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TM: Pretty much, we don't really rehea'se.
Right now, I think that if we're going to write
songs it will have to be... basically, we have to
jam for 30 minutes and take the best parts out of
that
We can't write this three-minute pop song. It
would have to be more improvised, it's kind of a
jazz thing where you feel it out right before you
play. Say, let's try something really slow, or really
fast and go from there. We synchronize our units
together too. It really requires a lot of knowing
what's going on because you're supposed to use a
TV. We don't [use one when performing] live, so
we really have to memorize a lot
FP: So, how do you sync the units?
BS: We count it off, real time.
FP: How are people reacting to it so far?
BS: Last night we got our first applause. There
was one group of people—we had a residency at
the Go Bar Monday nights, so we pretty much
practice there and then—who walked in. Or»e guy
came up to me while we were both busy making
the chord shapes, etc and activating arpeggios
and mixing beats and he leans up and he says,
"Hey, are you guys going to play any dance
music?" right as we are playing improvisational
dance music "If you don't play some dance music
in 10 minutes we are going to leave..."
So, in that respect it's just really funny. I kind
of likened it to coming in to a jazz dub and
walking up to a guy who's playing a saxophone
and whining "Hey, are you guys going to play any
swing music? If you don't we're out of here." So
that's been our most urn, negative response.
A lot of people will just come up to us and
look at our hardware and kind of be working out
where the sounds are coming from or what we are
actually doing to produce this music The novelty
is, well... [turns to McManus] Quick, describe the
novelty!
TM: [laughs] You describe it!
BS: Dammit, er, the novelty is... novel It is a
really obscure-ass thing and really lucky for us
that it isn't a 12-tone scale because then we're
back to competing with Beethoven. By that same
token, it's good that the beats are limited,
because then we'd be competing with actual dee-
jays.
So, we have these narrow channels we can go
down and we just want to refine that to a palat
able thing. In a way, the limitations become the
strength and the soul of it Trey was saying earlier
that we'd be the perfect house band for Logan's
Run or I could see us in Rarbarelia. It sounds like
Philip Glass playing...
FP: Dig-Dug?
BS: Yeah.
TM: Nice.
FP: Thats an article title.
BS: Or "What's arp?"; When we are calibrating
the units, we say, "What scale are we going to
dor or "What tempo are we going to do?" "How's
your arp?" The lingo finally boils down to: "Hey,
what's arp?" So if I say, "What's arp?" to you, it is
my dorky way of asking how you are or how many
notes per measure you are going to be [adopts
serious tone] "generating with your unit"
FP: Is anything else booked? You guys played
the Lunch Paper too, right?
BS: We played at tire Lunch Paper for, like,
seven people. But this is the sort of band... well
if I'm playing my bass for seven people, I just feel
like a total failure, want to go home and shoot
myself in the tub so as not to cause blood stains,
but when I'm playing the Atari, it's like, if you're
not here, you're missing out Fuck you.
FP: So, are there any rivalries, with, like, other
bands who use Hintendos?
BS: There's no one locally, but there may be
some out there and if they come to town, we're
going to break their shit
TM: Supposedly there's an 8-bit music society
here that's got tike, two people, and they always
meet on Saturdays when everyone is working. But
it seems tike they would come out to our Monday
shows.
BS: But they don't so fuck them! [laughs]
FP: Obviously making friends is high on the
agenda.
BS: We've asked some friends in actual suc
cessful bands if we could have a crumb of an
opening slot tike 25 minutes, and have basically
been told to get in line. So... fuck them. Not
really. No, we're not worried about it really, but I
would really tike to put this through the 40 Watt's
system.
FP: So outside of "Philip Glass meets Dig-Dug,"
how would you describe the sound?
BS: Well, there's a flurry of notes, but the
melodies within the flurry are moving slowly
enough to be poppy and pleasing, no dissonance,
soothing, almost like audio wallpaper. Retro-futur
istic lounge musk?
FP: Of the performances I have seen, I notice it
seems to be taking on a more melodic tendency..,
more so than the first Go Bar performance I had
seen.
BS: Yeah, we're getting better at that When
we started, it was tike, "Okay, we have to.
approach this thing completely differently." Trey
has a really great pop sensibility and that's all I
have ever done is pop and rock and surf, never
dance music or heavily improvisational music So.
we tried to approach it differently. Three-fingered-
alien musk, let the beats be and so on... let it
breathe, don't over think it Don't make it a key-
boaid or fret board, just let it define its own
terms. So, now we've kind of carved out what the
machines are capable of and we can let the pop
sensibility come in. If we go to a V we're always
going to try to resolve to a I, but not in such a
way to where its tike 'Louie Louie."
Within this year, we'd tike to do a two-stop
New York and Los Angeles tour. What's really great
about this is it's like being in Depeche Mode circa
'82, because you can put your gear in your tiny,
painfully hip-looking suitcase and just get on the
train or whatever... put it in your lap on the air
plane... there's no cymbal stands, none of that
crap. [Robot voke] 'Here's my unit, here's my
module... Initiate sequence." Anyways, we are
eager to get out spread it around the country and
see what we can get away with.
TM: Plus, that's pretty bold for us to try to do
New York and LA. in a weekend, but I think its in
our reach.
FP: Arc the machines problematic at all?
BS: Yeah, we use the old pad controls and we
had some faulty keypad controllers. Anyways, they
had to be liquidated—we had to "pursue and
eliminate irregularities." What else? No other
problems like that but it is hard as hell to find
the adapters you need. We did this hunt all across
town in the rain looking for the right adapter
before one of our shows and then we found one of
the adapters in a run-down house in an insane
man's closet There were two of them at the
bottom of a canvas bag with this collection of
horse syringes. True story. Horse syringes, com
pass, survival kit Atari adapters.
FP: That sounds about right
TM: And half a jar of mayo.
BS: I wish there was a way to do this music
surf-style. Every band I'm in I try to make it surfy.
I think I've made myself unwelcome in a lot of
bands by doing that but I will always believe that
surf musk is God's chosen musk and if there was
an 8-bit way to take it surfy I would, but I can't
TM: You never lived at the beach did you?
BS: No, that's why I had to buy a motorized
surfboard.
FP: Do you really have a motorized surfboard?
BS: Two of them.
Pant Nunn
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