Lonesome Interview: Elisa Flynn

Photo: Chris Carlone

By: Lys Guillorn

Last year at this time I interviewed Peter Riccio of The Sawtelles, my former Jargon Society bandmate and current member of my band, for my Lonesome Noise Summer Residency, so this year I decided to interview my other co-conspirator in that endeavor.

Elisa Flynn and I began playing music together in 1999, and co-formed Jargon Society in 2000, both playing guitar and singing, adding cellist Megan Luke and fellow songwriter Peter Riccio on drums. Three songwriters and harmonies, two jangly guitars, hypnotic cello, and expressive drums tailored in service of each song.

Jargon Society disbanded in the autumn of 2001, not too long after Elisa had moved to New York City. Over the fourteen years since then, Elisa has transformed her powerful punk caterwaul into a soaring and highly controlled instrument. She has studied voice with Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, and she mandolin with Mark Rogers of Mark Rogers and Mary Byrne.

At a show we recently played at Never Ending Books in New Haven, Elisa whipped out one of the tunes she used to play with her mid-90s band Freak Baby and then Jargon Society. Peter Riccio was compelled to say, “no one plays like you in that era of you.”

In addition to writing and playing, Elisa has hosted quarterly shows at the Way Station in Brooklyn under the moniker Tripeg Lobo Presents. She chooses a topic for each event, and songwriters are challenged to perform a cover and an original on that theme. One of the murder ballad-themed evenings featured her take on the tune Henry Lee.

Her song, “My Henry Lee” leads an EP of the same name, which will be released on September 25, 2015 on her own Cat in a Dress Records, available via Bandcamp. The recordings were engineered by Peter Riccio at Sawtelle House in Southington, CT and then finished and mixed with Ethan Donaldson at Amphibious Tricycle in Brooklyn.

The six songs on the EP are fully-imagined worlds. I have long admired Elisa’s ability to get inside the heads of her characters, both fictional and real. Elisa wields her voice like a righteous sword over the delicately balanced fingerpicked guitar and banjo with touches of keyboards. No loud electric guitars here, but she doesn’t need them to get her message across.

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“My Henry Lee” © Elisa Flynn, video by Chris Carlone, Chris Carlone Creation

LG: Over what period of time did you make the record here in CT? What was it like working with someone you know very well?

EF: We started working in the first half of 2014, as Peter Riccio was starting to set up his home studio in he and Julie’s new digs. I went up to Southington once every few months and did another couple of songs. I think we did it over about a 6-month period, with the later sessions starting to sound a bit better as the studio set up improved and Peter got used to recording in that room. We did sessions where I just looked out the window the whole day, and one where I sang into the closet!

Driving up to Southington from Brooklyn on a weekend morning is a bit of a pain, traffic is always hell, plus work and life get in the way, so that’s why it took so long. Then I brought it to my friend Ethan Donaldson in Brooklyn to mix.

It was really fun working with Peter. We’ve been friends for about 23 or 24 years, and we’ve been in bands together, played shows together. He’s very easy going and has a really odd sense of humor so we always had a good time!

LG: As someone who is very active writer, how did you go about choosing which of the songs you’ve written since 19th Century Songs to record?

EF: It was just me choosing the ones I was the most interested in when the sessions started. I have older songs I’ve never gotten around to recording, and hope to do some day, but the tracks on this recording are just what were interesting to me at the time and what I considered my current best set at the time. Now it’s a year later and it’s morphed a little, but I play them all a lot still.

LG: Was “My Henry Lee” written before you decided to do a murder ballad-themed Tripeg Lobo or after?

EF: It was written just before, but it was pretty shiny and new when we did that show. I’m still in love with murder ballads, I want to write more, but currently the state of all things gun in this country make it almost too painful to do.

LG: You inhabit some pretty singular characters in your songs—the protagonist of “My Henry Lee”, for example—she’s talkin’ some serious business. These aren’t necessarily people one would encounter in daily life. It’s not that you don’t write personal songs—you do write songs inspired by people and events of your life, but they definitely end up more story-like. What draws you to the characters you write about?

EF: I definitely write about strong characters, and often I use first person narration. Sometimes they’re based on characters in books, or from the news, or from paintings. On this EP, there’s only one song drawing on my own life experience—”Cheetah”—and it’s a super personal song that it took me a while to get the courage to play out, and a really long time to not feel uncomfortable about. I’ve been playing it for over 2 years or so, and honestly, I think the first time I really felt comfortable playing it for people was at a show last week! One person in the audience said it made her get choked up; that’s a very humbling thing to me, when someone has that reaction. It’s about how I thought I could speak in tongues for a short time when I was about 13, I think, and I had a brief sort of mystical religious period. “My Blood” is about the war in Afghanistan, and I wrote it after watching Restrepo, which I thought was a fantastic, very personal movie, and I wanted to try and convey the experience of a soldier the same sort of way that Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington did.

LG: What kind of mutations do your songs go through as you’re writing them—is there a lot of revision?

EF: I keep several notebooks, and I always have a small one I jot quick ideas in. Then there’s a formal music notebook that songs get fleshed out and finalized in. Sometimes I write most of a song in one go, but sometimes it’s a few verses then lots of throwing ideas down until I find what the rest of the song needs to say. I revise a lot, and I really sweat how things sound together. My greatest fear is of writing a cliché of any kind.

Occasionally, I will use a line from a book or poem as a starting point, and I do have one song about 1960’s land artist Robert Smithson that is based on an interview he did. I often write lyrics while listening to music, but the lyrics I am writing have nothing to do with what I’m listening to, except in the case of this one song I haven’t yet recorded called “All Hail West TX,” which has nothing to do with that album, but it came out of me while I was listening to it.

LG: What were some of the books you were reading that inspired this group of songs?

EF: Actually, only one song in this group was written after reading a book—”A House Called Merciful,” which is something Will Oldham says to Alan Licht in Will Oldham on Bonny Prince Billy, a book of conversations between Oldham and Licht. The other songs come from movies and paintings and the traditional murder ballad story for the title track. “2 Horse Race” is based on a woodcut by Antonio Frasconi, “Keeper of Secrets”is based on a Marc Chagall painting.

LG: What have you read recently?

EF: The book I just finished was The Rise & Fall of Great Powers, by Tom Rachman, which I loved, which has a great female protagonist, who is basically dragged all over the world as a child and taught to be a grifter by this group of people who take care of her. Just before that I read Not My Father’s Son, by Alan Cumming and My Struggle, Book One, by Karl Ove Knausgaard. I’m still deciding how I feel about Knausgaard.

LG: “House Called Merciful” is the first song in your recording career to feature banjo. The part has an almost classical feel. What was it like beginning to write for banjo?

EF: It was so much fun. I’m writing kind of slowly on banjo, because I really don’t know “how” to play it, but I love it. I love the percussive quality and the different tuning. Someone said I play gamelan banjo—think that’s a good description!

“Keeper of Secrets” reminds me of your dream-inspired woodcuts, and of some of your Jargon Society-era writing. This is the one about Marc Chagall’s paintings, right? [I hope I’m right!] Was there one painting you had in mind or a few? I’m picturing “Over the Town”, “A Bandura Player, a Bear and Zemphira.”

I was reading a book on him, so I was thinking of multiple paintings, but “Over the Town” is a good starting point. And I had a very distinct picture in my mind that I created by looking at his paintings, of this man/bear on his ledge.

LG: Kind of related to what Peter said about “My Pet Pig” and your playing in Jargon Society—do you ever miss sawing away at an electric guitar in a loud band?

EF: On occasion I do. My hearing was starting to take a beating after playing loudly for so many years, and I just found myself naturally playing quieter more of the time. I have a few louder songs still. I find it much more of a challenge to play quietly and let the song soak into the space rather that blanket everything immediately with volume. And it brings vocals much more to the fore when you’re quieter, and that’s what i try to explore more than anything, is singing and the voice as instrument.

LG: What are you obsessively listening to at the moment? How about while driving back and forth to CT to make the record—was there a particular sound lording over your ears?

EF: I have been listening to a fuck ton of Tom Brousseau and John Vanderslice lately. I’m also really into Godspeed You! Black Emperor.at the moment. I go through phases. I think when we were recording I was listening to a lot of Bill Callahan, Nick Cave and Low.

LG: How was the Mercury Lounge show on Sept. 1? That’s a bit of a milestone show!

EF: The show was great. The Mercury has really great sound; everyone there said I sounded the best I ever have, and that was without a soundcheck. Good to know! I want to go back!

LG: Are there any EP release shows planned?

EF: I’m doing a show at Troost [Brooklyn, NY] on 9/17, which isn’t really an official release show; it’s a pre-release show! I’m trying to organize some, in and out of town.

***

For more information:
Elisa Flynn’s website
Elisa Flynn’s Bandcamp

Homegrown Hip-Hop: Connecticut Classics (Special Edition)

By: Zach Humphrey

On July 10th and July 11th, friends, family and strangers gathered at Sully’s Pub in Hartford, CT for the third annual Lumpfest. Over the course of two nights, the life of David “Lumpsum” Bompart was celebrated as live music and memories filled the night.

Today, I’m happy to present what is without a doubt the most special “Homegrown Hip-Hop: Connecticut Classic” feature yet. Instead of sharing an older CT record or video and explaining why it’s significant, I reached out to CT hip-hop veteran Abu Bless to discuss the life and legacy of Lump.

In addition to the interview, Abu gifted us two tracks – the first, “Fuk With Lump”, can be heard above. The high energy record will hopefully offer those of you who aren’t familiar with Lump an idea of his style and sound. I never was fortunate enough to catch Lump live but “Fuk With Lump” certainly seems like it’d be an amazing joint to get the crowd hype during a show.

Zach Humphrey: Who was David “Lumpsum” Bompart?

Abu Bless: David was a man who wore many different hats, Father ,son, brother, friend, Emcee, poet,host and revolutionary.  He was instrumental in pushing the local hip-hop/music scene to another level. He was extremely kind, but at the same time he did not suffer fools….Oh yea he was also a tremendous lover of comic books, and Krs-1 was his favorite Emcee.

ZH: What was his role in the CT hip-hop community?

AB: David was always there as an on the spot battle emcee and the type of person to give guidance to young emcees and inspire them.  He kept himself immersed in not only the local hip-hop scene the national and international hip-hop scenes.  He hosted hip-hop open mic venues for well over ten years.

ZH: Why is it important to you and so many others to ensure that his legacy and name live on?

AB: It is important because of respect he put his all in to something he loved with little financial gain…….at least we can keep his music and memory alive and try to make sure his children are taken care of.

ZH: Where did the idea for Lumpfest originate?

AB: The idea for Lumpfest originated with George Darrah, Laurie Bompart, Juvon Vinters and Pep Burby as far as I know.

ZH: What does Lumpfest consist of – who/where/when/why/what?

AB: Lumpfest consist of live band performances on Friday night anything from Jazz to Death Metal, Saturday there are events for the kids more live bands and a ton of hip-hop performances by local artist followed by a after party where most of us stay up hanging out until 6-8 am.

ZH: How was this year’s Lumpfest?

AB: This years Lumpfest probably had the best turnout out of all of them I had an amazing time.

ZH: Favorite memories from previous Lumpfests?

AB: My favorite memories from past Lumpfest have to be watching his kids brag about there father and rocking out with Doug Wimbish.

ZH: Some of your personal favorite memories of the time you spent with him?

AB: My favorite times with Lump were drinking puffing and writing rhymes I have more songs with that guy than anybody else I know.

Peace to Abu for taking the time to answer my questions and help paint a picture of Lump and Lumpfest for the Lonesome Noise readers!

Along with the “Fuk With Lump” joint, Abu sent over an unreleased track featuring himself – representing Filthy Kleen – and the homie Sloth. You can give the lyrical exercise known as “Imagination” a listen below. And keep your eyes out for Sloth’s upcoming Funk Gero Present: Funk Gero project that will be released on July 30th.

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Please feel free to contact me (LN.HomegrownCT@gmail.com) if you have any suggestions you’d like to see featured as a “Connecticut Classic”. If you do, it would be nice if you include a sentence or two about why you enjoy the track, why it’s special, etc. Thanks!

Lonesome Interview: The Tet Offensive

Photo: Brian S. Robinson by Tim Borkowski

By: Lys Guillorn

Brian S. Robinson is the occasionally-bewigged composer, singer, and frontman of the Tet Offensive, a “string quartet-powered rock band” based in New Haven, Connecticut. Also of note is that Robinson is a composer of contemporary classical and choral music, and his day job is managing the Yale Symphony Orchestra.

Robinson distills horror cinema, personal experience, power rock and classical composition into the Tet Offensive’s sound. Pounding grooves, soaring melodies, and bracing dissonances rock out Brian’s arrangements, while his baritone soars and growls over the top. He looks kind of vampiric, simultaneously writhing and conducting.

The band has two other permanent members, Justina Sullivan on cello and Jef Wilson on drums, and is filled out by a rotating cast in the viola and two violin positions. In 2013, the band recorded a mesmerizing single, “Heaven’s Full of Monsters”/”Dumb”, engineered by Doug Slawin, in a prior, drumless lineup. There are many other songs on the band’s YouTube channel and on Soundcloud to satisfy the curious and initiate newcomers.

I spoke with Brian and Jef via email.

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Lys Guillorn (LG): How do you prepare for a gig? How does the wig make you feel?

Brian S. Robinson (BR): Being on stage is the most comfortable thing I can do, but it’s also the least-frequent part of my life. So, I remind myself beforehand that I’m not going to the office. I’m not going to Nica’s to get lunch meat. I’m not getting Tucks Medicated Pads at Target. I’m going home. All that narcissistic energy I bottle up all day where I pretend that I’m being filmed for a documentary can wash away, because when I get on stage I am actually being watched. I have to remind myself of that. When I started playing shows a few years ago, I could sometimes get stuck in a “golly-gee shucks” kind of attitude, where I thought I was being more “real” and relatable. What I started to realize is that whether I like it or not, I’m a performer and I can not stop.

photo by Tim Borkowski

The wig? The wig comes out for special occasions—when I feel like my audience knows that someone can wear a big white barrister wig and be totally serious. I’m not putting it on to be silly—I’m writing 20th century American popular music with an 18th century European instrumentation. The wig is an extra visual push, especially when I’m shirtless and in leather pants. The whole ensemble says “I don’t fit in.” I put the wig on when I’m especially serious—when I have something important to say. I do that because that wig gets really hot underneath. I’ve lasted no longer than five songs wearing that thing. It’s a giant space heater for my head, and I now understand why the 18th century was full of cranky Brits.

LG: What is your favorite cult/vampire movie?

BR: My favorite is without question The Nude Vampire by Jean Rollin. I accidentally caught it on late-night TV one night and felt like I’d found myself in it. It is a spectacle—it’s so absurd and yet so beautiful. Completely ridiculous on the surface but—if you take it seriously—there’s real beauty in everything that’s presented. It has everything—a death cult, an evil corporation using a beautiful vampire as a test subject to discover the key to immortality, chase scenes through Paris from people wearing animal masks, identical twin vampires, Go-Go dancers in the greatest costumes put to film, the list goes on. You really can’t go wrong with a Rollin film, but only if you’re weird enough to appreciate it.

LG: Were you in rock bands prior to the Tet Offensive?

BR: Only three. When I was sixteen my Catholic church wanted to start a youth mass and I volunteered to be the singer/guitarist. We only had one service, and I couldn’t make it. My band mates played “Hotel California,” and one of the ladies running the service accused them of being Satanists.

The second band was called “Opus,” and I wound up joining it because I was visiting a friend while they were at practice, and I started singing “House of the Rising Sun” and making up my own lyrics—spinning this horror-story about the protagonist. I think we played one show at a bar on Route One in West Haven. We recorded a few songs that Summer, but that was it.

When I moved to New York I joined a friend of mine, Bassi, who played bass and sang. I played trumpet, and later guitar. We were called “Smirky Clown.” All the songs were hers, and they were a lot of fun to play. She had titles like “Sorry I Forgot to Kiss Your Ass.” It was silly, avant-garde and fun. At one point we added a percussionist who would build blocks and knock them down. The two of us had a lot of fun. We came up with a medley of songs from the ’80s and ’90s as sung by Donnie and Marie Osmond.

LG: How would you describe your writing practice for Tet Offensive and your other work? BR: It’s inconsistent. I will get an idea in my head and be really passionate about it for a few hours – write it out and everything—and then drop it for six months. I’m finally finishing a handful of songs that came to me while doing dishes in September. Lyrics almost always come last, and oftentimes I am rewriting lyrics four or five times before I’m happy with them. The music almost always is done the first time through.

Arranging covers is easier. I can pound out a cover song in a day.

LG: Do pieces evolve after a test run / first rehearsal or are they complete after you write them out?

BR: Do pieces evolve? I have to admit—really only lyrically. I can go through three or four rewrites with the words, and almost every time it’s the same. I come up with really straightforward lyrics about what I’m thinking about, and they get progressively more focused and metaphorical. I sometimes worry that I’m obsfucating my mundane problems with flowery language, but after a lot of consideration I think I’m actually just digging deeper and coming up with ideas that require a different language to express. Is that pretentious? It’s totally pretentious. I’m a rock singer who wears a fucking barrister wig.

LG: It’s been a while now since you added drums. How did adding Jef Wilson on drums affect the dynamics of the string quartet? Are you taking the drums into account in writing new material?

BR: I couldn’t have gotten luckier having Jef join the group. Because we don’t rehearse regularly, Jef’s been improvising or going off of old recordings to come up with his part. He’s really sensitive, very attentive when we’re playing, and has the same musical instincts that I do. It’s really nice. It took me a long time to admit that I was hearing drums in my songs all along. I was hung up on the principal—the ideal—of having JUST strings, and started to realize that I was sacrificing too much for the ideal. I think I always took drums into account, except that I hoped the rhythm of the strings could be enough. It isn’t. What’s nice now is that the strings can be strings, and not worry as much about keeping the beat. They can be more expressive.

The Tet Offensive’s entry for the Tiny Desk Concert Contest from January, 2015, shot by Ian Applegate of nhv.org and nhvmusic.com

LG: Jef, what’s it like playing drums behind a string quartet?

Jef Wilson (JW): Not that I have any prior experience playing with a string quartet, but drums compliment the music of the Tet Offensive firstly because of the thoughtful compositions. It’s remarkable how Brian has had drum parts in mind for so much of what he has arranged for strings over the years but only just this year forged ahead with me on drums. And I know that folks in the Tet Offensive and folks enjoying performances have been excited about Brian making this addition finally, myself especially.

That said, I’d also like to emphasize that I do not feel as though I am playing drums “behind a string quartet” but rather providing a new musical foundation since the string players now have a drummer to musically align itself to. My understanding is that members of a string quartet traditionally depend on one of themselves to lead for maintaining all things regarding tempo but in the Tet Offensive they now have to shift their focus to a drummer keeping tempo. You have to ask a string player for their take on that perspective but from my perspective, I sense that it’s something that they are not accustomed to as performers but are also unlikely not unfamiliar—as young musicians in the year 2015—with how instruments align with drums in Pop Music, which helps the musicality of the Tet Offensive performances.  The thoughtful compositions I referred to also frequently allow for me as a drummer to develop my contributions whether from a rough idea that Brian has or simply finding my way to compose parts that compliment any given musical moment. I enjoy that freedom of exploration in the Tet Offensive.   I also am thrilled about Brian’s openness for me to add small hand percussion and eventually electronic oddness.

Hm, I must clarify that my fandom really took hold of me as I got to know Brian and and his compositions as a member of the the Tet Offensive. I cannot express strongly enough my gratitude and how lucky I feel in landing in the Tet Offensive. Brian’s charisma and compositions not only attracts talented string players, but it’s really the combination of his compositions and the libretto (or lyrics—not sure which to call it in this setting). Also important for me is the lack of ego in our camaraderie in the way that that makes all aspects of working together less like work and more about playing. Viva la Tet Offensive! 

LG: Justina Sullivan on cello has been the unifying factor between recent lineups. Do you have a permanent band now or rotating members? What’s it like rehearsing with new members in the days/hours before a gig?

BR: I’ve been really fortunate to have Justina as such a regular member. She’s an amazing player, she’s great to work with, and she “gets” the material. Sometimes with string players I have to familiarize them with the idiom. I dont’ have to do that with her. Justina is the best.

We haven’t had a regular group for a while now—three of four of our quartet moved away or graduated school, so it’s been harder feeling like a band. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking all at once having a rotating ensemble. Everyone plays differently, and I have a very specific sound I like—especially with viola. I’ve found a couple of players who have that sound, but they’re either in New York or farther away. I would love to have regular violinists and a violist! If you know anyone, hit me up.

LG: Any gigs coming up? Plans to record?

BR: We’re playing the Outer Space on August 23rd with CroDad and Procedure Club! We have a few shows in September and November, and are always looking to play more. We have a few ideas recording-wise, and are definitely looking forward to putting more material out.

LG: What are your wildest dreams for the Tet Offensive?

BR: Thirty years from now, I want the misfit kids in every high school in the world to discover us during their darkest hour and smile.

For more information:
The Tet Offensive on Facebook
The Tet Offensive on Youtube

Lonesome Interview: Parker Hu

Photo: Parker Hu by Mik Walker

By: Lys Guillorn

I first met Parker Hu in the context of her playing with Them Damn Hamiltons, the folk-noir five piece that’s a superhero team of excellent musicians (whom Lonesome Noise‘s Chris Mariotti interviewed last year). In TDH, Parker writes, sings and plays guitar and banjo. Parker also plays under her own as a duo with Mik Walker, who also pays bass for Them Damn Hamiltons. Hu’s guitar playing is nimble and original; her songs are intensely thoughtful and emotional, both lyrically and musically. Her voice is a smooth, vibratoless alto which she can manipulate and break into a breathy high-lonesome. She uses all of her talents to great effect on her fourth and most recent solo record, Time and Place, which came out in 2012.

Earlier in 2015, I heard news that she had joined acclaimed heavy prog-rock ensemble 1974 on keyboards after Angela Rhea-Piccoli left the band, and that seemed like the perfect excuse to talk with her about music.

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Lys Guillorn (LG): How did you get involved in playing with 1974?

Parker Hu (PH): They put out a Facebook post asking for people. But actually, one of the band members sent me a message on Facebook asking me if I was interested. At first I was like, “nah.” I’m not a keyboard player, but it would be a dream because I love their band already. I didn’t think I could hack it so I said no the first time, and then after a while…you know Adam Clymer the guitar player? He’s the type of person who’s like a very loving Italian kind of guy like, “Oh yeah, we totally respect that but you know we’d love to have you at least try out. No pressure. We love you, we think you’re amazing.” A lot of flattery and stuff, so I was like “Ok.” I thought about it, and in the end I would kick myself if I didn’t at least try. I ended up getting in.

LG: Do you play the piano on Time and Place? [Hu’s 2012 record]

PH: Yeah.

LG: So you do play keyboards!

PH: I do, but not rock music. I’d never done any of that stuff before. That’d be like asking me to play jazz or something. It was a really sharp learning curve.

LG: Did you take piano lessons as a kid?

PH: Yeah, just like a good, Chinese kid should. We [Parker and her sister] took piano lessons in the classical style, and then I stopped in middle school and high school because I didn’t want to anymore and then started teaching myself guitar.

LG: Where did the banjo come in?

PH: At some point when I was playing in TDH—you know, when you have instruments lying around—and that’s how I started playing it. But I don’t consider myself a banjo player, by any means. I just learn the parts that I need to learn. I know a few chords, but I can’t rip anything.

LG: Ripping is not necessary.

PH: It’s been such a long time since I’ve actually written for myself. Now that I’m in 1974 and Them Damn Hamiltons, the stuff I do for myself is virtually non-existent now. It’s something I always want to do, but there’s only so much energy I have. Ideally, I think “Oh, I could do it all, I don’t need to sleep. I don’t need to do my day job or anything like that.” My human limitations are really showing.

LG: I feel exactly the same way. It’s very hard.

PH: The problem is, I have a hard time saying no. If anyone has a musical thing–there’s another group, Studio Rio that just kind of formed. Frank [Brocklehurst] my husband’s, college buddies are all jazz musicians, and really into Brazilian stuff. We did Brazilian stuff in Massachussetts, so they said, “Let’s start one down here.” Sure! I’ll play percussion in that, I’ll sing for that. So there’s another thing, and band number three and my stuff. I don’t play guitar for them–they’re jazz experts. I can’t touch the theory or skills that they have.

LG: I hear a bit of bossa influence on that new tune you sent me.

PH: The group I played in in Great Barrington is called Berkshire Bateria, and Bossa Triba. One part was a bateria was all percussion, and the other part was your standard jazz bossa nova band. Frank and I did that pretty consistently for a couple of years. That was the year I was living in Shelton, and every weekend I was going to three gigs, TDH, me, Great Barrington. I was doing that for months in a row. We also used to have practice every Wednesday, so It seeped into my music. What other groups are you playing with?

LG: Pretty much just my own band now, and occasionally with Paul [Mercy Choir]. I also have a hard time saying no, but I have to be really careful about what I say yes to because time is finite when you have a job and play music. I’m trying to figure it all out. Putting on group shows takes time, too.

PH: Saying no to a music project is like saying no to someone giving you a free instrument. I got a really nice organ from our church from back in the day when I used to go to church. They were going to throw it out, I was like, “No! It’s like a puppy! You can’t throw out an instrument!” So I took it home and then I didn’t touch it for five years because it was huge and kind of broken and I didn’t know how to fix it. Eventually we had to bring it to Goodwill. Maybe that was one of those times when I should’ve said no. I loved it in theory. I have a broken harmonium–same thing.

I’m at a point in my life where I’m burnt out on music. It’s because I joined three bands, and life stuff. There’s so much stuff that every weekend ’74 has a rehearsal, so my personal life is just kind of nonexistent and time is really flying by, so I don’t know. But I do have the song I sent you—that one kind of got lost but I really like it. I have a couple other ones that I’ve released as demos or I’ve played live that I really like and eventually I want to record another album or at least record songs piecemeal the correct way and release them one by one. Just do something.

LG: I know that look on your face. I’m feeling it. The insurmountable mountain of crap you have to get through to get to that place.

PH: I mean, it’s so weird. Sometimes I think about how the brain and your energy is all organized, in a scientific way. How do I delegate all of my energy to my day job and my commute, and this, and this. Is there a way I can siphon them perfectly so I can fit in another chunk? I don’t know how that works. I don’t want to believe that it’s not possible.

LG: It’s fun playing with people, that feeling of connection. What hooks you—what do you like about playing in your various projects?

PH: I think it’s a few things— would say one of the most important things to me is the cameraderie between band members. Dan Hamilton often says at our rehearsals for TDH that for him that’s his church. We’re not religious people, but for him that’s the best time. And I feel that, especially because I’m an apostate, I don’t do church anymore, but I feel that camaraderie. We go there to work, but there’s still something more than that there, a common goal, and the human connection is important and feels good. On a different side of that it is connecting to the audience—like with the Bateria—when we, played people just danced, and you got sweaty and went on past midnight—that was the best. We got such a high watching people dance to that music—the audience made it worth it.

LG: Who are some of your guitar heroes?

PH: To be honest I don’t know a lot of famous players’ names. I know names of people that I know personally that I like. Like you’re one of them, Becky Kessler. But when I say that I’m not speaking so much about hers or yours technical skill, that’s part of it, but general musicians that I admire.

LG: When you were learning was there anyone that you were emulating?

PH: I started learning through church because I was raised in church. The context in which I started playing guitar was to play church songs. We had a lot of songs that we sang growing up. There weren’t hymnals, they were more like contemporary hymns with basic structure, we always had chord books lying around, so I started learning that because it was what I had around to learn. We didn’t listen to classic rock. We didn’t listen to music much at all growing up so there was no, “Oh, I want to play like this guy on the radio or like Kiss or Beatles.” I didn’t know who they were. It was all through church. I don’t know that we even had a style, we’d just…play.

LG: Did your sister play, too?

PH: She played drums, actually. We both started with piano, and in grade school they make you do band, so she did flute and I did trumpet. Later on, I did some French horn, picked up guitar, she picked up drums. She could probably pick up the guitar and learn it.

LG: Your songs sound really personal.

PH: The songs prior to the latest album [Time and Place] kind of reflect an earlier part of my life, especially the ones that have to do with romantic relationships. Those come out of very specific experiences I had with a particular guy or something. The two that were probably the newest and had more meaning for me in this later part of my life have more to do with thinking and thought processes. “Perilous” is actually about my parents and I. Actually, both “Time and Place” and “Perilous” are two of the songs that meant a lot to me, and they’re about me and my parents, not a boyfriend or anything. That was a point in time when I was struggling to come out of the faith, and my dad’s a pastor, so there was a very natural tension between us when I was trying to leave the faith and actually leaving the faith. That’s when I wrote those songs.

These days when I write songs it’s hard for me to go back into the place I used to be in, like “oh, my boyfriend hurt me,” because I have an awesome husband, so that stuff doesn’t even apply anymore. It’s hard to write about that stuff.

Video of Parker Hu’s “Perilous” by Zack Wussow, Zack Wussow Media

LG: But then you find characters and characters can have problems that you never even imagined having yourself. I came out of writer’s block last year when I realized I didn’t have to be myself.

PH: That’s what I get to do with TDH. I get to write stories about fictional chicks who get murdered, and drowned in the sea. I would never write that for myself, usually, but OK.

LG: You’re good at writing those songs.

PH: Thanks. One of the things I’d like to try and do is take a page out of Dan’s [Hamilton, from Them Damn Hamiltons] book because he and I have such different styles. He’s really great with narrative stuff. I tend to gravitate toward abstract concepts and feelings and thinking. I really admire the way he can put together a story in a very literal way. He’s great at that stuff. Not really my strong suit.

LG: It’s good to work together and have a band that has both those elements.

PH: Dan’s a talented guy. I’m going to write for ’74 too [1974], but that’s a whole different ball game.

LG: How is it different?

PH: Different kind of genre than I’m used to. I mean, given that prog rock is technically drawing from all influences. The guys have very clear influences, like Yes, Rush, Jethro Tull. People I’d never really heard before. Beatles too, actually. Sometimes in rehearsal and they’ll say, “Oh, yeah, I’m imagining it riffy like some Beatles tune.” And I’m like, “I don’t know what tune that is.” So I have not written anything for them yet.

LG: But it’s on your mind, and you probably will.

PH: Maybe, if I have enough brain capacity enough to handle it. But I do want to get back to what I used to do without rehashing the girl-with-acoustic-guitar thing. Which is kind of….ehhhhhh.

LG: Do you ever play electric?

PH: No, I don’t have one.

LG: O.M.G. I want to enable you.

PH: I think I tried it out at a Guitar Center once. I was like, “This is cool, I guess…” I didn’t really know what to do with it. The cool thing about those is it’s great for leads but I’m not a very precise guitar player. I don’t use a pick, I’m always using open chords and strumming, fingerpicking.

LG: You can do that on an electric guitar. Somebody we know plays electric without a pick. I can’t remember who.

PH: Was it Bill Beckett?

LG: Maybe. Bill Beckett is good. [Turns out it was Jon Schlesinger of No Line North.—lg]

PH: I had never heard him before your show [Parker played duo with Mik Walker at one of the Big Little Sunday Shows this winter, and Bill also played—lg]. He did some really cool shit.

LG: How did you meet Mik?

PH: I met Mik through Them Damn Hamiltons. For the last two years we’ve been playing gigs together. He is a great bass player and musician and is one of the few people who deal with (and even enjoy) how inconsistent I am when I play live. Very talented guy. He has a long history of music in many genres and I feel very lucky to play music with him.

LG: What’s going on with the TDH record?

PH: We went to the Carriage House, and we bit off a bit more than we could chew, so the fact that we’re going to release the album this year is a freakin’ miracle. It will happen—we’ve been pushing really hard for the past 3 or 4 months to mix it ourselves and do all the work, so it’ll get done. We kind of had a six-to-eight-month gap while we just sat on it. A lot happened in between. And trying to get five people to design an album cover…

LG: Where was Time and Place recorded?

PH: It was recorded in a bunch of places. Originally it was tracked at my house or Frank’s house at the time. I had pretty much mixed the whole thing, and I eventually took it to Raw Recording where TDH did their first EP. I was like, “This engineer seems pretty nice, and he’s near my house, so I’ll see if he can take my mixes and just tweak them a little, make them sound better.” He rebuilt a lot of the mixes, so whatever sounded good is all him, really. The only one on there that was strictly me was “Killer,” the last tune, which I still like.

LG: Did you just cart a hard drive around?

PH: Honestly, I don’t remember. It happened over such a sporadic period of time. I learned a lot. There’s a song in particular called “Horizon” that I’ve released as a demo on Soundcloud. I really like that song, so I want to redo it in a studio, properly. Which is kind of stupid because if it’s a good song, it should be fine on its own, but I think it’s a personal thing.

LG: Is it still on your Soundcloud?

PH: I might’ve taken it down because I don’t want to keep releasing the same song so many times that people are like, “why are you releasing this?” It’s hard once you’ve gone into the studio, after you watch a pro work, you think “Oh, I should always come here. These guys know so much,” rather than doing it yourself.

Exclusive to Lonesome Noise, a preview of Hu’s “Horizon” demo:

LG: You can do both. Peter and Julie Riccio have a real D.I.Y. ethos, and for them there’s no reason to go into a studio. But sometimes it’s better to have someone else at the controls.

PH: It’s more of a perfectionist thing that I know “someone could do this better. I want the integrity of the work to be great so I should go with someone else.” The problem with that thinking is it’s now three years later and I haven’t finished the song.

LG: Pinky swear.

PH: What?

LG: That you’re going to finish it.

PH: I will finish it. I promise Lys Guillorn now that I will finish it. It’s actually nice, because looking through old stuff to send you made me remember I have all this stuff I need to do.

Lonesome Interview: Spectral Fangs

Photo: Erin Waterfall

By Lys Guillorn

On April 26th, 2015, I spent a sunny Sunday morning at the Elephant’s Trunk Flea Market in New Milford, CT, wandering around with Joe Russo and Tony Mascolo of Spectral Fangs.

They have the easy rapport of longtime friends. In their mid-30s, they’ve been playing and writing together for nearly twenty years. Joe plays guitar and sings and Tony plays bass and sings, and they practice their craft of songwriting just about daily. Together with drummer Jay Margolin, they’re a tight power trio with hooks and harmonies.

Their EP Memory Girl (Obscure Me Records, April 2014) was recorded with previous drummer Jared Thompson. There’s a lot to catch—the arrangements are densely layered psych-rock with hints of Shins, Husker Du, and T. Rex, with a bit of Smiths jangle. My husband remarked, after hearing a very Ronnie Spector-esque moment in the title track, “It’s like a 60’s girl group in a hipster body.”

We had played a couple of fun shows together the weekend before, and I saw them at BAR in New Haven that Wednesday, so I knew they had plans to put out a 10” four-way split EP and a full-length record in 2015.

The conversation here follows the contours of browsing at a flea market—a bit of this here, and a bit of that there. It makes me kind of sad that I didn’t take more pictures of what the hell we were looking at, or of them, because as I transcribed the interview, I realized that minus the context, a lot of what was said makes so little sense. So be it—that is life. Enjoy, my friends. Be free.

Art car at the Elephant’s Trunk. Photo: Lys Guillorn

Lys Guillorn (LG):  Have you ever purchased a musical instrument at the Elephant’s Trunk?

JR: Yeah, several times. I bought a keyboard in extremely hot weather and I didn’t test it and it was an analog one, but it was from a nice man who was in a cowboy hat, so I figured I could trust him. That fucker just didn’t work. So don’t buy keyboards for $40 at the Elephant’s Trunk.

LG: How about you?

Tony Mascolo (TM): No. But I’ve seen a lot of really cool stuff. You know, if there was an acoustic bass, I might buy one.

LG: Are we in line for something?

JR: I don’t know. I’m surmising…I could get a BLT without the B.

LG: Just an LT?

TM: Joe loves LT.

JR: LT is my thing.

JR: There’s actually sammies here. [to the audio recorder] So we’re doing the interview and, if you don’t know, we’re at the Super Fried Chicken stand.

LG: Tony said you were recording last night?

TM: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I didn’t say anything. No, I’m kidding.

JR: Yes. We’re actually recording the tune that we played at Best Video [at “Late Nite Double Feature Picture Show” on 4/17]. Now we have a new song that has to do with Donnie Darko for some reason. It’s going to be an outlier in our catalog, but it’s going to be pretty cool.

LG: Just a one-off or something?

JR: No, we’re actually going to put it on the record. We’re probably going to record most of it in-house, DIY, fitting with our punk aesthetic from years back. We have really limited equipment, but that’s how we did the other ones. We just use a couple of mics and my Mac.

LG: Oh, so Memory Girl was done at home, too?

JR: Yeah, actually all of them, except for some of the one-offs and compilation stuff that we’ve recorded with Tom Bonehead [of Bonehead Studios]. For the most part we do it DIY. Elbow grease.

LG: What are you using to record?

JR: I used to use Cubase, but now I just use GarageBand. It’s easy. It’s got enough features that it sort-of simulates those expensive programs. And who cares? If you get a good sound going in, you don’t need to do all sorts of crazy stuff for it, anyway.

LG: You recorded “Stoned and Atoned” with Tom Bonehead, though, right? [A track for their upcoming split EP, which Neat Beet podcast previewed in January, starts at around the 36:03 mark.]

JR: He’s really good—he’s got a lot of stoner-rock posters, which makes you feel at home, I guess.

TM: It’s great value for the recording.

JR: Oh, I definitely want a coffee. “Chicken Bowl on Stick”? I don’t understand how that works.

LG: I need caffeine, myself.

JR: Am I the only one getting food? This interview is off the rails.

LG: It’s fine. It’s fine.

[wandering around]

JR: I want some drawers, like a card catalog thing. I really like those, but that’s just one. Not enough. Could be like…

TM: Being John Malkovich. I’m just about to offer $20K for that woman’s baby. Are you recording this?

LG: Yes.

JR: We’ve all said things…things that we can’t take back.

LG: Who else is going to be on the single beside you and Dr. Martino? There are two other bands?

JR: It’s going to be a 10″ record. It’s going to be so sick—it’s going to be a four-way split. Who does that nowadays? We do.

LG: It’s more economical.

JR: It’s still expensive, obvs. Records are so expensive to get pressed. I would’ve thought that with the reemergence of vinyl being super popular it’d be cheaper, but it’s fucking expensive. It’s us, Terrible Roars, Dr. Martino, and Jay Munro. We’ve all recorded our contributions, so it’s going to be coming out.

LG: How many tracks each?

JR: We’re going to be doing two each. We’re thinking Summer of ’15.

[wandering around]

JR: That was the first amp I ever owned—I swear to god, that’s it—[Peavey] Rage 158. Then we threw it down the stairs.

LG: Why?

TM: Punk rock.

JR: I don’t know, because it was fun. I was 15.

LG: So you guys met in junior high school?

TM: Whoa, whoa.

LG: Is that yes, or around then or…?

JR: Actually, Tony put an ad out, back before computers were a thing. And I, being a lonely boy, answered their ad because they were looking for a guitarist, and this was back when I was 17 or so. So that was…three or four years ago.

TM: [laughing] We’ve known each other for three or four years.

JR: Yeah, so, I answered it and I came with a friend of mine and we auditioned for his band.

TM: The friend didn’t make the cut.

JR: I don’t know why you guys didn’t just take both of us; it would’ve been two guitarists. But yeah, I made the cut.

LG: What was the ad in?

JR: I don’t know—what did you guys put it in? A local newspaper, I guess, right?

LG: What was that first band called?

JR: That band was called Pissweasel.

LG: Pissweasel?

JR: Well, that was my name in my band Ridiculum. The reason my name was Pissweasel was because we all needed to come up with punk rock names, so being really ignorant about punk rock, I thought that was a good punk rock name. When I got into the band [with Tony], I was so cool, right, that we named the band after my shitty nickname.

TM: Wait a minute….

LG: I think I might feature the last track on the EP, “20” on the blog. It’s good.

JR: Thank you.

LG: I like how its different parts are almost like movements.

JR: Is it too much, though? I think we threw too much stuff in there.

LG: No.

JR: We did a lot of…I don’t know what that kind of recording is called…when you go outside and mic up what’s happening, with wind sounds and chimes. But there are a lot of incidental and found sounds. Weird whispers. We just kind of kind of threw it all in.

LG: Is there TV or something, too?

JR: No, it’s not. That’s actually like a short story I wrote, and I actually read most of it, but I made it so you can’t really understand what it is.

TM: What? Don’t put the…oh, what? What were you telling her?

JR: Lies.

We decided to “pull over” and sit on the grass for a bit.
This spontaneous Dead Kennedys logo emerged from sticks. Photo: Lys Guillorn

JR: We have a record coming out this year, not just the split.

TM: We started the full-length last night.

LG: How many tracks do you think you’ll put on the record?

JR: 29.

TM: Oh, 29? Why stop it there? You know what we’re going to do—we’re going to take all our B-sides, we’re going to be real…ambitious.

JR: We’ve got a lot B-sides. We’ve actually got a lot of songs recorded. We tend to record a lot of different-sounding stuff. I want to just stick to one theme instead of jumping around to all different kinds of stuff. Have it sound like it should be together. So we’re probably going to do…what’s the least amount of songs you could do?

LG: Eight?

JR: I think we’ll do eight songs for it and then come out with our sweet-ass record. We should do a B-sides record, of B-sides that never came out.

LG: Sure, an oddities collection.

TM: Oh, yeah. Odds and Sods, ‘ello. That was a big thing in the 90’s. Incesticide, Nirvana. That’s a big influence on us. JR: My favorite album by Nirvana.

TM: Oh, me too. Love it. We cover some covers off of that.

JR: We do, yeah…Vaselines covers. We cover the Nirvana versions of them, although I love the Vaselines.

TM: So good. Glasgow’s finest.

JR: We have an affinity for twee. We’re twee at heart.

TM: We love good melody.

JR: We’re crunchy on the outside with a soft twee center.

TM: Yeah, it’s kind of like the cat food I get for my cats. You know, chewy on the inside.

JR: Actually, we’re kind of chewy on the outside, too.

TM: I believe that’s my solo album, “Chewy on the Outside.” Or inside, I don’t care. I have a lot of album titles that Joe comes up with. This isn’t about me, though.

JR: He’s got a band called Tony NSFW, which is just his bass tracks.

TM: It’s kind-of soul.

JR: On the cover he’s going to be in front of a white Lamborghini in a white suit, with a bass. It’s going to be so hot.

TM: That’s for another interview. We’d do it at different kind of venue, like a nice Thai restaurant.

LG: How does the songwriting work in Spectral Fangs?

JR: I’d say half the time Tony and I write the music together, and then maybe the other half, I end up writing a lot of the song, and he adds to it. We have a pretty democratic way of writing tunes.

TM: If we write together, there are two ways. One, it’ll be spontaneous at a practice and we’ll all of a sudden start playing. He might just play a riff and all of a sudden, I won’t even say anything, I’ll just go somewhere with it and he’ll follow and vice versa. Or sometimes, during lunch we spend time at work writing.

JR: We don’t ever discuss really what we’re going to do, it just happens.

TM: Playing so many years, you know—three to four years, since we were 17.

JR: It’s not even really bullshit. We know where we’re going now. It’s cool because, we just kind of know where to go and we flub it until it naturally happens. I can’t write that way with anybody else.

TM: It’s true.

LG: I think that’s rare.

TM: We’re so used to it, unless we get an outsider’s perspective, it’s just a normal thing for us.

JR: We forget how it’s like with other people. And we’ve written I don’t even know how many songs. Probably thousands of songs at this point.

LG: What! Really?

JR: Probably.

TM: Oh, yeah, a lot. And there’s a lot on my iPhone, and his iPhone, that we really need to get to.

JR: I probably have about 800 recordings on my phone. Especially during lunch or whatever at work—you know we work together—we play every day and record every day.

TM: I love doing a lot of stuff with harmony especially in the car. Didn’t we…I think we recorded one time in the car.

JR: In the band before this that we were in, I needed a vocal booth and I didn’t feel like doing it at my home, so I loaded up everything into my car including my laptop, my mixer, I had a condenser mic right in front of me. I went to one of the parks around here, but it was at dusk. I almost got arrested, I think, because it was near the water supply or water treatment plant. The cop was like, “What are you doing over here?’ I’m like, “I’m just recording.” I had a sock over my microphone.

LG: He was probably like, “Uh….”

TM: He was treating the water with his music vibes.

JR: “You could probably go over to the mall to do what you’re doing.” [hands me one of their phones] Here—see this is just the Dropbox with all the songs we’ve recorded. It just keeps going and going and going.

LG: You keep a guitar in your car?

JR: At all times. Yeah, don’t you?

LG: No, but I should.

JR: Get a beater. Let’s get a beater right now and we’ll keep guitars in our cars. I want to start a lunch band. Write one song in one hour during a lunch period.

TM: Want to hear something that we did?

JR: I think this was a lunch situation.

JR: We just have tons of stuff like this.

LG: How about lyrics—just spontaneous?

[Both burst out laughing.]

JR: They’re very hard to come by, but they are spontaneous. Then I go back and try to whittle them into something magical. Usually there’s an idea that comes immediately, but then it takes a really long time to finish. I’m not a very prolific lyric writer. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re just not good. That’s as profound as I can get with that.

LG: And, Tony, you write solo stuff?

TM: We both write solo stuff.

JR: Tony has some fantastic solo stuff that he’s recorded in the past, which he should probably put up, too, at some point.

LG: Put it out, dude. Don’t be shy about it.

JR: He’s more of like an Elliott Smith kind of Beatles-esque songwriter, where he does a lot of major to minor key changes. I dig that stuff too. He takes it to another level altogether. It’s great.

LG: I think we need a Mascolo solo record in 2015.

TM: Oh, my god. Really?

JR: MASCOLO SOLO.

LG: All the liner notes in Italian, and the picture of you with the white vehicle and the white suit. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else I need to ask you. Oh…how did you find Jay?

TM: Well you see, there was a hobo hitchhiking down the road.

JR: He was a security guard at our work, and we could just tell he was a drummer, and we got him.

TM: That is true.

LG: Lefty drummer!

JR: It’s crazy, I’d never seen a lefty drummer before.

TM: We played in a band with him about seven years ago.

LG: Was that the band right before Spectral Fangs? What was that one called?

JR: Saltwater Swells.

TM: But yeah, we played for a while then we parted ways.

LG: Where did the name [Spectral Fangs] come from?

JR: I have a beautiful baby boy. I do. [Russo has a teenage son.]

TM: Which is weird for someone who’s 21, but anyway…I guess it’s not.

JR: He actually came up with it. I don’t know where he came up with it, he won’t tell me. He’s very imaginative.

LG: Did you say, “I need a name for a band”?

JR: We were discussing it. Someday he will murder me and take my throne.

TM: Sweet. Better teach him to play guitar.

JR: He doesn’t want to play anything. So, anyway, there’s not an interesting story about how our name came up.

LG: That’s pretty interesting.

JR: Yeah, I made a human being in order to come up with a name for a band.

LG: That’s hardcore.

JR: Oh, I know.

[I’ll leave you with “Carry It with You,” the first song Russo and Mascolo wrote as Spectral Fangs, one of my favorites in their live set.]

—————————————–
Spectral Fangs Memory Girl EP is available on Bandcamp
Spectral Fangs on Facebook

Lonesome Interview: Tracy Walton

photo credit: Lüke Haughwøut

By: Christopher Aloysius Mariotti

I had a chance to talk with Connecticut musician/producer Tracy Walton, who has a lot going on these days (including an Album Release gig tonight at Daryl’s House Club).

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Mr Walton, congratulations on 2015 – it’s been a pretty stellar year so far: the new album, Moderately Unknown; the album release show at Daryl’s House Club (as well as your recent string of shows there); your nomination at the New England Music Awards for Male Performer of the Year; On Deck Sound Studio. We’ll discuss each individually, but give me a bit of how this has started off as the Year of Tracy Walton.

It’s been great so far. It’s exciting to have a bunch of records coming out of the studio, including mine. I am appearing on WAPJ Homegrown on April 1st and I feel like it may be to tell me that it’s all been an elaborate April Fool’s joke. I have been so busy trying to make great albums that it all kind of snuck up on me. As I come up for air with my record done, it’s nice to see that people are noticing.

Let’s start with On Deck Sound Studio. There are some fantastic musicians on your roster, such as Julia Autumn Ford, and Krizta Moon (who herself just released an EP, Tending the Garden of Truth). Do you have a certain aesthetic when looking for musicians to record?

I want people that want to make amazing music. And I want their songs to move me. Krizta and Julia are great examples of that. They both have a unique voice as songwriters and singers. Julia was a lot of fun because she was so new to music and has one of the purest voices I have ever heard. She was a blank canvas and she is really open to experimenting and trying things. We are working on her new stuff now and it is crazy good. Krizta had a much clearer vision for her stuff, which is exciting in its own way. I love the challenge of getting inside an artist’s head and capturing the sound they are hearing. I am not a producer that tries to impose my sound on the record. I make my own records for that.

Do you have any projects coming out of the studio you’d like to mention, or promote?

I’m excited about Julia Autumn Ford’s project. We are going to release one song per month for 6 months. Looking to start in April. She really gets better all the time. I’ll be producing two videos for The Podunk Bluegrass Festival in April. We are supplying sound for the new acoustic stage. Little Ugly and Tuesday Saint are coming in to spend the day recording and we’ll use the videos to promote the festival. Telefunken will be supplying the microphones for the sessions so I am excited to be working with them as well. The Screamin’ Eagle Band will be back in and they are always fun. And High Adventure just started an album. They are bunch of killer players playing songs about Star Wars. They are a blast.

So – Daryl’s House Club. I mean, really? What a cool gig! How did that come about?

They actually contacted me. It’s funny how sometimes I have to work so damn hard to get a gig, and then other times the years of grinding pays off and they just call me. After my first set, Daryl came up and said how much he loved it and how great the songs were. I have to admit it felt pretty good. I even sucked it up and asked to take a picture (laughing).

said picture

Speaking of Daryl’s House Club, you are having your Album Release there tonight. I really dig the new set of songs. I think there’s a certain level of achievement in the storytelling. On this album, do you find the lyrics as being the focus, and the music the vessel? Or did you write the music first, and fill in the vocal melody and, subsequently, the words? What was the process like?

Thanks for the kind words. Being from the McCartney school, most of my songs start with the music first and then melody. Words typically come last. Although, I usually write with a theme or phrase in mind. I tried to get back to the rock tributary for this record, and I intentionally crafted denser harmonic beds that invoke emotions without the words. At that point I slaved over every word and phrase. I want the lyrics to be the focus, so I try to make the stories compelling. I constantly try to improve the lyrics of the songs and say things in unique ways. I have a song I have been writing for two years and it’s really amazing, I just still feel like I could say it better.

Lyrics are the heart of the song. And I think you nailed it there. Now, you’re nominated for Male Performer of the Year at this year’s New England Music Awards. First question: are you going? Second question: does a nomination such as this help justify the hard work you’ve put in here in Connecticut? Or is it just a nice cherry on the top?

I haven’t decided yet. I was a bit bummed last year that people were talking during the performances. If as a group of musicians we can’t shut up while someone is playing, we have problems. In terms of the nomination, I am really grateful that I’m still relevant after all these years and fortunate enough to make a living playing music. My computer is actually surrounded by mailers right now for the pre-orders of the new album. So in that sense, yes the nomination is a nice cherry on top. Is it odd that Cherry Pie came into my head, and now it segued into Unskinny Bop…?

It’s funny you mention Warrant, and Poison. Both Jani Lane and Bret Michaels wrote an exceptional ballad (“Heaven” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” respectively). Strip away all the 80s hair-gloss, and both are really honest, singer-songwriter moments. When you’re writing, does the instrument accompaniment come naturally? How do you know when to hold back the layers, or when to push forward like McCartney did, or Brian Wilson?

I typically go in hearing what the song sounds like as I am writing it. I then just grab the right instrument, or in some cases player, to realize that vision. I knew I wanted some ripping guitar on this album so I called my buddy Jeff Howard to hang for a few days and we had a blast tracking guitars. Most songs have a space that they want to live in. You really need to listen to what they are asking for. And sometimes it comes down to the balance of the album. There needs to be an arch to the album and sometimes you lay back or push accordingly. I always defer to less is more, but sometimes it’s tough when you are sitting 5 feet from a Hammond B3 or other fun toy.

Oh, man. The Hammond definitely has that affect! Now, as a songwriter, I know all our songs are our children, so to speak. But is there a song or two on the new album that you are particularly proud of?

Songs are a lot like kids in that you love them all at first, but some of them lose their shine pretty quickly. I have many songs that I banish to the Island of Misfit Songs. I wrote 17 songs for this album and 10 made the cut. Some just didn’t play nicely with the other kids and some were just victims of Darwinism. Unlike parents, I admit to having favorites. I feel like “Better Man” and “The Night Slipped Away In Our Hands” are two of the better songs I have ever written. “The Night Slipped Away In Our Hands” might be the best. It’s a shame that I am such an album guy and it had to be last. I feel like it will get the least listens, but everything down to the final cadence screamed for it to be last.

Thank you so much for the conversation. I wish you nothing but the best with your show tonight, as well as the rest of The Year of Tracy Walton!  

You can visit Tracy Walton on Facebook. And you can listen/purchase his new album, Moderately Unknown, on his Bandcamp page.

Lonesome Interview: Glitch Mouth

By: Zach Humphrey

Glitch Mouth is a progressive hip-hop trio based out of Hartford, CT and Brooklyn, NY. The group – composed of MurMur the MC, Kid Presentable, and Erin Pellnat – released their Cure for the Common Flow EP on October 31, 2014 and will be performing their last show together on March 1st in New York City.

I caught up with Kid Presentable and MurMur recently via email to discuss their latest project, what to expect from their live shows, the upcoming departure of the third Glitch Mouth member and what this means for the group, plus much more. Check out the interview below and be sure to peep the Lonesome Noise Review of Cure for the Common Flow here.

Zach Humphrey: Last year, Glitch Mouth released the Cure for the Common Flow EP. How has the reception been for the project since you guys dropped it in October?

MurMur: It was critically well received, but its exposure was limited. But all the old school hip-hop heads who got their hands on it really dug it.

ZH: Do you all have a personal favorite track off the EP?

KP: Honestly, I would say “Earth’s Embrace,” but I’m the producer, and that’s a production heavy track. I think a close second would be the eponymous track (Glitch Mouth). MurMur’s verse is superb, and it really shows us both at our best.

MurMur: “Glitch Mouth” is by far my favorite, both from a production standpoint and I was really happy with my verse on it.

ZH: Where did the name of the EP come from? Is there some significance behind the title?

MurMur: I just made it up one day clowning. Then I thought it was clever and that it expressed our intent to inject something new into the hip-hop scene and so it eventually became the title.

ZH: I know Glitch Mouth has released a number tapes over the years, including both official and unofficial releases. Other than the most recent EP, do you have a favorite past project?

MurMur: Blood of the Shogun, hands down. It just has no weak spots on it. Like anything it’s imperfect – if you don’t think you have room for improvement then you are creatively dead – but I love every track on it. It felt like we had really hit our stride on that album.

ZH: What’s the Glitch Mouth creative process like? Do you guys get together and work on music or are the instrumentals and lyrics being created separately? Also, what tends to come first – the beats or the verses? That is, are the instrumentals designed around the verses or do the lyrics come together around the beats?

KP: What generally happens is that I make a beat, probably just an 8 bar loop, or thereabout. I send that loop to MurMur, and he writes his verses to them, then records a rough vocal track. I produce the actual song around his verses, then he comes in and re-records them so that they fit to the final production. So I create all the beats first, but the final song is usually designed around the verses.

ZH: What inspires you when writing the lyrics? And where do you find inspiration for the instrumentals?

MurMur: I usually draw from personal experience, both mine and the people that I grew up with – art imitating life. I also draw a lot from all sorts of media, good film and skilled hip-hop – art imitating art. But the writing process begins one of two ways. Either I’ll come up with a concept based on something I’ve been thinking about (the plight of women for instance, as in “Breathless”).

The other possibility is that I just have a few words that sound interesting with each other knocking around in my head and I keep building on it, which usually results in pure lyrical stuff more concerned with technique than content (i.e. “Pistol Finga Trigga Pull”). But overall I just write what I’d like to hear, which is technical hip-hop (i.e. compact, elaborate, and long rhyme schemes) while trying to maintain a large amount of poetry in the verse.

KP: The instrumentals come from wherever, really. The opening track of the EP samples Brahms, “High Noon” comes from our love of spaghetti westerns, and a lot of it is me just coming up with music I like. So there’s no great answer for that question, I just make music I like.

ZH: It was brought to my attention that one of the members will be leaving the group following the show on March 1st. Who is leaving and what’s the reason behind the departure?

KP: Yes, unfortunately Poochie is leaving the group. As she told us before floating upward, “I have to go now. My planet needs me.”

ZH: What does this departure mean for Glitch Mouth? Will there be a hiatus as you search for a new member? And are you looking for someone/something in particular or will there just be a feeling out process until you find that perfect match?

MurMur: The group started off with just me and KP. This just means we will be doing more straight hip-hop, and that I get some practice writing choruses.

ZH: As noted, Glitch Mouth will be performing on March 1st at Arlene’s Grocery in New York. What should fans be expecting from a live Glitch Mouth performance? And where can our readers learn more about this upcoming show?

KP: They should expect killer hip-hop. Great beats, great lyrics, and great energy. Best places to find anything out about us are on Facebook and at our website (www.glitchmouth.com). You can hear us at bandcamp, too.

ZH: Despite the temporary hiatus, what should we be looking forward to from Glitch Mouth moving forward this year? Any plans for new music to be released in 2015?

KP: We’re writing and recording right now. We’re not sure when we’ll be putting anything new out, but it’ll happen. We’ll probably put something out later this year, even if it’s not a full length.

ZH: Is there anything you’d like to add or leave the Lonesome Noise audience with?

KP: Just check us out if you love hip-hop, and thanks for the interview.

Glitch Mouth is playing at Arlene’s Grocery in New York City on March 1st with Pool Cosby, Lifted Crew, and Stockade Kids.

Lonesome Interview: Adam Matlock of An Historic and Gzara

Photo: Adam Matlock by Jerome Harris

By: Lys Guillorn

Adam Matlock is a New Haven composer, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who plays and records under several names. An Historic is his vehicle for sweeping, original art songs on voice and accordion. As Gzara/G. Zarapanecko, he writes and records deeply textured and multi-layered instrumental music. Adam is also a member of the band Dr. Caterwaul’s Cadre of Clairvoyant Claptraps, the improvisational trio Broadcloth, and the Yale Klezmer Band. Among the instruments the 29-year-old plays are accordion, synths/piano, viola, clarinet, guitar, and percussion.

In 2014 he released An Historic Sings Peter Hammill, an album of covers  by Peter Hammill of Van Der Graaf Generator, a two-song single Song for Ferguson, and The Accordion Covers, a series for which he covers video game music and tunes from eclectic international sources (the most recent of which is a cover of Purcell’s March from the Funeral Music for Queen Mary perhaps best known from Wendy Carlos’s soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange).

Gzara’s brilliantly atmospheric 5-song record When suddenly you must be restored is released today, Monday, February 23, 2015 on Bandcamp.

I spoke with Adam via a Skype text chat on Friday, February 20, 2015.

Lys Guillorn: You have a release coming out Tuesday. Can you tell me a little about that?

Adam Matlock: Uh oh, I didn’t put the wrong date up did I? Planning on releasing it on Monday to coincide with a dentist appointment, sort of.

LG: Oh…I just read it wrong. Why to coincide with the dentist appointment?

AM: I’m only half-joking when I say it has become a sort of conceptual album based on this ongoing dental saga I’ve gone through, first getting a wisdom tooth pulled and then getting a root canal. A lot of the music and art was made while I was panicking about losing all my teeth, which it turned out was premature.

LG: The classic nightmare theme, though.

AM: Indeed. GZARA is the rechristened name of the project I first released an album under, G. Zarapanecko. Pronounced, the G is soft – I dunno linguistically what that action is called, but it would be like “ig-zara” but with the vowel not really sounded. A glottal stop maybe? But however it is spoken, the banner has always been for ambient-leaning music, lots of samples, lots of processed sounds, lots of synths.

LG: So you picked up in December something you had been working on for a while? I read on your blog that you did a session in 2012 and then in December [of 2014].

AM: Two tracks were originally recorded in…let’s see, July of 2012. I was approached by a Russian director named Jurii Kirnev, who liked some of the music from my previous release and asked me to compose something for a science fiction short. But at some point after finishing them and sending them to him, he stopped returning my emails.

LG: Oh, man.

AM: I’ve kept tabs every now and again to see if he’s used them, but so far nothing. A shame because he did have an intriguing visual style.

LG: But it must have been a boost at the time…too bad he didn’t follow through.

AM: It was – at that point, the previous release was dropped on New Year’s Eve 2010 and I hadn’t worked on the project since, so it was a nice motivation to get back into it.

LG: And what made you pick it up in December?

AM: Hard to say, exactly. The project has always been sort of opportunistic, trying to pin down improvisations and build something around them. And so there were two solo accordion improvisations that I recorded during the course of a day that gave me some ideas…I spent roughly the next month tinkering with them, adding overdubs and synths and whatnot.

LG: Is one of those the track you made the YouTube video for? [“Earth laid pillows on our heads”]

AM: That one will be a bonus, but that track is not too far off from how the two December tracks started, under all the layers. The project has always been inspired by science fiction and the occult, for non-musical sources of inspiration, and I suppose I always start thinking about those things more in winter for whatever reason.

LG: It’s time to cocoon, watch movies and brood on the weird magic of winter. You mention winter in a bunch of your songs. This is the non-narrative version, perhaps?

AM: Less-narrative, let’s say. Musically, the project has always been inspired by black metal, the dark ambient side-projects of black metal artists, darkwave/neoclassical stuff…things where a significant part of their value to me as a listener is what they trigger in my imagination.

LG: What are some of the bands?

AM: Ulver is a main one, a Norwegian band that started out exclusively black metal, and has evolved quite a bit in 20+ years. Mortiis is another, Dead Can Dance (in both their goth and their dark wave phases)…

LG: I’m familiar with DCD but not the others.

AM: I have always liked the weird micro-genre known as dark jazz, even though there are tons of things that bug me about it. But when it works it hits all my buttons. Probably the main player in that field is The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble.

LG: Music doesn’t always have to agree with you to be inspiring.

AM: It’s true.

LG: Inspiration can sometimes be a rash.

AM: I think the last two projects under this name have started with the specific intent of at least one track improving on their formula. Never ends up that way, but that’s the impetus in some cases.

LG: What do you think is the failure you’re trying to correct? Failure is the wrong word.

AM: Too much delay, noncommittal improvisation, a non-critical view of Film Noir as an artistic genre. I understand that in many cases changing one element of the formula might produce a different result, which is why I’m content to let the tracks evolve as they may.

LG: Is it liberating in some way to release a record that won’t necessarily be performed?

AM: For sure. I’ve performed under this name less than 5 times in my life, and it’s always been improvised, or compositions specific for live performance, rather than trying to imitate the records. (Not for lack of trying – there are at least 3 drafts of pieces from the second record, Glitterdämmerung, that I have tried to adapt for live performance, but I finally had to concede that they just wouldn’t work)

LG: Would you ever try to play the ones off the new record? Or is that not even a possibility.

AM: Probably 3 years ago I’d be  scribbling away trying to ‘transcribe’ myself, fix some of the elements that happened by chance and replicate them. But I think I’ve learned better by now. Part of the appeal of the project for me is how intangible some of the processes are, especially with regards to the use of synths.

LG: Things you could never replicate?

AM: Things I could replicate but probably only with a backing track, which for me takes the fun out of it. Or with a laptop, and I’m not sure I’d want to crossover into that realm…so many potential issues when working with laptop-generated sound. I’ve seen it happen enough times that I think at this point it’s not a priority.

LG: Eek. Yes. Robots gone mad.

AM: Which isn’t to say I don’t like laptop music…but for me that’s a level of stress I don’t want to have to take on at this point.

LG: Two questions: what have you been listening to beside black metal, and what science fiction was affecting your thinking in December when you were working on these tracks?

AM: Well, OK, so I have as always been listening to a lot of accordion music. This Swedish duo Stabi-Jensen, which is just both of their last names. The duo of Trygve Seim (sax) and Frode Halti (Accordion), both Norwegians who have a really nice interplay – sort of jazz, sort of folk-ish. The D’Angelo album, Black Messiah. The recent release from Peter Hammill …All that Might Have Been…. And I found myself returning to Alice Coltrane’s music after a year or so of not listening to her.

AM: Let’s see…second question – I’m a huge Star Trek fan, particularly DS9. I finished Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris maybe 3 years ago but it has been on my mind for that time.

LG: Small Mercies has been in my car since I bought it from you a month or so ago. It’s like a disc full of encapsulated sci-fi movies. Your lyrics are out there, in the best way possible.

AM: Thanks! Octavia Butler was a huge influence on a lot of those lyrics. As well as kind of a mashup of apocalypse/zombie narratives. There have been points where I have set out trying to write lyrics that feel more immediately personal/biographical, and I think those tunes always end up really depressing (but I’m OK with that, honest!)

But of course that doesn’t always end up the case – still some narratives of things that definitely have not happened to me (yet). I hate the term, but I think a lot of my interest in Science Fiction is with what is termed “soft-Sci-Fi” the chief impetus for the plot isn’t a super-intricately researched technology or what have you.

LG: A slightly distorted reality…

AM: The term is misogynist and stems from the “hard science/soft science distinction”, as far as I understand. But for me, one of my chief interests in narrative as a consumer and as a storyteller has to do with seeing how different fantastic situations help us see human nature from a different perspective. So it really doesn’t matter if the author has interviewed a dozen theoretical physicists – as long as the setting gives us a cool way to look at human issues. That’s not to say there’s no value in a well-researched story, but it’s not the main priority for me.

LG: Yeah, the tech isn’t important if the characters are compelling.

AM: Exactly! And I think my suspension of disbelief hinges much more on the latter.

LG: How is it being in a band with a novelist [Brian Slattery, who is also in Dr. Caterwaul’s]? Inspiring, intimidating?

AM: More the former. In a previous life (i.e. high school) I had aspirations of being a writer of that type, but I’ve reconciled that that isn’t me anymore…so I enjoy the conversations with Brian when carpooling to gigs, etc.

LG: You guys share some affinities.

AM: A few yes, particularly in storytelling ideas. Brian [Slattery] wrote the libretto for the opera I wrote, Red Giant. When I explained to him the story that I wanted to tell, he told me that it was scarily close to the plot of his then-unpublished third novel.

LG: That’s nuts!

AM: So naturally he agreed wholeheartedly.

LG: How did you guys work on the collaboration?

AM: I had more or less outlined the story when we first started talking about it. I had even made a few attempts at starting the libretto, but I knew that I wouldn’t really be able to do it justice. So I showed him my outlines, and we batted some ideas back and forth, talked about tone, etc. I left him at it for a few months, and he came back to me with a really exciting draft for the first third of it, and we went from there.

LG: How long did the whole process take you from it being commissioned to being performed?

AM: Let’s see…I submitted the proposal to Rhymes with Opera, the company that produced it, in April ’11. Even before they accepted it, I got excited and approached Brian with the idea, asking him if he’d write the libretto if RWO accepted the proposal, which they did in August. The first performance was in June ’12, and then I revised it/expanded the instrumentation (from a 2-piece ensemble with 3 singers, to an instrumental sextet)

AM: that was in the fall of ’13, for a staged performance in January ’14.

LG: How involved were you with the actual production?

AM: I was consulted by the production and costume designers, and saw some drafts for costumes and some inspiration photos for the set early on. Then it was more-or-less out of my hands once I turned the score in.

LG: How did it feel to see it performed?

AM: I cried, I won’t lie. It was really rewarding.

LG: I bet! I would’ve wept.

AM: Of course part of my brain was thinking about things I wish I had changed or spent a little more time on. But not the main part, which is kind of rare. RWO really did a fabulous job with it. There’s a thought that they might release the audio from the staged performance, with the expanded instrumentation.

LG: What is the new An Historic material shaping up to be – did you do a couple of new tunes at the Sunday show [on 1/18 at Café 9 in New Haven]? You did a new winter-inspired song, right?

AM: I did…tentatively titled “Makes Me Right”

LG: Even if winter sucks, you get some good material out of it.

AM: It’s true. I think this one is probably more directly about depression, but they’re not mutually exclusive, obviously. I think one of the ways my depression manifests is to be kind of more adversarial than I would care to be, and this is a way of trying to own up to that.

LG: Are there any formal plans to record the new songs, or are you going to let some accumulate for a while?

AM: I’ve recorded a few tracks, not yet finished, with Ceschi Ramos, and done a few home recordings. I would love to release another album as I’ve got probably close to 20 songs queued up.

LG: Collaborating with Ceschi, or he recorded them?

AM: He recorded them.

LG: Ooh. That’s exciting. Solo voice/accordion or with more instrumentation like Small Mercies?

AM: At their current stage, just accordion and box with a few harmonies. Small Mercies was recorded live with Caterwauls as the backing band. I love that record, and it was a great way to work for an album. But this time I would love to do something with more overdubs. I hesitate to say orchestral, but that’s the word that comes to mind.

LG: What kind of instrumentation? Everything you’ve got in your arsenal or other players?

AM: Both. This is one area where the aforementioned Peter Hammill has been a huge inspiration. He’s had an enormous solo career, many albums just done himself with overdubs, and some with longtime instrumental collaborators.

AM: And I think I’ve always been attracted to solo artists who use the studio to get a really big sound. Prince would be another – he’s had his share of bands and collaborators, but so many of his records are just him playing everything. The sound is so distinct from a “band” record, for better or worse. So, I hope one day to have a true ‘studio experience’ like that.

LG: Yes. In a way, recording like that is like writing fiction. Building a world…

AM: Exactly! And I think there’s a different pressure than cutting everything live, as with Small Mercies.

LG: I would think cutting live would be more pressure. Not for you? Or the pressure of being on the clock?

AM: Mixing Small Mercies was difficult because we didn’t really have enough isolation for the instruments. So the engineer had a hell of a job trying to bring everything out.

LG: It seems to have worked – it’s balanced pretty well. Or were there parts you’d want to swap out? I’d imagine it’d be nearly impossible.

AM: On that record there is exactly one cut, no overdubs. Sometimes I wish there could’ve been more layers, but I know that it’s an honest record and really reflects the work that the other players put into learning the tunes, which is part of what I love about it. But several of those songs exist in other demoed versions that…just sound different. I don’t really think of either of them as being definitive.

LG: It’s got a lot going on – the interplay between the strings and accordion. It doesn’t sound bare. The demos have more overdubby stuff?

AM: Yeah – they’re all me, so harmonies, some keys/synths, badly played percussion, everything. Ideally the new songs would have some of those qualities, but recorded and mixed by somebody who actually knows what the hell they’re doing.

LG: (We should have a “demos we wouldn’t play for the general public” show-and-tell day.) Having an advanced hand at the recording helm would be amazing.

AM: Hah. well, I’ve released probably more of them than I should. But yeah there are some that won’t get out there.

***

An Historic is playing Café Nine in New Haven on March 4 with Jacket Thor and Entrance to Trains.

An Historic Music Blog
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Lonesome Interview: Connor Millican of Wise Old Moon

Photo Credit: Eric Michael Lichter

By: Christopher Aloysius Mariotti

Connor: it’s a great pleasure to chat with you this evening! Before we jump into things, such as your video project and some pretty rad upcoming shows, let’s start with trying to define what Wise Old Moon is to you. Was there any sort of impetus to this band other than just wanting to play music?

I started performing original material in late 2013, once I found some other musicians to collaborate with, we became more serious about forming a band and chose our name from a lyric in one of those tunes. Wise Old Moon began in my Hartford apartment in early 2014 and has evolved very quickly over the last year into a 4-piece folk rock/Americana band.

Right on. So with that bit of background, tell us about your first album, The Patterns.

The Patterns is the first studio album we released and it features 8 of our songs. We recorded it last winter at Dirt Floor Studios in Chester, CT. The Patterns is stripped down and raw. The songs on that album have a lot of meaning to me, they’re about where I come from and some of the things I’ve gone through growing up.

You can absolutely hear how personal the songs are. And I think the general intimacy helps reflect that sort of mental and emotional mood. That being said, let’s talk about this current project of Wise Old Moon, where you are releasing live videos of your band performing a handful of songs from The Patterns.

While watching your set at the Glastonbury Apple Harvest Festival, I felt it was incredibly alive and amplified compared to the album. Was that a spark for you?

Eric Lichter, who produced The Patterns, did such a good job of capturing the essence of the original Wise Old Moon last winter while snowed in at Dirt Floor. We were all set up in a living room with the fire going, and it was very intimate, which comes through on that record. Since that recording, the line-up of the band has changed, we have a fuller sound due to the new members: Dan Liparini on lap steel and electric guitar, Greg Perault on bass, and drummer Alex Heaton bring the energy, and it feels right for the delivery of the songs.

Why did you decide to perform these songs live with the new band, as opposed to going and recording new material with them, and moving forward? Is it a matter of introducing the band to your audience? Or do you feel as though these four particular songs need a small kick in the throat?

I want people to hear what we’re doing live right now. I’m proud of the record and it is still part of the band, but I wanted to bridge the gap between that album and what the live experience is like.

Speaking of live, you have a nice group of amazing shows coming up. Along with a little out-of-state mini-tour, starting tomorrow in NYC, we found out today you will be playing at this year’s Meriden Daffodil Festival!

Yeah! Over the last couple of months we have been starting to get really busy, and everyone in the group has been contributing to booking gigs which is huge. This weekend we visit Rockwood Music Hall in NYC; The News Cafe in Providence, RI; and New City Galerie in Burlington, VT. Robbie DeRosa at WESU has been a big supporter and got us in at the Daffodil Festival, so it’s nice to have a home town date for when the weather is starting to warm up in April. We also have a special private show at Dirt Floor Studios in Chester, CT with our friend Jonah Sky (formerly Jonah Tolchin). That is this month as well. It’s great to be so busy in the dead of winter, we are really lucky.

What do you have in mind for the warmer parts of 2015? Will you be recording?

We’re recording now. We ideally want to release another full length album towards the end of the summer. We have recording dates in March and April at a few different locations. We’re really taking our time with this one. Aside from that we have plans for touring further down south in May.

Are you recording this one at Dirt Floor as well?

We are working with Dirt Floor for some of this album, but we’ll also be working with the guys at Telefunken in South Windsor. They have a great studio set up there and have been a huge support for us along the way. We have a couple other dates confirmed at a studio in MA, so we are taking all these songs recorded over the next few months and putting them into one cohesive album as soon as it feels ready.

Fantastic. Cannot wait to hear the new material! Now, going back to The Patterns: we’ve included the second of the four “live” songs you’re releasing at the bottom of this interview. Tell us about “Night Crew Nocturnal.”

For this video session we had some help from our friends Rachael Guzick and Mike DiPanfilo with the filming and Sean Rubin, who handled audio. As our drummer Alex puts it, “it’s a groovin’ high energy tune that feels good.” I think it’s punctuated by the upright bass intro by Mr. Greg Perault.

Greg’s a pretty seasoned bassist, always dug his work, particularly with Elison Jackson. He also played with you at last summer’s Vision & Grit Festival, prior to the other fellas coming on board. Will the current band be contributing to the songwriting on the new album too, now that you have more band stability?

We’re really starting to get comfortable on and off stage together. Greg is an integral part of the group and everyone is contributing to the new material. One tune in particular that I’m really excited about is “Sky Scrapers,” which is definitely a collaborative song. The new work is feeling so great because of the combination of personalities in this group and we are continuing to find new ideas together.

As a fan of Wise Old Moon, I’m very excited for the new version of the band (I believe you had The Meadows Brothers sitting in with you at the Glastonbury Apple Harvest show).

Connor, thank you for taking the time tonight to give a little insight into the band: past, current, and future. Wishing you great success with the shows on the horizon, and especially that new album!

Thank you for listening to the music, and thanks very much to you and Chip at Lonesome Noise for promoting local artists!

Lonesome Interview: La Tunda

Photo credit: Lys Guillorn

By Lys Guillorn

In preparation for interviewing New Haven’s La Tunda, I asked Peter Riccio, who has a gift for description, to help me give folks an idea of what they sound like. His answer was, “The defiant teen twins of the Runaways and Everly Brothers delivered by the New York Dolls at Shonen Knife Hospital…with Loretta Lynn as the birthing coach.” Add to that aural picture what a recent spectator said, “Like the Ramones and Black Sabbath gang-banging Jefferson Airplane.”

It is the mixture of all three players’ contributions that makes La Tunda something special—with Kriss Santala (The Hickups, The Danglers, The Who Whos) on vocals, bass, and guitar, Stephany Brown (Electric Bucket, Horsefeathers) on vocals, guitar, and bass, and Andy Beetham (No Account, Da Fresh, No Holds Barred) on drums. Santala and Brown share songwriting duties.

Kriss gave me La Tunda’s 7-song demo Live from Your Mother’s Attic (self-released 2014) after their triumphant set at Cherry St. Station on November 28, 2014. From their first chord onward, I was blown away.

Lys Guillorn (LG): So tell me about your demo. Where was that recorded?

Stephany Brown (SB): That was recorded at Science Park where half of New Haven’s bands practice—The Vultures, 509ers…

Kriss Santala (KS): …Shaun Bowen, Murdervan. Next to the rock climbing gym.

SB: It’s a big building, and a bunch of people practice there and Will [Ianuzzi] from The Vultures had set up a little recording studio. It was really fun. He wanted some guinea pigs because he hadn’t tested it yet.

Andy Beetham (AB): It was supposed to be a four or five song demo but then we just got really drunk and we were like, “Fuck it. Let’s just keep going.”

SB: We practiced so much that we just banged out the songs we wanted to do in two takes each and had the whole rest of the day, so we just kept noodling around. I think we actually recorded eight. The last one didn’t quite make it.

LG: How did you sequence the record?

SB: It was the order we recorded them. We practiced the four or five that we wanted to demo in the order, so that it could make more sense and be more fluid in an order that worked for us. Then we decided to just go with that because it was the natural order—it works best that way. 

LG: It sounds like you were amped up from the between-song banter you left on there. It adds to the energy of the recording.

SB: Exactly! Thank you. Did you hear that, Andy?

KS: Yeah…Andy didn’t like it.

LG: “Shut your butt.”

AB: I asked Will to make me a copy without it, and he wouldn’t do it. I was really pissed. I was like, “I can’t show my mother this!” Talking about farting on shrimp.

LG: That’s when you know the album’s not gonna be be cutesy-pootsy.

SB: It’s not called “Live From Your Mother’s Attic” for nothing, Andy.

AB: This will be the forever-divisive thing.

SB: We practice in Andy’s mother’s attic, that’s why it’s called that.

AB: My dad has a big garage that they built and on the second floor it’s a good practice place. It’s an instrument graveyard from bands I’ve been in since middle school, so there are more amps that don’t work than that do.

KS: But we want to do a real recording and we’re thinking about doing that in February because we don’t have a lot going on.

SB: Well, maybe not the recording, but working towards that. It’s something in the works, but we don’t have definite plans yet. I think we’ll be approaching it sooner than later.

KS: Definitely sooner than later.

SB: We haven’t done a full album with this band. Actually, with any of the versions of La Tunda that we’ve been in, we’ve never released a full-length CD or album. We got really close with Lasher, then Steve left the band, and we didn’t see the point in releasing it. So this will be the first time that we’re doing a full-length album.

KS: Just the three of us. We want to do that soon. We’ve got a lot of new material that we want to work on. We did start working on one of my new ideas, but we’re just trying to get the vocals in order. We haven’t played it out yet, but I like it a lot.

SB: We all do.

KS: But it’s going to take some time.

LG: Andy, how long have you been playing with them?

AB: I think it’s been two or three years.

SB: Maybe more? I think it was about 2012 that we started with Andy and Steve [Hladun] and did Lasher. Kriss and I have been playing together for five or longer. I think it was 2010 that we started La Tunda.

KS: [Stephany] came to one of my shows and asked me, “Would you be interested in working together?” I was like…YEAH, definitely.

SB: Well, I wanted to start an all-girl band, because I wanted to name it The Golden Girls. So I was on the hunt for lady rockers, and of course Kriss is at the top of that list. And I found this girl Jessica, who was the original drummer. It didn’t work out with her. It also didn’t work out because there was already an all-girl band called The Golden Girls.

LG: Well, this lineup is awesome and I hope you stay like this for a while. 

KS: I don’t want anything to change.

SB: This has been the most cohesive version.

KS: We’ve gotten the most work done.

SB: It was great with Steve—his guitar playing is awesome, and he adds so much, but he didn’t want to do it, and somehow I think we’re more cohesive as a group of people when it’s just the three of us.

AB: Yeah, you focus in on what everyone’s doing instead of a fourth person just adding more to the mix.

KS: And we try to be really interesting as a three-piece, not all playing the same thing. Trying to work off each other. It’s hard to be in a three-piece band, but I think we’re doing a fine job.

LG: I think so, too. I’ve listened to your demo a lot, and the rhythmic interplay between all of the parts including every instrument and both voices is pretty amazing. Do you come up with those arrangements solo or work them out when you get together?

SB: It’s a little of both. Kriss and I write the songs, sometimes separately and sometimes collaboratively, but always, if Kriss brought in a song, I would want to add my two cents and vice versa. So it’s definitely all collaborative. For me, anyway, I do write a lot of it in my head, “Ok, that will be there,” driving down the street, plotting.

KS: Sometimes you’ll come up with an entire song, but you might need to hear a vocal part on something. Or I’ll have an arrangement, but I don’t have a vocal part or a chorus or something, and I’ll leave that to see what Stephany comes up with.

SB: It’s the beauty of collaboration, because I would never come up with what Kriss would, or Andy would, and it makes it much more interesting.

KS: Andy’s very easy to work with, too.

SB: You could say, Andy, I hear something like dah dah dah dah dah…and then this part will be dah dah dah dah dah. And he can actually do it and add something else unexpected.

KS: I love that about you. I can go do do da da boom do do da boom ba. And you do that.

AB: Then they start getting really abstract. Stephanie said, “Make a beat that sounds like those clowns that you punch and they go like this [gestures]. Make a beat like that.”

SB: I do say things like that. “Can it be more like a jungle robot beat?”

AB: I’ll look at her for like a minute, and go, “Oh, yeah, like this!” And she says, “Yeah.”

LG: That’s when you know you’re more than just the sum of your parts.

SB: That’s how I communicate to everyone. It’s just, most people don’t understand me.

AB: I looked at you for a second like, “What the fuck!?” The visual was there and I was able to put a sound to it. It came together. It’s awesome playing with you guys. I like it because you guys write really heavy shit. I can’t believe I get to play this stuff because it sounds really cool.

LG: Do you find writing for La Tunda different from writing for your other bands?

KS: Well, with La Tunda, I just write whatever the fuck I feel like, and we work with it. So different from the Who Whos, which was years ago. I mean, that was weird and everything had to be perfect, playing with a metronome.

This is different—if Stephany’s got an idea, I’m gung ho to try it, and vice versa. It seems like all three of us are open to whatever we come up with. And I don’t write for this band, I just write what I hear, and maybe some songs aren’t right for this band, but I can’t control that—it’s just whatever we come up with, what enters our minds. But so far it’s been working out ok.

AB: There’s a lot of freedom in the riffs you guys write. Not every song is the same. We fall under the umbrella of alternative or maybe punk but we might have a really fast punk song, then we’ll have a slow, melodic pretty-sounding song, and I like that, because I don’t like bands that are just every song is like really similar or too within a set of rules.

KS: I think it’s great we don’t have that. I think our songs vary.

LG: Everyone always asks…lyrics first, music first, or all together?

SB: It can go either way—either I get a lyric in my head or a vocal part, and then work around that, or I get a guitar riff and then write to that. But I always have the main focus pop in my head first, and I fill in the blanks. Or if I have a riff, I might ask Kriss to write the vocal part.

AB: I think Steph, sometimes there’s stories behind your songs and inspirational life events.

SB: A lot of it is autobiographical. Because you work things out through music. But some of it is random concepts, too, but more the first.

AB: Something about your fight with the electric company one time?

SB: Oh, yeah, that was just my hatred of UI, they’re just terrible.

LG: What song did that end up in?

SB: That was one of the songs we used to do with Lasher, our biggest metal song. What was the name of that? “Shut the Lights Off”.

AB: I forgot about that one.

SB: That was my sort of, “Fuck you, I don’t need your electricity, I’ll just go start a fire.” And then I wrote a song.

“Ghetto Tengo” is about when I bought my car and I realized that I would be making car payments for the next five years. I thought, “Fuck, now I’m one of those people.”

I’ve noticed too when I write the riff first, when I write the vocal part, I don’t write the words based on what I want to be saying. Eventually it turns into that, but I write it more on how I want the word to sound—the vowel sound, and amount of syllables, and I’ll hear a word that works, and then I’m like, “Ok, so what could that be about?” and go from there.

I’m noticing that I’m doing that more often than not. Because when you sing it, too, you want it to have a certain sound. Vowel sounds are important.

KS: Yes, they are. I usually hear a riff that keeps repeating in my head, so I have to find it and play it. Usually I hear something on guitar or bass first, but there have been a couple moments where I’ve heard a line or two in my head and tried to write a song based on that, but it’s usually the other way. Lyrics don’t come first. Usually I hear something, and work out what the words are around that.

LG: On “Falling Up” what did you come up with first?

KS: The chords.

SB: “Stand Up and Deliver” is a good example of collaboration. You brought in just the verse, right?

LG: What song is that?

SB: It’s another song when Kriss plays guitar. A lot of times when Kriss writes on guitar, we’ll come up with one or two parts and I’ll come up with a chorus and a bridge and add different vocal ideas and it mutates.

KS: Well, I love working with you, so thank you. And you too, Andy.

AB: All around, that comment. Vice versa.

SB: This is how our band practices are. “I love you guys, you’re so much fun to play with.” “Well, thanks. Let’s play music forever.” “Truth or dare.”

AB: We’ve been all business lately, nose-to-the grindstone. We’ve had a lot of shows.

KS Now it’s like we don’t have anything for a while.

SB: It’s what we need for the moment.

LG: [Kriss] Do you find yourself writing mostly autobiographical stuff or from characters’ perspectives

KS: I always try to give the same answer when someone asks me what my songs mean or what the lyrics mean. I always say, “What do they mean to you?” However you want to interpret them.

LG: When’s your next gig?

SB: The next thing we have booked isn’t until March. That’s why we were saying we should work on new material since we have the time since we’ve been doing a lot of shows lately and haven’t had the time to work on new stuff and flesh things out. I think we’ll take the opportunity to do that.

AB: Where’s the show in March?

SB: Acoustic Café. We played there for the first time not long ago and it was a blast. I haven’t had that much fun playing a show in a while.

AB: Who are we playing it with?

SB: The same band, Big Moon, that we played with in Stratford. It’s their CD release, and there are other bands, too.

KS: We want to go on tour at some point. It’s trickier with us because we all have day jobs. Probably the most we could do is a week and a half.

SB: Touring is definitely high-priority on our agenda to do in the near future. I’ve only ever had a small taste of it, many long-weekend tours, like 5 days. I’ve never done it for real. I think I would love it.

KS: Me, too.

KS: Beside working on new songs and working on a real recording, we don’t want to just keep playing New Haven. I love playing at the Acoustic Café, and I loved playing that place we played the other night.

SB: Getting out to different places is cool, you meet different people and new fans. I want us to branch out more and go to the next level. We’re on step 3. I want to take the big step to 4, 5, and 6.

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La Tunda’s Live from Your Mother’s Attic is available on Bandcamp

Interviewed on January 28, 2015 in New Haven, CT