Scratches a Pencil – An Interview with Writer/Musician TIM KINSELLA

January 15, 2012 in Interviews, Literature, Music

You may be familiar with Tim Kinsella through one of his many music projects.  It could be from his emo-pioneering band Cap’n Jazz, his ongoing avant-rock project Joan of Arc, or any of a number of other solo efforts, collaborations, or offshoots/incarnations of those groups that he’s been involved in over the years.  But, these days, Kinsella has been involving himself in more than just music and focusing his attention heavily on writing.

Aside from releasing 2 separate albums under the JOA moniker in 2011, his first novel, The Karaoke Singer’s Guide to Self Defense, was published last September by Featherproof Books.  The 376-page work zips back and forth between a handful of people’s lives, many of which are family members in the fictional town of Stone Claw Grove, Michigan.  The characters deal with addiction and aging, struggle with responsibility, and give up on brighter dreams in an attempt to settle for whatever they already have currently.  Throughout it all, strippers strip, fights break out in bars, and singers cover all of the karaoke classics.

I recently had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Mr. Kinsella and to discover more about his venture into literature and his overall approach to the creation process. Read the rest of this entry →

You Gotta Move – A Conversation with KARL DENSON

January 14, 2012 in Interviews, Music

Karl Denson is arguably one of the hardest working musicians on the scene, successfully building a name for himself over the last 2 plus decades.  His early days -circa the late 80s / early 90s -found him playing sax for Lenny Kravitz, which opened a lot of doors for his own career and gave him exposure to the music industry and life on the road.  After his years with Kravitz, he worked with trombonist, Fred Wesley (James Brown, Maceo Parker Band, Parliament Funkadelic) and went on to release a series of jazz records on his own.  Then, as  jazz began to “turn soft”, Denson needed to forge his own path further.  [This is not unlike how Skerik, who grew up playing sax in Seattle alongside Kenny G, went on to start a project called the Dead Kenny-Gs, which he refers to as a "free-jazz version of The Melvins"]

Having grown up in Orange County, CA, Karl linked up with DJ Greyboy in San Diego and the duo began fusing together acid jazz grooves and beats.  By 1995, the project had acquired guitarist Elgin Park (aka Michael Andrews), organist/keyboardist Robert Walter, bassist Chris Stillwell, and drummer Zak Najor.  This marked the birth of the now-legendary Greyboy Allstars, as well as their classic album, West Coast Boogaloo (feat. Fred Wesley).

Always prolific and ever evolving, Karl thrived in several more projects, began fronting Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, and has continuously popped up and found homes with everybody and anybody in the jamband circuit over the years.  His resume is a mile long and, most recently, he’s performed with the likes of such acts as Slightly Stoopid and none other than PUBLIC ENEMY!  Every great festival that I’ve been to has included some incarnation of Karl Denson; whether it’s a late night, post-Phish Halloween show, KDTU set, or just the saxophonist jamming with a seemingly unlikely bluegrass band – he is up to his eyeballs in music!  Through it all, one of the most impressive things about this man is the balance that he maintains between heavy touring and being a father/husband.  He specifically structures his tours to maintain this balance and one can tell from being in his presence that he truly knows how to keep all of his passions equally in check.

Once I heard that Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe was going to be covering the Rolling Stones album, Sticky Fingers in it’s entirety, with additional guitar work by New Orleans slide-guitar extraordinaire, Anders Osborne , I knew that Seattle and the rest of the cities on this tour were in for a treat.  Not only did the band absolutely tear apart the Stones album with deep heart and soul, but the KDTU second set revealed the ever evolving nature of Karl’s own music.  The show was incredible and we even got the rare opportunity to ask Denson a few questions between sets.

-Joel Ott Read the rest of this entry →

CAPTAIN AO – A Conversation with Electronic Musician, DJAO

January 10, 2012 in Interviews, Music, Technology, With Video

Alex Osuch, who records under the moniker of DJAO, is a member of the Pacific Northwest electronic music label/collective, Dropping Gems.  He is a relatively new artist making his way into the Seattle music scene, but with the release of his first solo EP, Wuhn and his more recent collaborative EP in the No Northwest series, he has been getting a lot of attention.  A promising up and comer, Osuch creates music that has a distinctive tone and that crosses genres.  Though he works with the tools of electronic music, he has a quality that appeals beyond his media.

Electronic music is not my genre of expertise, so it came as a surprise to me when I heard AO’s soothing and ambient tones on his solo release.  I had the good fortune of then, seeing him live at the Dropping Gems Showcase at Decibel Festival, where he was joined by friend and frequent collaborator, Zuri Biringer, whose lilting guitar riffs added a grounded sense of nature, invoking images of sky and water.  It’s impossible to listen to the Seattle native’s sound without being drawn to the beats.  However, while they ultimately drive the music forward, they aren’t the primary focus of the songs, which create a vivid mood through crooning vocals, guitar, and keyboard.  In combination with some incredible imagery that accompanied the performance, the set was nearly transcendent.

Not long after his show that night, I was able to sit down with Alex to discuss his development as a DJ and find out where he draws his inspiration from.  His ambient sound was a divergence from the sounds that I had heard from him previously and I had many questions.  Eloquently and in fascinating detail, he was able to give me answers to questions that I didn’t even know that I had.  To an electronic media newbie, like myself, I found him to be incredibly informative and insightful; even providing hints on where to start my own exploration of the vast genre.  In the end, he was even so helpful as to give a demonstration of how he creates his unique style.

The following is the transcript from that conversation. Read the rest of this entry →

The Oblivion Seekers : A Conversation with Jennifer Herrema of RTX [w/audio]

September 25, 2011 in Interviews, Music

I recently had the opportunity to interview the legendary Jennifer Herrema while her band, RTX was performing at The Funhouse in Seattle.  Aside from her talents as rock vocalist/song-smith/frontwoman, Herrema is also an accomplished writer/journalist (VICE, Dazed & Confused, Raygun), visual artist, producer (Palace Brothers, the Kills, etc), and fashion icon [she was one of the original "heroin chic" poster girls photographed by Steven Meisel for Calvin Klein in the mid-nineties].  Jennifer was also one half of Royal Trux, the highly influential rock group formed with her ex, Neil Michael Hagerty (Howling Hex) in the late 80s.  After 13 years of playing together, the band split up in 2001.

A few years later, Herrema resurfaced -sans Hagerty- and a new band known as RTX (“Rad Times Xpress”) was born.  Still fronted by Herrema, the new incarnation features members Nadav Eisenman, Kurt Midness, Brian Mckinley, and Jaimo Welch.  The Seattle show was part of a two-week West Coast tour with newcomers Heavy Cream (Nashville, TN).  RTX‘s long-awaited full-length “RAD TIMES IV” is due out in January 2012 on Drag City Records.

Just before dusk, I waited for RTX in front of the empty venue.  The long, gray monorail loomed overhead, sliding itself inside the metallic EMP glob that represents what “rock ‘n’ roll” might have looked like.  As the sun set behind the strange scene, RTX‘s van pulled up and I was taken aboard.  “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins was playing on the radio.

How’d you know it was me you were meeting with?” I asked the woman in front of me, recognizing Jennifer from photos that I had seen. “Well, Brian seemed to know you,” she replied. “He doesn’t usually talk to people otherwise.“  I had met Brian two days previous while night swimming with friends on Lake Washington. Kurt and Brian had come into my bar the next day and downed some tequilas, as well.  Seattle is a small place in that way.

The van drove to the back alley, where the gear is loaded onto the stage.  We walked down the street to a spot with remaining daylight and I took a few photos of the band.  Afterward, Jennifer found a new Miata roadster for us to lean on while we talked.  She lit her cigarette, balancing a plastic cup of white wine on her knee while I set up the recorder… Read the rest of this entry →

Morphic Resident: Interview w/Neil Michael Hagerty [Howling Hex / Royal Trux]

September 4, 2011 in Interviews, Music

Neil Michael Hagerty is an American guitarist/singer/songwriter/producer who first captured the imagination of the underground music community as a guitarist/contributing songwriter in Jon Spencer‘s pre-Blues Explosion avant punk band, Pussy Garlore.  Following their break up, Hagerty and then-girlfriend, Jennifer Herrema formed the band that he is the most well known for, Royal Trux.  This new project applied Ornette Coleman‘s musical philosophy of harmolodics to a trashy rock and roll sound equally influenced by the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, and Velvet Underground.  The duo released 4 albums and countless singles as the flagship band for the fledgling Drag City Records (their “Hero Zero” single was the very first release for the label) before signing a 3 album deal with Virgin Records, as part of the nineties “indie/alternative rock” corporate signing frenzy.  After their second major label album, Sweet Sixteen, was critically trashed and underperformed at record stores, the Trux were dropped from Virgin and returned to Drag City for 3 albums, two eps, and a singles compilation.  Some time in 2000, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema split up and the Royal Trux ended.

In 2001, Drag City published a Hagerty-penned comic book called, The Adventures of Royal Trux – Vol 1 #10 that hints at some of the reasons for Royal Trux‘s split.  This was followed by three albums released under Hagerty‘s own nameNeil Michael Hagerty (2001), Plays That Good Old Rock and Roll (2002), and Neil Michael Hagerty & The Howling Hex (2003).

In 2004, Hagerty started releasing records under the moniker of “The Howling Hex“, with 2005‘s All Night Fox becoming a personal favorite of mine.  The most recent Howling Hex release, Victory Chimp, is actually a highly ambitious 4xCD (3hr 19 min) audio book version of a 157 page sci-fi paperback that Hagerty originally published in 1997, during his Royal Trux days.  The story centers around a chimp master of the multiverse “rattling the cages of freedom.” It’s also one of the fucking weirdest recordings I’ve ever heard in my life.  Seriously nutty stuff…

Along with releasing this newer Howling Hex material, Drag City recently took all of the Royal Trux albums out of print and has been reissuing them -one at a time- on gatefold vinyl, over the past few years.  Another reissue (maybe Accelerator?) is due out in November.

I recently had the opportunity to ask Hagerty some questions about his bands, Victory Chimp, comic books, baked beans, and where the music industry is today.  Some of these questions may dig a little deep, but pretty much every other Hagerty interview that I’ve found on the internet seems to ask the same questions: “You used to do drugs, huh?” “Why did Pussy Galore cover a whole Rolling Stones album?“, “What was David Briggs like?” etc.  That information’s been covered.  Hopefully there’s something new in here for the hardcore NMH fans and something worthwhile for anyone discovering his work for the first time.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry →

MAKING CONTACT: Interview with BRIAN DEGRAW of GANG GANG DANCE

July 14, 2011 in Interviews, Music

The following piece/interview was originally written/conducted way back in March and was done so for an upstart print publication that, to my understanding, was to be distributed Nationally.  At that time, there wasn’t a ton of information available regarding Gang Gang Dance’s latest album, Eye Contact, or pertaining exactly to the future plans of the group creating it.  Since my interview, the album has been released to critical acclaim, Gang Gang has already performed their scheduled slot at the Animal Collective-curated ATP event in Minehead, UK, and the band has even announced a slew of upcoming US tour dates.  Although I wasn’t compensated monetarily for the work that I had put into this piece, I was still happy to contribute freely to a new publication, welcoming the opportunity to collaborate on an outside project and to help in its fruition as it grew into whatever it is destined to become.  As for publishing rights, no contracts were signed and, beyond the initial contact with the publicist -whose contact information I had already possessed- all follow up, research, editing, additional contact, and writing was handled by myself.

It would have been great to be the first to provide some “scoops” regarding the album, but it takes a lot to get a new magazine off of the ground and that includes time.  I, of course, never posted the interview here on Monster Fresh, so as not to conflict with the publication that it was originally intended to run in.  A couple of months passed, without any real updates.  I sent an email inquiring about progress with the project, but never heard back.  Eventually, I heard that the magazine had gone into print, but still can’t figure out how to obtain a copy locally or where to instruct anyone to pick one up in their local areas.  I haven’t even seen a copy in person, myself.  My hopes were to help promote the project and alert everyone to it’s existence, but my main goals with writing are to compile information and to make it as available as possible.  Of course, I was also hoping to see my work in print (which it apparently is) and to try and avoid recklessly burning another bridge (which I’m openly risking by posting this now).  As someone who operates an outlet of their own, I’m a firm believer in keeping those who contribute in the loop with the progress of their work.  This is especially true when they aren’t even receiving any real compensation for the work that they provide, other than the pride, outlet, and audience they are creating for.  In my particular situation, I didn’t need the connections or the forum.  I was/am proud of this piece but, as it stands now, I feel as if I’ve put my energy into something that someone else has locked into a box somewhere and have no real understanding of what is happening with it.  I wish no ill will towards the publication and hope to see it surface and do well at some point but, after this much time has passed with consistently little or no response, I feel that it’s time to put this interview up for those that want to read it and have, up until now, been unable to do so.  Like I said, this was originally conducted a full 4-months ago, at this point, but I tried to construct it in a manner that would allow the information to remain consistently relevant.  I hope that endeavor proves to be successful.

as always, thanks for reading.

-Dead C

Read the rest of this entry →