The Future is Unwritten: Joe Strummer

So I started out the morning, barely able to scrape myself out of bed, ran a brush over my teeth, had some cereal and tea then got in the car (new site launching/testing at work plus show tonight so I couldn’t peddle to work) and listened to London Calling on the way in. Man that record is amazing. I’d say its my favorite of the Clash discography but there are a lot of songs I like on Sandinista! and a few noteworthy tunes on Super Black Market Clash (how bout’ “Pressure Drop” in that new Nissan Rogue commersh, makes you want to puke don’t it?). I like the Toots version a lot, just like I like the Toots version of “54-46” more than the Sublime version, though Brads voice is really amazing. The Future Is Unwritten is a new film/doc about Joe Strummer by Filth and Fury director Julien Temple. The review from EW gave it an A and said it was more intimate than the Pistols doc. That’s not hard for me to believe. Not sure anything about the Pistols could ever be ‘intimate.’ The Pistols represented everything about ‘punk’ that I’ve grown to despise. Elitism, fascism, scene-ism, genre-superiority-ism, nihilism, mall punks, ass-flaps, and spitting on performers. Oh and dumb-shit junkie fuck heads being lionized for being pieces of shit (Hey Babyshambles eat a grenade!).

It plays tonight at the Ken Cinema in Kensington. I’m hoping to catch it another day since Cabron is playing a SD Fire Victims Benefit at the Alibi Tonight!!! ($5 suggested donation, come on down!) Their website is pretty amazing. Check it out at www.joestrummerthemovie.com

Its a bit fancier than the Control website. Good use of flash. Nice little rich media features. I can’t wait to see it.

Favorite Clash song of all time, “Lost in the Supermarket” from London Calling.

Whats yours?

The Morgue Called, They Want To Use Your Cadaver “For Study”

The first time I met Justin Pearson I was just getting started with a project, a website called themusicedge.com. The intention of it was to be this hub of youth culture that the music products industry could dip its marketing muscle [read:balls] into and reap the benefits of kids going out and buying truckloads of instruments and products – a hilarious and immeasurable goal – perpetrated by a bunch of business suit attired has-beens and wannabees who thought that an asshole such as myself with some experience in music journalism could bring some gravitas to the fledgling site. They were right. To an extent. We hovered at 30K visitors a month and were an official Webby Award Honoree for 2006 (woo hoo…). Of course those accolades fell on deaf ears, or rather ears that wouldn’t know that the web would surpass radio for ad spend in 2007. Does hindsight count if you were blind behind?

At first I was enthusiastic about it. To endeavor to bring the beauty of making music to a generation whose art and music programs were being cut by an administration obsessed with war was enticing. I took the pill. I jumped right in. I wanted to make things change. That was the optimism of a post 9/11 job out of college (not right out of college, more like 2 years later) for me. I must stress that there were more good things that came from that experience than negative, one of them being my growing friendship with Justin Pearson of The Locust. He was the first “Big Interview” I did for the site. He believed in the propaganda that I believed in, but part of me thought he believed in the fact that artists that don’t chart and don’t move units should have an opportunity to be heard. Sort of an “I like their aesthetic. So I want to share it with everyone,” thing, right?

The last interview I did with Justin marked another benchmark. It was the first for HYPEzine.com. A project basically run by two dudes and supplemented by about 20 of the most amazing and loyal writers and friends a hack editor could ever ask for. Below is a link to the last lengthy post post from a guy that was probably born ten years too late into a world that is as unforgiving as it is beautiful and absurd.

You will get an inkling of what the ‘music business’ is all about – from the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry couldn’t be a more apt title for Justin Pearson’s tour diary. Part of me wishes he’d have continued in the face of all the terrible things he is going through (gone through), and part of me is glad he’s done writing for now. He’s incredibly prolific. If anything just to continue to document what it is REALLY like. The pieces themselves were quite amazing and honest. These paragraph-less musings on life on the road where a bit of a bitch to get through when editing. Nevertheless an amazing account.

Not traveling in a giant fucking tour bus, staying in 3 and 4 star hotels, having everything and everyone tell you that you matter. Fuck that. Its the real deal.

Here is an awesome picture taken by Robin Locust.

82907

Thirty years ago today I came tumbling out of my Mother screaming and covered in goop, the doctor spanked air into my lungs, a nurse snipped off a piece of my foreskin, my father handed out cigars in the waiting room and my mom smiled in exhaustion. It was done. It was the same year and the same month Elvis Presley died, Jaws and Star Wars were released and Sam the dog told David Berkowitz to go on a shooting spree with a Dirty Harry-style revolver in a sweltering New York City.

I was born during the Dog Days of summer.

The hottest point in the season.

Every year during this time something truly remarkable and vile happens in various parts of the world. Hurricane Katrina. Wild Fires in Greece. Cholera outbreak in India. Hundreds of miners drown in China flood. Massive roadside explosion in Northern Iraq kills hundreds.

That’s just a smattering of headlines over the past few weeks. The ones that leak in through the television snow. The little pieces of information that make August an auspicious month during the year. If I was a betting man I’d say that I’m incredibly lucky to have been able to survive the apocalypse, which was supposed to happen 10 years ago, according to Sarah Connor. There is the thought of predestination paradox where had Skynet not sent a terminator back to kill Sarah, John would not have sent Reese back to protect her and of course conceive John. Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” had that initial idea that a super computer becomes self-aware and triggers the end of humanity or at least 98% it. The Wachowski brothers tried the same thing with the Matrix and of course there is always Our Trusty Asimov and his I, Robot stories. None can forget the implications of Phillip K Dicks dreaming androids drawing comparisons to our homogenized brave new world where more money is spent on physical augmentation such as breast implants than is spent on Alzheimers research.

Do the years get better?

 

Or do my tits get better?

I reference these things because there are a million scenarios that play themselves out in my head every minute of the day. Choices that I made that directly affected my future. Now with thirty years under my belt I’m looking forward to making more choices. What will I have for lunch today? Maybe some Quik powdered chocolate in a glass of milk with a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and some Oreos to finish it off. Those little creature comforts cut through the noise. They can stop the outrage fatigue I’ve had since Sept. 11^th and quell the squall of rage I’ve held in my ever blackening liver since Nov. 3^rd 2000 when I wished a category 5 hurricane swept across Florida and silenced all those fucking voting machines. I reference these things because I’m hardwired to question everything. I’m hardwired to expect more from people than they may be willing to admit they have in them. It is a philosophy of expectation I learned from my father.

 

So do all these seemingly random pop culture references and political musings have a point in this piece?

 

You who read this want your information in bite sized morsels. You are most likely reading this because you want to see what I have to say. The same could be said for the reason I’m writing. I want to see what I’m going to say too! I’m surprised what comes out. It’s a form of therapy. It’s the equilibrium I need.

 

There are lines that you can draw from disparate sources such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and society’s current obsession with celebrity and appearance – there is no amount of shaming our society can do to make someone like P Hilton drift off into obscurity. We’ve moved from adoration of success to the obsession of failure. We want to wallow in squalor and bathe in the idea that some starlet who had everything laid out for her; money, success and fame, is dumping it all down the drain while staring at a palm mirror through reddened and glassy eyes with a rolled up twenty in her hand. Is it the ultimate form of rebellion to just give up to vices and pour yourself out of your celebrity skin in front of a million flashing bulbs and video cameras? No. Methinks it is just slow suicide.

 

I want to feel validated. I want to feel like that vote I handed to Nader in 2000 wasn’t about winning the election or giving it to Bush or taking another informed voter from Gore but that it was about doing what I felt was right at the time and wishing that everyone could make their own educated and informed decision as to who to vote for. Alas, most people are robots, self-aware enough to eat, sleep, shit and fuck occasionally without ever asking why, who or what as long as it feels good then it must be good.

 

We’re animals. Robot animals. And we’re living in the nightmare that writers like Aldous Huxley, Ellison, Dick and Stephenson have been imagining. The violence that we live with daily is magnified during the dog days. It’s the heat of the Northern Hemisphere working on our subconscious where eons ago our ancestors rode across vast landscapes with truncheon and spear and sword to conquer and bleed into submission those that would alter or change the status quo.

 

Do not fear. Fear. Do not fear. Fear.

 

We are at war because war is profit. It is an industry that can be perpetually fed. Trillions of dollars into the effort and there will always be someone with a job and a big white house to eat Kobe steaks and caviar in.

 

We’ve had hope shoved up our ass. Just words of hope. No real sign of it. No large group or government making an effort. No miracles. No second coming. This is the realization age. We will realize that in our species infancy we are destined to rot in quotidian suburban malaise, buying groceries, driving cars, going to church, making lists and standing in line.

 

 

There is a silver lining and each of us has to look just hard enough to see it.

This is my beautiful wife.

This is my beautiful rented duplex.

This is my family.

These are my amazing friends.

This is the hyperlocal network of hope.

These are the inspirations for a million more songs and stories.

This is something I wrote when I turned 30.

Social Insurgent pt. 1

I’m in a crowded room drenched in red, drowning in glare
Where every whispered assumption and every silent condemnation
Is testament to the bomb strapped to my chest.
One might say, “he commands the attention of a room.”
As the nitroglycerin is kissed by cellular trigger.
Ring, ring, ring.

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Bad Religion: An Interview with Greg Hetson

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When it comes to bands that have made their unique mark upon an ever-expanding world of music, Bad Religion’s 20-plus years of playing rank up there with The Beatles as far as influential bands are concerned. Of course, many of those bands may never play the Hollywood Bowl or the Bowery Room in New York, but each year they’ll be on Warped Tour, The Take Action Tour and headlining their own sold-out shows. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if that’s the case, then Bad Religion is flattered beyond all expectations. Their latest release, The Process of Belief, is another example of what it means to push limits and push sound—to move past what may be expected and surpass everything that came before.

The history of this prolific punk rock machine began almost two decades ago as a reaction to an environment that was not only hostile to punk rock music but also an industry that wasn’t taking any chances on anything that couldn’t turn a profit. Three teenage friends growing up in Southern California met and began rehearsing in a garage, playing shows and recording a completely DIY EP. Brett Gurewitz, Greg Graffin and Jay Bentley soon realized, much like their counterparts in Black Flag and Minor Threat, that to get anything done they had to do it themselves. With that, Brett decided to start a label called Epitaph Records to release the now classic, How Could Hell Be Any Worse?

Several years later and a couple band members more, Bad Religion was soon becoming more than just a hobby. With the addition of Greg Hetson on guitar, Bad Religion’s sound was fully rounded out into the melodic buzz saw attack, a signature sound they have become famous for. 1987 was a good year for the band. They recorded the classic, Suffer, an album that held fast to their punk rock values while embracing a high amount of production quality. Soon after the success of Suffer, three more albums were released—No Control, Against the Grain and Generator—creating a veritable quadripartite of punk rock genius.

From that time on, the band managed to release one album a year, and in 1993, during a time when punk rock music was taking a loose hold on the mainstream, they were signed to Atlantic Records and managed to land a hit with the track, “Infected.” In 1993, the record Recipe For Hate, which hosted guest appearances from such greats as Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano (“It Struck a Nerve”) and Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, who lent his signature voice to several tracks (“American Jesus” and “Watch it Die”), further broadened Bad Religion’s scope as musicians and respected artists. The years to follow had the band jumping from Atlantic to Epic and finally back to Atlantic. With the release of their latest record, The Process of Belief, the band was once again at home with Epitaph and under the wing of their friend and musical brother Brett.

During the times when Brett was involved heavily with the label, Bad Religion hired the talents of former Minor Threat guitarist, Brian Baker. A triptych of guitar talent was formed with Hetson and Brett, and the three brought a new aesthetic to the idea of what makes a band. Eschewing everyone’s expectations and pushing well past any predetermined ethos, Bad Religion took on the year 2002 with magnified intensity, bringing The Process of Belief to the forefront of progressive rock music.

Hetson always wanted to play guitar, but he was never in school band. “I wasn’t in school band because I wanted to play guitar but they didn’t have guitar in band,” he says. “There were a couple of schools in my district that did. I remember seeing them wheel around these Pignose amps for guitar and bass.”

Some of Hetson’s earliest influences in music were such guitar-heavy bands as The Beatles, Credence Clearwater Revival, Queen, Judas Priest, The Ramones and The Buzzcocks. Early L.A. bands like Black Flag and X inspired him as a player as well. His first guitar “was a cheap Harmony electric all-in-one that I got when I was 12. I play an (Gibson) SG now through two Marshall straight cabs and a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. I also have a Marshall 6555, Silver Jubilee (released in 1987 to celebrate 50 years of Marshall business), which has a little more output than a JCM 800.”

Hetson began, as many do, by taking guitar lessons, learning the basics and hoping that one day, he would be playing in a band of his own. “At about 16, I started playing along with some friends who also wanted to learn how to play. I think I was about 19 when I started with the Circle Jerks. Basically what happened was I quit Redd Kross in front of the Whiskey, and Keith (Morris, singer of the Circle Jerks) overheard me saying I didn’t want to be with the band anymore, and he said, ‘Screw those guys let’s start our own band.’ He said, ‘I know a bass player,’ and I said, ‘I know a drummer.’ And that’s kind of how it all came together.”

So how did Hetson start playing with Bad Religion? you might ask.

“They actually gave me a demo tape. One day we were all hanging out at Okie Dogs. It was a place we all used to hang out at after shows. I really liked it and became friends with the guys. We (The Circle Jerks) were going to be on the Rodney On the Rocks Show the next week, and I said something like, ‘If we like the tape we’ll play it over the air.’ I started getting them opening slots on our shows and air play and somehow I ended up in the band years later.”

When it comes to orchestrating six members of a band, it takes lots of patience and practice. Fortunately for Bad Religion, having three guitars transfers well in both a live and recorded setting. Hetson says, “Surprisingly enough, recording is pretty easy because we do so many overdubs and layering anyway. Live, it kind of just works. We don’t do a lot of the shows with him (Brett), but when he does we’ve usually got enough going on that it works. Part of the time we’re all doing the same thing and other times others are doing different accents and things that were on the record. So it kind of works out—we thought it would sound like a wall of mush but it actually sounds good.”

The writing process for Bad Religion is collaborative. “For the most part it’s collaboration, but sometimes someone will come in with a complete song,” he says. “If you look at a lot of the songwriting credits, [they’re] always attributed to pretty much everyone.”

The new Bad Religion record is about half way through the mixing process. Hetson says, “It’s coming out really great. I think everybody is really happy with it. Some really strong songs. Some heavy lyrical content, as usual. It’s a little darker, lyrically than the last record maybe. There’s a lot of stuff going on these days for inspiration.”

Bad Religion has always been at the forefront of music both politically and socially with their various contributions to charities over the years and their songs inspiring fans to think outside of the box. The auspicious title for their soon-to-be-finished record is The Empire Strikes First, and like Hetson said, it has some ”heavy lyrical content.”

Of course, the lyrical content of Bad Religion’s songs has always been a message of self-empowerment, articulated positively by a UCLA master’s degree/Cornell University Ph.D. (Evolutionary Biology/Zoology/History of Science) wielding Graffin. They also have a band-sponsored research fund that “was created to allow students to pursue field-oriented investigations in cultural or natural science,” according to Hetson. “It is an award with an educational focus and is meant to promote self-motivated discovery, practice of the scientific method, and experience in scientific writing.”

With two decades of music behind him and many more ahead, Hetson, like his Bad Religion band mate Brett, decided to start a label with long time friend and producer, Steve Kravac. The two met at Westbeach Studio some years prior and decided to take their experience as musicians and give back what they had learned in the business to younger bands. According to the Porterhouse Web site, “Each band added to the Porterhouse roster has been selected for their individual merits as opposed to the strategy of many indie labels that adhere to a sonic likeness to create label identity.”

Hetson says that in music today, “People can’t tell Trapt from Incubus. You can’t tell one from the other. They all jump up and down, choreographed in time to the music. The most important thing is to create your own identity. Classic punk rock bands like The Clash didn’t sound like The Ramones. The Adolescents didn’t sound like Black Flag. None of the bands sounded like each other and maybe that’s why no one is selling records anymore.”

Hetson added some words of wisdom, saying, “The best thing you can do when you’re first starting is play the music you want to play. Try to create your own identity and style, and stick to what you believe in musically and philosophically. Do something with a twist.”

With that kind of grassroots individualism in mind, Steve and Hetson have managed to produce great records from bands like Speedbuggy and the newest edition to the Porterhouse family, Lightweight Holiday. Porterhouse is essentially run out of Hetson’s garage where they built a Pro Tools studio. “We’ve got enough room in there to cut drum tracks. It’s a two-car garage and if we do drums in there, we have to track them in the control. We’ve got a good-sized iso booth where we can fit a couple guitar amps and get some decent vocals out of. We’ve got two rooms, one small and one pretty big.”

When it comes to sonic differences between analog and digital sound, Hetson says, “I guess analog sounds better but you know, well they both sound pretty damn good. Analog sounds better but for convenience sake, Pro Tools works better. We do some of the drums on tape, depending on what the bands budget is and the rest on Pro Tools. We’re doing the new Bad Religion record with the drums on analog and everything else on Pro Tools. When it comes to time saving and money saving, you can’t beat it.”

Porterhouse is a small band’s dream. The Web site invites bands to send in unsolicited material and that’s essentially how Lightweight Holiday was discovered. “They just started sending in demos and after about a year-and-a-half of listening to their stuff, I had them open up for The Circle Jerks and checked them out live. Then we went in to rehearsal with them and told them, ‘We really like you guys but try this out and this out.’ They liked how we were approaching things and we said, ‘Let’s do a deal.’ They were really receptive to our feedback. Some bands are really reluctant when it comes to offering feedback, but they were really receptive.”

When all’s said and done, and the feedback from the amps reverberates to its final decay, Bad Religion isn’t just some average punk band you might listen to on your MP3 player, or in your car on the way home from school. They are, without hyperbole, an institution of integrity. By posing questions and always challenging their fans to think first, Bad Religion is an example of an ongoing legacy that hopefully inspires more young bands and fans to follow their dreams.
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This ranks up there with one of the more remarkable interviews I’ve done. I definitely got the best of two of my favorite punk bands with Greg being part of BR and Circle Jerks.

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Bear vs. Shark: An Interview with John Gaviglio

Bear vs. Shark hails from Highland, MI, a suburb nestled between Detroit and Flint, a part of the rust belt, a part of a community that like most suburbs across the country harbor the talent that make up the indie rock and punk geography of America. BVS is comprised of Marc Paffi (vocals, guitar), Derek Kiesgen (guitar and bass), John Gaviglio (guitar and bass), Brandon Moss (drums), and Mike Muldoon (guitar, bass, keyboards). Seems like everyone plays bass in BVS, except the drummer and one would assume that so many bass players would ultimately mean the sweetest party machine dance music ever, but its not, its some of the most interesting and creative music to come out of Equal Vision Records for a long time.

John G. (not the Memento mystery man), guitarist/bassist for Bear Vs. Shark, recently spoke with themusicedge.com about his band and how he got started as a musician.

All the members of Bear Vs. Shark have recently graduated college. John double majored in German and Economics. John started playing the trombone in the 6th grade, continued with it until he was in 8th grade and received his first guitar. It was in school band that John learned about time signatures, beats per measure and had some basic understanding of music theory and how to read music, which helped when he picked up his first guitar at 13.

He states; “Everybody who is starting to play music should have some basic elements of music instruction.”

Mike, Derek and Brandon have grown up together and played in some early incarnations of BVS before forming the full version several years ago, although the entire band has lived within bike riding distance from each other since childhood.

His early memories of music aside form six months of guitar lessons, are fondly remembered and influenced by his mom, which John cites as, “My mom used to play guitar so she gave me a little bit of instruction herself. My mom has really exposed me to a lot of music, especially when I was younger. I remember sitting in her old Buick Riviera listening to Led Zeppelin and she would show me some bass lines. I remember the first time she showed me what a bass guitar was, and she pointed out the bass lines in the songs. When I first started getting into music it was classic rock, like Jethro Tull, Zeppelin, The Doors and stuff like that, but as I got older I got into bands like Metallica and Guns & Roses, Smashing Pumpkins and Black Sabbath too. And Nirvana.”

Some of the bands that inspire John now are bands like Hot Water Music, Mars Volta, Bjork, Les Savy Fav. He says that, “I think Les Savy Fav is amazing, they really inspire me.”

BVS’s influences are apparent in the sound of their debut record, Right Now You’re in the Best of Hands…, which jumps from style to style seamlessly and effortlessly without sticking to any one sound; it encapsulates all of the influences of BVS. Though each member of BVS works fulltime jobs outside of playing in BVS, being grounded in the “real world” not only makes their music more accessible to a broader range of people but also makes it difficult for them to tour. Some of the members get fired from their jobs at places like Home Depot or various restaurants, but they tour in spite of the job security. “I’m really lucky, I’m a waiter at a restaurant and their really happy for me for the band thing so they let me go whenever I want.” John plays out of a Marshall cab with a, “crappy valve state head, but I didn’t record with that, I recorded with a Fender Bass Man amp head and used a TC Booster which boosts the signal. It boosts the signal and adds some distortion but cuts out a lot of the noise. What we do as a band is upgrade our equipment as a band. We save up our money and sort of all go in and trade our equipment out around the same time. We really want that warm tube amp sound.”

Right Now, was mixed and engineered by Arun Venkatesh at Big Blue Meanie studios in Detroit. John says Arun really helped BVS with the recording process, which they did in analog and for the most part, live. “We really are a live band, so we wanted to capture that sound and analog is warm and the best way to do that.”

Some words of advice that John left us with was, “Try and always wear clean underwear. Always make music for the love of music, don’t do it for any superficial reasons.”
____________________________________________________________________ I really think Equal Vision Records got back some of that glory of their humble beginnings with this amazing band. They came through San Diego a few times, one most notably about a year after this interview and after their swan song, Terrorhawk, was released to critical acclaim. They played with Planes Mistaken for Stars (RIP) at the now fully operational Black Box Studio in San Diego, which is run by a couple of pretty awesome dudes from a local band called Hialeah. This interview wasn’t my best, and the writing was starting to show some of the burn out and fatigue I had gotten from doing 3 features a week and sometimes up to 5 interviews a week. I actually had an interview with Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy that I never ended up using right when they got signed to Island – that was a weird experience. Something similar happened with Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance. I’ll have to go back and see if I can drudge those stories up.

BVS was amazing. Tons of heart. Lots of charisma. I wish I had done the second interview with them at the show a year later but another writer did it, while I was getting drunk with Gared and Mikey from PMFS. Priorities right? I almost had my eye torn out of my head in the drunken swaying crowd as I tripped and got cut on a stray nail from the half finished wood floor of the main tracking room at Black Box. I was really bummed out when they turned in their punk rock cards but sometimes its better to just hang it up before that inevitably bleak ending that great bands often succumb to. I sincerely hope that you’ll at least try and find Terrorhawk in a some used bin at one of the rapidly dwindling independent record stores near you. Heres a sweet video by them. Dig It!

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Situation of Noise: An interview with Justin Pearson of The Locust

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In our Starbucks coffee driven fast food and reality based short attention span world, certain challenges arise to the creative minds of our generations. Sometimes these challenges are met with variant modes of creative outlet and of recent years it seems to be occurring in music. The base for era spanning communication has always had a home in that many of societal problems coexist in the ethereal world of sonic composition and creation of ART. Art is merely a means to an end. It can take many forms, painting, poetry, architecture, and most importantly for the purpose of this feature, music.

The Locust are in the trenches of their self-described “noise terrorism” war on contemporary and conventional thought. Formed in 1995 from the ashes of San Diego based noise core bands, Swing Kids, Struggle, Crimson Curse and about a dozen other notable bands, they have seen their fair share of current trends rise and fall with the fickle youth of America. Themusicedge.com had an opportunity to speak with Justin Pearson; the bass player of The Locust and his musical background is about as peppered as the bands laundry list of line up names.

According to J.P., “I’ve always liked music since I was a little kid, when I was 5 or so I was going to go see KISS but my mom said I was too young. We used to always pretend with tennis rackets and stuff. Then when I was ten or eleven my mom’s cousin let me borrow his guitar then eventually I picked up a bass.”

J.P. adds his history on lessons by saying, “I taught myself. When I first moved out to San Diego I took lessons from this guy and all he would do was show me how to play rock songs, so he’d show me this riff. But I never really learned how to play. I only took like three or four lessons from the guy and I thought it was a waste of time so I ended up messing around with other people. My friends and I that also didn’t know how to play, we didn’t know together so we figured things out that way.”

The Locust not only manage to destroy conventional thinking about how music should be arranged but they also have a tendency to create from that chaos some pretty technically proficient song structures. Their sound is somewhere between chaos and harmony, with an emphasis on controlled chaos. When seeing them live recently at their record release show (the new record is called Plague Soundscapes, its on Epitaph/Anti Records) at San Diego’s, Off The Record, playing to a packed house, it was noticeable to most in attendance that it was really hard to see them if you happened to get there one second late, like I unfortunately did.

Their sound is brutal and not for the faint of heart but one cannot deny the musician ship it takes to create such music. Not only does The Locust have an amazing zeal for creating music, but also most of their cleverness comes in the way they merchandize. Instead of your typical T-shirt, hooded sweatshirt fare, most Locust items consist of Skateboards, compacts with “The Locust” logo on the mirror and the standard aforementioned products.

J.P.’s musical tastes are as eclectic as his music, although he retracts his former fascination with KISS, “I think they are so lame. I hate KISS a lot now and I’m not into how misogynistic they are, but when I was a little kid I like the way they looked.”

Adding, “I really was into Styx and Boston when I was really, really little. Then I got into break dancing and early rap like Run DMC and Beastie Boys. It’s weird though because I grew up in Phoenix Arizona, it’s a total hesher state and everyone is into heavy metal. So I got into metal, I ended up living a couple blocks away from some of the guys in Slayer and that really intrigued me. The whole metal punk tie and I ended up getting into punk. The first band that got me really interested in music was the Sex Pistols. I stumbled upon some of the really early skate punk tapes that Thrasher (magazine) used to put out like Septic Death, but I didn’t want to limit myself musically so I take from everything.”

J.P. has played in some of the early GSL Records-style noise-core bands, like his first band which he states, “I got into my first band when I was about fifteen years old called Struggle, that was the first band I was in that was a real band. I was in a band called Swing Kids and The Crimson Curse and I’m also kind of still in this band called Holy Molar, it’s a weird project band. The Drummer lives in Portland and the singer lives in New York. I started The Locust about seven or eight years ago.”

The Locust has for all intensive purposes, felt their share of success. What could be construed as more successful than being used in a John Waters film (Cecil Be Demented)? And with their recent sign to punk rock powerhouse Epitaph and its subsidiary, Anti, The Locust have no choice but to prove that you can be aggressive in your approach when playing music without being predictable. And it’s unpredictability that separates The Locust from other bands. “A lot of people, especially drummers play the same beat, they obviously aren’t being creative. Whatever makes that band works is their deal,” says J.P.

As far as the writing process goes, J.P. says that its group oriented, “It kind of mutates over time and we all kind of write equal parts it just depends, someone will come to practice and they’ll have a couple parts to work with and we’ll build off of them. For instance Joey (Keyboards) will have these parts that are virtually impossible to translate onto guitar and base so it will force Bobby (guitar) and I to write around it and work with what he’s doing but not be playing the same exact riff which is good because it adds some great dynamics. Also Gabe (Drums) writes some insanely complicated beats on drums and we’ll work around those parts and Bobby and I will add some riffs that we add. And after we have a basic skeleton we’ll dissect it and take it apart and make time signatures weird and slow certain parts down and speed certain parts up. Make it a little bit confusing a little bit more creative and over time over a period of a week or two we’ll butcher it some more, then the last step is adding vocals to it and we’ll all decide what parts to sing.”

Beware of The Locust, their music will challenge and dare most people to rethink their concepts of what songs should sound like. Most importantly, The Locust are composing songs of the future and Plague Soundscapes is the vessel they are using to slowly bring in the fans from the conventional crowds.

the locust
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Done in June of 2003, without having a home I figured I’d post here and as such I haven’t changed anything from the original, just added this little footnote. Justin Pearson was one of my very first interviews for themusicedge, which is hilarious considering how conservative the parent company of the site was and is and the kind of ‘obscene’ content The Locust always get lambasted about. At a later time some ‘concerned’ perpetual meddler wanted me to take down the article, luckily I stuck it out and provided a compelling argument to the suits that if our ultimate job was to inspire young people to create music then who are we to sensor what kind of music is created? I also thought it fitting for a first feature, especially after my dour interview with Taboo from The Black Eyed Peas who had, at the time, just added Fergie to the group. Justin is one of the few people, aside from Ben Koller (Converge, Cave In) who supported the basic tenants of that site from the beginning and has always made himself available for interview(s) and linked to whatever it was I happened to be working on at the time. He suffers from being incredibly likeable, maybe that’s why I think of him as an artist more than I think of him as a musician. Maybe I’m just full of shit too. He’s doing a post called “From the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry” for HYPEzine.com. Its a tour diary.

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Walking Concert: An Interview with Walter Schreifels

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Walking Concert: Walter Schreifels

Singer/Songwriter/Producer Walter Schreifels began his genre-defining career by moonlighting in seminal hardcore acts Gorilla Biscuits and Youth of Today but it wasn’t until his band Quicksand hit the scene in the early nineties, solidifying the post hard-core sound and taking the reigns from the grunge movement. His contemporaries in Jawbox, Helmet and even Fugazi set the momentum by which every band of that era measured them. However, like Jawbreaker’s album, Dear You, as being a demarcation line for the punk movement, Quicksand’s Slip inspired a million kids to pick up a guitar, detune their strings and try, albeit without as much eloquence, to co-opt a signature sound.

Over a decade and a half later, Walter Schreifels is still bending the formula to fit his vision with his latest effort, Walking Concert. A powerful guitar driven band, Walking Concert opens a new chapter in this veteran music makers book by utilizing his voice as an instrument and making new fans and old wish they had the ability to write such great hooks. As Quicksand dissolved in the mid nineties much to the disappointment of fans, Rival School (United by Fate) arose to take its place (eventually), with Walter again at the helm, churning out shinning rock nuggets never seemed so palpable as it was with Rival Schools. With Rival Schools, Walter was able to expand upon the melodies set in motion by Quicksand, but the songs took on more intricate shapes, utilizing varied time signatures and emphasizing on more complicated vocal arrangements.

But, like all things, Rival Schools came to a somewhat abrupt end some time in mid 2003, again, to the disappointment of fans. As the chatter on the Internet assumed, anything Walter touched turned to gold, so it was merely a matter of time before the Midas of indie rock began a new project. Rumors abounded about a project called Walter and the Motorcycles, similar to the post Quicksand band, Worlds Fastest Car, but again that project never came to fruition.

Walter, as a songwriter, is prolific and always evolving, a man consistently setting things in motion by his drive to continually outdo himself. Between Rival Schools and Quicksand, Walter was a producer for the breakout Hot Water Music album, No Division and even lent his vocals to a few tracks. No Division eventually gained Hot Water Music the momentum they needed to get to that next level and the stellar production quality of the record again cemented Walter as a talent behind the boards (he also produced CIV’s breakthrough album, Set Your Goals).

Not satisfied to rest on his laurels, Walter began writing songs in the sundown of Rival Schools, which later would make up the bulk of Walking Concert’s debut, Run to Be Born. Released on his record label, Some Records, Run To Be Born marks a decisive advancement in song craftsmanship and fully accentuates Walter’s range as a singer. Recently themusicedge.com caught up with Walter as the he and his band mates were navigating the turnpikes of the Midwest.

Walter’s interest in music began at an early age and says that, “I guess pretty early on I got into the Beatles and The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones. And then got into The Ramones and The B 52’s and The Clash and things like that and when I was thirteen I got a guitar and just started doing it. I think I took five guitar lessons to start off and I had most of the chords down and I could sound things out and started to go on my own.”

With Quicksand, Walter altered the assumption that vocals have to serve the beat, cutting the nascent punk aesthetic and utilizing a completely different method of phrasing, a method that subsequently spawned countless imitators. Though it wasn’t always that easy, according to Walter it was due to, “Practice. I practiced like crazy. I had to write the music and then the lyrics over the music. Mostly in Quicksand is what I’m thinking of, is like, if I wanted to make a lyric or rhythm work, I was oblivious of how hard it would be to play on guitar. But it’s sort of like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time – you just have to practice it.

“I think I formed my guitar personality in a couple of years and after that I’d add on to it but my first kind of influences like ACDC, U2’s the Edge, or REM – that was the kind of stuff I was listening to when I first started playing guitar and I think that still comes through in a lot of my writing.”

Run To Be Born is largely a guitar opus, one that was primarily written on acoustic prior to even being envisioned in a band setting. When it comes to songwriting, Walter stipulates, “I think I get a sense of the songs and am able to grasp the dynamics of the people I’m playing with. Guitar wise, I think I have an idea of places for things and create space for certain things to go. How I play and how Jeff plays guitar, I really just go for a feeling. Intellectually I know the part I’m trying to create and what it’s going to do but when I’m playing it I just try and pour as much feeling into it as I can. A lot of that just comes from the live take (in studio settings). Sometimes you just have to take a separate stab at it but that’s mainly the way I like to do it.

“I think with Walking Concert the way it differs from all the other projects I’ve done is that I could play every song acoustically before I even recorded anything. I knew how to sing and play them (the songs) so I really understood the basis of the song. In the past I would understand the structure of the song and where a chorus would go and a bridge would go and where the verse would go and the structure of the song was determining that. With this I started to go with an idea and a melody and just wanted to see where it would take me naturally. I depended less on what I knew about songwriting in an intellectual, craftsmen sort of way and just went with more of my intuitive ideas like, ‘this would be funny to do this here or this would be a nice way to off set ‘this’ feeling.’ You know, just have the lyrics and tempo and feel all be of the same mind.

He adds, “I think that comes from being able to sing and play your songs with a guitar.”

Walter has been making records his entire adult life (and his teenage years with Gorilla Biscuits, Warzone and Youth of Today) and says the studio experience for Run To Be Born “was a blast! It was really fun and I think we spent time making sure the songs were good and tight but we really wanted to make it sound as live as possible. We didn’t want to get too into overdubbing things and really just depend on the music itself to carry it and the performances to sound human and spontaneous.”

Run To Be Born was recorded with a combination of using analog and digital technology. Walter says that originally he wanted it, “to be done all on analog but the way it is these days it’s so expensive to do it that way and I don’t even necessarily believe – or rather I’m not so pressed to cling to that idea anymore as I was at one time. Analog tape is my definitely my preference but on a budget, Pro-Tools is so much easier and it’s the way that people are doing it. I think it (digital recording) has its advantages, as long as you don’t get to into clipping it and editing it. I think after a certain point the returns begin to diminish.”

Walter again helmed production for Walking Concert and says that when it comes to producing, “I like to produce. I prefer to work on my own stuff, but producing is cool cause you’re like a cheerleader for the band. You can join that band and you can have an outside perspective on what you like about them and you can encourage them to give out a look.

“It can be creative as well because you can have a flow with the artist. The trick is to let them do their thing as much as possible,” adding in reference to his work with CIV and Hot Water Music.

Walter’s experience with his half dozen projects has given him some insight into band dynamics, or rather, the way the members interact and create together. Some important things to remember are, “generally, your general rule when working with other people is that people are usually at their best when they are doing what they want to do. You have to give people room to do their thing and at the same time you have to be willing and able to look at the picture as a whole and to be able to communicate between the players without stepping on each other’s toes. It’s best I think when that is intuitive on every body’s part. For example, in a conversation there isn’t someone you have to keep explaining the jokes, you know. That sometimes can grow and take time to establish it. I think people, based on their instrument have different roles to fill and coordinating that is understanding what the other guys are doing and knowing where you fit in and being willing to find your place on the team.

“Like in sports, or a basketball team, one guy might be really good at getting rebounds, one guy might be really good at outside shots and everyone wants to put the ball in the basket but sometimes you have to look at it a different way to make your goal. I think that is key to making something sound solid and that there is a thought process behind it instead of something that sounds like people playing at the same time.”

Always humble, always friendly and positive, Walter Schreifels and his latest project, Walking Concert are on the road and their coming to town near you. Keep your eyes open and make sure you pick up a copy of Run To Be Born, it’s sure to please fans of Quicksand and destined to reestablish Walter as a rock and roll mainstay who continually evolves.

Thanks Walter!!

www.some.com

www.walkingconcert.com

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Mark this one down in the books as one of the cooler interviews I’ve done with one of my favorite musicians. He was as nice as Lou from Sick of It All and informative. I had always had the uniformed impression that Walter was a bit closed off prior to speaking with him. My experience of the ‘Walter – the dude from Quicksand’ was that he’d been in some of the more influential bands of the late 80’s and nineties and he was always changing bands. An assumption of mine was that maybe he just couldn’t outrun what he’d done in YOT, Gorilla Biscuits and Quicksand. Alas, assumptions are really foolish and he assuaged my stupidity by being humble and totally appreciative of all that he’d been involved with (don’t forget Hot Water Music’s No Division record he helped produce!). So if you want to see how deep my man crush goes for this guy check out the post I did about the first concert I went to that I’ll be posting soon.

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The Deftones: Tao of Chi

This is a feature article I did a while ago on the now shutdown musicedge.com. I tried a new feature writing tactic, combining the narrative of feature style with some Q & A style thrown in the mix. It worked well for this particular article because Chi was quite conversational, which is a relief as an interviewer because the wealth of information lends itself to a fairly in depth article. Though I didn’t think too highly of their last record, Saturday Night Wrist, they are still one of the most consistently evolving bands from that post-hardcore era. Enjoy! *Charles Shannon took the live pic.
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When The Deftones debut album, Adrenaline, dropped in the mid-nineties they inadvertently opened the floodgates for what would encapsulate an entire short-lived genre of music – nu metal. It was a watershed album, full of post-hardcore riffs that drew as much inspiration from bands like Unsane and Helmet as it did melody and dynamics from bands like Smashing Pumpkins and The Pixies.

Was pigeonholing Sacramento CA’s Deftones a Nu-Metal band wrong? Not particularly in this case, The Deftones were and still are way out in front of the game and by the company they toured with in those days they were often lumped into sentences and explanations by many an irresponsible music journalist. The Deftones are too complex a band both musically and in personnel to throw words like ‘Rap-rock’ or ‘Nu-metal’ at just because comparison is appealing to the lowest common denominator. Adrenaline was released in 1995, at the downward slope of the post-hardcore movement. Major labels were pushing bands like Orange 9MM, Seaweed, Quicksand and the almighty Helmet, while bands like Snot, Clutch and to some extent, Korn were popularizing a mixture of down tuned guitars rap infused vocals.

We are aware of what has become of the Rap Metal/Nu-metal movement – irrelevance by way of over-saturation! Like all things that seem new and fresh in music they get assimilated into popular culture, bastardized versions rear their ugly head and are only made to move units through singles and record sales. Adaptability is a testament to the longevity of a band and its ability to evaluate itself from a musical perspective, something that Deftones bassist Chi Cheng attributes to the bands staying power. To remain relevant as the Deftones have done over the past dozen years is a gift many bands only think of in hindsight when the royalty checks cease and their CD’s end up in the bargain bin at the local record store.

Themusicedge.com recently caught up with bassist Chi Cheng as he was on the road headlining the Taste of Chaos tour and learned many things. His love for the works of famed prose writer, Charles Bukowski, wine, classical music and his band mates ability to internalize their creativity and make sure that “We’re the worst when it comes to what we do. If we think that (new song) sounds too much like the Deftones, we can’t play that, because that’s how we sound.”

Chi not only plays bass in one of the most enduring bands of the past ten years, he is also a writer of poetry. His first spoken word record, Bamboo Parachutes, released in 2000, was the result of a restless writing spirit and a need to express himself in another medium besides playing music or as Chi puts it, “I have no choice but to write – I love writing.”

Chi has at least 4 full-length spoken word records waiting in the wings and could essentially release one a year for as many years. His writing is prolific yet there are large chunks of time where he doesn’t get to put pen to paper due to the constraints of touring. “(I do write) with my days off it’s a lot easier. Being on the bus it’s a little too cramped, and there are a lot of distractions. Too much outer stimulus. I’m a Bukowski type of writer so I like to get my bottle of wine and my Mahler (Gustav Mahler, 19th Century Austrian composer) some Beethoven and go to work.”

Proceeds from the sale of Bamboo Parachutes were donated to a music program for homeless teens in Sacramento; a program based in his community, which Chi says, “I believe in working with the community that you live in, there are a lot of huge global issues obviously. I’m from Sacramento and I wanted some of the proceeds to go to charities that I know of and want to work with. This was a while ago, I started bringing in instruments and buying instruments and actually go in and play with the kids which is something I tried to do for a while.”

When you’re not insanely busy with touring?
“Yeah exactly.”

“As far as I know its still going on, I lost touch with it a couple of years ago when my life got crazy and hectic and I had a kid. From what I understand it’s going well. Self-sustaining at this point.” Which is certainly a blessing for a non-profit in today’s globalized economy.

A father and husband, Chi related that a difficult touring schedule and time away from home is the most difficult part of his almost anti-rock star lifestyle. When it comes to touring, he says, “I find it terribly difficult. I love playing music and when I’m on stage I couldn’t be happier but I tend to be a miserable prick 23 hours a day. The music I love, sitting around waiting to play I don’t love – at all.”

With the recent release of B Sides and Rarities The Deftones are looking at a fall release for their new record which is untitled as of this interview. They have been debuting new material on the Taste of Chaos tour; “I see a lot of camera phones every night and I’m sure that almost everyone at the show last night recorded the new songs.”

Have you named the new record? Has it been cut, mastered and edited?

“It’s just now being finalized, vocally and adding little things here and there to make sure it’s absolutely worth waiting for. So most likely September we’ll release it and it will be worth the wait. I’m absolutely in love with the new album.”

One key thing to remember about the Deftones is that each member falls under the category of modern day renaissance men. They were one of the first bands to utilize sample-based music, keyboards and turntables as tools to further a musical idea instead of as gimmicks for mass appeal. When it comes to incorporating electronic elements into the music of the new album it’s there and as Chi explains; “We’ve molded it into some of the songs on the new album, there are touches of it, glimpses on it, there are also a lot of moodiness and variations I don’t think we’ve done since White Pony. The last album was pretty dark whereas this one is more all over the place.”

Chi Cheng; poet, bassist, Zen rock star and family man who connects to people through music, his community and his kindness. Its people like Chi who make music great without ever playing a note.

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Argument Tactics

Words as accidents
Covered by the assurance
They will be repeated,
Used as blunt objects,
Or surgical tools,
To reopen old wounds
How many stitches does it take,
To close up that hurt?
Does your indemnity plan
cover failure of internal editing?
Metastasized in the middle of an argument.
Better take out another policy
Once this is done.

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