TONY RETTMAN: Do Less, Be More

Portrait of Tony by Ben Chasny

Tony Rettman is a music journalist and radio personality, which is saying very little about someone who's experienced so much. He's been to more shows than most people you know, which at this point makes him something of a music historian. Tony is also one of the few to weather the change from zines to blogging with elan: Revelation Records recently published his book "Why Be Something You're Not: Detroit Hardcore 1979-1985", and he can be heard on WFMU like crazy. 

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?

I work a lot for a major financial entity and occasionally write stuff about music that people seem to enjoy. Lately, my time is taken up by whining about my job to my girlfriend, trying to tie up loose ends on a book I've written and cooking decent meals. 

 How long have you done these things? How have the things changed?

I've worked all my life. I've written all my life (sorta). Nothing has changed with the work as far as I can see. It just gets more demeaning and crappy as it goes on. The writing has changed on many levels. First off, if you do anything for a long enough amount of time, it's just going to get better. So I think plugging away at it for so long has made it qualitatively better. I'm happier and less embarrassed of stuff I turn in these days. The subject matter has sorta stayed the same as far as being based on music, but the actual...(uh...) 'genres' of music have slipped around to different stuff. I started out doing a Hardcore punk 'zine when I was 14 and sorta went through the musical 'coming-of-age' alotta people did and explored other sound avenues in my late teens/early 20's and wrote about it in various fanzines I self-published. Strangely, I've got back into writing about Hardcore as it's kinda the only thing people ask me to write about when it comes to paying pieces. So, I've just come back to where I came from sorta, just with better referential ammo than I had when I was a kid. The writing has also changed in that I think I use it more as a vehicle to wrestle with words than hip anyone to some new crazy sound. I guess I'm 'trying' less these days. It's just like Brother JT said, 'Do Less, Be More'. 

 

Why do you do these things? No, really, why? How does it make you
feel? What's it like when you are unable to do these things?

To be honest, the reason I do most writing these days is to earn some extra loot. The intial reason I started writing I guess was because I was bowled over by the fanzine culture of Hardcore when my brother started taking me to shows. I was very inspired by merely holding these things in my hand. The idea of being interested or inspired by someones' writing style or musical taste came much later in my life. As stated in the previous answer, the writing - these days at least - is more of a thing where I graple with the words to get them to submit to what I'm trying to convey. I like twisting them into my own definition. I also like working with editors as well, which I'm sure most writers will think I'm crazy for stating. Some really do push you to come up with some great stuff. They really help in trying to convey certain things that might be lost in the cobwebs of your mind. I only get frustrated when I am unable to write when I have a deadline looming. Other than that, I can take or leave writing. 

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what
you are? What happened? 

I don't think I really know that moment. Whenever I read or see someone in some documentary/book say something like 'And when I saw (fill in the bands name) my life changed', I think they are full of shit. No one goes around documenting their lives for themselves like that. If they are, they're fucking nuts! I hate to keep going back to this, but I guess the first couple times my brother took me to Hardcore shows, I kinda got a feeling of defintion in myself. It made me feel it was OK to be a bit twisted. There's a few things that are popping into my head now...First time seeing Black Flag...First time seeing Youth of Today...My brother playing me 'Space Ritual' by Hawkwind, 'Psychedelic Underground' by Amon Duul and 'Patty Waters Sings' all in one sitting during a snowstorm...Seeing NNCK for the 1st time... These are some things that flash into my head that made me think about the power of sound in ways I couldn't fathom before hearing them. 

How has your life changed to accommodate That Moment's effect on you?

It's made me into a bum!

 

How has your work affected your life in return?

It's made me into a bum!

 How does your location affect what you do and who you are these days?

My lady and I have moved out to the North Shore of Long Island. To most outsiders, anything related to L.I. is bad news, but this area is very, very quiet with a sparse population and a low amount of football jerseys and gold chains. We are near the water and it's so quiet around here, some times all you can hear is a train whistle. I think the new location has really helped the writing as far as letting me get (as corny as this might sound) lost in my own thoughts. When we were in Brooklyn, I was always trying to find some quiet while drug dealers and general retards prowled in front of my window. Here, I can see or think one little thing and I just start flying. Personally, the location has just helped me be more at peace with myself and Danielle. I have to prepare a slow cooker meal everyday before I leave for my hour long commute to work, but I think it's worth it. 

What do you think of the future?

For the first time in a long time, I look forward to it. By the way, my hope for it has nothing to do with political climate, social climate, actual climate, etc. I just feel good about it...that's all. 

What does David Lee Roth mean? 

He is a celebration of the self. 

TONY RETTMAN IS ALL OVER THE INTERNET: 

Tony Link on WFMU Blog

Articles by Tony for SWINDLE 

Tony's WFMU playlists & archives 

Tony's blog of the magazine he used to make

WHY BE SOMETHING YOU'RE NOT

KARI ALTMANN: Zoomed-in View From The Trenches

Kari Altmann's knack for illuminating technology and its psychic imprints is impressive. Her real-time gif collages for Double Dagger drummer Denny Bowen's solo dance/pop mashup project Smart Growth were elaborate and clever without being self-congratulatory -- only the tip of the iceberg. A prolific artist immersed in the narrative possibilities of ephemeral imagery, Altmann DJs as Blackmoth.org, creates videos, and shows her work regularly around the globe. Her epic collection R-U-IN?S highlights the intersection between permanence, obsolescence, and the alluring constructions of the unreal. R-U-IN?S is a testament to its own double meaning as much as it is a challenge; all comers are invited to participate in the catalogue, to submit or remix. Plans are currently underway for a R-U-IN?S kiosk at Shanghai's World Expo. Here, Altmann responds to a question that's been on her mind for some time.

What are you doing the most lately?

Reading a.aaaarg.org and making a lot of videos, mixes, and tumblrs, it's winter. I spend most of my time emailing and ftp'ing files - I want a long computer hiatus this spring and I want to run away to some facsimile of Ibiza this summer. But today I'm excited about the igloo we're going to build behind our apartment (I'm answering this during Baltimore's "Snowpocalypse 2010")

How does your location (Baltimore) affect what you do and who you are these days?

• Importing what I can't get locally to a city full of empty warehouses.
• It is more convenient to go to Manhattan than to the suburbs.
• Right now I think I attend more events in New York than locally, and I definitely seem to show my art everywhere else but here.
• People think I live in New York.
• I'm just bouncing between here and there, something more artists seem to be doing
• I want the world tour lifestyle that all these musicians have but only my files seem to get it.

http://r-u-ins.org/

I feel really lucky to have moved here in 2004 and witness some magical years, but I'm not in a musical act so the ride on the wave was a little different. Mostly it was a spectacle to learn from - an education. I think of it almost like a research residency on the culture industry: watching things be planted, cultivated, then exported to the world. I actually saw it happen from start to finish, with varying degrees of success. I'd seen a little bit of that before but never with this intimate social intensity. In a place this raw with currents this dark it seems like viruses have the time and space to grow very carefully, in a unique way - so that if they get swept away to other places or hit that exponential dispersion they are almost invincible.

While all this was happening I was at MICA learning critical theory and art history, trying to maintain some kind of perspective on it all but still wanting to participate. It was a tricky balance. After watching people around you deal with fame and self-branding so many times, you really learn what you want and don't want, but more importantly you see new possibilities for yourself. Baltimore has made me understand freedom. It has made me tougher in a different way than New York, by testing what I do with that freedom. Not everyone flourishes under these conditions.

DREAMCAPTCHA #006 from Kari Altmann on Vimeo.

I moved here from Dallas which is the opposite of Baltimore in a lot of ways, so it has always felt like an escape. When I came here I was definitely on the run. At first I took advantage of school loan money and the cheap cost of living and just travelled all over the world every time MICA was on break. The transition was a little rough. Eventually, though, I settled down and got more invested in Baltimore itself, which is when it rewarded me with an ideal quality of life. That tribal experience people fetishize - we actually had it for a minute, with all its ups and downs. I took a net hiatus and spent my time raving and surrounded by people. I didn't care about blogs or a career. It was like the ideal end of college situation amplified by 200 percent.

Now I feel pulled back out of that experience, more zoomed out again. My website went back up. This is a great place to get some projects done, but you basically have to export those products everywhere else once they're finished. It's like MVP/Bolt Bus and Wimax are singlehandedly responsible for more MICA graduates staying and surviving.

ADSPACE (2008) from Kari Altmann on Vimeo.

More importantly though, it's a good place to experience the raw and hidden elements of America, if you can handle it. If you use it to educate yourself you become able to see the things at work behind a lot of the larger forces in the world. If New York gives you eagle-eye vision, Baltimore gives you the zoomed-in view from the trenches. And there are times I still get that dystopian/lost city/end-of-the-world feel from it all which is what seduced me in the first place. People here are creating their own utopias, whether productive or destructive, among the burnout. Those forces keep eachother in balance. These people are part of a network of post-industrial American settlers experimenting with a cultural "next wave" in cities all over the country, with the aid of the internet. Sometimes it's the second wave, sometimes it's the sixth. Since most of the music and art from these cities is accessible via internet, touring, or exportation to New York, you can actually feel the current of a "Post-Millenial American Frontier" which can motivate you. Not to suggest it's only coming from America though, it's happening all over the world and has been, in cycles, for a long time. It's just that the internet is uniting and diversifying it more than ever before. In 2012 my only dream is to have some huge mega-rave that pulls all of these art/music/party initiatives together, to actually feel this current frontier in one place at one time.

I don't know if I'll stay living here this year - a move is feeling more and more inevitable - but what I've learned in Baltimore, first-person, is invaluable.

What do you think of the future?

Look Up, Look Out

karialtmann.com

blackmoth.org

r-u-ins.org

netmaresnetdreams.net

DINA KELBERMAN: Dancing However You Want

Dina Kelberman lives in Hampden and works at Atomic Books. She emigrated from Purchase, NY with a group of friends who became what the outside world recognizes as Wham City, and if anything Dina embodies the principles of Wham-City-ness as much as any of her more outgoing peers. She draws a serial Important Comics strip for Baltimore Citypaper because she won their comics contest in 2009, regularly releases The Regular Man and Aperiodic Comic, creates posters and album artwork, designs websites & t-shirts and frequently exhibits her bold non-sequential work in group shows. Her website Important Comics is a cavalcade of varied, exciting work in a wide array of fields and a spectacular archive of her work over the years.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
I make comics and draw stuff and paint and update websites. I am always mostly updating websites, presumably because I enjoy it, although that seems retarded.

How long have you done these things? How have the things changed?

I've been drawing comics for about 10 years, not that seriously for most of that time. So I've gotten more "this is what I wanna do" about it, and I've definitely gotten WAY looser about it, I used to spend forever just drawing boxes that were perfectly square. Now I just slosh shit on the page as fast as I can. It's all gotten way more "painterly" if I can get away with saying that without sounding like a douche. (I can't.)

Someone got a tattoo of one of her comical characters!

Why do you do these things? What's it like when you are unable to do these things?

It's really fun. I like to write down the stupid tiny conversations I have in my head constantly. It makes me feel triumphant. I love looking at colorful shapes.

It is rare that I am unable to draw comics. If that's happening it's probably because i'm updating a website. There is never a time when making things is not an option, which is the best part of making things. I don't know if this is relevant, but i thought this might be a good time to mention that I love office supplies SO MUCH.

Have you ever had an epiphany about your true purpose?

Ummm, no real epiphany i guess . . . but going to Purchase College definitely changed me, in that I realized there were other people who were total weirdos and I could actually be myself around them, and we all fell in love with each other. Also I learned there that dancing however you want feels great.

Album artwork for Ed Schrader, The Choir Inside

How has your work affected your life in return?

It makes me feel awesome when people like my comics. It makes me feel awesome to look through my sketchbooks at all the shit I've drawn over the years. Making things makes me feel awesome. There is no single better feeling than making things. Are these answers?

How does your location affect what you do and who you are these days?

Baltimore is the best because of all the reasons everyone knows: supportive awesome community of crazy dickweeds doing things. My house is very comfy and my landlord accepts most of my interior designs. Sometimes I think I should leave and go somewhere by myself, cause i'm too addicted to my friends. But fuck that.

Part of the Wham City Paper

What do you think of the future?

Who knows? Hopefully good. Can't wait for nothing to happen at 2012!

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?

How'd you lose that tooth?

It fell out when I bit a piece of bread because it was still a baby fang I had since my first teeth. The adult one is there now, but more crocodile style.

IMPORTANT COMICS

WHAM CITY

IMPOSE MAGAZINE article about Dina/ Important Comics

JEREMY HARRIS: Thru Earth With Time

Jeremy Harris occasionally lives in Providence RI and has been making music as Lazy Magnet, a bent-out-of-shape pop/electronic-noise project, since age 16, either as a soloist or leader of group entity. Lately he's been wrangling a project called "Adventure Hippies", wherein friends who donated money towards his return to the US from France are paired up for musical collaboration. Jeremy is extremely prolific and dedicated to his craft of complete immersion and possession. Like many great men, he was once a dishwasher.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?

- reading every philip k dick book post-"man in the high castle"
- playing a korg poly 800 and a roland tr 505 thru a boss DM2 delay pedal
- writing fiction to come to terms with a life of failure
- walking 19 blocks to wilson hall in nashville, tennessee and participating in psych studies for 10 dollars an hour
- experimenting with having sex with people i'm not attached to romantically

How long have you done these things? How have the things changed?
a couple weeks...
- i finish and start diffrent titles.. this week: a maze of death and counter-clockwise world
- tapes of jams are being reworked into new songs for the next lazy magnet album due out on corleone records
- the latest story is taking shape as a play to be performed next month in nashville and an animation collab with jo dery
- slowly making the money i need to pay back the people who bailed me out after last european tour tanked financially
- i'm not into it... so i stopped

Why do you do these things? No, really, why? How does it make you feel? What's it like when you are unable to do these things?
- this particular writers voice is a welcome friend in an otherwise lonely universe. try as i might i cant finish any other writers books that i start....
- i want to top my last record. "to exist in the fullness of possesion and at the height of power"
- jo asked me to write a story about something specific.. in the process of trying to articulate free-associative ideas i recognized somethings about the last year that i hadnt thought all the way though until that moment.. and so decided that writing could be usefull.
- since i was kicked out of my moms house on my 18th birthday i've been poor. i need money to survive. it's nice to walk. i dont own a bike since moving back from paris

Lazy Magnet live 2008, photo by Kevin Pelrine

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are?
... it has something to do with listening to iron maiden really loud when my parents would leave the house when i was 7 or 8... and thrashing around my living room like an extra in an anthrax video...
... and the part of the woodstock soundtrack where the guy is yelling at the crowd to spell "fuck" -- i used to listen to that over and over again when my parents werent home...
... and maybe watching a video of myself playing drums with fingerless leather gloves on when i was 11...
... and playing tapes of my own home recorded music for friends in their cars and feeling like i was special.. an outstanding, special person and that i had a special talent that deserved attention.. from my self as well as from others

How has your life changed to accommodate That Moment's effect on you?
- i've always followed my own star

How has your work affected your life in return?
- i've remained poor..
- i have made many friends..
- i've created things that i feel reflect my essential being and nature to a primitive and basic degree...

Jeremy at WFMU going live for Jason Sigal's Talk's Cheap

What do you think of the future?
- totally, totally psyched ... i want the chip in me.. technological telepathy thru wifi mind meld... 4 d cube slice thru earth with time

What's the best thing about David Lee Roth? What's your favorite thing about him? Least favorite?
- i love diamond dave.. absolutely.
- the cover to eat em and smile rules..
- the video for just a gigolo was really important to me when i was young..
- the fact that he secretly financed a punk club in los angeles in the early 80s rules.. and his reasons for keeping it secret.. um, rule... i wonder if he has an autobiography.. most likely.. little richards autobiography is great...

David Lee Roth's totally bonkers and uncontrolled rant disguised as an autobiography is called Crazy From The Heat.
It raises questions about his sexuality in ways you may not expect.

The Lazy Magnet set on WFMU is really great. Here are other places:
ADVENTURE HIPPIES
LAZY MAGNET
Lazy Magnet on Myspace
Corleone Records

JUSTIN SIROIS: Completely High

Justin Sirois is founder and co-director of Narrow House, an experimental writing publishing collective. His poetry is wicked. He received Maryland State Art Council grants for poetry in 2003 and 2007. His books include Secondary Sound (BlazeVOX Books) and MLKNG SCKLS (Publishing Genius). He is a designer for Edge Books, and he's also responsible for the original Taxidermy Lodge (now known as TAX LO) dance parties. Currently, Justin is trying to find a publisher for his first novel written in collaboration with Iraqi refugee Haneen Alshujairy about displaced Iraqis living in Fallujah in April of '04.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?

Writing stories. I just finished a novel about two young men in Fallujah (Iraq) that I wrote in collaboration with Iraqi refuge Haneen Alshujairy. She’s amazing. We met on the internet and now she lives in Cairo. We’ve never met and she’s beautiful. A small press is reviewing it right now and I’m hoping they’ll publish it, but you never know. It’s tough, getting published and all.

Publishing Genius just released MLKNG SCKLS, the “deleted scenes” from that novel. People seem to like it a lot, especially the story where Salim, the main character, “uncooks” a meal for his girlfriend. It’s endearing and gross at the same time. Dehumidifiers line the kitchen counter. Everything sounds “undelicious”.

I’m about 2/3 finished with a new novel about two metalhead brothers growing up in New Hampshire in 1993. It’s a pretty sad story about disappointment (much like my other novel… oops), but it’s more about admiring the wrong people for the wrong reasons and realizing that before it’s too late. There are a lot of D&Dish hallucinations in the narrative – and the main character imagines he’s having sex with the drawings from The Joy of Sex.

It might upset my parents.

How long have you done these things? How have the things changed?

I’ve been writing all my life, I guess. I wrote a comic book when I was six and the spelling was so bad that my dad would read it to my brother and me and we’d fall on the floor laughing. Through high school I drew and wrote a comic/music magazine that I hope no one still owns, but people back in Florida mention it sometimes. It was named after a Sound Garden song. Yikes. Let’s forget that. Completely.

I wrote poems mostly between the ages of 18-28. They were easier to compose and manage. They changed a lot – confessional to language based then a combination of the two and then whatever. BlazeVOX published my book Secondary Sound in 2008. It’s about piracy and copyright law and sampling. But I always wanted to write stories. Now I’m trying to do that mostly. I’m a bit happier.

Why do you do these things? No, really, why? How does it make you
feel? What's it like when you are unable to do these things?

Because it’s absolutely absorbing and it’s impossible not to get these ideas/images/characters/issue out on paper. It’s good therapy. And it’s the closest thing to religion that I have at the moment. There’s no better feeling than writing a beautiful sentence or finishing a solid story. It’s literally the best feeling I’ve ever had. And if writing brings me closer to people – understanding and empathizing with strangers, observing behavior, both negative and positive – then it’s the best thing in my life.

Writing fiction is the only creative act that I can concentrate on for longer than an hour or two, everyday, no matter what. A disciplined schedule is essential if you’re working on one project for 10 months or longer – sometimes much longer. Between projects I won’t write for months at a time and it feels terrible; it’s close to feeling directionless and useless. Drinking happens more. Video games, too. Man! What a time vampire those video games are.

During that down time, I try to research as much as possible. Reading helps, of course. Eventually the next project bubbles up and I’m back to normal.


When was That Moment in your life that told you would become what
you are?

I think it was when I finished the first draft of Falcons on the Floor, that first novel. I felt completely high. It was a, “did I really do that?” kind of experience that built and built after two years of work.

Now I know I can do what I’ve always dreamed about, but with that realization comes a whole lot more pressure on myself to keep going.


How has your life changed to accommodate That Moment's effect on you?

Dramatically and not at all. Now I know I have the discipline to sustain a rigorous work schedule, I can stay motivated about a project no one knows a thing about, and there’s a building community of strangers who want to read my work, but, that said, I’ll always be suspicious of the quality of the work. It’s that inner voice that constantly tells you, “Man, you have nothing to offer… you’re so cliché.”

All creative people deal with that insecurity. You just have to work through it – keep making and loving and caring about what you do. Falling in love with your labor is just as important as loving your language.

How has your work affected your life in return?

I can’t imagine my life without writing. My best friends are in the creative community and I’d rather have massively great creativity surrounding me than a sweet house or car or whatever. I feel like I have the absolute best quality of life and I share it with the most interesting people in one of the best cities in the States.


What do you think of the future?

I’m excited about the new XBox hands free controller because I won’t have to buy a gym membership. Lifting Cuba’s embargo will be a beautiful event; generations have suffered for something they had nothing to do with. Maybe gay marriage and pot smoking will be legal one day – everywhere – even on airplanes. Gay marriage on airplanes, you ask. Yes. The Future. Goodness! I don’t smoke pot.

The future isn’t as bleak as people think. Now that DIY is mainstream and nerds are cool, life is better for creative people. We can make books or albums on the cheap and post them for free and if it’s good work people will pay attention. Wars are essential because they’ve always happened. That sucks. The planet is suffocating under the stress of irresponsible consumption. That sucks, too.


Would you vote for David Lee Roth in an election? Why or why not?

It depends what he’s running for. President? No. Sorry. NFL Commissioner? YES. Oh hell yes. I saw this YouTube video of an old interview Roth did for MTV and he was soaring on coke or some narcotic from another planet and I was like, “That man should be running the NFL.”

secondarysound.blogspot.com

MARK RICE: A Little Hungry

Mark Rice, 2005

Mark Rice used to live in Bloomington IN, where he was well-known for his artistic and musical contributions to the sleepy city's generally transient and collegiate culture. He's toured the world, intermittently exercised some songwriting muscle, and as co-founder of Art Hospital (a Bloomington music venue and art gallery) he regularly showed his paintings, drawings, packages and installations. He once tried to fly off a roof with wings he made, and regularly frequented the same Subway sandwich shop as Jared. These days Mark performs as THIT and pursues graduate studies at RISD.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
As of right now, I am listening to Oneida's record Come On Everybody Lets Rock. It sounds exactly like you think it would sound.....satin-y smooth.....Tonight is the night of my going away party. I am leaving my home of 11 years for the the east coast, specifically Providence, RI to go to graduate school for printmaking. So to answer this question, I would have to say that I am moving...To all who have moved or are planning to move, I have realized something about the entire process....The first is rather elementary....it sucks...bad...Its nostalgic and physically demanding, not to mention, if you are a pack rat like me that loves to write run-on sentences, then it is also, heart-wrenching and frustrating. The second part is rather difficult to realize when YOU, the mover, are caught in the depths of a powerful MOVE.....It is not only boring to discuss to friends who ask,"how's the move going?" It is boring to the speaker of the lumbering complaints that follow such a question...Its strange to hear yourself boring yourself to death....So, to answer this question in the public forum in which I have chosen to participate, I will answer a different version the question......"What are you planning to do?" Many things actually, thank you so much for asking!..........I will describe 2....considering there are many questions to this interview, this only the first question, and that I don't type very fast....The first will be my VERY first solo music performance. This with happen in Providence, RI on October 1st at the RISD Museum. It is part of a group show curated by RISD grad students entitled "This Show is About Rock n Roll." The second is a project that is in the planning stages entitled "The Private Self-Assurance of Poor Paul Portmoy." It is an interactive sculpture featuring music by Jordan C. Geiger of Minus Story and Hospital Ships (Lawerence, KS) It has to do with self-image, lies, and how not EVERYbody has a good sense of humor or is good in bed, but we all think we are, or have to think in some way that we are special....Also, for the last 10 years I have been in both national and multi-national music bands. In the past six years, you say that music was my job...although I was always terrified of thinking of it as that. Previous and current bands include: Magnolia Electric Co., The Coke Dares, The Impossible Shapes, The John Wilkes Booze, Ativin, Early Day Miners, and some more.... boom boom bam! NEXT!

THIT

How long have you done these things?
My mother, Judith Ann Rice, is a Renaissance Woman in her own right. Sculptor, printmaker, painter, ceramicist, teacher, and puller of amazing salt water taffy, just to name a few. Her and my father have always been more than supportive of not only creative ventures, but being true to yourself no matter what the consequences. I know that last one sounds a little cheesy. I'm a little hungry right now. I get a little hectic and sappy when I get hungry.....Long answer SHORT......I have been making things in someway or another for the entirety of the memorable part of my life.

Why do you do them? How does it make you feel?
Ummmm.....A seemingly easy question....I suppose I prolly do it (this is real deep down now) because of control. I like a little tiny area that I get to be GOD. I do it for many more reasons now, but that one has definately been a long runner. I spent a lot of time alone and made little cities. Being able to get lost in something and have hours go by.....This can happen with anything (lawn care, cake baking, CLEANING, staring, etc.) Now that I am getting a bit older, I try to put this Zone to good use in the music, art, or the curation or organization of each, respectively. I really like the Zone, the concentration mode that when you emerge you get to step back and see exactly what Mr. Hyde happen been working on. Feel? Well, I feel nothing in the Zone. If all is going well, I feel nothing in the Zone. Exciting Pressure? It might be called that....I guess I dont know...NEXT!

THIT stage

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are? What happened?
I am constantly oblivious. Only in retrospect to I usually realize what big "life trends" like that mean. I really didn't even know you could go to school for Art until halfway through my undergraduate degree. If I'm not having to make money to pay the bills, sleeping, or doing some sort of simple math, I am prolly making something or thinking about making something. It not usually a very intellectual process nor is it a strenuous one, nor does it happen always the same way...been little baby steppers towards a product and hopefully that one inspires another one and so on....Let me think a little more, but I really don't think I have a "Moment." Lots of little ones...

How has your life changed or not changed to accommodate that moment's effect on you?
Well, I slowly started living in buildings and homes that have less of a focus on comfortable living space (kitchens, beds, couches, cable tv, reliable gas/heat/electricity/water, etc.) into spaces that accommodate a larger range of projects (i.e. trailers, warehouses, tarp houses, garages, etc.) And also, learning to live on a fluctuating and low income (bartering, recycling, simplifying, etc.).

How has your work affected your life in return?
Well, I have only lived once that I remember (sometimes) so the only other way to answer would be to compare my life to someone else's life and I feel that to be a dangerous and weak argument. I am happy when work is going well and I am frustrated and annoying when work is going bad. Mostly happy though. HAPPY!

Does David Lee Roth affect who you are? If so, how?
I respect the man's taste in fashion. If he is a sex symbol (is he?) that is heralded by heterosexual women and he will choose to wear say, a woman's one-piece bathing suit, wear his hair like a WWF skydiving instructor, and paint his face like a sun-burned Avon lady then, shit, man.....Now that I think about it he has inspired me a lot!

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?
That "Moment" question really got me......can you answer that one for yourself? I would like to hear that....and then when you are done could you answer it for me?
When I was 15 I was listening The Clash London Calling for the first time ever through walkman headphones and when the first bars of that song came on, I looked up at the sky which was perfectly blue with Octobery colors drifting all around and I thought "YES" just like that in big large letters and felt whole and thrilled by it.

HILARIOUS MARK STUFF:
www.goatmother.com
goatmother.blogspot.com

KIM TABARA: Disagreeable to the Patrons

KIM TABARA is the pen name of one of Baltimore's most elusive yet dedicated supporters and scenesmen. He is a proficient writer, friendly chap, and he's been going to shows in Baltimore since before the city started acting like South Williamsburg. Two things about Kim are evident: one, he is very quiet, and two, he is absolutely everywhere you think you need to be.

What do you do?
I write and I make music.

How long have you done these things?
I am from a musical household, so I have been singing since I could verbalize. It started in a public way in children's choir, moving closer to its present form via bad grunge bands in high school. Guitar/instruments came later via the Unheard Ones.

I started creatively writing in middle school. I remember getting in trouble for writing mash-notes to crushes. I wrote for my high school newspaper, extolling the virtues of the Melvins, Fudge Tunnel, and Universal Order of Armageddon over the prevailing G'N'R wisdom. I wrote for my college newspaper, sometimes filling out the entire A & E section with my odd rants thanks to a complicit editor. Towson University didn't seem to care as much about the Fall's album reissue campaign as I did.

Why do you do them? How does it make you feel?
I think I do both because they allow me access to emotions that I have trouble expressing otherwise. I think I do both because they leave me deeply satisfied after doing them in ways that other activities do not. I think I do both because I have to.

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are? What happened?
I was in a noise band called Within (this incarnation featured original members Mike Apichella and Lisa Starace). Let's say it was 1995 or so. We were playing a coffee in house in east Baltimore, near where I grew up. The music we played was so disagreeable to the patrons that we forced the majority to leave the place and stand outside until we were done. When we completed our set, the patrons criticized us and our music, attacking us verbally on the street as we loaded out our gear. Although I have written and sung things that have had the opposite effect in people, I think I always hope to inspire that reaction in some people whenever I make anything. If I don't, I'm not doing my job.

How has your life changed or not changed to accommodate that moment's effect on you?
I was already heading in a certain direction in my life at that point, and you could argue that that moment (and moments like it) cemented it. I have lectured on the topic "How Baltimore Music Destroyed my Life," and I still believe that lives I could have lived were destroyed in those times. I wonder if I will ever again feel so clear in purpose and determination as I did that night. I have been chasing that moment ever since, of being able to rattle skulls, to attack with great effectiveness our modern mess, to pierce the veil, to ruin someone's evening by making them think about things they don't want to think about.

How has your work affected your life in return?
I feel like my work has created a chain of connection between my past and present. I do not see this all of the time, and I often assume that the flame of my creativity has guttered and almost gone out, but then I look back and see that no matter that circumstance in which I have found myself, I have always been trying to make music and write. It has created a body of work that only needs to matter to me.

Is David Lee Roth still relevant? How?
David Lee Roth is an amazing human being. He has the ability to charm the pants off of anyone. No matter how far he has gone into doing outrageous and self-indulgent things, you cannot help but love him and root for him, unless you are another member of the Van Halen continuum.

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?
How's it going?
Pretty well, thanks!

Writing Link:
http://www.beatbots.com/view.php?staff=38
(Beatbots articles listed, if you scroll down)
Music Link:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=110528127
(best summary of my musical activity thus far)

KURT GOTTSCHALK: Cup of Ice

KURT GOTTSCHALK is a writer in New York City. He has a radio show on WFMU, and he writes for a variety of publications and blogs including Signal to Noise, allaboutjazz.com, The Village Voice, The Wire and Time Out NY. He is primarily interested in free jazz, obscurities of musical culture, and playing guitar with his band Ecstasy Mule.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
I am usually trying to figure out what music is. That involves playing records, playing records on the radio, playing instruments, going to concerts, writing about concerts, writing about records and writing about people who make records. I continue to be mystified.

How long have you done these things?

The first record I bought was a 45 of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" at a garage sale. I was probably 6 or 7. I started piano lessons when I was 9. My first published writing about music was when I was 13.

Where was your first writing published when you were 13?

The first thing I had in print was a letter to Trouser Press magazine defending David Bowie against all the New Wave tyrants. Shortly after that, I started reviewing records for the Waverly Journal, a weekly paper in Central Illinois.

What are your primary areas of musical interest?
Like genre-wise? I like energy, I like improvisation, and I like stillness. There's also a Tanya Tucker song I've been real into lately. But mostly risky, genuine, spontaneous, I guess.

How does it make you feel?

I really don't know what else to do. It makes me feel happy, confused, engaged, ecstatic, frustrated and self-assured. The emotion I can most easily elicit in myself by playing guitar is sadness.

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are? What happened?

Oh, god. Really? OK, walking home from the mall (back home in Springfield, Illinois) when I was 14 or so with two friends acting goofy. I had a cup of ice, having finished whatever drink I was drinking, and I was jumping around and threw the ice in the highway. A guy in a pick-up truck pulled over and said asked what I was doing, said it could have been broken glass or something in the cup, how could he know, shoved me around, knocked me down and kicked me in the head. A cop happened to be driving past, got out, stopped the guy and let him go without question or taking his name, then asked me what I thought I was doing. The only thing I thought I was doing right then was bleeding.

When I got home, I wrote some pretentious thing about the Arrogance of Man or something. I didn't really think it was good, but it felt good writing it. Good in a way I'd never felt before.

How has your work affected your life in return?

I don't know what I'd be if I wasn't a writer. Perhaps "employed." And maybe I would have been a writer even if I didn't get kicked in the head. But I don't know how to think of my life and that moment as separate things.

What's your favorite thing about David Lee Roth? Least favorite?

I love how every line in every song is sung, is performed, is considered. Like Sinatra. Or Ella Fitzgerald. Or Axl Rose - on "Appetite," anyway. I don't like his jaw.

What about David Lee Roth's jaw rubs you the wrong way?

OK, it's too studly manly jocky. The whole thing with him, really. But his powers are isolated in that massive, square jawbone. He's not a bad singer, but he's so preposterous. And the jaw's the first thing in when he comes through the door.

Is your interest in the outer reaches of fandom reflective of the outer reach of fandom that you yourself occupy?
I can relate to it. I don't think I have reached that. I might. More likely I'll be someone who can't sit down in his apartment because of the books and records.

For more by and about Kurt, check out

http://spearmintmusic.blogspot.com/
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/KU