an interview with Mazes

July 18th, 2010

it would not be over-exaggerating to say Mazes is one of my favourite UK bands at this moment in time. they are rather marvelous. they do DIY pop music of a sort. you can listen to them here if you like. and read about them below…

So, Mazes, who is lost within the friendly confines of Hampton Court?

We don’t seem to have settled on a line up really. The first things we recorded were just me, my girlfriend Claire, Jay and Jarin… then Jay left and Neil joined, Claire got too busy. And then now our friend Conan is gonna start playing second guitar…it’s transient I suppose, but that can be nice. I like to think we’ll hit on a formula soon.

How long have you been doing this music thing, is Mazes your first band that’s put a record out?

For all intents and purposes

Sex Is Disgusting is a clued up label, how did you wind up hooking up with those chaps?

Well we were based in Manchester initially and honestly there weren’t any like minded bands when we started or we didn’t really know any. A friend of ours Paul had a bizarre job ghostwriting a music blog for Alan McGee (true story) and he wrote about Mazes in a post about Wavves. I think James from Sex Is Disgusting stumbled upon it and liked what he heard. At that point we’d only recorded a handful of songs and we’d never played a show. They booked us to play with Wavves and Pens in Brighton and asked us to do a single…that was like 18 months ago.

Your latest 7″ is DIY / self released, why did you decide to put your own record out and are you hoping to release other bands music as well? How are you going about distributing it?

I’m fortunate enough to work for a really cool guy in Manchester who owns a place called The Deaf Institute… He was like ‘we should start a label’ so we did, the Mazes seven being the first release so I didn’t fuck up anyone else’s record. As far as distribution’s concerned I dunno…we just write people and see if they want it. We have sevens lined up for two Manchester bands called Former Bullies and Milk Maid and then a tape for Brown Brogues… there’s a vagues plan to do a Colleen Green seven which I’m psyched about.

You guys seem to be pretty out on a limb, I’m not sure there’s much around at the moment that you easily fit with. Which is a good thing! What other bands do you play shows with, is there a cross over with DIY punk and hardcore bands, or are you tending to get lumped in with the whole lo-fi indie thing?

We’ve got pretty picky with shows because we’ve played a load that have been promoted badly… we like playing with our friends bands but apart from that, we just need to not lose money and get enough beers to keep us happy.

What do you get out of being in a band, what keeps you going, and holds your interest?

Personally it’s become like a compulsion I spose and it just makes me really happy, most aspects anyway. We’ve had a couple of deals thrown our way and one in particular would’ve enabled us to do this a little more seriously… we’re not purist idiots but we pissed them off and they got sick of us. We had to have a big think about why we do it and what they could offer us just didn’t seem like something that’d make us happy… I mean we’re ambitious but not at the expense of certain things.

Trying hard to work out how to phrase this next one without coming across like a complete jerk – but it seems to me that whenever there’s a new trend in the US (i.e. Captured Tracks etc…) that a lot of bands can pop up in the UK doing kind of the same thing. Do you think that is a terrible blanket generalisation? Are UK bands a lot more autonomous than my gut instinct would suggest, or do bands trend hop?

Yeah maybe… but I think that’s the fault of the british music industry and the press…all that’s changing obviously and it’s getting to the point where we’re all on an even playing field. It’s just as easy for someone in London to hear a new LA band as it is for someone in LA. The DIY scene is the US has been around for years and now UK bands realise that that’s a good way of doing things…people are beginning to see that making music to ‘get signed’ is short sighted bullshit… and completely futile obviously.

This somewhat pointless penultimate question is a holdover from when I first did interviews on this website about 11 years ago… what is your favourite weather condition?

Muggy

What does the future hold for Mazes? Is there anything you’d like to add at this point? Thanks for dealing with this shit!

Gonna sort ourselves out…another seven soon, a 30 song tape album on Italian Beach Babes and then record an album proper over the summer.

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an interview with Sauna Youth

July 1st, 2010

sauna youth is a punk band, they have a 7″ out. they have a website. here is some words what i asked them and some words what they told me.

—

Sauna Youth. So, who’s sitting around in the steam with a towel on their lap?

We have Murphy, lounging back on a deep red number, thrown so carelessly around him as to barely conceal his dignity. Next to him Reza relaxes with an Azure shade wrapped around his waist, handling the coals, frequently and steadily keeping the temperature high and the steam strong. Lindsay, with his Aubergine towel, perched at the back keeps the conversation animated whilst sipping on an exquisitely constructed mojito cocktail. I, Richard, stand and sweat in white.

How did this come about? It would appear that several of you chaps did “time” in pop punk / melodic hardcore bands. How did you get from that to this, and why are you all bumming around in a DIY punk band, what keeps you doing this shit?

I once asked a man who had been working at CERN for the last 30 years how something like the Large Hadron Collider could ever be conceived, what is the starting point for something like that? and he replied, “2 people sitting around drinking coffee”. He also laughed in my face when I asked if anyone knew how it worked.  It’s all just different variations on pop songs really. I think the transition from what we were doing before was quite natural. With Sauna Youth we wanted to experiment more, not back ourselves into a corner with the music or lyrics, employ a more diverse range of things that actually influence us but it still be a punk band. Also, we really wanted to be in a band that sounded like the Undertones or The Ramones. I think we might be failing in this respect but i’m ok with that.  Why do we still do this? That is a very good question indeed! We’ve all done “time” in a number of other bands, I think there’s been a 2 week period of my life in 13 years when I haven’t been in a band. Often it can feel like bumming around for sure when you’re involved with DIY punk rock but it’s only when you peer outside it’s walls do you realise the freedom that exists within it. It’s good to feel like you’re a part of a network and community that can exist outside of the more conventional means.

The seven inch is based around the concept of youth. I want to ask you a bunch of questions about this! How old are the folk in the band and do you consider yourself youthful?

Ah, now that would be telling… I will say that ¾ of us are falling off the wrong end of our twenties though. I think we all still definitely consider ourselves youthful, the world still fascinates us and we all still collectively do something that we’ve been doing since we were teenagers.

Does one stop being youthful when they hit a certain age? How important do you think it is to maintain such an outlook? Can it conflict with growing up and is being mature a good thing? What if you’re like the Get Up Kids and still farting about in 10 years time, would the band name still be appropriate?

There’s that benjamin Franklin quote, “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing” I would stand by that wholeheartedly. My nan is 87 and still plays bowls, won her last 2 matches, and she works for her local meals on wheels delivering food to people that are 10-15 years younger than her. The conflict? I don’t necessarily think that there has to be one, maturity in my eyes is more to do with taking responsibility for yourself and learning that experience should come pretty early in life. It’s like if you’re a kid and you act like a dick and blame your behaviour on other people, your friends will eventually see through it and won’t want to play with you anymore. I think there’s a difference between that and running around and shouting just for the fun of it. If we’re about in 10 years time the band name would be wholly inappropriate but all the better for it.

I am fully behind the fact that you put your own record out. Was it a collective effort from all the band? How are you going about distributing it and how has the experience been?

Thanks. The whole thing has been pretty self-contained, down to recording, mixing, putting together & printing the artwork. We were going to scrape together the money ourselves but we played up in Cambridge for our friend and he heard about the record & said he would lend us the money to put it out, so that was great. It also has given us a good incentive to really work at selling them so we can pay him back. So far the experience has been great, especially as where I live, in Brighton, there are such a wealth of great record shops. Getting to wander about going into the Punker Bunker, Resident, Rounder and Edgeworld records hocking our gear and talking to the people that work there has been wonderful. It’s also good having distros and shops that we buy records from ourselves taking copies.

Good idea with the female backing vocals that feel wonderfully out of place. Who’s idea was this and was there any particular reason to add something that is perhaps not what people would expect to hear?

It’s either a very considered, well thought-out idea coming from a love of girl groups from the 50′s & 60′s with a view to eventually having a trio of singers on stage with us, or an off the cuff experiment in which an acquaintance was harangued into singing along to something she’d never heard before in her life. Or both. There are very particular reasons for adding unexpected elements to the music, we’re not attempting to introduce any new sub-sub-genres but we’d like to make things more interesting for ourselves. Also, eating peanut butter with celery AND/OR cheese and honey on toast.

Bizarre old question I used in a bunch of old interviews when the C was the most emo thing in the world: what is your favourite weather condition?

Sitting in the shade in a crisp sun-soaked park with a mild breeze flowing through.

Thanks for doing this. What next for Sauna Youth? Anything else you’d like to add? Stay youthful!

Thanks for the interview. We have a 3 song tape coming out on Suplex Cassettes in the next few months, called “MAD MIND”. After that there’s talk of doing a 7” with Sex is Digusting. We’re going to be recording our LP “DREAMLANDS” over summer and hopefully we’ll work out a way of putting that out soon after. Always!

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An interview with Årabrot

June 28th, 2010

If any band deserves to be named after a landfill site it’s Norway’s Årabrot, a demented slagheap of noise-rock that’s about as vicious as they come. Pull on yer rubber gloves, get the Toilet Duck handy and read on…
“We started out young and bored in the summer of 2001. The result was a 7” and the birth of Årabrot – basically a snotty, abrasive garage noise band with the intention of becoming the loudest Norway had ever produced.” So says frontman Kjetil Nernes, and with a string of EPs and three shattered albums in their wake you’d be hard pushed to say they hadn’t met their goal, with latest offering ‘The Brother Seed’ loaded with more boss-eyed menace, lumpen repetition and flailing grabs for the throat than you’d ever dare shake a stick at. Still, a lot has changed in the nine years since the band first attached its suckered mouth to the noise-rock underbelly, with genre titans Pissed Jeans having brought the genre back home to roost and any number of lesser acts dropping names like Rusted Shut and the Brainbombs as though their credibility depended upon it. Has Nernes, in recent times, seen more acceptance of the band’s unwelcome advances? “Not really,” is his rather blunt response, “I still see a lot of question marks and frowns in Europe, as opposed to complete understanding to where we’re coming from in the States. What I do  see though is the enormous effect Sunn O))) has had in bringing drones to the average metal crowd. All of a sudden people are actually interested when we’re playing the same riff for half an hour.” With the band’s influences (think 90s AmRep violence mingled with early industrial clanks) on display like cankerous war wounds talk turns to the band’s native Norway, perhaps most famed musically for gifting us a wealth of corpsepainted talent. Given the band’s malignant aura, has the dark spectre of black metal had any impact on Årabrot’s sound and how, if at all, does the band see itself fitting into the contemporary Norwegian music scene? “Some black metal bands, like Mayhem and Burzum, have been a great influence on us,” says Nernes on the first point before addressing the latter: “fitting into the current Norwegian scene has proved pointless and impossible. It’s not really anything we’re focusing on.” Indeed, making a safe little nest for themselves appears to be the last thing on Årabrot’s agenda, with Nernes already several steps ahead where the band’s future is concerned: “I’m already working on new material. Not for the follow-up to ‘The Brother Seed’, but the one after that. It’s gonna be heavier, with slower, longer songs. I’ve worked on this project for almost 10 years and I have a pretty clear vision on its progress – hopefully by the end we’ll be able to stand out as a great, genuine sounding alternative rock n’ roll band.”

www.myspace.com/arabrot

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An interview with Bafabegiya

May 23rd, 2010

by alex deller.

–

COLLECTIVE: Greetings, Bafabegiya. Kindly let us know who you are, let us know what part you play in the band and anything else about yourselves that you think we may be interested to learn. How did the band start and how has it evolved over time? 
 
B: Bafabegiya consists of Tim Osipenko on bass, Jawsh Hageman on drums, Justin Morales on guitar, and Joe Ferguson does the vocals. We are all very different and passionate individuals who have a lot of love for DIY culture. We have all been in and are a part of several other musical projects in the Reno DIY scene including Crucial Attack, Dog Assassin, Rad Times, Disconnect, This Computer Kills, Both Blind, No Gods No Girlfriends, and a handful of others. The band started about 3 or 4 years ago after This Computer Kills (Jawsh) broke up, and Crucial Attack (Joe) went on a long hiatus. I (Joe) asked Jawsh if he wanted to start a HC punk band and he was into it and he asked Justin if he wanted to play some tunes. We asked our friend James to play bass in the band, and he did so for the first few shows, and I think he may even be on the split demo tape with Dog Assassin that we did. James quit and we asked Tim (Dog Assassin) to join. That has been the lineup ever since. The sound I think has changed quite a bit since we began writing music. We started out playing some fairly straight forward HC punk tunes akin to Minor Threat or 7 Seconds, but we progressed quickly and started writing some more intricate and different stuff pretty soon thereafter. 
 
COLLECTIVE: What the heck is a Bafabegiya? It sounds like something that might’ve crawled out of some Norse folktale or something… 
 
B: Bafabegiya literally means “Those Who Die Dancing” in Xhosa, a language from South Africa. During the reign of white apartheid in South Africa, non-white folks and their supporters began to rebel in many significant ways. The main organization of resistance in South Africa during apartheid was the ANC (African National Congress), who continue to have significant political power there today. During the beginning of the resistance, there was a group of radicals who wanted to take a more direct-action style approach to dismantling the racist power structure that existed there at the time. They were called Bafabegiya, and they advocated for sabotage and bombings while the ANC staged boycotts and walk-outs. While both types of actions were important in taking out the racist regime (at least symbolically) in South Africa, it should be noted that the course of action that a person or group takes to rectify social injustice should be appropriate for the situation. Today I see a lot of people burning candles and singing songs in front of federal buildings to protest the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, or maybe once in a while they will march in the streets and make a symbolic gesture through art to “stop the war” or something of that nature. They take this course of action while literally thousands of innocent men and women and children are ravaged by the weapons of mass destruction that their tax dollars go to purchase. I unfortunately don’t see a lot of people taking real direct action to stop and injustices in the world. There are some, and they are those who die dancing. 
 
COLLECTIVE: You guys have a somewhat odd sound (for this day and age, anyway…) that I always end up describing somewhat hamfistedly. There seems to be a crust influence at work but also something more akin to what a lot of early-to-mid 90s hardcore bands (like, say, Born Against or Iconoclast) were doing. Is there any particular “sound” you’re aiming for? How do you think the band fits in with the current hardcore topography?  
 
B: As a band, I don’t think we have ever really tried to fit into any specific musical genre box or tried to categorize ourselves. We have never thought “hey lets try to sound like this or that.” We just write the music that we write, and it comes out however it does. We have a lot of very different musical interests and influences, and I think that our sound reflects a lot of that diversity. So, I would say that we are not trying to aim for any specific sound, per se, we are just a band playing heartfelt music with passion and drive. People have compared us to bands like Econochrist, Born Against, and even Tragedy, but I think we maintain a pretty unique sound. As for the current HC topography, I’m not really sure that we fit in at all. There aren’t many bands out there that sound like us, and we don’t really fit in, at least musically, to current HC trends, as far as I see it. We have played with a lot of different bands and in a lot of different scenes, and we get different reactions everywhere we go. It just depends. We like playing and touring with bands that we get along with, and we have toured with a lot of Spacement Records bands like Arabella, Disconnect, Greyskull, and Acts of Sedition. I think we get the best response in the more active and politically concerned scenes because we talk a lot about issues that our lyrics deal with. I like to talk in between songs about what the different songs are about and engage the crowd in discourse before and after we play. We always bring a zine distro and usually have books for sale in addition to the records and things that we sell. So, that is one thing about us that in a lot of ways, sets us apart from a lot of other bands touring in the DIY circuit, we always have info and are always willing to talk about things that are going on in our lives. It’s important to us to make sure that DIY HC punk is more than just music. It’s community building, communication, and friendship. Meeting kids, and making sure that we are supporting each other in our struggles. 
 
COLLECTIVE: Like the music, Bafabegiya’s lyrics are smart and to the point. However, they tend to veer schizophrenically between notes on personal empowerment or making life better for oneself and more bitter tirades on politics or the various stupidities of humankind. How do you balance these two perspectives and not let one override the other? Does the type of song you write depend on what side of the bed you get out of in the morning? 
 
B: The lyrics that I write usually deal with something that I have been thinking about recently or that I have been learning about or reading about or talking about in my daily life. I don’t come to practice with lyrics or anything like that or even decide what a song is going to be about ahead of time. I’ll usually listen to a song that the rest of the band is writing and practicing and then start thinking about what I want to write about based on how the music is making me feel and what I’ve been thinking about recently or what has been going on in my life. I have never really given much thought to balancing personal lyrics with more political lyrics or anything like that as the lyrics have always just sorta come based on the circumstances at the time. They’re all personal for me as they’re all topics that I feel are important and have direct relevance to my life. They are also political because those are usually just the things that I am thinking about and discussing with friends and family and colleagues. I think that in a lot of ways people here have really lost the ability to engage in civil discourse and communicate with one another. Our society is almost completely obsessed with the spectacle that the media has become and we’ve lost a lot of what makes us human. This goes across the board, from the corporate media convincing us that we should purchase unnecessary things through to kids spending all their time on Myspace worrying about how many virtual friends they have, rather than thinking about building real relationships with real people, be it within the scene, their communities or elsewhere. I think that if more of that discourse or those ideas come across through music in a DIY type environment, that we can begin to transform society into something that is a bit more conducive to a real community. 
 
COLLECTIVE: The split with Acts of Sedition seems to be heavier than your previous releases – is this the kind of avenue you’ll be pursuing in the future or just the result of a weightier production? Also, what’s the deal with that Spanish-sounding arpeggio that ends one side of the 7” and kicks off your side of the LP?  
 
B: The songs that we have written since the split with Acts of Sedition have been a bit heavier than our other releases, but the songs are also becoming longer, more complex, and stemming from even more diverse influences. We don’t have many solid future plans right now, but I would imagine that we will be looking for a better production with some of our new songs. We have never really focused on being a “heavy” band, but some of our newer songs definitely have heavier parts as well as more dynamic structures. As for that “Spanish-sounding arpeggio,” I think that we just really liked the outro from our “Those Who Die Dancing” EP and it fit well with the first song on our split with AOS, so we just put it there as well. We often play “Better Dead than Domestic” and “Molded” together live, so it makes for a pretty epic bridge between the two songs. 
 
COLLECTIVE: All the releases I’ve seen from you folks thus far have this rather distinctive artwork going on that’s heavily stylized and also rather creepy (particularly, it has to be said, the split LP, what with its skull-faced-monk-thing billowing smoke and shot full of arrows…). How does it tie in with what you’re all about and why have you plumped for the imagery you have? 
 
B: Our good friend Jeremy Forson (www.jeremyforson.com) has done all of our artwork. He grew up in the Reno scene and moved away to Oakland to go to art school at CCA (California College of Arts) to hone his skills, though he’s kept really involved in the Reno scene. Jeremy has done all of our record covers, inserts, t-shirts, stickers, buttons, etc. For the artwork, we send Jeremy the lyrics and music and he puts together the art based on how he feels the music should be depicted – we don’t give him any direction or tell him what we want, we pretty much just leave it up to him. Then we usually have the covers screened locally and put together the inserts and stuff ourselves. It’s a DIY fair all around with many members of the Reno scene contributing.  
 
COLLECTIVE: Additionally, all the releases are super DIY and a whole lot of love seems to have gone into them. How important to is the concept of “DIY” to you as a band? What’s your take on the direction a lot of supposed hardcore bands/labels seem to be taking, almost tripping over themselves to affect a gloss of corporate schtick or at least employing similar tactics to the majors? 
 
B: The DIY ethic is everything to this band. We started Spacement Records as a collectively run, band-centered label to put out ours and our friends records. We do as much as we can ourselves and have tried to make sure that our releases are more than just the music; we want them to be solid with artwork, lyrics, explanations, production, and plenty of contact info if kids want to get in touch and talk or ask questions. What we can’t do ourselves, we ask for help from friends and local businesses to give us a hand. We are very fortunate to live in an amazing community full of caring individuals who are willing to help each other out when the time comes. We want kids to grow and learn from the DIY experience that they have through attending our shows or picking up our records or whatever. We want to make sure that kids know that we are not any different than them and that they can start bands, write zines, start a record label, distro books that they like, put on shows, make a stencil, or do whatever their hearts desire. To us, DIY is what we do, there is no other way.  
 
As for the direction that other HC bands / labels have been taking, in the way of creating a more mainstream audience, or going for a more glossy production, that’s fine for them. If their goal is to sell a bunch of records and have a booking agent and have six t-shirt designs and three hoodie designs, then that is fine with me. If they want to make their version of HC watered-down, unthreatening, and more “entertaining” in order to appeal to a wider audience, then that is great for them. It’s just not HC anymore though – it might be some good tunes, but that’s about all. They can sell their CDs at Best Buy or whatever other corporate chain that they want. It’s not for us. We want HC to be first and foremost, sincere, heartfelt, passionate, and a direct threat to the status quo. We will never compromise our ideals or our passion for the record industry or for capitalism. We make the music and art that we love, and if other people want to check it out, then that’s great. We never got into the DIY HC scene to become popular or to make money – we just want to stay true to what we believe and make music, art, friends, and have a good time doing it. 
 
COLLECTIVE: Could you tell us a bit about the scene you move within? For some reason I get the impression that the Spacement bands and their associates must be part of some neat close-knit little family – is this the case or am I way off with my idealistic assumptions? Who do you recommend we keep our eyes peeled for in the future? 
 
B: The Reno scene is a pretty unique place to have grown up in and to be in right now. There is a rich history of DIY HC punk starting back with bands from the early 80’s like Jack Shit and 7 Seconds. Bands that influenced us more directly were from the more recent line of local HC bands such like Gob, Fall Silent, and Iron Lung. So, as you can tell, the Reno scene has never really had a distinct sound or genre that it’s famous for or anything like that, but there has been a long tradition of really good bands that have come from this small town. Most recently, Reno has seen a lot of really good bands get together, write some great tunes and record a bit, maybe tour a bit, and then call it quits. There have just been so many bands start out strong and break up. I think that there are a lot of kids in this scene that aren’t really willing to work really hard to keep a band going for an extended period of time. It’s really unfortunate too, because there is really a lot of talent here. Most of the Spacement bands and people associated with the record label and venue make up a pretty close-knit family. Many of us work on the same projects in the community, attend shows together, host vegan potlucks, volunteer at Sound and Fury Records, go on tour together, help out with Food Not Bombs, and just try to keep the scene a positive place for all kinds of kids to become a part of. Really awesome stuff is happening in Reno right now, and a lot of kids in the scene have really stepped up and become involved in their community. Right now kids here are working on a lot of projects such as Holland Reno (www.hollandreno.blogspot.com), The Reno Bike Project (www.renobikeproject.blogspot.com/), Reno Food Not Bombs (www.fnb.spacementreno.com/), The Great Basin Community Food Co-Op (www.greatbasinfood.coop/), The Bridge Center (www.thebridgecenter.net), Rainshadow Community Charter High School (www.rainshadowcchs.org), Spacement Records (www.spacementreno.com), and Sound and Fury Records (www.soundandfuryreno.com). Some kids help out the scene in other ways by helping book shows, recording bands, hosting info nights or skillshares, silkscreening shirts and patches, writing zines, opening their homes for use as venues, etc. Of course, there are a lot of kids in the scene who don’t do much in the way of community activism or really become involved in the scene much at all aside from attending shows and the like. I think you’ll find that kind of thing in pretty much every scene that you come into contact with. As for who to watch for in the future, in the extended network of the Spacement family, I would say keep an eye on Acts of Sedition (Oakland, CA – www.actsofsedition.com), Greykull (Tacoma, WA – www.crimethinc.net/urbanpirates/bands/greyskull), and any bands that form from the breakup of Parallax (Provo, UT – www.goldenspikemusic.com). In Reno, it looks like Fatality (www.spacementreno.com/artists/index.php?ID=13) is really trying to get out there and tour a lot, X-Wing (www.spacementreno.com/artists/index.php?ID=17) is still hanging on even though members have relocated to Southern California, and various Bafabegiya member projects are forming. Members of Bafabegiya, Acts of Sedition, Greyskull, Burial Year (www.alonerecords.com), Bullets*In (www.bullets-in.tk), and The Coma Recovery (www.failedexperimentrecords.com) are currently starting a regional band that has a lot of potential. Who knows what the future holds? 
 
COLLECTIVE: What plans does Bafabegiya have for the future? Do you have any specific goals or objectives for the band and, if so, how are you going to go about accomplishing them? 
 
B: We have no concrete plans for the future. Things are pretty much up in the air right now. We have been on somewhat of a hiatus since we got back from our summer tour and haven’t done much in the way of future planning. In the past we have talked about touring in Europe and doing a lot more in the way of touring the world, but things have yet to unfold. 
 
COLLECTIVE: Ok. I guess that’s it – thanks a heap for your time and patience! Please feel free to add any final words of wisdom in the blank space below… 
 
B: I think I’d just like to end by encouraging anyone reading this interview to really think about making punk a threat to society by becoming involved in things that are going on in your local community. Instead of keeping our passion and our ideas locked up in basements and garage venues, let’s bring what we have taken from the HC punk scene and integrate it into our daily existence in the community. Talk to your friends and families who might not be associated with the punk scene about things that are important to you. Become informed, read books, zines, check out the news, see what’s going on in the world. Knowledge is power. Go! 
 
Thanks for the interview. Feel free to get in touch with any further inquiries… bafabegiya 
269 Wonder St. 
Reno, NV 89502 
bafabegiya@riseup.net

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an interview with snuffy smile

May 19th, 2010

alex deller interviews a very jaded seeming yoichi, several years ago…

Snuffy Smile is a great little punk label from Japan that’s been around for a good few years now and released records by bands like the Urchin, I Excuse, Minority Blues Band and plenty more besides. It’s run by Yoichi, who was kind enough to tap out some responses to a few questions I had about what keeps Snuffy Smile ticking… 
 
C: Give us a brief history of the label – how long have you been running it and what made you start? What significant obstacles and difficulties have you faced, and how have you overcome them (starting to sound like a job interview there…). Do you still see running Snuffy Smile as a learning process, or is it all “second nature” to you now?  
 
Y: I started the label in 1993 and I really can’t remember what I was thinking at the time. I just started it to release the bands I thought should have records out as there were no good labels to release stuff by the bands I loved. Before I started the label, I had many favourite labels like Rugger Bugger in the UK or Allied in the US and I wanted to do something like them, though they were still much better than mine. 
 
I got a lot of backstabbing by many people about the things I did as a label, and I still don’t know why so many people seemed to hate me. I think Japanese people dislike those who do their own thing. I received a lot of help from the bands themselves, but basically made my own decisions and had my own opinions as to how things should be done. Some people didn’t like that and preferred useless negotiation. But all those people seem to have gone away and nobody pays me that much attention, so it seems like a waste of time to complain about them.  
 
The label is everything to me and I’ve never done anything I like besides it, except for drinking, reading or travelling. I can’t say exactly what it is – it’s like a learning process but at the same time it’s all second nature to me too. 
 
 
 
C: What advice would you give to anyone setting up their own label or putting out a record? 
 
Y: I can’t see why anyone would want to start a punk rock label nowadays – nobody needs it anymore. I still am because I don’t have anything to do besides it. If you are enjoying your life in other ways I’d say don’t have any such a stupid ideas. You won’t get any new ideas for a punk rock label from me. It’s dying but I still love it. 
 
 
 
C: What has been the most positive aspect of running Snuffy Smile? Is there anything about it that you don’t like?  
 
Y: The most positive aspect is definitely meeting great people. I’m fuckin’ old but I still love to sleep anywhere and live in a way not many other people would want to. I can do it because I’m q guy involved in this punk scene and I’m proud of that. But it also makes me depressed – I’ve been losing friends along the way. There seem to be very few people who want to carry on the punk way of life for any length of time in Japan. 
 
 
 
C: Let’s talk about the Snuffy Smile “sound” – often gruff, usually melodic, always punk. Do you go out of your way to seek these bands out, or do they gravitate towards you? Were there many bands like this in Japan already, or has the label itself led to more bands adopting a certain style? 
 
Y: I don’t think about such a thing. All the bands are just ones I love and they’re playing the music I like. I listen to many kinds of music, but my favourite stuff is always like Leatherface, Jawbreaker, Stiff Little Fingers… so you know my taste. 
 
I just meet the bands when I go to shows or when I’m touring. I’ve been doing the label for over 12 years, so some of the oldest bands influenced younger bands and they influenced other bands… and so on and on… 
 
 
 
C: How do you feel about the term “pop punk”? Nowadays it seems almost synonymous with bad, vacuous Blink 182-type bands and Vans-sponsored tours – do you think this leads to a lot of good bands going unnoticed because of the stigma this genre has? 
 
Y: I don’t care. I’m always doing my thing in the underground and I don’t know what’s going on in the “proper” music scene. Punk was pretty much dead a long time ago now it’s living a living death. The whole music business is of no concern to me anymore. All the good bands go unnoticed by ordinary people in Japan, but that’s okay because I’m not interested in mainstream culture at all. If someone doesn’t listen to the bands on my label because it’s “pop punk” then that’s not a problem – I don’t have any responsibility for saving people from being victims of media control or anything like that. In my opinion it’s better to build the wall and keep them out. 
 
C: Boring question: which new bands would you recommend we check out? 
 
Y: Blotto is definitely the best band in Japan at the moment. The Because are great too. 
 
 
C: How has Snuffy Smile built its relationships with overseas bands? Do they contact you, or vice versa? Are you usually friends with them beforehand? Does the distance ever prove to be a problem? 
 
Y: Once you get one friend in punk scene it’s just a beginning – soon enough you have a hundred friends. It’s easy. I always wrote letters to the bands I loved and asked them “hey, are you interested in doing a split 7inch?”.Basically I pretty much know who can do it and who can’t, though a few times it didn’t work so well. 
 
C: What’s in the pipeline for the label – do you have any significant plans or schemes? Are there any bands you’d particularly like to work with? 
 
Y: There are never any future plans for the label. I’m just doing what I want to do right now. But if the Tone get back together I’d want to release something with them again, for sure. 
 
C: If you had the chance, which band would you most like to have put a record out by? 
 
Y: Dillinger Four. I tried but it didn’t happen. Also, the Strike and Hellbender. 
 
C: Any last words or requests? 
 
Y: Life is a waste of time, so let’s waste the time on the things you enjoy. Thanks a lot for the interview.

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an interview with tubers

May 13th, 2010

by alex deller. i interviewed 12 hour turn quite some time ago. here alex catches up with tubers. quite some time ago.

Another oldie. This one was pieced together sometime after that first awesome Tubers LP but before the second one. At least they’re still having at it…

Let’s put this in simple terms: Tubers are fucking great. A splendidly fluff-free punk rock act just kicking back and playing the kind of songs you’d kill to have written yourself. Bastards. Jeff and Rich were kind enough to answer a few of my questions via email, and for that I’m extremely grateful.  
 
Collective: Hey there, Tubers. Herein you will kindly do the “standard” punk zine thing and tell us all just who you are and what you do. Unless, of course, you have any better suggestions for starting the interview? 
 
Jeff: I’d say this is a fine way to start an interview. My interpretation is that we are three buds that like to play the rock-and-roll together. We all do many other things, however. I tend to serve food to people at a fancy restaurant in a fancy hotel, go to school, surf or kite-surf when I can (which is not often enough), and play the kicker in my living room. I also try to grow vegetables. 
 
Rich: I’m a teacher for trainable mentally handicapped in the public school system of St Augustine, Bakery Outlet labeler, Tubers, Solid Pony and Verde bands, runner, gardener, perpetually learning “surfer.” 
 
Collective: So, how was the (now not-so-recent) European tour? Any harrowing tales of woe or entertaining hi-jinx? Was it odd to be playing something like Trashfest with bands and in front of crowds who might not necessarily be kindred spirits musically? What / who are you particularly looking forward to on this year’s bill?  
 
Jeff: The not-so-recent European tour was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life, and luckily not too heavy on the woe. Lenny head-butted me over a game of kicker. I almost did not get in to England because the officers did not like my ‘story,’ nor my lack of plane ticket back home, which resulted in a missed show in Brighton. Our big van breakdown occurred on our drive to London, resulting in interesting night sleeping five inside the van in a weird industrial part of some weird city, as well as a missed show and a quite misplaced 400 pounds (about 750 dollars for us). Lenny and I also got dick-milched right in the strasse, as Rich put it. Hi-jinx? Well, I’m pretty sure we played with Keanu Reeves’ band in Newcastle.  
 
Rich: Europe was fantastic. I had been telling my bandmates how great it was to be there with my previous band 12 Hour Turn and Ingo (of The Company With the Golden Arm) who arranged tour. Ingo offered to set up a tour for Tubers / Solid Pony and it turned out to be all I remembered. How we would ideally like to tour DIY in a mostly organized fashion, meeting lovely people and seeing beautiful places. Receiving acts of generosity like meals and places to sleep and inspiring us to do the same at home. 12 Hour Turn played Trashfest and it was chaotic as was this time around… We were unfamiliar with it otherwise but had a great time and look forward to it this time also.  
 
 
Collective: As I understand it at least one of you guys had already been over to Europe with other bands. What did you learn from your previous experiences, and did this familiarity help ease your passage? What do you like best about playing over here as opposed to playing gigs in the States? 
 
Jeff: It was actually everyone except for Rich’s first time touring in Europe, though a couple of us had been over there before just to travel around. As to the second question, I can pretty well answer with a resounding “everything.” Show-goers and promoters are hospitable, enthusiastic, attentive, and just generally excited. Breakfast and dinner were the norm and not just the exception, as it usually works the other way around here. Delicious and nutritious to boot. It made me feel (whether it was true or not) that we were genuinely appreciated, musically and otherwise. That’s a nice feeling.  
 
Rich: What I learned was that Ingo, our driver, their friends and the venues etc. really take care of us. It’s unreal how much generosity there is.  
 
Collective: I think you may have explained this self-same issue at some of the UK shows, but as you weren’t able to make the London gig I couldn’t get to hear the tale for myself. Could shed some light on why you decided to call yourself “Tubers”? 
 
Jeff: Our name was actually a difficult process – we all had other ideas but nothing that jumped out enough at all of us to the extent that we could agree on it. I put Tubers on the table, and it was actually a sort of settling, though of course now we are all very happy about it. The three main Tubers interpretations we encourage and usually explain include Tubers as rooted vegetables (potatoes, carrots, ginger, and the like); Tubers as those who float down rivers on inflatable inner-tubes, which we very much enjoy; and Tubers as those who get tubed in the ocean while they are surfing, otherwise known as getting “barrelled” or “shacked,” which is one of the heights of the surfing experience. 
 
 
Collective: The LP has this really great sound to it that I just can’t stop harping on about. It seems really spacious and “booming” – was this a particular sound you were gunning for, or merely a happy coincidence? How was it achieved? This all kinda ties in with what I take to be a homespun and communal feel to the record – I don’t know if I’m being way off the mark here, but hey… 
 
Jeff: I am the worst person to talk to about sound and the most aloof during the recording process. As far as the sound on that record, however, I guess I’d attribute it to Rob McGregor’s knowledge and expertise, as well as Rich’s meticulous and perfectionist nature. Rob has been recording bands in Gainesville for decades, including some of my favourite bands and records of all time.  
 
Rich: It’s a sound I think we all like, but we just went to Rob McGregor since we’d all worked with him in the past and that is what came out without very much suggestion about it. Rob just did an amazing job with it and he’s always getting better and better. We’re all stoked on how it came out. 
 
Collective: Some of your songs sound like they’re really aimed at specific individuals (e.g. the line “I’ve seen you age enough to know where I don’t want to be”) and the shadow of alcoholism looms over much of the album. At certain points it really seems like you’re letting all and sundry read your private mail. Was this not awkward for you at all? 
 
Jeff: Rich wrote the lyrics for all but two songs on that record, so I must give recourse to however he answers the question. 
 
Rich: Some of the lyrics are pretty vulnerable. I write songs at home where I don’t think about sharing them with anyone, so when they’re done there is no hiding. It’s nice this way I think, though sometimes maybe they’re melodramatic. Lyrics for me always start with a specific subject but hopefully can translate to more general terms. And yes, alcohol is something to cope with for me – you can’t escape its presence. It’s part of a destructive lifestyle our culture participates in with addictive fervor, but I can’t condemn it. Although I seldom do it anymore, I’ve definitely had some great times with it, and also taken some years off my life because of the trouble I’ve caused. I love many people who love the bottle.  
 
Collective: There seem to have been a nice little crop of simpler, rootsier (for want of a better word…) bands popping up over the last few years (like, say, Reactionary 3 (RIP…), Tiny Hawks, Sinaloa…) playing a swell, no-nonsense brand of emoish punk rock, and I guess it’s convenient to bracket you guys in with them. Was there anything you wanted to sidestep, avoid or specifically achieve with Tubers? What were you initially aiming for with the band sound-wise? Are there any up-and-coming bands you’d like to recommend who follow a similar blueprint? 
 
Jeff: I’m with you on the appreciation of the no-nonsense, simpler brand of punk rock, what with all the over-production and pretentiousness (both in sound and on-stage) that tends to abound these days. I’ll actually take it as quite a compliment to be bracketed with some of those bands. Not to drift, but I’d like to just say that my favourite bands have always been the bands my friends are in – or, at the very least, bands that you can go see without a stage and have real conversations with afterwards. Twelve Hour Turn (Rich’s old band) is actually still one of my favourites. I think if I just had to listen to bands from Richmond, Virginia and Gainesville for the rest of my life I’d be just fine. True North (and everything else those guys have been or are involved in) will always stand out, as will Stop It! and their new creations, like Brainworms and Pink Razors. I must also recommend Jacob’s other band, Environmental Youth Crunch, who will be touring with us the first two weeks when we return to Europe. Also, pretty much everything Rich puts out on Bakery Outlet will be most radical – I can guarantee that.  
 
Rich: We didn’t have any specific agenda with Tubers – just to write what comes to us as a band. So far I think we’re all very happy with what comes out and I’d perhaps feel uncomfortable if we did aim for something else.  
Bands. . .. hmmm. .. .well I’d have to say Bakery bands past releases and future (future = R3, Matty Pop Chart, Emperor X, Environmental Youth Crunch, Alligator [I hope], Twelve Hour Turn…) I’m elated that all these great people have wanted to work with me. They truly are my favourite recent / recently-deceased bands, along with other friends’ bands as Jeff has mentioned.  
 
Collective: What’s on the horizon for Tubers? The LP seemed to arrive out of nowhere and it’s all been rather quiet since. Any new releases planned? 
 
Jeff: We finally got our act together again and recorded a new album just a couple of months ago, and we should have copies of the CD when we come over. We did indeed have a lull, owing in part to separation but also a slight creative slump. I guess with all the other things going on in our lives – be it other bands, work or school – we tend not to be a “full-time” band. Although I believe we would love that, I don’t see it happening any time in the near future. Oh yeah, let’s go ahead and say we’re shooting for an Australia tour / surf trip summer 2008.  
 
Rich: Well, we return to Europe in June / July, though unfortunately no UK this time around. Lenny (Solid Pony and Bakery Outlet partner) built a studio in his house a short time ago, and we recently finished recording the new Tubers album there, so the CD should be ready for tour. Bakery Outlet / The Company With the Golden Arm will release it. There’s also talk of a split something or other with Brainworms from Richmond, VA.  
 
Collective: Anything else you’d like to add, say or recommend? 
 
Jeff: Thank you very much for your interest. When I read interviews, the last thing I want to be is bored, so hopefully we’re not boring. I also recommend reading books and going outside as much as possible. That’s about it.  
 
Rich: Thanks!

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an interview with tiny hawks

May 12th, 2010

this is by alex deller.

This interview is from a long ol’  time back, roundabouts the time ‘Fingers Become Bridges’ came out. Lawks.

Collective: Generic introduction: herein you will give a brief, insightful run-down of the band that is Tiny Hawks – roles, reasons and rationale.  
 
Gus: I’m Gus. I play the drum kit, and electric bass. Recordings have some upright bass on them. Art and I befriended about four years ago when I moved to Providence. Our interests in life, politics, and music brought us to the idea of playing together. At that point, it had been quite some time since I had played music with people, and it worked so well with just the two of us. Our differing personalities really bring us together. I think we compliment each other in our approaches to songwriting. I mean, we are both generally happy people, Art is a bit more outgoing than I am, which is most apparent at shows. We both have a genuine love of the music we make and the friendship therein. I appreciate the opportunity to do Tiny Hawks and hope it brings real inspiration to those who listen. It must be said, we are just a band. But music is the great motivator, and if it keeps motivating you, why stop? 
 
 
Collective: Tiny Hawks have a pretty original sound, especially in a day and age where you’re pretty much guaranteed to come across a clutch of bands tilling the same soil. What would you say has helped shape the band’s sound? How has what you’ve done in the past shaped what you’re doing now? Did you set out to achieve any specific goals with this band?  
 
Gus: Thanks! I think it’s kind of a bummer how marketed genres have become. Even in DIY/punk/hardcore, whatever you want to call it. There is an obvious divide. I mean, people like what they like., but when you start to feel uncomfortable and judged at a show or walking down the street because you don’t have a certain sound or aesthetic it’s a bit unsettling. I think back to stories I’ve heard from late 70s early 80s when punk had no real guidelines – it gave people the freedom to really voice what they were about, for better or worse. I think at first, we just wanted to rock out? Now, having so many influences and a couple of years behind us, it’s morphed what we are. We just write, musically, what feels satisfying to us and evokes what we are trying to get across. We are not trying to mimic a sound or appeal to any certain person. I wouldn’t say we have a clear direction as to where we are going as a band and I really enjoy that. 
 
Art: In thinking about shaping sound, I think we bring similar inspirations and motivations from bands and music we’ve both loved and I think we try to play what comes naturally rather than try to mold songs into some formula or pattern. I haven’t really played in a formal band before this aside from a band in high school (albeit meaningful!), and I have been playing guitar alone for a long time, some songs that ended up being some of these songs. I think we pay attention to feel rather than approach, assessing what viscerally feels right rather than what sounds “good”. 
 
 
Collective: Am I right in thinking one/some of you were in Spirit Assembly? What would you say have been the major changes in the emo/hardcore landscape since then? Which have been for the better, and which for the worse? 
 
Gus: Yes, I used to play bass in that band and it still blows me away when it gets mentioned. It was an exciting time then, 93-95ish. A true movement that I was completely enamoured with. It shaped so much of who I am, but, I took what I experienced/learned from that and moved on. It’s real unhealthy to live in the past, to idealize those days as being better than what you have now. You have to push for growth and change. If you don’t, things get stagnant. 
 
Collective: A lot of the folks who would’ve been your contemporaries in the 90s emo scene have either upped and left music entirely or moved onto less traditionally punk pastures – (e.g. country, indie, electronica…). What has made you stick with punk rock – what’s the lasting appeal? Could you see yourselves ever just jacking it all in and forgetting this particular piece of your past?  
 
Art: Punk rock. The lasting appeal continues to be in how people stretch it, what we do with it when the song is over, and what those songs did to bring us to where we are. The connections and people I have met over the years through punk circles (zines, music, politics, fests etc.) continue to inspire and enrich my life and I feel very lucky to be a part of it all. Punk has made and ruined and confused a whole lot of people it seems. It’s a positive signifier as much as a way to alienate. I don’t really see myself losing the drive to be participating in or playing music that would be considered punk. There is a lot of hope left in it, a lot of fearlessness, and a lot of room for it to keep changing and keep it challenging. 
 
Gus: Punk has an energy. That word alone has so much weight behind what it has stood for… and still does for a lot of us. We both listen to such a vast collection of styles of music, and all have had their little part in what we are. But the statement punk has made (of course, I’m not talking about big money “punk”) will have a lasting effect on my life’s decisions and philosophies. 
 
Collective: Are you still as pissed off about things as you were when you first started making music, or have your focuses changed? 
 
Art: Are we still pissed off? I think anger can be a pretty amazing force if used the right way. We’re pretty much overwhelmed with enough things in the world today to level us on a minute by minute schedule – so how to deal with it all, how to use the anger there or frustration to make something or be something more than that, to turn that adrenalin into something positive? Phil Ochs said, “you must protest, you must protest, it if your diamond duty, ah, but in such an ugly time, the true protest is beauty.” Sure, anger is there, but I think anger implies negative reactions. Remaining critical and open and responsive and resolute and with a certain amount of courage seem to be stronger impulses. 
 
Gus: As you get older – I will be 30 this year – I think you find ways of bringing your ideals into everyday life, how you live it. Simple things like how I treat other people, knowing your neighbours, trying to stay informed on what the hell is going on. Yes. I am pissed off about the US occupation of Iraq, I am pissed off about South Dakota deeming abortion illegal! There are so many incredibly frightening actions by government and power figures… most of which are against what the people want. It’s all so overwhelming sometimes, you start to wonder if we can bring change. It’s an anger with hope that we need more of, and I say that as much for myself as much as I do others. 
 
Collective: Tell us about your relationship with Moganono – how did it come about? It seems to be one of those reliable, understated labels standing out like a beacon in a sea of shit. Does the label guy cherrypick all these great bands (Anton Bordman, Kolya, Ettil Vrye…) or is he just lucky enough to have found himself sitting amongst a slew of neat acts with broadly similar ideas and ethics? What is the hardcore scene like where you hail from and what kind of bands do you generally play with? 
 
Art: My personal relationship with Moganono goes back a long time to me being 14 and living in the Merrimack Valley and going to shows featuring bands whose members would later be in Moganono bands, and whose brother team were very open and friendly to me. I grew a lot through knowing Peter and Mike, through their examples in how they made genuine efforts in punk circles and their own lives. They used to book a fest every year as a breast cancer research benefit called “tin can full of dreams”, whose overarching value and richness was not wasted on me. It was a family thing, the Zetlans representing behind the refreshment table, the brothers making things work, and bands and people growing ever tighter over the years, finding each other at these events, and building relationships that would last. I am inspired by the memory and the people, and as a label, am always impressed. Peter keeps putting effort and love into bands of friends and releases that are timeless and hand done with care, and I feel so honoured to be a part of that history. He is a great person, and his friends and the music they create can speak to that fact. I don’t think I could generalize about the music scene here in Providence, there are many bands I love, who continue to push boundaries and experiment, and there is an earnest dedication to creating something personal and unique and honest that is awesome to see/hear. We’ve been lucky enough to play all different kinds of shows with bands playing all different kinds of music, so it’s nice to be a part of a community of music/art makers that continue to challenge us in that way – to not settle. 
 
Gus: Pete is a wonderful, wonderful person. I met him through Art, when we started playing shows. He always struck me as genuine. He’s extremely dedicated and cares about what he is doing. It’s kind of like he’s the keystone in creating this little family of New England bands with similar views, for no other reason than a genuine interest. There is so much music going on in Providence. It’s a very diverse scene that has been through many hardships the past couple of years. Losing warehouse spaces (living and otherwise) and increasing rents are forcing people to keep things on the DL. There are now a handful of show/art spaces and only two or three are DIY. I think there is an underlying fear of those spaces being taken away. 
 
Collective: Your lyrics are often kind of oblique, though can be picked apart for a sense of meaning. Is there anything in particular you’re looking to impart or are your songs more an opportunity to vent or try to understand particular situations for yourselves? Would you mind going into any detail as to what “Four Days After Ariel Was Shot” is about?  
 
Gus: Not to discredit myself but Art is much better versed than I. He writes most of the lyrics where I write more straight forward words like “Daniel Striped Tiger”. I guess for me it’s a venting of sorts, trying to tell a story or put across and idea. That song, in particular, was at root a motivational. As is my part in “Whenzy”. 
 
Art: The songs lyrics aren’t oblique on purpose, I think in the lyrics I write I just end up being a little indirect. Less venting, more trying to understand particular situations, think around things, pay attention. “Four Days…” was about living in Lawrence, Massachusetts after a killing had occurred in my neighbourhood and walking home from work through the park one night when a cop pulled up to me, not to arrest me, but to offer me a ride home because it wasn’t safe for me there. I think it was a critical moment in me thinking about privilege and whiteness, and the power of those things, their hidden meaning and weight. I loved my neighbourhood, met many of my neighbours and worked in a local charter school with kids living down the street from me, and was part of a small dysfunctional collective there. I felt part of a community and was not blind to certain aspects of it that made it “dangerous”, but tried to accept them as things that exist in a society that sets them up to be there in such a way. Killing or mugging or stealing were not exclusive events, like in most cities, and how you interpret or deal with those things ends up marking how you live within them. Are they constants or negotiable? Can you stop them? When does a neighbourhood start turning into a gated community? Many easy answers are found when someone can throw out “gang related” after a killing rather than looking at the root of these kinds of conflicts or issues. And I am no better prepared at handling those issues than anyone else, and so, the song is about that, being hit by all of it kind of profoundly and still coming up with not many answers. And no, I did not take the ride home. 
 
Collective: What does the term “Fingers Become Bridges” mean to you? Why choose it for the name of your record? 
 
Gus: I’ll let Art carry the torch on that one. 
 
Art: “Fingers become bridges”. I like the thought of bridging things, finding connections and meaning and relatedness between disparate ideas and worlds, and personalizing it, seeing yourself as integrated, part of a web, connected and capable of building bridges, seems pretty empowering to me. You make what you want to see. 
 
Collective: What are your plans for the band, both immediate and long-term? Is there much on the horizon by way of gigs, releases or grand schemes? 
 
Gus: just want to play music and feel good about what we are doing. My hope for the band is that we keep progressing and stay true to ourselves… maybe inspire people outside of music too. We are planning a US tour in May/June to the West and back. Our new record “People Without End” will be out in May on Corleone records. We may be heading to Europe in the fall if all goes well and we can pull ourselves away from personal obligations to work we love. 
 
Art: Plans include getting the new record out, going on an almost month long tour out to the west coast, hopefully going to Europe within the year, playing more guitar and bass songs, feeling less stressed out and more in control, recording a split with Fiya, figuring out how to use the fourtrack, having an updated and cohesive website, being better about lyric sheets, keeping it punctual when talking between songs, learning new ways to play music, trying trying trying. 
 
Collective: Any last words or snappy closing comments? Use this space… 
 
Art: Thank you very much for your thoughtful questions! I hope these weren’t too long winded for answers! Please write if you’d like: po box 1652/Providence/RI.02901. Thank you! 
 
Gus: thanks so much for the opportunity and intelligent questions!

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an interview with the pine from 2001

October 14th, 2009

i just found this interview that i did almost a decade ago. the pine were the band that made me start sncl! good for them…

 

the Pine are 4 guys from Bakersfield, California, playing some fantastic melodic rock music that you can call emo if you want to get all fussy over semantics. these interview questions were mailed to the band about 5 seconds before they set out on their first ever tour, after i had promised Roger i would get them too him much quicker than that. now they are back, and we have the answers. thanks very much to all four members of the band for taking their time to answer these, it’s appreciated.

 

1) who is in the band and where are you all from? what’s the scene like around there?

roger – my name is roger king. i sing and play guitar. born and raised in bakersfield, ca.

kurt – i’m kurt king, and i was born and raised in bakersfield ca. i rarely go to shows but i do know that there’s a place called jerrys pizza which the majority of bands play and go to and there’s one record store.

bill – my name is bill and i play bass. i’m from bakersfield california. the scene from where i’m from covers the more pop side of music like weezer and kiddie punk bands.

andrew – my name is andrew winton; i play drums and i’m from bakersfield, ca. well the only thing i can say about the scene around here is that i’m really not into it.

2) is the Pine the first band that any of you have been in that has had a record out? how long has the band been together, give us a little history on the whole thing…

andrew – no, i was in a local band a few years back called crosswalk. we had a split with another local band called the acrylics. after high school i played in a few bands; soul system blackout/viral index, icarus line, which had demo tapes and then a band called the criminals and i did a cdep with them. i started playing with the pine in november 2000. we played our first show on june 6th of 2001 and have been playing out ever since.

bill – yeah pretty much i’ve been in other jams but nothing this big. well, i’ve been in the band for about 2 months now so i really cant elaborate on how long the band has been together or the history.

roger – i was in a punk band my sophomore year in high school called fletcher. we did a 7″ and played a lot of shows around town. it was fun. the pine started 4 years ago with me on drums and singing, kurt on guitar, and josh yates on bass. we played for a while, and recorded a demo on a 4 track. later on i moved to guitar and got andrew to play drums. then josh left and we got bill on bass.

kurt – yes for me it is.

3) do you guys enjoy the DIY side of the music? one thing that i’ve always appreciated in the bands that played emo a few years back, and those that are influenced by those bands now, is that they seem to have a tremendous DIY ethic (hand made packaging, no colour vinyl, releasing records on their own labels), whilst the bands that play the more indie influenced style of music that the majority of people now call ‘emo’ seem to get everything handed to them on a plate, with publicists and street teams and everything. what are your thoughts?

kurt – well, i guess there’s always been a respect towards anyone who does anything them selves in any type of category in life. i think a band doing it themselves is a fun experience in life and it makes yourself like what your doing even more.

roger – i love the diy side of music.

bill – i feel a lot better about doing this whole thing our selves, the only people we really can count on is our selves. having other people helping the band with the record and booking the shows isn’t guaranteed to be done when and how you want it to be done. DIY is great but if the opportunity comes where you have someone that guarantees that they will have something done to help the band out, like making the covers for your record or booking shows the way you want it and they live in town and you know the person, go for it, a little help doesn’t hurt its the total strangers that you want to look out for. well the bands that get every thing handed to them can’t say anything about knowing how it is to book a tour or making there own merchandise, they don’t have the pleasure to tell a person: “hey i made that shirt your wearing”. Ii’s sickening to see bands that don’t make it on there own and see them on stage acting like they worked to get where they are and they made there own publicity.

andrew – i think the diy aspect of this music is great. obviously the pine is into it. we put out our 7″, make our own shirts, plus roger books most of our shows including the tour we justwent on. as a band we just got tired of waiting for someone to put out a record for us so we just did it ourselves. i have a lot of respect for bands that put out their own records. instead of just sitting around complaining about no one putting out stuff for them, they do something about it. i think ‘emo’ for sometime now has been crossing over into the mainstream world. mostly the fashion right now but the bands that people label as emo like jimmy eat world or get up kids are definitely seeing more support from bigger labels, publicists, management teams and what not but i think that kind of cross over, big label support is inevitable. look at how punk rock has changed over the years.

4) you get compared to Evergreen a lot, musically, vocally, even your name hints at similarities! obviously Evergreen was a great band, but does the constant comparison get annoying?

Bill – no, its a great compliment to get compared to Evergreen, i can understand how it would get annoying if a band was compared to a really terrible band.

Andrew – at first it kinda bugged me just because i was afraid that we would get pegged as an evergreen rip off band but i don’t think that that is the case anymore. sure there are some similarities but you can say the same about a lot of other bands and their influences. i think we have a pretty unique sound and i would rather be compared to evergreen than a lot of other bands. i’m quite happy with the way we sound.

Roger – i don’t mind the comparison at all. when i first started writing songs for this band i myself was like”hmmm, this has an evergreen feel to it. rad!!!” i love evergreen. i’ve been listening to them since my junior year in high school and i still listen constantly today.i’m 22 now so that’s………..a long time. for the record, i never sat down with the band and said” we really need to try and sound like evergreen”, it just kinda developed on its own. i’m stoked right now.this is what i’ve always wanted to play. what’s funny is that some people are like” you guys have an evergreen feel” and then some people are like” they don’t sound like evergreen, they sound like lync.” we’ve been compared to other bands too. lets see….the hated, husker du, lync, early dinosaur jr,…i think that’s it. in my opinion we do sound like earlier evergreen stuff. like the split with still life, and the emergency broadcast comp with that song “forced feed ed”. that song is so rad. i’m not out to reach a new groundbreaking level in music or anything, i’m just writing and playing songs that i love.

Kurt – it’s official that one band(especially after so much has been done) is going to sound similar to another or a few others and that goes for any band it seems like,and as far as the evergreen comparison goes i can see it through the strainy type of vocals and the open guitar chords i guess.

5) so the Pine is off on tour for the first time, how are you getting around? is it a rusty old van like everyone else has, or did the extravagant sales of the first 7″ mean you can hire limousines? (just kidding)

Andrew – kurt and roger’s dad hooked us up with the van. it handled the road well. but we had a couple of blow outs which was kind of scary but other than that the van was great to us.

Kurt – i’m happy to say my father purchased us an ’89 astro van, in my opinion its beautiful and i think my father was the coolest ever for getting for it us, and we didn’t rent limousines……………..WE BOUGHT THEM!

6) what’s been the best moment of the tour so far? (presuming you answer this when you’re on it!) stayed in any crazy places? played any bizarre small town venues? encountered any odd people? played with any cool bands?

Roger – arroyo seco from portland. awesome. we want to do a split 7″ with them in the future. smerf from kzsu was a nice guy. i don’t know, all the people that set up the shows and let us stay at their houses were really cool for doing that. we got hit by a bird on the freeway….we played live on kzsu without any sleep……a guitar head fell and landed directly on the back of my head. that felt kinda nice……the tire blow outs…………lost my guitar because i was trying to find us a place to stay for that night(some guy flaked on us so that kind of threw off my senses )…..i’m sure there’s more.

Kurt – i would have to say the best moment was honestly the whole 2 weeks. i felt very blessed. standard cool places. cool venues. i met some of the kindest people and i had no idea there were so much drunks in this world. the coolest band was in portland, i think Roger remembers their name they were so awesome and were so nice to let us hang out and stay at their place for three days.

Bill – i would have to say the best moment of the tour was in spokane washington, there was a lot of people and we made a lot of money. well i would have to say richland was the craziest place we stayed out until like 3 o’clock in the morning with staircase eating at Denny’s before that we played a show at this guy hang out place that claimed to be a record store. In SF we encountered some bizarre people, but there is really no place with 0 weird people. I really liked playing with staircase, arroyo seco and the new brutalism. they were all awesome

Andrew – portland was awesome. we met some great people there (thanks ty, luke, and ben). spokane was also really cool we played the last show at this place called the post haus. richland , wa was really weird, one of the guys doing the show was really wasted and going crazy. roger has some cool video footage of it. some of the bands i was into were: arroyo seco, self inheritance, staircase, teen cthulhu, iron lung, and the new brutalism.

7) lyrically your first 7″ tends to cover the more personal side of things, do you find it easy to come up with things to write about? and then to get up on stage and sing about these things in front of other people?

Kurt – Roger does all the lyrics,and may i add they are beautiful ones indeed.

Roger – what’s weird about the lyrics i write is that when i first write them i have no clue what they mean. but later on they always make sense and connect with something i’m really going through. i don’t really like explaining what they exactly mean because they are always so personal. i dont have any problem singing in front of other people when we play because usually people cant hear me too well,and even when they can i’m sure they cant make out what i’m babbling about.

8) i understand your LP will be due out soon on Kordova Milk Bar records (correct me if i am wrong!), how did that come about? what will the vinyl version be like?

Kurt – i guess Roger just traded some pine 7″s for some records from Kordova and i received a call from a guy from that label saying he’d love to do an lp. it’s going to look very basic and 8 songs that i am happy to rock out to anytime.

Roger – silk screened covers (maybe,it depends on who releases it) , nice big insert, very basic. 8 songs. 5 newly already recorded and 3 from the same recording session as the 7″. we’re really happy with the way it sounds. we have a cdr version of it with cover, insert and all available right now. i really hope we find someone to release it soon. maybe we can find a couple of labels to help do a split release. as for kordova milk bar records…..no comment.

9) what do you get out of being in the band? what makes you put your heart and soul into it, and go off on tour for what your average person in the world would see as little return… can you explain this side of things?

Roger – i put everything i have into this band. i’ve always wanted to have a band that i cared this deeply for. i try as hard as i can.

Bill – just being able to be playing music with good friends. the fact i’m playing music that has meaning to everyone. the average person i think just has to try touring for them selves.

Andrew – i’ve just always wanted to play music with good people and have fun. i’ve always just wanted to inspire people the way other bands have inspired me.

Kurt – all i can say is i love this band ssssooooo much. i’ve been in it since i was 14 years young and i can improvise stuff, i can use all the delay i want, I can make all the noises i want and it will fit beautifully. it keeps me alive it’s what i look forward to and it will always make me happy. so take what i said and multiply it by 1 million and that will come close to my feelings.

10) is there any significance behind the band name at all? does it represent something or was it just because you decided it was a good name?

Kurt – Roger got it from one of my favorite movies “Blood in Blood out” it was a gangster movie, they hung out at a big pine tree and I dig the ways Roger picked it because it represents their innocence and purity.

Roger – i got the name “the pine” from my favorite gangbanger movie “blood in blood out”. the pine was a tree that the LA gangsters hung out at when they were younger. they always said “lets go to el pino…the pine ese’”. towards the end of the movie they went there separate ways but they always went back to the pine to remember their childhood. i liked how the pine represented there togetherness and unity, but it also represented how things will always change and that there is nothing we can do to change that. i guess all in all it is a symbol of life.

11) what do you think of the 80′s revival with this whole chic for old video games or indie bands that sound like Depeche Mode or something? is it fun, or do you think a bit forced?

Bill – i think its getting a little too trendy its turning in to a fad, i think these bands should just be original and leave the 80′s alone so it stays as a great period in history.

Roger – I’m not sure about all that stuff. the last fad i noticed in the whole music scene was tight high water pants and that’s been going on for a long time.

Kurt – i don’t listen to much music so i didn’t know that was happening, but whatever floats your boat man.

Andrew – . i like some of the bands that might have that kind of 80’s feel to them, such as the faint or sunshine. i dig old video games just as much as the next person but i really don’t get too rapped up in them.

12) this is a traditional penultimate question that we always used to have in our zines interviews, when the website had a different look and theme (weather & transport). so, what is your favourite crazy weather condition? and what would be your perfect way to travel to a show?

Bill – my favorite weather condition is really cold and rainy, its too miserable to travel in 100 degree heat. cold with an over cast to a show but not raining its a little too dangerous, i think.

Andrew – i’m not too big of a fan of rain or snow, but i would rather have it cold than hot.

Roger – i like rain and fog. for shows i don’t care as long as we’re not stuck in LA traffic.

Kurt – i love those traditional questions, i really love that rainy dark during the day weather because i love to wear jackets. i’m into the way we traveled on this tour.

13) and that’s all! i hope you have a great tour and some fun times and that nothing goes wrong. thanks for taking your time to do this. is there anything you want to add? contacts? info, etcetera…?

Kurt – these were nice questions thank you for making them up for us.

Andrew – thanks to the rest of the pine for a great first tour, my girlfriend LACEY, and all the amazing people we met on tour…..

Bill – well, thanks for having us and i think all the info and contacts anyone needs you got from roger if anyone has any comments or questions just e-mail roger. thanks.

Roger – well, thanks andy! thanks for having us. thanks to everyone that helped on the tour.

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Pennines / Teenage Cool Kids / Algernon Cadwallader – Cambridge Portland Arms, October 8 2009

October 12th, 2009

it’s been a while since i visited the Portland Arms. my tattered memory suggests that the previous occasion was possibly 10 years ago, when bluetip played. and cortina. cortina was a band featuring guys from bluetip. they played indie / emo, like christie front drive or something. sadly, there is no demo that i am aware of. if you are aware of it, please send it to me.

anyway, on to more recent events. i really like the Portland Arms, even though it seemed perilously small, or perhaps because of that. it’s cosy, has a nice bar and good beer. after sampling a little of the latter, we made our way into the back room where norwich loocals boys, Pennines, set about opening up and impressing everyone. yes yes, Pennines, stray a little close to American Football’s formula at times, it’s all pleasant guitar twiddling and nice songs – but they do this so much better than their many contemporaries by actually having some song writing smarts and crafting good tunes instead of just widdling away techinically. maybe it’s because they are norwich lads and therefore i have a sympathetic soft spot for them, but i think there is more to it than that. Pennines are good. they also got my hopes up momentarily by playing the first few notes of A Picture Postcard. i quizzed them on this later and it turns out that it wouldn’t take too much prompting for them to play an entire Promise Ring covers set. they’re just lacking a Davey. better get to work on my lisp.

couldn't you take the second bus home?

couldn't you take the second bus home?

after Pennines was the main attraction for me, the mighty Teenage Cool Kids. belying their cringe inducing monicker, these guys have cranked out two fine LPs already. the first is a youthful, joyful romp – the kind of album that can only be made as a debut. bereft of pretension or a desire to be hip, it simply ropes together the best elements of 90s indie rock, and then uses it as a bungie. this summer’s follow up somehow improved on the formula, showing off a band fully in control, and moulding the clear influences into something very special indeed. would they manage to do this live? would they ever. the gig tonight was one of the most enjoyable i have witnessed in the past few years. they romped through every song i wanted to hear, including the one with the awesome promise ring bass riff off Queer Salutations, you know the one i mean. each song careered off after the previous finished, it could only have been better if we’d all been wedged in the band’s hometown basement with sweat dripping off the pipes. at times i felt like i was the only fool who was really getting into it, but what the heck. TCK were brilliant, exceeded my expectations and had me grinning like a child. one guy in the band even wore a sinaloa shirt. ace.

not teenage, not cool, not kids

not teenage, not cool, not kids

 after all that was algernon cadwallader. algernon cadwallader do not click with me. i think i am probably a bit old, but pretty much everyone else present tonight was hog wild for them. to me, they sound like a mish mash of some bands i really like, but without doing anything remotely interesting with the sound. i am also a little jaded to see that if a band is influenced by late 90s midwest emo, they stop at cap’n jazz and american football. that is a depressingly small amount of influence to take from the most furtile period of indie rock. anyway, i skipped a bit on algernon. i mooched at the bar with Mike to discuss Dillinger 4 and Mike’s forthcoming appearance in the NME. i mooched at the back to discuss the Promise Ring with Jem, and i mooched outside to post pointless messages on the internet via my phone. algernon cadwallader simply was not for me. it’s all a bit dudemo, young guys hi-fiving and back slapping and twiddling their guitars. i don’t get it.

and on that less than upbeat note, i call this entry to an end. i did really enjoy my evening, good people, two great bands and a good venue. i hope it is less than 10 years before i set foot in this place again.

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the Strange Boys / the Get Up Kids / Dinosaur Jr.

August 29th, 2009

Now that’d be a crazy lineup and a half wouldn’t it? Instead it was a 3 day booze fueled jaunt by myself and long time Collective-Zine forum denizen, Victor Lazaro, taking in the sites and sounds of London and Cambridge. Things were to begin and the rickety little den that is the Windmill in Brixton. I had not been here since around 1999 or so, the fateful day that I met Chris Bress for the first time, saw Alkatraz, and scored a bunch of cool emo sevens for not a huge out-lay. This time around, mostly we hung around outside waiting for the Strange Boys to start. The support bands failed to capture the attention and the names of both have long since departed my brain. Instead me, Vic, Alex Deller and James Deller hung around outside like grumpy 30 somethings do, talking about the olden days, although James later told Alex that listening to us talk about records was like listening to people speaking in code. Regardless of our anti-social nerdery, we made our way inside to check out Texan foetuses, the Strange Boys. This beguiling foursome have a combined age of 9, yet play music that sounds like it should come from the instruments of hoary old bluesmen. The only hint on record that these guys are youthful are the slacked jawed vocals of pure youth. The rhythms and guitars however are classic ye olde time American, and this band played for around 40 minutes, not even coming close to outstaying their welcome. There was barely a word uttered, and no hint of an encore (I wish more bands dispensed with an encore, don’t tease us), and they cranked it. Very few hipsters in attendance either, though a couple of oafs elbowed their way to the front near the end, presumably to be seen or something. We all rather enjoyed the Strange Boys, and you should ensure you pick up their LP on In the Red post haste.

the boys are not that strange

the boys are not that strange

The next day saw me and Victor wander around London in the heat, sleep in Hyde Park, wind up in Camden, leave our bags at a scummy hostel that charged us a mere tenner for a nights sleep.

Abu Ghraib

Abu Ghraib

Then it was on to Camden, to try and find a pub that did not want upwards of four pounds for a pint. Duly successful, we had the nutritionally satisfying dinner of “a plate of nachos”, before we hit up the Camden Electric Ballroom to witness the mother fucking Get Up Kids. What were we thinking? I have detested this band since the 10″, and Vic is not much more tolerant than I. Nevertheless, things looked up when they opened with the impetuous “Coming Clean”, maybe things would be OK after all. Sadly, it was a false dawn. Although they treated us to a solid rendition of “Woodson” that I was happy to air guitar stupidly to, and try and sing a long to the bits I remembered, it was like watching a Get Up Kids covers band. It was a complete farce. At one bit they even made everyone cheer for the bloody keyboard player. To me this was the gravest insult, once that dude joined the band it was all down hill. Me and Vic retreated to the smoking area. I have asthma. That’s how bad the Get Up Kids were. I probably took 5 years off my life to avoid seeing them play a few shitty songs. At some point they played a dub song. A fucking dub song! We returned to yell out of tune at “Don’t Hate Me” and some kid walked past me and said to his pal ”That’s Andy Malcolm, I used  to buy records off that guy”. He was gone before I had a chance to stop him. Very odd. The Get Up Kids struggled on to the end, playing a couple of dire covers (how bad is it that a band on a reunion tour plays 2 covers, yet only 2 songs off their best LP?), and it was embarrassing. Not nearly as the site of me drunkenly singing along to “Is This Thing On?” with Vic and no-one else at the Camden Barfly later, one bright, requested spot amidst a torrent of Fall Out Boy and MTVmo smashes. We were later to return to the Camden Inn and pass out, but not before laughing at some girl in the cooridor, who was trying to get to the toilet. I am not sure why were laughing at her. She did not look that impressed by us.

After that shocking evening, I woke up at 8am and left to wander Camden and shake off the fuzz of too many lagers. A lucozade later and Vic stirred, we were off to Cambridge, feeling a little worse for wear. Vic encountered a naked 50 year old man in the showers, and was feeling a touch off colour. “Good morning!” was the nudists pleasant greeting, but Victor was not in such high spirits. I shunned the showers, and waited to see what erstwhile friend of the C, Toby Canham-James had to offer in the way of hot water and no naked 50 year old guys. It proved the correct decision. So, off to the Junction in Cambridge, a venue I had not visisted since I saw the Wildhearts in 97 or something. Again we turned our nose up at the support and arrived at 8.45, just in time to see a few roadies tuning up guitars. At approximately 9.15pm, the old bastards that make up Dinosaur Jr sauntered on stage. And proceeded to blow us away. It was 75 minutes of pure belligerence. My ears may no longer be ringing but the frequency range is certainly diminshed. The band pummeled us into submission. Barlow pounded bass, and Jay sleepily played towering solos. They were having a whale of a time. Many old hits and new classics from the two excellent recent LPs. This was as good a band as I have seen in years, the sound was perfect, the set was great, and the music was untouchable. Thank you Dinosaur Jr, after the inexcrable performance of the once mighty Get Up Kids, you have shown that it is possible to grow old and fat and not forget how to be any good. A beautiful evening, I didn’t stop grinning.

Jay Mascis: "Ok"

Jay Mascis: "Ok"

Thanks to all the bastards involved in making this a brilliant three days! Except for the Get Up Kids. Screw you guys.

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