Interviews – Page 4 – Roy Christopher

October 25, 2009

Albert Mudrian: Precious Metal

I’ve often quoted my friend and fellow writer Adem Tepedelen as saying that “heavy metal isn’t dead, it’s just wounded and pissed off.” If there’s anyone who would agree and who has set out to prove that adage, it’s Albert Mudrian.

Albert Mudrian

His first book, Choosing Death: The Improbably History of Death Metal and Grindcore (Feral House, 2004), traces the, well, improbable roots and history of two of the most extreme and enduring subgenres of metal, from the teenagers who started Napalm Death and Godflesh to the teenagers who buy In Flames and Slipknot.

His second is an edited collection called Precious Metal (Da Capo Press, 2009), wherein Decibel Magazine — of which Mudrian is Editor in Chief — presents the stories behind twenty-five extreme metal masterpieces (my aforementioned friend Adem Tepedelen has a couple of chapters in there). Everyone from pioneers Black Sabbath, Celtic Frost, and Slayer, to extremists Morbid Angel, Entombed, and Cannibal Corpse, to black metal stalwarts Darkthrone and Emperor, to relative newbies Dillinger Escape Plan, Botch, and Converge — among many others — all get their due.

Having grown up with this genre and having seen it grow up as well, it was a joy to see it taken so seriously. I was interested to see how Albert Mudrian came to document its history in these books and in the monthly magazine he helms.

Roy Christopher: What made you a metal fan in the first place?

Albert Mudrian: I think that heavy metal—and even more so, extreme metal—is largely an outsiders’ style of music. So, when you’re a confused 15-year-old—like I was when I first really started to embrace heavier sounds—it’s a very appealing refuge. I think as you get older, you can look beyond the visceral aspect of the music and begin to identify some of the other qualities (musicianship, independence, progressive-thinking) that so many of the bands and musicians who make up the scene have to offer. That said, it’s a lot of fun to headbang and lift weights to this stuff!

RC: Having only recently stumbled upon Decibel, I am surprised by its openness. I remember metal, metal fans, and metal magazines being especially narrow in their views of what belonged and what didn’t. When did metal as a genre open up (or start opening up) to all things heavy?

AM: Even though they’ve been treated as such by countless other publications over the years, I don’t think extreme metal fans are stupid, narrow-minded, or humorless. That’s not to say there isn’t a knuckle-dragging contingent that still exists in the genre, but I think the average metal fan in 2009 is a bit more open and accepting to music that doesn’t exclusively contain blast beats and growled vocals (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). But, really, between black metal, doom metal, noise, ambient, metalgaze, metalcore and all of the other sub-genres and micro genres that have germinated over the past 20+ years, it’s just inevitable that metal fans would have a wider palate today than they would have back in the “good ol’ days” of the late ’80s and early ’90s. I think that helps inform for the scope of what we cover.

I think many of underground metal magazines take things a little too seriously at times and live in a vacuum, where they don’t realize that there’s this entire world of music beyond extreme music, and not making any attempts to connect with people who are maybe only 25% interested in metal.

RC: What do you make of the distance between the theatre of evil/satanic imagery and the actual people making the music?

AM: I think it really depends on the individual and exactly when they are performing in an extreme metal band. I mean, I don’t know if Glen Benton from Deicide really worships the devil anymore. Now does he hate Christianity? Probably. But those are too much different things. Same goes for all of the Norwegian black metallers who were torching churches when they were teenagers in the early ’90s. I’m not sure they’d be so willing to take such drastic measures to “drive Christianity out of Norway” today. On the other hand, take a band like Watain, who are staunch defenders of their own brand of Satanism. I call tell you they’re serious enough to heave buckets of animals’ blood into their audience at the start of their shows/rituals—a friend and I were actually collateral damage a show a couple years ago. That said, burning down a church, and making a run to the local butcher’s shop are two distinctly different levels of “dedication.”

RC: It seems like the new thing is always the next step out. It’s not necessarily progress, but it’s a progression to the next extreme—be it speed, slowness, heaviness, gore, or technical proficiency. What’s the next extreme for metal?

AM: Honestly, I don’t know how much faster, technical, or more extreme things can get at this point. If anything, I think you’ll see a regression to the simple barbarism of the early days of extreme music. There was a thrash resurgence a few years ago spearheaded by the likes of new bands such as Municipal Waste and Warbringer, along with the strong return from genre pioneers Testament. Additionally, there’s an old-school death metal revival that has really taken hold of the scene as well, typified by my personal favorite band of the movement, Deathevokation. They claim their biggest influence is the not one particular band or scene, but simply the year 1990—that’s awesome! Anyway, I think it’s pretty healthy to have this movement happening side-by-side with the Obscuras, Origins, and Necrophagists of the world, who are all really pushing the technical envelope.

RC: Hey, congratulations on your forthcoming marriage. What else is next for you?

AM: Thanks! Really, Decibel keeps me so busy each month that it’s hard to imagine things too far into the future these days. That said, I can tell you that we’re publishing a special edition of Decibel that will feature our Top 100 Greatest Extreme Metal Albums of the Decade. It should be available through our site in late November. Beyond that, look for our us to continue publishing monthly—something that’s quite a challenge these days, or so I’m told—and perhaps doing a few more Decibel “Hall of Fame”-related gigs with some of our past inductees in the coming year.

[photo by Jamie Leary]

June 9, 2009

Russian Circles: Not Enough Blood

Post-rock instrumental bands have been emerging from every crack and crevice of the map the past few years. You can usually tell them by their simmering introductions that build to explosive crescendos and their airy adverb-clause or sentence-length names.

Russian Circles’ heavy brand of meandering rock leaves lesser bands choking on their smoke. Where amateurs follow the slowly-build-then-explode archetype, Mike Sullivan (guitar), Brian Cook (bass), and Dave Turncrantz (drums) avert cliché, smash expectations, and drive it home clean. It’s a difference difficult to describe but easy to hear, leaving many writers — myself included — sounding stupid.

Russian Circles are currently in the studio with Brandon Curtis (of Secret Machines) behind the boards, working on a follow-up to last year’s massive and majestic Station (Suicide Squeeze). Brian Cook (also of These Arms Are Snakes and formerly of Botch) took a break from laying down bass tracks to answer a few questions about the band, the record, and the state of music in general.

Russian Circles

Roy Christopher: What did you guys do differently this time around?

Brian Cook: There were more practices, more demos, more rewrites, and more studio time. There were also all the lessons we’d learned from the past to contend with. We were less concerned with perfect takes and more concerned with perfect tones. We switched up a lot of ideas as we were recording and we were less concerned with making sure we could replicate the material live as we were with making a compelling album. Both Enter (Flameshovel, 2006) and Station were pretty faithful to how we play live, so we felt we could get away with doing an album where we elaborate on the material a bit more. So the new album has strings, brass, and a howling dog, none of which will be appearing live.

RC: A lot of instrumental so-called “post-rock” bands have emerged in the past few years. Do you feel that this has changed the way you approach your music?

BC: I suppose it means there are quite a few more reference points, both for us as artists and for our audience. It means that we’re somewhat self-aware of what we do, and for the audience it may be tempting to weigh the merits of what we do against other bands and artists instead of judging it on its own terms. It would be nice to pretend that we exist in some sort of cultural bubble, but we don’t. Fortunately, I think post-rock is a pretty nebulous term. There is about as much crossover between “post-rock” bands like Trans Am and Stars of the Lid as there is between, say, Devo and Tangerine Dream. In other words, the tag doesn’t really mean shit. Or rather, it means that I have to sit through the same obnoxious conversations about “post-rock” that I had to sit through 15 years ago, except back then the topic was “punk” or “hardcore.” On a side note, I am starting a ballot initiative that would require people to apply for a license before they can buy a delay pedal. That should help stymie the popularity of this brand of music.

RC: Speaking of, has the slow demise of the compact disc changed the way you approach your music or the way you approach recording?

BC: Not really. We don’t want to overstay our welcome, so we feel that six or seven songs is about the extent of material people can put up with in one sitting. So our live sets and albums inevitably wind up around the same length. Actually, the album is a bit longer than we had planned, but all the material made sense together, so we’ll take our chances that our ADD-afflicted culture can put up with our self-indulgence. Aside from that, we spend more time thinking about how much time you can fit on a side of vinyl record and where we need to put the album breaks than thinking about CDs.

RC: What do you guys do for fun outside of playing music?

BC: My hobbies include fighting “the system”, drinking, shooting guns, and watching TV. Sometimes I do all four at once. I also like eating and fucking, but I’ve been told that it’s scientifically impossible to do both at the same time because you only have enough blood in your body to sustain an erection or digest food, but not both. I suppose I could be on the receiving end and still eat a sandwich, though… Might have to try that sometime.

[Russian Circles photo by Ryan Russell]

————

Here’s a live clip of Russian Circles performing “Death Ride a Horse” from Enter [runtime: 6:01]:

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May 16, 2009

Tricia Rose: Hip-hop Warrior

Tricia Rose is the O.G. Hip-hop scholar. Her book Black Noise (Wesleyan, 1994) is one of the germinal texts for serious Hip-hop studies. Anyone who approaches the culture of Hip-hop from a serious stance must contend with Rose’s work. Her latest book, The Hip-Hop Wars (Basic Civitas, 2008), is a critical look at the debates surrounding Hip-hop, debates that have largely sprung up in the fifteen years since Black Noise was published. Hip-hop music and culture deserves to be taken seriously and looked at critically, and Tricia Rose is down to give it its due.

Tricia Rose

Roy Christopher: Tell us a bit about your new book The Hip-hop Wars and how it differs from Black Noise.

Tricia Rose: Black Noise was a very academic treatment of the emergence of Hip-hop and its political and aesthetic and social element/impact on black culture and US society. It was about the music and lyrics and the social context. Although it addressed the debates about Hip-hop in the public sphere it was interested in figuring out Hip-hop “on its own terms” and setting an intellectual agenda for understanding what was then an emergent art form.

Hip-Hop Wars is about the public conversation on Hip-hop and how that conversation along with the spiraling downward content of commercial Hip-hop is working together to restore racial stereotype (and therefore undermine real cross-racial unity and equality), dumb down Hip-hop fans and continue the justification of unjust social policies that most negatively impact poor black youth. It is highly accessible, created with bite size chapters and is intended to spark youth engagement with social justice issues through Hip-hop (e.g., gender, racial and class) and to challenge all the stupid arguments leveled for and against Hip-hop in mainstream and Hip-hop media.

RC: Can you briefly explain the “gangsta-pimp-ho trinity” and how you think it came about?

TR: This is a term I came up with to describe the intensely defended most powerful Hip-hop triangle of financially profitable but socially destructive images that have dominated commercial mainstream Hip-hop for over a decade now. I wanted to convey their mutual relationships and I wanted to imply that together they make up the “god” of Hip-hop that is worshipped by record company executives, rappers (present and aspiring) and fans. I also wanted to challenge readers into thinking about how too many of us investment in these images as if they are the truth and that anyone who challenges this is considered outside of the culture and therefore unworthy of serious consideration. As for how it came about, well that’s an answer far too long for this space but in Hip-Hop Wars! But the very, very short answer would be: a) long and powerful history of racial stereotypes that perceive blacks as violent, criminal and hyper sexual, now refashioned for the urban present; b) expansion street economies in poor communities due to chronic and very high levels of joblessness elevates these icons in real life; c) economic value of these images of black people.

RC: I agree with you that the Hip-hop Generation needs “the sharpest critical tools to survive and thrive,” but, as Jay-Z says, they just wanna hear their boy talk fly. How are we to engage Hip-hop heads with the necessary critique of this dear culture?

TR: Black youth have always wanted to hear fly artists talk, style and boast. The issue is not about the style of Hip-hop but its content. Black artists have been incredibly creative without elevating the worst of ourselves, without constant justification of self and community destructive attitudes and behaviors. The whole history of jazz is about fly artists talking (think of the powerful style and linguistic and musical creativity associated with BeBop). And politics has always been conveyed through fly talk. What has happened is that now, this style — this powerful way of making creative pleasure is serving a death imperative. It is what I call “the manipulation of the funk” (funk serving here as a parallel to the idea of fly boy talk; the role of stylistic pleasure in making content pleasurable.

So, the question isn’t why aren’t mainstream rappers political (they are – it is a politics of renegade, community destruction) or how do we get them to be critical (they are critical of all kinds of things, but too often it’s the wrong things!) it is what kind of politics are some rappers pushing when their “fly boys talk.” What kind of critical So the opposite of “bitches ain’t nothing but hos and tricks” or “99 problems” isn’t necessarily Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” or Immortal Technique’s “The Cause of Death,” it is something like Lupe Fiasco’s “Kick, Push” or “The Cool” or Common’s “The Corner.”

RC: I’ve asked a few emcees why when one performs angry black music that the audience is mostly white. The answer I get is that it’s a class issue not a race issue. That is, middle- and upper-class folks are the ones with the leisure time to contemplate such issues. Other factors notwithstanding do you think this is an accurate assessment of the situation?

TR: When I watched 50 Cent’s DVD concert in the Detroit area I was stunned to see the mostly white audience when the rear stage cameras were in action. Yes, middle class youth have both the comfort and the educational resources to attend to these issues in a conceptual way and their consumption of radical ideas is given more room and safety. Black rappers with “angry” political content rapping to an all black crowd tends to bring out the police and the FBI; there is a long history of that in Hip-hop alone, not to mention R&B and Soul music in the late 1960s. And, black fans use “local” black radio as a key means for guiding consumption. Back radio (which isn’t local or black owned too much anymore) rarely plays radical political content — which would make it seem organic to black communities (which it is) and give it currency among black youth.

RC: Is there anything else I didn’t bring up or that you’re working on that you’d like to mention?

TR: Thanks for asking this. I want to mention the end of the book where I offer six guiding principles for progressive consumption generally and specifically for Hip-hop. I think it is so important to remind ourselves of how powerful, energizing and beautiful creative expression can be. And, to not be manipulated into thinking that the content need not be rough to be valuable (often a culturally conservative position) or that it is “keepin’ it real” when it panders to subcultures of self-destruction and violence (the hyper-pro-Hip-hop defenders). Most of us need a more balanced and forward looking, progressive way out of this. My six principles outline a larger way to think about culture, our past, our communities and our politics in ways that honors the complexity of creativity but refuses to give a free pass to those who let the market rule. So, I’ll close on one of these principles: We live in a market economy, don’t let the market economy live in us.”

May 12, 2009

Sean Price: Bless the M.I.C.

Sean Price is that dude. He is one-half of “Da Incredible Rap Team” Heltah Skeltah (where he is known as Ruck), one-fifth of the Fab Five, and has been in the Boot Camp Clik since day square. All of that notwithstanding, his solo work is where he truly shines. On Monkey Barz (Duck Down, 2005), he proved he could go for dolo and drop ill bars with no backup. On Jesus Price Superstar (Duck Down, 2007), he proved he was one of the best doing it. He is an emcee who realizes the power of writing, but who doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Sean Price

He has several new projects in the works, not the least of which are a record with Guilty Simpson and Black Milk called Random Axe, and a new solo joint called Mic Tyson.

Admittedly, Sean Price is also my favorite emcee, so it was an extreme honor to catch up with him and ask him a few questions.

Roy Christopher: Emcees are constantly coming cookie-cutter or trying to be so different that they come off corny. You always come different, but stay in the frame. What keeps you grounded?

Sean Price: I don’t know, and I think not knowing is the key for me.

RC: Do you have any set goals with your music? If so, what are they?

SP: Just to put it out and work it really. I don’t give a fuck about the best-rapper shit even though I’m pretty good.

RC: You’ve been busy, Sean. Tell me about the new joints you have coming up.

SP: Yeah, I just completed my mixtape entitled Kimbo Price. It’s just me rhyming on some instrumentals. It’s a warm up to Mic Tyson.

Random Axe is me, Guilty Simpson and my G, Black Milk. That’s gonna be a incredible album. Black Milk is one of the best producers/emcees in the game. Fire!

RC: No question… You’ve been very supportive of Hip-hop legends that don’t always get support these days (e.g., Das-EFX, Sadat X, et al.). How can we get the younger heads to pay homage?

SP: I don’t know, but these younger motherfuckers better respect they elders!

I’m a fan of Hip-hop first of all. I was one of those kids who taped Red Alert and Mr. Magic and Marley Marl. I copped LPs and read the credits, so when I got a deal later, it was a honor for me to be surrounded by motherfuckers I grew up listening to, and I stay humble… I remember smoking a blunt with Primo watching him work on “Unbelievable” for Biggie… Ah, good times.

RC: What else are you working on?

SP: A lot of shit like the Ill Bill / Sean P LP called The Pill, and a surprise LP with… Stay tuned!

Oh, I was kicked out the group La Coka Nostra they ain’t wanna deal with my kind. I said, “What kind do you mean?” and Lefty roundhoused kicked me in the stomach and Ill Bill did his best King Kong Bundy impersonation… Lawsuits pending… Lethal didn’t want me in the group because he signed Rock and didn’t wanna deal with me… Lawsuits pending.

RC: Is there anything else you’d like to bring up here?

SP: Nah. Just keep God in ya life, and you be ah’ight.

———-

In lieu of his non-rap antics (just search YouTube), here is a video clip of Sean Price’s “Mess You Made” from Jesus Price Superstar [runtime: 3:53]:

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April 18, 2009

Roundtable Question, April 2009

With the slow demise of the compact disc, the music industry’s last physical organizing principle, I thought it appropriate to ask some people inside and on the margins of that industry how the CD’s death was affecting their conception of recorded music. In ironic honor of Record Store Day, this month’s roundtable question is How has the decline of the compact disc affected the way you approach the idea of recording music? I asked producers, musicians, emcees, DJs, and label folks. Continue reading “Roundtable Question, April 2009”

January 17, 2009

Adisa Banjoko: Think Ahead

Adisa Banjoko deserves to be very famous, if only because he’s diligently spreading so many good ideas. As the CEO of the Hip-hop Chess Federation, which stands tough with The RZA and WuChess, he fuses and uses chess, Hip-hop, and martial arts to teach the youth strong life-strategy skills. Author of the essential essay/interview collections Lyrical Swords, Vol. 1 and 2, Adisa is pushing positive on all fronts. Continue reading “Adisa Banjoko: Think Ahead”

July 18, 2008

Naked Raygun: Combat Rock

Melodic punk rock with strong views and a solid spine might not be a rare commodity, but it sure doesn’t come around like this very often. Naked Raygun has consistently taken the punk sound to new places. They are as catchy as they are aggressive, as loud as they are intelligent, and as fun as they are serious.

Steve Albini once said of Chicago that “things like music, art, and other creative pursuits tend to be done as passions and for camaraderie rather than as careers. Careerism brings with it an ugly insincerity and conservatism.” That’s not to say that sincere music doesn’t come from other places, but punk rock from the Midwest (e.g., Hüsker Dü, Jesus Lizard, Albini’s own Big Black, et al.) tends to be very serious. Naked Raygun is no exception.

Naked Raygun

Emerging from Chicago in 1981, Naked Raygun took cues from the art-punk of Gang of Four and Wire, but retained a more confrontational attitude. The core members — singer Jeff Pezzati, bass player Pierre Kezdy, drummer Eric Spicer, and guitarist John Haggerty (future Big Black member Santiago Durango played with them early on and Bill Stephens stepped in to replace Haggerty for the final record) — soldiered through the fickle music industry until 1991, only to return in 2006 to a fan base hungry for their brand of war-torn punk rock. I caught up with Eric Spicer to talk about Naked Raygun past, present, and future.

Roy Christopher: You guys planned to reunite for Chicago’s annual punk festival in 2006, but stayed together afterward. What about the show prompted the reunion and what kept you together after?

Eric Spicer: Yes, we played Riot Fest 2006. I saw the line up for RF 2005 and thought, “Wow, that’s really cool.” I didn’t get to go to either of the shows for whatever reason, but I liked the idea. I got in touch with Mike, the promoter. I asked him if he would be interested in having Naked Raygun play the next year. He got back to me right away and said, “Hell Yes.” I told him that we hadn’t played out in a long time and I wasn’t sure if anyone remembered us. Keep in mind that after our reunion show in 97, I was totally out of the music scene, and since we hadn’t played for such a long time, I expected Naked Raygun to be a lost memory. Mike said not to worry about it! So, I got in touch with Pierre and Bill. It took a while to nail Jeff down. Eventually we got our collective shit together and played RF 2006. We knew that if we were going to play RF 2006, we’d need to practice a lot, so we thought why not play some shows after that? We got along with Mike and eventually asked him to manage us. It’s worked out well. We’ve played a bunch of shows and did a West Coast tour.

We picked up where we left off, as far as the line up goes: Jeff, Pierre, Bill, and me.

RC: What’s keeping John Haggerty from returning to the fold?

ES: I don’t know what’s up with John. I called him a couple of times before the documentary DVD was released. We wanted him to be a part of it, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. He has some deep-seated problems from long ago that primarily have to do with money. I tried to tell him he should get over it, none of us ever made any money playing in this band anyway. He has his issues and won’t return my phone calls.

RC: With the web in full effect these days, how are things different now than they were when you guys split?

ES: Ah yes, The World Wide Web… For the most part, I think it’s very cool. MySpace in particular. I’ve been in touch with people I haven’t heard from in years. And the instant accessibility is amazing, that’s probably the biggest thing. Anyone can just Google your name and contact you with a few mouse clicks. I really haven’t had any bad experiences online. The one difference is that when a band has a show booked, they just put out a bulletin or post flyers on friends pages. I can remember me and Camilo sitting in the back of a Chicago bus with flyers, glue, and a pint of whiskey. We would get hammered and put up flyers. Those were good times.

RC: Is Punk dead?

ES: I imagine you snickering as you wrote this question, Roy. As we all know, “Punk” was a media term attached to a sub-genre of late 70’s and early 80’s music. Music that I love and still listen to today. Is it dead? I don’t think so. There are lots of bands out there that are making some really good music that are influenced by Punk. Rise Against is a great band. They are some of the most ethical and socially conscious guys you’ll meet, as well as good guys and personal friends of mine. Rancid is one of my favorite bands. Tim Armstrong, the singer, wrote and produced songs for Pink. They are actually pretty good songs. Is he any less “Punk”? I guess what I’m thinking is that Punk is more spirit than anything else. There was a bowling alley in Chicago called the Fire Side Bowl that used to let Punk bands play there. Alkaline Trio, Fall Out Boy and Rise Against all played there. They’re all very popular, but if you asked them whom they listened to growing up, it would be a list of Punk bands.

RC: Is there new Naked Raygun material in the works?

ES: I sure hope so. We told each other that we would work on new stuff. It’s hard in the sense that we don’t want to write songs that suck, and anything new that’s released will be held up and compared to everything else we ever wrote. Know what I mean? I’m sure we will have something new out in the not too distant future.

RC: What’s next?

ES: I don’t know. Getting this band together for anything is like herding cats. It’s tough, ya know? We all have jobs, wives, and children. And we’re not twenty-years old anymore. I would love to quit my job like I used to, tour the East coast and then fly over to Europe for a two-month tour. That’s just not possible, it takes a lot of planning and is a complete logistical nightmare. Hopefully we’ll play some shows out East this fall, maybe play Chicago later this year, get back out West soon, and I’ll buy a gun and a longer rope and get the strays into the recording studio.

June 7, 2008

Cadence Weapon: Check the Technique

I am hereby requesting a bandwagon late-pass. Out of nowhere a few months ago, someone sent me the video for “Sharks” by Cadence Weapon (embedded below). Like many who’ve heard the track, I was instantly hooked, and started looking for more. Well, lucky me, Cadence Weapon had just put out a new disc of his glitchy Hip-hop called Afterparty Babies (Anti, 2008). It’s been in or near the top of the playlist ever since.

I’ve been down since thirteen literally, bombing the whole system up, beautifying the scenery. — Big Juss, Company Flow

Before dropping the bubbly beats and fresh rhymes, Cadence Weapon a.k.a. Rollie Pemberton used to write reviews for a major music website, but way before that, his dad was Edmonton, Alberta’s premiere source for Hip-hop. At age thirteen, Rollie knew he wanted to rap, and his starting young is evident in the work: His records — though he’s only been making them for a few years — are those of a veteran. He’s grown up with this ish. It’s in his bloodstream.

Clever and catchy Hip-hop that doesn’t outsmart itself might be more prevalent now than ever, but it still isn’t lurking on every airwave. I’m glad to pass the name Cadence Weapon on to you. He gets respect for the rep when he speaks. Check the technique and see if you can follow it.

Roy Christopher: Tell me about the new record. What’s different this time around?

Cadence Weapon: This record is faster paced, more cohesive and tied to a connecting concept. It’s more personal and drawing from more dancefloor influences than IDM or grime.

RC: Your dad was a Hip-hop pioneer up there in Edmonton. What are your earliest impressions of Hip-hop and music?

CW: I grew up on rap music and culture so I just saw it as normal. Predictably, I was isolated not knowing many other people who were into rap music so it was just something I liked myself. I saw it as an extension of poetry or any other artistic expression, and I still do.

RC: Though Hip-hop as a genre is often innovative and rebellious, it’s also steeped in strict traditions and rules. What’s your take on this contradiction — and negotiating it as an artist?

CW: It’s one of the strangest things about the music. It’s the most open-ended genre in terms of possibilities. You can sample someone walking down the street and rap about your mom’s hat if you wanted to, because there are no constraints in rap, just the ones built by the individual. The regimented nature of rap is a response to its corporate status: People thinking you have to maintain the status quo to retain sales. It’s shitty.

RC: Comedian David Spade once said that acts spend the first part of their career looking for a hook and the rest of it trying to bury that hook. To me, this is analogous to one having a “hit” (e.g., De La Soul’s “Me, Myself, and I,” or more recently, Aesop Rock‘s “No Regrets”) Do you ever resent the attention you got from “Sharks”?

CW: The success of “Sharks” doesn’t bother me. As with any single, it’s seen as representative of who I was at the time of its release. It’s a catchy song, it’s youthful and aggressive and not necessarily who I am right now, but I accept it as a period in my life. I am not trying to get rid of the memory of that song, I feel like there are still layers to it that people haven’t necessarily uncovered.

RC: What’s next for Rollie Pemberton? And for Cadence Weapon?

CW: Next for Rollie Pemberton: making the most of my free time, playing basketball, getting back into party mode, bettering myself.

Next for Cadence Weapon: actually collaborating with people on my next album, writing about death and body image and the other side of the world, starting a band, rapping harder.

———-

Here’s the video that launched the fandom, “Sharks” from Cadence Weapon’s debut record, Breaking Kayfabe (Upper Class, 2005) (runtime :4:22):

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May 7, 2008

Dave Allen: Every Force Evolves a Form

I can’t remember the first time I heard Gang of Four, but I do distinctly remember a lot of things making sense once I did. Their jagged and angular bursts of guitar, funky rhythms, deadpan vocals, and overtly personal-as-political lyrics predated so many other bands I’d been listening to. Dave Allen was the man behind the bass, and now he’s the man behind Pampelmoose, a Portland-based music and media blog. Continue reading “Dave Allen: Every Force Evolves a Form”

April 2, 2008

Jonah Lehrer: The Fourth Culture

In 1959, C. P. Snow lamented a chasm between what he called the Two Cultures: artsy types on one side and stuffy science folks on the other. Well, Jonah Lehrer has been trying to bring them back together. His book Proust was a Neuroscientist (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) makes large strides toward their collusion by showing how the insights of several artists, musicians, writers, and one chef were a step ahead of the science of their time. In spite of Sir Karl Popper’s insistence that “real” science be falsifiable (though even he respected the authority of the artist), art often tells us more about ourselves.

Noam Chomsky once said, “It is possible — overwhelmingly probable, one might guess — that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology.” Examples of the overlap between art and science are not difficult to unearth. World-renowned physicist Richard Feynman was known to draw, Philip K. Dick‘s A Scanner Darkly (for one example from Dick’s vast canon) explores possible effects of a corpus callosotomy, and Lehrer himself reveals many more in his article “The Future of Science is Art” from Seed Magazine, where he is Editor at Large.

Up against Lehrer, with his post at Seed, his oft-updated blog (The Frontal Cortex), and his well-written, well intriguing book, the rift between the two cultures doesn’t stand a chance.

Roy Christopher: How did the people in Proust was a Neuroscientist come together? Was James Joyce too easy an example? How about Philip K. Dick?

$Buy This Book from Powell\'s$ Jonah Lehrer: I’m always a little embarrassed to admit just how idiosyncratic my selection process was for the eight artists in the book. Once I had this idea about artists anticipating the discoveries of modern neuroscience –- and I got that idea when I started reading Proust in a lab — I began to see connections everywhere. I’d mutter about the visual cortex while looking at a Cezanne painting, or think about the somatosensory areas while reading Whitman on the “body electric.” Needless to say, my labmates mocked me mercilessly. But, in general, my selection process could be boiled down to this: I began with my favorite artists and tried to see what they had to say about the mind. The first thing that surprised me was just how much they had to say. Virginia Woolf, for instance, is always going on and on about her brain. “Nerves” has to be one of her favorite words.

Joyce makes a few appearances in the book, but so much ink has already been spilt on Joyce and “consciousness” that I wanted to find something a little more surprising. And Philip K. Dick will definitely appear in the sequel, when I get around to writing it.

RC: In light of all of the parallels between the Two Cultures that you’ve documented, do you think that C. P. Snow’s insight was a fallacy?

JL: Of course, there are real differences between our Two Cultures. Artists speak with metaphors, brushstrokes and plot, while scientists rely on acronyms, experiments and control variables. Sometimes, the languages of art and science can be so different that it’s hard to imagine a consilience ever taking place. But I think that cheap and easy binary distinction is also a little misleading. For starters, artists often rely on experimentation while making art -– they’ll try out different approaches and see what “works” –- while scientists often depend on their imagination.

Finally, I’d add that you don’t have to go very back in time before this cultural distinction disappears. George Eliot, for instance, famously described her novels as a “a set of experiments in life.” Virginia Woolf, before she wrote Mrs. Dalloway, said that in her new novel the “psychology should be done very realistically.” Or look at Coleridge. When the poet was asked why he attended so many lectures on chemistry, he gave a great answer: “To improve my stock of metaphors.” In other words, the poet didn’t believe that art and science needed to be separated.

RC: Snow’s Third Culture has given way to John Brockman’s Third Culture. Do you think the latter will inspire a proper version of the former?

JL: They’re fundamentally different enterprises. I believe that a third culture should ultimately be about re-creating a dialogue between our two cultures, which is what C. P. Snow was referring to. John Brockman, on the other hand, believes that the job of a third culture is to translate science for the masses. (As he puts it, “Science is the only news”.) That’s certainly a worthy endeavor — educating the public about science is really, really important — but it’s not a Third Culture.

RC: Is there a cultural divide between East and West? I ask because it seems to me that Eastern cultures — specifically Japan — are more open to what we would consider noise. Your chapter on Stravinsky got me thinking about this.

JL: That’s an interesting idea. I’m not aware of any research on that subject, but it’s certainly a testable hypothesis. I’d only add that I think neuroscience is really beginning to discover the importance of culture. We’re slowly beginning to learn all of the different ways the inputs of the arts — from “American Idol” to Wagner — can literally shape the brain. In other words, ideas are powerful things.

RC: What are you working on next?

JL: I’m currently hard at work on a book that should be published next year. (I just knocked on wood, in case you couldn’t tell.) The book is still coming together, but it won’t involve Proust, unfortunately.