AUTO1 fall 1995
luster interview
GENESIS OF LUSTER
I was plagued by music in my head… I would continually write pieces but
I had no real outlet. Eventually I had written so many songs that I just had
to start recording or I would start forgetting what I had written. I had no
recording equipment of my own and I was pretty poor. So, as you can imagine,
I was really frustrated. Around this time my friend Erinn Thorp, who was studying
recording engineering, asked if he could record me for practice, and I jumped
at the chance. Erinn is responsible for the nice clean sound that NOT NAMED
has. So you could say that Luster began either with the recording or with
the writing of the songs.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE
TO RECORD NOT NAMED?
I was very organized. I had such specific ideas for the way I wanted everything
to sound that things went very smoothly and we recorded around twelve songs
in a few weeks. Only four of the songs from that session actually made it
to the tape. The rest of NOT NAMED is stuff I did at home. When I recorded
these songs I wasn't focused on continuity, I wasn't thinking of recording
a full tape, I focused on each song itself. So I'm worried that the tape sounds
patchy. It's really just a compilation of the best of my recordings from that
time period.
DO YOU DO THE ARTWORK
FOR YOUR TAPES?
The art is very important to me. I have done, and will do the art for some
of my tapes. But I also want to use the works of some of my artist friends
for the packaging. Friends like Jon Stangroom and Carl Howard have already
made major contributions to some of my projects. And Carrie Mcninch and Karin
Feltzing are doing art for future releases. I think it would be really cool
to do a release that included a big packet of artwork from a variety of artists.
WHAT IS YOUR MAIN INSTRUMENT?
Voice first. Guitar second. I'm slowly becoming familiar with the way the
guitar works. But I'm a lover of sound and anything I can find that makes
an interesting sound, whether it's an old dulcimer, a cabinet door, a slab
of iron or a rock will eventually make it to a recording. I really have no
aspirations to be a great instrumentalist. No dreams of being a big-haired
flashy guitar player. What interests me is documenting the proper set of tones
and textures appropriate to whatever song I'm working on. Whatever it takes
to get the job done.
THE UNSEELIE COURT?
The Unseelie Court is a mail collaboration between Caerie and I with Terry
Burke (aka Dr T 13) of Histatic Charge. Terry was my first real hometaper
contact. When I first heard about people doing tapes through the mail I said
"I've got to try this!" So I whipped up a bunch of weird noises
and pure experimentation. Imagine me sprawled out on the floor with a glass
jar and a set of sticks, pieces of a swing set… hmmm… I need something
else, let's go look in the yard, maybe we'll find something else!? And I sent
this tape off to Terry. He was inspired by some of it, and some of it he disliked.
So he worked on it, adding his own peculiar brand of noisiness to the mix.
After a while of working on it, he stalled out, due partly to his move from
Boston to Cincinnati, so it just lay there in his studio for a couple of years.
Eventually I got the tape back and Caerie and I finished it up together. It
was really odd to work on the tape again after years had gone by. It was like
collaborating with myself of two years earlier, as well as with Terry. The
result as a whole is an extremely eclectic, very strange tape which is surprisingly
listenable.. It may not appeal to everyone because it's just so far out there,
but I for one am very pleased with it.
ANY OTHER MAIL COLLABORATIONS?
The only one with anything completed is Brookesia, which is Justin Johnsen
and me. Justin is in Ravensong and Datura. We each wrote a set of lyrics and
a chord progression by ourselves and sent it to the other to flesh out and
record as a fully realized song. These things haven't been released yet.
WHEN DID YOU DECIDE
TO DO MUSIC?
There was a time when you couldn't tear me away from my dad's 8-track/record
player. All my free time was spent with headphones on. I just consumed his
record collection. Beatles, Jethro Tull, Zappa… those were biggies. I
was young and music was new to me and although it sounds corny, the emotional
power of the music really moved me. I became frustrated that I couldn't just
sit down and make music of my own. It seemed simple. I could feel the music,
I could hear it in my head, but I couldn't make my fingers do what I wanted.
It was something I absolutely had to do. I bought my first guitar when I was
a junior in high school. The same one I use today.
In some ways it's probably better not to know how to play any instruments. To purely express oneself by feeling. Akin to a deaf person singing or a blind person painting. Maybe that's a politically incorrect allegory. I hope to bring both a strict discipline and a pure, direct expression of feeling to my music. I have played guitar with my eyes closed, moving my hands wildly along the strings. We've talked before about the different types of expression, from a strict, disciplined, structured expression to that elusive thing widely known as "soul" in music circles. Maybe this is just an extension of that conversation, but I would hope to bring both to my music.
HOW DID YOU LEARN MUSIC
NOTATION?
Mostly self-taught. I dug up some literature on the subject and went at it.
I'm most certainly not fluent or anything. There are things that confuse me.
But on the whole, we're talking about a very simple mathematical system. It's
easy to apply. Really!
IS LUSTER A STUDIO
BEAST OR ARE THERE PLANS FOR LIVE WORK?
Since Luster is purely a solo project, I limit myself to the studio so that
there are no outside distractions. I am working in a live band tentatively
named Speck, with Caerie on bass and an old school buddy named Adam Brutto
playing the Chapman Stick. This is my first live band. We have no set plans,
but when when we play, and especially if we tour, I would have to insist on
doing a set of Luster's music.
HOW MUCH OF YOUR MUSIC
IS EXPERIMENTATION AND HOW MUCH IS PLANNED OUT?
It's interesting to me how everyone who hears my music draws a distinct line
between the songs and "that noise stuff" or "soundscapes"
or whatever you want to call it. So many people think it would be better if
I just concentrated on one or the other. To me they're both equally important
and I don't separate them because in a sense, everything I do is an experiment.
That's the way I approach it, even when I use a very rigid, even conventional
structure.
HAVE YOU HAD ANY BAD
REACTIONS TO NOT NAMED?
Nothing too bad. Some don't like it, but that's to be expected. I'm not exactly
making the most accessible music in the world. I took the tape to my five
year high school reunion and some guys listened to it. One of the guys thought
I sang like a girl and gave me one of those "What are ya, a homo?"
looks.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF
THE NOISE GENRE?
Like all genres, 95% of it, if not more, is pure, unfiltered crap. However,
noise, by definition, is not music and cannot be judged as such.
PERHAPS YOU COULD EXPAND
A BIT ON YOUR DREAM LANGUAGE AND HOW IT MANIFESTS ITSELF IN YOUR MUSIC.
They used to think that dreams were an echo of the primitive. A sign of madness,
something to be ashamed of. The civilized, sophisticated man could control
his beasts and he had no dreams. No wonder we have a better life expectancy.
I couldn't live without my dreams. There are real places and real people in
dreams, and they are just as real when we're awake as when we sleep. There
is no separation, it's all part of the continuum of life. Music is not the
bridge between the dream and waking life. Music is simply and only music.
It is as mysterious and moving in dreams as in waking. If music is not true
to all the tones of one's life, the it is quite simply not true.
LUSTER
VUZH MUSIC / C REIDER PO BOX 1204 LYONS CO 80540 USA vuzh@autoreverse.net
