Great Daytrotter session with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone released this week. Casiotone is the solo project of Redwood City, California's Owen Ashworth.
Started in 1997 after he dropped out of film school, he has become one of the foremost names in lo-fi, indie toy-tronica, specializing in affectuous songwriting and remarkably warm, emotional music produced from cheap toy keyboards.
I have quite an affinity for artists who endeavor to make personal, affecting music from traditionally cold and sterile sound sources like the presets on cheap Casio keyboards or more broadly, any electronics. More to come on this in our interview with Say Hi (To Your Mom).
In the meantime, check out Casiotone's Daytrotter session here. And enjoy these vids of Casiotone and Say Hi.
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Casiotone - Nashville Parthenon
Say Hi To Your Mom Live @ the Soundgarden
Friday, February 22, 2008
Another great Daytrotter session...
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Jazz great to perform tonight
Tonight at An die Musik Baltimore jazz legend Lafayette Gilchrist will perform with area saxophonist Carl Grubbs.
Gilchrist was featured on the recent Wire soundtrack.
He didn't begin playing the piano until age 17, and before that he was a boxer. Some say his playing style mimics the rhythm of a young Sugar Ray Robinson. The left hand, the foot work if you will, constantly shuffles, while the left hand jabs, then lets loose a flurry of blows.
I remember Carl Grubbs, who studied with Coltrane, from the time I shadowed at St. Paul's. He was teaching a class, and I was blown away by what he had to say.
All in all, this should be a great performance.
--Bez
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Thrushes Interview (w/ Casey, Rachel, Ryan & Anna)
AS: So let’s start easy, you guys are all Baltimore-bred, correct? AS: What are your musical backgrounds like? Anna: I started playing guitar when I was 14. Ryan: I started playing drums in the 4th or 5th grade. My first band played a bunch of old Cure covers. It was the easiest stuff we could find to learn. Like Three Imaginary Boys, I think I played that song about 3000 times when I was 14. AS: That was the easiest stuff you could find? Ryan: Easiest stuff we could find that we liked. Casey: We played the Ramones and Sex Pistols. They were probably a little bit easier. Ryan: Yeah, you were badass hahah. AS: So nothing like what you’ve developed into? Casey: I think the closest thing is Sonic Youth. I’ve always loved them since I was 13, 14. That was pretty much it. I think all of us missed the first kind of shoegaze stuff. AS: Do you think your early experiences helped inform your current sound? Rachel: Definitely, all the music I’ve listened to since high school is kind of revisited when I play. AS: How did the band form? Rachel: Casey and I first started trying to put something together…we were dating. We really wanted to put a band together for a long time. We started playing together, then Anna joined, then Ryan. Around 2005, I think, maybe the fall. AS: Did you guys go all in when you formed the band, buying tons of equipment that kind of thing? Anna: Well we had most of our own stuff. Casey actually buys most of it. He bought my pedal for me! AS: One of my friends recently went all in to a band, dropped his whole savings into recording and a new set of equipment only to see the band fold a few months after he dropped out of college to join. Casey: No, it didn’t really happen like that for us. We are all like 20-something so we’ve all been through college and have full-time jobs and careers right now. AS: Where did the name come from? Rachel: Casey thought of it. Anna: Casey came up with a list of names and we picked it off the list. Anna: Just like a baby. Casey: We just thought it fit what we were doing best and went with it. AS: How did you come into your sound if you weren’t really into the whole shoegaze thing? AS: So you kind of just fell into the sound and now the shoegaze thing has been foisted on you? Casey: Yea, exactly. AS: What do you think each of you brings to the sound of the band overall and how you influence it? Casey: I can talk a little about the guitars. Anna writes mainly the melodies, real clean, crisp, good melodies. I kind of just beef it up, add some atmosphere. That’s kind of what I do. I think both of us really play well off each other. On our own, neither of us would be nearly as good. It’s really nice, really lucky to find someone like that. Rachel: I think going along with that, Ryan and I are right underneath that. Keeping it grounded, giving something you can tap your foot to. Ryan: I try to play a lot of textural beats to add a little more than just a regular drum beat. Like I use maraca sticks as drum sticks just to make it a little bit fuller and more layered sounding. Anna: I feel like when writing melodies, I rely a lot on Rachel because I feel like I get a lot of ideas from what you are playing. So I can write words. It just all goes together really well. We definitely could not do it without someone. I think we’ve tried it before when one person was sick and we were just like “fuck this” it didn’t work out at all. AS: In shopping up a new song, how does the process start? "Where are the songs born," if you'll let me be a little cliched. Anna: Usually we just start jamming around at practice. Casey or I will just play something…Ryan will come in and play a drum beat to it and then it sounds awesome. And that’s how it just works. Ryan: But not until then. Right? Anna: *laughs* Not until Ryan comes in. If Ryan’s not there, you might as well call it a day. Rachel: The best part is when Anna just starts singing. Ryan: Some songs take like 4 practices, but some songs immediately she’ll just start singing something. Rachel: That was the best part about when the band got together, the 3 of us were hanging out in this basement on Guilford Ave. Anna said “Who’s gonna sing?” I said “Uhhh I dunno,” then she says “Well maybe I’ll sing” and then we all thought whoa you’re so good! AS: So who writes the lyrics? How do you typically go about it? Anna: I write the lyrics. I just get an idea of what we are playing. Sometimes it’s just like homework. I just go home and write something before the next practice with my acoustic. But sometimes it all gets written at practice. It’s pretty organic…but I never bring words to practice. AS: Which song did you really struggle with? Was there one you didn’t want to put words to but felt like you had to? Anna: One of our brand new songs, “Push and Pull,” that was hard. It took maybe 4 or 5 practices. The songs on “Sun Come Undone” don’t have that many words on them anyway. They actually happened pretty quickly. AS: For each of you, what inspires you and what makes this enjoyable to you? Anna: It’s just something I have to do. If I don’t practice at least once a week, I feel crazy and depressed. Plus, I get to hang out with 3 of my best friends…people I trust most that I know. It’s always fun. Casey: For me, especially with this band, I’ve always liked to play live. That’s what I enjoy doing. And for us, going into the studio is strong and good, but live is what I really enjoy doing. I think we’re a pretty good live band. Ryan: A lot of musicians always say they are either into playing live or into recording, choosing one over the other. I personally love to get buried in the studio and love to play live equally. It’s a totally different level of satisfaction to both. Rachel: I think it’s really fun being in practice and just somebody walks in, plays something, somebody else plays something and all of a sudden… Ryan: You’re like WOW where’d that come from! That is probably the most satifsfying part of being in a band, when a song just kinda happens. This band is the only band I’ve been in that could write a song in a practice and it’s just as good as another band I might have been in that takes a month to write a song. That’s the best feeling. Casey: We definitely work pretty quick, which is good. Anna: I feel that we know each other so well at this point, I can anticipate what Casey’s going to do…I love what we do. Casey: We very rarely have to tell anyone what to play, at all. Exactly what Anna just said, I know what Rachel’s gonna play and it’s usually right on with what I’m thinking. Ryan: If I’m lost on a part, I don’t mind asking these guys “do you like this,” “what do you think I should do with this part”…that’s the thing too. You learn from experience. When you’re younger and in all these bands, there’s all this arguing and bullshit you get tired of dealing with. We’ve all been through that, and now we’ve ended up in this band, at the right time and it works really well. AS: How did “Sun Come Undone” materialize? Casey: For that record, we were only really together for about 7 or 8 months before we went into the studio. Our first show was in Feb 06, we went into the studio in October of 06. We had been really starting writing songs maybe around December. We originally went in to do a 5 or 6 song EP. We got in there, went through the first few songs really really quick. So we figured let’s just record everything we know and pick out what we like later. We recorded everything and it all came out how we wanted it to be…so that was the record. About 2 and a half days, in and done. It was pretty cool. AS: That’s phenomenal. How long did mixing take? Casey: Mixing was actually longer than recording, it took about 30 hours. We had a lot going on. We were just making sure we still had the powerful element of the live show while at the same time being able to have everything sound polished. You can hear the different instruments, melodies, vocals just right. A lot of it was really just tweaking around…because of the dynamics of the record and our sound…it was a lot of tiny little stuff here and there. AS: I’ve seen you live multiple times, and compared to the record, there are definitely details that get lost if the sound guy isn’t right on, or the system is bad. Casey: Yeah I mean, you are kinda stuck . What are you gonna do? Having a decent vocal monitor and PA system are really really important. That’s key, because once the vocals get lost, everything else kind of goes down. AS: Are there any themes for the album for you personally or the band as a whole? Casey: I think we wanna have an emotional connection to the audience and the song. It can be pretty and everything else but it has to have that emotional weight to it. That is the benchmark for songs that we write…whether they continue on and we work on them or not. For me that’s musically, lyrically that comes a little later with Anna. It has to be, I don’t wanna say a serious song, but it has to have some kind of relevance and deeper meaning for me. AS: A lot of the songs are very personal and deal with emotions largely of heartbreak; what other parts of the emotional spectrum have you been exploring? Anna: I think some of our new songs are probably a little…angrierrr. This is about angry heartbreak. Rachel: But still pretty! Anna: You know, we’re angsty in different ways. I guess largely they are autobiographical. AS: So you won’t be tackling say politics any time soon? Anna: Ohhh noooo, that doesn’t interest me. If it’s not about me, then, you know, whatevs. *laughs* Rachel: I think the new songs go along really well with “Sun Come Undone.” They complement each other really nicely and shows a nice progression of where we came from. Ryan: Definitely. Half the first album was slower songs. We’ve probably written 8 or 9 new songs and only one of them is kind of slow. The new ones are faster, a lot of energy, but still consistent with the old stuff. AS: Is your newer material straying farther from the “shoegaze” label you seem to have been stuck with? Casey: I always thought that was kind of weird. I don’t think we’re a shoegaze band. Anna: I don’t think we ever tried to be… AS: So where did that come from? Anna: I think somebody just told us we were. *laughs* Casey: Loud guitars, a lot of distortion, a lot of effects… AS: People just thought “Oh hey, there’s some fuzz…” Anna: Fuzz and echoes! Ryan: My favorite thing was…I joined the band after it was recorded and I was reading all these reviews. It was the funniest thing because every review starts out being surprised that we’re not a shoegaze band. So what are you saying we sound like? People always think of shoegaze for some reason when they hear our name but nobody seems to think we have that sound. Anna: I can see where it came from… Casey: Definitely, I mean we definitely have elements of it. But a better comparison, with our more traditional pop song background, Jesus and Mary Chain is a better comparison than My Bloody Valentine. We don’t do stuff like that really. AS: You mentioned Sonic Youth too. Is that the angrier direction you’re heading towards? Casey: I think so. We’ve got a couple songs that could be off the Sister record or EVOL. Definitely more rhythmic and propulsive which I don’t think you have in a lot of older shoegaze bands. Lots of that is real stately… Ryan: Lots of reverb Casey: Yeah, like a big statement. AS: Agreed. It often feels very impersonal and cold. Like looking at a landscape rather than experiencing something directly. Ryan: Lyrics are real muddy… Casey: It’s just kinda real dour. Like me, I come from listening to Jawbreaker and punk rock. We have more of that, we’re definitely a live band, we enjoy what we’re doing, we have fun. I think we have good stage presence. And it’s definitely different than going and seeing footage of like Chapterhouse or something like that. Rachel: I saw something on somebody’s Myspace the other day that talked about “nu-gaze.” *collective groan* AS: Hahah, ok going around, what’s everyone’s favorite song to play live? Rachel: Ooh I know, I’ve got mine. It’s the new song “Night Falls” it’ll be on the next record. It’s got everything that we do…the quiet and the loud…pretty emotional lyrics…the textured kind of drums…it’s got a little bit of everything. Casey: For me, from the old record, “Ghost Train” and “Heartbeats” are my favorites to play live. The new stuff is just really really fricking good. Anna: Awesome. Awesome. Ryan: I wish we could just put an album out right now…I just want it out there. AS: What’s your time table for that? Casey: Probably May/June. We’ve got about ¾ of the songs written so… Anna: We just finished a new song tonight, we’ll get a couple more new ones down and we’ll shoot for May. Ryan: My favorite song is probably “As much to lose” which is another new one. The drums are probably my all-time favorite thing I’ve ever written in my life. Anna: I’m with Ryan on “As much to lose.” But from the old album, I kind of like “Loyalty.” Ryan: “Flying” is my favorite from the old album! Rachel: Nobody said “Aidan Quinn” though! AS: I actually like “Ghost Train” and “Loyalty.” Rachel: “Ghost Train” is a song that we’ve played at every show EVER. Ryan: Every once in a while I get Casey to play “Flying.” Casey: *ugh* Ryan: I always have to find an excuse like “It’s my birthday, let’s play ‘Flying’” Casey: That’s just my least favorite song…it’s just one of those things. My guitar part is just the same the whole song so it’s kind of boring for me to play. Anna: Whose choice was that? Casey: Whatever it worked. Everyone loves it except for me. AS: Let’s shift gears onto Baltimore, the scene, the environment, what’s good, bad, changed. Ryan: You know I actually just read an article in Rolling Stone that Beach House was their band of the month and they talked about the burgeoning Baltimore music scene. And I couldn’t believe they were talking about Baltimore’s music scene, does it even exist, what is that? AS: Back when Dan Deacon released Spiderman of the Rings, I think I saw him featured in Spin as album of the day or something. Ryan: Yeah, they mentioned him in there too! And I was like name 4 bands out of Baltimore that are really big…you can’t! Casey: I mean, nowadays a lot of it is the Wham City scene. There’s good…and then there’s stuff that’s...interesting. Ryan: I remember back when I was younger Candy Machine was the big Baltimore band. And the coolest thing about them was they didn’t sound like anybody else. But if you’re from Baltimore, they sounded like a Baltimore band and they were doing it just perfect. They didn’t compromise. A lot of the good Baltimore bands they’re like “fuck a record label.” They’ve got an attitude. But every once in a while a gem like Candy Machine will come along, they’re doing their own thing and it just sticks. And those guys can do whatever they want, they’re in all kinds of bands now. Casey: When I came down here 10, 12 years ago. Dischord records was it. And being outside the DC scene and not being able to play these DC shows. DC was a tight scene, if you were from Baltimore you couldn’t play there. Same with Philly. So Baltimore really had a chip on its shoulder saying “Fuck DC, fuck New York, fuck Philly.” We’re playing here, this is what we’re gonna be. It definitely led to a lot of different styles of music. It’s cheap to live and record here. I think it’s a weird scene. There’s a lot of bands, a lot of publicity and press around Baltimore. But it’s not as good on the inside as it seems from the outside. I think it’s not as cohesive a scene as it’s portrayed. There’s a lot of small cliques and groups. AS: Sometimes it seems like there’s Wham City, City Paper and then just kinda…other. Anna: If you’re not in, you’re out. Casey: That’s the way it goes. Especially for a band like us…there’s nobody that sounds like is in or near Baltimore. We’re not arty enough to play Wham City, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But we also don’t sound like the typical Baltimore indie rock band either. AS: Has this led to any major problems? Casey: No, we haven’t had issue playing shows, getting people to come out. We play on weird bills with different bands and styles. AS: I’ve seen you play with Squaaks before. Who else have you done shows with in the area? Casey: We played with Monarch/Wye Oak a lot when they first started out. Locally, they are probably the closest to what we do. They’re good people. Squaaks like you said. Hymnen, we used to play with them a lot. They’ve got a new band coming out. And then we just kinda play with whoever’s around. AS: How’d you get hooked onto the Raveonettes bill? Anna: We’re just that good. Ryan: Luck. Casey: We’ve been really lucky. That’s the best thing about being in Baltimore. We’ve gotten the chance to play with bands here that if we were in NYC, DC, Philly, we would’ve never had a chance to play with. The Ottobar has been great for us. I’ve been bugging Todd to get us to play with the Raveonettes for almost 3 years. And this is the only stop on their tour that they have a local band opening for them. We met the Raveonettes last winter, Rachel and I… Rachel: It was the best thing ever. Casey: We’re both huge fans and they’re super super nice people so we’re really psyched about the show. Ryan: And the other band, Glasvegas is… Casey: Glasvegas…they are un-fucking-believeable. AS: Glas Vegas? Ryan: From Glasgow Casey: G-L-A-S, Vegas they are like darlings of the European press right now. It should be a really good show. ***Editorial note: Unfortunately, Glasvegas just pulled out of their support slot for Raveonettes due to recording commitments. AS: What about your Alternadads gig? How did that happen? Casey: We got asked to do the show. None of us knew what it was. We looked it up, it’s a good event. It’s a good chance for people our age, 20-30, with kids, to come out on a Saturday morning/afternoon, see good music and let your kids run around. It’s been real successful in DC and on the West Coast so it should be a pretty interesting event. AS: So will you be playing a normal set? Casey: Volume-wise it’ll be turned down for the kids, Ryan’s gotta play with quiet sticks. Other than that, it’s gonna be a pretty normal show. We’re breaking it up into two 20-25minute sets. In between Neal is gonna be reading from his book. Anna: It’ll be fun. I teach lots of kids…Ryan’s got a kid so…bring it on. AS: What kind of audience are you expecting? Casey: You know, it’s 10 in the morning so I don’t really know. I know you don’t have to have kids to goto the show. I think it’s gonna be parents our age bonding over bullshit kid stuff, sneaking in bloody marys in sippy cups. I really don’t think any of us have any idea what to expect though. Other than some little kids better not come up and mess with my pedals because then there’s gonna be some problems. Rachel: But we’ll be able to hear Anna a lot better, probably. AS: How do you feel about the venues that have been popping up in the past few months/year? Lo-Fi, Metro Gallery, Talking Head reopening… Casey: Metro’s great, absolutely beautiful place to see shows, people like going there. Great atmosphere, clean. The owner Sarah is a total sweetheart. Anna: Sarah’s the best. She’s so reliable and professional all the time. I can’t say enough good stuff about her. Casey: Lo-Fi…we haven’t had an opportunity to play there yet. Talking Head’s open again, excited about that. Great space, sound system is phenomenal. Ottobar is great. We played that Joe Squared pizza place, they’re really supportive of local artists. AS: It really seems like them and Load of Fun are really building up something on North Ave. Ryan: I’ve never even been in that place…Load of Fun…what is that? Casey: It’s that place across from Joe Squared…seen some quality art there. Anna: It’s got all the cats in there and Russian people… Ryan: Russian people and cats…great…my two favorite things. Casey: I think starting from the last year and the prior year, there was a good year to 18 months that there was the Ottobar and the Sidebar and that was really it…it’s good there’s places to play now. I don’t know if the Baltimore scene can support a lot of shows. We’ve kind of seen that, having 2-3 shows on the same night…really splits the draw. AS: Have you played anywhere in DC? Casey: We’ve actually only played once in DC actually. It’s been really tough to book there. We’ve all got day jobs so we try to only play out of town shows Fridays or Saturdays. We played DC9 in December. Decent turnout, good show. It’s been tough with promoters trying to give us like Tuesday night shows and for us to go down there and play a show to like 13 people…it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Ryan: It’s also the only major city where when we try to book shows they ask “Well where else have you played in DC?” Nobody else ever asks that question. Casey: Yeah, we get shows in NYC, Boston, Philly no problem. But DC is just kinda weird. AS: Have you thought about Fort Reno before? Casey: We applied last year. But they won’t let us play because we’re Baltimore. It’s all DC bands. It’s a great spot…but it’s for DC bands…but it is what it is. Ryan: One of my favorite moments ever, I saw Fugazi at Ft Reno in the middle of a thunderstorm and they played right through. Anna: It was magical. It blew his mind. Ryan: Hey man, you know what it was magical! Lemme tell you why it was magical. You know how Fugazi has these breaks in their songs, this nahhh, then they stop on a dime. Then right behind the stage the whole sky lit up with lightning. Anna: It was like God came down… Ryan: And then it went away and they went right back into the song. You could not… Anna: …and blessed Fugazi with lightning. Ryan: …everybody just lost their minds. You could not have planned this moment any better. It was amazing. One of my favorite all-time concert moments… Anna: …and then magic happened. Ryan: Hey! Are you talkin over me this whole conversation? AS: This is why I have this recorder…because there is no way I could possibly write what both of you are saying unless I had some extra hands. And now, I have both! So what’s the deal with the remix CD? Casey: It just got the whole track-list today. We were actually listening to it before you came in. We’re playing May 10th at the Metro Gallery. That’ll be our release for it. It’s all “Heartbeats,” and hopefully there’ll be a new video we filmed at Metro and a live version of the song too. AS: So the remix will be out on Birdnote as well? What about the new album? Casey: Remix is out on Birdnote. We hope to have the album done by July. We’ll shop it around and see if we find a label that fits. AS: What else do you have planned for the year? Casey: A few weekend road trips, we may do a summer tour again depending on how the recording process goes. Anna: My favorite most recent thing, is Rogue Wave’s newest album that came out in September. Rachel: Personally I like Lust Lust Lust, the Raveonettes new record. Ryan: That’s a good record. I never liked them so much until I heard that one. Rachel: Did you know there aren’t any cymbals on that record? Ryan: What? I’m done with them. Screw that band. Rachel: *laughs* Now you don’t like it. I read it in an interview or else I would’ve never noticed. Ryan: I saw the Super Furry Animals recently in DC. That was a good show. Anna: Did they have the percussion celery? AS: …? Ryan: They actually got Paul McCartney in the studio for a guest spot on their new album. They just got him to come in , sit in a chair and recorded him chewing on celery. Can you believe that? I would’ve had him sing, pick up a guitar, anything. They’re just a weird band. Casey: No I don’t like the Beatles. I wouldn’t really care. *collective gasp*
This past Monday night I had the distinct pleasure of going up to visit the residence of and chat with Baltimore's most elite, sorta-shoegaze-but-really-not-so-much, songbirds in Thrushes.
Situated between Hamilton and Lauraville, the only house on the block with the porch light on makes everything feel like family and home before I even step inside. And that continued as the door opened to the guys and gals lounging in their living room around a box of brownies, with their feisty and adorable dog Heidi and a bottle of red wine.
You can tell Thrushes love what they do and love doing it together. They are a band that functions like a family-unit of the closest friends. And that bodes really well for listeners and their music.
Full interview after the jump. And enjoy this demo of their song "Trees", courtesy of Casey and crew!
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Casey: You guys are. I’m not. I’m from
Rachel: I just did the regular band kind of stuff, played the flute.
Casey: I just listened to a lot of punk rock. That’s pretty much what I did when I was a kid. Nothing like what we sound like now.
AS: Kind of like a baby?
Casey: It really just came natural. That was just the way we sounded. None of us were really big shoegaze or noise-rock fans…
AS: Last thing, coolest, favorite, most interesting thing you’ve come across or done recently?
Beach House giveaway!
If you haven't gotten a whiff already, those churning fellows at neighboring blog Butterteam have gotten some Beach House schwag which they are giving away. Follow the cholesterol to the contest here.
Free stuff rocks. Stay tuned for our exclusive Thrushes interview by the end of the week.
Matmos Interview (w/ Drew Daniel, Martin Schmidt)
AS- What are you impressions of Martin- It’s forbidding because of its reputation, and it’s large and sprawling, and not very well laid out. But I’m speaking as a Californian. To echo Martin, there is a longer history here, architecturally. There is so much brick, which you never see in California because of earthquakes. So you are just aware of this lumbering gothic mass of buildings, so many abandoned. Obviously you can’t cross Baltimore without seeing a lot of poverty, and predatory environments, and struggling people. That is certainly different from San Francisco, which is very much under going a Manhattanization. Martin- Yeah, at the moment San Francisco is on fire. I lived there for 22 years and it wasn’t always like that, but it was never as low as Baltimore is now. Drew- I love Baltimore. I’ve sort of been frustrated and confused by its physical layout. We came back from a show in California in two in the morning, in the pouring rain, and thought that Franklin was a two-way street driving the wrong way straight into traffic. This cop pulled out of nowhere. Martin- And this was just in a bad neighborhood. Drew- Yea it was gnarly. I thought “man we’re so fucked.” The guy took one look at our California plates, and the equipment in the car. The cop was like "what the hell is wrong with you guys? What are you doing?" But I feel like in that moment Baltimore reached out and saved us. Baltimore is totally different from San Francisco is so complete a manner, that it feels really fresh to be here. I feel like I’m in a city with so much more history. Racially it’s a completely different experience. In San Francisco we lived in a Latino neighborhood, and our default setting was that everyone around you was Salvadorian or Mexican. And then I was always on the Berkley campus, which is largely Asian. To come here, it is just a totally different mixture. That feels very cool. I think the biggest change overall is just that money affects what is possible, and how people think in ways you don’t really realize when you are in one stable situation all the time. So, in San Francisco, because of the software industries, there is a lot of creativity, but also this insanely high rent that affects everything. Then you come to Baltimore, a city that’s been on this bad downward spiral for thirty years, and rent is so low that all these people can live by making really fucked-up music and they don’t sweat the rent at all. Martin- I don’t know. I think they are all sweating the rent. It’s just not the same as San Francisco in that respect. I’m sure people are working their asses off here, and people are working their asses off there, but they are certainly getting a better deal on real estate here. Drew- I didn’t expect the scene to be so noisy and harsh here…that’s been cool. I thought San Francisco was like the place where the freaks are. That’s true in the sense that it has an old bohemian history, and it’s always had a big queer community. And yet coming to Baltimore, and going out and hearing what people are doing musically, it seems much more ferocious here, formally. Maybe it’s because everyone is playing through guitar amps, and there is no PA and everything sounds really crunched out. It’s been humbling to see just how high the standards are, especially the improvised music in Baltimore. I can’t think of an equivalent to High Zero in San Francisco. There is an improvisational scene around venues like 21 Gram that happens all the time, but there isn’t this feeling of everyone coming together, and people coming from around the world to focus on stuff that is so formally out there. I think that is cool. AS- You mentioned High Zero, and you previously preformed at Red Room. Is it a conscientious effort of Matmos to bolster the experimental music scene in Baltimore? Drew- I don’t think they need us. Martin- And we’re not famous to the point where we’re going to help anybody. Drew- I’m just grateful they are accepting us. Martin- Yea exactly. I’m really, really, really relieved that people haven’t been snooty to us. In fact, they have been super kind and welcoming. We don’t make improvised music. We make music that frequently goes eu-eu-eu-eu, eu-eu-eu-eu. Drew- And that is a problem for some people, but not here. Martin- We sent a live album we made with J Lesser that was mostly improvised stuff recorded on the radio to the London Musicians Collective, this improv organization in London, to review. They literally sent it back. Which was impressive in its own right, that they bothered to send it back postage paid, with a note that said something like “this music doesn’t impress us at all. This is not improvised music.” For a while we thought we were neither fish nor flesh. We’re not improv, and we’re not proper electronic music, because we’re not dj’s right? Drew- We’re not rocking jams, obviously. Martin- We fit poorly into any of these categories. But we have certainly done shockingly well with it, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve always been surprised that this thing has done as well as it has. Drew- Honestly my sense of the Baltimore scene, before I lived here, was based on knowing about Dan Deacon and Spank Rock, where it is always about cold-rocking the party. So, when we moved here I though “god we’re just not going to fit in at all,” because that is not really what we do. Martin- I think that Floristree show the other night was excellent proof of it. We do not bring the jams…just a thought. Drew- But that has been fine, because that is not what people expect anyway. We don’t condescend or worry that people won’t understand that. I feel that, no, they absolutely do get it. The number of people that are doing stuff that is kind of funky, yet about texture, noise and sound, rather than pop music per se…that seems to be the mode a lot of interesting Baltimore music is based around. Like a Rubbed Raw show kind of sounds like 2 Live Crew, but it also sounds like White House, sounds like noise. Leprechaun Catering, or Snacks have electronic rhythms, but it isn’t slavishly so, and it’s pretty loud…certainly wild and wooly. That’s the way people do it here. I guess in a way, we’re oriented slightly differently, but people have been very understanding. AS- What was your first exposure to music, your first experience making music, and what were some watershed musical moments? Martin- I didn’t really listen to music in the way that I realize now, the way most people did, until I was 16. I did not listen to popular music when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15…at all. I was kind of just unaware of it. Drew- You played the piano. Martin- I mean there was music on the radio. But, honestly music was just not part of my life. My father listened to opera. I probably saw 50 operas with my father by the time I was 15. I didn’t love any of them. I didn’t hate them…it wasn’t torture. It was just kind of a weird thing. My father was like “Yup. We’re gonna go see Il travatore this weekend,” you know, and off we went. I think in the long run it affected me a lot, in that it I feel that spectacle is part of music. I think I have an increased tolerance, or enjoyment of long form music, in that I was not raised with a four-minute song format. Yea, I think that is something interesting I haven’t talked about much before. Drew- I mean the thing that I remember about an encounter with, at the time wasn’t making music, but when I think back to it now, it kind of was. As a child I got a tape recorder that had a defective microphone. I would record my voice, but instead of it sounding normal, it was incredibly distorted…kind of like a monster growling. I think that experience was really important to me. Obviously, like a lot of people, it was a time in life when you don’t feel powerful, and the idea that sound could make you powerful by changing you was something intuitive…I guess in a way that sometimes in dreams you have powers or abilities that you don’t have in waking life…my broken tape recorder kind of felt like that to me. But I was really into monsters as a little kid. I loved to draw monsters… Martin- Now you make sound monsters…But when I was 16, I got sick of being beat up. I saw, clearly, that music was the thing that everyone was super into that stopped you from getting beat up. Like, if you became one of the people who were smoking. If you became a heavy metal guy, or I went to high school in central California so there guys into low riders and low rider music, which I realize now is much more detail than just that. But as a nerdy, white 14-year-old I was like “oh the scary Latino people listen to that, and the scary black people listen to that, and the scary long-haired white people listen to that.” Drew- I kind of lucked out, I guess, in that I had a sort of hipster stepfather who owned this movie theater in Louisville, Kentucky that showed European art cinema and silent films. He was showing in the late 70s films about punk rock. So I kind of had a hip set of parents that already knew about weird music. That definitely set me off on the course of knowing about that stuff at a pretty young age, because there was a hardcore scene in Kentucky, which I learned about in eighth grade. There was a funny year when half the class was really into Prince, and half the class was into Black Flag. I guess that dates me to 84, 85…so long ago. Martin- When I think of that time…I was out of college…well, I was never in college really. But I was well into my twenties by the time Drew was just getting into Black Flag or Prince. Drew- He saw Black Flag before Henry was the singer. Martin- He is still to me, in my mind, the new figure. Drew- Yea, we’re old. Martin- I understand that Henry guy is ok. As far as watershed musical moments, I met this woman; well she was a girl then, when I was 17. She was like “No, no, no, no”…this is like 1981…”No. Your long hair shit is over. There is this new thing, it’s from England, and it’s called punk rock. You’re a punk rocker. If your gonna hang out with me, you’ve got to cut off your nasty hair and listen to Crash, and the Circle Jerks, and the Sex Pistols, (which were a little old even then). Yes, Kansas, Boston…other bands named after American cities, just don’t cut it anymore.” And I was like “Yes Ma’am, cool girl.” I started taking drugs, and lots of them. Music became something to do while you were on drugs, for me. And really core to my entire experience of making music is listening to it while on drugs. I haven’t taken drugs for 15 years, maybe longer, but it is still absolutely like “would this be interesting if I was tripping an acid?” That is absolutely part and parcel of what I think about when I work on the video work, and when we’re making the music. Drew- Yea. I was straight edge all through high school because the hardcore punk scene in Martin- I really kind of regarded it as, socially, a short cut to an expanded consciousness. So that the increased awareness of the world that is necessary to appreciate everything from minimalism to bird songs to whatever can be come to through Zen or by taking lsd, with the right intentions. Drew- So often on lsd you are arrested by a completely banal phenomena, but your state makes you more receptive to it, and treat is aesthetically, in a way that when your not in that mind frame, your more prone to filter it out. That can lead to the same kind of perception that certainly our work tries to bring out anyway. To hear the musicality of an everyday object, that’s what musique concrete does. You take an everyday object and you try to find the latent musicality that’s already inside of the sound it makes. Well LSD’s effect on you as you ride home on the train and hear the train rhythm as a pitch, and as chord, as a rhythmic pattern, as a manifold. You know, it’s already implicit there, so it kind of makes sense that hallucinogenic consciousness and musique concrete go together. They are ways of transposing on set of information into another kind of information. Martin- I think John Cage’s revelation, whether it came from mushrooms or Zen Buddhism…he was certainly into both, heavily. I think they feed into each other a lot, I’m guessing, he never actually, as far as I know, never said, “yea I take a lot of psychedelic mushrooms. Drew- He was into foraging for mushrooms. Martin- It was hard not to read that as a drug-addled youth as “John Cage is into mushrooms, man.” Continue to Part 2 or Part 3 of 3
A couple Tuesdays ago, I got a chance to talk with Martin and Drew of Matmos. While the weather outside was icy enough to force Maryland polls to stay open for an extra hour and a half, I met the two at their row house by the Hopkins campus. We sat down at their dining room table, and Drew lit candles.
The interview is divide into halves. In the first half Matmos talk about their new hometown, their childhoods, and tripping face.
This is the first interview in a semi-regular series profiling Baltimore music makers
--Bez
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Drew- When I came here I was given a four-hour tour of the city by a Hopkins professor who teaches a class about Baltimore. He took me to Sandtown, and to the loading docks where the old dead industries used to be, and to all these different neighborhoods. It was kind of overwhelming.
They were all their music. That is kind of how they were thought about, too. I decided if were to stopped getting beat up I need to grow my hair long and start listening to heavy metal music. And I did. Oh and smoking. I programmatically embarked on a course of growing my hair long, smoking Marlboro cigarettes, and I was like “I’m going to find out about this rock music thing.” I believe that is what’s called being a poser. But when you’re 15 or 16 you can engage in a pose so sincerely that you are it. So in a year I wasn’t a poser anymore, I was a fucking Hessian, or whatever they call them now.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Beach House has a new video!
Maybe not super-new now, since I feel like the last person in the e-world to break the news on this...but it should be done. So here it is...Baltimore's own Beach House recently released the video for "You Came To Me," a track off their upcoming LP, Devotion, out on Carpark Records.
The song and video are gorgeous. See for yourselves after the jump.
Don't forget that you have 2 chances to see Beach House in the Balt/DC metro area in the coming months.
02/28 - G-Spot, Baltimore, MD Record Release
04/04 - Rock and Roll Hotel, Washington, DC
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