AUTOarchives | AUTO5 | little fyodor

CR: Let me start with a question Frank Zappa posed: Does humor belong in music?
BABUSHKA: Absolutely!
LITTLE FYODOR: Uh, well, why the fuck not?
CR: Fyodor, you really expose yourself in your music. What do you stand to gain by making such a spectacle of yourself?
LF: The illusion of self-respect. Through the unabashed disgrace of self-dignity.
B: It makes him feel real...
CR: What do you say to those who see you as a novelty act?
LF: It all comes out in the cosmic wash. People may throw in tie-dyes and cutoffs, but it all comes out as smelly socks. One of the things I've noticed over the years is that there's no telling who's going to like Little Fyodor and who's going to despise Little Fyodor based on what else they like or despise. I'm very proud of that. I remember in the eighties those people who banged on metal didn't want it to be called "industrial," becuase they were above labels. I dare anyone to label Little Fyodor.
CR: So YOU'RE above being labeled then?
LF: Well, I'd LIKE to be labeled! That would make me more marketable! It seems that everyone else has their own label.
CR: Little Fyodor strives to be labeled!
LF: I want to be labeled. I dare you. Hit me with your best label.
CR: "Anxious nerd rock"?
LF: Sure, sure. Nerdism is a very touchy subject with me. I still remember in sixth grade when I was hanging out with the cool kids, who were smoking cigarettes, and the year before I had been hanging out with the nerds who everyone hated. And I remember one of the nerds passed me on the way to school and gave me a double take because I was hanging out with the cool kids. That made me feel so proud! Childhood is so fucked up.
CR: maybe those who can relate to your music were once nerds themselves.
LF: Or at least fucked up.
CR: I could fit into both of those categories.
B: But some nerds are afraid of his music too. Or some people who overcame their nerdiness.
CR: It seems that the thing that most drives people away from your music is that they're afraid of it.
LF: I agree. The most vicious heckler we ever had was this big macho guy who was playing pool, and he was screaming "SUICIDE!" when I was singing "I Don't Know What To Do." I think it challenges people to try to embrace what they've been trying to repress all their lives. I personally see it as more related to the lonely, alienated, downtrodden souls rather than nerdism per se, but nerds are part of that.
CR: Certainly a nerd feels lonely and isolated and alienated.
LF: So long as he doesn't have other nerds to hang out with.
CR: You recorded your last couple of records at a "real" studio, and have released your stuff on CD, but you still seem to be a hometaper at heart. What do you think of the antagonism that the underground seems to have for the compact disc and high fidelity recording?
LF: I've shared that antagonism against the CD, although I've kinda gotten over it a little over the years. It's the natural, normal, fucked-up antagonism that people of the fringe will feel in a technological world that is passing them by. Of course, I've always been the kind of person who kept all my stuffed animals, even though the eyes have fallen out. I was always kind of resentful that people were spending so much money just to not hear some clicks and scratches when the CD was first coming out. It's just part of the modern world, people have to have their shiny things, and it's disgusting but I accept it as well.
As far as high fidelity goes, well, sometimes I think maybe I should've just recorded things on a ghetto blaster all my life. There is a charm to low fidelity, and it creates the illusion that it's real and personal. With high tech it can tend to sound more like it's canned or manipulated by outside forces. It's all part of the cosmic wash. It all comes out dirty socks.
CR: Lo-fi has a rather limited appeal, I think the reigning viewpoint here at AUTOreverse is that you should do the best you can rather than just slap it together to be more punk or whatever...
LF: The main goal is really just to get something across. Whatever gets in the way gets in the way. ...Whatever helps you helps you. I'm a really wishy-washy person. You've got to look at people like Daniel Johnston. Part of his repuatation was based on how bad his tapes sounded. maybe I'm just jealous, but when I first got those Daniel Johnston tapes, since I'd heard a lot about him, my first impression was "Well, this is kind of charming, but I can't see why people think it's that great." I mean, it's okay, but I don't see why it was perceived as being head and shoulders above everyone else in the underground. I think a lot of it had to do with people seeing it as "The Real Thing." Part of that image was cultivated by how bad his tapes sounded. I don't know how he got them to sound so bad. I mean, it seems like you'd really have to make an effort to make it sound that bad. Really, if you've heard some of his early tapes they sound like they'd been run through the shit machine for an hour. maybe he did do that as a way to market himself.
CR: Where can you get those shit machines?
B: Every machine is a kind of shit machine.
LF: It's true, there's shit in every machine. You just need to look for it.
CR: You were there in the early days of the "Cassette Revolution." How have things changed since then?
LF: There doesn't seem to be quite the number of outlets and magazines covering it. I'm really glad that you're doing AUTOreverse, because for awhile it seemed that no one was doing anything but FACTSHEET 5, and there was no musical equivalent to FACTSHEET 5. But in the early days there were all these music zines that started before F5. Sometimes I'm not sure if less is happening or if more is happening because nobody is able to cover it all.
CR: We seem to get a huge amount of tapes, so it seems that the activity is there, it's just that there's no profit motive to promote and explore this kind of thing.
LF: That's probably true. In the early days a lot of people did think that we were going to change the world and that we were all going to be stars someday. I remember the head moron of the Walls Of Genius, when we first started the band, he was talking about going part-time at his job, and in retrospect that was pretty dumb. I don't know of anybody... Well, you could probably count on one hand the people who have graduated to a more wellknown status or who have made a profit even. Daniel Johnston is about the only one I know of.
CR: Amy Denio.
LF: Oh yeah, that's a good example.
B: Jeph Jerman makes some money.
CR: I was going to ask you, how was it having him play guitar on your newest CD?
LF: If was great. He was the perfect guitarist for "Too Many People." I just wanted sort of a blaring solo and he takes very seriously what people ask of him.
CR: Was that when he still lived in Colorado?
LF: Yeah, in fact I don't think he lived here much longer after that. We used to jam together and stuff. Little Fyodor has played together with both Blowhole and Big Joey.
CR: Big Joey?
LF: Big Joey was a band he played guitar in. Blowhole, I think he started off playing drums in, and now he just playes whatever. Big Joey, I think, is sort of a more rock version of Blowhole, and Blowhole was more freeform noisy jazz. The extended Little Fyodor video has Little Fyodor vocalizing for Big Joey, as being one of the noisy instruments.
CR: Tell me about your radio shows Cassette Underground and Under The Floorboards.
LF: Well, I don't do the Cassette Underground anymore, I sort of combined them both into Under The Floorboards. The original idea of Under The Floorbaords was to play anything that was unusual or avant-garde or whatever you want to call it. I used to play stuff that was more above-ground in a sense. Someone once called me and told me that they had once requested the Residents and I told them that they were too "safe" for my show. Too many other people at the station were playing them. So I have been taking the attitude that I should play the stuff that couldn't be heard anywhere else on the station, while the station plays stuff that can't be heard anywhere else on the radio. My show was like...
CR: The alternative to alternative music.
LF: It's gotten even more like that.
Getting back to what we were saying before, with Little Fyodor, I've given up on making any kind of profit on it, and I'm sort of going more toward the lo-fi, four-track end of things again; doing mail collaborations and so forth. But most of the people who I do these things with generally want me to put a vocal on it, when I've been wanting to, you know, play more guitar or make some noise or something. So if there's anyone out there who'd like Little Fyodor to add some guitar or work with them on some noise...
So what was I supposed to be talking about...? Oh, the radio show. For a while I was doing the Cassette Underground, and the idea of that was that I was going to be playing stuff strictly on cassette, primarily by home tapers. So, since I was doing that in the afternoon, I wanted it to be a little more accessible than the show I did at night. People at the station still thought I had the weirdest show during the day, but it was tame compared with my late show. So, originally when I combined the two shows I was going to have it be open to playing anything by home tapers, either very normal or very strange, but I have found that over time, I feel far more comfortable playing the weird stuff.
CR: So now are you still having your show really late at night?
LF: Well, it's 11 to 12, so it's not quite as late.
CR: Probably a wider audience now.
LF: Yeah. Actually, I'm following the techno show now.
CR: Really? Do you think anyone stays on for your show?
LF: I'd rather follow that than...origianlly I was following the punk show. Then they put me on after this "Live" show, and that was really bad, I was thinking about quitting. Only, maybe one out of ten shows had anything to do with what I was doing, you know they'd have some folk musicians on or something... then I'd be like '...and now for something completely different.'
CR: Does your show get a good reaction?
LF: I could go six months without getting a single call, and then someone will call and say they've listened to me for thirty years or whatever. I say that my show is dedicated to the insects of society, and I guess insects aren't very vocal.
CR: So you and Babushka met at a Haters concert?
LF: Yeah, April 8, 1986. There was also an erotic art festival as well.
B: That's not the official story of how Little Fyodor met Babushka though.
CR: What's the official story?
B: I bumped my shopping cart into him while he was rotting in the alley.
LF: We could combine that...
B: That the alley was behind the art department...
LF: Yeah, and then I invited her to a Haters show.
CR: Who or what is Bruno?
LF: Bruno was locked in a closet for thirty years, and so we discovered him in the closet, and we found that he couldn't really talk or function as an adult, but he could play the bass! All musicians should spent most of their time in the closet.
CR: So what about this new stuff you're working on, what direction are you going in?
LF: It's almost harking back to the Walls Of Genius stuff. Today we're working on some stuff that Babushka wrote on her little toy sampler. We're kind of into quirkdom now. But you never know, Little Fyodor may be let out of his box and be tormented into letting out a tortured vocal or two.

Little Fyodor 3277 Raleigh St, Denver CO 80212 usa