I don’t know really. They contacted us about being in a nightclub scene in their new movie and asked to use some of our songs and if we could appear. We were flattered and thrilled.
Well I just got married last month and I’m having a baby too. So it kind of slipped my mind to tell anyone till just recently. They’ll believe any incredible thing I tell them at this point.
No I’m dying to see it. I’ve just seen a number of scenes on youtube and I have no idea what they’re saying.. but it looks really cool. I asked the producer to send me a copy but I haven’t gotten it yet.
I don’t know. I’ve heard Tallinn is beautiful. I’m expecting to have a cool time and hopefully we’ll have enough time in each place to really take it in and meet some cool folks.
No we’ve always made our own gigs. Just having a good time with our friends in our basements. I guess my friends are weird outsiders but I don’t think there’s any reason to be self conscious about it. My friends are always up to something. Creative weirdos that are gonna’ make stuff whether anyone gives a shit or not. Voodoo jammers and stick shakers.. playing the spoons in living rooms and kitchens. I love em’.
Shit I dunno. It kind of sucks to play for an unreceptive crowd but you can always have a dialogue even with people that aren’t into you. I recently had the experience of playing drums for country rocker Donavan Quinn and the 13th month. That was fun here in New York.. but we drove up to Boston to play a show at this sports bar. We played with D. Charles Speer who was fucking amazing, King Darves and the drummer from Negative Approach, who were both really great. There was not one person at the show. Donovan lost a ton of money on the rental car and even more importantly there was no one there to see this incredible show. I don’t know if that’s a nightmare.. but it’s a fucking shame.
I haven’t encountered that. I wouldn’t play a show unless I was getting paid, unless it’s in my neighborhood with my friends.
When we first started the band? Geez that’s a long time ago.. I don’t know. I think at the time I was interested in making weird scratchy dark improvised psychedelic noise zones of New Zealand bands like Doramaar and Dead C. I don’t think I’d really want to do that exactly today. Those bands are great tho. Elisa definitely had a the firebrand impulse of the MC5 in those early days when she would take the stage like Hazel Motes from Wiseblood. That was cool. We took our name from a song by weirdo sixties horror folk dude Simon Finn, who’s tweaked mushroom poetry and paranoia still plays a part in our sound today.
I don’t know.. I think the bigger releases that are easier to get we might pay more attention to crafting.. but if that’s all you’ve heard by us you’re missing out on some cool stuff for sure. I’m confident in saying that each of our releases is very different, and if you like what we do you should seek out the CDR’s I make on my Arbitrary Signs label as well as the releases we’ve done for other small labels. I think they all stand up for themselves in one way or another.
Well from my context as an American growing up in the cornfields of mid Michigan, bands like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Fugazi.. and the killer shit you’d hear on skate videos on Powell or Santa Cruz were my first introduction to a broader world of underground weirdo stuff that could be found if you looked hard enough. These were the bands that managed to be heard by kids in the sticks in America. From there I found out about the killer history of punk bands in my own state like the Stooges and Src and the MC5 even early Bob Segar System. That’s when I started to feel like I was a part of something apart from what was going on on tv or whatever. So fast forward to 2001, when we start playing shows at western Massachusset’s community joint the Flywheel. One of our first customers was Thurston Moore. Imagine the mind fuck of being approached by someone you consider to be an icon.. and he’s saying he likes your jams and he wants to buy a tape. This is the kind of shit that Obama talks about when he says that in America you can come up from no where and be a part of what’s going on .. not just on a local level.. but be working on a level with people that are playing in the big leagues. You just have to want it and you can put yourself there.
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Yeah Lee was way more organized than I expected. He works like a mad scientist.. taking notes on everything and helping us along.. encouraging the good stuff and getting it polished.. Elisa and I were kind of like the Rats of Nihm or something.. unnaturally intelligent beasts in a lab. He definitely had his own slant on our sound.
I heard some good stuff.. but I didn’t really experience that much fuss or anything. I’m glad some people dug it for sure.. We’re working on a new one next month with legendary producer Scott Colbern.. so I hope people are as open and stoked to check it out. He recorded a ton of Sun City Girl’s records as well as the latest Animal Collective and Arcade Fire records.
I don’t wear earplugs no… but I wouldn’t encourage kids to stand in front of a pile of P.A. speakers without them. That’s where it’s the loudest.. sometimes it can be pretty hard to hear what’s going on onstage.. that’s weird huh?
I don’t know.. I love being a dj.. here’s the playlist for the dance party CD I made for my wedding party, it’s kind of classicly’ but that’s cool:
Is life too serious to be taken seriously? Favourite animal is a dog, called Harry the Lurcher. Now somewhere in space.
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Animal Collective Arcade Fire Bob Segar System Boston Dead C Donavan Quinn Doramaar Elisa experimental Hazel Motes King Darves MC5 Obama Pete Nolan Ranaldo Rats of Nihm Scott Colbern Simon Finn St Tony Sun City Girls Tallinn Thurston Moore USA Veiko Õunpuu Velvet Underground Voodoo jammers
Hey Michael, they are in it, the spooky club scene. Watch it again.
i watched thwhole movie and they were not in it
