Future Oldies & Ashleys & Pink Lightning & Pass-uh-Lack-wa

......a conversation with Tom of The Ashleys - and his 5 other bands... wherein we discuss the possibility of a Scene Summit - the 16 band slam coming in April to the Lager House - and the 3 to 4 new albums that could arise from Passalacqua collaborating with the Ashleys, or just the Ashleys by themselves, or maybe from Pink Lightning...or maybe from another new band called Future Oldies? Or a new hip-hop group called Cool Island?

Find out...

Tom: Everything's been going really sweet actually...
Milo: Haven't heard that adjective used since like '98. It's how I used to breathlessly describe things like Mortal Kombat fatalities...
Tom: Let's bring it back, then...

(photo: Andrea Zarzycki)






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Milo: You've gotten quite busy lately...aside from guitarring, singing, shredding and fashioning sun-glasses and feather boas with the Ashleys...you're now working with Passalacqua?

Tom: Pas-suh-lack-wah? Apparently I say it weird...Chris (Butterfield of Pink Lightning) busted my chops about it. I guess I say it like I'm from Minnesota or something. It's got Bryan Lack-ner in it, I figured it was Passa-Lack-qua...
Milo: Nah, it's like... Do Re Mi Fa So Lah-qua...
Tom: Real nice guys, fun guys. Apparently the Ashleys backing them came from you at the Library - when you read Nabakov over us jamming...Bryan said, literally, 'We should do something like that...'

~~
Milo: ...so...Ashleys, Passalacqua, and now you joined Pink Lightning...that's three projects. But I've been bugging you 'bout the other stuff you'd sent me, your solo, acoustic stuff...
Tom: Adam from Phantom Cats might join me and help make those into some-weird-music-band...Might just stay as a recording-only-thing, in case I write songs for a 10-piece band... We're only a trio now...I don't wanna end up playing these songs out live with my 10 pieces and just have 7 or 8 people standing there, waiting for us to get through the regular Ashley songs...
Milo: When you say "trio," for the Ashelys, we're talking about your longtime friend Keith...who joined the band on bass...who you used to blog with a bit...
Tom: Blogging's tough man...but, yeah, Keith, who works over there at the Ferndale Natural Food Patch...
Milo: I've been chipping away at trying to get them to consider changing the name to Carrots-A-Go-Go...and by the time they come around to it, I'll likely have patented it...then they might owe me.
Tom: Carrots-A-Go-Go sounds a lot better than Food Patch...
Milo: You feel like if you walked into that joint, and, ya know, it was like a movie scene, then there'd be a lot of Laff-In type zoom-ins and zoom-outs, hip-shakin' and tasteful splashes of multicolored siren flashes...Strawberry Alarm Clock might be the house band...
Tom: Let's get down to business; I brought my mobile studio...

(He lifts his digital 8-track recorder and headphones onto the rickety cafe table)

~~~
Tom: ...this is what I do everything on...I've got Passa-lack-wa demos on here...
He plays me combines a funky slide guitar and booming low end groove - rings like Funkadelic, somewhere between "Can You Get To That" and the fiery wail of "If It's Good To You..." Definitely distinct from the garagey-barrel rolls typical to most Ashleys fare to date...

Tom: Brent ("Blaksmith" of Passalacqua) already has a hook and some lyrics written out...and that's me on drums. It's not Steve (of the Ashleys)...does that one have horns on it?
I take off the headphones
Milo: Horns?
Tom: ...a horn 'effect'...they're fake horns...fake drums too...
Milo: So...live bands and MCs...House Phone backed up Cold Men Young a few times last year...now Ashleys are backing up Passalacqua...
Tom: That's the way it's looking...
Milo: ...a future career as a beat writer?
Tom: A Beat-man...selling beats by the side of the road.
Milo: From a Beet Stand
Tom: Only they're not beets, they're records...but also beets...

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Milo: Any difference in approach when writing a hip/hop track versus...
Tom: We've been dabbling in more off-color stuff, wait that's not the right expression...
Milo: Just not-rock-music...?
Tom: Yeah, for a while now. Steve's got a sampler, so we've been playing with loops and beats. I started a song from the opening bars of "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted..." for my own horrible rap project...
Milo: ...project # 5?
Tom: It was called Cool Island...we aimed to be the most offensive rap group in history. We wanted to play just one show...and only shoot off fireworks, for the whole set, no songs in actuality. We got the fire works, but they put the kabosh on the fireworks at the start of the show...

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Milo: Birthday show is coming up in April... Sweet 16...with 16 bands?
Tom: It's getting pretty fun. At the Lager House, two stages, only 15 minute sets each...16 bands in 3 hours, it'll be like this crazy paintball thing.
Milo: What's it been like coming into Pink Lightning? And what the hell's the deal with Future Oldies?
Tom: I'd never joined a band that's been set like that before, but Future Oldies, doing that with Chris and Leo McWilliams (of PL) helped; I didn't know my role at first cuz they just same it out in rehearsals until they figure something out. That's mostly how we do Ashleys' tracks but usually someone at some point comes up with the golden ticket...but our songs aren't complicated, that helps... 'I've got this cool riff--put that in a song!' But, half the time, Pink Lightning guys wind up playing country type songs. We all have eclectic tastes. It's sounding good so far, practicing with them down in Eastern Market, cold up there, you gotta bundle up...

Milo: Future Oldies - you, Chris, Leo...
Tom: Steve (from Pupils/Marco Polio) and Adam (Phantom Cats)...we're on indefinite hiatus, until Steve gets a new drum kit...he had it stolen out of his car just one week before he had his car stolen in the same week he lost his job...that was a rough week... In Ferndale, no less! We just hung out all summer reinterpreting pop songs from this Golden Era rock n roll songbook that Leo had...
Milo: head-between-the-headphones "I'm hearing Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover"...and Roy Orbison's "In Dreams..." for starters...
Tom: It was really fun...
Milo: Maybe start up a kickstarter to get a new one?
Tom: Donate so that we can have fun...
Milo: By Future Oldies-having fun, listeners will, in theory, -have fun. Or your fun will be refunded. Guaranteed more fun than a swirly slide?
Tom: Whoa...more fun than a straight slide...less fun than a water-slide... We're still here, still on board.
Milo: Your recent update said: "New demos coming up on Tuesday..."
Tom: ...but we didn't specify which Tuesday... just "a" Tuesday...

~~~~~
Milo: Busy with so many bands and new demos...but you seem to have found a rhythm.
Tom: Not playing a bunch of shows is helpful. It got crazy over the summer. Hey, we got 6 shows, how we gonna practice? Then you don't and then nothing new happens... Then you stop and start writing/jamming again...We have to finish this (Ashleys) record before the world ends...
Milo: Get it out on the 20th of December, give em a day to listen to it...and enough time for me to write a review...That's not vain, is it? To daydream aloud that the world goes out listening to your record while reading my review...But that's the answer, reel back the shows; a lot of you guys, the satellites from the Brunch Rock summit... Pewter Cub, Jesse & the Gnome, Fur, Deadbeat Beat...reeled back all the shows after a busy spring and summer...your names are on the wall now, you can...
Tom: It just seems like everybody's already making really good music, what's the next thing to do? I've always wanted to do a soundtrack to a film...but I don't know how you get into that, do you know someone who's making a film? Do you have to make a movie yourself? Then you're busy making the movie...how ya gonna do music? What's next? Release an album,...then you tour...and then...?




---Milo: The calendar always hustles us through... Shows on the Weekends...then it's a CD release...then it's time for Blowout again... now we get into summer out door fests...then DIY...then Halloween... project project project... It's school-ish, cycle through your classes, hang out at lunch, see my show, see your show, smoke in the bathroom, do homework, go to recitals and proms...
...such great potential: Bands mixing in with each other, hip-hop and Roy Orbison...and "Cool Island!!" ...and bands getting together just to play 15 minutes in a cluttered set for that April Lager Show?
Tom: I think Jessica Hernandez is going to do it...we met at this show 2 years ago at the Crofoot, the Taco Show...with Shane & Jerry...that's where I met Brent (who, since then, has been the biggest spokesman for the Ashleys being the best band ever)...that show was like the king-maker...Hernandez went to Bonaroo after it, and Daniel Zott was playing it too, now he's on the TV...and Pass-a-lack-wa took off after that too...thought I might be next...? ...No...

He plays me an Ashleys track, more of a layered, atmospheric psyche-rock joint...longer than 3 minutes, nearing 5...
Tom: We're getting more instrumentation, with Keith. We were a two-person band initially just to play live shows easily. But, now, the network has expanded, you can have more people play, we start doing more intricate stuff. It's nice to know people.
Milo: It is... I think we need a Scene Summit
Tom: Scene Summit...
Milo: Like a Town Hall get together of band-folk and music-mavens and culture curators...
Tom: Like a convention...? Now recognizing the esteemed delegate from Woodbridge!??
Milo: The unkempt, shaggy-looking delegate who smells of cigarette smoke...
...but yeah...
Tom: Yeah...
Milo: We should put our heads together... Figure out what could be next...What should be next...

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