-
neumu
Thursday, March 28, 2024 
-
-
--archival-captured-cinematronic-continuity error-daily report-datastream-depth of field--
-
--drama-44.1 khz-gramophone-inquisitive-needle drops-picture book-twinklepop--
-
Neumu = Art + Music + Words
Search Neumu:  

illustration



edited by michael goldbergcontact


John Vanderslice: Obsessed With Making Music

SAN FRANCISCO — Referring to "Me and My 424," an intense rocker about his teenage protagonist Kevin's obsession with technology and a key cut off his recent album, Life and Death of an American Fourtracker (Barsuk), John Vanderslice laughed and admitted, "Yeah, it's a love song."

"I loved my four-track, I cannot even tell you," Vanderslice said of the tape recorder he used as a teenager to make recordings of his music. "I never had a 424, because 424 was the elite model; it's the most expensive four-track. I had what was called a 422, which was a smaller, much more stripped-down version features-wise. My attachment to that thing, like my attachment to my tape deck now — it's just unlimited love. That thing has given so much back to me."

Millions of rockers are consumed by music, but John Vanderslice, who gets excited and starts talking faster when the subject comes up, takes obsession to extremes. He puts out a thoughtful album every year and tours behind each heavily. He's also the owner of a highly regarded analog recording facility, Tiny Telephone, where such artists as Beulah, the Court and Spark, Mates of State and Red House Painters' leader Mark Kozelek record. And, like Kevin, he's been making tapes since he was a teenager.

With seven experimental smart-pop albums to his credit, first with former band MK Ultra and now as a solo artist, the irrepressible blonde art-rocker sounds something like Hunky Dory-era David Bowie with the lush production artistry of Low. His studio-intensive guitar-pop pulls from a pastiche of influences from the Baroque era to the '60s to the present, from Bach to The Beatles, Brian Eno and Yes to Neutral Milk Hotel and Beulah. His music is easy to like, yet it doesn't sound exactly familiar. It's quirky, socially engaged and intellectually appealing. But most important, it sounds good and satisfies purely on a sonic level.

Vanderslice formed MK Ultra, an underground four-piece, in 1993. They produced four albums and toured twice with Sunny Day Real Estate. After a year recovering from a severe vocal chord injury, Vanderslice left the band to pursue a solo, yet highly collaborative, career. For example, Fourtracker, which was released in May, features guest players from such leading indie bands as Spoon, Mountain Goats, Beulah, Mates of State and Death Cab for Cutie, each of whom wrote their own parts.

He's already returned to the studio, and his next album will feature even more collaborators. So far, Vanderslice has been joined in the studio by former Tarentel member/engineer Scott Solter and Death Cab for Cutie producer Chris Walla. Drummer Christopher McGuire (Kid Dakota) flies in from the Twin Cities to record in July, joined by Bill Rousseau (Monolith) on bass. (Both accompanied Vanderslice on his 24-date May 2002 tour across the U.S.)

Due out fall 2003, his fourth solo release will be a collection of personal songs. "I want it to be about my life," he said over coffee at his favorite bohemian cafe in San Francisco's Mission District, halfway between his home and his Potrero Hill studio, where he nearly blends in with the locals. "Even if it's not autobiographical, I want it to be close enough to where you think it could be."

Vanderslice said he's written two new songs since Fourtracker. "My Family Tree" is "really off-the-hook sad. I don't know why it's so sad, because I love my family."

This is a different kind of album for Vanderslice. "For me, what is disappointing about anything in art is when it's just on autopilot. What you want to be is surprised all the time."

Vanderslice's solo releases could be called concept albums. "You've got to be careful about making a pompous-ass concept record," he said. "The Who pulled off amazing narrative and conceptual records without having that self-seriousness thing. Quadrophenia is one of the greatest records ever made. That's the Holy Grail in pop culture — to have content and not be pretentious. I just wish that a lot of the prog rock that I grew up listening to — King Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant (I have a fondness for these bands) — wasn't so damn pretentious and self-serious. And so for me, if you're going to do a concept record, it just better have some elements of humor and absurdity."

Fourtracker and Vanderslice's previous solo efforts, Mass Suicide Occult Figurines (Barsuk, 2000) and Time Travel Is Lonely (Barsuk, 2001), all have elements of humor and absurdity.

Vanderslice began studying music seriously as a child before getting into home recording. "I could read music better when I was 7 than I can now," he said. "You go through that phase when you hit junior high and start smoking pot and listening to Pink Floyd and you're like, 'Screw any kind of technical or theoretical underpinning of music — it's totally irrelevant.' I'm sorry, but no kid wants to take piano lessons. But it helped, and I still thank my mom for doing that."

A fan of Bach, Vanderslice terms his own musical style "baroque pop." "Bach is so fucking good that the stuff he wrote at 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. for his patron, just to get it off his desk — on deadline just to get the prince off his back — is brilliant. He has, like, 300 cantatas. He's remarkably consistent." Vanderslice uses samples from recordings of Bach's music on Time Travel Is Lonely.

Vanderslice combined his love of the classics with his love of D.I.Y. ("do-it-yourself") musicianship on Fourtracker. "Kevin was this super-prolific, hyper-independent self-releaser of multiple album-length cassettes — three or four a year," he explained. "That's where I was at 17. My goal was to release two cassette-only records a year of original material, and I would burn, like, five copies and I would give one to my brother, one to my mother and a couple to my friends.

"It's funny," he laughed. "In a sense, what any musician is doing, independent or not, is the exact same thing, just on a different scale. Four-tracking is a wonderful subculture that's dying out because analog is dying out. But digital is here, and while it makes me sad on certain levels, there's going to be a continuing if not even more blown-up D.I.Y. aesthetic taking over independent music the next 10 years."

Still, Vanderslice is an advocate of analog recording. "This is something I didn't want to get into because it's pretentious," he confided, "but the very last notes of Fourtracker are this Schumann piano sonata, played on vinyl. I took my turntable down to the studio and played Schumann's sonata, and those are the last notes." — Jillian Steinberger [Monday, June 17, 2002]


Alejandro Escovedo's Joyous Rebirth

John Vanderslice Kicks Genre

Paul Duncan's Elusive Pop

Stephen Yerkey's Wandering Songs

French Kicks Complete 'Two Thousand'

Spazzy Romanticism: Love Story In Blood Red

Brain Surgeons NYC Rock The Big Questions

Jarboe's 'Men' Charts Turbulent Emotions

Delta 5's Edgy Post-Punk Resurrected

Blitzen Trapper Spiff Things Up

Minus Five: Booze, Betrayal, Bibles and Guns

New Compilation Spotlights Forgotten Folk Guitar Heroes

Chris Brokaw's Experiment In Pop

Old And New With Death Vessel

Silver Jews: Salvation And Redemption

Jana Hunter's Beautiful Doom

Vashti Bunyan Finds Her Voice Again

Nick Castro's Turkish Folk Delight

Katrina Hits New Orleans Musicians Hard

Paula Frazer's Eerie Beauty

The National Find Emotional Balance

Death Cab For Cutie's New Album, Tour

Heavy Trash's Rockabilly Rampage

Help The Wrens Get Their Albums Released!

Devendra Banhart, Andy Cabic Launch Label

Lydia Lunch's Noir Seductions

Bosque Brown's The Real Deal

PDX Pop Now! Fest Announces Lineup

Sarah Dougher Starts Women-Focused Label

Jennifer Gentle's Joyful Psyche

Mountain Goat Darnielle Gets Autobiographical With 'Sunset Tree'

Mia Doi Todd's Beautiful Collaboration

Return of the Gang of Four

Martha Wainwright Finds Her Voice

Brian Jonestown Massacre's Acid Joyride

Solo Disc Due From Pixies' Frank Black

Heartless Bastards' Big-Hearted Rock

Mike Watt's Midlife Journey

The Black Swans Balance Old And New

Nicolai Dunger's Swedish Blues

The Insomniacs' Hard-Edged Pop

Yo La Tengo Collection Due

Juana Molina's 'Homemade' Sound

Beans Evolves

Earlimart's Songs Of Loss

Devendra Banhart's 'Mosquito Drawings'

Negativland Rerelease 'Helter Stupid'

Alina Simone Transforms The Ordinary

Sounds From Nature: Laura Veirs

Octet's Fractured Electric Pop

Sleater-Kinney Working With Lips Producer

The Cult Of Silkworm

The Evolution Of The Concretes

Devendra Banhart's Exuberant New Songs

Catching Up With The Incredible String Band

Gram Rabbit's Desert Visions

Three Indie-Rock Stars Unite As Maritime

Remembering Johnny Ramone

Jarboe's Many Voices

Phil Elvrum's Long Hard Winter

First U.S. Release For Vashti Bunyan Album

Incredible String Band To Tour U.S.

New Music From Lydia Lunch

Le Tigre Protest The Bush War Presidency

Joel RL Phelps: Bleak Songs Rock Hard

Time Tripping With Galaxie 500

Patti Smith Wants Bush Out!

Sharron Kraus: A New Kind Of Folk Music

The Fiery Furnaces' Psychedelic Theater

Harder, Heavier Burning Brides

Sonic Youth's Ongoing Experiment

The Dt's Do It Their Way

Poster Children Cover Political Rock

Rare Thelonious Monk Recordings Due

Uneasy Pop From dios

Beck, Lips, Waits Cover Daniel Johnston

Understanding Franz Ferdinand

The Truly Amazing Joanna Newsom

Mylab's Boundary-Crossing Experiments In Sound

Have You Heard Jolie Holland Whistle?

The 'Magical Realism' Of Vetiver

The Restless, Rootsy Songs Of Eszter Balint

The Sun Sets On The Blasters

Devendra Banhart To Tour U.S.

The East/West Fusion Sounds Of Macha

Destroyer Gets Mellow For Your Blues

TV On The Radio Get Political

Sonic Youth, Modest Mouse To Play Lollapalooza 2004

New Music From The Fall

Apocalyptic Sound From The Intelligence

Fast And Rude With The Casual Dots

'Rejoicing' With Devendra Banhart

New Album, Tour From The Polyphonic Spree

Shearwater Take Wing

Sleater-Kinney To Tour East/West Coasts

Resurrecting Rocket From The Tombs

Visqueen Want To Get A Riot Goin' On

Lloyd Cole Makes A Commotion

Funkstörung's 'Cut-Up' Theory

Waiting For Mirah's C'mon Miracle

Electrelane Find Their Voice

The Television Is Still On!

Experimental Sounds From Hannah Marcus

The Ponys Play With Rayguns

Ex-Mono Men Leader Returns With The Dt's

Mountain Goats' Darnielle Adopts A More Hi-Fi Sound

Sun Kil Moon To Tour U.S., Europe

Nothin' But The Truth From The Von Bondies

Sultans Survive 'Shipwreck'

Sebadoh Reunite For Spring Tour

Xiu Xiu's 'Reality' Rock

Meet The Patients

Beth Orton, M. Ward Make Sadness Taste Sweet

Oneida's Pathway To Ecstasy

Radiohead, Pixies, Dizzee Rascal To Play Coachella

Young People Tour Behind War Prayers

Pixies Tour Dates Announced

Ani DiFranco Tells It Like It Is

Deerhoof Back For 2004 With Milkman

McLusky Set To 'Bring On The Big Guitars' Again

Pixies Reunite For U.S., European Tours

American Music Club, Decemberists To Play NoisePop 2004

Damien Rice Set To Tour U.S.

The Frames Accept Your Love

Punk Rock's A-Frames To Re-Record Third Album

Finally! Mission Of Burma Record New Album

A Solo Detour For Ladybug Transistor's Sasha Bell

Return Of The Old 97's

Spending The Night With Damien Rice

Tindersticks Reissues Due This Spring

The Evolution Of 'A Silver Mt. Zion'

Neil Young Rocks Australia With 'Greendale'

Poster Children Back In Action

'The Great Cat Power Disaster Of 2003'

Chicks On Speed's Subversive Strategies

Oranger At A Crossroad

Peaches On Tour And In Control

Jawbreaker's Complete Dear You Sessions To Be Released

Belle & Sebastian + Trevor Horn = Sunny Pop Nirvana

Von Bondies' Pawn Shoppe Heart

Descendents Are Back!

Modest Mouse Touring; Album Due in 2004

London Suede Take A (Permanent?) Break

Saul Williams Wants You To Think For Yourself

The 'Zen' Sound Of Calexico

Elliott Smith Dead AT 34

Debut Due From Mark Kozelek's Sun Kil Moon

The Hunches: Music That'll 'Fucking Live Forever'

Vic Chesnutt Speaks His Mind

90 Day Men Cancel Tour

Keith Jarrett, Cecil Taylor Highlight SF Jazz Festival

For My Morning Jacket, It's The Music That Matters

EP Due From The Polyphonic Spree

Bright Eyes, Neva Dinova Collaborate On EP

The Rise & Fall & Rise Of Ben Lee

Catching Up With Cheerfully Defiant Tricky

Hanging Around With The Polyphonic Spree

Sophomore Album Due From The Shins

Noise Rock From Iceland's Singapore Sling

Death Cab To Tour U.S.

Rufus Wainwright's Want One Is 'Family Affair'

Death Cab's Transatlanticism On The Way

Heartfelt Rock From Sweden's Last Days Of April

The Minus 5 Get Down With Wilco

Tywanna Jo Baskette's Southern-Gothic Rock

Xiu Xiu's Stewart Takes On 'Gay-bashing'

Portishead Producer Resurfaces Behind New Diva

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wire, Primal Scream On Buddyhead Comp

Yeah Yeah Yeahs To Tour West Coast

Sonic Youth, Erase Errata Kick Off 'Buddy Series'

The Locust Are One Scary Band

Damien Rice In The 'Here And Now'

Remembering Karp's Scott Jernigan

ATP-NY Postponed 'Til At Least 2004

The Soul Of Chris Lee

Gits' Frenching The Bully To See Re-Release

Stephen Malkmus Is In Control

Superchunk To Release Rarities Set; Teenage Girls To Swoon As A Result

Summer Touring For The Gossip

Babbling On About Deerhoof

Irish Song Poet Damien Rice's O Released In U.S.

Chatting With ATP's Barry Hogan

Former Digable Planets Frontman Surfaces With Cherrywine

ATP L.A. Festival Rescheduled For Fall

Freakwater's Janet Bean Takes A Solo Turn

Lee's 'Cool Rock'

Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs Highlight YES NEW YORK

Mark Romanek's 'Hurt' Revives Johnny Cash's Career

The Rapture's Post-Punk, Post-Dance Sound

R.E.M., Wilco, Modest Mouse Highlight Bumbershoot Fest

Set Fires To Flames' Sleep-Deprivation Sound

Southern Gothic Past Shadows Verbena's La Musica Negra

The Subtle Evolution Of Yo La Tengo

Spring Tour For Jolie Holland (Plus A Live Album)

Liz Phair Still Pushing The Limits

Gold Chains Wants You To Dance And Think

Young People's War Prayers On The Way



peruse archival
 



-
-snippetcontactsnippetcontributorssnippetvisionsnippethelpsnippetcopyrightsnippetlegalsnippetterms of usesnippetThis site is Copyright © 2003 Insider One LLC
-