We're proud to introduce a new series here at Scene Point Blank: One Question Interviews. Follow us at facebook or twitter and we'll post one interview every Monday-Thursday. Well, sometimes we miss a day, but it will be four each week regardless.
After our social media followers get the first word, we'll later post a wrap-up here at the site. Check out our quickie Q&As below with members of Tiny Empires, The Hussy, Burning Love, and Mamiffer/House of Low Culture.
Eric Solomon (Tiny Empires)
SPB: What is the worst you were ever screwed by a venue?
Solomon: The worst time we ever had at a venue was on the second to last O Pioneers!!! tour with Hostage Calm. We were in Muncie, Indiana and I believe Hostage Calm had set up the show with someone who set up a really cool show for them on their previous tour. This wasn't a venue, but a pretty big college house. The show was in the basement, and was PACKED. There had to have been 150-200 people in this tiny basement. It was a little strange, as the show was more of a party with some live music, but regardless the two of us played, and I believe there were two locals that played too. We finished our sets and were hanging out and the house show turned into a full-on movie portrayal of a college party getting out of hand. The basement, where we had just played moments earlier, turned into a dank dark weed smoke filled room, [in] the upstairs there was two or three kegs and a ton of drunk men and ladies. We started feeling uncomfortable when several underage kids started wandering in. Several of the band members in O Pioneers!!! are in their late ‘30s, and were easily the oldest people there, so you could see how that would be a problem. One kid kept asking us if we had any drugs harder than weed. "I'm just really into acid," he kept saying. When it came time to leave, we finally found the person who threw the show and was running it. When asked if there was any gas money from the party, he just said, "Oh yeah, I just forgot to do it. Good show, though." So we started packing up, trying to drag everything through the weed den, and people just didn't' give a fuck. We were in their way, trying to move our stuff through the basement. After we packed up, two members of O Pioneers!!! went in to buy some weed for the road. They said the dealer had to have been 17, was dressed in an Addidas track suit, and had two ladies on each arm.
Bobby Hussy (The Hussy)
SPB: Would you ever crowdfund a record?
Hussy: I would never crowdfund a record. There are plenty of labels existing and getting music out to the people...and if they can't help you then do what Black Flag did and start a label yourself. Do you think Black Flag ever asked fans to fund their records for them prior to them being released? I highly doubt it.
Chris Colohan (Burning Love)
SPB: Basements or bars (or both)?
Colohan: Basements, no contest. Shit, house shows in general. Despite the downsides (blown fuses, angry neighbors, cops...), any unreasonably small space where the noise is overwhelming, people are crammed in an inch from each other's faces and the energy in the room has nowhere to go but through them always trumps an overambitious, half empty bar where the spectacle is so standardized. There are a lot of great bars and clubs that I love dearly, but you definitely never forget a time you played in a third floor bedroom, kitchen, or stairwell with all your amps and 30 kids crammed into it. I'm definitely a basements man.
Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer, House of Low Culture)
SPB: Is there a record you love that would surprise people based on the music you create?
Coloccia: My answer would not necessarily be a record, but a series of found recordings and weather radios. Usually I find these at thrift stores, but sometimes they are inherited or found in abandoned houses and buildings in the US and in other countries. The found recordings are usually of people dictating, accidental recordings, therapy sessions, and nature. The weather radios are usually only conduits for one station that is broadcasting weather and emergency pre-recorded information. The only change occurs if you take the radio to a different state or city. The information is broadcast as a constant monotone loop, with subtle frequency changes.
I am interested in the forgotten and discarded nature of the these recordings and radios. The recording or radio is forgotten about, and possibly never listened to. The intent of the lost object is to be ignored and lost forever. Instead I make them part of my practice and bring something seen as worthless into everyday use. I guess it is surprising because these things are really mundane and monotonous, and basically boring and not composed or intentionally musical, whereas Mamiffer is composed, dramatic, musical, and full of intent.
Some of my favorite found cassette tapes are of the following things:
1. an unmarked white tape of recordings of airplanes taking off in the rain
2. Someone’s recorded consultation and gossip with a lawyer
3. The sounds of the ocean recorded over expired and audible listening calls
4. A recording of Finnish radio wave frequencies
5. German dictation that happens once every 10 minutes on a 40-minute tape
