Matteah Baim - Laughing Boy (DiCristina Stair Builders, 2009)

Matteah Baim started out as a visual artist before turning her attention to music a few years ago, but she is probably best known for her role as one half of the self-dubbed "soft metal" duo Metallic Falcons, alongside Sierra Casady of CocoRosie. Their one and only album, the extraordinary Desert Doughnuts, featured layer upon layer of heady, rich landscapes and cryptic imagery, while maintaining an intangible, almost magical presence that ultimately set the record apart as something special and original.

Now that Metallic Falcons are on hiatus, Baim is concentrating on her own solo material. For her second album, Laughing Boy, New York-based Baim gathered a cast of Chicago indie all-stars, including 90 Day Men's Rob Lowe, artist Rose Lazar, and members of Pit er Pat. It's a smart move-- although Baim has a strong, haunting presence as a songwriter, it is her collaboration with these other distinctive musical personalities that keeps the album moving. One suspects this group interplay leads these songs in their most surprising directions, through the constant introduction of different ideas, styles, and approaches to composition.

You get the feeling that while the basic blueprint of the songs may have been in place from the start, Laughing Boy is predominantly created out of Baim and co.'s spontaneous jams. There's a charming clumsiness about this album-- its intentionally playful, spur-of-the-moment melodies create an expressive, mysterious atmosphere that always comes to a close at just the right moment. Fuego's drumming, usually in a creative wrestle against the downbeat, and Lowe's sinewy bass lines give backbone to her adventurous vocal patterns, congas, handclaps, and string arrangements, which peek in and out of the songs with natural fluidity and provide a wonderful vessel for her abstract lyrics.

Even without that help, Baim has a mesmerizing, velvety voice that dips and soars in accordance to her atypical phrasing, and at times it sounds as though she's singing a lullaby straight into your ear. On Laughing Boy, her vocals almost have a 1960s lounge vibe-- though inevitably much darker, riddled with ambiguous spookiness. She pairs up with other vocalists on the a cappella cover of Jim Morrisson's "Bird of Prey" and "He Turned My Mind Around", experimenting further with the loose song structures that make up the bulk of the album. From the brief rush of bells on "Maths on Fire" to the echo of breathy resonance on "The Whistler", it's both clear that Baim isn't afraid to slip unusual interludes between her psychedelic improvisations, and that her mix of the familiar and the unexpected is a winning combination.

(from Pitchfork, http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12800-laughing-boy/)

laughing boy

(etre) - Inferno from my occult diary (Porter Records, 2011)

Italian composer Salvatore Borrelli is known under the moniker (etre) for a variety of performances, recordings and installations of sound art. For Inferno From My Occult Diary, the composer boldly makes his inspiration and context quite clear in his liner notes: The work is “dedicated to the universal movement of synapses…” (I quote only in part here) and to “the memory of all people whom haven’t voiced their life or used hands to write their existence.”

These ideas do seem to resonate within and around the sounds themselves. The five sections are built from dark drones, disembodied voices drawn from electronic media, indeterminate clicks and static, and processed acoustic guitar and Satie-ish piano melodies (played by the composer). All of this is placed with the utmost care from both a timbral and spatial viewpoint.

For all the layers going on here, Borrelli evinces a deft touch in the organization of his material. There are occasional distant echoes of Ussachevsky — albeit in ways much less linear or harmonic — in the way sounds are treated not only for texture, but also for the tension between association and mystery. (Indeed, it might well be that listeners will meet these sounds with their own very personal associations and apprehensions.)

The final section, “Consenguito Silenzio,” reveals all of this in remarkable ways. It morphs from drone-and-event into a sonic structure that is almost unbearably dense in timbre. Paradoxically, this might bring the listener to an extraordinary experience, as the small spaces between the sound-layers seem to open into deep abysses, the effect hitting like a spectral ton of bricks.  By Kevin Macneil Brown on Dusted Magazine

Italian sound artist (etre) dedicates this work to “the universal movement of synapses,” as well as “the memory of all people whom haven’t voiced their life or used hands to write their existence.”  He also thanks all people who have unknowningly contributed to this album, particularly “black musicians of Delta music that played during pauses of hard work to survive and sustain life.”  Opening track “Voices Stomp Flames For Requiem Times” loops crying voices into a slow mournful rhythm, and “To Provoke A Fire Beyond Your Shutters” uses the sounds of massed cries for freedom.

Musically, (etre) combines acoustic and electronic instruments with field recordings, loops, broken turntables and laptop processing, into a thick, dreamlike collage.  Not that these are always good dreams, of course.  “We Do Boring Things Together” has a somewhat sunny acoustic guitar melody, but the sounds of doom and depression abound.  The sounds are processed and cycled in a stunning manner, and the disc is challenging and exciting for its entire duration.  The disc is divided into five pieces, and there are gaps in between some of them, but the whole disc works best as one extended meditation.

More so than any other release I’ve heard recently, Inferno From My Occult Diary is a dense, complex work which reveals much on repeated listens.  I hear different things every time I listen, and it’s all fascinating.  This is a powerful work reflecting on oppression and humanity, and I can’t recommend it enough. 8/10  Written by Paul Simon on Foxy Digitalis

Inferno from my occult diary

In Gowan Ring - Hazel Steps Through A Weathered Home (Bluesanct, 2002) \\ Exists And Entrances - Volume One: Vernal Equinox 2002 (2002 CDr Comp)

Led by a mysterious Utah-born troubadour named B'eirth, In Gowan Ring formed in the early '90s, featuring a rotating cast of musicians fusing elements of traditional European folk music with heavy doses of psychedelia. After appearing on a series of compilations, In Gowan Ring's debut album, Love Charms, appeared in 1994 on the World Serpent label. Three years later, The Twin Trees was released on World Serpent, an album that sounded like an updated version of the Incredible String Band or Pentangle. The Glinting Spade, released in 1999 on the Bluesanct label, saw In Gowan Ring making more prominent use of drone and trance music.

hazel steps

exists and entrances vol. 1

Land of kush - Monogamy (Constellation 2010) \\ Against the day (Constellation 2009)

The opening track to Land of Kush’s Egyptian Light Orchestra could, just possibly, be some kind of musical hell – combining a female Stephen Hawkins, a-tonal wails and vaguely Eastern musical ambience. It sits on the fine-line between surreal genius and an endurance test. Quite which side of the line it lies on remains to be seen! The answer lies in the sixteen minute track ‘scars’ which takes the psychedelic works of the doors and filters it through Eastern mythology and which is most certainly on the right side of the aforementioned line and which drags you bodily into the word of Land of Kush no matter how much you may resist the pull. Lyrically and musically fascinating ‘scars’ belongs to the best school of music which takes the listener out of themselves and on a journey; with hypnotic rhythms pummelling you and all manner of a-typical instrumentation creating a barrage that is part Eastern music, part extravagant musical number that demands a full theatrical performance (preferably complete with belly dancers!) to truly capture the magic of the experience.

After so rich a course as ‘scars’ the five minute-long ‘boo’ was always going to have to pull out the stops to captivate the audience in the same way, and thanks to creating a bass wall that sounds like an elephant it succeeds. Avant-garde in the manner of Glenn Branca or Sonic Youth on their strange, instrumental releases, there is very little in the way of a tune – rather than a jazz-inflected fusion of sounds that pull you towards the scary ‘tunnel visions’ a work of hallucinogenic beauty which is as influenced by Western folk as Eastern mysticism. ‘Fisherman’, on the other hand, is just terrifying – the intro to this fourteen minute beast is a jazz odyssey overlaid with a filth-spewing computer voice… really cool, but also stretching the bounds of credibility; it may be too much for some but the melody, when it arrives, is worth the wait and it’s possibly the best track musically thanks to a heavy groove underpinning the musical insanity. ‘Monogamy’ is easily the best track…or at least the most conventional and therefore the most instant, although I suspect that with an album as deep as this (and please bear in mind I’m on my fifth listen) favourite tracks may well change depending on your mood and the day in question. Laden with seductive melodies and innuendo-threatening vocals it’s a remarkable track that jams itself in your head and recalls the moments of beauty to be found on Jarboe’s solo works despite the tense atmosphere generated by the lengthy outro. Final track ‘like the thread of a spider’ is the perfect closer. Rising out of static it is more traditionally Eastern sounding than anything to this point. Crushing bass underpins the track which meanders for its four minute run time before fading into the dusty desert that spawned it.

It’s hard to know what to make of this release. I love it because it reminds me of all manner of excellent things and none of them all at once. Words such as unique are bandied about all too often, but this certainly is that – I can’t imagine anything that could or ever will sound like this appearing on my desk again and for that alone it deserves praise. It’s bold, innovative and daring – pushing buttons with the unnerving, tourette-laden attacks from the computer voice but then cleverly introducing melodies which demand to be heard to conclusion. This is not an easy record and is certainly it has a niche appeal, but for those who want to hear something entirely different to anything else in their collection ‘Monogamy’ is a gem that is worth your time. (On Sonic Abuse)

__________________________________

Sam Shalabi has been a fixture on the Montreal avant-rock scene - surely one of the continent's most fecund - for some two decades now, contributing to or fronting the likes of Molasses, Detention, Nutsak, and of course the extended freak-outs of his own Shalabi Effect project. The sprawling Land of Kush ensemble, with nearly thirty musicians to its roster, was the fruit of a lengthy stay in Egypt back in 2006. Shalabi had previously explored his Arab roots on earlier efforts Osama in 2003 and more recently on the poppier Eid last year. The free form experiments here on Against the Day - a sort of chance meeting of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and the early Red Crayola in the Sahara Desert - recall somewhat the classical orchestras of late Nasser-era Egypt. 

After a particularly auspicious debut last June at that city's continually excellent Suoni Per Il Popolo festival, Shalabi hauled the lot of them into the studio, seemingly undaunted by the logistical nightmare of recording a throng of musicians wielding strings, horns, synthesizers and sundry percussive instruments. The result is an equally haunting, exhilarating, and at times taxing mix of free jazz, musique concrete and Middle Eastern sounds that will surprise no one already familiar with Shalabi's work. The opening title track gets the point across best, where a staccato drumbeat motors around a mass of spiraling horns, building to its final intense rush of synths and vocals. Totally awesome, this! Other tracks evoke the exotic textures of Arabia (the sidelong 'Bilocations') or delve into industrial experimentation ('The Light over the Ranges'). Like most of Shalabi's work, the pleasures are hit and miss, but the hits, hit hard, and that makes Against the Day worth a listen. (On Canuckinstan Music)

monogamy

against the day

Sightings - Through the panama (Load 2007) \\ City of Straw (Brah Records 2010) \\ Future accidents (Our Mouth Records 2011) \\ Absolutes (Riot season 2003) \\ Sightings (Load 2002)

In honor of Brooklyn’s own Sightings record release today, Diana Kinscherf caught up with guitarist/vocalist Mark Morgan on the how’s and why’s of a different kind of rock band and what it’s like to have Andrew W.K. as a roommate…

What made you deviate from a regular rock sound into something noisier?

I remember when I was ten years old and hearing certain sounds and I was really excited by them. I wasn’t inclined to punk rock or any other off-kilter music; I was really isolated in this suburban town of Detroit. There was this thing on MTV in 1983 or 1984 called “Closet Classics”; they played a lot of 60′s acts like Jefferson Airplane, the Rolling Stones, and “Summertime Blues” by Blue Cheer and I remember thinking, “This is really amazing!”. I never really woke up one day and thought I was going to oppose everything that’s going on.

What did you grow up listening to?

The first tape I ever bought was Van Halen’s 1984 when I was nine years old; by all rights, it should have been Def Leppard. It didn’t occur to me to buy a record, so my parents bought me a boombox. The second thing I bought was Crazy From The Heat by David Lee Roth. Then I lost touch with modern music, when I was eleven I decided I was going to listen to classical music. I don’t know why I thought that; it was really ridiculous. I remember when I was twelve, some guy came up to me and said, “Do you like the Beastie Boys?” “No…I only listen to classical music”. I was into a lot of pop-metal stuff like Dokken, the aforementioned Van Halen and Ratt. When I was thirteen, my next door neighbor played the Doors for me. I got really into the Doors, at fourteen, fifteen, that was how I got into the Stooges. It was hard to understand how earth-shattering it was to me.The extended interview after the jump…

Gathering from what you listened to growing up, and hearing the music you make now, there seems to be a gap in between.

Well, we haven’t gotten to college yet!

What did you do [instead of] college?In the last two years I did a lot of pot smoking, and listening to records; those were very formative years, age eighteen to twenty two. I was a total trainspotter; I wanted to hear every band, I would endlessly read about music. Just going through the usual bullshit, like Gang Of Four, the Birthday Party, I was a really big Jesus Lizard fan, going to all their shows when they came to town.

I can see the influence drawing closer. What other art do you do?None.Just the music? It’s all about the music.

I used to draw a lot when I was a kid, but after I started playing music, I lost interest.

What do you think of noise rock musicians?

I don’t refer to it as noise rock, I just refer to it as rock; obviously it’s noisy, as an adjective. As I see it, we’re fans of rock and we just want to push it forward, if people want to foist upon us being noise, that’s fine, but sometimes I get annoyed. Some people just slot us into being this kind of band.

I’ve heard a lot of comparisons between Sightings and Einst√ºrzende Neubauten. What do you think of that?

I don’t think of Einst√ºrzende Neubauten as being a rock band; they’re a great band, but terms like “noise rock” and “industrial” are meaningless ghettos and are not going to convey how that band sounds.

Who on the current music scene are you really into?

We played with this band Sword Heaven a few weeks ago, they’re from Columbus, and we’ve played with them a few times before. It’s just a guy with a bunch of shit on a table and a drummer. They’re a fucking great band – I don’t think there’s anything quite like them that I’ve heard before. I don’t think they sound much like us, if at all, but I think all three of us in Sightings feel a kinship with them, and I feel they think the same about us. this is a really great, phenomenal band. Truly amazing,

Where did the name Sightings come from?

It’s actually kind of funny; I used to live with Andrew W.K. when he moved to New York, It was the summer of 97, and I met him through a friend of a friend, and he contacted me and asked if he could stay at my place for a while until he found an apartment. So he lived in my house, and a month ended up turning into five months. He did this homemade magazine, and it was called Wolf Slicer and he wrote fictional articles and he had all these collages; utterly bizarre, and truly amazing. He wrote fake letters to the magazine, and one of the letters was like “Hi, my name is George, and I have an act called Sightings, and I was wondering if you would review our cassette”, and I was reading that and was like, “I gotta use that as a band name!”; so that’s how we got the band name!

Are you happy with where you stand? Is there anything you would change?What do you think of noise rock musicians?

I don’t refer to it as noise rock, I just refer to it as rock; obviously it’s noisy, as an adjective. As I see it, we’re fans of rock and we just want to push it forward, if people want to foist upon us being noise, that’s fine, but sometimes I get annoyed. Some people just slot us into being this kind of band.

I’ve heard a lot of comparisons between Sightings and Einst√ºrzende Neubauten. What do you think of that?

I don’t think of Einst√ºrzende Neubauten as being a rock band; they’re a great band, but terms like “noise rock” and “industrial” are meaningless ghettos and are not going to convey how that band sounds.

Who on the current music scene are you really into?

We played with this band Sword Heaven a few weeks ago, they’re from Columbus, and we’ve played with them a few times before. It’s just a guy with a bunch of shit on a table and a drummer. They’re a fucking great band – I don’t think there’s anything quite like them that I’ve heard before. I don’t think they sound much like us, if at all, but I think all three of us in Sightings feel a kinship with them, and I feel they think the same about us. this is a really great, phenomenal band. Truly amazing,

Where did the name Sightings come from?

It’s actually kind of funny; I used to live with Andrew W.K. when he moved to New York, It was the summer of 97, and I met him through a friend of a friend, and he contacted me and asked if he could stay at my place for a while until he found an apartment. So he lived in my house, and a month ended up turning into five months. He did this homemade magazine, and it was called Wolf Slicer and he wrote fictional articles and he had all these collages; utterly bizarre, and truly amazing. He wrote fake letters to the magazine, and one of the letters was like “Hi, my name is George, and I have an act called Sightings, and I was wondering if you would review our cassette”, and I was reading that and was like, “I gotta use that as a band name!”; so that’s how we got the band name!

Are you happy with where you stand? Is there anything you would change?

No, I think this is the best we’ve been. We’ve been playing for eleven years this November. I’m pretty happy with it. The only thing I would change is that the song writing process is up and down, sometimes we’ll be kickin’ it and other times we’ll go through these dry spells. But it always comes back where we’ll get excited by new stuff. Most bands have their weaknesses, but you know, I just want to be consistently good. What would I change about the band? It’s fine, I’m pretty happy with it!

(On Free Williamsburg)

Through the panama

City of straw

Future accidents

Sightings

Absolutes

Three mile pilot - The inevitable past is the future forgotten (Temporary Residence Limited) \\ Another desert, another sea (Headhunter Records, 1977) \\ The chief assassin to the sinister (Cargo Records 1994)

Pall Jenkins lives in San Diego. The first time I heard his band Three Mile Pilot I was in San Francisco. I endured an ill-advised overnight haul via car from the Bay Area to Seattle; a friend and I shared the wheel through the dead hours with only Three Mile Pilot’s Another Desert, Another Sea as our solace. The snaking I-5 promised certain doom at every turn. Thundering logging trucks swerved into our lane deep within the midnight mountains of northern California. I developed a true love affair with both the record and the band during that perilous drive.

My introduction to Jenkins’ other best-known band The Black Heart Procession was based solely upon their second record’s cover art. I saw it in a Philly shop and felt oddly drawn to it; I had no idea who was in the band or what it sounded like. I trusted that musicians with such impeccable graphic design taste knew their way around a song. I wasn’t disappointed. Like Another Desert, 2 served as crucial midnight driving music.

Fast-forward a decade and both bands still prove themselves capable of functioning as elixir and narcotic. Three Mile Pilot’s The Inevitable Past is the Future Forgotten, their first in 13 years, reflects the finer attributes of The Black Heart Procession and fellow Three Mile Pilot alumni band Pinback. In no way a rehash of the band’s ‘90s output, The Inevitable Past… boasts new tricks from old dogs. The Black Heart Procession recently released EP Blood Bunny/Black Rabbit. Featuring a handful of guest remixes (one from Lee “Scratch” Perry), this entry in the band’s canon is a wild and welcome artistic detour.

Jenkins offered a substantial slab of his time to discuss these musical adventures. He elaborated upon the recording of Another Desert, Another Sea, Three Mile Pilot’s awakening from a decade-long slumber, his formative years as a young San Diego punk, and the bedlam that is The Black Heart Procession’s new EP. When not playing in his trailblazing bands, Jenkins produces and engineers other peoples’ bands. Indeed, the guy lives and breathes music. We are the better for his exhalations.

When did you begin working on The Inevitable Past is the Future Forgotten?About five years ago.

Did you work on it consistently throughout that whole time?

No, well, Black Heart was touring and Pinback was touring and working on albums. Both bands were busy. We worked on it when we had time off and slowly picked away at it. We wrote about, I would say, 30 songs or something. We probably had 40 ideas and finished the tracking on about 20 of them. So it took us a while to pick through everything.

Did anything instigate you finally finishing it? We always wanted to. We never really broke up. We were always great friends. It was just a matter of Black Heart [being busy, as well as] Pinback, and we did these other things for quite a long time. We always felt like there was a little score to settle or something that we didn’t finish with Three Mile Pilot. The idea was always to make another record. It just took a long time. (laughter)

What was the process of recording? You did it all in your home studios?

Yeah, I run a studio here in San Diego. I work with bands all the time. Zach has a home set up as well. So we kind of did some here and some there. We were into recording — I think that is a big difference from before, when we were Three Mile Pilot 15 years ago. We didn’t record ourselves much, just a little bit. We’d always go to other studios. Now we work with bands and record our own records. It was a cool experience to come back at it with a different insight into recording. But it also threw up challenges because the Three Mile Pilot sound back in the day was very chaotic and more carefree than we are now, where we understand recording and work on getting good takes and stuff like that. It used to be [that] I’d go in and sing the song once and that was it. Now we sing it 20, 30, 40 times. (laughter)

Do you tend to be the primary songwriter in the band, or does it tend to be more collaborative?I bring in some ideas and Zach brings in ideas, but primarily with Three Mile Pilot it’s [as follows]: Zach starts off with an idea — a bass line or something he’s got going, maybe fake drums or some parts in there. Then I would sit with the ones that I liked, that resonated with me. I would work on lyrics and work on my guitar parts and whatever else I wanted to bring to the table. Tom [Zinser] would bring beats and do the drums. And we would work out parts as we go. Then we would play the whole song and figure it out together from that point.

“Battle” was one that I brought in. I think that was the only one on the record I actually brought in. But then there are ones where [Zach] just had a part where he wasn’t sure where it was going and I kind of took it over — steal his baby from him kind of thing. But yeah, it was very [collaborative], working on the parts and making decisions. Zach did a lot of the file management, keeping track of the recordings — we had to pick one person to manage all of the files rather than having things constantly go back and forth. So he had that fortune of dealing with all that crap. (laughter).

There are always compromises and things don’t turn out — somebody has an idea and it doesn’t get realized. But we have other bands nowadays, so we are okay with calling them as we see them and trying to get the best we could out of it.

So was that the way you tended to approach songwriting back in the ‘90s?

Definitely not. [In the ‘90s we would] spend hours on end in the practice space — write the songs together, really work out the songs, or sort of work them out as good as we could. Then we’d head into the studio, spend as little time as possible on the earlier records, [being as] cheap as possible — get in there and get the hell outta there. Then when we started working on Another Desert, Another Sea – it was with Geffen. There was more budget. We would take longer. But it was always with Three Mile Pilot back in those days where we’d work out the songs and be able to play them live as a band first. Nowadays we tend to write parts and play on top of each others’ stuff and record as we go. So there is a definite difference in that.

Were you on Geffen when we began doing Another Desert, Another Sea?

Yeah. Geffen picked up Chief Assassin of the Sinister, added three songs to it. We put that out with them and then we started working on Another Desert, Another Sea. Basically, they didn’t feel there was a radio hit or whatever, and so we got back in the studio and started working on stuff with other producers — and we didn’t like what they were doing. So we went home one day and told the company the first record we turned in was it, and if they didn’t like it, then don’t put it out. That was Another Desert, Another Sea. They decided not to put it out. We got it back for free and put it out with Cargo. Then Three Mile Pilot took a break for a while and we started Black Heart and Pinback.

So was there a lot of wrangling as far as getting that record from them? Was Geffen trying to shelve it?

Yeah, they were definitely trying to shelve it. They didn’t see anything going on and they wanted us to stick around and work on shit [endlessly]. We were not in that frame of mind. We wanted to put a record out regardless of if there was commercial success or not. We wanted to just document these songs and put them out and get on tour and see what we could do. They were trying to make us re-record stuff, make us write stuff again, suggesting ridiculous things that were never part of the picture when we first signed with them. What was your initial question there?

I was curious how difficult it was to get the record from them.

By the time we were done with them, they weren’t fulfilling their contract by not releasing the record. We said this is our record and they said they didn’t want to put it out and they said take it for free. The only way out of the contract for them was to not put it out and we would get it for free. That was in the contract. So we got the tapes and everything for free. But we were no longer with the label and that was fine with us.

What was the recording like for that album? Was this overshadowing everything while you were recording it?

Definitely. We were up at Bear Creek for initial recording for two months, really expensive stuff, $1,800 a day and paying a producer. So it turned into a $200,000 record. We didn’t see a dime of that. That never came into our hands. It was directly from the label to whoever needed to get paid. So we got the record back and put it out with Cargo. It was overshadowing the whole thing. We were burnt by the time the record came out.

So did you tour when the record came out, or were you spent by that point?

We did a little bit of touring, but basically not. I soon started Black Heart and went on some tours with them and did a record. But I think those guys weren’t into touring; I was wanting to do music and tour. Then Zach started Pinback. I was already doing Black Heart and Touch and Go offered to [release] our record and we were busy all the time. Then Pinback did a record, and Touch and Go wanted to put out their next record — they’re all fans of Three Mile Pilot.

Do you ever listen to Another Desert? Can you divorce it from that whole process of what you went through to record it?

Yeah. We were very involved with all the music writing for Another Desert, Another Sea – they [the label] didn’t have someone in there telling us what to do. The original record we wrote is Another Desert, Another Sea. It was once we turned it in and they didn’t feel there was a hit … and we ditched all those songs. Maybe one or two are on that comp we did. They were just pretty horrible songs taking it too far to a pop area where we weren’t comfortable. But we tried — we figured it can’t hurt to try. We’ll write some of these songs and work with some of these people. But it just really started not going well very quickly. And we were younger, too; I think we were more impatient. I think when you’re young, you want to make your record and get out there. Everything is such a moral issue when you’re young and working with a large label. You just think they are these demons trying to suck your blood. It’s not always necessarily like that. Some people, this is a job they like. They work for Atlantic and it’s cool. There is a lot of great music that came out on Geffen and Atlantic and a lot of those labels.

Now that I’m older, I’d probably deal with things a little bit more [and not be] so hurt by every suggestion. But we still don’t have an interest in major labels. I just understand the process more now that I’m older. I think that when we were young, it was very tender. Those people were very “LA” and we were into our world. (laughter)

To go back in time even further, I was curious how you got into music and involved with playing music?
When I was a kid I really liked music and there was a guitar around the house. My brother took piano lessons and I just banged on the piano. Eventually, my dad bought me an electric guitar, [with] which I took lessons for a couple of months and put in my closet.

Then I was 15, 16; I started writing a bunch of lyrics, just getting into different kinds of music — early Dischord stuff and punk rock music with a message, and writing and drawing a lot. Then one of my friends said, “You’re always writing and drawing, why don’t you sing for our band?” And I was like, “Alright, I’ll try it.” So then I kind of started singing. That was my first punk rock band called Dark Sarcasm. Zach and Tom were in a band called Neighborhood Watch and we would play some shows together. Then they started a new band and asked if I wanted to sing. I started hanging out with them and that developed into Three Mile Pilot.

What was the San Diego music scene like back in those days?
There was one small club called the Casbah. And there’s still one small club called the Casbah. (laughter) No, I’m teasing. But it’s true, back then there was just the Casbah and the Che Café, a few clubs, and there would be house shows. It was a smaller community of people doing music. There was a lot of really good bands and a lot of energy behind San Diego at a certain point there.

Then the Casbah moved into a bigger place. That’s where it is nowadays. It’s not much bigger, but maybe three times bigger than it used to be. It used to be a hole in the wall. Yeah, we used to have great shows, good times. Drive Like Jehu was one of my favorite bands back then. It was great shows, playing at Che Café at three in the morning.

Is the Che Café still around?

Yeah, they still do shows. Now when I go there I feel like a very old man. (laughter) But it’s funny, Zach’s parents used to go to the Che Café and then we went. And now Zach’s having kids and his kids will probably go.

Keep the tradition going. 

Why not?

To switch gears a little, I feel like there is a rich, narrative nature to your lyrics, and I’m curious if you ever do other kinds of writing besides lyric writing.

You know, I’ve threatened to do stuff like that — write a book or do something like that. But every time it came down to it, it’s like…I do write and do all that stuff, but it’s a mess. (laughter) Lyrics fall from the sky. You can’t really control where they come from. For me to sit down and write something has been a real challenge. I tend to have to get myself into a zone and hear something and feel something.

I used to write a lot more, constantly writing in a book late at night before I’d go to bed, late into the middle of the night. Now that I’ve gotten into tracking bands and recording more, I’ve gotten into sounds and songwriting and lyrics just kind of appear. Lyrics are a mystery to me, of where they come from or what they really mean. I tend to find different meanings for things down the road. Every now and then I’ll just write; I’ll do a bunch of stuff and see if some stuff works for music. But generally, it’s always for songs.

In the liner notes to Another Desert, Another Sea, there’s mention of a companion booklet. Did that actually exist?

No, it never did. That was one of my threats or attempts. I had this idea of putting a bunch of my artwork and writing into some sort of strange, Pictionary street bible thing. I still have the idea in the back of my head, but it was too convoluted to ever really bring to light. And now that’s 15 years past and I’ve moved on from it. But, such as yourself, a few others every now and then will be like, “What the heck was up with that?” I don’t know what I was thinking. I just put it in the liner notes because I had an idea. (laughter)

So there are no plans to create this booklet?

No, definitely no plans to do that. There is a guy in Greece making a whole comic book based on the first Black Heart record. I’ve seen the first chapter and it’s really cool.

What’s it called?

The Waiter. We do a series of songs called “The Waiter” — there are six or seven of them. So they wanted to do a comic book based on the first record.Is the comic book available yet?No, he’s not finished yet.

Speaking of Black Heart, you have a new mini-album out (Blood Bunny/Black Rabbit). Tell me a little about that.

The EP, it’s a remix record. We had some people remix it, like Mr. Tube and the Flying Objects — he did some. Eluvium. Lee “Scratch” Perry did one that’s kind of insane. We added three new songs on it. It’s a mixture of remixes and new songs, or unreleased songs from our last recording session.

How did you hook up with Lee “Scratch” Perry?

We were talking about remixes and I thought it would be cool to have Lee “Scratch” Perry, so Jeremy from Temporary Residence said he would see what he could do. He somehow tracked down their management company and they agreed to do one. We had to pay a fee for it, but we got it. We had never met him or ever seen him before. I sent files to their management and they got them to him. But the remix he did sounds like — I don’t know what he was smoking. I heard he doesn’t smoke anymore, but it sure sounds like it. I thought we’d get some cool dubbed-out jam thing and it’s more weird, electronica something or other. It’s really weird. He’s doing cat sounds all over it, singing over it. It’s just like he’s ranting and raving about something or other. It’s pretty funny.

At first I was like, “What the hell is this? This is not fair that we paid for this.” Then as I listened to it, I realized it was just kind of insane. At first I didn’t hear any of the music that he used. Then the piano player said, “That’s my piano bass line sped up really fast.” Then we started realizing he used very minimal parts of what we gave him and put it through some weird shit. It doesn’t sound anything like the original song. You can hardly even recognize the original song in there at all.

So it wasn’t what you were expecting from him?

No, not at all. I would have liked to get some dubby, long, spaced-out thing. But we got this short, weird, electronic thing. But in those situations, you’re paying someone to express themselves and that’s what he did. But to say Lee “Scratch” Perry remixed one of your songs isn’t such a bad thing either.

(On Verbicide Magazine)

the inevitable past is the future forgotten

three mile pilot

the chief assassin to the sinister