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 ![]( "the Luxury")
MASCARA
by Rick Dumont
Chris Mascara is a
real man of genius when it comes to the arts. He’s a student of the
psychology of music, a writer of deeply introspective themed rhythmic
tapestries, an amazingly talented actor and, oh yeah, he’s also a
very accomplished musician and singer.
It is that music, complied
into a new album, Fountain
of Tears, that will be released
in January with a celebratory show at the Middle East upstairs on the
29th.
“It’s a nice combination
of my back catalog and new,” Mascara said during a recent interview.
“But there’s no
way to spot what’s old or new,” chimed in bassist Bo Barringer,
who is also known throughout the scene for his creative mastery with
the Me & Joan Collins band.
For the last three
years the two, along with drummer Matt Graber, who also smashes the
hi-hat as a Self-Employed Assassin in Sarah Rabdau’s talented backing
gang, make up Mascara, are a power trio that immerses themselves into
the very core of the human psyche while softening and tearing open the
mind to enlighten and usher a whole new realm of thoughts into their
listeners.
Fountain, it should be noted, got its title thanks
to Federico Garcia Lorca, a Spanish poet and playwright of provocative
and risky poems and plays, and also closeted homosexual who was executed
in 1936 in a place called Ainadamar, an Arabic word meaning fountain
of tears. Ainadamar is also a song on the album.
“I’m deeply moved
by iconoclastic, trailblazing tragic artists from the past,” Mascara
said. The entire album is a series of vignettes and homages to many
artists whose lives were tragically cut short and other stories that
simply tell tales of disturbed humans. Like the tragic life of singer
Jackie Wilson, known by many as “Mr. Excitement.” The song
“B261” is so named for the number on the grave marker that was once
Wilson’s only symbol noting where he was laid to rest after his death
in 1984. Wilson had lingered in a coma for nine years after suffering
a heart attack on stage performing in 1975. He died a relative pauper,
thus the grave marker, but Mascara said in the years following his death
a proper headstone was erected by fans and music people. Wilson
was a pioneer and would call himself the “black Elvis Presley,”
while Presley would refer to himself as the “white Jackie Wilson,”
Mascara said.
In order to bring the
messages and stories to life, Mascara needed some musicians to help.
Three years ago he found them. They had been friends for nearly a decade
having played together and shared stages along the way, including a
stint where both Graber and Mascara sat in with Barringer’s Joan Collins
band for a bit a few years back. But it was ostensibly Graber’s return
from a two-year life excursion in Tel Aviv that brought him into the
fold and completed the triangle.
“I am blessed to
have both these guys playing with me,” Mascara said. “They’re
my editorial board.”
Mascara writes his
songs like others might keep a journal. They are expressions of his
feelings, experiences and analysis of what it is to be human, a “daydream
journal” if you will.
He brings the material
to the guys and they “gang banged it,” arranged it into what ultimately
wound up on the album. “There’s a great synergy between the three
of us that is just beautiful,” Mascara said.
“We’ve definitely
got a good thing going,” Graber said when it comes to playing off
each other in the creation of the music.
Part sensitive deeply
philosophical romantic, part bluesman, part punk rocker and part madman,
Mascara’s writings depict an insight that comes out unlike many of
his contemporaries like is heard on the album’s opener “Dragonflies.”
In it Mascara pays homage to one of his dear friends, Mary Anne.
“I have tender feelings
for this person,” Mascara said. “And I wanted to delve into a deeper
plan” to fully explore and express those feelings for her.
Combined with that
sensitivity is the backdrop of sound that is far larger, thicker, and
more articulate than what might seem possible from a three-piece band.
Also on the album is
a song that evolved from Mascara’s very deep and personal struggle
with bipolarism several years ago. “Listerine” is a metaphor for
what substances many who share in that battle use to try and take the
edge off the madness that roils within the mind.
In the song he faces
his scars, his demons peering deep into the abyss and exposing himself
and the experience for all to sense. Anyone who has ever dealt with
the illness will certainly hear the pain and anguish within the heartfelt
confession.
Musically, the band
added touches of dissonance to “create additional tension,” Mascara
said. “It’s the appropriate backdrop.”
Mascara nearly lost
it all when preparing for a role onstage as Christ in the Tuft’s University
production of Jesus Christ
Superstar in the mid ’90s.
He described basically torturing himself by not eating or sleeping,
among other things until he wound up at McLean Hospital for a month,
which also happened to be the place where another of his heroes, Sylvia
Plath received treatment.
“I really wanted
to become Jesus Christ,” Mascara said. Instead of being able to perform
the role, Mascara’s breakdown forced him to miss out, but he did face
the demon and began treatment. But he the opportunity to “be” Christ
resurrected itself in 2000 when Boston Rock Opera’s traditional Christ,
Gary Cherone, decided he wanted to play Judas instead.
“An amazing dream
realized,” Mascara said of the fortuitous occurrence.
Though he doesn’t
want to be thought of as someone who suffers, that was so 15 years ago,
Mascara doesn’t shy away from pouring out his feelings in song or
on stage forcing the listener to feel and understand the mind.
“If you confuse people’s
expectation it will trigger more synapses to pop in a listener’s head,”
Mascara said.
Another of the songs,
“High School” is based upon Mascara’s perceptions of his real
father’s life growing up in Brooklyn. Mascara was adopted and wrote
a song that is as powerful and dark as life on the streets of the Big
Apple can be in reality, yet used a minimalist mindset and still paint
a vivid word picture.
The song is short,
or at least was until Barringer got hold of it. “He wanted to add
a “Day in the Life” style of ending,” Mascara said. So what was
once a two minute blast of the mind expanded and morphed into a seven
minute gurgling primal scream for understanding, thanks to Barringer’s
idea for a near never ending cacophony of reverb and Tesla-like static
extending out into the blackness of space.
But unlike the Beatles’
coda to “Day in the Life,” the guys urged Mascara to free form over
the manic sound. For effect, Mascara said he chugged a quart of milk
to get that “guttural thing going on” and went off, improving a
series of poetic and maddening bursts of mental anguish that the Effervescing
Elephant Syd Barrett would have enjoyed. “Once we got started tracking
it, it turned into molten lava,” Mascara said.
Creatively the guys
are just getting started to truly tap the resources of Mascara’s mind
and their own inner musical madness together. They will continue to
play in their other incarnations, including Mascara’s appearances
with Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women, where he plays keys alongside
Rabdau.
Will one day the three
play a show bringing together the extended family of artists intertwined
into one pulsating, sensuous, and ripping glory? Only time will tell.
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 ![]( "the Luxury")
For over a decade Lovewhip has been
tearing it up in Boston and beyond. The band currently consists of Erin
Harpe on guitar and lead vocals, Jim Countryman on bass and backing
vocals, Ryan Dryburgh on drums, and Sam Marshall on keyboards, samples,
loops, vocoder, and backing vocals.
Erin let me in on some of the band’s
secret history. She told me how and when the band formed. She said,
“Jim and I dreamed it up in his bedroom in Jamaica Plain in 1998.
His band, Usalos, had just broken up, and I’d never been in a band
before. We were listening to a lot of eclectic music, from Johnny Cash,
Otis Redding, some ska, to some African music I’d brought back from
my semester abroad in Kenya during college. We shared a love of African
music and loved listening to the African Kabisa Radio Show on local
college radio. The initial idea was to take our eclectic influences—African
Soukous and Highlife especially—and form a new kind of dance music.
We called it booty pop, which morphed into electro booty pop, kind of
like what Talking Heads, the Police, and the English Beat, to name a
few, did, mixing different world influences with pop and rock. We got
a practice space and started inviting musicians down to jam until we
found a group. There have been so many incarnations since then. We’ve
put out four albums, each one metamorphisising our dance music ethic
even further. We started more traditional, and ended up more futuristic
and electro, always with strong dance and pop elements.” They have
been described as a futuristic dance party complete with unicorns, icebots,
intrigue, electronic sex toys, and rock ’n’ roll.
I wondered where the name came from
and who wrote the songs. Erin informed me, “Love and whip are two
nouns/verbs that describe the effect we have on our audience. It’s
also a Reverend Horton Heat song. As far as the songs, for most of our
history, I have written a lot of the songs, and Jim co-writes some.
The rest of the band adds their own flavor. For the new album Love
Electric [Love and Electric are two albums by the
Cult] I collaborated for the first time with songwriter, composer, and
producer Jake Zavracky of he bands Cyanide Valentine and Quick Fix.
He is an excellent songwriter and brought our material to another level.
I’m really excited about the new album—great songs with lots of
hooks. I’m really proud of it.” Are there any Boston stories you
would like to share with our kind Noise readers? Erin said, “there
was the time we were presenters at the Boston Music Awards and we got
to see Mission of Burma play from backstage. Then there was the time
we got to open for the B52’s at the Campanelli Stadium in Boston.
The other band on the bill was a new breakout act called the Scissor
Sisters. We got to meet them backstage, they were very cool.”
When I asked if she has any good, bad,
or ugly road stories, Erin then furnished me with, “I’m sure we
have had each one of these scenarios, multiple ones, actually. One that
always stands out in my mind because it really shaped us as a band happened
on a three-week tour of the southern east coast. We were not even a
third of the way done with the tour when our drummer had a nervous breakdown.
His girlfriend lived down in North Carolina, so every night after the
show he would drive to her house, driving anywhere from two to six hours
after playing a full four hour show and loading our equipment. He was
spreading himself really thin, and drinking large amounts of iced mate
[South American tea] instead of water. He was developing a nervous twitch,
but we hadn’t really noticed. He had always been a very odd guy. We
had a day off where we were supposed to meet at his girlfriend’s place
to take a shower and relax. We had a partial address and he wasn’t
answering our phone calls for some reason. When we made it to the apartment
complex where she lived, we actually had to go door to door because
we did not have her apartment number. After finally tracking our drummer
down at he restaurant where his girlfriend worked, she actually came
out to speak on his behalf. He was afraid we were going to be mad at
him. She informed us that he’s had history of mental illness and hasn’t
had a breakdown in some time, but he’s having one now. She told us
he can’t get back on the bus, he doesn’t want to do any more shows.
We went to the nearest WalMart, because
we knew you can camp in their parking lot and they won’t bother you.
They also sell thirty-packs of beer and have Internet access. We started
drinking, cursing, and freaking out, trying to come up with a plan.
Our keyboardist at the time, Michael Potvin [Campaign For Real Time]
had just gotten a copy of Abelton Live [a music creation and sequencing program],
so we ended up learning as we went, and programmed drums for all twenty
five or so songs. We finished the tour as a three piece [guitar, bass,
and keyboards] with a computer playing the drums. Since then we have
continued to use electronics as part of our sound. We do have a live
drummer again, but he plays a drumset that includes electronic drums
and electronic drum triggers, mixing the electronic with the acoustic.”
Upon inquiring about where Lovewhip
records and who puts out their stuff, Ms. Harpe told me, “We do both
in our basement studio in Jamaica Plain. Our new album was recorded
at our producer Jake Zavracky’s Neon Palm Studio 1 in the South End
of Boston and finished at his Neon Palm Studio 2 in Brooklyn, New York.
I did most of the vocals in our basement studio in Jamaica Plain. I
find it a really great way to work. I can do as many takes as I want.
As far as our records, we have our own label Juicy Juju Records, which
also handles my solo stuff, Erin Harpe acoustic blues.”
Erin says that their major influences
are, as she rattled off, “Talking Heads, Blondie, LCD Soundsystem,
the Police, Prince, Nico, Femi Kuti, Beenie Man, Missy Elliot, the Slits,
Sean Paul, Peaches, the Steve Miller Band, the White Stripes, the Cars,
and the J. Geils Band.”
Lovewhip
has won a Boston Music Award for best world music act and has received
four other nominations for best funk band, party band, and female fronted
band. They have had the song “Show Your Love” featured on Paris
Hilton’s Best Friend Forever
on MTV, and the song “Virtual Booty Machine” was on the show
Veronica Mars.
Regarding touring plans, Erin told
us, “We have already toured a lot, playing all over the country since
1998. We have toured the west coast once and are constantly touring
New England. Our humblest of dreams has always been to be able to eek
out a living solely from music. We are not there yet, and in this economy
it is a lot to ask. We are willing to sacrifice. We have worked very
hard at it. Our plans include playing many more festivals throughout
the spring and summer of 2010. We will be going to Europe and beyond,
promoting our new album, our best yet! We’ll see where it takes us.
The Boston CD release for Love Electric is November 12 at Church.
Go to our website www.lovewhip.net to find out more.”
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AD FRANK & THE FAST EASY WOMEN
 ![]( "the Luxury")
by Rick Dumont
He’s seen a lot of
changes in the music industry since hitting the stages of the city more
than two decades ago, but Ad Frank and the Fast Easy Women continue
to make music that matters and strikes cords of deep emotion in his
fans.
Celebrating
the release of his first album in four years, Your
Secrets are Mine Now, Ad has
turned the tables on the messages that made him one of the most respected
lyricists in the city’s music scene.
“There’s
this fabulous book called a thesaurus that helps,” Ad quipped about
drawing the word “mollify” into the song “A Note on the Type.”
In
reality, the softspoken deeply passionate songwriter is a poet, an artist
of word and music; such phrases spring from his pen when he’s in tune
with his muse.
Normally
he writes about being lovelorn, venting his frustrations about broken
relationships through song. These days, however, Ad says his love life
has been flowing in a positive direction—not a good thing when writing
about the downsides of relationships—but he’ll take it. He jests,
however, that he might have to entertain the idea of a girlfriend who
doesn’t return his calls and treats him like a pawn in order to revive
some of the disconsolate inspiration of his past.
Previous
albums might bear the scars portraying the lady as the antagonist, but
in this latest release Ad himself is the bad guy.
Of
course he considers himself to be the world’s best ex-boyfriend, as
stated on the title track of his last album, so there you go.
Speaking
with most of the group recently about the album, their career and the
direction local and national music scenes are headed. The ethereal voice
of Sarah Rabdau was missing due to her impending nuptials to a wonderful
man. Sorry, all you fantasizing suitors. Drummer Ned Gallacher was MIA
due to an illness (hopefully not the dreaded H1N1).
Right
away it is clear the new album is something of a departure from the
past, but it only lasts so long before Ad dips back into the analyzing
of what went wrong.
The
opening song, “Open Up the Patio (Pretty Girls Are Back In Style),”
gives one the overwhelming sense of the positive. Frank said it was
written in a matter of moments when he hit the streets to meet his manager
for a drink, one of many that day, and just observed the fine melding
of warm weather and multitudes of beautiful women out and about.
The
simply versed proclamation to celebrate the art form that is woman was
brought to the FEW where Ad queried whether there should be verses.
To a person, and much to the delight of the taskmaster and bandleader,
the decision was to leave it as is. Not that they had much of a choice.
“He
tells us everything to do and we do it,” quipped bassist Linda Pardee.
“Otherwise you get spanked,” guitarist Sean Connelly chimed in.
Such
as it goes with the band fronted by a mercurial maestro (look to your
thesaurus to figure out why mercurial is appropriate).
“There’s
only a limited pool of people that can stand playing with me for any
length of time,” he quipped.
It’s
his band, his leadership, his words and his decisions about where to
go musically or otherwise. But given the fact that everyone has been
playing with him off and on for years, some, like Pardee, since high
school (a flash of 25 years), it is obvious the respect and deference
for Ad’s brilliance is obvious.
Or is it?
“Of
course when he leaves for the bathroom we change everything,” Connelly
said.
“I
don’t notice because I’m drunk,” Ad said.
“We’re
all grownups and nobody takes anything personally,” Connelly said.
“We work [matters] out, argue, but in the end it flows pretty well.”
They
also added horns in one song and had the Somerville Gay Men’s Choir
involved in another. There’s always something new for the ears be
it live or on disc.
No
matter who is responsible for the final recorded or live version of
the songs, fans still take from them what they want.
Ad
recalls many folk, including this writer, who have heard such deep-rooted
passion and positive love messages within some of the songs. In “Girls
As Sharp As You Are Something Rare,” he’s received and welcomed
requests from friends to play songs at their weddings even.
Of
course he reminds them, as he did me, that the song is a breakup song.
“It’s really great when people take parts of songs out of context,”
Ad said. “Actually it makes a certain amount of sense. People extrapolate
and identify based upon their own experiences and even when they select
certain passages from a downer of a song and turn it into a positive
‘that’s fantastic.’”
It
is that connection that Ad is able to make with an audience that has
kept him in the business and there are precious few bands (no pun intended)
that have had the longevity that the FEW have had in the city or even
on a national scale. Still Ad says he’s not one to come to for career
advice, since he’s never broken big on a national scale. He’s too
modest to discuss his vital impact on local bands and his keen eye for
artistic talent.
He
credits keyboardist Chris Mascara for keeping him from retiring after
the breakup of Permafrost (a band he played in with Pardee) in the late
’90s.
Both
Pardee and Mascara went on to other projects for a while only to come
back into the fold with the FEW over the last couple of years.
It’s
pretty obvious that the music industry has undergone a massive change
since the ’80s, which has caused the industry giants to cry and whine
about how much money they are losing out on thanks to the Internet,
etc, etc, blah blah.
“Blame
the drinking age being raised from 18 to 21,” Connelly said. “Live
music was part of our culture in our early twenties” when they had
access to the clubs and bands. The vision of those in their latter twenties
coming out to see local bands has dwindled to a select core.
“Local
and national music was also more integrated in the ’80s,” Ad said.
Radio stations could often be heard playing the Cars up against lesser-known
bands like the Dark. And it was that support of the airwaves that pushed
people out the doors to the clubs to see them. “There was a real sense
that they were real bands,” Ad said. “We’re feeling the loss of
that now.”
But
there is something brewing and bubbling in the rubble that was once
massive money for record deals but now devastated and divided record
labels. “Nobody is being signed,” Ad said. A Phoenix of sorts is
growing with those artists responsible not seeking out huge money or
fat album deals, remaining content to just play and create.
“It’s
actually freeing for the creative process,” Ad said. Along with the
disappearance of the fingers in the mix style of major record labels
is the subtraction of the promotional support. The yin and yang of trying
to earn a living just making music—“It comes in waves,” Ad said.
Passionate,
inspired, a bastard in relationships, controlling in the creative flow
of his band. Ad may be all those things and more, but he’s utterly
supportive of his mates and wants to see them succeed in their outside
the FEW’s pursuits. “If they get a better offer and don’t take
it, I told them I’d fire them,” he said.
After
all these years does Ad think that there is still support for his band?
“Well
we’ll find out on October 24,” he said. That is when the band will
gather at Great Scott and celebrate the completion of the album. “I’m
just happy to still make music and see people come out.”
www.adfrank.com
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GOLI
 ![]( "the Luxury")
GOLI by Michael Bloom
I’ve
seen Fluttr Effect a few times, though not as often as they deserve.
They’ve always been the kind of band that invokes both hemispheres of
the brain with equal enthusiasm, embraces all sorts of contradictions,
and just plain gets away with an awful lot of peculiar experiments.
Their instrumental lineup has always advertised exactly that: on the
one hand, a couple of guys rockin’ out on guitar and drums; on the
other, a cello and an electronic marimba—actually a MIDI controller
that looks like it was designed by NASA (and Vessela Stoyanova, who
plays it, jokingly refers to it as the massage table)—both played by
women. They couldn’t have symbolized more yin/yang union of opposites
if they’d hired Stanley Kubrick to direct.
Goli turns out to be the two women and their improbable instruments as
an independent entity. And it turns out that, though they’re not as
loud as the larger band, and they miss a little of the contrapuntal
texture, they lose none of the intensity, none of the vibrancy, and
arguably outstrips the determinedly eclectic Fluttr Effect in scope,
both stylistic and emotional. Notably, since there just aren’t any role
models for cello or marimba in rock, they get to make up their own
rules—indeed, they have to—so, among other ideas, they’ve tried to
absorb every extant popular tradition that might contribute to a
solution. Their tunes draw from a world of dance traditions, from
raucous Motown house party to that high and lonesome country twang,
from odd-meter Balkan clogs to sultry tango. Their songs are playful
and intimate; listening to one is not unlike the experience of a beach
day, complete with the appropriate trashy novel, distilled into three
minutes.
Recently they opened for
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic at Johnny D’s (they’ve sat in with Birdsongs
in the past, typical of their musical elasticity) where, in the middle
of one unusually confessional song, the cellist suddenly stopped and
declared, “My name is Valerie Thompson, and I really like coffee!”
Since I myself am a caffeine-based life form, I got to do the interview.
Noise: Let me ask the naive questions first. How did Goli come to be?
Valerie: There’s two answers to this.
Vessela:
There’s probably two answers to everything! My answer is that when
Fluttr was on the road a lot, we would find ourselves kinda not doing
anything on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights, because a lot of small
towns wouldn’t have big venues. So Val and I, and Kara at the time,
started what we used to call Fluttr Effect Acoustic, and we would take
the Fluttr songs and make them into more of an intimate thing, and play
coffee shops, those sorts of places, and that way we wouldn’t leave our
money on the road. And then when we split up with Kara, then Val and I
found ourselves, just the two of us—the guys from Fluttr at the time
were not as excited to play out. The original idea was to have a
different singer for each show, do you remember that?
Valerie: We were ambitious!
Vessela:
Yeah, we thought we could have, like Sarah Rabdau would come and we’d
do half her songs that we’d learn and half of our songs that she would
learn. We thought it was a genius marketing plan, because her fans
would come and our fans would come. But then Valerie started writing
all these awesome songs and she started singing, and the next thing we
know, we’re like, we don’t really need anyone else, we’re perfectly
fine on our own! And we found a lot of creative fulfillment in just
doing it as it was. So at some point we decided to come up with a name
that’s not Fluttr, because honestly, the music we were playing was not
Fluttr music.
Valerie: And I don’t think as a
duo we realistically did anything that was—like we did some of your
original and my original instrumental stuff that was part of the
original Fluttr Effect Acoustic, but all the songs we were doing were
just completely different material, different direction.
Vessela:
At this point if we were gonna do a Fluttr song, something like
“Transmission,” we would have to credit it as a cover, because it’s
become so far away from it.
Valerie: And then
the other answer is, we’ve been playing together for ten years. We went
to school together—she recently found an old picture of us, literally
from ten years ago. And for me part of us playing together was, here we
are, and Fluttr was kind of taking a break and figuring stuff out, and
we were jonesing to play. And I think there’s a very sympathetic
background, we’re both classically trained on our instruments but have
influences, obviously from Fluttr Effect, from rock and contemporary
music in that sense, but also from different folk styles—Vess is
obviously influenced by Balkan folk music, seeing as how she grew up in
Bulgaria, and for me, kind of my folkie Americana interests, Celtic
music and stuff like that.
Vessela: It’s
extremely organic too, I think the two of us have a kind of telepathy,
we rarely have to even discuss things. Usually if we have an issue or
something to be taken care of, I would call her with three sentences
into the conversation already, ’cause there’s no need for the beginning
to even be there.
Valerie: Sometimes I just
ask her questions to hear her say what I was gonna say. So Vess, how do
you feel about this? when I know the answer is the same as the answer
that I have.
Noise: Interesting to hear you say Americana, I get a very European vibe from your songs, kinda Left Bank, cabaret...
Valerie:
I think a lot of that comes from my classical background. There are a
lot of colors and chords that I gravitate to that totally come from
Romantic classical music. I don’t talk about it so much, it’s not so
much a part of my everyday existence, I didn’t sing for quite some
time, but when I was younger, I was classically trained in voice, and I
did study Kurt Weill and other art songs, and those sounds are
definitely an influence, and the theatrical element of some of the
vocal stuff that I think I gravitate towards comes from that classical
influence, and those songs that (sigh) I sang back in the day.
Vessela: The new song we’re working on, there’s a direct quote from Bach...
Valerie:
The fifth measure of the Bach cello suite, it just shows up. And I did
it on purpose, I was like, I’m totally gonna rip this from Bach, right
here! It’s always about the homage, to whatever influences you.
Part of this project isn’t just whatever original stuff we’re working
at in the moment, but we’ve had the opportunity to put together little
satellite ensembles based on this duo, and get exposed to other styles
of music that we love the sound of but have never played. We were the
pit band for a vaudeville show that a friend of ours put up in February
this past year, and we did a bunch of these Tin Pan Alley songs, which
are cute as hell! And so much fun to play—who wouldn’t want to play
them? We seek out those opportunities sometimes, to be forced to learn
music that we love the sound of, but we don’t have any other reason to
play.
Vessela: And before that we were the
core for a tango ensemble, we did about a half hour worth of repertoire
and we arranged it for guitar, violin, viola, the two of us, accordion
and percussion. We went out and actually took tango dance lessons, and
did the whole thing, got immersed in it for a month, and did a show,
and it was very successful. For us it’s just a way to give ourselves a
reason to really sink our teeth into something.
Noise: I wanted to ask about your Bulgarian folk music heritage, were you presented with this music all your life?
Vessela:
Yes, I started on piano when I was six, and I started with regular
classical music, and by the time I was nine I had switched on to
percussion. And the professor who had developed the school of
percussion was a very adamant supporter of Bulgarian folk music, so his
entire school, how he taught music in general was through Bulgarian
folk music. And in addition to that, my mother is an educator in
Bulgaria whose biggest work is preserving Bulgarian folk music and
incorporating it into regular school. So between those two influences,
I grew up listening, playing, dancing, analyzing, singing, really being
immersed in the tradition.
Noise: Is it common for Bulgarian kids to get that kind of upbringing?
Vessela:
Not really. Actually it wasn’t hip at all, it was kind of a dorky thing
to do. We’d have these folk ensembles that were the pride of the
nation, you know, the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices, and there were a
few other ensembles that were sponsored by the state at the time, the
communist regime, whatever. So you would hear it on TV during holidays
and stuff, but it still wasn’t hip, it wasn’t cool, everybody wanted to
duplicate Western music, and it was forbidden. American music was not
allowed.
Nevertheless, it just stayed in my
system all these years. And then when I moved to the States, very
quickly, within a semester or so at Berklee, I realized how precious of
a thing I had that I never really even thought of, or that I considered
an asset. But then Berklee so concentrated on world music and there’s
so much appreciation for it that very quickly I realized that I have
something special, and I actually started a band called .wav at the
time, that had nine people from six different countries, that did all
kinds of folk music combined with surf rock, like Dick Dale stuff, and
jazz. That’s when I actually started to realize how much of a heritage
I had, that I had completely taken for granted. So now it’s a
combination of still having that background but now I’m active in
seeking good interpretations of that sort of folklore. Because the
folklore itself is starting to die, it’s not part of the culture any
more, it’s an obsolete art form that you see in a museum.
But there are a few people out there who are doing really cool stuff
with it. We recently got the luxury of opening for Theodosii Spassov,
one of my heroes from when I was 18 years old, he plays a Bulgarian
wooden flute called a kaval. And Val and I were able to open for him in
Boston, and it was one of those dreams come true, my life is just now
making the circle complete. He’s a good example of someone who’s making
the folklore, fully immersed himself into it, really knows what he’s
doing, and then taking it a step further and connecting it to
contemporary people, and found a way to make this music to not be
obsolete. And that’s part of my goal with it too. And Goli does a few
of my tunes that are heavily influenced by that.
Noise: Tell me about singing while playing the cello.
Valerie: Playing cello and singing at the same time is hard. It’s not impossible.
Vessela: It seems to be getting easier.
Valerie: It is getting easier, but that’s because a part of my brain is eating another part of my brain!
Noise: Where do the songs come from? Do you actually have imaginary friends?
Valerie:
I talk to myself all the time when I’m walking down the street, and
it’s really awkward! I don’t know that I have imaginary friends. I have
imaginary conversations of future interactions that will never occur.
There are totally characters from “Imaginary Friends” that are my real
friends.
I think for most songwriters it is
that way, and the balance is making sure it’s not so you-you-you that
it doesn’t connect with anyone, you know? I’m heavily influenced by
Paul Simon, and I listen to him all the time, and one of the things
that I appreciate is, there are songs that he sings that may be about
experiences that he had, but he presents them as complete and total
stories: here are my two characters, I’ve presented them, I’m just
watching this, and there are moments where I might be speaking from
this person’s voice, but I am just telling you the story that I
witnessed.
Vessela: The thing I love about
the songs is that nothing is ever too literal, so nothing feels too
corny or too direct. But I know what she’s talking about all the time.
And it’s one of those shared experiences where if I know, coming from a
completely different culture and all that, if I know what she’s talking
about, then other people are gonna know what she’s talking about. And
it makes me excited to want to play her songs, it makes me excited to
want to contribute with whatever skills I have to her songs, so much so
that very soon they become our songs. Even if you wrote it, I feel very
connected to it in ways that I appreciate.
We’re also very fortunate to be part of a community of artists and
other musicians and people who are, one, very interesting and two, very
dynamic. So a lot of our common experiences have to do with friends,
and people who are going through a lot of different things. So it’s not
an isolated thing, the way that we relate to other people, there’s a
lot of friends and musicians that we know a lot about. Sometimes too
much! We’re immersed in a lot of really interesting, really creative
people’s lives, and I think that helps. We don’t live in isolation,
even though we spend a lot of time practicing our instruments. If you
don’t live life, then you have nothing to really talk about.
Goli’s next show is Thursday, October 1st at the Lizard Lounge. It’s Valerie’s pre-birthday bash.
golimusic.com
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THE LUXURY
![]( "the Luxury")
THE LUXURY: IN THE WAKE OF WHAT WON’T CHANGE
by Max Heinegg
These days Jason Dunn is the prince of Allston, when once he was the pauper. The singer/ songwriter, bandleader of the Luxury and musical journeyman has sweat it out for a decade and recently, hit a well-earned stretch, winning the Rumble, opening for Coldplay, and planning a July CD release at the Paradise. I caught up with Jason recently after listening to an advance copy of the Luxury’s new CD In the Wake of What Won’t Change.
Noise: How have you stayed at it over the years when so many other Boston bands have come and gone?
Jason: This is all I know how to do, and all I really want to do, so it’s kind of a no-brainer. I have to do it; I don’t really have a choice. When I finally went back to school I went back for audio engineering to make sure that even if the day came when absolutely no one liked what I did anymore, I could just keep doing it anyway. I’ve dealt with plenty of people coming and going in bands I’ve been in, and if people have other things they have to do then that’s their path. The thing that’s great about this band right now is that we all really believe in each other musically—I think there’s a strong sense of faith that we’ll continue to make music we can really love, and if other people love it too, that seals the deal.
Noise: What’s been enjoyable about the recent success?
Jason: I’m not going to lie: any success in music is pretty amazing these days, especially if you’re making the music you want to be making. This last year has been an incredible time for us, and if it’s not the beginning of something bigger then it’ll go down as a great period in all of our lives. Now we’re dealing with bigger opportunities, and we’ve taken on a great manager, but everything up to this point was accomplished on our own terms, and with the help of our fans and friends. That makes all of this much more special.
Noise: Tell me about the album’s title.
Jason: “In the wake of what won’t change/ This is something we can take” is a line from “The Mirror Fogs,” at the end of the chorus. I feel like we all get dragged around by the passage of history, by what seems like this big unstoppable and unchanging juggernaut up ahead that we can never quite catch up with or reason with. We’re never really in charge or in control outside of our own bubble, no matter how big it may get. But if you can look around your bubble and see something you can cope with, maybe even something you can be glad to call your own, you’re on to something.
Noise: Listening to the CD, some lines stick out—particularly “I can’t imagine anyone/ Would know me now.”
Jason: I think there are a lot of lines on this record that mean more than they say. That’s the funny thing about language, writing, painting, making songs—you own it for as long as you keep it to yourself, but then as soon as it’s out there for people to hear it’s a different story, and you hear back all kinds of interpretations of your own work. Sometimes the re-interpretation is far more interesting that what you wrote. But at the risk of spoiling the fantastic, the line and the song are basically about my separation from my home in Vermont. The beauty of the hard winters; the influx of spare-changing trust fund kids in the summer, the self-imposed glass ceilings, and in the end the realization that there’s no reason to prove anything to your past as you try to forge ahead. I think. Honestly, I wrote and recorded that song in about six hours out of the blue one day.
Noise: Which song’s lyrics are most central to the CD —“Mirror Fogs”?
Jason: “Getaway Car,” most likely. Besides kicking off the record in 11/8, with a theremin and string section, I think it conveys the escape theme that runs through the record in a very immediate way, before other songs on the record lead you in different directions.
Noise: Has your approach to songwriting changed?
Jason: I’ll either build up from a specific personal experience or strip down to one from random ideas, melodies, and words. The approach depends on what I’m starting with, and one way feels very organic and happens very quickly, like with “Rockets” or “’Til Your Last Year,” and the other is far more abstract and can take months. Someone recently asked me how long it takes to write lyrics for a song, and my answer was “either under an hour or over a month.”
Noise: Approach to singing changed?
Jason: I’m not afraid of what people think anymore, so I’m going for it a lot harder now than I have previously. I hear the good and the bad in my voice, like I’m sure everyone else does, but I’m stuck with it so I’m going to make the most of it. I can hit some notes, sure, but these days I’m trying to make the delivery more emotive than before. Particularly with the last Halogens EP I feel like I was shooting for some vague notion of vocal perfection, which is a terrible idea and makes potentially good records sound bland. Way better to sing your guts out, especially on a record, where you’ve got one chance to give the songs the impact you want them to have.
Noise: Do I hear a more pronounced ’80s vibe on this CD?
Jason: Hell’s yeah, you do! I’ve never been good at playing up to what’s “in,” musically, but when the keyboards came charging back a few years ago my inner nerd exploded with delight. I’ve always loved the sound of a big synth pad under guitars, and I’m a sucker for Moogs too. Now I get to use both! And to top it off, we found Steven Borek, a total nerd about keyboards whose head is deeply steeped in ’70s prog and early ’80s pop and rock like the Cars.
Noise: True or false: “Take it Back” is stadium rock, and that’s okay.
Jason: Ha! True, and it’s pure awesome! That song started as a much quieter, slower demo that I made a couple years ago, but when it was introduced to the band it just kept getting louder and faster. I thought we were finished altering it with the big dramatic pause before the chorus, but then Daanen went and got himself an octave pedal for the intro and we were all like, “Okay, this is totally over the top.” Of course, that finally meant it was just right.
Noise: Influences: What’s stayed in constant play for you over the years, musically?
Jason: Thanks for specifying “musically,” otherwise you would have had about 10 years worth of boring self-analysis. I’ll always love the Beatles, Marillion, Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel, Yes, Def Leppard, James, and all those ’90s Britpop groups. I know that’s an odd list, but each of them brings something different for me. The Beatles got the songs, Peter Gabriel, Yes, and Marillion have the atmosphere and the prog roots, James is sonically gorgeous, Def Leppard is huge... and Duran Duran’s fun for dancin’. The thing is, though, if you asked the other guys in the band you’d get very, very different lists.
Noise: Do you still think that the band has its feet in Britpop stylistically?; I still hear Oasis, the Verve, and, of course, the Beatles.
Jason: Well, I have a good solid anchor there personally. For me it’s all about the melody, and I think that particular movement created some of the best melodies since the ’60s so I’ll always love it. The band’s sound as a whole is defined by everyone’s individual sounds as players, though. So you hear math-rock drumming, prog keys, hard-rock guitar, and some deep grooving bass winding up in the same songs, with results that are nearly always miles beyond the initial idea that anyone came in with.
Noise: Lastly, there seems to be an Oscar Wilde “I’m in the gutter but I’m looking at the stars” twist to the last line of “Firefly” which the lovely closing track; “I’ll be the firefly/ Breathing my last in the jar.”
Jason: That Wilde quote pretty much sums up my life, man. “Firefly” was another quick write; it’s about knowing you’re a little guiding light in someone’s life, regardless of how they treat you or whether they acknowledge such a thing. It’s vaguely autobiographical, like most of the stuff I write, but I’ve been on both ends of this. If you keep that light sealed up, counting on it for what it offers but never tending to it, eventually it’ll die out in the cage you’ve given it. So I guess the key message is, take care of your tiny insect friends, or simply let us go.
The Luxury, live and on the web: The CD release will be Saturday, 7/11, at the Paradise tickets on sale at the box office or at www.theluxuryband.com; guests are the Click Five, Midatlantic, and Aloud. The Luxury’s set will be augmented by original short films from student and amateur filmmakers created as backdrops for each of the new songs, projected behind the band as the new album is performed in its entirety.
http://www.myspace.com/theluxury
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