugh Grant or some other cunt.

37 What music makes you want to dance?

-Most types, but reggae more so than others.

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

-’Dig that crazy cat’

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

-Roads are easy, back alleys maketh the man.

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

-28… I was a late starter.

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

-A UFO near Lutterworth.

42 Favourite smell?

-Petrol, but not in an ‘Apocalypse Now’ sense. It reminds me of holidays.

43 Favourite sound?

-Oscillations from an analogue modular synthesizer.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

-Swings.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

-George… Hari-krishna.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

-’The Sound’. They’re awesome. They’re two 16 year old twins who play and write psych-pop gems. We’re releasing a colaborative single with them soon.

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

-’Talking dogs’

48 Cats or dogs?

-DOGS!! All the way.

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

-Old-school mime artist… like Marcel Marceau.

50 Favourite book?

-’Brideshead Revisited’ by Evelyn Waugh.

51 Have you ever been on TV?

-Not to my knowledge.

52 Have you ever been arrested?

-Not to my knowledge.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

-’Old Shep’. Empty that fuckin’ bar!

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

-No.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

-I prefer coffee, but at 33, my body will no longer tolerate more than four cups a day so it’s detox tea in the evening.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?

-I’ve been several, but my likeing for poetry and coffee now points me towards beatnik I suppose.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

-Selling blinds.

58 What’s brown and sticky?

-Treacle.

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

-Yes, but I can’t talk about them here.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

-8 with Uberfuzz and 2 with Rocketships of Love. All hold equal importance although I rarely listen to the older ones.

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

-Japan.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

-Single vapour trails.

63 Favourite line from a song?

-”The ghost of electricity howls through the bones in her face, where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place”.

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

-Being the home of Spacemen 3, it’s great. But there arn’t enough bands that recognize that heritage.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

-’Supergroups’ generally suck, but for the sake of this question: Scott Walker (vox), James Williamson (guitar), Jah Wobble (bass), David Lovering (drums) and Brian Eno (synth).

66 Favourite cover art?

-The cover of ‘Blue Train’ by John Coltrane is pretty classic and iconic, plus it’s up on my wall too, so that’d have to be up with one of my best.

67 Early bird or night owl?

-Both are possible, but harder to execute when in your thirties.

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

-Gluttony.

69 Three words people use to describe you?

-I’ve never asked them.

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

-Phone my family.

71 Do you support any sports teams?

-No.

71 What do you want for Christmas?

-For my family to be together.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

-’The Sometimes Song’ by The Wheelies.

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

-With my Caribbean cooking; yes.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

-Being in a pushchair. Can’t remember where though.

75 How do you go about writing a song?

-By thinking about an emotion, a person or an experience. Experience is the key to a great song. If not, I rip off an obscure song that not many have heard.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

-My beard.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

-Tell the truth.

78 Do you smoke?

-Yes.

79 Tell us a joke?

-What’s the hardest part about rollerblading? …Telling your parents you’re gay.

80 Pick a card, any card?

-Jack of diamonds.

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

-This one.

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

-Delta Mississippi; 1930′s. Social unrest, alcoholism, murder, but surrounded by all those heroes of the blues.

83 Favourite philosopher?

-Not fully a philosopher, but William Blake’s words always make me happy.

84 Do you have any pets?

-A wonderful dog called Molly who’s currently on the cover of the new Rocketships of Love album.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

-In Wales. But it was one of those ‘starter’ mountains.

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

-I’m a media, design and moving image lecturer at a college in the midlands.

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

-Yes. State diagnosed too.

88 Favourite poet?

-Either Ginsberg or Larkin. I like Plath, but I find her hard going.

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

-I’m not really plussed about large amounts of cash so not much… I certainly wouldn’t go on ‘Deal Or No Deal’; what a bunch of twats!!

90 Adrenalin junky?

-I find that adrenalin gets in the way of reflection.

91 What bands have you been in?

-White Star, Bluesude Hughes, Crime Scene Cleaners, Uberfuzz, Rocketships of Love, The Urgz.

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

-I’m not into either.

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

-I record onto a Fostex 8-track for a warm analogue sound then i’ll often master stuff (if at all) on a Mac. I use a Yamaha acoustic, Microkorg analogue synth, Epiphone Dot hollow body guitar, Fender jazz bass, Yamaha electric organ, Alden 12-string hollow body electric guitar, xylophone, 1965 Baldwin Vibraslim hollow body electric bass, Boss drum machine, sitar, bongos, tambourine, shakers, guiro, Vietnamese jaw harp, stylophone, Mexican pan pipes, Vietnamese wrist bells and various other percussion instruments from around the world. I bought a snake charming flute from Sri Lanka but it bust before I got chance to record it.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?

-I love the full-on bastard persona of Bogard’s Sam Spade in ‘The Maltese Falcon’.

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

Probably Claudia Cardinale.

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

I wouldn’t fuck with evolution. The charts are clear evidence that evolution is fucking with us.

97 What kind of drunk are you?

Friendly and accomodating until it comes to who’s got rights to the stereo.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

‘Marquee Moon’ by Television.

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

Enjoy it at its own pace. It seems to work better when it’s not forced.

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

www.acidray.com
www.myspace.com/uberfuz2
www.myspace.com/rocketshipsoflove

Here’s Bobby…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

Probably Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand. Never get sick of it.

2 Who is your favourite artist?

Once again, I go the GbV route and say Bob Pollard

3 Favourite chord?

D for definitely.

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

God gave rock n’ roll to ya.

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

The only one that matters at this point.

6 Favourite fiction writer?

Don’t read much fiction, but Tolkein was the shit.

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

Bob Pollard, Jesus, the Buddha, Charles Bukowski, and Smally cos I think he’d get a kick out of it.

8 What pisses you off?

Pissed off people.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

We Love You.

10 One wish – what would it be?

To be able to shut my mind off at will.

11 Favourite band?

Why, GbV, of course!

12 3 websites worth checking out?

I don’t really use the web much anymore… Maybe cozyhomerecords.com, daydreamgeneration.com, and thefigmints.com. Sure, that’ll work. dictionary.com is pretty good….

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

Nirvana, Pear Jam, and Metallica. Dude.

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

Never got to that point. But I did throw up once. It was great.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

The piano.

16 Preferred mode of travel?

Foot.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

Don’t got no iPod…

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

Sledging? Like sledgehammers? Yeah!!!

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

The Warlocks and The Gris Gris at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

Too many to list. Seriously.

21 Favourite drink?

Old Fashioned. That’s Bourbon, bitters and club soda… Mmmmm…

22 Drug of choice?

Used to be coke… Ahem… Like the soda, yeah… That’s it… Now it’s just good ol’ booze. Maybe psilocybin…

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

Homo Erectus

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

Meh…

25 Are you good at any sports?

Nope. Well, I guess I’m pretty good at video bowling with my buddy, the Wii.

26 Last book you read?

The Art of War

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

Oh fucking hell, not again…

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

Why?Why-why-why-why-why?????

29 Describe your music in three words?

Absolutely fucking brilliant.

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

Someone with a lot of money, so I could pay my tuition in advance.

31 Favourite comedian?

Neil Hamburger.

32 What colour is your front door?

Brown.

33 Favourite film?

The Fellowship of the Ring.

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

“Goddammit!! Never leave a man behind!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

35 Favourite subject at school?

Probably history, or math.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

Tom Selleck.

37 What music makes you want to dance?

ESG, Animal Collective, Motown, Michael Jackson before the third nose job.

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

Don’t want one. Too expensive, and it just clutters up the Earth. Y’dig?

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

6,665,420,319.1314599999…

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

Whenever I figured out what melody was.

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

My friend Johnny’s face appearing on a wall in Benny’s basement… Then it turned into Jesus. Then I said, “Jesus!”

42 Favourite smell?

Grillin’

43 Favourite sound?

Feedback.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

Whoa, those last three ain’t part of American English, but I get the gist… Roundabout.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

Goddammit Smally, don’t ask me that. I don’t wanna get beat up for not saying Ringo.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

www.frogvillemusic.com

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

48 Cats or dogs?

Dogs.

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

The ringmaster.

50 Favourite book?

Oh, I don’t know….

51 Have you ever been on TV?

Yep.

52 Have you ever been arrested?

Nope.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

Loser, Fight For Your Right (To Party), Surrender, I Wanna Be Sedated.

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

Every time I look in the mirror… Oooooh, creepy.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

Black with sugar. And very strong.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?

No.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

Gas station in Herkimer, NY. I lasted half an hour.

58 What’s brown and sticky?

Oh, don’t even get me started.

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

Can’t say that I dream often enough to have anything happen more than once….

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

Seven. I think Exercises In Futility is the best (plug plug… Buy my record!!!)

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

Scotland.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

Altocumulus at sunset.

63 Favourite line from a song?

Wrapped in a cocoon of skintight buffoonery… Now here’s the plan. (Guided By Voices)

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

Nonexistent.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

Bob Pollard, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Krist Novoselic, Mike Garguilo.

66 Favourite cover art?

In The Court of the Crimson King

67 Early bird or night owl?

Depends on my agenda, eh?

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

Sloth… Only cos I’m trying to work on getting rid of gluttony and pride.

69 Three words people use to describe you?

Quiet, nice, drunk. Two of those are totally inaccurate.

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

Take some pills and go to sleep.

71 Do you support any sports teams?

Syracuse Orangemen basketball, yo! Go Big East!!!

71 What do you want for Christmas?

Animal liberation.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

Don’t Ask Me Again What I Dreamt by Becky N

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

Just made some kick ass baked shells & cheese last night… Mmmmmm….

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

A metal railing on a concrete staircase, and a question without an answer.

75 How do you go about writing a song?

If I only knew…

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

Not enough hair on my head.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s become a cliche by now, but really. Think about it.

78 Do you smoke?

Sometimes I wish I never quit…

79 Tell us a joke?

How can you tell if an elephant’s been in yr cupboard? There are footprints in the peanut butter!!!

80 Pick a card, any card?

Bill Gates’ Visa.

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

How will I know?

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

NYC 1982

83 Favourite philosopher?

Ah shit… Maybe Lao Tzu

84 Do you have any pets?

Ah, my lovely pit bull, Mishu.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

Yeah. Then I got a migrane threw up. I hated it, but the scenery was grand!

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

Direct care for the developmentally disabled

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

I don’t even want to comment.

88 Favourite poet?

Jim Carroll

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

Kill any living thing.Well, I guess unless it was a bug. Or fish, maybe but I’d have to think long and hard about that.

90 Adrenalin junky?

Nah, just the regular kind.

91 What bands have you been in?

Oh. Well… From the beginning: David’s Boys; The Chesterfield Medical Experiment; Acoustic Mayhem; The Groan-Ups; Yous Guys; The Fucking Flame; The Real Burnouts; Pinky Stink’s Problem; Arthur Rules; Electric City Subway, Euro Language Abusive, the original Utica Flower Co. (Plural Noun); Fig Mints (of Your Imagination). Probably some others too…

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

Chess, even though I suck.

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

Tascam 488, Sony Minidisc deck, lots of outdated stuff.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?

Ted Theodore Logan

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

Rita Hayworth

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

I don’t fuck with nature.

97 What kind of drunk are you?

Depends on how many days running.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

Just keep cranking, and maybe get a band together.

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

www.thefigmints.com and www.cozyhomerecords.com

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

Sacrifice.

2 Who is your favourite artist?

Wassily Kandinsky

3 Favourite chord?

This one formed the basis of a tuning I like:

D7th (without a 3rd) – from top to bottom, it’s: D A D A C D.

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

Can God invent a rock?

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

Cynthia McKinney

6 Favourite fiction writer?

Hard, because I don’t read a lot of fiction.

Let’s say Ray Bradbury.

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

Sam Gorski, Brendon Hertz, Noni Fineberg, Bird, and Smally OM.

8 What pisses you off?

Waste and consumptive excess. Also, being interrupted when I’m on a good roll with a project.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

Sold for wind

10 One wish – what would it be?

To introduce one novel quanta into the circuitry of tommorrow’s brain.

11 Favourite band?

I actually don’t have a favorite band right now; I’ve been really mood-dependant in my listening choices.

12 3 websites worth checking out?

http://www.folkstreams.net/

http://processing.org/

http://med.stanford.edu/personal/pointfinder/

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

Not really. I did have some neato glow-in-the dark stars, though.

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

Reading the running commentary that accompanied the (enormous) list of mispellings of my last name.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

Hmmm, right now, that’d be anything with a double reed.

16 Preferred mode of travel?

Foot.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots – The Flaming Lips

dad wanted melody – Simon Piler

Cannon Ball Blues – Jelly Roll Morton

This is the Future – Brendon Hertz and The Burnt Orange Crayons

Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues – Skip James

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

Oh, sledding! I love it. I like to crosscountry ski, too.

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

ACK! That’s very hard.

But Roscoe Mitchell playing the Madison Center for the Creative and Cultural Arts. (Just for the impact it had on my mind.)

Runner-up: The Flaming Lips live; with Wayne Coyne rolling directly over me and Brendon in an inflatable ball at the beginning of the show. And having the time of his life while doing it.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

Chumbawumba’s ‘Tubthumper’

21 Favourite drink?

Gin and Tonic

22 Drug of choice?

Well, I guess besides Caffiene that would have to be the suite of compounds in jimsonweed seeds, mainly Atropine.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

Wait. I AM an animal.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

Eye-rending Chartruse.

25 Are you good at any sports?

Ultimate frisbee, especially defense.

26 Last book you read?

‘Earthlight’ by Arthur C. Clarke.

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

Usually, “Okay, motion now.”

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

Mad colors / Winging shapes.

29 Describe your music in three words?

Falling down stairs. (Small/Subdividing cosmic particles.)

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

Son House. So I could wear a bow-tie and play guitar with one finger and flatten you to the wall with my voice. Still working on the one finger bit, seriously. When I breathe it will rattle like the the percussion of the earth.

HUMAN BEINGS

HUMAN BEINGS
HUMAN BEINGS!

WAKE UP

JUMP!

31 Favourite comedian?

Charlie Chaplin

32 What colour is your front door?

Wood colored.

33 Favourite film?

Adaptation

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

Eadem mutata resurgo (“Changed and yet the same, I rise again”)

35 Favourite subject at school?

Always split between science and the arts. I especially liked biology, chemistry, and sculpture.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

Anybody know any young, goofy-looking actors with beards?

37 What music makes you want to dance?

Zydeco and Animal Collective.

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

Well, I don’t really want a gravestone, nor to be buried, but if I do end up with one:

“Paul Bunyan”

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

Several.

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

About two weeks after I bought my first guitar. That’d be the Spring of 2003?

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

Ya, right. Here’s a good one, anyway…

Jokertown:

When we approached there were two kids lowering another kid off of the porch by his feet. When we went inside, the green shag carpet was covered in smashed beerbottles (they had been playing ‘baseball’ (so we were told. The bat sat by the door.) There was a ultrastained, uncovered matress in the stairwell were the walls were all duct taped over with egg-crate foam. On one side, entire wall of amplifiers. When you went back in the living room, people were crashed-out on the couches – but the legs were all sawn off, so they sat flush with the floor. And two guys with skateboards were doing in-place tricks over the broken glass. The shelves had nothing but books on philosophy. There was a rotting turkey carcass as a delightful centerpiece to the room.

I think Hieronymus Bosch did a painting of this place.

42 Favourite smell?

This award might have to go to Asclepias pumila (Plains Milkweed). Dry, but very zesty and fragrant smelling flowers. They are small, white, and almost leathery to the touch.

43 Favourite sound?

Rain on the roof.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

WOW, that was like reading Greek for an instant. Then I realized we were talking about playground equipment. That’d have to be the ‘climbing frame’, I think.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

John. (Used to be George and still close, of course.)

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

Venice Gas House Trolley. Here’s one of my favorite songs of theirs:

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/flowpoetry/music%20archives/Garden.mp3

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

That shot of those dogs. WOW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGgoW9OWM80

48 Cats or dogs?

DOGS

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

A Clown, undoubtedly.

50 Favourite book?

This is a hard question. In the end, I’m going with ‘In Praise of Plants’ by Francis Halle. A very thoughtful discourse on the relationship between form and function… with intermittent cartoons.

51 Have you ever been on TV?

Actually, yeah, lots of times. My dad is a photographer for the local news station in my hometown, so as a kid I was always showing up in stories. Not so much anymore, of course.

52 Have you ever been arrested?

Nope.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

I’ve only sung ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’. *(At an extremely rural Country Music bar surrounded by citrus groves in Florida. People started going pretty crazy and whooping.)

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

Presumably.

I also got killed by a posessed person:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=43941934

(11:23)

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

Coffee: thick-black, brewed with a pinch of cinnamon. Tea in the afternoons.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?

Well, at one point I was living the fundementals of West Coast hippie / Neobeat fellow. Though that will probably always stick with me, I kinda live the ‘Turn Of Last Century Gang’ lifestyle now. There will always be a very dense ember of Who-derived Mod in my heart as well.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

Honestly, I haven’t had many bad jobs. I guess I’m lucky, there. But it’d have to be my first, working at a pizza place.

58 What’s brown and sticky?

Maple syrup. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

Two extinct, one extant:

#1. This Eric Carle style Uroburos (green, against a plain white background as in the ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’) would eat itself until it was just a ball, and then ‘Pop!’ would disappear and start all over again. (Stopped around age six or seven.)

#2. Irritating Baseball Dream – Basically the ball would come and I’d try to hit it, but it would impossibly curve around the bat at the last second. However, before it got to the catchers glove, I’d reverse time, ‘unswinging’ the bat, and rewinding the ball back about 20 feet, then try again. I always missed. This one was where I started to realize I had conscious control over things in my dreams. It doesn’t work like in real life, of course. (Became infrequent around age 14 or 15.)

#3. Teeth falling out! I’m still having this one. My teeth are loose, or I’m picking at them, and they just keep falling out. GAD! I think this is probably a remnant from when this actually (sort of) happened to me in the Great Plains. Picking at one of my molars and half of it cracked out. The size of a pea. WHOA. No pain, no nothing… didn’t see a dentist for 5 months. Apparently it was cracked from when they put in the original filling.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

I think I’m up to 13 with KINGTIME, but there should be some good archival releases coming up soon. (I’m pretty excited, actually.)

I have a lot of favorites for a lot of different reasons. I listen to ‘Short Score’s Album’ the most, but I think my overall favorite is ‘Simon Piler and The Atom Band’.

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

Australia, Nepal, Peru, Great Britain, and Ireland are all high on my list right now. I’d like to spend some time in the Midwest, again, too. The shores of Lake Superior or exploring Chicago.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

Lenticular.

63 Favourite line from a song?

Well, my favorite lyrics are probably to Phish’s ‘Train Song’. But it’s a story, so the lines all depend on each other for their might.

Otherwise,

“If I had a pair of eyes on the back of my head for each time

You forgot to think of all the things you forgot to talk about when you took a bite out of my spine,

I would have a lot of eyes on the other side, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t that just be fine.”

- They Might Be Giants, Letterbox

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

A few local bluegrass jammers.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

Muddy Waters – singing

Roscoe Holcomb – banjo (instead of guitar, though he played both) and harmony vocals

John Entwistle – bass

Steven Drozd – drums

Page McConnell – keyboards and effects

66 Favourite cover art?

From the album Billy Breathes.

67 Early bird or night owl?

Very much an early bird, actually.

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

Lust.

69 Three words people use to describe you?

Odd bearded kid.

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

Listen to a song.

71 Do you support any sports teams?

Well, hell, I’m from Wisconsin! Obviously the Packers! (Even though I don’t watch TV. Nor know who they are playing any given week. Nor know if they won or lost when they are done playing. Or care what their record is, except I like them to win because if they don’t everyone I know back home is really depressed for 18 to 24 hours.) Despite all these wimpy things, my blood still runs Green and Gold. It’s hereditary.

71 What do you want for Christmas?

Bopcrons.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

ACK! How about ‘Burnt Trees Dead Leaves’. Second only to ‘Let’s Start A Country’, which is the song that really got me hooked on DG.

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

I like to make curries and Cuban food. And sourdough.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

My childhood neighborhood; how sunny it was, getting feet stained by Black Walnut rinds, stealing green apples from the neighbor’s house. A large row of lilacs. The peeling yellow paint on the duplex. Rabbits in the two-story cedar.

75 How do you go about writing a song?

This is another hard question, but I’ll give it a shot.

It’s sort of a multi-stage process. Right now, I’m in the ‘accumulation’ stage, where I get myself pretty weird by sitting around and aimlessly staring off into space / surfing the web. (Not much difference, is there?) Then just trying to improvise at the right times and in the right sonic spaces to get music to pop out. Sometimes it’s just ‘record as much as you can’, sometimes it’s ‘wait for a melody’. Sleep deprivation, caffiene, fapping marathons, theatrics, thistle-walking, getting lost in nature, observing stuff, and stretching are all methods I use to culture creative spaces.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

Dogmer.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

“Relax.”

78 Do you smoke?

Not anymore… A wily case of pneumonia sorta took all the fun out of it.

79 Tell us a joke?

A skeleton walks into a bar; orders a beer and a mop.

80 Pick a card, any card?

Jack of Spades.

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

What is space?

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

I’d meet my great-grandad. On his farm in Racine, WI, sometime around 1935 or so.

83 Favourite philosopher?

Fa-tsang and his hall of mirrors.

84 Do you have any pets?

Not right now; I don’t feel like I could take care of a dog properly.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

Why, yes. As a matter of fact, I love climbing mountains! Mmmmmmmmountain….

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

I’m a low-rung sound scientist. I mostly do data-analysis and repair equipment.

And, it’s a seasonal gig, so next month, WHO KNOWS???

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

Bog branches bloomin’.

88 Favourite poet?

It’s a tie between Gary Snyder and Jalal ad-D?n Rumi.

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

Do you mean to say, ‘What wouldn’t I do even if offered a million dollars to do it?’ Rape someone. I can’t think of anything more horrible or gross.

90 Adrenalin junky?

Not in the least. Though I used to do Wildland Firefighting, though, which is typically the choice-sport for Adrenaline Junkies.

91 What bands have you been in?

Something About Pirates

Hamiltonian Circuit

Chime Collective

Bloom (short lived, but awesome – backing group for Raka Bandyo. We also played as ambiance music for the areal dance troupe, ‘Cycropia’.)

Unnamed Fantasy-Metal Folk Band (Oh, well… so dense with potential that it collapsed inwards on itself. The roots of The Atom Band, really.)

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

I probably got the most enjoyment out of the original Half-Life – multiplayer mode. As kids we’d ride our bikes to the university library and install it on their computers so we could have up to 10 playing at a time.

Runner-up: The Incredible Machine.

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

Well, a 4-track, but my microphone’s quarter inch cable is wacky. So, right now, I just use my computer. I also use my MP3 player’s built-in microphone – it’s great for field recordings.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?

Pere Ubu.

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

Audrey Hepburn? No, really she was just the cutest person the history of the world.

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

Lemur & Dog. It would make something very fast and awesome. But maybe a little scary, too.

97 What kind of drunk are you?

That’d be Sleepy/Pensive.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

Peter Gabriel. The 1980 one with his melting face. (I grew up as a little kid with that album. Like 5 or 6 years old and jumping-on-the-couch-dancing songs and not understanding a crumb of the political nor social sides of the album. I don’t think we listened to ‘Family Snapshot’ then, but we did listen to ‘Games Without Frontiers’ and ‘Biko’ a LOT. I really did learn about political prisoners from Peter Gabriel. And a lot about western gluttony and waste to boot. And assassination. And police brutality. And war and anarchism and apartheid… Yow.)

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

Well, I’m going to try to get the best of my older records up on CLLCT. And mayyybe (with a little help from my friends, see) organize a ‘Best of Simon Piler’ disc, too. I’m in the good part of ‘the lull’… brewing up new moods and musics. Dreamin’ a bunch.

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

http://www.myspace.com/simonpiler

http://www.cllct.com/art/simonpiler

http://theuticaflowercompany.wordpress.com/ship/cabin-5/

Just some guy…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?
I’d have to make a mix-tape of all my favourite DG songs… sad, but true

2 Who is your favourite artist?
Let’s put Jackson Pollock and Tracey Emin in a ring and have them slog it out.

3 Favourite chord?
C

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?
Can Santa Claus fart the colours of a rainbow?

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?
The good guys

6 Favourite fiction writer?
Kerouac’s not fiction is he? So I guess I’d have to say Dostoyevsky. With Hunter S Thompson a close second (pending a drugs test).

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
Paul Burnout on Bobby Fig Mint’s shoulders with one of those big jackets on (that’s one), Davyd Betchkal (two), Kris Baranovic (three), Becky Nosiara (four), Jon Fink with Hannah McLean in his pocket (five), and Tim Schram via live satellite link-up (just to keep the chain-saw at bay once the drinks start flowing).

8 What pisses you off?
Political apathy, little people with big umbrellas hogging the pavement, impatient people in queues virtually butt-fucking you, fascism racism homophobia, pretty much everything on my television, the Americanization of the UK’s workplace (brainstorming, process charts, and team-building… fuck off!), ghost-hunters and psychic charlatans, not being able to smoke… I’ll stop there. I’m getting pissed off just listing them.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
The Sometimes Song or Marvin The Mollusk

10 One wish – what would it be?
World peace every time

11 Favourite band?
The Stone Roses

12 3 websites worth checking out?

http://www.cozyhomerecords.com

http://www.cllct.com

http://theuticaflowercompany.wordpress.com

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?
The Stone Roses (Fools Gold cover), a Dali print, and Juliette Lewis with her mouth open

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?
Writing the “Moon-Mission” dialogue with Simon Piler

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?
Sitar or glock

16 Preferred mode of travel?
On foot

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?
Neutral Milk Hotel ‘Ghost’
The Wheelies ‘The Boy Who Ate The World’
Warchalking ‘Diving Bell’
The Orange Drop ‘Fuck I’m A Rolling Stone’
Handwithlegs ‘Stumped’

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?
Snowballz

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?
I have never been to a good gig – Brian Jonestown Massacre was okay, so I guess it wins by default

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
Maria McKee ‘Show Me Heaven’ is pretty fucking bad

21 Favourite drink?
Tea, coffee, diet coke

22 Drug of choice?
There was a time I would have said ‘LSD’, but nowadays it’s the slightly less psychedelic double combo of caffeine and nicotine.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
Something busy. A weasel maybe.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?
Communist Red

25 Are you good at any sports?
I think I’m good at pretty much any sport. Except rugby. I fucking hate rugby. I grew up in a family of people who play sport with no real books and no real music, so that stuff is in my genes – it’s just that I choose to ignore it.

26 Last book you read?
‘How To Write A Novel’ – research to work out how not to write a novel.

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?
Shit this life is relentless, where are my glasses, and fuck I need a cigarette.

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?
I love my life, oh shit here comes another idea, and fuck I need another cigarette.

29 Describe your music in three words?
Glad it’s over

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
Someone who lives close enough to go to a Real Burnouts gig

31 Favourite comedian?
Bill Hicks

32 What colour is your front door?
Brown with seagull poop

33 Favourite film?
Life Aquatic

34 A quote that stuck in your head?
‘All life is a circle, therefore it is the going there, not the getting there that counts’

35 Favourite subject at school?
English or Art

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?
That guy from “American Pie” apparently

37 What music makes you want to dance?
Madchester

38 What should they write on your gravestone?
Write what you want, it’s not like I’ll be around to notice

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
Dylan couldn’t even answer that one

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?
15

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?
Some guy and his “multi-coloured boabey” silhouetted against a square orange moon

42 Favourite smell?
Petrol

43 Favourite sound?
The sea

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?
Depends how drunk I am – sober I’d go for swings, drunk I’d stagger in the direction of the climbing frame

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?
Back to John again

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?
Ah too many. Click the links under The Utica Flower Company on the right…

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?
The one with the little fat kid on the rollercoaster always make me laugh

48 Cats or dogs?
Spiders

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?
Plate spinner

50 Favourite book?
Jack Kerouac’s ‘Selected Letters’

51 Have you ever been on TV?
Once, aged 15 talking about sex

52 Have you ever been arrested?
No, but I’ve made some spectacular getaways

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?
I sang “Common People” in a working man’s pub once. It just about started a riot. The only other one I’ll do is “Venus In Furs” just to lighten the mood.

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?
I’ve seen Ghostbusters about a thousand times

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?
Intravenously fed to me via a drip for 18 hours a day. Black or white, as long as there’s plenty of sugar. Tea in the evenings.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?
Geeknik

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?
Call centres just about killed me.

58 What’s brown and sticky?
Oh come on, it’s a stick of course…

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?
One weird one where I’m moving into a new house. There is always some kind of tunnel or old door I discover that leads into the depths of the building where there is a secret theatre and stage that nobody knows about. And then I wake up.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?
21 I think. Probably between “I Do Not Currently Own A Spaniard (Mine Died)” and “Tigermouse”

61 Where in the world would you like to go?
Back to my cloud coffin

62 Favourite kind of cloud?
Ones that meander across the sky and look a little like something else ever changing

63 Favourite line from a song?
‘I want to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free silhouetted by the sea circled by the circus sands with all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves may I forget about today until tomorrow’

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?
Scottish folk. Sad old men in bars.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)
Jane Gilmore, Bobby Rogan, Jon of the Atom, Paul Burnout, Simon Piler on sound effects and choreography

66 Favourite cover art?
I like the early Stone Roses singles

67 Early bird or night owl?
Twit twoo

68 Which of the seven sins are you?
Sloth… just show me the branch and I’ll mooch around on it all day dreaming stuff up.

69 Three words people use to describe you?
Full of shit

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?
Probably try and catch up on some sleep

71 Do you support any sports teams?
Arabs

71 What do you want for Christmas?
A sackful of time and a Utica Flower Company t-shirt

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?
How can I possibly choose? The two most played tracks on my iPod are The New Wave Dirt ‘Ghost in a Photograph’, and Becky N ‘Autopilot’.

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?
With bolts of lightning and everything.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?
Going to the hospital to see my little brother when I was two. I remember eating all the grapes that we’d brought my Mum and washing my feet in a little pool in case of verrucas. No wait, that sounds like the swimming pool. I’m confused. Why would I be eating grapes at a swimming pool?

75 How do you go about writing a song?
Fumble around in search of a melody. Then desperately write some words down at the last minute on the back of scrap paper for something to sing.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
Just some guy in glasses.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?
To cure hiccups: breathe in REALLY slowly until your lungs are full, hold your breath for as long as possible, and breathe out REALLY slowly. Not so easy when drunk.

78 Do you smoke?
I’m trying not to. But I’m going to go for one now.

79 Tell us a joke?
See Q58.

80 Pick a card, any card?
The 8 of Diamonds

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?
‘Smally, where exactly are you going with this?’

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?
First live reading of Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’

83 Favourite philosopher?
Although I don’t particularly dig the content, I like where Spinoza was coming from. And old Santa Marx obviously.

84 Do you have any pets?
Not since our pet rock ‘Bibby’ got swept out to sea.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?
Quite a few. I love the pointlessness of it and the feeling of being so exhausted above the clouds that you can’t even be arsed to appreciate the view when you get there. I also like diving around in untouched snow fields up them while singing Beatles songs.

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?
Daydream at the window

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?
Where to begin?

88 Favourite poet?
Bob Dylan

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?
Too many things to list here

90 Adrenalin junky?
Ahahahaha… it’s a much more meaningful form of adrenalin that I’m into.

91 What bands have you been in?
Fade, The Wheelies, Kaleidonauts, The Painted Shuts, The Utica Flower Company, Dead Canaries

92 Favourite board game/computer game?
RISK/ProEvo

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.
Crap mic, crap pc, free software, and crap headphones

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
The Scottish Dad from ‘So I Married An Axe Murderer’

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?
Assuming Tracey is still standing after the Pollock fight, she’d be back in the ring against Nico.

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?
A fox and a duck. It would be called a dox.

97 What kind of drunk are you?
Argumentative, mischievous, and clumsy. A terrible combination.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?
The Stone Roses s/t on a bus in Belgium

99 What are your musical plans for the future?
Keep the mic firmly locked in the attic

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

http://theuticaflowercompany.wordpress.com

The one and only Becky N…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

Crooked Rain Crooked Rain – Pavement. I will NEVER get sick of this.

2 Who is your favourite artist?

Too many! Miranda July. Kim Gordon. Greg Spalenka. Nate Lowman!

3 Favourite chord?

Dmin7 at the moment. At least I think it’s that, I’m not too good with notation.

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

Wow, he just proved himself out of existence! : )

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

Politicians are evil.

6 Favourite fiction writer?

Iain Banks, in both his incarnations. And Philip Pullman, always. And Jeff Noon, Vurt was fucking brilliant.

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

Janet Weiss, Carrie Brownstein and Corinne Tucker, Spike Jonze, and Allen Ginsberg.

8 What pisses you off?

People berating me about my generation having a bad work ethic. And then asking if I’ve got a job or a boyfriend. How about, no, no and fuck off.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

Smells Like Teen Spirit. I got totally ripped off.

10 One wish – what would it be?

I wish for a flying carpet piloted by David Bowie.

11 Favourite band?

It changes all the time of course, but I just saw Blitzen Trapper and they were killer.

12 3 websites worth checking out?

jigsawunderground.blogspot.com/ Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill’s blog/zine thing. It’s awesome.

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

Erm…blink…182….

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

Almost every day, I find a lot of things really, really funny. Maybe it was when my brother and I invented ‘I can’t believe it’s not Crandley’ (a Ukrainian desert my Nana makes only at Easter)

Yeah, it’s still pretty funny.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

Musical saw.

16 Preferred mode of travel?

Bike. And a normal one, not a motorbike (although, I wish!)

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

King Of Carrot Flowers Part 2&3 – Neutral Milk Hotel
Love A Loser – The Raincoats
Rollercoaster – Sleater-Kinney
Chimney – Grand Salvo
Colours and the Kids – Cat Power

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

Snowballssssssss

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks HANDS DOWN. They even beat Radiohead at V fest. Which I never would have thought possible, but it happened.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

I think I’ve had enough shame for one day.

21 Favourite drink?

Apple and mango juice.

22 Drug of choice?

If I wrote that on the internet I could get in trouble. On an unrelated note, baked beans are the best food ever. Would you pass me some, Lucy? Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were busy in the sky with those diamonds you found.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

A jellyfish. No bones.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

Tramjanglorange.

25 Are you good at any sports?

Can the pope fly?

26 Last book you read?

Zeitoun – Dave Eggers. It was really good.

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

‘Oh, I was dreaming about seeing Bridezilla in concert because they were on my radio alarm. That makes sense. And is it 1pm already?’

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

‘Mmm I love my bed.’

29 Describe your music in three words?

Lo-fi, acoustic, quiet

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

An astronaut.

31 Favourite comedian?

Bill Bailey!

32 What colour is your front door?

Pale green.

33 Favourite film?

Gah too hard. Mister Lonely, Stranger than Fiction, or Fight Club!

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

God is dead. – Nietzsche. That’s not really long enough to be a quote, but it’s the only one I remember from anyone. Also something about uber-mensch and everyone else being idiots. What a dude.

35 Favourite subject at school?

English.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

Chloe Sevigny, if I was really lucky and she was desperate and broke.

37 What music makes you want to dance?

I dance to everything, no exceptions Mozart. You thought you were off the hook.

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

‘GET OFF ME’

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

How about less testosterone fuelled masculinity tests and more chilling out about the whole thing?

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

I was born writing songs. I came out holding a guitar. My mum was like FUUUUCKK

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

An Okapi at the zoo. I thought it was a pokemon or something.

42 Favourite smell?

New inside of a car.

43 Favourite sound?

Maracas.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

I always think it’s roundabout but it’s a lot scarier than it looks.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

Ringo. And mainly because of Thomas the Tank Engine.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

http://www.myspace.com/arrowsfromthesunmusic

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

CRISPIN IS MY HERO

48 Cats or dogs?

Both. I love both equally. And I really don’t understand ‘dog people’ who hate cats. How can you hate cats? It’s a whole species! And they’re so cool.

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

Acrobat, in my dreams. I would have to get over my fear of both heights and going upside down.

50 Favourite book?

I’m going to say Northern Lights. But that’s really hard.

51 Have you ever been on TV?

Don’t think so. Unless my paranoia is reality and I’m in the Truman Show.

52 Have you ever been arrested?

No, yay.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

If I was drunk enough, probably Creep. Or Whichever Radiohead song they had. But I’ve never done real karaoke.

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

Does Geshe-La count?

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

With soy milk and no sugar, please. And if you only have dairy I’ll have it black.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?

Do you mean gang like the crips? Or one of those? I’m confused. I’m a bit of all of those. But not enough of any of them.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

Waitressing at a crap café. Boring.

58 What’s brown and sticky?

My face

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

People I know dying in front of me, realistically.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

Meh.

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

Iceland! And Portland, Oregon.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

The ones that storm at the beach and look like the apocalypse.

63 Favourite line from a song?

‘I’ve got a leaf…and a spleef
Yeah, like that spleef
God bless that spleef in my mouth
Or should I say Jah baby’ – Haunt You Down

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

There’s an insane amount of bands in Melbourne.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

Elvis singing, Obama on guitar, Flea on bass, Barbara Streissand on drums and that guy from the Mars Volta dancing.

66 Favourite cover art?

Biffy Clyro – The Vertigo Of Bliss

67 Early bird or night owl?

The second one

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

Haha, gluttony. And sloth. Combined to make a super-sin.

69 Three words people use to describe you?

Unemployed, tall, arts student

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

Panic and smash some windows.

71 Do you support any sports teams?

Stop talking about sport

71 What do you want for Christmas?

A beard

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

Don’t make me choose! And how could I, there are so many, including people who aren’t doing it anymore. Everything Fig Mints, Jane Gilmore, Warchalking…

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

Hells yes. If it’s noodles or pasta related. Or cake. That’s about it.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

Walking to the hospital with my Nana when my brother was born. I was three.

75 How do you go about writing a song?

I go bleeeuuurrghhhh and it all comes out.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

That’s the money shot!

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

Stop being such a depressive wanker

78 Do you smoke?

Ye-no.

79 Tell us a joke?

The only one I can remember is truly, truly horrible and I shant repeat it. And yes, it’s about dead babies.

80 Pick a card, any card?

Erm…ace of clubs.

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

‘What’s the plan for when you’ve finished uni?’

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

Medieval England.

83 Favourite philosopher?

Sartre and De Beauvoir.

84 Do you have any pets?

A sometimes dog called Kanuka. He’s the best dog ever. But we just look after him, he doesn’t belong to us.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

Totally. In Utah I was walking up this mountain in a knee length skirt, and it was barely a hike, like one of those tourist walks, and this guy walks past me in the other direction in full mountaineering gear and says ‘Nice hiking skirt.’ I was like dude…sigh.
And in Canada I did one of those bad ass all day mountain walks where it’s sunny and hot at the bottom, and then it’s snowy at the top and you have to trek it across ice in converses. Maybe I should wear proper clothes.

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

Professional moocher.

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

Manic depression, smiley face psychosis.

88 Favourite poet?

Sylvia Plath.

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

Lick a poo. Or let someone vomit into my mouth.

90 Adrenalin junky?

No…adrenalin makes me nervous and clumsy.

91 What bands have you been in?

Not too many with names, I just realised.

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

I said enough shame! Board game’s a toss up between Talisman for nostalgia and Battlelore because it’s easy and fun. Computer is Fallout 3 in recent times, but Monkey Island 3 for all time.

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

Laptop, preamp, mic. Audacity.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
Harvey Milk, even though he was a real person too.

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

Gael Garcia Bernal. No question.

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

A starfish with the head of a pidgeon.

97 What kind of drunk are you?

The kind who makes jokes and then laughs at them really loudly.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

OK Computer I think. And then Surfer Rosa in quick succession.

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

Get some gigs for my crazy gyspy trip-hop band, start a noise band with my housemate. Basically do as much as I possibly can get away with while pretending to care about careers and stuff.

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

Just the myspace and daydream.

Is he a cat? Is he a man? Is he the reincarnation of Hendrix only white and from Peterborough? Well let’s find out…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

Axis as Bold as Love

2 Who is your favourite artist?

Jimi Hendrix

3 Favourite chord?

I don’t know it’s name!

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

Nope… god IS the rock man!, yes sir.

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

Labour when they got in to power…

6 Favourite fiction writer?

Tolkein

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

Peter Sellars, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Casey, William Blake, Robert Anton Wilson.

8 What pisses you off?

90% of the human race!

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

My last one

10 One wish – what would it be?

End needless pain.

11 Favourite band?

Jesus And Marychain

12 3 websites worth checking out?

http://www.b3ta.com/

http://www.rathergood.co.uk/

http://www.gilmourish.com/

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

Led Zepelin swan song poster… (the same one above Donny Darko‘s bed).

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

Watching a Billy Connelly DVD.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

Banjo.

16 Preferred mode of travel?

Astral.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

I don’t have one.

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

Snowgirls.

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

Super Furry Animals at The Forum.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

The Monkees.

21 Favourite drink?

Tea.

22 Drug of choice?

Hash cakes.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

A sloth.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

Black with bright red flecks.

25 Are you good at any sports?

Yes.

26 Last book you read?

A Scanner Darkly.

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

Shit, got to go to work.

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

I just empty my mind really.

29 Describe your music in three words?

Melodic swamp trash.

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

Boris Johnston.

31 Favourite comedian?

Jack Black.

32 What colour is your front door?

White.

33 Favourite film?

The Matrix

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

None

35 Favourite subject at school?

Art.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

Sylvester Stallone.

37 What music makes you want to dance?

Loud dirty rock.

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

Here lies…

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

Too many.

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

14

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

A man who was wearing a homemade wig… it was unbelievably bad.

42 Favourite smell?

Toast.

43 Favourite sound?

Breaking glass.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

Swings are good.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

Lennon.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

My old drummer was in Mesh 29… They had a top 40 single.

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqC2URQstz4

48 Cats or dogs?

A catdog (see question 96)

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

Acrobat.

50 Favourite book?

Lord Of The Rings.

51 Have you ever been on TV?

No.

52 Have you ever been arrested?

Almost.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

Only The Lonely

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

Sort of.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

Tea.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what

gang would you be in?

Beatnik.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

My current job.

58 What’s brown and sticky?

Toffee.

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

No.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

One… Tulk…. Err, Tulk!

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

Poland.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

Cumulous nimbus.

63 Favourite line from a song?

I gave my heart to a starship trooper.

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

Crap.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

Van Morrison (when he was 20‘ish), Hendrix, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood.

66 Favourite cover art?

Atom Heart Mother

67 Early bird or night owl?

Night Owl

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

Greed

69 Three words people use to describe you?

Funny, Eccentric, Ecclectic

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

Take a deep breath.

71 Do you support any sports teams?

No.

71 What do you want for Christmas?

A new brain.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

Quite a few… probably “Dinosaurs”

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

I have good days and bad days.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

The sound of laughter.

75 How do you go about writing a song?

Lyrics, then music.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

Two cold dead eyes.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

Don’t worry be happy.

78 Do you smoke?

No.

79 Tell us a joke?

Knock Knock. Who’s there?… A Jehovah witness.

80 Pick a card, any card?

Ace of Spades.

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

That one

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

Woodstock or the isle of white festival, yes sir.

83 Favourite philosopher?

None.

84 Do you have any pets?

A fish.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

I’ve climbed a mountain in my soul, man.

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

Work in a warehouse.

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

Some minor issues maybe, but otherwise tip top.

88 Favourite poet?

Larkin.

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

A lot of things.

90 Adrenalin junky?

Nahh, I like keeping it safe.

91 What bands have you been in?

Rattlestone, Skinny Ginger…

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

Rayman…

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

Small mixer, monitors, a few mikes, an old PC and lots of effects pedals.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?

Frodo.

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

Betty Page.

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

Cat and a dod… catdog.

97 What kind of drunk are you?

A happy/depressive drunk.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

“Honeys Dead” by The Jesus And Maychain.

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

We’ll see..

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

Nope.

If you think it was easy tracking down this guy and his puppet, then think again.

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

copious maximus

2 Who is your favourite artist?

duane hanson

3 Favourite chord?

C-E-G

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

god can do anything it wants to

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

one of em

6 Favourite fiction writer?

anyone who writes for the observer dispatch

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

andy warhol, george washington, syd barrett, smally, wayne coyne

8 What pisses you off?

bits and bytes

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

listen inside maybe? i don’t know i don’t play favorites

10 One wish – what would it be?

to know when i was going to die

11 Favourite band?

the monkees

12 3 websites worth checking out?

i’m sure there are plenty of them

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

mental block

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

daily

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

drums

16 Preferred mode of travel?

walking

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

hmm, is there a way to put cassette tapes on shuffle?

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

definitely not snowballs

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

maybe thurston moore trio?

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

i’m proud of all of my embarrassments

21 Favourite drink?

utica club, magic hat #9, newcastle, whiskey sour

22 Drug of choice?

love

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

spider

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

green

25 Are you good at any sports?

frisbee

26 Last book you read?

13th floor elevators bio

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

what the fuck happened last night?

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

i’m not going to remember this tomorrow

29 Describe your music in three words?

mediocre, lo-fi, delicious

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

bill worden

31 Favourite comedian?

showalter

32 What colour is your front door?

brown. used to be green

33 Favourite film?

head?

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

35 Favourite subject at school?

recess

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

daniel radcliff

37 What music makes you want to dance?

afrobeat

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

i’m with stupid

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

40 or 50 years worth of roads, could just be the same one

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

probably when i was 16, a side project of trashcan acid called the myoclonics.

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

curtains blowing in the breeze while the window was closed

42 Favourite smell?

clean air, grill

43 Favourite sound?

thunder

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

chute

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

john

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

bobby of fig mints of your imagination, jon of jon fink, rob of october terminus, tim of handwithlegs

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_TqlaZsWPA

48 Cats or dogs?

cats

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

he guy who tortures the animals

50 Favourite book?

where’s waldo

51 Have you ever been on TV?

yes, mova tv which was local television wackiness

52 Have you ever been arrested?

no, but probably should have been several times

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

anything by ray parker jr

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

hmmm, weird segway, but no.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

with milk and sugar shock

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?

i’d be in the badass hippie beatnik gang

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

my current one

58 What’s brown and sticky?

dog shit flavored chewing gum

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

yes, one where i am about to be run over by a train but wait up just before it hits every time.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

last count 14, maybe 15. they’re like my children, i hate all of them equally.

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

liverpool

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

pot smoke

63 Favourite line from a song?

“you better find yourself a worlder baby” (?) – mouse and the traps

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

its shaken when stirred and cries itself to sleep everynight

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

dean wareham, jimmy page, paul mccartney, hal blaine, vivian stanshall
66 Favourite cover art?

67 Early bird or night owl?

night owl

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

vanity

69 Three words people use to describe you?

handsome, super-intelligent, operable

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

smash all my clocks and turn on npr

71 Do you support any sports teams?

the giants of new york and the devils of new jersey

71 What do you want for Christmas?

cash

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

be right where you belong

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

only when i discreetly order in

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

the last thing i thought of

75 How do you go about writing a song?

no set way, it dictates its own way

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

myself, or something else at an angle

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

“its not what you know, its who you know.”

78 Do you smoke?

questionably

79 Tell us a joke?

80 Pick a card, any card?

visa

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

this one

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

london 1967

83 Favourite philosopher?

rob levy

84 Do you have any pets?

sort of, but i’m more their pet i think

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

no i drive around them

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

i’m a two bit can jockey

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

nope, all sunny in here

88 Favourite poet?

ol dirty bastard

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

i wouldn’t do that

90 Adrenalin junky?

not really

91 What bands have you been in?

oh lord, short list: benards freek star, trashcan acid, avant audiophiles, myoclonics, chrome ghosts, the pipecleaner’s dick, the electric chairs, painted shuts, etc..

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

always been fond of chess

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

tascam 8 track mixed to sony minidisk, then burned to cd on awai audio cd burner for masters and uploading

94 A character you love from a book or a film?

ferris bueller

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

the sphinx

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

i don’t know, but when it barks, you listen

97 What kind of drunk are you?

the best

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

the monkees first album, followed by piper at the gates of dawn, and trout mask replica

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

figure i’ll figure something out

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

www.therealburnouts.com
www.myspace.com/therealburnouts
www.cozyhomerecords.com

Into the psychedelic workings of the mind behind The Red Plastic Buddha…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

I think I’d bring something from Ravi Shankar. Indian time signatures mystify me and I think the challenge of it would keep it fresh.

2 Who is your favourite artist?

Syd Barrett forever.

3 Favourite chord?

Bm

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

To my understanding, God is not static, and therefore cannot be challenged by a logic exercise that is itself static. God is growing constantly, and so the rock would have to grow as well. This rock that grows suggests a living thing, so therefore it is not really a rock, but the anti-force part of God. Our goal as little spiritual hominids is to break free of the power of our own anti-force. We do this by recognizing that it exists, and by acknowledging that we have inside of us our own personal destruction. This knowledge actually empowers us to overcome the anti-force.

Sorry, but I really like this kind of question. .

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

A young local guy called Barack Obama. I’m not entirely happy with the result.

6 Favourite fiction writer?

No way do I just give one. Sherman Alexie, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, Jack Keroac, Milan Kundera, Patrick MacGrath, Roddy Doyle.

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

Groucho Marx, W.C. Fields, Marilyn Monroe, Richard Feineman, and Jacques Cousteau. Marilyn would be the bait and all the guys would try to out-clever each other to win her over. What a party.

8 What pisses you off?

Cruelty, selfishness, ignorance and fear.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

I’m rather fond of ‘Seahorse’. I have to really concentrate when I sing it so that I don’t blubber. It’s going to be released next December on an EP of the same name.

10 One wish – what would it be?

That the human race would undergo a massive, all at once, spiritual evolution.

11 Favourite band?

The Asteroid # 4 from Philly. Fucking brilliant.

12 3 websites worth checking out?

I spend too much time on these:

www.gigposters.com

www.pandora.com

www.lastfm.com

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

When I was a teenager, I’m pretty sure those were called cave paintings.

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

When I went camping with friends last month.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

Probably keyboards. There’s so much there.

16 Preferred mode of travel?

Car.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

I don’t own an iPod.

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

Sledging. Is that like sledding, but with big heavy hammers? That would kick ass!
19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

Arthur Lee & Love comes to mind, followed by Pere Ubu & John Cale. I got to have dinner with Roky Erickson after a show a few years ago. That was very unique.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

Flock of Seagulls Greatest Hits.

21 Favourite drink?

I’m addicted to Pepsi.

22 Drug of choice?

chocolate

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

I’d be a hyena. They’re tough, wise, versatile, scruffy, curious, adaptable, clever, stubborn and surprisingly sweet. They look like they were made from the leftovers of all the other animals. Plus, no matter how hard things get, they’re always laughing.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

The color of water.

25 Are you good at any sports?

I study aikido, but that’s not really a sport. I can be competitive in most sports that are played on dry land. I swim like a rock though.

26 Last book you read?

Trancending Madness by Chogyam Trungpa

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

There’s NO WAY it’s time to get up yet.

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

I wish it weren’t so late.

29 Describe your music in three words?

Melody driven psychedelia

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

I’m only good at being me. If I were someone else for just a day, I’d probably get them in a lot of trouble.

31 Favourite comedian?

Bill Cosby

32 What colour is your front door?

Pink

33 Favourite film?

Amelie

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

“We must do that which we fear” – Eleanor Roosevelt.

35 Favourite subject at school?

Biology, history, political science.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

I think that Bill Nye would make an excellent me.

37 What music makes you want to dance?

Ramones

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

Dig this

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

Depends on the road, depends on the man.

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

I didn’t start playing music until I was 30. I think I started writing songs a few months later after I joined my first band.

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

I saw a guy at a baseball game once who had a fully articulated vagina growing out of his back. Even had pubic hair. Could not for the life of me figure out WHY he would have taken his shirt off in public. Perhaps he hoped to make a friend.

42 Favourite smell?

It’s a toss up between bacon, bread or coffee.

43 Favourite sound?

Robins singing in the very early morning hours. Wind in the trees. That phased-out sound the surf makes when you’re laying right down in it. Pick slides on guitar. Engines on the old muscle cars of the late 60s. Pam talking to the pets.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

LOL. On my playground we called them swings, merry-go-round, slides and monkey bars. In the park of my youth, there was a huge slide they put up in the summer, and we would carry our bikes to the top and ride them down. What a reckless pack of dimwits we were.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

John or George.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

Check out Constantine & The Emperors for Donovan-esque psychedelia or The Pralines for folkie roots rock.

http://www.myspace.com/constantineandtheemperors

http://www.myspace.com/thepralines

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

Yes, The Red Plastic Buddha performing ‘Forget me Not’. Go HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnhBNPnEx48

48 Cats or dogs?

Can’t choose. Love them both.

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

Either ringmaster or human cannonball.

50 Favourite book?

The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac

51 Have you ever been on TV?

Yep.

52 Have you ever been arrested?

Not officially, but I’ve been in the backseat of many police cars.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

I used to go to karaoke with my first band after every practice, so we could get comfortable singing in front of people. I would always do the Bryan Ferry version of Jealous Guy. The girls really liked that. Haven’t been to karaoke in many years.

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

Maybe. Saw a shadow move between gravestones when I was a youngster in a cemetery. Couldn’t catch it though.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

Coffee is more convenient here – black, please. But tea with sugar and milk is wonderful.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?

I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m a psychedelic punk rocker from Mars. But if there were other psychedelic punk rockers from Mars, I wouldn’t fit in with them either.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

My current one. Selling seafood to criminals, idiots and assholes.

58 What’s brown and sticky?

Rooster poop.

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

I used to dream that I was riding a horse and a soldier I took for dead jumped up and speared me. Had that dream a number of times. Never got a good look at the bastard though. Now I don’t get enough sleep to dream.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

I’ve played on or produced seven so far, but I’m working on three currently. My favorite was the debut from The Red Plastic Buddha – Sunflower Sessions. But I think our next one is going to be much better.

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

India

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

Cumulo ning nong hannapan. Ok, I made that up. Don’t remember the names of clouds.

63 Favourite line from a song?

‘your dolls house darkness/ old perfume and fairy stories / held me high on clouds of sunlight / floating by’ from Matilda Mother – Syd’s Pink Floyd. What great imagery!

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

It works for some people, but not for me. Chicago is a big city, and everyone on tour passes through here. So booking agents have a glut of willing talent. As result, you get lots of crappy bills where bands don’t match up well. I’ve had success in building my own little scene though with some excellent local bands. We’ve even been able to work with a few touring national acts that got in a bind (High Dials come to mind) Hoping to do more Psychedelic Saturday showcases when we’re done with the studio.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

Arthur Lee on vocals, Syd Barrett on guitar, Bruce Foxton on bass, Ringo Starr on drums and Robyn Hitchcock as the utility infielder.

66 Favourite cover art?

I couldn’t choose a favorite.

67 Early bird or night owl?

Kind of a late afternoon sparrow actually.

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

Pride, but I envy sloth.

69 Three words people use to describe you?

Fearless. Smart. Funny.

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

Hug my wife until I can’t feel her anymore.

71 Do you support any sports teams?

Any Chicago team except the White Sox.

71 What do you want for Christmas?

Gummi Bears.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

The Hoa Hoas. Went to their label and bought their CD.

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

I mostly cook on the grill, these days. Tomorrow, I’m grilling wild salmon with terriyaki and lime.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

Being in my crib while my mom was away, watching my father rocking himself to sleep while supposedly keeping an eye on me.

75 How do you go about writing a song?

I just write down what I hear in my head. It’s usually a vocal line with melody – just falls together. If I don’t write it down, it transforms into something else. They keep coming back until I make them actual songs.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

My father, except it looks like he’s trying to be a rock star. Silly man.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

No one does anything alone. Remember to say THANK YOU every day.

78 Do you smoke?

No.

79 Tell us a joke?

A guy dies and finds himself face to face with Satan. Naturally, he’s shaking in his boots. Satan sees him and says with a big smile ‘hey man, welcome to hell’. ‘I can see that you’re scared, but don’t worry, you’ll like it here. Hell is GREAT!’

The guy’s not buying it, so Satan asks ‘tell me, did you like to gamble in life?’
Timidly the guy answers ‘yes’.
‘Well you’re going to LOVE it here on Mondays. We’re playing cards, slots, dice, whatever you like to bet on, WE’RE DOING IT. You keep your winnings, it’s great!’
The guy seems a little relieved. Satan continues, ‘Tell me, did you like to drink in life?’
A little more confidently, the guy answers ‘yeah’.

Satan says ‘That’s GREAT! You’re going to LOVE it here on Tuesdays! All day long it’s an open bar – you can have anything you want, as much as you want and it’s ALL FREE!!!’

The guy is feeling better still. So Satan asks ‘Tell me, did you enjoy drugs in life?’ The guy answers ‘hell yeah!’ Satan claps his hands and says ‘That’s GREAT!!! Wednesday is drug day. Anything you want: pot, pills, acid, heroin, you name it – it’s YOURS! You’ll be so high, you can tell God to kiss your ass’

By now the guy is feeling good. Satan asks ‘Tell me, were you a homosexual in life?’ The guy shakes his head and says ‘no’.

Satan shrugs his shoulders and says ‘well, you’re not going to like it here for the rest of the week.”

80 Pick a card, any card?

joker

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

“Why do you want this job?”

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

Christ’s crucifixion. I think he could have used some real mates to lend a hand.

83 Favourite philosopher?

Buddha.

84 Do you have any pets?

Five cats, one big-headed dog and a rooster.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

Yes.

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

Sell seafood to shit-heads.

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

I’m on a first-name basis with most of my demons.

88 Favourite poet?

Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

Hurt an innocent.

90 Adrenalin junky?

Still way more adventurous than most, but I’m slowing down.

91 What bands have you been in?

Eleven 20 Nine, Sub Rosa, Larry O Dean & The Fumble Bunnies, The Me Decade, Hop on Pop, The Pralines, The Red Plastic Buddha (currently)

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

Chess.

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

We’ve got some sort of mini-disc multi-track Tascam thingie down in the basement. I’ve never used it. I just don’t have time to master all the details of home recording. I prefer to leave some things to the experts.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?

Sidney Carton (Tale of Two Cities)

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

Not sure, but I know she’s smart, wears her hair in bangs, looks great in fishnet stockings and is most likely French. It’s probably for the best that we’ve never met.

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

Baboons and eagles. I want my own flock of flying monkeys.

97 What kind of drunk are you?

A retired one. I used to be a happy, amorous one.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

I remember wearing out a 7” of The Kinks’ Lola.

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

The Red Plastic Buddha are currently tracking two CDs to be released in June and December of 2010. Also producing the next CD for The Pralines. There’s a better than good chance that I may start a label at some point next year.

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

http://www.myspace.com/redplasticbuddha

http://www.auntiefashions.com

Somebody somewhere give that man a record deal!

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?
- I suppose, ‘Pet Sounds’… In case you were wondering, my top 5 are, in order, ‘Pet Sounds’, ‘Sgt. Pepper’, ‘VU & Nico’, ‘Troutmask Replica’, ‘Forever Changes’. Obvious, I know, but they’re obvious for a reason.

2 Who is your favourite artist?
- Francis Bacon, when his work was good, it was amazing. I’d like to write a song about it some day. I can imagine it sounding like Scott Walker’s last couple of records.

3 Favourite chord?
- There are a couple of things I’ve made up which unfortunately, I’m fond enough of to include in half my songs. Not out of choice, my brain is just wired to hear certain things next. Of the obvious chords, I like 9ths. I try not to use them too much because they make everything sound too jazzy. But when you use them once in a while, especially if you use (for example) an A major 9th with a big thick E over the top… it sounds great. On piano I like C, you can let your mind wander and just go off in a drone.

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?
- A certainly hope so!

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?
- Green, I don’t care all that much, I just wanted to go as left as possible because there was alot of talk about the BNP.

6 Favourite fiction writer?
- I don’t read much fiction, I don’t feel like I’m learning anything. I really enjoyed Tom Wolfe’s ‘Electric Kool Aid Acid Tests’ (of course!) which is partially fiction.

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
- John, Paul, Brian, Don, George (H or M)

8 What pisses you off?
- Oh, so much. Not sleeping, it really bugs me.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
- It’s really hard to say. Because recordings never end up as you hoped they would, you can write a song and think “Christ, I’ve really done it here” and the recording just sounds flat and nothingy. By the same token, you can write a song which sounds pretty average and the recording works out really well (which is what happened with my latest song ‘Sally’s Yard’. I’m quite proud of it now that it’s recorded).

10 One wish – what would it be?
- Just a soundproof room with enough space for my stuff. Maybe with a mellotron and a couple of ribbon mics.

11 Favourite band?
- The Beatles, I can’t imagine ever giving a different answer.

12 3 websites worth checking out?
- www.myspace.com/thefallingfloors (obviously), Captain Beefheart’s wikipedia page (I check it every day with a lump in my throat half expecting it to say “1941 – 2009″), and www.lego.com

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?
- Alot of Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss and stuff like that.

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?
- My girlfriend managed to go her entire life thinking that Chupa Chups were called Chub Chubs.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?
- I’d really like to be able to play flute.

16 Preferred mode of travel?
- I hate cars, I freak out on the motorway. Trains or planes I don’t mind, because any time one of them crashes you hear about it on the news, but cars crash every day.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?
- I don’t have one. I write most songs while walking, and that can’t happen with iPods.

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?
- Both!

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?
- Jonathan Richman, I never wanted it to end.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
- Paul McCartney’s song for Rupert the Bear, the sleeve is horrendous.

21 Favourite drink?
- Kahlua.

22 Drug of choice?
- Meth under the eyelids.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
- A ruff.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?
- Brown lipstick.

25 Are you good at any sports?
- None.

26 Last book you read?
- Revolution in the Head, I keep coming back to it as a reference guide.

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?
- Oh, Paul McCartney.

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?
- Oh, Paul McCartney.

29 Describe your music in three words?
- Could be better/worse (I can’t decide).

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
- Paul McCartney.

31 Favourite comedian?
- Mitch Hedberg.

32 What colour is your front door?
- Clear.

33 Favourite film?
- Duck Soup.

34 A quote that stuck in your head?
- “That woman had a fish for a head!” “Well that’s her problem”

35 Favourite subject at school?
- Art.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?
- Bill Murray.

37 What music makes you want to dance?
- ‘Only Seventeen’ by the Beattlettes.

38 What should they write on your gravestone?
- As long as it’s in neon I don’t care.

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
- Just that one that cuts through Hulme near the Job Centre. I made it once, but I had to get the bus back.

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?
- I wrote my first song in junior school. All I remember is that I drew a picture of the Eiffel Tower at the top of the notation page, and I have no idea what I wrote because I can barely even read tab now. Maybe it was like John Cage or something.

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?
- An old queen.

42 Favourite smell?
- Certain plastics.

43 Favourite sound?
- Someone else using a hair dryer, a vacuum cleaner in the next room, standing near the extractor fan at night. Those big warm mechanical sounds.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?
- Climbing frame.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?
- Paul McCartney!

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?
- www.myspace.com/oldkingmusic

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?
- Search ‘Falling Floors Nexus’.

48 Cats or dogs?
- Cats.

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?
- I’d play the calliope.

50 Favourite book?
- ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ by Brian Wilson.

51 Have you ever been on TV?
- I certainly hope not.

52 Have you ever been arrested?
- No.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?
- I always wanted to do ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’.

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?
- I thought I did when I was a kid, he was stood on top of a house.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?
- Strong, with a couple of sugars. I get headaches if I don’t drink enough coffee.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?
- I’m Psychedelicate!

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?
- Working behind a bar. It’s like working in a bookshop, except when someone pays for a book, you have to write it yourself, quickly, and write it well. And the customer is drunk.

58 What’s brown and sticky?
- Brown lipstick!

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?
- I used to, about elephants and a mountain.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?
- That all depends on what you mean by ‘released’…

61 Where in the world would you like to go?
- I love Paris, if I could speak French I’d go back there and never return.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?
- Lemonaide.

63 Favourite line from a song?
- “Fur is wonderful, fur’s not leather, furthermore I love you furever!”

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?
- I don’t see much of it. I suppose it’s much the same as it is anywhere.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)
- Scott Walker, Jacques Dutronc, Paul McCartney, Hal Blaine, Alan Hawkshaw.

66 Favourite cover art?
- All the Philips Twen records.

67 Early bird or night owl?
- Owl.

68 Which of the seven sins are you?
- Omega 3.

69 Three words people use to describe you?
- Could be better/worse (I can’t decide).

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?
- Listen to ‘Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End’. I think I’d have time.

71 Do you support any sports teams?
- None.

71 What do you want for Christmas?
- Money to put out a record. Or a record deal.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?
- I really liked The Hoborchestra track at the start of DG6.

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?
- Toast.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?
- Losing a balloon.

75 How do you go about writing a song?
- Wait for it to happen.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
- A grey-haired old man staring back at me.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?
- “Just try a little bit”

78 Do you smoke?
- Do you joke?

79 Tell us a joke?
- Tell us a smoke?

80 Pick a card, any card?
- I’m sick of cards.

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?
- “How much do you think you’ve earned?”

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?
- 1960, to see what it was like when music existed for a decade.

83 Favourite philosopher?
- Is there a non-pretentious answer to this? No, I don’t think so. I guess I’ll say Satre, it’s more relevent than Plato or anything.

84 Do you have any pets?
- George is at my parent’s house.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?
- Not physically.

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?
- I work in a bookshop called Magma and I DJ at a bar called Big Hands.

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?
- I hope not.

88 Favourite poet?
- Leonard Cohen I guess.

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?
- What WOULDN’T I do more like!

90 Adrenalin junky?
- Not even slightly.

91 What bands have you been in?
- I was in a couple in college, then I was a group called Horse Hair, we released a 3″ CD and a tape, both in paisley fabric. You can hear it at www.myspace.com/hosehairhorsehair

92 Favourite board game/computer game?
- Shithead.

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.
- A few shit microphones, an old 70′s desk, a digital multitrack (because I usually play everything myself), then I mix it down to 1/4″ tape on a TEAC A-3340S.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
- Roberto Benigni’s character in Down By Law.
95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?
- Serge Gainsbourg.
96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?
- A human and an animal. It would make a humanimal I suppose.
97 What kind of drunk are you?
- Changes every time.
98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?
- I guess, ‘Rated R’ when I was 12. It had a pretty all-encompassing impact on me at the time.
99 What are your musical plans for the future?
- Definately keep on making records, maybe never play live ever again.
100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?
- I mentioned it already. www.myspace.com/thefallingfloors

And now we boldly go where even the brave dare not tread – the marvellous mind of Jon Fink…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life
- what would it be?
hmm, my desert island disc collection. Duh

2 Who is your favourite artist?
Hundertwasser and Robert Parke harisson

3 Favourite chord?
B7

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?
No, G-man O.D. can impress all the chicks, he has every growing
muscles and tiny hands to be able to still pick a flower or two!

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?
The one with the lever

6 Favourite fiction writer?
Scott Tompson
7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
Sitting Bull, 16 year old Jesus, barely legal Betty Davis, Howard
Hughes, and 66 Brian Wilson

8 What pisses you off?
Being walked into. Or hit by cars, is a new thing that pisses me
off. I also don’t like when people try to hand me a flier about being
green, and then I say no, and then they fallow me to my bike telling
me if i go i can win a bike, then i say fuck off, and they start
yelling at me.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
Something, still don’t believe it

10 One wish – what would it be?
Time travel, or power of machineless flight

11 Favourite band?
Dick Scabby and the Yeast Infections.

12 3 websites worth checking out?
http://www.dacapomusicexchange.com/ (the old site was better, but the pictures are still there)

http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2009/02/20/diagnosis-donald-duck-suffers-from-ptsd/

http://www.old-picture.com/indians/Indian-Costume.htm

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?
It was a Pearl Jam Vitalogy poster of a side show act with a guy who had a snake rapped around him. I might have bought that at the first real rock concert i went to.

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?
hmm, can’t say i know

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?
Piano like Scott Joplin and Beethoven piano sonatas

16 Preferred mode of travel?
Bicycle, or dream

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?
1. It’s the Best Thing For you-Alexander Spence
2. Nobody’s Fault but My Own-beck
3. I’m Yours, You’re Mine – Morphine
4. Force Field-Beck
5. Weed Green Yard-The October Terminus

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?
Sledging?

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?
Ween played for 6 hours one night. It was like a party that Ween
played. They were talking to the crowd and giving out cigs and beer.
Then, a show I played with Meghan Geiss and Sgt Dunbar. When we
played, it was a house party, I was sure that the goal was to break
through the floor. I was excited and nervous it would happen.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
Avril

21 Favourite drink?
Coca Cola

22 Drug of choice?
I guess its caffeine, or sprouts.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
Panther, or a tiger. Or a human

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?
I am a blue, I’d like to be a green

25 Are you good at any sports?
hj?

26 Last book you read?
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I am reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat right now.

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?
Not again

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?
not again

29 Describe your music in three words?
Dustbowl surf rock

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
Someone with a big private boat on the ocean

31 Favourite comedian?
Brian Regan, mitch hedberg, Louis C.K.

32 What colour is your front door?
hmm, grrreean?

33 Favourite film?
Ed Wood

34 A quote that stuck in your head?
You have your ROAD bike one the side WALK -Jonathan Fink

35 Favourite subject at school?
History

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?
The one that is one film away from suicide

37 What music makes you want to dance?
Off the Wall-Michael Jackson

38 What should they write on your gravestone?
Like a bird on a wire

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
6

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?
6 years old

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?
A rubber band, I saw a needle wink it’s eye

42 Favourite smell?
so many smells to keep life going. Coffee, bbq, vagina

43 Favourite sound?
well played clarinets

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?
Chute or climbing frame

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?
Paul (fuck you all, John was an asshole too)

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?
Real Burnoutsd, October Terminus.

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=B1IME451NDY&feature=player_embedded

48 Cats or dogs?
Cats

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?
One armed carnie

50 Favourite book?
dr. seuss oh the places you’ll go

51 Have you ever been on TV?
unfortunately

52 Have you ever been arrested?
unfortunately

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?
My Way-Elvis

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?
Seen 1, heard another

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?
Latte or Oolong tea

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label
yourself, what gang would you be in?
Punk, Mod, Beatnik

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?
Making pizza’s at a childrens pizza restaurant. Employees stole food all the time and I would have to remake it. The boss was a cunt, he never did a thing

58 What’s brown and sticky?
Sugar Daddy

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?
I had one once

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?
10ish, Something Else by Dead Canaries

61 Where in the world would you like to go?
Spain, New Zealand , to bed

62 Favourite kind of cloud?
clouds that look like giant breasts full of milk

63 Favourite line from a song?
and she likes to go down on me and I like to go down on her too.

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?
I dont see it, but it has zydeco in it

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)
Steven Small, Luke Human, me, Meghan Geiss, Katie Saul

66 Favourite cover art?
The original idea for I Do Not Currently Own a Spaniard, or the one we used

67 Early bird or night owl?
Early Bird

68 Which of the seven sins are you?
Probably Envy

69 Three words people use to describe you?
Piece of blank

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?
I have always wanted to get hit by a bus full of unsuspecting little kids.

71 Do you support any sports teams?
nope

71 What do you want for Christmas?
A wooden clarinet

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?
Like Brownish Skies-Fig mints

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?
Yup

74 What’s the first thing you remember?
bad stuff, bad wall paper, fake laughs

75 How do you go about writing a song?
It sort of just happens

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
It always changed. I don’t believe it

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?
Dont fuck with me punk!

78 Do you smoke?
nope

79 Tell us a joke?
A guy goes to a halloween party with out a shirt, socks, shoes, or a hat. The host says you need a costume, the guest says, I have one,
the host asks, What are you? He responds, I am a premature
ejaculation, I came in my pants! BAZING!

80 Pick a card, any card?
this one

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?
Dad?

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?
France, 1780

83 Favourite philosopher?
Marx. Being in the Southern U.S. I felt like saying Jesus. I took a
class in the north, and the teacher was a priest, and we talked about
Jesus, and he said Jesus was just copying everyone else of the time,
and nothing special. So Jesus

84 Do you have any pets?
Louis, Fry, and Beck. There are songs about all of them

85 Ever climbed a mountain?
In a car

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?
Nothing

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?
Dysthymia at this point

88 Favourite poet?
Leonard Cohen

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?
can’t say, sure could use that money right now

90 Adrenalin junky?
Arnold Layne-I needed a piece for my Halloween costume. It was fun

91 What bands have you been in?
Ages of Green, Fun with Boxes, The New Wave Dirt, Dead Canaries, Kaleidonauts, Hoborchestra

92 Favourite board game/computer game?
Monopoly

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.
Mbox Protools and reason. Couple mics and a digital hand held stereo Tascam

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
Nancy Clutter

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?
Napoleon, or Cleopatra

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they
be? And what would it make?
Don’t mix the colors, I like them that way.

97 What kind of drunk are you?
angry

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?
Thriller by Michael Jackson is the reason I am who I am.

99 What are your musical plans for the future?
shhhh

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?
myspace.com/deadcanaires
cozyhomerecords.com

Fasten your seatbelts, it’s the chainsaw-wielding Godfather of Lo-Fi and the man who made this all technologically possible, pulling the computer strings behind The Daydream Generation, Cozy Home Records, Transatmopheric, and many others. Also he makes a beautiful racket himself with projects like HANDWITHLEGS, and again, many others… it’s THE Tim Schram.

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?
-It would have to be a mix

2 Who is your favourite artist?
-Justin Broadrick
3 Favourite chord?
-Any

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?
-Yes, he enjoys toying with us apparently

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?
-Obama
6 Favourite fiction writer?
-Philip K Dick

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
-Philip K Dick, Carl Sagan, Arthur C Clark, Isacc Asimov and Jesus

8 What pisses you off?
-Callousness
9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
-Couldn’t say

10 One wish – what would it be?
-That the world be invaded by extraterrestrials
11 Favourite band?
-4 way tie between Tom Waits, Gangstarr, the Melvins and Justin Broadrick

12 3 websites worth checking out?
-www.cozyhomerecords.com / www.mixedtape.us / www.doihaveswineflu.org/

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?
-Godflesh/Helmet/Skinny Puppy/Gangstarr/Beck/Dead Kennedys

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?
-The last time I was visiting Paul Burnout, Arthur Rules & Bobby Rogan were there too. I have pictures

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?
-Piano

16 Preferred mode of travel?
-Train

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?
1. Mission of Burma – SSL 83 (from The Sound The Speed The Light)
2. Clint Mansell – 3 Year Stretch (from MOON o.s.t)
3. Three Mile Pilot – Year of No Light (from Another Desert, Another Sea)
4. Hal Blaine – Hallucinations (from Psychedelic Percussion)
5. Zach Hill – Dark Art (from Astrological Straits)

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?
- I assume you mean sledding,
19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?
- Melvins, this past september, as part of my drunken bachelor party

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
- Im not embarrassed by any
21 Favourite drink?
-Jameson & Water on the rocks
22 Drug of choice?
- the Weed

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
-And elephant

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?
- #81b176
25 Are you good at any sports?
-No, but I enjoy frisbee

26 Last book you read?
-Podkayne of Mars, Robert Heinlein

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?
-”I really wish I didnt have arthritis at 30″

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?
- Traveling through Space, did I lock the doors?

29 Describe your music in three words?
Creepy, Percussive, Reverb

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
-Rush Limbaugh, and I’d kill myself
31 Favourite comedian?
-George Carlin

32 What colour is your front door?
-Green
33 Favourite film?
-Blade Runner

34 A quote that stuck in your head?
-blank

35 Favourite subject at school?
-Architectural Drawing

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?
-I truly dont know

37 What music makes you want to dance?
-60 garage rock
38 What should they write on your gravestone?
-”DEAD”

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
-37

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?
-Age 16

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?
- http://www.urlesque.com/2009/09/22/glamourpuss-the-enchanting-world-of-kitty-wigs/
42 Favourite smell?
- Popcorn
43 Favourite sound?
- An empty steel dumpster

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?
- I’m guessing a climbing frame is your way of saying a Jungle Jim?

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?
-Never really listened to them (I know, I know)

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?
-THE REAL FUCKING BURNOUTS www.therealburnouts.com

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?
-Maybe not the world, but my clients: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

48 Cats or dogs?
-Cats
49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?
-A clown drummer
50 Favourite book?
- Childhoods End, Arthur C Clark

51 Have you ever been on TV?
-Yes

52 Have you ever been arrested?
-Yes, 3 times

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?
-None. I dislike karaoke

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?
-I dont believe in them

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?
-A cup of black tea, then an iced coffe

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?
-Punk Asshole

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?
- Personal Assistant

58 What’s brown and sticky?
-Glue

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?
-All of my dreams that I can recall are always nightmares

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?
-Wow, released or recorded? 19 Albums are available to the public. Probably near 100 recorded

61 Where in the world would you like to go?
-Australia

62 Favourite kind of cloud?
-Sparse ones

63 Favourite line from a song?
- “I got a gun the size of a black hole, I shoot planets” RZA (it’s all about the delivery, not my favorite, but the 1st one that came to mind)

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?
-I live in the country, so there is NO scene, but I work in NYC, so I get my fill of whatever I want

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)
-All clones of myself, I think we’d work great together
66 Favourite cover art?
-Ministry “Filth Pig” always cracks me up

67 Early bird or night owl?
-Both, depends on the day

68 Which of the seven sins are you?
-None

69 Three words people use to describe you?
-When I asked, I was told “Shut Up”

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?
-A drink, a smoke and a kiss from my wife

71 Do you support any sports teams?
-Katie Burnouts’ Roller Derby team

71 What do you want for Christmas?
-My garage to be sheet-rocked

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?
-Kind of cheating, since I played on it, but THE DROWNED COMMITTEE “She Says”

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?
-If I try

74 What’s the first thing you remember?
-Riding in the back of my mothers chevy nova in 1983, laughing hysterically

75 How do you go about writing a song?
-Most of the time, I record the beats and then make up the rest

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
-An Angel (wink wink)

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?
-”You can do anything”
78 Do you smoke?
-I am trying to quit, down to one a day…

79 Tell us a joke?
-This is the only joke i ever remember & I’ve told it thousands of times: “A skeleton walks into a bar, he orders a beer, and a mop”

80 Pick a card, any card?
-I dont play cards

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?
-”What do I smell like?”

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?
-To see some motherfuckin dinosaurs
83 Favourite philosopher?
-None

84 Do you have any pets?
-A very obese cat named Rejinald, he has AIDS and he like to brush his teeth (seriously, ask Bobby)

85 Ever climbed a mountain?
-Yup

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?
-I am an Interactive Designer at a large media company in NYC

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?
-Who knows
88 Favourite poet?
-Not a big fan of poetry

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?
-Kill a baby
90 Adrenalin junky?
-Sometimes

91 What bands have you been in?
-More than 10

92 Favourite board game/computer game?
-Risk

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.
- 24″ imac w/ Cubase Studio Pro, Alesis FW 16, akai MPD controller, studiophile B monitors, two drumsets plus triggers, 3 drum machines 12 toy keyboards, a room full of percussion stuff, a bunch of sheet metal, 9 condenser mics, my friends bass & guitars & amps, a 2000 watt PA, 1987 roland JUNO, a tons of stuff really…

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
-Wall-E

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?
-Who knows

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?
-An elephant & a bat. It would be an elebat.

97 What kind of drunk are you?
-silly & rambunctious
98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?
-Beck, Stereopathetic Soul Manure

99 What are your musical plans for the future?
-To never ever stop playing music

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?
-Go to www.timschram.com, links to a bunch of my sites are there
- Show quoted text -

Ladies and gentlemen… the one and only Syd Lane.

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?
Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

2 Who is your favourite artist?
Brian Wilson

3 Favourite chord?
D minor

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?
Maybe Goddess can.

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?
I don’t vote. I don’t trust in or approve of the government, and I think politicians are dangerous. They’re all on the same team anyway, the supposed different parties are there just to make the proles feel comfortable and to project the illusion of choice and democracy.

6 Favourite fiction writer?
Hakuri Murakami

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
Elliott Smith, Bob Dylan, Ian Curtis, Neil Young, and Beethoven

8 What pisses you off?
How sassy everyone is now. How it’s cool to be dumb. That no one knows what music is anymore, and that history keeps repeating itself and we never learn. That drugs and sex are illegal. That we spend trillions of dollars on weapons every year, when we could take that money and use it to feed, clothe, and home every single human on the planet – not ONE person left out… But we don’t.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
Astride A Grave from my latest record It Begins In Beauty

10 One wish – what would it be?
That Jer and I could be American Indians hundreds of years before the white people landed. We’d live in Canada, in un-touched nature, life would be difficult but pure and beautiful. We wouldn’t know the meaning of posessions or money and greed.

11 Favourite band?
The Beach Boys

12 3 websites worth checking out?

http://www.myspace.com/chansonsdegeste

http://www.myspace.com/theloadedwhispers

http://pupe.ameba.jp

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?
Hanson! Lots and lots of posters of Hanson.

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?
Last night, after I figured out that the way to deal with difficult people is pure unadulterated psychedelia.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?
I could learn and play any instrument, it’s only a matter of whether they’re available to me or not. But the next instrument I’d like to learn is Cello.

16 Preferred mode of travel?
Train. Trains all the way. They travel at the perfect speed, you have room to walk around, and you can see the countryside. Boats are my absolute favourite mode of travel, but unfortunately I don’t live on the water anymore.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?
Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon And Garfunkel
See My Friends – The Kinks
Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks
Christines Tune – The Flying Burritto Brothers

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?
Tobogganing

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?
Mercury Rev in Waterford when I got to open for them.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
I’m not embarassed by any music I’ve liked. There was a reason at the time I liked it, and I don’t subscribe to any rules of coolness.

21 Favourite drink?
Shirley Temple with a maraschino cherry. A few maraschino cherries actually.

22 Drug of choice?
Marijuana.

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
A snow leopard.

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?
Black.

25 Are you good at any sports?
Yes, I’m athletic.

26 Last book you read?
Charles Chaplins autobiography.

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?
Why am I an insomniac who can never sleep, why do I never feel rested?

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?
Will I be able to sleep tonight, or will I lay here all night thinking of all the things I want to be doing until it’s morning and I have to get up.

29 Describe your music in three words?
Genius, Truthful, Emotional

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
I’d be the president of The United States (who is really, let’s face it, the president of the world)… I’d disban the government, bring all the troops home, end the war, and use all the money to make sure every single person in the world was fed, sheltered, and understood, thus abolishing the resentments which are a great factor in causing wars in the first place.

31 Favourite comedian?
Bill Hicks

32 What colour is your front door?
Mahogany

33 Favourite film?
Buffalo 66

34 A quote that stuck in your head?
You’re all people softened by the false reflection of loss

35 Favourite subject at school?
Art, everything else was intolerable for me. School is a state sponsored manufacturer of echoes.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?
Gene Tierney would play me, she’s the only one precocious enough.

37 What music makes you want to dance?
N.E.R.D

38 What should they write on your gravestone?
I want to be cremated, and my ashes thrown to the wind, I don’t want to be pickled, boxed up, and buried underground. Though if I were to be buried, I’d want to be buried naturally, just buried naked so my body could actually go back to the earth. In that case, I still wouldn’t have a headstone. Bury me under a tree so I can nourish it.

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
I’d call a man a man when he is able to be completely emotionally honest.

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?
5 years ago.

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?
I’m having a difficult time choosing, because there have been so many weird things… But I’ll say, the father-daughter and mother-son dances in American high schools. When I moved there, and everyone was getting so excited about it, I thought it must be a joke. It wasn’t.

42 Favourite smell?
Pho

43 Favourite sound?
Grand Piano, in a large hall

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?
Climbing Frame AND swings

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?
Argh, I really cannot choose. Paul and John write the most consistantly brilliant songs, but Georges solo record is the best of the bunch, and Ringo is so clever and witty. Can’t choose.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?
I don’t have any friends.

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?
I really don’t know.

48 Cats or dogs?
Cats, all the way. Dogs are too needy, too willing to please. I like a challenge.

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?
I’d be a gymnist/acrobatic type person

50 Favourite book?
The complete collection of Emily Dickinsons poems.

51 Have you ever been on TV?
Yes, when I was eight and I won a music scholarship from the Toronto Conservatory of Music for Piano. It was a competition held every year, a music festival, and I won the overall category.

52 Have you ever been arrested?
No, although I break the law every day in more than one way.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?
I can’t stand karaoke!! It’s not fun to me to listen to people who can’t sing and the whole thing is just too camp and happy for me.

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?
No, but I’ve heard a ghost. My sister and I were sitting under the dining room table singing Disney songs… we were singing “whistle while you work” but we couldn’t do the whistling part, so we were humming it… The next time we came to “Whistle while you work” there was a clear and loud whistle in the tune of the song. We were alone in the house, and when we heard that we both looked at each other and my sister started crying. A minute later, I ventured out to see if anyone was there but they weren’t. My oupa was an avid whistler, and it was probably him. When I told my ouma, she got mad at me and thought I was lying.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?
I prefer a wee cup of hot chocolate.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?
I don’t fit into any labels, even if I wanted to. I’m a freak who freaks out the freaks.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?
Working for PayPal, answering phones in the disputes department. I lost my faith in humanity at that time, with the way customers calling in would treat me. It was the first time anyone ever said “Fuck You” to me, and it was horribly upsetting.

58 What’s brown and sticky?
Marijuana resin

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?
I used to, but not anymore. I used to dream I followed a little cat to a hole in the wall. I look in the hole and I see a little classroom full of little animals. The teacher (a cat) asks me to come in. I say I can’t because the door is too small. She points to a bigger door, and I come in. Once I am inside, she tells me that I can never leave this classroom again. That I am stuck there forever.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?
Six, my favourite is my most recent. It Begins In Beauty.

61 Where in the world would you like to go?
Venice.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?
Cumulus clouds

63 Favourite line from a song?
I used to care but things have changed

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?
Full of dilatantes, fakers, singer-songwriters with guitars singing the most boring songs ever.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)
I’d clone myself, and have myself playing all the instruments and singing harmony.

66 Favourite cover art?
The Best of Leonard Cohen.

67 Early bird or night owl?
Night Owl

68 Which of the seven sins are you?
Sloth. I’m sedentry as fuck. I like to stay in one spot.

69 Three words people use to describe you?
Selfish, Aloof, Ego-centric

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?
I’d start listening to Pet Sounds, and cuddle with Jer till the end.

71 Do you support any sports teams?
No.

71 What do you want for Christmas?
I hate christmas, I celebrate the winter solstice and for that I don’t have presents, we eat good food. If I did celebrate Christmas and I wanted presents, I always want more instruments… but besides that I have everything I need and more.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?
Is it wrong to choose my own? I’d choose You Kept Me Humble. If I can’t choose mine, I’d say… Grey Dawn by William Carpenter.

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?
Yes! I love to cook, and I love to eat.

74 What’s the first thing you remember?
Looking out over the water of Georgian Bay and hoping I could stay there forever.

75 How do you go about writing a song?
I don’t go about writing songs. They come to me in dreams, or when I’m in the bathtub, or any old time really. They come to me fully formed, and I merely get them out. I could never sit down and choose to write a song.

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
This is a funny question. I rarely look in the mirror, and when I do I’m not really looking at myself… Sounds strange but I don’t really associate with or acknowledge my physical appearance. I see a girl with deep dark unknowable eyes staring back at me, we stare at eachother for a moment and then I walk away.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?
It’s not happening to me, it’s happening to them.

78 Do you smoke?
Not cigarettes

79 Tell us a joke?
I don’t know any jokes

80 Pick a card, any card?
I’ll take the get out of jail free card

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?
Why I was born to the family I was born to

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?
Ahh, I sort of already answered this! See answer number 10.

83 Favourite philosopher?
Bill Hicks

84 Do you have any pets?
Yes, three cats

85 Ever climbed a mountain?
I would love to… One day man.

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?
Jer works and he pays the rent. I only do music.

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?
Oooh you’re opening a can of worms here! The way I see it, there is no such thing as a psychiatric disorder. In order for there to be disorders, one has to judge it against what is apparently normal. I don’t believe in normal. We’re all fucked up in different ways, and some ways are more socially acceptable than others.

88 Favourite poet?
Bob Dylan

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?
Write dishonest music.

90 Adrenalin junky?
Not really, I like to play it safe.

91 What bands have you been in?
I was in jazz band in highschool… Other than that, it’s always been me on my own.

92 Favourite board game/computer game?
I adore all things Nintendo, and the love affair started in the 80′s with the SNES (still have a snes, and play it on a regular basis)

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.
I use a Roland RD-700GX electric piano, a Roland KC-550 piano amp, a Fender American Telecaster, a cheap little Behringer guitar amp, a Tanglewood acoustic electric, Steinberger Street Guitar , a vintage Blade electric guitar which has been modified (not by me), a Line 6 POD X3, Cubase studio software, and an E-MU 1829 soundcard. I also use an autoharp, a melodica, a Harley Benton jazz bass, a flute, and tambourines and shakers.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
I love Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?
Leonard Cohen

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?
A cabbit. A cat and a rabbit.

97 What kind of drunk are you?
A sweet drunk. Alcohol softens me and makes me cuddly and nice, whereas when sober I am stoic, serious, and unyielding.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?
OK Computer by Radiohead

99 What are your musical plans for the future?
Keep making music as long as the muse is speaking to me, get more instruments, get vintage equipment and start recording in analog.

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

http://www.myspace.com/chansonsdegeste

http://www.myspace.com/theloadedwhispers

Next to take the 100 Question plunge is none other than Mr James Lee Redmond, Quixodelia’s finest purveyor of timeless melody…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?
The Best Of Leonard Cohen

2 Who is your favourite artist?
Don Van Vliet

3 Favourite chord?
E

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?
I’m not answering this one

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?
Rod, Jane and Freddie

6 Favourite fiction writer?
Stephen King (uncool, I know)

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Rod, Jane and Freddie

8 What pisses you off?
Wet socks

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
Dunno

10 One wish – what would it be?
Happiness

11 Favourite band?
The Ramones

12 3 websites worth checking out?
Dunno

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?
The Doors, Pink Floyd and Emile Prud Homme (check him out)

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?
Tuesday, whilst writing a song called ‘Possibly In The Pantry’.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?
Guitar

16 Preferred mode of travel?
Time machine

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?
Good Timin’ (Beach Boys) Got To Get You Into My Life (The Beatles) Under African Skies (Paul Simon) Drunk Stripper (Log Bomb)

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?
All of them

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?
The Magic Band in The Carling Academy

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
I’m not embarrassed by anything I listen to although I must admit most of it is definitely not ‘cool’

21 Favourite drink?
Coffee. The fresh stuff though, none of that freeze dried shit

22 Drug of choice?
What have you got?

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
A mole

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?
Red of course

25 Are you good at any sports?
Not particularly

26 Last book you read?
The Wolves Of The Calla by Stephen King. Book 5 in The Dark Tower Series

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?
What time is it?

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?
I’m tired, I need to go to sleep

29 Describe your music in three words?
Rod, Jane and Freddie

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
Spiderman
Bill Hicks

32 What colour is your front door?
Black

33 Favourite film?
The Graduate

34 A quote that stuck in your head?
The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

35 Favourite subject at school?
English

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?
Dolph Lundgren

37 What music makes you want to dance?
80′s Pop Music

38 What should they write on your gravestone?
I couldn’t care less

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
sixty nine

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?
as a kid

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?
Its a long story, I’ll just say Zig Zag

42 Favourite smell?
Fresh Bread

43 Favourite sound?
Bong

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?
The slide

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?
It changes, never Ringo anymore though.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?
Tramp Attack

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?
Dunno

48 Cats or dogs?
Dogs

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?
An elephant

50 Favourite book?
Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

51 Have you ever been on TV?
Yes

52 Have you ever been arrested?
Yes

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?
80′s Pop Songs

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?
Only on the telly

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?
I like my coffee fresh, half coffee, half semi-skimmed milk with two spoonfuls of demerara sugar

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?
A punk, but not with all the piercings and shit, just the attitude.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?
All of them

58 What’s brown and sticky?
A stick

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?
I have a flying one where I fly kneeling down. It’s hard to steer and I quite often get stuck up trees.

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?
Just two of my own and I love them equally.

61 Where in the world would you like to go?
New York or Tokyo

62 Favourite kind of cloud?
Nimbus

63 Favourite line from a song?
Erm..the first one

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?
Depends on what you’re into.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)
I hate this question, I’m not answering.

66 Favourite cover art?
Daniel Johnston Hi, how are you?

67 Early bird or night owl?
Night owl

68 Which of the seven sins are you?
Grumpy

69 Three words people use to describe you?
James Lee Redmond

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?
Cry my fucking eyes out!

71 Do you support any sports teams?
Yes

71 What do you want for Christmas?
Presents

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?
No, meatballs

74 What’s the first thing you remember?
My tricycle

75 How do you go about writing a song?
Dunno

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
Tired eyes

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?
Don’t watch Hollyoaks!

78 Do you smoke?
No

79 Tell us a joke?
Gordon Brown

80 Pick a card, any card?
Jack Of Hearts

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?
What’s up?

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?
1961 Liverpool

83 Favourite philosopher?
Jung

84 Do you have any pets?
No

85 Ever climbed a mountain?
Ben Nevis with my old mate Les

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?
Duck and dive

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?
Many

88 Favourite poet?
Matthew Barton

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?
Die

90 Adrenalin junky?
Just a junkie

91 What bands have you been in?
I’m not telling you

92 Favourite board game/computer game?
Streetfighter 2

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.
A shitty laptop and an SM57

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
McMurphy (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest)

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?
Adolph Hitler

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?
A hippo and a snake

97 What kind of drunk are you?
Smashed and irresponsible

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?
Future Days by Can

99 What are your musical plans for the future?
I don’t make plans

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=501491681

So before we bow out, here’s a series of interview/questions with all your favourite stars and starlets from the various Daydream Generation and Quixodelic Records projects in the last two and a half years.

Let’s get this ball a-rollin with none other than singer-songwriter-philosophizing-marine-biologist-and-baking-maestro JANE GILMORE.

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?
Blue by Joni Mitchell

2 Who is your favourite artist?
Botticelli

3 Favourite chord?
C7

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?
Yes, but he can just as easily change the nature of that rock so he can lift it.

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?
Ron Paul

6 Favourite fiction writer?
J.D. Salinger

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?
Wes Anderson, H.D. Thoreau, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Jason Schwartzman

8 What pisses you off?
Everything

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
Consensus says “Priorities” but I don’t know

10 One wish – what would it be?
Anarchism

11 Favourite band?
Simon & Garfunkel

12 3 websites worth checking out?
Nope.

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?
Mollusks and Arthropods of the Coastal United States

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?
3 days ago

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?
Djidiroo (sp?)

16 Preferred mode of travel?
Bike

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?
Jericho by Joni Mitchell, Magicfish by Birdlips, Cassandra by Bishop Allen, Helplessly Hoping by CSNY, & Long Distance Drunk by Modest Mouse

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?
Snowballs

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?
The Like Whatevers at the Loft

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar

21 Favourite drink?
Lemonade.

22 Drug of choice?
N/A

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
A sparrow

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?
Blue

25 Are you good at any sports?
no

26 Last book you read?
Crito by Plato

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?
groan

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?
The blind is still open

29 Describe your music in three words?
lo-fi, personal, bitter

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
The homeless guy that sits in the library

31 Favourite comedian?
Wanda Sykes

32 What colour is your front door?
I don’t have a front door

33 Favourite film?
The Royal Tenenbaums

34 A quote that stuck in your head?
“I came to the woods to live deliberately…”

35 Favourite subject at school?
Marine biology

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?
Thora Birch

37 What music makes you want to dance?
Fleet Foxes

38 What should they write on your gravestone?
Why didn’t you cremate me, idiots?

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
A journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?
2006-ish

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?
girls wearing high heeled shoes

42 Favourite smell?
lemons

43 Favourite sound?
birds

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?
Yeah… they aren’t called those things here. I guess the swings

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?
George

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?
The Like Whatevers

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?
Chad after Dentist

48 Cats or dogs?
Neither

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?
The Bearded lady

50 Favourite book?
Franny and Zooey

51 Have you ever been on TV?
yes

52 Have you ever been arrested?
no

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?
Blister in the Sun

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?
no

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?
milk and 2 sugars

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?
loner

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?
Babysitting

58 What’s brown and sticky?
cookie dough

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?
makeout dreams

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?
1

61 Where in the world would you like to go?
Wherever the buzz of electricity disappears

62 Favourite kind of cloud?
Cirrus

63 Favourite line from a song?
And if you shake her hard enough, she will appear, tonight I think I’ll be staying here.

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?
Pretty indie

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)
I don’t know

66 Favourite cover art?
Davy by Coconut Records

67 Early bird or night owl?
Early bird

68 Which of the seven sins are you?
Pride

69 Three words people use to describe you?
loud, cynical, funny (but only because they don’t think I’m being serious when I’m cynical)

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?
Nap

71 Do you support any sports teams?
don’t give a shit

71 What do you want for Christmas?
A bike rack

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?
Tonight you belong to me by Love Knot

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?
yes

74 What’s the first thing you remember?
going to the zoo

75 How do you go about writing a song?
the words, then the rest

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
Tired

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?
just tell them, “The answer is no”

78 Do you smoke?
no

79 Tell us a joke?
no

80 Pick a card, any card?
Ace of Spades

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?
How do you really feel?

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?
1840s

83 Favourite philosopher?
Thoreau

84 Do you have any pets?
no

85 Ever climbed a mountain?
yes, Andes

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?
Dishwasher

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?
Obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoia

88 Favourite poet?
e e cummings

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?
Everything

90 Adrenalin junky?
nope

91 What bands have you been in?
dead canaries and mine

92 Favourite board game/computer game?
n/a

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.
Cheap

94 A character you love from a book or a film?
Amelie

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?
Jeff Goldblum

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?
I would never ever do that as long as I’m me.

97 What kind of drunk are you?
I’m not one

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?
Sha Sha by Ben Kweller

99 What are your musical plans for the future?
Recording this winter

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?
Nope.

Here’s one for your summer-sun-addled minds. Looming in the wake of this year’s folklore masterpiece “Songs From Home”, Simon Piler and his merry Atom Band are back with an eponymous album recorded in the Florida springtime. Somewhere between folk and experimental, bolstered by samples and strange instrumentation, this collection of songs is  a fascinating jungle of ideas, where the thin line between dreams and reality gets rubbed out in the firey poetry of sound snapshots.

You can download it: here

I was still so wonderfully perplexed by this record after the fifteenth listen, that I figured the only way to get to the bottom of it was to virtually corner Simon and get him to explain it all as best he could. What follows is arguably the most inspiring descriptions of the inner workings behind a record that I’ve ever read. You’d be well advised to savour every word.

*********************************************

So before we begin, let’s talk titles. You previously said you weren’t sure whether this new record was going to be called ‘Heimdall’, or simply self-titled. Which is it going to be, and what is ‘Heimdall’ anyhow?

Well, it’s officially self-titled, but the front cover’s imagery is a self-portrait in the guise of the Norse god Heimdall.  Heimdall is the herald of the gods in those legends. From his celestial perch he’s capable of hearing a single leaf fall to the earth or seeing a single blade of grass move. He uses his horn, Gjallar, to mark the arrival of the gods, and to warn of danger.  However, the most notable (and ultimately final) sounding of the horn announces the ‘final destiny of the gods’, Ragnarok.  If you listen, Gjallar sounds several times throughout the album – most notably during This Too Shall Pass, Bars, and again at the reprise of This Too Shall Pass.  When it speaks, it speaks calmly, and it says, “THIS IS THE TIME.”

This Too, Shall Pass
The apocalyptic jazz opener – I really like it. It’s got this sinister soundscape behind it, rumbling electronic sounds and gathering thunder effects and this all-out vocal take. Like a lot of your recordings, it’s very lo-fi and simple – I noticed for example that it seems to be entirely in mono. Is that a conscious decision? How do you go about mixing and mastering songs?

They are indeed mono, but really that’s just the result of my recording setup – I’ve only got one audio input into my computer, and that’s where I did a good chunk of my mixing and mastering for this album.  I like to use the freeware program Audacity.  It doesn’t ‘color’ the recording as much as Garageband does, and also makes it easy to fabricate patchworks of tones.

Lyrically, it’s the complete opposite – philosophically monstrous. “This is the time for the gentle-hearted person / Do not be fooled / If you think you’re right / Please think again” – made me think about how especially in the West we are living through a time of relative physical safety, and to embrace this and make the most of it, for there will be more sinister times to come. It’s a poetic call to disarmament. What’s it really about then?

This Too Shall Pass is a song about living one short life, like you and I are both doing right now.  And you know, apocalyptic jazz just might be the appropriate epithet for this song.  The organ track is sampled from a gospel organ tape I found at a rural thrift store.  It was a very rich sounding recording, but unfortunately it was destroyed only shortly after I snatched that part.  I came up with the melody while singing in the field, pondering the ability of human beings (like us) to survive on very little.

I really do feel that there is a new hour rising, a time of conflict due to excessive waste. As a young ecologist, I am becoming aware of the struggle between an organism and it’s resources.  We are a society of indulgence, but frankly, I see an enormous number of young people (that is to say, organisms) in my generation who really do want to live simply and to tune their lives and families to their own environment.  So it is a song of readying and preparation.  A song that calls for people to stand their ground against grotesque marketing and to ready themselves for the difficult uphill struggle against their own over-consumptions.

The ‘gentle people’ of the song are the sensitive people of this time.  Sensitivity, in a sense, is part compassion and part to do with observational acuity.  I know that anger and pridefulness won’t be the vehicles of change because they cannot supply the thoughtfulness that is needed to overcome serious challenges.  I am worn out with anger.  I don’t need to speak priggishly or in a manner that makes me appear superior.  I just want to enjoy sounds or smell my food before I eat it.  I don’t want to have a TV barking commands in my home.  I want to remember my dreams.

Well, I Just Wanted To Tell You That I Like to Dance
Rolling folk instrumental with peculiar rhythms, bleeps and a cool little “Yeah!” halfway through. It’s funny, but this is the kind of track that you could easily let happen and dig, but when you actually stop to listen to it you notice so many things stacking up, and making it what it is. It sounds like a workshop of sounds – so what weirdness exactly did you put into that mix? And how does an instrumental like that form?

This song is one of my favorites on the album, probably because it came together very effortlessly, and because it is, in fact, a dance.  I’m very fond of my dances and preludes.

It’s got a good number of layers, but maybe not as many as you’d expect.  It starts with a reversed tape sample, then washing machine / bottle cap percussion, synth, guitar, $0.50 recorder, and voice.  Intermittently there are sound-sculptural elements and of course, the splendid sample of the kids shouting, “Yeah!”  I got that fromfreesound.org.  (Actually, I get some of my better samples from that site.)

I think this one started the way a lot of my songs do; that is, as a systematic rhythm in my veins.  I usually have a rhythmic idea first, then just record different synth voices or guitar improvisations on that pulse until I get something that I like. At that point, it’s only a matter of figuring out subsequent overdubs, and I’ll admit, there’s a lot of effort put into figuring out parts that aren’t too redundant.  I’m really pleased with the sound sculptures, because they let me get sounds out of my head that aren’t possible on a physical instrument.

Blue Pants, Green Shirts
More disharmonious, experimental folk with surreal visions of “sewer saints” in green shirts and blue pants. It’s not one of my favourite songs, but in the context of the whole record it’s another dimension and that’s one of the things I love most about your albums, that they go all over the place in terms of style and substance and yet the transition and feeling of the record as a whole is one of continuity. Plus this is a great example of how you have a unnerving poetic ability to just open up and go for it vocally, like sung spoken poetry. Is that a honed skill or an innate inner voice that has always been?

I’ve always been a poet, but I think that’s because I’ve always been a dreamer.  That’s not to say that I haven’t honed my skills at crafting words or tuning their metrics to music.  I was lucky to have Adam Pergament to study and practice with when I did; I do credit him as a major influence to my own poetic style.

This song deserves an explanation as well.

It’s one of the first and the clearest of the dream-songs that arose.  In order for the dream to make sense, though, I need to make a short detour:

When I was younger I came up with the story of ‘The Homeless Sewer Skaters’ - a group of drifting ascetics (a bit like whirling dervishes) that had magical ice skates they wore all the time that allowed them to skate pretty much anywhere.  They understood the magic of streetlights and when they danced, they made understandings of space into physical visions for those in attendance.  The short musical sketch for my failed play, Metropolis, details the arrival of a young man to the ultimately bureaucratic city, Metropolis, and his involvement with the Homeless Skaters.

This year (three years after the original story was formed), I had a dream that involved The Homeless Skaters again.  The images are as clear in my memory as if I had experienced them in my waking-life.  They had become a omnipresent group of roving people – and I knew almost every one of them.  Their eyes were deeply sunken, and they were all very pale, because they lived in the sewers.  People would treat them so cruelly that I had a hard time believing it.  But their new leader was so harsh and disciplined that he brought an incredible willpower to his followers. His name was David Geppinger.  He rallied the group and drilled them until they were practically a militaristic street gang.  They called themselves ‘The Sewer Saints’ and wore blue pants and green shirts.

I watched things become more and more maniacal, but when my good friends joined the order, and I couldn’t believe it.  While sitting in an airport/exposition center, I witnessed the group march in and start harassing people into doing what they wanted.  Finally, David Geppinger and his group came up to me.  I stood up, and they started to push me around.  I fell back into my chair, but instead of physically hitting it, I went right through it into this all-encompassing purplish-red glow.  I didn’t have a body or anything anymore, I just floated in this colored field.  It was at that point that I felt my hand grasp around something, and I suddenly existed again. I held my hand high, and in it was The Bolt of God!  (My phosphorescent recorder.)  I said to him with a forceful and direct energy, “David Geppinger, this is the flute that will call your death.  There is no denying this.”  There was a general murmur in the crowd and an sharpening of malicious faces among The Saints.  I remained unwrinkled.  Their faces changed when I said, “I give it to you as a gift.”

Abyss, Capable of Charm
This one’s pretty insane and for that I really like it. “As you and your friend wrestle deathly underwater in an argument over the way you’ve been living your life recently” – there’s something about that line leaps off the record. Is this a surrealist song, or is there hidden meaning in it?

This song is the second of the major dreams described in the album.

I was back at my alma mater in Madison and my good friend (and member of The Atom Band,) Brendon Hertz, was on the dock with his Father and Grandmother.  I remember it being near sunset, the sky densely pink and orange.  There was a pressing and heavy saturation of colored light on every surface I saw.

Brendon didn’t care for my current state, and he berated my inability to feel, observe and think at the same level that I had used to.  I rebuked his criticisms.  I was very sour to him.  At some point I remembered seeing (in my peripheral vision) a large seal-like creature sitting on a rock not even three meters from the dock.  It was wearing a blue athletic jersey and it just watched us with a goofy, toothy face.  I felt leery of it the entire time.  Brendon and I fell into fighting.  Almost instantaneously, we tumbled into the water – wrestling and socking each other while trying to get to the surface for air.

Something bit my leg.  It didn’t hurt, but I could tell that damn seal had sunk it’s teeth really far into my quadriceps.  I came up for a breath, and I can very clearly remember what I said to Brendon at that point.  I said, “Look.  Your Dad’s arm is orange.”  That was my argument; my logic to prove to him that I was, in fact, still trying to pay attention to the details of this life.  I think that it was probably a thin, bitter argument, but it did stick in my mind as being as real as anything I could feel in my waking-life.

From this dream I gleaned a fine thought, and probably my best while in Florida:  You are alive while you are asleep.

Where do you stand in relation to the divide between those who are content to let people “take what they want” from your art, and those who attempt to communicate precisely their experiences and ideas? Is there even a divide at all? And if you turn right can you re-enter reality as easily as you leave it?

I’ve come to accept that people who hear my music won’t be able to figure out everything exactly how I had imagined it.  But, then again, isn’t that the joy of imagination?  I really just hope that my music can stimulate people in some way or another to think, to dream, or to feel for themselves.  I write from experience almost always, but I don’t really think understanding the experience is important – just the potential that the experience could channel a vitality to people who listen.

Chicago Soul Food (The Hungry Ghost)
Meandering (possibly) improvised keyboard exploratory instrumental. Is something like this planned, or does it just happen? I mean, do you sit down and think “Okay, I need a keyboard instrumental, let’s see what I can cook up”, or are you just noodling away and think “Hey, I should record this”? It sounds to me like intermission music – like you’re sitting watching a film and three scenes in all the lights come up and this starts to play. I’ve been thinking a lot about track structure of records recently (actually it’s been a recurring theme of the last two years thanks to The Daydream Generation). How do you approach structuring a record like this, and do you have any particular philosophy about it? One of the reasons I ask is that this record gathers momentum as it goes, and it’s a very strange, maybe deliberately strange start?

Oh, you’ve nailed it.  Intermission music.  This song signals a transition in the album, notably, a dissolution from dream sequence into waking-life.  It’s supposed to be soothing after the chaos and romp of the first few tracks, especially for people who are listening as they are going to sleep.

I don’t really decide how an album is ordered until the very end – usually after I’ve recorded more than enough tracks for it.  In other words, the tracks are all recorded before I’m making decisions about their inter-album relationships.

Figuring out the order of the album is very much like composing a song.  There is always a natural sequence, and sometimes it takes a bit of rearrangement to maximize the contrast during transitions.  It’s probably my favorite part about making an album – taking my favorite recordings and puzzling them into a larger picture.  I was just reading that music has a much more diffuse meaning than speech and takes a longer time to convey that meaning.  I do know that an album is the amount of time I personally need to present a full sequence of ideas.

Big Bay
Folky rolling acoustic summer soundtrack with a great little vocal melody and faraway pulsing beats. I really love this one – it’s a side of your music that you fully expect to put in an appearance at some point and as always you don’t let those of us who love this side of what you do down. On saying that however, I get the feeling that you probably could produce a whole record of “songs” like this, but that wouldn’t be any fun for you? It has that very “American” folk feel to it, something I think that people can only authentically produce if they live and breathe the land. Are you aware of your traditional musical roots, or is that an unconscious thing? Curiously, as much as I like the politicized folk music of America, I’m not a great fan of our own Scottish folk music which generally involves singing about glens and lochs and girls with ginger hair.

I’m glad to hear that it sounds American – this song is really tied to the land that I was conceived upon.  That is, the area surrounding Tampa Bay.

My grandfather and grandmother are (were?) among the multitudes of people who flock to Florida to spend the chilly winter months.  This year, when they were only three or four hours away from their final destination, my grandpa decided to keep pushing on instead of stopping to rest.  He and my grandma ended up getting in a very serious car accident.  He ended up a with a suite of life-threatening injuries.

It was weird for me because I got the news while I was on the road to Florida myself.  When I got there, I drove straightaway to Tampa to visit him in the hospital.  Most of my time in Florida actually correlated to his subsequent (and amazing!) recovery from the accident, throughout which I ended up driving the stretch to Tampa Bay pretty regularly.

I will be honest, I think this song is about all those people that have something that shocks them into realizing how much their families or friends mean to them, and the reciprocating love that human beings can show for each other during hard times.

Whoa, waves.  (Which I have heard that lochs have.  Or sometimes ginger hairs.)

Cracker Cowboy
Haha. After all that stuff about American folk here you go with a song about a cowboy. More experimental folk – you sound vaguely Dylan-esque at times, but there’s another element to it, almost a theatrical circus sound that carries it away from where he was it. Does that make sense, and why is that?

Yes, it does make some kind of sense.  Let’s see…

Bob Dylan was from Minnesota, originally, and so I think that any resemblance I have to him is derived from two parts respect and one part locality; especially in the tonality and linguistic flair of his voice.

The circus part stems from my ridiculous love of clowns.  I know they’re very badly received by society today, and I think that largely reflects a fear of uncertainty that our age clings to.  Our ABSOLUTE UNDERSTANDING of the world in this GLOBAL AGE is mocked by the social power of the enlightened fool.  You can’t  be lost anymore.  Or amazed.

I am a clown.  I hear and feel the humors of space born of uncertainty, and I situate myself in such a way to transmit those humors into a document.  A record of time and space.  A record you may be listening to right now.

But, wait a second!  What is this circus business?  The Cracker Cowboy was actually a pictorial tribute on the wall of the (only) bar in the small Florida town I lived in.  So the song is a tribute to a tribute, I guess.

How do you go about writing a cowboy song – or any song for that matter? What I’m really asking I guess is how do you choose subject matter for lyrics, and while we’re there what are the recurring themes of the album?

Characters like The Cracker Cowboy are capable of singing through a voice of their own.  He just popped out of my head fully fledged with his silly country anthem to boot.  The tinky loop I started with was largely responsible for the end result, I think – sometimes a loop is good enough to build on, and this one was awkward and funny in an appreciable way.  Not too much substance to it, but some rather odd spaces, at least.

Let’s see, themes…  Definitely dream, and the superficial difference between dreaming and waking-life.  That gets sticky quickly, and we’re tumbling into the boundaries between myth and non-storied life.  Or death and being alive.

It is also an album about the United States of America, specifically the State of Florida.  That is a real place, amazingly.

Bird
Spoken word poem intro gives way to folky acoustic experimental soundscape, complete with possibly whale sounds (?) and whizzes. What’s “Bird” all about then?

Here’s the third big dream of the album.  If you can follow along with the words, you might recognize that Bird was an entity I met in my dreams.  She is startling because she doesn’t represent any real world analogue for me.  In a way, she’s the first person I really got to know while I was asleep.

The dream went a little like this:  Some friends and I were waiting for a special show to start in a bar-room. It was going to be spectacular; I could tell by the hum in the air.  There were supposed to be monster trucks driving on the bar, itself.  Prior to that, a poetry reading was supposed to happen.  (I guess this was the hip kind of monster truck venue…)

Bird just walked up to me and started talking.  She was all-enveloping.  From the first moment I met her, she understood me like she was reading a book – sweeping across my face with an absolutely clairvoyant gaze.  She absorbed anybody she spoke to like that.  It was weird, but I felt like I had known her for twenty years after twenty minutes.

Apparently, we were way too early for the main event, so we went for a walk down the crooked sidewalk and into a narrow, wooden building of impossible passages.  Bird could disappear and reappear through them seamlessly.

Much later on, when the monster motors were just memories in my mind, I stood in a moonlit, sandy space with my grandfather and admired a scalped old pine.  A pack of tourists were inspecting it the next morning; except they didn’t know what to make of the stringy nest stuck high in the tree.  Grandpa and I knew it was Bird’s work.

Incidentally I like it a lot – it confirms my belief that you have a natural poet-voice. Do you ever play this stuff live? I can just see you in my mind cinema hustling at spoken word events or open mic nights.

I do occasionally play live, though it’s quite rare.  Honestly, I have a great desire to assemble a physical band with complements to the Atom Band.  That would convince me to play-out with more vigor.  Making waves for people can be a serious undertaking.

Bars
This is my favourite song on the record, there’s always a point within it that makes my brain jump to attention – not a particular point in the song, just at some point I get the inevitable “Oh, what’s this one again?” feeling. Curiously it sounds like The Pixies on a folk trip with all the parts fitting perfectly – the electric guitar lines, floating recorder, tapping rhythms, and chime of bell. Vocally it’s right on the money – raw and ragged but full of fire. Where the fuck did a song like this come from?

Well, like most of us, I’ve spent far too much time in bars.  The weird thing is that I don’t even really like them.  I do like music, though, and they tend to go together.

I’m very quiet at bars.  I like to think and listen to the roar of voices in them.  I don’t drink much.  And though I can’t completely take credit for the thought, I usually liken our attraction with bars to flies congregating around sweet, sticky stuff.  From there, the progression to moths and streetlamps follows pretty clearly.

Analogously, I tend to be a drunkard-of-streetlamps at night, spinning and bouncing around between them.  I like to walk aimlessly around the backs of buildings and empty spaces.  Good thinking in those spots.

In a way, this song is a cheer or lament for all the people who are also intoxicated by streetlamps.

Extracting Sunlight From Cucumbers
It’s the comical-serious “If I was…” folk song and possibly one of the most instantly accessible things on the record. “If I was a musician I would be a singer hawking words of no interest to you / my voice sounds like it’s made out of glue (glub glub)” – that line, and the way you present it makes me grin every time I hear it. But it begs the questions: 1. Why “Extracting Sunlight From Cucumbers”? and 2. If you could be anything, anything at all, then what would you be?

1.  In Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver visits the Grand Academy of Lagado and meets a half-insane researcher who claims to have been ‘extracting sunlight from cucumbers’  for the past eight years.  It was originally intended as satire of contemporary science, I believe, but I appreciate it more as a mixture of pure dream-like mania and science.  The hilarity of some fellow meaninglessly grinding cucumbers into a pulp for eight years is splendidly hilarious to me.  Both extremely diligent andfutile.

2.  I would be an scientist and an artist.   Preferably at the same time.  Working on that.

This Too, Shall Pass
Bluesy reworking of the opening track, but blink and you might miss it. What’s the longest track you’ve ever put out on a record? And what’s your thinking about song length? Two minutes keep em hanging on for more? Epic ten minute free for alls? Or just however long the song takes?

My earlier songs were much longer – most were at least three minutes, some up to six or seven minutes long.  I think the award for the longest song on a record goes to ‘Red Truck Pulls Up’ off of One-Hundred Consecutive Lines to Dewdroplets (2004).  It’s a meandering delay-feedback experiment that clocks in at 11:33.  (“Oh wow!  This effect pedal is really cool!  Hey, now check out what this knob does…” ) Sometimes Chime experiments would feature 30-minute fluxes of song, though they were medleys of many poetic works.

These days, though, I resonate with a song that does what it needs to do in about two minutes.  I like frankness, though I often struggle to be frank.  I like my insanity highly concentrated, and honestly, I think a two minute song can seem pretty long depending on the content material.  Take ‘Chicago Soul Food’ for instance.

Light Eternal
As much as I personally love “Bars” I suspect that to your everyday man on the street, that this will be the record’s obvious stand-out song. I know the chances of your everyday man on the street finding himself in possession of a Simon Piler record is reasonably unlikely, and being your everyotherday man on a beach I don’t profess to speak on behalf of the masses – just this is what my hunches are telling me. It’s a folky lullaby to close the curtains, really beautiful poetic imagery over stripped back acoustic guitar. Is this your favourite song on the album?

In some ways, it is my favorite, yes.  It’s one of my only songs that has gotten consistent, quiet, contemplative comments from people.  Of course it’s fun to know that someone has thoughtfully enjoyed something you’ve created.  Then again, I could also say that Abyss is my favorite, though it would be for a much different reason; mainly that it is a very bizarre but excruciatingly planned song, and moreover, I think that it works in spite of all that.

I wrote Light Eternal for two non-related people.  (And interestingly, two people whom the ‘everyday person’ might not relate with.)  The first was one of my friends from Sioux Falls who has lived for many years with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia and has bounced in and out of state hospitals. He was an incredibly hardy bicyclist.  The second was a tough and likable Wisconsinite woman I knew at the same time; ultimately the only lesbian I’ve ever gotten to know well.  Both of these people had the solitary-person’s low, roving spirit.  I felt a kinship with them for that reason.

And while we’re here at the end, what did you learn from making the record? What new things did you try?

As far as learning goes, Smally, I’ve had a boom.  I think my musical voice is continuing to improve through better choices of arrangement.  This album represents another step towards consolidating my thicker, multi-voiced tracks into stylistic and ultimately meaningful pieces.  That might sound chalky, but I really do believe that in order to do something musically stunning, you either have to have strong notational skills (written composition) or a high-quality mechanism of arrangement in conjunction with a series of musical rules (improvisational composition).  And I do consider myself an improvisational musician.  Besides that, I also took a few steps in understanding relative loudness in application to sound sculpting.  Software is a powerful tool for synthesis and manipulating sounds, and I think I’m getting better at using it how I’d like to.

And ideally what would you like people to take away from it?

Take what you wish, but try listening to it as you’re falling asleep.

**(I also wanted to say, “Thank You” for making this album possible for everyday people to get ahold of. While I had the chance, you know.)

Find out more about Simon Piler and The Atom Band at: www.myspace.com/simonpiler

Presented before you, we have an interview with CYP2D6 in which he briefly reflects on the generation of his first EP, CYP2D6, and the human roots of creative mythology.

You can, of course, download CYP2D6 (and many other great albums, for that matter,) right here:

quixodelic-records

To learn more about the obscure movies referenced herein:

www.zerotrooper.com

And listen to more stellar music on his myspace page:

defmutedemute

And actually read the interview below these three little asterisk guys, here.

***

I am curious. How did CYP2D6 even occur in the first place?

I had been working on the [film] soundtrack to ‘Dark Island’ and I was getting really frustrated with it. They had really particular ideas about what they wanted. Soundtracks to horror films these days are a lot of synth pads. I like older, 80’s horror film soundtracks – they’re much more kinetic, you know?

I was using arpeggiators to keep a steady beat going, and I stumbled on a distortion effect I really liked. At that point, I didn’t even know which [percussion] instrument I was playing, I only could go by the sounds I heard. Actually, the whole [album] only took about twenty minutes to record.

It was a good change of pace to work quickly. I definitely build up things too hard and then I want to let it go or I want to destroy it.

Gosh, I always get upset when I hear about artists burning their early works.

See, I understand that, though. I totally understand that.

Ah, then again, I’m also worried my computer will die and I’ll lose everything I have on it.

(laughs) Yeah, that’s scary shit, man. Yeah, I know, I’m about to get a hard drive for my computer because I have all sorts of stuff in pieces.

Where did the name ‘CYP2D6’ come from anyway? I guess I know it’s a protein that breaks down toxins in the body…

Oh, it was always stuck in my head because of (a friend, who was incapable of making the protein) Erik Anderson, and I told so many people I was going to make CYP2D6. I told them I was going to keep it around as a glitchtronic moniker. Yeah, and so I’ve always had it in the back of my mind since I heard it and was looking for a good place to use it.

Where are you living these days?

Where am I living? Logan Square. It’s northwest of downtown [Chicago].

By bike, about 20 minutes. If you take the train, it’s about 30 minutes.

And in miles, it’s, uh, two miles? Wait, I can count this. I’m on 2600 and each block is an eighth of a mile… and downtown is, well, downtown is zero…. (silence) …I don’t know man, it sounds like two miles to me. How about three miles?

How do you go about building up the mythology of your various projects?

I think [mythology] is definitely taken from your life. [The film] Zerotrooper, at least, is cues taken from my relationship with Eric Lim.

I guess I don’t totally understand. Does your mythology overlay over your ‘real’ lives?

Yeah, it is overlaid over our real lives, I guess. But more than that, Zerotrooper F is the product of our overlapping perspectives, I feel. Perhaps that’s any collaborative art project. I know for sure, though, that Zerotrooper F is very specifically the result of that overlap. It’s something we’ve talked about for years. Since high school we’ve been making films, and we finally got around to making that specific story into film. Eric has always been this way – he creates his own universe out of pop culture that exists. And I felt that way for a long time, too, but I never really realized it until I met Eric.

Do you piece together your stories through preliminary drawings and writing, or to you kind of make it up as you go?

Well, I think I piece it together more than anything else.

Well, actually, I don’t know… not for recent things. Not for things I’ve done in the past year -DJOHNSMITH2000, Tycho Broham, or CYP2 – because those things are just a flicker of an idea around which I try to create as much as I can.

Ah! That really reminds me of CHIME [Collective] – take a blip of an idea and expand on it as quickly as possible.

Yeah. The more I play these days, the more I am grateful for having been in CHIME. You know, I’m not going to lie – sometimes when I was in CHIME, I was kinda thinking like, “C’mon, what am I doing, here? I wanna be a jazz jazz pianist, you know? This is just noodling for me.” That was just what I was thinking at the time, not necessarily what I feel about it now. How I feel about it now is quite different. It really did help me learn to let go – I still don’t do it 100%, but it was better for me than trying to join a standard jazz quartet.

Because honestly, jazz is dead, man. At least any jazz that’s played today – I pretty much think it’s ghost jazz. Or maybe worse than ghost jazz. I’m looking to the future. Jazz is not about being square, and I think pretty much everyone who is playing jazz is square today.

Thelonius Monk was punk rock, man. He was, like punk rock, defined.

So, no new jazz for you, these days. What have you been listening to instead?

Hmmm… Have you ever heard of Andre Williams?

No, what does he do?

This guy, to me, invented hip hop, and he doesn’t even know it. He was from the 50’s, with a really sweet, dirty bar-room jazz sound and a kinda bluesy, jazzy backup band. With really dirty lyrics, well, not like “Fuck, Shit, I’m going to touch your balls,” kinda dirty, (laughs) but more like really gross old man type lyrical content. He is a rapper, actually, and nobody knows where to place him. But he’s a rapper, honestly. He’s one of the first rappers.

That is an interesting assertion, at least. Is there anything else you’d like to say about your music or music in general?

CEEEEEEE-WHYYYYYY-PEEEEEEEEEEE

***

This has been Simon Piler reporting.

Good night, human race.

The interview of interviews? Quite possibly. Either way, this is one long and mightily interesting reads, so strap yourselves in, get comfy and dig on it.

1 How did you get into making music? 

I think I was singing little songs from a very early age, and I’m sure that my father would sing his (unaccompanied) songs to me as well, when I was very young.  My first song didn’t really have a name, and was only one line long, repeated over and over – Òwe gotta do one thing, we gotta put the lights on the Christmas tree.Ó  I was probably about 3 or 4 years old.  I remember singing it while crossing the old (now demolished) blue bridge over the Eau Claire river, near my early home in the Shaw Town area of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  It is strange to be a kid. 

My entire, ill-absorbed exposure to sheet music consisted of my stint as a trumpeter with my high school marching band.  While the more technical fineries bounced off my brain, I’m pretty sure I learned several pretty important things in the band – first and foremost, that a band is not [!] about the lead player, (which I certainly wasn’t,) but rather about the balance and blend of different simultaneous tones that made up the music.  I also had lots of practice moving in time to music.  Nowadays it  kinda works in reverse;  when I move in time my brain just spits rhythms back out.  A lot of my songs are written while I’m walking around.   

Soon enough I bought my acoustic guitar and started playing songs with two of by best childhood friends, Brendon Hertz and Joel Rorher.  We became Something About Pirates.  None of us really knew how to play our instruments, but Joel had a bass and an amp and Brendon had an cheapy keyboard of his Grandmother’s.  (I think he had taken lessons at some point.)  The best part of the whole thing, I think, was that we learned to play our instruments together, however strangely.  At first, we were really rudimentary, almost shockingly so.  At some point we had a few songs and decided it was time to try our hand at recording, and with a single computer microphone went on to record ‘Goat Farm’.  It’s a pretty bad album, but at that point,  I was hooked. 

I went to college, studied the (oh so sweet) patterns of nature and met Adam Gregory Pergament.  His poetic brilliance/madness would strongly influence the way I looked at music, and how I went about it.  By following his band, StoneFloat, I certainly learned a lot about the business of music – at first as a fan, but then carrying amplifiers, running lights, and eventually their soundboard.  Most of all, I loved the wild energy of music.  I became a passionate seeker of good environments for music to occur in.  Streets and alleys are usually alright, so I did a little busking.    

After a while, as all local bands seem to, StoneFloat broke up.  Of course, Adam wasn’t about to give up, so he focused energy on a new project, CHIME Collective.  Chime was practically a circus, but we called it a big band.  We met at the (late) Madison Center For The Creative and Cultural Arts (MCCCA), run by Jon Taylor Hannah, a free jazz musician out of the Chicago AACM.  The MCCCA  really was a nasty, boomy box of a room and it always sounded like you were playing with reverb on.  This was complicated by the fact that CHIME was huge – sometimes as many as twelve musicians would show up, though you never could really tell how many would attend..  Besides, CHIME was completely improvisational; partly, I imagine, to woo Mr. Hannah himself, or at least impress him, but mostly because we just enjoyed the freedom of flow.   

Sometimes our music was a sonic quagmire; an impossibly multilayered morass of dischord.  (To be honest, I sometimes really liked that washed out, oceanic noise…)  At other times, it clicked, and was extraordinarily metrical or funky or sparse.   I signed on with my guitar and began by playing short patterns of notes (or sometimes even single notes) for minutes at a time, as a background to the main players.  I did a lot of experiments with relative amplitude and delay during these early sessions – and I think it began some reiterative calculations that my rhythmic heart is still computing today.  This is where Def Mute comes into the picture.  He’s a splendid keyboardist, but somehow he’d always take up a seat at the grand piano in the room full of amplifiers and drums.  I absolutely loved his appreciation for the quieter members of the band, and I’d spend a lot of energy matching rhythms with him – sometimes we were really the momentum behind that avalanche-behemoth that was early CHIME. 

Around that time I had a realization – my playing had gotten stuck in a rut.  While using standard tuning, I kept on the same, boring patterns I had learned very early on.  I didn’t know any other way to do things, I suppose.  So, I retuned.  I think it was in the middle of a jam, actually, when I realized a newly-replaced string on my guitar was very out of tune (as they tend to be).  The only strange part was that I was enjoying the sound that it was making.  So, I reached up and began de-tuning the entire instrument, experimenting right then-and-there with new combinations of intervals.  That really describes CHIME best, I think – it was a sound laboratory.  And we, of course, were the Experimentalists.  Shortly thereafter, I settled on the open tuning that I’ve used ever since. 

CHIME bottomed out in the winter, when everyone in Wisconsin is glum and just trying to survive.  We dwindled to three musicians – Adam, myself, and Tom Kourakis (the wildest and most undisciplined virtuoso I’ve ever met).  As the ensemble shrunk, I found myself becoming more and more of the musical leader of the group.  I think that was partly due to my intimate knowledge of Adams words, and my understanding of how to interpret them.  We started playing as a ‘sonic setting’ for modern (aerial) dance, something I will never forget – watching dancers swing and whirl to your music is probably like nothing else.  I became enormously infatuated with motion and dance – quite a bit of my music during that time was descriptive of something in motion.  (see Cattle Tracks…)  I also made enormous amounts of short recordings on cassette, worked at (the now defunct) King Club as a sound technician, and started to register thoughts on the relationship between a sound and it’s ‘sonic environment’. 

That’s pretty much how I got into making the music I do today.  Yowza.  (You poor, belabored readers.) 
 

2 Where are you from and what’s the music scene like there?   

I’m from the state of Wisconsin, around the Great Lakes region of the North American Continent.  We’re a heavily glaciated place, though not currently, despite common belief.  Plenty of oak and pine, some lakes (~15,000) and lots of fresh air.  I hail from Eau Claire – it was a lumberjack town, then a tire town, but now it’s probably known for it’s computer chips, I think.  [I'm also happy to announce that downtown Eau Claire is finally bouncing back after the construction of the 'Urban Sprawl Shopping Mall' in the late 80's.  Hurrah!] 

In Wisconsin, the music scene operates at it’s maximum potential in capitol city, Madison.  Honestly, it’s rather quiet.  Madison is the kind of place that nurtures the music of human beings, which surprisingly isn’t ravishingly popular among most human beings.  Wisconsin doesn’t kick out many famous musicians, (The Violent Femmes and Bon Iver come to mind…) but I do think that Wisconsinites appreciate live music; local music.  I guess we’re a place with a lot of bar music.  (There are a lot of bars, after all…)  My time with StoneFloat and working at The King Club really shocked me into understanding that live music is still the black-market, traveling minstrel show that it used to be in the olden days, except with more electricity and drugs and publicity.  I am often startled by what people imagine a musician’s life to be like – they account for a delicious creme puff diet of fame and wealth – while they manage to forget the long hours, weather, driving (=money), equipment/venue troubles, publicity(=money) and preparation actually put into a show.  Besides, the resistance to new ideas expressed in sound can be enormously reactive and swift; especially in bars!  I think it’s absolutely necessary to understand that as a modern folk musician. 

The finest music in the upper midwest is probably made in Chicago.  (Sorry, Minneapolis…)  It’s a real pleasure to enjoy the solitude of the Northwoods and still be so close to that epicenter of music and art.  I especially love the Artists for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) group, and the related musicians – Roscoe Mitchell the foremost.  Venues like The Velvet Lounge or The Hungry Brain are special refuge for the waning sonic wanderer.   
 

3 What is New Radish? 

New Radish is a creative fellowship.  By this, I mean that it is a network of generative individuals; artistic, scientific, technological, and physical.  It is focused around the archive and transfer of creative information.  Basically, it is a giant stockroom/taproot of magical alchemical ingredients, computer programs, short musical videos and photographs.   I guess it came from the realization that if the ‘information class’ were more altruistic with their scraps of creative energy there would be a greater overall output of creative energy from the group.  (For the same reason that recycling or thrift-stores are a useful idea – they concentrate excess energy in a single area so that it is easier to find.)  The fun part is that anything goes with New Radish – the more it is like a piece of strange junk to you, the more likely it may be useful  to someone else.   

I can see The Utica Flower Company satisfying a lot of my New Radish goals – it’s probably just a matter of having enough space and organizing information appropriately.  That Flickr site is a great start.  As I see it developing, a Radish Fellow in Rhode Island could take a photograph today, and a Radish Lass in Great Britain could make a show-poster out of it tomorrow.  Or, you could hear your own recordings from a dentist’s appointment turning up on one of my next albums – you never know.  

4 You seem to have an endless back catalogue of records – what are they and where can they be got? Which is the best Simon Piler record to begin with? 

I really do love to record, and since I don’t play out too often my albums are the bulk of my musical process. 

My full discography is included on my myspace page (myspace.com/simonpiler).   All of my recordings are available in CD (hard copy) or electronic (MP3) formats, save for the ‘music journal’, which is only available on cassette tape.  I really hope to have the capability to distribute all of my music on cassette soon, because I’ve become quite a fan of the sound of tape.  Are other folks, too? 

You can download ‘songs from home’, my latest album, from the Quixodelic Records store for free.  (Yes, FREE!  Boogie!) 

Otherwise, if you’d like to listen, you can contact me via myspace (myspace.com/simonpiler), or send an email to The Utica Flower Company – our email address is theuticaflowercompany (at) gmail.com.  CDs are send through the mail free of charge.  You can also contact me by snail-mail at our physical address: 

Simon Piler and The Atom Band

1325 S. Farwell St.

Eau Claire, WI

54701 

Just make sure you indicate what recording you’d like, and how we can get it to you - that is, provide either an electronic or physical address. 

Ah, but which recording are you best suited to?

I will be honest.  I cannot give you a very direct answer – but wouldn’t you like to decide for yourself? 

I think that ‘songs from home’ may pick you up and move you.  I believe in strong winds, and I think it’s worth a listen.   

However, I’d really recommend ‘garden.’ as the best album to start with.  It is concurrent to my time spent playing with CHIME, and the indirect product of a related boom of minor recordings, my ‘music journal’.  (The music journal was sort of a running sketchbook of sounds and musical bits that I kept for reference.)  The summer that I recorded  ‘garden.’ during was a happy, carefree time for me, and the tone of the album reflects that, I think.  It’s the very essence of me at that time – sympathetic, whimsical and strange.  It is fine music for alley-listening. 

If you’d like to try a slightly darker fare, I would recommend ‘Short Score’s Album’ (also called ‘EXIT’.)  I was quite sick with pneumonia, but too stubborn to go to a doctor and living in a filthy little room in one of the snowiest Wisconsin winters on record.  In addition, I was going to school full time, running sound at night, and playing with a psychedelic garage-folk/metal band as a bassist.

The record spans the time of my sickness and some of the following recovery.  Needless to say, it deals with death, apocalypse and convalescence in a very palpable way.  I think it may be the most important record to me, regardless of its significance to others. 

In the spring of 2008, I moved out to the Great Plains of the North American continent.  It’s a truly open space, and very vast.  The volume of the space begins to act on you almost immediately as you settle there – the tips of your toes are just aware of an unimaginable depth and stillness.  The Plains are a place of wind and soil.  It is a simple place; even stark.

I worked for a bit as a field-scientist and met Scarytoes, a very friendly Texan (and subsequent member of the Atom Band).  While we were out on a work hitch I dreamt the entire setting and plot to the short play, ‘A DISASTER’, in a single night (while sleeping/sweating in the top bunk of a trailer during a tremendous summer thunderstorm at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota).  

The play is a musical (specifically, an oratorio,) and the music from the play along with the rest of the recordings I made with Scarytoes on The Plains make up ‘A DISASTER’.  It leans towards Americana and folk quite heavily – probably the most of any of my albums.  So, if you’re into drama or folk music, ‘A DISASTER’ is a good bet. 

Around the same time I wanted to release three EPs simultaneously.  It was sort of a way to laugh in the face of rigorously marketed music.  In the end, the EPs weren’t released simultaneously, but I did eventually release three: ‘theatre music EP’, ‘Test’, and what would become ‘songs from home’.  [Note: Actually, none of the original recordings for 'songs from home' made the final album!  The originals were extremely loose and raw - all of them recorded on the same boombox I used to keep the 'music journal'.  Most of the tracks were short improvisations on electric guitar recorded in my childhood bedroom at my parent's home while I was visiting for my brother's high school graduation party.] 

‘Theatre music EP’ is strange. (Please don’t listen to this album first!)   It’s not for those predisposed to the law-and-order of pitch.  It IS for those who like drama, especially comedy.  It’s also for the few true clowns left in the world.  (Released Halloween, 2008.) 

‘Test’ had an alternative title – ‘Five Goddamn Love Songs’.  It is for people who like love songs but don’t know the first thing about being in love.  Do you think you are in love?  Who are in love with?  If you can answer the first question but not the second, ‘Test’ is for you.  (Released Election Day, 2008.)??

5 Who are The Atom Band?

The Atom Band cannot be found as the solution to any equation and are at best probabilistic.  In short, they are illusory.  They are the mythopoetic accompanists to my music, and consist of the few icons of tall-tale and legend that I have encountered and collaborated with over the years. 

The Atom Band is:

Brendon Hertz (Yanpa) – Atom Band bandleader and player of trumpets, flugelhorns, and keyboards.  Singer of harmony vocals.  His side projects include Jump the Wagon, a splendid Eau Claire band.   

Def Mute (Okaga) – Dr. Beat for the Atom Band.  Plays saxophones, xylophones, keyboards, and electronic instruments.  Accompanies me by shouting, whistling or waxing lyrical.  Supplies sound and video samples.  His side projects are many, but include Tycho Broham, a Chicago IDM group. 

Scarytoes (Eya) – This friendly Texan hails from the hill country – Austin way.  He acts as ‘Need-Be-MC’ for the Atom Band and plays occasional rhythm guitar or kitchen percussion.  Supplies homebrew.  He’s also necessary for our occasional bursts of clowning. 

Emerson ÒHamboneÓ Betchkal (Yamni) - Our favorite muscular drummer and bearer-of-nicknames.  Also known as Hammy, Hamster, or affectionately as Emmy.  Philosophical compatriot and supplier of emotional stability. 

Lieutenant Spark (Yata) – Our most mysterious member, principled by chaos and the unboundedness of nature.  There is a certain, distinctive probability that he is any given person at any given time.  We have reason to believe that Spark is, in fact, supernatural, and is probably drawn to most thoughtful sonic explorers of the world.   

I should also mention at this point our most beloved electricity enthusiast, Sir Matthew the Mighty, Champion of Science, First Court of The Solar Corona (Tat?).  What infamous group of tone-scientists is complete without their all-seeing engineer? 

6 You’re into making musical videos – what inspires you and how do you go about making them? 

I like to collect all kinds of creative information, and video is a rich variety thereof.  I am continually amazed by the patterns and forms of nature and how video captures those over time.  When I  manipulate video, I like to make those patterns much more apparent.   

In terms of drama, I like spontaneous, poorly-acted situations with lots of jump cuts.  (Hee, hee, hee…)  I guess I like ghost movies, too.  Sometimes we do puppet theatres, though I have never managed to make a puppet the least bit expressive.  I’d like to do some dance videos, but I have to get brave enough to ask people to dance in them and organized enough to clearly explain how I’d like them to dance.  I would also like to mention at this point that Scarytoes and I are the unofficial mythopoetic spokespeople for GLEEM toothpaste.   

When I make a video, I like to spend as little time as possible filming.  It forces me to use scraps of video, sometimes the same clips over and over.  I use a still camera to shoot all my video, which reduces the resolution quite a lot.  When I edit, I like to really speed along, and let things fall into place.  If I can edit a two minute video in less than an hour, I’m very happy. 
 

7 Your music is very lo-fi (in a spontaneous good way) – is that by design or circumstance? How do you go about capturing a song (from conception of the idea to the finished recording)? 

With honesty, the lo-fi textures of my music result partly by intention and partly by accident.  I think certain kinds of noise are very beautiful.  The ear has only such a threshold of perception, towards which information is frayed by noise.  You can use this to a sonic advantage.  True noise like a mist that partially obscures sounds.  It offers a pervasive color and texture of frequency that you can’t get from an instrument – the incorporeal blur of dream, as I see it.  Besides, isn’t randomness just delicious and creamy? 

The other half, of course, is that my recording methods are far from perfect – I record pretty much everything on cheap microphones in almost any sonic environment.  I use tape quite a lot, which is obviously noisy. 

Process is important to me because recording is (typically) the end I work towards while composing.   It’s kinda odd, then, that I spend a very short time actually recording sounds.  Instead, I spend quite a bit of time/energy creating an atmosphere suitable for creativity.  My geographic location has a huge amount to do with it, and the space where I live – both will undoubtedly draw certain repetitive behaviors, feelings, and observations from me.  I believe that we are the sum of our experiences, insofar as they remain with us for a time and change us.  So, I try hard to be aware – awake or asleep.  

Should I pick up an instrument and play it, I try to ‘tune’ my style to my mood.  If something is not sympathetic to the trajectories or patterns of my life at the time, I try to amend it, and make it better.  It is through this process – somewhat similar to the scientific process – I can slowly improve my musical description of a complicated feeling or (e)motion.  I like to record on the fly, that is, improvise, because it keeps my mind free for evaluation, not bogged down in wrote memory.  Of course, improvisation can be frustrating, because you might not be able to capture what you had expected at first.  It helps me to warm up by playing several ‘throw-away’ one minute song-sketches before recording.  (Thankee, Roscoe Mitchell.)  It also helps to have an idea for a song in your head and to knead it by walking about and singing it in all different ways (and in all different sonic environments).  It’s sort of a beautiful yeast-like subconscious consumption of a song’s harmolodic sweetness – converting it to a rising sourdough soul-bread.  Yes, time and motion can work out quite a few musical roadblocks, BUT, if I let my bread rise too long, it’ll collapse in the oven.  I like to record a song no more than a few days after ‘kneading’ it.   

Once we get the first few tracks down – usually guitar-bones or keyboards, then we add supplemental textures.  I’m usually pretty particular about arrangements.  The right mixtures of frequencies are very important, I think- they must be sympathetic to the overall feeling of the song.   I rely on Def Mute extensively for his delicacy and attention to instrumentation.  The physical recording environment is a big deal, too.  When I was recording ‘Short Score’s Album’, I built a little blanket-tent in my already tiny room to make it sound even closer.  At my current residence in Florida, the walls are stark wood – all very reflective surfaces, and so things sound a lot more roomy.   
 

8 The pure poetry of your words are really great – what are the main themes you find yourself revisiting, and what other writers do you like? 

Thankee, sir.   I certainly enjoy writing.  

Almost all of my songs are about things that I actually experienced; asleep or awake.  So I tend to write a lot about my dreams and nature.  I like to write about death, too.  Most of my poems are mystical observations, but recently I’ve spent time on much more tangible topics.  I appreciate myths, and so many of my songs end up using parallels to the old stories.   

Besides myth, I read a lot of poetry and drama.  Alfred Jarry, the ‘grandfather of dada’, comes to mind (though I’m not sure he’d fully appreciate a label like that).  I also like August Strindberg, Gary Snyder, and Sun Ra.  I can’t really discount the musical poets that I appreciate – I was hugely influenced by my friend and teacher, Adam Pergament, of course.  I also like the way that Frank Zappa writes his lyrics – they’re almost like the words to a play or opera.  Tom Marshall, the lyricist for Phish, was an early influence, as was David Bowie.  And what list of musical poets would be complete without Bob Dylan? 

To me, writing is about describing something. I’ve enjoyed quite a lot of technical and scientific writing for it’s sheer clarity, and so it has influenced me as well.  Mathematics is an extraordinarily frank language, though I often have considerable trouble understanding it! 

9 What’s the weirdest musical instrument you’ve used on a song? 

That’s a hard one.  I’m a diehard kitchen percussionist, so I use plenty of strange percussive devices – bicycles, washing machines, keys/silverware/loose change, and my favorite; the refrigerator-shelf washboard.  Really, the weirdest ‘instrument’ I’ve used is a room full of noisy, cranked-up amplifiers, computer fans and radio static ‘washed’ clean by the noise filter in (the freeware program) Audacity.  The effect-as-programmed is quite glitchy, and the result is a beautiful, warbling, birdlike melody.  (Listen to ‘wizeen’ on the album ‘garden.’)   

I also occasionally use a cheap microphone designed to record phone conversations (illegal in some of the states, I believe).  I only mention it because it’s wonderful as a post-effect to introduce feedback into a previous recording.  Call yourself up, place the ‘tapped’ phone in front of an amplifier playing the passage of interest, and hit record.  The resulting recording with be similar to the original, but will include feedbacks at the resonant frequencies of the phone casing.  Crazy.  (If you listen carefully to ‘muse’ on ‘songs from home’ you may see what I mean…) 

10 What next for Simon Piler? 

Well, I’m back to the grindstone already, writing new songs and recording them with my usual fever.  I’ve got the first threads of a new album working through the sewing-machine of my brain, and I suppose it’s only a matter of time until I produce a tangle of appropriate size and complexity… 

I’m also collaborating with Namu the Disco Whale (a cetacean out of Chicago) on a short EP – should be quite interesting, I think… It has to do with the protein CYP2D6, one of the enzymes of the liver responsible for breaking down toxins in the body.  Remarkably, it’s not present in some people.   

Probably some jumping-in-dreams and pestering Sir Matthew the Mighty into making computer algorithms for me.  Some cartoons for the WordPress page. 

I will laugh at tree frogs because they are small and weird animals with sticky legs and arms.

Jon of the Atom kindly takes time out from his action-filled secret life as a musical superhero and tells us all about the latest great offering from DEAD CANARIES – “Something Else” (FREE to download from your cheap and spookily cheerful QUIXODELIC RECORD STORE above).

The lion’s share of this album was down when I decided to write and record a song a day, hoping that after a couple months, I’d have enough songs to point a stick at.  I was in a lull.  I had started I Do Not Currently Own A Spaniard against my will, but was glad I had done it, however the comfort of finishing Critical Mass was gone.  So I had nothing to write and no comfort in that.  Something Else also contains a couple orphan songs that were too good to let go of.  Like “Song For #6” may have been the first song.  The title came from the fact that there is always something else.  This album is no exception to the fact that I have a muse and cannot escape from writing about her; it is in fact something else.  Even Critical Mass was done in an effort to not write about her. 

1. Going For A Ride Today- This song was much longer, but it bugged me.  I cut it down after a fall out with the person it was about.  It works better and builds up the cycling element.  Also, there were 2 other songs that were based around Elvis and Roy Orbison that were cut, leaving “Black Hole” to sound out of place!  Go discord!
2. My Pump Caught In My Trouser Leg- A part of the original Going from a Ride that sounded better on it’s own, and the segue is a calliope from Yankee Stadium, the last Boston/ New York game in the old stadium.  Not an important fact, just that’s where it’s from.
3. Something Else- A friend called during recording of one of the clarinets, and the song starts with her message.  The faulty bass wiring can be heard through out, but it sounds good.  The opening verses lyrics were recorded at Bus Stop Studio in Liverpool NY.  The song is little more than it sounds.  It’s to the point.  I was told that everyone has this moment about someone.  Dan came and put down the drums last minute and made the song.
4. Shortest Hour of the Day- This was a cover of a song written by Paul Burnout and Smally Wheelies, however, I had the song so long that I for got to note that!  I don’t think they’d mind.  The lovely Chelsea Hogan put her pipes on this one, thank god.  It would be a different song.  This was another orphan that needed a proper home.
5. Song For #6- The music for this song was written why watching The Prisoner so I named it for #6.  My myspace said, “Who is #1” for a while, but that means something else these days (there it was again!).  The lyrics were inspired by Smally’s original try at writing lyrics for the song.  He ended up having written the first line, then I took over by placing photos in place of paintings and something else took over.
6. Kim’s Unfinished Ride Home- A woman from Maine demanded, “Write a song for me!” and I did.  I don’t think she ever heard it.  It took me awhile to decide it was in fact finished, but the title meant something else too.  There’s a Simpsons quote at the end of the song, and that’s a clue as to what the title means.
7. Doli Lemon- Rob Levy wrote a song we called Doli Lemon, it was really titled Dilemma, and so I wrote a song that was supposed to be about the Doli Lemon, only I ended up not liking it so much rather quickly.  Meghan Geiss recorded the Drums around the time of The New Wave Dirt’s Elephant’s Tap Dance Recital, so I wrote a new song around them.  I prefer this one, but time will tell. 
8. Something- This song was I believe the official first for Something Else.  I recorded into a dictation machine from the 70’s and wrote it down later.  I didn’t write the last line but Katie (beautiful voice heard on this song) pointed out that it sounded like “Plastic Jesus” so she wrote the last line.  This might be the best song I ever written.  It is about moving on and being positive.
9. Nothing Else- Conversely, this is the regression into old habits.  This song was inspired by, but not about, riding passed a friend’s home and ringing my imaginary bicycle bell.  I had the music from “My Pump Caught…” and thought I’d write the song over that, but forgot that the music was sad and a bit unpleasant, the improvised lyrics, recorded on my camera while I recorded the main guitar, are unpleasant as well.
10. Vindaloo Was Her Name- Vindaloo has become my favorite Indian food and there is a song by the Pussy Willows that they sing, “Vindaloo was her name, she will never dance again”.  I had a crazy dream that I would learn to play the oboe well enough to put down a lead part, but luckily gifted saxophonist (Colin Gordon) was right next door one day and he did it for me.
11. Never Tinker With The Gear Shifter- was done to put in an apothecary box and when you opened a drawer it played.  Charity Burger asked me to create music for her art, it fit in the box pretty well.
12. Tim’s Banjo Story- Tim Kotch asked me to work on a song that he said he might not use.  I finished it, he didn’t want it.  Right before I finished Something Else Tim asked for the song, and it was interweaved in the other songs, so I just made a new version for The Hoborchestra.
13. How & When- A Tim Kotch song, one of my favorites, if I had to choose, which I can’t!  Katie Saul again sings and Dan finished it up for me.
14. Nothing- This song was on my enemies list for most of the production, I’m not sure if I like it even now.  I had a dream that I was in a hospital bed and I was waking up and there was a Beatles song playing, not a real Beatles song, but John Lennon was singing.  Then George came on and the music dropped out and his voice got really echo-y, like Paul in “Lovely Rita” and George sang “less stuff from the stores, less stuff for your drawers.” 
15. Who Knew? – Total frustration over wanting and hoping.  Longing and pining.  I was trying to write a Townshend, but the only the Who-ish about this song is the title.
16. Black Hole- I wrote this song in 1996 and the original out version of this album it worked better, but it was the perfect ending and couldn’t be compromised by bullshit.  The refrain at the end is “Something Else” with out the vocals, fuzz bass or noise.  If I had known…

Smally: So why Bob Dylan? And what is your favourite Dylan song?
Keith: Why Bob Dylan!? Because his songs make me feel something. His lyrics are set up in such a way that you think about the topic of the song even after the song itself is over. It’s amazing!

Now, my favorite dylan song in general is different than my favorite one to play. My favorite one to play is “Song to Woody.” My favorite song in general is not a profound song by any means. Its the one that gives me the most feeling. Because, Bob Dylan is pretty well known as a topical song writer. Even when he says that he isn’t or ever was. But he is also a phenominal writer of love songs. I think that “Girl from the Noth Country” is one of the best. It’sa “tell her i love her” kind of thing. It’s genious if you ask me. Which you just did

Smally: How do you pick a song to cover?
Keith: picking a song to cover boils down to a song that i like and that i can figure out how to play. It’s pretty simple. There are alot of songs that i want to play but can’t figure out the original way of playing and can’t figure out a new way. So i just say “maybe someday.”

Smally: Whatever happened to River Speak English?
Keith: River Speak English? It’s still there. It’s fermenting. Taylor and I have come along way musically since we stopped making music together. Taylor recently acuired some new equipment to do his half of the recording so we will see what happens. Maybe something amazing. Maybe something crazy. But i think it will be downright good stuff.

Smally: How long are we going to have to wait for the first original Sucks To LaLa Land record?
Keith: I’m not sure. I am working on it though. Iv’e been playing alot of shows as well as preparing to play a wedding that i have to learn a bunch of songs for. But once that is all done i can concentrate on writing and recording some new stuff. If anybody has any suggestions let me know. I play music to entertain people. I get personal satisfaction from others satisfaction. Therefore i like alot of feedback. People can go onto my Myspace and if there’s a song that they like and would want on a record they can let me know. I’s like to make the biggest impact as possible with this one. I want it to be for everyone else. Not me. I play music all the time for myself.

Smally: What kind of music are you listening to these days?
Keith: Well, i listen to all kinds of music. I love folk music, so, of course i listen to alot of it. Ive been listeningto alot of the older guys lately. Back when it as a little more simple. Just a guitar and a voice. Dave Van Ronk and Mississippi John Hurtcome to mind. Both amazing blues players. If you’ve never listened i highly recommend it.

Smally: Visalia sounds like a happening place for music – what’s going on over there?
Keith: What isn’t going on over here would be a better question. we have music acts coming through from all over the country and all over the world. Mostly small underknown groups. Some on their first tour. Some on their 50th tour. Alot of them are unsigned and the ones that are are generally on small labels. Of course, we have the big acts starting to come through now. But it’s the small ones that i like. For those of you who dont know(which i’m assuming is alot) Visalia is in California in the Central Valley. Were are almost right smack dab in the middle of the state. So, we are a perfect place to have a filler show between Los Angeles and Fresno or Sacremento or San Fransisco. That and the fact that we have Aaron Gomez and the Sound and Vision Foundation setting up our shows. It’s really amazing! 

Smally: Describe your music for anyone who hasn’t heard it
Keith: I’m not sure how. It’s a folky, Lo-Fi mess of sounds. I love vocal harmonies so i try to put some of those is as much as possible.

Smally: Is there anyone else you work with on your music projects? Could you envision someday Sucks To LaLa Land functioning as a band?
Keith: I work with alot of other musicians aon a regular basis. I’m in a band called “The Whiskey and the Devil Chaplain.” we are a folky, roots music kind of band. I play the banjo and sing harmonies is that one. I also play the Mandolin so i sit in on friends shows sometimes. As for Sucks To LaLa Land becoming a band, I’dlike to keep that as my solo thing. Maybe fo some live shows i could bring in some other musicians to fill things out. But you never know what might happen.

Smally:  How do you record and what kind of equipment do you use?
Keith: I just use the family computer right now. Sometimes my laptop. I use Sony Acid. it works well enough for what i do. I also have a Blue Snowball mic that i am in love with.

Smally: What next for Sucks To LaLa Land?
Keith:Who knows. I sure as heck don’t. The Whiskey and the Devil will be recording this summer but i’m not sure what else. Just gonna go with the flow i think.

find out more about SUCKS TO LALA LAND at

www.myspace.com/suckstolalaland

1 Ok, so let’s cut straight to the quick – what’s the difference between Uberfuzz, Rocketships of Love, and The Grosvenor Suite?

Uberfuzz is the band I started four years ago in response to there not being enough psychedelic groups in the Rugby area. Rocketships of Love was the result of me wanting to take a back seat vocally and get people I admire to sing covers of songs that I love. It is also born out of my unhealthy obsession with early electronic music like Silver Apples, Kraftwerk and early Joe Meek experimental stuff; so it’s a lot less guitar-led. The Grosvenor Suite came about through me feeling creatively knackered; so myself, my sister Kelly (Uberfuzz) and Steve Janes (Regal 3/30) started recording with Scott White (Tin Town/Elfwood Prattali). And reconstructing songs he’d written years ago. The latter is predominantly based around Scott’s skills as a songwriter and the rest of us celebrating/re-interpreting those songs.

11 Uberfuzz have made a good few records this millennium – what’s your own favorite and where can people get hold of them?

Depending on how I feel in a day, my loathing or love of an album will fluctuate so I won’t waste your valuable time with an unstable answer. At one point I was posting albums to people for free around the globe, but it became stressful and unrealistic after a while due to me printing and burning everything off too. Now, thanks to cool people like Smally you can get hold of tracks and albums through The Daydream Generation’s Quixodelic Record Store. There are also some tracks up on www.acidray.com and the fabulouswww.myspace.com/yourpsychtunes

13 Your 3 favorite songs you’ve ever written?

Again, as above, they change so drastically in my own perception that I struggle to grade their worth. I do like ‘E-Waltz’ though, and ‘Oh! Child’ sounds like I was possessed by Huddie Ledbetter for a short time. I find the writing process difficult so when I receive a melody I have to get it down and build on it quickly.

18 Favorite Beatle?

It pisses me off the way that everyone seems to be on Paul Mcartney’s ass at the moment and talk about John Lennon like he was the only cool member of The Beatles. Lennon was cool but for my money Paul kicked fucking ass! It comes from that whole bullshit ethos of when people only start to dig an artist after they’ve been on drugs or croaked it. People forget how much shit John put out after leaving the band too. Lennon put all these cool trippy psyche songs out in The Beatles, but Mcartney was the composer who could rip the guts out of a song too. ‘Oh, Darling’ is awesome, and I love his little ‘music hall’ ditties like ‘Martha My Dear’ (about his dog) and ‘I Will’. I feel Ringo gets slated too because people compare him to Keith Moon or John Bonham. Keith Richards said “If you can’t do it on one bass drum you’re not going to do it on two of the fuckers”… That says a lot about Ringo’s immense value to me. All this shit he’s been getting too, about telling fans to stop sending mail… Good! He’s also Richard Starkey, the scouser. Blind sighted reactions to people in the media are annoying as shit to me…. Phew, that’s that out of the way. To answer your question though, I like George best.

1 When did you start writing/recording music in your present form?

So having blown us away with “Baddest Fastest” this summer, and with rumours of a follow-up record cooking away behind the scenes, I figured it was a good time to catch up with the Head Boy who seems determined to burn the system down that is Gil De Ray. Here are the resulting 26 questions disguised as 20 for your discerning brains to digest.

1 CoDY High School – where’d you get the name from and what does it mean?

Gil: CODY stands for Come On Die Young. CODY were a gang in Glasgow that ran around the Southside near where I grew up. They were notorious. That name has had a lot of resonance throughout my life. Then last summer me and a friend, Fuzzy started talking about getting a band together. We were going to be called The Purple Ohm Eaters. So Fuzzy comes round and we’re listening to records and he pulls out an old MC5 bootleg album which was recorded live in Detroit at a school called Cody High School. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a sign. So The Purple Ohm Eaters became CODY HIGH SCHOOL…It’s a tribute I guess to the true spirit of rock n roll. Being in a band is like being in a gang. A lawless, murderous bunch of maniacs.

2 Who makes up the band and what does everyone do?

Gil: I do everything on the recordings, play guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, vocals. Everything. We have a band in place for playing live, which we haven’t done up to now…

3 Records most likely to be playing on the CHS tour bus?

Gil: All sorts really. Some old shit and some new shit, a lot of American music. Velvet Underground, MC5, Love, all the good 60’s psychedelic garage stuff. Doo Wop, Marvin Gaye, Sly, Shuggie Otis…all the way through to new bands like Magic Magic, Miniature Tigers, Crooked Cowboy & The Freshwater Indians…You wouldn’t want to get off the bus…

4 Do you gig and if so where can we see you?

Gil: Not yet but we’re working on something, maybe before Christmas, who knows…

5 You’re a prolific songwriter – where do you get all the inspiration from?

Gil: Everything really. Books I read, films I see, people I meet. Inspiration is just instinctive…you can’t really put your finger on individual moments. It just happens…Some days you wake up and you know something is ready to go. You have to listen to your heart and let it guide you and trust your instinct..

6 If you could resurrect one dead musician to be in your band who would it be?

Gil: Oh shit I’ve been thinking about this one a lot…..The first person who popped into my head was Arthur Lee. I mean I don’t think he was a particularly spectacular musician but that doesn’t matter anyway. He had an understanding like Brian Wilson, an instinct that he pursued to the end…He was just cool and the kinda guy you would want in your gang…Nobody fucked with Arthur Lee..

7 What football team do you support?

Gil: There is only one team to support. Glasgow Celtic. Hail Hail.

8 Beatles or Stones and why?

Gil: Easy, The Stones win hands down…They were cooler, had better songs, made better albums, didn’t give a shit. I don’t have any Beatles records in my collection….

9 A few months down the line how do you feel about “Baddest Fastest”?

Gil: I’m very proud of it, it happened really fast and it sounds raw. There’s a nice balance to it. There was no time to think too much which is usually good. People take too long to make albums these days. The Beach Boys were doing 3 albums a year. Record labels nowadays are strangling the life out of bands. They spend a year making a record, another year waiting for it to come out and then a year touring it. By the end of that they’re usually fucked, sick to death of the songs, mentally paralysed and unable to write…Its groundhog day x 100..

10 Where do you get the funky artwork from?

Gil: I make it myself, copying images, cropping them, putting them together with other disparate images to create something different. I guess there’s usually a Message. The artwork is important as a visual representation of elements you might find within the song. I don’t like lyrics which are overtly political. People don’t care. Its boring. I prefer to make the point more subtly and it seems easier to get that over visually..

11 Chinese, Indian or Chip Shop Takeaway and if so what dish?

Gil: I love Crispy Duck and Dim Sum but I don’t like Chinese with MSG in there, I love Indian food but you need to be careful, a lot of places have it swimming in oil…I like my food to be clean, simple and fresh…Being Scottish I love Fish ‘n’ Chips but that’s a treat every now and again. Overall I guess I eat more Indian food than any of the others…

12 Coolest thing you ever saw?

Gil: I saw Sun Ra play in New York totally by accident. I was walking past a little jazz club and the sandwich board outside said ‘live tonight, sun ra and his intergalactic arkestra’. I couldn’t believe it. The place was tiny and the gig was awesome. I sat at the front watching Sun Ra lead the band, he never played a thing, he just pointed at the musicians and off they went…It was nuts, they had fire eaters dancing through the crowd and the band were selling t shirts after the show. I’ve still got that t shirt too…

13 You wrote a book – what’s it about and will anyone ever get to read it?

Gil: Yeah I hope so. I’m turning it into a script so maybe one day people can see it too…Its called ‘Baddest Fastest’ and it’s a story of growing up, making music, being in a band. Its set in 1990  and centres around the explosion of ecstasy and acid house and the positive effects that had on music, society in general and for the character in the story especially. I wanted to tell a positive drug story. Its not always a slippery slope into heroin addiction, jail and depression. We don’t normally see that and It happens to be true in many people’s experiences, not just my own…

14 What made you start writing songs?

Gil: Shit I don’t really know. It was just an insatiable urge.. I had no choice..

15 If you were going to recommend one film what would it be?

Gil: Right now I’d tell everyone to watch “Zeitgeist Addendum” its free to watch online at www.zeitgeistmovie.com

16 You’ve got a really positive attitude about how to approach music that seems directly rooted in negative experiences of the music industry – care to discuss and potentially help out any kids who might make the same mistakes?

Gil: Well I’ve made records in previous incarnations for amongst others Sony, EMI, Universal as well as a lot of Indie labels. The music industry doesn’t have a lot to do with music, that’s always been the problem. It’s a hard, heartless, wild stab in the dark. People making music need to be protected from it.

17 What’s Earth Calling Music all about then?

Gil: Ah what a seamless link. Earth Calling is something me and a friend who is a music lawyer have set up to help other artists. We both have first hand experience and want to use that to help who we can. At the moment we are working with Magic Magic from Boston, USA…

18 Your relatively recent trip to the US – what was that like?

Gil: It was fantastic. We went to see Magic Magic and hang out with them. I love that band and those dudes are just naturally, effortlessly cool…I love them…They’re going to be big!!

19 In the vaguely remote possibility that you had a life before this one what might you have been?

Gil: A political assassin…

20 What next for CoDY High School?

Gil: Super New Nashville Fuzz. The new album is almost ready. Some gigs. More writing….more everything!!! More more more….

 *You can download CODY HIGH SCHOOL’S “BADDEST FASTEST” from the QUIXODELIC RECORDS link at the top of this site, for FREE. It’s fucking well worth it.

1 Seed

Smally: “Seed” originally began as just that – a seed of a line that I had stuck in my brain that “the apple bites back”. One afternoon round about the mid-point of writing the record I had a bit of time to kill so I wrote and recorded a song called “The Apple Bites Back” – it wasn’t really meant as a Tigermouse track, more a stupid little song to fill some space with all the music you can hear on “Seed”, and layers of vocal melodies singing throwaway lines like “I think this time I bet you wish you’d bought bananas”. I sent it to Kris really just to show him what I’d been up to, so it was a bit of a surprise when he turned it around and re-wrote the words and vocals from the ground up and sent it back to me. It was also at this time that the recurring theme of starting an imaginary country on that very real floating island of plastic rubbish in the Pacific Ocean arose and so that’s what it’s about. Actually, “Seed” was probably one of a couple of turning points for me during the process of making the record – a kind of “woah… we might be onto something here” moment. I really like the way it sounds like a head-on collision between two very contrasting styles of songwriting (Wheelies Folk-Pop and Warchalking Indie-Rock) and creates this strange, but hopefully worthwhile fusion of sounds. Kris’ lyrics frequently knock me out and “Seed” has some real nuggets like “I guarantee our immigration policy will be lazy” (even though I was initially convinced he was singing something along the lines of “I’ll get the tea on…”).

Kris: This song was the first of many turning points in the process.  I tried the intro with a couple different songs, and it worked best with this one.  The original was really good, I was taken by it immediately.  In retrospect, I should’ve lifted more of the melodies from the original.  The vibe was a bit revolutionary in the original (possibly because its rare for me to have drums anymore), so an introduction to the country idea seemed appropriate.  This record is chocked full of small ideas that explode into palatial ideas.  Every one of these started as a kernel in our respective hard drives.  This was how to start this record.  As I recall, Smally referred to this as a very Wheelies song.

Note: the details of our new country were hatched in the midst of studying the effects of globalization.  It was for the most part an off the cuff rant that began as reaction to futility that sought to be radically pragmatic.  We are a strange lot.

Smally: I think when I described it as being “a very Wheelies song” it’s more with reference to the drum loop and chord structure of the original idea. I’m still relatively obsessive about trying to work out what can be done from a continuous major three-chord structure as so many of the songs that I love from the 1960s seem rooted in that. The finished article is a lot less Wheelie by nature – particularly because of Kris’ lyrical take on the opting out idea. One of the things I really like about this collaboration is that it’s forced us both out of our comfort zones – for me to try and figure out how to become part of that “epic-acoustic” Warchalking sound (answer: multiple piano tracks), and for Kris it’s getting stuck in the gum of melodies that are perhaps more playful than the usual gravity of what he needs to transport his songs. That was really what I was driving at with the “Tigermouse” title, this contrast of styles – the tiger of “surly” and intense Warchalking tunes, and the throwaway mouse of Wheelies nursery rhymes (behind just about every song I ever write is the semi-conscious impulse to try and write the next “Yellow Submarine”, or a song that kids can sing on the school bus). Probably more than any other song on the record, “Seed” captures that contrast.

2 I Made A Cape

Smally: Being exactly 4000 miles apart (from Cape Girardeau to where I live in Fife) the process of collaboratively writing songs is a tricky one – I mean, you can’t just sit down with a couple of guitars and say “What do you think of this idea?” So at the beginning, together we recorded some 20 plus “sketches” of melodies with improvised words and traded these to see if there was anything that could be developed beyond the raw idea stage. In actual fact, very little of this opening exchange is left on the finished album (curiously “Cape” and the following 2 songs by accident rather than design originated at this stage). I think we quickly worked out that there was simply too many good ideas and it needed either one of us to commit to one of these and run with it – at this level at least, making this record was very easy in that we trusted each other’s instincts and even at this late stage have yet to have the seemingly obligatory bust-up over creative direction. From my sketched ideas I ran with the melodies that would go on to form “Cape”, dug up an old bridge from something I’d sung a long time ago that didn’t work and added a new chorus. This old version of “Cape” – like a couple of other songs on Tigermouse – dealt with issues surrounding growing up in suburbia, and attempting to transcend the somewhat pathetic heartache of teenage relationship break-ups. Kris then latched onto the unintentional coincidence of the “Cape” in the song’s title and begged me to let him re-write it (he grew up and lives in Cape Girardeau). Since he’s a much stronger poet than me, I obviously said “aye, too right… go for it”. And thus this split version of it was born, thankfully minus some of the worst bongo playing from yours truly that you very nearly heard and including far more profound and beautiful observations like “why do I keep all this shit around?”

Kris: I love the chorus of this song to no fucking end.  I couldn’t touch it.  “I got an education, it just keeps me up at night” is quite possibly the truest statement I’ve ever seen written down, and it makes me laugh because Smally always downplays his writings skills.  The music is particularly cool.  All the instrumentation is Smally; I wouldn’t change any of it and couldn’t improve on it if I tried, even the now-absent bongos.  All I said was “You gotta give me the verses”.  It was perfect for the time, as I hit one of those points where I was at odds with my environment.  The main idea was here was this sleepy little town, and the more I dwelt in it the more I realized I was changing it.  Over the course of several years I found many tear downs and rebuilds occurring every few years or so.  Its a song about self creation.  I still wonder why I keep half this shit around.

Smally: Wow, I never knew that all the instrumentation was me – how come it sounds so puny when I mixed it all down to begin with? The “education” line is something I wrote and used a long time ago round about the “Oh Happiness” Wheelies album, but I can’t even remember which song it was on (if any). A lot of the words I end up writing are from this perspective of a younger and very mixed-up self, completely alien to the same sleepy suburban town that Kris ends up singing about. It wasn’t that I was particularly odd, it’s just that there wasn’t too many twenty-somethings walking round the estate I grew up in wearing flares and a parka jacket. I draw a lot on the past simply because I feel like it’s somehow more interesting or relevant to sing about fucked-up times as opposed to the position I’m lucky enough to have stumbled to now, which is essentially an incredibly quiet and happy life. I’m glad we did the split on this one and my clumsy verses were replaced, even though I still don’t have a clue what he’s singing about spiders and fruit. Funnily, the first time I ever played this finished version to Linz she shrieked – there was a spider spinning down from the ceiling directly above her at the same time she was listening to the spider line.

Kris: Ha!  The line is “Planted seed and as it grew the thrifty fruit it bore attracted spiders”, and refers to the beginnings of projects I had started (the seeds), the progress made in those projects, which wasn’t particularly stunning due to the size of the pond (the fruit), and the neighbors and denizens that kept circling around the blossoming of those projects (the spiders).  I like starting from big images and narrowing the focus from there.

3 Invisible Strings

Smally: This is one of my favourite tracks on the record. I wrote it early on around the same time as “679″ with first-thought best-thought lyrics around the idea that if everyone and everything had a string running from them/it throughout their life how tangled up and interconnected we’d all be. I thought there was something in it but I wasn’t convinced Kris was convinced and there were times I thought it might end up on the scrapheap of ideas. Thankfully it didn’t – he went back to it right near the end and re-wrote with new words (as always an improvement) some brilliant harmonies and a couple of completely new sections. The instrumentation we use on the record is limited, but thanks to our shared love of multi-multi-tracking and layering a lot of the songs still manage to sound very busy, so there’s something about the more stripped back acoustic feel of “Invisible Strings” that is a welcome shift of gears. Or maybe its just the absence of my amateur un-Manzarek keys.

Kris: One of the major pitfalls in this project was a lot was sketched out over the course of the summer, during which I was taking classes.  So as this flurry of ideas would get bounced back and forth across the planet, some things got tabled as there was no place to put it at the time.  They got shoved into the next available slot and as things got sorted they’d get the proper attention.  I take songs in batches, that way I can power through a couple and feel some sense of accomplishment.  There was never anything wrong with this song, there was just no room in my brain at the time.  I’m glad Smally stayed on me because this one became one of the more playful songs on the record.  I ended up stealing the chorus from another song he’d sent initially that I liked and did a different version of (which I never finished and he never heard).  I like this song because it makes each of us do things we don’t normally do.  Its really easy to find a middle ground in uncharted territory.

Smally: Well that’s another thing I never knew, I thought Kris wrote the chorus melody as I don’t ever remember writing it. When it’s time to write a record I usually spend two or three weeks sketching very loose ideas for melodies, filling up a little mp3 player with a tiny shitty microphone, and then start cutting these back to the ones I think might go somewhere. We’re talking hundreds of melodies here, most of which get binned and forgotten. Even at the next stage where it comes to recording slightly more definite (but still improvised) versions for whoever I’m working with, there is still a lot of perceived deadwood that gets cut. On saying all that there was really only two other finished songs that we cut because the record was running too long – “The Last Kiss” – more of which in a bit, and “Looking Back”. “Looking Back” was one of the first songs we did, and the first of us mixing up the formula for writing, me taking one of Kris’ ideas and writing words and a chorus. It’s about a guy who drowns on an acid trip and is by by own admission not the greatest work of poetry I’ve ever produced, but I’m sure it’ll raise its awkward head again, somewhere sometime. Back on the subject of “Strings” – someday I plan to sing this on a beach beside a burning fire and I’m going to belt out “As nature runs amok we’re always stuck with cleaning up”… I love that line, much deeper than what I had before, which was stuff like “There’s a boy for every girl if that’s what it takes to make the world seem a little bit better not quite so tough/ But if boys are not the thing for you there’s something else to alleviate the blues like another girl or a couple of cats so cool”. Oh dear.

Kris: Yep, this is intended to be a campfire song.  I dunno if its a GOOD campfire song by any stretch, but that was the aim.

4 My Generation

Smally: Of all the songs, “My Generation” has come the furthest and the strings of who did what and why are so tangled that it’s strange to even try and pick them apart. Basically it began during the last Kaleidonauts album when I wrote a song almost identical to this one in melody called “Pettycur Bay”. It was lyrically very weak, so I re-wrote it under the title “Dead Canaries” as a song about the project I was involved in at that time. Jon of The Atom who was writing the Kaleidonauts record with me was musically burning out at the time with me firing loads of song ideas at him, so it got dropped. As far back as August 2007, Kris and I had been talking about making a record together, maybe writing 4 songs each and contributing backing vocals to each other’s songs. When Kris got roped into the original Kaleidonauts record (Spaniard) and sang on “Roll It Up” and “For A Girl” I think it became apparent that it was going to be something a lot less straightforward and a lot more collaborative, each of us playing to our particular strengths. I dug up “Dead Canaries” to see what he thought of it, and he re-wrote the music and lyrics. In hindsight I probably should have left the words the way they were, but when I sang my version I changed some of the lines to try and reflect my own take on it so the finished version is an almost 50/50 mix of his words and mine. Kris then re-sung the main vocals, before I added backing tracks and keys. So what you end up with is this acoustic ballad take on “My Generation” (I called it that because I liked the idea of folk expecting to hear a Who cover-version, and getting something completely different), with both of us contributing at virtually every stage along the way.

Kris: This held one of the rare contention points during recording.  I had been playing a lot of shows with younger kids (strangely, it’s easy when you’re 28), and a lot of them were really good.  Here I was in my late twenties finally figuring out how to write songs and here were these college freshmen coming up with really clever ways of making music.  All I could think about was where I’d be if I started on that level.  So I made the song about that. My argument was we have to look to the kids to understand how to adapt with culture-changing technologies because people older than us offer little help; his argument was after painstakingly sifting through piles of kids’ recording, a frightening amount of them were deriving their music from already derivative sources and I must’ve found some diamonds in the rough.  Thinking about it, he was pretty much right.  All those kids I saw were from WAY out of state, working their way around the country on whatever funds got put in the hat.  Nobody around here has ever heard of the influences these kids were using.  The result became how people our age have to keep an eye on both horizons. The generation referred to is any generation that has to adapt faster than their parents, which I figure covers about 3 so far.

Smally: Yeah, I have a quite cynical view of young people today. That’s not to say that I’m an old bastard, or that there’s not exceptions to the rule (there most definitely are – take for example bands like The Shivas, or individuals like Dylan Gough), but by and large I find the whole fashionably unfashionable EMO thing just a bit depressing. It really comes from working on The Daydream Generation, and from the same feelings that caused me to write “The World Is Fucked” on the last Wheelies album. Doing the DG thing involves a lot of surfing on MySpace not just looking for bands, but also trying to find individuals who might like what we’re doing. I remember pretty vividly this horrible feeling of trawling seemingly page after page of nihilistic kids trying to outshock each other. I guess I got lucky when I was in my mid-teens as it coincided with the Madchester scene with bands like The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays, and shoegaze acts like Ride and Chapterhouse – and all of that music opened doors to the golden era of The Beatles, The Stones, The Velvet Underground, The Byrds, The Kinks etc. Kris’ original take on “My Generation” I felt complimented too heavily the next generation coming through behind us, but at the same time I really identified with what he was saying about us being lost between the burned bridges of our failed hippy forefathers, and the enviable position of a youth that takes the technological changes of the last 20 years in their stride (as opposed to being caught up in the blizzard of advances like we have). I guess that’s why I threw in lines about faulty parachutes and taking pictures on your phone to somehow try and make sense of whatever the fuck has just happened to us. Not that I own a phone, but that’s another story.

Kris: Returning to collegiate study has brought my opinions a bit closer to Smally’s.  At first I was surprised, then I recalled how awkward and ambiguous the late teens-early twenties phase was for me.  Granted, my collateral damage was less severe than a geometric haircut and super-tight black jeans, but I hung out with people with a lot of facial piercings and flannel shirts, so its not that it disappoints me, its just hard to watch kids fall in the same traps my generation had.  I own a phone, but just barely.  I got it last August out of spite.

5 I’ll Be Your Pavement

Smally: This one’s the other of the two best songs I wrote. It was a melody I had kicking around on my mp3 recorder for months before one afternoon when I had a bit of time to kill I wrote some proper words just for something to sing. It’s funny the way it works out sometimes – you write something you really like but when it comes to the crunch it just doesn’t work, and less frequently on the flipside you write something that really shouldn’t work, but it does. The song is a semi-fictional take on being a teenager, there are lines that are really me and there are others that are simply flights of imagination. The bridge melody is an alternative take on a melody I’d already used on “Pepperland”, which at the time I wasn’t thinking was going to end up on the record as well. It’s quite a repetitive track in terms of music with the guitars and piano, but I like the way it’s the same 3 chords right the way through and still manages to underpin several different vocal melodies.

Kris: This was one I didn’t have to do much to. The music was rich enough, contained its own vibe, and the words were very much Smally.  I lean towards minimalist lyrical structuring that emphasizes using less to say more; Steven uses lengthy and vivid lines that rope into a massive mosaic.  This song was a massive mosaic, so for me to change anything would’ve wrecked an already excellent song.  I agree that the repetition is what makes this song work.

Smally: I had to read that bit twice, get up, go away and think about it to figure out what’s being said. My initial response was on the contrary, that Warchalking tend to be far weightier, and poetically ambiguous, whereas my lines tend more often than not to be very unreal, a cartoonlike exaggeration of ideas. Actually I think what’s being said is the way we phrase things with me cramming words into a line? The thing is, I once read something about how Bob Dylan sought some kind of artistic mentoring and it led him to the revelation that he was using too many words that were redundant and unnecessary to convey what he was thinking. The thing about that though was that this lyrical epiphany coincided exactly with a point where I completely turned off from what he was doing (ie. as far as “Blonde On Blonde” and little to love beyond that). So I consciously choose not to be analytical when I write, just to “get it out”. Hence why I occasionally find myself playing songs about crashing imaginary mopeds with a 2 pence piece (that you can hear rolling around at the very end).

Kris: I’ve heard it broken down that there are two kinds of writers: those that tell a story, and those that paint a picture.  Smally and I do both, but using different approaches, so I guess I’m saying there are two more: Hemingway and Fitzgerald.  Smally likes to layer.  Could it be considered redundant?  Depends on how you like your stories painted.  Its like driving down the same street for a week.  First couple of drives you notice some consistencies, but after enough time those fade in with the trees and you begin to notice the intimate life of the place.  You see the habits of the residents, the personality that exists in thirty second bursts that truly define character.  Its a lot more in sheer mass, but its alive.  It breathes.  I’m more of a side street writer.  There’s a lot less to see, but the things seen are more direct tellings of what ‘s going on.  The front of the house is the face we try to put on ourselves, even though the strings are visible.  Its the fights and the bath robes in the back yard that are dead giveaways.  There’s no masking that.  I used to write big, descriptive lyric sheets that set a scene and lived in it a while, but I could never remember all the words.  I cut it back out of simple pragmatism.

6 Let’s Start A Country

Smally: I think more than any other (with the exception perhaps of “Seed”) “Country” reflects Kris’ talent for hearing/visualizing potential in something that was originally mediocre at best. I wrote the song after a couple of emails back and forth about my urge to go and start a country somewhere, incorporating some of Kris’ ideas (tomatoes, stoning, that floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean). It wasn’t great to be honest, but he redid the music – a simple guitar line that reminds me of the Pale Blue Eyes era Velvet Underground – and brand new words, including gems like “our flag will float free on a pile of debris that keeps growing”. He sang this second much stronger version of it (I loved it), and against my better judgement I reluctantly added a new set of vocals that have since been incorporated into it. As I write this, “Country” is the last of the songs awaiting completion as we’re waiting on a Jane Gilmore vocal track that Kris thinks will complete it – so I’m looking forward to hearing that if it materialises. I think of all the tracks “Let’s Start A Country” really defines what this record is and how we made it – a throwaway idea from me poorly executed, Kris picking it up off the ground and extracting anything worthwhile from it, sending it back to me for additional work, then finally back to him for all the technical arrangement. I just really hope that its as good to listen to as it was to make it.

Kris: This song wound up complex.  It started fairly straight forward.  It was the main vehicle for the country idea we’d tossed around, but we already had three or four tunes that were acoustic-driven campfire songs.  So I tried a single tremeloed guitar as a carrier, and shot for an anthem.  I don’t know if its an anthem or not.  We managed to sucker Jane in on this one as well.  She added a nice layer on an already dense group of voicings.  One of the major points in this record is that Smally is far better at carrying a primary melody than I am, whereas my strength is in harmony and texture.  Initially I had the lead, but when Smally sent his tracks the better judgement was to have him lead. The motivation of this song went for two directions: one as a voice of frustration.  You can only talk about the problems of the world for so long; at some point you have to introduce an alternative of some sort.  If the world is so wrong, then what should be right?  The second, when thinking about fundamental flaws in political and economic establishments, its easy to get overwhelmed by the complexity of the whole thing.  There are so many methods and opinions, and not all of them are necessarily wrong, just incongruent at a global level.  If you wanted to correct all the absurdities in the human condition, you have to be willing to be equally absurd.  A squad of people living on the Pacific trash heap living on fish and singing drunken chant songs while dancing naked around a fire seemed crazy enough to make sense.  This is the next step in human evolution.

Smally: So since I wrote this originally the song got done, and Jane sang on it, and it was as good as Kris imagined it would be I think. I hope sometime he digs up that original version of him singing it on his own though, I’ve heard it goes down well in front of a rabid coffee shop audience and seeing as you’d need to put me in a binbag and force me onto a stage at gunpoint, the chances are I’m never going to experience what it feels like to sing about trading hash and tomaytoes to anyone but my own shadow. The next step in human evolution? Hmm I don’t know about that one – I have a feeling the personality types that would be attracted to such a project would not translate well to the more practical aspects of survival on a floating heap of plastic junk in the Pacific Ocean. When I was 19, me and the rest of The Wheelies took every item of furniture from every room in our flat and built a giant cube we planned to live in from then on. We lasted about 14 hours, it got grim real quick once we started to sober up and ran out of things to smoke. I see real parallels between the “Pepperland” of our imaginations and that misadventure. Actually the original idea of a country I had was that it would exist only in imagination. I mentioned this to Linz once and she said “For fuck’s sake, are you ever going to grow up?” Haha.

Kris: Come to think of it, I’ve got enough pipe dreams lying around to float in an ocean and live on.  I’ll be saving that for “Let’s Start A Country 2″…

7 679

Smally: For a long time this was going to be the opening track on the record, until Kris came up with “Seed”. I preferred “Seed” as an opener to be honest, and when he added that lifted fade-in from the final song “Pepperland”, it really confirmed it was the right song to kick the record off creating a symmetry between the start and the end. “679″ was one of the first songs I wrote from start to finish specifically for Tigermouse (or “ww” as we were calling ourselves at that point). Prior to that I think we’d only done “My Generation” taken from an old idea, and “Looking Back”. I was pretty pleased with “679″ when I wrote it, feeling like it encapsulated a lot of what I do and how I look at my involvement in The Daydream Generation, and it was also the beginnings of the starting a country idea that increasingly became a part of the whole album. My liking for it has diminished over time, but I think it might be as much to do with the fact we went on to write even better songs (as well as over-listening to it). It was called “679″ by my three year old son when I played it to him and was stuck for a title. I don’t have a clue what it means.

Kris: This tune was one of my favorites in that there wasn’t much actual writing to do.  It was done.  The trick was to fill it out and make it pump blood.  This was at the top of the playlist for a very long time, partly because it was one of the first batch to be finished and was the crown jewel, for sure, and partly because this was the song where we started to get a focus on where the record was gonna go.  I’ll fess up, we robbed the Beatles blind on this one.  At least I did.  And the Beach Boys.  Fucking Brian Wilson…

Smally: Well I never intentionally robbed The Beatles and if I did then I can only apologise – would be nice if someone could point out which Beatles song we’ve ripped off, but if it’s just the sound then that’s cool – if you’re going to try and sound like anyone then I can’t think of anyone better to try and sound like. Since I wrote the first time around about “679″ we remixed it, brought it back to it’s original lo-fi roots and consequently I think I really like it again.

Kris: Its not that we’ve robbed anything specific.  We’ve stolen technique, which since I last checked wasn’t subject to copyright law.  And thank fuck for that, otherwise I’d be screwed.

8 4000 Mile Dream

Smally: The origins of this song can be traced as far back as November 2007. I spent a day writing and recording an unreleased Wheelies record from scratch called “7 Hours” – 10 songs, 5 of which went on to feature on the Kaleidonauts “Spaniard” record. This one was called “Holy Smoke” about a kid in a tribe who’d “run out of matches and nicotine patches and ideas baby”, but it was all verses and I always felt like there was something seriously missing from it (eg. a chorus). After the initial “sketching” phase at the beginning of Tigermouse, and while Kris was struck down with tonsilitus I was hitting a seemingly endless vein of songs and wrote the “if this is a dream” part, patching the two melodies together. Over previous records I’ve worked on I’ve fallen into a tradition of writing “Dream” songs and this was initially #4 in the series. I changed all the words around based on some nonsensical dreamlike storyline where the protagonist like the real Descartes is holed up in a tin shack thinking, along with his Russian friend (Dostoyevsky) lamenting the fact his bike has been stolen by Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird). The bike stuff I wrote with Kris in mind as he’s a keen cycler and thankfully he liked the song and redid the music, with me adding some keys at the end. It’s got one of my favourite lines I wrote on the record – “Fucking Atticus Finch is out riding around on my bike!”. I don’t know why I like it so much, but I do. The title comes from a dream I actually had – I’d been obsessively thinking about a name for the project and woke up one morning with “The Bespin Black Lotus Basement Band” in my head. I dropped the “Bespin” bit from fear of being rumbled as an unconscious Star Wars geek.

Kris: The music on this was fun in that its got a gallop, and I love playing songs that gallop.  I can’t count how many times I’d sung the Atticus Finch line in the shower, attempting to mimic the accent horribly.  I identify with the Atticus in the dream as he’s a cycling nutter, drinking his beers and singing songs at civilization, harassing poor Descartes lovely slump with ideas like “If nobody’s watching, then you can do what you want.”

Smally: Haha, yeah Kris’ British accent – it was actually pretty great but sounded probably as comical as it is for me to sing “tomaytoes”. He also sang the “fucking Atticus Finch…” part with this beautiful spit of what sounded like sincere pissed-offness in the role of someone whose bicycle has been chored, but with me singing too it kind of gets lost. Again since writing what I did before this song got renamed and is now called “4000 Mile Dream” as we had to get it in somewhere. While I was trying to think of a title for the record I went onto the internet and on a hunch calculated the distance between Cape Girardeau and the beach I live on in Fife Scotland. It was near enough 4000 miles exactly (4000.38) which I thought was kind of spooky. I’ve told a couple of people about it but I usually just get blank looks – I’m like “Yeah, but it’s 4000 miles exactly… not 3999 or even 4001…” It’s amazing enough though that you can find people on the other side of the world on a different continent and make records that sound like they’ve been written in the same room… if you could sniff it, it would smell like a revolution.

Kris: None of my people are all that impressed by the neatness of the geographical distance either.  And, unfortunately, I’m a conscious Star Wars geek, so I suppose I’m grateful we didn’t go with “Bespin Black Lotus”.

9 Oh No

Smally: For a change I don’t really have much to say about this one. I wrote it about two-thirds of the way through the record and it was relatively straightforward, initially called “I Hope You Kept The Receipt”. I wanted to write something that sounded like it had been lifted off The Beatles “Rubber Soul”, but as Kris pointed out to me “we overshot Rubber Soul and landed in Abbey Road”. Not nearly as great obviously, but you see where I’m coming from. After I’d sent all the tracks away to him to mix and replace guitars and add vocals I think we both knew that “Oh No” was missing something, and so arranged for the brilliant Jane Gilmore to help out with some vocals. As great a job as she did, I still think this song is missing something, but at the same time I figure that the more we add to it and mess around with it, the worse it could potentially get.

Kris: I agree.  This one lacks the magic.  But I can’t get rid of it.  Jane did awesome.  We ended up prodding her for another take, and wound up using both.  I love how her voice fits in with our mess.  Makes it classy.  And she gave the song a new depth.  I think ultimately this song was a casualty of a mad period for me.  I may have tried too hard and it wound up a little short on the pop we wanted to give it.  On the other hand, its a really honest song.  An aspect of music I’ve always enjoyed is it always asks you to put the best, or worst, or whatever you’re feeling immediately to work.  Its like working a life lesson out on paper, because whatever you make that song about becomes an aspect of you or your past that you have to constantly revisit time and time again.  You work through you shit, like it or not.  The words were so genuine.  You get in these relationships, and there are times when you can’t just trade out for a new one.  This has been a lesson I’ve struggled with.

Smally: Another one that got a makeover after I’d written about it here. I thought a lot about this song in the build-up to the record coming out, trying to figure out the missing piece of the puzzle so to speak. In the end I asked Kris to turn the reverb down a notch to hear what it sounded like stripped back. The version on the album is the stripped back version and I’m much happier with it – I agree completely about Jane’s input and have written several times how amazing her voice is. As a singer she’s like some kind of maverick racing driver taking staggering chances that more often than not find combinations of notes that sound very original and melodic. In other words, thank fuck for Jane.

Kris: I’m still amazed she helped out.  This record was a total sausage fest prior to her contribution.  Thanks Jane.

10 To A Concerned World

Smally: This one is more of a Kris-song than any of the others on the record. It was one of the sketches he recorded at the beginning and I really liked it, imagined at the time it turning into this Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young type long rolling guitar song. The lyrical content of the song was helped along by some conversations we were having about America’s place in the international community and its insular political view of the world. I was trying to explain how electing a Democratic president at the next election is perhaps even more important to the rest of us than to America itself. All the people I virtually meet from the USA are great people and very switched on, so I counter my bewilderment that they would allow the election and then re-election scummy $-fixated right-wing Republican scumbags by ripping them about the state of America. It must have struck a chord with Kris. It was really great to hear this song growing from the ground up, with layers and layers going on each time I heard updated versions. Like getting to watch a songwriter or sculptor at work. I added some pretty basic keyboard parts and some backing vocals that hopefully he liked. I doubt he would tell me even if he hated them mind you. With every record I’ve been involved in there’s always the ambition to write some political songs and actually say something, but I usually retreat back to the simplicity of druggy love songs… Tigermouse was no exception, just this time I had a running mate to do all the important dirty work.

Kris: Political songs are always hairy.  Part of the problem is you immediately date the song.  Another part is its really easy for people to misinterpret any of the messages you try to convey.  Take Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”.  Smally was my gauge on this one.  One of the neat things about working with him is he’s a terrible liar, even though I’ve never actually spoken to him directly.  If it was too preachy, he’d say so, but he didn’t, so here we are.  The concept is as such:  “Dear World, many Americans understand that there are things immediately impacted by what happens here.  It’s fucked up, we know it, but understand that this is a strange place.  There are a lot of very loud voices.  There are a lot of interests.  Trust that we are not all idiots.  We’ll get there.  Please don’t stop criticizing from the outside as that’s the only way we can change things in here.”  I think that’s simple.  Maybe not.  The discussions we had on the impact the US had on the rest of the world were great in that here was a voice from outside explaining what were stepping on, which is quiet information round these parts.  Smally got really intense on me for a minute, and it had a lot of impact.  This was the response.  As for his additions, I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.  What he put in was perfect.  They serve the song brilliantly.

Smally: I think the rest of us know that America is not a nation of idiots, but it was horrifying enough to see Bush elected a second time to not exactly be filled with confidence. I mean, this election should be treated like a War. If people are saying to you “All politicians are the same”, then they’re just trying to make you feel bad about giving a fuck. It’s difficult to gauge what kind of impact an Obama presidency would have, but all the signs point to a dramatic improvement, or at the very least an attempt to improve things for the whole rather than the individuals at the top of the social ladder. In Kris’s words, it’s time to start throwing stones at “the old white men on the thrones”.

Kris: One thing that can be gleaned from the last few elections is that there is a growing mob unhappy with the US’s current direction.  57 million people voted against the Bush presidency, and mind also that half the people in this country don’t vote at all.  This year we’ve got a bunch of highly motivated people that really want to steer the ship for a while versus a bunch of confident people that have been steering for a while.  Paradigm changes don’t happen overnight, but the worse things get the more motivation there is to make the switch.  I dunno, I partially feel bad for taking a side, as taking sides limits you to the options available within that side, and straddling the fence allows you to be more objective.  On the other hand, I personally, ethically, and logically disagree with most of the dominant stances my government has taken.  Its become time to pick sides in this country, unfortunately.  Believe it or not, this election has become war on many levels.  We’re about two degrees away from taking to the streets, and I fear a McCain election may go as far a three degrees.  Then again, that’s what I thought last election, and it seemed crooked as hell where I sat.

11 The Somewhere Song

Smally: This is the first of what I feel are the two best songs I wrote for the record (though now with Kris contributions not necessarily the two best songs on it). I wrote it really late one night strumming some chords while I was waiting for some files to upload that I was sending to him for mixing. Very occasionally you pick up a guitar and a whole song comes out completely intact, words and everything – a lot like “The Sometimes Song” that I wrote for The Wheelies, so the title is an unsubtle nod towards that. It’s essentially about a relationship breakdown, or the strains of long-term relationships, so I’m hoping that somewhere there’s going to be somebody who hears this and knows exactly what I’m singing about. I recorded it all in one takes the following day before shipping it off and for a long time it hung around the project like a weird little rain cloud of unfinished business. Irrespective of how Kris feels about the atmospheric guitar parts he added to complete it, I really love it and think it makes the song, like what he’s done carries the melody and lets the song just be what it is. At times it sounds spookily lo-fi orchestral and that small guitar line in the middle of the song is one of my favourite musical melodies on the whole project.

Kris: I’ve begun to come around on this song.  I’ve been in so many bands with really creative guitar players, so I judge what I come up with based on that example.  To my ears it sounds like a terrible attempt at mimicry.  It is a good song, but in the hands of a competent melodic guitar player it could’ve been great.  This, along with Blood Music and Oh No, was in a batch of intensely personal songs Smally was shipping me at the time, so much so that it felt like a sin to change any of it.

Smally: Just to clarify about the “intensely personal” part. The reality is far from this “we used to be friends/ but sometimes it ends” – every relationship has its highs and lows and mine is no exception. There are elements of daydream license in pretty much every song I ever write, some are complete daydreams, others (like this) grow from the ground but are very caught up in the moment and still have a whole lot of sky in them. Music has a lot of different functions, but for me the most important is using it as a tool for communicating something. Going back to something Kerouac wrote about attempting to externalise these feelings for the sake of getting to know each other is that if we didn’t do it, it would be “a travesty turned on ourselves”. So that was the thinking behind it – write something that other people might possibly relate to. Walt Whitman told me when I was about 18 to “Delve! Mould! Pile the words of the earth! Work on age after age, nothing is to be lost…”

Kris: I should clarify as well.  I use ‘personal’ in that the song describes some fragile emotions, and the particular wording used to express those emotions was very profound.  I saw a rewrite as potentially damaging, and chose not to dabble.

12 Blood Music

Smally: Like a lot of the songs, “Blood Music” has been on a bit of journey to get to the final version. To begin with, it was one of Kris’ sketches that he recorded at the outset. I really loved the verse melodies and wrote some words, and a chorus and an outro for it originally called “Blood Music”, but then later changed to “The Last Kiss” from the subject matter of the song. Over the course of time two versions of the song emerged – one a ballad called “The Last Kiss” with my music, vocals and words, and the other was this much more guitar-driven version called “Blood Music” based around the new structure I’d written with Kris’ singing, words and music. He seemed to think that it was a tough call between the two for which should go on the record, but for me it was a no-brainer – again, lyrically this is at a whole other level and obviously struck a chord with the whole Don Quixote-Daydream theme. One of the last contributions I made to the record was to attempt to write some keyboard tracks for “Blood Music” and spent 3 long nights at it, tearing what little hair I’ve got out trying to find sounds and melodies that would fit. In the end I said to myself “fuck it” and sent Kris everything I’d attempted (some twelve tracks of sprawling piano, multi-delayed glockenspiel and so and so on) and let him figure out how to put it all together. Which miraculously he managed.

Kris: Probably the most collaborative song on the record.  It bounced back and forth so much and evolved so dramatically that it almost became a dare to twist it a little more each time it showed up in the inbox.  Smally’s original lyric set was really intense and personal.  I was worried about compromising the gravity of it.  When I rewrote his version, I was fully prepared to scrap it completely.  Granted, I did sweeten the pot with the interpretation of the Quixote story; intimacy is hard to compete with.  And the fucking keys…he sends a link saying he had a few piano tracks, twelve or so, and that I could use whatever I wanted.  I was thinking that it was twelve little spots that laid over each other, no huge deal.  I open it and its twelve four minute piano tracks.  I had to walk away from this one for a few days just to wrap my head around twelve unique piano melodies and how it was at all possible to make them work.  All of them.  I think because he had gone to such an unfathomable length, I felt obligated to justify the effort.  And I wanted to see if it could be done.  I think I cut and pasted on this song for all of eight hours.

Smally: Haha – yeah those keyboard tracks. That was painful. Anything longer than five minutes sitting at a piano and not managing to come up with a melody and I start to get very frustrated. Normally I’ll just press some keys and something happens but with “Blood Music” I pressed a whole load of keys and a whole load of happenings never really happened at all. Factor into that the fact I really wanted to do a good job because I loved the song so much… oh man, it was a nightmare. But all’s well that end’s well. I can’t even imagine how brutal it must have been unpicking all those knots of melodies I’d been tying. Just to clarify again – “The Last Kiss” was not a personal song at all. I drew on elements of a break-up a long time ago, but by and large virtually all of it is fictional with the exception of “some story standing on some stairwell”. I hated the lyrics of that one, so the Don Quixote reworking was like the original daydreamer charging in at the last minute with a chamber pot on his head to save the day.

13 Pepperland

Smally: I thought I had an hour to write and record a song one sunny Sunday afternoon, but the house was invaded some 40 minutes earlier than anticipated (as you will hear). Rather than sink into a songwriters sulk, I battled on regardless never really thinking that this would be something useable on the finished record (hence why it sounds so ragged), but when I mixed it down the end of the song somehow seemed as fitting as any way to finish the record. To be honest I think Kris has indulged me by putting this track on here, particularly as all of the original tracks were lost in a computer meltdown so it’s a brutal Smally-mix as opposed to a shiny Warchalking-mix. But in a way I’m glad we used it as Smally Jr has been something of an invisible and occasionally audible part of the Tigermouse songwriting process – one of the reasons behind me writing “The Apple Bites Back” (Seed), being with me when I wrote “679″ and naming it, and he also named this one too. Immediately after putting the mic down he pulled on his plastic rollerskates and shouted “Off to Pepperland!” I thought this was a funny little mix of Peter Pan’s “Neverland” and The Beatles “Sgt Pepper”, and somehow seemed like an apt name for the mythical country we’d been singing about. Hence as well the DG5 cover with the flag that has the middle-finger, a symbol we’re also using for The Daydream Collective – designed by a friend of Kris’ at our request – that flag (at least in my head) is the flag of Pepperland, and why I can’t help but grin when I sing “tomaytoes” on Country. For a few minutes I considered proposing that we call the album “Trees Will Whisper To The Sun And His Face Will Shine On The Children Who Play In The Places Only They Know Exist” after a line from this song. In hindsight I’m glad I didn’t.

Kris: TWWTTS&HFWSOTCWPITPOTKE would’ve been the most advanced album title out of the many we had proposed.  Spirits were definitely down on this song towards the end.  As the only song I didn’t have individual tracks to, we had been saddled with the demo version to overdub and massage as much a possible.  It still sounded markedly different, no matter what was done.  Smally’s computer had taken a dive over the summer, so I was under the assumption that the originals were gone, and we had discussed pushing it as far to the end as possible as a bonus track.  Then, through some feat of providence, the original tracks turn up, Smally puts some finishing vocals on it, and all of a sudden its one of the coolest spots on the whole thing.  What started as the last song because it never got off the ground became the last song because it was a great closer.

Smally: I’m glad I found the tracks and Kris could remix it as the version we were going to use just didn’t sound quite so. Every computer I’ve ever owned has let me down at some point, mainly under the weight of the DG music and songs I record, so when it started to meltdown, I saved only the stuff that was outstanding (I think at the time this was “Pepperland” and “Pavement”) – then when I went back to retrieve them all the individual tracks were scattered all over the PC and had to be found and reordered. I’m pleased with the finished thing considering it was melodically improvised and the words were written in about 2 minutes. I added the “Love/love/love” parts as a throwback to “The Somewhere Song”, which itself was a throwback to “Roll It Up” on the first Kaleidonauts record, which in turn was ripped straight from The Beatles obviously. That one’s deliberate, like a nod in the direction of songwriting masters. OK, I’ll leave it at that, I’m away to go rollerskating on the pavement.

www.myspace.com/janegilmore

1 What inspired you to start writing your own songs?

Jane: Bob Dylan, hard to pin-point

2 What are your favourite albums?

Jane: That’s tough. Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? by Of Montreal (going to a concert for them Nov. 1st!), definitely Graceland by Paul Simon, Odelay by Beck, and I’m going to cut myself off at Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie

3 What instruments do you play?

Jane: I play the guitar technically, but my vocal skills far surpass anything I do on that.

4 If you could be an inanimate object for a day what would you be?

Jane: Um… probably a book or a camera, but I’d have to be a high quality book or camera.

5 How do you feel about your last record (“Knowledge Is Dangerous” free to download at our store)?

Jane: Mixed feelings. When you’re recording with a crappy $30 mic, it’s not like it’s easy to get the exact sound you’re looking for, that said, you always have a few songs that you’re thinking, “Man, I killed that one! (in the good way)”

6 What’s the first word that comes into your head?

Jane: Pineapple (I’m making Pineapple-coconut loaf cake next week)

7 Who are your biggest musical influences?

Jane: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Martha and the Vandellas (the first kind of really good music I ever got into was Motown in about the sixth or seventh grade on a family trip to the Grand Canyon), Neutral Milk Hotel, and probably more recently several female (usually)acoustic artists (Mirah, New Buffalo, Kate Nash, etc.)

8 How does it feel to be a “voice for hire”?

Jane: First of all, that implies I’m getting paid. I have mixed feelings like I’m not wholly involved in the record enterprises and all the creative juices, but hopefully that will be amended in the near future.

9 What’s the story with mollusks vs philosophy?

Jane: They’re both great, but biologists I have found are often quite pretentious and have their minds set on “proving” things that are really inferred so recently I have been getting into more theoretical methods of discovering truth. So right now, I’m double majoring in both, but it might just be a matter of time before I dump mollusks. I haven’t really, REALLY decided yet.

10 What are your favourite films?

Jane: Anything Wes Anderson, especially The Royal Tenenbaums. Anything Jeunet, especially Amelie, quite the inspiration for my life. I guess V for Vendetta even though it’s pro-terrorism, it was well done and pretty libertarian.

11 Who are you voting for in the US election?

Jane: Why must we mingle things as pure as music with things as dirty as politics? I’m writing in Ron Paul

12 What makes you happy on a shitty day?

Jane: Plato, Emilyn Brodsky, Mark Twain, Dr. Nina Mikhalevsky

13 If you could be someone else for a day who would you be?

Jane: Probably Dr. Nina Mikhalevsky IF I had to. I’m perfectly content with me

14 Flying kites or building sandcastles?

Jane: Definitely the former. For a budding marine biologist, I really hate the beach. I mean, the water’s cold, sand gets blown really hard against your body, and you get burned… always.

15 If you weren’t a legendary singer/songwriter what would you be?

Jane: I think your premise is wrong. First of all, I am not a legendary singer/songwriter, nor is it my main desire to be so. I will end up in the end as a 1. Malacologist, 2. Philosophy professor, 3. Entrepenuer

16 What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Jane: Live the philosophical life with integrity (arete) and examination (paraphrased) from Dr. Nina Mikhalevsky

17 What was the last gig you went to?

Jane: Um, if you mean for me, that would be never, at least really. I did perform Ben Kweller’s “Lizzy” at a talent show in 12th grade which started one of the most disastrous romances of my life. Otherwise, I went to an Islands concert in DC in May.

18 How would you describe your music to anyone who hasn’t heard it before?

Jane: Acoustic Cynicism, Vulcan Sterility

19 Who’s your favourite Beatle?

Jane: N/A! I don’t really like any of them. If I really, really, really had to choose, I would say George Harrison because he seemed to be most down to earth, however, I refuse to evaluate the actual truth value of that statement.

20 What next for Jane Gilmore?

Jane: Open a bakery in the mid-west because college is a waste of time and application is more important than multiple guess and because baking is so satisfying. But before that, I will live the Thoreau/Walden lifestyle at some point. I will never cease, hopefully, to evaluate myself, reasonably and objectively (of course, how can we count on that?)

FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION)

Fig Mints is the brainchild of Bobby Rogan (real name “Pinky”), a band name that he flippantly coined to make fun of himself recording without a band, and he’s been reluctantly stuck with ever since (“I had this idea to mix instrumental versions of my songs and do a self-styled karaoke with each “band member” having a part in the act that was prerecorded and very self-deprecating”). Unofficially coming into existence in the Spring of 2004 after moving into the actual Cozy Home on Henry Street, Utica NY – Bobby was inspired by the music and madness of that “scene” to start recording the songs he’d been writing, teaching himself how to play the drums and bass, and attempting to write lyrics “that weren’t sappy”. The last four years have been productive with 5 official Fig Mints full-length records recorded on 100% analogue cassette (“Tascam 488 all the way, baby”) being released through Cozy Home Records – How’dyer Day Go? (2004), Enjoy It While You Can (2005), Bad Choice Brigade (2006), Is It Today Already? (2006), and Hugs & Smiles (2007). All 5 records are available for free download at www.cozyhomerecords.com More recently Fig Mints released “The Passionate Understanding” via our own Quixodelic Records, a 7-song collection of unreleased tracks recorded between 1999 and 2005.

Over the years, Bobby has honed a very distinctive style combining elements of indie guitar pop, experimental punk, and American psychedelics – a style that he frequently attempts to break free from but thankfully never does, describing it as sounding like “someone trying to sound like Guided By Voices but failing miserably”. Quirky intelligent lyrics combined with this spikey and sometimes fragile pop-punk sound have become trademarks of Fig Mints recordings, influenced initially by like likes of Sonic Youth and Nirvana, and latterly by Bob Pollard, The Jesus & Mary Chain, and Syd Barrett.

Although the majority of Fig Mints recordings are written, recorded and produced exclusively by Bobby for live shows he often enlists the help of several Cozy Home crew members including Paul, Luke and Dusty from The Real Burnouts, as well as Jenny Penny, Cashew Cook, and J. Schnitt. Likewise Artie Lester, Paul or Dusty Burnout and Jenny Penny have helped on the records “when I needed an extra bit of something”. As one of the accidental driving forces behind Cozy Home Records over the last 5 years Bobby has frequently been involved in writing, producing, and playing with a seemingly neverending list of bands and deviants such as The Real Burnouts, The Fucking Flame, Pinky Stink’s Problem, The Chesterfield Medical Experiment, The Utica Flower Company (et al.), and Travel Labyrinth.

After a relatively short and perhaps unproductive spell on the road, Figs is in the process of relocating back to his Utica roots where it is fully expected that at the very least he will continue writing ”a song a month” and complete the most recent record he has been working on. There appears to be no definitive plans for either the immediate or long-term future of Fig Mints other than “to make music until I run out of ideas. Hopefully I die before that happens, cos I’d be bored to death otherwise” – how can you not dig an attitude like that?

Find out more about Fig Mints (Of Your Imagination) at:

www.myspace.com/figmints or www.cozyhomerecords.com

With THE ORANGE ALBUM appearing for free download in the Quixodelic Record Store today, I thought you might want to know a little bit more about the band behind the music. So I chased and caught up with the original Acid Cowboy and put the questions to him: 

Smally: Alright Marc – what happened to you? March 07 I heard Acid Cowboy and some curious little experimental instrumentals… a year later and you’ve turned into some psych rock&roll monster band that are going to blow everyone’s brains out of their skulls? Where have you been and how did it get to this?Marc: Didn’t really realize what was happening. I met up with a friend from college Will and we started a band.  He brings the pop, I bring the psychedelic, and it feels great.  He loves the Beatles, I love Pink Floyd, so we get along pretty good.  We feel each other’s fire.Smally: Pink Floyd in particular is a very audible influence – apart from them and The Beatles what other bands/musicians would you say have influenced your sound?Marc: Well we are influenced by all sorts of stuff really.  Some other cool stuff  we are into are Funkadelic, the BJM, Kraut Rock, the Band, the Stones, Aphex Twin, Spacemen 3, Robyn Hitchcock, the Olivia Tremor Control, Ween …. Etc etc…Smally: What’s “The Orange Drop” and who makes up the band – what instruments do you play, who does what?Marc: The Orange Drop could have very well been the Orange Drops because we certainly could have eaten more than one.  Once in a blue moon there was a very potent batch of acid that came in an orange mint dropper.  Fun times were had, an 8-lane highway was crossed in the middle of the night… blablablaAnyways there’s 4 of us; myself and Will write the songs, play guitar and sing.  John plays the bass and the keys.  Ben is the drummer.Smally: We’re about to host “The Orange Album” in our Quixodelic Record Store – its quite simply an incredible record, profound, musically adventurous, and a complete riot of psychedelic sounds? When did you record it? How easy was it to put together?Marc: We recorded it, along with the Atlas LP and the Talented Friends EP in the past year.  And I guess it wasn’t too difficult to put together.  A few arguments here and there, nothing too terrible; we tend to be fairly reasonable.  We record everything ourselves…A few love songs, a few desperate ones… before you know it there’s an album.Smally: You guys are quoted as saying that in the future you want to be “the biggest band in America” – I fucking love that attitude and completely believe it’s possible. But how are you going to achieve it?Marc: Subliminal Messaging. And sound terrorism.  And Martha Stewart brand morning glory seeds.Smally: Where are you from and what’s the music scene like there? Is there a particular scene you’re part of, do you play live? What are The Orange Drop like as a live band?Marc: The Orange Drop met in New Jersey.   And we are much more electric as a live act than on record; we improvise a good bit; a 3 minute song on the album might be a half hour journey live. We have played live but not as the new lineup.  We have been practicing a set which will be ready soon enough.  The new band is so much better than what you can hear on our current album(s);  we are already on our way to recording another one and this is IT… men in suits will be lining up with their checkbooks in hand…and if you are in the tri-state keep your eyes opened for us.  Smally: What’s your own personal favourite Orange Drop song?Marc: Ah that’s a tough one and it changes all the time.  Retrogenerica and Soul Damage for right now; those are the most fun to play live.Smally: You got any groupies yet?Marc: Well… we have hot friends… and they love us.Smally: If you weren’t aspiring musicians, what else would you be?Marc: Probably treethuggers; hippy by name, gangster by trade…  this is a US only thing, I don’t believe people in the UK have friends that listen to the disco biscuits and think that their bedroom is bleeding red and evil spirits are saying to leave.    Smally: Yeah I cant speak on behalf of the rest of the UK but I’m completely lost with that. What’s a treethugger and what’s a Martha Stewart Morning Glory Seed while we’re on the subject? You Americans are weird haha.Marc: A treethugger is an interesting breed.  Half tie-dye hippy, half gangster rap thug.  You can usually find them in the parking lot of Disco Biscuit shows…. What’s a Disco Biscuit you ask?  They claim to be a band, but it’s really a poor excuse for ecstacy heads to meet up and rip each other off on a few pill.  For some reason this kind of shit is extremely popular around here, and if you live on the East Coast, chances are you have a dozen friends that are into this crap. And… morning glory seeds can be a powerful psychedelic when you ingest enough.  I have personally never tried it because of the terrible vomiting that follows.  Martha Stewart brand seeds can be found in most major stores in the US; those happen to have a coat of poison on the outside.. resulting in even more vomiting than usual.

You can find out more about The Orange Drop here:www.myspace.com/theorangedrop

or listen to “Retrogenerica” in the Singles section on this website.

“The Passionate Misunderstanding”

That’s what I should have called “Hugs and Smiles”. It was a phrase uttered by my good friend Alan while talking indirectly about a situation that was happening in my life at the time, the gory details of which I have only shared with one other person. This situation was well documented in, though at times obscured by the language of the lyrics in most of the songs on “Hugs and Smiles”. I was too chickenshit to call that album “The Passionate Misunderstanding”. I though that the person that I wrote most of the songs about would find it offensive… Or something. I honestly regret that decision, and have ever since I put out my last album.

And so this EP, I guess, is about regret. These are fragments of a bygone era that I have been trying to revisit ever since learning how to write rock songs.

War In Space was recorded in Mom’s Basement sometime in 2000 or so. Trying like hell to emulate Beat Happening, this was the first song I ever recorded that had lyrics (more precisely, the first song that I had the balls to actually sing on).

Front Porch/Cars Passing was recorded sometime in 1999 in my bedroom. Originally called “A Misguided Attempt At A Wednesday”, I had an idea to put out a 7-song EP, writing and recording one song a day for a week. I lost interest on Thursday, the intro of which mistakenly (but fortunately) can be heard fading out at the end of this song.

Light 100s is a direct and unabashed reaction to discovering Sonic Youth. If reading into SY’s genesis, one will inevitably become familiar with at least the name Glenn Branca, as two of the members were regular contributors to his performances. After reading about Branca’s multi-guitar symphonies, and before ever hearing a note that the man recorded, I wrote this song, comprised of 12 guitar tracks recorded on my little four track. I attempted a cigarette-themed album called “Camel: The Album”. This is the only surviving piece.

What A Day is about feeling stuck, bored, and lonely. One winter I found myself drunk, missing my friends, disgusted with society and desperately needing to get laid. And there you have it.

My Dreams Are Boring:  I don’t dream. And when I do dream, mostly it’s about regular, everyday shit. I lived through a period of time around 2004 or so when I dreamed every night and had an almost constant and unshakable feeling of de-ja-vu. So I wrote this song, which really is not about that specifically. That’s just the inspiration.

Requiem For My Puppy Dog:  One night in 1999 or so (maybe 2000, but no later), I found my dog Pepper lying on the floor, breathing heavily. I couldn’t get her up to walk and knew that she wouldn’t make it through the night. I couldn’t deal with it, so I convinced myself that she was just tired and went to bed. I woke up and found Pepper dead the next morning, and realized that her last moments were spent alone and terrified because I chose to ignore my own intuition. I buried her in the back yard, and wrote this song immediately afterward. I’ll never regret anything more than going to bed that night, and still cry when I think about it.

They’ll Be Here Soon (Full Moon):  This is an account of a booze-soaked, acid-influenced freakout that happened a few years ago with my friends. One night on a full moon, we decided (as we have in the past and will in the future), to go up to the Valley View Golf Course in Utica, NY and howl (literally). The Real Burnouts had been doing this since they were kids, and I had only accompanied everyone a few times before this night. I brought my tape recorder, and got whatever I could on tape (I’m the one who tried to push the bench over, but found that it was bolted to the ground). The fact that the recording ended up underneath all that backwards music is the result of not knowing what the fuck else to do with the sounds… I thought it was just what the song needed after playback.

You can download THE PASSIONATE MISUNDERSTANDING at the Quixodelic Record Store (the “Store” link at the top of the site), find out more about Fig Mints at www.myspace.com/figmints - download Fig Mints records for free at www.cozyhomerecords.com

Well the likelihood of anyone ever being interested enough in The Wheelies to interview us is slim to non-existent, so I figured as a vain and probably pointless alternative  I’d talk to myself about the songs that make up the most recent (and most complete) of a long, long line of retrospectives…

1 KEEP MOVING This was the opening song on the “Cosmonaut” album, originally intended as a solo album for the failed Cozy Home box-set “The Troof Above Your Head” – where I’d deliberately instigated a challenge to my fellow Cozy Homers to write and record a full-length album so that all of them could be simultaneously released on Christmas Morning 2006. At this point I was spending a lot of time looking after my two year old son and sometimes I’d play him really simple childlike melodies on the keyboard so as we could dance around the  living room. So originally “Keep Moving” was an instrumental joke song until one afternoon while dancing around with the little guy on my shoulders I started to sing “A finger, a thumb, an arm, a leg, a nod of the head keep moving” along with the music. I guess this itself is a by-product of watching a lot of kid’s television that winter. The idea of “Cosmonaut” was that it was going to be a concept record around Alexander Trocchi’s idea of “the cosmonaut of inner space”, so I twisted the lyrics to suit. At a primitive level it’s about moving through this inner space in circles based on Nietschze’s concept that “All life is a circle therefore it is the going there not the getting there that counts” and the feeling of being trapped in your own head, thus the repetition of the images and lines and the contrast between being stationary while still moving. It’s probably one of my favourite Wheelies songs in spite of the crudeness of the keyboard sounds and the fact that at this stage I still didn’t even know I could pan sounds on the recording software I was using. It’s also one of the rare occasions when the Spiritualized influence of building layers of melodies and sounds has actually worked for me.

2 EVERYBODY DREAMS ABOUT SOMETHING This is probably the nearest thing to a perfect Wheelies “pop” song. If you were going to force these songs into a box then they would be somewhere between low-fi pop, low-fi folk, or low-fi psych. At times I get madly possessed with the idea of writing “one truly great song” even though I know that a copious amount of luck is required when you start with mediocre songwriting skills and brutal musicianship, so a lot of what I write is geared towards that. Late at night when everyone is in bed, quietly strumming chords and murmuring melodies in search of something. When I’m in a writing phase I’ll record at least 3 sketchy ideas on a portable MP3 player with either the guitar or piano. Then, when I’m ready to record I’ll go back through the hundreds of ideas cutting out the rubbish and leaving only the garbage. During the recording of an album I continue to write at night and sometimes if an idea is good enough it’ll be recorded straight away. “Everybody Dreams…” is one of those songs. I seem to remember having a melody in my head and being hunched with the guitar over the MP3 on the living room floor at 2am virtually whispering it out. I recorded it in one go the following day. Out of part-laziness and also the technological inability, I usually settle for the first and occasionally the second mixdown of a song. It tends to be weeks later that I really notice all the blemishes – the horrible sounding keyboard towards the end, the fact that I miscalculated the lyrics and had to improvise the third verse, the way the vocals go out of sync in the final verse. Actually I’m as sloppy lyrically as I am technically – time (or lack of) plays a massive part in these songs. Usually songs are written and recorded on the run via stolen minutes, and a lot of the time I find myself scrawling Kerouacian “first thought, best thought” words on the back of envelopes and scrap paper just to have something to sing.

3 THE DAY THAT I PLAYED GOD I guess there are two dimensions to this one. On one hand its a blatantly obvious  pisstake of religion (if I had to say I was something I’d say I was Buddhist-Atheist or Atheist-Buddhist even though both can be the same thing). But at a more subconscious level it indirectly hints at my involvement and orchestrating role in The Daydream Generation (www.daydreamgeneration.com). Like “Everybody Dreams…”, this track is taken from the album “Strange Kid In A Daydream” written in the weeks immediately following the first ever Daydream Generation compilation between March and May of 2007. That first compilation was a chaotic process and I was struggling to get my head around the idea of being responsible for promoting all these great bands that kindly gave their songs away in exchange for some promotion. It was one thing to put the compilation together, but a much tougher challenge to do justice to the music and switch people onto what we’d done. Hence lines like “Smally, Smally help me please/Give me something to feel at ease/I tried to help but I think I sneezed and started a third world war”. On the subject of lyrics my favourite lines from this one are “I woke to the sound of a marching band going past me on the beach/The Devil was blowing an old conch shell…” – I think this is somehow related to me being wasted many years ago on Silversands beach in the middle of summer and there was a Salvation Army band playing, looking and sounding completely out of context. From time to time I go through phases of writing “story-songs”, usually surreal, dreamlike, unplanned and “The Day That I Played God” probably epitomises that style. It’s also probably worth mentioning the percussion element of this song and in particular the crappy little toy drum that I borrowed from Smally Jr for “Strange Kid…”. To go with the baby maracas, toy harmonica, and kid’s tambourine. Weirdest percussion I’ve ever used? Probably a shaving brush on a plastic tennis racket.

4 THE SOMETIMES SONG So you know that “one truly great song” I’ve been trying to write? Well I never wrote it, but I think this is going to be as close as I’m ever going to get (particularly from other people’s reactions to it). Is it my favourite Wheelies song? Probably. I wrote it for “Cosmonaut” and with the self-imposed pressure of getting a record written and recorded in 6 weeks, the songs were pouring out of me. I wrote “The Sometimes Song” late one evening sitting on the couch, the melody took five minutes and the words took another five, seemed to fall out of me as if the song was already written and just waiting to be discovered. The recording itself is pretty grim and not helped by the fact that I was missing a string on the guitar and too broke to buy a new one through the duration of “Cosmonaut” – probably why a lot of that record is very heavy on the keys. I always feel like when I record a song that it’s not in it’s true form – I mean, I hate singing, and playing music, but I love songwriting, so I usually end up preferring to hear cover versions of Wheelies tracks. I’m still waiting to hear someone cover this but hopefully sometime. The song itself is broken into three sections, the first deals with the fragility of being and the body, the second is about getting dumped, and the third is about being poor. I like to try and find and then write about positives hidden in dark situations, the fear of things, the memory of how I stumbled through depression and came out on the other side. “Sometimes that’s just the way it goes…” I guess is the logical answer to the impossible question that is “Why?”

5 I’VE GOT A GOOD FEELING Another one from “Cosmonaut”. Like I said, when I started out on that record I had it in mind to very loosely tie it around the idea of “the cosmonaut of inner space”, but halfway through the idea of  The 17th Floor began to appear through several of the songs. In that sense “I’ve Got A Good Feeling” is a suicide song – a guy climbs up onto the 17th floor of a building and jumps out of a window. In this instance as he jumps he sees a girl behind him and she in turn sees him and there is an explosion of connectivity between them, like they have always been fated to meet. And yet, at the point when they do he’s halfway out of the window plummeting to his death, and the entire song (at an overly long six minutes plus) is framed within those few seconds of realisation. I guess it’s black comedy, him dangling from her fingers changing his mind about wanting to die, then her letting go and changing her mind about it as he falls away. Ah, there’s really so much in this one that I could sit here all day writing… The song itself is so full of technical fuck-ups that it’s not funny. Ropey vocals, badly played improvised keys (Ray Manzarek I am not), levels all over the place. It’s one of those songs that I’m almost embarassed to play to people, and yet there’s something I like about the descending main vocal line that makes it bearable for me to listen to it. 

6 OH HAPPINESS Perhaps more than any other this song defines the year in my life that these were all recorded in. It was written over the course of a sunny May day, initially sitting in the garden with the guitar while Linz and Dylan buzzed around me, then later playing it in the living room and Linz put her head around the door and sang the repeat line of the chorus for a laugh. It made the song for me, so I forced her at psychological gunpoint that weekend to record it. On the original version it ended with us laughing as she pointed out that it sounds like I am singing “Oh a penis!”  and me going “Aw no! Fuck!” with the realisation she was write. This is the only track from the album of the same name that I’ve chosen for inclusion, for a number of reasons. The first is simply that “Oh Happiness” is technically a shambles: I’m thinking about The crap £60 guitar, no panning of sounds, and the very audible fuck-ups that litter it. At the time it was a one-off record – I hadn’t written or recorded anything for 9 years after “Simple Songs For Complicated People”, and so I wasn’t taking it very seriously. After so long away from writing songs it was more of an explosion of ideas than anything else, and there was no sign of songwriter’s block or struggling to find melodies. In that context it was probably the most enjoyable of all The Wheelies albums to record irrespective of how bad it sounds, and at the centre of it all “Oh Happiness” reflects pretty accurately how I was feeling, both about the music, and about my life.

7 THE 17TH FLOOR As mentioned previously, “The 17th Floor” was a recurring theme on the “Cosmonaut” album. Originally this started as a guitar song, then I added the piano, and later cut the guitar out, which is why the vocals sound too loud (I never went back and fixed it). Like “I’ve Got A Good Feeling” it’s another suicide song, this time the protagonist jumping and landing in a tree where he survives in a physical sense, but dies a spiritual death that leaves his mind “shining in the sky with the ghosts I left behind standing smiling in a neverending line”. I like to think of this as a positive outcome. Actually one of my favourite Wheelies cover versions is “The 17th Floor” as performed by Fig Mints (Of Your Imagination). I was trying to record some of these songs live on the guitar and when I played this one it sounded very like a Figs song, so I asked Bobby if he wanted to cover it, which he did, and the results were pretty special. Well worth checking out if you can find it. Initially I hated the lines about the ambulance sirens sounding like ice-cream van chimes, but I’ve grown to quite like them over time.

8 THE WORLD IS FUCKED I was doing a lot of what we now call “mining” – surfing the Internet in search of bands and individuals that might fit with the Daydream Generation project, and this song was a response to the desperation I felt doing it. The thing was, that it felt like most of the MySpace pages I visited belonged to EMO kids, each one trying to outdo the other with their narcissistic woes and attempts to shock from a safe distance. Not only did it make feel like a old 31, but it didn’t exactly fill me with confidence about the future. And so I wrote “The World Is Fucked”. The verse melodies (seriously out of vocal reach to a point where it sounds hopelessly garbled) were lifted from another Wheelies song “Love It”, which in turn was taken from the bridge section on “Anybody’s Guess”. It’s a tune that I love but for some reason can’t seem to do justice, so hopefully someday someone will sing it as it was supposed to be sung. So yeah, in the spectrum of Wheelies songs, this one is a philosophical monster where humans are neurotic dinosaur puppets taking photographs.

9 STRANGE KID IN A DAYDREAM This is the title-track from the last of the 5 albums I put out during that year. The drum loop I stole from a free loop site, and I took out the main guitar to help it sound more chaotic and different. Essentially it’s about my teenage years, coming last in the waster pumpkin growing competition (though I never wore the winning pumpkin on my head as promised) – mine grew mouldy on the window sill or rolling dice like I did when I was a kid playing imaginary football games that I invented to escape the real world. It’s one of those attempted wisdom songs, trying to sing to others like me, but it probably only sounds wanky and bullshit. Nice tune though I think.

10 WHEN THE MORNING COMES This song originally appeared on “Cosmonaut” but the inevitable by-product of rushing writing and recording and mixing is that sometimes you end up with a song that doesn’t quite live up to it’s potential, so this version was re-recorded for “Strange Kid…”. It probably developed from me playing the piano (keyboard) and getting the chorus and then realising that it fitted in with the original verses (I always hated the original’s chorus which seemed completely removed from what I was actually singing about). Round about this time I was listening to a lot of External World and one of the things I loved about it was the mad percussion sounds, so for this I dug out every pot and pan and rhythm making instrument I could find in the house and put them all on the living carpet in a big line, worked my way round them as the song played. It probably didn’t work that well. The song itself is simply a sweet hymn to being relatively useless.

11 BEAUTIFUL BONES At the turn of the year (06/07) I was asked via The Cozy Home to write a song about a for a student’s art project where they intended to make a vinyl record featuring several bands singing about dinosaurs. I don’t think that record ever materialised, but if it did then it didn’t feature “Beautiful Bones”. My choice of dinosaur was the Supersaurus, and I wrote this throwaway song about a cartoon paranoid dinosaur called Danny. I don’t know where or why I got the idea to somehow frame it in a mock-live setting (possibly regret that I can’t play live – you’d need to put me in a binbag and force me to play at gunpoint, so intense is my nervous disposition in front of crowds of people). Anyway, the mock-live thing didn’t sound half as good in reality as it sounded in my head and the canned laughter is erm, excruitiatingly bad. For a while I considered and re-considered keeping the line “He thought he had bum cancer” in, especially as Linz was telling me she hated that line. But if you can’t laugh in the face of tragedy, then what can you do? So I kept it in.

12 GO One of only two songs to make it onto this from the second album “Wake Me Up When It’s Over”, “Go” is a pretty personal song about something I won’t go into here. “Wake Me Up…” was really a reaction to the  interest show by Cozy Home after “Oh Happiness” – I bought a keyboard to compliment the crap £60 acoustic guitar, and miraculously managed to persuade two of the original Wheelies (Thomas and Martin) to head over to my house by the sea for a day to help out with the songs. I was a bit paranoid about this song sounding too “soft” when I wrote it, but I guess at the end, that’s just me. There are a lot of mistimed instruments on this song, and its the only time the toy harmonica features on The Shite Album – considering I can only play one tune on the moothie, you’re not missing much. There is also a much more psychedelic cover version of “Go” on The Real Burnouts “A Lull In Void” available to download for free at www.cozyhomerecords.com – that record is one of my personal favourites so to have somehow helped with it is a real priviledge.

13 MORNING STAR 07 Recorded for the “Respun” album in January 2007, “Morning Star” originally appeared on “Simple Songs For Complicated People” back in 1997, when I locked myself in a room for 20 something blazing hot summer days to write and record a full-length Wheelies record. By the time I reached “Respun” I was probably reaching a point of songwriter’s burn-out for the first time since I’d picked up the guitar in March of the previous year. It kicked off in the weeks after “Cosmonaut” when I felt like I was still on a writing high and had more songs in me, but the brain ran out of gas pretty quickly. Stuck for something to sing, I picked a few old tracks from a decade previous that I figured I could do better, and “Morning Star” was one of them (hence the “07″). This song actually is the soundtrack to one of the most unique experiences in my life – see Glencoe , September 1997, 4 friends, a pan of psychedelic sausages and a multi-coloured boabey. I’ll not bore you with the details, but let’s just say I had some kind of religious epiphany. The updated version on here perhaps has lost some of the original magic (somehow feeding an electric accordian backwards through a distortion box didn’t quite seem to work this time), but it’s an important song nevertheless and features some interesting backwards scratch drums. Actually a simple Casio keyboard beat going backwards.

14 SO LONG I’ve written a lot of “last songs” in my time. Much the same as I’ve smoked a lot of “last cigarettes”. It’s a concious decision, like leaving a farewell message (or well done) message for anyone who makes it through an entire Wheelies album intact. “So Long” is probably as close as I can get to the perfect Wheelies goodbye, in particular the line “when this stuff is inside of you better get it out”. In actual fact there is no real reason why you should like these songs since they are simply an excorcism of something inside of me, an urge to create that has to go somewhere. Soon enough it won’t be channelled into music, but something else instead. At the time when I was recording this for “Wake Me Up…” I intended it to be like a “Her Majesty” at the end of the record, only I left a couple of minutes with the words “Take it away Slight” for him to play one of his legendary laserbeam guitar solos on, but for one reason or another he never got round to doing it, so I cut the line and faded it out. So not only is it a fitting end to The Wheelies, but it is also a pretty great reflection of why it ended, and probably why it should have ended a lot sooner than it did. And actually it dawns on me as I’m writing this, that this really is The End. It’s been a long, comical, magical, and excrutiatingly painful journey. Thanks to everyone who has supported the band, and laterally me, thanks for downloading the records, and for the kind words of support. Sook the bools.

You can download “The Wheelie” from the Quixodelic Record STORE link for FREE at the top of this site.

Smally: This song was originally recorded a long time before the concept of an album had entered our heads, probably as far back as March of 2007. Jon sent me the music and asked me to “Caroline” it. After I did the original vocals it gathered dust in our gmail accounts, but in September while trying to put together a “Daydream Collective” for the Daydream Generation I dug it up and sent it onto Warchalking to see if he could add some backing vocals. The song itself is about being able to collaborate on records like this over great distance and the breaking down of geographical boundaries, the bench existing in multiple places at the same time. There’s something pretty amazing about being able to make music like this on either side of a giant ocean, but all the time there’s still the feeling that it would be better to be able to sit down on a bench together and just be. It’s not so much a love song, more a song about love – the conclusion being that were it smokeable, then it would be the best drug of all.

Jon: This here was a tune that just wasn’t working out for me.  I couldn’t sing what I wanted so I shipped it off to the Small man.  I like to believe that when I mentioned that in Europe there are benches that are older than the colonies was the inspiration for the lyrics.

Sunshine Songwriter

Smally: In December 2007 I realised that I hadn’t written a Wheelies record for quite a long time, so I took a day off from real life and attempted to record an entire album in one day. I managed 10 songs and the album was called “7 Hours”, but of the 10, there were only 5 that I was happy with. Over the course of the year Jon and I had been talking about making a collaboration together (JOTA with Smally) – we already had Roll It Up, Caroline, a couple of songs that didn’t make it onto the album (Suspended Animation, and Alternative Ending) and an alternative version of Moths from the one that appeared on Dead Canaries “Critical Mass” album. Added to that there was a handful of cover versions we’d each done of one another’s songs from the previous year. I sent him the 5 songs and asked him if he wanted to rework any of them for the collaboration. At the time I didn’t really expect him to like them enough to want to rework them all, but “Sunshine Songwriter” was the first one he finished. It’s really just a utopian love song for Yoko. Our life is pretty much like this. With the exception of the billboards.

Jon: I don’t remember where this one started, but right around the time that I felt it coming together it started to sound like Neil Diamond doing a Johnny Cash.  That’s when the rockin’ electric guitar & the clip clop percussion came in.  Now we have our favorite Scot’s man riding off into the sunset, like John Wayne in The Quiet man.

For A Girl I Never Kissed

Smally: Here’s another one from the “7 Hours” album. At the time I sent them away to Jon I also played them to Warchalking to see what he thought of them. He liked this one enough to ask to rework it, did the guitars and backing vocals from scratch and sang a version of it with a head-cold, which he later asked that we scrap. So I resung it and played some piano and forwarded it back on to Jon to work his magic on it. It’s really just a fictional account of a boy digs girl scenario under a cloud of mental illness. A lot of the time I’m working under very strict time restrictions when I’m writing lyrics. Usually I’ll build up a catalogue of melodies and song ideas on my MP3 player over the course of a couple of months, and prior to recording I’ll cut these down to the ones I like the best. Unfortunately I keep forgetting to leave much time for the words – for “7 Hours” I had nothing written down when I got out of bed that morning, so a lot of the time it’s like I’m writing against the clock and just have to run with whatever comes out. “For A Girl…” is one of those songs.

Jon: My job seemed simple & obvious.  George Harrison it up.

The Idiot Crying

Smally: While Jon was busy breathing life into the 5 songs from “7 Hours”, I was back writing new ideas. The format for us collaborating up until that point had either been for him to send me backing music and me to write the song over the top, or for me to write the song and send him the individual tracks for him to pick apart and redo. By this point it was pretty clear that we were going to make more than the “mini-album” we’d been imagining up until then. I thought it might be interesting and hopefully produce another couple of songs that the album needed to play him some of the ideas stored on my MP3 player to see if there was anything he liked worth working on. Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out how to get the files off the MP3 player onto my pc so instead I recorded about 17 very loose ideas with improvised words very quietly one night when all the Smally’s were safely tucked up in bed, and sent him the 12 I liked the best. At the same time he was working on “Hammer & Sickle” and arranged for Jane Gilmore to sing the last verse. I was so blown away by her voice that I asked him to try and fix it for her to sing one of the ideas. Which they did. Obviously this one’s a song about the environment – when I was writing it I had it in my head that I wanted to write something as great as “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Of course it turned out nothing like that, but its amazing proof of what a great singer can do for a mediocre songwriter.

Jon: I thought it would add some great texture to have Jane on the right & I on the left.  That’s about it.

Our Back Garden

Smally: This was another one of the “ideas” from the 12 I recorded for Jon. I’d been mucking around with it for a couple of weeks and one night started playing it to Yoko. Now it’s a rare occurence for her to sing along with anything I ever play so when it happens, I start to figure that I might be onto something. If it hadn’t been for that, then this song could so easily have gone the same way as the other 10 “ideas” that never became anything. I can’t for the life of me remember what we were originally singing, but through the laughter I started to sing “39th Bridge Street Song” and then “Happiness Runs”. I wrote the words later that night looking out at our back garden, which really does look sad and overgrown. As the song grew from there with Jane and Jon singing, and Jon doing some strangely great instrumentation it started to look like a producer’s worst nightmare, but somehow he managed to get it sounding as good as it did in my head the night it came alive.

Jon: The guitar & vocals were switched to make these two fit better.  Something went wrong here.  I lost it.

Smally’s Dream #3

Smally: Well this is really just a tradition I picked up from Bob Dylan, and “Bob Dylan’s Dream”. I originally wrote “Smally’s Dream” for the Wheelies “Cosmonaut” album, but cut it as it wasn’t great. I then did a “Smally’s Dream #2″ for the “Strange Kid In A Daydream” album, and so I recorded a “Smally’s Dream #3″ for “7 Hours”. The chords and melody were very similar to #2 before I wrote it so I was hoping it would sound like a continuation, rather than just the same song. The end of the song is from another Wheelies song called “Maybe” that I recorded for “Strange Kid…” that also didn’t work out, but I liked the melody and thought the two ideas worked ok together. Essentially it’s just the narration of a dream, no more, and no less.

Jon: I think during the recording of the ukulele I started hearing the war & the bass line.  This song is a great example of how I work.  Layers, as I’m doing one I hear what the next will be.   There was a great dilemma at the end when I couldn’t figure out how to end it.  I sent it to Tim Kotch to let him deal with it.  He was also stumped.  Then after awhile I fell asleep for about 5 minutes at around 2am.  Then I got up & finished it.  With a very hot mic for the Jew’s Harp.   You can hear the headphones as I get up to stop the recording.

Caroline

Smally: This was the first collaboration between me & Jon recorded as far back as January 2007. At the time I was writing and recording The Wheelies “Respun” album, but I’d come up against a rare case of writer’s block. To try and get myself out of it I asked around Cozy Home Records to see if anyone had any old instrumentals that they’d not been able to finish or use, that they could let me write a song for. 3 of the collaborations from there ultimately went on to form “The Utica Flower Company” album, but the process of this song was far different in that Jon requested the individual tracks back from me to mix them himself. It was a smart move – I’ve never really had the ears or imagination or equipment or technical knowledge to arrange songs in a way that maximises their full potential, whereas he’s got a natural talent for it (as hopefully this album proves). When he first sent the track he forgot to delete the file name and so it came through as “I Did Acid With Caroline”. I figured this was as good as any subject matter to sing about. What he didn’t tell me was that the music was his attempt at a cover of a Daniel Johnson song of the same name, so it’s since been reduced to simply “Caroline” to try and avoid any confusion. That bit about leaving your shoes at the front door and jumping from an upstairs window to try and land in them I took from one of those old LSD urban legends and it’s got one of my favourite lines on the whole album in it : “I was wondering who the fuck is Caroline?”

Jon: There was too much of a good there here to hear behind a kind of boring song that had nothing to do with me.  So I stowed it, then when the offer came, shipped it.

Hammer & Sickle

Smally: Another of the songs from “7 Hours”. Actually this one was the last I recorded that day. I had 15 minutes left before the Smally’s came home and had gone through most of the best ideas from the MP3 player, so I made this one up on the spot, chords and words. I even started to write a third verse which began “And when they try me for murder…” but I realised I was running out of time and scrubbed it. I’d been playing that old folk song “If I Had A Hammer” for a laugh the week before, so that’s obviously where it had come from, combined with the fact I’d joined the Communist Party a couple of days before. It doesn’t really do justice to how I feel about financial inequality and that poverty exists, but it’s a start.

Jon: This song needed to be American all the way.  Tim Kotch went above & beyond on his part.  Katie Saul & I recorded the middle section live in my room.  Half way through Louis & Phillip knocked over a mirror, a loud crash was recorded, but we kept going.  The ensuing terror was recording & you can hear Katie say “Oh my god.”  This quagmire comes together at the end with Jane Gilmore brilliantly walking by singing.

Moths At The Bug Zapper

Smally: Jon sent me the original “Moths At The Bug Zapper” as an instrumental from the Dead Canaries “Critical Mass” album that he was working on as his contribution for the Daydream Revolution 3 compilation. The first time I heard it I heard this vocal melody and for the next couple of days it was driving me nuts – I literally couldn’t listen to that instrumental without hearing the unsung vocals in my head. So for fun I sang some improvised words and sent him it to see what he thought. He ok’d me singing it but told me if I was going to write words then they had to be about “people like moths around the glitter ball at a nightclub” or words to that effect. So that’s mainly what the song is about, mixed in with the idea of loving someone unnatainable, like a light that you can help flying towards and in the end destroying yourself. Actually it’s two songs in one – the split vocals are both singing their own thing so if you read every odd line or even line it makes a bit more sense. Sort of. There is a version of this on “Critical Mass” but it’s half-vocals, and half-instrumental – this version here is the full vocal take and stripped back.

Jon: The music was recorded & forgotten about for about a month.  After found I never felt it was done.  Smally insisted that I not use his vocals, but it felt done with them, I couldn’t not have them there.  For Critical Mass I really wanted the music to tell the story, so I cut the vocal track down.   There is really great stuff that was left out, so I’m glad we did this.  Also, I was really disappointed this guitar track was lost on Critical Mass, so I stripped this one down.

Marvin The Mollusk

Smally: “Marvin…” was the last song written for the album, and really was only supposed to be like a little hidden acoustic track that played at the very end, probably a bit like “Her Majesty” from The Beatles “Abbey Road” in the style of Dylan’s “Dont Think Twice It’s Alright”, but obviously it grew legs and became a lot more than that. It’s also the first time I’ve ever specifically written a song for someone else to sing (Jane), which was quite a challenge in itself, especially all the fretting concerning what if they don’t actually like it? Fuck knows how we got around to the subject, but when I was thanking her for doing a great job on “The Idiot Crying” the subject of molluscs came up, so I figured I’d write something about that. I was also reading a lot about Moby Dick at the time when I wrote it, so there’s some of that mixed up in it too. Fate and molluscs – a couple of weird bedfellows for you. Originally this was called “Marvin The Mollusk’s Blueprint To Happiness” after a philosophical “blueprint” I tried to write once many years ago. The “Jackson Pollock” reference is a nudge to the record cover that we’re currently using. The further this album has gone on, the more the strange synchronicities have begun to spin around us – I mean you didn’t really think Marvin was a simple story about a Mollusk did you? The actual melody itself is a combination of two songs I wrote previously but never recorded called “Tommy Mears” and “I’ve Been Smoking Since I Was Five”, and the idea that one day we might write a song that sounds old enough to be on a Wes Anderson soundtrack.

Jon: At this point, I needed a break, but Marvin is special, so I needed to give it a proper go.  It needed to be nautical & dream like.  The accordion was recently acquired in Utica NY after playing with Sgt Dunbar in Albany.  The media has made me thing that accordions sound nautical so I added that for the low end.

The Brilliance Of Being Alive

Smally: This was the 5th of the five songs that made it from the “7 Hours” album and the second last I recorded that day. Again, like “Hammer & Sickle” it was written with the clock ticking, and the words were the first thing that came into my head. It’s not even so much that I was thinking at the time that it would be interesting to write a happy death song, it’s just that this is how I genuinely feel about it. It probably has its roots in old Buddhist books that I read a long time ago, and one line I remember was something along the lines of “dying is as natural as taking a shit, but you don’t worry about taking a shit do you?” Add to that my fear of flying and this is what you get.

Jon: This one was Smally’s idea.

 With a collection of 4 songs he’s contributed to previous Daydream Generation compilations being made available to download as “the playground EP” today, I figured that it’s as good a time as any to find out a little bit of everything I wanted to know about Michael Crowther, the brains behind it all.

Smally: Well first and foremost I suppose I’ve got to ask why The Playground? And who is Mixmaster Migity?Mike: well why any band name at all? I have a hard enough time naming my songs, if were to reference anything it would be “the world is your playground” im a life experience junky. try me ive already done it.(Mixmaster Migity is) yours truly, a name given to me by my friends who really inspired me to make it this far with my music in the first place. much respect to Reggie Hollywood and Dj Ice Cold, can I get holla? they were my first unofficial basement band members mentors, mentals.Smally: One of the things I love most about your music is the atmosphere of the songs – it reminds me of The Beatles circa “All You Need Is Love”, like you’re recording in the middle of a party. Can you describe the process of how a Playground song gets from your head onto a recording?Mike: wooo doggy dats a doozy.  well my process changes as I change. record in bedrooms, don’t add lots of reverb (actually none) just lots of tracks. some times I write a melody in my head while driving my car or doin something menial and american then I whistle or sing that melody all the way home to my guitar or what ever and try and figure it out. but I like to think of song writing as completely out my control, meaning that ifyou let your subconscious do most of the work. as for the recording process now days I have one mic and my DI box set up at all times to catch ideas if need be. I usually chop the song together then I get reallyloopy on blue betties and belly burners and try to perform my little heart out. its really all about performance. its also a battle between recording andwriting, cause if you record some thing to soon or too late the feeling is lost. some songs need to be record while you write and some songs you want to wait until theyre fully baked.Smally: It makes for a very unique sound – who are your biggest influences? What ingredients go into the Playground melting pot?Mike: thats a good one, lots and lots of music.  the obvious sixties and seventies bands, Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Cash, Zeppelin, the velvet underground and Lou reed, Grateful Dead, Nick Lowe,  David Bowie,Beach Boys… any and all Motown music.. theres alot of daniel johnston influence probably more than any one else. lets just start a list I guess.  newer bands,  MGMT, LCD Soundsystem, Dr. Dog, Spoon ( I looooovvve  Spoon) Of montreal, Grandaddy (not so new but still one of greatest of all time). Kings of Leon, Spiritualized, Spaceman3. The Shins. alright I missed so many but theres a bunch of shit i listen to , Im a fan of all types of music even rap and country.Smally:  Yeah, you can definitely hear all that diversity coming together in your songs – sometimes it sounds like some weird organic psychedelic hip-hopconcoction. Can you ever see yourself going or experimenting with electronic instruments? And is there any genre you can’t stand?Mike: Yeah im actually a huge fan of electronic music and electronic instruments, I just pick and choose where to use it is in my music. I did start a track with the Cardboard Man but we never finished it, he’s  a hip hop artist in minneapolis here. if there is a genre i don’t like its because of the people who listen to it not the music itself and boastful rap music makes mesick. the message of a song shouldn’t be ” Im gonna change the world rite  after I get my mansion and mercedes, Im the best there ever was and I deserve the world because of it”  how many of these “Best there ever was” rappers can there be, you’d think just one. and if you really are the best you shouldn’t have to tell your listeners, they would just know, ya know?Smally: How did you get into writing your own songs?Mike: well it took a very long time, I didn’t know how to sing or didn’t know I could sing until I was 20 (24 now) so I wrote my first song then. I had been playing guitar and mandolin for a few years but never really got the hang of song writing, I always thought I would be a good band member/ multi-instrumentalist but never thought I would be the front man in a one man band. at the time all my friends started to write songs and recorded to a four track. this was a very hazy period in my life not exactly sure what or why, needless to say I didn’t have the life skills to really make some jive ass turkey nah mean.Smally: You mentioned “Blue Betties” and “Belly Burners” before – do you think drugs are conducive to writing great music, or does it sometimes get in the way?Mike: I was only half  serious im more of a coffee and cigarettes kinda guy, and a hopeless pothead. My hard drug years are mostly behind me. I think weed is good for writing and performing but everything should be in moderation other wise it is a definite obstacle. no one does really great work when ten feet deep in shit. so I try and stay away from the hole. its fun to dip your toes in every once in a while though.Smally: I think the daydream generation is very much a coffee, cigarettes and hopeless pothead scene, most folk are past the fry your head early 20s and now trying to make sense of it by writing songs. You used to frequent the now sadly defunct Brian Jonestown Massacre forum and I can remember a few times you being a cheeky monkey and rubbing folk up the wrong way. Where are you virtually hanging out now?Mike: im a myspacer , but I try to pop into forums every once in a while and stir things up. one thing you’ll notice about the truly avid forum junky is that they are complete assholes. apparently Intellectually superior, yet emotional stumped and creatively nonexistent people. they have lots of opinions but honestly, whose listening to them in the first place cause there just critics. those who can do, those who can’t teach. I think there are a lot of teachers in the world and not enough doers.Smally: What’s the music scene like where you are? Are you an island in an ocean, or just a drop in the sea?Mike: Minneapolis is notorious  for having tons of bands and artists floating around, Dylan, Prince, The Replacements, and now Tapes and Tapes, The Hold Steady, Cloud Cult etc. but there’s not a lot of money floating around for it at-least rite now. we are an indie rock city though and I like it very much. It seems like everyone in this city is working towards blowing the scene up here and its exciting to be apart of, even though know one knows who I am. Its just nice see so many people working for no money but love what they do.Smally: What can we expect from The Playground in the near future?Mike: a six song EP is in progress, It should be ready in about 2 1/2 to 3 months. I am working on it with my friend Oathman Smihi. we jive. we are in a drummer conundrum at the moment but that seems to be a minor set back cause its gonna be sweet. I think it will be excellent or bodatious or something radical well just have to wait and see.Smally: Oh yeah, and I’ve always meant to ask – How is The Playground spelled? Playground, PlayGround, or PlaygrounD? I’ve never been sure but have never got round to asking.Mike: neither have I, for some reason I mix upper and lower case letters at random with my handwriting so im going to say for today that its “the playground” all lower case letters just like e.e. cummings ya know.Smally: Well thank fuck we got that sorted out – so you can spell it however you want? I like that. Well, I guess that’s it – thanks for taking the time out of your crazy existence to answer these questions. Finally how about “what will your musical epitaph be?”Mike: “welp! I made it this far now all i have to do is decompose” prolly a country tune with lap steel and dogs hollowing in the background.Listen to “Come Out And Play” from “the playground EP“available to download for free at the dgRECORDS link at the top of this page:

Download audio file (1-04 The PlaygrounD - Come Out And Play.mp3)

Or find out more about the playground at:

www.myspace.com/mixmastermigity

*artwork by Kate St Clare

He’s blasted his way through 5 – yes 5! – Daydream Generation compilations in a row, so I figured it was about time we got to know a little bit more about the man they call “Helter Skelter” behind the psychedelic monster that is ROLLERCOASTER. 

Smally:  So what got you started making music & how long has Rollercoaster been going? Helter: My first recollection of making music of sorts was playing the drums when I was 5. When I say drums I actually mean saucepans turned upside down, using wooden spoons as sticks. When I was 13 I loved bands liked Tubeway Army. I was a typical 13 year old who felt alienated from the norm and the dark sounds and striking images of Tubeway Army struck a chord with me. I decided to buy a synth. I ended up with a jen sx1000 monophonic synth which ever since have been attempting to get sounds out of! I use it more now than I ever did then but getting back to the question me and a friend ended up playing “live” at a school production. I think it was 2 songs we did, the talent was all his but I think I managed to find an acceptable squelchy sounds from the synth. The great thing about mono sysnths is that you only need one finger! Rollercoaster started when I was about 20 and consisted of me, 2 keyboards, a drum machine, crappy mike and a flanger of all things. I bought a 4 track and started making songs. I really wasted my time mainly due to a lack of confidence and din’t involve anyone else until I was about 25 and he was a good friend but we weren’t compatible musically. Around the last eighties I used to go up to London a lot to see bands like chapterhouse, spacemen 3, the primitives, new order and I used to bump into 2 lads who looked like the Reid brothers, usually on the platform at Reading station. We got talking, found out Andy was the lead singer in chapterhouse and John was his brother. I saw chapterhouse quite a lot at the time and they made a wonderful sonic blast, full on wah which when ROLLERCOASTER do play live will be a big feature cause i love it so much. I got talking to John and I think I suggested we get together. John played on 6-7 ROLLERCOASTER songs including “Can u Feel it?”, as featured on the Open your Mind cd and my fav ROLLERCOASTER  song “Dreambabydream” which has a great elvis sample at the end from his 68 special. I could just tell John what I wanted and he nearly always nailed it. I wish I had his talent. Upto date though and it’s just me although some kind people have helped me out over the past couple of years including Paul and Matt from Uberfuzz from Rugby.Smally: Well normally namedropping in an interview like this would be considered poor taste. But CHAPTERHOUSE!? Man, they were one of my favourite bands when I was but an introverted plukey teenager – “Pearl” how amazing is that? So where can we hear this “Dreambabydream” that you speak of?Helter: Pearl was great, had rachel goswell from slowdive on it as i remember. I loved Falling Down, again cool wah on that one. Dreambabydream is here for you whenever you want it – a very old song, it’s my pop song really. Smally: What bands do you listen to & what inspires you to keep making music?Helter: I love it when this question is asked to bands and they reel off a long list of avant garde bands that I have never heard of! At the moment I have just bought Spiritualized A&E, The Black Angels new album and I bought the ting tings single too. Constants over the past 10 years would be Spacemen 3/ elvis/ johnny cash/new order/nancy sinatra/nick cave and the bad seeds/oasis. My fav lp last year was the Aliens one which I thought was so so good, so many influences, such a wallof sound yet full of songs, melodies and very commercial. I am inspired to write better songs but at the same time I don’t practice ever. I could never pick up a guitar in front of you smally and start playing and singing. How can I expect to write better songs when I don’t practice? I don’t know! Smally: You once told me that you “only know 3 chords” – I’m still trying to decide whether you were just pulling my leg. But in the off-chance its true then how on earth do you make that gigantic Rollercoaster sound? What sort of techniques and equipment do you use in the process between song idea and the final recording? Helter: I can only play e,a,d and g actually as power chords seriously  its awful really. I have sort of mastered the one note drone, or solo using the top string but its such a bloody disgrace really. I have a hammond now which I use, usually with the tremolo effect on or if i want a dirtier sound then i will put it through a rat distortion box. For the guitars I use the ratt sometimes combined with one of the distortion programmes in the boss 8 track. The best sound though is the ratt into an old italian amp I have, miked up which gives off some lovely sweet feedback. I use handclaps quite alot now and tamborine. I am trying to be more refined with the use of reverb but its fair to say ROLLERCOASTER have always used a lot of reverb! I quite often add delay to vocals and drums and have been creating textures recently by detuning a radio and recording the crackle/feedback/noise then using it low in the mix.Smally: I don’t think I’ve ever said this to you, but I’m glad you brought up the subject of effects in that I’m always blown away by some of the sounds you come up with and actually feel pretty inspired myself when I hear what you’re doing. For example the multi-delay vox on “Slide It On” – that was an ear-opener. Got any tips for would-be shoegaze space rock & roll musicians out there about how to go about it? Any effects banana skins that you can suggest us mere mortals of distortion avoid?Helter: Ignorance is bliss smally! I am so unaware of what effects should do that I don’t really follow a path. I’m like a 5 yr old, twisting the knobs and flicking switches, combining pedals that sometimes work together, sometimes don’t. I think there is a tendancy with me to turn everything up too far. I sometimes feel like I need the reverb police to monitor me! I am learning to be more subtle but you know sometimes the layer of white noise that hits you is overwhelming. Smally: You’ve collaborated with Uberfuzz in the past – anyone else who has been an important part of the Rollercoaster set-up since it began?Helter: I think that myspace has been the biggest contributor really as I was ready to stop making music 2 years ago, fed up with the reactions from people to my music, apathy really. Myspace came along, I joined and thought that if I marketed the music well by finding friends that may like it then it may help. Do you know i get such a buzz when someone from Chile mails me thanking me for my songs and I end up printing up a cd for them. Stood at the post office thinking wow, someone in Chile likes my music! I have had 15,000 listens to my songs which to me is fantastic. Smally: “Slide It On” was recently played on Radio 6 – how does it feel to get some music industry recognition, and has it opened any doors for you?Helter: I was really pleased to be told they were playing it. I told everyone I knew! I haven’t actually heard it due to my laptop not liking realplayer but I heard he said some sweet things about it. I have had a couple of offers of distribution/selling my music and I want to aim to have an ep to give them to sell.Smally: Yep, Tom really liked it – I heard that show and it sounded ace to hear it in that kind of stratosphere. You’ve always been really supportive by contributing to the Daydream Generation compilations so it’s good to hear about you getting a break like that (irrespective of how fucking great the songs are). Anywhere the kids can see you playing live sometime? Helter: I liked what you were doing and saw the effort you were putting in mate so it was easy for me to want to join in. Live is my ambition – I tried about 18 months ago, got a band together and had about 7-8 rehearsals. We were shockingly loud and on the louder songs sounded a bit like loop. I had kind of forgottten about loop. There was a sort of spacemen 3 v loop thing at the time, like oasis v blur where you had to like one or the other which of course in reality was bollocks but I hadn’t listened to loop in a long time. These rehearsals made me dig out the 12 inch singles and lps to remind me that they were fucking good. I struggled really in rehearsals to get over what I wanted. I have always love bands like the velvets who can swtich from bastard garage blues to angelic heaven in the matter of seconds and so trying to explain to a drummer (who was bloody good) that I didn’t want any drums on this song was a struggle! I have a clear vision of what ROLLERCOASTER should sound like live and finding the right people to do that is difficult. I am about to start the search again though, spurred on in part by the Tom Robinson radio play. Smally: I’ve heard an album worth of Rollercoaster songs over the last year, but still no Rollercoaster album? Any signs of something materialising anytime soon?Helter: It’s an ambition of mine to record “properly” whatever that means so I’d like to but I think to do that I need at least a collaborator or band to help me along the way so if anyone wants to lend a hand then gives us a call!

Find out more about ROLLERCOASTER at http://myspace.com/rollercoasteruk

or listen to the new single:ROLLERCOASTER – Dreambabydream

Download audio file (Rollercoaster - Dreambabydream.mp3)

I love all the new bands and artists that we stumble across on the adventure of making new compilations, but from time to time somebody pops up that is something of an enigma. And like most puzzles, I just can’t resist trying to put it altogether. Toronto’s “The Space Between Things” are one such enigma. With “Bare Hands” due to appear on the next DG compilation, a conversation with the man behind it all - Chris Hobson – quickly morphed into a full-blown  interview and some inpirational words & ideas for you to hoover up with your heads…  

Smally: So “Bare Hands” is the first time you’ve contributed a song to the Daydream Generation compilations – any chance of an intro? Who you are? Where you’re from? How long you’ve been playing/writing music?Chris: I live in Toronto but left here in the 90′s and lived all over the place; Vancouver, San Francisco, Seattle and eventually NYC before moving back. I was pretty transient for a lot of years. Along the way I made a film called The Last Hit which I shot in British Columbia. I was hell bent on being a filmmaker for a while and was in debt up to my eyeballs doing it. It’s hard to say whether I’ll make another. I got Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie/The Microphones) to do the score for it and then I got sidetracked with music.I always played guitar and met this jazz singer who had an absolutely incredible voice. Anyway she sang this song for me and suddenly it was like she cast a spell or something because I started writing songs like a madman. A bunch of things were going on at the time and I wanted to capture it all so I would play and sing completely off the top of my head and record it. It’s changed a bit since then. Now everything is somewhat polished, more instruments, and I know more about production but most of it is still off the cuff.Smally: So is there anywhere we can see some of the films you’ve made? And I guess the obvious question is have you made any music videos?Chris: The Last Hit will will be entered into festivals soon hopefully. I think the trailer is on youtube somewhere. I’ve made a bunch of short films and music videos over the years…I find filmmaking and music to be one and the same. When I’m editing I just love how something shifts here or there by a millimeter and the moment can change entirely, the same happens with music. It’s storytelling.Smally: How would you describe your music to someone who has lost their headphones and can’t hear the songs?Chris: I’d say guttural, truthful, psychedelic, improvisational, folksy, a lot of things. I can’t really put my finger on it. Categories are weird because they work against you, they limit you. I’d like to remain in that grey area. That space between so to speak. There are definite stories and moments that I’m attracted to but most times I just say whatever is on my mind and record it. Sometimes if I listen a year later I’ll hear exactly what was going on at the time. I’m not generally clear about what it is I’m creating in the moment or why, but later I find it to be revealing as hell.Smally: ”The Space Between Things” – that’s one of the best band names I’ve ever heard. Where did you get the inspiration? What does it mean?Chris: There’s a gravestone in Japan where the director Yasujiro Ozu rests and on it is a single character that roughly interpreted means “nothing.” The intent, at least for me, is to say we’re always heading one direction or another however it’s the mundane in-between moments that matter. A glance between two people, a fleeting feeling or being lost somewhere. There’s a scene in Last Tango in Paris where Brando puts chewing gum under a railing before he falls to his death. That’s what I love. It’s those little things. Which is why I love photography so much because it allows you to capture a story with something as insignificant as a newspaper in a puddle.Smally: Man I love this because I know exactly where you’re coming from – it actually explains why I increasingly listen to low-fi/DIY music over the big budget stuff, because there’s more of a story there in the hiss, the laugh, the fluffed note. Is this quite Buddhist sounding philosophy you’re talking about the kind of stuff that goes into your lyrics? What sort of things do you find yourself singing about?Chris: Imperfection is a wonderful isn’t it? The minute you overwork something it can suck out the emotion. At times I get carried away and end up right back where I started. It’s about knowing when to let something go.I’m into Zen Buddhism but I’m not a full-on Buddhist. I try to follow certain principles I’ve learned and it’s very useful. It keeps me humble. I find it’s a great way of simplifying things.My songs are about the most disparate subjects, like things I’ve seen or been a part of, or just a feeling I had about something or someone. I don’t get too descriptive and I find that a lot of things mix together in there quite naturally. I like ambiguity. I met a writer once named Yoshi, it was pouring rain and we were under this umbrella, anyway he talked about how we’re all a bunch of puppets on strings and how he writes about those strings. I love that.Smally: What bands/artists have influenced/continue to influence you?Chris: Jim O’Rourke, producers like DJ Premier, Da Beatminerz, Pete Rock, I like Rick White’s work a lot, early Guided by Voices – Robert Pollard is prolific as hell, Bevis Frond…I draw from a so many random places. A lot of film directors have influenced me like Godard, Wim Wenders, Ozu, Stan Brakhage. Photographers Jeff Wall, Chris Buck, Stephen Shore…my grandfather inspires me, he always tells these fantastic stories. I honestly can’t even begin to do this list justice.Smally: Haha – from that whole list I’ve only ever heard (and recently) of Bob Pollard so that’s a whole load of searching for me when I finally get the chance. What about more immediately (not including your grandfather) – do you work with any friends on your musical projects, or are you happy to be a solo artist?Chris: I had a band. I found these guys who were really talented. We practiced together one time and It was magic. But for whatever reason it never happened again. It took time to organize and I didn’t have it in me to start over so I went back to doing it all myself. I always have someone in mind I’d like to collaborate with. My friend Tobias Winberg (Death Valley Sleepers) brings a cool sensibility to music, I’d like to do a track with him. The jazz singer I mentioned earlier Suzana Da Camara, I’m working with her on a song right now called The Light. Her voice is just so incredible I can’t wait to hear what she brings to it. It’s really a thrill being able to create with someone I admire. Smally: Toronto seems to be a pretty happening place with regards to music right now – you’re the third artist from there to contribute after The Hoa Hoa’s and The Invisible Mouth. Is it really as happening as it appears to be? Anyone else we should look out for?Chris: I like Action Makes a lot. The Disraelis are good. Who else…The Mark Inside can really rock out. Davy Love has a record label here called Magnificent Sevens and does vinyl only singles of local bands that he likes. A lot of them are quite great.Smally: If you could be any animal what would you be and why… haha, no, I’m just kidding – moment of journalistic tourettes. I mean what plans have you got for The Space Between Things? Where can we hear more of your music? And what’s your favourite colour?Chris: I’d be a cat. Mine has it made.From the beginning I wanted The Space Between Things to be a platform for a collective of musicians I would collaborate with. Today my plan is no plan. I’m excited to see where it goes. Obviously if I could get paid for what I do that would be great but it’s never been my goal. Money changes everything. I make music because I love to and because if I don’t I’d go crazy. I’ve got a huge backlog of songs and about three albums worth of music that nobody has even heard. I’m finishing one as we speak which will be available this summer and I’m pretty excited about that. If people connect with what I do that’s great. If they don’t that’s great too. Favorite colour?…definitely red.Listen to The Space Between Things “Bare Hands”:

Download audio file (The Space Between Things - Bare Hands.mp3)

Find out more about THE SPACE BETWEEN THINGS here:http://www.myspace.com/thespacebetweenthings

So what do we know about Broken Mono? Well, we know he’s got a cat’s head on his human shoulders, and has more great licks than most would-be guitar mavericks could ever dream about. His MySpace page reveals that  ”the moment of my birth was marked by no omens heralding the birth of a genius, when Hendrix was born “The moon turned a fire red”, when I was born…..”err nothing happened, I think the moon might have gone a bit pinkish or something.” So we figured it was about time that we picked apart the enigma. Tara and Smally put the questions to Mike and somehow miraculously fail to even mention, let alone question the feline head. 

Tara: Who is Broken Mono? A band, a one man band, a studio only project?Mike: Well thats the reason i chose broken mono!, because it sounds like it could either be a band name or just refer to me as a solo musician… at the time i thought of the name i was playing acoustic shows, but knew in the back of my mind that it wasn’t really happening… and so that when i stopped playing acousticaly i knew could possibly carry the name on if i could get a band together; but that step hasn’t happened yet for a few reasons :-(… so at the mo it’s only a studio project.Tara: And talk to me about the name Broken Mono. Does it have anything to do with your sound, or is it a state of being? Hmm, I guess it has many connotations. Elaborate please :)Mike: A part of why i chose the name “Broken Mono” is that it could be a reference to the music i do as sounding lo-fi, but Broken mono is actually from a song lyric that goes: “Lights shine from your eyes like headlights,(The) beams burn into the darkness of night,When you talk it sounds like broken mono”….I think it’s about broken lines of communication of something. Smally: You’ve mentioned before about being in a band and it not working out, and you’ve also spoken about possibly forming a new band around the Broken Mono song catalogue? Why did it not work out before, and what would you do differently if you can get that new band off the ground?Mike: The reason stuff diddn’t work out before is probably bue to being in bands that split up ’cause they run out of steam, or just being crap!, and either one person or eveyone calling it a day. I was never happy with my guitar sound, so that never helped… plus i got tired of always having to write in the stlye of the other writers in bands i was in, rather than writing what felt good. If i did a a band thing now i’d prob start off with a drummer then try to find a bass player, i think i’d try to keep it as a trio ’cause when you have  four songwriters it’s way too claustrophobic. Tara: Talk about “Gypsy Road,” your smokin’ single on the dg4 compilation. It has magic about it. And, what else are you currently working on?Mike: Gypsy road was written when i was feeling a bit rejected and it’s about trying to find freedom and shake off worries and looking at stuff from a different perspective, it’s a bit corny in one way… just saying that i’ve just spent most of my life trying to follow a creative path wich has lead to a lot of dead ends and frustration, and the chorus is just me trying to lighten up.  Smally: Gypsy Road is a great song, you should see me dancing around my living room to that one… – if the DG was a deck of playing cards then you’d undoubtedly be the King Of Riffs – where does that all come from? Sold your soul or hours of practise? And while we’re on the subject of you being so talented, how’s the “Folk & Roll” movement going?Mike: Ha ha, the folk and roll is doing allright!, forgot about that. I dunno were it all comes from, it’s just something that i can do… out of the context of a song i’m not one of these guitarists who play loads of riffs… 70% of the time i’m quite a rubbish guitarist, i just have a knack for being able to play the right riff in a song. My teens were a bit unhappy for various reasons, and i spent LOADS of time writing songs alone instead of having a life, so it comes from that probablyTara: What else are you currently working on?Mike: I’m always writing songs…so i’m about to do another album… because i have about ten really good songs that need to be recorded. Eventually i’d love to get a website up and running… but i’m kinda stuck at the moment because i have a album wich a small label (black sapphire records) may release, not sure if it will happen… so yeah need a band before i do anything else. Smally: I was pretty made up for you when I saw that a label was going to help you bring what you’re doing to the masses. You’ve started to get a lot of recognition since I first heard your music in the summer last year – as well as the record label interest, featured on Psychedelic Velveeta!, and all the Daydream Generation projects. Where else can people get their musical fix of Broken Mono? And is your head starting to swell yet? And how’s the decorating going? Mike: Ha, ha… cheers,  i think i’ve kinda chilled out with music really, not as ambitious as i was, i dunno, the label interest may not go anywere ’cause a helluva lot depends on me really, i can’t give it a 100% ’cause i’m not in a position to do that because of lack of funds… but they have the album, but it would prob bomb if they put it out ’cause i don’t have a band to promote it. I’ve put a few free acoustic download links on my myspace page, am trying to dig out a album i recorded before “Broken Mono”, called “Tulk”, maybe have that as a free download with DG. Had a few jams this year, so something may click with a band, who knows may be able to gig at some point……well thats it!, my brain hurts from thinking, i think i’m gonna have to drink some cider now to cool it down a bit ;-),Listen to BROKEN MONO “Gypsy Road” from the Daydream Generation 4 compilation:

Download audio file (BrokenMono-GypsyRoad.mp3)

Find out more about BROKEN MONO here: http://www.myspace.com/brokenmono

He’s been on every Daydream Generation compilation there’s ever been (in various disguises), has a new song on his MySpace page every couple of weeks, and flits from style to style like a butterfly on speed. So I figured it was about time we got to finding out exactly what makes DYLAN GOUGH tick. And tock. And keep on ticking.

Smally: I bet you were a talented musical child prodigy – what was the first instrument you played seriously and when and why did you start writing songs? What were they like?Dylan: Hmm… i was kind of all over the place when it comes to learning instruments. well originally i wanted to play guitar so my parents bought me a little acoustic for christmas i think i was still in like 3rd grade or something. I dont remember exactly how old i was but i took it pretty seriously for about….a week….hahai didnt really pick up music again until 5th grade. I started taking lessons for drums and unlike guitar i couldnt stop playing and i got my first drumset for christmas. It was blue and made by a company called percussion plus. It was a piece of shit but it worked!a year or so later i got a bass and i started teaching myself but i gave that up for a while  and a couple years later picked up guitar. so i began teaching myself guitar and started playing bass again. i recently took piano lessons but my teacher was really lame and didn’t seem very motivated to be teaching so i gave up on that i usually only stick with simple keyboard melodys anyways (dinosaurs!) Well around the time i started teaching myself guitar i started writing songs. I listened to alot of Weezer at the time so they sounded alot like that. i actually still remember the first song i ever recorded on my 4 track. maybe i’ll record it again someday just for fun. I kind of like it! but it totally sounds like The Weez.  i guess the reason why i started writing songs is cuz i dont really have anything else to do haha and of course all the personal stuff that goes along with writing songs, like that sense of accomplishment and writing down lyrics is a good way to get things off your chest. Its relieving!  Smally: If Weezer was the band that got you first writing music, who are the bands/artists that inspire you now? What are your favourite records?Dylan: Weezer was inspiring in the beginning but my musical taste completely changed when i first bought the pixies surfer rosa. that album is amazing and ever since then the pixies have been one of my top influences. I also really like Talking Heads because in albums like Remain in the Light they really got into using alot of percussion and crazy african drum stuff and mixed it with there already ridiculous sound. so good. This one might sound out of place but i also love KISS (the original lineup of course) and i dont give a damn about what people say!! ACE FREHLEY!!!!!!I also like the stooges, i dont like modest mouse anymore, i liked canned heat, i dont know i like lots of bands. its hard to choose favorite albums. Purple Rain anyone…and yea…i mean it. Smally: When you first appeared on a Daydream Generation compilation (“If The World” March 2007) it was as “Not Mr. Bones” – who or what was Not Mr. Bones and what happened to him? Dylan: Let’s see how do i put this. Well when my musical skills (sounds lame) starting evolving i had this idea to do a concept album i guess is what its called. It was about Mr. Bones and he was a dead guy and there was all this shit that went with it. The songs were supposed to be really dark but kinda funny at the same time as kind of a satire on like all those shitty bands that only sing about death and shit. i dunno what im even talking about. It all had a very bluesy sound i guess and i still miss it but basically i gave up because i kind of got sick of it and wanted to do all kinds of different styles of music. i dont think anyone even really got the point either. i still have plans on doing the Mr. Bones thing though. But yea when i started  playing different kinds of music i didnt wanna put it under the mister bones thing cuz like i said nobody got the idea. maybe i didnt explain it?? nah. whatever. fuck lost track of my thoughts…umm yea so i switched musical styles and named myself NOT MR BONES because i couldnt think of anything else. Anything under the label Not Mr. Bones should just be considered a Dylan Gough song. i also changed my name to GO GO GO for a while cuz i wanted that to be my band name….but i never formed a band haha. fuck. Smally: That’s one of the things I love about your music – you’re like a Daydream Generation compilation all on your own in that you never really know what style you’re going to get next. If anybody is reading this and wants to apply to join your band, what are you looking for?Dylan: well…heres my dream band. Me on guitar and another guitarist. but he needs to be good enough do shred dual guitar solos until our fingers are on fire. i need a bassist who can groove like a champ. a drummer and a percussionist who are both trained in a wide variety of styles. 2 keyboards. maybe another guitarist who also plays various other instruments. and at least half the band has to be able to sing. if not i’ll get some back up singers. so whos game??? Smally: Songs appear on your MySpace page with an almost alarming frequency – so how come you don’t have an album yet? Where can people get hold of your music if they want to hear more in the meantime?Dylan: well if people want my music they just gotta ask! i dont like making them downloadable off my page cuz i like to know whos getting the songs which is why i have no problem just emailing them myself. haha i could make an album i have more than 2 done. (If the World, and Dinosaurs) but im not gonna release them until A. i like all the songs on it. B. theyre all redone in better quality (refer to new version of Somewhat Upset) and C. someone will put it out properly. im pretty patient. Smally: Like your namesake, lyrics seem to be the cornerstone of your songwriting – what do you write songs about?Dylan: Hmmm well i guess the same thing most people write songs about. jsut stuff that goes on in my life. I have alot of songs about not being able to sleep. im not an insomniac but im definitely a night owl. ive seen the sun come up 3 times this week! its not good but thats just how i am. so theres alot of songs about that as well as dreaming (dinosaurs was about daydreaming… coincidence??)  but yea i feel like i write basic stuff but of course i try to do it in my own style. lately ive been trying to be more artistic about it thanks to my poetry class last semester haha.  Smally: You’re involved in several different collaboration projects/bands – can you tell us a bit more about them?Dylan: yes i can!lets see we’ll start with Magic Magic cuz im sure alot of the people reading this know of themMagic Magic is a band started by my friends john and mike and not to long after brendan joined the band  and basically there was magic magic! they wanted 2 drummers so i joined in and eventually our friend george started playing bass although now we’ve got a new bassist named melvin. John and Brendan primarily write the songs but lately we’ve all been working together and making some really cool stuff which gets me super pumped on playing music so i really enjoy being part of it and playing shows is always awesome and loud and fucking fun so if your ever in town, come see a magic magic show and you”ll have a fantastic time (wink wink) but really…do it. i should also mention that The Magic Magic LP will be released later this year through Mushpot Records. i already got a copy and it sounds real good. so look out! www.myspace.com/magicmagicbandAMF! AMF! AMF! – A collaberation of the Arts and Friendship! started by my boy Mike Chew, it was originally an idea for a clothing line and is slowly evolving into exactly what i said, a collaberation of the arts and friendship. I really enjoy experimenting with hip hop of course being a drummer i like working with beats and shit! but basically its a fresh project for me and its always evolving and chew understand hip hop so we make a good team. but really its not just us its all my friends! so go check out our page and watch all our promos and i promise you’ll be entertained. www.myspace.com/amfbeatsDrum Machine Dating Service!- My friend Jenn who runs Mushpot Records started this before i met her which happened through Magic Magic. She plays keyboard and DJ’s and shes super cool and wrote a bunch of tunes and i added in some drums and a little guitar. the only problem is she lives in New York and i live in Boston so so far every-thing’s been done through email but we made plans to record this summer so hopefully that works out! i dont know what else to say im still fairly new to the band haha i guess just check out Mushpot Records cuz theres alot of groovy bands on that label. and also check out whats on the DMDS page and expect some fucking awesome stuff for the future!http://www.myspace.com/drummachinedatingservice  http://www.myspace.com/mushpotrecords Smally: Haha, no wonder you’re up all night with all that going on. What do you think about us trying to get the Daydream Collective (mass collaboration project involving various artists from the DG compilations) up and running again this year?Dylan: I really like the idea and was gonna do it last time. you sent me a song to sing on but i never got around to it. but this year i’ll be prepared!!! do it! do it! Dylan: I deleted the last question by accident. im pretty sure it was WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLd FOR DYLAN GOUGH!umm well! i duno! more songs maybe an album someday! maybe a new band. Its a mystery but i’ll keep it fresh! im starting to forget what im doing! so thanks for interviewing me. i hope i wasnt boring or confusing although im sure it was both! haha

Listen to the new single by Dylan Gough

“I’ve Got A Uke”

Download audio file (DylanGough-IveGotAUke.mp3)

DG: For anyone who doesn’t know you (and I know that I am opening a can of worms here) where exactly are you from?

Becky: ‘From’ is a pretty strong word, Smally. I guess I’m Australian by citizenship, I was born there and I’m living there at the moment. I moved to Holland when I was twelve and spent the rest of growing up time there…then I moved to Devon in the UK. I was there for a year and then I moved back to Australia six months ago. My Dad’s Russian and my Mum’s Spanish, and they live in America. So…yeah. Everyone can guess my age now. Damn you, internet stalkers.

DG: I already knew all that – I just wanted to let everyone else see what a multicultural mad muddle you are. In a good way of course. “Internet stalkers”… yes, I think most of us have at some time experienced someone who is creepily obsessive and persistent in this weird virtual universe. Any tips on how to deal with them?

Becky: Um…well, never give them your email address out of pity. It’s never a good idea. I guess the good thing about the internet is that, as long as it stays there, it’s a virtual world and you never have to see them in real life. On the other hand, I totally stalk people’s pictures. So I guess don’t put up too many pictures of yourself unless you want weird people drooling over you. Unless that’s your ‘thing’. Whatever floats your boat.

DG: Ok, you got me sidetracked. Let’s do the important stuff like how did you get started writing songs and playing music? What inspired you to pick up a guitar and write stuff yourself?

Becky: In high school I had a few friends who were also into music, so we played in bands together and stuff, just covering songs. Then one of my friends and I decided one day that we’d go for it, really write songs and try to record them and stuff. After a million wasted afternoons and 30 second guitar riffs, and the uncovering of another friend who could secretly sing really well, we wrote and recorded a whole song. I was the drummer and lyric writer. Anyway, we went our separate ways and I secretly wrote songs, horribly ashamed of the fact that I was singing. They still record stuff and they were on DG3 I think, as Artback Baker (shameless plug, they are lovely, go and listen.) A lot of the reason I only used a classical guitar and voice is simply because those were the only instruments I had. I say had, I still don’t really have a wide range of instruments. Eventually I became unashamed enough to put them on myspace…which brings us to now.

DG: Artback Baker were on DG2 if anyone wants to check them out. So you get kudos for plugging a good band, but lose points for pointing to the wrong compilation. However – you regain the kudos and then some for being involved and contributing to the Daydream Generation for so long now that compilations are starting to blur into each other. While we’re on the subject, as a battle-hardened veteran of the last 3 compilations, the Best Of 07, and the Dreamstream festival, is there anything you think we could do better?

Becky: Not a single thing. I don’t want to get all mushy, but you guys are doing a brilliant job at organising people who’d otherwise never organise themselves. Every time there’s a new scheme it’s lovely and perfect. And as for ‘veteran’, that makes me laugh as I remember myself a year ago, buzzing in excitement and telling all my friends that there’s this group of musicians releasing a compilation with me on it, and waiting all day for the slow computer to download it. I thought I was so awesome. (!) I think that’s the best part of daydream…just how accepting and nice everyone is. None of that elitist snobby bs.

DG: With just a guitar and voice on your songs, lyrics are obviously really important – what are your songs about? Recurring themes? What is the process like for you writing a song from nothing?

Becky: This is the embarrassing part. It kind of stems from another part of my writing. Ok, I was writing poetry long before I was writing lyrics. And my poems (or teenage angst rants) always came from emotions about whatever I was feeling. I learnt to write about other things, obviously, but I still find it the easiest source of words. So when I write lyrics, it’s always about something I’m feeling strongly about. In the past that’s been relationships (ugh) but there’s only so many songs you can write about people and I’m finding my way back to better topics. I guess the recurring theme is ME. God, I love myself, don’t I. When I’m writing a song it pretty much goes in the order above; I write a poem, or random words, I try and put them in some sort of order. Then I fiddle around on the guitar or accordion, and when I find a riff that fits, I try and sing a melody. When/while I’m doing the melody, I’ll try and sing the words in, and change them around depending on how they fit. That’s how it comes together, pretty much.

DG: Anywhere those crazy internet stalkers can get hold of your poems, or is it just secret notebook > trunk in a cupboard style stuff? Favourite writers and/or poets?

Becky: Yeah, secret notebook it is, or rather hidden file on my laptop. And they definitely aren’t worth sharing around. I put some of my lyrics on myspace though. To make it more accessible, I guess. I could go on for hours about favourite writers but it wouldn’t be very fun to read. I doubt anyone’s still reading by this far down the page anyway. I only read things by Scottish writers. Iain Banks and Irvine Welsh. Ewan McGregor counts because he did Long Way Round.

DG: What kind of music do you listen to, and who would you say have been your biggest musical influences?

Becky: Oh dear. You know everyone says, “Oh, everything.” to make themselves sound less narrow minded. It’s weird, because when I think of what I listen to, most of it sounds nothing like what I make. I like loud music with distorted guitars and fast drums, and I like electronic beepy music with strange ticks and scratches, and I like happy chilled reggae ska summer music, and I like country music if it’s Bright Eyes. I really like Beck, and Elbow. Those are the ones that I really look up to, you know? Not just listen to for fun, but really admire, like I’d never even get close to being as genius as they are. And not just because his name is nearly my name. Oh, and Radiohead of course. But in terms of my own music, I’m not sure. I think I try and sound like a cross between Kimya Dawson and Joanna Newsom. But by far less cool than either of them. Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a big influence, too. The one thing all of it has in common is lyrics, no matter what music it is, I like honest lyrics. And I like people with interesting voices rather than overproduced ones. But I suppose that is a given in our strange little daydream world.

DG: What are your plans for the future? Can we expect to hear a Becky N album anytime soon?

Becky: The short answer is probably not. But I change my mind about every five minutes about the future, so perhaps. I would really love to do an album, but I haven’t got the facilities to record anything properly yet so that part will have to wait. I’m sure everyone’s noticed the crap quality and low volume. I’m not sure why that keeps happening, but I can’t fix it. I’m making excuses. If I can get my head around making an album, I might try it.

DG: Ok, so its true your music is “lo-fi”… however (and this is a big however) in my (and others) opinion the songs shine through. Excuse my language, but fuck the audio fascists. In an ideal world, yes the songs are so good that they deserve a bit of technical polishing, but they’d still be as valid and meaningful as they are in an album format. I mean as much as I love a brilliantly produced album, I also love stuff from the other end of the spectrum, directly off the kitchen floor as it can feel much more honest and direct and human. Erm, that was more of a statement than a question haha. I was going to just write “Discuss” after it – but how about putting it this way: would you be interested if there was anyone out there who was up for producing a Becky N album?

Becky: Haha. Calm it down yo, the audio fascists will hear. Um…yes, I suppose I would. If I had someone pushing me I would probably work a lot better. As it is I just kind of write stuff and then forget about it. I agree that low-fi and scratchy is the way to go, but you know, there’s still a certain standard… I’d really love a pancake right now. Not relevant but not much is at four am. I take this as my cue to sign off. Big love and peace to all. x

So there you have it. Would-be-producers – offers on a postcard to “Becky N” Australia, via Holland, Spain, Russia, Devon & the USofA.

You can hear Becky’s songs at http://www.myspace.com/beckynnnn

Here’s a pretty in-depth rambling interview I just did with “Lather Rinse Repeat” fanzine re what The Daydream Generation is all about:

1. For the few who haven’t heard how this whole thing got off the ground, give us a little background on the project.

Oh man, it’s funny but even though the DG has only been travelling for little over a year, the beginnings of it somehow feel like a very long time ago. We’ve packed a whole lot of projects and music into a relatively short space of time and to be honest, things have started to get a little fuzzy. A few months ago I wrote “The Brief And Haphazardly Short Useless History Of The Daydream Generation” and I’m thinking now, in hindsight, that perhaps it might not have been so utterly useless after all. But to the best of my recollections I suppose it all started with Cozy Home Records. We’d just fucked up the overly-ambitious Cardboard Box: The Troof Above Your Head box-set project, so in the void I thought it might have been worthwhile to put together some kind of compilation of all the brilliant bands that can be located over at www.cozyhomerecords.com – a free download promo CD. This was probably January/February 2007. For one reason or another the main characters at Cozy Home HQ thought that potentially it would be difficult to coordinate, so one night while smoking a cigarette in the rain in my back garden and thinking about the Beat Generation I was wondering what kind of Generation we are. And as soon as I thought the words “Daydream Generation” the two ideas collided in a shower of spectral sparks and so I guess technically that was when the project was born. I knew a few bands via MySpace and in real life too so I figured that rather than make it Cozy Home exclusive it might be fun to open it up, maybe try and spread the erm love a bit further. Without ever really considering the full implications of what I was undertaking, I sent a whole load of frantic and perhaps slightly derranged emails out that night asking if anyone was interested. I think I woke up around 3am in a complete panic thinking “Fuck… what have you done?!” If I’d known then what this would become then I probably would have thought “Holy Fuck you stupid fuck, what the fucking fuck have you done?” The rest – as they say – is the rest of the history, which, with an eager nose for breadcrumbs and a trigger happy finger you can trace across the dg website. Failing that you could just download the compilations in reverse order and get some amazing music for FREE.

2a. So it’s been a little over a year since the Daydream Generation started. Are you satisfied with your efforts?

To be really honest I just don’t have the time to stop and feel much satisfaction. It’s like that big stone ball at the beginning of Indiana Jones and right now it’s like we’ve barely begun to budge it. On the flipside to that I don’t think we can necessarily force it to move – any growth has to be organic and may at some times feel somewhat laboured. I’m about 67% certain that a project like this is all about momentum, and I fear that if we take the foot off the gas then the whole thing will come to a shuddering halt. I posted on the last monthly update on the site a quick breakdown of the number of unique visitors who have been dropping in on the dg website since it was first set up, and undoubtedly we’re growing. It may be completely foolish though to measure success of something like this in terms of quantity as opposed to quality – I mean, I am conscious of the fact that as it grows I have a lot more emails to reply to and sometimes it takes me a while to get round to them. Bearing in mind that this whole thing really does exist in some kind of daydream dimension for me and back in the real world I have a young family to love and laugh with, and a full-time job with five 12 hour days a week to not lose – with plate-spinning like that it really is difficult to ever truly be consistently satisfied. If ever there are flashes of feeling like we’re doing a good thing here, it’s when I pause for nanoseconds to consider that maybe we’re providing a not particularly elevated (but elevated nevertheless) platform for musicians and artists and songwriters that doesn’t necessarily exist anywhere else for them, and that they feel the same way I did when my “band” (I use this word very loosely as always) The Wheelies got invited into the Cozy Home collective. If anything, it’s like being at the centre of some emotional oscillator that flickers between excitement and pointlessness. Take this interview for example, on the one hand its like the first time in a year that I’ve stopped to try and capture all of this in words and it’s an interesting excorsize for me, but on the flipside there’s always the nagging underlying doubt whether anybody is even going to read it. Or care for that matter.

3. Are there any goals that you may have set for yourself that have yet to be reached?

On a personal level, stop smoking. I have now officially lost count of how many times I have stopped. And started again. As for the dg, well I don’t think there has ever really been any “goals” – certainly nothing further than a week in advance if you can count stuff that’s “needing done” in the next week or so. As is the way previously shown to us via Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the life of a daydreamer is directed by improvisation and random bouts of whimsy. Essentially it’s essential that we make it up as we go along, that we are never really very sure what the “it” is that we are doing here, but that we’re in “it” together. It’s turbulent and will sooner or later be the death of itself, but I like it that way, ideas superceding each other as and when they are dreamt up, keep “it” on its toes and alive. I think if we ever get bogged down or start going through the motions then we might as well just give it up there and then – the same goes for setting goals. We should just ride “it” while its here and hopefully look back later and laugh. Fuck. I said a lot there although potentially it may have looked like I wasn’t really saying anything at all. So the answer is “no” in terms of any long-term vision (apart from the smoking), but “yes” if we’re talking immediate plans – such as tidy up the website, promote DG4, get DG5 off the ground, post some more reviews, keep the Store fully functioning, and of course get as many people as possible to download the brilliant new Warchalking album (hopefully the first of many and a giant leap for a little “it” like this).

4. There were 42 different acts on the most recent compilation, and quite a few more that have been on previous discs. How does one find all these people?

Fortunately I was asked this very question less than a week ago and I took the time out to breakdown DG4. From the 42 bands/artists on there, 20 were “mined” from MySpace by me digging down deep in the night in search of something to listen to, 8 are Cozy Home artists, 5 were recommended to me by bands who have previously or continue to contribute to the project, 4 offered me songs via daydreamgen@gmail.com, 3 were either directly or indirectly through the Brian Jonestown Massacre music forum, and 2 were other identities of bands or individuals who have previously been involved.

The MySpace “mining” is by far the most challenging. With DG4 I consciously set out to try and get some new people involved and hopefully generate some fresh momentum and perspective through that. It’s long hours, sometimes soul-destroying and very poorly paid surfing page after page of bands looking for sounds and profiles that might fit into what we’re doing, but it’s rewarding when you ask someone to take part and they’re up for helping out, or dig what we’re doing. Hopefully some of the new names will go on to be battle-hardened dg veterans several compilations down the line. Of course, MySpace is a double-edged sword. In an ideal world I’d like for the dg to exist completely independent of the big corporations and thus to live outwith prototypical capitalist business models which have an uncanny ability to distort and skew music from being an end in itself, to some kind of means to financial reward. But such a completely independent existence is regrettably a long way down the line. At the same time I acknowledge completely that thanks to sites like MySpace, there has been a catalytic shift in the music industry and at this present moment in time we are still very much at the beginning of this process. That a kid in the UK can record his songs on a laptop and post mp3s that can be heard on the other side of the world that very same day without the aid of a record company, or distribution mechanisms, or a money-injected turbo advertising initiative is truly an amazing thing. A short while ago I was completely bored with listening to the same music all the time. But I always loved hearing bootleg recordings, the crackle and hiss, the fluffed note, the laughter off mic, the song in progress, probably as much as the heavily produced album versions of songs. Bob Dylan and The Beatles are great examples of this. Discovering this limitless new world of DIY recordings is the best thing that ever happened to my ears. So I’m resigned to MySpace being a necessary evil to keep this thing afloat particularly in regards to recruiting bands and promoting what we’re doing, but in some idealized world it would be great to get by without it. Fuck, is that a goal? No, its just a daydream. Either way, as a certified daydreamer I reserve the right to contradict myself repeatedly depending on whatever is happening in my head at any given moment5. Has anyone ever come to you, or is recruitment all done by solicitation?Well as you can see from the figures, we don’t really get that many requests from bands. But I’m glad you brought this point up. The few bands who do get in touch are generally great, but I’d love to hear from more people. I think sometimes all it takes is that little bit of self-confidence to come and approach a project like this and ask to be involved, but I’m pretty convinced that not every great musician or songwriter is necessarily the most confident person. I know on a personal level that it would take a lot for me to approach another organisation asking them to play one of my songs, and the thought that there might be someone sitting there with great music unsure about hitting the send button or not knowing what to say or how to introduce it irks me. So if it feels like I’m talking to you then please send me some of your music if you want to get involved. I can’t promise that I’ll say “yes” to putting you on one of the compilations, but I’ll definitely have a listen and see if there’s anything we can do to help. The same goes for recommendations – if anyone out there knows of a band or artist that they’d like to hear on the dg then please let us know and we’ll try our best to follow it up.

6. You’ve recently pioneered the first ever (I think) online streaming music festival, and cheers for being so brave. How do you think that went over?

In a nutshell: it was a technological disaster. Like all dg projects it was all fire and enthusiam and no calculated forethought. You can read about the technical problems on the website if you dig around for a post entitled “Dreamstream Forum”, but for anyone who missed it here’s what happened. The idea was to stream as many hours as possible of pre-recorded live music interspersed with commentary and interviews (possibly the world’s “first online music festival”). We got (if memory serves me correctly) 24 contributions including the “adventures of captain caffeine and jitterboy”, a couple of interviews, and together with some improvised commentary provided by yours truly and Ritchie (The Amalfi Glow) we ended up with 9 hours+ to play. My intention was to put these out in episodes throughout the day using one of the podcast sites (Gcast – let this serve as a warning to anyone thinking of trying the same thing). Unfortunately as so many of the contributions came in so late, I was still uploading the finished episodes on the morning of the big day, and it wasn’t until we were a couple of hours into it that I realised that about 7 hadn’t uploaded properly. Cue mad panic behind the scenes as I tried to reupload them, us going “off air” for a couple of hours, eventually playing the ones that had worked out of order totally fucking up the chronological commentary, 5 hours into it comprehending that we couldn’t upload anymore podcasts to our account, trying to set up another podcast account with a different provider, failing, finally figuring to put the missed out episodes directly on the dg website, and Tim from Cozy Home appearing to save our asses by installing a play button. I mean I think that afternoon for 5 hours I was having some kind of major meltdown, just felt really bad that I’d fucked it all up for people who were listening. But I suppose we got there in the end and there was some great music played that you can still hear at the “Dreamstream” link on the website. It’s very much up in the air whether we’ll attempt a Dreamstream 08, but you never know. There’s a long time between now and November for me to put the horror behind me. If we do then we’ll probably be a looking at a different format, maybe videos via You Tube, or acoustic sets only. You can never say never with this thing you know.

7. Tell us about the people behind the scenes, like Tara and Tim, et al. Most know the names, but not everyone knows how closely you work with them, and how much effort it takes to put all this together. How is it working with these folks?

So I’ll start with Tara as it’s probably easier to explain her role in all of this. Essentially she does everything that either (1) I am incapable of doing, or (2) can’t seem to motivate myself to do. It’s perhaps not as simple as that. At the last Cozy Home gathering in virtual space I was saying how I’d love to get more people involved behind the scenes at the dg as there’s always so much needing done and seemingly so little time to do it. It was politely pointed out to me though that Tara is “one in a million” and that finding someone else who is prepared to give up their free time and energy to such a crackpot cause for no cost would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Like I say though, she does a brilliant job of the things that I can’t do and brings a whole other dimension to the dg. For example she’s very organised whereas I am completely scatter-brained. She’s also far more promotionally astute than I am, and much better at putting together words, and computer text. I might be the hamster on the wheel, but without her dropping in and checking that the wheel is still moving freely we’d be burning off a lot of pointless misdirected energy. Tim is also undeniably a legend in the dg family (although he plays a much less visible role). For a start he hosts our website and doesn’t charge us for the priviledge, which I guess you could equate to the idea that without him there wouldn’t even be a wheel for us to run on. I’ve lost count now of the number of pints I’m due him for helping out with the technology. Take for example the newly formed dgRECORDS on the site, he built that for us for nothing and talked me through how to go about putting albums on there – a bit like letting a blind man with no arms into your house to make himself an omelette. It’s not just us that he helps out, he’s also behind all the Cozy Home technology and runs his own record label – www.transatmospheric.com which is well worth checking out. We’ll run a feature on them soon enough, but it’s the hi-fi end of the low-fi spectrum, or the Cozy Home space-station, whichever way you want to look at it. There are others as well, all the bands that wear the dg badge on their websites, and people I can call on (and am likely to incresingly do so) to write up reviews and features. Like you for instance. There’s plenty of room at the boardroom table in our imaginations though so if anyone else wants to get involved then just raise your hand virtually, or hunt me down in the usual places

8. In the age of information, there seems to be oceans of music available for download. Do you think this is a good thing, or does it make finding good music more difficult, wading through all the amateurish sludge that has collected?Good thing? Man, it’s a fucking GREAT thing. Who decides what you listen to? Well even as short a while as ten years ago it was mainly the record companies and the radio stations and the music magazines and whatever you could pick up in a local record store. But now the power is back in your own hands. Ok, so us human beings can be mighty lazy at the best of times and like I said, yes it can be soul-destroying surfing for new sounds… but when you hit a vein, or find something new for yourself it’s a great feeling. You can’t run out of music to listen to anymore, and the term “legendary” only really exists in your own head. Look at it this way – who is going to say more to you or is more likely to connect with how you’re feeling? The big band with the corporation behind it, strategically putting out singles, getting ahead by not what they do but who they know, OR the guy/girl who is untouched by all of that circus, who is making music purely for the love of making music, who has an amazing voice, or writes incredible songs, or plays something nobody else has imagined, albeit on a shitty little 4 track or home pc? I’ve spoken already about how the DIY-revolution has really reignited my love of music again, and I appreciate that it’s not for everybody, but I urge anybody who is reading this to give these little folk a chance, or a little of your time, and you won’t be disappointed. Subjectively labelling something as “amateurish sludge” does not necessarily mean that it’s not going to connect with someone somewhere, or that it’s not going to be great music that changes your life. As Walt Whitman (I think) once spouted: “Delve! Mould! Pile the words of the earth! Work on age after age! Nothing is to be forgotten…” Hundreds of years from now, who is going to be saying more about what it is like to be us? Us or someone else?

9. Think of yourself twenty years from now. Do you see the Daydream Generation spawning a new generation of online music communities after we’re all dried up?

Online music community. I know there’s a bit more to “it” than that, but I think that’s probably about as close a description regarding what we’re doing as we’re going to get at this particular stage. Obviously we’re not the only online music community, or even the only people who have gone down this road – I mean the Cozy Home in many ways is the older brother of what we’re doing here and from time to time you stumble across other pockets of resistance. It seems like a very logical step in the evolution of what is happening though to congregate and find some degree of belonging and recognition somewhere, so I’d assume that as time drifts by that we’ll see more and more collectives of musicians who see that there is “strength in numbers”. I’m always very open to working with like-minded communities such as Your Psych Tunes, Splendid Isolation, Psychedelic Velveeta! to name a few, as we’re all singing off the same page. As long as it’s being done out of a love for helping unsigned bands and artists get heard, and not from some financial motivation, I figure we’ve all got a lot to learn from each other, and are even stronger working together. If you are really asking me “Will the Daydream Generation be going 20 years from now?” then I’ve got to say that I really don’t know. I’d like to think so. I mean, I’ve already told Smally Jr (aged 3) that one day he will “inherit Daddy’s chocolate factory”. But on the flipside it would probably frighten you to know how many times my finger has hovered over the “delete my account” button on MySpace. I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned to find out what happens next.

Interview by Monty L

As his second album “Stratum” is about to be released through Daydream Generation Records, I caught up with the enigma that is WARCHALKING and put some questions to him to find out what he, and his music is all about.

Q1. Tell us a bit about Warchalking – where are you from? How long has Warchalking been going?Its a shade complicated. I’ve been in big loud rock bands since around seventeen. Membership and names have come and gone through the years, and a lot of focus had been placed on volume and complication. That’s all fine and good, but there was always these other philosophies of rock music that kept rattling around in my music collection. Attempts had been made at moving in that direction, only to be relegated to side notes and weird songs that never fit in the larger picture. Every few years or so a full record of these would amass. One is still floating in the ether by the moniker ‘Shadow Puppets’, which is by no means out of the picture but still waiting to materialize for a myriad of reasons. After several years of this cycle, a batch of songs inspired by a nasty bout of reality set a new process in motion. Taking all the lessons reaped from years of building these big modern rock sculptures, these songs were shaped around the same axioms, only using the limited skills available to me. Those were dense vocal work and over-simplified guitar spread tenaciously thin to cover the same expanse as a full band. The intention initially was to form these into a band format later on, but the deeper it got, the more it started to take a new pulse. The winter of 06-07 was a strange time in my life, and it all got syphoned into this funky new critter. It all was forged on a cheap-ass tape recorder, then expanded on a Roland VS-1680 in a kitchen in a cloud of cigarettes and resin, ultimately to be mixed on a laptop. By the time it was done, the band I was in fell apart, so I started playing open mic sessions and opened for a lot of local bands mostly to keep the connections fresh, but also to see how this new idea went over. Results were mixed. Myspace proved to be the biggest asset, as the worldwide community was far quicker to pick it up than the fickle cover-loving crowds of balmy Southeast Missouri. Humped it for about eight months, then went overseas for the first time in the fall of 07. Came back to the States completely fucked up. I couldn’t relate to anyone and was entirely upset with where I found myself, so I did what came natural and holed up in my apartment for record #2. More or less that puts us where we are now.Q2. That’s funny you should describe your early songs as “rock sculptures” – I’m writing a review of your new album “Stratum” and at the top of my notes is written the word “Sculptor”, as in your songs sound like they have been built or crafted. You even go on to use the words “shaped”, “spread”, and “syphoned” solidifying (ha) the idea of you being more of a songsmith than a convential musician. Even the name Warchalking seems subconsciously stone in nature. So what’s in that name? Where did it come from and what does it mean?During the early days of wireless internet networks, the only places that could afford it were the large corporations. The entire building would be the network. Hackers would work through the security measures, then scrawl those specific measures on the side of the building in chalk, using hobo-like symbols to tell other hackers how to break into the network. Warchalking is a handmade code that reveals what others must get through to gain access to knowledge and information. The highest aspiration of this project is to do that exact thing in practice and philosophy.Q3. “Stratum” – how happy are you with it and what’s it all about? How long did it take to write it and what are your favourite songs on it?Overall, ‘Stratum’ turned out pretty good. There are things on it that could be better, but I come from the school that wears its mistakes. I feel its very accessible, concise, and relevant to some of the indie undercurrents in modern music. Thats always been the goal is to add to the overall scope of all these badass records I keep finding day after day. ‘Stratum’ is the result of one of the most insane years of my life. Not that it wasn’t fun, but it was a period of high adventure and heavy shots of what it is to exist in this day and age. It only took three months from start to finish, December to February, but it took over all aspects of my life during that period. I got lucky in that I had a lot of help during the later stages of the record from an outside source that shall remain anonymous due to conflict of interest. Anyone that’s tried to put together a record by themselves is well aware of the importance of an outside listener.I feel the highlights are ‘Big Dumb American’, ‘Steady The Hand’, ‘I Know Your Name’ for its simplicity and longevity as that was the sound check song forever, and ‘As We End’ because its simple a fun song about really depressing things.Q4. You’re releasing it for free via the Daydream Generation – why the dg? And why for free?The Daydream Generation is the only reason this project is still going. Cape Girardeau, Missouri is an awful place to play music, which I’ve come to realize is its strongest asset for reasons I’ll go into later. I made the decision while making the first record that I would pack it in and make records for myself in my kitchen if didn’t make any waves. Turns out it did; there were people from places I’d only read about that were taking notice of these bizarre little pop-rock songs. It was a bit freaky, but very redeeming. The post-Napster recording industry has changed significantly, and places like the DG are the new guard. They find the fresh pulses and mark the ground for curious diggers to plumb for themselves. Giving it out is really the only way. Bands I’ve played with in the past tried to sell records, only to make five to ten dollars on the night. I’d prefer strangers to take these things and listen to them free of guilt. When you charge, there’s an expectation: if its good then that money was well spent, if it sucks then there’s no reason to ever see that band again. With free records, even if its just okay, you didn’t pay for it, so you’re more likely to listen to it again. Plus, these records are self produced, so aside from the initial investment the only cost was time.Q5. Yes, you coined the term “mining” for new music which describes perfectly what the DG is about. I think the almost organic growth of musical communities or collectives like this is an inevitable by-product of the internet as suddenly bands and guys like you are able to be heard on the other side of the world, but there’s a struggle for identity and an audience. It’s a noble if somewhat kamikaze way of promoting your own songs by giving them out – how do you feel about bands that continue to charge for their music and possibly see what you’re doing as somehow “devaluing” music as a whole?Music is so subjective. You can play a song for two seemingly similar people and get two very different responses to it. For those that create it, there is an equal amount of diversity. Like most artforms, its expensive to make things. Any means of recouping some or all of the expenses must be explored, and the appropriate actions must be considered on a case by case basis. What works for some won’t work for others. Bands that charge have the right to charge, but its far from the rule. Plenty of bands have carved their way with and without selling records. Value is not determined by the price tag, those that see it that way won’t have money for long. My little record is just another in a vast sea. What happens to these works will only change the ebb and flow only so much. As for the recklessness, anything anyone does is a leap of faith. I find it far better to throw it out there and have it ignored than to keep it locked away for some pristine and unattainable condition.Q6. Playing live sounds like a vital part of the Warchalking package – can you describe a prototypical Warchalking gig?It’s highly venue-dependent. Coffee shops are far more supportive, but I’m always the loudest asshole there. I’ll get squeezed on a bill between a couple of quiet and intimate acts, and the set is unapologetic and a little crude. Lyrically I don’t like to pull punches, so the subject matter is normally about grey taboo subjects that you can’t get people to talk about until you get them REALLY intoxicated. One can only imagine how that blends with soft, arty songs about love and peace and all that. Bars are where I’m comfy. Prep for shows is two bourbons, and I carry one on stage with me. I usually open for people way louder then me, so the set generally involves a lot of yelling at the crowd and a broken string, late in the set if I’m lucky. I don’t get a good groove until I get at least one heckler to make fun of. Shows are usually big loud drunken messes, and its generally entertaining, so I hear.Q7. You mention “grey taboo subjects” of your songs. It’s pretty clear that lyrics and poetry are as much a part of what you do as the acoustic-sonic sounds that carry them along. What are your songs about? Where do you draw inspiration for your song and lyric ideas? Which writers would you say have influenced your lyrics, or are your influences mainly other songwriters?I write songs about my life. Times and places and situations that my reactions and emotions were conflicted yet harmonious. Sometimes strange, sometimes ugly, I like writing about life shit. Its so funky. So messy. And its got a lot of bad words and mean things in it. The most beautiful things usually have some offensive aspect. The offensiveness contrasts the awesomeness and makes it pop. The approach is to start from some broad idea that anyone could relate to, then pull it into a specific and uncomfortably intimate place without them knowing exactly where they are. The details are there, in code and honest, and keeping the broad angle helps me make sense of these things after they’ve happened. Lyrically, writing for me is like working out math proofs. Its systematic and meticulous. I like records like that, where you have to examine every piece of information given to you because they all relate to some central axiom. Tom Waits, U2, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and the like make records like that, and that’s part of why they’re so classic. How I use words comes from a lot of poets and novelists. Walt Whitman, Tom Robbins, Charles Bukowski, even Chuck Klostermann.Q8. Rumours are that you are putting together a Warchalking “band” – how’s that working out?Tis no rumor. Three fellas I used to play with about three or four years back weren’t doing anything. The drummer approached me first, and the bass player followed suit. We played a show in March as a trial run, them switching instruments and trying to follow my drunken cues as best they could. The guitar player joined up the following week. As expected, the songs aren’t mine anymore. They’ve made them ours. There’s only one rule: of you’re in this band, you have to sing. Something. Anything. As long as its in key, you gotta step up to the mic.Q9. Considering your songs consist of mainly your voice and an acoustic guitar, you somehow manage to build and incredible wall of sound – how do you do that?Multi-tracking. It always starts with one guitar line and one vocal, but there’s only so much dynamic that can be done with that. In the past, I always wanted to do more vocally, but there never was enough time and space. Not so in this case. If it still sounds thin with four or five layers of vocals, then the guitars get piled on. I think the nastiest one is ‘Song of Place’. There are a total of eight acoustic guitar tracks, half of which are run through an amp simulator at different gain stages, again for dynamic, and eight more tracks of vocals. The beauty of that is the kindergarten effect: pack 20-30 little kids on a stage and have them sing. Each one is slightly out of key individually, but as a group they all sound in tune and angelic. Same rules apply to adults. Heavy doses of delay and reverb and crafty bit of EQ does wonders.Q10. I sometimes threw around the words “low-fi revolution” when describing the rise or sudden accessibility to songs being made on the kitchen and bedroom floors, but lately I’ve started to realise that just because it’s home-grown, it doesn’t have to be “low-fi” (I think your music is a great example of this). Actually its much more of a “DIY revolution”, being able to make your own records and CDs without much outside assistance. Have you got any tips for young bands and songwriters who are starting out re technology or how to go about making a DIY record that sounds so professional?Record, record, record. The more you do it, the more you learn. Most of my tricks came from older cats. I’ve only paid for one mixing session, and watched that dude like a hawk. Talk shop with as many people as you can. Make friends with people at music stores. Not only do they see a lot of gear come in and out, they get to play with it, and if you’re super cool, get discounts or used equipment. I always buy what’s best for the money, something that can be used for two or three tasks. Read a lot. Get familiar with terms and ask tons of questions. It took three years to finally figure out how to use a multiband compressor correctly. Be humble. I’ve heard absolutely gorgeous songs done on four-track tape players that make large scale recordings sound half-assed. Always serve the song. Some sound better ultra clean, some songs need passing traffic in the background.Q11. There seems to be a pretty happening music scene in Cape Girardeau – any other bands or artists you can recommend? Anybody you’ve worked with previously or are working with?Don’t be fooled. Cape is in a horrible trough at the moment. The asset referred to earlier is the fact that only a few people care what you’re doing. So every crowd is hostile. The best shows are ones that people don’t walk out of. What this does is takes away any expectation. You lug all your shit downtown and play for yourself. It keeps you honest. Normally there are about two to six people impacted by what you do. The other twelve are so drunk they’ll love anything you play, and the rest of the 50-100 are trying to get laid. There are a handful of old scene-sters that are taking advantage of the vacuum and making some things happen. Fists of Phoenix, Fill, Tipping Holly, Moodminder, Thorlock, My Bicycle Emergency are a few of the names making some relevant waves these days, there are a couple more. If I haven’t worked with them on something, then I’ve played a show with them at some point over the last ten or so years.Q12. What else can we expect from Warchalking this year?A full band record. Things have changed up so much with the new members that its too easy to put in the time to work up a record of the more stand out tunes from the previous two. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a whole new record by the end of the year. Depends on how weird this year gets.Interview by Smally

Smally: Ok, firstly where have you gone? Your MySpace page has recently disappeared? Why? What are you up to?Bobby: My page has gone the way of the hippies and hell’s angels. Still around as an idea but virtually invisible. I think all the junk mail and friend requests from random bands just looking to feel more important was my altamont. I very rarely use the internet, but I found myself on myspace, just goofing around doing nothing for hours every day. Then I talked to Jenny Penny’s sister, Melissa and she told me how free she felt after deleting her page. Let’s just say I was inspired… I’ll probably be back when I finish my next album, but I’m going to limit my usage. For now not having a page suits me just fine, though.

Smally: Yeah I can understand the distraction element – but if anyone is interested in hearing more of your songs after downloading one of the DG compilations where should they go?Bobby: As of now I’m going to start offering my albums for free as downloads. Well, as soon as the new Cozy Home store gets set up, anyway. I’ll plug the website now… www.cozyhomerecords.com. So go there. Well, not you, Smally. I mean the theoretical cats who may be reading this interview after it gets to where it’s headed. Not to say that you, Smally, shouldn’t go there… I just meant… Ah, fuck it.Smally: It’s been a few months since you released your last album Hugs & Smiles – in hindsight how happy are you with it?Bobby: I’m pretty pleased with it. I’ve listened to it a few times since it was done, and there’s quite a lot I would change, but them’s the breaks, as they say. All in all a few songs I’m really quite proud of amidst a mess of botched equalization and shaky continuity. But no one has complained, so why worry?Smally: Any hints at where your music is going next? Radical departure or more of the same? Are you working on new material just now, and if so what’s it sounding like?Bobby: Well, that I’m not sure of. I always try to do something drastically different from what I had done previously, but it all ends up sounding the same in the end. Especially lately. Like I’ve been working on six songs for the past three months and I’m on the verge of scrapping them all cos each one either sounds like something I’ve done before, or just plain shite. But then again, I’ve gone through phases like this in between each album, so maybe this means I’m onto something… Or maybe I really have lost it this time. We’ll find out when I’m finished with the next thing, I guess…Smally: So for anyone who hasn’t stumbled across the magic of your music, they’ve got quite a lot of recordings to get through, where do you think they should they start, which album? Which is your own favourite album, and which is the most accessible?Bobby: Magic? Well, if you say so… I’d say that the best place to start is probably either “Bad Choice Brigade”, or “Is It Today Already”. “Bad Choice Brigade” cos it’s my singles album. That is to say, the album that could most easily be turned into ten singles and put on the radio, like The Cars’ self- titled album. I’d say that one is probably my best as far as the general quality of songwriting goes. “Is It Today Already” is my best production and mixing job, although nobody really got it. I personally think that overall that one is my favorite, cos it sets a mood. I actually still listen to that one when I’m by myself, which I don’t usually do after a couple of weeks of an album being finished. God, I love to talk about myself. I should be famous.Smally: On the subject of fame, don’t you think that it would damage one of the strongest features of your songwriting – the gritty, clever lyrics? And on the subject of lyrics, what would you say are the recurring themes? What do you use as inspiration to write words? Bobby: Gritty and clever… I like that, thank you. Truth is, I usually have no idea what I’m writing about until I’m done. Not to say that my lyrics don’t mean anything… It’s just that I attach a meaning to them when they’re all out in front of me and I can figure out what I was trying to say. As far as fame goes, I don’t know. I’d like to be famous, but that’ll never happen. And if I was famous, I could do whatever I wanted, so if I was hard up for material, I’d probably just put out a radio-friendly crapfest that would make me a million dollars and then get all Brian Wilson until I retire… Recurring themes… Well, being miserable, feeling anxious, and not being sober are pretty commonplace. I write love songs, too. I usually write as if I were lecturing myself on something that I don’t like about myself. It’s pretty grim, but the ends usually justify the means. As far as inspiration, I like to listen to albums that I like while being distracted. Bob Pollard’s songs are great for doing this… I’ll eventually misunderstand a lyric in such a way that I can build a whole song around the idea or image it creates… I should mention that I didn’t mean to compare myself to the Cars earlier. They were much better than me. As for them with Todd Rundgren, I’m not sure about that yet…Smally: What’s your favourite line or lines that you’ve ever written?Bobby: Off the top of my head, it’s a toss up. Either “you might find your brittle little mind cracking up before it’s time’s up, and you without the glue” or “there’s a fantastic fantasy behind the awkward silence/reality triumphs and weighs you down again”. It’s really quite a lot of fun to write words that sound well together. I should have studied linguistics…Smally: How do you record? What equipment and instruments do you use? How has this changed over the years?Bobby: I record onto cassette tape. I’ve evolved from a tiny little Tascam four track to a really big Tascam eight track. I use microphones and shit too.Smally: Haha, thanks for that, very expansive. One of the things I’m curious about is that your music always has a very punky and organic feel to it (even when it’s experimental) – are Fig Mints ever going to go electronic, embracing modern computer technology? Or do you think using sounds that translate easily to live performances are essential to your musical identity? Bobby: I don’t know. I think it would be a huge pain in the ass to have to go out and acquire all the equipment that would be necessary for me to record digitally. Not to mention I prefer working with cassettes. As far as my musical identity, I never give much thought to that. The more you give away about your identity, the easier it is for it to get stolen. So don’t ever ask me for my social security number again. I have no idea what that was supposed to mean… forget it, what?Smally: You produced the last two Jenny Penny albums earning you the tag of the Cozy Home’s “Phil Spector”. How was that? What kind of producer are you and can you see yourself working in that role again?Bobby: Phil Spector, eh? Is that something that you just came up with, or is this a common opinion? Is it too soon for a get away with murder joke? Probably. Hey, a hung jury is a hung jury, and I wasn’t there, right? Anyway, yeah it’s fun. I like not having to deal with the pressure of writing songs. And Jenny has such an amazing talent for songwriting that she shouldn’t have to deal with the pain in the arse that is recording and mixing, so I set her up, and she knocks me out. Kismet, right? Personally, I love it and hopefully I’ll be able to do it more often with other people. Actually, I recorded and produced Jenny’s sister’s album. Her name is Big Mimi and the title is “It’s On”. I don’t know what’s up with the release, but it’s out there, and it’s a good, fun listen. Toe Tag is another one that I helped with. Alan “Cashew” Cook and Jenny’s brother, Mike are an improvisational metal band called Toe Tag and I recorded and produced (with Alan’s genius ears guiding me) a one-off album from them. It was fun. I recorded Jenny’s first album, too, for the record.Smally: It’s something I just came up with. But it’ll stick. Any ideas where people can get their hands on the recordings you mentioned? Any tips for would-be producers you can pass on from your experiences? Bobby: I got the Toe Tag stuff. I’ll try to get it put up on the Cozy Home page for free download as long as it’s okay with the band. As far as Big Mimi goes, it’s all up to her, but I’ll keep everyone posted… As far as tips go, I’d just say play it all by ear and don’t try too hard. Not that my advice is worth anything. I ain’t no Dave Fridmann or nothing… Smally: The Utica Flower Company collaboration project recorded last year is soon to be released through Cozy Home – are you glad that’s finally getting to see the light of day?Bobby: Yes. Definitely. I think it should’ve been out by now, but that’s what happens when your dreams outweigh your wallet, eh? We did have some grand plans for it, and hopefully we’ll get a real deluxe version out there, if only just for the four of us. But anyone interested is encouraged to donate money to the cause. Or at least give a shout to let us know if anyone would be interested in buying a physical copy with a big booklet and great artwork, so we’ll know it’s not going to be a waste of money.Smally: It seems to be an almost integral part of Cozy Home Records that the various bands and artists musically bed-hop and morph into other bands from time to time. What other projects/bands have you been involved in? Bobby: Well, since joining the Cozy Home, I’ve played guitar in the Fucking Flame, bass in The Real Burnouts, wrote instrumentals for the aforementioned UFC, teamed up with Artie Lester for a couple of live shows, and helped him out on some Arthur rules recordings. I’ve also been one half of Euro Language Abusive and one third of Electric City Subway. It’s pretty fun to do that sort of thing. Anything to make music and share some of the responsibility of making it sound good.Smally: Its hard to ignore the fact that thanks to the internet there’s a whole new world of music available for people to discover, a low-fi revolution. What bands are you listening to, or have you been listening to recently that you could recommend? How does it feel to be a part of this revolution?Bobby: I’m quite happy and grateful to be part of something. Like I know that at 27 I’ve done more creatively than many people will in their entire lives. Whether or not anyone outside of the circle will ever care is ultimately irrelevant in my opinion… As far as bands that I’ve been listening to, I can’t really mention anything that isn’t typical, so I’ll skip that one. I don’t like to drop references, anyway. And besides, I feel so overwhelmed by the internet, I only use it for email nowadays… I will say that I’ve always been a pretty big fan of one of the DG bands, the Wheelies. Ever heard them? Pretty psychedelic, you should give ‘em a listen.Smally: Haha, cheers for the plug. It’s as subtle as a sledgehammer blow. So low-fi aside, who are the bands and what are the songs or albums that really made you want to start writing your own music?Bobby: Oh, I don’t know… Probably Sonic Youth and Guided By Voices… I can’t really say for sure, but I often find myself listening to Bob Pollard’s songs and thinking “wow, my next good song should sound exactly like this.” Wait, didn’t I say that I didn’t want to drop references? Oh well, you tricked me…Smally: Were you musical when you were a kid? In a school band or play any other instruments? Bobby: Nah. I was too busy smoking weed and listening to lame grunge bands.Smally: You recently moved out of your hometown of Utica – how has this affected your music?Bobby: I really have no idea. I’ve been quite uninspired lately. Living in a “hip” area is boring. And when it’s not boring it’s straight up annoying. Everyone is just so bloody obvious and not nearly as interesting as they seem. Or maybe that’s just me being the miserable cynic that I know I am. Goddam I feel like Charles fucking Bukowski.You can listen to and download Fig Mint’s “Three Cheers For Good Cheer” from the album “Bad Choice Brigade” on the Daydream Generation 4 compilation – available from 7th March 2008.

The metamorphosis from indie-rock to something resembling a mad musical scientist can be carefully traced from the kooky folk of early Jon Of The Atom albums, through the honed indie-rock of the brilliant New Wave Dirt album “The Apple” (Cozy Home 2006), into someone who sounds like he is inventing rather than writing songs, with sounds that would have turned Brian Wilson’s head circa 1967, organically insane and melodically marvellous.

So being the curious pioneering community that we are, I figured it was about time that we worked out what the fuck has actually happened here. Who are Dead Canaries? Where did This Is Not Jon Of The Atom go? And Jon Of The Atom too for that matter? What does it all mean and where the fuck is he going next? Fortunately he not only replied to the following six question interview, but we got a lot more than we bargained for with a copy of the latest Dead Canaries EP \u0026quot;Thanks For Nothing You Gutless Prima Donna\u0026quot; which you can download here for FREE:1 WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NEW WAVE DIRT AND JON OF THE ATOM?Jon of the Atom is me. I started using the name Jon of the Atom when I was watching the movie Ed Wood every night for about a year. It comes from “Bride of the Monster” origanally titled “Bride of the Atom”. I’m not gone, but I the style of recording, much like Ed’s directing style, of one take & then move on is something I’m no longer doing. I was 17 when Jon of the Atom became my handle & I felt like I just needed something else. The New Wave Dirt was a band with Meghan Geiss that was proving to be more frustrating then fulfilling, so I ended that.2 WHO OR WHAT ARE DEAD CANARIES? WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM?Dead Canaries came about when I was riding my bike in the summer of 06. There were about 20 or 30 dead, what I’m told are yellow finches, but I maintain that they were canaries, on the side of RT. 20 in New York. I was listening to Elizabeth Cotton & Woody Guthrie as I rode & was thinking about mining. Everyone out of the mine! As for who are Dead Canaries, it’s any one that I can wrangle in to playing on these albums.3 CRITICAL MASS HAS BEEN RECEIVING A LOT OF POSITIVE ATTENTION – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT ALBUM NOW?I feel like it’s done, brought to temperature & ready for consumption by the masses & boy, is it tasty!4 FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT HEARD YOUR MUSIC BEFORE HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND? WHO ARE YOUR INFLUENCES ETC?My favorite descriptions would be Radiohead singing Motown, or Brian Wilson & Beck’s bastard child. Others in that list of potential parents would be: woody Guthrie, Elizabeth Cotton, Syd Barrett, nirvana, social discomfort, anything involving Robert Levy & Smally Wheelies makes it’s way into my sub conscience as well as playing music with Meghan geiss for the past decade. belle & Sebastian, the beatles, Alexander Spence, ween, neutral milk hotel, the microphones, Tim Kotch. The kids in the hall & the constant struggle to get laid. This list goes on & on. Oxygen has also been important influence in my musical life.5 THANKS FOR NOTHING – TELL US A BIT ABOUT IT – WHAT’S IT ABOUT? YOU’RE GIVING IT AWAY AS A FREE DOWNLOAD, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT WHETHER MUSIC SHOULD BE FREE OR COST MONEY?First, yes I think music should be free. Thanks for nothing is & was not intended to have a physical form, but for me if there is music I really love I like having the album to hold & explore it. If there is music you are content to not have the album, why pay for it. & If your happy with shitty mp3′s that sound like they are coming out of a pop can, good for you.Thanks for nothing -the title came from someone being very upset with me. That was a comment he left me. I thought it was great & this music is just to air some grievances I have for someone that will not speak to me. This shit weighs me down so I needed to get it out some how. These songs have been kicking around in my head for a while.6 WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS FOR JOTA, DEAD CANARIES ETC.?ead Canaries perfume. Lingerie. An E True Hollywood Story. Scented toiletries. A feature leangth musical based off Franz Kafka. Sex with famous people. Maybe one day a physical band that plays shows & tours, but that ones just cloud talk.

DEAD CANARIES – Thanks For Nothing You Freak Out Prima Donna EP

download for free from here