Mouse on Mars: Interplanetary Electronica

The rockers don’t know what they are doing or how they are doing it. The dancers are often perplexed at a seeming lack of structure. And the deejays couldn’t and wouldn’t dare venture into such dangerous territories. And all the while, despite their experimental endeavors, Mouse on Mars intrigue music appreciators of all types.

This German avant-garde electronic band is an especially eclectic outfit that can’t possibly be grouped into any specific category. Their discography ranges from ambient chill-out to abstract bombastic sonic onslaughts—and most times a combination of both. Deconstructing source material and rebuilding it piece-by-piece, Mouse on Mars juxtapose obtuse oscillations with anxiety-filled clicks, clangs and hisses, provoking chaos, just to tame it later and massage it into a blissful soundscape or straight up dance beat.

I was blessed to catch up with Jan Werner over the phone from his home in Germany for an interview to preview their recent North American shows. Together with collaborator Andi Toma, Mouse on Mars have covered more sonic landscapes than most other electronic outfits and Werner’s descriptive mission statements about the band’s sound are some of the most profound and poetic that I have ever heard—not bad for someone whose first language isn’t even English.

The photos and videos that follow are exclusive from the band’s February show at Great Scott in Boston, Massachusetts.

Enjoy.

 

Is Jan there?

Yup, I’m on the phone. Hi.

This is Nolan from Boston. Is this an okay time to talk?

Yes, It’s a perfect time. How are you Nolan?

Not bad, how about you?

I’m good. I’m on the couch.

What time is it over there?

It’s 10pm. People are sleeping. The street is calm. It’s nice. It’s freezing over here, literally.

Yeah, here too. I think its -20 Celsius here. I don’t know what it is in Fahrenheit.

When’s the last time you toured the US?

The last time was a really long time ago– 2006 or 2007– much too long.

So, you went 6 years between records, yet you released 2 records within a couple of months. Was that due to a wave of inspiration or was there a preconceived timeline in your minds made it that way?

We’re just timing things. We have a very special approach with timing where people prefer a predictable schedule. We are kind of free for a few years and then suddenly have far too many releases at once. If you think one way or another we might not go that way or we will. It’s all part of our path. We want to keep the unpredictability and that transcends our touring and release schedule. But we haven’t been unproductive. It’s just that we didn’t make any records. It’s not that the band split up or anything. The records are vastly different. Did you foresee the path ahead of time or did you have different ideas going into each one?

Parastrophics was basically a record that we had five years in the making and WOW was obviously a record completely out of the moment and a few weeks in production. It’s much more casual and actual and contemporary. I think that’s basically the concept. In ways those records are blending together basically where Parastrophics is basically a riddle and a map or a house of leaves, where WOW was about a much more immediate expression of a feeling and a moment that in an instant takes everything that would need reflection or need a sentence or even a word to express would be a waste of time. I feel like Parastrophics Is the complete opposite of WOW. Parastrophics is really rhythm encrypted and has edges and angles for a type of situation. The way those records back each other up and belong to the same sound and same cosmos describe the same planetary system relationship of sound and size of sound and sound material.

Back when I last saw you in 2001, you guys used a lot of live instrumentation and were said to use a lot of live instruments in the studio. To what degree has that changed? Do you record and perform primarily digitally now? Is it mostly computer based now?

It’s a good point actually. We use a lot of computers and programs nowadays because computers and software have become so incredibly complex and flexible in different ways and various ways, and definitely we’ve become more interested in software these days than with real instruments. It doesn’t mean that we’ve thrown it completely overboard, but I have to say that the computer possibilities are especially attractive—especially as a group who grew up with computers and digital technology where there’s no better time than now. It’s in all of our genes and we’re bathing in technology at the moment. Even in the visual way we work with computer generated visuals and we bring a video beamer, which makes the live situation more complex than if we would have brought instruments. The way we produce music is with controllers and a few hardware things that we still have, but less than if we had a hard band in a more traditional way.

How do songs change from recordings to a live setting, and what part does improvisation play live and on record?

Improvisation for us is important because it makes us aware of the moment. It means more to let go and try different directions. If you were to just reconstruct songs the way they were on the record or on paper, it would just be repetition of a formula that we don’t fit good in. Which leads me back to your first question. It doesn’t fit our rhythm or our behavior. We have to have the possibility where things are cut or stretched– the dynamic range has to be maximum for us to even be interested in what we are doing. This is what triggers our attention, and what translates live to an audience. That’s why it makes sense for us to play live—this tension. You never know what you’re going to get at the end of the night, but we know we’ll get through it and it’s the experience you have after all these years. You don’t know how it will work or what will happen. How does being a duo (like you’ll be on this tour) change things? Does that change the sound and setup entirely?

Yes, it changes the sound quite a bit. Working with our drummer and singer, he has a laptop linked into our laptops and we send sounds back and forth and we change his drum sounds and trigger new sounds. I would say the duo thing is even more immediate and even more improvised because its quicker and throwing out different interests to what each other is doing. Also, standing next to each other live at the table is definitely different to the other live setup where we’re spread out. It’s definitely different, but I can’t say what it’s like in the audience. I’ve never seen Mouse on Mars live [Laughs]. I don’t know how different it is in the end, but I know how I feel and I know how the duo thing has a more immediate and punchy sound and it is more driven and more improvised and chaotic at times. Is it more electronic sounding at times? Yes, it’s probably more electronic sounding at times.

Were you guys really born in the same hospital on the same day?

Yeah, that’s what we say. I have no memory of it at all. I think my earliest memory is of age 4 and I don’t remember Andy until later. So we are kind of like twins, you know?

Is there something that each of you bring to the table when you’re recording? Do you each have different strengths that are different from each other, but come together as Mouse on Mars?

Yeah, for sure. By making music together and the different ideas—sometimes I think we are so different that I think I don’t understand at all what the other person is about or why they want to do things that way. Sometimes I think there’s a massive discommunication between us, which is actually very creative I think—trying to figure out what each of us wants on a track and that, for some reason, creates part of the sound. That is one of the recipes of why we’re still working together. None of us understand what each other is doing. I can’t tell you where Andy’s music energy is coming from. I know he’s infinitely musical and incredibly restless and manic and he seems to have an infinite sound supply and idea supply, but then again each of us could do a record on his own. I could do a record on my own, and so could Andy.  He’s not dependant on me. But, either way we come together and create Mouse on Mars and it’s really different and it’s just so tense and it’s such a challenge for us. The music we’re doing together is a massive challenge– one of the great life challenges that we have at some point. You meet and you realize that this is really dangerous. If I hang out with this person I will end up in a mental hospital—it’s dangerous and you enjoy that. It’s a bit like what happens when you very deeply fall in love with a person. You see this person and you think I’m falling and I’m falling endlessly. You want to escape it, but you’re also hyper-attracted to it. And that is what happened musically with Andy. It’s kind of weird, but it’s endless. You start making music with this person, but there’s no end to it. Coming back to your question, I can’t tell you that Andy is very good at making a crazy bassline, or that he’s the weirdest hi-hat wizard you ever met. He’s just so great at everything and he can do whatever he wants to and it’s great. But it’s not so much his or my talent. It’s what happens when we sew these qualities together and see this massive music monster appear and we feel like we’re fighting it and we feel like Jedi knights and we’re fighting this beast of sound. This is our job and this is our task. Sometimes I feel like… like right now, I am at home and I have a nice home and I have a beautiful wife– she is traveling right now, she is an artist, she’s also quite busy at times. But when we are together at home it seems like the perfect world. And I don’t want anything but to be hanging out with my family, but when Andy’s calling I know we have to go on tour or we need to do something in the studio. When that happens I know I need to face the world and I know I need to go and fight this beast of doing music… and I know that only Andy and I can do it. I’m so sorry, I know. I’m so sorry. I don’t know if I’ll ever be back, and my kid is crying and wife won’t let me go, but I can’t help it. I have to do it because this Mouse on Mars thing is back out there and the only people who can contain it are Andy and me; and that’s our job.

Well, that’s one of the greatest answers I’ve ever heard in the course of interviewing. Do you prefer playing live or recording—or does it not really matter to you?

Um, well, we started in the studio. We started there and you never lose touch with that. I think the studio is our home and it’s really the source of where this Mouse on Mars thing comes from. We do enjoy playing live and we are very curious people and we like to strut around and each of us have our own paths in ways, but we are like cats in ways as well, playing live fits that attitude pretty well. You just go up there and see what happens. You create your music, and it was new and it was fleeting and then it’s gone. It was just for that moment. You don’t have to struggle at how you would record a track properly or how you would master, or which tracks will go on there. You just throw it out there each night and turn your back on the club and leave. It’s great. iI’s fantastic. The studio, though, it’s there everyday and it’s really like a dungeon. But again, this is where we started and this is still our home.

What happens if a computer crashes onstage, and has that ever happened to you?

Um, KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK, it’s never happened. But it would have been a nightmare, even from the very first gig. The computer isn’t just a sound producing machine, it really links the elements together. We’re using MIDI and we’re still linking through MIDI and these days its also processing the visuals which are happening in the moment and which are computer generated and different each night. Yeah, it’d be a nightmare if that happened, but at the same time, it’s life. If it were to happen it would be worse to have a stroke though, right?

I remember when Nobekazu Takemura was playing with you live and his computer crashed and he just got up and left the stage. The show was over.

Yeah! Wow, crazy! That was probably the only time we have ever played together, ever. I can’t believe you remember that. Maybe we had a gig in Japan?

This one was in Austin, Texas in 2001.

Wow! Crazy! Who else was playing, do you know?

I think it may have been Tortoise headlining.

Yeah. Absolutely. That can happen. We can still find a way. We have two computers and even if one would crash, we could just work and do something else with the other computer and find a way. We could find something to do…maybe a song contest with the audience or….

Do you ever consider the danceability of songs when you create them, or does that not matter to you?

To be honest, we have no idea. Our mind is very concerned with every person and individual. So, even if you play a show for a lot of people, for us all of the people out there are different. If were trying to make them dance we would assume that each one does their own dance. We would have to say “Everybody dance now” [laughs] which is already happening. We wouldn’t start a concert and say “everybody dance”. We don’t know how each person responds to what we’re doing and if people dance they do so for their own reason. Each person might start dancing at their own set point—we wouldn’t want to synchronize people, so we don’t think about what track would make people dance. We only know which tracks make us move and get us excited. We don’t have a recipe, though. Like if we said let’s put in a drum roll here. I know people can do it. I know deejays who know exactly when to make the drop and when to bring the bass back in. Plus, we don’t really think in track terms. We think more in story terms. Each song has a narration and has its peaks and ups and downs and comes back together. Each track is really a story, or a drama rather than a set of codes. People usually dance though, and we are happy about that. But if they don’t, we are not sad.

What is the state of the iPhone App that you’ve been working on?

Oh, don’t mention the iPhone App; it’s a nightmare. No, the iPhone App is going great. We are also working on an iPad App for a long time and it doesn’t seem to be coming together. This iPhone App is just the nicest project and is coming together really well. The person who coded it, Peter Kern, he is really just a great person. We kind of have a demo version together and in a couple of weeks we should have it ready. The biggest thing for us is to get this iTunes store running. It’s something that we are really bad with. You need all of this legal stuff and accounting stuff, so for that reason we need a bit of help. But once we have out iTunes store up and our own account, we can throw the App up there and people can download it and use it. I don’t know how long it takes for things like that to happen with applications, but it might be another three months and it will be in the store.

But do you think that over-simplifies what you guys do, or the effects that it creates? Does it give someone too much power who doesn’t know the technique? Is it cheating?

I see it as part, not of the bigger picture, but I see it an element within the picture. This App is definitely something that doesn’t substitute for a whole track. It is obviously a very specific element that you can dip your head into and you can really dig deep in that element and trying to explore it, but it won’t provide you with a full thing. For us it was really important to consider this as an instrument instead of a full production platform. It’s not like you throw in a couple of beats and then you throw in a bunch of synth sounds and then you put the track together. Also, some people won’t be able to use this at all. It can drive you crazy. It is really a thing of its own. It’s an uncontrollable device within its own right and I think for that I think its great. I think it’s super that you can have it on a phone and it’s cool that it’s simple. It’s important to realize we are not trying to do something complex in a simple way. It doesn’t pretend anything. It just stands there naked and tells you look, “I’m just a simple instrument and if you give me too much information I just produce a massive amount of feedback”. But if you just want to come up with sounds you’ve never heard before and find your way, then you are right. That’s what it does.

R.I.P Richie Havens (1941-2013)

Newport Folk Fest 2010

Richie Havens passed away this past week at the age of 72. From his participation in the Greenwich Village folk scene to his unforgettable performance as the opening act at Woodstock, Richie Havens’ will always be known as one of folk’s founding fathers and an undeniable all-around musical legend. Known for his smile as well as his open tunings, unusual fretting techniques and devastating reinterpretations of traditional ballads and popular rock songs, his music as well as his kindness will never be forgotten.

I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Havens in 2008 as he prepared to return to the Newport Folk Festival for the ninth time. We spoke briefly as he waited for a plane bound for Monaco to talk about 50+ years of folk as seen and heard through his eyes and ears.

You’re one of folk music’s veterans and have seen it all over the years. What is your definition of folk and how has it changed over the years

I hear you. I’m very strangely involved in that situation. When all my friends in Greenwich Village became famous and started going on the road they would play blues festivals if they were a blues band. They would play rock festivals if they were a rock band. When I first went on the road with an album called “Mixed Bag” they didn’t know what to do with me then—and they don’t know what to do with me now. I sing all different kinds of songs. When I showed up to the first club it was called Johnny’s Jazz club and I freaked out completely. I don’t sing Jazz. Then I walked over to the front door there was a little bill in the window and they said “Richie Havens: Folk-Jazz singer. I went ‘really’. That’s what I do. It went on and on. Richie Havens: Folk-Rock singer. Richie Havens: Folk Singer. And I was very fortunate to be a part of all of these culturally based musics. I’m really blessed to sing what I think is myself. I’ve never changed what I do. I think folk music is coming back in many, many ways. There are young people in all of these colleges with open mic nights and there’s a lot of talent out there. Young people have picked up on the idea that folk music is a language; it’s storytelling. There were 13 of us in Greenwich Villlage when it all started. By the time they made it big there were thousands of people that were doing that because they were inspired. They carried the next wave. And the next wave made rock n roll an acoustic thing.

Has folk music been blurred beyond it’s old definition.

I don’t really think folk has been blurred if you realize that everything besides what we traditionally call folk is also a folk music. A lot of people don’t realize that folk is the music of the ‘folk’. It doesn’t matter if they’re past, present or future. You get to chronicle what you’re living. I call rock ‘n roll the first generation primal scream. It was about trying to get a voice. And I think we made it. At my age at that time we were living in the traditions of cultural folk and were singing about ourselves whereas folk music that we learned which we called traditional was singing about the past. Now it seems the new generation is actually bringing out some originality in what we have. I think they have taken full advantage of what’s affecting them.

Newport Folk Fest 2010

You were in last year’s biopic, “I’m Still There” about Bob Dylan. Most people point their finger at Dylan for changing folk. What are your thoughts on that?

I think Dylan always had a tension towards rock n roll. And I think he made it [laughs]. You could see even back then that there was something different about him. He wrote a lot of songs that we saw with a cultural basis, but there was a line that divided his songs. Fifty-percent of his songs were love songs; the other half were chronicles. He was on a search to figure out who he was. He was able to change people’s ideas, people’s hearts and people’s ears. I call him the all-inclusive poet who got to sing his poetry.

You must have played the Newport Folk Fest before?

Yeah, 8 times… maybe 9 times. After doing that many, there were only 3 that it didn’t rain. I was fortunate to be at the ones that did, and I was also fortunate to be at the ones they called miracles where it didn’t rain. But no one moves. People set up and don’t move for three days. That was the first time that people didn’t move besides the Woodstock movie. That was it. It’s really a special devotion to a common cultural devotion. It’s funny to me. We never really looked at folk music as a really important part of folk music. Just to those that are traditionally into it. Those on the outside settled for the crossover.

You are best known for covering and reworking songs instead of your own material. Why did you decide to take that path?

I call myself a song singer. That’s what started me out. When I started singing Doo Wop we were singing our angst. When you come around like I did, I heard songs that changed my life. I knew I had found a new thing because I quit Doo Wop immediately. To me this was a broader scale where we could speak about ourselves on a much larger scale. I consider myself a song singer because the songs that you hear that I covered were actually being resang to me by myself. Those were the songs that actually changed my life.  Having done that I have the ability for a song to come to me and move me. I never sit down and say, ‘I’m gonna sing this song this way.’ I sing the song as I hear it the way that it moved me. Therefore these songs are for me as well as the audience. To me it’s so interesting to process what happens. I’ll hear a song and pick up my guitar and know for sure I couldn’t play it that way. I felt something, but I felt it in a different way. So that song would go in a box and 6 years later I’ll go ‘ah ha, that’s it. That’s how I do it.’ I get the songs to go through me. It always takes on it’s own tempo and it’s own meaning. It might be twice as fast. It might be half as fast. In these last three albums people have been saying that I’m doing something different. And I knew I didn’t know either. Then one day it came to me. The big secret it kept from me, ‘you’ve never sung songs in these keys before.’ That’s it– the pump is being primed again for sound and tangible lyrics.

South By Southwest: In Our Year of the Lord 2013

It was 80 degrees and I was lakeside sipping $5 margaritas in the warm glow of a sunny Austin afternoon when I received a photo of the terrible weather back home in Boston. Deep in the heart and soul of Texas, I was on location, on assignment and pretty much on vacation for the Lone Star State’s yearly festival of musical madness, South by Southwest.

SXSW started early this year, but despite the extra day and even more venues, the growing number of bands and fans were already overwhelming Austin, providing an increasingly difficult itinerary. Press passes aren’t what they used to be and it is quite easy to get stuck in line long enough to miss a few hours and a few acts. It’s important to have a few backup plans, and not to be discouraged when your first choices fall through. After all, the festival is supposed to be about discovering new talent.

The freaks and the fashionable parade the streets from noon until the early morning hours, making people-watching alone worth the price of the plane ticket. I joined the masses on Tuesday looking for something new, and I quickly found it. Making my way to the Paste Magazine/Newport Folk Festival’s showcase, I arrived just in time to see the start of Hooray for Riff Raff’s set. They were news to me and the female duo (sometimes more members) from New Orleans played a riveting stripped down set of country-tinged blues combining cover songs by Billie Holiday and Fred Neil as well as a slew of originals. Alternating between acoustic guitar and banjo, backed by a fiddle and the occasional toy piano, their set seemed perfectly at home on the front patio of the rickety old house now known as the Blackheart Bar. Not only will Hooray for Riff Raff make their debut at the Newport Folk Festival, but they found out just hours before their set they will be the opening act for the Alabama Shakes upcoming tour.

From there it was on to Viceland to catch the Skaters’ Austin debut. The buzz around them, combined with sharing a bill with Wavves and Japandroids created a line of about 2000 people snaked around the block. It would be my first letdown… but not my last.

After watching a few songs from the street, I decided to make better use of my time and headed over to the Mohawk to hear the Danish band, Indians. A three-piece consisting of more keyboards than people, the band combined layers of loops, Moogs and a brain-rattling drum pad to create dreamy, slightly dancey music while Enya-like atmospherics and the Copenhagen croon of lead singer Soren Juul filled in the empty spaces.

Looking to for some more traditional rock n roll, I drifted off to The North Door to catch Vietnam. After taking the past 5 years off, Michael Gerner is back with a new six-piece lineup and a new record, but their sound remains the same. Dark, lengthy and often druggy narratives are delivered without traditional verse/chorus structure and set against a heavy shimmer of blues guitar riffs.

After seeing the line for Jim James a couple blocks from the entrance. I decided to go back to my hotel and rest up for Wednesday. It was going to be a long week.

WEDNESDAY

The first thing you learn at the festival is of the numerous unpublicized daytime shows that go on throughout the week. Whether planned, secret or last minute, there are hundreds of shows that go on throughout the week at SXSW with the sun still up. They provide you with a chance to catch those acts that you might otherwise miss– not to mention the fact that these gigs are often accompanied by free food and drink. This makes the days extra long, and the unforgiving Texas sun does not help.

Waking early, I headed straight to Club de Ville, one of my favorite old haunts, as the Austin band Feathers took stage. A five-piece comprised of four women and a male drummer manning an electronic drum kit, Feathers wore tall heels and looked like the Runaways years later and sounded like a gothic Pat Benatar.

Heading to Main and Jr., previously the staple venue known as Emo’s, I was surprised to catch Indians, again. It would be show #2 of their 8 shows of the week. Back in the day, bands usually had only one official nighttime showcase and played as many daytime shows as they could. Back then three shows was a lot, now bands play as many as ten shows in a week and it’s not out of the ordinary to catch a band several times on your sonic quests.

From there it was off the too Austin Convention Center. A multi block, 4-floor maze filled with just about every facet of the music industry at any given time, every day, talks and trade shows are hosted as part of the festival. While they might not be the most popular or promoted events of the week, I decided to take on two in a row. The first was “Drunk Comedy at SXSW”. The internet sensation that became popular on Funny or Die, will now be a new series on Comedy Central. On hand were the hilarious Kyle Kinane and creator Derek Waters. With tallboys in coozies, they were in character as they talked about the conception of the show, confessing that it was originally only supposed to be one video short until Jack Black asked if he could be Ben Franklin. The rest is history… drunk history.

From there it was up a few floors to see Devendra Banhart. Pretty and polished he sat and played a handful of songs with his signature falsetto warble and intriguingly absurd banter like wishing everyone a Happy Halloween or commenting on how Audrey Hepburn “emotes”. A strange and large business meeting room show, this was a very strange place to witness such an avant-folk-weirdo.

Even with a press pass, sometimes you need to jump through hoops to get into certain shows. And Nick Cave was one of them. I had won a raffle of tickets for definite entry, the only stipulation being that I had to arrive before 7:45. After regrouping at my hotel, I was on the shuttle bus back to town, and all was well until the British dude in front of me complained that the driver had missed his stop. Heading back uptown in a detour, the shuttle rolled into town at 7:40. After a short sprint to the venue, I made it, shall we say, in the “nick” of time. Mr. Cave and the Bad Seeds were scheduled to take the stage at Stubbs Amphitheater while the sun was still up—a strange and rare occurrence. But, as expected, he stalled until the darkness fell and opened with a few tracks from their new record as the smell of BBQ lingered in the air. Almost possessed, he brought life to the quiet new tracks on the band’s recent release and followed them up by an epic run through his some of his best work. “From Her to Eternity” was followed by “Red Right Hand”, “Jack the Ripper”, “Deanna” and “Stagger Lee”. While much of the band is new, the Bad Seeds complimented Nick’s stage presence with tense reserve, all except violinist Warren Ellis who has, in time, become Cave’s maniacal right-hand man. I knew going into the show that Nick Cave was too big to report on, but it turned out to be one of the best shows of the week.

Next up was the Love Inks, an Austin band whose single, “Black Eye” has been in constant rotation in my headphones for the past year. A modern day girl-group with fuzzy reverb, the band backed up the sound on their record with remarkable poise.

For the remainder of the night I decided to post up at the pop up venue, Hype Hotel for what should have been an excellent lineup. The Orwells kicked things off and after noticing the X’s on their hands, I learned that everyone in the band is a teenager. They didn’t look it, and they didn’t sound like it. Sure, the lead singer had a bit of Jim Morrison’s snotty angst, but the band played well… until they were told it was their last song. The guitarist told the soundguy that they had been lied to about their set time provoking the lead singer to swing his microphone around smashing it into the cymbals before sending it into the crowd. After a physical altercation with the soundman, they left the stage for good. It was a rock n roll moment that you don’t see very often anymore… for better or worse. It almost seemed like a media ploy, but that might just be the cynic in me.

Whether it was the Orwells’ fault or not, the sound would not be same for much of the show. Cords were busted, sets were delayed and the sound went southward. The anticipated Phosphorescent shined despite the ordeal. Seven members deep and with two keyboardists, their sound was fleshed out roots rock with an expressive backwoods voice. Making it through most of the set without complaints, they also threw their mic after their last song. What in the world was happening here?

Things would only get worse as the well-recorded Foxygen landed up playing an awful set with the leadsinger sounding like an out-of-tune and out-of-work showtune crooner. The sound and showmanship would only return as Jim James closed out the night with a shortened set. Fun, energetic and far from his My Morning Jacket sets, James and his band brought the audience a great set with some amazing surprises. Leave it to that man to always give it his all. It was a night that combined the crass with the class.

THURSDAY

Today a HUGE show was scheduled at Willie Nelson’s Ranch, 30 miles from town, and every year, Willie takes the time to hold a charity event, drawing people from SXSW to his farm, but drawing people away from the music at hand. And usually Willie isn’t there. I wasn’t allowed to go, but all day I longed to see the extravaganza. What could be more Texas than being on Willie’s ranch?!

It was Day Three at SXSW, and everything on my itinerary was louder, harder and heavier than the days before. For anyone seeking solace in cerebral modern day psychedelia, this was surely the place to be.

Starting at the Thrasher/Converse Party at the Scoot Inn early in the day, I was happy to find I was one of the only members of the press at the party. Yes, the show was somewhat of a secret, but with such an eclectic mix of some of the festival’s most sought after acts, I figured word would have gotten out.

With skateboarders grinding on a half-pipe next to a relatively small open-air venue, this daytime party provided some of the best acts under the hot Austin sun. Bleached took the stage around 2pm and rocked the crowd with a hard and tough bubblegum take on pop-punk girl group music.

King Tuff followed an hour later, and with a full band in tow, he superceded the sensitive sounds of his recent record with a more aggressive, more intense and heavier psychedelic set that put his recent release in a new perspective.

Chelsea Light Moving was up next. The new band fronted by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth with Sunburned Hand of the Man’s John Maloney on drums, their recent debut came out last week on Matador and is most reminiscent of Moore’s 1995 record, Psychic Hearts. Thurston arrived fashionably early in a laidback style, entering the venue on a bicycle and riding it through the audience just before taking the stage for soundcheck. Combining his alternate tunings and surrounded by Marshall stacks, Moore and company combined Sonic Youth’s pastoral and intricate riffs with heavy drowned out pedal stomps and intensive guitar solos. Proving he’s one of the greatest guitarists of all-time, Moore’s combination of sensitivity juxtaposed with harsh, high-decibel 6-string serenades provided the perfect dynamic to coincide with his poetic meanderings.

After giving into the elements, I returned back to town around 9pm. Snoop Dogg (aka Snoop Lion), Stevie Nicks and Dave Grohl were all scheduled to perform tonight—not together of course. With the long lines and my general lack of interest, I skipped the “hot ticket” shows and headed to East Austin for some more psychedelia. Once considered the wrong side of the tracks and a home to artists looking for cheap studios, I was surprised to find East Austin as a hotbed of cool. It’s a tale as old as time, but I never expected it could happen so quickly in Austin. This week East Austin would prove to be worth its weight in heavy metal.

Just a few blocks beyond this newfound center for up-and-coming greatness and unfortunate gentrification, I found my way to Hotel Vegas. With a retro neon sign lighting the landscape, I headed inside to catch some of music’s greatest and heaviest sonic surprises. With four stages, I bounced back and forth, catching a sampling of sounds. The Go, a longtime Detroit-based garage band, has only gotten better and heavier since former and future famous member Jack White left the band.  MMOSS, a New Hampshire bred/Boston-based band combined acoustic guitars and ethereal drones, often summon the sounds of early Floyd on record. But more notably their live show has brought the flute back to the forefront of the rock n roll frontier.

Running to the Mohawk, I was finally going to catch SKATERS. Sounding like that guitar driven magic of the first Strokes record, the band gave you something to move to, but also something to think about. Combining angst and disaffection but also channeling driving guitar rhythms and rocking fun, SKATERS continued to make a name for themselves.

Though I had just missed Philadelphia’s Bleeding Rainbow at Hotel Vegas earlier in the evening, I was able to catch them a few hours later at their second showcase of the night. Combining an awesome name with spaced out male and female vocals against a bed of deep driving guitars, and chugging rhythms, they evoked a speedier and grittier My Bloody Valentine.

Seeing just how many shows I could catch within the hour, I continued on to Maggie Mae’s where the Seattle band Kinski was still spacing out. I’ve been bearing witness to Kinski’s heavy and heady rumblings for almost a decade now, and they always deliver. Combining searing and soaring guitars with spacey solos, the band played songs from their recent release on Kill Rock Stars and brought a slight darkness to the overlit and well-stocked cocktail venue.

Finishing the night at Red Eyed Fly, I caught the Generationals who have continued to grow in sound and popularity. Recording as a duo and performing this tour as a four-piece, the band combined rock and electronics to produce a sound that combines the old with new

FRIDAY

Growing weary of the constant lines and the lack of sleep that came with noon til 2am non-stop music, I rolled into town, still in search of the greatest thing I hadn’t heard. And I think I found it. Making my way to Sonos Studios, I waited in a long line for about an hour, crossing the threshold just in time to catch Wildcat!Wildcat!. After the first few minutes of their set, I knew I had found a new musical sensation to write home about.

The band took the stage with two keyboards, bass, live drums and 4 mics. A live band with an electronic sound, the four-part vocal harmonies that fluctuated from falsetto to natural voice created an added warmth to already summery sound. This band was having fun; they were humble, and they were hardworking. They would eventually play 10 shows in their 5 days in town. Each time I saw them they carried the same graciousness and modesty that they had the time before—pleasing the ears of new audience members each time. Upon investigation, I saw that although the band has played music together before and known each other forever, the Wildcat!Wildcat! project was created only in the last year, and with only a 7” to their name, this was surely the band to watch, and the band that will go on to make it.

Running to the shit show that is 6^th street, I hurried to catch another Indians’ show at Peckerheads. Playing the same great set in perhaps their most grimy, unheralded show, I was happy to interview the band on the street corner a few minutes after their last note. Sharing smokes, I spoke to Søren Løkke Juul about his unexpected signing to a label and the fact that he had only written two or three songs before being signed. Surely a genuine and kind musician, he was on show 6 of 8 and surely overworked. I thanked him for his time and know I’ll see him in the near future.

After trying to take in a few shows in the early hours of the nighttime showcases and being shut out by impenetrable lines, I joined up with my famous and favorite writer friend and mentor, Luke O’Neil. Also bummed about the current claustrophobic state of SXSW, we took to the city’s few cocktail bars and got some rich foods and expensive mescal at Peche. If there’s one thing we knew as much about as music, it was the craft of cocktails. And they did it right. Luke even taught the bartenders how to make his new and favorite creation.

To give you a sense of the strange state of affairs at SXSW’s move from up-and-coming bands to bands of all rank and file, we passed a crowd of people on the streets that even reached and crowded each level in the multi-deck parking garage across the way to see… Third Eye Blind! It was perplexing. But to be fair, after giving it a quick laugh we immediately started talking about how we actually found a good deal of goodness in the band. Still it was strange that they were here… now.

After splitting up, I ran over to Club de Ville to catch the last few songs of Youth Lagoon. Yeah, you know them, and so did I. But I figured it’d be a good way to end the night.

SATURDAY

My day started at the Filter Party at the Cedar Street Courtyard, and besides brief taco truck trips, this was the place to start and stay… all day. I never saw that “Free BBQ” that they advertised, but I did see a great set by San Cisco, a decent performance by K.I.D.S., and excellent shows by Wildcat!Wildacat! (again), and Surfer Blood who ended the weeklong daytime shows at the venue.

When the sun went down I decided to make it a point to see some foreign showcases and headed to the two floors of Maggie Mae’s for the Austrialian BBQ Showcase. There was no BBQ here either!?– and after the huge lines to get in got through the door, the crowd hardly filled either of the venues spaces. The opening bands were hard to get into, and after a few minutes by the band The Beards, it was obvious that this was a novelty act. They wore beards, of course, but their songs were ONLY about beards. The laughs were only possible for about a song and a half. I have no idea how this act made it all the way to Austin from Australia for that.

It seemed best that I head back to Hotel Vegas. Their 4 venues would again play home to the best in strange and psych and was promoted by Burger Records who manned a makeshift record shop under the tent. I don’t know if I had a sign on my back saying to walk into me or if people were honestly that tanked, but it was an arduous experience.

Many of the bands all week at Hotel Vegas were repeats, and welcomed ones at that, but I tried my best through confidence and consequence to see the bands I hadn’t seen before. Teenage Burritos were great, but that name cannot be taken seriously.  In fact, it was the amazing set by Pangea that proved to be the best surprise of the evening. Talk about surprises, the band wasn’t even published in the printed or online schedules. Nevertheless, word must have gotten out because it would go down as the wildest show I’d seen all week. This was not for the weak of heart, but that was the point. Switching speeds between punk and heavy rock, they were always loud and very energetic. And the fans gave as much back as they were getting. Fists in the air, slamdancing, moshing, crowdsurfing and throwing beers in the air, this tiny space became filled with a contained and maintained brief party riot. At one point a speaker even started swaying about to fall. This is what rock was and should be about. I bought a record. It was the best I could do.

From there it was on to see the Royal Baths. Friends and former members of Ty Segall, I was first intrigued by the band based on their nearly perfect name of their record, “Better Luck Next Life”. I had bought this a year ago based on the name alone, and for some reason was a bit discouraged to see their live act as sparse and unaffecting as their record.

Not knowing what to do now, I ran over to see Kid Congo. A former member of Gun Club and the Bad Seeds, his band’s uniforms proved more interesting than the music. Was it back to see Warlocks? Pharcyde? George Clinton? No, I headed to the most beautiful hotel in town to catch Boston’s own David Wax Museum play their roots blues in one of their most cushy settings.

Instead of looking for the best way to end my night, I decided getting in the hotel shuttlebus line might be the best bet of all. On the way to the queue, I saw Smashing Pumpkins play from a closed down street with everyone else who didn’t get in. It made me wonder, has it gone too far? Sure seeing a few old school Pumpkins songs was great, but most people couldn’t even get in. They even made the gate JUST high enough that you couldn’t really see them. Plus, Prince had played a show earlier, with special privileges given to people with Samsung Galaxy phones who also had to do an intricate scavenger hunt.

Have big names and big business made SXSW something better? Or as many bands and fans continue to question– has SXSW become a distraction and unnecessary next step for a festival built on showcasing the new and the worthy? There are more #hashtag big and small business options per square foot than I’ve ever seen in my life. Long gone are the days of walking the streets of Austin with a printed schedule and a highlighter. In an atmosphere that is already all about sensory overload, technology ruled SXSW this year. Parties were announced via Twitter, there was an app for schedules and oftentimes when you got to the shows, most of the audience members had their heads down to text or tweet. Smart phones made people dumb. Business was business as usual, maybe ten-fold, but fans would also become a product of the biz. Even if no one cared, the texts, the tweets, the FB posts seem to seep into the same social fabric that made SXSW what created its true value. Now, technology has become so self-indulgent and pointless that the fans have gone the way of the industry—bored, disillusioned and self-important without a true value outside of themselves and what they think is important to others. I watched industry people sit at their own showcases, bashing the bands that thousands came out to see. I was asked by a management company if I played that night. When I said “no”, they responded, “Good!, I represent all these bands on this showcase and it would have been awkward otherwise.” Well, that’s awkward enough for me to know people aren’t doing their jobs. And I’d hate for that person to be my manager.

One thing is for sure, despite the long lines and overpopulation of a relatively small town, the city of Austin has adapted to the yearly influx incredibly. What began as an event with less than 1000 attendees in 1987, now claims upwards of 20,000. Streets are blocked off, there’s a general order and a surplus of information. Much has changed since my last trip to SXSW. Pedicabs flood the streets, bars have changed their names, temporary venues spring up and business is thriving. There are food truck trailer parks and makeshift marketplaces, and even a whole string of bars on Rainey Street that until recently was completely residential. Austin may be the coolest town in all of America, but while it may seem like it’s whole existence leads up to this week of international influx, I think that Austin is fine on its own. I think if I lived in this fine city, I might seek refuge elsewhere in the month of March. I love this town. I love it. SXSW may have brought it to the rest of the world’s attention, but that doesn’t mean the city appreciates the rest of us. Regardless, this cool town seems cooler to the rest of the world for SXSW, and there’s no denying it’s importance. But won’t it be better to be here on an off month?!

Despite limited shows on Sunday, Saturday was essentially SXSW’s grand finale. By Sunday morning, all of the people flooding the streets would either be in cabs or already at the airport. I always try to stick around a little longer to enjoy the town for what it is, a first class city—and perhaps the coolest town in America.

As for me, I decided to stay a couple days and recover from the over-expenditure of serotonin that had begun messing with my emotional stability. It had been a week full of Lone Star beer and Shiner Bock. A week of BBQ, taco trucks and huevos rancheros. A week of northern eyes focused on the southern dress codes. I had witnessed so much and yet I had still missed so much. And I’ll probably do it all over again next year.

R.I.P Jason Molina: Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Company’s Farewell Transmission

by Steve Gullick

On Saturday, we lost of one America’s finest songwriters and most prolific pioneers of independent music. Jason Molina died of organ failure due to alcoholism on Saturday, but it wouldn’t become known to most of the world until yesterday. His immense and intense catalogue of music caught momentum under the Songs: Ohia moniker from 1997 til 2003 and continued on as Magnolia Electric Company. If Songs: Ohia was his Neil Young, Magnolia Electric Company was his Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Constantly keeping his audience guessing, he also recorded under his own name, Pyramid Electric Company, Amalgomated Sons of the Rest and did a collaborative recording with Centromatic’s Will Johnson under the name Molina and Johnson.

Through his various projects, Molina made some of the greatest records of the late 1990’s-2000’s. Didn’t It Rain and Magnolia Electric Company remain among my favorite emotive and cathartic records of all time. The pride of the Secretly Canadian record label and independent music in general, I was happy to hear them when they came out, and have always held them close and dear through the years. I paid tribute to Mr. Molina yesterday listening to almost his entire catalogue and noting its continuing progression. While the songs maintained their inherent sadness combined with a certain stoicism, they seemed especially haunting and all the more chilling.

As an homage to Molina and his fans, I dug up the first story I wrote about Songs: Ohia back in 2002– just after he released one of his greatest works, and just before he changed his sound all together. The following interview is unedited and hopefully pays tribute to this truly important songwriter. Our hearts go out to his friends and family…….

by Dylan Long

 Interview from Boston’s Weekly Dig (December 2002)

Jason Molina is trouble’s troubadour. His songs are beautifully chilling, but with just enough subtle warmth and light to be completely cathartic. So many great musicians hail from Chicago, but none seem to speak its language like Molina. His songs all seem to be sung under the same grey skies and all seem to summon a mystic strength that lurks among its despondency. Since 1996, Molina has appeared on about 50 different recordings, whether that’s part of a compilation, collaboration, EP, LP, 7” or single. Constantly reinventing himself through different monikers, the unifying thread that ties each of Molina’s recordings together is that dichotomy of fragility and strong-willed stoicism. Molina’s most popular works are filed under the name Songs: Ohia, and the ones that aren’t are usually ultra-rare collectors items found only in the hands of those who caught on early, or those with enough money who peruse the eBay market. Jason Molina has no band; both live shows and albums have an ever-changing cast of characters. He strays from routine and uses spontaneity as a creative tool. Molina’s last album as Songs: Ohia, Didn’t It Rain, was a collection of seven extended songs that seemed to have been stranded out it in a downpour of his emotion and then brought inside and told eerily by the warmth of a fireside. The album, from its feel all the way down to the instrumentation and lyrics seemed so well-conceived, but that’s the most interesting part—it wasn’t. It was recorded live and without practice. It all goes to show that Jason Molina can do more with a guitar and his passionate vocals than most bands can do with an unlimited team of personnel and months of over-production in the studio. Molina’s latest work is a collaborative project with Will Oldham and Alasdair Roberts called The Amalgamated Sons of Rest and two new Songs: Ohia albums will surface in the near future. Presenting an electronic conversation with Mr. Jason Molina:

You have a rotating cast of characters on each of your albums, how does it
work when it comes to touring time. How often do you play solo?

I don’t have any set percentage of times I show up on stage with a band or not. I have to sometimes consider the impracticality of bringing a whole pack of musicians to remote places. It helps that since I started out people have come to the shows not expecting one or the other. In Boston I will be alone this time.

I read somewhere that Didn’t it Rain was all recorded live. To what degree were the songs worked out before you met up with the players? Was there much practicing or was it more spontaneous?

We never practiced those songs. I would show them the chords and most of the time we didn’t even have to listen to me singing the whole thing. The complexity in those songs is in their “tone” not so much the note-by-note delivery of them.

How often are your albums created with the same spontaneity?

I just work day-by-day at these records. Usually within three days it should all be done, much more than that it starts to fall apart. I like to think that strengths in these recordings lie in whatever elements cannot be re-done.

The sound of Didn’t it Rain is amazing. How important is the recording location
in the conception of an album? Where was this one recorded?

Didn’t it Rain was done in an old brick building in Philadelphia. The Magnolia Electric Company [the upcoming LP] was done with Steve Albini in Chicago. The location, specifically the rooms where we did each of these recordings was important, but not more so than the assemblage of players and engineers who know what they’re doing.

Your albums each have a different feel, but the songs on each album are cohesive. Is that a conscious thing?

I try to get a good family of songs together and the thread of music or lyric that seems to be the binding element is what I try to feature in the recording of the LPs.

I’m assuming Didn’t it Rain’s cohesive element is Chicago life.

Well, the Midwest. You can’t run out of things to say about all that grey.
How has your songwriting changed since you moved to Chicago?

I live most of the time in the Midwest, so I wouldn’t notice anything dramatic about the influence of Chicago in particular upon the songs. When I wrote Ghost Tropic I attempted to take the theme of being lost, dislocated, way out past the boundary and put it into a record. I then concentrated on putting a foot down and saying something about finding a place, you understand? And then the two new records coming out The Pyramid Electric Co. and The Magnolia Electric Co. are working out the people in the place.

Talk a little about the upcoming records. I heard it was just going to be one record stripped down and now it’s destined to be two records featuring a whole cast of players.

The Pyramid Electric Co. is just coming out on vinyl and it’s me alone in a room with an electric guitar mostly and a piano. It has a depth to it that I was very pleased with. Sonically and lyrically there seemed to be a great reaching to get something done which I had not been able to do before. A short while after that comes out, the other songs I did with [Steve] Albini will come out as The Magnolia Electric Co. And that one is with a 10-piece band playing live, it really isn’t like anything else I’ve done. It has elements of straight Nashville circa 1960, the first Jackson Browne record, Harvest and 1950’s American guitar, especially Link Wray’s guitar tone turned down. . . I ain’t kidding.
On the new record I found people to sing the leads on some of it. I just sit out and let them go. It’s educational to hear the way Albini recorded each of the different singers and made it all sound.

You’ve done a bunch of 7″s in your day. Talk about the magic of the 7″.

There is nothing like it. I suppose I have done about 15 of these maybe, and this year I am doing quite a large project involving 7”s only. I am doing the next set of releases as Jason Molina. Since the Magnolia Electric Co and the Pyramid Electric Co. were trying to change things, I need a way to ease into being something that is not Songs: Ohia. This new 7″ project is one where I do my new record over the course of a year with about 6 different labels and each record comes out as a Jason Molina record and I’ll have some theme which ties them all together. Then I am sending out the masters to various labels of my own choice and submitting them like the old days, seeing who will be willing to put them out.

Fishbone: Teach a Band to Fish…

From punk to funk, ska to hard rock, Fishbone is a band defined by its diversity. While their genre-jumping would go on to influence countless bands– many of whom would go on to superstardom– it became a self-induced curse for them as pioneers. The lack of a centralized sound eventually grew unappealing to record companies. And that’s when things started to go wrong.

Shown explicitly in the 2011 documentary, Everyday Sunshine, the Laurence Fishburne narrated film comes complete with tip-of-the-hat respect from big names, but in the end, the movie is about struggle and perseverance. Following the band through its mile highs and tragic woes, the struggle to “break through” is only compounded by power struggles and the constant departure of band members.

Members came and went—and some even come back again—but only founding members Angelo Moore and John “Norwood” Fisher stayed with the band through the entire journey.

Pursuing a multitude of sounds with satire, a social consciousness and a reputation for being one of the best live acts of all time, Fishbone weren’t the most marketable of bands, but they remain one of the most respected, and they continue to play to this day.

I was lucky to catch up with “Norwood” over the phone from his Long Beach home as he prepared for his upcoming US tour. The following interview is unedited, and the photos and video clips are exclusive and taken from their March 3, 2013 show at the Sinclair in Cambridge, Massachusetts just a few weeks after our chat. Enjoy!

Hello, is Norwood there?

Yeah, that’s me.

Hey this is Nolan. How are you doing?

I’m doing great.

So when does the tour get under way?

Ultimately on Friday.

Did you have to cancel part of the European tour?

Yeah. That was last year. We had to cancel last year’s tour because of Angelo’s unfortunate staff infection situation.

So, I watched the documentary “Everyday Sunshine” last week and I though it was very well done. I was curious what your thoughts were on the final product?

Ultimately, I think it is honest. That was my initial reaction. It’s honest and accurate to the stories as they were told. It didn’t seem to me like added anything. They got things as they happened and went with them. It’s something I can stand by.

There were some big name fans and friends interviewed to help tell the story. Were those all people that you guys knew well and considered friends and longtime supporters?

That was the intention. There were a lot more interviews with a lot more people, but the ones that they actually chose, most of them, were people that we actually had relationships with and were pivotal at some point in our career. At some point these people were actually considered friends… almost all of them.

You guys went through a lot of ups and downs, but did Fishbone ever officially split up?

No, the band has always been continuing on. The band never stopped. For better or worse, we figured out a way to keep it rolling. Many times it was bad, but more times than not, it was pretty cool.

Do you have any person specific highlights from over the years that you hold dear to you?

There are a LOT. There is a long, long list of those, but really some of the things like our first club date. Our first club date where we got paid $25. That was an unexpected moment for me. I got called into the office and somebody was giving me money for what we had just did. That wasn’t the part I was thinking about that day. And I was like “Whoa”. You couldn’t do much with that $25, but it was like ‘damn, we got paid for that’. And actually, that place was Madame Wong’s Chinatown, a place that nurtured punk rock. It was like CBGB’s West. That was what it meant for LA punk rock. So, yeah, there’s times like that, and then there are times rolling with different bands. I like to think about the time in the early 90’s when Fishbone and Primus were touring. We were in a stripclub in Atlanta with Les Claypool, right, [laughs] and we went to this black club and all these black dancers were ALL over Les Claypool, right [laughs]… I mean that happened and it was an amazing moment. Girls come in high heels and stripper garb for the time and they take off their shoes and actually sweat. It was amazing. Black strippers LOVED Les Claypool.

Do you see any cohesive scene in punk rock anymore– specifically LA punk rock. Is LA even a place where underground punk rock, or music with a message is possible anymore? Or is there less of a time and place for that now.

I’ll tell you what man—we, as a nation, as a culture– by in large, I think that those days have passed. What the new emerging paradigm is, I don’t know. You know, punk rock was the last thing that was really scary and bands with a political statement… it’s been so long… because I think the generation that went to go fight in Afghanistan and Iraq missed those opportunities to make those political statements. Those statements were made by people that were too old to have the same stake. People who are 16, 17, 18, 20 years old were not the ones writing the protest songs. When Green Day started doing their political thing, they were out of that age ring. And I appreciate everything they had to say, but there were bands I was looking for it from. They were the ones who, if they didn’t go to the front lines, their friends were—their high school buddies, their uncles, their aunts, their brothers, sister, parents, whoever– were the ones doing it. And they didn’t by and large speak of their concerns. It may have been the climate around 9/11 where you’re either with us or against us. That kinda drew a line in the sand, you know. When I think about it, the very first people that I saw stand up and say– whether you believe it or not– but they did suppose the question that they think it was an inside job, was the Black Eyed Peas. I was like, ‘Whoa’. A lot of people we thinking it, but no one was saying it. That’s where it came from. Not the 18 year olds who could have been in that war—they were out of that age ring. So, anyway… I think that that time will come again, but right now there is something happening politically that is pretty amazing. The Right is out of step with the majority of the population. And there’s a lot of conversation about that Right and about the GOP knowing where the fit. I’m one of those people who feel that you DO need both sides. You need that and you need MORE. You need a lot of ideas and I don’t need to agree with everyFUCKINGbody. But again, we live in a time where it would be pretty cool if there were a lot of young people expressing themselves. Like, I don’t with everything Obama says and does, but I like the guy. I like him like I like Bill Clinton. I liked Bill Clinton. It’s the same kind of “like”. I’m not looking to follow anybody or for anyone to express my feelings. But I think it’s great to have a guy who connects and you can tell your kid, ‘hey you can be like that, dude’. Because he’s intelligent. Bill Clinton was like that and Obama’s got the same kind of thing—it’s different, but I like that part of it. I think it would be nice to have some 18-year-olds who can say, ‘hey, my interests are possibly being overlooked,” in a song.

So there’s a part in the movie where your former manager, Roger Perry suggests, “Had Fishbone been less of a democracy, they might have been a more successful band. But had they been less of a democracy, they wouldn’t have been Fishbone.” Do you agree with that statement?

Yeah, I absolutely believe that statement. There is a point where not everybody in a democracy is speaking about the best interests as a whole. You have some people who are making decisions based on personal feelings. I guess yeah, in a way, we turned into a band that that whoever was screaming the loudest… well, you know… the squeaky wheel was getting the oil. And as I saw it happening, I saw what it was, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t have the tools to distinguish it exactly for what it is and reason with everybody and say ‘Hey!” We reached that point and that was when… you know. And sometimes in hindsight it all wasn’t bad, you know. Sometimes it was really bad.

Can you talk about the initial struggle of people leaving the band and the strain it put on the band. And did that ever make you question if you wanted to leave, or for the band to breakup?

Yep! Absolutely, because my respect for the original members was so strong that I didn’t actually honestly think there could be a Fishbone without those original six guys. And the fact that we continued on without them was me breaking a promise to myself. I made a promise to myself that if any of those original six guys ever left, I would break the band up. Well, I broke that promise. And right now, I’m glad I did. I’m glad I broke that promise because it brings us… I got to see that it’s not the same and every change and every band member who left and every band member who replaced them made it different. But, hundreds of thousands of happy faces in the audiences later blessed it.

Do you keep up with the former members, or at least some of them?

Yeah. Absolutely. If they were all available I would talk to them all.

Did you and Kendall ever reconcile the whole lawsuit situation officially after you rescued him from a religious cult?

Well it wasn’t a lawsuit, right. It was a trial—a criminal trial where me, his fiancée, his brother and one more person were all facing 9 to 11 years of a prison sentence [for kidnapping]. Personally, me… the fact that I didn’t spend a day in prison for it. We got a full acquittal for it. Was that really Kendall? No, that wasn’t the guy that I know who did that. It just drove his, brainwashing, or whatever. I don’t really know what it was. But it allows me to forgive. However I was feeling, I knew that wasn’t the same guy. It allows me to know that whenever I see that guy, the person who I grew up with, I can get right with that person.

What would you say Fishbone’s legacy is and will be, and to what do you owe the band’s longevity?

The longevity is really that we were in a very unusual position of having artistic license and full creative expression. That is our legacy. We are the band that opened the door for more people to do that on a larger scale. And as actual people, in the landscape of rock n roll, we made it a little more colorful—in a physical and ethnic way as well as the musical tapestry, so that people could wear their influences on their sleeves freely.

In the movie it seems that everyone is interviewed separately and by themselves, and some people seem like they have so much animosity that they can’t even be in the same room as the others. Is that just the interviewing style or is their some truth to it?

Nah, it’s a stylistic thing. You might be forgetting at this point that they captured a couple of connections that were made during the making of that movie. Me, Kendall and Chris were actually in the same room—and that’s something that hadn’t happened in 15 years. And it was an awesome moment; it wasn’t a setup. Me and Kendall actually connect for the first time. You know what I mean? I’ll tell you what, everybody else was cool. That was the only thing that couldn’t happen. But it happened and you get to see it happen. You see Kendall and Chris see each other. I had seen Kendall and Chris each separately. But I think when Kendall and Chris saw each other it was the first time they’d seen each other since 1992. [Laughs]

At the end of the movie it shows you and Angelo expressing your issues with one another, but trying to find ways to meet half way and fix your dynamic. How is that going? And are you guys planning on making more music?

You know what? It’s ROUGH. It ain’t easy right. We recorded five songs which we agreed upon to release an EP and then beginning to work on a full-length record. And right now, I’m ready to release those songs and Angelo’s saying he doesn’t want to release them. So I have to sit down with him and ask him why. He agreed to do these things and at one point… more than one point… he said he really liked these songs. So, he’s having a power struggle within his own head, you know. I’m not struggling with him, so it’s like if you don’t want to release the songs then they don’t get released. I’m not going to whine and cry about it. It’s unfortunate, that’s all I’m saying. We’ll see what happens. Other than that it’s been a slow process getting the songs together for the next full-length. I knew that that would be the case, so that’s why I wanted to put together the EP and put something out before working on the full-length. I wanted to take a little time, because as a producer I want it to be EPIC. I want it to speak our future into existence. Right now there is something with Angelo and I in our relationship that is making it difficult. I don’t know what’s going on in Angelo’s head right now. I just want to sit down me and him and talk about and figure out where he’s at. It ain’t easy.

 

I’m assuming playing live is more what defines Fishbone than the recordings.

Yeah, like really. I actually like all of it. I like recording, I like…LOVE… live. In the past few years, actually, I’ve been producing records more than any other time in my life. I love being in the studio. I’m going to the studio as soon as I put down this phone! I’m doing this project with members of Mars Volta, P-Funk and Eric Burdon of the Animals. We’re doing a project together and I’m headed to the studio to lay down a bass line and record some rough mixes. I love it all. The thing is, with Fishbone, there’s nothing like impacting the audience and looking people in the eye and seeing the joy and seeing the dancefloor do what you imagine it could be. There’s a moshpit, people skankin’, girls winding it up… it’s all lovely.

Yo La Tengo: Not Fade Away

As Yo La Tengo closes in on 30 years as a band, the trio has secured their name as one of the most beloved and longstanding survivors in indie-rock. While most of their contemporaries have already broken up and launched reunion tours, Yo La Tengo continue on their sonic journey without interruption, and with a legacy and longevity revolving around consistency— not so much a consistency of sound, as much as providing a standard in making great, timeless records that will go down in the permanent lexicon and discography of indie-rock music.

Beginning in 1984, and based around the husband and wife harmonies of founding members Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, the addition of James McNew in the early 90’s put the band in a unique position where each of its members was now a potential singer and songwriter, making their music all the more diverse.

They have scored films, appeared on numerous compilations. They even dared to take their already underground following to more obscure levels by creating a garage rock cover band known as “Condo Fucks” for everyone following along.

With the recent release of Fade, their 13^th official LP, the band seems to have created one of their most thematic and introspective records to date. But according to led singer Ira Kaplan that may or may not be the case. And while their records and live shows seem to many to be getting quieter in nature, Kaplan begs to differ here as well. All in all, his answers were often a bit obtuse and sometimes snarky, but it was a pleasure to speak to him nonetheless. After 30 years of doing press, who can blame him for having a bit of fun with the interviewer.

I was lucky enough to interview Ira earlier this month and catch the band on their current tour as they recently rolled through Boston. After one quiet set, the band turned up the amps and shined with a sonic gleam reminiscent of their Electro-Pura Tour in 1996. If you missed Yo La Tengo on their current tour, you may find them opening select dates for Belle and Sebastian later this summer.

Enjoy.

So, can you tell me about the album cover?

I could. What do you want to know?

Well, where was it taken?

Portland, Oregon.

It’s a pretty stupendous photo. Were these songs all made around the same time, or did you have some in your arsenal that you brought back up?

They are roughly from the same time. When we started writing it, I don’t think any of them preceded it. Occasionally we will pull something old out that we started writing and we thought ‘oh that was kinda nice’ and work on it some more. But I think all of these started from scratch. I think they all came from over a year writing off and on– roughly the same time.

Would you say that there is something that thematically links the tracks together? Many of the lyrics sound like a search for clarity.

Well, I probably would NOT say that, but I could be lying. What does happen is that although the songs are written over a year, the lyrics are not. The lyrics are written very quickly. We tend to sing along in sort of nonsense kind of ways and even record the songs without lyrics and at the last second come up with them. Some of them we had lyrics for some of them before we started recording and because we had actually played “Ohm” live before. Literally, after sound check, but before the show, I finished writing the lyrics. And right before the show in Barcelona I had lyric sheets written for everybody and kind of practiced and made sure we had the phrasing down because we all sing on that song. It was a bit of a slightly ridiculous scenario. And with “Stupid Things” and with “Before We Run” which we wrote in our rehearsal space—and obviously we wrote most of the songs there—but we actually recorded them in our rehearsal space and brought them out to Chicago and did some more work, but we had completed versions of those songs with lyrics too. So, I think because of the speed and the concentrated space in which the lyrics are written, I think they end up talking to each other. But in no way is there a plan like on this record this is what we are going to write about or I’m going to write about. It just sort of takes shape the way it does organically, not with a concept put on it.

I would have assumed that this record more than any other of your records had more of a thematical intention.

As I said, I don’t discourage anyone from leading into it or projecting anything. That’s totally fine. I really don’t like to think too hard about where our ideas are coming from. I like to let them happen and let them be without investigating that much. But people who observe them otherwise, I’m not saying they’re wrong.

There definitely seems to be more question asking and actual question marks in the sentences of these songs than previous records.

It’s possible. I truly haven’t thought about that.

The last couple of times I saw you, I would say the shows generally were quieter than usual. And certainly more quiet that when I first saw you in 1996. But after seeing you on Jimmy Fallon, it seems you were rocking out again.

I’d be curious what the quiet shows you saw were.

One was at the MFA a few years back and one was at the end of last summer at the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh.

Oh, and that seemed quiet to you? That seems interesting. It’s a funny thing like that. Things register differently with people. Over the years we’ve had people… I can remember an email sent to the band saying ‘All you did was play 2 hours of feedback’. And then I looked at the setlist and wrote back to this person and said ‘actually we did this and this, and did many songs that couldn’t remotely be like that. But nevertheless the set had left a perception of that. Which is also right if that’s how it registers. But sometimes we’re also not the best judges of those types of things as well. We think we create a balance and maybe certain things jump out more than others. What we are doing on this show is extremely different though, where we will essentially be our own opening act. So we do a first set of quieter songs and then the second set is louder. So it truly varies.

At the Hopscotch Festival, I believe you said you didn’t have a title for the album and you would be accepting ideas from the audience. I would assume things like album titles are very important in the collection of songs—does this mean they are not as important to you guys?

Well, we didn’t take any of the ideas. Of course it matters. But maybe something comes up that is better and we really like more than our idea. That was one of the reasons that we didn’t have a title is because it DOES matter and we had ideas and nothing was really resonating with us.

Why did you decide to change your recording engineers from your longtime go-to to John McEntire [of Tortoise, amongst other things]?

I don’t know. For whatever reason I think it’s strange that we had never even considered working with him before. I can’t believe it, but its true. So, once we the idea we thought it would be great and really interesting. And luckily our schedules matched up, and for both of us, that is hard to do. So I guess it made it perfect.

Did you see a different effect or outcome with working with him?

It was different, but on the other hand, each time we worked with Roger it was different from the time before, which is one of the reasons why we kept working with him. There was always an element of consistency and some other thing that made it fresh and different. In that regard it was obviously more different with John. Just because we’ve known each other a long time, that doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as working with each other. It’s the same as anyone who had ever moved into an apartment with their friend and discovers how it can be.

What is the reasoning and significance of the cover songs that you put on the 7” that came with the vinyl edition?

Well, we had them [laughs]. Some of that was just Matador and marketing and selling vinyl in 2013. Matador was asking us what we could do to sell a deluxe edition. The Times New Viking song is something we did a long time ago… actually when we had thought about doing a split EP, where band covers each other’s songs. So we had that and just hadn’t put it out for some reason. Similarly, the Todd Rundgren song had come out very, very slightly. Michael Shelley, a deejay at WFMU had commissioned a bunch of 70’s covers for a CD that he sent out to people who pledged to his show in 2012. That was out contribution for that. We played them for Matador and asked ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ and they said ‘Yes it is.”

Would you say that your overall band experience and journey has gotten easier or harder?

It depends, some things get easier and some things get harder. It varies.

You’ve done the “Freewheeling Yo La Tengo” in the past– and that allows for an open dialogue between you and the audience and what songs will be played. Do you still allow audience input, repartee and requests in your regular shows?

From time-to-time…. We still do “Freewheelin’” shows from time-to-time still. We did one in autumn in Tokyo, which was out of this world great. One of the things that “Freewheelin” did was take a sliver of something we might do at a regular show over the course of an entire evening. We try to be open to whatever the moment calls for. Last night we were in Minneapolis and Reg Presley from the Troggs died. “With a Girl Like You” is a song we’ve played before in the past, so we already knew that song and did it in honor of him. That’s a sufficient tribute. We had a friend of ours from Minneapolis and brought him and his wife on stage who plays drums and we all played “Wild Thing”, which none of us have ever played before. What could be more appropriate to the Troggs memory than an inept version of “Wild Thing”?!

Is there a conscious decision when you guys start out records with longer songs? It seems as though you have done that more in recent history. Or even longer songs in general over the course of an album?

This time around we thought “Ohm” was a catchy song and a good way to start off the record. I think lyrically it set a tone for the record. I said we don’t write a record with a concept, but having finished it, we are not deaf to what is on the record. We thought the long song was a good way to set everything up. I know it’s something that we’ve done quite often, so it must be something that we find appealing about these long openers– but not always. Both Summer Sun and I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One started with short ones—but they are definitely outnumbered.

Do you each write the songs that you are the primary singers on?

Usually, but not entirely. On this record Georgia wrote “Cornelia and Jane” and I wrote all the other words.

Did Charlie Sheen [the main guest on your recent Jimmy Fallon show] have anything nice or crazy to say?

We had no encounter with him at all. It’s a big deal to be on that show and we had people from the record company there and good friends there and of course Fred [Armisen]. So we had enough of a circus going already in our dressing room that we didn’t need to venture far from it.

Is everything okay with your health and whatnot nowadays?

I hope so! I mean I think so. I mean we never know, do we?

I’m sorry to ask, I just read that a little while back and was hoping its all okay.

There definitely was a cause for concern and I’m definitely dealing with it. But these things are out of our control– no matter how many pills we take to try to gain control over it.

 

 

2 Surfing Singers From Brushfire Records: The Solemn Neil Halstead and the Headstrong Pioneer of Hip-Hop/Blues, G. Love

Haleiwa, Hawaii 2006 by Nolan Gawron

Back in the beautiful, peaceful, idyllic paradise known as Haleiwa, Hawaii, on the North Shore of Oahu (one of my favorite places in the world), is a small independent label called Brushfire, run by surfer and songwriter Jack Johnson. Extrememly diverse, the label provides a home to the most unlikely acts and seemingly unrelated musicians. The following two interviews are with artists both signed to Brushfire– and honestly they couldn’t be more different in style.

Neil Halstead, founding member of the now defunct British shoegazing band Slowdive, and the every now and then reborn alt-country band Mojave 3, Halstead has moved from 4AD to Brushfire where he has released his last two solo recordings. Somber, acoustic and existential, he seems especially far removed from our second Brushfire artist interviewee– the pioneer and continuing purveyor of hip hop/blues, G. Love.

After conducting these interviews, I realized there is one thread that ties both artists and the label owner together– despite being from Britain, Boston and Hawaii– they are all surfers. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Part 1: Neil Halstead

From his pedal-pushing days in the spaced out, shoegazer band Slowdive, to his more grounded acoustic folk rebirth with the Mojave 3, Neil Halstead’s music has changed dramatically over his 23 year career. But, whether cosmic or country, there has always been an underlying somber, soothing and dreamlike quality that links his songs together. While they were once hidden by distance and distortion, his heartstrings now ring out as if they were strung across his acoustic guitar.

After five records with the Mojave 3, and still an occasional tour, Halstead has taken the band’s indefinite breaks to focus on his solo career. Even more stripped down, his country-folk style and imagery could easily be considered Americana, except for the fact that he’s British. Halstead’s calm and hushed delivery evokes a sentimental reverie, sincerity and melancholy. There’s a bit of hope and a lot of truth. I interviewed Halstead back in the fall before his US tour. His interview was short, relatively shy and not overly informative, but I love his work just the same.

Where are you right now?

I’m actually just in Reading. I was in London last night.

Are you still living out that way?

I live in Cornwall, which is about as south and west as you can go in England. It’s like the little toe at the end of the boot.

Can you explain the name and concept of the album title Palindrome Hunches?

I’d like to, but I don’t know what it means. I guess I like the idea that it’s a contrast of a palindrome where everything works out. Essentially that was it. It was one of the songs on the album, and I guess it just came from that.

Is there sort of a connection between the songs on the record?

I think that they all sit together in a similar mood. There are songs that are a little darker than the songs on the last album. They all sit together in a darker space.

Is there any particular reason for the darkness?

I think that’s just the way the songwriting went. A few of the songs are a little older, so they’re not all written at the same time period. They are a bit quite personal and they reflect certain changes in my life.

Are you in these songs? Are your songs biographical?

Yeah, for me songwriting is always about expressing yourself. So that’s me in the song. I suppose in some ways, the darker songs can be a darker take on my life. Then there are songs like “Wittgenstein’s Arm” [A pianist who lost his arm in World War I, but continued to play] which I was really inspired to write after reading about his family and their story.

The album has sort of an autumn feel. Was there any conscious decision to release this at this time?

No, actually I wanted to get it out much earlier—a year and a half now actually. It’s taken ages to get ready. I didn’t really think about the season, but you’re right– it kind of works.

Where did the idea for the limited packaging come from?

I guess it’s because I like to fill up a lot of notebooks. So we scanned some of the stuff and did something different. We did it like a notebook and I think it looks quite nice.

What is the significance of the artwork, the owls with bars over their eyes?

Yeah, I just found the image. I guess it was printed in the turn of the century. It seems to suit the idea of the record a bit. There’s the idea about the owls being wise and it seemed symbolic to mess with it a little bit.

Are you still an active surfer?

Yes. I surf as much as I can. Cornwall is the main part of England for surfing.

Traditionally surfers who sing tend to be happier. You seem to be one of the sadder surfer songwriters.

I’m not quite sure about that. They can’t all be happy. But maybe they are. I don’t know.  Maybe you’re right.  That could be true.

Have you ever based a tour around surfing?

Unfortunately not. I haven’t been able to do that. Maybe one day.

What is the official state of the Mojave 3?

I’m not sure we have an official status. We just did a few shows in China that were fun. We want to do another record, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. Hopefully this year.

Did you say China!?

Yeah, we played in China a month ago.

How did that come to happen?

I think we all just thought it would be fun. I think everyone was keen to go and see China, play some music and do some gigs. We managed to get everyone and make it work.

Were they familiar with your work out there?

Yeah, for some reason Mojave 3 seem to be quite popular there. It was nice; we got really well looked after.

Looking way back, how did you decided to change your sound so drastically from Slowdive to the Mojave 3?

Well by the time I did the last Slowdive record I was about 24. The last record is really super ambient and experimental. Everything was built on loops and samples and it was a bit of a cold record. I took a break after that and I felt like I wasn’t into music anymore at that point. I felt like I needed to be re-energized and learning to play acoustic guitar and learning to play country songs was a way back into music for me because it was so different from what Slowdive was about.

The Mojave 3 seems like it could be described as an Americana band, but you’re from Britain. And in your solo work, you seem to mention specific places in America. Do you feel an affinity for the US?

To be honest the song about Kansas City is about meeting a girl at a bar in Kansas. As I said, most of the songs are about things that actually happened.

Do you think touring America has provided you with inspiration more so than Europe?

For me traveling is a big part of being a musician and it becomes a big part of your life. You did inspired by traveling wherever you go.

Do you ever miss electric guitars and distortion?

Yeah. I did some projects with some friends with big loud guitars last year, so I got it out of my system for now. But it’s good to mix it up for sure.

Have you received offers to reunite Slowdive?

Yeah. Sure. It’s a big part of the music industry these days. They are feeding off their own paws. The people with the money will never let it go free because it’s another way to sell you the same old shit. Maybe one day.

Part II: G. Love and the Special Sauce

Twenty years ago, after moving from Philadelphia to Boston, G. Love’s [born Garrett Dutton] musical career quickly rose from the streets and subway stations to regular club gigs that eventually landed him a record deal that brought him back to Philly.

After Mark Sandman of Morphine got G. Love a weekly gig at the Plough and Star in Cambridge, interest from record companies soon followed. The headstrong 20 year-old who started merging hip-hop with his Dobro guitar and Delta blues had created a signature blend of musical stylings very unique for the time.

Two decades later, G. Love is back living back in Boston. Nine LPs and several EPs deep, he is now signed to Brushfire Records, Jack Johnson’s label, a person who Dutton frequently collaborates with, and even had as a special guest on his record when Johnson was still relatively unknown. Ladies and gentlemen, G. Love.

Is this G.? Happy New Year!

Yeah, Happy New Year.

I’ve been in Boston long enough and have always been curious what brought you up to Boston in the first place and how you made it as a musician up here?

Well, when you get off the phone, you should check it out. I just put a blog up today about when I first met Jeff, the drummer and when we put the band together. It’s a pretty cool little piece. Basically I moved up there in ’92 and was a musician in Philly and went to school for a year up at Skidmore in Saratoga Springs. Basically a year after college, I wanted to get out there and get a band together and really do something with my music. I moved to Boston because, other than Montreal, I knew it was one of the only places you could get a permit to be a street performer. That was the first time I came to Boston, you know, I got a ride up there and went to Inman Square to get a permit to play in Harvard Square. I moved up and found a room in Jamaica Plain and I used to get on the 39 bus to Copley Square and hop on the Green Line to the Red Line with all my fucking shit. I looked like a homeless person, I had this cart with a folding chair, my amp, a mic-stand and all my gear and my guitar. I would wear a sear-sucker suit with Pumas with the fat laces and a sign and shit. It was pretty competitive out in Harvard Square and I wouldn’t make too much money, but I got my shit together and that led to some solo shows at the Middle East Bakery and the old Rathskellar in Kenmore Square, and then eventually I was opening up for a bunch of other street musicians at the Tam O’Shanter in Brookline and met my drummer there that night and we put the band together. Once we got our deal and hit the road… I mean Boston’s a really transient place. Everybody comes and goes. Back in the day, it was us, Jasper and the Prodigal Sons, and this band called Powerman 5000… and Morphine as well of course. Everybody kind of hit the road and then when I come off the road, everyone was gone. So I went back to Philly, where I was from. Then years later, on a night off in Boston, I went to see my new drummer’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend’s band and I met this chick and we ended up having a kid together and living in Philadelphia. When that didn’t work out, she moved to Boston. Now, I live in Boston and have been here for about 6 years or so. So I live here now, again.

Really!? I had no idea. You’re probably on the road most of the time. I feel like I would have seen you on the streets.

Not really. I’m home a good deal. We tour like 100-150 shows a year these days and I travel a bunch when I don’t have my boy, but I love Boston. It’s a place where I get down with my music and do a lot of shedding and I find it to be such a useful place because there are so many people who are here to learn music– and I can tap into all that music and those thousand different practice rooms where everyone’s getting it together and stuff. I feel that energy, you know?

Obviously you still have a big place in your heart for Philadelphia. The last time I was in Fishtown it seemed like it’s becoming the next Brooklyn.

Yeah, it’s funny because I think a lot of people from Brooklyn and other places in New York who are successful move down to Philly because it’s so much cheaper. There’s a good scene going on there. It kinda slowed down in the early 2000’s because of the economy, but last time I was there, I thought Philly is really popping off right now and that’s cool.

Over the years, do you feel like you’ve seen a change in your sound and your music? When you look back at your first record, do you see that as a dramatic change as to the music you record today?

Well, it’s funny. It’s our 20^th year right now. We started out with our first and second record and were very lucent of what we do. But over the years we’ve messed around with a bunch of styles and recording styles, but part of what we do stylistically and especially live, deals a lot with what we did on the first record. Actually, the last record we did, Fixing to Die, was really a tilt of the hat back to the time before I met the band, when I was really immersed into the Delta Blues and folk music and Bob Dylan. I think the next record is going to be back into the more familiar territory of blending the hip-hop and blues. I think that’s because of the confidence we felt with the last record—a really roots record—I think that the next record the recording style will continue to be really blues oriented and raw, and honest. Right now in the studio, I just want to make really honest and raw music without getting caught up in producing and stuff like that. My manager put it in a really good way… we’re in a really good position right now because we don’t need a radio hit and don’t need any commercial aspirations because no one really sells records anymore. We make our living on the road and we can write songs and be in the studio and it can all be about the music and the purity of the expression. Of course, as a writer, you always want to come up with some catchy shit that people want to hear, but just because it’s catchy, doesn’t mean it can’t be raw and dirty. For me there are no rules right now. It’s just about making amazing records. We’re gearing up to hit the studio in the spring.

What do you think about the term and genre “Blues/hip-hop”? Does that satisfy you as a category? Is there a better way to say it?

Well, you could say hip-hop/blues [laughs]

Right, right. But do you find that a strange term?

Well, no, because I made it up! [laughs]

Okay, that leads me to the next question… When you began, did you know of anyone doing anything similar to your style of blending hip-hop and traditional blues or do you see yourself as the originator?

Well I really believe that. I remember the exact moment that I stumbled upon it and I was playing on the street in Philly and I finished playing this sort of driving blues groove of mine, and it was just a two-chord jam like G-to-B, nothing fancy—and I just started rapping these lyrics from Eric B. and Rakim “Paid in Full” track over the groove I was playing and it just sort of happened and it worked. I was like, “damn that’s some shit right there!” and later that week, I wrote my first rap, “Rhyme for the Summertime”, which is on my first solo record. And that really was kind of an epiphany for me. That was back in 1991 or 1992 and I was like “oh shit, there’s no other white kid on the street playing Dobro and rapping I bet, anywhere in the world. Actually the next year I was out in Harvard Square and there was this kid up there and I saw him rap this De La Soul song, “Me, Myself and I”, and I thought that was pretty cool. But when we went to get our deal. We had a producer and after we made some demos, we went out to LA to meet with Columbia and he said, “hey we have some bad news. There’s another white kid rapping and playing guitar.’ I was like “how can that be?” And I asked, “What’s the kid’s name?’ and they said some guys name Beck or something. And they’re giving him the deal at Columbia. But a couple months later we signed our own deal at Epic and the first year, when both our records dropped, everyone was comparing the two of us. And I never even met the guy. We’ve only played one gig together at a Belgian Festival. One thing about Beck, and one thing that we thought was different between the two of us… yeah, his records were awesome and super raw, but a lot of it was looped, and more traditional hip-hop recording. What we were doing was something way different from all other hip-hop at the time, except maybe Rage Against the Machine. We were a white boy garage band doing our unique take on hip-hop, which was a unique blend and right away. Whether we sold a million records or not, we had a niche and we were connecting with people and that earned us our spot. We just keep producing material and keep riding around.

You did some of your early stuff as 10″s with Okey records, which is a traditional blues label, right?

Yeah, Epic actually revived that label, and that was an imprint for Epic and we were the first release on that along with Keb Mo and Poppa Chubby.

I was always curious where those releases came from. I had those early 10”s of yours and wondered when and why the label came back into print.

By the way, now that you’re on Brushfire, you must have some amazing business trips to North Shore, Oahu.

Ha! I wish there were more. I’ve been up to Jack’s spot and we did some shows with Slightly Stoopid in Hawaii this past June and we were out there for our day off. And I’ve seen him for a couple of days while he’s recording, but it’s funny, Jack and I are great friends and I consider him a brother and we have an amazing musical friendship—we’ve never stopped collaborating since the day we met. But, you know, I think people have this impression that I sit at his house in Hawaii and just surf all day and drink lemonade, but the reality of it is, we’ll more likely see each other in cities like Pittsburgh or some other random cities on tour. We’ve been surfing a bunch of times together.

I was going to ask if you were a surfer. Most of the people on that label are, even the ones you wouldn’t think.

Yeah, we all go surfing as much as we can. On this tour we play Boston, New York and Philly and we head down to Florida, so we have the boards in the trailer. Yeah, you know I surf a lot around Boston. My parents live down on the Cape so I surf a lot there. There are some really great spots up here.

I try my hand surfing in Truro sometimes… or Hampton Beach.

Right, right.

Is the band still the same? I know you have a lot of guests on your records. But is the core band still the same?

The core is a trio. It’s me and Jeffrey Clemens, who is the the original drummer and we have a Boston legend, Timo Shanko, on the upright bass. He plays in some other bands around town like the Dub Apocalypse. And Timo and I have a side-project called the Butter Band and we play a handful of shows a year on the Cape, Nantucket and around Boston. Timo and I have known each other since the early 90s when we first put the band together because he was up there and I was up there and we were all doing our thing.

Did the band change when you moved back to Boston?

No it was always a Boston band. Jimi Jazz was in the band for about 15 years and it just got to the point where he didn’t really want to be on the road anymore. I think the road was just getting to him. We’re still good friends and I’m sure we’ll make music again, but right now we have a really great unit which is Jeff, Kimo and I– and it’s just smoking. We have a lot of great improvisation and musical freedom and we’re doing some writing right now.

Thanks for your time G.

Cool man. We’re excited to be playing at home, in the town where this whole thing began.

This piece is dedicated to my surfing buddy, Beau Sturm, and his wife, Trina. Besides them hooking me up with tickets to see G., they are more importantly true pals. There are points in life where you think you’ve met everybody and think you’ve seen it all– then you realize you’re wrong and you meet new people who reaffirm your faith in friends and lasting friendships. Cheers. Thank you.

For more information visit:

Brushfire Records: http://brushfirerecords.com/

Neil Halstead: http://www.neilhalstead.com

G. Love: http://www.philadelphonic.com