Interview: Phreddy Wischusen - (Brothers Bonanza - Mar 20 - Eagle Theatre, Pontiac)

(Ed. - What follows was an original draft of what was almost a zine...attempted, anyway... but printing wound up being too much of a thorn in my wallet - so I thought I'd just share it here...and simultaneously save paper.)
(words: milo)

Who can sit still at a time like this?

Not when so many are convinced the world is ending.

It is spring time in South East Michigan – and an eerily early verdant green is already returning in this deceptive warm weather.

And I am trying to write about my dreams. And inspiration – and collective goals. And cynicism. And about being young and what does that mean. What do you want out of your writers in this age of dead newspapers, dying personal-computers and stoic Kindles and false-started iPads. Traversing the sterile, spiritless, solemnly glowing screens of whatever medium for which we daily nourish a Stockholm-syndrome engrossment—there are still words being transmitted, via online mags or blogs; there’s even someone, somewhere, in a noisily-humming basement or glass building writing up the copy for the advertisements leeching at the corners of your iTouch’s displays showing Google-map-returns of “Sushi Restaurants; near Royal Oak.”

Who’s writing all this internet-set nonsense now and who even cares? The bigger question it leads to – as this zine steadily eats itself with self-pondering – is how to capture a collective experience of culture when times have lead to such hyper-niche-separation – to the point where a humble zine such as this can happily tell you about an upcoming free show in Pontiac, MI – but its writer, a writer not unlike the many humans who write the fleeting texts we now all blur by on our computers – is driven to lunacy with questions of efficacy.

(pictured L-R: Adam Davis, Candace O’Lear, Phreddy Wischusen) (photo by: Thomas Matich)

One man who might be able to help find the answer is Phreddy Wischusen. Wischusen turns 30 this week. He’s only been in Detroit for five of those years – yet in that window he’s gotten to the point where, not only does more than half the “scene” know his name, but likely that same half is also well acquainted with the seemingly ever-grinning gray-speckled brown-beardy and his imposing presence, character and vociferous call.

Wischusen is the general manager at the Crofoot entertainment complex in Pontiac (1 S. Saginaw)– a role he rose to, steadily from his humble Michigan-set beginnings of dressing up in a giant teddy bear costume for a music video (prophetic, considering his warm demeanor).

Ever-driven towards forging communal collaboration, the Baloo-ish chap often claims you by spoken proclamation, as “Bud,”, or, if you’ve got a Y-chromosome, “…brother.” Thus, Brothers Bonanza – is celebrated this Saturday at the Eagle Theatre (next to the Crofoot) – a free concert featuring some of Detroit’s finest: Manna & Quail / Oblisk / Zoos of Berlin and Prussia – it’s also the big guy’s 30^th birthday.

(video: Prussia, filmed by Trever Long)

On a day when I’m contemplating whether we should really expect more life, more zing, more get-up-and-go - from our writers in the ethereal technocalypse of 2010—I ask myself, what more would or should we want? Perhaps an accentuation of advocacy journalism, but– not the opinions-are-like-assholes exasperation of bloggers or the hidden-agenda-via-attention-grabbing-crazy-jabber-ala-loudmouth-TV-pundits – but, perhaps, an honest admittance from this writer could prove to be refreshing (not just for the writer but hopefully for the reader) that Wischusen, a beacon of enthusiasm in this sometimes indiscernible music community where the loudest/strident expressions are those of blogger-comment-posters, has registered inspiration in me – a soul certainly discouraged, but not ready to give up. But maybe, also, not only to document the, pardon if it sounds cheesy, the “power of art,” but documenting a group (that which Wischusen has settled into) that wants to build it to last – as opposed to downplaying/castigating it as fleeting…(…as fleeting as the blur of words through the internets channels…as fleeting as this zine, perhaps). But this writer still believes the power lies with the artists.

Interview

Wischusen was born and raised just outside of Snellville, GA. “In the 80’s, there were two t-shirts every kid had air-brushed, either reading “Gatlinburg” (Gatlinburg is the Panama City Beach of the Tennessee State part of the Smoky Mountains) and the other shirt read “Everybody’s Somebody in Snellville”…pretty special.”

“When I was young, there was not much there – a few new neighborhoods and a McDonald’s. Now, it is a suburban nightmare of fallow strip-malls, gas stations and restaurants owned by the Darden Corporation that are rapidly waning in national popularity.”

Wischusen graduated Magna Cum Laude from Florida State University, with a degree in “Classical Civilizations.”

“Wonder what that means?” he quips, “…so did every prospective employer.”

After college, he lived in Atlanta, then spent six months out west in Montana and California. He was in Birmingham, AL for a bit before winding up in metro Detroit. “Some hitch-hiking, gluttony, making bad music and a lot of extremely pretentious pseudo-philosophizing characterize those years…” said Wischusen. “I guess not much changes, huh?”

He steadily entered the arts and music scene through 2005, via friends in Manna & Quail, while he day-jobbed in a fancy restaurant in the sterile and suburban Somerset Collection megamall.

“I started out in music here by appearing as a teddy bear in a Manna and Quail video, and then graduated to becoming their merch guy. Adam Davis (then in M& Q, now with Jessica Hernandez), Steve Saputo (still in M& Q) and Jared Groth (now part of Single Barrel Detroit) started a group called ARC in Pontiac as the result of post-teen/twenties angst, a few late-night conversations, and a genuine desire to get involved in making the kind of communities that we all wanted to live in.”

The group had strong support from the Pontiac Downtown Development Authority, the Crofoot, “countless friends, community members,” artists like Dan DeMaggio and Chris Everhart (the latter of design artists Silent Giants), and thus were able to “build an energy that is still resonating” for Wischusen, “in Pontiac, now.”

“From ARC, Jared and I went on to start PHONOTROPIC at the Crofoot with the help of Ms. Candace O'Leary and Mr. Dan McGowan and the rest as they say is history- I am now lucky enough to work at the Crofoot full-time! We all cut our teeth setting up weird experimental events doing PHONOTROPIC every week, which was an amazing opportunity to explore how much sensory info you can pack into five hours on a Friday! Once Chad Nicefield (M&Q, Wilson) joined the Crofoot team we kicked it up another notch.”

While working in that restaurant in the megamall, eventually edging up to its manager, Wischusen learned “how to talk to people and how to make everyone happy. Once you can spill salsa in a woman’s hair and have her come back again the next week raving about how good everything is, then you’ve hit a stride.”

“I also took a class in college called, ‘Theory and Dynamics of Race and Oppression;’ the class taught us to think critically and to identify, in any situation, where the power dynamics were. Just like in a car when you understand where the power comes from—you can watch how the whole machine works. So, you learn how to make things work.”

“Right now, the power of Detroit is in the passion and creativity of its arts community. I have been trying to learn how to harness that creative power and help it to empower our communities.”

After 5 years as propulsive, positive provocateur around Detroit, I ask, through all the myriad theme-mega-events thrown together at the Crofoot complex, what were some of his most rewarding or favorite experiences:

“The most rewarding so far has been the WOMEN’s Arts event that just happened – the synergy between us and the passion that came together to pull off that was beyond inspirational, it was transformative.”

The show featured a dozen bands (prominently featuring females) as well as art installations and craft displays (and DJ sets) from women artists of the Michigan community.

“Overall the most rewarding thing that has happened is the experience of becoming a part of such a glorious community and to be so embraced by it. I am a weird guy and in the 25 years of life I lived before I came to Detroit, I never felt at home. I never felt like people got what I was about. Here, for some crazy reason, everyone has been so accepting of me and so supportive. I have accomplished more personally because of the love surrounding us here than ever before. I feel like the city has pushed me to live 24-hours-a-day, to love beyond the boundaries of my heart, to enlarge my mind.”

Indeed. So now you see what I was rambling about on the first few pages. But then, I ask him about negativity. Arts apathy, if you will…or the haters of the blog-commentary boards. However ironic or purposely-provoking they are intentionally being…etc etc… When someone encounters such a positive force as Wischusen, one has to wonder…

“As for negativity, I am human – I can be an asshole, I have a series of awkward physical compulsions, body odor (I am definitely the most profuse-sweater in the city), and vacillate between having a monstrously huge ego and being terribly self-effacing. There are plenty of reasons to hat eon me and if I knew me, I would probably do so! …With that in mind it is somewhat easier to deal with negativity, because it is a great lesson: negativity is often a mirror-image of what I have been projecting!”

“It teaches me where I go wrong. It also sharpens my creativity. As for the blogs, most of them are so positive, which I really appreciate, but then…there is Eat This City…amazing haters. It never fails to amaze me how such nice guys can hate so hard and still pull it off so well and leave everyone hysterically laughing – two of the smartest guys in town….their fearlessness is really refreshing.”

“As for the hate-everything-people,” a phrase he repeats to me after I mention it via questioning, “if our society is only as strong as the weakest link, they become the litmus for how we can change consciousness, the measure of our success. Hate on, haterz, the hug-train won’t be missing your stop!”

That the success is a collective change of consciousness. Strength of spirit, open mindedness, positivity.
(pictured: Zoos of Berlin)

I ask him about his own philosophy, when approaching show-organization, or whatever highflying charge he’s apart of next…

“…Joseph Conrad said in the Heart of Darkness, ‘We live as we dream…alone.’ – I believe that is the most important concept in community building and promotion. In finding a way to live together that works, we need to make it so individuals are individually motivated to work together, and before that happens we need to educate and inspire and engage the silent singular dreams of each of us. Collaborative Self-Interest, I suppose is the way of the 21^st Century. When each of our dreams, in their glory and ego, takes flight alone and merges with others, like wandering geese, then we will look towards equators of social progress.”

“Make everyone feel welcome and known and they will come back for more and contribute more. If it works at concerts, I believe it can work in our neighborhood and in industry.”

Let’s hope.

So now, Wischusen turns 30. “I feel like it’s a Bar Mitzvah year in an era of extended adolescence, a kintango for perpetual Peter Pans. It’s also coincidentally days from my 5^th anniversary living in Michigan so I have a lot to be thankful for.”

(pictured: Manna & Quail)

Wischusen asked Oblisk, Zoos of Berlin, Prussia and Manna & Quail not only because they are some of his personal favorites, but also their strengths in visual presentation; mise en scene as well as music. Each, said Wischusen, “have a heavily visual or poetic style that makes them poster children for the creative community. If you listen to Trevor (Naud of Zoos of Berlin)’s lyrics and intonations, you can see it in his design work! Oblisk are the masters of bringing their music on to a screen and creating an almost Wagnerian majesty at a show. If you haven’t seem Manna & Quail’s latest show, I don’t want to spoil it for you, just get ready to be beamed into the future, it is so amazing.”
(pictured below: Oblisk)

He concludes: “I want this,” this free concert, March 20^th at the Eagle Theatre in Pontiac, “to be an explosion of creativity and collaboration that will serve as my thank-you to everyone for making these past five years so wonderful for me.”

I myself, wouldn’t devote, similarly, five full years of writing about Detroit’s arts community, if I didn’t believe wholeheartedly into the insights shared, here, by Wischusen.

Links:

Prussia: myspace.com/prussiamusic

Zoos of Berlin: myspace.com/zoosofberlin

Oblisk: myspace.com/oblisk

Manna & Quail: myspace.com/mannaandquail

The Crofoot complex: myspace.com/thecrofoot

Silent Giants: silentgiants.com/

Phonotropic: myspace.com/phonotropic

Friday

Kill the rest of your afternoon off by watching and listening to stuff....
~
The Parenthetical Girls have a new album coming out - Privilege Pt 1 - On Death and Endearments - a 5-song EP-ish sized affair of epic baroque pop that is the first of 5 - which completes an odyssey-esque album - eventually - in about a year.

Info here.

You can just download the single "Evelyn McHale" here
Or watch the video:

Parenthetical Girls "Evelyn McHale" from judesays on Vimeo.

~
Titus Adronicus - an indie rock band named for a Shakespeare play - are now tackling the American Civil War for subject material of their forthcoming work: The Monitor - which came out just a few days ago...

To get a taste:
Titus Adronicus - "Four Score and Seven" - Part 1 and Part 2

Info here and here

~
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are getting the re-issue treatment and are starting things off on March 30th with Dirty Shirt Rock n Roll - The First Ten Years on Majordomo Records (by way of Shout Factory). There'll be plenty more written about that later on - but I think it's worth your time to take in a marvelous interview/conversation facilitated by one of Spencer's contemporaries and comrades in the realm of intense live presentation, a fellow soul-loving skinny white boy who dresses sharp and waves his thick black hair around: Ian Svenonious (most renowned of Make Up fame), via his Soft Focus interview series via VBS TV online.

More soon.....thanks for reading....(listening, watching...)

Zoos of Berlin - Tour Launch - Brothers Bonanza - 3/20

Zoos of Berlin - performing at the Crofoot's Brother's Bonanza - 3/20

(words: milo)

“We’re gonna be the nicest smelling touring band,” drummer and recording engineer Collin Dupuis assures, while singer/guitarist Trever Naud cracks that the band’s in-house sound-technician likely “…wipes his pits with a Hermes scarf.”

Dupuis, quipping a boast of wearing Dolce Gabanna, playfully responds by self-applying his “aristocrat of the band,” as Zoos of Berlin huddle around his recently installed sound board, adjacent to their homegrown (professionally-equipped /built-to-specification )studio.

The Detroit-based quartet has been working on a new LP of (characteristically) elegant pop songs. They’re honing their gossamer glistened, jazzy snazzy, prog-rock-penchants and dreamy fuzzy atmospheric rock, radiant and layered with head-swimming tones, hearty bass, suturing drums and graceful deluges of Brit-pop-born melodies.

They join Oblisk, Prussia, Manna & Quail, Designasaur and Ragged Claws, for a free show in the Eagle Ballroom – simultaneously acting as Zoos kickoff to their first major tour (w/Child Bite) and as a birthday party for one of the most valuable, industrious proponents of Michigan’s art scene, Crofoot General Manager Phreddy Wischusen.

“We finally got the monkey off our backs,” keyboardist Will Yates referred to their first full length, Taxis, self-released last year (after about 4 years as a full line up, with bassist/singer Daniel Clark, but songs had lingered for more than six years back to when Clark and Naud first collaborated.) “Now,” said Yates, gesturing to the studio, “it’s a new beginning. We’ve been doing more, both writing/recording here in the studio and in terms of booking shows; we’re moving faster.”

Zoos of Berlin, "Black in the Sun Room" from Adam Lonczynski on Vimeo.

“(Taxis)’s songs were the result of years of playing, each hashed out over days,” said Clark, “and this time songs are coming all at the same time period; we’re able to hear what we’re doing quickly.”

The notably experienced Dupuis imparts the vitality of “initial” reactions; better to avoid “over thinking,” or being “perfectionist.” The more steady, or meticulous developments up until Taxis “made us into a very tight unit,” Clark reflected. “Having gotten that foundation, it’s easier to be more spontaneous.”

“I think it’s more learning to leave room,” said Dupuis, both the soundboard and a creepy 4-ft-tall Santa statuette set behind him, noting the benefit of being able to write/record at the same time. The band is settled, cozy and confident – whereas before, Taxis was recorded in rented space inside the Russell Industrial Center; a former auto-parts shop that the boys had to clear, clean and install Dupuis’ impromptu (yet still sufficient) set up.

The plate reverb, an unassuming-yet-ominous box in the next room, adds an encompassing textural effect that essentially adds an entirely new (invisible) instrument; acquired by Dupuis, Naud claims, “…it might be one of the greatest things that ever happened to us.”

Since Taxis, the band has seen a rash of international-internet-born attention; they’ve also been busy dreaming up music videos while they hunker down in their souped-up space for a healthy round of experimentation/writing/production.

Wischusen’s free birthday show is Zoo’s tour kick-off and they hope to release Taxis’ follow-up around mid/late summer. Meanwhile, Manna & Quail are rejuvenated; Oblisk is writing new material; Prussia’s recording new stuff. Designasuar is new electronica from Dan DeMaggio and Ragged Claws = Mike Noyce (of Bon Iver). Experience Zoos’ elegance and wish Wischusen a happy B-day and thank him for organizing some of the best concerts of the last three years.

Phonotropic Brothers Bonanza: Zoos of Berlin, Prussia, Oblisk, Manna & Quail, Designausaur, Ragged Claws – 3/20 – Eagle Theatre, 1 S Saginaw, Pontiac – 248-858-9333 – thecrofoot.com – free.

---

and about those tour dates with Child Bite

Thurs 3/25: Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
Sat 3/27: Minneapolis, MN @ Hexagon
Sun 3/28: Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews [early all-ages show w/ Red
Pony Clock]
Mon 3/29: Kansas City, MO @ Foundation
Tues 3/30: St. Louis, MO @ Cicero's
Wed 3/31: Nashville, TN @ Little Hamilton Collective
Thurs 4/1: Newport, KY @ The Southgate House
Fri 4/2: Louisville, KY - Venue TBA
Sat 4/3: Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop [late show]
Sun 4/4: Columbus, OH @ Carabar [free show]
Mon 4/5: Baltimore, MD @ Zodiac
Tues 4/6: Philadelphia, PA @ Ava House
Wed 4/7: Brooklyn, NY @ Market Hotel
Thurs 4/8: Boston, MA @ Great Scott
Fri 4/9: Syracuse, NY @ Half Penny Pub
Sat 4/10: Cleveland, OH @ The Happy Dog

The Brutalist Bricks

(out on Matador)

Ted Leo gets back to his roots, less conceptual than the last record, and...not necessarily less apocalyptic than Living with the Living, but more upbeat about it - "If we're living in the last days...well, then maybe there's a few things we oughta' do...!"

Ted Leo has always been a very conscientious folk singer – the host at the head of a buffet table of varying sensibilities and schools of thought – from a hardcore-punk-spurred youth between New Jersey and DC widening his mind to the unchecked injustices of the ruling class while also feeling tempered by a beyond-his-years wisdom and historical awareness regarding the intricacies of social movements pushing and pulling against corruption – his music and message is altogether rousing (to the nth degree) but he balances in musings on mortality, repartee on apocalyptic proselytizing, legitimate anxieties and acknowledgements of human limitation.

And yes, I said “folk singer.” Certainly not your Newport-set acoustic guitar yowler, with his electric-guitar heavy roar pop/rock; along with his Clash-cut, British-(Gaelic-ish)-punk-angled-shit-kicking hard-shredded rock, pure, profound and swiftly-poured vocals with the aggression of hardcore, teased and spiced with the jangly poppy-flavor and jittery military march drums of British post-punk – he is often regarded as some kind of messenger; words delivered from a vigorous voice and a weary heart sounding as though thine eyes had seen the goriness of the beaten down protesters, of the warmongering politicians and coming back to us with assuring ballads of “feel(ing) the change coming on…I trust we can carry the day…”

Listen: Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - "Even Heroes Have to Die"

He’s carried this through five LPs worth of intricate punk-rock-born pop – jangled and shredded by Gibsons and Epiphones and spilling, pounding, breaking and bursting off the walls with yanking bass grooves and demolition drums. The music itself, for the window-shopping indie-rocker, might fit with Spoon in its relatively sparse guitar-lead grit and grind, only Ted can’t help being blunt and can’t help but cathartically turn it up to 11 for the fast-driving tears, diverting from my posited counterpoints tendencies for the esoteric and the darker, slower grooves. But Ted’s voice, once you hear it you’ll get me, is this high-mid tone that cuts and croons, screeches and coos, rapt by palpable reluctance that, if he has to be the guy, he will, and he’ll sing his heart out best he can, putting in historical references from the ruinous policies of Reagan, to the ugly clash of mid 60’s Civil Rights, to topical takes on fear and greed in politics to personal anecdotes of familial celebrations and heartfelt love songs.

That last one, the love one, was something we hadn’t heard from Ted often, until Brutalist Bricks (Matador), and, quite understandably after twenty years of songwriting in the realms of idealistic-punk-passion, we also hear the toll taken on him by the crusade. On “Ativan Eyes,” warm harmonies cascade down the chorus as Leo belts into his disarming falsetto, “I still want your heart beating on mine,” while also confessing, “…so sick of cynics and I want something to trust in.”

The realist admission, “Even Heroes Have to Die” nicely intertwines the golden acoustic jangle with the crashing wave/surfy-shred of the electric, falling into these hard-yanking hooks of battering drums and Leo’s wavy vocals hurdling over them with infectious “Oh-whoas!” Here we find more of Leo’s characteristic somber-yet-enthusing poetics, “…turn prisons into prisms of the self…”, while, this also becomes a love-leaning ballad, of sharing the simple beauty of the seasons. “No one lives forever, no one’s wise to try…”

“Heroes” and the tightly-wound piano punched “Woke up Near Chelsea” highlight the advances of Leo’s Pharmacists growing to a 4-piece, giving the recordings more texture and counterpoints. “Bottled Up In A Cork” blasts off at an almost awkwardly fast pace at first, but settled into a smooth driving acoustic led shimmy; a recounting of his going to see his newborn nephew dotted with humorous self-deprecation and finely barbed bits like “Me, I’m just a loner in a world full of kids, egos and ids…” or the grinning slap he gives to the powers by referring to them distinctly as “the television congress…” And winds it up, over those lose-yourself-builds of bladed guitar soars and buoyant acoustic guitars, he puts his hand on your shoulder, “…a little goodwill goes a mighty long way.”

If I could sum it up simply – I would say that this feels closest to his earlier work, on 2001’s Tyranny of Distance. Whereas the albums between that landed on a rousing, we-can-do-this, hard-hooked, charming and guitar-glittered pop (Shake The Sheets ) or a more solemn, even angry, grind into reassessments while coming to new understandings of human nature and relationships through more conceptual pieces (Living With The Living) – this record, Brutalist Bricks, attains Tyranny’s don’t-stop-for-nothing-drive, but comes from a voice that’s gotten down and dirty through the dark days of the Bush-era atrocities and now wants to reclaim the down-to-earth charm and hands-in-the-air celebratory rock, surfy-shredding, hard-pounding, mostly-fast and fiery, yet bringing it down for a few slow grooves and sparser lo-fi fuzzy musings.

“I know I been missing but I feel the change…I know I’ve been resistant but I feel the change…” While the whole album isn’t dominated by want to put aside political pushes for the simple sooth of an intimate love, nor is it a harkening back to an almost decades old rouser-rock initially born with the Pharmacists project, it is, as is often the case, a well-where-do-we-go-from-here message delivered over a glorious gush of relentless guitars and steely, shunting rhythms – but when our 21^st century style folk singer says he’s tired of cynics, it makes you think, that in this internet age of complacency and apathy, that the future will always be unwritten. And as is characteristic to Leo, that hope, that change, is not blind; this is conscientious folk rock – see the building up-and-down roll and rock of this songs closer, that time is of the essence—that, “if we’re living in the last days, then maybe there’s a few things we ought to do…”

Matador
TL-RX

(Interview with Ted Leo in this week's Real Detroit Weekly)

Random Notes

The DVD+Sountrack documenting the White Stripes touring through all the provinces of Canada (seems like we've been hearing about this forever...)...comes out on Tuesday (3/16) - but if you click this link right-about--now - you can hear the duration of the "album"'s worth of collected songs - including a particularly inspired "The Union Forever" and a raucous "Black Math" as well as some well worn familiars.

Also, if you digitally-open the electronic version of Wednesday's Free Press - you can read today's preview of the forthcoming 10th anniversary of DEMF/Movement - which will feature Richie Hawtin (Plastikman) / Kevin Saunderson / Juan Atkins and more. - Also, if you digitally-flip-back to Monday's edition, you can read the Free Press' Blowout-2010-wrap up, here.

Local indie-power-rock-pop-something trio FAWN are opening for The Vivian Girls Thursday night at the Magic Stick.

And, instead of re-posting videos and making us Detroit bloggers look like we're stumbling over each other - head over to Eat This City to view a new music video from the now brood-rockin-by-way-of-crazy-punk collective Terrible Twos - (one 7" on the way, then, I thnk, another! Then a full length at some point!)

The Juliets - Video Premier (3/12 - Majestic Cafe) and Album Release

3/12 - Majestic Cafe - with Computer Perfection & the Ferdy Mayne

Release party for debut LP - (self-titled)- by The Juliets

Video Premier - directed by Katie Barkel

DC Interview - Feb 10
--read the Real Detroit interview at the RD site, here.
~

“I just wanted to throw everything into a blender…” Jeremy shrugs.

“A three-minute blender,” Scott points.

“Pop music is a blender,” Jeremy admits, “It’s not knowing what you love more…”

“Pop music is a very quick, populist way to simplify a range of complex ideas,” said Scott, “in a way that people from diverse backgrounds can digest.”

And it goes back and forth like this for a bit.

It didn’t dawn on me when I sat Jeremy Freer and Scott Masson down together – that I’d probably be in for a series of philosophic reflections delivered with intensities both in appreciation and in near-scientific dissection – all centered on pop music.

One a clean shaven cueball, the other a curly-topped beardy, and between them, their bespectacled red-headed cellist, Kaylan Mitchell – the three, with violinist Sarah Myers and bassist Kip Donlan, form the baroque-and-roll leaning quintet, the Juliets.

The unique circumstance for this late-winter sit down over rounds of Heferweizen, is that Masson and Freer could likely interview each other well enough –as they’ve been essential writing-friends for fifteen years; constantly bouncing ideas off each other in a very healthy competition; like work-out buddies spotting each other as they write new hooks, balance out mixes and synch up harmonies.

The Juliets are a classically-leaning folk-ish music group, utilizing the elegance earthy moan of a cello as its foundation (Mitchell), under a meandering, mellifluous violin (Myers), pushed and punched by piano chimes and acoustic guitars from a wispy-voiced singer (Freer). Such was the state Masson found the band in – when he saw their 2^nd show after his re-settling back into his home area of Detroit (after 8 years in Chicago) in March 09.

(Pictured above,) Masson’s main project, Office was in transition (as most members were still back in Chicago) and he wasn’t really looking for something new, yet. “I remember seeing them and thinking, ‘Oh, a lot of these songs have this kinda snappy feel, this whole Paolo Conty…kinda…showtunes-thing, I don’t know why, but (I thought) they needed a beat.”

The slowly developing idea of the Juliets was to embrace a more stripped down approach, piano/guitar—cello—violin – and thus utilize the classically trained pair of Mitchell and Myers, while also giving Freer the opportunity to finally embrace his long-held passion for classical compositions.

“I’ve always loved Chopin,” said Freer, “I’ve always played the piano and have always played classical stuff, and I’ve always threatened to go in that direction with everything I’ve done. I just never worked with musicians I could see it through with,” though, he adds, admitting he had come fairly close with the now defunct rock quartet Freer.”

“It takes a very S&M-type personality to want to tackle classical music,” Masson admits.

Freer grew up on a steady diet of blues and r&b: from Howlin’ Wolf to Motown. There was a little bit of Dylan in there, sure, but for the most part, blues lead the way into his teens. “So, getting into classical music was sort of a rebellion for me, it always seemed more natural for me to go in a more bluesy direction, or r&b; going into the classical side was my own discovery.”

“Coming from being a cellist,” Mitchell said, “my view, going into rock music, was sort of a screw you to the classical world.”

Mitchell had been playing cello in eclectic folk septet Canada for nearly 3 years. Similar to Masson, the Wayne State-studied, classically-trained, orchestra-circuit-run artist/performer had recently seen her local band life side quieted by Canada’s dispersing – and wasn’t really looking for something – when, after a night at the Tap Room in Ypsi and a night-cap with friends at Freer’s (pictured above) apartment, she was shown these new, amorphous song-ideas and, though both Freer and Mitchell were tipsy, both agreed then and there that there was potential.

The results – as the rest of the story gets filled in – are a full length debut, self-titled, out this week as a free digital download – celebrated with a live performance, Friday at the Majestic Café along with the premier of a music video for the single, “This Just In,” directed by phenomenal local filmmaker Katie Barkel.

But anyhow, a year ago this week, Masson first saw them: “They needed a beat; they were a little hesitant about introducing drums because when you have classical instruments and acoustic guitar, you run the risk of overpowering the whole thing.” Thankfully, Masson had experience in pit ensembles and concert bands, he was confident he could play quietly. But, the dynamics of Myers and Mitchell on strings with Freer’s new flare of writing pushed him to join – “I remember thinking, these are my favorite songs that (Freer)’s ever written – I’ve known him for so long, I’ve seen every stage of his songwriting from punk—to avant-garde space-rock—to r&b-dance-music—to the gospel rock epic and, I always knew he was a classical composer, a pop composer, in the midst of all that so I heard these songs and thought, oh—finally, he’s doing the classical and pop stuff that I always thought was his best work – and now he has access to two great string players…”

Freer admits that even if he wanted to try the stripped down thing, he couldn’t stay from the rock-ready drums. “I love rhythm, I can’t live without it. I never wanted to be in a folk band, ever in my life.”

Masson came over – not knowing Myers or Mithcell – and now, he assures, considers both ladies to be amongst his best friends. Cliché as it may be, this is a band with the classical story of having everything flow and fall together very naturally. But when Masson conjures the classical marriage to pop, it stirs everyone’s heads and gets ‘em musing…

“All the best pop music,” Masson starts, “generally of the 20^th century, has an element of classicism involved, whether it’s the production or the melodies; the treble clef and the bass clef are using some kind of counterpoint that’s working off each other, that’s very classical…like, Bach’s a very great bass player, Mozart’s a very good melody maker…often, Beatles or Beach Boys both had a very deeply rooted classical thing going on…”

We steer towards Freer’s finally-fully-embraced classical slide into his incorrigible pop penchant: “In a strange way…good songs are already done…and then you plan them out. I think that’s probably true of Mozart up to Muddy Waters. People have a conception of the blues…as this raw thing, coming from the gut, meanwhile, Mozart and the Beach Boys are very conceptual and thought out…I really think it’s the same.”

“You’re a vehicle for something that’s bigger than you,” Masson offers to Freer.

I turn to Mitchell and ask, what, aside from the sublime swirl of Tap Room drinks buzzing through her as a wine-sipped Freer strummed out the bare beginnings, inspired her to join…and it seemed to be her seeing it as a chance to make a statement.

“I hate, in bands,” said Mitchell, “when strings are underutilized. The thought like, ‘Oh, this band does strings, look at them, ohh, adorable.” Masson and Freer agreed in bemoaning the strings treated as commodity. “I wanted my next project to be something where the strings were integral in the songwriting, I wanted to treat the strings like guitars. With Jeremy’s songs and the chemistry we already had, that it was working that way from day one.”

But as was evident in the cathartic cuts, sporadic screams and hard shredded freak-outs of his past pop-bands, Freer always likes to have an aggressiveness stirring at the bottom. “I would push (Mitchell) to really kill it (on Cello) so she was really holding the rhythm down.”

Myers was contacted by Mitchell, both fellow Eastern Mich students, to join early on. Both use a pick-up set under their bridges able to plug into any amp to increase their sound.

Masson joined and synched up with Mitchell’s playing, letting her take the lead as essential bassist and rhythmic foundation. “With Donlan,” said Masson, referring to his fellow Milford-ite and Detroit band’er with tenure in Silverghost and Office, “coming in on bass, it’s freed up the mix so (Mitchell) can roll off the low end more and really be the cellist and we can all play a little louder.”

I ask about the recording and the Heferweizen takes over with a few bubbly quips revolving around pro-tools. “We just walk into guitar center and just soak it in,” Freer foments, “then we go back to the studio and …just…let…it…out.”

A collective laugh resonates, but then the Juliet’s resident engineer, Masson steps in: “I take pride in my portable studio (mbox/pro-tools/lap-top/mics); I fee like the most inspiration happens when musicians are comfortable, and that’s usually in their bedrooms, their living rooms, rehearsal spaces.” Freer dubbed it a “vagabond kind of recording style…(bringing) out emotion to the music that I might not have to force myself more to tap into being in a sterile environment…(like a studio). …just being in a more personal setting and not always knowing where you’re gonna be when you record it.”

Masson took influence from John Cage, in utilizing the noises of the world as musical pieces. “There’s musicality to the sound of neighbor’s slamming doors or a party in the other room. I feel like, in a studio, its sterile and cold, you’re closing your mind to a lot of musical possibilities.”

The passionate pop scholars reference Sun Studios and Motown; their inconspicuous and humble “store-front, mom-and-pop” like settings, being right in the middle of the neighborhood, where the wall separating recorders from the real world is quite thin – as opposed to shut-away, heavily sound-proofed, state of the art scrupulous set-ups where you may as well be on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

Anyway, back to the video – directed by Barkel. “She’s phenomenal,” Mitchell exclaims, referencing her work in short film and other music video productions for locals like Silent Years and Lightning Love. “Her style is similar to very classical filmmaking.” Freer would later offer that she, too, has a “bluesy” style…recalling the raw, sublime, enlightened flow of Jim Jarmusch or Wong Kar Wai. Masson would call her “soulful,” creating a “very Detroit” video for them, and pushing them to interpret their characters’ individual dives into their subconscious.

The video is “Depression-era/Fellini?” Freer posits. Or, “blue-collar meets traveling circus.” What is for certain, Barkels work, shot in HD, will likely be the first time a cellist has been filmed with a knife in her teeth.

From there, the pair once again dive into the intricacies of pop music. It’s manner of almost deceiving a listener down two diverting paths of vacuous, substance-less pap or into more cerebral, contemplative head-scratching sense-stretching realms.

As for the Juliets – it’s a jangly pop frosting over windswept strings bouncing fluently from austere, stately moods to buoyant sawed hooks – and a strong set of harmony-ready pipes from all players, backing up Freer’s distinctive theatric wisp.

“I think all of us, coming from previous bands and being around music for so long,” said Masson, “being a little more weathered, we kind of know what we want do better than what we’ve tried previously. I’ve never enjoyed myself more on a recording…”

Next, the band debuts the video ("This Just In") Friday, offering self-titled debut on their bandcamp Web site for a couple weeks – leading into two 7” singles on Five-Three-Dial-Tone records and, later on, a physical copy of the record on vinyl. More music videos are also on the way.

“Yes, we want to take our occasional road trips to NY or Chicago,” said Masson of future tours, “but, realistically, I think a lot of local bands try to focus on just making sure that Detroit and this community is entertained and has some beauty going on in it. I feel like that’s our big job; I think you can get ahead of yourself and think internationally. But, we have so much work to do here, in the city, and, as a local band, that’s our job. I think that’s a pretty noble position even if we never get out of this city, at least we’re gonna try to make this place as pretty as possible.”

3/12 - Majestic Cafe
more info here and here

Do You Want An Explosion Now?

Blowout 2010

Driving back from Blowout, my brother and I babbled, our burbles made a bit extra giddy or rose-tinted in retrospect by whatever spirits we’d partaken from, upon our trick-or-treating approach of bar-bellying-up-to’s throughout Hamtramck – looking back on the thirteenth Blowout. Taking stock while we drove home at 2 am, slaked quite well enough after four long nights and feeling no need to go haunting around for more after parties.

The same way you can apply the old adage of – every year Uncle Charley is going to drink too much at Thanksgiving and yell at Gram-Gram and your cousin’s kids are going to chase after the dog outside and piss off the neighbors – like any ceremonial (and, sometimes perfunctory) holiday – the Blowout proceeds with the usual takes of: “Ah, every year you’re gonna miss a great band or two” or, “Every year there’s that one performance that just blows your mind” or “man, I’m glad I walked in on so-and-so, even though I had no idea who the fuck they were or what they sounded like, hey, I kinda liked it…”

And the politics are always there – tensions or rivalries or nuanced disagreements in taste, view, personality, character, sound, style or whatever other kinds of wrong moves or ill-advised comments stoke embers of bellicosity or hostility between bands – I tell you what, friends, every year at Blowout I get, admittedly rosy again, and I turn my nose up at it.

There’s so many sunshines and thunderstorms to the perspectives or regards of this scene – but at the end of the day – one has to remember that we are in weird times of internet induced attention deficits and rapidly varying tastes and buzz-booms-birthing-reactionary-hater-snipers, it doesn’t seem like 10-years-back of England and the world going bananas over us is ever coming back (yet?)… And, considering that, any scan of the news would communicate that this already isn’t the most cheery place to live, economically or politically… if our tools our guitars and our co-workers/allies are our fellow noise-makers and bar-goers, then, …we got to take care of what we have, the arts, the music… –

"Let’s hang on to what we got…” if I could borrow from The 4 Seasons…

Blowout has it’s downsides, sure, no doubt about it. We can debate band alignment via schedules, band compensation, sound-guys and sound-girls, bartenders – but it gets somewhat petty in the larger scheme – Hey, Christmas has its downsides too – we still go through the motions, we still love getting the presents and we still all indulge in some egg-nog and flares of good cheer. (Ed. Though I regret using a christo-centric metaphor…then again, Christ is really not in anyone’s modern day celebration of said-holiday…Macy’sMas or AmazonMas or BestBuyMas might fit better). Anyhow…

But, this-should-be-a-celebration…! (As should all family get togethers, holidays, what have yous…even if those things also turn snippy sometimes…)

At the end of the day – regardless of who you missed or who had a bad set or whatever…it’s a maddening revelry that all this is going on, here, at once, and all of it is born from 96% of this corner of the lower-thumb-area of the mitten, of Michigan, of Detroit, of Hamtramck, Ferndale, Royal Oak, Pontiac, Ann Arbor…

Blowout, to me, feels like the official start of the year, the concert year –

…it’s like New Year’s Eve crossed with the first day of summer vacation – of course there’s so much you want to do and see in that first burst of freedom and jubilance – but Blowout can’t be viewed as an absolute – it can’t be tainted with a checklist approach of wishes and desires – it can’t be viewed as a make-or-break –

…it’s a shrug and a tumble! It’s a hug and a laugh! It’s a grin and a puke! It’s whatever! It is not end-all-be-all, it’s just the start of something! The start of the next season! The weather warms, we’re all revved up on the crazy drunken music-filled weekend we all rolled our way through and now we’ll all get some sleep for a week and be ready to take our coats off and run through the streets to see each other at our respective shows be it the Belmont or the Lager or up to the Pike Room or summer’s eve’s cruise over to the Elbow Room or maybe some secret house party show where we can sneak out onto the back porch for the warm air

…– and now…now friends, now we have the actual (mental) checklist because we can look back at Blowout and say, I missed so and so – so I’m gonna make sure I see their next show in April – or, G’damnit that was a great set from so-and-so and I’d never seen them before, now I’m a believer and I’ll be front and center at their next April show!

And that’s the beauty of it. We start all over. We roll through again. We find new bands. We make new friends. (Some make new enemies). But it keeps going. Does it keep getting better or does it keep getting worse? Nit-picking’s negative energy and negative energy’s wasted energy.

Save your energy for the next show. Let’s hang on to what we got…


“There’s no security or peace and tranquility, except Underground. And then, if your ideas get larger and you want to expand – why, a dig and a scrape and there you are!”
(Badger, …Wind in the Willows – Grahame.)

"Don't give up, think it over and stay... " (The 4 Seasons - "Let's Hang On")
words: milo

Serena Maneesh: S-M 2: Abyss in B Minor

Norway-originating psyche/shoegaze collective Serena-Maneesh return five years after its fairly-buzz-laden debut. Inevitable reference points that came tethered to their US debut in the summer of 2006 were typical of its fuzzy-sheen/fractured-noise-pop, like My Bloody Valentine, VU and the Swans. SM 2 is much more cohesive and distinguished... "evolved" if you'll pardon the cliche - five years of development was bound to do that...

Review: S-M2: Abyss in B Minor (4AD)
An orchestral piece soundtracking space madness
(words: milo)








Listen: Serena-Maneesh: "I Just Want To See Your Face"










The opening swirling screeching feedback conjures images of darkened, mossy, dried-blood-splotched basements of spooky castles with a fog-machine-esque spray over the stony floors and half-opened tombs lining the halls...

This Norwegian psyche rock collective knows how to set a mood.

As disparaging as I often am, both of the usage and of the suggestion, of "drug rock," I have to indulge the old stereotypes and lean on the crutch-like power of phrasing it as "head-music;" mostly because if you put your headphones on it has, at least the illusion (hallucination) of transportational powers - there's more wavy textures of moaning synths and strangled and mangled guitar tones than one can keep track of, spilling all over itself and forming a deluge of head-swimming ghostly bellows - all the while, chunks of a song rise to the top, like eavesdropping only fractures of a conversation - parts of vocals wisp in, never solidifying a melody, batches of drum hits come in for a few massaging taps but quickly fall away, and there is a constantly burning bass whirling around the gears and through the pipes of the song...

And that's just the opener, "Ayisha Abyss..." emphasis on the latter half of the title, to properly characterize its wild wander and disarray.

From there, most elements of this cerebral, stratospheric-scraping drugged-out-psychedelia fall away and the group settles in for quite a delicious blend of seminal shoegaze: fast, clattering drums, washed-out reverb, airy female vocals buoyantly coaxing along bubble-gum melodies and strident guitars stiffly roaring and shredding, off into their own world. "I Just Want To See Your Face Again" has a palpably saccharine, playful charm, while "Reprobate" seems to be the cathartic noise-fest where heavy-metal-ready drums slam away along with a pissed-off-sounding guitar, eventually morphing into pre-chorus statements of elegantly-pedal-fuzzed barrel-rolling guitars that wait patiently for the somewhat-overpowered-vocals to chime in... "Melody for Jaana" is an overly-feedback-gurgled downbeat driving-home-song, seemingly understanding and reflective of the worn ear drums any late-night-show-goer may experience if they pop this in on the way back... "Blow Yr Brains in the Morning Rain" is collection's perfect piece of listless melody, relentless rapid-fire drums and warbling guitars - as dizzying as it is captivating - a noisy exploration.

To go all blogger on you, I remember when this band first came out 5-ish years ago, heralded with formittable buzz as some second coming of hard and heavy black-metal-tinged ultra freaked shoegaze thing, but it didn't take on me...initially, or at least entirely - I couldn't spin their self-titled debut from front to back that often - But this seems their most fully realized...their most confident...their most together.

Blowout "Day" 4

How was your Blowout?

Saturday's sadly-missed:
Timmy's Organism (I can only imagine...)
Prussia (Jean's was a bricked, boxy representation of a water-balloon attached to a faucet with a broken-off handle...I was worried it would burst...)
Divine Comedians
Kommie Kilpatrick

Friday's sadly-missed:
Satin Peaches
Elle & The Fonts
Beekeepers
Robin Parrent
Forget
Ferdy Mayne
Space Band

Thursday's sadly-missed:
Macrame Tiger
Invincible
Black Irish
Karalavara
Meadowlarks

--Temporally or physically limited, sorry all...still considering a few clones next year - click their links to hear their tunes.

--Places where the camera went...through Hamtramck on Saturday, re: Blowout XIII

(you can vote via a poll, here)

Pictured:

The Mahonies (hey hey, we're the Mahonies)

Secret Twins (sounded great, the soft and the shred)

Duende(steady and psychedelic)

Child Bite(new line up, as ravenous and energetic as ever - full on "attack mode")

Electric Fire Babies(got a crowd in a rectangular box to lie on the floor, tightest performance yet,
soulful)

Beggars(new songs, and always charming)

Oscillating Fan Club(also new songs! Some even leaning to a gritty-garage thing - and covering Os Mutantes "A Minha Menina" ...fucking classy)

Not pictured due to crowd or just low camera battery: Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor / Lightning Love

all photos: mike milo

World War Love - 3/14 - Cliff Bell's

8pm - Cliff Bell's - a film by Troy Gregory

Hallucinations, isolation, self-deception, self-deprecation, the bizarre, the macabre, the every-day, blended with vampiric ponderings, drinking liquid ghosts, the oncoming apocalypse, – and somewhere, love…. “Love and war.” World War Love.

“I wanted to show,” said writer/director Troy Gregory, “what people usually consider ‘nothing-going-on.’”

Gregory is known round these parts as a musical maven – with tenures in soul-shocked garage rock institutions like The Witches, The Dirtbombs and his own glam-tinged space pop bands like The Stepsisters. But the often-clad-in-black cognoscenti-of-the-creepy has been developing his filmic talents for years, through small productions. Meanwhile, his Oak Park basement holds not only instruments but stacks screenplays he’d been hoping to develop, once he found enough time off from the road.

“And that was the thing,” Troy said, “the idea was to try doing a Stepsisters movie.” Originally, Gregory was developing the movie for a label – which made it logical to try “a band movie, and usually those things come out so very after-school special.” Troy relied upon his brother Todd (magnificent, cast as Troy’s landlord) , also a videographer and producer of wedding films, utilizing his skill behind the camera, but also to bounce ideas off of him. Todd helped his brother realize/actualize his surrealist vision, an inverted take on “the band movie,” on the streets, bars and houses of Hamtramck with local actors.

In order for the pair to pull off the production, it seemed most logical to follow “the band” as they return home from a long tour – and the exasperating and exciting rigors that are there waiting for them. For the three leads, Troy, Teri-Lynn and Mary Alice (singer/guitarist, bassist and keyboardist respectively of The Stepsisters), it involves Troy’s dealing with alcoholism, paranoia, insecurity and dread in the face of getting over a girl; while Teri-Lynn (“the happiest of the three stories”) butts heads with her delusional, high strung roommate (wonderfully played by Aphrodite Nikolovski) while slowly developing a romance (Mike Walker); while Mary Alice longs for solitude but has to deal with the sudden return of her mentally-imbalanced sister (Annie Paras) who disappeared 11 years ago and is now seeking a haven from her cave-set life of sleeping in alligator’s blood with a rifle between her legs.

Quirks abound, and the dialogue’s sharp – Troy’s absent roadie, it turns out, was shot for stealing a turtle; ...human-beings are overrated…but they know how to have a good time, don’t they? Cameos abound as well – the late soul singer Nathaniel Mayer portrays an ominous angel, Dirtbomber Mick Collins is a mad, rambling pianist, Electric Six singer Dick Valentine is a jittery Canadian disc jockey and representative for Troy’s mental demons, and veteran avant-garde psyche-pop artist Kim Fowley acts as quasi-narrator, “the voice of doom.”

Todd and Troy’s tastes range from classical silent-era, to cheap horror, to French new wave – the results being a captivating balance of painfully identifiable cracks of the human consciousness, exploded into varying degrees of abstract montage. The brothers used their chemistry and collaborative brainstorming to work around equipment and budgetary limitations – still making for quite the squiggly psychedelic darkly comedic, spaced-out haunted drama. Kudos to the cast, as well, with 90% non-professionals, for complimenting the aesthetic. Todd said he looks forward to working with his brother again. Troy, meanwhile, will experiment on a Web-soap-opera with actor Ted Raimi and, inevitably, get to work on more movies, more albums, more work with the Witches, more writing.

3/14 - Cliff Bell's - 8pm