Download Simon Piler’s ‘ground’ for free at:

quixodelic.com/site/ground

Here you go. First Quixodelic Record of 2012 in association with the excellent New Radish, and it’s my dear friend Simon Piler singing to you 6 songs of this-worldly folk-blues all the way from sunny Alaska. While the Daydream Generation continues to fade away and yours truly attempts to gather his bearings over the edge of the world, our interstellar lo-fi roster of acts are still obviously out there doing what they do. Neat little records like ‘ground’ are the sort of thing that makes me remember why once upon a time I loved doing this so much.

In many ways these tracks are the logical extension of ‘Lo Swing…’, stripped back to mostly just guitar and voice, more intimate and spontaneous on the ears, it features at least 5 of the very best Simon Piler songs you are likely to hear, including the epic ‘i praise homeless gods’. For all you crazy ‘KINGTIME’ fans, don’t get your hopes up – ‘ground’ is its opposite, right down to the lower-case letters. These are take-it-or-leave-it hymns to and from the wild landscapes of America and the equally wild landscapes of the human heart.

In Simon’s own words: “I had a mad weekend of it and ended up on the other side with a record album.  It was pretty crazy how all the pieces just sort of knit together and I woke up this morning with this sombre little guy neatly parceled on the computer in front of me. It’s called ‘ground’.  And it’ll be the first solo Simon Piler album since ‘theatre music EP’, I think.  The Atom Band have thoroughly departed, I guess.  Though I think that you will find they are not forgotten!”

“Mad weekend” however is a misleading concept – most of these songs it would seem have been bubbling away at the bottom of Simon’s mind for some time, and the music, lyrics, even quality of the recording are all testament to something that has been patiently and deliberately brewed (like all good dream-brews should).

Enjoy!

sydlane.bandcamp.com/album/with-your-shield-or-on-it

A couple of nights ago I felt like going out and finding me some new music, but then I remembered how I skim-listened to Syd Lane’s ‘Solstice’ from earlier this year (having still been immersed in the wonderful ‘Hypatia’ which fell from the clouds the month previous). And lo and behold, what should I find, but this…

‘With Your Shield Or On It’ – an album that (like everything she does) deserved a fanfare, but instead flew out under the radar on the wrong side of twilight. 17 new songs in the style of Syd, the voice hitting even stronger notes, the piano playing somehow even more fragile melodies, and everything sounding like it was recorded in a cathedral on the moon. For fans of previous recordings it does everything it needs to do – like opening a musical box you found in your great-grandmother’s attic, timeless tunes a la Simon & Garfunkel, but increasingly Syd, and so heartfelt that sometimes you feel like you might be intruding into someone else’s head and life.

I’ve listened to ‘With Your Shield…’ every night before bed for the last four nights and each time the lullabies keep me up towards dawn. With piano ballads aplenty it’s undoubtedly something for the softer side of your brain – my own favourite tracks are ‘He Don’t Trust’, ‘The Lost Art of Faith’ (amazing little piano coda), ‘The Men of Midnight’ (VU Pale Blue Eyes style murmurings with pure epic vocals), the haunting ‘Beautiful Sky’, and finally the gobsmackingly great cover of closing track ‘Both Sides Now’ where Syd’s voice arguably hits her finest spine-tingling heights*. Considering a previous Chansons De Geste song of hers called ‘Astride A Grave’ took several months before I realised it was my favourite song in the world next to ‘Strawberry Fields’, I fully expect sometime in the future to be floored by a track I’ve overlooked in the fog of small hour mind-wandering. This whole record shimmers with greatness, and you wouldn’t expect anything less.

In fact, if there was any criticism, then expectation might be it. As astonishing as the voice sounds, as beautiful as the combination of notes and harmonies are, there is nothing you haven’t heard Syd do before. Every record refines and redefines what she does so well and as much as you cannot help but fall hopelessly for the songs, but there’s always a part of part of me that would love to hear something different, something like a protest album, the same vision applied to the external world as she does so well with the internal world of feeling. But who am I to ask for anything like that? Just a humble fan is all. And anyway, you always get the feeling that the subject matter chooses Syd, not the other way around… so long may the songs of love and lost resound from her little faraway place in the world.

*For a far less cack-handed discussion of the song ‘Both Sides Now’ and why Syd’s version is so important, then look no further than my favourite independent music blog: thestreetlampdoesntcast.blogspot.com – Griff, Gordon, and Ray have been equally educating and amazing me for the last couple of years with their essays and musings on everything from indie-pop to discussions about depression, left-wing politics, the relationship between song and memory, and have even managed to make me re-think the 1980s as a musical vacuum. Blogs don’t last forever, so please show them some support, subscribe, comment, and keep the wind in their sails otherwise yours truly will have a lot less to look forward to reading every week. Who needs tabloid newspapers when you’ve got the Streetlamp, eh?

Just a quick note to say that you can now purchase a CD copy of ‘Impaled Peach’ here: impaledpeach.bandcamp.com/releases

Here’s what Ed has to say about it -

“This is a CD that looks like a peach. Every time you stick it on a CD nub, you’ll be impaling a peach! It comes in a hand-assembled cardboardy slipcase that is 100% probably made from trees, so you know it’s good! It also has a hi-res print of the album cover glued on the front, which is good because that’s exactly where the album cover belongs. But wait, there’s more: it has a slip with the tracklist on it, hand-typedwriter’d and hand-photocopied. Last but not least, it has “Impaled Peach” written somewhere on it by my very hand, because I overlooked that important detail until the very end. I’ll probably throw a number on there, too! It might be the individual production number! This CD is WAY more unique than a vinyl!”

Download: quixodelic.com/site/impaled-peach/

It’s been a while so you know this must be important. Remember Impaled Peach and his ‘Helicobbler’ EP from early last year? 8 songs of melancholy pop goodness, oddities thrown together in the shape of a record, completely unplanned and yet brilliantly coherent. Well this time he’s only gone and done it again, but full-album length this time around, a staggering 17 track masterpiece, completely unplanned and yet… if this record wasn’t designed to fall together like this, then it really should have been.

Design is the key to describing what Ed (the guy behind the music) does. Songs are carefully crafted, odd and atmospheric, brimming with pop melodies, often intricate and bursting with good-old fashioned dark-humored soul. Heavily influenced by modern psychedelic bands like The Olivia Tremor Control, ‘Impaled Peach’ flies the same fuzzy path, but it has a much softer underbelly, kept up in the air at all times with soft 60s vocals, an orchestra of Beatle-esque guitars, and ukuleles. The word ‘Quixodelic’ was invented for records like this.

First listen I f**king loved it. Second listen I started to wonder if I wasn’t underrating what Impaled Peach has carefully crafted and thrown together in his front room. As far as lo-fi goes it is possibly fated to be one of those undiscovered gems that would have shone interstellar with the right people behind it. In the greater scheme of things you somehow feel like as many ears follow its magical trails across the skies, that it will always be one of those records you’ll proudly cherish in a lucky minority.

My favourite tracks? Oh, too many. I promise that there is not a weak song among the 17 and even the instrumental psychedelic interludes play their part. Try the undeniably epic ‘Moonless Sonata For Sun’ if you want to dip your toes in at the deep end and I’ll wager that you’ll want to go swimming around the rest of ‘Impaled Peach’ immediately afterwards.

11 out of 10.

‘Impaled Peach’ can be downloaded from Bandcamp for free and hand-made CDs are in the process of being… well, hand-made. More info to follow.

So that’s where he’s been!

Having suitably blown everyone away with last year’s whirlwind ‘Exercises In Futility’, Bobby Rogan and THE Fig Mints are back with not one, but TWO records – ‘Say Okay’ and ‘Songs For My Friends & Those Girls’. ‘Say Okay’ has been at the mastering stage for quite some time, so I’ve already had a sneak preview and a review will follow. Needless to say it is very good and a little bit different from previous Figs. ‘Songs…’ on the other hand has fallen from the sky as unexpectedly as a tiny meteor and is available for free download over at CLLCT (links below). I’ve had a quick listen and have a feeling that this might be an under-the-radar gem in the ever-expanding catalogue. Here’s what Senor  Bobby has to say for himself:

Alright, everybody! At long last, there are new Figs tracks available for purchase and download, both from the music section of the site.

Say Okay is the culmination of a year of songwriting and ridiculously tedious mixing throughout 2010. It’s been done for nearly a year now, and finally after all the mixing, remixing and monetary hangups, we’re able to bring it to you for a measly 5 buxxx! Of course I think it’s worth more, but be honest: who’s gonna pay more than 5 bucks for a DIY CD-R, no matter how fancy it looks?

Well, if you just said, “Why, I’d most certainly pay more than 5 dollars for your new songs, but thank you for being such a cheap date,” then I’ve got some news for ya. If you can scare up some more scratch, go to my Band Camp page here and buy the download with the option to donate a little more to the cause. Of course, you’ll still get the real CD in the mail; just make sure you drop a line and let me know where to send it!

Songs For My Friends And Those Girls is the newest of the new, and was written in a month or so between November and December of 2010. Not much time spent behind the wheel of this one; it mostly just spilled out of the various wounds that this past winter has inflicted, which are just now starting to heal. Read all about it at the Figs’ cllct page and download it for free in the music section.

This will be the Fig Mints farewell to cassettes and tape machines as the main recording tools. Of course, there will still be some lo-fi one offs and the like, including the upcoming releases of the two soundtracks for Zombek films that were recorded over the past couple years, but for the most part we’re going big!

So make sure you mosey on over to the music section of the site and scoop up some quality tunes for your summer.

Stay tuned, kiddies!

Free download: sydlane.bandcamp.com/album/solstice

Syd Lane has done it again. While some songwriters furiously vomit up hours of garbage in the hope that something, anything redeemable might happen, and others sit chewing on their guitar strings waiting for inspiration, she has been quietly amassing an increasingly awesome body of songs, honing and refining them until, like golden apples they are ready to drop from the tree.

‘Solstice’ is the second apple of a whirlwind year but three months old. Already we have seen the utterly compelling ‘Hypatia’ make all the right ripples in the deep end of the pond. Everyone I know who has heard that album says it is mesmerising, and if you missed it then please check out what the Godfathers of bedroom-indie-pop The Streetlamp Doesn’t Cast Her Shadow Anymore said about it here: thestreetlampdoesntcast.blogspot.com/2011/03/griff-says-hypatia-beautiful-brilliant.html To be brutally honest I’ve barely had a chance to digest it myself – three or four listens on the run, safe in the knowledge that together with Jason Raspa on mastering duties, she’s produced another impeccable shimmering poetic work of art, undoubtedly more polished than its equally lovable predecessors like the epic ‘It Begins In Beauty’.

The ‘Hypatia’ mastering process and Jason’s well-trained ear for detail meant that while it was still being cut and spliced, polished and diced on the other side of the Atlantic, Syd could return to and forge on with a record we first glimpsed as ‘The Solstice Sessions’ back in January 2010. With the creative hard work done, it seems that ‘Solstice’ was ready for consumption fairly quickly, and here we are, only a few weeks later with a second Syd Lane to digest. My gut feeling when I heard it was available for free dowload was that my brain just wasn’t ready for more. Songs like these should be treasured, and experience tells me that with Syd records being crammed so full of wonderful melodies and soaring vocals, it is really easy to miss songs that you can later fall hopelessly in love with (eg. ‘Astride a Grave’, and ‘Not A Poet Be’).

But here I am, listening to ‘Solstice’ on the run. I just couldn’t help myself. And yes, it is indeed another masterpiece. Frighteningly so, for everyone but Syd who no doubt is quietly building more songs from daydreams, somewhere out there. My first impressions on individual tracks are invariably wrong, but from this one I dig ‘I Couldn’t Tell Her’, ‘Simple Pleasure For The Complex’, ‘The Moon and The Liar’, ‘Their World of Fear’, ‘My Reach Exceeds My Grasp’ and… really, who am I kidding? I love this whole record from start to finish. There are no weak links in the daisy chain, the voice soars crisp and clear as it always does, the harmonies if anything are even bigger, the BJM-esque guitar carries us on waves while the piano rings out its mini concertos, and it is familiarly Syd-like… because you sense that she is slowly and surely carving out a sound that with every record is becoming more and more her own. Budge up Mr Barrett, someday someone will describe a song as ‘Syd-like’ and not mean you.

There are only so many superlatives you can throw at some artists, before they become meaningless. Awesome, it is. Brilliant, it is. Emotionally charged, yip. Catchy, yes. Epic, most definitely. Unintentionally cool, it is always that too. For those of you who are being sucked dry by life, I hope you find some space to catch ‘Solstice’ on the run like I did, and for those of you who have all the space that you need then I hope you can set some aside for both ‘Solstice’ and ‘Hypatia’… and ‘It Begins In Beauty’… and all The Loaded Whisper’s albums. The trajectory is upwards and it sounds (insert flurry of superlatives), so catch it while you can.

Well done Syd and thank you for doing what you do.

quixodelic.com/site/uberfuzz-live-now/

Ever wished you could go and get your head frazzled by the one and only Uberfuzz, but you can’t because they live in Rugby, and that’s like… thousands of miles away from wherever you are?

Well now, through the power of free digital downloads you can (sort of) be there. Just follow the link, grabbing classic Uberfuzz tracks like ‘Epistle to a Wayward Mother’ and ‘Oh, Child’ on your way, close your eyes and imagine you are there while Paul and Kelly do all the work. Believe me, it really works!

A little birdie tells me:

‘Syd has been asked by Jonathan Donohoe of Mercury Rev to open for them at their “Deserters Songs” show in Dublin on May 18th at Vicar Street. Obviously this will be her biggest gig to date and something to cherish through the long lonely nights of making the records she has no choice but to make.’

Oh to be a Dubliner.

Or to have a fancy private jet.

Or even a hot air balloon and a knowledge of wind currents.

For those of you lucky enough to be or own and have any of the above, then scootle yourselves down there and enjoy.

Free download: quixodelic.com/site/category/syd-lane/

2011 is shaping up to be a vintage year… Rocketships of Love, Simon Piler, Fig Mints on the horizon, possibly some Burnouts, maybe even (gulp) a Warchalking record. And now, straight out of left field with flowers in its hair, a spring in its determined step, and more magical melodies than the laws of physics deems is possible to be contained on one record, is something truly brilliant.

Of course I’m talking about ‘Hypatia’, the latest offering from the inimitable Syd Lane. The big question for me was ‘How can anything possibly top It Begins In Beauty?’ and sturdier souls might have baulked at the thought of even attempting it. Thankfully Syd’s muse is alive and well and from a couple of listens I can already say that this record could very well top anything before it. Mastered by the super-talented kindred psych-spirit that is Jason Raspa (Frogville), these fragile psychedelic ballads now glitter like a studio album, lo-fi enough to still be considered a record of and for the people, but yet you feel like this was always how these songs were supposed to sound.

It’s too early for me to pick favourites and I know from experience that Syd Lane songs creep up on you and tap you on the shoulder when you least expect them – but from what I’ve heard, why not try Saro, or Deladis, or Kate, or… shit, who am I kidding? They’re all top drawer and the record’s on Bandcamp, so just stream it from start to finish will you? Better still download it in its entirety, share it with your friends, and throw a dollar into her online hat if you feel so inclined. I know her well enough to know that the last thing she does this for is money, but a girl needs guitar strings, right?

These songs might sound like a continuation of It Begins In Beauty, but like all her previous records and incarnations (The Loaded Whispers, Chansons De Geste) you can really hear her voice grow and songwriting skills maturing into something truly awe-inspiring. The basic premise remains the same (a good song is a good song), but there are new sounds like swirling organs,or bluesy guitar, drums, or even kooky 60s kitsch-pop that defines this as a record in its own right, rather than another daisy in the chain.

Thanks for the music Syd. (Salutes).

Free download: quixodelic.com/site/lo-swing-of-the-earth/#more-708

Many things go hand in hand: I won’t waste your time by listing them here but I will however waste it by introducing you to a new combination, namely Simon Piler and the Spring. Coincidently, two of my favourite things. The latter I like because it happens immediately after that darkest of seasons. It says ‘You have survived another year.’

I like Simon Piler’s music for many more reasons, most of which I have expounded somewhere along the line. For those of you new to these parts however, let me summarise it thus – pure lo-fi, folk-thriller, imaginary dancing, epic lyrics that cut to the heart of reality in neat-shaped Japhy Ryder-esque battle-stanzas, songs that rattle on the wind, that seep into the grass, that growl like gravel and flutter like snow, songs that bake like sun, and swish like great oceans on the shore of mind. Simon Piler does all this with minimal fuss. Listening to his records is like pressing your ear to the key-hole of a cabin in the eternal woods. He doesn’t make it up for fame or fortune, and like many of us, he doesn’t do it because he has to. He does it because curiously enough, he actually has something to say to the world.

Have a listen to ‘Lo Swing of the Earth’ with your springtime boots on and tell me if I’m wrong. What he’s saying might not always be obvious, but it pounds and murmurs at something grand. Always inspirational, try ‘Song’ a mediation on death – (will my spirit fly with me? into the sweet the dry the neverending). ‘Corn Soot’, a traveller’s anthem – (if you’re moving the earth moves you, it’s a form of intimate embrace). Or the mighty lines of ‘Zoroaster’ – (when I look up the moon is full again and Zoroaster casting on a boat shaped like an anatomically correct aroused goose (in his splendid fashion) and when he smiles his crooked teeth come spinning off the silken vapor layers of deep sleep and a stern bite out of reality). These are pomes that make you feel like a middle-aged dumb version of Kerouac who has wandered with a bellyful into a new and shimmering world.

Whereas lyrically it is unsurprisingly magnificent, musically it falls somewhere between two of the GREAT Piler albums – the accessibly lo-fi experimental-folk-pop of ‘Songs From Home’, and the wonderfully experimental weird-fi off-the-wall magic of ‘KINGTIME’. ‘Lo Swing…’ is more polished than either, more gritty and bluesy, but it has its own twinkling moments like the beautiful instrumental ‘Jack’, or the supercool howl of ‘Spruce Prayer’. Is it his best record to date? Give me a few months of listening, but I’ll tentatively stick my toe in the water and say ‘probably…’

But don’t just take my word for it. Lap it up, chew it around, spit it out, kick it on, roll it into balls of dirt between your fingers, let it catch on the wind, and lie down on the hilltop, a million miles away from civilisation. Spring is almost here. And the earth swings lo.

More Simon Piler:

www.last.fm/music/Simon+Piler+and+The+Atom+Band

Thank you America!

nickfraelich.bandcamp.com/album/obnoxious-dancing-music

Something of an honour for me this one. Nick Fraelich first appeared on the tenth and final Daydream Generation compilation at the end of 2010 and blew my socks off with the experimental folk-pop of the quite amazing ‘Meta-Song’. Away from more traditional song structures, I also knew that he dabbled in the black magic of psychedelic electronica and had heard the brilliant head-fuck of ‘Trip Tent Sound Interlude’. So when a little birdie told me that he was working on an ambient/electronic record including collaborative remixes and was looking for submissions, I rooted around on my computer and unearthed an old improvised attempt at singing a book called ‘Shubunkins’. I shipped off a two track acoustic dirge that dribbled on seven minutes longer than it should of, and within a matter of hours received a ‘Nick Fraelich Pretentious Drone Rework’ back. Pretentious or not, it’s a million times more interesting than the original and hopefully doesn’t get in the way of an otherwise super-interesting record.

‘Obnoxious Dancing Music’ has got everything you’d want from an experimental electronic and predominantly instrumental record, plenty of beats and bleeps and bloops and a kaleidoscopic arsenal of effects. It also has a genius ‘hipster’ remix of Lenn9o9n’s smash-hit ‘Alli’ – the words ‘epic’ and ‘weird’ spring to mind, and the first song of 2011 to truly punch me in the eardrums and make me grin – a remake of The Sarcastic Dharma Society’s ‘Sanyasi’.

When I was growing up and falling in love with music, guys like Paul Oakenfold and Andy Weatherall were breathing life into bands like The Happy Mondays and Primal Scream. Nick Fraelich is like one of those guys, only much weirder, and way more beautiful. Hopefully this isn’t the last we hear of him making magical Frankensteins.

More Nfrae: www.last.fm/music/Nick+Fraelich

Oooooooh – nice cover!

Plucked fresh from thefigmints.com – Bobby updates on the new record and other undertakings:

Don’t count the Fig Mints out! Say Okay has been hung up in tracking and mixing for the better part of 2010, but it’s finally done! Mastering and duplicating are the only tasks left at hand, and barring any cataclysmic event, release is slated for March of this year. Keep yr eyes on this space for further details.

In other news, there are two more Figs albums in the works this year; one of which will probably see the light of day before the summer, the other maybe by the end of the year or middle of 2012 at the latest. “Songs for my Friends” is an album of catharsis chronicling the very confusing, depressing, frustrating, sometimes infuriating, and frequently drunk late fall/early winter of 2010, and will be the Fig Mints’ farewell to cassette tapes. Yes, it’s true. We’ve gone …(gulp)… digital. You can’t expect to move forward by staying where you are, dig?

Which brings us to the next line of business. “Bad Age for the Underdog” (thanks Jason Raspa of Frogville for the suggestion!) will hopefully be the deep breath after the freak out. The beginning of better days to come, and a new take on songwriting and recording that may just yield the most polished and fully realized Figs record yet. Only time will tell, so make sure you keep on checking this space for details!

Download it for free here: http://quixodelic.com/site/category/rocketships-of-love/

Listen to it here: http://theuticaflowercompany.wordpress.com/soundtracks/

Rocketships of Love – UFC Space Soundtrack (Book 2) by quixodelicrecords

We make our way up to the Recording Studio. Whirrping, Clankzap, Thumpslash, and Rattlerattle seem to have the biblical flood in the Quixodelic garden under control, and are busy fastening down some translucent insulation panels in a tunnel around the collapsed aft mast, effectively cutting off the garden from the rest of the ship. ‘Any idea what caused the flood?’ I ask them as we step from the mast onto the sodden corridor outside the Recording Studio.

‘Clankzap’ says Clankzap. ‘Clankzap clankzap.’

‘Rain eh? Lots of fucking rain? Well, keep up the good work.’

The Journalist taps me on the shoulder and whispers ‘You could get in serious trouble for those robo-’

‘They’re pixies’ I tell him, and knock on the Studio door. ‘Paul, it’s me… Willoughby. I need to speak to you urgently’ I shout and knock louder.

The Journalist lights a cigarette and plucks a terrifying scythe from thin air. ‘Want me to… hack it open?’

‘Where the fuck did you get that?’ I ask him, scanning his ghastly Bermuda shorts, white sneakers, seventies body-warmer, safari hunting cap, and ridiculous orange plastic sunglasses that are far too big for his face.

‘When did you last see him alive?’ asks the Journalist, ignoring my question and pointing at the Studio door.

I last saw Paul Le Keux sixty four days ago, along with two ghostly characters called Joe and Delia, salvaging cables, keyboards, drum machines, moogs and VU meters from the wreckage of our Fishbus on Plum Island and lugging them up to the studio. Like two mighty planets in alignment, the opportunity had been too good to ignore. On one hand we had one of Earth’s finest undiscovered  experimental electronic space technicians (an alchemist making musical gold), and on the other you had us… a… a… a… well I don’t know exactly what we are, but we were about to journey for several months across deep space. Ours was a (space) ship crying out for a (space) soundtrack, and right here, under our noses, was the only psychedelic cowboy who could do it.

It wasn’t easy convincing him. We met up in a museum during the summer of 2010 and I let him read Harold Archaleus’ pocket-guide to the species of the Unimerse to see if it would inspire him. He thumbed through it and looked up from the other side of the original scroll of Kerouac’s On The Road and said ‘If you can get hold of that trumpet that blows up suns… then count me in.’

I laughed, quickly realising by the steely expression in his eye that I wasn’t supposed to be laughing and said ‘Eh… okay then.’

For the record, I wasn’t bluffing. I didn’t believe for a moment that such a thing existed, but nonetheless I would endeavour at some point to try and get hold of it. The previous year I’d managed to get together 21 magical artefacts to save the Unimerse, or Universe (I forget which), so one mad old mythical trumpet surely wouldn’t be that difficult to conjure up. Also I wasn’t really thinking about my end of the bargain too much, I was far too excited that PLK had agreed to make a Rocketships of Love space soundtrack for us.

First day back on the Mardi, Paul, Joe, and Delia disappeared through the Recording Studio door. Weeks passed and things were hectic. I got killed during a Battle Golf dream and that kept me out of the picture for a month, then just as I was finding my feet again, Smally only went and assimilated me, meaning that I had to share his head until recent unfortunate events which have left me looking like… never mind. Now, a sequence of equally unfortunate developments had led me back to the Recording Studio door, and suddenly I was very worried. First of all the Geng Star began to explode, then a Unimerse-wide warrant for PLK’s arrest had been issued for apparently causing it. Even though it didn’t exist, I had a horrible feeling that somehow he’d gotten his hands on that trumpet anyway.

CR-RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAACCCCKKKKKK!

The Journalist’s first swing punctures the door and before I can figure out what is happening, his scythe is ripped from his hands and sucked out into sparkly black space along with the remains of the door itself, our internal isolation safety mechanism kicking in as we’re pulled forwards crashing into a clear plastic barrier that has dropped down from the ceiling.

‘MY SCYTHE!’ wails the Journalist falling to his knees, his skeletal face pressed against the barrier, watching it twirling off into emptiness.

My heart is hiccuping with the certain knowledge that we were a fraction of a second away from certain death, and my jaw is scraping the floor with confusion. ‘WHERE… THE FUCK… HAS OUR RECORDING STUDIO GONE!?’

‘NEVER MIND YOUR FUCKING STUDIO!’ screams the Journalist, his bony hands suddenly wrapped around my throat. ‘I’VE HAD THAT SCYTHE FOR AEONS! HOW AM I GOING TO REAP? HUH? HOW AM I GOING TO FUCKING REAP MAN?’

‘You’re strangling me’ I gargle, and he releases his grip, sobbing.

Nothing here makes sense. Part of our ship is missing and the Journalist is crying about reaping. ‘Where are you going?’ he wails, on his knees in the corridor.

‘Bunkroom em… uh… eh…  fuck. I’m going to see Uberpaul. I can’t remember which Bunkroom he’s in. We’ll try them all until we find him.’

…

BUNKROOM 8

A tattered note continues to hang from a spider’s web on the door. I knock and try the handle, the door swinging open. ‘No, this isn’t it… this is the Chief’s room and – HOLY SHIT!’

‘What is it?’ asks the Journalist behind me.

‘There’s a giant crack in the middle of the floor!’

No sign of Becky or Oscar, but you can see the stars through the crevice that runs across the centre of the room. ‘Why isn’t everything being sucked out?’ asks the Journalist, lying down on his belly and cautiously putting his eyes to it. ‘This doesn’t make any sense’ he says.

BUNKROOM 7

There’s a picture of a bar of soap and a big metal wheel on the door of Bunkroom 7. ‘Fifeclub?’ asks the Journalist.

I knock and it opens an inch, The Amalfi Glow’s bright eye appearing. ‘Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying it’ he says.

‘Ritchie, have you seen Moppy and Jesus-cop-guy?’

‘They’re still hiding in the garden’ he says.

‘Shit. I knew it.’

‘You have a fox head’ he says. ‘It’s quite disturbing.’ He looks past me at the Journalist still visibly troubled by the crack in the room opposite and the loss of his scythe, and his eye opens wide. ‘YOU!’ he says.

‘Me?’ asks the Journalist nervously.

The Amalfi Glow slams the door.

BUNKROOM 6

Someone has scratched the words “This room = kindling” on the door. I think it was Flowpoetry. I knock, but nobody answers, press my ear to the door and hear nothing. ‘This is it I think’ I say, ‘stand back.’

I launch myself across the corridor into a flying kung-fu kick. I’m certain it would have smashed the door into pieces, only at the last second Uberpaul opens it and I plummet through, doing very painful splits into one of the weirdest scenes ever witnessed on the Mardi. Bunkroom 6 has been transformed. You could say that the Unimerse’s Most Wanted has taken an already trashed room, and then trashed it to the power of six hundred and seventy nine. Stalactites of strange black frozen slime hang down from the ceiling. Strands of floss cling to every corner of the room simultaneously dark and light thanks to a slow-burning strobe on the ceiling. The place is like a crazy claustrophobic junkyard, the entire floor covered with debris – a shattered bunkbed, keyboards stacked like jenga towers, dismantled machinery, windchimes the shape of moons, everything coated in a fine layer of red dust, a giant ouija board cluttered with spilled coffee cups and frayed cigarette ends protruding halfway up a large mountain of weirdness in the middle of the room. On the floor in the corner behind Uberpaul (wearing a cowboy hat backwards, with several weeks worth of stubble, old psychedelic dressing gown wrapped around him, jar of some strange amber and blue fizzy liquid in his hands, eyes hidden by impenetrably black shades) is a small colour television set with the sound turned down. He grins and staggers backwards, falling into an arm-chair buried under endless strands of shimmering tinsel and cables.

Something spiny slithers past my face and disappears under a stack of vinyl records with bites taken out of them. I watch as he knocks back the jar in one go and belches, a mirage of amber and blue musical notes hanging temporarily in the air before popping with fuzzy distorted jingle bell sounds. ‘I suppose you’re here for the space bugle’ he slurs.

‘Actually I was here to ask you where the Recording Studio has gone…’ I tell him, out of the corner of my eye seeing that weird white creature creeping around the corner of a badly burned mattress, ‘… what the fuck was that?’

‘What? You mean the Tingler?’

‘What the fuck’s a Tingler?’

‘I picked it up on Sh’Ackulll, after I accidentally ran off with this’ he says, holding up a long bone-like stick. ‘Just don’t get frightened or he’ll attach himself to your spine. Believe me, it’s uncomfortable, and gives you terrible headaches.’

The Journalist has walked up beside me and stares agog at the sight before him, a sculpture of lava lamps swirling in his orange sunglasses. ‘It’s the end of the world’ he whispers.

‘Here, take a seat’ says Uberpaul, using the stick to whack a space amongst the debris in front of the television set. ‘You’ve got to see this’ he says, pointing at the screen where two hairy aliens have abandoned trying to fit a triangular table through a circular portal and are now putting on inflatable sumo suits and throwing darts at each other. ‘It’s called Astro World’ says Paul, ‘it’s like the Chuckle Brothers… only not as funny.’

I wrestle my way through a half-eaten papier-mache model of a red and white rocket ship and switch the television off at the wall. Uberpaul growls and the Tingler pokes its bony antennae up over the top of a lemon cactus. ‘Paul, I need you to concentrate. What happened to the Recording Studio? It’s completely gone.’

‘Gone?’ he asks, twirling the stick round in his hands. ‘Ah yeah. So it is. We crashed it on Elon IV when I was picking up the space bassoon. Where is that space bassoon by the way? I mean, it’s not like you can miss it…’

The Journalist taps me on the shoulder and I turn around. His sunglasses are pushed up onto his forehead and his tundra-enhanced eyeballs are exploding from their stalks. ‘Something just attached itself to my spine’ he says through gritted teeth.

‘That would be the Tingler’ calls Uberpaul, clambering over the wreckage of the room. ‘You need to relax, or it will eventually devour you from the inside. So the Rah say.’

‘The Rah?’ I ask, following him up the small mountain of junk in the middle of the room. ‘Paul, what the fuck is going on here?’

He stops at the summit directly underneath the blinking strobe light and looks down. ‘We finished the record’ he says.

‘You did?’

He nods with a grin and reaches into his dressing gown pocket, throws down a CD called ‘UFC Space Soundtrack (Book 2)’ that the Journalist catches. ‘I hope you like it’ he says. ‘We travelled all across the Unimerse you know. Oh, by the way, I never said thanks for the space bugle. Also, I should probably tell you that I won’t be giving it back.’

‘Space bugle? What the fuck are you talking about? Paul, they’re saying you blew a hole in the Geng Star… the whole Unimerse is looking for you.’

‘It worked?’ he asks, slightly confused. ‘It really worked? Haha! Oh wow. Fuck.’

‘Where is it? The bugle?’

‘Huh? Oh, I can’t tell you that.’

‘You have to! That thing is deadly. In the wrong hands it could -’

‘No, it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just I can’t because I lost it.’

‘YOU LOST IT?’ yells the Journalist.

‘In here?’ I ask him, scanning the room.

‘What? No…’ he says smiling. ‘Somewhere….’ he waves his arms around above his head and falls backwards off the mountain of debris, landing with a crash on the other side.

‘THIS IS NOT GOOD!’ screeches the Journalist through gritted teeth, completely panicking, scanning the liner notes on the inside of the record:

Hypno-Blast Off!
A throbbing take-off into the unimerse, accompanied by a knackered rehearsal room drum set and lunar windchimes. Broadcasts from earth can be heard dropping in and out of the airwaves to give inspiration, advice and warnings.

Streamers
Whilst approaching the Akong Supernova, long, translucent neon tails of light can be seen arcing around the ship. “They look like streamers” Smalloughby Toad states.

The Tingler
A 2ft long creature made of bone which attaches itself to your spine from the inside when in the grips of terror. This can cause slight discomfort and headaches. The Tingler is thought to be of Rah descendancy.

Tribal Dust
After kicking about on Elon IV, I take a table knife to the heels of my boots to try and get the dried swamp sod out of them. The quick drying mud crumbles into a fine, sweet smelling dust not dissimilar to blackcurrant Double-Dip. The Bantl probably keep this stuff in their nomadic lock-ups as some kind of Shake n’ Vac.

The Killing Moog
Delia guides me to her old Moog thanks to a ouija board I was using as a coffee table. Analogue modular chaos ensues.

Robot
While orbiting Cylog, I contact Joe using the ouija board again. He points me toward a 1962 recording he made with The Tornados at Holloway Road that seems more than suitable.

Solar Bank Holiday
A rare moment of tranquillity ensues when I plan to venture out of the bunk to watch the UFC movie ‘Doom Cruise’. Bank Holiday flicks usually suck, but I’ve heard this film kicks ass. I can’t get out because my space bassoon has fallen from the corner and blocked the doorway. By the time I’ve pulled it out the way I’m too flustered to watch the film. I decide to try and meditate. Me and the giant woodwind instrument meld together and the spirit of Brian Eno can be felt in the den. I’ll watch the film next week. I reckon it’ll be a cross between ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ and ‘Barbarella’.

Astro World
This is the theme tune to an interplanetary kids show I’ve been watching in my spare time. Just think of a lunar Chuckle Brothers.

Optical Nerve-Nourishment, Commercial Consumption,
Kaleidoscopic Audio Treatment
This is the colonial planetary anthem of Omicron. It’s hard to stand up and salute to because it’s such a transcendental head-trip. It normally lasts for forty-five minutes. I don’t like standing for long periods of time so I just cut it down and put an old Casio drum machine on it to help keep it together. It works well as a meditative device and distraction from late night internet shopping… hence the title.

Oh! Glorious Temple of Ra
I’m no sportsman (which is why Smalloghby put me in this bunk) but when I stretch my legs, I like to make sure they’re well and truly stretched. On one of our many toilet stops, I walk around for hours and eventually find myself in the temple of Sh’Ackulll. One of the Rah spots me picking under my fingernails with the Staff of Rah. I have to leg it back to base with dirty nails.

Lunar Hillbillys Take LSD
I got bored one day, put my cowboy outfit on, dropped some lysergic acid and wrote an electronic country song for the ghost of Jim Reeves to sing on. We couldn’t contact him though.

Long Distance
The Greys are well known for their travelling and adventuring antics. While watching one of them running around the pitch I imagine them striding across the unimerse in slow motion with their long, lanky frames. They are exploring the ether on foot to a ‘Chariots of Fire’ type anthem which can be heard here (I think the LSD is still in operation).

A Space Bugle That Can Punch A Hole Through A Sun
No explanation required.

Heart
A song from 1966 by The Remains which I thought summed up my affection towards the jolly, artistic, creative and psychedelic crew of this fine vessel.

‘What’s not good?’ I ask him.

‘HE’S ONLY GONE AND ACCIDENTALLY STOLEN THE FUCKING STAFF OF RAH! AND LOST WAYNALDAM SONG’S LEGENDARY SPACE BUGLE!’ says the Journalist, his face turning a very pale blue. ‘HE’S BEEN FLYING ALL AROUND THE UNIMERSE IN THE RECORDING STUDIO WITH THOSE GHOSTS AND NOW… JESUS MY HEAD HURTS.’

‘Okay’ I tell him, ‘I’ve got a plan.’

‘YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!’ he whines. ‘IF I DON’T GET MY SCYTHE BACK THEN NOBODY WILL EVER DIE!’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘EVERYONE WILL END UP IN LIMBO.’

‘You need to stop panicking. He already told you that.’

‘YISS’ he says, turning purple and sinking to the floor.

From the other side of the mountain I hear Uberpaul slur ‘I’m all right!’

I close my eyes.

The two of them begin to whirl around the room. Lava lamps and bones. Keyboards and vital organs. Purple dust and brain cells. Round and round they go, revolving in a tornado that eventually sputters to a standstill, a solitary individual left sitting in the leather armchair in front of me. He looks up and I must admit that he looks vaguely like Uberpaul, only much gaunter, the orange and black sunglasses fused together, the cowboy hat now black and the right way around, the psychedelic dressing gown black too (although the luminous Bermuda shorts and white sneakers are still there). ‘I can’t believe you just did that’ he says.

‘You need to return the Staff of Rah before some kind of Unimerse War breaks out’ I tell him.

‘Well obviously I know that now’ he says.

‘What about the space bugle?’

He shakes his head and starts rummaging around in amongst the junk. ‘No, I still don’t remember. More importantly I need to get that scythe of mine back… aha, here it is.’

‘The bugle?’

‘No, this’ he says and holds up a familiar badly cracked mirror, held together with sticky tape. ‘Man I look… different’ he says, feeling his cheeks and examining his own reflection. ‘How long am I going to stay like this?’ he asks.

‘How long is Satan’s cock?’ asks the Magic Mirror.

‘Oh… FUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!’ screams Ubergrim.

‘What? What is it?’ I ask him.

‘Nothing. F-uck…’ he says again. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Okay.’

‘What are you going to do?’ he asks me.

‘I’m going to listen to the new Rocketships of Love record’ I tell him. ‘Then I’ll tidy your Bunkroom for you.’

‘Thanks’ he says and salutes in the doorway. ‘However this ends.’

And I salute back.

The record of course, is fucking amazing.

It is music to get lost in. It buzzes and shimmers, it swoops and soars, there are beats and bloops and unidentifiable flying objects gliding overhead, it is fun, and it is jaw-dropping, and it is easily one of my favourite records of all time.

The room can wait, I’m going to listen to the record again. And again. And again.

(Finally) Available for free download!

here: http://quixodelic.com/site/category/the-utica-flower-company/

Okay, let’s do this again…

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UTICA FLOWER COMPANY2.0

Through the winter of 2006 and spring of 2007 I made a lo-fi psychedelic-pop record called ‘The Utica Flower Company’ with three guys from Cozy Home Records – Paul Burnout (The Real Burnouts), Bobby Rogan (Fig Mints of Your Imagination), and Luke Humann (Arthur Rules). It wasn’t released until a year later through the Cozy Home, but looking back I’m still very fond of that haphazard little collaboration.

The title track on the record was about a secret basement beneath a flower shop where ‘revolutionary people meet and records play for your soul’. In early 2009 I stumbled over an old email to Paul Burnout where I said that some day I’d like to start an actual Flower Company just like this. At the same time we were working on Quixodelic Records and had been referring to the collective, featuring artists from all over the globe, as The Utica Flower Company. So it wasn’t as giant a step as it sounds going out and buying a ship with the intention of sailing around the world.

On the 1st of May 2009, the Mardi set sail from Jacksonville with most of the collective on board. You can read about our adventures here:

theuticaflowercompany.wordpress.com

Now this is where is gets really weird. Eventually our imaginary ship sailed off the edge of the world and the four surviving Company members (myself, Simon Piler, Becky N, and Warchalking) escaped on an inflatable dinghy called The Ark with nothing but some cigarettes, rum, and a handful of salvaged musical instruments to keep us entertained while we drifted through the Unimerses.

Thankfully we had an old 4-track to capture the songs that have since been compilered and made available as ‘The Utica Flower Company 2.0′. These include (in my opinion) some of the most poignant songs Simon has ever written, three brand new Becky N tracks (fans of hers will appreciate that 3 new songs is nearly a year’s supply), a brilliant new Warchalking track called ‘Daydreamer Gasoline’ concerning the perils of smoking Rongovian tundra, two salvaged songs from cassettes made by some guy called Willoughby Toad, me re-singing the first Wheelies song I wrote in 2006 having ignored music for 9 nears previous, and all four of us singing together on ‘The Utica Flower Company Refrain’. It is understandably very different from his older sibling, limited by our lack of instruments and creative exhaustion from the previous year’s calamities, more folk than psychedelic, but crackling and popping with the same lo-fi genuine goodness. As different as it sounds, I am equally proud of the results and almost every song features some form of collaboration between its creators. I wrote ‘I’m In Love With You’ then Simon re-wrote the words before singing and played it six million billion times better than I ever could. Warchalking does backing vocals on Becky’s lovably diggable ‘Shark Ark’. I sing backing on Simon’s epic ‘Lung’ and duet with Becky on her ‘Things We’ve Done’. She plays accordion and Simon plays trombone on Willoughby’s ‘Ballad of Willoughby Toad’… the list goes on. Something that on paper should sound like a compilation of four Quixodelic artists somehow ends up sounding like a coherent-ish record and an audio postcard penned as a keepsake for ourselves.

Much of the coherence is to do with Simon Piler’s diligent mixing and mastering of the finished record, a feat which required him to sneak in and out of an alternate universe via a little door at the back of his brain throughout the summer at great personal risk to his own sanity. For this reason alone I hope you take a couple of minutes to download our imaginary little record and have a listen.

And we hope you like it.

Smally

You can download them for FREE over at

Quixodelic.com

THE MONDO-CITY MOTORPSYCHOS

Variable Lag EP

This little gem fell into my hands while I was putting Daydream Generation 9 together. Here’s what I managed to dig up on these guys:

“The MCMP hail from Las Vegas where they were chucked out of the casino circuit fore playing too sleazy. They now frequent bars at the less profitable end of the strip where their brand of garage’y 60’s R&B is both appreciated and reviled.”

FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION)

We Love You EP

Next up we’ve got… wait for it… brand new Fig Mints! (Ah shit, that doesn’t work, does it? You already knew it was them from the title…) Anyway, it’s still something to get excited about. Here’s what Bobby has to say about it:

“This is the single for a song on the upcoming album, Say Okay. It includes the new release of a song called We Love You, as well as a remixed release of What Happened to Holiday, which originally appeared on Daydream Generation #8; Venus (Don’t Believe In Us), which was previously only available aboard an imaginary sea vessel; and Missed Bliss, a demo for a different upcoming album tentatively titled Bad Age for the Underdog.”

…

Finally there’s two, yes TWO new records from Planet Le Keux. They are:

PAULO RHYTHM & HIS PHANTOM BLUES

Live At The Strip Club

A spokesman for Uberfuzz said: “This was recorded at Rugby’s’ The Strip Club and consists of Paul playing old blues and R&B numbers with a guitar, tambourine with his foot, and singing through a distorted old guitar amp for maximum blues dirgeness. It owes as much to groups like The Cramps and The Gories as it does to Leadbelly and Bo Diddley.”

and…

ROCKETSHIPS OF LOVE

Sonic Ashtray

Second full-length record from Rocketships of Love. If you don’t know anything about this project, here’s what it’s all about:

***PROPERLY WIRED…FULLY EARTHED…From Rugby, ROL is a celebration of all things electronic and operating outside of normal gravity fields. The transmissions you are receiving are all cover versions except the instrumental pieces and are salutes to fellow space travellers. These renditions have been used to develop the ROL sound (acheived predominantly by the use of a MicroKorg Modular Synthesizer, Boss Drum Machine, electronic toys and various effects pedals). Vocal performaces are delivered by Kelly Le keux of ‘Uberfuzz’, Matt Storer of ‘Uberfuzz’ (www.myspace.com/uberfuz2) and ‘Elfwood Prattali’ (www.myspace.com/prettyboybluei) to name a few. All songs are mastered by Regal 3/30***

This one’s so hot that even I haven’t heard it yet! So join me right now floating over to the store to download it… I cannae wait!

There have been moments in the last three and a half years I have beaten my head against an invisible brick wall, but always, just around the corner is a little moment of genius. Here, two of the most talented folks I’ve stumbled across accidentally combine in two minutes of comedy. Jon of the Atom (Dead Canaries, America) makes a film with a soundtrack courtesy of James Redmond (Dirty Ticket, UK). Goes to show that people aren’t so different wherever you go, and even beating your head against invisible brick walls is sometimes worth it.

Download it for FREE at: quixodelic.com/site/category/warchalking/

Listen to ‘Diving Bell’:

Download audio file (Warchalking-DivingBell.mp3)

Finally…

The debut Warchalking record, written and recorded during 2007, now available as a free download zip at the link above.

Long overdue and probably the most played CD in my house, discovering this record in the summer of 2007 was as important to me as discovering the legendary bands and songwriters of the 1960s when I was a kid. Warchalking makes accomplished DIY music in various rooms in his house in Cape Girardeau – and this self-titled debut was his first attempt at writing a whole album by himself. It is a surprising and inspiring listen for any would-be songwriters with a unique vision who want to sing it to the world, but don’t know where to start.  I once described him as a ‘one-man orchestra’, but actually it is just carefully layered vocal harminies and simple acoustic guitars melodies combining to form an organic wall of sound. All nine songs are worth their weight in musical gold, but highlights include the driving brilliance of ‘Diving Bell’, and the haunting ‘Acts of Medicine’.

Dig in.

Find out more about Warchalking at: www.myspace.com/warchalking

Out Today

Download it for free at: quixodelic.com/site/category/motherbird/

Listen to ‘Blasphemy’:

Download audio file (Blasphemy.mp3)

I know what I like and I always like it. That’s why every so often I have to throw myself from the same old train to crash-land in the undergrowth of something completely different – something that pushes boundaries, that breathes poetry from the gut – something much, much darker. motherBIRD is all of those things… burning at the heart of the moonspun forest, fluttering always up ahead, out of reach, far enough away to be forever unidentifiable, mysterious, unfathomable, and impossible to catch in the jar of a few paragraphs. But I’m here, so I might as well give it a try…

I was first tipped off about ‘a really interesting songwriter’ from Sydney by the now sadly AWOL Splendid Isolation podcast back in 2008. Curiously I still feel exactly the same way I did when I first heard motherBIRD’s music two years down the line – it is unlike anything else going round… eerie and inventive electronic sounds with meandering guitars combine with a spellbinding voice, in turn carrying a blizzard of mighty words simultaneously hyper-human fragile and weirdly other-wordly.

motherBIRD is a very good musician, and a very great singer. But it is this poetry brought to life by the music that makes her such a unique and exceptional talent. Rather than the songs being mere vehicles for the words, the arrangements and the expressive scale of the voice takes the poetry to another level, where the song and the word are symbiotic and inseparable from each other.

‘How To Believe’ is a six-song introduction that won’t appear on the much-anticipated official motherBIRD release that has been carefully cooking for years rather than months, and is now finally fluttering towards completion. See thegrandcuckoo.wordpress.com for an intriguing and inspiring look behind the scenes at the making of this record. Our little demo, put together for Quixodelic begins with the spectral ‘Salvation’, full of electronic bells and muffled beats, part-whispered, part-sung vocals that close with the haunting ‘Now the devil wants to befriend me/Sends gift cards on the full moon’. As beginnings go, it is about as wonderfully strange a beginning as you can get. And thankfully, this record just gets even stranger.

More bells begin the brilliant second track ‘Blasphemy’, before distorted vocals and menacing beats kick in. On the spectrum of dark to light it is probably as dark as the record gets, claustrophobic and curiously fragile at the same time with its intricate sound effects and more prodigious lines like ‘Fly me a sparrow/Shoot it down with my arrow/Cupid got real mad/Curses the heart forever sad’.

The semi-spoken ‘Crossing Yourself Before The Fall’ is a cascade of mythological imagery and swirling psychedelic organs. ‘To the delighted delphic deity/A little spark brings a great flame after it/When it arouses a longing in anyone’ is one of my favourite lines from the record, complete with hypnotic trance-inducing delivery.

Despite being one of the most obvious home recordings, ‘I Heart U’ is also one of the most accessible with its rolling electric guitar, reverb-drenched hissing dreamlike voice, and cool chorus line of ‘I heart U for the last time’. You guess these songs were never designed to be catchy, but the atmosphere and words and moments like these will stick in your brain long after the record has finished.

Penultimate track ‘Before The Ascent’ is an experimental lullaby with soaring wordless vocals, giving way to the record closer, the beautiful, if lyrically sombre and reflective ‘Salvation’, a point of realisation with its stuttering beats, flickering electronic pulses and circumspect final lines that sing ‘Never one to fly/What a mess/I kept pretending/Child’. The first thing you’re going to want to do when ‘How To Believe’ finishes, is to go back and listen to it again to try and make sense of what you’ve just heard. It is a little bewildering, very different, quite intense, utterly bewitching, and…

…and you know what? This is to music, what ‘Twin Peaks’ is to television. Time for you to jump off your train in the moonlight and get lost walking backwards through the woods while the wheels on the track roll away in the distance.

Find out more about the newest addition to the Quixodelic collective at:

www.myspace.com/motherbirdtv

www.facebook.com/pages/motherBIRD/307871567253

motherbirding.wordpress.com/

Wow…

You’ve got to keep your eye on the ball these days otherwise little gems like this fly under the radar. But never fear, you can download Simon Piler’s latest (re-released) record for free in its entirety over at your friendly local neighbourhood Quixodelic Record Store -

quixodelic.com/site/test/

Here’s what everyone’s favourite Simon has to say about this neat little 6-song record from 2008:

*** Another release for you from the Simon Piler back-catalog. Slowly yet surely, folks, slowly yet surely… ***

In 2008 I wanted to release three EPs simultaneously. It was sort of a way to have a joke at the expense 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’.

Test was originally entitled ‘Five Goddamn Love Songs’. I guess it’s 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’ may be just for you.

Aye, thankee for listening!

Yip, nothing like some Piler songs to alleviate the blues and get the brain cogs whirring….

A Quixodelic Record #3 – Download it for free today!

Here: http://quixodelic.com/site/category/quixodelic-records-sampler/

An unexpected something to kick-start or wind-down your summer. ‘A Quixodelic Record #3′ takes off where UFC1 and UFC2 left off, gathering most of your favourite Quixo-urchins under one roof to do what they do best – sing their little hearts out. Month on month since we started The Daydream Generation and built our own net-label, visitors to the site have slowly and surely been a-growing in numbers. Hopefully for those of you new to this corner of the internet, this sampler of bands/songwriters whose albums are available as free downloads in our Quixodelic record store will point you in the direction of some music you might like. The thing I love most about this particular project is that as well as being talented and/or original musicians, the people behind these songs are without exception some of the loveliest folk you’re likely to meet on your virtual travels. On the right of the page there are links to their various websites, so if you like what you hear then please take a few minutes to drop by and say hello and tell them what you think. Okay, so without further ado, here are 16 paragraphs about the songs that make up Quixo-3:

THE UTICA FLOWER COMPANY – Shark Ark

Three years ago Paul Burnout, Bobby Fig Mints, Arthur Rules and I wrote the original UFC record about a secret basement beneath a flower shop ‘where revolutionary people meet and records play for your soul’. On the 1st May 2009 the Quixodelic collective turned the concept into a fictional reality, setting sail on an imaginary ship called The Mardi, and writing a book/blog of our adventures over the last 13 months. The Mardi finally sailed off the edge of the world on April 14th 2010, and the four surviving members of the Flower Company – myself, Simon Piler, Becky N, and a tundra fiend called ‘W’ were cut adrift on a weird little dinghy with ‘The Ark’ penned on its side. With nothing but some conveniently salvaged musical instruments and our frazzled imaginations to keep us going, we drifted and wrote some songs. ‘Shark Ark’ is one of them, written by Becky for the soon to be (hopefully) finished epilogue record entitled ‘The Utica Flower Company 2.0′. Thankfully we are all now safely back in our own brains.

THE REAL BURNOUTS – Get Behind The Wheel And Shift It

One of my favourite Burnouts songs of all time, taken from the legendary ‘Transparent Mirror’ record, released by Cozy Home Records way back in 2005 (cozyhomerecords.com). The first time I heard this song it was live on the radio, mad brilliant voices recounting a comical tour of Rongovia before launching into an acoustic version of ‘Get Behind The Wheel…’ There were so many things about it that made perfect sense; the catchy melody, the surreal lyrics, the feel-good energy driving it along, and the realisation that music doesn’t have to be technically perfect to be completely perfect. I hope it is as life-changing for you as it was for me.

SYD LANE – Only A Dream

**Breaking News** Syd Lane has a drum kit. For fans of her soaring, soulful psychedelic ballads this is an interesting development. Presently locked away in her castle in the sky writing and recording a new album, the word on the virtual street is to expect something epic, and if this first glimpse is anything to go by, then the word sounds like it knows what it is talking about. ‘Only A Dream’ is everything we’ve come to expect from this multi-talented poet-singer-songwriter… plus drums.

FROGVILLE – Just Like Sunday

If the download numbers are anything to go by, then it would seem that finally perhaps the world is rightly switching on to Frogville’s 2009 pop-psych masterpiece ‘A Bug-Eyed Swamp’. And so, with Jason promising a second record/six-headed monster sometime in the not too distant future called ‘MK Ultraphonic?’, now’s as good a time as any to revisit one of the highlights from the first album – ‘Just Like Sunday’ – two minutes and thirteen seconds of just kicking around in sunshine melodies and diggable songsmithery.

KALEIDONAUTS – Suspended Animation

Unreleased track from ‘I Do Not Currently Own A Spaniard (Mine Died)’. I wrote this with Jon of the Atom in early 2007 and it was dropped from the record after he decided he didn’t like his music on it. We tried remixing it again in 2008, but it still wasn’t working, and I tried to resuscitate it once more in 2009 attempting to put together the long-lost third Kaleidonauts record ‘K2′. That all said, as much as it’s a lost cause of a song, and this original version involves my clumsy mixing, people who have heard it seem to like it, so now seems like as good a time as any to finally put it out there. Sorry Jon.

THE FALLING FLOORS – Eucalyptus

Having very recently been revived from a technicolour time-capsule buried under Carnaby Street in 1966, Manchester’s psychedelic-popsters The Falling Floors are thawing out working on a 7″ single and a third album scheduled to be released on cassette through the newly formed Chamber Records. ‘Eucalyptus’ is (possibly probably) my favourite track from 2008’s self-titled debut (it’s just there are a lot of definitely definitely great songs on there), like an apple that has fallen not so far from the Pet Sounds tree, and a perfect introduction to this band for you to sink your teeth into.

LENN9O9N – I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For

Honestly, I wanted to put Lenn9o9n’s lo-fi gem ‘Nina’s Paw Got Stuck’ on here for a number of reasons: A. It’s great, B. People really like it, and C. It shows a completely different side to his predominantly synth-orientated recordings. But as always the artist knows best, so instead we have the seriously short, but also seriously brilliant ‘I Hope You Find…’ and there is no denying that: A. It’s REALLY great, B. People are going to love it, and C. It is Lenn9o9n at his electronic best.

SIMON PILER AND THE ATOM BAND – Space Bottom

Soundtrack from a flight to the moon. The actual moon. It took me a few listens to fall in love with this song, but now whenever I look up at the starry sky I hear the ‘Space Bottom’ accordion hum its meandering notes and everything seems just that little bit more magical. Think our very own lo-fi ‘Space Oddity’, previously only available as a loop on a wrecked Fish Rocket that fell into the void. Simon says: “I’m glad to have a chance to say hello, as I’ve relocated once again. I’m back up in the crisp wilderness of interior Alaska these days, and certainly learning a thing or two about lupine. I burned my tongue on gunpowder tea. I burned my eyes on a blood moon swinging-apocalyptic through the dusky 3 AM skies. Songs keep putting out buds on my windowsill, so I’ve been making simple facsimiles with my newly re-forged Music Journal. That being said, of course, my first and foremost energies are focused on the mixing, mastering and packaging of the second Utica Flower Company album. It’s hard for me to comment on exactly how that makes me feel, but there is certainly a component of inside-outness to it. As if someone left open the back door to my brain. An alternate EXIT. I suspect I’ll be trying a few more special re-releases from my catalogue on CLLCT. I think it’s about time to bring ‘Short Score’s Album’ and the ‘Test EP’ back up to the surface of the reflecting pool. (My page is right here: http://cllct.com/art/simonpilerandtheatomband )”

FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION) – Me And My Brain

Bobby Rogan finally seems to have the balance right. While he continues to keep one eye on the Cozy Home, new record ‘Say Okay’ is brewing in the studio, and a Fig Mints album of covers has also been pencilled in for the summer. Three new songs have already been written for another record, tentatively called ‘Bad Age For The Underdog’. This track here, ‘Me And My Brain’ is an out-take from ‘Say Okay’, cut because ‘it wasn’t loud enough to fit in with the rest of the songs’. It is classic Fig Mints – astutely goofy, musically infectious, and well worth a couple of minutes of your time.

JAMES REDMOND – Lonely World

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded the new James Redmond album ‘3′ so far. Considering how good it is, there’s not nearly enough of you, but hopefully this little glimpse of beat-pop will be enough to convince a few more to follow the crumbs. ‘Lonely World’ is the closing track on the record, somehow upbeat and poignantly melancholic at the same time, the sound of a songwriter at the top of his game. All I am saaaaying… is give ‘3′ a chance…

THE WHEELIES – A Question Mark of Stars

This song might sound a lot like me, but I can assure you it’s not. Salvaged from a plastic bag in a secret compartment above the cupboard in Bunkroom 2 on that imaginary ship again, it was written and recorded by a ghost in a ragged fox costume called Willoughby Toad. Like the ship, he’s long gone, but since I found the cassette, I figured I might as well put my name to it. Unlikely to ever be released anywhere else. Thanks Willoughby.

WARCHALKING – Let’s Start A Country

Too good a version of this song for it to not be available somewhere on the internet. Written and recorded for Kaleidonauts ‘Tigermouse’ album in the summer of 2008, this was Warchalking’s first take having written the words around my song idea. Stripped down from the finished ‘Let’s Start A Country’ that featured both Jane Gilmore and myself on vocals, this is the stark VU-esque version that blew me away when I first heard it. It also gives you a glimpse of what it must be like to hear Warchalking perform it live. Lucky fuckers of Cape Girardeau take note.

BRENDON HERTZ AND THE BURNT ORANGE CRAYONS – Mail From You

Put me at the pick-and-mix stand and I’m always going to start with fizzy cola bottles. ‘Mail From You’ is the fizzy cola bottle from Brendon’s 2009 contribution to ‘The Invisible Box-Set’. As albums go, ‘Sacrifice’ is about as diverse as it gets – folk, pop, funk, spoken word Beat poetry, ballads, electronica – very nearly imploding with styles and ideas. So that’s why I’m playing it safe and choosing fizzy 60s pop, a little bit Beatlesy, with brilliant frazzled vocals that are guaranteed to stick to your teeth.

FAILEDSITCOM – Cafe Oto

From Sam on ‘Cafe Oto’: “An attempt at mixing field recordings with traditional melodies. All the drum sounds (as well as the more “wobbly” synth sound) come from some recordings I made in the cafe which the songs takes its name from. It’s not great I’m afraid…”

From me to Sam: “What?! Not great?! It’s bloody brilliant. It clatters and clanks. It rolls and sparkles. Is it winter? Is it summer? Is it spring? Autumnal? Or, like the song itself, a little bit of every season in harmony? Crockery and lullabies. Coffee pots and hip hop. What’s there not to love about that?”

UBERFUZZ – Hello Satan

Man, I forgot how much I dig this song. ‘Hello Satan’ is Uberfuzz firing on all cylinders, the twin engines of Le Keux and Storer going for the jugular with a riff-led riot of psychedelic-blues. As songs go, it doesn’t get much more bad ass than this tale of walking with a devil that ‘looks like Johnny Cash’. Taken from 2007’s brilliant ‘Drowning In Honey’, songs like this are the reason why all six Uberfuzz records are essential listening for fans of fuzz.

DEAD CANARIES – Bird Peach

Last but by no means least, THE Dead Canaries masterpiece ‘Bird Peach’. Like The Beatles medley at the end of Abbey Road, or The Stone Roses ‘I Am The Resurrection’, every credible band should have a ten minute epic song like this. From boy/girl motown pop to fiddle-enhanced blues, and from Radiohead experimental guitar freak outs to its catchy rolling indie encore, ‘Bird Peach’ is an EP in itself, Jon of the Atom throwing everything – including the kitchen sink – at it. And it’s absolute genius.

Out Today! A new album by the one and only James Lee Redmond…

Free download at Quixodelic Records here:

http://quixodelic.com/site/category/james-redmond/

Listen to ‘Weekend Train’:
Download audio file (JamesRedmond-WeekendTrain.mp3)

Every generation needs its heroes. Most of mine were doing their thing half a century ago, forging melodies, splashing paint, and building mad roads of word. It is a rare thing indeed to be able to call one of your peers a genuine hero, but for me, James Redmond is exactly that. It feels like half a century has passed since I was first pointed in the direction of Dirty Ticket with their tongue-in-cheek two-minute synth-pop song brand of musical anarchy, and tracks like ‘Sticker Book’ and ‘Inner Disco’ have happily haunted every ‘Best of…’ mix I’ve made since 2007. Since then, it’s been an honour to have played Florence to solo songs like ‘Talk’ and ‘Movin On’ (arguably my favourite song from the Quixodelic catalogue), songs that came perilously close to never quite making it out into the public domain. In fact, the gradual metamorphosis from melodic anarchist to a mature songwriter crafting lo-fi anthems has been apparent for anyone paying attention to the last two albums. ‘Lo-fi’ is perhaps misleading – self-produced, yes, but these songs have always transported me well beyond the boundaries of how they were recorded whenever I put the headphones on. These songs are placeless, and inevitably also timeless.

A hard man to reach at the best and worst of times, to suddenly hear Jay talking excitedly about a third record called ‘3′ (haha), with a couple of studio recorded tracks and an actual running order was a really good sign of things to come. There aren’t enough superlatives I can throw at ‘3′. Like a long lost record from your Grandad’s dusty vinyl collection, it is seeped in the tradition of 60s Mersey Beat, with elements of pop, folk, soul, and blues all coming together in the shape of shining pop songs. It’s a K.O in the first round of a record, an injury time winner when you’re down to ten men and even the most devoted fans have all but given up hope, a quite staggering masterclass on how to write perfect pop, heavy on emotion and light on its feet, with harmonies and melodies you feel like you must have heard somewhere before, but deep down know that you haven’t.

There are a couple of familiar tracks – a stellar reworked version of the impeccable ‘Will She Meet Me?’, the haunting grandness of ‘Tell Me’ (does anyone else make the self-recorded intimate confession song sound so BIG?), but everything else is brand spanking new. The real hits of the record include ‘Weekend Train’ (a song that sounds like it was stolen from the ‘Rubber Soul’ sessions), the ukulele-led brilliant closing nostalgia of ‘Lonely World’, and the epic ‘Sad Song’ with heartfelt lines like ‘Major to minor/The smiles turns to tears/I say goodbye to those years’. Threads of loneliness, regret, and making mistakes run through the blood of this record, but in the quiet, melodic contemplation it also sounds like a cathartic attempt at putting the past to bed, holding your hand up, and starting over. Fans of synth-pop anarchy might be disappointed at the lack of bones they are being thrown, but for the rest of us, ‘3′ runs much deeper than the small-hours drank-too-much and smoked-a-load medley’s that have gone before. Here the ghosts of Brian Wilson, John Lennon, and David Bowie shuffle in the wings while someone sings their heart out, like from time to time every one of your heroes has to.

3 stars out of 3 from Florence.

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Find out more about James Redmond at:

www.myspace.com/jamesleeredmond

Open for business at:

http://quixodelic.com

And if you want to help get the word around, then you’re welcome to post this quixo-button on your myspace (or whatever space you’ve got):

<p style=”text-align: center;”><a href=”http://www.quixodelic.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://www.quixodelic.com/images/quixodelic_logo_sm.png” alt=”" /></a></p>

Live improvised set by The Falling Floors at the Nexus Art Cafe in Manchester, September 2009
Filmed by John Hancell

download: Garden
download: A DISASTER

Two records long overdue in the Quixodelic Record Store, finally available for you to download as zips for free. It is no secret how much I wholeheartedly dig the music of Simon Piler and The Atom Band. ‘Songs From Home’, ‘Heimdall’, and ‘KINGTIME’ are musical adventures, heavy on substance and sprinkled with palatable and mischievous experimental bluesy-folk dust. Now add to that ever expanding catalogue, ‘Garden’ (2007), and ‘A DISASTER’ (Unknown) – both records have their own counterpart plays as handy pdf’s tucked away neatly with the downloads, and are essential listening for anyone who enjoyed the last three records.

Here’s what Simon himself had to say about them:

A DISASTER was recorded in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on the edge of the Great Plains.

I had recently befriended a friendly mythological Texan by the name of Scarytoes. He plays some thumping drums on this album and helps me sing sometimes. Very stretchy.

I like this album because it’s mostly done with tape, and that keeps the songs simple. It’s dry and has definite country spirit, but still stays dreamy. I don’t like it because it’s not much of an album; more of a collection of songs – and it’s pretty long, I can barely make it through in a single run and I often find myself skipping around. A lot of these songs are among the most beloved I’ve ever written or recorded. Mainly, ‘Big Arc Blues’, ‘Mullein Blues’, ‘thistle walking’, ‘Whent’, ‘diffuse/combust’, and ‘Ptolemy Blues’. HURRAH PTOLEMY! EARTH ON A STRING!

Oh, there is also a play, my second (ultimately failed) theatrical work. There’s a link if you’re interested in reading. The album is sort-of a soundtrack to the play.

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garden. was recorded at The Dream Factory during the summer of 2007, throughout which I lived in a vegetable garden near Lake Mendota. I grew beets, carrots, green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, strawberries and tobacco.

Most of the season I couldn’t find work. (Later on I was running sound at the King Club, which turned out to be an incredible brain-bender of a job… But that’s an entirely different story.)

This is the first of several re-releases I’m planning to upload. I chose garden. to start with because I think it was a radical departure from my early recordings – mainly, it was an autonomous mythological organism. And arguably documenting the apex of vitality in my life. My first album about death. My first album about love.(Sort of.) My first album about flowers.

There was also a play that was written in parallel. I’ve included a link to it if you’d like to read. While it doesn’t follow the album exactly, a good number of the tracks show up in some form or another. I’ve never released the play (and it’s never been performed,) so you’ll have to let me know what you think…
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Find out more about Simon Piler and The Atom Band here:
http://cllct.com/art/simonpilerandtheatomband

download: Helicobbler

Listen to Same Mistake and Catch Us:

Download audio file (SameMistakeandCatchUs.mp3)

This record has been floating around on CLLCT for a couple of months now, so you may have already had the pleasure of hearing it. Me, I waited for a bit of breathing space before feeding it into my ears. I wanted to wait for a gap so as I could give it my full attention, really because I felt like it deserved nothing less. Of course I’d already heard the excellent and lyrically complex ‘Ilium Bromide’ on DG7, and been completely knocked out by the simply beautiful uke song ‘Psycholicopter’ on DG8 that once and for all proved that you don’t always have to deliver something cutesy and confessional with that particular instrument. Both tracks suggested that whenever a full-length recording from Impaled Peach finally emerged, that the songwriting and musical textures were going to require more than a passing listen to properly dig it.

As it is though, this 20-minute 8-song EP is less a full-length release and more a collection of original compositions, some for collaboration projects, others sung for the fun of it, gathered together and released in a hurry, and it actually can be easily dug from little more than a quick spin through it. There are textures and depth, some exceptional production techniques, simple pop harmonies, words sung with verve and harmony, and more key changes than the most burgled house in your neighbourhood. In a nutshell, there is something pretty much for everyone… pop-psych fanatics looking for a quick fix, lo-fi folk enthusiasts wanting to hear what is possible if you put enough into it, even poets with a secret thing for slide guitars and Beach Boys layered indie rock and roll.

Try and count the influences behind these songs and you’ll be there for a long, long time. Elephant 6 bands like The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Of Montreal are just the obvious ones. If there’s one thing that Edward Alan Bartholomew (the guy behind the name) does exceptionally well, then it’s sucking up the sounds and styles and techniques of his favourite musical ancestors, digesting them together upon the bedroom floor, and spitting them back out in a seamless fusion that sounds quite like many things you have heard before, but not exactly like any of them. Tracks like the aforementioned ‘Psycholicopter’, or the really immense ‘Same Mistake/Catch Us’ (arguably one of my favourite songs so far in 2010) are the sort of tracks you catch yourself singing hours later. Pretty much everything you could want from several records is somehow crammed into this collection – distorted driving guitars, vinyl crackles, intricate riffs, unpredictable songs in other languages that effortlessly change in tempo without warning. On the surface you might be looking at eight songs, but actually you might be getting as many as twenty wrapped in verses and choruses and carefully crafted shifts that very rarely sound anything like their counterparts.

On ‘Helicobbler’, Ed himself said ‘I was originally planning on using most of these for a longer release, but the project has lost momentum and these songs have gradually become their own thing. I also have newer ideas to pursue and wanted to get these out of the way for a fresh start.’ To hear snippets from the newer ideas, as well as some genuinely great cover versions, and to get an insight into the making of some of the songs featured here, you can spend a few productive hours over at:

http://eabarth.tumblr.com/

It might have taken me a couple of months to finally get round to listening to ‘Helicobbler’, but then I always knew that once I did I’d be listening to these songs for as long as my ears continue to work and my appetite for melodic DIY sound adventures persists. Next time we get something from Impaled Peach I’ll be digging out my sleeping bag to spend a night on the virtual pavement with my download finger at the ready. Marks out of ten? Who gives a flying fuck about marks out of ten? This record is a little glimpse of something that might very well be genius – whatever number you want to throw at it.

Ed’s own notes on the songs:

Heels Over Head
An of Montreal fueled night turned into a groggy, lethargic morning and a wake up call from the landlord.

Head Over Heels
A foot fetish? In response to complaints about Neutral Milk Hotel’s distortion.

l’Orangerie
A place I’ve only visited with Google Maps.

Same Mistake / Catch Us
Two songs heavily influenced by Olivia Tremor Control, together at last in the same key.

Ilium Bromide
A compound produced when Paris steals Menelaus’ wife. Features at least four key changes.

Orange Thirst
Originally devised for the Colors album. Features Sam Wallinga on accordion and some prose I wrote about orange juice in high school.

Same Mistake Again
The Olivia Tremor Control influence is more recognizable here (Fireplace, Shaving Spiders).

Psycholicopter
About a girl I talked to on the phone a few times a few years ago. First song written on ukulele.

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

Lenn9o9n – Relining Graves

download: Relining Coffins

Listen to Alli:

Download audio file (Lenn9o9n-Alli.mp3)

From the first time I heard Lenn9o9n cover The Beatles’ ‘Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey’ I knew I was listening to something quite extraordinary. Everybody knows that the synthesizer maimed popular music in the 1980s, but here was somebody who might actually make you rethink electronic pop music completely. Not from choice, but necessity (think a 26 year old American travelling the globe with a keyboard strapped to his back, currently alighting in Italy), with the exception of impassioned vocals drenched in precision effects, electronic beats and synthetic melodies are the exclusive body of these songs, manipulated into something that somehow sounds completely organic. In a nutshell, Lenn9o9n makes synthesized music sound not only exciting, but also credible. It is the past colliding head on with the future, drawing on the same resources as all your favourite retro psych guitar bands of the 21st century, lo-fi gone hi-fi, The Killers without The Cure, The Strokes with substance, or even the Man himself if he he’d still been around, plugging the white piano into the wall while sparks fly from his fingertips.

‘Relining Coffins’ is literally the beginning. If you move in similar circles to me, then you’ll already have been blown away by Lenn9o9n tracks like ‘Ausdruck’ or ‘I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For’… only you’ll not find any of those songs here. As the title implies, this six-song EP is about revisiting songs that were previously recorded between 2007 and 2008 and reworking them. The results are a very likeable and worthwhile introduction to what Lenn9o9n is capable of as a musician and songwriter. Undoubtedly there is much more to come, but even so as a standalone concept record, ‘Relining Coffins’ does exactly what it needs to do and a whole lot more.

Opening track ‘Aren’t We All’ is a short atmospheric intro that leads into the really brilliant ‘Alli’ – a sonic pounding song with its chorus line of ‘She’s the girl who makes the boys cry/Or at least she’s the one who likes to try’. Of the six songs, it is arguably the most recognisably Lenn9o9n – catchy and atmospheric, a dark form of pop music. ‘A Bitterness In Your Heart’ is another short lullaby with a motivational speaking sample closing it out and leading into fourth track, the wonderfully electronic and psychedelic ‘Little Bird’ combining frantic vocal harmonies and Joy Division drums. Penultimate track ‘Love is the Curse’ is a meandering synth piano tune carrying a melancholic short song. Record closer ‘Fresh Start’ is probably my favourite of the six, the intricacy and fuzz of the arrangement escalating into life behind upbeat drums, swooping synth strings and telephonic vocals singing ‘We can start again.’ Very much a record of odd and even songs, or atmospherics and anthems, ‘Reling Coffins’ ebbs and flows like a little ocean, lullabying before crashing up on the beach of your ears, and repeating the process until the final sparkling notes of ‘Fresh Start’ fade away.

Looking back, this might not be the Lenn9o9n masterpiece, especially if a full-length record materialises towards the end of the summer (as promised). But then it was never intended to be a masterpiece, more an interesting experiment of trying to make something  out of long buried tracks with new experience and techniques behind them. As an interesting experiment it undoubtedly exceeds all expectations. Tracks like ‘Alli’, ‘Little Bird; and ‘Fresh Start’ are immense bedroom anthems and so refreshingly different from everything else going on in the lo-fi music world right now; yet their immensity is not because they are different, but just because they sound so fucking good. Judging by this recent video:

you can expect to hear more than just keyboards on future releases, but for now at least after hearing this, you might just wonder if it really was synthesizers that maimed the 80s or simply the people who were operating them.

*Post-note: In no way do Quixodelic Records advocate synth-only recordings. Keyboards are dangerous machines in the wrong hands and for every Lenn9o9n there are countless 80s impersonators continuing to maim the ears of listeners today. Please exercise extreme caution if you feel inspired to follow in these electronic footsteps.

Find out more about Lenn9o9n at:

http://cllct.com/art/lenn9o9n

Long overdue, but finally here are three of Syd’s records recorded as The Loaded Whispers from pre-’Artists Use Lies To Tell The Truth’. As always, they are free to download, but if you do then please take the time out to drop in at Syd Lane Music and let her know that you liked it. Because if it’s not about the money, then it’s got to be about the love, otherwise it just won’t work…

If you’re new to what Syd does then if you read on, we’ve got a brilliant guide to all of the records she’s made, written by her co-conspirator Jeremiah James. For those of you who already love her own unique brand of psychedelic-folk soaring songs then it is an equally enlightening, heartfelt and enjoyable read.

Nurturing Empty Screams

download: Nurturing Empty Screams

Sola

download: Sola

The Loaded Whispers – s/t

download: The Loaded Whispers - s/t

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Sola….

A new voice has arrived not quite fully formed but ready to lay it on the line for anyone bold enough to go with the feeling. The album was recorded on a very low quality pc mic with only a voice and an acoustic guitar late at night as people slept. This is where Syd first realised she had something to say and nothing was gonna stop her until she heard in her songs what she longed to hear on the radio. Sola like the albums that have followed holds a steady atmosphere all the way through sure of it’s own desire but nowhere near where the composer wanted to get to. It’s a collection of raw poetic songs that showcase ….Syd Lane….’s unique view of the human condition. There are some very intricate songs that I hope will one day become more whole but that like everything else is down to the inimitable ….Syd Lane….. A beautiful first shot at trying to say what needs to be said
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The Loaded Whispers….

I worked with a friend of mine to get a little studio set up for Syd in one of the bedrooms in our little home and this was the first album recorded using a piano as a midi controller for the soundcard on the pc. There are very brilliant songs here that soothe and caress at each and every listen. “Insouciance” and “Enlightened” are as loose and rocking as I could ever hope songs to be. “Bedroom window view” and “She talks to rainbows” well you listen and tell me what you think? Everything is still raw but there are glimmers of pure astral beauty that would become more fully realised the further Syd travels along her path
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Obliterate The Myths….

Sadly this record has all but been destroyed for Syd but I really love it. I think it’s a phenomenal achievement under the circumstances(which are far too boring to go into) I pray to the universe that someday Syd will return to this album and hopefully re-record the songs. This was Syd’s steepest learning curve so far and that learning had nothing to do with music or the art of recording and everything to do with empty promises and human deception. There are songs on this album that still stop me completely in my tracks in particular the way “In time we’ll return to the earth” finds it’s groove and “Nothing here is fair” brings this listener to a place I find incredibly difficult to leave. It also has one of Syd’s biggest pop anthems that has yet to be fully realised. Great album
__________________________________________
Nurturing Empty Screams….

Syd has now entered her very own heart of darkness and returned with some of the most guttural songs she has ever written. This record was a huge exhortation of pain fear grief and disillusion. An album that rightly deserves to be placed alongside Lou Reed’s “Berlin” John Lennons “Plastic Ono Band” and Primal Screams “XTRMNTR”. This is a fucking remarkable record bookended by two songs of desperate longing. It also contains a response to Ian Browns brilliant single F.E.A.R that really stands up to anything Syd has ever done both musically and lyrically. This was a record that showed a whole new Syd ready to battle the darkness head on and shirk no responsibility in doing so. This was a songwriter with something universal to say. It also marked a new studio setup which allowed Syd to record very quickly and keep moving as fast as she felt she needed to
___________________________________________
Artists Use Lies To Tell The Truth….

This for me was the album where Syd became interested in pushing her songwriting wherever it wanted to go. She became more and more interested in communicating quickly and directly with her muse and the results are there for all to hear. A stunning collection of songs that are wildly disparate but hold together beautifully allowing the listener to journey with the composer/performer through the golden age of popular song as directed by the unique vision of ….Syd Lane….. I would like to state once and for all that everything Syd does in terms of recording music and writing songs is all done alone with no input from anybody else which when you look back over her 5 years of recording shows an unparalleled ability to do whatever she wants to do and make it fresh exciting and consistently brilliant. Her quality control is one of the most important things to her and she’s determined not to repeat or rest on her laurels.
___________________________________________
It Begins In Beauty….

An absolute masterpiece from start to finish. I still can’t believe how this album makes me feel loved, lost, scared and inspired all at once with an infinite amount of other emotions experienced as the songs wash over me. This is the work of an artist in complete control of her craft. Each song creates a world of it’s own that never excludes but rather welcomes the listener while at the same time challenging your ability to keep up with the idea’s contained within. I absolutely believe that this album will always show me that human beings only real legacy will be their connection with great art and the fact that so few people have heard this music is a real shame. “Not a poet be” and “You kept me humble” are my current favourites but these are only two of twelve reasons to weep for joy. We’re alive and where there’s life there’s hope man but you won’t find that in jobs/money/things.
________________________________________________
The Solstice Sessions….

A tantalising and intriguing peek into Syd’s ideas for her next full album. Recorded in a couple of hours on 21st December last. The date has particular significance as it’s the ancient pagan festival for the shortest amount of daylight hours in the northern hemisphere. This date was clumsily and crassly manipulated into the roman calendar as Christmas time. Listen and enjoy Syd’s songs stripped to their essential components and be ready for when they re-appear in perhaps completely different forms. Thank you Syd we are all in your cosmic debt.

by Jeremiah James

A bored and drunk Bobby Rogan plays this timeless classic from his last record ‘Exercises In Futility’, and also good old Daydream Generation 1.

Fig Mints have loads of good stuff on their site including a video for shiny new song ‘What Happened To Holiday?’ – go show some love to the little guy at:

www.thefigmints.com

(*never underestimate your own popularity, dig?)

It is with a mixture of relief and pleasure that I can report that there’s nothing cataclysmic quite yet. But the cassettes are coming. For now we’re all hoping for another year of much the same – a couple more Daydream Generation compilations as and when, more free downloads, quite possibly a shiny new store, MAYBE an e-zine, probably a book, and definitely no more mazes. Instead we turn our collective attention to the lads and lassies of the commune and hope they can cook up something special between them. So without further ado, here’s what everybody is up to…

SIMON PILER AND THE ATOM BAND

With the relatively recent emergence of most of the Doc’s back catalogue (if you know where to look) there’s every chance you’re getting your fill of Simon Piler. Expect to see some (hopefully all) of the old releases appearing here in the coming months. But that was yesterday. Today is today. And what about tomorrow? Here’s what the man himself had to say:

Here’s the scoop on musical workings though there’s not much to tell: I’ve been in the process of songwriting and though I’ve been really slow (which is different) I am really excited about the quality of song that is resulting. Haven’t even started recording yet, but that should be due any week now.

Uh, I’ve been chipping away on the 1000 album cover thing and just working on imagery in general for future album booklet PDFs. Oh, yes, and just played a show here in Eau Claire that I think went quite well. Definitely took a seriously packed room of people (all ages, I might add, though no young children as I can remember) on a trip with me. It was very very fun though my eyes were closed the entire time I played. Whoooo. Yipers, man.

FAILEDSITCOM

Firstly, thanks to everyone who has downloaded both of Sam’s EP’s – ‘Of Life’s Declivity’ and ‘Her Blameless Mystery’. Curiously they have become my soundtrack to spring cleaning. I feel a bit like Freddie Mercury less the make-up, dress and moustache, floating along the top landing through a folk-electric dream of dust particles with the hoover. Due to appear on the imminent Akryllic Love tribute album, it sounds like FailedSitcom is keeping himself busy with side projects until the next gentle assault of sound waves and murmurs. Here’s what he had to say:

I’ve recorded a song from My Fair Lady for James Eric’s compilation of songs from musicals, it shouldn’t be on Cllct for over a month so here’s a preview (the mix needs a little fixing though):
FailedSitcom – On The Street Where You Live (demo) by quixodelicrecords

I’ve also been writing some more original material, but I’ll keep you updated on that.

FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION)

You should know by now that from time to time Bobby Rogan falls off the planet. But sooner or later he climbs back on with his own unique brand of cerebral guitar-pop to woo the whiz-kids and put the world to rights. With 2009’s ‘Exercises In Futility’ still warm on the shelves, he was last seen ambling off across the ocean mumbling something about ’songwriter’s block’. Thankfully he ambled back yesterday morning to tell us:

So the Fig Mints are almost (fingers crossed) done with album number 8. More guitars in this one, and just a hair more melodic than the last one… Just one more song to record, and the sequencing begins. Really having trouble with the order of the songs this time around… Started off with 11 songs, and it’ll probably get whittled down to 9, but I’m all about brevity lately. This will actually be the first record in five years that I’ve played all the instruments on… Weird, I just realized that.

But anyway, the new record is a loosely autobiographical account of love lost, time wasted and purpose rediscovered, with a few incidental references to the benefits of communal living and the destructiveness and wastefulness of the typical modern lifestyle. It’s called Say Okay, and it’ll be ready in a month or two, depending on how school goes… Stay tuned, kiddies, and go to www.thefigmints.com for irregular updates, and an eventual collection of videos made by myself and some friends. Yeah…

BECKY N

The alarm bells are ringing. And noisy as they are, if you close your eyes and sort of screw up your ears, you can vaguely hear the sound of something resembling a melody. Yes, Becky N is considering a name change. But don’t take my word for it… here’s what she had to say for herself:

Same shit with me… practising with my band, trying to write new songs for me and finding it difficult. Thinking that I don’t really want to be called Becky N when I make an album but not finding a name yet. Being obsessed with various other bands and people… needing motivation… blah blah.

THE FALLING FLOORS

Exciting times for The Falling Floors. If you haven’t already grabbed yourself the self-titled debut, or the brilliant ‘Hey! Midnight’ then you’re missing out on a psychedelic feast of funsounds. Fans out there will be pleased to know that with the help of a friendly manager, the band are going to be funding a 4-song 7″ single in the very near future. So those of your with record players… watch this space.

SYD LANE

THE challenge of 2010 will be for Syd Lane to top last year’s epic little masterpiece (Chansons De Geste ‘It Begins In Beauty’). According to soul-mate Jer, here’s what she’s up to:

Syd played a small gig here in Dublin last night, her first for a couple of years and it went beautifully so she has 3 or 4 more booked for April which I’m very excited about. She’s also busy recording the new record, aw man I simply can’t wait to hear it once it’s done.

Personally I can’t imagine how she’s possibly going to top the last record, but I’m looking forward to hearing her try.

SMALLY

Everybody knows I’ve retired from writing songs don’t they?

THE WHEELIES died a dastardly drunken death in the mountains with band members haphazardly kicking each other other out over a soft-rock soundtrack via Facebook and text messages. At one point it even looked like a splinter group called THE REALLIES was being spitefully formed, but thankfully (just like the band itself) it seems to have been a joke. Post-split, everyone barely involved went back to their children and/or bottles, ‘The Shite Album’ appeared on Cozy Home Records (charting the formative years pre-1998 when it wasn’t just me on my lonesome), and ‘A Scientific Study of Cloud Shapes’ was written up as “the last Wheelies album… ever”. This time apparently I Wheelie mean it.

KALEIDONAUTS also have faded into the more obscure columns of the Indie Rock & Roll catalogue of spectacular failures. Long lost 3rd album of out-takes and cut-songs ‘K2′ was briefly spotted on CLLCT, but like a lumbering badly cobbled together Yeti it would seem to have vanished back into the trees again to eat its own poo.

As you all know I’ve been pretty fucking busy saving the universe on the imaginary ship blog. The mediocre news is that I recently discovered a bag of cassettes recorded in a secret attic space above the cupboard in Bunkroom 2 by some guy called WILLOUGHBY TOAD. A lot of it seems to be just him and a ukulele but I think I might be able to dig something digestible from the recordings. Just don’t hold your breath is all I’m saying.

WARCHALKING

It’s been worryingly quiet on the W front as of late. 2007’s self-titled debut emerged for public consumption (we’ll get it on here soon enough), but 2009 came and went with a solitary song and a much talked about follow-up to ‘Stratum’ just never materialised. Well fear not fans of Warchalking. Missouri’s finest exporter of multi-layered harmonic emotional-political bathroom anthems has simply been caught up in the real world, studying hard and learning to ride the bull of words. A lengthy response to the question ‘What are you doing?’ suggests that WHEN (not if) a new record gets made this summer then W will be throwing everything into it. Here’s a snippet of what he had to say for himself:

So, seven more weeks of constant beatings and I get my life back. This summer I’ll be working on an independent study, but that won’t be near as bad as this semester has been and I should have a little time to start hashing out the next record.  I’m fucking ready.  Eight months of pent up anguish and ambiguity aching for a vehicle.  I’m done with arrangement for the most part, just writing a mess of words and putting it on tape left to go.  It shouldn’t take long once I get started.  I’m making myself get the words and music together before I start tracking this time.  I did that for Future For Bugs and was pleased with the results.  I’ll be retracking that one as I rushed through it and a few new ideas emerged once I got done.

JANE GILMORE

First of all here’s the bad news from Gilmore:

Bad news, old bean! I’m completely scrapping this album. The problem with writing an album about the rebirth that occasionally happens to you is that when one happens, you no longer want to have anything to do with the prior life.

But here’s the good news:

I’m not done! I’m just scrapping my current album!

DEAD CANARIES

Still basking/recovering from the glow of the headfuck double-album adventure, Jon of the Atom is jumping fingers-first into a new musical pie:

I have decided to write an album that has hooks, like choruses

I’ve heard one song so far all the way from Louisiana at the feeling around stage and all the signs are there that something epic is starting to simmer.

Keep watching those telephone lines.

THE REAL BURNOUTS

No word from planet Burnout yet. Last seen working hard at taking the opus to the masses in the shape of ‘The Disaffection of Walter’, a live show featuring actors, puppets, and the Burnouts at the heart of it doing what they do best… wreaking musical havoc.

Here’s a movie for old time’s sake:

The Real Burnouts – Lost TV Episode

THE ORANGE DROP

All quiet on the Orange front as well, but this little video surfaced in the last week…

The Orange Drop – A Friendly Message From The CIA

UBERFUZZ

Somewhere out there beyond a supernova.

JAMES REDMOND

Last but my no means least, not only did Senor Redmond manage to wangle a Lear Jet into his Quixodelic Cassette contract, but he also says that:

I’m nearing the stage of having enough songs to release as an album

So let the good times roll!

The Falling Floors – s/t

download: The Falling Floors

Listen to I Wanna Be Your Friend:

Download audio file (TheFallingFloors-IWannaBeYourFriend.mp3)

Every so often a band comes along and completely blows you away. The Falling Floors are one of those bands. It didn’t happen straight away for me. I first head from this Manchester psychedelic-pop outfit back in late 2008 when they contributed ‘If You Say No’ to Daydream Generation 5. It was a spiky, upbeat little anthem of feelgood guitar pop music, something plucked from 1966 full off ‘ooh-la-la’s’ and a melody so infectious that it was almost shameful. It hinted at good things, but it took a lot longer for me to dig around enough to find out just how good.

Arguably one of the real stand-out records from the Quixodelic Invisible Box-Set, ‘Hey! Midnight’ packed a deeper, more experimental psychedelic punch. The pop was still there, but frequently it was buried under brilliant layers of drone and backwards guitars. To think it was written and recorded in just a couple of months made it somehow even more incredible and I think that’s when the kaleidoscopic alarm bells began to ring in my brain. What Jolan and his fellow Floors are able to do is not just imitate all your favourite bands from the most immense decade of music, but to consistently produce songs that sound like they have been genuinely transported from another time and place, when things were much simpler and music was untainted with a world-weary cynicism.

The discovery of this self-titled full-length 10 song record appearing magically one winter afternoon on CLLCT was the proof that ‘Hey! Midnight’ was no fluke. If anything, this debut recording made sometime in 2008 is even more catchy, jammed with so many great songs you feel you have heard somewhere before, even though you know you are hearing them for the first time. ‘If You Say No’ is just the tip of the iceberg. Sitars zing, guitars riff, organs swirl and drums roll. Cool rolling basslines underpin every track and vocal harmonies sing songs like ‘Eucalyptus’, and ‘I Wanna Be Your Friend’ into a world that once you tune into, you just can’t leave until the very last note of the immense ‘Goodnight Sleepyhead’ rings out. Eastern tinged tracks like ‘Chambers’ and ‘Theme From Daishishi’ are musical jewels, spaced-out sounds that make you want to kick off your shoes, take some LSD, and find the nearest field or dance-floor with enough room to freak out on.

The most beautiful thing about The Falling Floors is that they make it sound sincere. If you know where to look then the psychedelic sounds of the 21st century are dime a dozen, and in most cases it sounds forced or intentionally retro. Cool for the sake of coolness. With these guys they really sound like they can’t do it any other way and are having the time of their lives while they do it. It’s the real thing… and it’s happening right here and right now. You might have missed the 60s, but if you’re anywhere near Manchester then you could do a lot worse than dropping in on a gig. However, if like me, you’re a million miles away from Manchester then a record like this has got to be worth taking a chance on.

My new favourite band of 2010 and I can’t champion someone much more than that.

Yours sincerely, completely blown away.

Find out more about The Falling Floors at:

http://cllct.com/art/thefallingfloors

download: Her Blameless Mystery
download: Of Life's Declivity

It’s not often I have to run to catch a musical bandwagon, but for this one I really had to sprint. I’ve been championing CLLCT a LOT in the last few months, but this guy and his music is a single-handed shining example why this little DIY goldmine is already outsinging corporate giants like MySpace and LastFM. It would seem that most people over at CLLCT know, and have known how great a songsmith and soundsmith FailedSitcom is for quite some time. But try googling “Failed Sitcom music” and you’ll be scrolling through page after page of homages to something involving Kelsey Grammar.

Trundling murmurs of quiet approval with occasional claps of genuine mind-blown wonderment have been steadily rolling in since CLLCT resurrected. The acclaim for the two existing EP’s, ‘Of Life’s Declivity’ and ‘Her Blameless Mystery’ may in part be to do with the fact that the guy behind them (Sam Durkin) tries to take in as much new music appearing on the site as he can. I must confess I took the slightly cynical view when I twiddled my thumbs as the bandwagon rolled by with a grin. I instantly bought the philosophy – attempting to fuse folk-pop with experimental hip-hop beats – but time was short and I couldn’t help but wonder if much of the hype was to do with Sam’s presence. I had a couple of minutes and played a song. It sounded great and I grinned back, putting my head down as the trundling passed. It took for Simon Piler to ask me while we were putting together Daydream Generation 8, ‘Obviously you’ve invited FailedSitcom?’

And obviously I hadn’t. I lifted my head, muttered under my breath ‘Ah shit Smally’, and ran. I caught another couple of songs and they were as great as the first one I’d heard months previous. I emailed Sam and thankfully he was as interesting and diggable as the music he’d been making. I downloaded both the records and was totally blown away. Take one song, any song from either EP and I guarantee you’ll think it’s good. Take more than one song and listen to them back to back and I guarantee that it will click in your brain. Take a whole EP and you’ll be hopping into your finest running shoes to catch up with the rest of us.

The philosophy is that of sound collage – seriously cool electronic beats underpinning the sparkling organic sounds of glocks and ukuleles, guitars and mad percussion. Add to this the softest of voices singing shimmering little stanzas about things someone loves and you’ve got yourself a recipe for something that will someday undoubtedly knock Kelsey Grammar off the front page of a Google search for all the right reasons.

I started with ‘Of Life’s Declivity’. Clocking in at a surprisingly short thirteen minutes, these eleven songs are a bright-eyed trip through an autumnal dream, ringing melodies over complex supercool beats, zips and zings of sound, all topped off with the murmur of soft poetics. An obvious comparison would be Animal Collective, a band I am frequently told I should listen to. But having downloaded one record and not been overly impressed, for now at least I’m happy to stick with this little EP. ‘Of Life’s Declivity’ is so together that it feels wrong to single out tracks like ‘To The Bowsprit’, ‘Mushrooms’, ‘Horse Chestnuts’, or ‘Locus Amoenus’ as my favourites. When I first heard this record and obsessively played and replayed it for the next 48 hours, I found myself wondering ‘Where can FailedSitcom possibly go from here?’ The only answer I could come up with was ‘More of the same please’.

Surprisingly and fortunately I was pretty wrong. The much loved ‘Her Blameless Mystery’ is still very much FailedSitcom, but compared to its brief, deliberate, and concisely beautiful counterpart, this 12-track EP is a glorious sonic avalanche of adventurous sound. At the time of hearing it, I didn’t realise that it was a collection of songs recorded over the course of two years, but that just makes it an accidental great record, the shifting of styles being one of its biggest strengths. Whereas ‘Declivity’ is a shooting star that melts in the sky, ‘Mystery’ is a piebald nebula of ideas engulfing your ears. Here, the robotic charm of ‘Data-Byte, Sound-Byte’ sits happily alongside the catchy ‘Matthew’, and the familiar folk-electronica fusion of the lovely ‘You Should Revise’ is not out of place on the same record as the eerily infectious closing ‘Much Like A Gherkin Creepy’. After one listen I was convinced that ‘Of Life’s Declivity’ was THE record to download. After two listens, I started to feel like ‘Her Blameless Mystery’ was more adventurous and perhaps the real accidental masterpiece of the two. From three listens onwards I have reached the only conclusion possible that both records are little classics in their own right and well worth a chance of your precious time.

So there you have it. Kelsey Grammar, if you’re reading this then feel free to quake in your google-boots. My ears are ringing and my heart is singing with the sounds of two cracking EPs as I catch my breath from the sprint. The Quixodelic Commune is one genuine and seriously talented songsmith better off. It is a privilege to have FailedSitcom on board to please take the time to download one, and inevitably both of these records. After all, bandwagons are always more exciting when you get on at the very beginning.

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

Download DEAD CANARIES

GOLDEN SOUNDS and MODERN DAY CARPETBAGGER

at http://cozyhomerecords.com/08/artists/dead-canaries/

for free

Jon of the Atom and his travelling band of musical troubadours return like migrating free-form birds with two brand new albums – ‘Golden Sounds’ a year-long continuation of the upwards musical trajectory and an epically wretched record to make, and ‘Modern Day Carpetbagger’ apparently written and recorded over ‘a long weekend reading John Wilmot’. As always I go into these recordings with my eyes closed, fully expecting the unexpected from the ‘bastard child of Beck and Brian Wilson.’

This adventure began some two years ago when Dead Canaries burst into being with the acclaimed collaborative ‘Critical Mass…’ Throughout 2008, its follow up ‘Something Else’ accidentally fell together, fusing disparate songs and sounds from different internal/external places and passing players. The question after the dust had settled from ‘Something Else’ and it became clear that something of an inadvertent masterpiece had emerged from months of recording, was… where the fuck could Dead Canaries possibly go from there?

Thankfully, this is Jon of the Atom we are talking about. Sometime in 2009 he upped sticks, left his native Ithaca and jumped on a box-car to Louisiana, where he assembled a new team of singers and musicians to help realise what we now hear as the first half of these two recordings – the immense ‘Golden Sounds’. I first heard a rough demo of this record in the autumn while Jon wrestled with band conflicts and eventually decided that he ‘hated it’ and went back to the drawing board. This early version of the record was actually pretty great… lots of backwards stuff, the same experimental take on traditional folk-pop songs from the two previous records, and random instruments galore sounding darkly golden in nature. Four months later it is redone and as usual he was right to redo it. This version of ‘Golden Sounds’ is twice as big and twice as darkly golden, the songs more intricate and ironically even more expansive, an adventure of a record that takes you by the hand and leads you underground where notes blow triumphant and voices sing in claustrophobic harmony, where freaky rolling, clunking instrumentals bind simply brilliant songs together, and anything becomes possible. Tracks like ‘Prince Edward Island’, ‘Seven Bell Peppers in a Row’ or ‘It Wasn’t Calm’ shows a maturity of song-writing, the sound of someone who knows exactly what he is doing and is doing it with technically ease. There is order in this chaos – dark and mysterious one moment, bright and gentle the next, ‘Golden Sounds’ is the kind of record that only Dead Canaries can make. Jon himself hinted at perhaps some sort of finality when he described these two records as his ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘Let It Be’, but when great things like this are going on, and when you think the boundaries can’t be pushed any further, he does it again. I guess we can only hope he keeps doing it.

‘Modern Day Carpetbagger’  suggests that he will. Where ‘Golden Sounds’ seems carefully planned and deliberate in its melodic head-fuckery, this second helping of Dead Canaries is much looser and chaotic in the way it plays out. Truthfully my iPod screen is fucked so there is no way of me telling which songs I’m listening to. One of the downsides of this is that after ‘Hunting of the Bilge Rat’ on ‘Golden Sounds’, and due to the fact that so many songs instrumentally melt into each other, I’m unable to tell where one record ends and the other begins. This is particularly challenging when it comes to writing a review. However…

It has its pluses. For a start, play these records side by side start to finish and they sound exactly like a double-album should sound. ‘Modern Day Carpetbagger’ may have been recorded in a long weekend (I find it difficult to believe that anyone could record something so emotionally potent with such technical proficiency in such a short space of time), but in many ways it is ‘Golden Sounds’ equal. ‘Karl Marx Lives In Lafayette Louisiana’ for example, is my favourite song on the two records, gear-shifting like The Beatles and punching like The Kinks. Plus anyone who heard Jane Gilmore sing ‘Honey Pie’ on the White (Christmas) Album will be pleased to hear it find a home here. Just to clarify – we’re talking about my least favourite Beatles song, a track that until now I’ve not been able to listen to without my toes squirming from the ends of my feet to hide in old brown shoes. The Fink/Gilmore and Fink/Saul vocal combinations are as creatively special as ever and from time to time on both records you hear them materialise (the acapella ‘Prince Edward Island’ for example is a stroke of absolute genius, and the reworked version of ‘Low Down Adela’ is as mighty as anything Jon has cooked up previously). The liner notes suggest that there are many other singers, musicians and songwriters at work here, but they rightly come and go like whispering ghosts, plucking things, wailing things, chiming things. What these things are and who does what is all just part of the collective conundrum that is a global orchestra of participants who are bewildered to be along for the ride, the professor conducting via satellite link-up from his basement laboratory, winking back over his shoulder at us the audience, while simultaneously bellowing ‘Clarinets blow! Girls sing! Funny little percussion thing rattle! Horns explode! Drum roll! Catchy piano melody kinda noodle along! Uke plink! Guitars strum! Here, let me throw you some weird guy talking about whale song being sent into space…’

Some records you have to tear from the imagination into reality (Golden Sounds) and some fall out like they were meant to be (Modern Day Carpetbagger). Both are great records… you should give them a try.

Back behind the wheel.

I’ll not bore you with the details, but here’s a brief synopsis of what just happened behind the scenes: I burned out > sailed away with the collective on an imaginary ship resolving to abandon the world of music forever > had the revelation that actually I love doing this, going out and mining for new music, lending a helping hand to the little guy and girl > resolved to take the giant step from Quixodelic downloads to Quixodelic cassettes > realised it’s been too long since the last Daydream Generation compilation and kicked off DG8 > sat down to write this.

As always I have a lot to ramble about, but it will have to wait until I’ve caught up with myself so as I can attempt to communicate it properly. The main thing I wanted to try and get across here is that we’re back up and running and this time we’re going to keep running until the the next time we fall flat on our collective face. And then we’re going to get up, dust ourselves down and keep running again, at least until I’m 64. So that’s three more decades of compilations and records, dust and rambling messages like this one. I know I’ve been on and off the bus a thousand times or more in the last three years, but this time it feels different. I’ve hung up my own songwriting hat to concentrate on what I actually love doing the most… this.

So without further ado, here are the main things to watch out for in the next few months:

DAYDREAMGENERATION.COM

Thanks to the mighty Tim of the equally mighty www.transatmospheric.com our little corner of the internet has had yet another makeover and I’m slowly but surely working at getting everything into some kind of order. A lot of the images on the site were lost when I took my eye off the proverbial ball and the googlepage I was using migrated to fuck knows where, but I’m retrieving them and replacing them. The downloads section has undergone a temporary facelift making it easier to look through and download the record you’re looking for, and I’m still wrestling with the goofy formatting on the more involved Quixodelic Records page. I’m also working on the commune adding Quixodelic artist pages with links to articles and releases (though you can also access posts concerning your favourite Quixodelic artists by clicking the pretty nifty “browse” button in the top right hand corner of the site). What I’m really trying to say here is thanks again Tim, and for those of you snooping around here for the first time then please bear in mind it’s a work in progress. In the immediate future we’ll be fixing it so as the site can be run by the collective, so expect to see a lot more names appearing at the foot of posts instead of the generic daydreamgen… whoever he or she is.

I had a thought the other day about how collectives and organizations like us sell themselves to people. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the heavy-handed all-singing all-dancing approach – I mean that’s the reason myspace is dying on its feet isn’t it? All those voices shouting ‘Look at me!’ and it just becomes a cacophony of substanceless sound. So if sites were stores I’d want the DG to be a strange little one-storey shop with  dirty windows and a hand-painted psychedelic sign above the door, down some back street you need to get lost to discover, and when you walk past it you see a couple of smiling faces quickly ducking down out of sight beneath the window making you wonder ‘What the fuck was that?’ (haha, just realised I’ve re-imagined the Flower Company all over again). Also the bell above the door wouldn’t ring when you enter, it would randomly play a song from one of the DG compilations starting with Zebra Mu. Speaking of which…

DAYDREAM GENERATION 8

Is coming together. Deadline for submissions is the 8th February. Unfortunately this time around we’re not taking submissions as we’ve been out the last couple of weeks mining new music and virtually meeting new people. There’s been some exciting discoveries as well as some great new stuff coming out of battle-hardened DG veterans, as well as some rare and lovely gems dug up from the past. Shouldn’t be too long after the 8th that you can wrap your ears around this one for yourself. If you’re interested in participating in future compilations then as always feel free to drop us an mp3 at our brand new one-word easy to remember email address. What the fuck was it again? Ah yes, quixodelic@gmail.com

QUIXODELIC RECORDS

One of the most positive things about me taking my eye of the proverbial ball is that there’s been quite a build-up of records behind the scenes that we’ll be hosting over the next couple of months. We started with the amazing ‘It Begins In Beauty’ (see previous post) by Syd Lane’s new moniker Chansons De Geste, throwing in her solo record, the equally brilliant ‘Solstice Sessions’. You can download both of these today, for free from the Downloads section.

If I type this up fast enough then there’s also a very good chance that the latest offering from Dead Canaries – another two records! – ‘Golden Sounds’ and ‘Modern Day Carpetbagger’ will be available to download over here as well. Both these records were originally released by our pioneering older sibling  Cozy Home Records only last week. Perhaps it is a waste of downloading space having the record available on both labels, but in the case of Dead Canaries whose music is an exception to every rule in the book, we’ve agreed to make them an exception to every rule in the book and host these records on both sites simply because they’re so fucking good. I don’t care where you get it from, the Flower Co or the Cozy Home… just as long as you get it and love it from somewhere.

There are of course other records in the pipeline ready to go, but I’m going to keep them under wraps for now just so as you’re going to have to keep walking past the shop window every now and again. If you haven’t subscribed to this blog for notifications then don’t worry, we’re also working on this…

LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT

That’s a tentative title.

For as long as I can remember, some of us have been talking about starting up a free downloadable magazine dedicated to DIY music, featuring the little people who are making the most important music of our generation, but unfortunately are deemed either too ‘Lo-Fi’ or an unwise investment because they don’t have an established fanbase, or are just content to make brilliant records from their bedroom. So to kill two canaries with a single stone I figured it might be nice to marry this magazine idea with a resurrected mailing-letter from the DG every quarter.

Just like the DG compilations contributors are welcome and encouraged to get in touch. You don’t have to be Hunter S Thompson, you just have to write with the same passion as he does, about your own music, about your friend’s music, about sites that are interesting or labels that deserve a mention. It’s at the formative stage, but anything goes as long as you’re singing from the same page. (And by being here I guess you are already… unless you’re one of those Russian spambots trying to sell us fungal toe-cream…). First edition we’re aiming for the 1st May 2010 so get scribbling. This is also the date that we’ll be launching…

QUIXODELIC CASSETTES

Long overdue.

It finally dawned on me that if we continue with downloads only then potentially we’re going to end up 30 years from now with nothing to show for all our hard work. Cassettes seemed like the most obvious way forward and from the beginning of May some of your favourite Quixodelic downloads will be available to purchase for a very reasonable price from the site. Why cassettes? Well if you’re asking me that then no amount of explaining is going to convince you that it’s the right way to go…

Obviously there will be more on all of this as and when it materialises, but for now the plates are spinning and if I don’t tend to them then there’s going to be an almighty crash.

Clunk, whir

It’s good to be back

Smally

download: It Begins In Beauty

Then from out of nowhere,  CHANSONS DE GESTE’s “It Begins In Beauty” landed in my crowded in-box. My initial reaction was ‘Oh well, if I’m really done, then there’s no harm in downloading this and digging it for fun.’ So download it I did. And dig it I did. Only I kept on digging it, and though new music continued to pour with alarming frequency into my brain through my headphones, from time to time I felt drawn back to this record, like somehow I’d been magnetized to its melodies.

Anyone tuned in to what we’re doing here surely by now knows how great The Loaded Whispers are. Chansons De Geste is the latest Syd Lane of The Loaded Whispers manifestation and instantly you’re thinking that a name change means something – upheaval and change, a new direction, or quite possibly an experimental noise instrumental record to fill a creative gap in time. But actually it is the complete opposite. Chansons sounds to the untrained ear like the culmination of what she and Jer were doing on the four previous Loaded Whispers’ releases. Where the melodies flew before, now they soar. Where once it sounded soulful, now it sounds spiritually incandescent. And before where the distinctive poet voice reached for magical notes, now it brushes the magical notes aside and bursts upwards into incomprehensible stratospheric heights of song.

On the now seemingly final Loaded Whispers record “Artists Use Lies To Tell The Truth”, you could sit back and listen to Syd’s voice dancing across the sky, on “It Begins In Beauty” it seems to have somehow vanished out of sight, up above the clouds. In a weird way it’s like a butterfly in reverse – the more developed the songwriting and sound becomes, the more it sounds like Syd, confidently emerging from some cocoon as herself.

Please excuse these clumsy metaphors… it’s the inevitable by-product of the finished record, guided by the mighty muse. The songs themselves, albeit framed in this epic sound (quite remarkable considering this is a home recording project), are extremely personal, autobiographical, and philosophical – as genuine as it gets. You get the feeling that going into a big studio with a full band would kill the fragility and honesty out of tracks like “Not A Poet Be”, “Ontario Place” or “Astride A Grave”. Make no mistake – it is one thing to write a solitary timeless song and then to record it in such a way that it captures it perfectly, but it is another to write a whole record of them. From start to finish these are gut-wrenchingly beautiful words and tunes and I don’t think anyone of us will fully understand just how incredible a record it is until many, many years from now. On “Artists…” I got addicted to listening to “Sick of Writing Sad Songs”. On “It Begins In Beauty” I could get (and have been) addicted to listening to five or six of them, and expect the rest at some point to take centre stage in due course.

Don’t believe me? Well take a listen to “Ontario Place” for yourself:
Download audio file (OntarioPlace.mp3)

The gravity of this great little record was enough for me to seriously reconsider walking away from this adventure forever. It wasn’t an immediate revolution and there were other contributing factors, but these psychedelic pop ballads soaked in reverb carrying candid poetry on shoulders of song hooks gnawed away at my conscience over days and weeks until finally all that was left for me to do was say “Ah fuck it. Who am I kidding? People need brilliant life-affirming, comforting and inspiring songs to keep going and here I am sitting on a record like this…”

So bearing in mind that I’d already been sent a life-changing record from across the Irish sea and was struggling to keep my feet on the road of finality, it was something of a killer blow to receive this in my in-box a month later:

download: The Solstice Sessions

A SYD LANE solo album, recorded on the run, the bare bones of  the process behind “It Begins In Beauty’s” songs. Sure, the subject matter of these confessional hymns are sung from the same page as its older, more mature and intricate sister, but “The Solstice Sessions” is like a more playful and less self-conscious younger sibling. It perhaps doesn’t pack the same punch, but from a fan’s perspective it is a wonderful insight into the song-writing bubble, sounding less psych-pop and more folky and just as important.  Credit must go to her partner in crime, Mr Jeremiah James, maybe not such an audible presence on these recordings (though contributions to “Astride A Grave” help really make that song), yet you sense him there every step and note of the way. I’ve got a feeling that without Jer then Syd herself might be content to simply make music for the love of making music, and you and I would be none the wiser. So hats off to him.

If you’ve never heard The Loaded Whispers before then I’d recommend you work chronologically starting with “It Begins In Beauty”, because it truly is a featherweight champion of the world, and save “The Solstice Sessions” for when you’ve had your fill. If you’re already a fan like me, then you might as well close your eyes, or flip a coin and download either first. They both have a place off the beaten track, like leaves of technicolour skin, or trails of poem in the sky. I fucking love pretty much everything that comes out of the Lane/Jones studio, and I’m betting a change of direction that you will too.

Visit Syd Lane at:

http://theloadedwhispers.com and

http://www.myspace.com/chansonsdegeste

But for a laugh and out of curiosity I put out the feelers anyway, adding the ‘Christmas’ part with the idea that the project would be done in time for the 25th December. Thankfully I managed to persuade one Edward A Bartholomew from DG7, the E6 townhall, and the Delandoper collaborative website to coordinate the whole thing. Seriously, this guy has done an immense job against the sort of hitches that would have put me in an early grave. Try ‘I’ll do For the Benefit of Mr. Kite?’ for just one example.

And here you go – 32 tracks, 27 artists, and so many great new takes on songs from such a legendary record. You can catch up with all your favourite Quixodelicists – Simon Piler, Warchalking, Uberfuzz, Brendon Hertz, Fig Mints, Jane Gilmore, The Wheelies, Rocketships of Love, Broken Mono, and James Redmond, as well as discover a whole festive battalion of new artists that it is an absolute pleasure to be involved with.

Happy Christmas to all of you.

Much love

Smally x

• CLLCT
• Mirror 1 (Sendspace)
• Mirror 2 (delandloper)

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:

Download audio file (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?

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

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.

THE REAL BURNOUTS – “Fully Involved EP”

2009 may well very prove to be the year of the Real Burnout. Where all around us musicians we have loved and listened very closely to, run out of songs, pack up their guitars, slump into funks, and throw in the novelty musical note towel, on the American side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the little city of Utica, The Real Burnouts have been down in the basement cooking up records. This year alone we’ve already seen the following – two full-length records “Post Show Post Traumatic Ultimate Mundane”, and “(In) A World Not Unlike Your Own”, a compendium of unreleased hits “Copious Maximus”, and word on the street is that a fourth unreleased album sits loaded up in the Cozy Home torpedo chamber, that may or may not still be called “Dark”. In fact, The Real Burnouts have been so productive that I half expected an invitation to contribute to The Invisible Box-Set to be met with a completely burned out silence.

But of course when you’re on a roll, well then there’s nothing you can do to keep yourself from keeping rolling. Commander in Chief of the band (Paul Burnout), enthusiastically reported throughout August that he was working on a masterpiece record called “The Disinfection of Walter”, and that they would be playing the album in full accompanied by actors and/or dancers at a Utica music festival. 3 weeks later I got a message to say that this psychedelic symphony had been such a success that “..Walter” was going to be re-recorded in a studio environment. “Don’t worry”, said Paul, “there’s still a week for me to write and record something new”.

And so they did. “Fully Involved” is an eight track EP, recorded in two sittings and only a few action-packed hours. At the wheel are the twin force of two of the Cozy Home’s most eminently original musicians – Paul and Bobby, and as always this creative combination throws up particularly pleasing results. You sense listening to these songs that after the two previous (and arguably uncharacteristically melancholy/introspective) albums, that there are fucking flames back leaping through the veins. On “Fully Involved”, The Real Burnouts go back to sounding like a riotous band rather than one maverick psych-poet floating around in the limbo of his own monstrous imagination. This record sounds like it took weeks rather than hours to put together, from the fuzzy pop opener “My Heart Explodes”, to the punk explosion of “Shot In The Pocket”, this is a fun, and beautifully deranged collection of songs to play. With drugged up anthems like “How Good It Feels” and the aptly titled “Drunk and Stoned” the monstrous imagination comes crashing back to earth with big riffs and equally big drums. The Real Burnouts really do sound fully involved again, and for those of you who have forgotten how excitingly different they can be on their day, then this record should provide a welcome reminder.

Song writers seem to fall into one of two hands. In one are those who can’t help but keep writing, like butterflies flitting from one idea-flower to the next, putting quantity over quality and hopefully somewhere in amidst all those rushed recordings will be something worth keeping hold of. In the other are individuals like Frogville’s Jason Raspa, blessed with the patience and determination to take an idea-flower and keep tending to it, only walking away from it when it’s grown as high as it can.

From the word go, with the swirling psychedelic guitar lines of “I Believe In You”, this is something of an all-out assault on the parts of your brain that instinctively hoover up hooks and retain them, regurgitating them at random intervals throughout your waking day. The first five songs of “A Bug Eyed-Swamp” are the equivalent of a top-heavy bombardment of melody. For those of you going into it blind, I’d be very surprised if you’re not waving the white flag of submission a couple of verses into the upbeat 90s indie-pop of second track “Just Like Sunday”. Three through five are my own favourites – “The Speed of a Crawl” is cinematic and sweeping, a sonic lullaby for the frazzled heads of the 21st century. “I’m A Bee” is comical and catchy as fuck, combining Jason’s reassuringly loveable voice singing “Collecting honey for the Queen / I love her, I think you know what I mean / There’s too many guys in the hive / She doesn’t even know that I’m alive”, with suitably bee-powered musical swagger. The vocals, like the range of guitar riffs, walking bass-lines, steady drums, and liberal helpings of effects and sound tricks that are central to the Frogville sound, are actually each but a part of the well-oiled machine, all of them doing their bit, carrying it forward, letting each song breathe bedecked in blinking lights into the muddy swamp of creation. You won’t play this record to your friends and say “Listen to the guitar on this”, or “What is he doing here?”, but you will put it on and let it play out saying “Listen to all of this”.

Fifth track “The Light You Give” is as close as you’ll get to a standard ballad form – an ageless melodic love song where “The light you give shines”. Simply put – it’s fucking beautiful. From the blistering start, the rest of the record is more of a blur of ideas and sounds. The mainly instrumental and eerily weird title track signals the end of the “song” songs and the beginning of something a little darker and less deliberate. Frogville shows that the psych-pop salvos are just a part of the bigger picture (albeit a glorious part). Equally the machine is at home producing freaky indie guitar blow-outs “Time is Growing”, druggy Jonestown Massacre-esque shoegaze funk amalgamations (”Turns to Gold”), dig up something that sounds like it fell off the edge of “Forever Changes” (”Mexico”), or do lush country drone experiments like the closing “Speed of Disillusionment”. Penultimate track “Face” deserves a sentence or two on its own. Like a lost song from 1966, think somewhere in between The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground, tambourine punctuated tunnel of stark sound and a vocal melody that sounds like something you should have heard somewhere before, but know that you haven’t. Finally available in free digital download format, this is one swamp you want to wade in right up to your bug eyes for.

PERIWINKLE PERISCOPE – “Fraises”

Is there a better band name than this around right now? There is a certain cartoon-like dance to those two words thrown together like curious bedfellows in another world. It has been a while since the debut self-titled Periwinkle Periscope album dropped through my letterbox and kept me entertained with its experimental folk songs and poetry, and was getting to the point where you wondered if perhaps it was another one-off project from one of the most musically curious (or curiously musical) households in the United States.

With a six song instrumental EP in the shape of “Fraises”, thankfully it seems Periwinkle Periscope are an ongoing concern. Written and recorded in four hours, Judy Shimmin provides much the same as the debut record offered, exploratory pieces of abstract sound building up around recurring melodies with strings that twang and bricks of percussion, until some structure forms and rocks gently in the breeze. It feels like if you blow hard enough, then this little record could easily fall to pieces, but if you resist the urge to puff up your lungs and stop, just stop and listen to it swaying, then you see it for what it is. “Fraises” (originally intended to have sung songs over the top, but released as an instrumental record because of the necessary time constraints of the box-set project), is simply the sound of someone surrounding themselves with instruments and playing whatever feels right to them. Guitars buzz and organs bellow, unidentifiable objects rattle and wooden blocks chime. This is a soundtrack from the same cartoon-like world that the words Periwinkle Periscope curl up in. The first time I heard it I was pacing the length of the Main Deck, suddenly noticing how intense everything was, how minute the detail in the most ordinary of things, like a rusty bolt, or a broken window, or a wilted flower once woven into the rigging.

Perinwinkle Periscope’s “Fraises” is a strange little record with its songs that go from A to F. It is minimalistic and at times discordant… not the sound of a classically trained musician, nor in the same ball park as it’s lyrical older self-titled sister. But above all else, it is a lot of fun to put in your ears just to see what happens. Just that little bit more clearly. Here’s hoping that G to Z will sometime follow.

Jolan tells us, “While I have three or four albums worth of material recorded, this is the first time I have set out to make a cohesive album.” It turns out that ‘Hey! Midnight’ is very cohesive, a fact which makes for a very smooth and enjoyable listen. We are enveloped gradually; ‘Frequent Dream’ approaches us in waves, like the soft hum of a distant turboprop engine. But as the plane pops over the rise, we are suddenly splatter-painted by it’s twin 20-meter paintbrushes, ‘What You’ve Done’. Immediately danceable, this song is capable of applying retrographic texture to entire landscapes. The first transition is stark, but extremely natural, and one of the highlights of the album.

The Falling Floors have a strength with harmony. Many of the tracks offer complicated, interlocking lines that balance arpeggiating guitars, bass, keyboards, and voice. The whole of it is punctuated by sparse percussion, mainly a sharp snaredrum and some uncannily [!!!] ferverent tambourine. I believe that natural harmonists have a good sense of musical dimension, and it is no surprise that The Falling Floors also exceed at dictating musical space. At times the album becomes soft and impressionistic (see ‘Pink Sky Over the Motorway at 5AM’ or ‘Little Bug’) other times very jaunty and full of pep; (see ‘Honeybee’, ‘Palindrome’, ‘Don’t Try’, or ‘Giving Up and Giving Way’) these tracks in particular give the album it’s remarkable 60’s throwback coloration. And ‘Where We Feel Secure’? It’s just plain beautiful.

Perhaps the most impressive quality that the album possesses is it’s forthright nature. Though these songs are adept compositions, all, I never get the feeling that Jolan and company are obsessed with the technicality of the music to the point where it distracts from the flow and overall perception of a song. Even the palindromic songs end up being extremely listenable, cohesive tracks, a tribute to the organization and planning put into the album. It’s apparent that The Falling Floors are making their recordings with our receptive ears in mind!

Now I wish they’d hand me a towel, I’ve got paint all over.

There was a time not so long ago that it looked like it might be all over for Uberfuzz. The toil of live shows finally took its toll and with each record freaking musically deeper and further out, it looked like there was nowhere left for the band to go. Actually the only place left to go was inwards – the band disassembled, leaving only singer-songwriter Paul Le Keux, with sister Kelly to provide the occasional moral vocal support. This new unpressurised environment of going back to writing and recording for the love of making music seemed to work – the five-track “As If It Matters EP” hinted that there was another side to Rugby’s most recent supplier of explosive psychedelics, a much wiser and cleaner sound, a little less synthetic with a more folky exploration of melody.

My own discovery of Uberfuzz was post-masterpiece “Drowing In Honey”, so just the idea of a new record in the works was something pretty fucking exciting. Downloading it and seeing the brilliant old school black and white guitar/moon cover and finally playing it took me way back to my teenage years wishing the train would go just that little bit faster so as I could get home and listen to the new cassette from one of my favourite bands. “An Island In The Moon” does not disappoint. The new polished and conversely more intimate sounds of “As If It Matters” are taken to the next level on the full album. Welcome additions are sitars and tablas, breathing life into the bones – lovers of psychedelia take note: when I say that “An Island…” is a little more folky by design, that doesn’t mean that it’s no longer psychedelic. Take the Velvet Underground-esque and wonderfully philosophical “Epistle to a Wayward Mother”, the spoken word effects laden title track conjuring up the words of William Blake, the vinyl scratched “Wooden” and “Rusty Shack” instrumentals, or even the brilliant sitar jam “Space Raga No.1″ – there is plenty worth smoking along to. Yet perhaps with the exception of the deftly wielded sitar, these are treasures that we fully expect to find on an Uberfuzz record. The real rub of “An Island in the Moon” is on the tracks where the layers fall away.

Both the opening and closing covers of “Farewell Angelina” and the cover of The Rolling Stones “Play With Fire” are great examples. You just don’t cover bands and songs like those unless you can bring something else to the floor. If anything, Uberfuzz somehow manage to make this Bob Dylan classic sound even more fragile, and The Stones sound even more vibrant. Meanwhile “Sip of Wild Honey” is Uberfuzz at its finest, but with a folky-pop twist, and “Summer Wine” is the sound of the psychedelic wild west happening in your living room. The trouble with a band honing their sounds and recording techniques is that sooner or later the bubble has to burst, and a point is reached at the end of the line where there really is nowhere left to go. Thankfully, it sounds like Uberfuzz have already been there, stepping off the tracks and walking out into the wilderness whereupon they found that there was still something to sing about, sounds to be explored, and hopefully people like me who will keep listening and download their records like an expectant teenager. I pull back the curtains and grin when I see that the moon looks curiously golden tonight.

It somehow doesn’t seem real that we’re finally listening to a full-length Amalfi Glow record. The tracks that make up this inaugural TAG release “On My Back Looking At Home” have been slowly amassed, like a tap dripping pearls of electronic sound until the basin finally overflows onto the bathroom floor of the earth and all that’s left to do is climb up onto the ceiling of the universe and look down at the accidental ocean suddenly pulsing and swirling beneath us.

I’m no student of ambient soundscapes, but I know what I like to hear and every pearl from project Amalfi that has splashed out from my headphones in the small hours has left me hopelessly wishing that I could pass them onto 19 year old me, head full of acid with an insatiable thirst to go SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT in my imagination. Taken on their own each pearl has sounded as great as anything I’ve heard from your Orbitals, or Orbs, or Boards of Canadas. Finally strung together though, these beads of experiment seem to find their true form side by side. “On My Back…” does exactly what it seems to have always been unconsciously stretching towards – a journey of sound. I’ve been fortunate to witness first hand El Capitan Amalfi behind the wheel, pulling white rabbit samples and multi-layered beats from the burning bottomless hat, and I can honestly say that it is a truly mind-boggling thing to observe. Even without a head full of acid.

You sense with this record that the sky is the the least of the limits for this long-standing and yet still fledgling project. Like the record itself, The Amalfi Glow is a journey still at the very beginning, pausing briefly to tie up the loose ends before moving on, home finally blinking out of sight behind it. Familiar tracks like the epic “Pagoda” and hypnotic “Mersum” sound suddenly rejuvenated in between new offerings like the thundering urgent beats of “Char-an-choola”, or the ambience of “Let Me Find Joy”. Fans of electronica will undoubtedly get what is happening here a hell of a lot more than I ever will, but if you’re in the same dinghy of inexperience as I am then you could do a lot worse than lying down beneath the basin, grabbing hold of something that resembles a paddle, and push off through the pearls. Acid or no acid.

While I sat there waiting for the grumbling and grimacing supercomputer to warm up, I heard a sound like a fly buzzing furiously against the panes of the one remaining unbroken window of the Communications Room. Initially assuming it to be an Ylfnogard, as the screen burst into life before my eyes, I quickly noticed that the buzzing appeared to have a vaguely melodic sawing swing to it. This was no fly. When I sat down in the seat my iPod must have accidentally started to play – the curious melodic buzzing was in fact Simon Piler belting out “Termination Death” in my pocket.

To review any Simon Piler and The Atom Band record in three paragraphs is asking the impossible of anyone (particularly as I just spent the first of the three babbling about buzzing). After the all-out poetic experimental dream assault of the two most recent recordings “Songs From Home” and “Heimdall”, you could say I am a fully fledged convert to the theatrical adventure of anything generated from the boundless brain of this peripatetic young poet. If anything, “KINGTIME” doesn’t just follow on from its predecessors, but ups the ante and runs away with it under your nose. This is a record of Joycian magnitude – a mythic-poetic tale of one King Narcissus, peppered with song and tales, and filled out with sometimes mad, and sometimes gentle experimental folk sounds. You can’t possibly pretend to understand exactly what is going on, but like a match to the imagination it strikes and you step away from it in flames frantically searching for the nearest puddle of reality to cool down in. With a handy printable lyric book packed with black and white words and wonderful imagery, “KINGTIME” should probably be the sort of thing we fire at teenage study groups. It is a giddy, expansive, soulful, bamboozling, and utterly brilliant multi-media seed for the barren wasteland of your addled imagination. Songs like the wonderfully lyrical “ROLL”, the absurdly infectious and utterly memorable “King TV”, the lo-fi hop of “Dogs”, the pocket buzz of “Termination Death”, and gargantuan understated “The Vulcanist” fall upon on the scorched earth, linked together and sprinkled with Simon’s running commentary, as the tale spins out in the mirror and a garden of pure imagination blooms.

Once you’re hooked on the ideas behind this music there is no going back. You can download “KINGTIME” and try to enjoy it as an artistic feat in its own right, like watching a skinny bearded stunt rider on a rickety red bicycle attempting to leap 18 car-songs from the top of a steep ramp, and toppling with a beautiful laugh to crash through the cracked windscreen of car number one. Alternatively you can do your homework, read the lyric book and track down interviews with Simon where he candidly explains the dream theory and intricate thought that goes into writing his records. The old man sings. The ash of the volcano settles on the earth. And King TV rolls out around every corner, clutching his belly with little beady eyes. This is the fabric of song that doesn’t just ring in your ears, but seeps irrevocably into the veins of your life. It’s KINGTIME!

Discovering the musical world of Brendon Hertz has been one of the real finds for me during this box-set. There’s always a sense of trepidation including someone whose music you’ve never heard in a project of this magnitude. I mean, The Daydream Generation compilations are just one song and if you go one song wrong, then it’s not such a big deal… whereas with the box-set we’re talking a whole record, and potentially a whole record of wrong songs. So even though there was a level of backing with the very credible Simon Piler describing Brendon as “the leader of The Atom Band”, I downloaded “Sacrifice” with my fingers, toes and ears well and truly crossed.

I need not have crossed anything. Twenty seconds into spoken word second track “Neo-Beat Grocery” I realised we’d struck musical oil and breathed an almighty sigh of relief. My head has been crying out for just this kind of approach – indie-beat deliberations on modern America. Okay, so there must be people out there doing this kind of thing – but in three long years of doing this, maybe only one other had been going at it from this direction, and that connection had long been lost. By the time I reached track five, the brilliantly atmospheric acoustic ballad “Jasper Fforde…”, I was wide awake and unconsciously holding my breath. “Sacrifice” is by no means a conventional record. Its identity is in the shifting identity of songs – a lot of fun to listen to, but there’s something else about it; something deeply poetic and ambitious happening beneath the patchwork surface of its multi-faced persona.

Let’s dig on that patchwork surface for a moment because it’s undoubtedly what makes this record so special. For a start, count the genres – electronica, spoken word poetry, experimental noise, psychedelic funk, acoustic folk, 60s pop, jazz, reggae, soul, timeless piano balladry, blues, and an atmospheric indie anthem thrown in for good measure. Yet far from being an intentional spectrum of sound, you instantly recognise that this is a multi-faceted singer-songwriter simply expressing himself in the most direct way possible with the content of the song and the feelings behind the song dictating the form. I really don’t know anyone who would even attempt to do something as wide-reaching as this, let alone anyone who would actually be able to do it so well and in such a short space of time. Perhaps the most surprising thing of all about such a diverse record as this, is that when it comes out on the other side it sounds completely coherent and wonderfully together. With so many styles happening, inevitably there is something for every someone. Candid and cool beat poetry aside, my own favourites are the aforementioned “Jasper Fforde…”, the raw Beatle-esque “Mail From You”, the majestic title track “Sacrifice” (would not be out of place on a Bob Marley greatest hits), the soulful piano and brass ballad “Magic” (what can I say? It’s magic, perhaps my favourite of all the songs), and the melancholic poetic intensity of “Life’s Match”.

If you’re looking for something different then you’ve come to the right place. “Sacrifice” is different from start to finish, like the mix-tape of a love long lost, only with one guy singing his heart out and speaking his thoughts throughout. The musicianship is first class, the voice that carries the songs is ambitious in range and trembles with genuine human emotion, and there’s just enough self-defacing humour tucked away amidst the patchwork folds to keep it from sinking beneath the quicksand of introspective no return. Finally I exhale. 5 kaleidoscopic patchwork stars out of 5.

Becky N’s follow-up to her Two Wheels EP, 4am Video Games, definitely has the signatures of the songwriter’s touch. The lo-fi recording, the sparse arrangements, and the simplicity that is soft to the ear are all here. In fact, this EP may be even sparser than Two Wheels. Most of the songs are cut back to guitar and voice, with some overdubs. When you listen to the new music from 4am Video Games, however, there’s a new element to many of the songs.

Walls of repeating chords on downbeats add drive to songs like “Overgrown” and “4am Video Games”. This adds a sad, droning element to the songs making them perfect for ominousness but also for meditation. I took this EP out for a spin on my bicycle late during a recent fall evening, and it seemed to fit alongside the brisk autumn air well. The darkness of the night combined with the minor sounds of the album and the blinking of traffic lights seemed complementary to Becky’s tone on this release.

Although the dichotomous guitar riffs on “Coma Dream” make this the standout track on the album, the song also shows off a unique sense of timing, lyrical stylings, and the finger-picking of Becky N. Though the overtones are of sadness, Becky N still shows a quirky side on “Sweetie”, which starts off with a guitar part reminiscent of nineties grunge-rockers. The lyrics twist this into an interesting love song, ending abrubtly with the lyric “where’ve you been all my life”, leaving the listener with some kind of longing.

All in all, this album shows a new side of Becky N. It may be a darker, more brooding side, yes, but also something that is searching and hoping. It is this aspect of the album that made this reviewer want to do a lot of soul-searching while listening to 4am Video Games. This album gets one highly-recommended moonlit bicycle ride; listen to it at 4am or not, but this one definitely lends itself to nighttime excursions.

HANDWITHLEGS – “One More Excuse”

Handwithlegs’ contribution to the box-set “One More Excuse” was like the missing piece of an unintentionally technicolour jigsaw puzzle. We’d covered just about every genre known to man (with the exception of Death Metal) and all that was missing was something heavy, something pulsing and dark for the

mad side of midnight when proceedings run away from you and you find yourself locked into some ugly, downwards spiral of drugged up lunacy. If you download this record then be warned – it is LOUD. It is capital letters LOUD. Guitar-like synths fuzz and hammer, drums roar like pounding waves, and there is a sense of absolute claustrophobic urgency to every song. Where I come from, people don’t make music like this. It terrifies them.

This isn’t to say that Handwithlegs is not in the business of writing songs – think Manic Street Preachers “Holy Bible” for the structure and riffs that keep this five track EP burning from start to finish. Yet it seems to have a lot more to do with experimentalism and the deliberate pursuit of a particular sound. If your ears aren’t bleeding by the end of the fifth track then it would seem that the record hasn’t quite done the job. Vocally it’s in stark contrast to previous HWL records – the words still buried within the frenetic squall of sound, but there is a rhythm and starkness to the part-yelled, part-sung lines that brings a new energetic thrust to the music.

Every spectrum needs a dark side. Yet at the same time there is something chaotically fun about “One More Excuse” – both instrospective and exhibitionist at the same time. It doesn’t just sit in the corner. Nobody tells it what to do. It bites your hand off with a grin as if to say “Well what do you expect? I’ve got fucking sharp teeth”. This may be an attempt at making more of a “rock” record, rather than an experimental noise soundtrack, but from where I’m standing it sounds a lot closer to fuck-it-and-see ethos of punk. And punk is good thing. What’s that you say? Ah shit I can’t hear you, my ears are bleeding.

SHINE SHUT – “The Decision”

This album is short, but I’ll admit that it evokes a strong curiosity in me. One could say that it is alluring. May I offer a definition? Allure: to attract by the offer of something having real or seemingly real value. To clarify this word-variable, we’ll need a more specific definition for value. Value: meaning; force; significance. I’ll have to select ‘force’ when considering ‘The Decision’ because the album’s meaning is well past my means of determination. Perhaps that is Shine Shut’s aim in the production of these recordings! Are they to be breathless, airy and ephemeral graspings of idea? This much is possible to estimate from my listening. A portraiture of dynamic life, wrought in chaos. A thematic groundwork concerning consciousness is difficult to signify, I think.

So we are left with force. And no petty leaving; the album grinds and flexes as we are subjected to varying tensile pressures of circuitous, stomping energy. ‘A Build’ is almost swamp blues – it wildly brandishes a dark, inoculated wind across it’s marching ground. There are deep ideas here, that is true, but I am struck at how short of a time they are left to develop! The drop-off droning portion of the song could have been elaborated to great effect; at it’s current pace there is a hurried quality that it carries. And so my curiosity wells up again – is this a story of gestation, or simply of birth? We certainly are not meant to digest the full course of a complex decision, here. Instead, I think, we see only the critical moment of absolute choice; that irreversible waypoint of self-description.

At other times, the album is softer, almost restful. ‘Shelf’ is reflective and even cheery. ‘Is That My Soul?’ seems to offer a speculative resolution of the darker portions; and it’s very tongue speaks-broad in a short, granular breath. Shine Shut calls ‘The Decision’ dream music; an undertaking to which I believe I can claim myself kin. Though we dream musicians may offer the widest spectral output of resultant music, we have one unifying quality that is unique among musical motivation of all kinds. We strive to describe and qualify space. ‘The Decision’ is a good reminder that though the spaces encompassed by the dreaming mind may be extremely complex, they are possible to reconstitute through our wakeful understandings of sound. This is the undertaking of a dream musician, difficult though it may be. With every study of feeling that we grasp at, and every sound we practice making, we become a little more thorough and clear in our descriptions. And so, in the end I am left with my curiosity. And my speculations. And ponderings. That is alright with me.

Thank you, Shine Shut.

JAMES REDMOND – “Dig Deep”

It is the dying seconds of one of the greatest football games of all time. The Champions League final of 2005, Liverpool v AC Milan. Having been three goals down at half-time and all but resigned to losing, Liverpool mount one of the most unbelievable come-backs we have ever seen, bringing it back to 3-3 and taking the game into extra time. The Italians surge again, peppering the Liverpool goal with wave after wave of attacks. At the centre of the Liverpool’s defence is one Jamie Carragher, by no means a footballer who will appear in the annals of world soccer history, but a player who wears his heart on his sleeve and gives it his all, throwing himself into tackles, heading the ball off the line, and marshalling his fellow troops. Carragher clears the ball with another last ditch header and goes down with cramp but the game goes on, the Italians picking up the ball and lining up to stick it in the net. With the camera focusing on the prostrate defender, the Scottish commentator leans into his microphone and urges him to “Dig deep son. Dig deep”. A hobbling Carragher picks himself up off the ground and hobbles in agony into the fray again to rise above the Milan strikers and clear the danger.

Not only is Jay Redmond the Jamie Carragher of the music world, but he is also a very hard man to get hold of when it’s backs to the wall and flying by the seat of your pants time. In fact, he is so hard to reach that he might as well be written into the “Encyclopaedia of Mythical Creatures” beside Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Abominable Snowman, and the fire-eater of Atlantis. His entry reads: “James (Lee) Redmond; scouse troubadour and purveyor of perfect pop songs”. There is no profile picture, just an aerial snapshot of some white trainers (presumably belonging to Jay). For half a year I’ve been fortunate enough to play the part of his personal archivist, collating a combination of new songs and lost tracks salvaged from old 4-track cassettes, buried beneath the thick dust and hiss of time. Everything he’s sent my way has been immensely lovable – painted with the same infectious brush of melody as previous collection “Too Much To Think”, all the while the bones of the record solidifying and taking shape.

Everything is in place. All he has to do is come up with a title, tell me which songs to keep, and in what order they should go. I email him a week before the box-set deadline day and get no reply. With three days to go I message him again, explaining we’re reaching a critical juncture like the scene in Father Ted when the priests are stuck in the lingerie section of a department store and are trying to escape via a fire exit without being seen. The day before the box-set goes live I email him one last time with the Jamie Carragher story. 24 hours after the deadline has passed I hear a muffled shout that seems to be emanating from behind a rack of giant granny pants. It says “Smally, please can you put the tracks into order for me, and call it DIG DEEP…”

THE OCTOBER TERMINUS – “The October Terminus”

Rob Levy doesn’t make enough records. It’s only when he does that I remember how important previous incarnations have been – Travel Labyrinth, External World, Platinum Limb, Sentic Forms… the list goes on and on. Here, in his latest form – The October Terminus – we find a seemingly one-off project from the undisputed master of the experimental song. This self-titled record was written, recorded and mixed over three days with specific constraints concerning how many tracks could be used (6), how many takes could be taken (1), and length of songs (2 minutes 24 seconds). The results are a staggering 28 track collection, musically experimental, full of notes, organic beats, and rattling sounds behind an undisputed abstract lyrical behemoth.

Rob’s own explanation of how the words were written is mind-blowing in itself – “The lyrics, composed the day before were written using a partial aleatory batch technique in which partially-random rhythm plans structure the random choice of words. The chaotic poetry is interpreted and reworked into meaningful stories. The chaotic, rhythmic stories served as the basis and inspiration for the aformentioned improvised composition of songs…” I had to re-read that several times when I first saw it to get any inkling as to what this actually means. You may now take a few seconds yourself to re-read it before we continue.

This seemingly Burroughsian artificially altered language-scape creates the perfect compliment to the Jim Morrison style poetic shamanism of the songs. I always feel like Levy projects sound like they were recorded out in the desert, under the blazing white circle of sun, with vultures revolving and the shimmering heat of exhaustion fogging up the eyes. However, “October Terminus” is no drug-induced shock verse, it is more like a scientific form of holistic human brain re-wiring. There is a mighty fine line between these tracks being enjoyable for the playfulness and textures of words combined with repetitive woodwind and plinking blocks, and this being a soundtrack for some self-imposed psychosis of pure abstraction. Either way, though if you’re anything like me then even if it’s the latter, then sometimes it is fun to put your own head through the grinder and piece it all back together on the other side. After all, I think you’ll find that records doesn’t make enough Rob Levy.

THE WHEELIES – “A Scientific Study Of Cloud Shapes”

I’ll let you make your own mind up on this one.

DOWNLOAD IT NOW FOR FREE

Just click right here

Not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, or 14, but 15! brand new Quixodelic Records for you to love or loathe. Genres range from folk-pop to psychedelia, and from electronica to experimentalism. With that many records there surely must be something for everyone.

Contributors to the box-set include Uberfuzz, The Falling Floors, James Redmond, Becky N, Frogville, Simon Piler and The Atom Band, The Real Burnouts, Brendon Hertz and The Burnt Orange Crayons, The October Terminus, The Painted Shuts, The Amalfi Glow, Periwinkle Periscope, Shine Shut, Handwithlegs, and The Wheelies.

For a for review of all the records go here

A little retrospective mix-tape I made for CLLCT – featuring various great songs from all your favourite quixodelic artists that have previously released records in the store or been featured on The Daydream Generation compilations. Nothing new, but a lovely listen nevertheless.

Download the zip here

Listen to the record & hear plenty of more great music over at www.cllct.com

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here

Listen to SET YOUR SENSES FREE from THE REAL BURNOUTS “Copious Maximus”:

Download audio file (TheRealBurnouts-SetYourSensesFree.mp3)

I was recently asked to list my five favourite bands of all time and quickly reeled them off – The Stone Roses, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, The Beach Boys, and The Real Burnouts. Most of you will have heard of the first four, but not so many of you will be aware of the fifth. I mean this list sincerely, and include The Real Burnouts not for gimmick, nor for some kind of pretentious alternative musical one-upmanship, but simply because each of them at some stage have made music that changed my life. If The Roses ripped my head open with their indie anthems and The Beatles saved my brain with a song-writing masterclass, if The V.U took me somewhere dark I never knew existed, and The Beach Boys showed me the stratospheric heights that melody and harmony can reach, then The Burnouts showed me that there was a whole other world to discover, beyond the radio stations and shiny music magazines, happening on the bedroom floors and in the secret basements of the universe. This experimental and reassuringly original psychedelic band from Utica, New York, made music sound alive again by kicking down the doors of possibility in their grotesque painted masks and goofy hipster clothes, with twisted words and unpredictable tunes. From the first time I heard their druggy anthem “Set Your Senses Free” (as revalationary as  experiencing mind-altering psychedelics for the first time) I pretty quickly discovered that nothing was what I’d always assumed it had been, and nothing could ever be the same again. It really is an epiphany to discover that the songs and sounds that actually matter the most are rarely on the radio or television, nor do they frequent the shelves of your local independent music store, or get magically handed to you when you least expect it. The music that actually matters you’ve got to go out and find for yourself.

Whether any of us like it or not, a revolution has smashed through the heart of the music industry at the turn of the 21st century. The tidal wave of recording technology is as important a change for creative culture as the youth revolution of the 1950s were. Now it is possible to cut out the corporate middle man and go straight for the jugular of open ears. Now, the budget-less bedroom bound songwriter can record their ideas and share them with an audience on the other side of the globe within a matter of minutes. Now, the means of production in the form of four-tracks and software programmes are affordable (even free) to anyone who has something to sing about. You can design your own covers, sell downloads, or mail your own CDs. You may not make a living from it, but even in that there is a purity, honesty, and fire in the DIY recordings of this generation. Undoubtedly there always has been, but never before have we been able to capture and share it with each other so easily. I can’t speak for you, but I know myself whose thoughts and experiences I’d choose to listen to if it came to a choice between the decadent rock-star writing from a air-conditioned tour bus that eventually stops at some clinical beach-house, or the people like us who struggle and sometimes succeed, who try to make sense of the world around us from the battle-scarred terrain that is the front-line of actuality. The Real Burnouts in that sense are perhaps fortunate to find themselves in the thick of the wave that finally broke the dam, because this is the kind of band that record company executives could lose a lot of sleep over. As well as being musically brilliant, they can also be frighteningly different (the first time I heard their name mentioned on an internet forum, someone wrote “The Real Burnouts scare me”), and even to this day I’d be inclined to agree with that assessment. These guys are the unwitting pioneers of a time when Lo-Fi became not just the preserve of the sixties garage band, but a movement in its own right. They were there as wasted teenagers trading home-made cassettes on the streets of Utica in the mid-90s, and although the recordings are infinitely more sophisticated, it is still the same principle over a decade later – just a much bigger street. With podcasts and collectives, social networking sites and rapidly shifting advances that cater directly to how the artist wants to be heard rather than how the corporation wants to package a commodity, it is hard to see this revolution failing. The death knell of the vacuous celebrity has been well and truly sounded, and though the world can’t hear it yet, the heroes of a tomorrow a long way from today, will not be pretty poster puppet youths with fuck all to say, or winners of talent shows regurgitating elevator music. The heroes will be bands exactly like The Real Burnouts.

I’ve pestered the creative driving force (Paul Burnout) for the last couple of years to put a record like “Copious Maximus” together. There’s a Utican cardboard box in my bedroom containing every available Burnout record to date (most of these are available through the brilliant little Cozy Home Records). It’s a gargantuan back catalogue – from the twin giants that are “You Won’t Know Until You Find Out” and “Transparent Mirror”, through early offerings with wonderful names like “The Penis and Vagina Syndrome”, or “It’s Not All Hot Chocolate”, right through to the insanely magical “A Lull In Void”, and more recently the subtle and relatively melancholy “Post-Show, Post-Traumatic, Ultimate Mundane”, and “(In) A World Not Unlike Your Own”. With a bit of searching, a few clicks of a mouse, a well-intentioned word to the right people or a little loose change, anyone who digs this band as much as I do shouldn’t find it difficult to assemble the entire collection. The things is, that the first time I ripped through the records back to back I was struck by how many Burnouts songs were missing from them. Tracks like the aforementioned “Set Your Senses Free”, or the spiky psych-punk “Girl You’re The One For Me”, the goofy pop of “Psychological Sacrifice”, sixties-tinged anthems like “Be Right Where You Belong” and “Whenever Will I See You There?”, even the more off-the-wall efforts like the spoken “Wild Sarsaparilla” – all of them seemed to be curiously missing in action. If anything, the scale of lost tracks is perhaps testament to the band’s prolificness – barely a year goes by without a new offering, and a natural consequence of this is that some songs get left behind, fall by the wayside, or just about vanish into the aether forever. Paul himself explained where they’d gone – “to me they were all bits and pieces that didn’t quite fit on albums, and others, to me, were too good compared to other songs on albums to be used”.

Two years of pestering later and here they all are. A 34 track collection of the finest and strangest Real Burnouts recordings that didn’t make it onto the records, hand-picked from the cutting room floor. “Copious Maximus” is lo-fi home pop’s accidental answer to “The White Album”. A coherent collection of songs recorded over four years of arguably “golden age” Burnouts, like a jigsaw of several puzzles that mysteriously piece together. The psychedelic riotry of the band format (all your favourite Burnouts are represented – Luke, Bobby, Katie, Dustin, and Pat) goes hand in hand with the more introspective poetic ramblings. Alternative versions, collide with undoubted hits, drums and synthesisers burst into flame, and everybody wakes up the morning after wondering what the fuck has just happened. Don’t get me wrong – this music isn’t for everyone. It isn’t always obvious, and if you don’t get it the first time around, then chances are that no amount of working at it is ever going to get you there. But for those of you like me, who have been blown away by the honesty, originality, and pure experimental expressiveness of this band in the past, then this is a must have recording. Forty years ago today The Beatles released “Abbey Road” and just about everyone knows it. Forty years from now the chances are that The Real Burnouts will still be a cult group beyond the periphery of the canonized musical pantheon. The great records of our generation are like fleeting gems that flare for a short while before burning out in your brain, to be discovered many years later in tattered old Utican cardboard boxes. So dig well before it burns out.

Smally, 17th August 2009

Find out more about The Real Burnouts at: www.therealburnouts.com

Get more Burnouts recordings here: www.cozyhomerecords.com

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.

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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. <