SECOND SCENE - ISSUE 7

SECOND SCENE

ISSUE 7

THE ASTEROID No.4

LIMBS TEE TEE SUMMER THE MOLECULE PARTY MELODY FIELDS BOLT DREG Mrtn JEREMY BEIGHTOL THE REGAL SWEET HANS PLOMP AGITATION FREE TYLER GALLAGHER/BIRDO MATT SPAHR WOODSTOCK REVISITED

DONOVAN’S BRAIN l FLOWERS OF HELL l STERLING ROSWELL

Welcome to the seventh issue of the Second Scene magazine.

SECOND SCENE

CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Tim Thomas, Pytr Baum, Dave Franklin, Tom Sobilo, Bolt Dreg, Bob McCutcheon, Anthony Lamonde, The Vault Recording Studio, Dave Pursh, Glenn Sebastion, Rick Radvansky, Judy Rosenfeld, Eric Wisiewski, The Electric Crush, Shauna Lea McLarnon, Shameless Promotion PR, The Cervenak Family, Omega/Peak Security Services, Sterling Roswell, Howie Rosenberg, Get Hip & Mike Ivan

Front Cover Photo: Kari Devereaux

CONTACT: secondscenemagazine@gmail.com Editor-in Chief: Tim Thomas

LIMBS

Photo: Yi-Hsuan Li

Experimental! Motorik! Brilliant!

This South London trio keeps it simple with dark driven songs that are always changing to fit their current mood. Here comes the night.

How about a quick history on LIMBS? Leg Hair, Plimp Soul, The Suds, Donny Plink & The Slippers. That’s a brief history of LIMBS. We almost broke up trying to find a name we all liked, and there’re only three of us. We don’t even like LIMBS that much. The first handful of gigs we played, we had a different name every time.

Merchandising was a nightmare.

Describe your sound for those who haven’t heard LIMBS, yet?

We were saying when we were writing stuff at the beginning that we were satisfied if it sounded ‘wretched’. Like your head’s being slowly pulled apart by magnetic waves or something. Most of our songs have quite a dark drive behind them. I think the fact that we’re a three-piece also keeps it pretty grizzly.

No fancy-pants second guitar to make a wobbly table out of us. We’re a sentient military-grade tripod.

Who or what has influence you and LIMBS? Krautrock has been a massive influence for all of us. Stuff like Amon Düül, Kraftwerk, Guru Guru. Anything with a motorik beat. Monotonous to the

point of mesmerizing. The Stooges were another key influence, and Spacemen 3 who we’re flatteringly compared to sometimes. On top of that, a few bands that we’ve played with have had a big impact on us: The Plastic Other, MEAT, Black Mask. There are some gems being shined in the arse cracks of London.

How is the group dynamic as far as writing and arranging songs?

Do you write as a group or individually?

We just jaaam, maaan. I think we’re all quite lazy songwriters, so we do tend to scrape stuff together slowly from things we’re messing about with, and even then we’ll be changing our songs from gig to gig; adding bits, scrapping bits, flipping bits. We’re still writing the first songs we played together three years ago.

Photo: Oscar Robertson

What do LIMBS have planned postpandemic?

A lads holiday in Lanzarote. We’ve got a single that we basically had ready to record pre-lockdown, so we’re looking at taking that into the studio very soon. But we’re really just staring at our feet until we can gig again.

Is there anything you’d like to add?

We’d actually like to take this opportunity to list some of the people that have helped us along the way: Nobly Pete, Jacko Ponk, Halfmoon Daniel, Humphrey Ripple, Baz the Great, Hemp Laryx, Addo Niff and Oomp. We don’t know where we’d be without you all.

Photo: Natasha Rukavishnikova

Photo: Natasha Rukavishnikova

Let’s talk about your new EP, “Life and Times.”

What went into writing and recording it?

I was working out my feelings. My daughter died last year. These songs are too personal for Cash Registers. This record was a way to heal myself. Next Tee Tee record is going to be called Summer Blond. My version of Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde. And after a psychedelic 60’s pop records. I love 60’s music

“Let’s be bad.”

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Thank you. Tim. Music is my life at the lowest of my life; writing songs saved me. Enjoy every day you have on this planet. I’m getting through my life the best I can.

What inspired you to write and record a solo release?

I always wanted to do it, never had the time. Its really liberating to do a solo record.

I recommend everyone do one. I did just to please myself.

How does this differ from your main group, the Cash Registers?

Cash Registers are punk rock; it’s fun in the moment. Tee Tee Summer is all over the place How have you changed since the days of Savage Amused as far as a writer and performer?

Oh yes. I was really, really angry back in Savage Amused. I couldn’t keep doing it that way. I learned from my heroes how to perform. Johnny Thunders and The Ramones.

I try to have a real punk show.

Do you still draw on those early influences?

Are there other influences besides music that inspires you (art, literature, films, etc.)

Yes, Now it’s 60’s music I love, Repo Man, I guess. I still like early Black Flag, Circle Jerks, X, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and the Beat writers. Cult movies inspire me.

Is this a one-off solo venture, or will there be more?

I love doing Tee Tee. Yes, more or when it’s done it’s done What’s up next for the Cash Registers?

We are going to record an album, maybe a short tour. We have a Bandcamp single,

Photo: Unknown

The Cash Register’s frontman goes it alone on this deeply personal debut solo release. Tee Tee Summer talks with the Second Scene.

TEE TEE SUMMER Photo: John Huntington

THE MOLEC Photo: Ned Ochester

Lords of the electronic punk rock party, Pittsburgh’s The Molecule Party, release their latest album Revolution during challenging times. Second Scene talks with Sean Murphy.

CULE PARTY

How about a brief history of the group?

The Molecule Party was started in 2008 just myself at first, composing with drum machines, synths, and samplers. I had been doing music in one form or another since I was 18, my historic debut was singing with a punk cover band in 1990 (we won 3rd place in a community day competition!), and that was it for me. I was totally in then I bought a bass, and my friend taught me “All hell breaks loose” and -bang!!!

I was a bass player, albeit a primitive one, and I played with a couple of punk rock projects. Twas cool for sure, but I grew to hate being in bands at the time, too much drama, plus I was getting heavy into electronic /industrial/ dancehall at the time and wanted to have my own set-up.

So around ‘92, I started to roadie for this electronic band, and one of the guys told me I should get some of my gear and toss my hat in the ring officially.

I started saving for a synthesizer, and it was almost $1000 at the time. I saved all summer, literally tossing every paycheck I made from Chi Chi’s into my drawer and adding them up at the end just enough for a synth (Kawaii K1-2) and a sequencer (Alesis MMT-8). Then a drum machine (Alesis D4), another synth (Yamaha TG-33), dropped the GNP of a small nation to acquire my first sampler (Emax 2). That’s when I was official, recorded albums of material on cassette tape, crazy 4 track shit. I underground released a bunch of them around 2004.

I took a break and didn’t do much for about three years, then some cosmic force reinspired me, and I started writing again.

The first Molecule Party shows were myself on vocals, the thumping backing tracks, and some keyboards, and this insane Englishman named Nick James on the live bass. Through a promoter friend, we got a HUGE debut show , totally crushed it, and then it was on did a handful of opening slots for established indie bands.

Then Nick moved to Florida, and I needed someone else up there with me, another vocalist someone to contribute to the songwriting process. I wanted a

true collaboration, and on one fateful night, I got a chance to see my younger cousin Jess Zoric perform at The Rex for a shortlived band playing drums White Stripes style and shouting searing vocals, real loud and crazy. Damn! I was blown away, tons of potential energy, and I knew I wanted her to be involved with The Molecule Party. She had such an unrestrained severity in her stage presence but coupled with a feminine refinement that would work perfectly with what I offered. So we started working together, and she had so much more to offer than I could imagine, lyrics, art direction, promotion, punk rock party girl rockstar badass. Things just took off from there, tons of underground shows, opening for many major indie acts, even a tour with Allinaline.

We made a name for ourselves as a band to come check out, that it was gonna be intense—a burning party on nitro, something not to miss. We then started collaborating with Allinaline on recordings/ live shows, a few years later, we hooked up with 13 Saints/ Muscle of Love lead guitarist, Dave Buzard and he started laying down the riffs, and the funk for our live show. He also plays on the new album with more recordings planned.

Photo: Dylan Mascellino We rounded out our live line up later with my old friend Sachem Orenda, (solo musician and leader of the Nox Emesis project) on live keyboards/ drunken shoeless synth antics. The rest is HISTORY. What do you feel the core beliefs of this group are?

Core beliefs? Be polite in public? Don’t go over your allotted time on stage?. Heavily tip your bartenders?

Say “thank you” for the show? Just be cool when we are out there. We don’t have any plans. Its an evolution. A friend of mine once said to me,” I wanted to hear a certain type of music, but no one was making it, so I just did it my fucking self. That sums us up nicely. We don’t ever have a plan to do this or that. It just progresses organically. I’ll come up with something, and then Jess will totally interpret it from a different perspective, and then it’s a total

inferno. When we started to get more serious, we had musician/ producer Allinaline (aka Jeremy Creamer - Hot Pink Satan, Allinaline, Chimaira) do our album, to take things a bit HIGHER than we could do on our own recordings. The Molecule Party is the epitome of badass motherfuckers laying down the law whilst having a blast on stage or in the studio. Life is short; ya gotta live it up. Can I get an Amen?

How did you get this latest album finished and completed during lockdowns/pandemic?

We have been working on the new album for a while, so everything was near done when the pandemic hit.

Allinaline finished all the final mixing/ mastering in his clifftop studio mansion.

Tell us about the guest vocalists on this latest album.

What did they bring creativity to get the songs to where you wanted them to be?

Photo: Dylan Mascellino

What influences do you pull from when writing the music and lyrics?

Anything and everything. I am constantly writing down ideas. Some lyrics come to me from conversations I had 20 years ago. Others spring into existence from a recently viewed YouTube video. Some are actual events that we have lived through with a sardonic slant stuck in the middle for good measure, and others are a flippant commentary on absurd social constructs. We write from all perspectives, not baring our soul but telling stories ranging from the semi-heroic to irredeemable anti-hero and anything in between.

We have no proper agenda except to have fun and entertain the peoples. Our live shows are a party.

We have pre-show rituals--we want everyone in on the fun. We have always leaned towards a more Bohemian ethos. Why not??? This ain’t your parent’s electro dancehall party rock band. .

Are there other influences besides music that shape the direction of the group’s sound and visual appearance? Be it art, literature, cinema.

Absolutely The absurdity of the modern age the conflicting social norms versus human instinct versus reality versus cryptic fantasy. The constant recycling of temporary fame at 15 min intervals. All ridiculous, but we keep it righteous through it all. I always liked the idea of rockstars being larger than life mysterious, something that sorely lacks in today’s scene with social media. We are a myth, and we keep it right, loud, and slightly enigmatic. We are an artistic expression, and no one needs to hear about what we had for dinner. As far as visual appearance, we just rock it out hard and have a goddamn blast. We don’t do hoodies and blue jeans. We want punk rockstar aliens on stage, not from this Earth, and not from your neighborhood even if we happen to live beside ya. If you’re on stage, don’t dress like you’re going to Easter brunch. just get crazy and make the people go “WTF is THIS???”

The major contributor to this album, aside from Jess and I have been our producer/collaborator “Allinaline.” we have been working with him for many years on stuff. He produced our debut album “Floored,” performed as a vocalist/ musician with us onstage countless times. We did a short tour with him several years ago. I had been a fan of his work ever since I had heard it and when the Chicago producer that I had lined up to work on “Floored” was gonna be too expensive for me at the time, he offered to do it as a friend, and we were very happy with the results.

When I presented the demo for ‘Floored”, it was done nothing else needed to be recorded, but he worked his witchcraft and made into something truly cool and unique he edited things in ways that did not occur to us and concentrated the entire album into a slab of pure electro-punk gold. It just accelerates from start to finish. I had always loved his immersed/enchanting

vocals, so I invited him to contribute to the new album “Revolution.” Things were different this time as it was still a work in progress when we began “Revolution” is a collaboration with the three of us and Dave Buzard.

It’s mastered and ready to drop, it’s all over the place, but all of the tracks fit together in a larger story.

With hopes of live shows in the future, what does the group have tentatively planned?

Well, we are dropping “Revolution” very soon. We have had nothing but positive feedback on it. Live shows are postponed for now, but we have a ton of unreleased material, new and old. I have been working on that---and a couple of side projects ( Brokeass warlock and Malachi).

facebook.com/themoleculeparty

Hans Plomp: Intrepid Traveller PYTR BAUM

Dutch writer/poet Hans Plomp (1944) is a founding father of the Ruigoord art colony, west of Amsterdam. In the “60’s he was active in the Provo movement, and ever since the “’70s, he toured extensively around in India. He shared the stage with beat poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and although he is somewhat of a cult hero of the Dutch underground, the popes of Dutch Literature have been neglecting him.

He often comes across as a court jester, exposing the hypocrisy and craziness of socalled “civilization.” Plomp was one of the pioneers of the psychedelic movement in the Netherlands, and these experiences shaped his outlook on life. A view that is

generally not shared by people who have never used psychedelics. So it is no wonder that the representatives of the establishment have little understanding of what he is talking about. This concerns him little; he has fans and friends all over the world. In Ruigoord, he organizes the international poetry festival Vurige Tongen (Fiery Tongues) at Pentecost, and in the summer, he is involved with the famous Landjuweel festival. Some of his works (novels and poetry) have been translated.

Recently he put out a cassette tape, Intrepid Traveller, with poems and readings (in English) from his books Revolvers Lijkt Me Overdreven (about his visit to the US in 1982 with a group of other Dutch writers; they hung out with Ginsberg and Orlovsky and had many encounters with other Beat poets) and “In India” (a collection of travel stories).

The tape was released by Counter Cultural Chronicles, a label (based in The Hague) that issues cassettes with readings and interviews by cult figures like Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, Ira Cohen, Jack Kerouac and Eddie Woods - and Hans Plomp. Last year he got together with the ever-present Ruigoord Rebels, and they recorded an album called Enchanted Planet. The Ruigoord Rebels have been around for about a quarter of a century, and it is mainly the vehicle for singer/songwriter Barbara Schroevers, playing with friends from all over. Their music is generally folk, with a touch of blues and country, but with Enchanted Planet, they are exploring quite a different direction. The following is straight from their bio:

ENCHANTED PLANET Barbara Schroevers, singer/composer and Alain Eskinasi, composer, musician and painter and Hans Plomp got together again to turn into words and music “what we hear with our third Ear.” Plomp wrote the texts, and Barbara turned some of them into songs. Alain composed and produced music and soundscapes. To record this album, they traveled to the studio of Terry Gordon in Ireland. The result is the CD Enchanted Planet, an explosion of vision and feeling, mystery, and rebellion. Plomp, who performed with Allen Ginsberg and Heathcote Williams, contributes wit and power. He performs his texts in a hypnotizing way, transporting the listener straight into the heart of our enchanted planet. Barbara’s sensitive, sensual voice takes you deep into the mysteries of Isis and invisible presences around us, that “make our astral bodies jump with joy...” The soundscapes of Brainscapes create a cosmic dimension to these incantations. His compositions include Indian singer/songwriter Sandhya Sanjana and bansuri-player Kees van Boxtel. The album opens with “When Orpheus died.” This poem is based on the ancient Orphic Mysteries and instructs us what to do after we die. A helpful guide for spiritual hedonists. There are so many layers to discover on this album. Here is one of the texts, written 40 years ago, but very true for these breathtaking times: The Beast Is Loose

everybody runs or hides.

The beast is loose!

But the nymphs of the last woods wake up and smile: it feels so good, They smell the old beast and prepare for the feast...

Everybody seems to know, no doubt, then it must be so.

Could I be the only one who is happy, making fun?

The only one who did not see?

Oh, God! Maybe that beast is me!

The beast is loose! The beast is loose!

Although I have not seen it yet, the world around me is upset: everybody is fleeing fast, indeed the bravest are the last, but all the world is flipping now.

The beast is loose!

We don’t know how....

Parents crying to their gods, on their knees, pathetic clods.

As the age-old nightmare rides,

brainscapeshansplomplabarbara.bandcamp.com/releases

MELODY FIELDS The Swedish psychedelic rock band Melody Fields channel west coast style harmonies through VU madness, Creating a unique blend of psychedelia. Second Scene interviews Thomas Widholm.

How about a brief history of the group?

Where and how did it all start?

During a Goat concert some years ago, Thomas approached Ramo about forming a new group. We wanted to explore the possibilities of having three harmony vocals with a wall of sound and jam-based music.

Jason Pierce meets Gene Clark.

Tell us about your sound for those who haven’t had the chance to hear Melody Fields?

The beauty of psychedelic music is that you are free to do whatever you want.

All of us in the band comes from different parts of Sweden, with different musical

listening to steamboat motors one evening.

But also books, nature, motorcycles, animals or whatever, can inspire to write a song.

What is Melody Fields currently working on at the moment?

We’re almost done mixing our second album. It will be a blend of acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds. We’re also trying out some new ideas in the studio for future recordings.

In Gothenburg, Sweden, is there a strong underground scene, or is Melody Fields a band of outsiders?

Gothenburg has a strong, interesting musical scene. Almost everyone here knows each other, even played with each other at some point. We share our studio with folks from awesome bands like Hills, Goatman, Djinn, Routine Death & Träd Gräs & Stenar.

We used to have our sanctuary, a place for free spirits to come together. But like many other cities around the world, gentrification has led the authorities forcing venues to close down. The only underground scene would be the Rave scene.

backgrounds. That affects the sound. We usually prefer older instruments. Some of them you can hardly play on. But there is something interesting with instruments older than yourself. 60s Fenders and Rickenbackers through tape echoes. Logan string machine through chorus & delay. All the glory of germanium & repeat percussion. All a winning concept.

Is there anything you’d like to add that the readers might find interesting about Melody Fields?

I believe it was Lee Hazelwood, who made the record Cowboy In Sweden. For your information, we are the cowboys from Sweden. Haha! It’s actually Ramo’s horse on the cover. Rotstern, the silent band member.

All power to the people!

What have been the most significant influences on the group?

All of us listen to a lot of different sounds and music. Searching for the right sound and feeling is more significant than what other artists do. This summer, I made a song after

facebook.com/melodyfieldsband

An afternoon speaking with Sterling Roswell is always an experience. Two hours of talking about all things under the sun except the topics agreed upon. That’s alright. There is a great wealth of knowledge to be discovered and insights to be considered. Tho, we eventually get to the task at hand—Roswell’s upcoming releases.

As it seems, with all things these days, talk turns to the current pandemic crisis that has engulfed the world. The strains of everyday life seem to be magnified under the harsh realities of lockdowns and isolation. Roswell is not alone in this loneliness. We all seem to be suffering a certain amount of disconnect from the things we cherish most in this life, family, friends, and our creative lives. It’s just for some; it is felt deeper and casts a darker shadow. “I’m so fed up being alone here all the time,” says Roswell.

Sterling Roswell has two new releases this fall.

Both are limited editions. The first is a cassette single, The Category Three No.1 Song, In Search Of Duende / Just Like Wild Horses b/w Ojos en Llama, and the second is a 7” vinyl record (same titles) available at the end of “sober” October on Weird Beard Records.

Roswell and company recorded these tracks at the now-defunct Goldtop Studio in London. Most notably with Jim Sclavunos of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds on Drums.

Rounding up the line up is Matt Redford, bass, and Lord Rufrack on lead guitar.

STERLING ROSWELL Photo: Richard Stansbie

As far as the future is concerned, at this point, anything is possible with music venues temporarily closed or permanently shut down. One can only imagine what is to come next with so many musicians out of work. I asked Sterling about future plans. “No plans for the foreseeable future.” I somehow doubt it as Sterling is always on the move.

I expect we will hear more from Sterling Roswell soon.

sterlingroswellvortexionvalveloopdecoderresearchfacility.bandcamp.com

Photo: Tristán White

BOLT DREG

facebook.com/handofdirt

Krautrock fans around the world cherish the legendary Krautrock band Agitation Free which pioneered the Berliner Elektronische Schule made famous by Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, and Klaus Schulze. Little is known about their early days in 60s West Berlin. Tom Sobilo takes you on a time journey to Wall City and talks to Agitation Free’s Syd Barrett, former lead singer, and guitarist Ludwig Kramer.

TS: Tell us about your introduction to music.

LK: I was born in 1954 in Potsdam, and we used to live in West-Berlin. Right from the start, I was musically inclined, thanks to my parents. My mother was a professional opera singer, and my father was an actor, respectively, film/music producer. When I was a toddler, I was already conducted in my bed, for example, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in B Minor.

Dad listened only to classical music. Our nanny was delighted, and my mother thought I was a little Mozart, an expectation which I didn’t live up to. I played our Bechstein grand piano, which I liked very much.

I cherished classical music from the cradle and listened to nothing else. When I was about six years old, I got into Jazz thanks to my older brother. He played clarinet and dug Swing like Benny Goodman but also Free Jazz like John Coltrane, and I was very

much into it. I also liked the cover artwork. Then Rock and Roll entered my orbit. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly.

TS: How did you start your first band?

LK: My mother was a singing teacher and taught actresses to sing “Habanera” from the opera “Carmen” by Georges Bizet for local radio station SFB (Sender Freies Berlin), and I really liked the chromatic descent.

Then I founded a band with my buddies in 1963, and we performed “Habanera.” My friend Pretty was very much into the Pretty Things and wanted to play Rock.

I liked the Beatles thanks to my English pen pal Angela since 1962. She came to West Berlin and stayed with us and brought along the single “My Bonnie” with Tony Sheridan on lead vocals. When they got big in 1963, it was like a meteorite impact for me.

Then Fame, aka Michael Günther, joined us. We played acoustic guitars and drummed on detergent boxes and called ourselves THE UGLY THINGS. Fame and I used to go to the youth center in Neu-Westend on Saturdays for dances. He became the technical head of the Berlin Jazz Days later.

I didn’t have long hair yet and used to wear a wig. I was the first in my school to wear a jeans suit which I had bought in a US store in Dahlem. Beatles cap and Cuban high heels. Nazi generals were still around then and shouted at me, “Are you a girl?”

I gave up piano lessons when I got into the Beatles in 1963 and got a guitar. I taught myself one chord and started singing pseudo-English. In 1966 we formed the band THE AGITATION. Then we changed the name to AGITATION FREE. TS: Who were the founding members?

LK: Christopher Franke (later in Tangerine Dream) on drums, Michael Günther, aka Fame on bass, Lutz Ulbrich, aka Lüül, and yours truly on guitar. I was the lead singer and frontman.

TS Was Mickie Duwe, not a member?

LK: Mickie Duwe was never a member of Agitation Free. He was only a fan. We had a fan club quickly, and he joined us occasionally in rehearsals but not for gigs. I think he had sung with the Sentries, Lüül’s former band, and joined Ash Ra Tempel later.

The legendary John L was another member and frontman for us, including a famous show at the TU Berlin / Mensa auditorium where he painted his penis in neon color and swung like a monkey from the chandeliers.

TS: Tell me about the Beat Studio.

LK: We rehearsed in the house of Christopher Franke, but it becomes too noisy for his mum, “The walls are shaking!”. Konrad Latte had founded the Beat Studio in 1968, a Jew who had survived the war in Berlin and later got the Federal Cross of Merit. This used to be our first official rehearsal room in the basement, sponsored by the city administration.

Instead of spending the money on another grand piano, it was suggested by Latte to set up a rehearsal room in the basement. We had three rooms to ourselves and used egg cartons for sound-damping.

Our roadie Roland Pauli and fans helped, too. Thomas Kessler joined later as the technical head.

TS: Did you already improvise?

LK: Yes, there exists footage by Berliner Abendschau with us rehearsing and interviewing me. We improvised only, and I said that we let our emotions flow. The journalist comments that we are dedicated to the Beat and rhythm only and was very prophetic by saying this could have an impact worldwide and change the course of music.

We played happenings and gigs, including one festival with Tangerine Dream, an experimental trio who had no synthesizers yet. Klaus Schulze on drums, and I guess Peter Baumann played bass. We shared the bill with them for one week in April 1969 at the Beautiful Balloon at Kudamm 153 near Olivaer Platz.

That was great. I took my first acid trip there. The venue did not last very long. The Nice and the Pretty Things played there, too.

The Can from Cologne were very experimental, too.

We were even dirtier. As Christopher Franke said, We very ugly, dirty, like Punk.

We were the youngest and the wildest band on the scene, rejecting Rhythm and Blues clichés and creating something new. There was no name for our sound style; it was coined Krautrock later. I was against canned music, recorded music to be put out on vinyl. I was only playing spontaneous music for the moment, here and now.

TS: The birth of Krautrock and the Berliner Elektronische Schule.

LK: Let’s not forget Amon Düül. A very wild bunch from Munich. They lived in a commune where Peter Green happened to take acid. We met at K1 (famous West Berlin commune), where I lived in the meantime, and the Düüls came to do a session with us.

They smashed Christopher’s snare drum skin and stole my clarinet, which I had stolen from my brother. They were real amateurs, only making noise. Fortunately, this changed with Amon Düül II and Karl Heinz Hausmann introducing structure.

TS: What about K1?

LK. I had moved out at the age of 16 and joined K1.

K1 residents Uschi Obermaier and Rainer Langhans were completely unmusical; she was just wailing like Yoko Ono. He had no sense of rhythm at all!

TS: Tell me about Ash Ra Tempel.

LK: Manuel Göttsching was a fan our ours and saw us live. He had no ambition whatsoever at the time. He and I became friends. He lived with his then-girlfriend Rosi Müller in a great apartment near Kudamm, and I played sessions with him. He was no native Berliner; he came from Mainz and founded Ash Ra Tempel with Klaus Schulze on drums and Hartmut Enke on bass.

Later, he claimed that I was his musical role model.

After four years with Agitation Free, I joined Walpurgis in 1971. They had made an album (“Queen of Saba”), which was acclaimed even in England.

TS: How did this happen?

LK: Agitation Free kicked me out as Fame had different ideas for guitar parts. In fact, I kicked myself

out as I did not show up for rehearsals. Plus, the distance from Stephanstrasse in Moabit to the Beat Studio in Pfalzburger Straße 30 in Wilmersdorf was too much for me. Sex and drugs were more important to me. Moreover, I got involved with politics.

Plus, Agitation Free wanted to go commercial, use synthesizers, and make records. I was no fan of synthesizers, too plastic fantastic. I only liked original instruments, guitars, and Wah Wah then.

Walpurgis was fun, and we had great gigs. I got more into songwriting and started singing. The record company was spending 35.000 DM budgetwise on the album, including studio time, promotion, photo sessions, and invited us out for dinner.

TS: Did you still go to school?

LK: I was in school off and on, but it did not give me anything. The teachers put me off, and I left school at the age of 16 without a degree.

My income came from gigs and sponsors. Various intellectuals such as Hans-Magnus Enzensberger financed the K1. We smoked a lot of hashish and sold it. When we were hungry, we stole food to survive.

TS: Tell me about Rio Reiser (singer of Ton Steine Scherben). You once told me that you were doing sessions with him and his band Ton Steine Scherben.

LK: Nice guys. The Scherben lived in Stephanstrasse, Kreuzberg, in a converted factory. They had a huge Buddha in their apartment, as I recall.

I had just returned from Morocco and had soaked in the music there. When I got back to West-Berlin, I played Eastern melodies on the keyboard, and the Scherben dug it. We smoked a lot and did sessions together. I was a free soul, playing guitar and keyboards with whomever I fancied playing.

TS: What kind of person was Rio Reiser?

LK: Very shy. He had longer hair then and was very reserved but had great charisma.

In 1972 I went to Ireland and got into Celtic, Irish, and Scottish music. Played pubs there and was on a self-discovery trip. I traveled a lot, and we went down to Morocco with a Ford Transit Bulli with my buddies, including Uriz von Oertzen, whose sister Claudia was my first great love. He became a music business big shot in Hamburg later, and we are still in touch.

Then on September 11, 1973, I had a serious car accident crossing through former GDR (German Democratic Republic). I received compensation money of 35.000 DM, which was a lot of money then.

This allowed me to go to Pakistan and Thailand for three months initially.

Far Eastern philosophies attracted me like Rio Reiser,

and I ended up living in Thailand for almost eight years.

My parents wanted me to do an apprenticeship as a Hotel Manager at Tegernsee in Upper Bavaria, but I was not into it. I stayed in Thailand, made and sold jewelry, and played guitar on the beach instead. I wrote songs, poems, and my diary. I continued to do sessions and met great GIs, black guys, who had to go and fight in Vietnam.

TS: Acting was another outlet for you.

LK: It was due to my father, who was an actor and film producer. When I was in a monastery school in Bavaria, I sang the first voice in the choir and played theater. I starred in films since the age of 12 with Rudolf Platte and, more importantly, Wolfgang Staudte, a political director (“Rosen für den Staatsanwalt” a.o.). Michael Ballhaus (famous Hollywood camera operator) was a cable puller for my father, Werner Herzog and Volker Schlöndorff, too.

Author Günter Grass walked through the film set. I had no clue who they were, and big names never did anything for me—the same for my father.

Even though I was supposed to attend Max Reinhard acting School, I preferred music to acting and even rejected some acting roles. But it was good money. I didn’t want to have fixed structures.

In 1982 I returned to West Germany, and as I did not see a future in West Berlin, I reinvented myself.

I wanted to have a family and get a proper education. I worked as a security guard for the ESOC in Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt am Main for a couple of years and started an apprenticeship as a geriatric nurse in 1986.

TS: How did the Agitation Free reunion in 1997 happen?

LK: Lüül celebrated his 45th birthday party at the Tränenpalast in November 1997 and invited several

people to perform with him, including yours truly.

Unfortunately, Christopher Franke and Michael Hoenig couldn’t make it, but Fame (bass) and Burghard Rausch (drums) joined us, so we performed live on stage. Fans shouted, “Ludwig! Ludwig!” during our show. Later, American Agitation Free fans contacted me, and I was like Syd Barrett, the long-lost son.

Agitation Free had a major influence on Tangerine Dream, as Edgar Froese pointed out. He called us Avantgarde. Christopher Franke played for 18 years with Tangerine Dream and is now a renowned film composer in Hollywood.

After the successful reunion gig, there was talk of a reunion album with Michael Hoenig and guitarist Gustl Lütjens who has passed away in 2017. But the band decided to carry on without me and put out the album “River of return” in 1999, produced by Potsch Potschka (ex-Nina Hagen Band and Spliff guitarist). As Manuel Göttsching told me later, I was supposed to go on tour in Japan with them, but it did not happen.

I have no hard feelings... the band would not have existed without me, and the classical influence and improvisational hang was due to me.

TS: How did your first solo album happen?

LK: After our gig, Lüül gave me a rhythm box as he said, “You are bursting with creative energy, and you need to record the songs.” A Buddhist friend of mine encouraged me to set up a home studio, so I bought a Roland sampler. I experimented a lot in my Mercy Street studio in Griesheim (south of Frankfurt am Main) and recorded my debut album “Being content” all by myself. I had a lot of songs and wanted to put them out. Radio was interested. Burghard Rausch (exAgitation Free, Bel Ami drummer) played the songs on his Radio Bremen radio show. So did SWR3 in BadenBaden, who did an interview with me. The local press (Darmstädter Echo} wrote a story on me.

I have kept in touch with Manuel Göttsching over the years and met him by coincidence at Frankfurt airport while he was on the way to a gig in Japan with Ashra in 1997. He invited me to stay with him in Berlin, and we did sessions together. He had a hit in Italy (Sueño Latino) and switched planes in Frankfurt and intended to stay with me. On the track “2000 years...” (from the Being Content album), Manuel plays uncredited great lead guitar. He performed with me in concert for the record release party concert in my hometown in June 2001.

TS: That’s where we met.

LK: Other people wanted to play with me. Frank Diez (ex-Atlantis, Frumpy, Randy Pie, Eric Burdon, Peter Maffay, Udo Lindenberg) played in town with Colin Hodgkinson, and they wanted to start a band with me. His brother Stephan Diez had played in Agitation Free, too, so there was a connection.

In 2010 I had my own little band with local musicians.

In 2016 my second album, “As we are drifting,” came out, and I put a lot of effort into it with a little help from my friends. Burghard Rausch played great drums on it.

Frank Diez and Axel Heilhecker (ex-Wolf Maahn, Sunya Beat) played guitars, Alto Pappert of Kraan played saxophone.

I should have played more live as Lüül does, but I missed the opportunity. Mind you, I had a family and was working fulltime as the manager of a Caritas nursing home in Offenbach, so there was not plenty of time.

TS: What are your plans for the future?

LK: I have a lot of rough diamonds in my songwriting drawer, and I have the permission to release the music I have recorded with Manuel Göttsching, but I shy the work, doing promo and contacting labels, etc.

I am currently based in Thailand. I paint a lot and intend to do an exhibition over here. I have a connection with a colony of artists. Apart from that, I play ukulele and guitar, doing sessions with other people, playing concerts in Thailand. I am content.

You can order Ludwig Kramer’s “As we are drifting” album via Amazon.

For further information, check out: http://lutzludwig.com http://agitationfree.com/

Mrtn

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Mrtn (Maarten) van der Horst is a Dutch self-taught artist from Amsterdam and Ruigoord.

He started in 1980 with painting but found not enough inspiration in the sterile white of the canvas. After painting on wood for a while, he changed to making assemblages made out of found objects, that could be described as Junk -Art. From this, he developed a style that, in 1997, he named Neo Animism, assemblages made from partly decomposed materials

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like driftwood, rusty iron, stone, and bone.

Besides that he started in 2008 making collages, digital at first, but soon analog as well.

Although these three remained his main disciplines, he made some sidesteps in animation and animated GIFs and in making musical instruments like jaws harps and kalimba’s Co-founder of the analog collage collective Cut & Paste Art in 2010.

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FLOWERS OF HELL

Photo: Amy Buck

Based in Toronto and London, the Flowers Of Hell is a trans-Atlantic orchestral psych group.

They combine the epic bombast of romantic era classical music with sounds from the experimental edges of indie rock. The Flowers Of Hell’s founder and leader Greg Jarvis talks with the Second Scene.

Tell me about the history of the group.

How did it all start?

I had this 15 minute song Opt Out that I’d come up with after rushing home from seeing a 400 piece orchestra & choir do ‘the best of classical’ at the Albert Hall with lasers & pyro (mushrooms were legal in London then, plus I’ve got synesthesia which causes me to see sounds - so ‘Classical Spectacular’ lived up to it’s name!)

I sent the demo round to some like minded musicians I knew - bassist/ organist Steve Head and I had met online swapping bootlegs in the Spiritualized forum, violist Abi Fry had worked on a project I did in Prague with British Sea Power and some friends The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa, the

trumpeter Owen James had been a student on a music biz course I taught, guitarist Ruth Barlow I’d met at some London music biz party where she’d offered to get me into a Spiritualized radio session taping, and the drummer Guri was my fiance at the time and we were wanting to do some serious stuff after getting a little famous overnight playing punky-reggae White Stripes covers as The Red Stripes, trying to earn a buck (but instead getting the thumbs up from guys from The Clash, The Pistols, The Wailers, Duran Duran, and Peel, while staving off legal

having me join Spectrum, but I’m just not that kind of musician that can do someone else’s work note for note - learned a ton though, play to the spaces, tremolo pick with the flat edge at the bridge, left hand at 90 degrees, use amp effects rather than pedal effects, etc.!) So I asked for a gig, and they took a chance - no demo, no photo, no concrete line up, those were the day’s man.

In our first 24 hours, we had one rehearsal, a recording session, went to the venue, and something glorious came out - against the backdrop of

threats from the beer company).

It seems ridiculous now, but in 2005 you couldn’t get a booking to play in London if you were doing something with a Spacemen/shoegaze/psych/ post-rock vibe - except for at the two semi-monthly club nights that had sprung up, Sonic Cathedral and Club AC30. The AC30 guys had Ecstasy over from Prague, so we met then, and I’d mentioned I’d been up to play guitar at Pete’ Sonic Boom’ Kember’s place the day before (he was putting me through some paces to see about

London getting attacked in the 7/7 Islamic terrorist bombings a couple of days before and the tube station by the venue at Kings Cross being shuttered and covered in flowers.

How do you make it work with the group on two different continents?

The recording’s gotten easy, of course, and with touring, we’re a squad of just six or so. Mind you pulled off an octet thing at the Moscow Conservatory with a Steinway and kettle drums last fall! The staff was mortified at

my guitar amp being by the pipe organ Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, & Scriabin all played - warmed as we went through, now invited back to potentially do our psych-symphony with a Russian orchestra. Ha, was I maybe getting too ‘Deep Purple & The Royal Philharmonic’? (I do like The Purple, though! Partied with them in Prague when I was 21 in a hotel bar full of hookers. No-one was going with any, but Ian Gillan loved & laughed at how rock cliche it was there!)

What do you have planned next for Flowers Of Hell? (once it’s safe to get back to work)

Harum’s debut, so we’re in good company!)

We’d played the opening bash just before the virus hit - and I’ve come to think that’ll be our last gig for some years, unfortunately. It was a fun one though, we were rather sloshed as beforehand there was a Director’s Drink Reception with plenty of booze but minimal nibbles - olives do not maketh a meal. The director of Paris’s Musee d’Orsay - who’s appointed by the French president! - had dug our set and wanted us to come to Paris to play the exhibition’s forthcoming opening there, but of course, we can’t now and probably won’t even get to

Photo: Femke Berkout

Inadvertently, we’re putting our artwork on the road instead of us!

The Tate Britain’s exhibition of the Art Nouveau pioneer Aubrey Beardsley reopened today, and our Come Hell LP is one of six they’ve got on the wall to show his influence on album art (others are the Beatles’ Revolver and Procol

see our LP on display amongst their Cezannes and Renoirs.

What, if anything are you working on during the pandemic shutdown?

We’ve been mixing an epic live recording from a London church we’d played with Spacemen 3’s

Photo: Patrick Noughton-Doe

Sterling ‘Rosco’ Roswell in Feb. There are some 1800s letters from the St. Pancras Old Church vicar to his wife, where he says one of the trees in the graveyard is a portal to hell and swears he’s seen gravestones moving of their own volition towards it in the night. So it’ll be called Portal: Live In London 2020, with an accompanying concert film that we’re getting Ronald Nameth involved in - he filmed and photographed the VU at Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

But our big focus right now is a compilation of non-album goodies from across our years that’ll be out in November, called Outlanders.

There’s a lot of our heroes on there, including Sonic Boom, Sterling Roswell, Will Carruthers, Ivan Kral from Patti and Iggy’s bands who’d mentored me for years till his passing in Feb, and Ivo Pospisil, who was part of the Czech dissident scene that overthrew communism there. It’s got the best versions of many of our best songs and had been in the works long before the virus.

There’s an LP version of our ‘06 debut coming too, but I don’t like having all these things on and so little human contact. When I’m doing production, artwork, & promo all on the same computer I’m reading the reviews on, it’s feeling like I’m wasting my life away playing some music based version of an online game like Fortnite or World Of Warcraft - and they’d probably be more fun (but less rewarding mind you.

I often think of the Avant-saxophonist Colin Stetson’s album title, “All This I Do For Glory.”)

How are you keeping yourself busy artistically?

No gigs to see or play has left me realizing how much shows and the people at them were a constant source of inspiration for me. As well as travel - cripes I’ve been to over 100 countries on all seven continents; being balls deep in a jungle or desert with no clue what day of the week it is has often been where & when I’ve had great ideas come. But, I’ve pulled out a 40-minute track I started a couple of years back (when life was more inspiring!) where I was exploring electrifying sound baths and doing them with tones familiar to Westerners, rather than with imported Tibetan bowls and Kochi chimes. We’re now layering it up virtually, and I’m particularly excited about involving a Montreal harpist Sarah Pagé who developed her own sound running a harp through fx - her Dose Curves album is one of the more interesting things I’ve heard lately.

instagram.com/theflowersofhell

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In this installment of The Corner Table, Dave talks about the recent surge in selfdistribution, the can shortage, and the popularity of Fall beers.

One thing that we’ve learned over the past year is that drinking beer at home has become more popular than ever.

Whether you grab a 4-pack from a local brewery or make a quick stop at a bottle shop on your way home, drinking alone has become a popular part of life these days.

Breweries everywhere have taken notice as well. Over the past six months, in my home state of Pennsylvania, for example, the distribution laws have allowed breweries to self-distribute within the

to this shift, aluminum companies such as Ball Corporation, based out of Colorado, have increased production on their aluminum canning lines and even opened a new facility (in Pennsylvania) focused strictly on can production.

Speaking of beer, the Fall seasonals have begun to hit the shelves. Love them or hate them, “pumpkin” beers have become very popular this time of year.

From Southern Tier’s “Pumking” to Flying Dog’s “The Fear,” breweries everywhere are cashing in on the pumpkin craze. One of my favorite beer styles of the season are the Oktoberfests, and you can’t talk about Oktoberfest beers without mentioning

The Corner Table state, as well as out of state. We have also seen an upswing in wholesale distributors that are now receiving beer from smaller breweries around the country that previously had only been available at the breweries themselves. This is great news for those who wished they could get their hands on beers from breweries such as Aslin, Hoof Hearted and Hubbard’s Cave (to name a few).

However, since the laws are changing on a daily basis, brewers everywhere have had to shift their focus from moving most of their supply from draft to cans. This has caused an aluminum can shortage of sorts for the industry. Not only are breweries competing amongst themselves for cans, but they are also competing with the soft drink industry as well as other carbonated beverage companies. Due

Dave Pursh

Ayinger Oktoberfest-Marzen. This is arguably the best beer of the season, and I highly recommend you look out for this incredible brew. Cheers!

Currently drinking: Fat Head’s “Strange Magic” IPA, 412 Brewery’s “Mexican Lager,” Brew Gentlemen’s “General Braddock” IPA, Founders Brewing “Curmudgeon Old Ale”

THE ASTER Interview: Tim Thomas

Interview: Tim Thomas

Photos: Kari Devereaux

Photos: Kari Devereaux

How has The Asteroid No.4 progressed since its formation? Be it through line-up changes and relocating from Philadelphia to the West Coast.

Two decades as a group and nine albums are impressive accomplishments, and the quality of the work is outstanding. What keeps the A4 going?

We’re actually about to release our tenth longplayer, but who’s counting? Ha! I feel we’ve progressed countless ways since starting, but that’s mostly related to how our personal lives have changed and influenced the band. Rarely has it been the other way around. The line-up changes at this point are too many to count, and I think we’re way past the time when someone could come in and cause some dramatic shift in direction. Eric and I are the two original members from the very beginning, so at this point, we feel

we’re pretty much the only ones that can say when it’s really over. And that’s come close a few times, but here we are. Most of the people that have come and gone over the years were friends that had initially come on board to fill a role for a tour and then ended up sticking around for longer than any of us had anticipated. That’s because it would always turn out to be about fun. Thankfully 99% of those who did come and go left as good as friends as they came, so rarely is it leaving with a bad taste, with an emphasis on rarely.

In most cases, the friends we had asked to come aboard were asked because they were also great musicians, easy to get along with, and people whose tastes we respected, so it always resulted in something good. Of course, there have been exceptions, but even if/when it

EROID No.4 The hypnotic, kaleidoscopic sound of The Asteroid No.4 is in full swing on their latest release. Scott Vitt talks with the Second Scene about Northern Songs, songwriting and the future of the group. didn’t end well, it could still lead to yet another opportunity or meeting someone else through the debacle. Isn’t that just the way life works?

Foundationally, what keeps us going is an everevolving interest to keep making music together.

Nothing more, nothing less. It’s hard to explain, but honestly, it’s just an easy band to be in; we’re very close friends, brothers actually, and it’s never been overshadowed personal endeavors, or relationships, family, or prohibiting an ability to make a living through some other means.

Actually, if anything, it somehow manages to only open up more life, non-band related life changes, opportunities, or introduce us to people we may have never met otherwise who’ve gone on to become some of our closest friends and even partners. From a creative standpoint, we’re really starting to feel like we’re just now getting

to where we always wanted to be and have the exact tools we need and pieces of the puzzle falling into place to stay there. On the other hand, if it all ended tomorrow, well, that’s ok too.

We’d just start something else!

With every group, there are high and low points.

Was there ever a time when you thought I’d had enough? Or a high point where you thought it just couldn’t get any better than this moment?

Short answer, yes. We’ve had several instances of both. I’d say much of that occurred several years ago at this point where we were experiencing some tough times creatively, had some difficult personalities involved, and definitely some challenging tours where we would be saying the entire time, “when we get home, I’m done.” But then we’d take a little break from it and within

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a couple of weeks be right back at it without ever even speaking about what we thought was so disastrous only weeks before. Personally speaking, I look back to immediately after we finished our first record, “Introducing” as a major low point for me.

I was all over the place with life, involved with some toxic situations/relationship, and was consumed by nonsense. As the primary songwriter, I also led the band down some ridiculous paths with our second and third records, “King Richard’s” and “Honeyspot” respectively. I simply want them erased from memory and can barely stomach listening to them, especially “King Richards.” It’s just that bad. We had a great run during “Introducing” with the press, a great buzz coming out of Philly at the time, we were on tour with the Lilys, the BJM, it was amazing...then just when it was important to follow up with a strong second record, we made the worst one out of the ten by far. Then after that, well then we went country.

So yeah, maybe we’d do that all over if possible.

Since then, however, especially after a few years of doing nothing somewhere between ‘04 and ‘06, and restarting with “An Amazing Dream,” we’ve been on a trajectory that I wish we were on immediately after “Introducing.” But its all good, and none of it really matters. There have, of course, been other challenging times, situations, and people along the way since, but we were also getting older during it and learned how just to let it all go and keep on keeping on.

There is definitely a feeling at this moment in time where the uncertainty of not knowing when we’ll be able to tour or even play a single show in a proper club is pretty heavy on us, and we’re not alone there. However, it’s also an opportunity to take stock in what we do have, which is an unlimited amount of time to fix some things we probably should’ve done years ago. We can also write and record as much music as we want, which we’ve never stopped doing since wrapping up “Northern Songs.”

The latest release, “Northern Songs,” how does it compare to previous A4 releases?

I feel it’s one of our best collection of songs so far. And when I say “collection of songs,” I mean that that is a relatively new way for us to approach a full-length record. Up to 2014’s self-titled record, we typically approached albums as a whole rather than song by song.

Meaning we’d typically have about 50% solid

songs and 50% segues or pieces of music—very Floyd in away. However, since 2014, we’ve been on a songwriting blitz, and they’re coming from all different directions, and I’m not the only one bringing the songs to the table, which is such a relief. Perhaps that had a lot to do with relocating to California or some personal changes within the band, but that’s really when the recent writing spurt began for both “Northern Songs” and “Collide” prior. I kind of look at them both as though they could’ve been one long double LP, but sonically they sound pretty different, at least to us, so ultimately happy that they’re not. As for the vibe, the one I’d compare the new one to the most is “An Amazing Dream,” and that’s simply because it just sounds so much like “us.” Meaning if someone was to ask which album they should start with to get a real sense of what our band is about, I think I’d generally point to them. “NS” is definitely furthering what we were doing on “Collide,” which is digging back to who we truly are and our musical genetic make-up in what we came from when we first started in the 90s. That, of course, is being rooted in the sounds of the UK “shoegaze” and “dream-pop” bands of the late ‘80s / early ‘90s.

We ultimately fell deeper into the psychedelic and the space rock thing, and that too is now a part of who we are, but it feels so good to let go and tap into what really excited us when we were younger and the bands we were fortunate enough to see live when they were just coming up in our late teens, early 20s. With the world being what it is right now, the conflict, and how chaotic everything is, why avoid relying on nostalgia to help heels us.

What is the songwriting process? Is it an individual effort, or do you write as a group?

Like I mentioned, lately, the songs have been

falling off the vine, which has just been so much fun. It’s arguably the most prolific time since our start, and I think that’s honestly because we’re not allowing anyone to stop an idea cold and instead taking the time to develop demos, letting them sit, then come back to them. With having three songwriters in Eric, Matty, and myself, each process is a little different. My approach is to write something on the guitar, with a vocal melody, then bring it to the band for everyone to add what they do. I may have some idea of what I’d like to hear on the bass or drums, and maybe someone injects a change to the arrangement. With Eric, he’ll typically record a song from start to finish at home, with bass, drum sequence, and keys. He’ll leave it to me to form a vocal melody and write lyrics, so that usually requires some change of arrangement to create verse/chorus length. We’ll then add real drums and maybe tweak sounds from there. Matty is a very prolific songwriter and writes his own solo albums at least once a year. During his writing of those, he’ll either have unfinished ideas or bring songs he’s already recorded and want to modify them through the A4 filter. The song “Paint It Green” on the new album is an example of him playing a guitar line at rehearsal, and we made a completely different song out of it. If you listen to his solo record, you’d hear that same guitar line in a completely different context.

Then there’s the songs that are just all of us just jamming over a repetitive bass/drum groove that morphs into something. So, to sum it up, different songs form in different ways, and hopefully, the result of that is variety.

Listening to A4, I can hear the influence of The Byrds and a few other 60s psych groups as well as shoegaze and dream pop. To this writer’s ears, you’ve picked up what they’ve laid down and created something uniquely original. I guess this goes back to my songwriting question. Where do you pull from when writing? Where do you find inspiration?

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I think its safe to say The Byrds are one of the top three biggest influences on The Asteroid No.4, if not the biggest. And that’s because they are, in many ways, a big influence on all of our influences. Of the classic ‘60s, big bands, The Byrds are right there with the Beatles, the Floyd, and Kinks for us. They’re arguably the first “shoegaze” band, at least in their image and stage performance. Dark and mysterious, black cloaks, Cuban heels, bowl cuts, moody, and barely moving. Perfect. They, like the other bands mentioned, were of a certain class that changed

direction on every couple records and mixed in everything from country, folk, psychedelic, electronic explorations, and lush harmonies.

That’s all the good stuff for us. If forced to say who our biggest influences of all time are, I’d say the Byrds, Ride, and Spacemen 3. And just because I say that doesn’t mean that you’ll hear blatant rip-offs, because we’re not really good at straight-up imitation.

I wish we were because if left to my own devices, it would be a blatant rip off of Spacemen 3’s Perfect Prescription. But what fun would that be? We use all of our influences like ingredients in a recipe. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Then there’s also times with a little too much of this, not enough of that, and you have a mess on your hands. We have a huge range of tastes and even larger record collections.

That is both a blessing and a curse because it can muddy the water and pull us into too many

Due to the pandemic crisis and music venues closed. How will the A4 promote this latest release? Well, that’s the big question of the moment. We’re preparing for some upcoming on-line performances, thinking about new ways to focus on one-off singles, merch, etc. The only way we can really promote ourselves is to keep pumping out new music and hopefully use this time to keep writing, recording, and flooding digital platforms with new songs. We’re definitely not banking on touring anytime soon, so just trying to keep it interesting for us frankly. We were literally supposed to be in Europe on tour at this very moment, so wondering when that might happen again and without knowing how the pandemic, the US election, economy, etc. shakes out, it could be a long time before any return to normalcy.

Now with “Northern Songs” just being released, have you started work on a follow-up?

We indeed have. We actually never stopped with “Northern Songs,” which was being mastered in March right when Covid hit the US hard. So we pretty much sent it out for pressing and just kept the tape rolling with new songs.

We’ve got dozens of songs in some form of a demo and about ready to start tracking to tape.

We also finally get the rights to our 2014, self-titled “The Asteroid No.4” after it being held hostage by someone in the UK. It never saw the light of day in the US, unavailable digitally, and the LP is way overpriced because of how limited it is.

So next year, expect to see that be “re-issued.”

Hopefully, by the end of 2021, we can start playing live again. We really miss it.

Northern Songs The Asteroid No. 4 (Little Cloud Records) It’s funny how mainstream music seems to age very quickly, but its underground opposite number always sounds exactly what it always was. I suppose that is the trouble with surfing zeitgeist waves in search of fad and fashion.

That’s the trouble with conformity. Follow your mind, abide by your own rules, and no-one can ever hold up a template to judge you by. Keep doing that well enough, and the next thing you realize, as The Asteroid No. 4 surely do, is that you have released your tenth album of sonic gems.

And sonic gems they are, deftly fashioned from heady musical blends, from the hazy and the shoegazy, from motorik urges and krautrock energy, from the cosmic and the country-fide, the psychedelic and the paisley, the chiming and the shimmering and all manner of inventive splices and fusions in between.

All Mixed Up kicks off in a shining swirl of buoyant basslines and ethereal sonic shards, Paint it Green revels in some brooding and Bowie-esque moves, and I Don’t Care wanders through The Byrds sonic legacy as pushed through the late eighties, British indie band filter… which it often was.

The title track gives some subtle nods to the late-era Beatles. It might give the name, and the autobiographical Swiss Mountain Myth feels like the last sound you hear as you slip under the surface of dark waters, hazy, and only half-heard, claustrophobic yet somehow comforting.

I’m not saying that The Asteroid No. 4 hasn’t changed musically over the years; the sound evolves from one release to the next. What doesn’t change though is the band’s vision to make music as they see fit, to follow a path which might be less obvious but which, by their own terms and needs, is the most rewarding one.

Some bands might be able to do that for an album or two, but I can’t think of any other band who has spent more than two decades caving out just such a path with this amount of integrity and dedication.

Dave Franklin

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directions. But I think after all of these years and albums, the first three or so being pretty blatant attempts of trying to be something we’re not, we are confident at a point where our sound is our sound. We appreciate being grouped with some of our contemporaries, but we definitely don’t fit in with many of the “psych” bands of the last 10 to 15 years. Not meant to be a cut, we just prefer to be on our own. Inspiration, like songwriting, also comes in many colors. Definitely situations or personal life experiences, sometimes even tapping into what others are going through, the world, conflict, it all inspires. Many, if not most of our songs have some underlying social/political current, human destruction of the environment, etc. It’s rarely literal, but it’s all in there.

M U M I X A “M MOD ” H C PSY THE LAISSEZ FAIRS Interview: Tim Thomas

Photos: Sandy Fleming

Uncompromising in their quest for Maximum Mod Psych, these inspired acid dandies John Fallon and Joe Lawless fuse vintage sound with classic songwriting and Carnaby Street style. Sound and vision.

How about a brief history of the group?

The Laissez Fairs started in a smooth and easy fashion. Joe Lawless and I had met in 2013 at a show I was playing with Peter Daltry/ Kaleidoscope from England in Las Vegas.

Rob Campanella of The Brian Jonestown Massacre played guitar with me. Nelson Bragg of The Brian Wilson band on drums and my son, Cromm Fallon, on bass.

Joe Lawless was in a band called Trevor and The Joneses, we all hit it off and been friends ever since. The following year Joe helped me record my second solo album, AFTERWORD. After that, I told Joe that I actually prefer being in a band. So we formed one, haha.

THE LAISSEZ FAIRS. Since then, we have recorded four albums on CD and vinyl. We have our second vinyl 45 coming out in a few weeks. We had played shows in Vegas and Los Angeles quite a lot and were thinking of playing Italy, Germany, and The Czech Republic, this year before all this COVID 19 shit, was unleashed.

How have you evolved as a songwriter?

(From The Steppes to the Laissez Fairs.)

Evolving as a songwriter...mmm, I guess I have? I know that things are coming very quickly these days. However, I still do things in a similar way. I usually write songs just sitting around with an acoustic guitar or an unplugged electric guitar. I get a scrap of paper and write down the chords and any line that flashes into my mind; that way, I hope to remember it. I am quite certain I

have lost a full White Album over the years, just gone. The only real difference now is that it is easier to get into the studio to record. I still enjoy the whole process. Producing is the key.

What have been your main influences as a songwriter?

Main influences? Big and small for varied reasons. Lennon-McCartney, Ray Davies, Jagger-Richards, Townsend, Dylan, Oscar Wilde, Lord Dunsany, Michael Moorcock bits and pieces from anywhere any moment, a train, a painting, a sad girl something lost something gained.

John, are you the primary songwriter in the group of is it a collaborative effort?

Well, I tend to write and sing a lot of songs.

It doesn’t really stop. However, Joe Lawless also writes songs and sings them, so in fairness, we BOTH have created our sound. It is a great partnership, always fun and fresh.

We love doing this. We produce albums for other artists as well as Cromm Fallon and Shanda and The Howlers. We begin recording both of these acts again this summer, as well as our 5th album. I’m the old pro with a head full of ideas, but I need help getting them into the real world. I just couldn’t do it alone. No kicks that way, and Joe is a bit of a tech whiz who has a great ear.

Where do the Laissez Fairs fit in the current music world?

We see THE LAISSEZ FAIRS as being right in that sweet spot between MOD and Psych.

FLASH, POWER, but also thoughtful and trippy. That is why we say we are “MAXIMUM MOD PSYCH.” We dig The Who and Donovan and a lot in between. Brian Jones has always been a special player to me. Style and sound.

With the first part of 2020, shut down and live music at a standstill. How have The Laissez Fairs been coping?

With this stupid lockdown, it is hard to keep things flowing. However, we are lucky we

recorded two new tunes and delivered them to Stu Pope at Hypnotic Bridge Records in LA at the end of February....before the shit hit the fan. We also have a new song on a summer compilation coming out now. Joe wrote this one and sings lead.

We have also just started recording basic tracks for our 5th album. This will be on Rum Bar Records in Boston. Our 3rd for that label.

Tell us about the latest single to be released in 2020?

Ah, the new vinyl 45 is coming out soon on Hypnotic Bridge Records. I wrote and sang the A-side. It is a big tune. Stu at the label asked for something BIG like I have done in The Steppes back in the old days well, that is exactly what I did...haha...the song is almost a mini-opera a la The WHO...in 1968 with Celtic overtones and a nod to heroic poetry, the title is “10,000 TOMORROWS.” Joe was inspired by where we were taking the A-side and came up with a high brow B side that compliments the A-side...different... but from the same artistic stream and that song is called “FROM FIELD TO FIELD.” What do the Laissez Fairs have planned for the near future? More recording? Releases?

Yes, we have the 45 coming out. We have another tune, “SOMEWHERE MAN,” on that summer compilation, and we will be recording all summer. The new album will be out in November at the latest. Might even be earlier.

thelaissezfairs.com

JEREMY BEIGHTOL

MERCY SEAT

RED NEIGHBORHOOD

instagram.com/jeremybeightol

Free your mind to the sound of The Regal Sweet. Music for the body and soul. Get up and dance to the music.

How did it all come together for The Regal Sweet?

The Regal Sweet was born of barroom afternoons spent romanticizing over jukebox gems with a particular flavor of Rock’n’Roll. Guitarists Kirk

any given day. Fleeting mysticism. I think he likes to keep us guessing, just for laughs.

Let’s talk about the latest release. There is a variety of sounds and styles going on. To be honest, on the first listen through I was blown away. I felt The Regal Sweet wasn’t trying to copy or emulate another group or genre. This wasn’t some cheap copy or homage but the real deal.

Take the track “Believer,” for instance, with its funky, soulful, and boogie groove. The horns are

THE REGAL SWEET

Salopek and I (Ryan Moore) started cooking up tracks with one. … He did it all within a couple of weeks, with a deadline looming for post-production in New Orleans. Gary is who we wanted on vocals from the start, and everything fell into place for us at the right time.

In what ways does each member influence the sound of the group?

I joke that we have brown leather songs and black leather songs. Kirk is the black leather side of The Regal Sweet. We’re both into a lot of the same music, although he brings a little more aggressive edge to and excitement in that unpredictability. Gary is the unpredictable one.

Even we don’t know what he’s going to do on

Photos: Dessa Poljak

outrageous. So, I guess I’m asking how is this possible? What makes The Regal Sweet sound special and quite frankly, miles ahead of any of your contemporaries?

With The Regal Sweet, we definitely set out to create music that makes you move. This isn’t head music; this is body music. Good time music.

We want you to shake and groove, not just bob your head. Speaking of the whole thing. The Faces and Stones probably did it best. We’re just doing what we love and have confidence in what we’re doing. I’ve never had more fun playing music than I have with this band.

What’s the songwriting process? Is it a group effort or individual songwriting?

Most of our songs start with an idea that Kirk or

I have been working on. We will bounce these back-and-forth until we get a loose arrangement that we both like, helping each other find the next parts, then bringing the idea to everyone.

Sometimes the arrangement stays as is, and sometimes it changes depending on how it feels in the room. We’ll know if it sounds right as it happens. This group works really well together, and everyone is open and honest.

plans to enter the studio in January. We cannot wait to get a new batch of songs rolling with this outfit. Rich Kawood joined The Regal Sweet as our new plan on doing a live stream show around the same time. Creating new music is everything right now. We want to capture it while the energy is fresh and put it out there with anticipation of sharing it live.

What are the influences on the group?

The Faces, T Rex, Jagger/Richards, Muscle Shoals, New Orleans, and Stax/Volt R&B, Spaghetti Westerns, Terry Reid, Villa Nellcôte, 70s trucker movies, James Gang, and so many more. We love some filthy, filthy Rock’n’Roll.

What can we expect from The Regal Sweet in the future?

A full-length record is on the way for 2021, with

Jeremy Beightol

Where was the album recorded? (production detail etc.).

Live tracking began at Rhythm House Studios in Charleroi, PA, in February 2019. Vocals and keys were cut with Jeff Ingersoll at Mojo Boneyard Studios in McKeesport, PA. Some piano was done at The Church in Pittsburgh. Mixing took place at our buddy Rick Nelson’s Marigny Studios in New Orleans. He recorded the horn section (The Hornstars) on Believer and Two-Step Hustle there as well. Bruce Barielle did a fantastic job of mastering from his New Orleans studio.

facebook.com/TheRegalSweet

DONOVAN Interview: Tim Thomas Main Photo: Richard Booth Additional Photos: Kaz Sanchez

N’S BRAIN

The Montana based Donovan’s Brain is the brainchild of Ron Sanchez. The one constant member and main motivator of this psychedelic experiment. With an open door policy, anyone who passes through Bozeman might very well end up playing on a session.

This open-door policy has left an indelible mark on the music. Twentyeight years later and still going strong.

Ron, you are prolific, to say the least, when it comes to Donovan’s Brain. What motivates you and inspires your writing?

I played in bands in the 60s. I got fed up with the people and the lack of original material. I sold my gear and got into radio. I didn’t own another guitar until 1984. I spent a couple of years getting my chops back. I put the first Donovan’s Brain together in 1987, but again there was no original material. The remedy was to concentrate on learning to record and working on writing. They went together. I did somecassettes. Butterfly Wheel was the first time I had original songs I thought were good enough to show.

One was called 50,00,000 Years Before My Time.

That started with a seed of a story about a time traveler. I wrote words than music one section at a time, developing the story and music right to tape. That one came easy and turned out well. I decided everything to follow had to be at least that good. I think that it was 91 or so. By then, I had an 8-track tape deck, which was good enough to make real recordings. From 92-94, I

wrote a load of stuff. Towards the end of that, I realized there was an album there. That was called Shambaholic. Several other songs would appear on the next three albums.

Those songs came from dreams, early morning fleeting ideas, and stray phrases in my notes.

The music is a little more mysterious. There are tracks I have no memory of writing or recording.

That seemed to be a good formula for me. Since then, it’s been pretty easy. I just grab phrases that come to me or something I heard on TV or even a road sign. Collaboration is also part of the process. I can write words for other’s music or offer up music to others to help with words.

The more I wrote, the easier it became. The last ten years have just been a flood of ideas. I’ve woke up with the song fully formed in my head, words, and music shape. My wife often hears me say, “I gotta go down to the studio right now” first thing in the morning. Sailing Off The Edge had the working title Sleepy Song as it was recorded early one morning. Again, I don’t remember doing it. It was just there. I believe that was the first Song Ric played on.

Two recent examples of the ways I write are My Baby, which I heard Bruce Springsteen sing in a dream. I wasn’t going to sing it like a world-weary Bruce, so I went with a more modern musical approach. Music was written on bass. I was probably thinking GBV.Another is Secret Society.

Bobby Sutliff had sent over a track and told me to have a go at it. I rearranged it a little and sent it back for him to cut a new track. The original had an organ upfront. I told my wife it was too bad we aren’t Procol Harum. That stopped me, and I made a note of that idea. The next morning, I woke with the first verse in my head.

The lyrics in the style of Keith Reid. I just sat at the piano and started playing and singing. It came right together in a couple of hours. Deniz Tek has just done the guitar on that one.

Right now, I have more than twenty songs I’ve written since Heirloom Varieties. I gave up some of those for the split album. I was concerned I’d maxed out, but no, I’ve written some very good ones in just the last 18 months. I have done some film music. That is more like a job. I would go into the studio knowing I had to have 90 seconds of music recorded in four hours. A great exercise.

How many albums, singles & Ep’s have you released as Donavan’s Brain?

Lemmy see... Our first two releases were 7”.

One on the German label Magical Jack and the next on Get Hip. Career did the split ep with The Nomads. Get Hip got the first three CDs, Carelessly Restored Art, which was just a comp I put together from old cassette tracks and some outtakes from Eclipse And Debris. Then Eclipse And Debris, which was originally meant to come out on the Aussie Camera Obscura label. The third was Tiny Crustacean Light Show. Career has done eight albums, including the split album.

They are Great Leap Forward, Defeat Of Echoes, Fires Which Burnt Brightly, Turned Up Later, Heirloom Varieties and the split album Burnt Trees In The Snow. I also put out Shambaholic as it was intended. Most of the songs had been scattered around on singles and such. Then

the box Convolutions. So that is Twelve albums, depending on how you count them. There is also a load of compilation releases.

Who are the principal musicians with Donovan’s Brain, or is this mainly a solo effort on your part?

It’s always meant to be a group effort. My original concept was a songwriting round table.

The first attempt failed. One guy didn’t want to submit any songs; the other guy tried to take over the band. He did steal the drummer. Since then, there have been various other equal partners.

Dave Walker from Savoy Brown was around for a couple of years. We wrote together, and he got on the case and wrote on his own too. Richard Treece was around to finish Eclipse and Debris.

That was a major take over we did.

The next three records were us running the show.

After Echoes, Bobby Sutliff came on as the other managing partner. I bumped into Ric, so he was in. Deniz was always available. Then Bob invited Scott Sutherland, Matt Piucci, and Tom Stevens on board. That was a great coup. I got Tony Miller to help and then invited Kris Hughes to join up. That is where it stands now. Everything the others write comes here to be finished and mixed. Anyone can offer to add to any of the songs. I’m the producer, which means I assign parts when I think one of the others could add a something, pick the songs for the album, the running order, and take care of the cover.

Everyone is invited to make suggestions, and they all get to hear the record before it comes out.

Everyone has their own bands or projects, so it works out well.

The “Convolutions of the Brain” box set is a mighty fine collection. How did it come about, and how did you choose the songs that would make the final cut?

I had those rehearsal tapes with Richard Treece that I really needed to do something with. That was the main motivation. If I didn’t do it now, they might be lost to time. There were some unreleased things with Richard as well. I went through everything thing else in the can. We always seem to end up with a song or two that don’t fit on the album. Some get carried over for a later record. I had a few that didn’t.

Why did you decide to move from the West Coast to Montana?

See the album Shambaholic! I was tired of working in record shops and making money for people who didn’t really care about the music. I understood business and made sure the shops I worked in were successful, but I also could connect with the music heads. I met loads of musicians and some amazing people who worked for big labels. I also met Roy Loney and Scott McCaughey early on. Those two men would loom large in my future. I learned a lot and grew up quickly because of the environment I put myself into. I spent two months in London in the summer of 78. When I got back, I just knew I had to change course. I tried not to go back to my job. I was fried. Then KSAN-FM got taken over by the owners, so radio was no longer an option.

1979 was not a fun year. My collapse meant my girlfriend left me, and because of my state of mind, there were no other takers.

In the summer of 1979, my parents moved to Montana. My sister had suggested they visit a friend of her family in Bozeman. The came back and said bye; we’re moving. Get anything you want out of the house. All my memorabilia was still there, so I raced down to San Jose and

gathered it all up. My brother and I got tasked with driving one of their car out. I didn’t know where we were going. The psychedelic treat a Dead roadie had given me enhanced the trip.

When my head cleared, I sat with my sister and said, how can we make a living in this town. We discussed a bar or a restaurant. My dad offered up a building he’d bought for a place to live or for a business. Another trip at Christmas sealed the deal. I arrived here on March 13th, 1980.

The restaurant idea turned out to be the best decision I ever made. It paid off when I sold my share to another sister in 1998 and then again when we sold the building a few years ago. Bozeman reminded me a lot of Willow Glen, the neighborhood I grew up in San Jose. A real main street. The university meant there were a lot of interesting people around too.

I got on the radio at KGLT in 1981.

I was set. Then I met Kaz, who shared a lot of interests, including music. The deal was done. I’m retired now from a day job and am very happy where I landed 40 years ago. Idyllic.

What can you tell us about Career Records? The label you started and operate.

It was something that came out of frustration with Get Hip. Deniz and I had teamed up and had three albums ready to go. This was the same time Gregg had reformed The Cynics, so he wasn’t answering my calls. After a gig with the Brain, Deniz said, why don’t we start a label. He really meant, why don’t you start a label, Ron. We put in matching seed money and just ran with it. I was lucky to have someone offer to take us on for distro. I got help for a couple of friends to set up websites and store. At that time, we were putting out three or four releases a year.

Unfortunately, that distro was a little lax about paying. Wewere selling stuff, but there wasn’t a lot of cash. I fired them and was taken in by another distro with a firm promise to pay. They do. That has been the case since 2010. These days it’s just Deniz or the Brain.

Our hopes for another Roy Loney record faded as his health declined. There is talk about a Long Shots compilation. There are other involved, so I just have to see how it unfolds. The Nomads will do another when they manage to write some songs and record them. Deniz and I would like to be involved in production and writing. These days I’m reluctant to take on new artists as it’s such a hard sell. There is one band I’ve talked to a little, but nothing yet. We shall see.

From what I see online, you look to be one hell of a cook. What other interest do you have outside of writing and recording for Donovan’s Brain?

This year, I’ve taken on more of the management of the house. Kaz has been working from home, so I have to appear to be busy all the time. I enjoy taking care of the operations and maintenance. It’s something I learned at a young age. Part of that is cooking. Kaz is a fab cook too. We try to impress each other. Owning a restaurant means I like to go out to eat. When I find something I like, I reverse engineer and see if I can do that. I read cookbooks and grab things that sound good. I can’t eat fast food or packaged food. I cook from scratch.

Hosting dinner parties is a particular pleasure. The plague has put a damper on that for now.

Doing a radio show is a very important part of my life. I’m a serious record collector. No point in just accumulating stuff. I realized many years ago that radio stations are the worst at maintaining a library. I decided that anything I would want to play on the radio, I needed to own. One thing I love about FB is the music groups. There are some informed people I trust. It means my collection is constantly growing. My mailman listens to my radio show. He treats the steady flow of packages with care and respect. On our travels, I always find time to seek out a record shop. The rest of our travels are spent outdoors, or museums and restaurants. I’m good at finding interesting places to eat.

My wife is an avid skier. I’m not so sure about flying down a mountain, but cross-country skiing suited me, so that is a winter sport that we can share. In the summer, we travel around Montana, exploring the small towns and other sights there are to see. Montana is the 4th largest state in our country. There are lots of less-traveled places to investigate. I’m a casual photographer. I’m always looking for images for the album covers.

I grew up being told to be curious. I’ve carried that all these years. It’s paid off for work and pleasure. That there is a band called Donovan’s Brain is a part of that quest.

donovans-brain.net

From the schoolyard to the recording studio. A natural progression for these two friends.

A collaboration built on trust and imagination.

You two have been friends almost since birth. How does this shared history and experiences factor in when collaborating?

Birdo: It definitely made collaboration a natural step for us.

We know each other’s music taste very well and have a pretty decent common ground when it comes to that. As a producer, I’ve landed a handful of placements and shoutouts and such, but my music with Tyler and Youngmindtrip, who are two of my best friends, is something I’m really proud of and want to focus on.

Tyler Gallagher: It’s comfortable.

Jack and I have been able to take each other’s constructive criticism with no awkwardness since we’ve been around each other since Kindergarten. If I do something in a song that Jack thinks needs changed or fixed, he will not hesitate to tell me, which I feel is an important quality in both a collaborator and a best friend.

What is the most significant influence on you as writers/ producers?

Birdo: A lot of what I’ve made for Tyler has been inspired by Shinju’s beats and Drain Gang, especially the more underground scene around their music. I’d say that Nine9 and Duwap Kaine really sparked my interest in more

melodic beats, though. If I never got into that, I wouldn’t be making music with Tyler right now.

TG: As a writer and singer, I think it’s pertinent to explore all different types of genres and artists to best understand different angles of music and the way music can be manipulated in the eyes of the creator. That being said, I draw most of my influences across many genres because I’m fascinated with the way music can be adapted in infinitely many directions. If I had to pick some artists as my biggest influences, I would choose Kid Cudi, TwentyOne Pilots, and Joji.

What influenced this latest release ‘Nameless’ as far as lyrics and the music?

Birdo: When I made the “Nameless” beat, I was fresh off listening to the new Lil Peep album.

I was playing Crybaby in the car, and as soon as I got home, I opened up a guitar sample, added a few more instruments, and made the drums in like an hour. I either work insanely quickly or painfully slowly. Pretty sure, I frantically texted Tyler right after I was done.

TG: The premise of the song Nameless has existed in my head for about a year or two now.

Nameless is about someone I’m very close to someone who recently went through some dark times. I won’t drop any names, but the situation impacted me in more ways than one. I felt it was necessary to let this person know they are not alone, and we all are nameless in our own ways.

When Jack sent me the beat for Nameless, I immediately thought of this song and finally put my thoughts to pen and paper.

Birdo: The beat always gets made first. Tyler might request a certain type of sound, but it’s mostly just me texting him “check email,” and then he starts writing. Occasionally we’ll record a song in a night if we’re together. After that, we usually ship the song over to Youngmindtrip for mixing.

TG: I think the craziest and most impressive part about our production process is that we rarely see each other in person when working on songs. Jack will send me a few beats at a time, and once I find one I like, I listen to it religiously in my headphones and plan the song in my head. Then, I write my first draft of lyrics and take it to my basement where I record.

After sending it back to Jack and a few other close friends of mine, I receive criticism and reflect on my music. To finish the song, I usually end up recording extra harmonies or changing some lyrics.

What do you have planned next?

Birdo: We’re working on a lot of loose music right now, including some features. We’ve been setting aside a song here and there for an EP, though, which we’ll definitely have out by the end of the year.

The songs we’re sitting on right now are our best work for sure.

TG: Recently, Jack and I have agreed to collaborate on an EP. With the rate we have been making music, there’s a good chance you may be seeing our EP soon. I have so many ideas and unused lyrics that I want to share with the world. I’ve always dreamed of being a musician since I was little, so I’m very thankful that Jack was able to put me in a position where I could express myself and do what I love.

How do both of you work together on creating songs? (lyrics first or do you have a beat worked up, etc?)

soundcloud.com/tgalmusic

soundcloud.com/realbirdo

TYLER GALLAGH ER/ TYLER GALLAGH ER/ BIRD O JACK TROY

Photo: Josie Zummo & Katherine Kuhn

WOODSTOCK REVISITED Dave Pursh

August 2019 marked the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock. The name itself conjures images of a sea of 500,00 people, singing and dancing in the rain and mud, all the while listening to some of the most mind-blowing music of the era. Susan Reynolds was one of those people. Susan, an accomplished writer and author of Woodstock Revisited, took some time to answer a few questions that I have wanted to ask someone, anyone, who attended that landmark event. Here it is, in her own words, a first-hand account from a festival attendee.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Susan.

I authored many nonfiction books on everything, from shoes to finance to neuroscience. I edited the anthology Woodstock Revisited, 50 far-out, groovy, peace-loving, flashback-inducing stories from those who were there, and my most recent book was Fire Up Your Writing Brain. I blog on Fireupyourwritingbrain. com and psychologytoday.com. I am currently writing a novel and edit other people’s novels for a living.

How did you hear about the festival? Did you buy tickets and go with friends or family?

My sister, brother, and I found out about the Woodstock festival from a small ad my brother saw in Rolling Stone. Because it was being advertised as an outdoor concert in the country, we didn’t envision a problem buying tickets at the gate. We also didn’t make any real plans. We were teenagers who just didn’t think about sleeping accommodations, presuming we could sleep in the car or get a hotel if we wanted. We didn’t even bring food or water, presuming, again, we could buy whatever we needed once there. We had little expectations, just sufficient excitement to plan weeks ahead on going. I was staying with my sister Rozanne that summer in New York City, and Roy hitchhiked up from Pennsylvania to join us in NYC for the drive to the festival.

Talk about the journey to the festival. This has become the stuff of legend. The people, the traffic...the New York State Thruway, man!

We left Queens Friday evening, in the rain, and cruised along until we came upon a backlog on the New York State Throughway. We were listening to the radio, and already hearing that you couldn’t get even get close to the festival. We came to a standstill, and the State Troopers were ordering everyone to turn around and go home, but that only made us more determined to get there. My sister’s boyfriend veered off onto an exit, and we meandered on smaller roads until we found a gas station. The owner told us how to get close to the festival. We got there early and slept a bit, then bought groceries, made ourselves a

sandwich, and joined the throngs of people already walking down the road towards the festival site. The roads were completely backlogged, and hundreds of people were walking along the road. Everyone was very friendly, shooting peace signs to each other.

Excitement and a party atmosphere prevailed.

Did you all make it in time for the start of the festival?

What was your initial reaction when you arrived?

We got there Saturday morning before the music began for the day. When we got to the site, the fence had been torn down, and everyone was just stepping over it onto the grounds, so we just followed the crowd. We looked around but didn’t see anyone selling tickets; in fact, there wasn’t anyone supervising the throngs of people stepping over the laid-down fence. Once we came over the crown and saw the size of the crowd already assembled in the natural “bowl,” we literally stood stock still, stunned, staring at an ocean of people, more people than any of us

had ever seen. Although most of the photographs that were published showed naked hippies or hippielike people in outrageous clothing, the vast majority were kids just like us, wearing jeans and T-shirts. We recognized them, however, as our tribe. Coming from a small town, we’d never seen so many like-minded people grooving to the same vibe. It felt exhilarating on every level, and we were totally jazzed.

Somehow, and we don’t remember how, my sister and her boyfriend made their way to the front, while Roy and I hung back and settled somewhere in the middle. The crowd continued to swell, and by the time the music started, we were sitting shoulderto-shoulder with 500,000 people. Joints were being passed around, so virtually everyone smoked some marijuana, and the vibe was definitely chill. I, myself, didn’t accept tokes, but you got a contact high

just sitting there. When the music started, the crowd went ballistic with happiness. Despite long stretches between sets, the sounds of fabulous bands wafted over us for hour after hour. Each one was fantastic in its own way. After a while, we went in search of food and water, but all the food and beverage stands were already sold out and closed.

Another story you always hear about were the conditions of the grounds and the facilities. Can you describe what it was really like, including the dreaded rain and mud?

As the day wore on Saturday, it got hotter and hotter, and we got thirsty and hungry. People around us started sharing whatever they had, which was one of the coolest things about the festival. You’d take a bite of someone’s sandwich or a drink of their soda and pass it on, just like the joints. We had a thunderstorm at one point that grew quite frightening. The announcers kept the crowd chill by talking us through it, reassuring us that we’d be okay if we just hunkered down and stayed calm. People were climbing the speaker

towers, and they kept ordering them to come down.

After it rained, people shared bits of cardboard for us to sit on, and we took turns sharing a coffee can that you could sit on to get above the mud for a while. When we tried to go up the hill to call our mother—which proved impossible due to very long lines—or go to portable toilets, which also had very long lines, people would grab our hands and pull us up the hill; otherwise, we’d keep slipping in the mud.

The comradery of treating each other like brothers and sisters really made the whole disaster bearable.

Seeing and hearing all the best talent of the times also helped. We were totally into the music, thrilled by it. Overall, we experienced the peace and love vibe we all desperately wanted at that time. That “peace and love” tribe of music lovers kept everything and everyone chill, despite the rain, mud, bad drugs, lack of food and water, and facilities. We lived our ideology, and it totally worked.

How about the bands themselves? Did you have a favorite?

Santana was fairly unknown at the time, and their set was a phenomenal and artistic revelation. Our mouths literally fell open with amazement. Their live set really got the crowd fired up, and they played a long time.

Later, of course, it was one super band after another.

Janis Joplin’s electric vocals were thrilling live and had us on our feet, but so did Sly and the Family Stone’s funky artistry. Roy loved Creedence Clearwater Revival. We’d gone to concerts from the time our mother would agree to drive us to Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena to see them. We’d seen the Stones and The Doors and other big bands, but to see so much talent in one weekend just blew our minds—and I think that’s why that concert is still legendary. It all came together so fast and in such a crazy, disasterprone way, but was still such a mind-blowing display of raw talent, nothing like it had come before, and it just rocked. Despite the horrendous weather and crappy conditions, we felt extremely lucky, and a little rebellious, and wickedly cool.

Talk about the aftermath. What was it like leaving the festival grounds, as well as the journey home?

We stayed until about 4 a.m. when a real chill set in. Knowing our sister would be worried about us, we walked back to the car. We felt so jazzed about everything and were talking so furiously about every band we’d seen and how good the whole experience had been that our bodies were literally vibrating with excitement. We didn’t want to go home. They were at the car, so we all climbed in, talked some more, and then fell asleep. The next morning, our driver wanted to leave; he was worried about traffic jams if we stayed. We totally didn’t want to leave, but clouds were rolling in again, and we knew it was going to pour, so eventually, we agreed.

The conditions on Sunday only got worse, so it was probably the sanest decision, but the three of us have always regretted missing Sunday, particularly not seeing Hendrix. Anyone who saw his rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner experienced the performance of a lifetime, and, of course, he died not long after.

What is your most vivid memory from that weekend?

The anti-war aspect of the concertgoers—or performers—was not the focus, but it was very present. Country Joe did his cheer, and the crowd literally roared as we sang along. We’d all been demonstrating at the local level, but we’d never experienced the energy of 500,000 like-minded, young, passionate contemporaries wanting wars to end and peace to reign as much as we did. The commonly held desire literally surged through your body. I recognized, for perhaps the first time, the awesome generational power we held.

They kept announcing how the rest of the world was perceiving us at the time—as a disaster—and we felt the opposite like we were at the biggest party of the century. We felt sorry for anyone who wasn’t there, despite the rain, the thunder and lightning storms, and the lack of food and water. We knew it would be something we’d never forget, but we had no idea how truly big it was.

The scariest moment, for me, came when Army helicopters flew overhead. We worried that they were coming to disperse us, that they might drop tear gas canisters, and create complete chaos. We held our collective breath as fear thundered through our hearts. Finally, the announcer came on and told us they were bringing us food and water. “They’re with us, man,” he said, and the crowd rose to their feet and cheered and whooped and went totally apeshit happy. That memory still gives me chills.

Did you save any memorabilia?

Roy recently sent me a postcard in which I confirmed that we’d meet up to go, but we didn’t have tickets, and if programs existed, we never saw them. My sister’s boyfriend took one roll of photos, but most of them were boring. He never turned around and took a shot of the crowd. There was nothing to buy when we got there. We all bought the album and saw the movie, which were fabulous, but it also blurred our memories. I’d call Roy and ask if we really saw a particular band live, or did I only see it in the movie and think we saw it live? Even though he was smoking dope at the festival, as someone who had his own band at the time and was obsessed with music, Roy had total recall. For me, the event and the movie and the album became blurred, but all were fabulous. I literally wore out that album, playing it over and over and over. I would feel the same thrill go through my veins all over again.

For years, we always talked about it whenever we got together. I’d tell people that I had actually gone to Woodstock, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

Then, I lived in Paris for a year around 2001, and the young people there were fascinated by it, treated me like a rock star when I said I’d been there, wanted to hear all the stories. That’s why I sold an anthology idea to a publisher for the 40th anniversary, and it was a big hit.

What, in your opinion, is the lasting impression, the significance if you will, of Woodstock?

Not only did it bring together the hottest, most phenomenally talented bands of the time, but more than 500,000 young people gathered together on a muddy hillside, in the worst conditions summer can bring, without food, water, or enough facilities to make anyone comfortable. We chilled shoulder-toshoulder, we shared what we had, we celebrated the music, and we partied together as one happy band of youthful dreamers. If panic had set in, it could have been a horrible disaster; people could have been struck by lightning or trampled to death, or violence could have erupted, but none of that happened. Instead, that youthful band of musicloving, peace-desiring dreamers lived what they preached—we loved each other and helped each other and grooved on phenomenal music as one. It was spontaneously beautiful, man.

Susan’s book, Woodstock Revisited, 50 far-out, groovy, peace-loving, flashback-inducing stories from those who were there, can be purchased through her Amazon author page at https://www.amazon.com/ author/susanreynolds or at www.amazon.com/Woodstock-Revisited-PeaceLoving-Flashback-Inducing-Stories/dp/1605506281

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REVIEWS-REVIEWS-REVIEWS Dave Franklin (Dancing About Architecture) Chained – 2 Square / Mark Gardener

Lockdown – From The Specials

Autobiographical songs tend to have a quality to them that those who are perhaps a collection of imagined scenarios or made up sentiments can’t even come close too. As Mark Gardener’s lyrics reminisce on a time where he had to face up to his personal demons and unhealthy life choices and chose to defeat them by starting a new life elsewhere, you can hear all of those qualities made manifest. You hear honesty, soul-searching, reflection, and sorrow as he looks back at a difficult point in his life, one where he had lost his band and was in danger of losing himself.

Neville Staple has always been someone comfortable to use his music as a way of talking about the world around him, as he sees it, even when four claustrophobic walls temporarily bound that world. Finding a tone that fitted the sense of isolation and paranoia of the times, Lockdown shares a lot of sonic territory with the iconic Ghost Town as well as the dark undercurrents, which often ran through his post-Specials band, Fun Boy Three.

The song is a collaboration with 2 Square, a.k.a. Stephan Haeri, and the two have forged a unique sounding track, to say the least. It moves from minimalist ambiance through ever-increasing musical inclusions, a plaintive piano, buzzing synths, and intriguing percussion, until a stark and unexpected drum break punctuates the track. It then returns in a more jazz fashion via a beguiling bassline and busier instrumentation.

Chained reminds us of many things. It reminds us that it is okay to run away and start again, that a change is ten times better than a rest, that even the most challenging moments in your life can make for a great song. It reminds us that Mark Gardener remains as interesting and musically astute as he has always been.

Neville, aided and abetted as always by his wife and musical traveling companion Sugary, admit that when writing the song, they had to discard early sonic drafts on the grounds of being too upbeat, failing to capture the required somber mood that Lockdown has inflicted on so many people.

The black and white, 2-tone symbol of unity, which has always been associated with the musical movement that he was so important in creating, have here perhaps mixed and merged into the necessary grey from which the song’s frustrations are forged and fashioned.

But just the act of putting such thoughts and feelings into words and music is also an act of unity and of celebration in itself. We are all going through the same experience, albeit at a suitable distance, but knowing that there is a common bond that we really are “all in this together” is just the tonic (pun intended) we need to help get us through.

Darrow and Luke’ Skyscraper’ James from Fashion and often taking in collaborations with many 4AD and Rough Trade artists, which in itself tells you something about the nature of the music that they make. The Pull of Autumn doesn’t “do” genres. If they do, it is only after they have put them through the blender, chopped them up and turned them into anagrams, or used them to conduct unethical sonic gene-splicing experiments in a basement late at night.

At one extreme, Color blends cavernous, raw-edge guitars which dominate, burying the vocals into a half-heard whisper and allowing only distant chimes and spiraling electronica to escape its incendiary vortex occasionally. At the other end is Bored and Lonely, a wonky, New Wave sing-along.

Shipwrecked on Aspirin sounds like The B-52’s

Small Colors – The Pull of Autumn There is nothing like kicking off an album with some beguiling and engaging sounds, the sort of musical exoticism which grabs the listener right from the first languorous and luxurious vocal, the first skittering and skewed beat. That’s how you get people’s attention, and Bakhchalarda does just that and does it perfectly. A blend of digital drum patterns woven into primal beats and exotic, easterninfused vocal haze, it sets the sonic scene perfectly, makes you realize that anything could happen on this album and the only way to find out how that might sound is to buckle up and dive in…if such a mixed metaphor were indeed possible, but you know what I mean.

A few things that you might need to know as you prepare yourself for the plunge. The Pull of Autumn is a super-group, of sorts, an ever-shifting swirl of creativity based around Johanna’s House of Glamour’s Daniel

thumb-wrestling with Talking Heads and Delirious Intuition is what you would get if you merge dream-pop and reggae, which also begs the question as to why no one has done this before. Okay, The Veldt has done this before, but there should be more of this sort of thing going on if you ask me.

It is safe to say that there is something for everyone to be found here. Art rock to alternative jazz, post-punk to post-rock, pop of all colours (pun and English spelling intended) but mainly songs which are truly genre-less or perhaps contain far too many genres all at once. But then who’s counting?

In fact, the only people who are not going to like this album are the people who stock the shelves in music stores. I mean, in what generic section are you going to file such a blatantly, wild body of work? Perhaps just throw it blindfold across the room, where it lands is probably as good a place as any.

REVIEWS-REVIEWS-REVIEWS waves, a world away from The Oceans Above, which manifests as a searing, snarling shard of incisor-like six-strings and skin-piercing sonic attacks.

And if it would seem as if there is a theme developing in the titles, then it is worth noting that the band themselves describe the album as capturing “the feeling of being lost-at-sea in a world burning ashore” and an album revealing in need for change, total and unwavering and what it might mean to be carried along in the wake of such a world.

As the shimmering opening salvo and drifting haze of Turned Too Slow washes out of the speakers, you know that you have found your way back to a very special musical place. But even though

As always, A Shoreline Dream is difficult to pin down musically. Pull at one sonic thread. You will find yourself clutching a strand of sky-searing, post-rock guitar; another might turn out to be made of shimmering, ambient electronica, a third

Melting – A Shoreline Dream E.P.’s and singles have kept us abreast of what has been going on there, it seems a rawer and often more cavernous place than we remember. Although 2014’s A Silent Sunrise certainly had moments of guitar-driven excess, tracks such as The Tempting Flood’s sonic assault feel like new territory being explored.

But that has always been the great thing about A Shoreline Dream; they are great at setting themselves musical boundaries and lines in the sand to step beyond them immediately. Or so it seems. And as always, Melting is an album of wild and weird contrasts. Downstairs Sundays is a brief and beautify slice of acoustica being gradually subsumed by rising electronica before sinking beneath the

skittering, off-kilter rhythms, and fourth hazy shoegazing psychedelia, and so on and on and on…

A Shoreline Dream has a healthy back catalogue, but this is the place to be right now. If you are a long term fan, this will feel like another layer of rich icing on a very rewarding cake. If you are new to the band, then this is the perfect place to stoke out from as you spiral back through their glorious body of work.

Quite simply, an extraordinary release in a run of extraordinary releases.

buoyant nature and easy ways, surprisingly.

It’s whatever the opposite of throwaway is. A keeper, I guess, yes, it’s definitely a keeper.

Bang! Straight in. That’s how you make an impression. But then, with the overall song weighing at just over two minutes, there isn’t any time to mess around with enticing intros and tantalizing sonics teasers. The Persian Leaps get straight to work; you have to admire that.

Depending on which era you were born into, you’d call this power-pop or new pop or post-punk-pop or pop-rock or

Although this musically dynamic duo hail from Minnesota, I would hazard a guess that there are more than a few albums for the jangling and hazy heyday of British guitar bands in their collective record collections.

Every now and then, you catch a whiff of the likes of Teenage Fanclub or The Jasmine Minks or perhaps even the long lost Talulah Gosh, and that can only be a good thing, right? Quite right!

The Persian Leaps has been sending out a steady stream of “celestial guitar jangle” to quote The NME, for a decade, a salvo of eps which have been praised by critics and fans alike before retiring as a full live band to return to their roots as a studio concern a couple of years ago And if the removal of such logistical live distractions means that they can produce tracks as

Lost Cause – The Persian Leaps perhaps even indie. But it doesn’t matter what you call it; what matters is that it is a song built out of wonderfully skittish grooves and staccato guitar lines. It is infectiously singalong, and given its

fantastic as this, then the results easily justified such a move.

4

*NEW LOCATION* BLOOMFIELD