Interview w/ Magik Markers: Some Kind of Blood Orgy

As published by LA Record:

Formed in 2001 in a Connecticut basement, Magik Markers have covered a lot of ground, figuratively and literally. Now based in New York, noise rock duo Pete Nolan (drums, percussion) and Elisa Ambrogio (guitar, vocals) recently became a trio, adding John Shaw (bass) to the lineup. The band recently performed in an Estonian occult film and bobbed around in the Dead Sea. This interview by Linda Rapka.

I saw you perform a couple years ago in New Orleans at a fabulously grungy dive called the Hi-Ho Lounge. There was only a handful of people there, but you guys still tore shit up. Do you like playing smaller venues?
Pete Nolan (drums): We love dives. And we love New Orleans. This guy Rob down there always shows us around. He took us to this place Ernie K-Doe's — the guy that sang that '50s song "Mother in Law." He was this crazy flamboyant character, like Little Richard meets Sun Ra. He's dead but his widow has this bar where there's this weird effigy to him and they carry it around in parades and stuff.

Back in Hartford you guys used to throw shows in Elisa's dad's basement.
It's the best kind of show. It was a total party zone—authentic out of the '60s. There was a Hubert Humphrey poster on one wall, black-lit spray painting everywhere and this really cool figure of this Randy California/Hendrix-looking guy playing guitar. It was a cool zone but it was a wreck when we lived there. It was her grandparents' house so it had filled up with shit. There were all these boxes — mostly of lottery card receipts. I cleaned out maybe 50 boxes of nothing but receipts for lottery cards. It really was a complete shitpile of crazy. There was an army of dirty stuffed animals. It was a cool zone but I had to basically put a bunch of shit in one corner of the room and sort of drape it away and then we could have shows there.

What were the basement shows like?
It was Hartford. Some of the shows we only had like ten people there — Hartford G's smokin' blunts. But the premiere show for the Magik Markers was a total blowout show. This band Tart played, and the Bunnybrains. That was the only show we played there. Our first and last. And then they actually lost the house.

How did Magik Markers end up being in a film in Estonia?
Last year we played in Estonia with this director Veiko Õunpuu. Apparently he was really into our Boss record, and he made this crazy movie called The Temptation of St. Tony and wanted us to be in his film. These things come out of left field. We were just in Jerusalem — we were in Jesus' tomb! — and then we walked from there to play a show. I really am baffled by some of the stuff that we've done. It's a strange sort of occult movie about some businessman who somehow gets involved with the underworld scene in Estonia. We were on the border of Russia, and all the shooting was in this Stalinist European ballroom. There was this dinner party going on and we were the house band. After we played, they brought out all these girls who were dressed up as signs of the zodiac, and a devil character made this speech saying, "We believe that the zodiac is going to fall, and we want you to vote for what sign you want to go first." They all voted and they took the girl in the back and chopped her up in pieces, and they all ate her. Some kind of blood orgy ensued after that. On the film set itself they were just drinking vodka like animals. Everyone was wasted. We were totally freaked out. We didn't know what the hell was going on.

Not every band goes from Jesus' tomb to a blood orgy in Estonia within a year.
It's hard to turn down opportunities like those. That's the thing — if you can go somewhere and see something that you've never seen before, on a personal level that's helped me develop. It can spur you on and spur your imagination on. We were just at the Dead Sea, floating around. It was really sting-y. I had all these cuts on my face from shaving and it burned.

I thought the Dead Sea was supposed to be healing.
Yeah, it was healing. I was being cured like a ham or something.

With all your world travels, what made you name your new album after a local quarry?
That's all Elisa's thing. Her big thing is that no band has ever come out of Hartford or claimed they're out of Hartford. Anyone from Hartford moves to New York and says, "Hey, we're a New York band." She's like, "No, we're from Hartford." When the record came out the Hartford Courant did this huge story about us — in the paper our faces took up half the page. They were like, "Wow, you're from Hartford? You named your record after this quarry?" It was major news in Hartford.

The producer on the new record is Scott Colburn, who's worked with bands like Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Clinic and Feral Children. How’d you hook up with him?
The label asked who we wanted to record with. We kind of could do whatever we wanted. We were thinking Scott Colburn, and I was really into it because I'm a big Sun City Girls fan and I knew he was their producer. It was almost from a geeked-out fan perspective that we wanted to work with him. I didn't even realize that he'd done stuff with Animal Collective. He had a great zone. We were right in his house up there in Seattle. His house is a converted church. He's a total audio nerd. He really knows how to suck the best sound out of a room, and a band.

The band puts out limited-release CD-Rs of live shows and studio recordings on your label, Arbitrary Signs, between official albums. What drives this need for perpetual output?
We always wanna have something new for when we hit the road. Every time we go on tour we make something new and we're always recording, and so much of it's improvised and in different styles.

Is it like keeping your own musical scrapbook?
Yeah, it definitely is kind of like a documentary kind of thing. It's kind of slowed down a bit 'cause we only get together when we're touring. We have to make more of an effort to get together and just jam. I think these days we're probably gonna do more LP stuff just 'cause with the CD-R thing... those are just gonna be blank in like five years. It's an obsolete document. The last time we had a serious practice I had to take a bus up to western Massachusetts and be away from my family for four days. Just so we could practice. I don’t want to make such a huge effort and make a freakin' CD-R.

What makes it harder for the band to get together now?
Oh Jesus. Honestly, I don't even know how we've kept it together for so long. I think the only reason is 'cause we pretty consistently get some cool opportunities. There seems to be some people who are hip to what we're doing, so we want to now perpetuate for that reason.

Does the term "noise band" annoy or offend you?
No, that's super cool. I think it kind of is, at this point, dated or whatever, but there was a period in time when there was a lot going on across America — people doing this noise music. We're definitely rooted in that. Our first tour we toured the United States and played just like eight shows and sort of tapped into these places. Like in Baltimore, we played this place Tarantula Hill with Nautical Almanac and all of these sort of weirdos with similar abstract intents. We definitely have had an abstract intent all along.

With your new album, Balf Quarry, it seems you're moving away from noise and more into fully developed rock. There are even a couple of piano ballads.
We want to make records that are more like the kind of music that we want to listen to. We've had some time to devote to making records in our studio. Elisa's spending a lot of time with lyrics. It's not really so far off from where our intent is always: sort of improvised. We don’t usually go into a studio with too many songs pre-made. We usually have two or three ideas and then we kind of make up the rest. It's a pretty organic process. I think it's cool — it yields all kinds of results. The fact that we're just a two-piece makes it so we do a lot more layering and overdubbing and stuff like that.

You just added a third member to the band.
For a while we'd gone as a duo but now we're always a three-piece. We wouldn't do it any other way now. We just got this guy John playing bass — he's done a couple tours with us. I think we've maybe progressed to a whole sort of different thing. We've got a split record coming out with Sic Alps for this tour and on that record we recorded it all as a three-piece. It's all live recordings. In a way, it's harkening back to how we used to record — all live — and it has the feeling of a live band. It's something else. It's more psychedelic — more like these heavy jam zones, really cool guitar.

How did you end up playing drums with Jandek?
I've played with that dude a few times. The first time, he was supposed to play a show here in Chinatown in New York, and I was the last-minute guy. I'm pretty into Jandek. I've got a lot of his records, so it was a big deal for me to play with him. I didn't know what was expected, and we went and had this practice for like three hours, and he was so bummed.

Jandek was bummed with your playing?
He was just like, "Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I can go through with it." I was just like, "What the hell am I supposed to do? I'm sounding awful." But then we played the show and it turned out really cool. We played for an hour longer than we were supposed to. Then he had a show in London so he got me and Matt Heyner from the No Neck Blues Band to come over. That was really fun. We got loose with him there — we went out afterwards and got kinda drunk. Dude likes to party.

Is it true that early Magik Markers lyrics consisted of reciting the periodic table?
Maybe... I really don't know. Most of my memories of early Magik Markers shows, I can remember Elisa coming out like we're the MC5 or something, and Leah [Quimby, original live bassist] and Elisa, we didn't have any clue how to play, but we would fuckin' come out with that power anyway.

And blood, too. There was always some bloodshed at your shows.
Sometimes. Yeah, I guess maybe every time. I remember we always used to play a song called "23 Sprig Street," and another called "Marianne Faithfull 1966," but it would always be a completely different song. Elisa fucking has some profound improvisational lyrical moments. I think there's a really great thing on YouTube of us playing early on in London where she’s really going off. She'd torn the neck off her guitar and she's on the mic going way out and me and Leah are just like bashing away. It's really cool.

Has there been much onstage bloodshed lately?
Uh... yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't think we've changed as much as people think we have.

Kenneth Pattengale @ Hotel Cafe 11/25/09

As published by LA RECORD:

Where a twentysomething white kid from almost-suburban small town Eagle Rock got the soul of an old Delta blues player is anyone's guess. Kenneth Pattengale displayed his love of traditional American music combining elements of blues, Tom Waits, and good ol' fashioned country & western at Hotel Café Nov. 25. The show kicked off a monthlong residency celebrating the release of his seventh album, Speak!, and pulled in a decent size crowd—though Butch Walker held the headline spot that night, those ticketholders had to wait outside until Kenneth cleared the stage before allowed into the venue. With a five-piece band featuring fiddle, upright bass, accordion/keys, acoustic guitar and lap steel guitar (and sometimes percussion provided by Kenneth's stomping foot), Kenneth delivered impassioned vocals recalling Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and at times even Louis Armstrong. His music has an Americana feel without the mama-ran-off-with-my-brother-in-law lyrics, instead telling uplifting stories such as his dream of always wanting a daughter. "I feel like I'm trying to rush through this set," he said toward the end of the show, knowing there was a full queue outside awaiting entrance for the next act. "That is the wrong approach. I should revel in my time up here." You can experience the revelry at the official record release show Dec. 2, at noon Dec. 5 for an interview and live performance on KCRW, and throughout the month during his residency at Hotel Café. A free copy of Speak! will be given out at every performance.

—Linda Rapka

Jason Falkner @ Spaceland 11/7/09

As published by LA Record:

It’s no secret I have a bias when it comes to Jason Falkner. As webmistress of the powerpop master’s unofficial website for the past eight years and having attended nearly all of his L.A. shows within that span, I consider myself something of a Falkner connoisseur. It’s a harrowing task having to review one of your favorite artists, because you actually have more of a propensity to critique them. There’s no wiggle room; I know full well when Jason is in top form, and when he’s not. What’s more, since Jason spends most of his time producing (just this year he’s completed records with cult favorite Daniel Johnston, Dutch artist Anne Soldaat and put out his own self-produced album, All Quiet on the Noise Floor), he only plays a handful of shows any given year — most of which are in Japan, to the vexation of his loyal local following. An L.A. show has become something of a sacred event, so it was no surprise that Saturday’s sold-out show at Spaceland was as packed as I’ve ever seen. Opener buzz artist Nico Stai pulled in quite a draw and primed the crowd with his no nonsense rockage.

Admittedly, I was nervous when Jason took to the stage, knowing that as a working reporter for the evening I had to be brutally honest, no matter what. A third of the way through opening song “Honey” from his sophomore album Can You Still Feel?, I knew I need not fear a thing. The band was the tightest I’ve heard in nearly a decade. Jason is known for an ever-revolving roster of backing band mates (save for steadfast drummer Petur Smith, who’s commanded the kit since 2005), but this time all familiar faces graced the stage with guitarist Andy Blunda, who joined on last year, and bassist Jeff Lee from the 2005 lineup along with Smith. But it wasn’t just about the band. Unabashed about hitting those album-perfect high notes on the vocals and delivering guitar solos with abandon, Jason gave a rejuvenating performance compared to his more cautiously subdued performances of recent years—as noted after the show by his brother Ryan (aka Beck’s spazzo dance man, Juice). The set was chock full of goodies off his new album, which is currently only available as a Japanese import. Tunes like “Emotion Machine,” “Evangeline” and “Counting Sheep” seemed already familiar to plenty of audience members, as did Be Bop Deluxe cover “Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus” and resurrected early ’90s demo “My Home is Not a House” from his days with The Grays (Jon Brion, Buddy Judge, Dan McCarroll). He also pulled out rarely performed chestnuts “Hectified” from his 1996 debut Author Unknown and “The Plan” from his sophomore 1999 release. Upon his return from a brief tour of Japan and Shanghai, Jason plans another L.A. appearance at the Echo in December. Take it from me, bias notwithstanding, it will be a good one.

—Linda Rapka

Jarvis Cocker @ the Wiltern 7/27/09

As published by LA RECORD:


I have seen the true King of Pop, and he’s not much like Michael Jackson — although they did once cross paths at the 1996 BRIT Awards when Jackson did his best to impersonate Jesus Christ during a performance of his “Earth Song,” and Jarvis Cocker and Pulp mate Peter Mansell stormed the stage. (Jarvis repeatedly shook his bum at Jackson and was later detained by police on suspicion of assault. He was never charged.) In his first proper L.A. concert since playing Coachella two years ago, Jarvis proved his monarchical status at the Wiltern on July 27. With not one Pulp tune for safety, Jarvis culled the set entirely from his own solo library, relying heavily on recently released sophomore album Further Complications—including the Stooges-inspired “Angela,” the purely joyful rocker “Further Complications” and the sax-driven “Homewrecker!” And he reached all the way back to 2007 with songs off his debut Jarvis for the swaggering pop perfection of “Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time,” the deliciously “Crimson and Clover”-like “Black Magic” and the punk-thrasher “Fat Children.” As a dancer, he’s peerless, though he ain’t no moonwalker: Jarvis jerked about his freakishly long limbs with stone-cold geeky conviction. The band sounded so good and brought such a euphoric new dimension to the tracks that I couldn’t even hate Loud Drunk Guy behind me. He drowned out Jarv’s between-song quips with declarative bellowing. (“Stella makes you get in a FIGHT!” “Come ON, Jar-vis!” “Homewrecker!!!”) But anyone who sings along to Jarvis song—every single one, mind you—with such passion has to be a good guy, right? Jarv closed out the show out with “You’re in My Eyes (Discosong),” the final track off the new record, which was augmented by an actual disco ball shooting wondrous flickers of light into the audience. (P.S. I don’t know what the guy from the Weekly is talking about, saying the audience was not familiar with the material. Everyone around me—dead center in the pit—was singing along. If you don’t believe me, just ask L.D.G.)

—Linda Rapka

PJ Harvey & John Parish @ the Wiltern 6/27/09

My review as published by LA RECORD:

Polly Jean Harvey reaffirmed her undeniable prowess with sometime collaborator John Parish at the Wiltern Saturday night. Possessing a mystique and attitude far greater than her slight stature suggests, PJ carried the show with her dominating vocals, which were accentuated by irreverent movements clearly powered by the thralls of performance ecstasy. Everything about the stage set-up informed the audience that we were witnessing more than a mere rock show—instead, an event of theatric proportions. Similarly dressed from head to toe in sophisticated black, the band fused together into a singular unit. Each song was a world of its own, a point driven home by curtain-call-closing-lights-out after each and every song, followed by bows from each member of the band. PJ's back-and-forth between sporadic spoken word, angelic coo and primal scream worked particularly well with the current band setup, and especially with the backing music of John Parish. Thirteen years after their last collaboration, the pair took on a separate-but-equal approach to the recently released A Woman A Man Walked By, with Parish composing all the music and Harvey writing all lyrics. Even the weakest moments on the album — the unsexy barking of "I want your fucking ass!" on "April," the meandering melody of "Cracks in the Canvas" — commanded full attention in live form. The stellar standout performances of "Black Hearted Love," "The Chair" and "Leaving California" solidified that the pair's collaboration works best live.

—Linda Rapka

Interview w/ The Soundtrack Of Our Lives: "All Time is One Time"

Soundcheck @ the Troubadour 3/16/09. Photo by Linda Rapka


My interview with Swedish rock gods The Soundtrack Of Our Lives as published by LA Record:


The premiere psych-rockers of Scandinavia, Ebbot Lundberg (vocals), Mattias Bärjed (guitar), Kalle Gustafsson (bass), Martin Hederos (keys), Ian Person (guitar) and Fredrik Sandsten (drums) have redefined what it means to be influenced by ’70s psychedelia, prog pop and classic rock. Though Sweden’s economy is in as much trouble as ours, TSOOL wasn’t bashful about releasing their latest effort Communion—a discussion of the corporate mass psychosis that has slowly taken over the world—as an epic 90-minute double-CD. The band stopped by L.A. for the first time since opening for Robert Plant four years ago, having just enough time to do Leno, play a one-off at the Troubadour, and perform an acoustic set at a private party thrown by the Swedish Embassy in their honor. Just before sound check, Ebbot, Ian and Mattias strolled over to a nearby park to soak in some California sunshine, get trampled by frolicking dogs, and chat with Linda Rapka about their album.


Explain the cover art of your new album, “Communion” – a wealthy, middle-aged Caucasian couple drinking an ungodly concoction of fluorescent green alien juice.
Ian: We hired this guy to come up with some ideas about mass communication. So he came up with a few suggestions and this came up, and we kind of collaborated from there.

So what exactly is in that drink?
Ebbot: Tomorrow we will find out, because they’re gonna have this party, and they’re gonna do these drinks. So I’m curious!
Ian: We’re going to a party at the Swedish Embassy.
Ebbot: There will be lots of them there…

The new album was based on a theme of modern mass psychosis – which I see happening here in the U.S. Was America a major source of inspiration?
Ebbot: It was a global thing. I don’t know if you’ve seen the whole [CD] package, but it’s not only Caucasians, but all people.
Ian: It’s like Noah’s Ark.
Ebbot: Yeah, it’s like an ark. It’s just pictures you see every day without even thinking about it. It can be plastic surgery, it can be like a life coach, or whatever. I’m curious about the people on the cover – they don’t really know they’re on the cover. So we’ll see what’s going to happen. We might get sued!

Releasing a double CD in today’s economy is pretty ballsy.
Ian: We didn’t go out and say, “Let’s do a double CD.” It sort of evolved itself, really.
Mattias: I guess we always wanted to do a double album as well and now it just felt natural to do that.

You recently got out of your contractual obligations from Warner Bros. The last album you worked on, “Origins: Vol. 1,” they were pestering you about what was going to be the radio hit. That can be difficult when trying to create a work of art.
Ian: Especially when you’re in the studio and trying just to get everything going.
Ebbot: Well, I dunno. There’s a lot of singles on the new one, so we’re just gonna put out singles from the album and see what happens. Milk it as long as we can.
Ian: Basically Warner didn’t really have the money, ’cause we wanted a certain amount of money to do this album and they said no.

This album sounds a lot more energized than “Origins.”
Ian: We kind of had a lot more fun!
Mattias: We had some time off, actually like two years, before we started working on this album, so I guess that’s – you can hear that.
Ian: We had a lot of energy going in.

It sounds like it – which is probably why you ended up with so many songs.
Ian: For once it was quite easy to do the album. For once it was quite fun!

It always sounds like you guys are having fun.
Ian: But this time we actually had fun! We always had fun afterwards when the album is done. But now it was a nice process all the way.

I read that each of 24 tracks is supposed to symbolize each hour of the day.
Ebbot: It could be. It could be anything.

Were you trying to bring back the lost art of the concept album?
Ebbot: Yeah, why not? We grew up with it and we love it, so why not?

In today’s mp3 culture, a concept album is a way to bring back listening to an entire album.
Ian: Absolutely. Take some time off and listen. That’s one thing to do. The vinyl is coming back. All the record stores back home now they carry as much CDs as vinyl these days. The kids are learning.
Ebbot: It’s more like you do something that you wish existed and then you do it. You kind of miss it, you miss idea of what this became.
Ian: Carry on with the old legacy.

You cover a Nick Drake song, which is an interesting choice – not many people are perhaps brave enough to take on Drake.
Ebbot: That was the reason. Nobody ever did it. Maybe it was the wrong idea, I don’t know! We kind of did it around the demo version, which is on “The Time of No Reply.” The other one, John Cale produced, and it doesn’t really sound that good.

Another track, “The Fan Who Wasn’t There,” was based on a conversation that Ebbot had with Arthur Lee.
Ebbot: Yeah, some of it. He played in Gothenburg, his manager was there, who passed away like six months later, and then he passed away, sadly. It’s inspired by that conversation, having drinks for three hours. That was pretty fun. But it was sad…

It sounds like there were a lot of ’60s/’70s influences going on.
Ian: Yes.
Mattias: Yes.
Ebbot: Yes. And we DJ’d. It’s like all time is one time.
Ian: Squeeze them all in together. The best picks of raisins in the cookies.

I don’t like raisins.
Ian: Chocolate chips then.

Do you enjoy listening to your own records?
Ebbot: Yes. We’re warming up to it sometimes. Our own records. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s The Soundtrack of our Lives. We try to be what the name is. Sometimes it sucks. And sometimes it’s OK.

I stumbled upon a food blog where your bandmate Martin had posted his recipe for lamb tagine. Do any of you have any hidden surprises?
Ian: Martin and I are the chefs in the band. I’m into the Italian kitchen at the moment. A friend of mine had his wedding recently and I cooked for like 200 people.
Ebbot: Did you get paid?
Ian: No, I didn’t get paid. But the food was great. And I got to eat the food.

The food is what’s really important.
Mattias: When we come over here we try to eat as much Mexican food as possible because it’s really hard to find good Mexican food in Scandinavia – Sweden, Norway or Finland – it’s impossible.
Ebbot: There are no Mexicans. Just Finnish people.

You haven’t been to the U.S. since 2005.
Ebbot: We actually here in 2007 in New York for a while.
Ian: And Austin last year, SXSW. We did a couple of hit and runs. Guerilla warfare.

But what about L.A.? We missed you.
Ian: We love L.A., so we’ve been sad.
Ebbot: We went to China last year.
Ian: But that’s not America.

Was that your first time in China? What was it like?
Ebbot: It was exactly like here. But it’s even more futuristic. It’s like beyond “Bladerunner.”
Ian: The director’s cut.
Ebbot: It’s happened. It’s really growing fast and scary.

That is a lot of billions of people.
Ebbot: And they’re working all night. It’s like, “You’d better stop.” They’re just like ants.
Mattias: We might go to Taiwan in a month.
Ian: And then South America in the fall.

Do you get time to actually enjoy the countries you visit?
Ian: We try and plan a couple of days. When we did those long tours we didn’t have much time, but now in China we had a few days off, Australia we had like five, six days to hang out.
Ebbot: We spent a lot of time in L.A. and had a lot of time off here.

And a lot of Mexican food.
Mattias: Yeah. As you can tell.

If Obama’s stimulus package fails and I move to Sweden, who’s couch can I stay on?
Ian: Kalle’s got a grand studio. It’s gigantic.
Mattias: My guitar tech is single.

Ratatat @ the Palladium 4/4/09

Photo by Tim Drummond


As published by LA Record:


Having seen New York’s rock-driven electronic powerhouse Ratatat seven times (and counting), I’ve come to expect nothing short of greatness from guitarist Mike Stroud and bassist/synthman Evan Mast. No surprises at this show; the duo delivered their usual rock solid, booty-grinding performance. The Palladium, having recently undergone yet another renovation, is becoming an increasingly annoying venue (bag checks and full-body pat downs, seriously?). Regular concertgoers and press alike were subject to impolite security restricting floor access even to those of us with appropriate wristbands. But if you’re not averse to chatting up heavyset men in yellow jackets, you’ll end up having a good time in front of the stage. Before Ratatat delivered their highly anticipated set, the crowd suffered through the ridiculous white-boy rapping of Despot (“I eat donuts with grown-ups”… wha?) and was growing increasingly impatient during Tussle’s tepid not-so-experimental electronic set, the end of which was droned out by ravenous chants of “RATATAT! RATATAT!” from die-hards on the floor.

Gracing the stage a full half-hour late, the duo proved worth the wait. They started strong with the bombastic “Shiller” off their latest album, LP3, and never let up. The audience was almost as interesting as the show itself—mistaking the Palladium for Coachella Valley, a mysterious dude with an endless supply of water bottles wandered through the crowd squirting liquid into the gaping mouths of people apparently unconcerned with what else might be contained within the free water. Ratatat delivered favorites like “Crips” and “Loud Pipes” from their 2004 self-titled debut, “Wildcat” and “Lex” from their sophomore release Classics, and “Mirando” and “Shempi” from their latest. The set was full of material old and new—“full” being the operative word. My feet were shrieking bloody murder by the end of the looooong hour-and-a-half set, and by the time “17 Years” exploded from the stage, I was ecstatic—not only because it’s my fave Ratatat tune, but because it always signals the end of the show.

Interview w/ Hal Blaine (LA Record)

Illustration by Zach Hill


My interview with Hal Blaine as published in LA Record.


Listen to K-Earth for 10 minutes and you’ll hear Hal Blaine’s drums on at least half of the playlist. Drummer of the legendary group of session musicians in the ’50s and ’60s dubbed ‘The Wrecking Crew,’ Hal is the most recorded drummer of all time, estimated to have played on nearly 6,000 of the best known songs in modern history with hundreds of artists including Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, the Byrds, the Grass Roots, Sonny & Cher, the Mamas & the Papas, and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. He recorded 40 #1 singles, had 150 songs in the Top Ten, played on eight albums that won Grammys for Record of the Year, and was a key figure in Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound.’ He celebrates his 80th birthday on Feb. 5. This interview by Linda Rapka.

Who’s a better drummer—you or Richard ‘Pistol’ Allen of the Funk Brothers?
There’s no such thing as ‘better.’ I might have been luckier. I probably did many more hit records than he did. I have very close to 6,000 now.

You’ve played drums on more records than anybody — ever.
Probably. Yeah, probably. I guess there’s a thing called YouTube, and I was told you punch up my name and there are lists and lists and lists of albums I did.

How were you able to master so many different styles and genres?
We were all very well-versed — very studied musicians, graduates of music schools and institutions. If you wanna make it to the big time, you’ve got to know what you are doing. We knew what we were doing. We could go in and play any kind of music that was put in front of us, including the big music that was just coming in — rock ’n’ roll.

Did it bother you that you weren’t credited on all these hit records?
No. I was just happy playing my drums. We were very fortunate. We were all nightclub musicians making little money, and all of a sudden we fell into this—I like to call it this ‘vat of chocolate.’ In the beginning, they just never put credits on albums of musicians or background singers. One of the great producers came around, Bones Howe, and insisted that we get credits, and all of a sudden it started happening.

How many tracks would you record in a day?
Anywhere from one to 12 for a complete album.

You’d cut a whole album in a single day?
We often did. In a double session we’d do six in the first and six in the second.

What takes most bands months took you guys one day.
That’s because we had the studio experience. When we were doing Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson was a fine drummer, but he wasn’t really a drummer—he was a piano player. He’d go out there, but I was making the records. I was making 60 bucks that afternoon, and he probably making $50,000 or $60,000 that night.

Did it piss you off that you were making all these other people rich while your own albums couldn’t sell?
It never did because I was hired to make records, and every time I went in to record all I wanted to do was make a hit record for those people, not for myself. I mean sure, if I was on a record with Elvis Presley, of course that was a feather in my cap. And I wound up with more feathers than an Indian chief. I just never became an egomaniac. I didn’t go around saying, ‘Do you want me to use my John Denver sticks?’

Would you have preferred to have made it big in your own band?
Really, no. It’s like with movie stars: they have their hit movie, they work for so many years, they get their Oscar, and then they don’t do it anymore. I was like a good character actor. I worked in everything. I was very fortunate.

The Monkees were condemned for having the Wrecking Crew cut their albums, but all the top artists at the time were doing the same thing. Did they get a bad rap?
With the Monkees, all of a sudden it became a big scandal in Hollywood. But most people knew that they didn’t play on their records. Most people knew that we did the Beach Boys records and the Partridge Family and all those groups. They were all hits, and that’s the reason they were hits. What happened to the Monkees — it’s very silly.

Did it sink in at the time that you were doing something special?
You didn’t realize how much you were doing, when you were working two, three, four sessions a day. I was just happy to be working. We did the Mamas & the Papas overnight and they became the biggest things in the world. We did the Monterey Pop Festival. Everyone was at that show: Johnny Rivers, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, everybody. I brought the Wrecking Crew up and we were the house band for anybody who may have needed a band.

You just went up and played without rehearsing?
When you got the experience — and we had — I would just tell the guys, ‘Fake it like you’ve done for the rest of your life.’ And we did.

A lot of people don’t know that you weren’t just a session guy; you went on the road as well.
I rarely was on the road, but when John Denver went out for a week, that would be it. He never traveled for months and months. Nobody ever knew. If I left town, my secretary never, ever said that Mr. Blaine is out of town on tour, she’d just say I wasn’t available that day. When you’re known as a studio musician, that’s the top of the rung. But when you’re a road musician, you’re just a little bit under that. Nobody ever knew I went on the road.

Were there Hal Blaine groupies?
There were a few, yeah. I would go on the road sometimes and they would try to tear my clothes off. That was kind of big time.

Did you prefer the studio to being on the road?
I preferred staying at home. I had a beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills and all the toys. Unfortunately I lost them all in a divorce. I had 175 gold and platinum records on my walls, and they all had to be sold when I went through that divorce. I really lost everything.

How did you cope with that?
You just cope with it. That’s the way it was. You pick up the pieces and you start all over again. I could have… many times you’re thinking, ‘I could blow my brains out.’ But that’s not me. I wanted to play music, and I did play music.

Were you ever tempted by the vices of the ’60s?
Never. I never got into the booze, never got into the drugs. Tried marijuana a couple of times—it was terrible.

What was it like working with Phil Spector? Did he ever bring a gun to a session?
The detectives were out here for three hours questioning me. But it was kind of common knowledge that he usually was armed. He was not a drunk at all. There were no drugs involved in those sessions. I never, ever saw a gun. He was fine with us.
Can you compare working with Brian Wilson to Arthur Lee?
I don’t even remember. But I know I did that. I was involved with all those groups. Not only the Beach Boys, but America, Sonny & Cher… I just can’t think of all of them. They’re all listed on that YouTube thing.

Was anyone really nasty to work with?
Never ever. They were happy that I was there to help them make a hit record. Once in a while you’d get a producer who didn’t know what he was doing who’d say, ‘At the beginning of this song I want you to sound like the Beatles, and in the middle of the song try to do what you did on Simon & Garfunkel.’ I’d tell these guys, ‘I’ll be happy to do what you tell me to do, but why don’t you let us make hit records?’

Is it true you played snow chains on ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’?
When Paul played me ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’ for some reason I pictured a troubled guy in chains—in a chain gang. So I told them, ‘If you’ll allow me, I’d like to try something that might sound silly.’ They said, ‘Do what you wanna do, man.’ So I went out to my car and got my set of chains and they found a room at the studio at Columbia, an old microphone storage room, and I got a couple of pillows to set my knees on and I sat there for several hours smacking these chains to the floor. Drag on one, smack on two, drag on three, smack on four.

Of the few records you didn’t play on, what song in the rock ‘n’ roll songbook had a drumbeat where you were like, ‘Man, I wish I’d done that!’?
I don’t get inspired really much. I don’t listen to a lot of other drummers. In those days I wasn’t listening at all because I wanted my stuff to be fresh. I purposely never listened to the radio or other hit records because I didn’t want to copy what somebody else was doing.

Is there anyone in the Wrecking Crew you didn’t get along with?
Well, today of course I’m very upset with that goddamn Carol Kaye. She’s just so full of garbage. I saw her at the musicians union and I screamed expletives at the top of my lungs—‘Don’t you come near me, you son of a bitch!’ I laid it on her something terrible. She ran away. I haven’t seen her or talked to her since, and I wouldn’t anyway. She should have been tried for treason.

Did you go to Earl Palmer’s funeral?
Well, let me explain something. Earl had several families. And they all came out of the woodwork when he died because they thought he’d left millions. He had no money when he passed away. The problem is that because we were sort of the cream of the crop of musicians in Hollywood, as far as anyone was concerned we were making millions of dollars. But we weren’t. Nobody was making millions of dollars! We were working day to day, week to week, month to month, like everybody else, paying our mortgage. He was just going to have a quiet burial, which was what Earl wanted. He didn’t want a party, he didn’t want a memorial. I told my daughter the same thing. There will be no parties for me. When it’s over, it’s over. We were lucky enough to do it all, see it all, play it all, have it all, and now when we’re gone, forget it. We’re making room for the next people.

I hear that you still will play with pretty much anyone who asks for $100 an hour. Would you play my party and just go nuts on the drums for an hour?
Well, like if a guy wants me to play in a night club—I don’t want to go working in those smelly old joints. I don’t like that stuff anymore. I’m not a kid anymore. I like the peace and quiet. Once in a while if something special happens, like my buddy Don Randi has something down at the Baked Potato in Hollywood, I’m happy to do that. But I’ve been pounding those drums for well over sixty years now, and enough is enough.

Looking back on your career, what are you most proud of?
I’m supposed to get a doctorate from Berklee in Boston. I’ll be Dr. Hal Blaine, which is kinda far out. And a big scholarship—the companies I endorse, each year they’ll be donating drums and cymbals to people who get the scholarships. It’s an honor.

Will there ever be another Wrecking Crew?
Who knows? Cycles go around and you never know what’s gonna be next.

The Raconteurs @ the Greek 9/22/08

As published by LA Record:

Southern flavored ’70s-style rock was the order of the evening when the Raconteurs played the Greek last Monday, the first of their pair of shows at the outdoor hilltop venue. Sitting underneath the stars on the first autumn night of the year with gritty, rootsy blues rock wafting through the air, it felt like we’d been transported to the band’s home base of Nashville — all that was missing was a bonfire. (Though probably not the best idea in the tinder town that is Griffith Park.) Jack White, the undeniable star of the band, has a stage presence so big it’s amazing anyone else can share the same space. Fellow axeman Brendan Benson’s reserved nature served as a perfect complement to White’s blistering guitar, which didn’t spend too much time apart from the pitch shifter and “talking guitar” distortion pedals. The band’s other half — bass- and banjo-wielding Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, both members of garage revivalists the Greenhornes — held their own along with newcomer Mark Watrous taking over on keys and fiddle as member number five on this tour. The band was tight and the sound was perfect — kept at an ear-friendly 95 decibels by decree of the Greek — and though many of the tunes off the band’s latest release Consolers of the Lonely sound pretty much the same, that sameness was well enjoyed when infused with the energy of a live performance. When introducing “Steady, As She Goes,” White jested that the song “was a big hit for us in 1974.” If I hadn’t known better, I wouldn’t have got the joke. The band would be right at home amidst the many blues-tinged rock groups splashed on the cover of Rolling Stone that year.

—Linda Rapka

Ratatat @ the Henry Fonda 9/10/08

As published by LA RECORD:

"Bodies in motion" can best describe the packed house as New York’s energetic electronic/synth instrumental powerhouse Ratatat took over the stage on night two of their double-play at the Henry Fonda. Guitarist Mike Stroud and bassist/synthman Evan Mast have amassed a formidable following over the past few years by driving massive guitar riffs and fuzzy bass lines over synth-based, tape-looped beats. Incrementally adding band members to each tour, an all-time high of four musicians shared the stage, with additional bodies appearing behind drums and extra synths. Once again the lineup included human perpetual motion machine Jacob Morris, whose upper extremities (massive-fro topped head included) have been flailing about with wild intensity throughout entire Ratatat sets the past several tours. The extra manpower on stage added a valuable element to the duo’s already amazing live shows, which only show to profit from the use of real instruments over pre-recorded sounds. The energy of the four musicians seemed to rub off on the crowd, which jumped up and down in a collective human blob up until the very last note, expelling the occasional unified outburst when familiar songs from previous albums such as “Wildcat,” “Lex” and “Loud Pipes” were played. The visual portion of the show included background projections of the music videos for each track, featuring new ones off the band’s fifth, more dance-oriented release (third album proper not counting Ratatat’s two hip-hop remix albums), “LP3.” Notable new videos included “Miranda,” mixing scenes from a hackneyed Schwarzenegger flick with visuals of people catching on fire and exploding and flying hundreds of feet into the air all in perfect synch with the music, and “Flynn” showing the ridiculous Paul Simon 1986 music video “You Can Call Me Al” featuring none other than Chevy Chase.

-Linda Rapka

Interview w/ Dr. Dog

Illustration by Darryl Blood

My interview with Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog as published by LA Record:


Dr. Dog is a band out of Philly making music like the Beatles would if they had started recording again in the new millennium. The tightknit outfit has a similarly tightknit group of friends, all of whom share special nicknames within the realm of the band. Scott McMicken (singer/songwriter/guitarist), aka ‘Taxi,’ speaks now with Linda Rapka, proud to now be known in the world of Dr. Dog as ‘Timber.’

Why does every member of Dr. Dog have a nickname starting with the letter T?
Scott McMicken (singer/songwriter/guitarist): You know how whenever you get a bunch of dudes together, everyone has a nickname? It’s kind of in the spirit of that—only it was intentionally made a little bit more obtuse. The key thing has to do with the self-referential, self-indulgent world of Dr. Dog that we involve ourselves with, which is by and large irrelevant to the outside world.

It seems quite a difficult task to limit your nickname to just Ts.
It’s with everything we do. Give yourselves some parameters to work with. That is my obsession. It becomes more a reflection with a sense of honesty and a sense of connection and a sense of purpose that needs no particular type of space to manifest itself. It’s almost easier to see the truth and that aspect of yourself with the more parameters that you give yourself.

What does your nickname ‘Taxi’ mean?
I liked it because when people are like, ‘Oh, I need a taxi’ and a taxi comes around and takes ’em where they gotta go. It’s just kind of like a quiet little helper. The other slight formula that applies to the nickname thing—this is another sort of thing that I see as very prevalent in the Dr. Dog world—you allow yourself a general spirit of openness and playfulness to things, and without being too scathing or self-critical or too full of self-doubt you can let in any kind of absurd idea and then start to add significance or meaning to it whereas it didn’t really come from a point of that. Once we started giving the first couple of people nicknames that start with ‘T,’ we ran with it. Since then I’ve taken the ‘T’ to become a very significant letter and found a lot of ways of making the letter ‘T’ seem significant within the Dr. Dog world. That’s part of the fun in being in control of some processes.

The ‘T’ is actually a tool of empowerment.
This is really the one aspect of my life — this band — that I have total control over. We all do. We can do whatever we want. We can say whatever we want, and we can apply whatever rules we like to the whole thing, and that’s something that I’m really thankful about having in my life. I think that’s why I’m a musician—to sort of give myself that context. But the ‘T’ thing — beyond starting off as an arbitrary sort of thing — the name is supposed to either sound like your name, or then you can sort of pick some word that in a more intangible way represents some aspect of your character or something you might relate with. It’s also just sort of a door prize, like ‘Oh, you like us?’ Or ‘Oh, you wanna join the band? Is this a cool thing for you? Well, we need that, so join us.’

Can I have a nickname?
Absolutely. Being Linda… ‘Tender’ kind of sounds like ‘linder.’ There’s not a whole lot of obvious ones in terms of phonetics. ‘Timber.’ It’s a word obviously used for wood, and they make paper out of wood. And as a journalist you use paper. So that works. Nice. You’re gonna take this with you to your grave.

Do you have a dog?
I think the band name stuck particularly well because we all are dog lovers and have dogs and always have had dogs and dogs are always around. And when you have that kind of respect too, it’s like, why not give a dog a doctorate? My dog—I can’t believe that kind of creature she is. She’s a legitimately inspiring living creature. She deserves a doctorate.

You are often compared to bands of the sixties — especially the Beatles.
It’s not a very conscious thing, but it’s just one layer behind consciousness. I can’t speak for other artists or anything, but I just get the feel that in my extension to other avenues of creativity that I draw from, the one major criteria that I look for in everything that I enjoy comes from some sense of honesty. Some sense of true awareness of the personality behind what I’m witnessing. That’s what brings out aspects of yourself. It’s like this mirror to look into. Fundamentally what I’m looking for is sort of the influencelessness of what I like. However, the aesthetics that go into everything in people’s choices with any parameters, especially with pop music—it’s like you’ve got that 4/4 beat, the 3/4 beat, you’ve got about three minutes and 10 instruments to choose from—obviously the influences come into large play with people’s aesthetic choices and sensibilities and of course what people choose to gravitate toward says a lot about who they are. You draw from the things you connect with most, so influences I find to be as telling and informative about a person as the honesty and originality that they put forth from their heart. So it is just kind of one layer back. Especially in this day and age everything is this stew, and any spoonful can contain any ten different ingredients and it’s all really delicious. That’s just the kind of world we live in. Specifically with this record I was definitely more conscious of trying to piece together elements in my head that I wanted to add to this—in part because going into the record there wasn’t a really strong vision. Within about a week the vision was just like—bursting. In true spirit of the way we work, we just start throwing stuff out and then start reacting to it, and then when we find what works, we inject it with as much meaning and significance as we possibly can. A lot of the inspiriation for the record for me is from us being the engineers and producers of our own record, and I wanted to challenge myself in that side of things. We’ve always recorded with very minimal means because we’ve never really had a whole lot of money or equipment. But slowly, slowly, slowly, as we started borrowing from people, we put together a studio that I felt like could do whatever it was we wanted to do—whatever that may be. I really just wanted to try to bridge the gap sonically. I wanted to try to make a record that sounded like if you go back in time and take the minds out of a studio in 1963 and bring them into a contemporary studio, so that you still had the same fundamental sensibilities and sensitivity and maturity that existed much more naturally in those days because of those limitations—and this again comes back to the value and importance of limitations—but with the technology now. It’s not so much I want to make a record that sounds like it was made in 1963, but I wanted to make a record that sounded like people who were making good records in 1963 would be making now if they were still making records.

What were you most hoping to accomplish with the record?
I wanted to make music that was dance music. But my immediate association with dance music is something that I really don’t appreciate at all. Not club scene, not like indie rock with a disco beat or anything like that, but kind of pulse… dance music not so much for the function of dancing but more as like its really reliable foundations. You get that beat going and in a few seconds you’ve established that this is the place to be and nothing is really going to change all that much. Here you are in the world of this song and there’s that reliable current about it, which is ultimately what makes good dance music. You can sort of let go for a minute, give in to the music, and turn your mind off a little bit. That’s the importance of mindlessness with certain music. It’s for the mind, but it’s for the body, and like David Byrne said, it hits the body way before it hits the mind. That’s the first experience of music, and then beyond that your mind sort of kicks in and attaches it with your emotional experiences or whatever else you associate with the sounds you’re hearing. So I wanted that really steady, steady, steady unchanging beat, but I wanted to combine that not with something that was full of the dancehall, but with something that was very organic and rural and very dissociated from any social implications of dance music. I just pictured being this band that was in the middle. A combination of something very earthbound with something very…. like plastic and dirt together or something. All my sensibilities—just trying to make a little puzzle where you can find the pieces to make a picture. That rural kind of visceral—like this-is-humanity-at-its-essence kind of pop music for me is Tom Waits. The best dance music to me to this day is still forty years old—Motown and oldies and R&B music is the most concise and intelligent and well-stated pop music that I can really find. Those two things really don’t have a ton to do with one another, but in my head I wanted to try and marry my feelings about those things to an extent. I’m not sure I necessarily did it but it was a good aesthetic palette to draw from and switch on and off depending on the moment. It’s definitely something that as a band we’ll try to pursue more.

What do you like about the new record?
Because of the intangible life that the whole thing took on—the parallels that it started to draw between what was going on in my head in the studio to what I am as a man in my life, who I am to my girlfriend, to my best friend, who I am to this neighborhood I live in, or this state or this country or to my family, all those sort of larger things that go on in life—it all just came into one. Everything seemed to be relating in the same ways, and that’s another reason why I’m really happy with the outcome of this album. Because not only do I now have an album that I’m really proud of for us as a band, but I feel as though it definitely helped me to be a better person in a way. And a smarter person. None of it’s this epic scale—like overnight shift in perspective or anything. It’s all kind of subtle things. But it’s because of the subtlety that I trust it more because I know that nothing happens overnight. Not for a band, and not for a human being. To feel those small few changes is just a good sign that you’re kind of growing up a little bit. I definitely feel like the album gave me a little kick out of that. And I didn’t expect that. I don’t expect that out of being in a band necessarily. I do expect it being a songwriter. I don’t have those kind of high standards. I don’t need it to fulfill me on this existential level or anything. It’s just super fun. So for that to happen I’m just really thankful.

One of your former band members went off to become a lawyer. Was there ever a question of whether or not music was the right pursuit for anyone else in the band?
Those are the ones that are not in the band anymore. Those of us who are still in the band—we never had a difficult time confronting that fact. The five of us that are in the band now are pretty secure and know why it is we do this and that will overshadow some of the sacrifices that you make to do it. Because ultimately it’s your dream come true.

Interview w/ Colin Blunstone (the Zombies)

My interview with Colin Blunstone of the Zombies as published by LA Record:


By the time the Zombies’ 1968 song ‘Time of the Season’ became a staggeringly huge radio hit, the band had already broken up. In March, surviving founding members Colin Blunstone (vocals), Rod Argent (keys), Chris White (bass) and Hugh Grundy (drums) celebrated the 40th anniversary of the their only proper LP, "Odessey and Oracle" — now regarded by critics and music fans alike as one of the best albums of all time — with a double-disc live recording. Blunstone speaks now with Linda Rapka.

The Zombies just released the double-CD "Odessey and Oracle: 40th Anniversary Live Concert." How’d the idea of performing the entire album come about?
We realized it was forty years since the album was released, and it just seemed a good idea to celebrate the anniversary. We did three nights and all sold out, so we thought it also might be a good idea to record it. We DVD’d it as well. The CD has just come out in the UK. The DVD will be a bit later.

What’s it like to have respected peers and droves of fans sell out three nights of live performances for an album initially regarded as a failure?
It’s intriguing, isn’t it? First of all, it’s just very exiting. Whenever an album gets that kind of a response — even when you have to wait quite a long time! — it’s exciting; it makes you feel like your work has some worth. In some ways it’s intensified because it’s taken such a long time. It kind of validates what we were doing, like, ‘Yeah, we were on to something!’ At the time I really felt it was a strong album. I think that’s probably part of the reason the band finished — we’d only released one or two singles, but they went nowhere, and that was that. The band did finish before the album was even released. That does seem a bit premature. Maybe we should have waited a bit longer.

What do you think would have happened had the band not split?
Going on from a scene of ‘what if,’ it does intrigue me sometimes because I felt that at that time Rod and Chris were at the height of their songwriting capabilities. I would have been intrigued to have seen what we could have done next. But it doesn’t make any sense to think like that really. I think it makes much more sense to concentrate on what’s going on at the moment.

Is it true that up until just recently you were unaware ‘Odyssey’ was spelled wrong on the album?
I knew it was spelled wrong, but I thought it was spelled wrong on purpose. The cover was printed by an artist called Terry Quirk. We had a release date and the printing presses were ready to go with the artwork when suddenly he realized he’d spelled it wrong. Obviously, it wasn’t done on the computer in the ‘60s; it was a painting. Rod Argent and Chris White decided to concoct a story about how it was done on purpose, a play on the word ‘ode.’ They decided they would even tell the other members of the band this so it would sound more authentic. So I believed it until two or three years ago when I was doing a radio interview with Rod and he said it was a mistake and they tried to cover it up. I thought, ‘I don’t believe you’ve kept that secret for about 37 years!’ I thought it was really funny. Terry Quirk’s a wonderful artist, but he’s not a very good speller.

In the sixties "Odessey and Oracle" went virtually unrecognized until an entire year after its release, when ‘Time of the Season’ became a massive radio hit in the States—after the band had already broken up. After this success, why didn’t the band regroup?
Everybody had decided that it was time to move on and try new projects. Once we had split Rod and Chris were really committed to their new band Argent, and although the Zombies did have that huge hit ‘Time of the Season’ and we were offered a lot of money to come to the States and tour, it was never even a conversation. We were all involved in new projects. Everyone thought the time had passed.

There’s talk that the Zombies may do some live performances of "Odessey" here.
All I can say is that discussions are ongoing. There’s also talk of us doing a few more nights in the U.K. as well next year. It’s just because it was so successful and there’s a demand. To start with, we were only thinking of doing one night, and it spread to three. It’s not something that we really ever thought about touring in the full sense, but we’ve been offered a very big venue in London and four other dates around the country, and I would imagine that if we did it in the U.S., it would only five or six concerts at the most.

You once said your dream band would be made up of all bass players. Who would be in this ultimate bass lover’s band?
I don’t remember saying that! But I’m a huge fan of Sting so I’d expect to pick him if he wouldn’t mind being in my band.

Interview w/ Clinic - "More of a Nunny State"

My interview with Ade Blackburn of CLINIC as published in LA Record:


With the band's fifth full-length release, "Do It!" [Domino], Liverpudlian quartet Clinic – whose dark, avant garage-tinged rock is visually accentuated by the band’s penchant for adorning surgical masks and scrubs – the band has stopped trying to induce fear, opting instead for spreading Beach Boy-like love with a high-energy, booty-shaking summer LP. On the heel of Clinic's final European date before heading across the pond, Ade Blackburn (keys/melodica/vocals) spoke from Sheffield to Linda Rapka.

What came first – the band name or the surgical masks and scrubs?
The band name. We had that for quite a while. With the San Francisco bands Crime and the Residents, I like the way there was a visual side to what they did, but it wasn't something too serious. It was like a tacky pun on the band name. I liked something a bit more ridiculous like that.

Do you think that distracts the audience from the music or in a way makes them focus more on the music?
It kind of makes you think of the thing as a whole rather than as individuals – I've never liked the idea that you've got the lead singer out front, and it's a standard rock band. I don't think the image is an essential element, it’s more of an addition to it – it's just something else visually there. It wouldn't really make too much difference whether you played in costume or not, the main thing is still the music.

The last time I saw you live you weren't wearing your regular gear – you looked like monks or Freemasons or something.
That must have been the brown outfits with the stovepipe hats. It was kind of a mixture of a few things. I like that kind of Masonic bit of a twist to it. I like the idea that you're meant to be secretive but you’re playing in front of people, so it's a contradiction.

You guys have been offered by record labels to have a "band stylist."
I just thought that would be quite an enjoyable thing to do yourself.

Any new surprising outfits for the next tour?
Yeah, we've got some 'cause we thought this was a more brighter, almost tropical LP so we got Hawaiian shirts, which is a new addition. It's a bit of an homage to the Beach Boys.

The title of the new album, "Do It!", is pretty suggestive.
It was kind of meant to be humorous, something cheeky. I like the way you can read quite a few different things into it, and obviously the suggestive one is quite a good one. I think the main thing with it was, I don't know if you remember there was a prankster political movement in the '60s called The Yippies...

The Youth International Party – Abbie Hoffman, Paul Krassner...
Yeah. One of their slogans is "Do It!" which was all-encompassing, intensive, trying to get people not to be apathetic with politics. It just is, I suppose, quite funny now when people will just take things, whatever is pushed on them, so I thought it was a kind of sly reference to a time when people would stand up for things more. Here in the U.K. it's become more of a "nunny" state where you can't breathe almost without there being some petty law being cut down. Basically people's civil liberties are disappearing. I think it's happening everywhere.

The new album sounds more garage-rocky than previous releases. It reminds me of a lot of the raw '60s garage tunes on Nuggets.
Something which I really like about those kinds of records is that there's a lot of humor, but not in a working sense, something where it's more playful.

All your stuff is experimental and abstract, but also really danceable at the same time. It sounds like you think a lot about the enjoyment of the audience.
That's why we sort of don't have self-indulgent, really long instrumental pieces. No guitar solos! "Do It!" was really a fun album for us to record. Now so much music seems really serious and a bit too earnest.

What's your impression of L.A. audiences?
Los Angeles has actually been, I'd say, the best place each time when we play in America, which I suppose is a cliché thing to say, but the people have always been really supportive with us. The Troubadour is an ideal venue for us as well.

I read an interview with Brian where he said the "Walking With Thee" LP was "like a horror film ... trying to induce fear." What is "Do It!" trying to induce?
We saw it as sort of a summer album. I think if anything it's just something to sit back and enjoy. It's definitely not meant to have any scary side to it.

What made you decide to produce this one yourself when previous albums have been produced by other people?
If you want to sort of experiment and try for other things, if you're in a conventional studio you're always aware of time, so you're more likely to play it safe. Because we wanted to mess around with sounds, it meant if something didn't work out than it didn't matter at all, you know, so you gave yourself the luxury of being able to make a lot of mistakes or go down blind alleys but then it didn’t matter. It could be a good thing. Something that you thought had no potential could turn out to be, which happened with one thing, you put more kind of oddball things right next to each other.

Clinic always uses really interesting instruments – the melodica, and that fantastic sounding one on "Walking With Thee."
Oh yeah, the philicorda. It's an organ keyboard. It's just something that we’ve always been on the lookout for, it's something that takes it outside of a standard guitar band. Things like that we found at sales in Liverpool, as you say garage sales and that. I think a lot of people aren't interested in it so you can pick things up like that really, really cheaply as well. It's creative to put songs together but I think it's creative as well finding different instruments. If you're not used to playing an instrument sometimes you can come up with melody ideas more so than with the ones technically you're really proficient. None of us has ever been interested in taking lessons. I think it's how it combines as a whole, you know, rather than if you can play an instrument with too much reference or if you went to school and how fast you can play notes.

That rings especially here in Los Angeles, the land of Musicians Institute graduates.
Yeah, it's like that with 10-minute guitar solos, isn't it? I mean, if you go into guitar shops you can hear them whenever you feel like it.

Does the band still record only analog?
Yeah. This is the second album we've recorded ourselves and it was all going onto tape and we used kind of vintage effects and equipment and everything. I suppose it's a way you can get sounds which aren't typical of what's happening now. I think it just makes it sound natural as well. I think so many things now are so manipulated in studios that it comes out sounding really plastic and artificial. It seems to me the most exciting when you hear something – is where you can imagine where it's made by humans, and actually played in a room.

You guys are big fans of free jazz, sixties garage, and also punk – you've got a lot of eclectic influences from all over the place...
I've always listened to music from all kinds of different genres. You get really good things in each genre, so with your influences there's no reason to limit yourself to one particular style.

What's up next for the band?
The next thing we do will probably be almost like Glen Campbell. More '70s. Very light.

Are there any new bands within the last couple of years that you're into?
There's a kind of newish band from Liverpool called Mogstar, they've been touring with Portishead. They're really quite inventive, almost like space rock but with a kind of Liverpool influence as well.

I'm sure you all have quite extensive record collections. Any gems you particularly love?
I always forget what I've got. I think the last couple of CDs that I've bought was a Swell Maps CD. I think they're underrated. I think they had quite a strong sense of pop as well in what they did. The other thing was Charlie Mingus, "Black Saint and the Sinner Lady," I thought that was really good. But it's getting harder to buy records now.

You must scour record shops when on tour.
That's what we do a lot of the time, going to record shops. You've got Rhino in Los Angeles and Amoeba in San Francisco. There are some really good indie shops in America.

How would you describe your sound?
When making music I suppose you're always trying to make it so it's hard to categorize, so I don’t think I could sum it up 'cause that's the opposite of how I look at it. I write the melodies and the lyrics, but as a band then we would say add the musical parts and the rhythms to that, so it's still quite wide open from even though there are a lot of songs that just go over one chord, it's really open to what rhythms you can attach to it. It's collaborative but it's got a base to it with the melody.

Clinic has been together for about 10 years.
Yeah. That's quite unusual nowadays, isn't it? The equivalent of the seven-year itch of playing in a band is probably when you do your third album, so if you get past that point then everyone is aware of everybody else's strong points or foibles and quirks, so I think everyone knows when to give each other space or everyone takes different roles on within it. That's how you keep it fresh without being claustrophobic.

All of your records seem to draw from a particular influence you've immersed yourselves in at the time.
That goes back to what we were talking about using new instruments for each album. That way it's always, you're always aiming to do something different each time.

I hear you're a fan of my favorite author, Richard Brautigan, who unfortunately nobody else seems to know of.
I like Richard Brautigan because that had a real sense of the ridiculous to it. He'd start a paragraph and it'd be really everyday, very normal and suddenly it'd switch into something completely surreal. I like the sort of childlike view that he tends to write from. To me I think a straightforward sort of narrative lyric on the second or third listen can start to wear a bit thin, but I think if you’ve got something that's more implied or you can read something else into it, I think that can give it more longevity.

Any other influences? Films?
Probably my favorite director, who's not really fit into any art typecast, would be Woody Allen, just cause I think again where it's got humor in it, it really nails some kind of strong kind of philosophical points and observations with relationships. I just think he's so intelligent.

What's your one guilty pleasure?
Top Noodles. Do you have Top Noodles in America?

Top Ramen noodles?
Yeah. They're absolute rubbish.

CLINIC WITH SHEARWATER ON TUE., MAY 20, AT THE TROUBADOUR, 9018 SANTA MONICA BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / $20 / ALL AGES. TROUBADOUR.COM. DO IT! IS OUT NOW ON DOMINO. VISIT CLINIC AT CLINICVOOT.ORG.

Interview w/ Indian Jewelry - "Hang With us When We're on Fire"

My interview with Indian Jewelry as published in LA Record:

Indian Jewelry returned to their Houston hometown after many much-missed months in Los Angeles, though they left behind a closing set at the last Fuck Yeah Fest that will be a secret cherished memory for all those who chose to expose themselves to it. They have a new album coming out on We Are Free and will be playing a rare L.A. show this week. They speak now to Linda Rapka.

In your last L.A. RECORD interview, Tex said he was one the rare few to walk past a street lamp and make it go out.
Erika Thrasher (keys/guitar/vocals): He definitely brings on that type of current. He has a certain magical power.
Tex Kerschen (keys/guitar/vocals): It’s like walking around with your own personalized monogramed black cloud. But that doesn’t happen anymore. It’s all about positive thinking, like H.R. from Bad Brains. That’s a wild blast from the past. I’m all about the future.

It happens to me, like, all the time, and it really freaks me out.
E: Better get right then.

Do you have any suggestions for getting rid of this strange and useless mystical power?
T: Read War and Peace. To get anything out of this world you have to read War and Peace.

You just played SXSW. In three words, how would you describe the experience?
T: Here’s two: Corporate Walkathon. Or: Hung With Friends. There’s five.
E: We played at a children’s museum at this party at 3:30 in the morning. It was sponsored by Red Bull. Everybody was so messed up and they were puking all over the floor. It was a really odd setting. It was super, super crowded. Of course we just got there really late and played this crazy set with the Clip’d Beaks.

You were living in L.A. for a while. How did you end up back in Houston?
E: After L.A. we moved to Chicago and now we’ve been back in Houston for about nine months. We’re still mobile though.
T: We got kinda stranded here after we were in L.A. We were in an economic rut and had to work in a refinery for while. We don’t like things to get too easy for us. It’s like going back home. Or getting sent back to prison on a bunch of trumped-up charges. It’s home and it’s something. It’s a hidden spot in the eye of the world. It’s like a water fountain that dispenses poison.

How’s that different from L.A.?
T: L.A.’s a kind of widespread feel-goodery. An epidemic of feel-goodery.

What intrigues you about the nomadic lifestyle?
E: It’s not so much that—we’ve just made a lot of friends and when we have an interesting opportunity come up, we can’t pass it up. Maybe this next tour will lead us in a different direction.

The band is known to actively add and subtract musicians in the various cities you tour. That’s kind of a unique thing for a band to do.
T: Not really. The old R&B bands used to it. Chuck Berry. Bo Diddley. Jerry Lee Lewis. Little Richard. We’re also more like a rap band than a rock back. We have a humongous posse.

How did the core members meet?
T: The way bands meet, you know? We came together. Everything comes through something.
E: Through playing in various bands and coming together at the right time.
T: We’ve all known each other… well, the many of us in the black hole of the whole thing were in various bands and decided we were gonna have a more strict policy of who were gonna play with. It’s a band, but it’s not a band. It’s also kindred spirits. Even the core members of us have bands that are arguably better. Brandon, our guitar player, has the Electric Set and Terrible Eagle.

That record was released on your label.
T: The record is fucking jamming. It’s breathtakingly good. We had nothing to do with it but being complete fucking fans. Pink Cloud’s another band. The pack of people we work with are real songwriter and bandleaders in their own regard and only hang with us when we’re on fire.

Fans and critics have both noted the dark aspects of your music—one reviewer described it as "either the soundtrack for the insane or the type of music that you would be greeted with upon your arrival to hell."
E: I just see it as this really beautiful music and people always comment to me like it’s the darkest thing they’ve ever heard, or it’s really good drug music. As far as what I’m putting into it, that’s not my intention exactly, but maybe it just comes out that way. I think people are probably just getting out of it what they need.
T: Descriptions are descriptions. Things from the outside. We’re handicapped because we only see it from the inside. We play lots of music, but it’s just the music we like. We just try to increase the peace, but not in some sloganeer manner. You can’t set out to do one thing if you want to go the distance. And we goin’ on all way.

Tell us what’s happening with the new album Free Gold!
E: It’s coming out in May. We finished recording here in Houston. We were holed up in our house and had everybody come in. We figured we’d do it ourselves because that would give us more time. The way we like to do things, it’s easier to record ourselves.
T: We initially made it to be morning music without being too reductive. You haven’t heard it so it’s kind of unfair for you. You can’t parse my lines for bullshit. It’s all new stuff. In the past it’s all been done and done and reconstituted. The new album’s supposed to be about love but it’s much sadder than that. It’s about things we love, people we love, places we miss, people we miss. People we don’t tell we love. It’s a love record but it seems to be kind of a weeper.

On the Now We Are Free website there’s a rather garrulous letter signed by a self-proclaimed historian, one Mr. Ted Sands, who is unhappy that Indian Jewelry shares its name with a band that was active from 1971-1985.
T: We didn’t do our research very well. We thought it was kind of a distinct band name, and then six million Native American bands popped out of the ether. You can’t argue with history. He sent us some letters—we don’t know if they were cease and desist letters because they were just written in a convoluted kind of language so it was hard to make sense of what he wanted. There’s nothing legal about it—we’re not in violation of any law. The Internet has unearthed a lot of strange worms.
E: We kinda were changing our name for a while. At almost any show we played we changed our name. We finally decided upon Indian Jewelry when we were driving a lot from L.A. to Houston, back and forth, driving along the 140. There were all these signs along the highway for Indian jewelry! Indian jewelry! So it was literally a sign. It just seemed right.
T: We’d been working the angle do to something that had allusions to American Indians. Most of us that are into the idea of any justice and into American history are interested in the idea of indigenous people. In my life, I went to Palestine for a couple years—the country, not the city in Texas, though I’ve been there too—and I had a discussion with good friend of mine—a WWII vet—about looking in your own backyard first to look at injustice, and so I thought I should not be taking but giving love. Like giving the land back. And I’ll take a boat back to Ireland or wherever.

Does being married to one of your bandmates complicate the band situation or make it easier?
E: Wow, how did you know we’re married? I thought it was like super secret.

Word gets around.
E: It hasn’t changed anything because nothing’s really changed. We’ve been together for a long time. We can get a lot done; we’re both pretty focused on the band and dedicated to it, which makes it easier. But, as in any kind of situation, we probably have the same amount of tension as any band.
T: We’ve been together for almost ten years. I think it dictates the dynamic in some ways. We’re kind of stuck together. We can’t just break up. We decided we’d work together for better or for bad.

What do you think it would actually be like to party with Jandek?
T: We could find out if we wanted to. I thought it was kind of a fun thing at the time. He’s from here. He manages an adult entertainment complex. Not in that kind of way, but like a Bennigan’s. Or at least he used to. Now he’s a full time rep for Cool Whip. Since we wrote that song we’ve met people who’ve played with him. I bet he’s just like anybody else.

Nick Lowe/Robyn Hitchcock @ the El Rey 4/11/08 (review)

As published by LA Record:

When I heard that Robyn Hitchcock was coming back to town as co-headliner with Nick Lowe at the El Rey, the first thing I did was cash in on my fabulous L.A. RECORD connections to score tickets. The second thing I did was miss his entire set. I arrived at 10 pm, which on a Friday night by L.A. standards is pretty damn prompt, to find that not only had Robyn come and gone, but I'd already even missed Nick Lowe's first couple of tunes. Not being all that familiar with Lowe's stuff – except of course for his standards "Cruel to Be Kind" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" – I disappointedly resigned myself to sit through his set and try to enjoy myself. After listening to him play a couple of tunes of just him and acoustic guitar, I was sure that was not going to happen. But as the evening wore on, I found myself increasingly entranced by the 50-something Englishman's simple yet heartfelt melodies and story-like lyrics of life and love. Though sponsored by Indie 103, it felt like more of a KCRW crowd, the audience comprising faux-hipsters in their late twenties who allowed their parents to tag along, all singing to every song, completely enamored with Lowe. The highlight for me was the encore, when both Lowe and Hitchcock took the stage together and performed a number of surprising old covers, including the little-known 1963 tune "Hungry For Love" by Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, "Peggy Sue" by Buddy Holly and the Beatles' "If I Fell." (LL)

"Manny Nieto and the Matt Cronk Benefit" - interview

My interview with Manny Nieto as published by LA Record:

Manny Nieto is a major force in the northeast L.A. music scene—his former studio Wetanddry played host to the Mars Volta, 400 Blows, Circle Jerks, Darker My Love, She Wants Revenge, the Pity Party, Aztlan Underground and the Breeders, to name but a few, and won an L.A. RECORD readers’ pick for best L.A. recording studio. But he’s also a major friend: tonight’s benefit show at the Echo was originally set up to benefit his soon-to-open new studio, but once “Uncle Manny” heard about his friend Matt Cronk—of Qui and thee L.A. Gentlemen Callers—the show was changed to a full benefit for Matt. Manny speaks now with Lovely Linda.

You originally put together tonight’s show at the Echo to benefit your studio, but you changed it when you heard about Matt Cronk’s medical problems. Which is amazingly awesome.
The show was in the plans long ago to help out the studio. Sean from Fuck Yeah Fest had worked on booking it for three months, and we finally got this date. And then I heard that Matt got really sick. I really wanted to help him out, so I told Sean, “If you’ve got a night at the Echo, just do it.” It worked out perfectly because now he’s able to help out Matt, who’s also a really good friend of his. The show is completely to help Matt Cronk out with his huge doctor bills. If you’re a musician, most of us have no health coverage, so if you have a serious illness or need emergency services you are just pretty much fucked. I just hope enough funds are made to help him make a full recovery fast.

How well do you know Matt Cronk?
He calls me Uncle Manny and I have seen him nude. He lives five doors down from me, and a few summers ago when I was recording one of Thee L.A. Gentlemen Callers’ records at Steve Albini’s, me and Calixto would go over in the mornings to go get him and he’d be sleeping on the couch totally nude with a little loin cloth around his waist.

When’s the grand opening of your new recording studio?
I’m hoping to be open and recording late March. The studio is located in Lincoln Heights, which is just northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Damn, my first girlfriend was from Lincoln heights! Ummm, Maria con Manny…

Your former studio Wetandry—which closed its doors last November due to low-end hating neighbors—was known for using recycled analog tape as opposed to digital. What made you go the old school route?
When I started building the studio, the cheapest tape was used recycled. I ended up finding a place that would sell me tapes that were just used for commercials, barely used—the tape is 24 tracks, but commercials only use two or three, so I’d get premium tapes that weren’t really used. For years I just used those tapes. I’d have tapes of old Simpsons commercials, and after recording over it the song would end, and you’d hear Homer go “D’oh!” like a phantom ghost between songs. One time I had Jurassic Park and between the songs you’d hear all these dinosaurs eating flesh.

Wetandry was forced to close because the bands you recorded were so fucking loud. Who was the loudest?
Actually my own band, Distortion Felix. My bass player Juan—in Mars Volta now—plays so fucking loud! I had to build a special room at the studio with his bass rig just to keep the walls from crashing in!

What will the new studio be called?
Manny Nieto Studio, probably. I thought of all these names to use, but in all honesty everyone always just says, “Are you going to Manny’s studio?” So I figure I’m just gonna use that. Manny’s Studio sounds perfect. It’s actually named after my father, not myself. My pops blessed me with his name. He had a huge part of building my first studio. Not a lot of people know that we built it together. We were like the two stooges! Up until that point we didn’t hang out that much, but for that year we hung out every morning, ate lunch together… It was one of the only times we got to hang out. He passed away right at the beginning of the year. I actually signed the lease on the new space on Jan. 1 and I haven’t even done one thing to it ’til this week ’cause it’s been tough. Now I feel better about it. I know if things were different, he would be building the new spot with me today.

What do you hope for with the new studio?
Well, you’re only as good as how good the band is and how good a vibe you can capture on tape. That was the difference with Motown and Sun Studios and Abbey Road and Sunset Sound. They all had one thing—they had great bands recording in them. It’s all a matter of performance. Analog format sets itself up for performance, but if a band sucks, there’s nothing I can do for you. But if you’re using ProTools, man, you can do anything! It’s definitely in debate. The world has changed where digital is the way to go, but I’m gonna roll analog for as long as I can. Being here in L.A., I can only hope that some bands are naïve enough to say, “Fuck it, let’s do it this way and it’ll sound kickass.”

Where can one find the best suadero in town?
TOP SECRET.

DARKER MY LOVE, THE ICARUS LINE, CRYSTAL ANTLERS, HIT ME BACK AND TWEAK BIRD PLUS DJs KEITH MORRIS AND SAM VELDE PLAY A BENEFIT FOR MATT CRONK TONIGHT—THURS., FEB. 21—AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 7:30 PM / $10 / ALL AGES. WWW.ATTHEECHO.COM.