Our next series of q and also a comes from the duo of James and Brett from experimental gameboyDS noise outfit Endless Endless Endless.
q: What is the last song you (really) heard?
j: I have been going through a big Arvo Pärt phase right now and I’m loving his stuff, the only problem is the huge changes in decibels don’t work so well when i am on the train. I like the music to be louder then the talking of other people so when the music gets quiet I turn it up really loud, then when it swells it blows out my ears. I know that the dynamics are so important to the music, but unfortunately I listen in the worst way ;( But it does make me think I should listen to and understand more about plainsong.
Listen: Te Deum (youtube)
b: Throw Aggi Off The Bridge (mp3) by Black Tambourine. I was listening to Black Tambourine in my headphones while I was doing work around my apartment… and then this song came on I had to stop what I was doing and just pay attention. There’s a lot going on here: a great bass line, surprisingly aggressive drums, fuzzy guitar, melodramatic lyrics… all things I’m totally a sucker for.
q: What is your favorite food?:
j: My wife’s cooking is my favorite food. We are both vegetarian and we grow many of our own vegetables and one of my favorite meals is her roasted veggies. You can see a photo of them here on her flickr and you can see many more of her meals on the same site.
b: Easy, burritos. I’ve been burrito crazed for years now; it’s surprisingly how not morbidly obese I am.
q: What is your favorite band to see live?
j: This is very old, but years ago in like 1996 i went to see The VSS and Rye Coalition in a basement where I grew up on the jersey shore. It was supposed to be the last show for Rye and they lit their drums on fire which was really crazy. It was a great show because it was so packed with kids who were so excited. I remember the drummer handed someone his bass drum foot pedal and then poured lighter fluid all over the drums. It was scary because of the 40 or more kids jammed in a basement and this huge fire. Maybe not a good idea and we were lucky no one got hurt. And The VSS were so different from the hardcore scene. Now it does not seem so weird but they were very odd at the time with their Bowie look and synth sounds. They had a homemade light show and the singer had sunglasses strapped to his head, He had the audience get really close then he would fall into them as he sang and worked the lights. No one I was with knew much about The VSS except that they were ex Angel Hair and we were floored. They no records out at the time only some shirts. I remember they were random thrift store button down shirts with the band graphic silk screened over them which was all the rage at the time. The other bands were Bare Minimum a slowcore band and I think the other band was Codger which was some kind of in-joke band or something, they were supposed to be the “loudest” band but they just kept blowing the fuses every time they played, or maybe that was the joke, who knows.
Watch: Rye Coalition Live 1995 (youtube)
Watch: The VSS Live 1995 (youtube)
b: That’s a tough call. My favorite show of recent memory was the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour show at the end of 2008. It was in the upstairs of this venue in Michigan. The tour was this huge list of bands I had listened to almost exclusively in high school (Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control/Circulatory System, The Gerbils); it was really surreal to see them all (especially since most bands hadn’t been active since the 90’s). It had this great family vibe to it, with a ton of overlap of band members, lots of instrument swapping, and audience sing alongs. The moment when Jeff Mangum came on stage and everyone went apeshit will be stuck in my mind for a long time.
Watch: Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour (youtube)
Listen:
King Of Carrot Flowers (Part 1) (mp3) by Neutral Milk Hotel
I’m Not Feeling Human (mp3) by The Olivia Tremor Control
Overjoyed (mp3) by Circulatory System
Are You Underwater (mp3) by The Gerbils
q: What is your favorite venue in NYC (if applicable)?
j: We don’t play enough shows to have a favorite venue to play so if you want to book us please do.. but other then that I really liked the Todd P barbecues on the beach and Roosevelt island. I like sitting outside and chilling while listening to music without too much of a crowd. I know its like barely hearing most of the bands but its pretty great none the less.
Watch: Aa play Todd P’s Acoustic BBQ (youtube)
b: I really like the Todd P BBQ setup as well. I also really like Monster Island Basement. The intimacy is pretty amazing, especially with the lack of stage. It was even better when they didn’t have doors on the bathrooms, so you had to wait to pee till people were clapping. That was hilarious/awesome.
q: OK, President Obama appoints you as the first Secretary of Culture, to whom do you give your first grant?
j: I would say Anthony Saunders who performs as Explosive Improvised Device. He is a noise musician who mixes his love of the visceral power of noise and metal with a precision approach to the music. He thinks about his compositions in the way composers in the middle of the 20th century did as some sort of technicians or specialists. You can read Milton Babbitt’s essay about the subject… here. His music would be helped by a grant where he just writes noise music for 4 hours everyday for years and I’m sure Obama would agree how that would be great for America in the long run.
Listen: My Castle Of Quiet sessions (wfmu link, follow it) by Explosive Improvised Device.
b: I’d give it to Boredoms or Rhys Chatham, somebody who’d use it to put on some giant spectacle with a huge amount of musicians. I was fortunate enough to see both the Boredom’s 9/9/9 drummer set-up and the performance of Chatham’s A Crimson Grail (with only 200 guitars though…) last year, and both were pretty mind boggling experiences. The weird physicality of that much sound in a space is something more people should get to experience.
Watch: Boredom’s 9/9/9 (youtube)
Watch: Chatham’s A Crimson Grail (youtube)
q: Anything we should know about your latest project (whatever that might be)?
j: Our latest project is Things I Saw 3″cdr now available on Kimberly Dawn Recordings. This new recording captures the energy of the bands recording process of gameboy, guitar, and go, two musicians performing on a single take. All 4 of the tracks on this cdr were improvised and recorded at a single session, the first 3 songs (North, South and West) are all sections of a single jam while the last song is more of a rhythmic burner from the same day. As far as approach to improvising and playing for myself NNCK is one of the most influential bands. I was felt that they tried to rethink how to play anything each time they played, and of course that is impossible but it came through in seeing them. I know this sounds awkward but I try and reach that point in my gameboy DS playing, not knowing what is the next move and then making it, I hope some of that going without a net comes across in the new record.
Listen: Salai Widnalas (mp3) by No-Neck Blues Band a/k/a NNCK
b: What James said! I’m really psyched on Things I Saw, which came out as a really cool document of things just sort of clicking for us for a big stretch of time. Our next couple tapes we’re putting out soon are all a little different. There’s a lot more acoustic instrumentation on the new stuff, which gives it a pretty different sound. We’re also working on a few more objects in the vein of the Talisman we put out with our first release.
Listen: West (mp3)
Buy Black Talisman directly from the band (cassettes only, CDs sold out)… here.
Here is a track from Black Talisman.
Listen: I Remember (mp3)
Also, check out their free digital-only releases:
Sprawl
Split
Sun
Jewel Eye
June
Ways To Go
Endless Endless Endless is on the internet.
Endless Endless Endless is on Facebook.
Endless Endless Endless is on Last.fm.
Endless Endless Endless is on Vimeo.
Kimberly Dawn Recordings is here.
