PART II

LIQUORICE

Left to right - Trey Many, Dan Littleton, Jenny Toomey

I don't have a specific expectation. We usually don't let people sit down at shows. It just lends to the TV-ish quality. I played a great show at Princeton the other day (November 1st). We had an awesome audience... they were dancing for the rockers and listening to the quiet songs. On one quiet song, there were a couple of girls that were talking. They were ten feet from me and I could hear them quite clearly. I pointed them out and said that I could hear them talking. They were embarrassed for a second and then kept talking. I broke the song down so I could talk over a section of the music. I asked them what they thought was going on. I asked if they weren't confusing us for a television that wouldn't mind if they sat in the front row talking. I explained that we would continue to tease them until they either shut up or moved. They said they were sorry, that they were just drunk. I said it was OK, but that this was one of the risks they take by being in the world. They might get drunk and act foolish and someone might respond to their foolishness and make them accountable for it.

My favorite shows are generally ones where it seems like there is an exchange between the band and the audience. It can be quiet and intimate like Ida shows or it can be more confrontational like the scene I just described. I just don't like feeling like what I'm doing is producing entertainment to be consumed. That's only one direction. I don't think that everyone has to dance at shows but I also feel like that is becoming less of a possibility. I think that it's more difficult to dance at shows because less people do it... less people seem to know how to and no one wants to stand out.

Considering the ridiculous prejudice the music industry has practiced against women (like the fact that the radio never played female artists back-to-back) -

a. Does the "Women In Rock" explosion seem like an actual step in the right direction, or just another exploitable fad, like disco and the alternative rock movement? (It seems that most of the successful women in music are either selling a glamorous image - Mariah Carey, the Spice Girls - or are simply copies of archetypes that have been successful in the past - Jewel and Alanis VS Joni Mitchell and a whole slew of folks - while confrontational types have either turned into cult figures - Tori Amos, kd lang, and to a lesser extent, Ani DiFranco - or simply conformed to the media's expectations - Madonna, the new, "glamorous", Hollywood Courtney Love.)

b. Is it detrimental to be associated with such a movement? It does tend to distract from the actual accomplishments (like with the little Bob Mould "outing" in Spin a few years back). I mean, here are two women, playing in an underground band, running their own record label - the press has probably beat these topics to death without mentioning one thing about the actual music.

Yes, it's dangerous. I hope that no one believes that Jewel and Fiona Apple are representing my experience. It's also business as usual for a business that has swung conservative in the past year after biting it so big on all the indie bands they signed that weren't Nirvana. On the other hand, I don't know an artist worth a damn that can't avoid a fair amount of that pigeon-holing if they just try. However bland 1997 was for bringing us the Spice Girls, it was also spicy for bringing us Beck and Björk. Artists need to take responsibility for their art and their representation and we need to hold them accountable for the quality of their work.

Does the popular shift from the abrasiveness of "punk" and "alternative" rock towards big helpings of nostalgic pop nonsense (Spice Girls, Hanson, the Puff Daddy Musical Appropriation Society) say anything about the health or viability of the music industry, or the supposed "death" of rock music? And since I'm wandering around here, what about the popular culture's tendency to simply rehash the same ol' shit, whether it be big-budget sequels, or cinematic adaptations of popular TV shows or books, or even Lichtenstein and Warhol and "pop art"?

rehash
same shit

I found this little excerpt in a Barnes & Noble's ad recently (just below a blurb for GENERATION X: FIELD GUIDE AND LEXICON) -

GENIUSES OF CRACK, by Jeff Gomez
"The author of the cult favorite OUR NOISE revisits the members of the band Bottlecap, as the make their way through the unfamiliar and daunting LA music scene."

I'm reviewing said nonsense for Puncture. I can't wait. (Although I won't come close to Franklin Bruno's annihilation of Our Noise.)

With the indie aesthetic having been explored and exploited and seemingly left to its own devices by the big corporations, do you think there's any chance of another huge band explosion occurring (akin to the halcyon days of SST and Homestead and Touch and Go), or is this just a pipe dream? Or is it happening right now?

I think you are still engaging half of the bullshit (the "underground" half that you like, as opposed to the "corporate" half). I've been interviewed this month for 3 books about "indie" rock. In all corners of the world, writers are squirreled away drawing lines around this huge interesting series of events. They are saying this was the beginning, and this was the end, and these members are included, and these are excluded, and at this time this was happening, and at that time it wasn't...etc. Some of these books will be better than others and if they are inspirational and informative...well hooray! But they are not the Truth of this. It's the same gray area as my response to your question about the term "indie". I mean a lot of people are coming back to letter press right now. Does that mean we are in a letterpress renaissance? Maybe, maybe not - ultimately, it's the pressed work that's interesting to me and not the historicizing of the activity. Or maybe that's a bad metaphor.

GRENADINE

Left to right - Rob Christiansen, Mark Robinson, Jenny Toomey

I don't really see it as a revolution...that we've been beaten down and that we need to regroup and fight for punk's sake. Were the flappers beaten down, were the hippies beaten down, were the beatniks beaten down? We are in the "usual" position of having done work that is at the moment being folded into history (defined, limited, fixed). We are also in the "unusual" position of having done work that is commercially lucrative to explore, exploit and historicize. Buying into the myth of the underground as it has been formalized in recent years is in many ways blinding yourself to the revolutionary activities that continue to stretch boundaries but are not yet included in the canon. Personally, I'm just interested in the work. If it comes from Touch and Go or some other place in some other form than music that's just as interesting to me. (Maybe more so... I've listened to a lot of music in the past 15 years; maybe it's time to focus on fiction or activism or art.)

For whatever reason (probably too much free time), I seemed to have stumbled upon some sort of seven-year pattern in popular music - 1963 saw the Beatles release their first albums; 1970 had most important musicians either breaking up their bands (Beatles, VU) or dying (Hendrix); 1977...well, you know; 1984 had Zen Arcade and Let It Be and Double Nickels; 1991 featured Nevermind and Loveless; so, in 1998... this is a rather shoddy theory, natch. But, are there any bands or musicians that you would recommend as being possible leaders of this supposed Renaissance?

I think you should go to graduate school or begin writing criticism. I'm not saying that in a pejorative way - I do one of those things and am planning to do the other. I don't mind when people make meaning that way. I am predisposed to it myself. I just wonder who benefits from the streamlining of history in that way. Why do we need to see music in those narrow functioning terms? - as if it's a code to be cracked, or an answer to be found, and then once the answer is presented, the audience must measure their experience in relation to that external fact of, say, "the 7 year pattern". With regards to your example, it certainly didn't speak to me that way. I was listening to Nirvana and MBV at least 2 years before when you said so I don't fit your pattern in those terms, and if you are talking about the cultural affect of that music on mainstream audience - well, Nirvana's effect is plain to see, but MBV is just fetish and speculation.

On an entirely different point, I think everyone has music that they draw inspiration from. They tend to discuss only the bands that have a critical following. Some well-adjusted musicians will add less hip bands to the cannon and maybe we all will begin to re-evaluate their work as well (Nick Drake, Beat Happening, The Silver Apples, Mission of Burma, etc.). In the best cases this widens the possibilities (for example, Henry Rollins re-releasing all the great old Go-Go records), and in the worst cases it just adds to the list of bands that one should name drop. It's interesting to me how history chooses its pillars in any field. Zora Neale Hurston (author of Their Eyes Were Watching God), who is read in probably every women's writing course, was out of print up until 15 years ago when Alice Walker started name-dropping her and working to get her books published again. It's a great example of how history is manufactured. (Sometimes in good ways).

Back to your original question. I couldn't choose bands that fit into the "Renaissance". I like too many of them and I wouldn't want to leave anyone out. I'm more interested in the idea that they were all there than the fact that some floated to the top. There couldn't have been a Nirvana without a Beat Happening. Kurt had a K tattoo. How does that fit into the 7 year plan?

Putting all dreams of world conquest aside for the moment, do you see yourself (label-wise and band-wise), after seven years, where you thought or hoped you would be?

Yes. We are still excited about our lives...we are still setting up projects to challenge ourselves and we are still getting better at playing music and enjoying it ta boot.

A few questions about upcoming projects (or delayed projects) -

What's happening with the Indie Rock Summer Stock Musical? I mailed Franklin Bruno about it, and he said something about needing horn players and him twiddling his thumbs...

We need money. It's incredibly time consuming to arrange a musical and none of us have enough free time to do it without being able to support ourselves financially.

On the Liquorice home-page, the second album is said to have a spring release date - which spring would that be?

The Liquorice album is still in the works and it will not be released on Simple Machines. Watch your local listings for details.

I also remember hearing something about a EP project, along the lines of the "Working Holiday" series...?

No, we were going to do that a year ago but we didn't have the strength. The last series took years off our lives and that was back when Kristin lived in DC and not Philly!

Any new Simple Machine product on the docket for the future?

None (except the festival).

What about future recording plans? (Or am I jumping the gun, considering you guys haven't even finished touring yet...)

Liquorice is recording. Tsunami will tour a bunch more. Then maybe we will record later.

Anything not related to music that you are particularly fond of? (This means anything, from a book to a chair to eating peanut butter with a spoon.)

I'm interested in tons of things that aren't music related. I love to read. I like movies a lot. I'm learning to enjoy cooking. I love to travel. I am writing a ton. I love the ocean and dogs with a frightening passion. And on and on...

And, FINALLY...

What do you enjoy (and loathe) most about interviews?

I don't like interviewers who know nothing about the band and think nothing of asking vague, weak questions like, "What does your band sound like?" I like interviews because it's an excuse to articulate and clarify what we've been doing instinctively. I'm also curious about other people's takes on what we've done. Either supportive or critical...I'm no shrinking violet. I like a good argument.

Xjenny toomey

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Check out the Simple Machines site / archive - http://www.simplemachines.net

Check out Jenny's newest endeavor - http://www.futureofmusic.org

Pertinent POP SHOTS reviews:
TSUNAMI - World Tour... & A Brilliant Mistake
LIQUORICE - Listening Cap