Massachusetts Punk Band Landowner’s Dan Shaw: “In the creative process you can just become paralysed because you have infinite choices… having restraints placed on what you can do, forces a really focused kind of creativity”

23rd Oct 202023rd Oct 2020 | gimmiezine

Original photo: still taken from video filmed by Ben Goldsher. Handmade collage by B.

At Gimmie we’re big fans of Landowner! We love their clean guitar, repetitive rhythms, and sharp, socially conscious, thoughtful lyrics. They’ve taken punk and stripped it down to its barest bones making for an impactful, unique twist on the more traditional sound listeners expect from punk. We chatted to vocalist Dan Shaw about latest album Consultant, his journey into music, job as a Landscape Architect and his exploration of the similarities of designing landscapes and of making music—interesting stuff!

How did you first discover music?

DAN SHAW: I have parents that are really musical. Growing up they listened to classical music mostly, that’s how they met, and they bonded over that. My older brother is twelve years older than me and he’s also a musician, he got into industrial and grunge. When I was a little kid I was hearing Skinny Puppy and Nirvana, more kind of rock music that my parents weren’t listening to. I ended up hearing a big diversity of stuff. Later in middle school, getting into music on my own and learning how to play guitar was kind of planting my little flag in the ground and saying, this is what I’m into! This is my thing that I’m all about! It took me a little while to discover it and to be doing it on my own but once I did, I never turned back—it made a lot of sense to me. I’ve been obsessed with making music ever since.

What kind of music did you find that was your own?

DS: What I first started paying attention to, which I think a lot of people do, is the stuff that is easiest to hear with little effort because it reaches you. Like I mentioned before, the grunge bands like Nirvana, they were my favourite band in 8^thgrade. It didn’t take too long to seek out the stuff that influenced them, the more obsessed I got with that band the more I started to learn what influenced Kurt Cobain. Luckily he was really vocal about all the underground stuff from the ‘80s that inspired him. By the time I was in high school I was discovering The Meat Puppets and Fugazi, who quickly became, and still to this day is, my favourite band. Once I discovered that Washington D.C. and Dischord Records scene, that’s when I really started to find music that resonated with me a lot, that post-punk thing. Then I started learning about the British post-punk bands too like Wire, the Fall and Gang Of Four. Those were big discoveries that got me the most excited and that have stuck with me to this day.

The next major step shortly after that or during that, was discovering local underground music right around me. Going to shows as a teenager and discovering that, oh, you don’t have to be a big famous person on T.V. to be doing this. It could be that I’m in a basement and the person standing next to me turns out to be the lead singer in the punk band that’s about to play, that basic thing just blew my mind the first time I went to a basement show.

I had a similar kind of revelation when I discovered my local scene. It gives you a sense of, hey, I could do this too! I think that’s part of the beauty of punk rock, that anyone can do it.

DS: Yeah! As a result of that I kind of put aside the idea of needing to be a big famous musician that “makes it”. I achieved my goal the first time I played music in front of twenty people at a house show. It’s like, there, I did it! It’s great! I’m grateful every time I’ve got to do it again.

Was your first band Health Problems?

DS: I was in a few other bands before but Health Problems was my first band that started touring more seriously and really released albums. I’d always been striving for something like that, it took until my mid-twenties when I started that band to really link up with the right people and circumstances to get out there a little better.

As well as playing music, you’re also a Landscape Architect and you design public spaces as well as other urban planning; what got you interested in doing that kind of work?

DS: Initially it was the creativity aspect of it. I was in college, in my first year doing general education, then I had to pick a Major. I learnt about Landscape Architecture and it seemed like a good way to do something creative that requires artistic skills but was also a safe practical thing. The more I got into it, the more I fell in love with it and realised you can make a difference in the world around you, in society, by doing public work; that’s why I’ve worked with public sector clients in the professional sector—working with communities and helping them envision the future in places where they live. It’s very fulfilling.

I know that fulfilling feeling of working in the public sector, I work in a community service in my city’s libraries. I prefer a job helping people rather than selling them something they don’t need.

DS: Yeah, this work can give you a sense of purpose. It’s still a job at the end of the day and can be frustrating sometimes certainly but, for me it’s a good path to be on.

I understand that you did your thesis in grad school on similarities between the creative process in designing landscapes and composing music as an analogy, for better understanding your own creative process; I’m really excited to hear more about this and to hear of what you found out about your creative process exploring this?

DS: I did a graduate degree in Landscape Architecture and for my thesis project it occurred to me, really no one reads your thesis except you and your advisors, so I decided to take a more personal deep dive on what makes me tick as a creative person. Because I think musically and I work as a Landscape Architect; could the two creative processes inform one another? If they could that would be a pretty cool, productive thing in my own little way that I operate. I ended up looking at a lot! The nature of music, how it’s different, every time it’s performed, the performance is different from last time and in the case of jazz, where it’s improvised off of a rough basic composition, that to me is more similar to how I design landscape, compared to something like architecture.

To make a musical analogy, designing a building is a very engineered predictable thing, that would be like a composer writing a score of sheet music and it’s all done very precisely to a tee… something that makes designing landscapes so fascinating and challenging and interesting is how the designer isn’t fully in charge of the outcome of a design landscape. You’ll design a park in your neighbourhood and in thirty years the vegetation that I planned is going morph and evolve into its own ecosystem; the way people use the park is going to be hard to predict and it’s going to take on its own ownership by the community. The designer’s role is to nudge it in the right direction and then the improvisation takes over, with society, with ecosystems and things like that.

A lot of my thesis used musical sketches to diagram the process and change over time that landscapes all have. To better understand what the role of the landscape designer is, it’s like the jazz composer that comes in with the basic theme but then the group improvises on it and takes it in a new direction from there.

What were the things that you found out about your own creative process exploring that?

DS: I’ve found that adapting to unpredictable circumstances is really a core, important thing. When I was doing that thesis project I had a practice space where I was making my rough musical sketches and I was trying to make sense of it all… I spent more time making the last Landowner album then I did on this thesis, it was really just a capstone on my schooling. I’m trying to cram in all these ambitious, burning questions in a short amount of time, in the middle of it my practice space got shut down and we all had to leave because the building closed. I suddenly had to adapt my way of working in this thesis project to a new circumstance where I didn’t have access to my music space anymore. What I ended up doing was, I had the jams that I had made, hours of stuff that I had recorded earlier in the semester and I turned to editing those sound files and creating sound diagrams and improvisations out of what I had previously recorded. Adapting to the circumstance is something that I have carried forward… the band Landowner exists because it’s something a lot like that.

A few years later where I lived in an apartment in Massachusetts, I had landlords right through the wall and I couldn’t rock out really loud, I was like; how can I make music that sounds really cool without the space to be loud? I was like, I know! I’ll make this clean, dinky-sounding version of punk with a drum machine and a practice amp, and that lead to Landowner’s sound. I deliberately embraced the creative constraint that I found myself faced with. That’s something I was forced to reckon with during the thesis, utilising a creative constraint that was forced upon me. Ever since then I’ve always found that that really yields focus and deliberateness. In the creative process you can just become paralysed because you have infinite choices, I’ve found that actually having restraints placed on what you can do, forces a really focused kind of creativity. That’s usually more consistent and satisfying to me.

Previously you’ve mentioned that when doing your thesis you felt kind of crazy; why?

DS: Because of what I alluded to a second ago of how, I was in my early-twenties, I went to grad college and I had this feeling that I was just going to crack the code, I’m going to figure it all out… I was trying to connect all the dots at once in the way that I operate. When you’re in grad school and you’re doing a thesis, it ultimately is a pretty limited time in your life, you can’t necessarily tackle the most grandiose ambitious things in a thesis. I’ve learned in retrospect that a thesis is the thing that kicks you off to bigger and more ambitious projects that you’ll do more long term. At the time I was trying to condense it all into one action-packed, nutrient dense two months! I almost felt like I had lost my mind doing it just because the students around me were pursuing more button-down “here’s an innovative way of harvesting stormwater in landscape architecture” and it was very concrete; then here I was saying that maybe music and landscape architecture is somehow creatively the same if you really look at it from a certain way. Once I had committed to it and I was half way through the project I couldn’t turn back. I was like, god, now I ‘m forced to make sense out of this madness… and I did. I felt like I had bitten off more than I could chew though [laughs]. A little bit over-ambitious, hopeful and grandiose!

I like the idea that you were exploring between creating a physical environment and then making a place you mentally inhibit with music.

DS: Yeah and that is a conclusion that I came to when doing that project. I thought maybe I could make a representation of the park I’m designing, musically. But then I thought that wouldn’t make sense. I could draw a picture of the park or a diagram, visual media, or I could make a soundscape representation, I could take a field recorder and record what the birds and traffic sound like, that could represent it in a literal way… but then I realised that music and creating a physical real space that’s built with shovels, concrete and plants and sticks, in reality are two completely different things and I had to accept that. I realised that I cannot represent Central Park with my piece of music better than any other park can represent Central Park, they’re just different places. Then I was like, ah-ha! Music is a place mentally, it’s a space. If I think of it that way, that by composing music I’m designing a space that people mentally inhabit… that might yield clues of how the creative processes are linked but it’s not that music represents landscape. We’re getting really, really deep into the tunnel here of the particulars [laughs].

I’m fine in the tunnel, like I said, I found the ideas you were exploring fascinating. Since I was a kid I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about music. When you record a record and your music gets pressed onto vinyl and then I buy it and put it on my turntable and then the energy you made the record with fills my room and transfers to this space I’m in—that just still blows my mind. I love that in Landowner’s music there is a lot of repetition, then all of a sudden you’ll get a transition that’s kind of jarring…

DS: I’m fascinated by repetition in music. My other favourite band is Lungfish and they’re pure repetition. With a Lungfish song you’ll hear the first riff and then that’s all you’ll hear for the next four minutes except the lyrics change continuously throughout the song. The idea of music being a place you inhabit, that comes especially to me with repetitive music because you start to trust that the repetition is going to continue after a few passages have been the same, in the space that is created there I find that the only things that’s actually changing is my own thought patterns during the passage of repetitive music and brings a kind of self-awareness to the forefront—it’s meditative. It feels like an environment for the listener to be themselves, instead of trying to keep up with spazzy changes in more busy music, which can be good too, that’s a whole different thing. There is a hypnotic aspect to repetitive music that I really like.

You just said something too, which is important to me, if music is really repetitive it brings all of this attention to places where there are transitions, those transitions become all the more important because of that—all the more striking. You put your trust in the music when it’s repetitive and then when something happens it catches you off guard, it wakes you up! I like being surprised by music and waking up several times during the course of a band’s set during a show or during the course of listening to a record… like as soon as I have it figured out something a little bit surprising happens.

There’s a punk band here in Australia called Arse, when they play live there’s this one song they do and there’s this part in it where they just play that one note over and over and over for a really extended period; after a while it’s almost as if it makes people in the crowd feel uncomfortable and uneasy because they’re not used to that, they’re waiting for a change. It’s really cool to watch the band do it, they have the biggest smiles on their faces.

DS: My old band Health Problems used to do stuff like that. We didn’t have a rule of using repetition all the time per se but, we would try to be aware of the psychology of watching a show and how to mess with what makes it interesting. We’d do stuff like that, one note ‘til it makes people feel uncomfortable and right when you find that limit, you change it. One of my very favourite bands that opened the doors to me of the power of repetition was an Australian band called My Disco. Have you ever seen them?

I have. I’ve interviewed them many years ago.

DS: Cool. Their stuff from the 2000’s. Their recent stuff has departed in a more experimental direction, their first three albums though were a big revelation to me when they came out.

Lyrically there always seem to be a lot going on in your songs, there’s a lot of layers to them. When you’re writing lyrics, do you have an idea of what you want to write about and then build around it? Or do they come in other ways?

DS: Most successful times I have writing lyrics is when I‘m carrying around, almost all of the time, a pocket sized spiral bound reporter’s notebook. When an interesting little phrase just pops into my head, I might not even know what it potentially means, I just write it down. At the end of the month the notebook is full and I read through the composite of interesting, evocative phrases. Some will be more developed lyric concepts too. I develop things into lyrics for a song or draw on those. I try to be ready to catch ideas during the day that are inspiring to me. The other half of it is work, time spent sitting in front of the laptop with a word document opened trying to type it all out into an arrangement that means something and makes sense. It’s a balance between the mysterious inspirations of an evocative phrase that has some potential coupled with then trying to tease out some real world meaning from it.

I’ve hit my head against the wall trying to sit down and write a song from scratch about a topic, for me that’s a lot harder and it ends up sounding preachy and annoying; I’m usually not as satisfied with those efforts. If I trust the mysterious lyricism of words and follow the trail of things that seem intriguing to me, that usually leads to something more worthwhile. With the Landowner stuff I try to resolve it into something that does has some kind of statement about the world that we live in.

A lot of phrases that I pick up on are little expressions you hear people say and the musicality in speech and refrains in conversation; things that sound ordinary that we hear over and over again catch my ear. Something like that might spark an idea for an entire song.

Is there a song on new album Consultant that has a real significance to you?

DS: I was thinking about this today, the lyrics that are the most concise and satisfying to me on the new LP are the song ‘Being Told You’re Wrong’ [laughs], which is so ridiculously brief. It captures a lot of what I’m trying to say in such a short, ripping little song. The lyrics are basically saying that; if you’re such a tough guy, why can’t you handle being told you’re wrong, without kicking a tantrum like a child. The sound of Landowner’s music is trying to tease the idea of what tough music is, instead of being all thick and heavy with distortion it’s clean and dinky-sounding but still aggressive and fast. The lyrics to the song also call out what it means to be big and tough and strong, if you’re a big muscly tough guy but then you dissolve into a childish fit if someone questions your opinion about something and you can’t handle being told you’re wrong! It’s expanding the idea of toughness that it needs to include self-reflection and critique, which it so often doesn’t. “Being told you’re wrong” is a phrase I’m really satisfied by, it’s one of my favourite ones.

What about the song ‘Stone Path’?

DS: I like the lyrics to that because it is about something in particular but I let myself be a little loose with the writing in it. The song is basically about racist housing policy in mid-20^th century United States where Blacks weren’t able to own property, they were denied mortgages… that’s multiple generations of people of colour that could only rent and couldn’t capitalise on selling it. The first lyric on ‘Stone Path’: now that it’s on your radar, you recognise it everywhere; that’s the culture becoming aware of the messed up dynamic of something like that more and more. A hand tipping the scales, that’s the hand of law makers sixty years ago, eighty years ago, unfairly tipping the scales in the favour of whites arbitrarily just inherited out of hatred. The song is about, my belief is, when we inherit the results of racist policy we can’t undo those injustices by trying to be colour-blind and turn a hopeful blind eye to it, deliberate racism can only be undone with equally deliberate justice. That idea is at the core of the lyrics of ‘Stone Path’. The title has nothing to do with the lyrics, that was my working title when the song was an instrumental and it just stuck. In this case it’s almost suggestive of what the song is talking about, the idea that we get stuck in these grooves in society, it sounds like it’s a well-trodden path that no one questions that they have just been on for such a long time.

Like I was saying before, sometimes I don’t worry if I don’t know the meaning of the words right away, it can all come together by just modifying some of the words here and there, just pointing things in a consistent direction. Things can make sense after the fact. That song title is a fun example that.

On the song ‘Confrontation’ your good friend and your bandmate from Health Problems, Ian Kurtis Crist does guest vocals!

DS: Yeah. When we play the song live the bassist of Landowner Josh Owsley normally sings that part. It was a mistake in the studio when we were recording ‘Confrontation’ with the band all together, I gave Josh the wrong note. I asked him to sing the backup line in a ‘C’ but it was supposed to be a ‘G’, he recorded the whole thing an octave below my lead vocal. I listened to it after and realised I made him do the wrong thing, it was a little too late to go back in and set up the microphones and redo everything, and maybe it’s a fun opportunity to send it to Ian and get him to do it. He’s one of my best friends, I like the sound of his voice and thought it would be well suited to the song. He recorded it in his home studio and we mixed it in and it sounded really good.

Is there anything you find challenging about song writing?

DS: The most challenging thing for me has been writing lyrics, I get hung up on lyrics. Since words really mean one thing or another in the brains of human beings, whereas the meaning of music is a little more forgiving, it’s a more abstract thing. Words are so loaded, if you chose just the wrong synonym or express it a little different then how you meant it, people are going to interpret it differently. I feel bothered by the drafts of the lyrics until I know they’re just right and they resonate in me. I spend the most time on the lyrics. One of my goals is for it to sound spontaneous and conversational, with a few exceptions, it’s the part of the song that takes the longest.

The last song on the album ‘Old Connecticut Money’ I think I wrote 90% of those lyrics in one go. My pen was moving, I was at work on a break, I had this idea and I wrote it all down. I could almost read it out of the notebook and it just fell into the song, but for me that’s pretty rare. Lyrics are something that I toil over.

On Landowner’s previous album Blatant there’s a song called ‘Significant Experience’; have you had a really significant in your life that you could share?

DS: That song is another good example of where I wasn’t writing about one particular thing, I was trusting the overall mood of lyrics and ability to evoke thoughts with that combination of words.When I was putting those lyrics together, I was thinking about how the most significant, moving experiences that people live through in their lives tend to be those things that shape their political outlooks and beliefs in the world. When you come to an impasse in a political argument let’s say, usually the reason you can’t get through to the other person or the other person starts to shake and get in a rage and can’t even get words out, it’s usually because there’s some really significant thing that they lived through that’s welling up, it’s important to realise that all people carry things like that around with them. That’s what’s often behind dysfunction in how we communicate. Right now, that’s the most I’ve intentionally thought about those lyrics or put it into words like that. I just let the lyrics be the lyrics and just try to get them across, I’m not decoding them most days.

Please check out: LANDOWNER on bandcamp. LANDOWNER on Instagram. LANDOWNER on Facebook. Consultant out now on Born Yesterday Records.

*NOTE: more of this interview can be found in our editor’s upcoming book, Conversations With Punx. Featuring in-depth interviews with individuals from bands Ramones, DEVO, Black Flag, Bad Brains, Fugazi, The Stooges, Crass, Misfits, Bad Religion, The Clash, The Slits, Subhumans, Descendents, PiL, X-Ray Spex, Adolescents, Agnostic Front, Operation Ivy, At the Drive-In, The Avengers, Youth of Today, Night Birds, Cro-Mags, Gorilla Biscuits, X, and more. Coming soon! Follow @gimmiegimmiegimmiezine for updates.

Bec Maher of Melbourne Synth-pop duo Syzygy: “The songs are comments, reminders or pep talks to myself to help me understand who I am, accept or criticise the way I see the world”

22nd Oct 2020 | gimmiezine

Naarm/Melbourne synth-pop duo Syzygy – Bec Maher and Gus Kenny – are one of the brightest new electronic bands we’ve heard this year. Their debut release The Pendulum is full of spirit, charm and very danceable drum machine driven, hook laden bangers.

How did you first start making music?

BEC MAHER: I was actually kinda late to the game when it comes to making music. I have always been a little obsessed with music and have loved singing in particular. I remember as a kid I would take my mum’s dictaphone and record my favourite songs from movies and listen back, writing out all the lyrics and learning to mimic the singer. Then when I started getting into punk as a teenager I spent most of my weekends going to all the shows I could and have kinda kept that up since.

However playing music myself always seemed out of reach. I’m not sure if it was because there weren’t many women playing live music as I was growing up and therefore I struggled to see myself in it, to understand the path from punter to participant. Or if it was that I revered music so much, it felt overwhelming to imagine myself making it. But in my late 20’s a group of close friends (which included Gus, the other half of Syzygy), some of which were in the same position as me where they have never played before or wanted to try new instruments, were starting a band and I decided to play bass. So I learned a few Ramones songs, an Au Pairs and Nots cover and that was the start of my first band Spotting.

We love your previous band Spotting! Both you and Gus make up Syzygy; how did you first meet? How did Syzygy come about?

BM: Gus and I met through some mutual friends in 2006 going to shows around Melbourne and have stayed close friends ever since. We’ve done a lot together in the past 14 years; lived together, travelled together and one of the most significant was probably Spotting. Gus was pretty integral in helping me learn to play bass, as well as the basics of arrangement and how instruments fit together as he had a bit more experience than me and a lot of patience.

We really loved working on music together, perhaps because we both have the same somewhat obsessive love or approach to it. We have really similar tastes but also, sometimes quite different tastes too. So talking about music and the way we experience it, and how that can differ, has always been a part of our friendship.

I think Gus was looking to make something more on the synth pop side of things, so when Spotting ended he started writing. By the time he approached me to see if I wanted to sing, he already had quite a few songs pretty much fully written. It took a little bit of thought on my behalf as although I loved singing, I actually had never really done it before. I had been doing punk vocals a bit here and there, but I knew this was going to push me and honestly I was pretty terrified. But I just loved the songs Gus had written so much and we had worked so well together in the past that I knew that we’d figure it out along the way. It was also a good way to hang out and spend time doing something fun and fulfilling.

What was it about the name Syzygy that you like so much to call yourselves that?

BM: So first things first, Syzygy is a strange name and we do realise now that it’s going to be difficult for people to try to say and spell. A simple definition we have been using to explain it is a syzygy is the conjunction of any two related things, either alike or opposite. It’s often used in astronomy to describe the alignment of bodies such as an eclipse but has uses in psychology, philosophy and mathematics.

When we realised the looming day was coming where you have to name your band, possibly one of the worst times in a new band’s progress haha. Everything sounds cheesy and weird until you say it enough. So we started trying to think of concepts that represented us or the music.

We kept coming back to this idea of our relationship as friends and as band mates as being mutually beneficial or a mutual exchange. We are very different people in some ways. The way we see, experience and react to the world can be different and we both have quite contrasting strengths when it comes to making music and the wider elements of being in a band.

But these different and at times, opposing personalities are really complimentary. It helps us create balance when we make music as we have a huge amount of respect and trust in what the other one brings to the table. Balance was also something that was also coming through as a common theme in the lyrical content.

At the time Gus was reading a book called The Three-Body Problem and the word syzygy is used in that and it stuck with Gus as an interesting word that was fitting to the themes we’d discussed and reflected some of the genre conventions of electronic music.

In July you released a limited edition cassette The Pendulum; how did it get started? What was the first song you wrote for it?

BM: So Gus wrote the music to the title track ‘The Pendulum’ first out of those 4 songs. However he sent me a few at once to start putting vocals to and I chose (I’ll Just Be) Unfulfilled as I absolutely loved that opening melody and I thought I could take a shot at that repetitive hook at the end.

I’d never really done vocals for pop music before so I listened to melodic pop music I admired like The Go-Go’s, Eurythmics and Tom Petty and thought about which is the part in the song that pulls you in and makes you just want to rewind that 15 seconds over and over. That part that you feel like you are waiting for the whole song. That hook is sometimes the most satisfying part of the song when it comes to the vocals.

So if I prioritise that bit and make sure it’s something I’d want to hear if I was listening to it, the rest can follow. We ended up with 3-4 songs with half written vocals where I had gotten excited about a particular part and then moved on to the next haha. I think ‘Social Fence’ was the first one that was completely finished.

What were the things that were inspiring the writing of The Pendulum?

BM: I’m going to answer this just about the lyrical content as I can’t really speak for Gus’ inspiration when it comes to writing the music. When I write lyrics I have usually spent a few weeks prior researching concepts I find interesting that can work as a wider metaphor for what I am trying to convey.

For example, ‘Social Fence’ is a term used primarily in psychology to describe when an individual’s short sighted or avoidant behaviour leads to society as a whole, suffering. At the time of writing it I was feeling frustrated with lazy individualist choices (including my own, I’m definitely not perfect either) to do the easy thing, not the right thing and the effect I felt that was having on the community around me. It felt to me that the people setting the tone for the community were unaware of the power they hold and what they could do to transform it into a place we all wanted to be. So it’s perhaps a little comment on the music scene but also I think it can extend to interpersonal relationships too.

‘The Pendulum’ as a song is based on a joke that I had with an old friend of mine about the frustrations of having, let’s say, somewhat fluctuating mental health and that the goal is to try and have more of a balanced approach to life instead of being so 0 or 100. For me, structure and staying busy is the key to that so I think this song is a reminder to stay centred instead of being so up and down.

I guess in general the songs are comments, reminders or pep talks to myself to help me understand who I am, accept or criticise the way I see the world and process my relationships and experiences. I’ve tried to write songs without the first person perspective and I am just terrible at it. So I’ve just decided to commit to them being pretty personal with this thinly veiled metaphor over the top haha.

I often like to put a little reference or nod to something that Gus and I have spoken about, as well as its intended meaning. In 14 years you develop quite the repertoire of in-jokes so that’s nice a layer to it as well.

Can you tell us about recording this collection of songs?

BM: The songs start out being written on computer, but the software synths that Gus has access to are not very sophisticated, and they come out sounding a bit like “MIDI versions” of the songs they are supposed to be. So, once the songs are written, he records the MIDI through a couple of different analogue synths to make it sound a bit less clinical. This means that each instrument is effectively recorded twice, and that helps to fill out the sound a bit.

Then we send all the stems to our friend and I guess we’ll call him our producer Julian Cue. He has a studio so I went over there and recorded the vocals with him. I often refer to him as almost the third member of the band as he really helps it go from sounding like a DIY bedroom project to something much more polished with lots of dynamics and depth. He also is great to work with so he helps me get more comfortable when recording vocals and get a better outcome.

What might people be surprised to know about your music making process?

BM: I don’t know if it’s surprising but it’s definitely different for me coming from bands, but that we essentially write and make all the music separately. Gus comes to me with the songs pretty much written and recorded, often he even has an idea of how and where the vocals will sit, as they are almost like another synth line or layer. Then I take it and write my parts and record some demos at home. When we can work around COVID restrictions, we get together and combine everything and maybe play with the arrangement. It’s actually the perfect project for the pandemic because we can keep making music without each other. However we do text A LOT. Sometimes when we are working on something it can be 100s of messages a day haha.

We actually managed to make an entire film clip for the title track ‘The Pendulum’ last lockdown in April without ever seeing each other. I grew up watching Rage every weekend, recording my favourite clips onto VHS and I would watch them over and over. It felt like you got to engage with the band and the song on an extra, almost intimate level which I loved. So I’ve always wanted to make a film clip and Gus had made this video synth a few years earlier. He had been waiting to use it again for something cool.

So we created a little storyboard so we knew what to do and I would film myself lip syncing with an iPhone taped to a mirror or with the help of my housemate and then send them to Gus. He would run them all through an analogue video synth he made himself to get all the effects. Then he edited it all together with some stock footage. It was really awesome to see us being able to work together and adapt to the restrictions and still get to make fun and interesting projects.

The lathe cut release on Wintergarden Records is super cool! Where did the idea for the “moving picture” cover design come from?

BM: That was an idea that Gus has been wanting to try for a long time, and when the Wintergarden Records 7” came up, it was the perfect opportunity, because we could be so involved in its production. It is an example of a Moire pattern, which is a type of interference pattern that happens when two similar patterns with transparent gaps are overlaid on each other. The four frames of the animation are split up into vertical lines and the transparent gaps in the plastic expose each frame as they move across it, making it look like its moving.

Spider from Wintergarden loves things that are unique and collectable and as these are small run 7s, individually pressed, he was fully on board with the idea and let us go for it.

What either excites or frustrates you about the local music scene?

BM: If you had asked me this nine months ago I think I would have had a lot to say in regards to the way it approaches representation or access. Or talked about the bands and labels which are really interesting to me. However post-COVID, I actually have no idea what the music scene will be or how it is going to adapt. I think that I honestly just want to wait and see what emerges from this, particularly as I’m from Melbourne and we are still very much in strict lockdown, and re-evaluate from there.

What was the last gig you saw before lockdown?

BM: The last gig I saw was a punk show I was playing with my other band Vampire supporting Cream Soda from Sydney on the 7th of March. It was actually one of the most fun shows I’ve played with that band and although I didn’t know at the time it would be the last one for what could be a whole year, it was a really great send off.

What’s next for Syzygy?

BM: We are finishing up some songs and getting ready to record them when restrictions ease in Victoria and the plan is to combine them with the cassette to make an LP. The songs were always designed to be an album, but COVID made that plan pretty unviable so we had to go about it all a different way. We will hopefully have them recorded and mixed by the end of the year.

Please check out: SYZYGY on bandcamp. SYZYGY on Spotify.

Naarm-based zine Magnetic Visions: “I put it out and I found that it was a really freeing process because it allowed me to be connected…”

16th Oct 2020 | gimmiezine

Zines are really important! Good ones burst with life and can capture a culture, a scene, community, document a time, and share ideas and stories in a way that conventional publications can rarely, if ever; they offer an alternative narrative to the mainstream. There’s a genuineness, imperfection and sometimes awkwardness on their pages we resonate with. They’re written with unfiltered voices and self-expression of someone finding themselves (aren’t we always?), navigating the world and exploring their local creative community, likes and dislikes. They spread music, art, thoughts, feelings, information and perspectives. Anyone can make a zine. Making zines hones your skills or teaches you new ones you might not have known you had! Making one can sometimes save your sanity. A zine gives creative freedom. It can help you use your voice. A zine most importantly connects people.

Through making Gimmie zine this past year, we’ve connected with so many amazing creatives throughout Australia and the world! One of the coolest is Billy who creates Magnetic Visions zine, a predominately music-based print zine from Naarm/Melbourne. He also makes music: Disco Junk, Billiam, Collective Hardcore, TOR, Dot Com, Aggressive Hugger, GDU and Under Heat Records. We love his passion for music and compulsion to share it—a kindred spirit.

A few weeks back Gimmie’s Editor Bianca sat down for a chat with Billy, they did an interview collaboration! Billy interviewing Bianca can be found in the new issue (#7) of Magnetic Visions, which also features interviews with Alien Nosejob, Lassie, Girlatones, Cool Death Records and more! Bianca interviewing Billy is below.

It’s important to support each other! The more people making interesting, unique rad stuff and expressing themselves creatively the better!

How did you first discover zines?

BILLY: A while ago Strangeworld Records had a flood and they needed to get rid of a lot of the water damaged 7-inches so I went in there and bought quite a few. Richie who runs Strangeworld Records threw in a couple for free. One of them was Meat Thump which is the band ran by Brendon Annesley who made Negative Guest List zine. I ended up contacting Matt who put out the Meat Thump 7-inch to ask if he had another cover for it, because it was completely destroyed from water damage. When he sent the cover, he sent a few copies of Negative Guest List. I remember being completely blown away by them, the journalism and the whole formatting of zines. I developed a curiosity about them and I’d find a couple at Lulu’s and eventually I discovered Sticky Institute in Melbourne. From there I learnt about zine culture. I’ve probably learnt the most since doing Magnetic Visions because it’s put me in contact with a lot of people that know a lot more than me.

Nice. I used to have my earlier zines stocked at Sticky back in the early to mid-2000s.

B: It’s a really great place! I don’t think I’ve asked to stock there but maybe post-pandemic I should see if I could get a few put in there.

Totally! Do it. What inspired you to take the plunge and start making your own zine?

B: Initially it was just meant to be a one-off thing. I’ve always wanted to do a comp tape with a zine, so I put together five or so of my friends’ bands; I interviewed them and I put an exclusive track on a cassette. I put it out and I found that it was a really freeing process because it allowed me to be connected to music without actually making music. I sat on it for a bit and I started working on issue two during February, as that turned into COVID time, I plunged completely deeper into zine making, making it properly, properly publishing it and trying to put in as much effort as possible as I can to make it as good as I possibly can.

What are the zines that you really enjoy?

B: Negative Guest List is the main one, which ended in 2012 when Brandon died. I absolutely love Distort from the issues I’ve been able to get, there aren’t that many. There’s a zine in Europe called Rat Cage which is starting up at the moment that I really like, it’s focused on European hardcore and post-punk. Of course I love Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie zine! A friend of mine runs a zine called DST that I really like that’s based in the US, its half writing like short stories and half interviewing bands.

Do these zines have any similar qualities?

B: I like really good interviews, I like interviews that are very conversational and have good graphic design. I’ve always loved the visual appeal of a zine, making it as visually appealing as possible because you are paying for that physical visual aspect.

Is there a difference for you reading a zine digitally vs. reading print?

B: Digitally I have less of an incentive to read it. If I buy a zine I’m more inclined to read it because I’ve spent money and there’s an investment in there so I might as well get as much out of it as I can. I also find I’m able to get more value or enjoyment out of something on paper because I put more of myself into it.

What are your favourite and least favourite parts of making a zine?

B: I’ll start with least favourite, it can be very intense trying to put something together that you think you’re truly proud of, hoping people will buy it, that’s not particularly fun. I’ve had a lot of trouble dealing with that and at times the zine has been quite taxing on me. I think I’m a lot better at it now. I’ve figured out the main parts.

The best part is being able to be involved with so many music scenes around the world and being able to talk to artists that I absolutely adore, in a somewhat conversational way is absolutely fantastic!

Yeah, it’s pretty cool getting an insight into people who make stuff that you admire and appreciate.

B: Yeah, I did an interview with Jake from Alien Nosejob for the next issue. Even though I’ve talked to him a bunch this was the first time that I think I felt really comfortable really talking to him and it was absolutely incredible!

Amazing! I can’t wait to read it.

B: It’s really good. It’s a good issue, I’ve also done an interview with Lassie and Silicon Heartbeat—awesome bands.

I love all the zines, they’re all really good.

B: Thank you, it’s good that people are actually seeming to enjoy them. I didn’t really know there was much of a zine market until I started doing it, I had no idea that people would actually consume and enjoy them.

For me growing up in the ‘90s zines were such a normal thing, there were lots of them and there was a vibrant zine culture.

B: Yeah, back then I guess it was more essential to have zines. That was the only way to publish things on somewhat of a budget.

Yeah. I used to have friends that would have access to photocopiers and I’d get to photocopy my zines for free a lot of the time.

B: That’s what I’ve been trying to do at the moment. I started off printing them at school but they put the hammer down on that so at the moment I’ve had to go through Office Works.

Here in Brisbane there’s a really great place in Fortitude Valley called Visible Ink, it’s a Youth Arts Hub and you can go in there and photocopy your zines for free. They have lino printing resources and a badge maker you can use too. Do you stand there and photocopy it yourself or do you leave it with them and get them to print it and come back later to pick it up?

B: When I’m printing the final version that’s what I do but when it comes to designing it and all that, I’m usually just there getting specific things or trying to get a specific paper stock that will stick better to the background and all that.

I’ve been there! I love doing zines with a coloured paper cover, I’ve done full colour and A3 folded and A4 folded sizes.

B: I think right now at the moment doing just A4 black & white is the best for me because colour printing is so expensive. For this issue I might do colour covers just for fun, I like the way it looks.

It’s always good to keep trying different things and evolving.

B: Plus colour covers stand out more when everything else is in black & white.

Yes. What’s something that making zines has taught you?

B: I don’t know? I guess it’s taught me how to put together a complete artistic product. I’ve done albums before but I feel like putting together a zine is a lot more than just releasing an album because you’re involved in every aspect, asking every question, cutting out everything, paying or the printing and all that. I hadn’t really had much experience doing that until making a zine. I’d done tapes but some part of them I was able to rely on other people, this one, a zine, was all me. The main thing it’s taught me is to create a completed product.

Do you set deadlines when making zines?

B: No, not at all but they’ve all somehow been finished! Since issue three they’ve all come out, one a month or at least thirty days in between them. I sort of want to slow down but no matter how many brakes I put on like, I’ll only do one interview a week, or don’t work on it during this time period, I always manage to at least finish one by the end of the month. There’s no deadline but one forms naturally, I guess.

That’s how I felt when we started doing Gimmie, it’s been six months now and I’ve done over 100 interviews up on gimmiezine.com, I think there’s 113 maybe at this point.

B: That’s pretty fantastic!

Yeah, I just started and kept going. I love interviewing so much and I like making the art that goes with each interview. I love sharing new bands and music with people.

B: Yeah, it seems to be going pretty well so far.

One of the things I love about your zines is when you write your personal pieces; are you every scared of putting your thoughts out there, committing them to paper? Do you ever censor yourself?

B: Not really, I’m not really self-conscious of putting out my actual thoughts. I often find that I’m just not able to put them in words. There isn’t very much of it in issue six, because mainly when I would write about something I wouldn’t be happy with it, it would feel show-off-y or not correct. I’ve put the brakes on it for issue six but issue seven will have a lot more of it. I’ve been doing some writing on bands I like. I’m doing a big piece right now on probably one of my favourite bands right now, Bis.

I love Bis!

B: I don’t get why more people don’t talk about them. I don’t know if you’ve heard the new TOR single, but TOR is basically my love letter to Bis—I love that band so much!

I’ll have to check TOR out. I’ve seen Bis live!

B: Did they ever tour Australia?

Yeah, they did. I have the ticket stub somewhere here.

B: That’s awesome! I have an old poster I was able to get on eBay that I have in my room, it’s a promo poster for The New Transistor Heroes; it’s probably the coolest piece of art that I own. Mandarin’s art is fantastic!

Agreed! We have a lot of art on our walls here.

B: I’ve got a lot of posters from gigs or prints that I’ve bought from photographers, or flyers.

That sounds like our place. We have a pretty big collection of posters some from the ‘70s through to the ‘80s and ‘90s to now.

B: That’s awesome!

How do you choose what bands you’ll feature in your zines?

B: I pick bands that I’m listening to at the moment or that I think could give an interesting interview. I don’t like to just pick bands that have a record coming out, but that sometimes helps because they have a reason to talk, things to talk about and they’re in that mindset of sharing it. I really just try to pick people that I think are interesting. I don’t try and pick from one particular scene or a particular area of music to follow, I just pick what I find interesting. Issue six has a mish-mash of a bunch of different things: Toeheads, are from Detroit, they’re an amazing garage rock band; there’s an interview with two of the members of Meat Thump and we were able to talk about Brendon Annesley, it was fantastic. I interviewed Jack from Vintage Crop and that went really well. Even Mark Vodka who is this obscure Canadian artists who is probably the closest thing to a second Ramones we’re ever going to get.

Is there anyone you’d like to interview that you haven’t yet?

B: A lot! Usually it’s because I don’t feel comfortable asking them. The dream interview, the one I’ve always been desperate to do is someone from Razar, the Brisbane punk band—that’s the dream! I’ve never been able to find a single interview with them. I consider them to be pretty close to being the most important Australian punk band of all-time. I’m still on the chase for it so if anyone knows any of them send me a message!

ABC put out a punk compilation, I bought it because it had Frenzal Rhomb on but I heard ‘Task Force’ on it and [Psychosurgeons] ‘Horizontal Action’ and it set me on the path towards what I’m doing now.

What’s been one of your favourite interviews you’ve done so far?

B: Issue one I was pretty proud of the one I did with CB Radio and Glue Eater, I think they both turned out really well. Issue two, Mikey Young I was really happy with, same with the one with Spoil Sport Records. Issue three, I think I did a good one with Drunken Sailor and Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice, those were ones I was really proud of. Issue four is where I think I start to get it down and I’m more or less happy with every single one in there, Research Reactor Corp, I was really happy with. Issue five, I was really happy with my interview with The Ghoulies and Hearts & Rockets. The one I did with Australian Idol I was extremely proud of and I still think that tape is the most underrated thing released this year. I’m really happy with everything in issue six, all of those are pretty good.

What makes an interview good for you?

B: It’s having a conversational feel and revealing interesting information. The interviews I really like I feel they show the artist’s personality really well and they’re interesting to read. Not every interview I read is with a band I like but, if the person is interesting to talk to I can get something out of that.

Get MAGNETIC VISIONS issue seven HERE and read Billy’s interview with Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie zine!

Please check out: BILLIAMVILLE.com. Billiam on Instagram. Magnetic Visions on Instagram.

Meanjin Grit Hop band Spirit Bunny: “We feel strongly about diversity and social responsibility, supporting community and grassroots art and initiatives”

16th Oct 202016th Oct 2020 | gimmiezine

Original photo: courtesy of Zang! Records. Handmade collage by B.

We love Meanjin/Brisbane Grit Hop trio, Spirit Bunny, a joyful explosion of noise from multi-instrumentalists Kate Thomas, Joel Saunders and Cam Smith. We’re super excited to bring you the premiere of first single ‘Paper Handshakes’ from their upcoming sophomore album on new independent label Zang! Records. Spirit Bunny’s sound is a perfect storm of circuit bent Casio noise and C64 synths with phat beats and whimsical melodies.

Firstly, congratulations on signing with Zang! Records. We’re really excited that Spirit Bunny has new music to share with us. We’re really digging your new song ‘Paper Handshakes’! Where did the song name come from? I’ve heard that Spirit Bunny songs often start with a title before music and lyrics are written.

SPIRIT BUNNY: Thanks! We’re super happy and excited to be able to share some new stuff again. ‘Paper Handshakes’ actually had a different, working title until right at the last minute. That’s pretty normal for us – a lot of our songs start off with working titles that are related to how the songs sound or what they remind us of. A good example of that is ‘Gold & Brown’ from our first album, which in its very early stages of being written reminded us in mood of the song ‘Golden Brown’ by The Stranglers. Sometimes those working titles then inform the lyrics and themes, which are almost always the final part added to the song. So it almost always goes music, working song title, lyrics, and then sometimes a proper song title if we decide the working title is no good (or embarrassing). This song had an embarrassingly mundane and meaningless working title.

What inspired it both musically and lyrically?

SB: Musically we wanted something that was upbeat and really punchy. We started the writing of the album with a couple of more downbeat or weirder songs, and thought we should perhaps write a pop song. Which is what we did, or at least it’s what we consider to be a “pop song”. It was one of the first songs for the record where we started experimenting more in-depth with dual and duelling vocals, something we tried a little bit on the last record. Lyrically it’s about the sway that people with money hold over decision makers, and how that doesn’t always benefit the greater good.

How much did the song change from its beginnings to what we hear now?

SB: This is one of the songs that just kind of came out and didn’t need a whole heap of tweaking, it came together pretty easily (which can’t necessarily be said for the some of the other songs from our forthcoming album). The only significant change came right towards the end of recording, when we invited our friend Keeley Young (of Claude and Requin) to play saxophone on it. That’s something we experimented with on the new record, getting our friends in to replace our parts but playing them on an instrument that we don’t normally use, to try to get some new and often more organic sounds into the mix. So on this song, Keeley multi-tracked her saxophone to replace some of the chordal parts that Kate plays on Commodore 64.

What interests each of you in what you create as Spirit Bunny? I know you’ve all had many other bands and projects.

SB: It’s probably the most democratic and collaborative band any of us have been in, which can be challenging but also very much worthwhile. It’s definitely a project where if you were to replace any one of us you’d end up with a completely different thing. When we first got together we had an idea of what we wanted to sound like, but ultimately what came out is Spirit Bunny. It really pushes each of us in different ways, both technically and in what we’re comfortable with in terms of our roles in the band. For example, Kate is kind of the musical core of virtually every Spirit Bunny song and that’s not something she’s done in her other projects.

It’s also very different from any of the other projects we’re involved with. Some musicians like to play in a bunch of bands that are all of a kind, but that’s not something we’re overly interested in.

Spirit Bunny shows are pretty special, there’s an amazing synergy between you; do you ever have trouble capturing the spirit you play with live in recording or do you see live and recording sound-wise as two different things?

SB: The first record was definitely a pretty close representation of the live version of the band. The new album is perhaps very slightly less so, although the majority of the record was still built around the way we would play the songs in a live context. We did try a few new methods of writing and recording this time, with a few of the songs being partially constructed in the studio instead of extensively hashed out in the rehearsal room. We also tried to incorporate a few more textures this time, and to give some of the songs a bit more space than on the previous album. We definitely try to capture the energy of our live shows, though. That’s really important, and I think both albums go pretty close to achieving that.

What’s something surprising that people might find interesting about the way you write or record?

SB: We’re all multi-tasking in this band, each playing multiple instruments at the same time. Kate plays two Commodore 64s, Joel has two of his unique circuit-bent Casios plus a bunch of noise boxes, and Cam has his looped beats alongside the acoustic drums. So everything can get pretty layered and dense for a trio, but that’s what we actually sound like. It was a bit of a focus on this record to strip that back a bit sometimes and give the songs some room to breathe.

You use circuit bent keyboards/Commodore 64 synths; where did your interest in using these come from?

SB: We like repurposing obsolete or outdated technology in a creative fashion, giving it a second life that’s perhaps outside its original purpose. It’s cool to make something that’s somewhat futuristic and hopefully forward-looking with elements that could sometimes be considered somewhat ‘retro’. Also, these instruments have inherent limitations and we like that those limitations can force us to come up with novel solutions. An interesting example of that is that the Commodore 64 has virtually no dynamics, and Cam came to Spirit Bunny from bands that were highly dynamic so he had to rethink the way that his drums were going to function in this new context, where if he played quietly he was going to be drowned out but if he played loudly he would drown everyone else out. The answer ended up being adding dynamics to the drums via the density of the playing, rather than playing softer or louder.

What can you tell us at this point about your sophomore album you have coming up?

SB: Firstly that we’re really happy with it. There’s been a lot of work to get to this point. It’s been good to welcome some new people into the fold to help us get the record to the finish line, whether it’s been various friends of ours adding their own flavours to the record sonically, or teaming up with Zang! to get the record out into the world. Listening to it now, it seems like real growth from the first album. The songs are simultaneously more extreme and also more accessible, more dense and also more spacious. It’s been a journey of discovery for us as much as it is for anyone else, perhaps more so. From within the band, everything we come up with seems to be greater than the sum of its constituent parts.

What bands/albums/songs have you been obsessing over lately?

SB: We’ve been listening to Deerhoof’s two new records a lot, always listening to lots of Deerhoof. We love the new Party Dozen album, in a way we feel like they’re kindred spirits in the Australian music community. Similarly with the new Wax Chattels. Angel Olsen’s All Mirrors is a record that weirdly influenced some of the sounds on this album, in terms of some of the mellotron arrangements and a kind of chamber-pop sound we attempted to incorporate in parts (with varying success).

We also listen to lots of local stuff, and there’s been heaps of really good local releases lately. The new Ancient Channels is fantastic, which some of us are involved with in some ways (Cam recorded it, and Joel now plays in the live band). Zang! labelmates Gold Stars have a fantastic debut album. Local Authority, Ultra Material and Relay Tapes all put out some great shoegaze and dream-pop records recently. Nathan John Kearney put out a lovely solo record, It’s Magnetic have a wonderful debut album. There’s new Grieg. We’re looking forward to the new Apparitions record. There’s so much stuff.

What’s something that’s important to Spirit Bunny?

SB: Musically we just want to make something that excites and challenges us. On a more important note, we feel strongly about diversity and social responsibility, supporting community and grassroots art and initiatives. We delved into some of these issues lyrically on the new album, which we also did on the first one but often in a more oblique way – this time we were a bit more overt in the presentation of some of these themes.

Please check out SPIRIT BUNNY. SB on Instagram. SB on Facebook. ZANG! Records.

GIMMIE RADIO [16] ‘Wave After Wave’

8th Oct 20208th Oct 2020 | gimmiezine

Gimmie Radio is back with a new playlist. Kicking off with Brisbane group Ancient Channels who we just interviewed here. Tunes from a bunch of AUS music favourites like The Shifters, Research Reactor Corp., EXEK, Alien Nosejob, and a whole bunch more!

Dreamy Meanjin based post-punk Ancient Channels: “Time, Space, Ancient Worlds”

5th Oct 2020 | gimmiezine

Original photo: Jason Cahill. Handmade collage by B.

Meanjin/Brisbane musicians Kelly Hanlon (Deafcult/Terra Pines) and Chris Preindl (Apparitions/Leavings/Vestiges) take us on a sonic sci-fi expedition exploring ancient, ceremonial drumming together with shoegaze dream pop and cosmic themes to create a band that’s outta this world, Ancient Channels.

How did you two first meet? What were your first impressions of each other?

KELLY: I first met Chris through the Brisbane music scene. Our other bands have played multiple shows together over the years so we’ve been in each other’s orbit for a while. I’ve been consistently blown away every time I’ve seen Chris play with any of his bands whether its Apparitions, Leavings or Vestiges. He’s all over the kit with such deft and precision, technically brilliant but also insanely creative, I swear he’s got an extra set of arms hidden away somewhere. I remember thinking that I’d like to work with him sometime soon after seeing him play, and here we are! Dreams do come true!

CHRIS: Our first meeting is hard to pinpoint because Brisbane often feels tiny. I do feel like my first impression of Kelly is one-and-the-same with what would be the most prevailing impression, that she’s an incredibly talented songwriter and musician, and a really cool, calm and compassionate person.

You both play in multiple other bands. Kelly plays in Deafcult/Terra Pines and Chris plays in Apparitions/Leavings/Vestiges; what inspired you to start Ancient Channels?

KELLY: I had wanted to start a project a little more pop-centric and beat orientated. I was also watching a lot of Ancient Aliens at the time (for pure entertainment, I don’t actually believe Ancient Aliens built the pyramids) which resulted in the idea of combining elements of ancient, ceremonial drumming with more contemporary style song structures and the aesthetics of dream pop, shoegaze and post-punk. I wrote a few demos and sent them to Chris and asked if he’d be keen and lucky he was. We didn’t practice together before recording just winged it on the day and Chris wrote and executed his drum parts with such energy it was beautiful! The drums are really the forefront of this band in my opinion, almost like a lead guitar or something, well and truly up front.

CHRIS: Kelly reached out about starting a new project together in early-mid 2019 and I didn’t deliberate much; sometime after my band Leavings played with Terra Pines (for something like the third or even fourth time around Southeast Queensland) Kelly had written some incredible demos and after hearing them I was very excited at the chance to collaborate. She suggested it’d be more of a studio project from the outset which was super ideal for my other band commitments and life schedule. Dates were then set for roughly six months later to record with Cam Smith at Incremental Records.

You’re into sci-fi soundtracks of early film and television; what’s one of your favourites? What do you appreciate about it?

KELLY: Film soundtracks, particularly sci-fi soundtracks are so evocative and they overtly convey tension in a way that I love. The 1950’s had some really great film soundtracks full of creepy theremin tones that make my skin crawl in the best possible way. It Came From Outer Space 1953 is a favourite, also The Day The Earth Stood Still 1951. I tried to get a theremin-ish like tone in “Orbital Dance” with one of the synth lines, it’s not exact but it’s the best I could do with the tools that I have haha. I also love the original Dr Who theme 1963 by Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer. It’s such an iconic piece of music, “Carpe Noctem” was an attempt to do something big and dramatic in that vein. There is a great doco on Delia Derbyshire called The Delian Mode on YouTube that everyone should watch for a bit of backstory on her. I’m also big into Vangelis like everyone else under the sun.

CHRIS: I think this is more Kelly’s realm, at least as far as direct influences on this project go, but for me I can’t go past such iconic scores as: Blade Runner (Vangelis), Akira (Geinoh Yamashirogumi), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Richard Strauss), and more recently the scores of Drive, Ex Machina and Good Time… although some of those absolutely aren’t sci-fis.

You’ve recently released Moments In Ruin; what inspired the writing of this album? It seems pretty cosmic!

KELLY: It all comes back to Ancient Aliens haha I feel like I was thinking about it for a year or so before we even started writing, but mainly the idea was to just have a collection of songs that draw from many influences both concrete: Shoegaze, Dream Pop and Post-Punk and Abstract: Time, Space, Ancient Worlds etc… I think there was also talk about writing a record full of singles. The idea that every song on a record could be a single is a bit of a novelty but thought it would be a fun challenge.

CHRIS: Other than a partial embracing and full appreciation of engineer/producer Cam Smith’s drumming (in specifically Terra Pines), and the desire to serve Kelly’s demos sufficiently I embraced influences stemming back to when I first started playing drums. Essentially bands like Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and pretty much any DFA/New York City band from the mid-2000s.

I’ve heard that drums and percussion are the foundation of your sound; how do your songs form most often? Can you tell us a bit about your writing process?

KELLY: All the songs were written using Garageband to demo initially , and then Chris rewrote the shitty Garageband drum loops and made the songs infinitely cooler and more interesting. All the songs were written with the same approach though, built from the ground up, rhythm section, then guitars and synths (textural) and vocals last. The vocals took the most amount of time to write because melody was really important, most of the songs on the record have alternate versions of the vocal melodies and harmonies. I think “She-Rise” had about 8 different versions.

CHRIS: Up until now it has been part recreating the beats mapped out by Kelly and part improvisation in the studio environment. The intricate layers that formed the first versions of the songs that became “Moments In Ruin” afforded me a lot of room for inspiration and, to a degree, experimentation so it’s been quite a thrilling and fun process; the approach with Ancient Channels is different to the more jam-based process of other projects I’m involved with.

We really love the song “She-Rise”; what sparked this song?

KELLY: From memory it was one of the last songs written for this project, there was a feeling the record needed something a little more driving and immediate. I’d read an interview with Grimes about her writing process, that she’d often write songs to scenes from films. I kinda liked that idea and thought I’d give it a go. I picked the Bride vs The Crazy 88 scene from Kill Bill Vol1 and tried to write with that scene in my mind and often playing in the background on silent. Thematically I guess I projected myself into the role of the bride and sexist sound guys in the role of the crazy 88 (metaphorically speaking of course). It’s a clusterfuck, I’m not sure it works as a score to the scene but I was happy with how the song turned out.

CHRIS: For my part I really wanted the rhythms to be straightforward and blunt, as the song seemed to me to be one of the most propulsive and pounding. It embodies what is probably the most intense, menacing and bold energy and so I thought a rigorous and sweatily performed dance beat would serve the song best. An undoubted influence for me for “She-Rise” is the music of U.K. post-punk band Savages.

What most excites you about your new album?

KELLY: I’m excited that it’s out and we can move onto the next one.

CHRIS: Recreating the songs live, with additional members: Elise Clark, Imogen Kowalczyk, Kelly Saunders & Joel Saunders. We haven’t yet brought all the songs to life: as is the case for a lot of other bands (local and nationwide/worldwide) it’s been a difficult year to effectively showcase new music. Fingers crossed for the remainder of 2020 and the start of 2021…

I know that you love recording and being in the studio; was there anything you tried or experimented with while recording?

KELLY: Most of the experimentation came with the drums (different beats that Chris wanted to try and varying types of accompanying percussion. Everything else was locked in by the time we got to the studio as we had Garageband demos with sounds and tones finalised etc…

CHRIS: Percussive layering felt like the most immediate example of studio experimentation. Usually I’m quite hesitant to contribute or sign off on drum parts that aren’t in the realm of possibility to perform live, but we both agreed that we could maximise some of the songs with overdubbed drum hits and cymbal swells. It also helps that Elise is also a drummer!

We love the vocals on the album, very ethereal, haunting and atmospheric; how did you approach doing them?

KELLY: I would say that we wanted vocals to sound that way for sure, ambience and atmosphere were important but also melody. A lot of time was spent trying to make the vocal melodies as infectious as possible, as mentioned before they were rewritten a hundred times over and vastly different from their first incarnation.

CHRIS: I can only dream of having had a hand in the vocal process, though it’s fun to watch agape and in awe from the sidelines for this aspect. I guess there’s always the possibility to harmonise live!

Your music is a collage of genres and I love how your artwork for your releases is also collages; where did the idea for this style of artwork come from? You do the art Kelly, right?

KELLY: My friend Jason Cahill (who did our video for “Footprints In The Dark”) is a great visual artist and filmmaker and he sends me art all the time that he thinks I might enjoy. He had an idea once of doing a collage film clip for one of our songs by animating a collage and in doing research for that idea I came across the collage hashtag on Instagram and fell in love with the otherworldly nature of it. It’s a format that seems like it has no rules and so much possibility.

CHRIS: I think Kelly’s collage art precedes Ancient Channels! I love how effective and evocative it is.

Is there anything else you’ve been working on that you’d like to tell us about, Ancient Channels-related or otherwise?

KELLY: Stay tuned to our socials for show announcements and news, we’ll probably start thinking about the next record soon-ish. Both my other bands Deafcult and Terra Pines have new records coming out next year and I believe Chris has a bunch of exciting stuff up his sleeves too which he can tell you about.

CHRIS: We’re excited by the prospect of working on new music as a six-piece band. In the meantime Kelly’s other bands Deafcult and Terra Pines are working on new material. My other band Apparitions will be launching its album in roughly a month’s time with Deafcult as well, so I’m really excited for that!

Please check out ANCIENT CHANNELS; AC on Facebook; AC on Instagram. Moments In Ruin is out now get it here.

Portland Punks Era Bleak: “Our songs are generally inspired by the sense of urgency we feel… anxiety, frustration and confusion… the fucked up state of the world”

1st Oct 2020 | gimmiezine

Original Photos taken in isolation by Candy, Justin, Fawn & Samantha. Handmade collage by B.

Era Bleak play wild, raucous punk rock with angular guitars, driving rhythm and raw gut-level vocals, they remind us of our favourite ‘80s hardcore punk bands but are firmly planted in the now making music reflective of our uncertain times. Their music is both bleak yet optimistic. Gimmie interviewed them to find out more.

How did you first discover punk rock?

ZACH: It was 1991 and I was a junior high nerd into some serious nerd shit. My favourite bands were Oingo Boingo, They Might Be Giants, The Dead Milkmen and The Ramones. I had no idea that any of those bands were punk (I’m still on the fence about Oingo Boingo). A couple years later, my older cousin played me the brand-new debut Rancid album, and that was that.

CANDY: I was lucky to have had an older brother and sister that were each teenage rockers in the 70’s and a mom that was always listening to “oldies” radio. SNL and American Bandstand were favourite TV show’s in our house, each of which had numerous punk bands as guests. I think those things helped steer me in the right direction. My sister was into the Rocky Horror Picture Show movement when it first started and she would bring her friends over dressed up for a show. They looked dangerous and weird and tough and it was something I found myself drawn to as a kid. So naturally when I would see and hear weirdos on TV. I paid attention. My sister encouraged my interest over the years and it really came to a head when she gifted me records for my 11th or 12th birthday. DEVO-Freedom of Choice, Adam and the Ants-Kings of the Wild Frontier and Cheap Trick-One on One (not their greatest I now). Over the next 5 years my interest slowly progressed to bat cave, skate rock and anything I heard on the local college radio station in Boise Idaho. The show was called Mutant Pop KBSU/BSU Radio. It pretty much changed my life. I would record the show onto my boombox and the rest is history!

CHRIS: I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. No scene. A cultural shithole. No older siblings to turn me on to cool stuff. No internet back then. I was way into metal but would see all these rad weird shirts in Thrasher magazine and would try to find those bands tapes at the mall, after I heard the Ramones and Black Flag it was over, me and my friends were so isolated, whatever we could get our hands on was a big deal. Devo, Butthole Surfers, the Urinals, Misfits (duh)….all the SST stuff

What are the things that you really enjoy or don’t enjoy about the punk community?

ZACH: The answer to both is “punks”.

JUSTIN: Ha! Exactly. I like the creative comradery and DIY dedication in the punk “community” but not some of the single minded attitudes of some punks, particularly to other kinds of music styles.

CANDY: I don’t enjoy the overabundance of blinding phone screens at shows. It drives me bonkers. I like that new ideas and new sounds still occasionally come out of some of the scenes here, some more than others. People support each other and look out for each other it seems.

CHRIS: Damn, couldn’t agree with Zach more.

Who or what motivated you to make music yourself?

ZACH: It’s the logical chain of events when you’re a punk!* One minute, you’re a wide-eyed 15 year old at a show, the next, you’re 38 and sleeping on a filthy mattress in an unheated squat in Leipzig surrounded by a surly Polish post-punk band. *Post script, I want to recognize my male privilege (and teenage male ego) on this response. The scene I grew up in was not as sexist as others I have come across (lookin’ at you, Germany) but was typically under-represented and under-supportive.

JUSTIN: I got into playing music before I knew punk was a thing, due to my parents being in a rock cover band in the ‘80s. I started playing drums at an early age, and was exposed to punk through being around their band, who were mainly hippies, but played songs by new wave bands like Devo, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders. I found a cassette of the Repo Man soundtrack at one of their band rehearsals, and that kind of blew my mind into the right direction, punk-wise. I started playing in weirdo loser bands with my other weirdo loser friends right away in high school and never looked back.

CANDY: My motivation was having a basement, affordable equipment and a decent paying job that allowed me to buy what I was interested in trying. Bass, drums and years later “singing”. Friends that wanted to make noise for the first time and musician friends willing to teach me the ropes also helped.

CHRIS: Yeesh, where I grew up it was the only way to escape and keep some level of sanity, the need to connect with something bigger

What was your first introduction to D.I.Y.?

ZACH: Fortunately, my home town of Denver has one of the world’s greatest record stores, Wax Trax. I started going there religiously when I was 16, and was able to make the jump from shitty mainstream pop-punk to shitty local DIY pop-punk.

JUSTIN: I grew up in a small town near Seattle, Washington, and in the early 90’s the whole grunge thing was really everywhere. Me and my friends were already bummed on how mainstream alternative rock was really taking over and were looking for something of our own. Lollapalooza brought to you by Mt Dew and all that. The hardcore punk house show scene was where really the escape from all the bullshit for me. Going to gigs, networking, tape trading, and zine sharing introduced me to a whole way of operating autonomously from the mainstream, and how anyone can create their own scene anywhere, even in a tiny town. This was pre internet, so you had to actually talk to people in person…but it was a good thing.

CANDY: I was dating the drummer of a band that would make all of their own merch. Stickers at Kinko’s, t-shirts in the garage, buttons at home. I helped in the t-shirt screen printing process a few times and it was fun and definitely made me realize that nothing is out of reach. Most things can be done by your own hand. In that same time period, the guitarist of the band Mikey (r.i.p) had crafted his own guitar with the neck off of an old guitar of his and a skate deck as the body. The thing was bad ass and smart as ever on his part.

Era Bleak are from Portland, Oregon, we’ve been hearing/seeing the protests on the news over here in Australia; can you tell us a little about your experience of what’s happening where you are?

ZACH: It is pretty amazing. Tens of thousands of people have shown up to protest America’s racist policing practices. Not surprisingly, the police are not taking the criticism well, and ironically, seem intent to prove our point through egregious violence. It is worth noting that most of the violent police response has centred around a very small area near the “Justice Center” (aka court house) in a part of downtown that was already essentially shut down by the coronavirus. The media makes things look wild, but 99.9% of Portland still just looks like Portlandia.

Members of Era Bleak are from bands Dark/Light and Piss Test; how did Era Bleak get together?

JUSTIN: We were all friends and fans of each other’s bands before we started. Candy and I had played in like five punk bands together, and thought of doing a side project to Dark/Light. We asked Chris and Zach to play, figured they’d both be too busy, but turned out you should never underestimate the hunger of punks to wanna punk out. Eventually the side project became more full time.

What inspired you to write your self-titled album? What influences your songs the most?

JUSTIN: I think most of our songs are generally inspired by the sense of urgency we feel all the time every day. That anxiety, frustration and confusion we feel from being on our phones all the time, and the fucked up state of the world. As far as the music goes, 90% of it is written together as a band, usually through spontaneous jamming. Zach likes to joke that we’re really a “jam band”…if only we smoked more weed.

Last month EB donated 100% of proceeds of your self-titled album sales to Black Resilience Fund and BLM Mutual Aid Resources; can you tell us a little bit about these funds/resources? Why was it important to you to support them?

ZACH: Black Resilience Fund is great because they funnel that money directly into the community. We also donated to the PDX Bail Fund to help get protesters out of jail.

JUSTIN: We felt like it’s very important for the BLM movement to continue to gain ground in the face of white supremacy and the rise of fascism in America. Especially living in a region (Oregon) with a shitty history of racism. Since we were not touring or playing live gigs, we were going to have to sell records online anyway, so why not generate some donations for a good cause? It was a no brainer for us.

On album opener Era Bleak the lyrics are: ‘Things get shittier every week / No hope for the future in this era bleak’; where are the places you do find hope when things seem rough?

JUSTIN: Well, I just deleted all my social media accounts, so that makes me feel a little better.

CANDY: I find hope in my backyard. It’s my safe place and I’m obsessive about observing the natural world. I guess I find hope in nature. I recently observed a small swarm of ants work together to move a dead bee about a foot away. They all had their individual jobs to do to make it work. It took an hour or more but it was fascinating to observe.

CHRIS: When I walk my dog with my headphones on drinking coffee.

What’s your favourite lyric on your LP?

ZACH: “Fire on the horizon” (though possibly because Oregon is literally on fire as I write this).

CANDY: My fave is from MRI: “they wanna see into my head, see what’s going on in there”. I think it’s witty, it flows and it’s the truth.

We really love the song “Struggle”; how did that song come together?

JUSTIN: That song makes my hand cramp up.

CANDY: Lyric wise the song is about my sister Sonia whom I mentioned earlier. If I remember correctly I had already written the lyrics before the music came together. Once the dudes started jamming on it I realized they would be a good fit and the feeling was there in the sound. It worked.

What was your favourite part of the recording process? Do you have a favourite moment on the album?

ZACH: The songs were very finalized before we got to the studio, so we were able to record the record in two days. We don’t fuck around! If I had to pick a favourite studio moment, it may be Justin doubling his vocals at the end of Mind Control Tower. It sounds cool and was hilarious to witness.

JUSTIN: What was hilarious was Zach’s keyboard part that we never used. Or when Chris wasn’t ready to start Tinderbox and you could actually hear during playback the sound of him picking up his sticks off the snare right as the song started without missing a beat!

CHRIS: We should’ve left that in! I worked nine hours that day and went straight to the studio and started playing, it was great.

What bands/albums/songs have you been listening to lately that you can’t get enough of?

ZACH: All Hits (new album on Iron Lung Records) and Francoise Hardy.

JUSTIN: Music is life. Lately my favourite shit been Essential Logic, Norma Tanega, Delta 5, Subway Sect, Funkadelic, Can, (Hardcore) Devo, and new stuff like All Hits, Gimmick, Ben Von Wildenhaus III, Lavender Flu, Slaughterhouse, Sweeping Promises, Mr Wrong. Plus Greg Sage Straight Ahead and Wipers Land of the Lost is always in the stack this year.

CANDY: Tuxedomoon, Prince, Roky Erickson, Dead Moon, Nina Simone, DEVO (always).

CHRIS: Dead Moon , it’s fall, so lots of Dead Moon. I’ve also been rocking a lot of Zounds and Lilliput lately….and of course Husker Du.

What do you do outside of music?

ZACH: I am the Operations Director of a non-profit that provides Behavioural Health services and recovery housing, primarily for people involved in our (broken) criminal justice system.

JUSTIN: I lost my job as a restaurant manager due to the pandemic, and now I’m a full time Dungeon Master, basketball enthusiast and total slob.

CANDY: I grow stuff indoors and outside and do a lot of plant propagation. I observe birds and insects. I also talk to my cat Bessie all day, read and do crosswords. I’ve recently been getting into dot art designs. I got laid off from my job because of the pandemic so I have some time on my hands.

CHRIS: Warhammer 40k!

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?

JUSTIN: Australia rules and we wanna come tour there.

CANDY: I second what Justin said. Thanks for interviewing us!

Please check out ERA BLEAK; EB on Facebook; EB on Instagram. Era Bleak album out on Dirt Cult Records.

Patrick Flegel: “When I did the first Cindy Lee cassette my life was a wreck… Taking responsibility for myself and caring about myself, that’s leaning in a different way for me, to realise that I am worthy”

26th Sep 2020 | gimmiezine

Canadian artist Patrick Flegel creates heart-wrenching, hauntingly devastating music with project Cindy Lee. Sounding akin to classic 60s Girl Groups but recast for now, with atmospherics and dreamy melody, the sheer beauty of these somber and at times wild songs that push and pull in many directions make for compelling listening.

Why is music important to you?

PATRICK FLEGEL: It makes me feel good. I’ve loved music since I was a kid. It’s a really uplifting thing, yeah?

Yeah! Why is recording music one of your favourite things to do?

PF: It’s just so engaging! It’s a certain kind of headspace where you’re not thinking about anything else. I guess it’s kind of an escapist thing… [pauses; a siren is sounding in the background]… sorry there’s just this crazy storm here, a full on downpour, lightening striking the trees!

It sounds pretty full on where you are! When you go to record, do you have a song that’s fully formed or do you create as you’re recording?

PF: Writing and recording are kind of the same thing to me but I’ll be rehashing and thinking of stuff constantly, pretty obsessively. It’s a pretty time demanding thing. I play guitar all the time and that’s usually where things will start or I’ll come up with something. A lot of the stuff I have released, people would say they’re “demo recordings” but I am usually just happier with it and over it by the time that’s done so I’m not going to go into some studio and redo it… sorry, I’m kind of thrown by the storm and everything happening here, I’m squatting in the street [laughs]. I just go until I can’t anymore, it’s definitely a bingeing, obsessive kind of thing.

I read that you’re actually working on a new record already called Diamond Jubilee?

PF: Yeah, I am. That’s the tentative name for the record but I actually moved to North Carolina, temporarily anyways, that put a wrench in things. I’m going to be moving into a house to set up a temporary studio and I’ll start on that. I wanted to have it out this summer but obviously circumstances has put a wrench in a lot of things. I also came down here. I think I’ll finish it by Halloween.

Nice! That’s exciting news. I can’t wait to hear it. What prompted your move to North Carolina?

PF: My partner! We wanted to be together so I came down here.

Aww that’s lovely, I love love! It’s my favourite thing besides creativity and nature. It’s really important.

PF: Yeah, it’s kind of the bottom-line [laughs].

You’ve already put out two albums this year – What’s Tonight to Eternity and Cat o’ Nine Tails – and with the one you’re working on that will make a third; did you expect to put out that many albums this year?

PF: Yeah, that’s just what I want to do. When you’re working with a label, it can take a year before your record comes out, even though it’s done. There’s a way things are normally done and then the way that I would like to do things. I just have so many ideas all of the time and it’s all that I want to do—it’s what I’m driven to do. I want to make more music more often, it’s that simple I guess.

Do you feel that there’s a connection through all three albums? Do they tell a complete story together or are they separate things?

PF: I have no idea of what I’m going to move into but I wanted to move into the more positive, I don’t know if that will be in terms of sounds or the lyrics—it’s just where I’m at. I feel like everything that I have done so far is really doom and gloom and taboo and the dark corners of things. Now that’s not what I want to put out into the world, not even because of what’s happening [the global pandemic], I think things have always been bad [laughs]. It’s just where I’m at personally, where I’m at as a person… you were saying that love is more important, I want more of that kind of feeling, something that makes people feel good. The kind of music I have been listening to more, over the last four or five years, has been basically easy listening, light music [laughs], that’s kind of pacifying, background music. I have no idea what it is going to sound like or whether it’s going to be doom or gloom again, let’s get real [laughs]. What I have in my head is a pleasant-sounding record that’s comforting and isn’t just some kind of hell ride!

I think you’ll surprise yourself!

PF: Yeah! You always set out to do something but you never know. By the time it’s wrapped up, for better or for worse, you’re in awe of what actually happens. It might be a bad thing, or a good thing [laughs].

I know you’re still working on the new record but to me in a way it sounds kind of like a rebirth, like everything you’ve gone through on your last two albums, all the doom and gloom, the heaviness and darkness, it’s almost like you faced all these different things and now it’s like a triumph over those things and a much deserved celebration.

PF: Yeah, I would like that. Of course things will still be a hot mess and complicated but more personally I’m leaning in a different new direction than I have, my head isn’t in the place it was… that’s where the title comes from too… just the mentality of self-victimisation and self-indulgence, this inward, often selfish state of mind you can get in when you’ve got some mental health shit going on. I just don’t want to hear it anymore, over time I’ve just wanted more pleasant sounds. I’m not listening to this hell ride, anguish kind of music, I want music to make me feel good or have it really take me somewhere… just spiritual music in general where I would think of gospel music or choral music. Where it is terrifying and confronting some dark things but ultimately it’s… oh, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Would you say that you’re a spiritual person?

PF: Oh, yeah, absolutely! It’s hard to talk about in short without sounding kind of woo-woo. For me it’s a more big picture perspective. If I think about universal consciousness, that’s where my head’s at. Part of it would be that I see things in the big picture, what I mean is, 300 years ago the clothes that people were wearing and the things they were saying and the big ideas they had, we look at it now… in the future people will look at us in the same way; I feel like there’s this perpetual oblivion that everyone’s in. In that context it seems like unnecessary human suffering, or it seems redundant. All this domination and exploitation, greed and whatever, it seems redundant to me in the big picture, whatever people are in competition for, in the bigger picture I don’t see the point in this competition that everyone’s got.

Do you set timelines for yourself making your Cindy Lee work?

PF: I just make the time to do, it takes a lot of time to do it. It sounds haphazard to a lot of people I think but it actually takes hundreds sometimes thousands of hours to make a record, from the conception of a part that turns into a song, to the actual mastered final version of twelve songs or whatever.

When you get lost in making music and time goes by and you’re not even noticing, is that in a way a meditation for you?

PF: It absolutely is! You don’t think about anything else and it’s a whole self-expression. It sounds ridiculous but it really is a transcendent state of mind; you’re not even there or something. It’s like any kind of physical activity like maybe chasing a ball or having sex or any visceral thing like that, I feel like music ties into that where you’re just fully engaged and you might just forget your own name [laughs].

I feel that way with interviewing. I just do it because I enjoy it and I like sharing music, art and stories with people. I’ve done it well over half my life. No one is paying me to do it.

PF: If you make that sacrifice for a while – I mean it’s a total crap shoot as well – if you actually do what you want and do it well, whatever that means, maybe the two will cross over at some point where you don’t have to do things you don’t want to. Or maybe you don’t want the money to intersect with what you’re doing ‘cause it takes the fun out of it. Thankfully there’s just enough people that like my stuff that I can keep my head above water and float. These days I feel you can do anything and people are pretty open-minded. You don’t even have to fit in. Someone will show something to me like Kendrick Lamar’s albums and I’ll be like, what the fuck? This is one of the most popular music in the world! This music is wild! It’s unique and jarring and strange.

I’ve often found with some of the artists I’ve interviewed over the years, when they get popular and get some money they change and it makes them more sad. They wanted those things for so long but when they got them they realised it wasn’t what they thought.

PF: Oh yeah, I experienced that in my own life on a very minor level. To play music and tour like I did when I was younger, we’d do an album cycle, I didn’t even really know what that was at the time… I didn’t enjoy it at all – I had some good times – but the lifestyle of playing 150 to 200 live shows in a year and not making anything new, doesn’t appeal to me at all [laughs].

When I found your Cindy Lee stuff I thought it was just so cool, I didn’t know anything about your past bands.

PF: I’m most excited about everything I’ve been doing lately, that’s pretty normal for a creative person I think. I feel alright about it. Speaking of doing things that you don’t’ necessarily want to do, if you want to sell units sometimes you have to do stuff… I got a publicist for the last record, but you watch the press and publicist (who’s a friend of mine) people stumbling around queer… branding you… the whole thing makes me squirm, the way people talk about… just branding myself as queer, which I do align with that in my values and beliefs and the way I see things as far as I understand that stuff, but it’s also a funny thing to be branded by that… does that make sense?

It does. How has Cindy Lee helped you grow?

PF: It was a personal thing with… being from Calgary, I noticed it when I lived in Vancouver, Montreal, these places that grew up with the values in their family were very liberal or more left-leaning and got fast tracked into a way of seeing things and certain values… there was absolutely no representation of where I’m at now in my life when I was growing up, like none! It was stunting. When I was twenty-five I had an epiphany, realisation or meltdown revolving around my identity, my sexuality and these kinds of things. I feel like that’s maybe something some people go through younger. It feels like something that should have happened to me as a teenager but didn’t. It was a kind of revelation about things… I kind of ended up turning on that as well, I could talk about that for a long time. You start wondering what’s really motivating you to counter your masculinity with this superficial aspects of femininity and then the aspects of your personality in your mind that are aligned with femininity and then over the years kind of realising that it’s just using the same framework… for me to counter masculinity with these sign posts of femininity, or particularly the way I dress… I ended up feeling that I don’t know how much that adds up… for example, I talk about the Devil a lot in my music and that’s the opposite of Jesus or God, but it’s a hilarious thing to use this ammunition to fight against something, and have it be from the same book. It’s a long, weird road the way that I look at myself and feel about myself and what that means. So that’s been lumped into this creative process and publicly being put out there, growing up in public.

I’m grateful for people that have paved the way so it’s permissible for me to cross-dress in public and not in my experience get any trouble for it. People are actually congratulatory about it and that makes me feel weird [laughs]. Sometimes people talk to you like you’re a hero for cross-dressing. That’s a funny aspect of it. I think my experiences with gender identity… that’s probably why the music has so many hardcore ups and downs, bi-polar [laughs].

Talking to you now, you seems so happy.

PF: Oh yeah, I am. I had some pretty tumultuous periods, that are behind me; probably the last two or three years I got my feet on the ground. I had a pretty sloppy existence [laughs].

What helped get your feet on the ground?

PF: My relationship with alcohol definitely has been a huge thing, when I did the first Cindy Lee cassette [Tatlashea] my life was a wreck but when I did Act of Tenderness and Malenkost there was a period where I didn’t drink for three years, nothing. I’ll occasionally drink now, but it’s something I’m always considering; I would attribute it to that. Taking responsibility for myself and caring about myself, that’s leaning in a different way for me, to realise that I am worthy and not inferior, basic self-help things. When I stopped drinking it was amazing, that’s the most creative stretch that I’ve had to that point, when I went sober. That’s been a consistent thing since then. I live like I’m retired or something, I live very slow; I eat, shower, sleep and make music, just really basic things that appear to be easy for other people [laughs].

Do you have routine to your day?

PF: I just go with the flow. I have things set up so I don’t have a ton of obligations and I can do things at my own pace—I’m living very cautiously! [laughs].

I heard a [David] Bowie interview and he was saying like “art’s a car you can crash over and over and walk away from” which I appreciated. He talked about how chaotic his life was when he was younger and how he wanted to pour that insanity into his music… it may be obvious but I think that’s really the kind of person I would like to be, I’m taking care of myself and the people I care about and maintaining things in my life and then in my creative world I can just go straight to hell if I want to! [laughs].

Anything else you’d like to share with us?

PF: I guess I just wanted to mention a couple of things as a buffer to what I was saying about spirituality so it doesn’t sound dumb. When I was a teenager I took a lot of psychedelics and that ties into my overarching… I’ve seen it! I’ve seen what I think reality actually is—infinite and formless and beyond our description.

Please check out CINDY LEE. Cindy Lee on bandcamp. Get vinyl edition of Cindy Lee via Superior Viaduct.

Melbourne Synthpunk Solo Project EUGH: “I’d always liked bands like Tubeway Army and The Units”

22nd Sep 2020 | gimmiezine

Original photo: Vincent. Handmade collage by B.

Vincent Buchanan-Simpson is the creative behind new solo synthpunk project EUGH, you may also know him from jangle poppers Terrible Signal, psych-punks Hideous Sun Demon and weirdo punks Kitchen People. EUGH is lo-fi, hyper, satirical and wildly fun! Gimmie interviewed Vincent to find out about new release the most brilliant man alive!

Where did you grow up? How did you discover music?

VINCENT: I grew up in Fremantle. My parents are big music lovers and I learned piano at a young age. I was about 11 when I started to really take an interest in it. My dad got me into a lot of good proto-punk and post-punk bands pretty early. I liked my fair share of trash though. Still do really.

Who or what inspired you to first write songs?

V: I don’t know. It’s the only thing that makes me feel productive and it’s been like that forever.

Can you tell us about the first time you ever performed live? How did you feel?

V: Mother’s Day 2006. I played bass in the Christian Brothers College Junior Jazz Band. We played “Tequila”. I felt dumb in the yellow vest they made us wear and we sucked.

You’re in bands Hideous Sun Demon, Terrible Signal and Kitchen People; what inspired you to do this new project EUGH by yourself?

V: I’ve been meaning to start a project like this for ages, it was just been hard finding a space to record since I moved to Melbourne. I write everything in Terrible Signal so I’m used to doing things by myself. Plus lockdown has pretty much made bands impossible here unfortunately.

Why did you decide to go with a synthpunk/egg-punk sound?

V: In 2012 I played in a band that covered “Are We Not Men” by DEVO in full. Learning those parts made me realise how much a like that style of writing. I’d always liked bands like Tubeway Army and The Units since I was young. I guess this project is also a continuation of Kitchen People in a way, same as Ghoulies.

In terms of egg-punk, I dunno. That was just a tag I added on Bandcamp in the hope some European Youtuber would find and upload it. Gotta know your target audience.

I read over at Marthouse Records that writing lyrics was different for you for this project compared to your other bands, usually you’d write about experiences happening around you this time you wrote about made up hilarious scenarios; was there anything you did to spark the process when writing? Was there a scenario you were thinking of using but didn’t?

V: Not really, but that’s only because I kind of made up the stories as I wrote the lyrics. Like with “Junk Shop” for example, I started with the idea of a guy working in a pawn shop. But as I went along it turned into him being kidnapped by a guy and forced into eating at Hogs Breath Café, which I didn’t plan at the start. I think it was that sort of spontaneous approach that led to the song themes to be as stupid as they are.

“Galactic Terror” is one our favourite tracks on the EP it’s pretty hectic; how did this song materialize?

V: The music was really quick. Like maybe an hour to write and record it. All the songs were written like that. All the riffs in that song are the kind of thing I play when I’m fucking around on guitar or whatever, I just threw a few together in a way that made sense to me.

You recorded everything yourself; how did you keep yourself engaged and motivated throughout the process?

V: Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. I just try and make sure when I am motivated that I’m productive as possible. It’s easier with this project coz I can do it all pretty quick.

What might we be surprised to know about your recording process?

V: The EP was recorded all digitally. I’m saving up for a reel-to-reel but I’m actually pretty inexperienced with analogue recording. The EP sounds like it does because after recording the song I would run the whole track back through a Korg MS20, the high and low pass filters round out the sound and the VCA makes it real squashed and nice. I think it worked pretty well.

Do you ever get nervous sharing your songs with people once they’re done?

V: Not so much now. It depends who I’m showing. But my songs are better than they used to be so I’m more confident now.

I peeped stacks of books a while back in one of your Insta vids; what was the last book you read that ruled? What’s it about?

V: The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. It’s challenging and at times pretty brutal and harrowing. But it’s a modern age epic, especially the second book The Crossing. All three books tell stories of young cowboys from south-west USA being drawn into Mexico for various reasons. All their journeys bring misfortune, but they all encounter characters whose stories bring some of most profoundly deep writing I’ve ever read. It’s about human condition and plight, and the relationships we all have with have with nature, time, society and faith. All set to this harsh yet beautiful backdrop of Northern Mexico in the 1940s.

Last year you were on tour in Europe with Hideous Sun Demon; what’s one of the coolest things you saw or experienced while there?

V: All the venues and all the people were amazing!

We all liked Toulouse a lot. It isn’t a name you hear that much but it’s an amazing town, and Le Ravelin is a great venue. I walked around the morning after our gig and the place was just brimming with history and creativity. It’s not that small a town but it has very relaxed atmosphere.

Your Insta username is @reallygreatoutfit; what’s the greatest outfit you’ve ever worn?

V: Probably when I dressed as the guy who played Smeagol in Lord of the Rings for Halloween. Like the actual actor in his motion capture suit. It was a blue zoot suit that I stuck duct tape it on to make it look real. Remember when zoot suits were a thing? People suck.

I know you’ll be releasing another EUGH EP by the end of the year; have you started it yet? Are you setting yourself any creative challenge writing it?

V: I’ve written it all already. But then I upgraded my studio and I dunno if I wanna re-record it or put it up as is and then do something else. I have three releases going on with different bands as it is at the moment, so I’m gonna get those out and then focus on it. Plus getting out of bed is a challenge enough with curfew lol.

Please check out EUGH on bandcamp; EUGH on Instagram.

Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie Zine

Author: gimmiezine