So once again we've opened our wallets (and some may say our hearts) for you guys. This time it's not free beer, but it's a podcast that we don't have to take down. (we had to take down the old one because we used 100gigabytes of bandwidth in a couple days).
just click below on the appropriate link, and you will be on your way to downloading our podcast & projection2 (just in case you haven't already).
MON: Yeasayer/MGMT (Granada) WED: Lupe Fiasco/Optimus/Sessions (House of Blues) THU: High on Fire/A Life Once Lost/Saviours/RWAKE (Rubber Gloves) FRI: The Party (Zubar) FRI: Dub Assembly (Green Elephant) FRI: Bell Biv Devoe/Keith Sweat/Tony Toni Tone/Guy (Nokia Theater) SAT: Rogue Wave/Midnight Movies (Hailey's) SAT: Hot Flash One Year Anniversary (Fallout Lounge) SUN: Wyclef (House of Blues)
Sorry cuties, we gotta give you a slimmed down list this week, but give us a break. We've done a lot in the past few days, and theres more to come next week:
FRIDAY
Rosemary Malign | Steel Hook Prostheses | Concrete Violin | Werewolf Jerusalem | Aphonic Curtains (House of Tinnitus) Another wildly disturbing House of Tinnitus show might be exactly what the doctor ordered for me this evening. Headliner Rosemary Malign's music is particularly dark and rough, even for H.O.T., utilizing what sound like found vocal audio clips with an overwhelming mixture of stop/start fuzz, feedback and the kind of electronic sounds that might call to mind the sounds two cars make in a head on collision-- truly an angry collage of abstract violence. Concrete Violin appears to be another highlight here, with a slightly more subdued yet equally interesting approach. We also heard a rumor that Akkolyte was playing, but we aren't sure-- can someone confirm or deny this?
Les SavyFav | Fatal Flying Guilloteens | Mom (the Loft) I'm not really that big of a Les SavyFav guy. They're one of those bands that is loved by a lot of people I respect, but every time I hear them, I just fail to see what the big deal is. But people who dig them can't seem to shut up about how good their live shows are, so if you like these guys, it will probably be well worth it for you.
Florene | Peel | A Childlike Fear (3114 Swiss Ave) These Swiss Ave. house shows have become quite popular in Dallas, a town that desperately needs more shows in places that aren't lame bars. And thats a good thing. The line up tonight includes Austin's surprisingly solid indie pop outfit Peel, who will bring some rock to an otherwise mellow line up. Usually starts around 10, picks up at midnight and goes till well past two. Pretty much always a good time no matter who is playing. BYOB $5.
Poison the Well | The Locust | Dance Gavin Dance | A Girl A Gun and A Ghost (the Door) Yeah, I know. The Door. No smoking and energy drinks and the worst kind of covert Christian crusading masking itself as some form of "counterculture." Gross. But the Locust is playing there, so it might be worth mentioning, even if I would have a real problem giving this place one dime. Actually, seeing those dudes play a Christian venue could end up being more than entertaining unless they end up pulling a Jesus coup like Insane Clown Posse or something.... I've never seen them live, but I'm sure its great.
Big J will be having his birthday party at the Cavern tonight featuring an MC battle of some kind. Sorry, don't have any more details on this.
Laptop Deathmatch (Sloppyworld) Laptop Deathmatch returns with a lot its regulars to Sloppyworld, which is honestly becoming one of the better places to see a show in Dallas: very solid sound, nice stage, relaxed atmosphere, good crowds and BYOB. Hint hint Dallas... people will get into these kinds of places if you do it right.
Backsliders | Dragna | RTB2 and more (Bar of Soap) Bar of Soap reminds me of that bar in the movie Tombstone. You know, the one that is so rough and tough and filled with Billy Bob Thornton's beard that even the regular cowboys won't drop in. But aside from its bad rep, Bar of Soap isn't that terrible (the air hockey rules) sometimes. Anyway, they are apparently holding this all day fest to help save the place from financial problems, although I'm not clear as to what the problems are, exactly, or what they need to solve them. Starts at 330pm and goes all day and night... I'd give you the full line up, but I want to go home and I don't really care. Thanks!
The Wax Museums | Estrogen Highs | Stymie | Moto (Xtreme Dudes Manor) You'll have to hurry to make it to Xtreme Dudes Manor, bbq starts at five, with music at seven. Besides the usual greatness of Wax Museums, tonight's standout group is Estrogen Highs, who sometimes sound like a slightly more ragged Modern Lovers , or something straight off of their "Live in Berkeley and Boston" record. I should also mention that Stymie just put out a seven inch on Denton's Gnarly Slaughter Records, who have also released music by WSJR Projection contributors, The Bleach Boys.
You've got about two hours to head over to Good Records to catch an in store with Ben Chasny'sSix Organs of Admittance. Starts at 6.
Six Organs of Admittance | Zanzibar Snails | Dust Congress (the Cavern) In my interview with Ben Chasny last week, we talked about his different recording techniques and the various, often opposing musical influences that seem to creep into his work. The combination of these elements that can be found on the latest Six Organs record doesn't produce the kind of results that, say, School of the Flower did, but after a couple years of listening to his catalogue and getting a chance to speak with him, I'm quite confident that he'll continue to do interesting things, even if his latest material isn't quite my favorite. I've read that he'll be doing a lot more acoustic stuff than noise on this tour, and I think the Cavern (despite its many problems) will be the perfect intimate venue for this show.
Several weeks ago, we realized that it had been over a year since we released our last local music podcast/compilation CD, and we thought it was about time to do it again. So for the past few weeks, we've been gathering tracks from some of our favorite local artists in an attempt to put together a compilation that accurately highlights the interesting things going on in the area right now. Projection 002 is the result of this effort.
What you'll hear on Projection 002 is a wide variety of sounds from Denton, Dallas, Ft. Worth and elsewhere in the area. Many of them may surprise you. You'll find a brand new track from Ghosthustler that you'll probably agree is their best song yet. You'll hear fantastic hip hop tracks from Krispee Ones associates Hawatha Hurd and Damaged Goods. You'll be floored by a catchy, ferocious and absolutely killer opening track from Record Hop (recorded with Steve Albini). You'll peek through the haze as the underappreciated Mundo and Liften MC lay down a druggy, bass in your face dubstep track. You'll marvel at beautiful tracks from Mom and J Gray, and get a chance to hear Chris Garver rock the fuck out on one of his best songs to date. Of course we could go on and on, but rather than telling you about each track, we'll just tell you that we're really excited about this collection of songs, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
The podcast is just that: one podcast containing all the tracks you see below. The MP3 downloads are split into two seperate MP3s as indicated below. And within the next couple of weeks, you'll start to notice double disc hard copies of Projection 002 appearing magically in places that many of our readers frequent, and we'll give you the details on all of that very soon. Enjoy! (UPDATE: If you look down and see that the podcast is missing, it's because we're having bandwidth issues-- we've had an unexpcted number of downloads up to this point, so we've decided to temporarily remove the podcast and to transfer the MP3s to a file hosting site for now. So you can still download the MP3s via the links below, and we'll give you more details on the podcast and other formats soon. Sorry.--SR
to download Projection 002 directly as two MP3s, use these links: Part 1 Part 2
The tracklist:
Part 1 1. Record Hop "End of the Line" 2. Ghosthustler "Only Me To Trust" 3. Damaged Goods "I'm Killin Em" 4. Hawatha Hurd "Fuckin' with Me (Krispee Ones Lacquer Remix)" 5. Peephole "Lacquered Strawberry (Lacquer Remix)" 6. Violent Squid "Sassy Mink" 7. Transona Five "No Motor" 8. The Frenz "Burn Session" 9. Mundo and Lifted MC "Kill Softly" 10. Electronik Warfare "Real-ize" 11. The Great Tyrant "Take Care"
Part 2 1. Bleach Boys "Pukewave" 2. Koji Kondo "Armand Bonvincin" 3. Koji Kondo "Hypothetical Bong Violence" 4. Chris Garver "Captives of a Furious Nation" 5. Farah "Law of Life (Remix)" 6. Mom "Green Echo" 7. Shiny Around the Edges "Applied Quantum Physics" 8. Dust Congress "Kravche" 9. J Gray "Stop Playing Those Sad Songs" 10. Matthew and the Arrogant Sea "Pretty Purple Top Hat" 11. Mom "Giant Wings" 12. J Gray "You Are the Golden Child" 13. Zanzibar Snails "Brown Dwarf (Omega)"
Amandla | The Frenz | Vaqueros Electronicos (Club Dada) Interesting lineup with headliner Amandla, a group fronted by,Claude Coleman, who is mostly known for his session player chops in Ween. Indeed, when I saw Ween several years ago, he was certainly the most entertaining part of the show. His solo project sounds kind of like a less funky Jamiroquai. Not sure what the lineup for The Frenz is going to be like tonight, but I heard Gini Mascorro drop simply "Wanz Dover" on NPR today. Does anyone know Gini Mascorro? What's she like?
Folks from the Loft decided to hook us up with a pair of tickets to Friday's Les Savy Fav show, and we're going to pass them on to you. So if you want em, email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com any time between NOW and TOMORROW (Wed) at Noon. It's short notice, but we gotta do what we gotta do. Be sure to use "Les Savy Fav" as the subject line and include your full name in the email. Good luck brahz!
We're happy to present to you a little project that Red Monroe has been working on for quite some time. A few months ago, the guys in the band told us that they had asked several DJs and bands to remix each track on their album Policia! Policia!, and were wondering if we might be interested in hosting its release. Of course we were intrigued by the idea initially, but we wanted to find out a little bit more about the project before we decided to commit-- after all, "remix" albums often, um, suck.
Happily, after hearing a bit more about what the guys wanted to do and getting a chance to sample some of the material, we realized that this remix album would not suck.
Turns out we were right (as usual). The album features ten solid remixes, with most tracks exhibiting different stylistic qualities drawn from various genres of electronic music and some bringing a sharper focus on the dance floor, which serves as a pleasantly surprising change of pace for the band. The variety of sounds and textures covered throughout the album is impressive, but the way that the sequencing seems to bring everything together is probably the project's most noteworthy feature. Everything from distorted disco (Frenz) to strangely melodic yet glitchy paranoia (Treewave) to relaxed ambient passages (Mom) can be found here, and I think many of you will be pleasantly surprised with the contributions from various locals. See for yourself--
The Tracklist:
1.) Trees and Poor Houses - DJ Stephen R 2.) ¡Policia!¡Policia! - Jasinski 3.) The Sundown Shade - The Frenz 4.) Midnight Rites - Picnic 5.) City Boy Motel - The Hourly Radio 6.) Lion in Waiting - Treewave 7.) Fever Kids - Smile Smile 8.) Sunday Papers - Kriminal Klub 9.) Governor's Ball - Mom 10.) ¡Policia!¡Policia! (reprise) - Jay Wadley
Nothing much tonight, except for the usual Cool Out at The Cavern and Jazz at the Amsterdam. This new site design makes it fun even to say there's not much going on. Special thanks to our pal, Cliff Notes, for all the hard work and lost sleep.
If you are looking at this through weshotjr.blogspot.com, then switch over to http://www.weshotjr.com | because we are no longer using blogspot/blogger.
For the past few months, we've been thinking about what we can do to improve our blog and expand what it is we do here, and what you see in front of you is the beginning of this process. But before I explain our new features to you, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our new friends at News Corp. for providing the funding we needed to get this done.* We couldn't have done it without you guys!
Here's the deal: the section you're reading right now is same old We Shot J.R. Blog. We're going to continue doing It Lists, interviews, album reviews, DJ mixes, and various other ranting right here, just like we always have. To the right of these posts (at the top of the page) is our new We Shot J.R. News section. We decided that we needed a place to keep you upated on the latest local music news and events that we might not want to devote an entire blog post to, and the News section is where you will find these items. For example, if a band we like releases a video or a seven inch, we'll post that information there. Or if an interesting show line up is announced (both local and touring), you'll find it in our news section before you see it anywhere else in town. We've been lucky enough to convince a couple new friends to help us keep this news section updated as much as possible, and we've even added a new email address just for the news section: news@weshotjr.com . So if you're a band, venue, artist, promoter, or anyone who has some news that you think we'll be interested in, send an email to the new address and tell us about it (our old yahoo email and myspace will still be checked every day as always, but we would prefer that news items be sent to the new address if possible).
Below the news section is where you'll find We Shot J.R. Videos, a project we've been working on for quite some time. In this section you'll find a wide variety of videos that we found funny, interesting, or enjoyable in some way: everything from interviews with William F. Buckley to Violent Squid songs to REM's debut on David Letterman to Mavericks highlights to Cool Kids videos can be found there, and new content will be added daily (brand new videos and golden oldies alike). What you see on the main page is a random sample of five of the videos, and when you click "browse all videos," you'll be sent over to our video mosaic. Just drag your mouse over one of the video squares to find out what it is, and if you want to watch it, click on it and watch. It's as easy as a Diebold machine. And if you have any videos that you think we might like to add, send links to videos@weshotjr.com Below that is where you'll find We Shot J.R. Photos. We decided to ask Sally Glass to expand her role with us and allow us to host her work, and we were happy that she agreed. The photos section is where you'll find all of Sally's pictures from Cool Out, Central Booking events and everything else. Sally will also be expanding what she does for us, and soon you'll start to see band photos from shows, pictures from gallery openings, and shots of all other kinds of things going on in the area. Click on a photo square to see a particular set, or click "browse all photos" to find a mosaic similar to the video section.
And finally, in the next few days you'll see We Shot J.R. Tracks, which will be located at the bottom of the main page. We Shot J.R. Tracks is where you will find links to MP3 downloads that we enjoy-- local, national and international in origin. This section won't include a lot of description, but since you already know that we have better taste in music than you, you can probably just trust us and click away!
And of course, you'll be able to comment anonymously in every single section of the new site. We're currently working on a system that will allow you to register an account if you would like to post under a particular name all the time, but for now, you can fill in an ID (or not) and comment till your little heart's content. We realize that there will be some kinks in the new features at first, but let me assure you that we will be constantly fixing these things and working on new and better features and usability ideas. Feel free to share your stupid opinions with us concerning the new site, and we'll always take your comments into consideration!
In addition to all of our new bells and whistles, we'll also be working hard to provide high quality content more frequently, and once we've had a little time to settle into our new site with our news friends, I think you'll find a vast improvement in our content with same opinions, attitudes and thought that we've always put into what we do. So if you hate us, it probably won't change, but if you like us, you'll probably start to develop a pretty serious crush here in the next few weeks. Thanks so much for reading what we write, and I hope you have as much fun with the new stuff as we expect to.
*The validity of this statement cannot be confirmed at this time
WED: Six Organs of Admittance/Zanzibar Snails/Dust Congress (The Cavern) WED: Six Organs of Admittance (Good Records, 6pm) FRI: Les Savy Fav/Fatal Flying Guilloteens/Mom (the Loft) FRI: Rosemary Malign/Steel Hook Prostheses/Concrete Violin/Werewolf Jerusalem/Aphonic Curtains (House of Tinnitus)
Transona Five | The Theater Fire | Dust Congress | J Gray (Sloppyworld) This show came together for us based mostly on good luck-- Wildcat, a long time Transona Five fan, randomly decided to email the band one day a few months ago to see what they were up to. The guys responded that they were working on new material and were planning on doing a couple shows (one in Dallas and one in Austin), and we asked if they would like us to be involved. And duh, they totally did. So we helped them put this line up together, and here we are. We've discussed Transona Five this week already, and I know most of you know what Theater Fire is all about at this point, but we would highly recommend that you check out Dust Congress and J Gray if you haven't already. I haven't had a chance to see Gray live yet (as he doesn't play solo that often), but I've really been enjoying pretty much every song I've heard on his Myspace page-- his haunting vocals clearly set him apart from the pack, and the eerie, almost psychedelic nature of his music makes the material even more interesting still. If you're going to this show, I'd recommend showing up early to check him out. Show starts at 9 and is BYOB. $5. The order: J Gray, Dust Congress, Theater Fire, Transona Five.
Uptown with Select (Zubar) Select will spin a variety of records tonight at Zubar with no cover.
Paul Slocum (Dunn&Brown) Treewave founder Paul Slocum will be showing several visual art installments tonight at Dunn and Brown gallery. One of them, according to Gorilla vs Bear, will involve 20 people acting out a scene from the TV show Full House. Not kidding. You want us to come check it out, Paul? You got it dude! Starts at 6pm and looks really cool on the D&B website.
Mistress | Rival Gang | Kaboom | Violent Squid (Slutbanger- 1729 Scripture, Denton) Don't have all the details on this show, including the full line up, but we've heard that the above bands will play and that it will get started around 930. BYOB of course.
SATURDAY
Dan Deacon / Florene (Hailey's) Dan Deacon rolls back in to town tonight after an incredibly fun show at the Cavern a few months ago. I had the chance to interview him back in June, and despite his larger than life, goodier exterior, the guy really knows what he's doing musically, and he's made a big impact with fans and critics a alike over the past year. And although people often complain about the stillness of Dallas audiences at shows, Deacon had the Cavern rockin in June (almost by force), which makes me think that a Denton location and an extra six months of a rising profile will result in a big excited crowd at Hailey's. On this, his "Ultimate Reality" tour, Deacon will be joined by fellow Wham City dude Jimmy Joe Roche for a multi media performance that will include a 40 minute original video production with an original soundtrack as well at two live drummers playing along AND a regular solo set from Deacon after the video. It sounds really great, and I can't wait to see how they pull it off.
Hands Up! 90's Party with The Party (The Loft) I'm hoping 90's means tons of new jack swing jams, because I'm always in the mood for that stuff.
Chris Brown and Bow Wow | Soulja Boy | Sean Kingston | Lil Mama (American Airlines Center) Despite the fact that this is a commercial hip hop show, I still bet it would easily be the strangest thing you could do this weekend. And I am dumb enough to kind of like that one Sean Kingston song.
In anticipation of his show with Zanzibar Snailsand Dust Congressat The Cavern on Wednesday, January 16th, we were lucky enough to be able to talk with Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny about his new record, his other band (Comets on Fire), and the way he approaches writing the psychedelic folk, drone and experimental pieces that have made him a critical favorite for the past few years. Chasny will also be playing an in store at Good Records on the 16th at 6pm. Enjoy:
I'll start off with some basic stuff-- when did you start playing guitar and music in general?
I started playing bass guitar when I was sixteen, and a couple years after that I started played acoustic guitar.
What were you interested in playing when you first started?
When I was playing bass, I was mostly playing in garage and punk bands, but I was really only into bands from San Francisco like the Melvins and stuff like that.
How did you progress into the Six Organs stuff you do today?
I don't know, I guess when I was 19 or 20, I picked up an acoustic guitar and it kind of clicked a lot more with me. I grew up in a small town called Eureka, and there was really nobody at the time playing that sort of thing up there, so it was just interesting, and I became interested in acoustic music at that time.
Do you feel like your early interest in punk still has an influence on you as far as Six Organs is concerned?
Well a little bit. I think as far as writing words and songwriting goes, I think King Buzzo is great. Nobody ever really talks about him as a songwriter with words or anything, but I've always been pretty stoked on his lyrics. They don't really make any sense, but they sound great phonetically, like a song like "Night Goat" or something, it just sounds great, so actually, even on the last record, I was consciously working with the words in sort of a King Buzzo realm.
That's a good segue, because I was going to ask you about lyrics-- it seems that over the past few Six Organs releases, lyrics and singing have become more important, like your voice is more central in the mix.
A little bit, but it might change. I look at every record as its own thing, and I'm working on some recordings right now where I don't have any singing and just kind of some wordless vocals, but it seems like everything has been getting more and more toward the last record, which is more singing than I've pretty much ever done, so yeah, for sure.
Was that the result of a change in what you were interested in doing or do you feel like you've become a better singer and have more confidence in your vocals?
(laughs) No, definitely not, I don't feel like I've become a better singer. I'm pretty aware of my limitations as a singer, which is why I never really sang much in the first place. I just go record by record, because the record before this only had a couple songs with singing, and the rest had sort of wordless vocals, so before I even start to write a record, I think whether or not it's going to have a lot of songs on it, and I let the record write itself.
Yeah, I guess a better way to phrase it would be that it seems that you've been more focused on lyrics with words as opposed to the earlier stuff which is more wordless.
Yeah, I guess I have, yeah.
How do you go about writing lyrics? What inspires you and where do you draw your lyrics from?
Usually there isn't like one subject. On this record there actually were specific subjects that I talked about, but usually it comes from different things. Like on School of the Flower I was working on songs when my friend was doing a movie so I kind of wrote lyrics based on his movie. I usually end up writing late at night and kind of pick stuff out later.
What were some of the subjects you were addressing lyrically on the new record?
Lets see. It usually comes from stuff I'm reading at the time, and at the time I was writing this record, I was reading a lot of Paul Virilio, so I was kind of concerned with technology and speed and impending accidents that he always talks about.
I'm not familiar with his work, could you tell me a little about it?
He's a French theorist and he really talks a lot about speed and how speed comes before power, and in recent pieces he talks about how any sort of technological advance sets up the idea of accidents, so he says that when the locomotive was invented, so was the crash, and when the car was invented, the same thing, a crash. And so then you have nuclear technology with accidents, and with bio mechanics, he talks about the possibility of accidents as well. When you read him, he seems kind of doomsday from one angle, but it's more like a warning, like "hey, pay attention to this kind of thing," so that was what I was reading when I was writing the lyrics. I can't really recommend one particular work by him, but if you get into him, there's stuff all over the Internet about him, and he's pretty awesome.
That's interesting because when I was preparing for this interview, I read the interview that you did on Pitchfork, and one thing that I found interesting is when the interviewer starting asking you about nature and spirituality, you commented that you kind of agree with Werner Herzog's thoughts regarding nature being more about death and chaos than anything else, and I wonder how that view ties in to these lyrical themes on the new album.
Well I was being a little dramatic when I told him that, you know, for the sake of an interesting read, but I think it's so easy in music, in a post new age movement, to talk about nature and be all "hey, we're a bunch of hippies," but if you really look at nature, like the winter time we're in right now, it's kind of brutal, you know?
Yeah, when I listen to Six Organs, it feels meditative to me and it has this organic quality that does make me think about nature and Thoreau and all this stuff, but it doesn't seem like an entirely pleasant or optimistic take.
Yeah.
And that is something that I find interesting too because natural forces in the world around us are always brutal and often unkind and unpleasant, or at least less than ideal.
Yeah, absolutely. And beautiful too. It's a balance.
And I think you're right, that is something that tends not to be explored as much in pop music, particularly from artists from places like San Francisco, which people always associate with hippies and good times and positive attitudes.
Yeah, it's a bit of a curse that I live in San Francisco, I mean, not the actual living situation, which is awesome, but when it comes to people pinpointing musical styles I just want to say "No, No, I just live here because I have to live here!" It's not because of any scene or anything like that.
Yeah, people forget about the Dead Kennedys a lot, huh?
Yeah, totally, exactly. Or Crime or whatever, you know?
So on this new record, the sound was a lot more clear and crisp to me, and a bit less noisy and muddy. Do you agree?
Yeah, it wasn't really conscious, it's just the way it worked out. I recorded this one and Sun Awakens at the same studio, and School of the Flower was recorded at a different studio in Michigan, and those were the only times I've ever really recorded at a studio. Yeah, I can understand the difference with School of the Flower because it was a different studio, but maybe Tim had some tricks up his sleeve or something this time, I don't know, but it just sort of turned out that way.
One of the things I enjoy about your music is what sounds to be the contrast between opposing forces-- there's a gentle undercurrent to your acoustic guitar and singing, but then you seem to have a lot of drone and dissonant noise going on a lot in the background. Do your interests in drone and noise as opposed to acoustic music come from separate places, or do they all come from the same place?
For me they all kind of come from the same place. I remember there was a point when I couldn't put the two together or figure out how they worked together, and at the same time I started playing acoustic guitar, I started having a pretty healthy interest in pretty extreme noise guitar, and I couldn't figure out how to put them together, and I was doing all these projects and recordings and they just weren't going together. But at some point, I realized how they could go together and that is sort of when Six Organs started as a project, trying to put those things together. So originally, they were seperate, but now I see them together. I try to create something beautiful and scary and all together. I just have such an aversion to new age music, and it's funny because sometimes I get described as that, like a "totally mellow listen," and that's fine, but I actually don't enjoy mellow listening stuff and don't listen to it.
Well I've seen it mentioned that John Fahey was an inspiration for you, and you always hear people reference him as an accidental precursor to new age music.
Yeah, it's weird, people have said he was a big influence on me, and I think if you pick up an acoustic guitar, anyone is going to say that he's an influence, but I've actually consciously chosen not to play like Fahey, and I'm actually much more interested in the British guys rather than the Americans. But yeah, he did kind of start it, but he didn't like it either, which is why in his later years he was recording some of the most dissonant and ridiculous music with electric guitars because I think he realized what he started. So I think he started it, but I think he regretted it.
One thing you couldn't call Six Ograns' music is "pop." Do you find that the loose, experimental song structures you utilize allow you to express something that you just couldn't express with a more pop or trad folk approach?
Yeah, I don't really have anything to communicate in a pop form. I don't know why I put the sounds down I just do, I just work on stuff, and the things that I like to make are just usually a little more extended. When I do a song that is shorter, or more pop form, it's more kind of a trick to get people to listen to the rest of the record (laughs). It's like "hey, check this out," and then it ends up being a 20 minute song or something.
With Six Organs, do you write all the parts of all the songs, or do you ever work with other people?
No, not with Six Organs. Six Organs is just me writing. I have a lot of projects with a lot of other people, and if I ever did start working on stuff with someone else, we would probably just start another band.
So do you ever find it frightening in a way to work completely by yourself since you aren't bouncing ideas off of other people when you write?
I think that I've been doing it for so long that it is kind of just natural to me now. It might have been scary if I had never done it before, but luckily when I started doing it there was no one listening, so I could keep doing it while no one listened, like for three or four records, and ten years later, it isn't that big of a deal to me.
What goes through your mind when you read critical reviews of your work?
I usually just consider it to be a good barometer of whether I would want to hang out with the person in general (laughs), and with my record, I probably wouldn't want to share a beer with you. If I was making music that everyone liked, then I wouldn't be making music that's good. It makes total sense that a lot of people wouldn't like the music I do, and it makes sense that a few would. I don't really listen to pop music or music that sells many copies, just because of its nature, so it makes sense that lots of people probably wouldn't like what I do. I just take it with a grain of salt.
What are some of the differences between playing material in a group with Comets on Fire and playing your own material with Six Organs? What are the different things you get out of it?
Well Comets is mostly just about hanging out with friends more than anything. We don't have a lot of creative things coming up because everyone kind of has projects going on and babies and marriages that just happened, but there is still this need for everyone to get together and have a beer and play some music together every once in a while. That is the heart of that band, five guys who are really good friends and just want to play music. That's pretty much the biggest difference. Six Organs is just me and Comets is a total democracy, usually, if it works right.
If you had to choose between playing on your own or playing in bands for the rest of your life, which would appeal to you more?
If it was just between those two, I would play with other people for the rest of my life, but if you're saying I have to play with the same people for the rest of my life, I would probably choose to play by myself.
Aside from musical influences, what else in your life influences your music?
It's crazy now, it's just something that is totally natural now. It's like walking around and eating. If there is a guitar lying around, I'm going to pick it up, and a lot of times nothing comes out of it, but sometimes it does. There are all sorts of things. It's rarely a flash where I just get this great idea, like "oh look at that tree," I just pick up the guitar or think about something and go with it. It's just a really natural thing.
So when you start writing material, you don't always set out with a general intent or a firm idea of where you want to go with it? It's more of a random trial and error?
Well there is actually a specific listening trajectory that I always think of, like where the piece is going to go, and what you'll think about on the way, and once I think about that, I figure out how to do it. I always construct the records as a whole piece rather than a collection of songs.
So someone downloading a Six Organs MP3 off a blog isn't going to get exactly what is going on unless they hear the whole record?
Well I guess, but I think about it more cinematically. You can watch a great scene from a great movie and be like "oh, that's great, lets watch it again," so the trick is to be able to do both, to do something that people can pull out if they want to, because I'm not a dictator, I'm not going to force people to listen to it a certain way, so the trick is to be able to make something that you can listen to any way, even backwards. It's just that the full album is the only way I conceive of the material when I'm making it.
Does Comets or Six Organs have any new material coming out?
Comets is taking a break, Ethan is taking Howlin' Rain out for quite a while, and for Six Organs, as soon as I get back from tour, my friend just wrote this novel called Empty the Sun, and I'm going to do a soundtrack to the novel. It's funny because that will actually be the first Six Organs that is written with other people, but it will be me and my friend Steve, writing music for the novel, and we're going to go down to his house in Los Angeles and record it.
You don't really hear about novel soundtracks.
Yeah, that was my friend Joseph's idea. He said "everyone writes soundtracks to movies, so why don't you write a soundtrack to this novel I'm writing." And I said "let me read some of it," and he was kind of just getting going, and I read the first chapter and thought it was awesome, and I said "lets do it." He just finished it this week, actually, so he's going to hand it off to me in Los Angeles.
Will you distribute the novel and soundtrack together?
Yeah, we want them to be together. And the music can be listened to by itself or while you're reading. It's slightly ambient as a soundtrack and it's a good driving record, because it is kind of a road story. There are a lot of different factors going in to it.
Lost Generation (Fallout Lounge) Wanz is at The Beauty Bar in Austin tonight and we're not sure who's filling in for him. Please leave a comment if you know who it is.
