q and also a :: Sunwatchers
PunkJazzDroners Sunwatchers sent us these answers to our questions in this next installment of q and also a…
q: What is the last song you (really) heard?
a: Just got up this morning and really dug into Bix Beiderbecke’s “Barnacle Bill The Sailor†— which is a perfect, queazy combo of the disorientation of original Popeye cartoons and sheer and utter conviction on the part of the players: The Ayler Brothers hanging out with Wimpy the Hamburger Man and The Sea Hag. Before that, it was “Decadence†by Kevin Ayers, which is evidently his purloined lovesong for Nico. Never has a marriage of title and atmosphere been more apt than this.
q: What is the first album you remember purchasing?
a: I probably saw the one and only time that the video for “Dirty Boulevard†aired on MTV. It was a weekday morning before I went to fourth grade. Hence, I went and bought a cassette copy of Lou Reed’s “New York†at Trent Brothers’ Records and Tapes in Reidsville, NC. Fortuitous.
q: Is there an album you wished you knew about when you were younger?
a: Ah, hard to say. Some great shit washed up on my weird small-town island when I was hungry to hear it and, pre-internet, it was still up to chance to a certain degree: Ramones, Germs, Velvet Underground, Hank Williams, Mingus. Still my favorite records. But, if I were pressed to say something: i wish, at an earlier age, I knew that Henry Flynt and I shared a common native locale and a highly harmonic cosmology, musicality, and explosive distrust of elitism. It would have validated a lot of my predilections as a Southern Weirdo at, say, eighteen years of age…..
q: What is the last album you purchased?
a: I just bought two vinyl copies of the Invisible Circle S/T record on Gold Bolus. It’s that good. Also, I just ordered the Ork Records 45 boxset from Numero Group, with Feelies, Alex Chilton, Richard Hell rarities, etc. Can’t wait for it to get here.
q: What is your favorite artist/band to see live?
a: Boredoms brought me to tears one time; will never get over that. I heard Roscoe Mitchell do the most amazing polyharmonic thing once, and I swore that two horn players had just walked in the room behind me — it was the most psychedelic experience I’ve ever had at (someone else’s) performance. My all-time fave show, probably, was seeing Los Crudos play a house show in NC in, about, 1995. Those three.
q: How exactly did you name your band?
a: Makes sense for us; we are named after a song that Albert Ayler wrote in honor of his new fixation/religion. It’s got a crazed free-noise/Booker T vibe. So, yeh, makes sense for us.
q: What piece(s) of culture are you really really excited about right now?
a: As per usual: Grassroots Organization and Mutual Aid on all levels of life. Musical/Arts-based; Educational; Political. Beyond that, not much matters.
q: Anything we should know about your latest project (whatever that might be)?
a: SUNWATCHERS STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE DISPOSSESSED, IMPOVERISHED AND EMBATTLED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD.
Listen to Eusubius by Sunwatchers:
You can purchase their self-titled LP @ castlefacerecords.com
See Sunwatchers LIVE!
April 20 @ Palisades (Brooklyn, NY)
April 23 @ Dreamland Theater (Ypsilanti, MI)
May 6 @ The Midway Café (Jamaica Plain, MA)
Sunwatchers are on Bandcamp
Sunwatchers are on Facebook
Sunwatchers are on Castleface
