MICHAEL ANDREW TURNER: A Muscle Car Out of Cockroach Parts

Mike Turner! Oh man, where to start? Lexington Kentucky's own Mikey T plays solo musics, all lonely thready guitar ragas, and sometimes with his band Warmer Milks shows happen. He's always got a new chapbook or cassette, weird job or exciting and confrontational place to live. He's a poet, a real dreamer and the kind of conversationalist who can talk the paint off a tank. In the past year or two he's also taken a stab at bent journeyman noir with duo Cross aka The Sound of The Rat Vex. Warmer Milks played at the old True Vine space, where the shows were perfumed with the night air of Hampden, a burned feathers smell that was romantic and even mouthwatering. Eventually someone, probably Ian Nagoski, silenced any curiousity about the delicious nature of the odor in revealing that it came from the late-night crematorium down 36th St towards Ash. That one night, though, in that charring air, Mikey said to me "You should have a band called Lexie Mountain Boys" and then laughed his ass off. 2005. 

What do you do?

 

I write a lot of poetry and fiction.  A "lot" could be small as well but I guess it depends. Some things I've written have appeared printed but I can't recall off hand where but that's irrelevant.  I'm bad at keeping up with that stuff anyway.

 

I suppose I've more so "known for" within underground circles as someone who plays guitars. Electric and acoustic ones. I write songs on them and then either perform/record the songs with other people under the guise of "band" or by myself as "solo".  I've also played around with many other instruments throughout the years but guitars are my "candy" for sure. That sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

 

 

What are you doing the most lately?

 

The past seven months have seen me acting out in the group Cross as well as under a variation of my own name, Ma Turner. Cross toured for a couple of months over the summer, tried to move to California then gratefully came back to Lexington, KY. The past few months we've been writing a new record to be recorded early 2010 in a hair salon/art haus here in town.

 

The past two weeks I've been playing with open tunings on my acoustic here at the house. Elaborating on chord sequences and scales, warping them into songs. Also sketching out my next short story while my first one is coming out early 2010 via issue one of Heavy Bombardment (Rampart Tapes).

 

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

 

Writing has been a part of my life since I could first hold a crayon in my hand. It is what I know how to do more than anything else. Talking to God through writing. It is my way. The majority of my writing has been poetry but the past few years I've been writing short fiction. What a thrill it is!  With poetry, I stay pretty free form and but since I've been tackling short fiction, I've grown more accustomed to structure. Being torn apart via editing is an amazing feeling. I get to hang out with the words longer. It is starting to rub off on my poetry and music as well.

 

I have played guitars with other people since the early nineties. At first I just made sounds on them, then almost a year in to owning a guitar (around ninth grade), my mother got me into some guitar lessons. I learned most of the basic chords as well as some "rock" tricks. After writing a couple songs on my own, I quit taking lessons and sat in my room combining the sounds I was making beforehand with the stuff I'd learned through lessons. Early on I knew it was all about writing my own songs.

 

Unfortunately I lived in a area where I didn't meet that many people who thought very much like me (Nicholasville, Jessamine County, Kentucky) so my songs were confined to the bedroom. Meanwhile I played in a few high school bands but none of them were really up the alley of what I wanted sans one group called 'Sunburn' which leaned towards grittier 'pop' music that aligned with my interests and I think we actually played one of my songs. I remember being laughed at for wearing a Depeche Mode shirt and not being familiar with the high from marijuana. I believe this was 1993 0r 1994. A beautiful time. Memorex cassettes with "Fire in Cairo" and "Divine Hammer" blasting in my headphones. So tender and wide eyed. I'm closing my eyes right now and thinking of it. I can still be there. So nice.

 

I'm not sure that me playing guitar has changed as much as progressed. Writing songs is still the point but now I suppose my idea of a song has opened up larger. Perhaps I've always known a song can be anything I want it to be but now because I've been playing around with a guitar for roughly nineteen years, I have many different angles to work with. More tools, more colors, it's easier to pull an idea out of my head now and mold it into what I want it to be. However, I go through moments of unlearning where I just fall into the space I was in as a kid, "DUNH, DUNH", bar all of the strings on one fret, bang on it in time with a personal vibration no one else is getting but myself.

 

In the realm of acoustic guitars, I've been sitting around with one since I was very young. 'Ma Turner'. The 'a' is my middle initial but I like Ma because it is obviously feminine, MOTHER. I dabbled in that with the name 'Warmer Milks'.  Ma and WM are similar in their beginnings. Writing songs on acoustic guitar about love and life but as I get older I allow more tradition to trickle in as well as space and abstractions. Don't get me wrong, I know how that "trad" word sounds but in all seriousness, I'm friendlier with folk and country then I used to be but I also have no interest in nostalgic torch music. Like any other music I play, it feels nice to leave the door open in every room. It comes down to more emphasis on song and it happens to be kind of handed down from the past but yet still moving into the future.

 

Playing in Cross, I'm going back further into a high school mind, a kind of guitar hero worship, MOVES, occult sexual possession like Page slides and Jagger hips but Ginn on his tip toes heckling the football team. Total Television Personalities pulsating lack of//major sophistication. I dunno, just wanting to fucking boogie again feels amazing. It's me and three other guys,  a total team effort. I write riffs and bring them to practice, so fun. The group in turn, puts it all together and it becomes it own thing.  In my early twenties I played in what people would consider a "street punk" band but in actuality it was a hybrid of like Motorhead and some southern rock spiel but the skinhead/punker scene ate it up. We toured a bunch and made a record that I'm super proud of and (it) did really well in that world. When I wasn't jamming in this unit, I'd be at home listening to Jim O'Rourke or some shit like that. I think it was the Gastr Del Sol record 'Upgrade & Afterlife', a total masterpiece of insanity and beauty. At the time, I was really torn up and confused, like I thought I was cheating on that album by playing rock n roll so eventually I quit. A few years later I was playing music that could be compared to some boring ass Archers of Loaf water. Jesus, the REAL rock n roll band I left was so much better. I suckered myself into empty ideas of what is and isn't art. Fuck art! Have fun! Luckily I started Warmer Milks and we just did EVERYTHING that came to mind for around six years. Art or no art, I projected a new manifesto for that thing every other minute and actually followed through with the majority of my (for better or for worse) ideas. People I played with, hung around or performed for either got stoked or bummed on that deal but I am so proud of it.  I learned so much about myself in that period of time and wouldn't take it back for anything. Warmer Milks ended last May and I'm really stoked that it is over. It was time for a change.  

 

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?

 

Like I mentioned earlier, writing was my first true form of creative expression. I've written a lot of poetry. Started when I was 5. I write at least two a week, rarely skipping out on said activity. I've thrown away a good 80% of the stuff I've written but haven't forgotten any of it's essence. I keep writing the same thing over and over again. Just want to improve. I also said earlier that I'm writing to God and if I can't write to God then I feel as if I'm dying. I want to channel this into my short fiction and I think that it's happening. Communicate to to a higher plane through some short story about a kid with down syndrome that builds a muscle car out of cockroach parts. Amen.

 

I play music because it feels so good.  It has been the one thing externally since day one that has been a constant turn on, total passion, relentless form of expression. I always walk away with a sense of adventure, curiosity, wonderment, excitement but yet it also makes me nervous, anxious and often times frustrated because I love it so much and like any other powerful relationship in my life, have had some extreme ups and downs with it.  There are times I've allowed other aspects of my life to steer me away from music or writing and that is something I will never let happen again because it is weak on my part and causes major sadness inside. I've arranged everything in my life at this point to compliment my love for playing music and writing and I'm thankful that I am at a place where I can always participate in those activities and nothing can touch that.

 

 

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

you are? What happened? Please elaborate.

 

The Moment with writing was the first time I ever tried to write a letter. My parents were fighting and I attempted to write them a letter explaining that they were scaring me but it was just scribbles. I knew those lines didn't exactly translate out to the world what I was thinking but it sure made me feel a whole lot better and I haven't stopped since.

 

With music, a combination of situations really. My mother's record collection blasting on the stereo when I was four. The two of us would dance to Neil Diamond, Simon and Garfunkel, Carpenters, Beatles as well as countless awesome christian rock albums from the seventies and early eighties. It truly warmed my heart. Watching MTV at it's inception. Just taking in the visuals (haircuts, outfits, stage set ups) and obviously the pulse of electronic drums and synths shook me intensively. It truly felt like alien music and I knew I wanted a part in that which went hand in hand with 1980's fm radio. Stuff like Billy Idol and Wham! struck me as so intense and I loved beating on my kiddie drum set along to their songs in my bedroom after school.

 

I suppose the "super reality connector" between me and music was hearing:

 

 a) Black Flag via a dub from some asshole in junior high (1990) (he thought it sucked so he gave it to me because I was a nerd) 

 

b) Nirvana on Z Rock several months later and wondering what the fuck was going on (I promptly grabbed a baseball bat and played along, it was like someone set my house on fire).

 

BUT

 

c) The fire was completely lit when local college radio (http://wrfl.fm) was added in the mix shortly thereafter to fill in the gaps of underground musics and helped me along Self Highway. I found a copy of their zine (RiFLe) and it had an interview with Mike Watt. Floored for life.

 

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

 

The impulse to create constantly jerks me around from place to place, back and forth through time, in and out of conversation, etc. so I guess in the end The Moment controls my every move. Good job Moment!

 

How has your work affected your life in return?

 

Not to be cliche but my work IS my life. That being said, everything else around me plays into the moment I make up something musically or through written/spoken words. It can be scary for sure but for the most part, my life is full of joy because of my guitar. Jesus, good grief.

 

What do you think of the future?

 

I love the idea of getting older. Improvement. The future is great. A constant shift. Go Future!

 

What has David Lee Roth meant to your life? Please elaborate.

 

David Lee Roth has a lot to do with the future for me. The older I get, the more I appreciate and respect David Lee Roth as lead vocalist in Van Halen circa 1980's. DLR now? Absolutely no clue what he means to me NOW? As a kid, his thing kinda got under my skin for some reason, especially his solo situation. It was too campy for me at the time. Now, I can handle it but put on the first Van Halen lp and there is some serious rock n roll going on and that is the essence of DLR to me.

 

I wrestle with the idea of worshipping "classic rock" icons, groups, songs, etc. but regardless, I find myself back in the middle of it, studying up on whatever I can about it and David Lee Roth plays into that, of course! As much as I wish I could just focus on something eternally cool as Whitehouse forever and let go of VH, I can't. But Whitehouse IS cooler.

 

 

MIKEY ALIVE: http://www.myspace.com/worldofmaturner

MIKEY VS LARRY D: http://www.blastitude.com/19/WARMERMILKS.htm

CROSS: http://tombstonegravy.blogspot.com/

 

TOM GREENWOOD: This Infinity Thing

Tom Greenwood was born in South Dakota which accounts for his largeness and blondness. He cut some teeth in Baltimore and upstate New York, did booking for underground clubs before it was cool to do so, and scooted out to Portland OR to settle for good and give his never-ending rotating-cast musical entity Jackie O Motherfucker a place to call home. He's been releasing handmade CDRs, serving residencies, and making exhibitions (including a solo show coming up in March at New York's Cue Foundation) since forever. Most recently, Jackie O Motherfucker's latest release Ballads of the Revolution is now available from Fire Records.



What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
navigate, document, accumulate and edit. smoke a lot of cigarettes in between...
lately i'm editing... it's the fall, time to bring in the crops, see what's been collected this past year.

How long have you done these things? How have the things changed?
my whole life, at least since i can remember. maybe since 1970 when i was 4.
the territory i travel has gotten larger, the documents more precise, the accumulation- is getting smaller, as the editing gets more fluid... the transitions are smoother.

Why do you do these things? What's it like when you are unable to do these things?
i'm working on my line. something identifiable, to establish it's origin.
there are so many of us on the planet. i just want to work on something peaceful.
we're all very similar collections of cells, yet each of us has a different fingerprint.
it's worthwhile to me exploring this snowflake, infinity thing...


When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are?
i was on top of mt. leconte in the smokey mountains, maybe 1987. i had found this salamander under a rock, it was beautiful, black with very unique spots on it. i think they were orange. i took it with me to the other side of the mountain, and let it go.
later on i looked under the same rock, and there it was again. so, i took it to the other side of the mountain again, and let it go. later i looked under the rock again, and there it was... i did this all day, and it became horrifying. this infinite identity of individuals in space... i guess i was tripping.

How has your life changed to accommodate That Moment's effect on you?
well, that was a very enlightening journey. it was summertime, and i was on the loose, hitch-hiking around. i discovered many things, and the darkness of it all overwhelmed me i guess. when i returned home, i became more politically active, making a lot of audio and film documents of local demonstrations against US activities in central america. i eventually got arrested and jailed for these documents, and many of them were destroyed by the authorities. when i was released, i had to let in some pretty negative allies in order to cope. they stayed with me a long time, maybe 20 years or so... finally i was able to remove them, and i was left with a really beautiful and complex skeleton which was formed at that time.

How has your work affected your life in return?
my work is the ground i walk on... it's given me a way to structure reality, so that i can exist in it. when i was younger i saw no way that i could be a part of all of that i saw around me, and it was scary. so slowly and slowly, i started to accumulate. i worked guided by intuition, objects next to each other create a new entity, and by documenting and editing with intent, you can create narrative, and build your own story...


What do you think of the future?
i feel incredibly blessed to be surrounded by so many creatively evolved, enlightened, and intelligent beings, who are doing their best to better themselves and their communities. for this, i feel hopeful...
however, for greater society, for people who have depended on an imposed structure and placed faith in the actions of dominate social leaders, i am not so hopeful. i don't really know what's in store for them, but i know change is possible, if you want something different.

How does David Lee Roth affect your life?
david who?

all images courtesy Tom Greenwood

JOMF myspace
JOMF WIKI

ROBERT RYAN: Baphomet & Shangri La

"Love is All", Robert Ryan

I first met Robert "Bink" Ryan when he set up a show for Crazy Dreams Band in his one-room studio slash gallery slash third floor walkup off one of Asbury Park's Cookman Street. His walls were covered in gorgeous framed works in a metaphysical-flash style and a third of one wall was entirely given over to a monochromatic cosmos mural by Daniel Higgs. Nobody at the party seemed particularly interested in our music, but Bink's fridge seemed to grow beer and everyone was pretty nice. The next day, I walked miles in a freak hailstorm to Robert's tattoo shop one town away where I received a rainbow ice cup and my clothing was dried in a laundry room filled with Chihuahua figurines. Asbury Park, New Jersey is sort of a magical wasteland in itself, and now Bink lives in the neighboring village of Ocean Grove, a plot of mansions and cottages on Methodist-owned land that closes its gates at midnight. He spearheads the musical entity Harmonize Most High and continues to execute dazzling works of art for flesh and paper.

What do you do?
I make paintings and tattoos and try to work on music as much as the painting and tattooing will allow for me to do.

What are you doing the most lately?
I feel like I have been traveling a lot lately and studying. I have been working with plant medicines and working on my posture and breathing. Of the aforementioned things I feel like tattooing has been occupying a big spot because that's what pays the bills.

How long have you done these things?
Tattooing for 14 years. Painting for about 16 and playing music for about 23 years.


How have the things changed?
Well I feel like its always expanding and contracting. Its always growing I'm always purging expelling all the bullshit that attaches itself to you on these paths. Earthly snares and such.

Why do you do these things?
For the Love

How does it make you feel?
Like my hero Sun Ra said "Music can be your greatest ambassador or your worst nemesis."

What's it like when you are unable to do these things?
I feel like I imagine a worried mother must feel like.

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are?
When I was young I used to live in an old house that belonged to Eugene O'Neal's widow and daughter, Agnes and Una. They lived there after Una divorced Charlie Chaplin. One night my cousin and I were playing in the yard and we both saw what we thought was Eugene O' Neal's

ghost walk past us. At that moment my mind was open to anything. I was Eleven.

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

Well I figured out right away that I wasn't taking the easy way out. To see ghosts and UFOs and consume LSD or live in Hare Krishna temple might be hard to explain to your friends and loved ones yet is still worth the experience.

How has your work affected your life in return?
I could be the poster child for what you should or what you shouldn't do with your life. It all depends on who you ask. Tattooing has shaped me as well as destroyed me, like my psychic baphomet. Music on the other hand is my Shangri La and painting might be the strongest of my personal connections.

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

As you know I live between "Gods square mile" Ocean Grove & "The city by the Sea" Asbury Park. I feel as though I'm very lucky to work with some of the greatest people I know, I live four blocks from the beach and I play Frisbee with my dog almost every morning. The music scene here is so backwards and the art scene pretty much sucks despite the fact some of the best illustrators and painters I know live within 10 minutes of here. We all just exist outside our locale and I think there is something to be said about that.

What do you think of the future?
I think its an oblong oblivion.

What has David Lee Roth meant in your life?

He is like my favorite rock roll trickster. Giant Surfboards, Samurai Swords, Assless Pants, High Kicks, Monster Trucks! The guy is a Titan guarding the temple of Rock and Roll but then he gets busted buying dime bags of downtown julie brown ( middle school jersey weed slang) in Washington square park? This was a task I mastered in the 10th grade. He really is mystifying. I spent a whole summer surfing and watching the "Just a Gigolo "and "California Girls" videos on what felt like a perpetual loop.

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?
I would like your advice on my retirement idea. Dig it! A small shack, One man (or woman) in a hazmat suit and a dogbowl on his head. He makes burritos named after the famous songs of one of the most important rock and roll bands of our generation DE EVOLUTION BURRITO! Customer: " I would like one Mongoloid with medium salsa please and can I get cheese on that? Burritista: "Yes sir we can whip it." Customer : "Oh then whip it good"

All images courtesy Robert Ryan.

www.sanitaryelectric.com
www.myspace.com/americancloudsongs

Robert Ryan works at Electric Tattoo
314 Main St. Bradley Beach NJ 07720
p: 732- 988-8882
www.electrictattoonj.com

ANGELA SAWYER: One Fantastic Record At A Time

Angela Sawyer runs Weirdo Records in Cambridge, MA. She's a dedicated musician with a weak spot for Julie London, a yen for the ukelele, and a skull tattooed on the back of her hand. She used to work for Forced Exposure and Twisted Village, played in Life Partners and created the pop-collage band The Phenomenological Boys. Her unique voice is as comfortable carving catchy melodic layers as it is hooting and swooping like Tiny Tim in Farsi. She used to run Weirdo out of her house as a largely online venture, but recently she moved into a storefront on Massachusetts Avenue where she specializes in the ultra-bizarre and hosts performances in the tiny shop space. Below, she tells us what its like.


I am a record collector & run a record shop that just moved into a proper storefront about 6 months ago. So lately, I've been working like a nutbomb, up to my eyeballs in it about 12-15 hours a day 7 days a week. And by it I mean records, and I mean a fucklot of them. And not just your run-of-the-mill records either. Nope, the name of the shop is Weirdo and it's the name for a reason. Freaky garage psychedelia from Bolivia. Soundtracks to French VHS pornos. Housewives in green pancake makeup sitting on the floor of their kitchens, banging pots & pans & shrieking at the top of their lungs. One sided 78s about baseball from 1904. Cocaine-damaged open-mic-night songwriters who wish they were rock stars. Singapore's answer to Nancy Sinatra. Off-key opera singers, mysterious bleeping boxes, jazz solos played on drinking straws, Beatles covers from Thailand, instruments that you wear like a shirt, nose flautists, tangles of cables plugged into unidentifiable objects, Hendrix fans from Zambia, one armed fiddlers, soundtracks to movies that were filmed in languages no one can speak, souped-up player pianos, and on and on and on. That's my meat & potatoes.

Now most people think they like music, same way that most people think they're funny or think they can hold their liquor. But there are some people, a small percentage of people, who organize their every waking moment around music. They give up relationships over it, pass on decent food & housing in order to afford it, and they rarely talk or think or dream about anything else. Some people do this, not just for six months while during a phase in college, but for years & years & years on end. Not only am I one of these people, I can't remember the last time I had a conversation of more than 5 seconds' length with someone who wasn't. Typical modern-day skills like cooking chicken, using a bank, or putting a band-aid on the knee of a child have, in my case, atrophied away to nubs. While I effortlessly sport seemingly esoteric skills like gargling coca-cola while using an electronic bullhorn, or remembering that Ananda Shankar & Laurie Johnson are men, while Blind Willie Dunn was not blind.

Why? Well, here's the thing about being a record collector. It's a lot less about owning stuff. For example, it's practically impossible to "invest" in records like you can in the stock market. People occasionally try some variant of investing with music (buying it 'for their kids' or for ebay), and they are a small source of amusement to collectors in their midst, until a few months later when the money runs out & they disappear. In fact, if you spend your life connected to records, you are conscripting yourself into a life of poverty, gar-un-teed.

Sam & Angela

People ask how I got here once in a while, because they usually don't know anyone else who thinks a decent selection of nose flute recordings ought to be as handy as spare batteries. I usually tell them, 'one fantastic record at a time'. Because that's the truth. The world is stuffed to the brim with meaningless drivel. It's often unsparing & ugly & desperate. Records are a corner of it where things mean something, where people care even a tiny bit, where what's precious is venerated and what isn't is left to the wind. I feel extremely lucky that I get to spend my time, say, tracing the hundred years of phrasing history that led to Ella Fitzgerald's intricate vocal acrobatics instead of... what? Some crap like mutual funds?

The thing that people ask a lot more often than how I got here is, 'how do you stay in business?' Seems funny, because I hafta tell you. I see lots stores that sell stuff no one actually likes, and lots of people whose faces light up with what they hear when they're here. The answer there is therefore: when you need your insurance, go see the insurance guy, and when you need your teeth cleaned, go see the dentist. When you need to be bowled over by something beautiful and genuinely unique, I'll find you.

See, instead of playing the violin, some folks like to turn the violin upside down & play it backwards. Other folks would like use the violin to imitate a scuffle with an injured cat. Still more folks would prefer to just put the violin down, then walk to the nearest pond & joyfully throw a bunch of rocks in it. All of these people are sort of 'my people'. And they are not most people's people. Definitely not. Even amidst friendly sorts who like to think they're quite open minded or quirky or curious by nature. Not most people's people. Definitely not.

Brendan Murray & Angela behind the counter, photo by DJ Ning Nong

But few collectors mind, because they care a lot more about carving out an aesthetic goal. They want to know. Is it possible to write a song that is both musically and politically urgent? Are funny songs automatically less profound? What is the secret ingredient that turns a mess of unformed noise into something meaningful? Is dancing a mode of appreciation or detrimental to it? Can a serial killer write a good song? How about a two year old? Are some chords better than others? Are some guitar sounds always cooler than others? What about the different kinds of listening that you do when something is live vs. when it's recorded? Or when something is a hundred years old vs. released this week? Memorized it from when you were a kid vs. never heard it before? These questions are not rhetorical. They have answers. Long, detailed ones. Because even if they never articulate such questions (some of them are nearly autistic, after all), record collectors define & delimit good music to themselves, by saving the worthy & pushing away the dross. Like a gardener, little by little, they weed garbage, plant seedlings, expand, upgrade, re-landscape, and continually focus, tighter and tighter, on the myriad number of ways that good music takes place. And they get to savor it along the way too.

So when people ask me how I got into my job or one of the bands I play in, I usually answer 'one record at a time'. The Four Freshmen & Lambert Hendricks & Ross convinced me not to go to grad school. The Beach Boys got me out of bed & to a doctor that time I had a 104 degree fever. I decided not to move to Chicago after all, because I was gripped by a fever for Emmett Miller yodels & figured it would take months to meet anybody I could talk to there. I nearly got arrested throwing things at a passing train because I was so hopped up on the Music Machine. Lord knows the gossip or bargains or morning coffees I've missed because I couldn't stand to be in a room with Carol King's 'Tapestry' for one more second. How many times have I freaked out my neighbors trying to sing along to Joan La Barbara records, or whistle to Evan Parker? And how about the recent risks in identity/postal theft in order to buy obscurities from Bangkok or Lebanon or Istanbul?

844 Massachusetts Avenue

A lot of people who collect records get started before they're 15. Sometimes an older brother leaves a collection on the way off to college. Many have fond memories of playing with turntables at age 4 or 5. I learned how to read from Disney read-along 45s, memorizing their sound & following along in a book until I had the book memorized too. Preferred it to being read a story by a parent, so I've been told. But I didn't have an older brother or a hip pal when I was a teenager, so I didn't get introduced to music that wasn't on the radio or tv until I was already in my 20s.

Which brings me to David Lee Roth, musical giant of my junior high & high school days. DLR is the epitome of what popular music can do. This is not to say that Van Halen makes the best music in all of popular music history. Doris Day, Steve Allen, or even the Ink Spots, for example, could all wipe the floor with Roth's bony white ass any day of the week. It's more that Roth's voice is uniquely textured and skillfully applied enough (don't think that there's no talent to emitting a sound like ripping sheets from your throat while in mid-karate kick, eh?) that it can answer any musical question: like the 8 ball can answer any question about your future. Sure, you can look at the guy and see a coke-addled, falsely exuberant jock who rips off Louis Prima (badly, no less). This would not be a mistake. On the other hand, just one step beyond the party persona, DLR can open a door for the uninitiated: to doo wop, extended technique, off-the-beat phrasing, the syllabic turns of foreign languages (yep, he recorded in Spanish & there's an acapella mix), 60s folk-pop (John Sebastian cover), the history of vocoders (don't ask), and so on ad infinitum. It would certainly be a shame if listening to David Lee Roth kept people from listening to say, Mohammed Rafi. But there's time enough for both so long as you're not wasting yours with mutual funds, and Roth is as fascinating as a car wreck, every time.

These days, I'm glad I got started collecting a little late. I vividly remember the sense of discovery when I realized that other people who did not fit in, musically or otherwise, had a place to go & congregate. Like the island of misfit toys, for burgeoning adults. Amazing! And I learned that these wonderful places were called (say it with me now) college... radio... stations. I worked at one (lived there between apartments even), and doing so helped me get a job at a record store in the early 90s. Didn't know much when I started, but loved having the top of my head ripped open day in & day out by mysterious black slabs of Pierre Henry or Albert Ayler. Experiences akin to seeing the face of Jesus on a piece of toast- except that it's as real as the hand on the end of your arm. One day another employee mentioned that a particular indie rock band was boring. I think I actually sucked in my breath, as although I'd heard plenty of guys in doc martins & hair dye knock Eric Crapton, I'd never heard any of them disparage some poor, tiny band of freaks. I slowly realized, that what makes music good is neither it's popularity nor it's obscurity, but simply it's quality. And that this was something you could learn to figure out, without the help of glossy magazines or tv specials, or even any local blowhards who might like to hold court. In a world overrun with crap, advertising, fear, etc., developing your own ear is a defense against meaninglessness, ugliness, shallowness, and idiocy. And here in my fortress, hidden behind my mounds & piles of music, I'm happy to say that I'm all loaded up & ready to shoot.

This month, the record shop I run is having a sale, because it's November and that's what I think should happen when people are thinking about getting their friends Christmas presents. It's not how most shops work- but I like to think of this shop as a place that zigs when everybody else zags. It's not a bad way to be. There's no money in it of course. I scrape for change & put things back on the shelf every time I go to the grocery store, and I try to stretch between trips too. But there's a lot of fun to be had. This autumn I learned to improve my duck call blowing, got a teensy bit better at the ukulele, accidentally whacked a guy in the balls with a mike stand while visiting Chicago, received several odd objets d'art from pals (one blew bubbles!), attended a Balkan-themed dinner party... And the records! Oh, dear me what sounds have been flying around in the air here! Columbian cumbias, zombie groans from Germany, field recordings of wallabies playing in waterfalls, the funny fartings of Danish policeman, drunken Peruvian teenagers on juvenile delinquent rampages. And you can bet that's just the short list.

please find Angela & company at:
WEIRDO RECORDS
844 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02139
857-413-0154
Images from Weirdo Records
Angela's Bands:
EXUSAMWA
DUCK THAT

JASON URICK: Avoid Cleaning or Jogging

Jason Urick lives at Floristree space, loves football, beer & Camels, used to perform as Moonstealingproject, and has had white hair since adolescence. He spearheaded festivals, a record shop, an underground venue (slash home), and participated in projects such as Spirit Stallion, a pastiche band comprised of a varying cast (including OXES' Mark Miller) whose often-hilarious performances poked fun at the music industry's more self-important side with Guitar Center pranks and PowerPoint presentations. Lately, his solo album Husbands has been garnering loads of positive attention, a split 7" with kindred Baltimorean Jason Willett appeared last week from Wildfire Wildfire and a trip to Europe is in the works. Jason is a lighting rod for Charm City's musical climate; his longevity in the scene and knack for storytelling makes him a griot of sorts, his charm and humor draws people to him, and his expansive taste and enthusiasm keep him thirsty for everything the music interworld has to offer.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
I do what I do, and sometimes I forget I do it. I make music but have never been a "musician"... but I do it because I don't know how not to. I book shows at Floristree, but I'm trying to do that less. I used to do owning a record store, running the Once.Twice Festival, rooting for the Redskins, playing in Wzt Hearts and living in Chicago... but I no longer do those things for various reasons.

Lately I have been doing putting out my first solo record, trying to figure out how to a be a laptop performer without boring myself and paying spectators alike, rooting for the Ravens and not booking shows (sorry everyone who has been emailing me for shows).

Jason's new album Husbands, out now on Thrill Jockey Records

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

I've been making music for about 14 years now... I started late. I tried to learn guitar in 8th grade... errrr... I tried and succeeded in learning how to play the intro to Crazy Train on guitar in 8th grade and assumed that's all there was for me to do on that instrument. Wait, I actually also had a short lived "band" in 6th grade called Arcangel. We had one friend with a guitar, and I made a "bass" out of a shoe box and 3 rubber bands with a Fisher Price tape machine mic inside to amplify it. Our drummer had buckets... we "practiced" twice. We did have a cool logo that we drew on our binders. Our influences were mainly Faith No More, D.A.D., Anthrax and Bang Tango. If I knew then what I know now I would've named our band the Shitty Tinklers, because thats how my memory of it sounds.
I didn't tackle music again until after High School when I decided that I could easily be that dude in Pavement that played a snare drum and made weird sounds on a synth. I got a Roland Juno 6 for my birthday and made my guitar whiz friend Jeff Kmieciak and co-worker Zach Mason start a band with me. We found a drummer via the City Paper, his name was Ferdinand and he was a 30 year-old Phillipino guy. He was really rad and live in the basement of his parents home amongst like 8,000 CDs. We called ourselves Fashionable Kitsch and turned down both shows we were ever offered. We practiced for about a year, but I quit when we started playing songs the same way more than once. I wouldn't be in a band again until Wzt Hearts which worked because we didn't even like to practice at all, so there was no way we would have to play the same song twice.

I don't like to practice... I should've listed that in the first question as something I don't do.

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?

I do these things because I wake up thinking about doing these things often, and other times I go to bed thinking of doing these things. I don't know why. Some people wake up thinking that that they need to clean their room or jog. If you know me well I rarely think of these things when I wake or go to bed. Therefore I make music instead of cleaning. Maybe I do it to avoid cleaning or jogging... I never really thought of that until just now.

It sucks when I am unable to do these things because that means I am possibly cleaning or working or jogging...wait, that's not true, I never jog. These things I like less than making music. It feels good to make music when I'm making it because it relaxes me,... it feels natural when it's going well... I don't think of anything else at that moment.

Jason Willett (left) & Jason Urick, photo by Devon Daimler

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are? What happened?
Is this a nature/nurture question? It feels like a mind trap... I'm not sure when that moment was or rather I am possibly unable to gather all the little moments that added up to make me what I am.... I would have to start early with something that happened in childhood like getting beat up in 2nd grade or seeing a Devo video on MTV, but I'm not sure if they mattered or if they actually happened. Though for sure at some point in early High School I realized that I liked music more than I liked most things but it was more like I always knew it but didn't know I knew it.... if that makes sense. I think maybe once I realized that Arcangel wasn't going to ever match the success of Guns N' Roses I put away this knowledge but once I saw Fugazi at Ft. Reno and they were walking around drinking lemonade with the crowd before and after the show, I guess I realized a world where the boundaries were more blurred.

I always imagined my role would be as a record store owner, or running a label or promoter. And it was for a while... it wasn't until Wzt Hearts were I felt more comfortable with the idea that I'd rather be making the music above all else.

How has your life changed to accommodate That Moment's effect on you?
It's hard to say because I don't know any other way. My life before what we have maybe pinpointed as the general time period that The Moment may have happened was most likely was spent mostly going to Junior High School, and watching Fresh Prince Of Bel Air while eating pizza bagels... now I watch thrift store VHS tapes (last one was Gladiator) while eating homemade pizza.

How has your work affected your life in return?

Well, I think it changed in mostly positive ways. I feel like the sense of community that you get from being involved with music has taught me a lot. I'm not sure what lead to what, but I feel like I need less to be happy than people I see that don't have that sort of community available to them. I dunno....



What do you think of the future?

I've been angry at the future ever since it failed to live up to the promise of hover boards by the year 2000. I'm also angry at the future for living up to Orwell's 1984 a little too much.

What does David Lee Roth mean to you?
A superior 1984 in some ways to the previously mentioned one.

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?
Remember when Floristree dressed up as the Lexie Mountain Boys? That was cool.
I remember this as the best thing that happened to me that I wasn't there for. Same as being born! That was cool and about time too. Do you like how I just coined the word "interworld"?

Jason Urick/ Jason Willett 7" on Wildfire Wildfire
Jason Urick Husbands on Thrill Jockey Records

BONNIE JONES: Foods, Toothaches

Bonnie performing at High Zero Festival; photo by Michael Anton Parker

"Born in 1977 in South Korea, Bonnie Jones was raised by dairy farmers in New Jersey, and currently resides in Baltimore, MD. In sound performances Bonnie plays the circuit boards of digital delay pedals. Her primary sound collaborators are Joe Foster in Korea (as the duet “English”) and Andy Hayleck. She is also a member of the Performance Thanatology Research Society, a interdisciplinary performance group dedicated to the advancement of a higher histrionics brought on by imminent finalities. Bonnie has performed at the Kim Dae Hwan Museum, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, the ErstQuake Festival, and the 14 Karat Cabaret. She is currently an MFA candidate at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College." She's obsessed with the microtonal and the microsyntactic, but she parties like a bear in a stream, is always ready with a joke and will roast you a chicken any day of the week. Whether its wearing fake teeth at the 14Karat Cabaret while Blaster Al Ackerman tosses red glitter about in a dental monologue, or masterminding elaborate, sophisticated events, Bonnie's body of work is varied, exciting, and, best of all, just begun.

English: Bonnie Jones & Joe Foster

What do you do?

I make music with broken digital delay pedals and microphones. I make sound/text compositions. I sometimes perform these sound/text pieces. I write a little prose and a little poetry. Lately I've been practicing my variousness with seriousness.

How long have you done these things?
I've been inputting for 32 years and outputting at a low frequency for about 20 years and at a higher more accessible frequency for about 10 years.

Why do you do them? How does it make you feel?

I do these things because it makes me feel human and closer to other humans and helps me understand things - My things and other people's things and non-human things. I feel pretty good about it on the whole. Sometimes though it's better for things not to be understood. That's also what I'm learning these days.

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

I'm not so sure yet what I am to become so that's a hard question. There might instead be a series of self-defining moments - one after the other after the other in a rapid motion through time. Oh this is what it's going to be like, oh this is what it is, oh this is another one. The last one I remember was when I realized I wanted to stop thinking about everything as a problem to be solved. First off - everything is not a problem and every problem doesn't need to be solved.

How has your life changed or not changed to accommodate that moment's effect on you?

To the last moment, I'm taking a lot more time experiencing things. People, sounds, foods, toothaches, closenesses and farnesses. I'm starting up an old machine that is latent in me called - experiential living. Also - I'm thinking about how if I want to make things that are very fast, complicated and layered --- how they can really communicate this idea of slowing down and paying attention that I find to be so intriguing these days.

How has your work affected your life in return?

Every time I make something I wonder.

Bonnie atop a human pyramid during a Lexie Mountain Boys performance for Sophia Dixon's Glowworms at Current Space, Baltimore MD 2007.
L - R, top to bottom: Bonnie, Samantha Garner, Lauren Bender, Nicola Knight, Amy Waller, Liz Flyntz, Megan Reid, Jen Kirby

How does David Lee Roth make you feel?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgo-ks37M2s

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?
I'm wondering how you do your hair? Or what your hair routine is like each morning/evening/every other day? Also I'm wondering what you're working on these days.

Wash with a mixture of pearls and enchilada sauce, comb thrice with cat's paw to increase shine, apply coagulated salve of baby tears beneath a fountain of cold running water and upon drying much prayer is necessitated so any curl will hold even after the sun has set. The trick is never changing the basic shape ever for years and always making sure it looks like David Lee Roth in the darkness but without the balding part and the shameful cutting of the locks once he reacheth fifty. Tender shampooing is always careful, on the condition that one does not transmit head lice to a family of four in Portsmouth, NM. Including dog. Some things cannot be helped, and the itching persists for years. Nature's Gate opens the herbal way to a deep shine on my checkbook, ordered by the gallon and biotin its cousin and friend also soaking me for the long run. DO NOT BRUSH WHEN WET!! Do this every other or every third day as the weather and smell in the air dictates. Lately, I've been working on a remix of a song and it will be debuted at Mirkwood sometime this month of November 2009.

baltimoreperformance.com/lossolos
bonniejones.wordpress.com

IAN NAGOSKI: Exciting Monkey Times!

Ian Nagoski & daughter June

Record collector Ian Nagoski has been many things: experimental musician, vocalist, trader, journalist, cabbie, and part of the brains behind the first years of True Vine Records in Baltimore. These days, Ian's time is given over to his beloved 78s; collecting slabs of the fragile format, trading with other enthusiasts, and sharing his knowledge of the music's histories at occasional listening parties. After the success of The Black Mirror, Ian's extraordinary and thorough compilation of global music on 78s, he formed Canary Records. He remains a font of enthusiasm for the world of endangered song, deeply committed to the genuine experience of music.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
Dream into sound... Hustle sides...Like a lot of artists and many other people, I'm trying to re-balance a world out of balance. There are mistakes to rectify and lies to be replaced with truth. I'm one of those who sees their purpose in working from deeply held beliefs toward adjusting the course of things. For me, it's music and the ideas and stories that surround it and the qualities of the pleasures it can give, particularly the pleasures of the operation of memory, that keep engaging me. Lately, over the past couple years in particular, I've been learning the stories and musics of good musicians, long dead, to answer questions about the recent cultural problems of group relationships in the U.S. - the problems of "us-and-them." I'm trying to create feelings of compassion and wonder by presenting old recordings and suggest irreducibility of human dignity through the meaning of the brief lives of the performers - heartening evidence of universal human genius and a question about where feelings come from. What are they? Shortly, there will be another expression of my own sound to finish, but those things take a long time for me.

How long have you done these things?
I liked studying and listening to music since I was a little kid, and somehow I was identified socially pretty early for my passion for it - certainly by 11 or 12. Through my 10s and 20s, I mostly worked on my own music, wanting to be given appreciation and understanding for it. Even through that time, I gathered stories, wanting to be educated, and celebrated people who I thought ought to celebrated.


Why do you do them? How does it make you feel?
It makes me feel a little less like a pair of eyeballs floating in space.

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what
you are? What happened?
There are many, but the first one that jumps to mind: I remember watching the film of the Coltrane quintet with Dolphy in Europe in '61 when I was in my late 10s, sitting at a monitor in the library and thinking that I understood dignity and grace and honesty for the first time. "That's how a person should behave," I thought. It was as if they had invented themselves. It just seemed obvious that every person would want to play a sound that was like that, full of crying out and deeply intelligent, and make statements as bold as that.

How has your life changed or not changed to accommodate that moment's effect on you?
I've given myself over to those feelings and that image in my mind, totally.

How has your work affected your life in return?
It has given me purpose and comfort in the face of death. It has been a good way to open lines of communication with people. And it has opened me up to the world experientially and intellectually.


David Lee Roth?
= exciting monkey times!

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?
Knowing that you're Lebanese, I've been meaning to ask you about your family history. You sister told me about your grandmother and her hand tattoo, which was wonderful to hear, although I didn't quite understand the story. But it made an impression. Can you tell me that story? Were you raised in the Eastern Church? Can you tell me about the Maronites? Were you exposed to music in Arabic in Massachusetts?
It was actually our grandmother's mother who had tattooed hands; according to Kadra family lore at the age of 15 she bore five children and when they all passed away she traveled to the Unites States and had five more. Our grandmother Julia was one of the last surviving members of this family; she herself passed away before I was able to get much out of her besides the above story. She was Catholic, and since the man she married was Catholic and Italian-Irish to boot, she went with him to his parish St Tarcisius in Framingham, Massachusetts. They are both interred in that church's yard. She never mentioned the Maronites, didn't speak any Arabic, listened to Nat King Cole and preferred the Pope above all. She did, however, tell our father that we're related to Kahlil Gibran, and as far as her cooking goes she made a mean kibbeh. Raw, with the fist print in it and everything.

Black Mirror/ Canary Records

www.myspace.com/theblackmirror
www.facebook.com/iannagoski