Posted on

Optical Atlas Interviews with Laura Carter (Elf Power) and Zachary Gresham (Summer Hymns)

These are the last of my “6 Questions with…” interviews from Optical Atlas. Laura Carter of Elf Power mentions the band’s collaboration with Vic Chesnutt, Dark Developments, which would be released in 2008. Prior to Vic’s passing in 2009, he toured with Elf Power, and they stayed overnight at my place. While the rest of the band took up the usual spot in the basement, Vic, being wheelchair-bound, slept on the 1st floor couch. I woke early in case anyone needed coffee started, and Vic was already up. We awkwardly sat in the living room together, unable to spark any sort of conversation, until my dogs hopped into his lap. From then on everything was easy. We talked about dogs. Vic could be a bit acerbic, but he softened up. Later I was asking the band to sign the poster from the show, and I asked Vic if he would sign. “It’s an Elf Power poster,” he pointed out, “my name isn’t on it.” He paused. “Yeah, I’ll sign yer poster.” He wrote “Vic” on it. We all ate pancakes together and then they were off (to Chicago, probably). That’s my Vic story.

6qwlaura

Laura Carter/Elf Power: February 17, 2007

Since the band’s inception in 1993, Laura Carter has been the keyboardist for Elf Power, one of the most critically acclaimed bands to emerge from Elephant 6 and the Athens scene in general. But since 1999 she has also been helping to run Orange Twin, a conservation community, record label, and artist’s collective based around a plot of land which is being slowly converted into an eco-village.

1) I’m curious how Orange Twin first formed, and how you came to discover the land Orange Twin is striving to preserve.

We discovered the land for sale, and we fell in love with it and knew it would be a perfect place to start our community. It’s a former girl scout camp about five miles outside of Athens, GA. It’s about 150 acres, 100 of which will be preserved, and the rest of which will be used to build homes.

2) What does it mean that you’ve received approval from Athens-Clarke County for Orange Twin to proceed with its “master plan?” Can you elaborate?

Well, nobody had ever attempted a community like this in Athens before, so we were a little bit concerned about how the county would respond to the idea, but the support has been very enthusiastic. The “master plan” refers to our plan to begin building homes on the land.

othouse

3) Can you briefly describe the history of the community house and its current state of development?

It was a house in Athens that was going to be demolished that we bought for $1 and moved out to the land. It’s a beautiful old house, and there’s currently five people living in it. We’ve had several big concerts over the last few years, hosting bands like Bonnie Prince Billy, Tall Dwarfs and The Olivia Tremor Control when they reunited a few years back.

4) The record label was launched in 2001 and it seems to be thriving, having released records by Jeff Mangum, Elf Power, Gerbils, Major Organ and the Adding Machine, The Late B.P. Helium, Je Suis France, Lovers, and more. What was the initial impetus for launching the label, and who was first involved in putting it together? I’m also curious about how you came to release the Sibylle Baier album, Colour Green.

Andrew and I started the label, initially to reissue the Elyse record, a trippy folk rock record from the late 1960’s that we really loved. Most of the other releases have been from friends looking for an outlet to release their music. The Sibylle Baier album we heard a few years back from J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Sibylle lives near J. in Massachusetts, and her son gave the album to J., who passed it along to us, as he knew we would love it. It is truly a beautiful recording that we thought we should share with the world.

5) What’s on the horizon for Orange Twin in 2007? It sounds like you might be putting out a third Instruments record.

We have new records out by Madeline and the Lovers. Instruments are planning on recording a new record this year, so hopefully that will come out this year as well.

6) Of course, I also have to ask what Elf Power‘s up to.

Elf Power has been recording a record with Vic Chesnutt, backing him up on his songs, which has been a blast. I think it’s going to be a really incredible album. Vic has just finished an album with the Godspeed You Black Emperor! folks in Canada, as well as an acoustic record in Nashville, so I guess this will be the third in his trilogy he hopes to put out this year! We’ll be doing more touring in the spring, going out west for a couple weeks. We’ll also be recording a new Elf Power album later this year, so we’re staying pretty busy!

* * *

Laura photo by John of Diligent Worker

6qwzg

Zachary Gresham/Summer Hymns: April 10, 2006

Zachary Gresham is the lead singer/songwriter of the Summer Hymns, the Athens-based band that presently includes Philip Brown and Chris Riser (past collaborators have included such familiar Athens names as Derek Almstead of M Coast, Dottie Alexander and Matt Dawson from of Montreal, Adrian Finch and Bren Mead of Masters of the Hemisphere, and about a dozen more). Through three full-lengths–1999’s Voice Brother and Sister, 2001’s A Celebratory Arm Gesture (named after a Mr. Show sketch), and 2003’s Clemency–the band has established a consistently subdued, semi-psychedelic sound, utilizing a unique combination of instruments and an eye toward the album form: no song seems to have a particular ending or beginning until the record stops playing. In the three years since Clemency, the Summer Hymns have been hard at work, and the results should bear much fruit in 2006, as new material will be spread across compilation albums, a Summer Hymns Value Series Vol. 2, a maxi-single, and a fourth full-length album.

summerhymns

1) How are you progressing on the new album, and when do you expect it to be released?

We are pretty much done with it except for finishing the mixing, which should be done by the end of April. We hope to turn it in May 1st so that it can come out this fall. We’re itching to get back on the road.

2) How long do you typically like to spend on an album before sending it out? I ask because each of your albums has a very cohesive feel, and the songs flow together beautifully.

Thanks. With the exception of Clemency, we’ve pretty much recorded at our own studio so we can take our time. Typically I don’t like for things to drag on as much as we have for this record but generally I just take as long as it takes to make it the record that I want to hear. And usually I seem to write songs in batches, and in this case there have been too many batches to easily focus in on one group of songs.

3) I think we’re both fellow Alejandro Jodorowsky fans, as “El Topo” figures prominently in Clemency, and he gets thanked in the credits. Why did you decide to use this film as a theme for the album? [“El Topo” (“The Mole”), directed by Jodorowsky, can’t really be described, but briefly: it’s a Zen Western from 1970 about a gunfighter who sets out to slay four master warriors who live in the desert; he later seems to die, but is reborn within a mountain, and tunnels his way to the light (and there’s much more). The English dub of the film makes a few cameo appearances on the album, and it influenced the album’s artwork, as well.]

As with a lot of things, it was kinda accidental. When I got that film, I got into it pretty hardcore and watched it a lot. And some of the times it was playing with the sound down low and I was writing some songs on a handheld, and some of it was bleeding through onto the song, and I just got accustomed to hearing some of those things; and then I was inspired by several things in the film, mainly the image of the mole who digs around underground searching for the sunlight, but when he finally gets out from underground he is blinded by the light because he’s been in the darkness so long. On many levels I could relate to that and even wrote a couple of songs directly stemming from thinking about the mole, such as “Wet Mess.” Everyone thinks that it’s about dirty diapers or some sex shit, when it’s just a lament from the mole’s perspective.

4) I try to avoid asking this question, though because the Summer Hymnshave a very unique, hazy, dream-like quality to the music, I will: who do you like to listen to, and what artists would you consider influential?

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan stuff from the 70’s and outtakes and stuff. I’ve been digging the new Destroyer record. And I love me some Bill Withers, The Staple Singers, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding,Larry Norman, etc… I got a turntable that you can stack 6 or 7 LPs and it drops them down, and I don’t think that Robert Wyatt‘s Dondestan has been in its case since I moved last year. Also in that stack is Dylan’s Planet Waves and Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years. And in the last few weeks I’ve been listening to some Steely Dan Count Down to Ecstacy and ZZ Top‘s Tejas.

5) Do you take a different approach to your songs, or to the band, when you play live?

Yeah, I think so. The songs pretty much have three lives, the life when it’s born with me and whatever instrument I’m writing on, the life that the band brings into it during recording, and then the life after we play it live a bunch. They usually change after playing them live a bunch.

6) Any memorable incidents from the road that you’d like to share?

There’s been a lot of fun times on the road and some of the most memorable I probably shouldn’t share. I love touring and can’t wait to get back out on the road. I would say that the things that come to mind would be staying at Dottie’s aunt and uncle’s farm in Vermont on the Destroyer tour and sitting in their outdoor hot tub heated by a wood-burning stove. And we have had some of the best off days imaginable in Austin, Texas, going to swimming holes and barbeque joints.

* * *
Posted on

Optical Atlas Interview with Jimmy Hughes (Folklore)

When this interview was first posted, Jimmy Hughes was an active member of Elf Power and just launching his solo project, Folklore. For Folklore’s first album, The Ghost of H.W. Beaverman, Jimmy would ask various Athens, GA guest stars to sing each track (more on that in the interview); for his follow-ups, Carpenter’s Falls and Home Church Road, he would take vocal duties himself. Jimmy’s a super friendly guy and a talented musician, and I’m happy to reprint this interview with him from July 21, 2007.

cyfolklore

Jimmy Hughes might be best-known as a guitarist for Elf Power, but word is spreading of his Athens-based band Folklore. As Jimmy explains, the band’s first, self-released album, The Ghost of H.W. Beaverman, peels away the layers of the legend it tells, one track at a time, until it reaches epiphanies that are pretty ambitious for what is, essentially, a pop-rock album. What makes the record even more unique is that each track is voiced by a different singer, the names of whom might be familiar to devotees of Athens music: Andrew Rieger (Elf Power), Amy Dykes (I am the World Trade Center), Jon Croxton (Wee Turtles), Bren Mead (Masters of the Hemisphere and Vetran), Ian Rickert (Bugs Eat Books), Heather McIntosh (The Instruments and Circulatory System), Scott Spillane (Gerbils and Neutral Milk Hotel), and, of course, Jimmy himself. But those wary of elaborate concept albums should check out Folklore, if only to see how they can be done right: The Ghost of H.W. Beaverman plays as a collection of beautifully-crafted pop songs, and the story they happen to tell only gains resonance the deeper you dig. Here Jimmy discusses the formation of Folklore, its future, and casting the leads for his debut album.

* * *

folklorejimmy

First I’d like to ask how Folklore began. Had you been working on these songs for a while before you began to think about how you wanted to record them?

For whatever reason, I am prompted to write songs. I always have been since even before I could play guitar. So these particular songs I had been writing even though I didn’t have a band (they were all based on short stories that I had imagined but never penned, so when they found their way into the song form, it seemed natural since I wasn’t writing fiction anyway). So yes, I had been working on them since before I thought about how I wanted to record them (or at least most of them). I would say all of these songs were written since I moved to Athens, which was about five years ago. But around the time I moved, I didn’t have a band and just figured I’d go with the flow. So I started playing in bands such as Bugs Eat Books, Masters Of The Hemisphere, Fairmount Fair, San Ferry Ann, Vetran, and Elf Power. Basically anyone that would ask me to play, I would.

And then, a couple years ago, some people started showing interest in playing my own songs, and Folklore formed. It all made me very happy. I always like it when things come together naturally rather than forced. I think that’s the way it should be.

What prompted the idea of having this first album consist almost entirely of other vocalists singing your songs?

Well, a big part of that had to do with the characters in the stories. I wanted them to have voices rather than me singing all of them and blending them all into one. Like, I wanted to have female characters be sung by female voices and to even have each male character be sung by a different male voice than my own. So I sort of cast the album the way one would a movie and, fortunately for me, everyone who was asked for each character said yes so it worked out just as I wanted it to and I never had to re-cast any characters or consider a second choice. Again, it all just worked out…which makes me very happy. Another part of it is that I sometimes find myself bored by just one singer on an entire album. I mean, it happens all the time and sometimes that one voice is great, but I find myself more attracted to bands that have more than one songwriter/singer. I guess kind of in the same way that if you use one guitar tone on one song, then you want to change it up for the next one so all the songs don’t end up sounding the same.

Any record I have worked on in the past has been with one singer at the helm and though with different styles or effects added the voice can sound different, it’s still the same. So I wanted to experiment and create songs/stories that had totally different voices on every track…just to see what would happen.

Did you write the songs of The Ghost of H.W. Beaverman with the intention of having them sung by others?

No, I mostly just wrote them as they came to me, and as the songs started forming I started to think up the ideas of having other folks sing them. I didn’t have specific people in mind right away, but the idea was there. I waited until all the songs were written until I started casting them in my head.

Also, am I correct in assuming you’re the singer on the EP, and was that a conscious decision–to give the EP more unity maybe?

The EP was sort of out-takes from the album. Basically, the album tells the story from the perspective of a tourist who stumbles upon the H.W. Beaverman hoax and starts to obsess over it, trying to unravel the mystery.

folklorepress1

So the album follows the tourist’s studies of different characters as he unravels the rumor tree backwards from hearing a story of H.W. Beaverman’s ghost (“The Kid”) to sitting next to H.W. Beaverman very alive and in-the-flesh in a diner, as the legendary man tells his own perspective (“H.W. Beaverman”). Each song in between is one step closer to the truth. Then there were these extra songs that I had which we were also working on in the studio but didn’t fit into that formula of the album so well. They were part of the story, but they were more narrative or back-story…for whatever reason, I felt they didn’t fit as well, so I cut them. They became the EP, and rather than go through the trouble of hounding people to sing them, I just sang them myself.

We’re actually working on an extended version of the EP now (which I guess will be an LP) which will include the original songs from the EP (some re-recorded), plus several new songs that will all play into the back-story of the H.W. Beaverman legend. I will be singing on all or most of the songs, partially because it works with the narrative of the song (me being the narrator) but also because I want to head more in that direction because that is how the songs sound live, and I want to create an album that is a bit more honest to our live sound.

Would having multiple vocalists on a record be an approach you’d consider in the future, or was that a one-off for this album?

I would love to do it again. It was really new for me to hear other people sing my songs and I really liked it a lot, but the record we have almost done now is the Carpenter’s Falls LP (the extended version of the EP) and that will probably be all me singing for reasons stated above…and then the next record we are working on is a new story that I think I will also be singing most of…or at least me and other regular band members will be singing. I would like to get into a more group vocal style with multiple singers and harmonies and such. This is not to say that I wouldn’t want to do another record with guest vocalists sometime, but just not right away. For now I would like to keep Folklore undefined. We could be anything on the next record…limitations are for squares!

folkloreroad1

Did Amy Dykes have any reservations about singing her track?

No, not at all. I was so happy when she was excited about it right from the start.

Her voice (as well as Scott Spillane’s, for that matter) is almost unrecognizable, mainly because she’s singing out of her genre–I Am the World Trade Center calling for a more Debbie Harry style. That was one of the more delightful surprises on the album.

Yeah, it was a delightful treat to have them both participate. I do think that they both took a nice twist with their vocals. They both sang them their own way, based on the demos I gave them…both not exactly what I was expecting, but pleasantly surprised by the takes on the their respective songs. I think those vocals work with their respective characters too, which is what I was really going for anyway. Scott’s voice I know sounds different than usual because he was specifically trying to channel a Kingston Trio voice (I can’t remember which Kingston Trio song it was, but it was a very specific voice he was going for…I will have to ask him what song it was)…so he was going for that and thus the vocals came out the way they did. He also sang it in a lower register than I do, which was kind of nice because on that recording my voice is still there in the background singing all the higher stuff. And then Scott’s down low embracing the voice of Beaverman.

With Amy, I see a sort of glazed-over look in the way she sings it, a woman scorned sitting at the end of dock looking over the water…the voice of an elderly bartender who is seeing ghosts of her old patrons as she goes senile, and she could snap at any moment. Maybe that wasn’t what Amy was going for, but that is the character I see in my head as the bartender, and the voice and the story work together, so I was very pleased by the whole process.

I remember you telling me you had the idea of shooting music videos to help extrapolate upon the story. Is that still something you’d still like to do?

Yes. I want to do stuff like that all the time! I have footage for three videos (not Folklore videos) that I just haven’t found the time to sit down and edit together. But yes, if that time ever presents itself to me then I would love to put each song/chapter to a short video.

folkloreroad2

All the songs are spoken in the first person, so I wanted to make them all really honest videos. Basically it would be the character speaking, interview-style to the camera. But I would want the settings to (if possible) all be the actual settings. And of course I would have to find some people to be the characters. So that’s something I will always be thinking about and maybe slowly over time I will do it. I have had a few people try to coax me into penning the stories as a companion piece to the songs, which would certainly extrapolate upon the story as well. I want to write it out at some point, but I don’t have the time and patience to invest in something like that right now. Maybe when I’m 70 years old I will finally sit down and write the whole thing out as a novel, which was the original intent when I first conceived the story.

What’s next for Folklore? You mentioned, in another interview, that the next album might have a science fiction theme.

Well, I hope to have the Carpenter’s Falls full-length done and pressed to CD by September. And then we’ll begin work on the next record (we have actually already started recording four songs for that project). I’m still constructing the story though, and some of the songs are still being written. The few that we are working on though are sounding pretty good. The album is tentatively called Home Church Road, and the story is loosely about the world coming to an end, but before it does, there is an era on the planet where the human race is gone, and the record will be short stories from the perspective of the remaining animals and what they do with the time they have left. So I probably did say somewhere that it was a sci-fi theme, but not exactly. I mean, I want the animals in this story to be just as we know them, only without the influence of humans, so they behave differently in their own natural way. There will be no “Animal Farm” themes where the animals start walking and talking. So yeah, the ideas I am working with are futuristic I suppose and they are obviously fiction, but I can’t exactly say if it is science fiction since there won’t be much science involved. But yeah, I guess it’s sci-fi in a very non-space kind of way.

* * *

Posted on

Optical Atlas Interview with Bryan Poole (The Late B.P. Helium)

This is one of my favorite pieces from Optical Atlas, because Bryan Poole/B.P. Helium – from Elf Power and of Montreal – went all-out, contributing demos and remixes for readers to enjoy. I was hoping this would be an ongoing series called “Liner Notes,” in which artists shared some outtakes and rarities, but I was only able to convince a couple others to go along with it (Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo and Davey Wrathgabar of The Visitations). In fact, I gave Bill Doss the option of doing a “Liner Notes” and providing Olivia Tremor Control or Sunshine Fix outtakes, but he declined, stating all that would be released one day. At least I had the nerve to ask…

Bryan would later ask me to redesign and run of Montreal’s official webpage. He wanted something more flexible for the band’s use, with a blog, and similar to Optical Atlas. He also wanted to ask someone who was a longtime fan of the band. I’d never met Kevin Barnes – an interview almost happened, but didn’t quite – but I had followed of Montreal since The Gay Parade and seen them many times live, including Kevin’s solo “A Pollinaire Rave” tour, with its eclectic mix of skits and songs. I agreed eagerly, and then wondered what I’d gotten myself into, because my web skills were actually pretty limited. Feeling the fraud, I plunged in nonetheless. The most exciting day was when Bryan gave me FTP access to a page containing HUGE digital scans of David Barnes’ beautiful artwork from Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and its various promotional items. I set about taking my favorite images and rearranging them in Photoshop. It was like playing with Spider-Man Colorforms when I was a kid. After hours of work, and having designed what I thought was the most visually attractive website I’d ever produced, I submitted it to Bryan for approval. He didn’t like the teal background. He hated the teal background. He confessed to having a lifetime loathing of teal.

I laughed and cringed at the same time, and worked on something that was black and hot pink. That went over better. In the back of my mind I couldn’t help but feel that the teal belonged to the old of Montreal – the band which critics compared to early Kinks and Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles. But of course Hissing Fauna marked a radical departure for Kevin Barnes’ band. My second design was more 70’s glam, more David Bowie, so it was more appropriate. I quit the of Montreal website after a stressful year or so (or was it even that long?). I felt B.P. should look for someone a bit more website savvy than I was pretending to be. But I was also feeling a little alienated by the new direction of the of Montreal performances. Kevin Barnes was as talented as ever, but I don’t think I knew what to make of Kevin performing naked at a Las Vegas show with porn running behind him (backstage at an Apples show, Bill Doss was laughing about my hesitant blog post on that particular news item – who’d have thought, he said, that it would be Kevin Barnes rocking out naked?). I hung on as long as I could, and faithfully saw the band live whenever they came to town, but my feelings for the band had slipped into a kind of distant admiration. These were good albums – and don’t get me wrong, I love Bowie, Eno, etc. – but I didn’t play Hissing Fauna and the later albums very often. As the band progressed to playing on Letterman, I still found I preferred their earlier material, and retained fond memories of seeing them perform live in the old band configuration, with handmade animation from David Barnes on a TV behind them in accompaniment, and shows that were well attended but in more intimate spaces. My sweet spot was Satanic Panic in the Attic, made right before they began their transformation. And that, too, meant I was probably not the right guy to be running their website anymore.

The following was originally posted on Optical Atlas on May 20, 2006. Thanks very much to Bryan for his blessing in reposting this here!

***

6bp

The Late B.P. Helium is the band and stage name of Bryan Poole, the former Elf Power bassist who currently tours with his old friend Kevin Barnes and the rest of of Montreal. He’s also played with Olivia Tremor Control, Great Lakes, and numerous other Elephant 6 bands from the Athens area. After Elf Power‘s The Winter is Coming, B.P. left the band to pursue his solo project, issuing a few scattered singles and compilation appearances before releasing the EP Kumquat Mae, first as a tour-only CD-R in 2002 while touring with The Visitations, then as a slightly different CD on Hype City and Orange Twin Records. A full-length CD, Amok, followed in 2004 on Orange Twin, which received positive notice from the likes of The Onion and Splendid Magazine, which called the album “a rich and varied assortment, full of polished, sophisticated sounds and cool little details.”

While B.P. appears on the latest Elf Power album, Back to the Web (he rejoined the band briefly for a tour a few years ago), he’s still serving with of Montreal, only recently taking a break from that band’s rigorous tour schedule by vacationing in Germany. Soon it’s off to work again: he’s preparing a new album, and will tour in July across Canada as The Late B.P. Helium, then join of Montreal onstage at Lollapalooza 2006 and a tour through the States with The Minders. And sometime later this year, Waikiki Records in Japan will release a Late B.P. Helium compilation, featuring tracks from his catalog both familiar and unreleased. From Berlin, he took the time to send along some snapshots, exclusive MP3s, and his thoughts on the conception and recording of 6 songs from his catalog. Optical Atlas got to choose the songs. B.P. was gracious enough to accept the choices, and to provide revealing demos and alternate takes of some of the tracks.

bpberlinbuilding1

1) First, let’s talk about “The Ballad of Johnny Rad.”  There are actually two versions of this, one on the Kumquat Mae tour CD-R (the “preamble”) and the version on Amok. 

Ya know, I’m not so certain that the versions are that different.  Did I put the demo on the tour EP?  I can’t remember.  Ha!  [OA: Yes, the tour CD has the demo.]  If so, the demo was more straight up rockin’.

Ed Livingood, my old roommate and one half of Jucifer, played the drums. The Amok version owes its main riffage to Ben Crum [Great Lakes]. Ben really added the spark there. Then I had Doug Stanley [The Glands] add some texture and the middle eight solo. Who is Johnny Rad?  An old skate punk friend of mine named Benji used to have this persona called “Johnny Rad.”  He’d put a suit on with shades and go to shows and just stand there silently. He would never speak, but would try to look stupidly cool. He was a kind performance art character. I kind of morphed the character into a clueless poseur.  He’s a guy who wants this cool persona, but is really insecure, gutless and grasping at thin air.

The Ballad of Johnny Rad (Queen Salad Demo)
This was the first demo I made. Well, maybe second…anyways, Ed Livingood is playing the drums.

The Ballad of Johnny Rad (Early Practice)
Ooo…the sounds of a band version coming together…

The Ballad of Johnny Rad (Vocalese Mix)
I made a completely different version with different vocal melodies etc. in this vocal only mix; all of the vocals are placed at random. I like it. 🙂

The Ballad of Johny Rad (Preamble – Tour CD Version)

bpberlinbuilding2

2) “Candy for Everyone.”  I admit I like the backwards talk and the overall kazoo-like sound.

I wrote this on a tour with The Visitations in 2002 I believe. Candy=Love. And love is what? The physical, hedonistic side and also the deeper one at the core.  I wanted to write something a bit positive like a Sly and the Family Stone song.  So ya know…love is all around.  I really identified with the phrase and idea, “I stand in love.”  And I like to add to that the word “now!”  Derek [Almstead/Elf Power] is playing the funky bassline.  Dottie [Alexander/of Montreal] some “vintage keys.”  Casper [Fandango/Casper & the Cookies], Eric [Harris/Olivia Tremor Control] and myself had lot of fun doing the kazoo solos.

Candy for Everyone (Early Mix)
This was an early mix before I added the “she’s gonna love” break and the backwards stuff.  The vocal is a “scratch vocal.” That means I did it just to have a vocal to work with. I didn’t think it was going to be the used for the final vocal!  Here it is unedited.

bpuniversalroof

3) “They Broke the Speed of Light.”  My favorite of your work.

This song is one of many I have where I’m looking for what I feel I’ve lost.  It’s the deep, dark, sad part of me.  And it’s the reason I call myself “The Late B.P. Helium.”  I felt so god-like as a child. I really believed that I had special powers and insight. I was emboldened. I used to have “tricks” to put myself into trances where time seemed to race. I’d ponder and concentrate and achieve what now seem to have been out of body experiences.

I was über confident. But of course, as puberty hit and nerdom arose and the torture of social interactions deteriorated my confidence, I slowly lost this grand light. Also, around the time I was 18, I was put on a medication I was told was for depression. Later in my mid-twenties I found out it was for people whose minds are racing. I’ve never felt the same since. I can’t concentrate the way I used to. And that realm inside my head seems but a memory.

The title refers to a story I heard on NPR about scientists being able to freeze light and also to accelerate light past the known limit. It seemed fitting. The drums on the original were played again by old roommate, Ed Livingood. I was trying to help Adrian Finch [Masters of the Hemisphere] record some songs and he came up with the drumbeat, but neither of us could play it. So I grabbed Ed and he bashed out this beat. Adrian ditched the song. I stole the drum bit for myself and wrote the song. I find beats are a door to different songs for me. Drones are another door.

They Broke the Speed of Light (Original Version)
This appeared on HHBTM’s Happy Happy Birthday To Me compilation, volume 2.  Ed Livingood is playing the drums. I love playing the moog!

They Broke the Speed of Light (The Longest Journey Mix)
A 13 minute version!  Are you prepared to take the journey?  I thought this was way too indulgent and made a shorter version for the album. I think I could’ve chopped off some more!

bpmirrortrain

4) “Raisa Raisa.”  Because the fans would kill me if I didn’t bring it up.

“Raisa Raisa” is based on a true story I heard on NPR early one Sunday morning. While I was driving around Athens, I heard the story of Raisa, a mail-order bride from the Siberian coast. Her family was paid a fair amount and Raisa was whisked away to Oklahoma with her new husband, a Vietnam vet. For two years, Raisa was trapped inside this man’s home. She was not allowed to leave the house, not allowed to learn English. He beat her. Once he separated her shoulder and refused to take her to the hospital. Eventually, she found a way to escape this man. I was extremely touched by her story and decided to write a song for her that morning.

I feel I didn’t really get her message across in the song. It seems a bit of a failure to me. When we play it live, I take on the character on the Vietnam vet. I become very violent and misogynistic. I think I’ve confused most audiences with this. Matt Dawson [of Montreal] regularly regales people with the story of me playing this song at a BreastFest benefit. It was at about 5pm in the afternoon. Little kids are running around with their moms and grandmoms. And then I launch into my Vietnam vet character. And there is shock in the room. Ask Matt about it. He paints the picture well. Anyways so Raisa’s elders come and mourn for her loss. Those are the old men in the middle section. And the song ends. Blah blah… (smirk)

In the NPR story, Raisa has a new boyfriend and works at Wal-Mart. I didn’t include that part. But hey, that’s part of the American dream, yeah? (wink)

Raisa Raisa (Siberia to Oklahoma Mix)
This was a possible mix for a while. The lapping water is the lull of the Siberian shoreline. Then the wind picks up and the sounds of the Siberian canning factory come in…Raisa’s plane flight to Oklahoma…and then Oklahoma is chopped up and made disorienting.  I also wanted to have the sound of Raisa being attacked and thrown against a wall…not in this version.  Casper thought it was too scary. 🙂

bpkissingeastsidegalleryberlinwall

5) “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long.”  Did you resurrect George to play for you?  It’s amazing how you capture that famous Harrison guitar.

Casper and I busted this one out very quickly. I needed a song for the EP and we finished this one in about a day and a half.  Casper actually had to coach me away from sounding even more Georgey. The slide solo’s about 2/5 me and 3/5 Casper. It was like 4 or 5 in the morning and I was muffing this one bit and just made Casper finish it. He thought his were bad too, but then we were heard them together we were kind of stunned. It sounded pretty darn good!  So yeah, the slide guitars are doubled.

That was a lot of fun and I think that recorded song alone has convinced a lot of people to record with Casper at his studio. I hope so at least!

Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long (George Harrison cover – Kumquat Mae version)

bpandjasper

6) “Chant for the Birth of a Rising Sun.”

This one has its genesis with me being infatuated with Tom Waits‘ The Black Rider.  I love this album. There’s a song near the end called ‘”Oily Night” which is just percussive beating on bones with bones and the dark chant of “oily night.” So I decided to make something similar. I was living with Andy Baker [The Glands] at the time and just picked up every instrument in the house and just started making noise with it. A few days later I think John [Fernandes, Olivia Tremor Control] came over and we did an overdub where he plays an African water drum. I have a couple of OTC credits playing this thing. It used to be my ace in the hole for freakouts.

Anyways, luckily John wanted to make a mix for himself to possibly use it for the Black Swan Network or whatever. My master cassette disappeared and it was only years later that John found his mix copy. I wish my screeching violin was louder, but I’m just happy this exists.  It needs a good editing I think though.

Chant for the Birth of a Rising Sun (from U.S. Pop Life Vol. 10)

* * *