Record stores, collecting records, WFMU, selling out, underground culture from the 1980s and ’90s, the value of a creative life, indie cred, and unfinished projects—these are things we understand, don’t we, dear reader. I first met Chris Wilcha when I was an editor at SPIN magazine and he was an intern, and he interviewed me about chickfactor as if he were already a documentary filmmaker. After getting a job in the “alternative rock” copywriting team at the Columbia House Record & Tape Club (where you could get, like, 10 vinyl LPs for a penny) in the grunge era, Chris brought his camcorder to work and documented his experience struggling with working for The Man; the result was his first documentary, the acclaimed The Target Shoots First (2000). After piloting a TV show for This American Life (2007), he became a family man and commercial director, though he remained a doc maker in his brain. He also worked on projects with Judd Apatow, Coen brothers and Tig Notaro. His new film, Flipside (2023), chronicles not just his formative years working in a Jersey record store, but how music and possessions influence our identities, moving on and letting go, and how it’s a shame most of us are doing creative work as a labor of love (and are often exhausted by our paid work). We caught up recently and had a chat and here it is. Images courtesy of Chris Wilcha and Tracy Wilson
Flipside will be in theaters in NY starting May 31 and Los Angeles starting June 7 and streaming soon thereafter
Flipside image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
chickfactor: When did you intern at SPIN (you were known as SPINterns)? What was your impression of the magazine? The other interns? What exactly did you do while there? Chris Wilcha: I was a SPIN-tern in late 1992, early 1993. I have this distinct memory of walking back to my apartment on 13th street after an afternoon working at SPIN and the first World Trade Center bombing had happened earlier in the day. So yeah, that was February 1993. I had been such a loyal and avid reader of the magazine before interning there. At first it was kind of thrilling to meet all of these people whose bylines I’d been reading but then it all gets demystified pretty quickly. You kind of realize that they are all varying degrees of miserable or at least annoyed by your presence. It was so useful to see the day-to-day grind of working at a magazine, to see how it gets put together every month. You were very nice to me. And you seemed incredibly meticulous and skillful at your job.
What did you learn from working at SPIN? Anything valuable?
It was a pretty classic internship experience, a lot of menial tasks. I remember getting Bob Guccione Jr. shots of espresso before meetings. There was one great perk. I was allowed to pitch ideas and write something for the magazine. And a couple of things I wrote ended up in the magazine. One was a short piece about frizzy haired public television painter Bob Ross. A reappraisal of his brilliance. He was still alive then. I was very early on the Bob Ross pop culture appreciation trend. But I definitely used that clip to get other writing work. Years later, in 1999, SPIN did a piece on my first documentary, The Target Shoots First, and that was truly thrilling.
Chris Wilcha, courtesy of Chris
Let’s talk about your early days in New Jersey. How did you find out about music? What was your first concert? I was playing in classic rock bands in high school and learning guitar. The first concert: My dad took me and my friends to see Van Halen at Madison Square Garden in 1984 for my 13th birthday. I was definitely guitar shred culture obsessed. My mom wanted me to read, so she got me magazine subscriptions to Guitar Player and Musician, Circus, SPIN, Creem, Rolling Stone. I still have them all. Musician had a column where artists would explain their gear in great detail. The Replacements were having a mainstream moment and they did the gear sidebar, but they totally mocked it. They were like, “Tommy plays a red guitar, Paul plays the blue guitar.” It was like a fuck-you to the whole gear-obsessive nerd thing. This was all pre-internet so I was obsessed with information and knowing things about music and bands gave you a certain currency.
My older sister had some boyfriends who were in the know, they were going into the city, seeing shows, and they clued me in to college radio stations like WFMU and WRPR. And that was when I started listening to hardcore bands, college rock and what eventually became known as alternative music. That was the golden age of college radio. I remember being totally mystified by what I was hearing. One time the Butthole Surfers song “Moving to Florida” came on and I just had no context for what the fuck I was hearing. These albums seemed so transgressive and fucked up and my very young 13-14-year-old brain was trying to process what this stuff was. I was getting it as this big stew though, so it was hard sometimes to know what was corny and what was interesting.
What was your sister listening to? She was very college rock. R.E.M. and Talking Heads. Tracy Chapman. She took me to see a midnight screening of Stop Making Sense in the city. A friend’s older brother took us to see Bad Brains and that was genuinely kind of astounding.
That sounds like 1985-86-ish? Absolutely. I was recording things off the radio and sometimes I didn’t even know what I was listening to for years.
When you were listening to something back then, it felt like, “I may never hear this again and I’m going to be so sad about it. I may never even know who it is.” So where did you hang out? Did you grow up in the Flipside town?
I grew up one town over in Franklin Lakes and the record store was in Pompton Lakes. I couldn’t drive, so my parents or my sister would have to drive me. Eventually I drove, and I remember listening to records always back and forth. My dad had a company car, a perk of corporate culture, a 98 Oldsmobile. This was the mid ’80s. I would drive his 98 Oldsmobile to my job at the record store. There was a Public Enemy song on their first album called “You’re Gonna Get Yours,” which was about how they were fetishizing 98 Oldsmobiles. I remember playing that song in my dad’s car as I was driving his 98 Oldsmobile. That just seemed so funny to me at the time.
I would sneak into the city a lot. I wasn’t totally embedded in the social universe of my high school, but when I got into a band, I had this double life where we would go play in other towns and Battle of the Bands or parties. I was meeting all these people in this weird northern New Jersey circuit of schools that never would have had any exposure to. Playing in bands felt like this weird passport to all these other experiences. We were just a terrible cover band, but it was super-fun.
Image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
Back then you could go anywhere as a kid in NYC, nobody cared, pre-Giuliani. Anywhere. CBs, CBs Gallery. We did some really dumb shit. I had some metalhead friends and one night we went to see Celtic Frost [laughs] and everyone drank too much and the kid who was the designated driver was totally wasted. So somebody else drove us home who was like probably 15, super-dodgy—dumb high school, no frontal lobe decision-making type of stuff. I truly was obsessed with music. If I wasn’t playing in bands, we’d go into the city, to Tower. Bootlegs were this mysterious oddity that you could get on St Marks. Hip-hop was this new nascent thing. I was obsessively consuming stuff about music. That’s why the record store job that eventually happened in high school was the dream. I had done shitty jobs before that: caddy at a golf course, mowed lawns, all the classic suburban shit. But the record store job was the first time where I was like, Oh, I don’t even notice the time passing. This is just pure pleasure. It was also like a social hub. You would go there to talk about records and new releases and people would just hang out for hours at the record store.
Flipside image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
Is Flipside Records still open? What was it like then versus now? It is. Back then it was new releases of every kind. A person would come in and they’d want something that was on the radio that day in cassette form. Or a kid would come in and he’d want some metal thing he’d read about. The inventory was totally new, it was constantly turning over. They also had cutouts—I’ve since read that there was a sketchy market for them that had some kind of mob-related thing where sometimes and there’d be a saw mark in the cover of the vinyl, there would be a gouge in it. The owner, Dan, always had some line on cutouts where it was like $3.99 for these things. He also had bootlegs and he sold VHS. He would run dubs of like weird art movies or horror movies. A mom would come in looking for a Tiffany cassette.
There were these odd little footnotey New Jersey microcelebrities who would come to the store. The Feelies were a big specter to me, like wow, the Feelies, and one of Dan’s close friends is Dave Weckerman, who’s in the Feelies. I remember seeing the movie Something Wild and there’s the Feelies and Dave is playing in the band in the Jonathan Demme movie and then he would come into the record store. He was like a celebrity to me. Various other characters: This guy named Bobby Steele was a grungy New Jersey hardcore guy who played in The Undead who would come by and drop off stickers and zines and cassettes; Uncle Floyd, this cable access character in the tristate area, would shop there because he’s a record-collecting obsessive who had various radio shows.
Flipside image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
There was a whole universe in the store and the town that was just very formative and made a big impression. There was also this micro regional celebrity that would come along with it, which is you were known as the person who worked at the register, and Tracy (Wilson), who succeeded me, ended up really embracing that role. Dan saw that she knew her stuff and he let her and some of her coworkers buy for the store. Her taste was so sophisticated, and she knew bands and a whole market that Dan didn’t understand at that point, and he saw the wisdom in handing it off to Tracy.
Tell us a funny story about something that happened there. A friend of Dan’s would come into the store, Rick Sullivan. He was a bit of a New Jersey character who did a zine called the Gore Gazette and his obsession was horror and B movies. His expertise and knowledge were fairly astonishing. These guys drank like fucking fish. They’d come in sometimes on Fridays and hang out and start drinking at around 3:00 p.m. and let me drink with them. One time I was in the store completely alone. This woman comes in and starts asking me about a record, and then she gets weird on me and a little flirty and I’m confused because this is an older woman and I’m 15, 16 years old. Eventually she overtly propositions me and my jaw’s on the floor … I don’t even have the language because we left the realm of the normal. This is like Weird Science. And of course, Rick comes in a minute later and he’s like “AH HA HA.” He had put this woman up to completely fuck with my mind. I was so paralyzed with high school awkwardness and utter embarrassment.
Chris Wilcha looking at his stuff at his parents’ house
The film explores how our possessions and musical taste affect our identity and the idea of hoarding versus collecting. The entire experience of making the documentary helped me figure out what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to leave behind at this midlife moment. That meant both going into the closet and interrogating these things and saying, “does this retain some meaning”? I would often acquire things thinking, I’ll make something of this at some later date. I’d go to a garage sale and say, I need this person’s entire collection of slides because I am going to make something out of it, a short film, sort of object or sculpture. There was this weird hoarding mentality.
And it could be the next Vivian Maier, you never know! Totally. I was also thinking about ideas that you’ve carried with you for a long time that it’s time to let go of. There was also the Gen X obsession of the ’90s was this whole idea of selling out and that was something I thought about, these nuances of who was or wasn’t selling out.
Chris in SPIN magazine, 1999.
We couldn’t escape conversations about selling out in the ’90s. Nowadays no one would accuse you of that because musicians can barely afford to live. It’s so brutal. I saw Dan Zanes play and we were remembering when the Del Fuegos did a beer commercial and there was backlash that hindered their rise, which seems insane now. But I mean, I love stuff. I loved garage sale-ing and thrifting and acquiring and saving. There was always some renewed awe when I would rediscover the things. I also moved a lot, but I had this home base of my parents’ house [for my stuff]. They never did anything rash like throw it out; they knew it was significant and important. And as you see in the movie, my dad also has some of these same acquiring, keeping tendencies.
I never got any pleasure out of selling stuff. It was always the acquiring … it was like going to the museum. It was this other form of culture consuming. But then I had a family and we moved into a house where, if you brought something into it, you had to get something out of it. I have a storage space right now. I’ll go there and see a signed Duplex Planet book and I still feel this insane, intense connection to it. It’s tragic but somehow I feel this ridiculous pull to keep the artifacts I bought at the NYU bookstore. Digital photography has been helpful—I can see something and photograph it and that’s enough. I’ll be in the thrift store or at the garage sale, I’ll take a picture and I don’t need to own it.
Image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
Had you thought about being a filmmaker before you worked at Columbia House? I went to NYU as an undergrad, but I was not a filmmaker. I had film major roommates, people who were in Tisch but I was a philosophy major. This moment came where I became obsessed with documentaries of every kind. I was going to Film Forum runs of like Frederick Wiseman films and the Maysles, but then also discovering artists like Sadie Benning and filmmaker Jem Cohen. I was devouring every form of nonfiction. In the early 90s, it seemed like a totally underexplored form. My parents gave me a Hi8 Sony video camera when I graduated from college, but said I was on my own if I wanted to live in New York City, that was when I got the job at Columbia House. I was still music obsessed. This was also a time and again but that was when you could live on the island of Manhattan in a bohemian way. You could pay 300 bucks live with a few roommates.
I thought, I am going to document [the job] and tell the story of it. It took me a minute to realize, Oh, there’s something happening here about my generation, which is I am being entrusted by this company to help them market to my generation because they can’t get the voice of it right. That was a big thing at the time. They so wanted the voice of the target demographic to help them sell it back to their own generation. So that was a sort of phenomena of that moment. At a certain point, midway through filming, I was like there’s something going on here way more interesting than documenting this institution. I was having this very coming of age post college experience in corporate America and it very much felt like The Office before The Office. The absurdity of work culture and the 17th floor versus the 19th floor and the suits and the creatives that was at play. It felt very screenplay worthy at the time.
Chris Wilcha in NYC, 2000 / Photo: Gail O’Hara
Tell us some secrets about Ira Glass. [This American Life] was a dream job. When I heard that show was even trying to become a TV show, I was like, OMG, how do I get considered to direct this? I got the job but the job was just to do a test tape. I knew that this was sort of like a once in a lifetime experience, so I killed myself and we made an entire pilot episode with almost no money and basically it ended up being the pilot episode that eventually aired. I knew that if we didn’t blow the Showtime executives away, they weren’t going to greenlight the series. So I worked for 6 or 8 months for nothing, but I knew this was one of those chances you had to just take.
I got to see how they worked, I got to sit in on their story meetings, I took notes on how they constructed stories and did their research. I was voracious in wanting to learn and understand how they did things because I was so in awe of this magical product that they made. I learned that they were relentless. Ira would burrow into every single story that he was working on himself, or help somebody else shape or sculpt, or work with a writer to extract their voice. Their work ethic was breathtaking: These people worked so, so, so, so hard and obsessively. I’m still living off the fumes of that experience creatively, personally, it was incredible. As a professional experience, I’ve never had that replicated, where you were doing something where the network did not give you a single note, didn’t bother you. [The network] loved what was being created.
Flipside Records owner Dan / Image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
Has the Flipside guy seen this movie? Yes, Dan [Flipside’s owner] has seen my documentary. I had to send him a DVD because he is so anti-internet and has no online access. He does not have a smartphone, so we had to figure out a way to burn a DVD of it, which nobody in my immediate orbit had done in 10 years. So it took a fair amount of effort to get him to see it. I invited him to a screening in New York and it was on a Sunday. I called him and he said “Nope, we’re open today so I can’t go.” I was like, “fuck, dude, come on, just come to the city.”
Dan considers himself more of an archivist. Flipside is more of a museum. You don’t go there to find something you want. You go there to have your mind blown by like digging and pulling things out and being like, Oh my God, this sound effects record from 1972. It’s like this confetti pile of all this detritus from the 20th century that’s collected there, so the experience of shopping there is so special, but it is kind of gnarly, you get filthy, it’s cold in there. A certain kind of person who goes in there and is ready to dig and move things and make a mess. When you go to Station One, it’s air-conditioned, you can pay with your credit card or Apple Pay. It’s a totally different experience. There are fewer and fewer people who have the patience or energy to spend three hours rooting around looking for stuff in Flipside).
Flipside image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
Have your parents seen Flipside? Yeah, they came to the Toronto screening, I think they were momentarily terrified, but they got so much love after from everyone who was there and we went out for a big dinner after and they so enjoyed how people responded to them that it forgave some of their self-consciousness around what’s actually in it. My dad doesn’t love the soap stealing scene and my mom was complaining about how she looked and felt like she was too harsh toward Judd Apatow, even though that’s really how she felt. But I think now they are enjoying the experience of being included in it and they see it for what it is, which a bit of a love letter to them in it.
What skills did you get from (working at) Flipside that you still use today?
Looking back, it was so absurdly fun working there. Talking with like-minded people all day about bands and records. Obsessively reading zines and consuming any information I could about music. This isn’t really a skill but it was my first experience having a job that I was good at and felt effortless. I never noticed the time passing. I didn’t realize how much I was learning and absorbing … about how to run a small business, how to interact with people. I loved being there. I would often leave at the end of a work day with an armful of new records instead of my actual paycheck. It suggested that you could get a job doing something you loved. Which was a modest epiphany at the time! CF
Flipside will be in theaters in NY starting May 31 and Los Angeles starting June 7 and streaming soon thereafter
Tracy Wilson at FlipsideFlipside image courtesy of Chris WilchaIra Glass, Chris Wilcha and Judd Apatow at DocNYC, Photo by Colleen SturtevantFlier from Chris’ high school radio show / image courtesy of Chris WilchaFlipside image courtesy of Chris Wilcha
chickfactor: Tell us a bit about your background: Where did you grow up? Was your family into music? What were you like as a kid? A teen? Rebecca Odes: I grew up in West Orange, New Jersey. I share an alma mater with Tony and Carmela Soprano. I was a dozen years later, but the vibe tracks. It was a sports and big hair situation. I was generally considered a weirdo, sensitive and not very socially adept. I wrote poems and made art and installations with my dolls.
My father was an incredible pianist—the lore was he could have gone to Juilliard but had to take over the family electrical supply business. I was not good at practicing, but I made up songs and conceptual rock bands. When I was 12 I went to an art camp, where I discovered most artists were weirdos. It saved me. The counselors were all the coolest people I had ever met. This may still be true. The theater director was Ondine from the Factory, though he used his real name there, and I didn’t discover this until I looked him up 20 years later. He wrote a musical version of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe with James Irsay, a cult classical WBAI DJ. I was Susan, and sang the song they wrote for me on the roof of a building—kind of my first public performance. The art counselor was Michael Stipe’s roommate. She did my hair and makeup for a B-52s airband, which is how I learned I liked this particular way of being on stage. I learned to play bass there, the summer after my freshman year, when I was a counselor. My boyfriend was the guitar teacher; he got the camp to rent a bass which was ostensibly for the campers, but I’d take it back to my bunk every day and play along to ’60s pop songs. We formed a conceptual band called I AM A BUNNY. It was me playing the riff to “Li’l Bit o’ Soul,” a noise box, and my friend Max shrieking the lyrics to the Richard Scarry book. We played once.
How did Love Child come together and how long did it last? A couple of months later, fall 1987, we were all back at Vassar for Sophomore year. I had seen Alan and Will around but hadn’t met them. Some mutual friends said they were starting a band and looking for a bass player. We got together to play and they decided I was a better bet than the guy they had been playing with. I had only been playing for six weeks, so it was a steep learning curve. We started playing at school fairly soon after that (see photo of our first show below) We were a band for the next fiveish years—until 1993, though there were two incarnations. Love Child was Will Baum’s brainchild—he had come up with the name and most of the songs played at the beginning. There was a lot of instrument-switching in that lineup; Alan would play drums on Will’s songs and they’d switch when Alan sang. Alan and I slowly started filling our songs around the edges, and then that coalesced into something that didn’t fit quite as well with what Will was doing. Will went away for a semester. Brendan O’Malley filled in while he was gone, and by the time he came back we had gelled into something different.
Love Child, first show, Vassar College. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Odes
Any memorable stories about live shows, recording or touring? We did a European tour with Codeine, which included what seemed like every single town in Germany and a few other places. I had a somewhat contrarian impulse to put Jaegermeister on our rider (I’d heard the Euro version had some kind of magical powers). This always struck people as gross because of its frat boy rep, but I realize now I was just an early Amaro adopter. Also maybe subconsciously trying to treat my nervous stomach? When we were first playing, I used to swig so much Pepto Bismol at shows, I kept a bottle on my amp.
Got any tour horror stories? Once we played in Denver during a snowstorm. Someone came in and said a woman had been hit by a car outside. We never found out if she was okay. This kicked up some childhood car trauma which manifested in an unhealthy unlucky association with the lipstick I was wearing (MAC Viva Glam III), which, while not at all as sad as being hit by a car, is a little sad, because it’s a really good color.
What was the independent music scene like in NYC in the Love Child era? I used to imagine the early ’90s NYC indie scene as a land of two kingdoms: Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo. This was a made-up thing, obviously—those were not at all two sides, and they overlap in lots of ways. But it felt like there were two energies, warm and friendly, and cool and gritty. We were sort of straddling that, or maybe in many places at once, because we had so many different songs and sounds.
The scene was generally friendly and supportive all around—I don’t remember any real competitive energy. Inside CBs was the music, but the party was on the street. It definitely felt like a community, and there was a sense that we were sharing something not everyone got. I feel lucky to have been a part of it.
Love Child by Michael Galinsky
What was Love Child’s dynamic like? Fraught, but fun. We got along pretty well personally; our sensibilities and senses of humor are very aligned. We were all into the same art, movies, obscure whatevers. There was a kind of built-in tension to having three different songwriters and styles. In the beginning, Alan and Will had a lot of knowledge and skills I didn’t have. I was learning on the fly—they were teaching me, really, with varying degrees of tolerance. Will had very strong ideas about how he wanted things to be. He was always trying to improve me, which I appreciated in theory but found annoyingly controlling in practice. He once insisted I learn the bass part of every song on Are You Experienced? in one afternoon, which may have stretched the boundaries of consent as well as the reach of my fret hand. I wrote “Willpower” as a sort of bratty reaction to that feeling. Alan was less bossy but sometimes more intimidating. It took me a long time to feel really confident in the shadow of his expertise. I had the feeling that my contribution was somehow less valid because it was less about musicianship. And there was definitely some weirdness about me being The Girl and the attention this brought.
By the second album, I was much more self-assured as a player and songwriter. But then there was a new problem: I got tinnitus. Noise was a really integral part of Alan’s guitar sound. We played loud, long noisy jams. I definitely clocked some hours on the floor with my ears close to the amp. I love noise, and have a real visceral craving for it, still. But my ears have always been sensitive, so I guess I should not have been surprised they were sensitive to damage. Volume became the subject of many fights (I remember one soundcheck in Rotterdam that got particularly ugly). This was a real factor in the band’s breakup. I think I was experiencing a kind of grief about the permanence of the injury, and it felt like the noise level had done the damage. But it was hard to imagine how this band could exist without it.
If you had a theme song, what would it be? I feel like too many things to identify with one song, but I’ll go with “A Plan, Revised” by The Trypes.
Love Child. Photo: Michael Galinsky
What kind of bands did you play with then? What were you inspired by/listening to? We played a lot with NYC bands: Yo La Tengo, Dust Devils, and Homestead bands like The Mad Scene and Truman’s Water. We often did shows with Antietam and Sleepyhead as we were buddies. We also played with Galaxie 500, Pavement, Sonic Youth and The Feelies in various capacities (recall being bummed that The Feelies were not at all as friendly as their music).
We were definitely nursing a Velvet Underground fixation, as well as early Modern Lovers, and drony noisy stuff like Stooges and Spacemen 3. I am also drawn to minimalist music, maybe for therapeutic reasons. But I have always loved a good sing-song situation. I listened to a lot of Shangri-Las, and then some of the bands that took some of that sound/vibe and ran with it. Young Marble Giants were a huge favorite. We were going to record a song for the YMG tribute in the early ’90s, but that fell apart for some reason.
Did you experience a lot of sexism or misogyny back then? Nasty soundmen? Stories please. I’ve been hung up for a long time on how to answer this question. I had some profoundly disturbing experiences during this time. Yeah, there were nasty soundmen, though to be honest, mixing a loud band with a not-so-loud voice is a recipe for frustration on all sides.
The more meaningful stuff was elsewhere in the scene. There was a kind of reverence for transgression and a lack of boundaries around substances and sexuality, which felt cool and empowering…until it didn’t. I was very trusting and game. I accepted that being willing to be packaged sexually was part of “the business,” that being packaged sexually came with being perceived sexually, and that it was up to me to figure out how to manage the results of this perception. I understood this as part of being transgressive, which I was very interested in, in theory. In practice, this did not always work out well for me.
German flyer (photo: Michael Galinsky)
We had some major label interest for a second. The guy took us out to a fancy dinner, and asked us if we were “willing to do what it takes.” I thought about that whenever something happened that felt wrong. There was a very explicit Lolita thing happening in Europe (see clip below.) This was very confusing to me—I mean, Christiane F was a cool movie, but being identified with a 12-year-old girl who turned to sex work to support her heroin addiction felt super gross. There was also press playing on this teen thing, a lot of it entirely made up (even the supposed direct quotes). There were some pretty terrible interactions with men around this, on many levels.
If I were doing it again, I would have approached some things differently. I think it helps to keep some distance when you’re putting yourself out there. I was not doing that, and it made me really vulnerable. I wish I could say I would be more confident and push back when things felt weird. But while I was not at all a teenager, I was still young enough to think these people knew better—there was a part of me that believed this was how it all worked.
Tell us about the new collection: What’s on it? How did it come together? Never Meant To Be is a double album anthology. It’s a lot of the stuff we’re proudest of, all of which hasn’t been officially available online, and some of which has never been available anywhere. There are two songs from our Peel Session, which was never released—“Greedy,” which was the last song we wrote together, and a version of “Asking For It,” the first song I ever wrote (as a too-late act of self-defense against harassment, street and otherwise). Also “Erotomania,” which was on a Spanish compilation 7-inch called THIS IS ART (Love Child, Yo La Tengo, Cell, Vineland), and some stuff from live radio shows, as well as our picks from our various releases. We’ve been talking about doing this for a while, and were really happy when Gerard wanted to put it out.
What other bands/projects have you been in then and now? After Love Child broke up, I started a band called Odes. I was excited about the idea of liberating my songs from the tyranny of two-minute guitar solos. I also wanted to play with some people who weren’t guys. Brendan had a friend named Ari Vena who played guitar. Jesse Hartman played bass at first (I had played bass in his band, Sammy, briefly). When he left, Ari suggested her friend John Gold. John had played in 9-Iron, Will Baum’s post-Love Child band. We put out a single and an EP on Merge.
I took a long break from music while breeding, etc. The idea of getting on stage and singing to people seemed absurd to me. Then it came roaring back in a new form—I didn’t want to be on stage or communicate anything—I just wanted to be near the noise. Ma’am was formed in 2010, with Charlie Gansa from Guv’ner, and Lyle Hysen, who had produced the second Love Child album (and played in Das Damen, among other bands). The name was kind of a perfect intersection of all our prior bands, post-child, female, apostrophe. We played together for a few years and actually recorded a handful of songs—a few are up on Soundcloud. I really loved that project—I was sad when it got waylaid by grown-up stuff.
Are you doing music now? During the pandemic I re-upped my love of drone music and put together a long-distance noise collaboration with Alan, Gretchen Gonzales, and the guys from Wolf Eyes. Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive) produced it and it turned into Threshing Floor—I also made a video piece to accompany the release.
Back Pages (mixed media on silk, wood and canvas) Photo courtesy of Rebecca Odes
I know you are a visual artist as well; have you done that your whole life? It’s taken me a while to realize what I really am is a multidisciplinary (sometimes interdisciplinary) artist. For a long time I saw different media as evidence that I was unfocused. And having many ways of working can definitely affect momentum, which can be frustrating. But I have come to see that this is just how my brain works. There are thematic threads that weave through and across the projects and media. My web projects, like gurl.com and wifey.tv, were coming from the same place that inspired the songs I wrote for Love Child, just approaching from a different angle in a different format. My paintings are exploring a lot of the same stuff as well, just visually.
What else are you up to these days? Jobs, kids, pets, hobbies? Since co-founding gurl.com in the ’90s, I’ve been working on various media projects—From the Hips!, a pregnancy/birth/parenting book, Wifey.TV (with Joey Soloway pre-Transparent) and CherryPicks, which is still going strong, though I’m not in it day-to-day at this point. I have some other book projects brewing, and am also really trying to return to making art as much as I can. I am really painting again for the first time in many years, and doing new kinds of work as well: constructions that meld different media—painting, video, sculpture, light. Feeling really liberated about the possibilities of combination vs. choice. Also, rediscovering knitting, which makes me so much more tolerant of things I might otherwise find annoying or boring.
Are your kids into music? What do they like? I was always told that kids rebel against their parents’ tastes, so I was prepared for that. But it hasn’t happened (yet?). My kids are about the same age I was when I was in Love Child, so we’re probably past the rebellion phase. From the beginning they’ve been pretty aligned. When they were little, we lived near Other Music, and I let them each choose an album there before it closed. My daughter got Revolution Girl Style Now. My son got Pink Moon. He plays Thurston Moore and Yo La Tengo on his college radio show. They both love Horsegirl. My daughter is into early Girlpool, Adrienne Lenker (and Taylor Swift, obviously). They both play guitar and write songs too, though haven’t done much of it in public since their own art camp experiences.
Love Child by Michael Galinsky
What are you watching, reading, listening to? I don’t watch a lot of TV, mostly because I don’t think of it until I’m already too tired to get into anything.
I just saw Problemista, which I loved, and finally watched Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, which really got under my skin. I loved how she got at both the boring and shitty parts of being an artist (and a person) and the beauty and drive that compels.
I am trying really hard to get back into reading books, though I have a much easier time listening to them lately.
I just happened upon Brother of the More Famous Jack, a very fun ’80s coming of age book which was apparently well-loved in the UK but was only recently released in the US, thanks to Maria Semple, who found it in a bin somewhere. Tip: don’t read her intro. For some inexplicable (IMO inexcusable) reason, she gives away the plot.
I also love Dora: A Headcase, Lidia Yuknavitch’s punk feminist reframe of Freud’s case study. It is twisted, but incredibly compelling.
Music-wise, I’ve been leaning into my repressed dance impulses—I’m a little obsessed with Dembow. I have been doing this thing called Dance Walk, where we walk the loop in Prospect Park on weekend mornings, each listening to our own playlists on headphones. It’s kind of a crazy experience, being in your own sound world while everyone gawks at the parade of weirdos. It’s a real challenge to the impulse to feel cool and avoid being seen as a dork. But by the end of my first Ioop I was wondering why it’s so normal for everyone to work out by running in the same straight line.
Love Child by Michael Macioce
How do you find out about music these days? I admit I’ve learned about a lot of cool shit from the algorithms. But I still prefer human curators. I am fortunate to have a partner who is a voracious music seeker, which inspires me to always go looking for new things to share. Many of my friends and people I am in touch with online are effusive about their musical findings. I’m part of a facebook group called “Now Playing” where people post LPs they’re spinning, and it’s a gold mine. Mikael Jorgensen runs a cool listening club in Ojai where people play songs they love, and everyone sits and listens like it’s church. I have definitely found some new favorites there.
Where are you living? How has NYC changed over the years? I’m mostly in Brooklyn, and sometimes in Ojai, CA. I have been in Brooklyn for about three years. I was in various parts of downtown Manhattan before that, and after growing up dreaming of living in the center of everything, I was very hesitant to leave. But now I feel like an idiot. I like Brooklyn so much better! New York is always changing. The cost of living is insane. It does feel like the creative energy is being pushed out, or into small pockets. But it also feels like there is some fun, loose, cool stuff happening. I don’t know if this is new or reborn, or if I just wasn’t paying enough attention before. But things like the Every Woman Biennial, which I have a piece in right now, give me hope for the continuing mulch of the city for art and creative growth.
The ecosystem in terms of making money (if not a living) from music has changed; I remember seeing Love Child at the Terrace Club at Princeton, and those gigs paid pretty well. What can fans do to make sure bands get paid better? How would you change the system? The whole system is pretty flummoxing to me at this point. I do not know why this world rewards the things it does and ignores so much of what is fundamental to human okayness. I do not know how we change this in a world that seems only interested in siphoning dollars to the top. I think the Living Wage for Musicians Act is a good start. Ideally I would like to see UBI for artists (and others). Art—of all kinds—is not bonus content to human existence. It is a necessity that is becoming increasingly hard to make. If I were changing the system, I would also do something about the fact that being an artist at this point is 10% inspiration and 90% social media promotion. Obviously, it has ever been thus—the thing itself a relatively small portion of the work. But I don’t know if there’s ever been a time when artists have been asked to continually produce public-facing material apart from their actual work. My public-facing brain is very separate from my creating brain, and I find switching back and forth to be really distracting and not very creatively constructive. I would love to see artists have more time to make art, period.
Love Child. Photo: Michael Galinsky
The folding of media outlets like Pitchfork (well, kind of) mean that there are even fewer gatekeepers controlling what music gets attention. What music do you adore that has been ignored by gatekeepers? I’ve mostly been ignoring the gatekeepers. Is that how people find out about things now? I am not sure my kids have ever read a music magazine. I think they find everything on streaming or social. The stuff I love has always been sort of marginal- though obviously so much of what was marginal isn’t anymore. I’ve been listening to a lot of Zamrock and Krautrock, and Krautrock-adjacent stuff, like Slapp Happy. I would love to see The Shams (Sue Garner, Amy Rigby, Amanda Uprichard) back on the map. I can still sing those songs by heart even though I haven’t heard them since my cassette went missing in the ’90s.
Let’s talk about ageism. Some people are shocked that Kim Gordon could be 70 and also cool and modern, but there are loads of older people doing creative things (Yoko Ono, Bridget St John, ESG, etc.) Why is there an assumption that people stop doing things as they age? How have you experienced ageism, if you have? How can we as a culture stop allowing it to be normalized? This is something I’ve been writing about and working through over the past few years. Ageism is pretty ubiquitous. People don’t even feel like it’s something they need to feel bad about.
This is a generalization, but it’s often the way it goes: Women spend half their youth navigating sexual attention or worrying they’re not good enough to earn it, then spend half their adult lives taking care of people. When they finally have time and confidence, people say they’re past their prime. It’s just another tool to try to get them out of the way.
On a larger scale, I don’t think there’s a lot of incentive to stop seeing older women as useless. Centering women’s power on sex and reproduction serves a lot of purposes. It keeps them busy and makes them buy things. To decide to value women outside of this swath would require knocking the whole thing down, recognizing power that’s lived instead of bought and worn like a mask. I am not super hopeful about dismantling the locked arms of patriarchy and capitalism anytime soon (though hey, there’s always the apocalypse) so it’s on us to redefine the way we see ourselves. Maybe this will lead to people seeing us differently. Maybe it won’t. Either way, it’s the best shot at an unshitty unyoung life.
I think the best way to deal is to just say fuck it. Enough already. I want to see a million old lady punk bands.
Love Child at Vassar, nicked from their FBK page
Can you cook? What’s your specialty? I grew up cooking. My ex had some professional cooking experience and was great at it, so I detoured into desserts and drinks. I didn’t have the time or focus to make much art when my kids were little, and baking became a medium. I made elaborate pies, cakes, cupcakes, curds, and brulees. Part of my adjustment to single momhood was reconnecting with my savory skills. I am partial to stewy braisy things that don’t require me to pay attention to them. I still love baking, though since I am usually making other food as well. I am more inclined to make simple things like galettes or granola. I definitely like to go all out sometimes, though. I have a book club where we try to cook thematically. When we read Gertrude and Alice, I cooked from the Alice B. Toklas cookbook—aspic was involved. It was a lot. But I do enjoy a high-concept project.
What’s in your fridge? Many therapeutic beverages that promise and do not deliver. Also many condiments. Coriander chutney, harissa, various hot sauces. Goat Kefir. Lacto fermented ginger carrots. Multicolored produce: fennel, lacinato kale, arugula, cilantro, parsley, chioggia beets, watermelon radishes, purple Japanese turnips, blueberries. These may or may not be rotting. I am a newish and very enthusiastic member of the Park Slope Food Coop, and sometimes fail to deliver on my shopped promises.
What’s making you really happy these days?
–Color. Especially pink. Extra-especially fluorescent pink. I have a persistent obsession with pink plexiglass. I thought this was new wave damage but my daughter has it too, so it might be genetic. Or maybe just human. I have a theory about this color and why we love it so much. We think of it as so unnatural, but it’s the exact color of light when you look at it through your fingers.
–Pipilotti Rist installations. I might live in one if I could.
-Flâneuring. I’ve been able to travel a bit again for the first time in a while, and it is so good to get this part of myself out of hiding.
What makes you really mad? I am trying to get less mad, at least at things that don’t matter. But a lot of things do matter a lot and it is hard for me to compartmentalize. I can easily get upset enough to cause major interference. I try to be sparing with social media to not feed the beast.
If you were president, what would you do differently? I should never be president. I have the wrong disposition. I am horrified by everything that is happening and have no answers.
What are you looking forward to this year? How do we stay sane in this election year? I am eager to get on stage for sure. Alan and I played a noise show in February which was super fun, but made me want to do more, and sing some songs.
I am definitely not looking forward to the election. We are going to need some boundaries. Also reminders that the story we’re hearing is a narrative intended to freak us out. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t real. But it’s being told in the most outrage-inducing way so we are compelled to watch/read/click/give/vote. Some of those things are more important than others.
Records Rebecca Cannot Live Without
BRIAN ENO Here Come the Warm Jets
FAUST Rainy Day Sunshine Girl
CAN You Doo Right
THE BEATLES It’s All Too Much
DUMP Superpowerless
SONIC YOUTH Starpower
VELVET UNDERGROUND Heroin
RICHARD AND LINDA THOMPSON I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight FAIRPORT CONVENTION Tale in Hard Time
LEONARD COHEN Famous Blue Raincoat
IRON AND WINE Upward Over the Mountain
SPACEMEN 3 Honey (Forced Exposure Single Version)
YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS Salad Days
TALL DWARFS Think Small
THE TRYPES A Plan Revised
This is the second part of a two-part chat between longtime friends Jennifer and Hilarie Sidney (the High Water Marks, the Apples in Stereo), who talk about everything from skinnydipping in Sweden and living in the moment to the comforts of recording at home with friends and family. Jennifer was having her morning coffee in Pittsburgh and Hilarie was at home in Grøa, Norway. (Images courtesy of Jennifer) (Read part one)
The Ladybug Transistor at The Andy Warhol Museum in the early 2000s. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer)
Hilarie: What bands have you been in then and now? Jennifer: Past: Saturnine, Frock, The New Alcindors
Now: The Garment District, The Ladybug Transistor
Hilarie: Was music a big part of your upbringing? Jennifer: You already know my brother Jeff because we play in Ladybug Transistor together. When we were growing up, we would make up our own radio shows. We would record on Maxell cassettes, play the part of DJs, act out commercials and select music from our parents’ vinyl collection. Our household was filled with records, especially the Beach Boys and Beatles. We would just lie around and stare at record covers. Those records were some of our favorite toys. Donovan, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Bob Dylan. We weren’t raised with religion, so I always joke that Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young was our cultural trinity growing up. My first concert was Peter, Paul and Mary. We started going to concerts together early as a family: Richard Thompson, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, U2, the Replacements. And then as teens were fortunate to have seen so many incredible bands (RIP the Syria Mosque!), like the Smiths, the Cure, R.E.M., New Order, the Three O’Clock, Hüsker Dü, Modern English, the Ramones, the Kinks, Camper Van Beethoven—that was absolutely pivotal for me. More recently as a family we saw Bert Jansch in a church, not long before he passed away. Music was always on around the house and in the car. We had 45s and the Fisher Price turntable so music has been a constant. My mom grew up with Bonnie McLean’s (RIP) half-sister in Philadelphia; she was one of the most amazing Fillmore poster designers. She made some of the most beautiful posters from that era. She would mail them to my mom and her friends at Penn State to decorate their dorm room and we had them framed on our walls growing up. Music (and album covers) created a place of joy and comfort for us and that created the essential foundation for me.
Jeff was always playing in bands (in what is now Pittsburgh show legend, his high school band opened for Nirvana very early on, at The Sonic Temple, which was a short-lived all ages venue inside a Masonic Temple), but then I was like, I want to play guitar too! Did you ever have that feeling where you’re like, I’m not just a music fan and you’re learning by listening and going to shows, constantly paying attention. That’s a way of learning music too. I took piano from a woman down the street when I was a child. When I was at Mount Holyoke College, I took lessons from a guy in Amherst here and there, which was kind of awkward because I had my binder of songs I wanted to learn, and he wanted me to strum along to his songs. So I really learned to play by joining a band. I first started playing guitar in Saturnine in Brooklyn. When we were forming Ladybug, Sportsguitar invited us to go on tour with them in Switzerland around 1995-1996, so that’s when I also started playing bass.
Jennifer leads the Garment District / Photo by John Colombo
Hilarie: That’s how you do it. It’s like, I want to be part of this. And maybe I can’t do this, but I will do this because I want to. Jennifer: You learn from being with others and from listening and doing. It teaches you to really listen and learn to play with other people.
Hilarie: Tell us what you’ve been up to in Pittsburgh. Jennifer: Before creating music at The Garment District, I was focusing my creative energies in other realms. First, I worked as education director at the Mattress Factory, an incredible contemporary art museum here, and created educational programming, including for our James Turrell retrospective exhibition. That was a huge draw for me to take the job when I moved here and worked with artists from Cuba at a time where there was political turmoil with Bush as far as Cuban artists not being able to come to the U.S. So there was a long-distance collaboration, long before the times of lockdown. In that position, I worked with incredible contemporary living artists and created educational and public programs and materials. So, it was very much a creative job. I had worked in museums in New York, including the Brooklyn Museum, and also worked here at SLB Radio Productions, which produces a public radio show and radio-based programs for kids and families based out of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. I was also was one of the longtime co-organizers of Handmade Arcade in Pittsburgh, the city’s first independent craft fair. I had cofounded an online craft business with Christine Lee and Danielle Fee when I lived in New York, just at the beginning of websites. We were vendors the first Renegade Craft fairs at McCarren Park in Brooklyn and Wicker Park in Chicago. After moving back to Pittsburgh, I remember seeing a flyer announcing Handmade Arcade applications. It was the first event, with like 30 vendors and 1,000 attendees in a small gallery space. I became one of the organizers and a longtime vendor and then the marketing director. We ran that for 15 years and it grew to 200 vendors and 10,000 attendees.
So, I was working creatively in those realms and also I co-published the Pittsburgh Signs Project photography book. We received a grant from the Sprout Fund, which we had applied for. It was a competitive process, and it was during the city of Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary. There were projects that were funded that involved the community and this was the early days of crowdsourcing. It’s a 200-page color book, so we had 250 signs from all over Western Pennsylvania, not just from Pittsburgh and photographers were children all the way up to people in their 80s. Professionals, hobbyists, amateurs, designers, a whole range. Being on tour in the ’90s, I was always one of the ones who had a camera, and I was always taking photos and I’d get teased. I would always say stop the van, stop the van, let’s jump out. I was taking photos of these cool neon signs mainly out west. A lot of them are still there out west because the weather’s so much drier. Our book had a limited boutique run through Carnegie Mellon University Press and sold out quickly, so I’ve always daydreamed about doing a second printing because most of the things in the book are either destroyed, demolished, ended up in dumpsters in gentrified neighborhoods, etc. and it’s a visual recording of the built environment of Pittsburgh. It’s available online and in some bookstores still. We created an exhibition, posters and postcards and it was great to have people submit their images to us from all over Western PA and to curate that book. It was two couples working together and we all lived near each other. So it was kind of like a band but for a book.
Jennifer Baron with her Pittsburgh Signs Project book. Photo courtesy of Keith Srakocic / AP
Hilarie: Tell us about the origins of the Garment District. Jennifer: We were talking about how starting a new project can happen organically. While I was working on the PSP book, I started getting back into writing music. You know, you can’t not do it. I started recording demos at home using our digital Boss 8-track with my laptop and phone. I have a lot of vintage instruments, including a Hammond M3 organ we got for $40 at Goodwill. One of the keys is still chipped, which is frustrating. One night I went to see this amazing band Wet Hair … at the time Shawn Reed lived in Iowa City and had run an experimental/noise label before that (Raccoo-oo-oon). He’s also an incredible printmaker and visual artist. When you go see a band you’ve never heard of and you’re inspired and excited, I need that in my life. It doesn’t happen as often now because of social media and finding out about things too much before you experience them. So I saw Wet Hair and was blown away by the merch table: all handmade silk-screens, collages, cassettes, 45s. I struck up a friendship with Shawn, who was running Night People (label). I sent him some of my Garment District demos and he wrote back in the middle of the night asking, “do you want to do a cassette?” And I was like, “of course!” It just started taking off organically. There was the motivation and there was an investment where I was like, OK, now this is real.
I was also starting to play live with friends in Pittsburgh. My cousin Lucy Blehar was in high school at the time, and I’d always go to see her musicals. I felt that her voice would be a great addition to the music I was writing. I was always in theater company growing up. I don’t sing, but I write all the music and the lyrics. We started recording with my friend Kevin Smith in his attic studio, which led to the cassette Melody Elder on Night People. Then Shawn asked me if I wanted to do a vinyl release. He didn’t do full-length vinyl that often, but my next album, If You Take Your Magic Slow, also came out on Night People. I really thank Shawn, and felt so encouraged and supported, that brought my music into this whole scene of more contemporary underground stuff in the world of the releases he was doing. Check out Wet Hair, they remind me of Spacemen 3 meets New Order combined, plus their own sound. He loves a lot of the same bands we love from Australia and New Zealand and has also done some reissues. So I continued the concept I had for The Garment District and played a few shows with some women in Pittsburgh. We did a Nuggets Night ’60s covers. If we lived in the same city, I’d be like, “Hilarie has to be our drummer.”
Jennifer and Lucy = the Garment District
Hilarie: I would love that. Jennifer: I always wanted to make music with more women and that just was part of that as well.
Hilarie: I didn’t know that and I don’t think I knew that that first album is on cassette. Jennifer: Yes, my first Garment District release Melody Elder came out on cassette and I always daydreamed about it coming out on vinyl. I love recording in houses like Ladybug has always done with Marlborough Farms. That was my beginning in music. I love recording in home environments and taking time and just that whole vibe. And Melody Elder is named after my favorite childhood babysitter.
Hilarie: That’s her actual name? How cool is that? Jennifer: If I have a side project, I want to name it that. I don’t even know where she lives now. But like being aGeneration X latch-key kid, typical, we had tons of babysitters and we loved them.
Hilarie: Me too. We kind of raised ourselves but we had babysitters, and our parents went out. My parents were really into partying, so I was left to my own devices quite a bit. Jennifer: There were a lot of parties. There were Steak-umms for dinner.
The Ladybug Transistor on a ferry while on tour in Canada, 1990s (Image courtesy of Jennifer)
Hilarie: How was the Ladybug reunion last fall? Jennifer: I picked up Derek (Almstead) in Bedford, PA and we all met up in advance, coming from four different states, in Brooklyn to rehearse at Marlborough Farms, where several of us used to live. It was incredibly special to spend that focused quality time in the house and the neighborhood for about one week before the tour. The first show was in Brooklyn, which was fantastic—it was like a wedding reception with so many old and new friends and people I’d been connecting with for the Garment District and old-school Ladybug fans. It was just amazing to see everyone in one place. I love that venue Public Records in Brooklyn, which is close to our old house. The tour was a dreamy magical whirlwind on a lot of different levels, and for me, I felt instantly back in the on tour mode the second I jumped in the van. We have a lot going on with our live sets, with instrument switches, and being in Norway last July helped prepare us. I can’t wait to do it again! It all clicked back into place and it went really well, especially the show at Public Records in New York and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and being back at Schubas in Chicago. And Kalamazoo, the Bells Brewery, they have this massive space, a huge outdoor garden, a home brewing market and beautiful venue. The sound system was probably one of the best, most professional sound systems we’ve ever played in. Wow, this sounds the sound person with such a sweetheart. The way they treated the band, it felt like being in Europe. I highly recommend that venue.
Hilarie: Who is the biggest comedian in Ladybug? Jennifer: Really, all of us in our own individual ways. A regular traveling comedy troupe in the van. Party of 6—audience of 6. If pressured to select one, I would probably say my brother Jeff.
Hilarie: Who is the coolest in a crisis? Jennifer: Gary. However, our forever drummer San met both criteria, cool in a crisis, plus a hilarious and biting and sharp wit. Rest in power forever to the best drummer ever and an incredible human.
Hilarie: If Ladybug Transistor had a theme song, what would it be? Non Ladybug song: “Joy of a Toy Continued,” Kevin Ayers
“Jackson,” Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra
Ladybug: “The Great British Spring”
The Ladybug Transistor on tour with the Lucksmiths and the Aislers Set, SF, circa 1999-2000
Hilarie: Do you have any funny/odd tour stories? Jennifer: When Ladybug Transistor was on tour in Spain (Barcelona), it was like a typical Spanish night. We played the show, and you have dinner at midnight and we were sitting outside with Unai, he was our amazing booking agent and tour manager and also drove our van. Mike Galinsky has a documentary film about him, Radiation. I love Spain, it was one of my favorite places to tour. Barcelona is probably my favorite city I’ve been to. And every place you play is such a different geography, different architecture, just so much to do there and we had an incredible time in Barcelona like we climbed to the top of Sagrada Familia, went to the beach; it was just fantastic. We went to the Alhambra, southern Spain, northern Spain. So, we’re in Barcelona, having dinner after the show at this huge round table, all sitting together. The band, other bands, promoter, it was a big group. In the center of the table Jeff and Sasha had their passports, cards and money in a cross-body bag. It was late. Well, someone grabbed their bag, just reached right through all the people around the table, snatched it, and ran off into the night. Everyone started running after this person screaming. My brother Jeff ended up barefoot, I don’t know if he was wearing sandals or flipflops. Everyone was yelling after the person, and they dropped the pack somewhere in the middle of the street.
The Ladybug Transistor live at The Andy Warhol Museum November 9, 2023. Photo courtesy of Jennifer
Another logistical craziness story was around the time of The Albemarle Sound tour. We were doing a U.S. tour with Of Montreal when we were also playing the Bowlie Weekender in England, Belle and Sebastian invited us to play, which is which is hands-down one of my favorite experiences ever performing live. This is the day of message boards and pre social media, so it was just so incredible to arrive there. When you’re seeing people, you’re seeing them for the first time. It’s so direct. Yeah, you just arrived, and you experience everything firsthand as it’s happening, which is it’s hard to explain to people who don’t have that and why that’s so important.
So, we already knew we were doing like a monthlong tour with Of Montreal, but we were then invited to do the Bowlie and this was in April 1999. At that point in the tour, we were playing in Norman (OK), so we had to figure out the logistics. So basically, we’re on the tour, but we then had to fly to London and take the train to Camber Sands, to play Bowlie. So Of Montreal agreed to drive our van for us with all of our stuff. We played the show in Norman and then Anne Cunningham and Ron, the amazing original guitar player for The Flaming Lips, had some all-night party BBQ. I love his guitar playing. You probably went to one of those parties or stayed in those big old houses near Oklahoma City. We played that show, stayed up all night, drove the van to the Dallas airport, and left handwritten notes for Of Montreal. I don’t even know if we had cell phones. Everything was like you made a plan and you stuck to it. It wasn’t like you text everyone “I’m almost there. I’m parking. I’m here.” You just made a plan, wrote notes. We made an extra set of keys for them. We flew to London mid-tour and wanted to stay for the festival, so we were gone for a couple of days, and had to miss a few U.S. shows. And then we flew back to rejoin them in San Diego. But it was such an amazing experience, showing up at Bowlie, everyone waiting in line. Meeting these bands, some of them for the first time. You might not even have any idea of who they are. It was such an incredible time being able to play on the same night with Belle and Sebastian. We were so grateful to that Of Montreal was willing to do that.
The Ladybug Transistor at the Emmaboda Festival in Sweden with Ulf Ekerot, 1999. (photo courtesy of Jennifer)
Hilarie: Tell us about some other memorable live experiences. Jennifer: The first time we played Emmaboda in Sweden with the Lucksmiths was magical. The Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel regaled us with tales about their experiences playing there. They even gave us a handwritten note containing advice about “breaking into” the Hotel Amigo pool and something about a “mystery drink.” Sure enough, one night in the woods, the pool was, um, populated. Immediately most Swedes naturally started skinnydipping and well, many but not all the Americans joined in. Also, the Ladybug Transistor performing with Mayo Thompson and Ghost at Spaceland in L.A.; seeing Lee Perry and Oasis (diva helicopter arrival) in Sweden; playing at our friends’ wedding at a biker bar in Flekkefjord, Norway; in 2019, staying at the Vibberodden Lighthouse during the Egersund Visefestival in Norway; getting to play live with Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey’s the No Ones, when we returned to Egersund in 2023. With the Garment District, opening for Julia Holter at the VIA New Music & Media Festival; opening for Parquet Courts; filming a Silver Studio Session for the Andy Warhol Museum; performing at the Carrie Furnaces Rivers of Steel National Historic Landmark (giant steel mill remnants along the Monongahela River); participating in artist Doug Aitken’s Station-to-Station video project; and performing in an abandoned 1900s-era Czech Church on the Allegheny River for the SYNC’D film and music series.
Hilarie: What is the best food you’ve ever eaten on tour? Jennifer: Tacos, burritos and brunch in the Mission District in San Francisco. The vegan Uchepo Tamal at Public Records in Brooklyn during our recent Ladybug Transistor tour. The first time we tasted (devoured) Brunost, brown Norwegian cheese. Addicting. Hilarie might chuckle since it’s so common there! Breakfasts at the Grand Hotel in Egersund, Norway during the Visefestival, with the sublime simplicity of bread, yogurt and granola … everything leads back to Norway which is appropriate for this interview.
The Garment District filming the “Left on Coast” video. Photo by Nicole Czapinski. Photo courtesy of Jennifer
Hilarie: What’s in your fridge? Jennifer: Vegan contents. Seltzer, hummus, leftovers, almond milk, garlic, ginger, pickles, carrots, tempeh, all manner of hot sauces, Fly By Jing Sichuan chili sauce, tahini, lots of fruit, Earth Balance.
Hilarie: What is the last thing you cooked at home? Jennifer: Recently: Vegan chili and banana bread
Hilarie: What’s on your nightstand? Jennifer: Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music by Rob Young; Jane by Maggie Nelson; The Modern Utopian by Richard Fairfield; Amity and Prosperity by Eliza Griswold; Dog Songs by Mary Oliver; the new issue of Maggot Brain.
Hilarie: What are some of your hobbies? Jennifer: Observing the world around me through photography; sewing and crafting; swimming laps; gardening (work in progress!); adventures with our Black Lab Casper; thrift shopping; record shopping; museums; watching documentaries.
Hilarie: Do you collect anything? Jennifer: I am a lifer when it comes to thrift shopping and hand-me-downs, and I prefer the organic discovery process of physically going out into the world to discover things, especially when visiting new places or having special pieces passed down from family members or shared between friends. Vintage dishware, housewares and design, paint by numbers, found ephemera, records.
Shivika Asthana recording with The Garment District at Madeleine Campbell’s Accessible Recording Studio.
Hilarie: Do you have any favorite stagewear or stage design? Jennifer: Vintage clothing and thrift scores from over the many years; something given to me by my Grammy Kay. I love finding gems from my friend’s fabulous new shop, Jackie Whoa Vintage and my other friend’s event, the Pittsburgh Vintage Mixer. On our recent Ladybug Transistor tour, we brought along our original handmade paintings from “The Albemarle Sound” as stage decor. In December, The Garment District performed as part of a SYNC’D Presents showcase, which featured a live liquid light show by SOS Lightshow from Dayton, Ohio, and it was so fantastic. Very comforting to be bathed in that kind of warm light, shape and texture. So much the opposite of the ubiquitous artificial LED lighting we see all around us now that I find to be so harsh. Last month we opened for William Tyler & The Impossible Truth and the show featured DIY visuals from Michi Tapes, including live projection manipulation, VHS/8mm videos and found footage, and I cannot wait to have them at our next show.
Hilarie: What musician would you love to interview? Jennifer: Robert Wyatt.
What is your sign?
Jennifer: Leo
Rehearsing at Marlborough Farms in November 2023 / Photo courtesy of The Ladybug Transistor
Hilarie: What musical collaborations have really impacted you? Jennifer: With The Ladybug Transistor, we had the remarkable opportunity to work with Kevin Ayers. We recorded a cover of his song, “Puis-Je?” for the Pop Romantique: French Pop Classics compilation (Emperor Norton), and he added the vocals remotely from a studio in London. All organized initially via phone! The Garment District collaborated with artist Nicole Czapinski on the music video she made for “Left on Coast,’ which we filmed at an abandoned Nike Missile Site in Western Pennsylvania. Composing original music for the Pittsburgh-based SYNC’D series, which pairs musicians with filmmakers and video artists.
Spending time together in the studio and sharing a creative process with my cousin Lucy Blehar, who sings on the Garment District record. I’ve always been drawn to the concept of family bands (I play in The Ladybug Transistor with my brother Jeff) and what exists between relatives who collaborate on creative endeavors. We sing backups and harmonies and double certain melody lines together. It’s a very close bond, and an organic way of enjoying the studio environment together, extremely rewarding and such a blast. This continues my family’s music-making heritage, as my grandfather, great-aunt and great-uncles performed in tamburitza orchestra family bands in the Monongahela Valley towns Braddock and Rankin, and in Benwood, West Virginia, often for boarders who worked in area steel mills. Also, “Nature-Nurture,” from Melody Elder, was remixed by Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum). “Bird or Bat” features bass guitar by Jowe Head (Swell Maps, Television Personalities), who I recorded with years ago in Brooklyn when we were stuck inside at our house Marlborough Farms during an epic NYC blizzard (look for those to resurface soon!). Last year I DJed at the opening celebration of “The Velvet Underground & Nico: Scepter Studio Sessions” exhibition at The Andy Warhol Museum. What a dream.
Hilarie: Tell us about your latest album. How did it come together? Jennifer: I’m ecstatic to have my brand-new full-length album, Flowers Telegraphed to All Parts of the World, out now on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records after knowing Mike Turner through Athens, Georgia and Elephant 6 bands, for many years. It’s been wonderful to reconnect with Mike on a personal level too, and a deep honor to be label mates with bands I admire like the Primitives, the Wedding Present, Great Lakes, Fred Schneider, Outer World, Swansea Sound, Katie Lass, and many others. He is so supportive and thoughtful and I’m so grateful for that support and for his enthusiasm. When he said, “What color vinyl do you want to do?”, that was meaningful (orange, of course!), because there is nothing like the tactile and visceral experience of listening to an album on vinyl from start to finish over a space of time. And it was a dream come true to get to talk to Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive), who cut the lacquers for my new LP at Third Man in Detroit, and have his expertise at the pressing plant.
Before this new album, I put out an all solo, all instrumental album called Luminous Toxin, released on Bill Shute’s Kendra Steiner Editions label. I wanted to do something more in the realm of sound collage, found sounds and field recordings and ambient music. I love instrumental music, and I found myself with this body of material that fit together. It’s liberating to sometimes do it all myself, record at home, have all instrumental, interstitial, soundtracky type music that I’m drawn to for a cohesive release. I was able to do like some final mixing at my friend’s basement studio called Yellow Couch Studio. I also did a 45 that has a remix that Sonic Boom did of one of my songs. That was all long distance like you’ve done sending files back and forth. I rerecorded a few of the synth parts at the end, but I love that his remix is very respectful of the original. Pete Kember’s way of making physical space out of sound is how I describe it.
The Ladybug Transistor on tour in Paris, late 1990s
After that I started creating new demos at home that would become my new album and I started working with my friend David Klug at his studio in Mount Washington here in Pittsburgh. Dave’s studio is very close to where we live so it is convenient and flexible if I want to try something new, add more layers, redo a part. There is a comfort level there and it has been an empowering space for creativity and experimentation and where I have been able to challenge myself and grow musically. I already had a lot of the new songs almost fully ready as far as arrangements. But other times I was able to keep that process open and flexible because I was working in his home studio and it’s a laidback, comfortable setting to be in. I still have some other things started waiting for a future release. I used a lot of great vintage synthesizers, including my own: I have a Roland JX3P I love. The Vox Super Continental and also my Wurlitzer electric piano I’ve had for years. And then for certain songs like “Left on Coast” and “Following Me,” I was really going for a specific fuzz guitar sound that you can’t get from some of the digital plug-ins … I mean, there are so many amazing people are making cool pedals now, including our friend Åke Strömer in Brooklyn. I got to borrow a bunch of ’60s and ’70s guitar pedals from Gregg Kostelich of the Cynics, they’re a fantastic garage rock band from Pittsburgh. And again, he was generous with them, basically he gave me this box of his vintage pedals, really rare ones. He was like you can borrow them for like a year. I love vintage pedals that have like 1 button or one knob.
Hilarie: That’s the best. I’m not super hung up about stuff, but I just want two buttons. Jennifer: All the digital displays and things that are programmed, I’m not oriented that way either. It’s like how can this equipment be in service to the song? It can’t make you have a great song. It can’t make you have the final piece of music. But it can bring things out and highlight things and it’s part of the language of whatever that song is. I felt so lucky to be able to have these great vintage and analog instruments because that’s part of my sound, to be able to see them and feel them and touch them, it’s very visceral. During the pandemic, there were obstacles and interruptions. I could do the mixing in person but we also did zoom, we did online. Lots of back and forth because being very involved in that process from the very beginning, from writing the demos, arranging everything through the mixing and the mastering, I was constantly there.
I’ve always been fascinated by bands made up of siblings or family members or couples and being in The Ladybug Transistor with my brother and two couples. Working with Lucy is so organic because she’s my first cousin. We’re really close and we love being in the studio together and just being around each other, so it was just an added layer to our personal bonding to be able to share that. I’m not a singer, but I sing a lot of backups, and I can do it with her because we’re related. And there’s something about voices that are related that like merge and overlap, where they kind of come together in that way. It’s also just a positive environment. The story of the new album includes this incredible group of friends, who all contributed their talents, several of whom perform live as part of The Garment District. You know Shivika (Asthana) from Papas Fritas.
Hilarie: I was going to ask you about her because I always admired her so much. We played a lot with Papas Fritas. Jennifer: I kind of get goosebumps. We reconnected after she moved here with her family from Charleston. Coincidentally, she had applied to Handmade Arcade, the event I was running. This is how we became reunited. I’m in love with her drumming. She has an amazing feel.
The Garment District live at Spirit, December 14, 2023
Hilarie: And a pretty voice too. Jennifer: She has a great voice, and we have played shows together. She has two kids, is really busy, makes her own jewelry and has a full-time job. I love that she’s on the new album. She should be playing music all the time. She’s got this natural touch. Sean Finn is the other drummer who plays on the new album and live with me, and he’s also incredible. Then Dave, who recorded the new album, plays on “Seldom Seen Arch” and he’s also an amazing drummer. He’s mainly been in metal bands, but if you tell him what you’re going for, he’s like a metronome with a cool feel. With arranging and producing the music and thinking about who’s the best person to play on a particular song, which are the best instruments to use, and the flow of things, I feel so fortunate to work in Dave’s studio and with friends and relatives on the album.
Hilarie: What are some of your favorite instruments and gear you used on the latest album? Jennifer: Two beloved instruments I always use that have been with me during my entire music-making journey are my Fender Vibrolux Reverb amp (beloved amp I got years ago from a friend I worked with at The Brooklyn Museum before there were things called eBay and Reverb.com!)—and my Rickenbacker 360 Fireglo, a generous gift from my parents years ago. Right now I am in love with a 1970 dark red Guild Polara electric guitar that a dear friend of mine is generously sharing with me. I got to use it on the Ladybug tour in November and I cannot wait to get to know it better and use it on new recordings! I am inspired by analog instruments and the characteristics of their physicality, and I love having them around the house to encourage the writing and demo process to be spontaneous in terms of where an instrument might lead you. Not in the sense of viewing equipment and gear as precious but as elements that are part of a song or piece of music to inform the creative process. Some of my favorite instruments that help give the new Garment District album its sound include our 1960s Vox Super Continental organ, Wurlitzer electric piano, Korg CX-3 organ, 1980s Casios.
Jennifer recording the new album at David Klug Studio
For the new album, I am so fortunate that I could borrow several synthesizers I consider to be the holy grail in terms of the golden age of the analog synth universe: a 1970s Roland 505 Paraphonic, Roland System 100, Farfisa Syntorchestra and a Sequential Pro One—along with effects like a Roland Dimension D. In terms of achieving specific guitar sounds, I loved experimenting with a few 1960s and early 1970s fuzz pedals I borrowed from my friend Gregg Kostelich (of the iconic Pittsburgh garage band the Cynics and Get Hip Records), including a UMI Buzz Tone & Volume Expander and Foxx Fuzz & Wa & Volume, plus my own Fuzz Face.
I love the story behind one of the drum kits we used for a few of the new songs—a beautiful-sounding 1966 Slingerland kit belonging to Laura Rogers (The Rogers Sisters). Our first bands played shows together in NYC (Ruby Falls and Saturnine) in the 1990s. Though its provenance has not been confirmed, Laura was told that the kit, which she bought from a collector in Detroit, was used on the Nirvana Unplugged recordings. Woven into this story is the fact that the brilliant Shivika played Laura’s kit on “The Starfish Song” and “The Instrument That Plays Itself.” I love the intuitive feel of Shiv’s playing, sometimes slightly behind the beat, perfect for the groove needed. She has performed live with us a few times and I think those two songs highlight her style. Papas Fritas and the Ladybug Transistor also used to play shows together, including at the Knitting Factory in NYC. Not long ago, we reconnected here in Pittsburgh (through another mutual friend!) and it has been such a joy to reconnect through both music and crafting. It was incredibly special having my longtime friend and Ladybug mate Gary Olson on trumpet along with and Kyle Forester on saxophone. And having Nathan Musser, who I hope to work with again, on violin and cello. I also really enjoyed playing melodica and glockenspiel on the album as well. These seemingly minor details are the kinds of experiences I love about the recording process and making a permanent document in sound. They help tell the story of an album and I love that our lives have intersected in these ways.
Jennifer and Casper on the Panhandle Trail
Hilarie: When we come to Pittsburgh, what should we do? Jennifer: I’d love to take you to the Mattress Factory museum, where I used to work. You could see permanent installations by Yayoi Kusama, Greer Lankton, James Turrell, Ann Hamilton, so many remarkable artists. Also the Andy Warhol Museum of course, and the Teenie Harris photography collection at Carnegie Museum of Art. Andy Warhol’s grave is right near where we grew up—people love to leave gifts at the site. We would walk through the Troy Hill Art Houses, which are installations in row houses that have been transformed as public art. The best vegan food ever is at Apteka (plant-based Eastern European), where we would go to eat and drink often. Las Palmas for street tacos and Udipi for Indian food. We would visit the birthplaces of August Wilson and Gertrude Stein and ride the incline up to Mount Washington (very Scandinavian!). We have good vintage shopping and some of the best record stores in the country. We’d go to Jerrys, the Attic and the Government Center. And nature is a huge part of Western Pennsylvania. When people come to Pittsburgh, they are shocked by how green it is. You can go hiking within 10 or 15 minutes in the city for the Rails to Trails program. The Gap Trail goes all the way to D.C. and there are so many great state parks all across Pennsylvania and rivers and streams.
Hilarie: You’ve made me homesick. Now I want to go to record stores and eat good food and I’m here in the middle of nowhere. Jennifer: You have the astounding nature and the Pagan culture and the fascinating traditions that go way, way back, plus a society that actually cares about taking care of people. Pittsburgh has a history of innovation and resilience. There’s still a lot of issues here, a lot of struggles and challenges, like with every city, especially with affordable housing. It’s a crisis all across the U.S.
Hilarie: What are you watching these days? Jennifer: We’re pretty addicted to documentaries. 1970s British television and horror films. Night Gallery. I love the soundtracks to them too. Always revisiting I’m Alan Partridge. One of my favorite new shows is Beef.
Jennifer at Marlborough Farms in Brooklyn where she lived in the 1990s with Steve Keene painting / Photo courtesy of Jennifer
Hilarie: What newish and current music you are loving? Jennifer: New and slightly newish music that’s often on my turntable and in my ears: Surface to Air Missive, Carl Didur, Zacht Automaat, The Frowning Clouds, Traffik Island, ORB, Locate S,1, Gloria, Etran de L’Air, Paint, Large Plants, Emma Anderson, Heather Trost, flypaper, Colored Lights, Cindy Lee, Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network, The Murlocs, Cindy, Jacco Gardner, Tim Presley, The Cromagnon Band, Licorice Root Orchestra, Bong Wish, The Orange Alabaster Mushroom, Cut Worms, Hot Apple Band, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Liam Hayes, Belbury Poly, Samantha Glass, Jackie McDowell, Golden Apples, The David Tattersall Group, Mike Donovan, Flash Hits, False Tracks …
Hilarie: What are you looking forward to this year? Jennifer: Performing live more and celebrating the new LP and hope to tour. DJing at the grand opening of The Government Center Outpost record shop in my neighborhood on March 9. We are organizing a show on April 19 with our friends in Pittsburgh, Chariot Fade, DJ BusCrates and Jackson Scott, plus live visuals by Michi Tapes. On April 28, I am so excited to participate in the Maxo Vanka Community Block Party. I will be playing 78s from my grandparents’ collection of tamburitza music surrounded by the magnificent murals of Croatian artist Maxo Vanka at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, Pennsylvania. Vanka painted the murals in 1937 and 1941 and his subject matter explores a combination of religious imagery and iconography and progressive social themes including the horrors of war, injustice and the exploitation of workers. I have some new demos started and hope to be back in the studio soon! Working on new music videos in collaboration with several artists (Johnny Arlett, Sandy Loaf, Michi Tapes, Peter Speer, Cosmo Graff).
Records Jennifer cannot live without John Cale, Paris 1919
Mayo Thompson, Corky’s Debt to His Father
New Order, Power Corruption & Lies
Donovan, A Gift From a Flower to a Garden
Kaleidoscope, Tangerine Dream
Kevin Ayers, Joy of a Toy
Soft Machine, The Soft Machine
Love, Forever Changes
Lee Hazlewood, Cowboy in Sweden
Alice Coltrane, Journey in Satchidananda
King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown
Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Jardin Au Fou
Brian Eno, Here Come the Warm Jets Ethiopiques, Vol. 3-4: Golden Years of Modern Ethiopian Music
The Ladybug Transistor on tour with Superchunk with Laura Ballance in FloridaSaturnine at The Middle East in Boston / Photo by Michael GalinskyThe Ladybug Transistor in Prospect Park Brooklyn / Photo by Erick Schonfeld
Hilarie and Per Ole from the High Water Marks (images courtesy of Hilarie)
Hilarie and Jennifer in conversation, part one “My own happiness and well-being are strongly correlated with my ability to create something,” Hilarie Sidney told 15 Questions. (We can relate!) Hilarie (she/her) is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who was the drummer from the Apples in Stereo (through 2006), a cofounder of the Elephant 6 collective, a member of Von Hemmling and Secret Square, and currently in the High Water Marks (along with her hubby, Per Ole Bratset, Logan Miller & Øystein Megård), whose latest album, Your Next Wolf, came out last summer. Hilarie also runs a cassette label called 6612 Tapes that will release So Many Things at Once, a benefit compilation for Justice Democrats featuring HWMs, Rose Melberg, the Garment District, the Ladybug Transistor, the Natvral, Dressy Bessy and others, out April 5.
This interview is part one of a two-part series that is a result of longtime friends Hilarie and Jennifer Baron (the Garment District, the Ladybug Transistor) having a conversation about everything from fertility cults and Norwegian pizza to body shaming and airport jail. Hilarie was at home in Grøa, Norway, and Jennifer was in Pittsburgh. (Images courtesy of Hilarie) Read part two.
Hilarie in Denver (images courtesy of Hilarie)
Jennifer: Was music a big part of your upbringing? Hilarie: My parents were really into music. They loved The Beatles. My siblings are older, they were born in the ’50s and ’60s. The whole family listened to The Beatles and the Beach Boys. My sister was 13 years older than me and she loved Black Sabbath, KISS, Alice Cooper and Grand Funk Railroad. My brother Roger was into stuff like Yes, Genesis with Peter Gabriel, Emerson, Lake and Palmer. More mellow kind of proggy stuff. My brother who’s 9 years older than me was into Devo and the Cars and ’80s pop. So I heard all sorts of different music coming from all the different bedrooms. I would go in their rooms when they weren’t home and look through their albums. My sister had a Grand Funk Railroad album and they’re all naked on the inside and I would always go in there and look at it like, oh my god, their penises. My dad was in a barbershop quartet. I played clarinet—I started at the end of grade school until middle school, and then I switched to guitar. Then I picked up drums when I asked if I could be the drummer for the Apples. Music was always on. It was always important. I always liked the boys in school who liked music and were like guitar players. Jennifer: That’s our downfall, isn’t it. We share that. How did the High Water Marks get started as a band? Hilarie: I met Per Ole, who’s now my husband, on an Apples tour in Oslo. He gave me some songs that he had with his band. We started talking on e-mail and we decided to do an album. We were like, let’s send songs back and forth. The thing that was super funny is first he sent his 4-track tapes and didn’t send a return address and he had my name wrong. It came eventually to my brother’s house in Lexington, KY. Where were you? Hilarie: I was in Lexington too, but it was just bizarre because he’s like “I have a package for you from Norway.” I was like, really? Oh my god, that’s so weird.” So I got the tapes. But they could have been lost and there was no backup. Jennifer: That’s a great origin story. We’ve been talking a lot about physical mail and the sense of waiting and anticipation and that it could have been lost and that it was 4-track tapes. How did you continue your long-distance creative process? Hilarie: I recorded them on to his tracks, I added to them. I sent a couple of tracks that I wanted him to add to, which he did. Eventually we just decided … I was on tour, I’d made a little bit of money. Flights were really cheap so I was like, I’m going to come out there and we’re going to just do this. We’ll knock it out really quick. I’d just started recording on a computer. It was exciting to have a huge audio interface that looks like a rack mount thing in my backpack and some nice microphones. Jennifer: You traveled thousands of miles to make music. That’s so endearing. Hilarie: It was really cool. We became best friends right away. We really clicked and it’s so weird. All of it happened so organically and innocently. And then bam, We’re like in love. We were like, we have to be together. We can’t go back. Jennifer: How did you come up with the name? Hilarie: It was the name of one of the songs that he recorded. Songs About the Ocean came out in 2004, this year is the 20th anniversary. A couple years later, Polar came out, and then we didn’t do anything for like 13 years. In 2020, we put out Ecstasy Rhymes, in 2022, we put out Proclaimer of Things. In 2023, we put out Your Next Wolf. Jennifer: Do you still have the 4-track cassettes? Hilarie: We don’t. We can’t find them anywhere. We lost some weird and important stuff when we moved. We had a moving company and a shipping container and some of the boxes just didn’t show up and the company didn’t take any responsibility for it and it was a huge hassle. I don’t think we’re ever going to find them.
Jennifer: Your label is putting out a new compilation. I’d love to hear about the tape label in general. I’m honored to be on it. Hilarie: 6612 Tapes started because we wanted to put out our new album on cassette. It’s such a cool format. I love what you can do with it. How compact it is. We just decided to do a tape label and all eco packaging. No shrink wrap. It’s also going to have a homemade vibe where we’re going to put inserts and stickers and stuff. We’re putting out a new compilation tape called So Many Things at Once, it’s a benefit for Justice Democrats, coming out April 5. We’re doing it because democracy is in peril. So many things are so fucked up right now with Palestine and Ukraine. Now there’s bombing going on in the Red Sea. We’ve got to take care of this election because it’s going to have an impact on everybody. It will not be on streaming because we want to get money for the donations. Jennifer: Are you planning other cassette releases? Hilarie: Because we have a 20-year anniversary coming of our first album, we’re going to do some fun things, like we have some old recordings that we did on the radio here in 2004 so we’re going to put those on the tape; we’re doing something really cool with our bandmates where they’re reimagining a couple of the songs from the record. We’re going to put out some unreleased stuff as a way to celebrate it. That and our next record will be on the cassette label later this year or early 2025. Jennifer: You’ve been so incredibly productive. It’s so inspiring. Hilarie: It must be that fertility cult.
The Apples in Stereo with Kurt Heasley
Jennifer: Tell us about the Elephant 6 documentary. Has it reconnected people? Hilarie: It made us remember how much we cared about each other and how stupid it is that we haven’t been in touch, especially when it’s so easy to be in touch. It’s never been easier. For my part, after Robert and I got divorced, a lot of people … I don’t want to say they chose him over me, but they chose him over me. That’s just the way it goes. He’s a talented, popular guy. A lot of people lost touch with me or I lost touch with them and it’s been fun getting to know everybody again. We’re all the same, but we’re so different. Jennifer: I’ve loved seeing it multiple times and have been so inspired by all of you. It’s been great reconnecting with people as well. Derek and I did two Q&As after the Pittsburgh premiere. The audiences were so different the two nights. The first was our generation, in-depth questions, like uberfans, rabid fans, like so many deep things. Just people reminiscing and wanting to know every little detail and talk about all the bands that weren’t in it and who were. We had to kick people out or we would have been there for 5 hours. The next night was all these new fans, younger audience. It was so cool to be able to have that mix. It speaks to the timelessness of the music and that communal culture and that sharing and that hands-on DIY aesthetic that people are craving. And also over the summer having everyone come together in Norway. Hilarie: Yeah, that was so amazing. Circling back to the tape label, when we talked about the spirit of Elephant 6, 6612 reminds me of when we started Elephant 6, because it’s all about handmade and having personal things in the release as possible and connecting on a personal level and that was one of the greatest things about what we did. I’m so proud of that, but I’m also in awe that we did that too. Jennifer: And there’s so much more beyond the parameters of the film that went on. Hilarie: The film is just a really good tip of the iceberg there. It was really well put together. Jennifer: How does how does it impact your working today? Also, could that happen today? Hilarie: I don’t think it could. I mean, I’d love to think it could, but I don’t think it could. That whole instant gratification thing that we’re talking about. And like, if I can’t get it now, I’m going to kind of freak out. I need to hear it first. Jennifer: There’s this whole mentality of having to create music for a film or show or streaming or video. I don’t create music that way. Truly living in the moment, it sounds so cliche, but it’s harder and harder to do that. Hilarie: People don’t do that anymore. It’s too hard. We were so lucky back then because we didn’t have all these distractions. I lived in this tiny little apartment with Will and Jeff and me and Robert, we’re talking about music all day and all night because we didn’t have a TV, we couldn’t afford one. Jennifer: If you watched a show, like Freaks and Geeks, you did while it was on, then it was over and you missed it. Hilarie: There were no mobile telephones so if you wanted to see somebody, you were really immersed in it. We were so immersed in everything we did. We were just sitting there brainstorming and writing things out and drawing and coloring. We watch a lot of TV now, but we’re always drawing and tonight we’re going to do some lino cutting and we’re recording and I’m trying to keep that going. Back to the E6 documentary, it was the very end of that era between no technology and technology where everything was really free.
The High Water Marks: Øystein, Per Ole, Hilarie and Logan in Egersund (images courtesy of Hilarie)
Jennifer: When did you start speaking Norwegian? Hilarie: Well, it is hard. I studied it a little bit at university after we met, I was going back for my bachelor’s and I switched to Norwegian studies from sociology. I finished my degree and I still couldn’t really speak Norwegian though. I don’t know if all people are like this, but I couldn’t pick it up until I started using it every day. I’m good with the grammar. I knew how things went together, but I couldn’t get it out quick enough; it just took some time. Working with kids helps because they’re honest. They’re like “what are you trying to say?” You’re formulating sentences in your head like you would if you’re going to write them down, but that doesn’t work. Jennifer: Let’s talk about gender roles in bands. In the ’90s, it was so great to meet you, meet Shivika (Asthana, from Papas Fritas), we toured with a lot of bands that had women I love and am still in touch with. It felt like a tightknit community. That was the positive side of it. Hilarie: I was thinking about how we would tour; we’d be in New York or whatever, and there’s all these women and men and everybody’s integrated and doing things together. And then suddenly, you’re in Nebraska and you’ve got this guy who’s like, “you’re not in the band.” I had that happen to me before. “I’m in the band, I need to come in.” “No, you’re not in the band.” Jennifer: “Who are you with?” Hilarie: “Who are you trying to see?” “Well, I’m the drummer in the Apples in Stereo. I need to come in.” “Yeah, right.” Finally, after arguing, he goes and gets John or Eric or somebody. They’re like, yeah, she is in the band. Jennifer: This wasn’t even that long ago. I totally agree about New York almost being another world. I always have this thing that still happens: “Oh, you’re in a band. Are you the singer?” Hilarie: Yes. Jennifer: Nothing against singing, it’s an amazing talent. But it’s this kneejerk reaction that still constantly happens. Also “woman-fronted band,” hate that term. What does that even mean? Can you imagine discussing the Kinks and said “male-fronted band”? Hilarie: Exactly. It’s so stupid. Jennifer: Let’s talk about the music we’re making. It’s so hard for people to even describe and talk about music and most art forms but mostly music because we can’t touch it, we can’t see it. It’s constantly in the background. It’s in all these videos. Social media has made music this background thing where people are numb to the art form so if you have to work to listen to something and figure it out, you have to be challenged to think about it, people’s minds can’t do it if they’re born into the digital age. Hilarie: No, they can’t. Jennifer: I still have a lot of difficult feelings about gender roles and music. It’s hard to even process. Hilarie: Well, outside of even like the instrumentation aspect of music, I had a lot of problems being a female in a band who’s overweight, because I was criticized. Jeff Price from SpinArt, he told me that I was holding the band back from success because I was too fat. Jennifer: No, Hilarie. Hilarie: Yeah, he did. I was crushed. He’s like, if you’re going to be in a band and if you’re a girl, you need to dress like really cute and you need to be really thin. Sure, whatever, dude. I acted like it didn’t bother me, but it still really bothers me to this day. Jennifer: It’s horrifying, it’s traumatic, it’s harmful. The body shaming and the awareness about it now, we didn’t have during our time. Or reviews would be written, and someone would describe what Sasha and I were wearing, but they wouldn’t describe what the guys were wearing. Why would you describe our hair or our clothing? Hilarie: Jeff never would have said that any of the guys are fat or too bald or whatever. Jennifer: That’s horrifying. When people who are running labels or in leadership or power positions are saying these things, it’s so harmful. With openness and inclusivity and queer music and culture and gender affirmation and body awareness and fighting body shaming is much as it is today, that didn’t exist in the ’90s when we were starting our bands and way before that. Hilarie: It is still there. And we came up with really amazing female figures to look up to, like all the K Records and Kill Rock Stars, like Heather from Beat Happening, she was like my hero.
Early High Water Marks
Jennifer: I got to see them play. Even going back, the Go-Betweens, New Order, like there are so many incredible women who are part of bands writing music, adding to the music, part of the arrangements, like adding to the sound, but why do we only talk about the singer? Hilarie: Yeah, exactly, it’s not the only part. There were so many amazing women when we were coming up and you still don’t really hear about them like you hear about others. Jennifer: Incredible composers too. Do you know about the Women in Sound zine? You would love it. It’s an incredible zine that my friend Madeline Campbell started and it’s really inspiring. It’s a great resource and a fantastic publication. … That experience horrifies me that that happened and I’m so sorry. Hilarie: That’s just the way stuff was back then. I took it to heart. I acted like, oh whatever, but and I actually stopped eating and I lost weight, and I got like really freaked out. Yeah, it still bothers me today. Sometimes when I think about it, I still get really mad. Jennifer: Understandable. If we thought about this topic, we would have so many examples. Hilarie: So many. Jennifer: So many of them were subtle and manipulative back then and we were really young and our brains weren’t even trained to process it and interpret it as sexism or chauvinism or misogyny at the time. Hilarie: Yeah, I didn’t know those words back then. I mean, I knew them, but I didn’t really know them. Jennifer: Yeah, we just brushed it off. Hilarie: Yeah, it’s just like, oh, well, whatever, that guy’s a dick. But in the meantime, it’s sitting back there in your head and you’re playing it over and over. Jennifer: Yeah. When you’re in your own cocoon of women in your band, women are in all the bands you’re on bills with then you go into some of these places like Panama City… Hilarie: …and you’ve got the metal guy who’s doing sound and he doesn’t get what you’re doing and he’s like, “why do you have this stuff?” He has no idea what to do with you. Jennifer: If we were to visit you in Grøa, what should do and see? Hilarie: It would all be outdoors. We don’t really have anything else to do here. We have a mall and it’s very boring and the restaurants are all pizza I feel like and it’s terrible pizza. Jennifer: Norwegian pizza! Hilarie: I would take you guys … about a 15-minute walk from my house is one of the oldest Viking graveyards in the western part of Norway. Where we live right now, it was a special gathering place in the Iron Age, where they came to pray to the fertility God Freyr. There are fertility cults here and they’ve excavated a lot of fertility pits, like fire pits where they did sacrifice. There are a lot of graves here that were excavated and there are some important women who were buried as well as like families. It’s a cool place. Being in there, it feels mystical and magical. It dates back to the 900s, right in the middle of the early Viking age. Jennifer: Tell us about the latest High Water Marks album Your Next Wolf. Hilarie: We’ve just been on such a roll with recording. Ecstasy Rhymes is a really mellow like pop record and the next one, Proclaimer of Things, was a bit of that, but also a bit more rock. Then we took it all more fuzzy pop on this last one. We’ve just been recording and writing so much and we just kept going. It’s not like we just sat down and said “we’re making this record.” We just kept working. We record our parts here at our house. And then we send the tracks to Øystein and Logan. We have a shared Google Drive where we all put our parts and we put our all of our information. As we get closer to being done, we have Google Keep and we keep each other on task, like Hilarie needs to do this, this, this, Per Ole needs to do this, this, this, and so on. Then we can cross it off. It’s really organized. It’s not my idea; Øystein is so organized, he’s the one who introduced us to that. Jennifer: Where do you record in your house, different rooms? Hilarie: We have a tiny little bedroom that we record in that we’ve made into a studio, it has a desk and a big bookshelf and a little vintage cabinet and then all of our guitars are on the wall. We record on a Mac Mini. We just recorded in there but when I record drums, we have to do it in the hallway because they won’t fit in there. I can’t do it any other way. I’ve had bad experiences in studios, I don’t like recording in studios. Jennifer: I didn’t know if you had ever recorded in a studio in Norway. Hilarie: I got to help mix and kind of produce some songs that Per Ole’s band was doing when I first came over to record. That was fun. But that wasn’t my project, and it wasn’t my time, so it was pleasant. Jennifer: Recording in a home, whether it’s your home or it’s close to where you live, or your friend is what I’ve tried to do. Just the organic nature or that comfort feeling and not constantly staring at the clock. Hilarie: That’s a real creative killer. Jennifer: It is so difficult. I try to strike this balance of I’m recording with people who also have become friends because I have to feel really comfortable with the person. Hilarie: Yeah, me too. Jennifer: You guys are recording your own music and that’s amazing. But I like to work with like an engineer to oversee it all and produce it. I like to have someone else worrying about being the technical expert, because I’m not that as far as the engineering side and I don’t really want to be. I love focusing on the creativity of the songwriting and the recording. I love all these processes. I know that that’s not my skill, my strong point, but it is a balance that you have to strike. I’ve recorded in studios and had positive experiences, but I much prefer when it’s a home-based experience. It can be stressful and difficult. It can hinder your creativity or experimentation to just be like, OK, we’ll book you on these dates in and out. Hilarie: It doesn’t always work out that you feel at your best at those moments. We’re busy and older too. I can’t be bothered. I can’t spend that much money either because we pay for so much of these records ourselves. Jennifer: Before I started recording my new album, I visited some incredible studios and they’re doing wonderful work and they’re beautiful spaces, but I can’t afford them, I’m in the same situation. So, if I’m going to be putting my own investment into it, which I am because I’m paying for studios and engineering, I love that I can put it toward like an independent person who is incredible to work with. I worked with someone whose personality is very chill and laidback, great listener, great rapport. We’ve become good friends and he’s been incredibly generous with his time so I feel really fortunate. It feels comfortable. Some of the experimentation or the parts of the directions you go in in the studio, you wouldn’t be able to do in a different kind of setting. Hilarie: That’s a really perfect scenario. Jennifer: It still doesn’t mean that it’s not expensive and it should be paid for. What was the mixing like? Hilarie: We mixed this time with Justin Pizzoferrato, who is J Mascis’ engineer who works with the Lou Barlow and Speedy Ortiz and lots of different artists. He would basically do a mix and send it to us and we would say what we thought, and then he’d do another one and send it and it kind of went like that. But he was so good. We weren’t arguing about anything really. He was such a pro, so great to work with. Really nice, talented guy. We’re also lucky because Øystein has worked at a studio and he has so much equipment. He has two Mellotrons and Hammond B3s. Tons of keyboards. He’s got like several drum sets, so many amps, they rent out some of their stuff. He does a lot of the technical stuff and Logan also is very like good and interested in recording.
Hilarie and Per Ole
Jennifer: Do they bring their equipment to your house ever or do they all record in their houses? Hilarie: Everybody records in their houses. Your Next Wolf was the first time we recorded all together. We went to Kentucky and recorded the basic tracks of 4 of them. It was a fun bonding experience. We had a great time. We recorded at Logan’s house. Jennifer: Was it the first time that some of them coming to Kentucky? Hilarie: It was Øystein’s first time in Kentucky and I think in the U.S. That was fun, we went to Cincinnati and showed them around. There’s not a lot to do around Lexington, but I think they had a great time. It was just really chill. Jennifer: Who pressed your latest vinyl? Hilarie: We did it at a place in Paris. We paid for it ourselves. It was so hard to decide because we had to ship most of them to Red Eye anyway in the U.S. I don’t know if we did the right thing, but it was cheap. They have a like a two-month turnaround, which was really quick. They don’t use the stamper, they use the original lathe cutting, the lacquer. It doesn’t feel real if it’s not on vinyl. I’m really into cassettes right now. Jennifer: Me too. It’s interesting how many people on our most recent Ladybug tour wanted CDs. What do you enjoy most about recording, performing, and or touring? Do you prefer one or the other? Do you dislike any of them? Hilarie: I prefer recording to touring. I like playing shows, but I get terrible anxiety but then while I’m doing it, it’s always really fun and I’m like, why don’t we do this all the time? And then the next time it’s like, oh my god, we have a show. I can’t do this. And then we do it and it’s fun. It’s this weird cycle of anxiety and then elation. I have so much fun whenever we play live. But it’s just like the whole getting there is like… Øystein’s in Trondheim, Logan’s in Kentucky, so this summer we played shows and Logan came over from Kentucky for just these few shows that we did. We had like three days to practice here. Thinking about doing it is really daunting, but once we do it, it’s really amazing. And Logan’s lucky because his wife is a pilot. She’s my best friend. She’s a pilot for Southwest and she can get them on flights pretty cheap sometimes. Her dad was also a pilot, so she has United tickets and stuff like that. Jennifer: She’s such a trailblazer because there are so few female pilots working for the major airlines. There are more than there used to be. Hilarie: She has cooler clothes now. When she first started out, she wore the stupidest outfit and she used to call it her birth control suit. Jennifer: That’s amazing. That would be a good band name. It is a lot of logistics as you get older. Hilarie: Yeah, some places have backlines, some places don’t. Living in Norway is great and playing shows here is not so great. The music scene is pretty generic or maybe I haven’t found the right thing. They play us on the radio here. We have a lot of streams coming from here, from Norway, a lot of streams. It seems like people like us, but we can’t get people out to the shows. It’s frustrating, but a lot of venues say that people just don’t go to shows anymore, so they’re having a hard time promoting and getting people to come out. We wonder if it’s worth it.
Jennifer: Is that true in Bergen and Oslo as well? Hilarie: Yeah, everywhere. Everything is just so expensive and it hasn’t really come down, especially since the pandemic. Norwegians were more reserved and homebodies and maybe the pandemic has made everybody feel like it’s OK to stay home. Jennifer: I need social interaction, playing off the energy of people and the chemistry. Got any good tour stories? Hilarie: I have a few. One I was thinking about was: OK, first of all, Apples in Stereo used to drive around with the Bible on our dashboard because we have this whole schtick where we’re this religious band in case we ever get pulled over because the boys had a lot of weed on them all the time. We’re driving around with this bible, we have this whole backstory. We played at Oberlin College and we had a great show. But it was over pretty early, as college shows are sometimes, and we say goodbye to everybody, we go back to the hotel and we’re hanging out. The boys are smoking bowls. Eric and I are sitting there counting money and what have you. We wake up the next day and we go to Denny’s, which is right outside the hotel. And then suddenly we see cop cars pull up to the hotel. We were all just kind of looking and then Robert was like, “Oh my God, my backpack’s in the lobby and it’s got all the pot in it.” We got in the car and started driving to Wendy’s. Robert goes into the Wendy’s. John was driving and he didn’t have a license. I switched seats with him, and I got in the driver’s seat and then Robert ran into Wendy’s, threw the pot away in the garbage can in the bathroom, and came out with a Big Gulp type thing.
These cops pull us over and they’re like, “Hey, who does this backpack belong to?” Robert’s like, “that’s my backpack.” The cops are like, “Do you realize that there’s marijuana in this backpack?” Robert’s like, “No! What? Are you kidding me?” We made a story first before the cops started talking to us. Robert is taken to the cop car and they talk to him and us separately. But we all say the same thing: We have no idea whether it’s pot in that bag. The cops are like, what are you talking about? We’re like, “we’re just a Christian rock band, we played at this college last night and everybody was doing drugs and stuff. We had no idea and we think somebody put that in our bag as a joke.” Robert had had picked up all these religious pamphlets and pulled them out and he was like, “Yeah, I was just giving people these and trying to get people to recognize Jesus as their lord and savior.” And by the end of the whole thing, the main cop and Robert were hugging and like they were best friends. Isn’t that insane? Jennifer: Do you have any wild High Water Marks tour stories to share? Hilarie: When we were touring in Europe, we had like 5 shows in England and the people who have booked the shows wanted to try to bypass getting a work permit. Per Ole didn’t need one because he was a Norwegian citizen at the time. So it’s just me and the other two guys that needed work permits and we talked about how we’d say we’re just going over to hang out and do a little studio recording. Our bass player was asleep when we were talking about it, I guess, and we didn’t realize it. So, we get to England, we go through customs, and we’re all through. And we see he’s talking and waving his hands and suddenly they’re looking at a computer. And he’s like, “We have shows. We’re in a band called the High Water Marks. Look at our website.” His phone got stolen on that tour too, because a guy came up and said, “can I borrow your phone?” And he said, “it’s from America but sure, go ahead!” And the guy just ran. He’s so gullible, but anyway, so we got marched off into jail in the airport. So, we’re sitting in jail and we have to be deported back to Sweden. We were in jail all day. They were nice, but it was embarrassing. They looked through all my stuff, they read my lyrics …. awful. There were people in there that were traffickers, a lady who tried to smuggle herself in, and then we’re just like a little indie band. It’s like a lockup room. At the end of the day, we had to get on the last flight. They had to march us on the flight, like with a great ceremony. It was really embarrassing, but it’s also funny now in hindsight.
Jennifer: What was it like playing in Egersund this summer the festival in Norway. How did that feel? Hilarie: I love that festival. It’s the best festival because it feels small or intimate. I love how it’s set up in such a small area so you can go from show to show, and you have the hotel setup so if you get exhausted, you can go rest. It’s not the kind of festival where you’re like, “where am I going to get water?” Jennifer: “Where am I going to wash my hands?” Hilarie: Exactly. It’s really cozy. And I think Froda does such a nice job. Jennifer: It’s like a family. Being able to do that before the pandemic, when Froda and Steven did this special deluxe reissue of Albemarle Sound and then meeting everyone and being a part of that community and making lifelong or new friends. After that whole experience of lockdown for us to all be together and reunite with you guys and have Elf Power and have the Elephant 6 documentary and Froda’s new band and No Ones and Minus Five just this past summer there was something so magical and so like necessary. People were just so desperate to be together and missed each other. It’s so important the way that they treat the bands and you can go take your break. Hilarie: You feel so welcome. There’s no stress there. I didn’t feel any stress. I didn’t feel any of that hurry up and get on the stage. Hurry up and get off the stage. Hurry up and move your equipment. Jennifer: We had to get a substitute drummer the same week of our show. So we had probably the biggest wild marathon of our musical careers, which then prepared us for the tour in November. So next to the hotel we were staying in that incredible historic building that was so cool. It was one of the most gorgeous buildings I’ve been in. Taking breaks to go swimming and walk around the town. Last time we got to stay in the lighthouse with Elf Power. It was a dream come true. It’s such a wonderful festival. So welcoming, like the way the whole town is waiting for it all year. Hilarie: Everybody’s involved. There’s another festival in Norway that you guys should play sometime if you haven’t already. Indiefjord. Jennifer: Gary has played it. Hilarie: Yeah, it’s amazing. We actually played with Gary there. Jennifer: Yes, I would love for the Garment District to play in Norway. Those experiences have been some of my favorite live music experiences. Hilarie: The Norwegian summer is really magical. Jennifer: What a beautiful landscape too, the Fjords. Hilarie: You have to come up here where we are because it’s way more dramatic. It’s so much more beautiful up here. Jennifer: I live vicariously through your photos on Instagram and I would love to visit. It looks like something out of a movie. Hilarie: Right now it’s dark but in the summer I’m looking out the window and I see Europe’s tallest waterfall right out my window. Jennifer: Even if you’re just there for a short time, you feel like you’re integrated into the community and the town and you’re just welcomed with open arms. There’s such a respect for the music and for artists and creativity. Hilarie: There is. That’s one of the things I love about it. Jennifer: What are some musical collaborations that have really impacted you? Hilarie: One of the most fun collaborations for me was going to Japan to record with Cornelius. The entire experience was really fun both in the studio, and outside. Another fun collaboration was singing a song on the new The Go! Team record. It’s a song called “Sock it to me.” Although I didn’t collaborate in person and I did it from my home studio, it was still really fun. I think Ian is a super talented songwriter and arranger.
Hilarie in the Apples in Stereo 1995 Tidal Wave video
Jennifer: What is the best food you’ve ever eaten on tour? Hilarie: Right now, at this point in my life most of the food I ate on tour I remember as being the best. I live in a place where we don’t have any good restaurants, and even if we did it is so expensive to eat out here. Many of my most memorable are probably some of the Ethiopian restaurants in D.C. Jennifer: What’s your favorite thing to make? Hilarie: I like to try new stuff. Everybody loves my quiche and my quiche crust that I make from scratch. I make enchiladas and things like that. I don’t use recipes because I’m really good at figuring stuff out without recipes. I take all the elements that I like from it. My downfall is that I never write it down. So sometimes it’s not super consistent. I make this like creamy pasta dish everybody loves but the consistency is different. Jennifer: I’m glad I’m married to someone who’s a really good cook and I enjoy it. I often feel short on time. We always cook vegan because we’re vegan at home, but I would love to receive some of your recipes. I can always adapt them. We’ve been making a lot of dal and chana masala and I’m trying to experiment and use the Instant Pot more for Indian food. We’re also lucky to have a growing vegan scene here. Hilarie: You guys can order food and have it delivered to your house too. I make my own vanilla and everything because you can’t buy vanilla extract here. I make my own dill pickles. But I have to make it. Jennifer: I did the cliche thing during lockdown and learned how to make kombucha. I love baking bread. I really like cooking and I love baking. We’re lucky because we have a Lebanese market right around the corner that’s been there since the ’60s. They make their own pitas next door. They come down a conveyor belt and give you these piping hot pitas. What are you watching these days? Hilarie: Crime shows are big here in Norway and like we watch British crime and we’ll pretty much literally watch anything. We’re not like super discerning sometimes. Jennifer: What can always be found in your fridge? Hilarie: Sadly, mostly leftovers that everyone will forget to take to work and nobody will end up eating. I try to always have green olives and green olive tapenade. We tend to buy what we need day by day.
The Apples in Stereo, 1995, Tidal Wave video (image courtesy of Hilarie)
Jennifer: What books or magazines are on your nightstand? Hilarie: I just finished Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll. I am currently reading Poor Things by Alasdair Gray. I just saw the movie and it blew my mind! Yorgos Lanthimos has made some of my favorite movies, but this one is incredible, from the camera work, the art, costumes, and music, the entire feel is completely insane. Jennifer: What are some of your hobbies? Hilarie: I like sewing; we do a lot of drawing over here, and I am learning lino cutting. Of course, playing guitar, making songs, reading, making earrings (that I can’t even wear because I am allergic, haha), and building things/making things for our van. We got really into our camper van, so we made a headboard out of Moroccan tiles, curtains. I like to sew practical things. I’m going to start on a quilt soon. I love drawing with Per Ole; it can be intimating because he’s so good and I’m so bad. Jennifer: I love your vehicle. Hilarie: It’s all I can think about sometimes; it’s like, “I can’t wait to get in the van.” We just put a power converter in it so we can use an electric blanket. Jennifer: Do you collect anything? Hilarie: After emptying my mom’s house before she moved into a nursing home and seeing all of the things she collected, I was overwhelmed. It was a nightmare. She had boxes upon boxes of things. I decided then and there that I would not collect anything other than records. Even books. I adore books, but I rarely go back and read any of them unless they are my favorites. Now I only buy/keep the books that are exceptionally great to me. I kept photographs, artwork, letters, my grandmother’s life’s writing, my great-grandfather’s handwritten memoir, my mom’s wedding rings, my grandma’s wedding rings art deco jewelry, and other small mementos. Part of living in Norway has also been an exercise in learning quality vs. quantity, things vs. experiences, etc. It was hard to decide what to bring from the U.S. after we moved.
Hil recording on Ecstasy Rhymes
Jennifer: What are the biggest differences about living in Norway and the U.S. and what has it made you appreciate most about each locale? Hilarie: The biggest differences about living in Norway vs the U.S. are things like consumerism, free time, freedom, and safety in my opinion. I realized a year or so after living in Norway some of the things I missed were heavily based in consumerism. Like, I missed being able to pop in to a store and browse or buy something, or choose from a million different restaurants. Here in Norway everything is closed on Sunday. We have a tiny little part of the grocery store that’s allowed to be open on Sundays for necessities. We get at least 5 weeks of vacation every year and are strongly urged to take at the very least three of them in a row. In Norway you haven’t relaxed enough if you haven’t forgotten what day of the week it is on vacation. We also get feriepenger “vacation money.” We get an extra percentage taken out of our pay each payday and that money is given back to us in June to use on vacation, or whatever we want.
I worked at a university in the U.S. and we had a very liberal vacation policy. 4 weeks. But, getting 3 weeks in a row was supremely challenging. Also, there is a misconception about the taxes we pay. In the U.S. I paid around 24% of my income in taxes. As far as I could tell, I was paying for wars, because my roads were shit, I had to buy more than $100 worth of school supplies for each kid each year, plus a list of things teachers need because they don’t have the funding. Day care was crazy expensive, etc. Here I pay 34%. Both December and June we pay half tax 17% ish so that we have extra money for Christmas and for summer. Included in that 34% is our national health insurance, along with a lot of other great perks like barnetrygd, which gives every single child in Norway $100 per month from the time they’re born until they are 18. That gives families who struggle the money to l buy clothes, pay for activities, etc. to level the playing field and make things more equal. If you don’t need the money, you can just save it. We did that and gave our son Anders a lump sum on his 18th birthday. Because I don’t have to worry about health insurance, I don’t worry about losing my job. Not having to worry about health insurance opens people up to be able to try small businesses and endeavors that they would be afraid to try in the US due to healthcare for example. I love that my youngest son grew up riding his bike to school, playing all over the neighborhood for hours while I didn’t know where he was. I love that he didn’t have active shooter drills. Kids are encouraged to climb up high in trees at school here and to trust and rely on their bodies and motor skills. They learn how to use knives from pre-school, make fires, and really practical things. If we did any of that in the U.S. we might have had a visit from CPS. I miss the openness and friendliness of the U.S. I miss my friends. It’s hard to make close friends here. I miss seeing great bands and eating out a lot. Oddly, there are fewer women in the music scene here. Especially Trondheim, which is the city I’m closest to. I refer to it as “dude rock city.” Oh boy, have I had men explain music, equipment, bands, etc. to me. It’s weird because in most other fields we’re pretty equal. Jennifer: What are some of your favorite instruments and gear you used on Your Next Wolf? Hilarie: My favorite is my new Gretsch guitar I bought myself for my birthday last year. It only made it on a couple of tracks, but it is an absolute dream to play, and I love the sound of it. I have a 1964 Roger’s Holiday model drum kit. I had a similar bass drum and rack tom of the same year, but I really wanted this whole kit. It was red sparkle, 20″ bass drum, mounted rack tom, perfect condition, and it came with all the hardware and cymbals, one of which was a staple I used back then, a 24″ Zildjian sizzle cymbal. I went on to buy up as many of those as I could find because they were cheap, and had such a special sound, but I frequently cracked them. Back in the ’90s you found stuff like and it was so cheap because nobody wanted it. Anyway, Kurt Heasley was living with us at the time and he had gotten some publishing money or something, and he actually bought it for me. That is how sweet and generous he is. I am forever grateful. This drumset has been featured on a lot of the early E6 records, including both the Neutral Milk Hotel Records, the Olivia Tremor Control, and The Minders, of course, the Apples, and many others. I’m not as interested in equipment as I was in the past. At this point, I just want reliable things that sound amazing to me and will work when I sit down so I can keep up my momentum while I’m in the mode.
What is your sign? Hilarie: Capricorn Jennifer: Do you have any crushes? Hilarie: I would say now, no, but maybe I’m too old for that. Everybody loves Paul Rudd. Jennifer: I heard you had a tradition in the past… Hilarie: Yes, Lisa Janssen and I, she’s from Secret Square, would come up with like, OK, who’s your celebrity dream date this week. It was typically David Berman or Bill Callahan or Steve Malkmus. And then we would decide what we’d do on our dream date. Jennifer: What musician would you love to interview? Hilarie: Sun Ra Jennifer: I have a crush on your dog Archie right now. I seriously have a crush on all big dogs. I’d to meet up with Syd Barrett and Gene Clark. Have you seen the new Syd Barrett documentary? Hilarie: No. I love Syd Barrett so much. Lisa and I would talk about him endlessly and how we would take care of him. Jennifer: Are we, like, lost sisters? We might be. What newish and current music are you loving? Hilarie: I love your new record and that has been spinning quite a bit, I’ve been listening to the new Elf Power, Feeling Figures, The Beths, Aislers Set, Umbrellas, Tony Molina, Telekinesis, Santigold, Shannon Lay, Shana Cleveland, Mikal Cronin, A lot of old bossa nova stuff (Astrud, Nara Leão). Not so new, but it’s some of the stuff I’ve been listening right now. Jennifer: What plans are you looking forward to in 2024? Hilarie: We are currently about 9 songs deep into a new album. We have a few more to start, and so there will be a new record later this year or in early 2025. Only time will tell. We are going to start looking for a label to release it. We love Minty Fresh, but they aren’t able to help us very much besides distribution. September is the 20th anniversary of our first record, Songs About the Ocean, and we have a special release coming to celebrate that. I’m super excited about it.
Records Hilarie Cannot Live Without The Beatles (pretty much any of them, haha)
Velvet Underground, White Light White Heat Dinosaur Jr., You’re Living All Over Me Guided By Voices, Alien Lanes
While we also interviewed Connie Lovatt in our 2022 issue of chickfactor (19), we interviewed her again just about Coconut Mirror, out Sept. 27 on our label, Enchanté Records (based in the U.S., not the one in Paris, France). Also read about the dream team who plays on it. Interview: Gail O’Hara
Connie Lovatt in Carrboro, NC, 2023. Photo: Gail O’Hara
chickfactor:When did you start making Coconut Mirror? Talk us through the timeline. Connie Lovatt: When [my daughter] Hartley was around 1, we needed to get help with childcare. We didn’t have family in Los Angeles and both our moms had been so generous with their time, traveling out to care for Harts as we adjusted into being parents. But as she got older, I needed to get some structured help so I could take a break during the day. Her name was Diana, and she was incredible. Later Lucy [LaForge] took over and was amazing with Harts, too. During my breaks I discovered I didn’t even like to go anywhere in LA. I started to hang out in my garage and read and work on songs. I didn’t play guitar because the sound would tip off Harts that I was somewhere in the house, so I didn’t do anything with an instrument. I started making up melodies with some phrases. After a few months doing that off and on, I had 11 solid song ideas.
That was 10 years ago. So this was 2013. You can get into something for a little bit and then your kid gets sick and takes you out of it, or something happens, and I would put it away for a very long time. And years would go by, where like off on, off on, I gathered up melodies for each song. And then maybe three or four years ago (2019-2020), it was time to put chords to the melodies and see if the songs were indeed real. That’s kind of hard to do when you start with a vocal melody, to find the right chords and the flow. It was hard for me I mean, learning how to put chords to melodies that already existed because I’m not a great guitar player. And once I got that done, it took a couple years to figure out the directions of stuff. It was the first time I wanted every song to hold a sense of clear narration. I kept working on words all the time, and then when the pandemic hit, at some point, I would send lyrics to Bill [Callahan] and I’d say, “How’s this looking?” One day he gave the thumbs up, and I was galvanized!
Seven months after the pandemic started, we went to New Zealand. Ravi [my husband] got me this little digital four-track and I took it with me. We were there for six months, but two months before we were set to leave, I got it in my head that I had to get these down. I’d been sick for months with odd symptoms with what was eventually diagnosed as long COVID. We’d moved halfway across the world, and I wanted something to show for all this lost time. And it was time for me to face reality, to see how they sounded recorded. We were living in this pretty wood house right on the ocean. The weather in Wellington is extremely moody and beautiful. Almost every walk was challenging and wonderful. Every moment sheltered in the house was good. So, I started doing it, closing my bedroom door, and putting down the guitars and vocals. After months of being sick without any answers, it was incredible for me to hold in my hands something I’d made. It seemed impossible.
The cover features a drawing by Connie’s sister Jennifer Lovatt
When we got back to Los Angeles, I found an engineer. He was a dad friend from our school. I’ve known him from the dozens of school events we went to with our daughters, and he was always helping with sound, at recitals or school plays etc. He’d been an engineer on tons of records from Veruca Salt to Barbara Streisand. His name is Joe Wohlmuth. So, I brought him all my files and I told him I wanted to work off these. I told him something magical happened in New Zealand and that my hands and vocals aren’t the best because of all these neuropathy issues but I want to build on what we have here. Then it took a little while longer to get other players. I was lucky enough to have beautiful Jim White secured but needed to wait for a break in his on-the-go schedule. Once we added Jim’s drums, I was able to send it to killers like James (McNew) and Rebecca (Cole) and Che (Chen) and slowly start building up everyone else’s tracks. Another person that helped me to build up confidence in these songs was Phoebe Gittins. She’s amazing and has an equally amazing mom, Philippa. Philippa was instrumental in helping us find the house we stayed in while in New Zealand, and she lived a couple houses down the road. She was the bestest next-door neighbor anyone could ask for. Her husband, Seth, had an acoustic guitar he generously lent to me while there. It sounds great and is mostly what I play on the record. When I met Phoebe, I learned she was a self-taught piano player. There was this piano in the house we were staying in and I had a couple songs down and I asked her to come by and put on headphones and play along to it and she sounded so beautiful. I kept those tracks, and they are on the album. She did so beautifully on those songs that when I eventually got back to LA, I sent her a couple more songs to work on. My friend Max Tepper lived close to us in Los Angeles, and I asked him to do some synthesizer stuff and he kindly wrote and handed over all sorts of cool sounds to work with. All the instruments, except for Lucy’s harmonica, were sent remotely. Joe and I would sit down and comp them in as they arrived and place them where we wanted, do little edits, and move things here or there to perfect the things we wanted. Then I re-sang everything except for some backing vocals that I kept from the New Zealand recordings. We rerecorded 3 guitar tracks, too.
You recorded this album next to the ocean. It’s hilarious that you went to New Zealand and made a Laurel Canyon record even though you were living in L.A. I didn’t know how it would all come together till New Zealand. Everyone that I’ve loved is in this record. Everyone that matters, women, men, they’re all in there somewhere. I wanted to show Hartley that after giving birth, that I could still make something. I wanted to make a record with acoustic guitar where I’m telling my daughter all the stories that mattered to me. My first few years in California, I listened to a lot of Neil Young and Judee Sill and some Stevie Nicks demos and Sandy Denny. I wanted their voices in my head as I got to know California. All the songs I had written with Fontaine [Toups] and Ed [Baluyut] (in Containe and the Pacific Ocean) were written so fast. They were immediate. I knew I was going to spend a lot of time on this. That I wanted to be certain of every word and note and it wasn’t rushed during the fun of hanging out with friends and trying to learn how to play or how to be in a band. I worked way, way faster then. Everything I did with people that was collaborative, the pace of that was not nearly as careful as I was now attempting. I’d never spent this much time writing one song, much less 11.
So, the recordings you made in New Zealand are these songs and you built on top of them, basically subtracting and adding after you got back. Yes. Almost all the acoustic guitar, lots of the backing vocals and a few of Phoebe’s piano tracks, all came from the work done on that little 4-track in New Zealand.
Who else plays on the record? Lucy, who helped us take care of Hartley in the beginning, she writes and performs and is a strong singer. She plays all sorts of instruments. She’s one of those people that can play a million things. So, she came in and did harmonica and some backing vocals on “Sisters.” James Baluyut plays pedal steel on “Sisters.” And I think that’s everybody. Yeah. Phoebe, James [McNew], Jim [White], the other James [Baluyut], Lucy, Max, Rebecca [Cole], and Che [Chen]. And Hartley’s screams of joy as she played video games with friends a world away are heard in the background on a couple songs.
Bill Callahan produced one of your previous albums (The Pacific Ocean’s So Beautiful and Cheap and Warm). You’ve known each other since then, right (2002)? Yeah. And then I played bass on his album A River Ain’t Too Much To Love.
Would you say that Bill was a consultant? He was a loyal champion. He would check in and ask how the songs were going. Just by being interested, he gave me strength. He knows what I’m trying to do or trying not to do. No matter if I’m successful in my attempts or not, he’s kind and honest so the courage to work on remains no matter the feedback. I’m lucky to have him there telling me, “This is working. This could be better.” Everyone should have Bill as a friend. The end of “Kid” is now perfect due to him.
What else informed the record and its process? Motherhood. Wifehood. My life changed course. I hadn’t touched an instrument for a couple years. When I started working on the melodies that would eventuality became the songs, I felt excited. I had so many happy moments playing in bands. I got curious if I could be happy trying this on my own. If the joys would still be there with just me in the room. I got really into it when I solved problems or things sort of elevated. I couldn’t quit caring about it. I wanted to finish this letter to my daughter, which is what it was becoming the more it came into view. You can’t give up on a letter to your kid! Sometimes I wish it hadn’t taken so long, that all those stops and starts and long gaps between stabs at the work hadn’t happened. But I was a different person in ways, compared to when I started, when I finally recorded it all. I’d became a bit of a perfectionist in that I no longer regarded impatience as a valid motivator to wrap it up. It had its own timeframe in my life and I was along for the ride. I finished when I finished and it felt good.
We love London and we love Girl Ray so it seemed like a no-brainer to ask them to tell us about the things they love to do in London, which include eating loads of pizza, karaoke, hanging with piglets, and mudlarking. Girl Ray—made up of singer-songwriter Poppy Hankin, bassist Sophie Moss and drummer Iris McConnell—seems like the kind of friend gang/band that everyone would love to join. Their third album, Prestige, came out in August on Moshi Moshi and it’s an ode to disco that was inspired by the TV show Pose about NYC’s queer ballroom scene in the ’80s. US and EU: You can pick up the LP from the band on tour this autumn. Meanwhile, read on and find out what Poppy, Iris and Sophie love to do in the great city of London! Images courtesy of Girl Ray
Girl Ray in London: Sophie, Iris, Poppy
FOOD AND DRINK
Poppy: The first thing is something that I like to do, which is going around and eating loads of pizza because I used to be a pizza chef last year and I got kind of obsessed with pizza and just trying to find the best ones in London and there’s much debate. But yeah, I used to work at a place called Ace Pizza, which does really, really good pizza. It’s kind of like Napoli New York hybrid. They’re great. And then there’s a ton of other good ones, like Gordo’s, which is also in Hackney. And I’m forgetting every single pizza I’ve ever eaten. But there’s a ton of good pizza happening in London right now, so yeah.
Iris: We like a place called Gordon’s Wine Bar, which is a little bit touristy, but it lives up to the hype. It’s right next to Embankment station and it was made in 1890 and it’s in a little cellar and it does really, really tasty wines and a banging vegan cheese board. It’s a lovely little place to go after the theatre, you know we never do that, but it’s a classic spot.
Sophie: Something I and we like to do is go to a place called Tayyabs, which is in Whitechapel, East London. It’s right by my uni and I like to go by myself in between classes and eat lots of Punjabi food, but we like to go as a group as well.
Iris: They do really good like soft chickpeas.
Sophie: Yeah, really, really good stuff. Yeah.
Poppy: Next one is cosy pubs. The best thing about London in the winter or autumn is getting cozy in a pub and one of my favorite ones is the Southampton Arms, which is near Tufnell Park and Hampstead Heath. Super cozy small pub with a fireplace and it’s just very old, old vibes. And yeah, and it’s great. We also have a load of great locals near where we all live in Hackney, like the Prince George and Chesham Arms and the Duke of Wellington.
Iris: And where we grew up there’s a really crazy one called the famous Royal Oak, where Sophie used to work.
Sophie: I used to work there. Never work at your favorite places.
Poppy: Yeah, that’s actually the best rule in life. But yeah.
Girl Ray!
Sophie: Speaking of East London, we also like E Pellicci, this old Italian fry-up place. It’s been there since the 1800s I think. And it just does a delicious fry-up. Also, like, very lardy Italian foods and the vibe is just fantastic.
Poppy: Yeah, beware the fried bread because it will mean you can’t finish the fry-up. So when they ask you toasted or fried bread, just go “toasted” even though fried is delicious.
Iris: I disagree. Really good fish & chips all around London, but we probably like Micky’s fish & chips the most which is in Hackney and near Dalston. It’s near this really good pub called Army and Navy. They do darts and karaoke there. I’m rambling now.
Poppy: I also like to tell people coming to London to go and get a martini at Duke’s Bar, which is, yeah, it’s a bar at the bottom of a very fancy hotel in Mayfair. But it’s like a very London experience and you have to wait a little while to get a table, but you go in there and you should order a gin martini and the martinis are the strongest drinks you’ll ever have. I think they have about six shots of gin in them and there’s actually a two-drink limit. You can’t have more than two drinks. But the guys come up with a little cart and they make it right in front of you and it’s very delicious.
Sophie: Another one we like is Bar Italia in Soho—another very classic old Italian joint. But yeah, the drinks are great, it’s very open plan and people watching there is just excellent.
Girl Ray!
THINGS TO DO Iris: There’s a lovely little view from the top of the Oxo Tower. You can just walk up there for free, get that lift up or whatever and there’s just a great view from the Thames, get a little tap water and do some people watching.
Sophie: I’m looking at this list and I’m like, wow, I just do all these things by myself. OK. Genesis Cinema, again after university I like to go, sometimes they do 3-pound tickets for all the films that have come out like a few years ago, but they’re all the films that are super cheap and yeah, fantastic place.
Poppy: We also like to go to city farms, which are not unique to London, but it feels like quite a London thing where you get these, yeah, these small little farms in the middle of the city and you’ve got, you know, lots of lovely animals and …
Sophie: Ever heard of a farm?
Poppy: This is how a farm works. There are animals, but no, yeah, it’s a nice thing to do on the weekend, go and say hi to the piggies. They’re usually free.
Iris: You like to follow them on Instagram to see when there’s newborns.
Poppy: Yeah, exactly. But Hackney City Farm is my local and my favorite but there’s lots of good ones.
Iris: Vauxhall City Farm is great. Stepney Green. Yeah, there’s some real cute ones. There’s a wonderful little place called the Novelty Automation Museum. It’s a collection of homemade arcade machines. It’s right by Holborn and it’s just such a weird place and it’s just so strange. I love it there. It’s really fun. It’s like a work of art, but you get to play with it.
Poppy: Something I like to do as well, which is a bit random, is when the Thames is in its low tide, you can go onto the banks and find all kinds of crazy shit. There’s so many, like, there’s loads of bones, which I don’t touch obviously, but you can find little Victorian glass bottles and you can find clay pipes, like smoking pipes, loads of tiles, loads of stuff because basically for the past, like, however many 100 years, the Thames was basically just the bin for people, they just throw anything in it. So, there’s tons of stuff that washes up and it’s really fun to go and have a look and see if you can find anything.
Sophie: Um, it’s a bit dorky, but I quite like going on trains a lot, just for the sake of being on the train. And there’s a train line called the DLR [Docklands Light Rail], which was made in around 2012 for the Olympics and it goes across mostly East London, but it goes to central and South as well and it’s very like Blade Runner-y around the Canary Wharf and I find it quite relaxing to just sit on it and think about life.
Iris: And if you sit in the front, it feels like you’re driving the train.
Sophie: Yeah, there’s no drivers.
Iris: There’s great galleries everywhere around London, but particularly in Mayfair there’s some really fun commercial galleries that you can just wander around and they’re all free and the exhibitions change every few weeks and it’s very exciting. I mean, it’s incredibly wealthy around there, but it’s great for people watching also.
Poppy: I also really like a spot in Walthamstow in east London called the Walthamstow Trades Hall, which is like an old working man’s club. But recently they started doing some super fun nights, like there’s a good karaoke night, which is a lot of fun.
SHOPPING
Sophie: We really like to go to car boot sales. We love knickknacks and there’s a car boot sale in Dalston called Princess May Car Boot, which is very, very good. And you’ll often see people you know, kind of setting up stores there because anyone could do it. Poppy’s done it.
Iris: And there’s a great one in Chiswick as well. If you drive, we recommend that. There’s a great vintage shop, probably my favorite in London called Blue 17 on Holloway Road. It’s very overwhelming but lots of fun. And I really like this toy shop in Archway fairly nearby called the Toy Project, which is kind of like a charity shop, but it just does toys and yes, it’s for children, but it’s just very fun to visit because everything’s really cheap and it’s run by a funny woman and her daughter. And it’s great for toy lovers.
FOOD AND DRINK Trying pizzas (Ace Pizza, Gordo’s etc.)
Gordon’s wine bar
Tayyabs Indian
E Pellicci fry-up
Cosy pubs
Great Turkish food on Kingsland Road (Somine)
Martini at Duke’s Bar
People watching from Bar Italia
Fish & chips at Micky’s Chippy, Dalston
THINGS TO DO Top of OXO
Genesis Cinema
City Farms
Novelty Automation Museum
Mudlarking by the Thames
Karaoke Night at Walthamstow Trades Hall
Walk on Hampstead Heath and swim in the ponds.
Mayfair galleries
Going on trains/DLR line
SHOPPING Car boot sales, Princess May Car Boot in Dalston & Chiswick car boot sale
Blue 17 Vintage, Holloway Road
The Toy Project
Read our interview with Girl Ray in CF18 (which are pretty hard to come by these days!) and listen to their wonderful new album, Prestige, here! Also go see them play in the USA and EU later this year (see dates below).
When Pam Berry and I started chickfactor zine in 1992, you can be damn sure we were listening to both Heavenly and thePooh Sticks. We interviewed Heavenly for CF2 (Amelia Fletcher is on the cover with Bridget Cross from Unrest), but we never got to interview Hue Pooh, though we do remember a memorable show at Maxwell’s in 1992 or 1993. During pandemic lockdown times, Rob Pursey wrote some songs that were too punky for the Catenary Wires, so he and Amelia thought of Hue for a collaboration. So Swansea Sound was born—featuring Hue, Amelia, Rob (Skep Wax Records, The Catenary Wires), Bob Collins (the Dentists, the Treasures of Mexico), and Ian Button (who plays in too many bands to list)—and they’re about to release a fab new album, Twentieth Century (out Sept. 8), and go on tour (see dates down below). They need no introduction to you, reader, but we figured it would be fun to have Hue and Amelia interview each other after all this time! This is their conversation. Swansea Sound artwork by Catrin Saran James and Jon Safari.
Swansea Sound, image courtesy of the artists
Hue: What was the first song / record you can remember hearing, Amelia?
Amelia: I have no idea, but I do remember the first time I took a real interest. My parents had the Sgt. Pepper album and the sleeve had all the lyrics on it. I remember diligently learning all the words. I think I was 7. I more or less still know them all. How about you? And when did you first decide you wanted to make music yourself? Hue: Mine is Beatles as well. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da. Though it wasn’t a single in the U.K. so I reckon I’m remembering the version by Marmalade which was a No 1.
Although that was ’68 and I would’ve been three so whether or not this is a half-remembered memory or accurate I’m not quite sure.
I was in a band of sorts when I was 8 but I’m not sure if what we were doing was music. I played a pink glitter guitar which is impressive considering I can’t play guitar in the 21st century. We didn’t have a name though I have retrospectively named us the Swansea Bay City Rollers.
Eithne, Amelia and Elizabeth (Talulah Gosh), image courtesy of the artists
Can you remember what was the first song you wrote and were you already in a band? Amelia: The first song I wrote was called “Tissue Smiles”. I have no idea why! It had pretty terrible words, but a decent tune.
It was for my first band, which was called Splatter Babies. We were in sixth-form and practised in our drummer’s parents’ front room. Adam Franklin (latterly in Swervedriver) was the guitarist, and wrote most of the songs. At that point, I presume he thought it would be good to have a girl singer. Being in a band with me for a year obviously changed his mind! Hue: Ah splendid. I think I’ve seen a picture of you in Splatter Babies but not heard anything. We could / should cover ‘Tissue smiles’ if we get to that difficult third album with Swansea Sound!
Amelia: How did the idea for The Pooh Sticks come about, and what was the first Pooh Sticks song? Hue: The idea of the Pooh Sticks initially was just very much an idea. I came up with the name and the concept of forming ‘the ultimate ‘wimpy’ band’. I was stuck on Temple Meads train station in Bristol overnight with Steve from Fierce Records as we’d missed the last train to Swansea after a Primal Scream gig (jingle jangle version).
We then wrote ‘On Tape’ together with me coming up with the punchline and some other lyrics. Steve did the rest and we literally recorded it line by line as it was written. That was quickly followed by ‘Indie pop ain’t noise pollution‘ and ‘I know someone who knows someone who knows Alan McGee quite well‘.
Heavenly
Was Splatter Babies your only band before Talulah Gosh? How did TG get together and how quickly did the first songs and shows come about? Was the first gig in Oxford? Amelia: That was the only band before Talulah Gosh. (Other than “The Peedles”, the Beatles covers band I attempted to create with a couple of school friends when I was 7!) Hue: Ah so you were in a band at the same time as me doing the Swansea Bay City Rollers. The Peedles? I would buy a T shirt if you make one. Amelia: Not sure how big a market there would be for that one! Talulah Gosh came together remarkably quickly. The guitarist and drummer part was easy – I asked my boyfriend Pete and my brother Mathew. I met Elizabeth at a gig in November ’85 and invited her to join the band on the basis of her wearing a Pastels badge We then found Rob to play bass – he was auditioned not on the basis of his playing but the records he had on his wall!
And we played our first gig by March ’86. Just four months after meeting Elizabeth. We had already written some of our most well-known songs by the time of that show!
Hue: So Rob did play live and was in the very first incarnation of Talulah Gosh? Before he left to join an Italian prog rock band for a tour of Sweden?
Amelia: Yep, I think Rob left TG on the basis that we were all a little annoying to be with at that point. He relented later! (I think). Why on earth did you think of asking me to join The Pooh Sticks? Hue: A few reasons I guess.
We had been offered a Peel Session and felt that Steve Fierce singing parts a bit out of his comfort zone couldn’t last. We could see you found it hard to say no to an indie band when they came calling, so we thought it was worth a 5p coin in the local phone box. You did reply ‘aren’t you the band that take the piss out of indie’! We actually liked many of the C86 era bands, particularly the melodic ones as we were pop fans ostensibly. I had seen you play in Port Talbot in Dec ’87 I think, which was near the end of TG. The session was maybe the April of ’88 so we figured you had some spare hours. You were a good sport. But I can’t imagine either of us thought we’d be still singing / shouting at each other 35 years on.
The Pooh Sticks
The Gosh seemed to attract a whole bunch of press. Some gushing, some less pleasant. What’s the most memorable for you? Good and bad? Amelia: I think the most extreme press we got was actually in TG. On the plus side, we managed to get a whole page on page 3 of NME when we’d barely started. A rave from the Legend!, headlined “Do you remember fun? Talulah Gosh do!” Hue: Yes, I remember that article by Jerry Legend I think. Amelia: On the negative side, our very last press interview was also in NME but this time with Steven Wells. It was a big piece but he was totally horrible about us! He also referred to us as Aryan, which was pretty insensitive given I’m half-Jewish and huge numbers of my grandparents’ relatives died in the holocaust. The allegation seemed to be purely based on us having short bleached hair! Hue: I know Steven Wells isn’t about any more to defend himself but he was a showboating writer and that doesn’t read well now at all does it? I met him a few years later as he made a video for a band I was managing. He found out I was from the Pooh Sticks and I got the distinct impression he didn’t like us. The video he made was totally rubbish by the way. Amelia: We also got 1 out of 10 in NME for the second Heavenly album from guest reviewers Shampoo. But to be honest we were quite amused by that. Hue: Ha! Shampoo supported the Pooh Sticks once at the Garage in Highbury as they signed their mega record deal. This was around the time that every band who supported the Pooh Sticks seemed to be become very successful overnight like Pulp, the Cranberries, David Gray, etc!
The Pooh Sticks with Amelia, image courtesy of the artists
Amelia: The Pooh Sticks had a good run. But I know you were actually up for trying to be famous (in a way that Heavenly never really had been). Were you ever pushed by your record label to do anything you were uncomfortable with? And how do you think you would have handled REAL fame? Hue: I’m not sure that I was trying to be famous at all, it’s just that I didn’t have anything better to do when a major label came calling. I was working as a tennis coach at the time which I kinda enjoyed, but the chance of doing music full-time for a while seemed to make sense.
I did think signing to a major at that time would be the beginning of the end unless we sold records which we obviously didn’t, but we felt the songs we had needed more time in the studio and that this was the only way to do that. That possibly wasn’t true.
The label wanted us on the road playing lots of shows though. Up until that point we’d only ever played a handful of shows, so that became a bit of a slog pretty quickly. I’d had enough by the time we did a (successful) tour of Japan and decided I didn’t want to be in the Pooh Sticks anymore. I did return to be on Optimistic Fool (our last LP) as long as I didn’t have to tour. I had started to manage a band and work as an A&R at that point so was a busy bod.
Real fame wasn’t going to visit us, but I think it looks like hard work. I’ve got a few friends who became ‘famous’ like Catatonia, Super Furries or even the actor Rhys Ifans and it looks like hard work to me! Amelia: Yep, I agree. Fame does looks like hard work. Stressful too! Fortunately, we got even less close than The Pooh Sticks!
Swansea Sound
Hue: You’ve never really stopped making music whereas I’ve had plenty of time away from it. Which parts do you enjoy the most? Writing? Recording? Touring? Doing fanzine interviews?! Amelia: Fanzine interviews of course! Especially for Chickfactor, obviously!
But actually I probably like playing shows the most, although maybe because we’ve never done so many that they feel like a slog! For me, it isn’t necessarily the touring so much (although that can be good fun too) but the actually performing on stage. I’d like to say I just really like singing but it is probably just that I am an attention sponge!
I always enjoyed playing with The Pooh Sticks too—even if I quite often messed things up! Like that gig when I clean forgot I was supposed to be writing across your chest in lipstick and you were just standing there waiting with your torso exposed. Sorry again about that! I’m useless at rock antics!! Hue: You often mention the lipstick on torso thing as if I was hanging around for ten mins! I remember it all going smoothly and there’s photographic evidence to prove it happened. I think what you wrote on me was ‘Hearthrob’! We were playing with Ween in New York and in the pic we were packing a massive stack of Marshall amps. The one and only time that happened I think. Amelia: ‘Hearthrob!’ That’s funny. I bet I spent at least some of the time onstage wondering if there should be one or two “t”s in Hearthrob. That’s how rock n roll I ever was! Hue: I certainly wouldn’t get my top off onstage this days. Though there’d be plenty more space to scrawl on!
The Pooh Sticks with Amelia, image courtesy of the artists
What is your favourite song from the many you’ve written and which do you think is the best if it’s not the same one? Amelia: Hmm. I think “P.U.N.K. Girl” is probably the best—mainly because it strikes a nerve but is not like anything else! But I think my favourite song might be “Memorabilia” by Tender Trap.
Partly because it was based on a silly song I invented to sing the kids when they were babies (I sang it while doing baby yoga on them to get rid of their wind!). Partly because it ended up being about memories of my brother. And partly because it’s just a good song.
So Iet’s move forward to Swansea Sound. I have very vivid memories of sending you that first song in Lockdown (“Angry Girl”), and then trying to figure out how to mix in the vocal you recorded in your kitchen on your phone! I’m still amazed at how well that worked!
Amelia playing in Splatter Babies. Photo: Vicky Bowman
But did you think at that stage that it would more than a couple of silly songs? When did you realise it could be something bigger? Hue: You had mentioned for a little while that Rob had a song that he thought was Pooh Sticky. I’d had some friends previously send me songs but it never went anywhere or felt right. At one point I think I even talked with Liz from The School about writing some songs, but when “Angry Girl” landed it was a good time in the sense that is was in the early days of the first lockdown so I had plenty of time.
It was an odd time as I was, if not exactly shielding, very much living solo, as I have quite bad asthma and have been hospitalised a few times with attacks. So I was living rurally in a village at the time, like you do, not knowing how it was all going to pan out.
I didn’t really think “Angry Girl” sounded like it would suit me necessarily, but I could hear it probably wasn’t a Catenary Wires song! Took me a while to figure out how to listen to the track on one phone and then sing/shout into my other one. I tried a couple of rooms in the house but ended up on my knees in the kitchen.
I listened back and it sounded horrible! I sent it not knowing how you could knock it into shape, but when you did ping it back I was amazed. It sounded so fully formed.
I guess I wasn’t sure what would happen next but I think Rob then sent ‘Corporate Indie Band’ and we immediately thought we should put it out even if it was low key and very limited.
I only realised it could be something bigger when Gideon Coe played it with much enthusiasm and Rob kept writing new songs almost to order. Then the first show we did at the Preston festival worked surprisingly well.
‘Live at the Rum Puncheon’ is a pretty remarkable LP considering how it was recorded. It also set things nicely for a follow up to sound like a step up simply by the fact we were actually in the same room together this time.
Talulah Gosh, image courtesy of the artists
Amelia: Is there a plan for world domination, and if so, what’s the next step? Hue: World domination? We’ll keep socking it the squares and straights across as many continents as we can in the short to medium term. Really looking forward to playing the U.K. shows plus in Europe and obviously going back to Japan and then hopefully the States. I just hope my dodgy hip holds out! You’ve made/edited a few of the videos for Swansea Sound which has impressed me. Is music your only form of creativity or do you/would you write or paint? Amelia: I’ve enjoyed making the videos. Rob and I tend to come up with the ideas and then I edit them. We did the last few Catenary Wires ones too, and a recent new video for “C Is the Heavenly Option” by Heavenly.
I think video-making is the kind of art form that suits me as it requires lots of patience and technical ability and then just a good creative idea or two. I’d love to be good at proper art or writing but I’m honestly useless at both! It is constantly galling to me. But I’m also constantly impressed by people who are good at either!
Rob and Amelia in the Heavenly era, image courtesy of the artists
What are you most excited about for the coming year? Here’s mine. Getting to play in the US and Japan again! How about you? Hue: Yes I’m very much looking forward to going back to Japan. I’ve been twice before once with the Pooh Sticks in ’93 which was so great I left the band for a while as I thought it would all be downhill from there. I did return for another LP but never played live again until reforming in 2010. I also went in ’96 with a band I was managing which was a very intense trip. We’d been to New Orleans and then LA for shows on the way so it’s only the time I’ve kinda circumnavigated the world.
Swansea Sound
The bass player didn’t sleep for four days and had an ‘episode’ at Tokyo airport with some armed guards so we had to miss the flight bless him. He wasn’t in a good way and insisted on being on a flight where he could smoke which wasn’t easy in ’96. We finally got a flight with chain smoke-loving Air France and he returned to Wales in a fug of fags and free champagne.
I’m also excited about hopefully just being alive for another year as I’ve lost two friends suddenly in the last week.
The lovely Michel Van de Woude who you obviously knew as well as the guitarist on three of the Pooh Sticks albums. Michel indeed did play hot licks and was in our line up at Reading festival when we were the best of all indie bands. I will miss him. Amelia: Yes, that was really sad news. Hue: Also my mate Tim passed very suddenly this week and was only 53. He was a gig buddy but also came to our shows. Very sad about that.
That puts everything into (a Spinal Tap) perspective.
So let’s indiepop (or rock) til we drop and enjoy what we have. Amelia: Cheers to that! CF
Swansea Sound dates Sept. 8: Twentieth Century Listening Party
Sept. 9: LIVE album launch at Rough Trade East
Sept. 14: Manchester, The Talleyrand
Sept. 15: Cardiff, Moon Club
Sept. 16: Carmarthen, Cwrw
Sept. 17: Bristol, Rough Trade (FREE)
Sept. 27: BBC6Music Riley/Coe studio session.
Sept. 29: St Leonards, The Piper
Sept. 30: Paris, Popfest
Oct. 13: Leeds, Wharf Chambers
Oct. 14: Newcastle-On-Tyne, Cumberland Arms
Oct. 27: Brighton/Hove, The Brunswick
Oct. 28: London, The Water Rats
You know Terry Banks from so many great bands! Tree Fort Angst played at our very first chickfactor party with live music in Sept. 1993, he played in glo-worm with chickfactor cofounder Pam Berry, Terry was featured in the zine with TheSaturday People, did time with St. Christopher, and currently plays with the poptastic D.C. band Dot Dash. We wanted to check in with him just before his band plays at D.C.’s Fort Reno on Monday, July 24. Read on, pop nerds! Interview by Gail / Images via Terry Banks
Dot Dash at Quarry House 2023
Chickfactor: When did you write your first song? What was it about? What was it called? Terry Banks: The first one I can remember was in a band in Richmond called Roy G. Biv. It was called “The Joy of Transportation.” It was just kind of jokey nonsense, a bit Housemartins-y, but that was our schtick. Were you musical as a child? I played saxophone for about two weeks as a fourth grader and that was it. A long time later, around age 19 or 20, I started playing guitar, but it was my roommate’s guitar. I didn’t get my own until summer 1986—an Ibanez Strat copy for a hundred bucks from a guy I knew.
The Saturday People, reunion CF 22 show at Bell House.jpg
Were you from a musical family? My dad played drums as a youth. We listened to a lot of music at home, but no one played an instrument. What were you like as a teen? I can’t really remember. I think I was kind of reserved. Around 16 I got very into, for lack of a better term, the ‘new wave’ music that was happening at the time. A friend of mine and I went to see Split Enz and we were sold. Then I got very, very into The Jam, The Buzzcocks, The Undertones, The Clash, stuff like that. The first Echo and The Bunnymen album led me back to The Byrds and The Velvet Underground. I wore a long coat to school. Where all have you lived? I grew up in suburban Baltimore; went to college in Richmond; spent a few years in England and Australia. Everything else has been D.C. I wish I’d lived a few more places. Maybe there’s still time.
The Knievels, Richmond
Please name all the bands you have been in that aren’t active. Roy G. Biv (we later changed our name to The Kickstands), The Knievels, Tree Fort Angst, St. Christopher, glo-worm, The Saturday People, Julie Ocean. Current bands? Dot Dash. Was guitar your first instrument? What kind do you play and why? Yes. I’ve always picked guitars by how they look. These days, I play a Vox Phantom. Before that I was playing a Vox Teardrop (the real name is Mark III.) I like the 60s vibe of these guitars but, equally (maybe even more so) I feel like there’s an early 80s post-punk thing going on, too – kind of Siouxsie or Robert Smith.
glo-worm, circa ’93
How did you first meet Pam Berry? It was right after I first moved to DC. I put an ad in the City Paper’s free classifieds in the music section saying I played guitar, liked Orange Juice and The Byrds, and wanted to form, or join, a band. Pam called my number, which was listed in the ad, and said “Who are you?” From that, I met her and Dan Searing and all those people. They were cool. What was it like being in glo-worm? It was good. I could never tell what Pam’s lyrics were until we recorded and then I always liked them. I think the album that came out, Glimmer, is really good and some of those songs — ‘Tilt-a-Whirl’, ‘Holiday’, ‘Travelogue’, and ‘Change of Heart’ all come to mind — sound (to me) like lost classics or something. Our gig-related claim to fame was that we opened for Radiohead once. I commented on them having Yoo-Hoo on their rider (there was a lot of it backstage) and the lead guitarist guy was like “Oh, do you know about Yoo-Hoo? It’s brilliant. It’s like chocolate milk, but fizzy”
The Saturday People, Malcolm X Park
What was it like being in The Saturday People? It was fun: a lot of humor, in-jokes, pseudonyms, and ongoing laughter. What’s Dot Dash up to these days? We had an album, called Madman in the Rain, come out at the end of 2022. Like all its predecessors it was released by Canadian indie label The Beautiful Music. Since lockdown ended, we’ve played about 15 shows in the past year and a bit with people like Bailterspace, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Richard Lloyd and a bunch of other rocking combos. It’s fun to be playing out again. We’re playing at Fort Reno in July.
Dot Dash plays July 24, 2023, at Fort Reno in D.C.
What kind of pop scene does D.C. have going on? The Quarry House has a great vibe and is booking lots of stuff. The Black Cat and DC9 are still going strong. Comet does a lot of stuff. A place called Songbyrd started up a while back. We know these guys in a garage band called Apollo 66 who do a club night once a month in an American Legion hall in Silver Spring where they’ll have three indie-ish bands of varying sorts and that’s always fun. There’s also the Runaway, Slash Run and Jammin Java and I’m probably forgetting a few others. In terms of D.C. bands, Bad Moves are excellent and have a bunch of killer pop songs.
St. Christopher in Berlin
Do your kids play music? (How old now?) Do you like any of their music (if they like music)? The oldest is 24 and plays guitar and writes songs. The younger is 21 and dabbles with guitar. One of their shared faves is Taylor Swift, who I think is pretty great. (If you’re unconvinced, check out “All Too Well” – there’s something Joy Division-y about it.) What is on your turntable these days? I think the best new thing I’ve heard in a good while is The Reds, Pinks and Purples. That guy (Glenn) is super prolific and it’s all great.
from chickfactor’s first ever party with live music, Sept. 1993
What are you reading/watching? A bunch of music-related books. Some recent ones include Starman by Paul Trynka, Record Play Pause by Stephen Morris, My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn, Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskyns, and Playing Bass with Three Left Hands by Will Carruthers. There are always more piling up. What else is going on in your life? Day job? Pets? I do media relations for a renewable energy org. We have a cat named Fergus. He spends a lot of time outside, spying on passers-by. My phone can no longer save anything because it’s filled with photos of him.
The Softies with poutine / Photo: Heather Johnston
When we put The Softies on the cover of chickfactor 18 back in 2018, we had no idea they would be coming back together to MAKE A NEW ALBUM and TOUR! Just a few weeks before Rose Melberg and Jen Sbragia set out to play a short Pacific Northwest tour with Tony Molina and All Girl Summer Fun Band and Mo Troper, we asked them a few questions about how this all came to happen. The split cassette tape in the images below features the Softies covering Tony’s entire album Dissed and Dismissed and Tony covering three Softies tunes, will be available at the upcoming shows and is being co-released by Slumberland Records and Alicia Vanden Heuvel’s (Poundsign, the Aislers Set) label Speakeasy Studios. Interview by Gail
Chickfactor: Why Tony Molina? Jen Sbragia: I first heard Dissed and Dismissed when Rose played it for me in her kitchen, in 2017. At the time I wasn’t listening to any new music really and was just focused on other stuff. I was blown away because of the genre-blending and was a little jealous I hadn’t thought of it first! I just thought it was a genius blend of my two favorite kinds of music—crunchy, squealy, distorted guitars and perfect pop. Not to be too dramatic, but that record changed my life. Rose Melberg: As Northern California natives, Jen and I both feel a deep connection to the California-ness of Tony’s music. It’s difficult to put a finger on what that means, it’s just a special kind of magic for us.
How did you guys and Tony M. know each other? Rose: We had been in touch as mutual fans of each other’s work but only met in person the first time when Tony played in Vancouver in 2019. He and his band stayed at my house and he and I stayed up talking until 5am on my porch talking about life, music, songs, etc. There’s nothing like watching the sun rise together to solidify a friendship forever Jen: We met in person at the Oakland Weekender, but had been texting each other about music and guitar stuff. I got his number from Mike Schulman, because Tony isn’t on any social media and I just wanted to introduce myself as a label mate, make that connection, and to gush about how much I loved his music. It was funny and weird that we were all big fans of each other. There were loose plans for me to sing with him at the Weekender during his secret/surprise set, but it didn’t work out. I joked that we should collaborate and release a split 7″ on Slumberland so we could “play this thing next year”. And weirdly, something very similar is happening.
The Softies in the olden days / Photo: Hannah Sternshein
How did this mini tour / new tape come about? Jen: He just texted me and asked if we wanted to play some PNW shows, simple as that. I wasn’t sure which band would work but then it became both Softies and AGSFB. The cassette was Mike and Alicia’s idea.
Please explain what the record is, what format, how people can get it, etc. Jen: It will be a cassette-only release, available at the merch table. Co-released by Slumberland and Speakeasy Studios.
If you are willing to say anything, what is going on with the Softies? Rose: We’re writing new songs and will be putting out a new album in 2024.
New recording? Record deal? Shows? Etc. Rose + Jen: All of the above!
The Softies with Alicia Vanden Heuvel and Gary Olson at CF20, Bell House, Brooklyn, 2012. Photo: Tae Won Yu
How has your songwriting (style, content, tools, etc.) changed from the olden days? Jen: Attending the Oakland Weekender after so long in quarantine was huge for me. Not only just traveling again and seeing old friends and live bands, but the prep I put in beforehand of researching all the bands and listening to new music again so that I would know the songs and be extra excited to see them played live. After I came home, I felt such renewed excitement about playing music again for the first time in years and my creativity sort of exploded. I started playing guitar every day, writing little riffs and bits of lyrics and songs, and shared the more Softies-esque ones with Rose. She is the true mastermind IMHO. She took those ideas and we made whole songs. She’s writing too, of course. So these new songs are more collaborative than ever before.
We have had several songwriting trips over the past year where we traveled here and there to work on music. Often we would meet in Seattle because it’s a pretty good halfway point between Vancouver and Portland. We have been recording our new songs in demo format so we can each work remotely using Garageband, but we have time booked at Anacortes Unknown over the summer to record our new record.
Poster by Jen Sbragia (The Softies will not be playing in Eugene)
Can we expect to hear new stuff at the shows? Jen: There are definitely some new ones on the set list.
What else is happening? Jen: Mostly practice! I agreed to do double duty, (which I have done before, Softies and AGSFB toured California 24-ish years ago) It never occurred to me that it might be too much for me presently—I was too excited. So now, that equals a LOT of practice. Practice is my middle name right now. But I couldn’t be happier. CF
chickfactor 18 with the Softies on the cover is still available in our shop as well as various other outlets including Quimby’s, K Recs, Jigsaw, My Vinyl Underground, Record Grouch, Main St. Beat, Grimey’s, Atomic Books, among others.
Since Portland’s All Girl Summer Fun Band originally formed just to be a band during the summer of 1998, it’s pretty incredible that they are playing live in the summer of 2023. Now playing together as a trio (bassist Ari Douangpanya left in 2005 to focus on raising her son), AGSFB is now OGs Jen Sbragia, Kathy Foster and Kim Baxter. During the pandemic, Jen and Kim started playing together for fun, while Kathy leads a band called Roseblood and plays with Hurry Up and Slang as well. Since they kind of formed thanks to a Softies show way back when, it’s so great that the two bands will be playing together in early June (see flier below) in the Pacific Northwest! We are so excited to present a brand-new interview with AGSFB, who were featured in chickfactor 15 (2002) and played at our 10th anniversary soiree at Fez the same year. Interview by Gail O’Hara / Photos courtesy of All Girl Summer Fun Band
Chickfactor: what years were All Girl Summer Fun Band in action back then? Jen Sbragia (she/her): Summer of 1998 until our most recent show – May of 2010 at the SF Popfest (thanks, SongKick… I had no idea) Kim Baxter (she/her): It’s so crazy that it’s been 13 years since we last played! When Kathy, Jen and I recently got together to practice for these upcoming shows, it felt like no time had passed at all. It was a pretty magical feeling, I didn’t realize just how much I had missed playing with them.
What is the current AGSFB lineup? Jen: Myself, Kathy, and Kim Kim: People have been asking us why Ari isn’t playing these shows. She actually left the band in 2005 to raise her son, so AGSFB has been a 3-piece band ever since then. We are all still very good friends with her!
What was the impetus for starting up again? Jen: Kim and I have been playing together over the pandemic, outside in her covered breezeway between her house and her practice space. We were just doing it for fun, to flex those old music muscles again and chat and just interact with each other in person while taking care not to give each other any possible germs. Then Tony Molina asked us to play in June. We were excited to ask Kathy to join us, she said yes and we all got back together to practice, in the actual practice space.
How long have you been secretly playing together in recent years? Jen: Not secretly! Just spending time together in person and playing some old tunes and writing some new stuff. Seeing what happens.
How did you guys originally meet? Jen: I met Kim when her band Cherry Ice Cream Smile played with the Softies at Thee O Cafe in Portland, June 1997. She gave me her band’s cassette. Rose and I listened to it a ton as we drove across the US and back. I was like, I gotta hang out with this person and start a band. Kim: I was a huge fan of the Softies so getting to play a show with them and being able to give them a tape of my band was a big deal. But then they actually called me from the road and left me a message on my answering machine saying that they loved the tape and that I should hang out with Jen when she gets back from tour. I was over the moon! I actually still have the microcassette with that message from my answering machine. Jen & I instantly became good friends. A year later, Kathy moved to Portland from California, and we hit it off right away. The two of us recorded a couple of songs on my four track which eventually became two of the first AGSFB songs, “Broken Crown” and “Will I See You.” Ari and I both grew up in Albuquerque, NM, but didn’t become friends until she moved to Portland. I asked the 3 of them if they wanted to be in a band for the summer of 1998 and described it as an all-girl-summer-fun-band. No pressure, just a goofy & fun band. I was leaving to go to school in Russia that fall and figured it would be a project just for the summer. But we all decided to continue playing when I got home, and here we are, 85 years later, still a band! Ha! Kathy Foster (she/her): Yes Kim brought us all together. She was one of the very first people I met (and stayed with) when I moved to Portland in May of 1998. I knew her then-boyfriend/now-husband from the Bay Area. We clicked right away and became friends. Soon after, we started AGSFB. As I remember it, Kim told me I was in a new band with her, Jen and Ari. Haha. And I said OK! I, too was a huge Softies fan and was stoked to play with Jen. Even though I had just met the three of them, we all had so much fun together right from the start!
What were some highlights and memories from the old days? Jen: Spending half of practice just standing around with instruments plugged in and ready to go but then we’re just catching up, chatting, laughing. Getting to tour Europe! Kim: I love chatting at practice! We talk about anything and everything and sometimes we play a little music too. I loved all of our past shows, tours, and I absolutely love spending time in the studio with AGSFB. Kathy: Same! I always thought it was so cool and special that we could talk, laugh and be ourselves so comfortably at practice. (It’s the same now, too!) There was no pressure, no agenda, no one dominating the conversation or creative process, no egos. Just a fun, creative, supportive atmosphere, which carried through everything we did together – playing shows, recording, touring. Recording and touring were always fun adventures.
I love looking at the old photos from the first AGSFB era—lots of red, pale blue, gingham, pigtails/bunches. Did you guys have rules about stagewear? Jen: We tried to come up with color themes. We did all have gingham tops or outfits, so that happened at our first show. One time I found some deadstock Women’s uniforms in sort of an orangey color at thrift store somewhere and we wore those, I think? Also, we played a Halloween show where we all wore vintage prom dresses with zombie makeup. It was fun but then we stopped doing it after a while. It was nice to just wear whatever. Kim: Kathy is so good at doing zombie makeovers! I want to play another Halloween show just so she can do zombie makeup for us! Kathy: I love doing zombie makeup! Yeah, at first we tried to come up with a dress theme for every show. We also did a monochrome theme where we each wore a different color. Jen just posted some old show footage where we’re all wearing baseball tees. Mostly, though, we all kinda had a similar style that looked good together.
Any good stories from tour in the early days? Kim: We would often go on spring break tours down to California which I always loved because we had a lot of friends living in the Bay Area. It was also fun touring in Europe and of course we loved playing the Chickfactor show in NY in 2002. So many great memories.
Tour nightmares? Kim: Well, one night Jen, Kathy and I were driving home after playing a show in Tacoma, WA and we ran out of gas. These creepy guys pulled over and were shining lights in our van to see what we had. Luckily they didn’t try to steal anything and they finally just drove away but it was so flippin’ scary! Kathy: That was so scary! I still think about that when I drive past that area of I-5, and feel so relieved that nothing bad happened. There was also the tour down to California in my VW Vanagon where we had van trouble, and found out the van had a small gas leak. We got a fire extinguisher for the van and crossed our fingers that we’d make it back to Portland in one piece. I believe it was that same tour that Ari and I got tattoos at the parlor next door to the venue in San Pedro, CA.
What bands are you in these days? Jen: As always, The Softies and AGSFB, but also—over the quarantine times I started recording little weird outbursts or jingle-type “songs” on my phone. It was just stupid stuff like me singing Go Brush Your Teeth to my kids and stuff like that. Rose and her husband Jon heard them when we were together during a Softies songwriting sesh and they encouraged me to release them as a weird solo project. So I have a Bandcamp for it called Yreka Bakery. It’s just a handful of weirdness mostly about my cat. Kim: AGSFB & I’m also recording songs for another solo album (Kim Baxter Band) plus writing new songs with Jen but we’re not sure what they will be yet. Maybe a new project, maybe a new AGSFB album, maybe both! Kathy: AGSFB (I wanna write new stuff!), Slang, Hurry Up. I’m working on releasing a solo album under the name Roseblood.
How did the pandemic change you? How did it change Portland? Jen: Like many people, I was scared at first, then scared and bored, then scared and sick of living with my family all on top of each other. Online school was abysmal for my kids. Part of me kind of liked being a hermit. I grew a little garden, we painted rocks, I made overalls. I still wear masks a lot, but I’m dipping a toe back in here and there. Portland definitely seems different now, so many businesses that have closed. So many camps. It seems like this everywhere though. Not good.
Kim: It forced me to prioritize the things that mean the most to me, like playing music. I didn’t have a lot of energy to put toward music for a couple of years though because I was so stressed and worried most of the time. But we are lucky because we have a studio in our garage, so when I did have energy to get out there and play music, it helped me feel more grounded, nostalgic, and positive about something. ¶ Portland has been growing at a very fast pace which was already causing some issues, especially around housing. But then the pandemic hit, and it really exacerbated those problems. I’m hopeful that some positive solutions are found soon. I still love it here, but we have had our car stolen 4 times now and that just gets old after a while.
Kathy: Like Kim, I didn’t have much energy to put toward music or writing, which was disappointing. I saw a post on Instagram that stuck with me that said: the pandemic is not a residency. Even though I wasn’t working, and I was fortunately getting unemployment, it wasn’t a relaxing or productive time. It was stressful not knowing what was happening or how long it would go on. I put energy toward working on a vegetable garden which I hadn’t done much of in the past, and just dealing. I also learned a few bike maintenance skills and fixed up a few things on my bike. I’m pretty introverted, which may sound weird since I’ve played tons of shows. The pandemic made me a bit more socially anxious but I’m starting to come out of that. Portland’s problems got really magnified during the pandemic—homelessness, drugs, mental health problems all got way worse and we’re still dealing with it today and trying to figure out solutions.
What does Portland’s music scene feel like these days? Top acts? Kathy: I guess I’m the one who’s gone to shows the most in the last several years, but I still feel like I’m out of it. I don’t go to as many shows as I used to, that’s for sure, so I wouldn’t say I have my finger on the pulse. It still feels pretty much as vibrant as ever. We definitely need more all ages venues. Portland seems to have always struggled with that. There seem to be more country influenced bands these days, and not in any cheesy way. Bands I like are The Barbaras, Roselit Bone, Silver Triplets of the Rio Hondo, Fronjentress, Jenny Don’t and the Spurs, and the legend Toody Cole still plays. There are still tons of great pop and folk bands like Sunbathe, Arch Cape, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Terre Haunt; and great punk bands like The Ghost Ease, HELP, Dials, Divers, Dommengang, Love in Hell, Yuvees. A few of my top fave punk bands that are now broken up were Lithics, Mr. Wrong, and Ex-Kids. There are synth, noise, jazz and hip hop scenes too! Too many great acts to list.
What else are you guys up to in 2023? Kids, pets, jobs, etc? Jen: My other job is freelance graphic design. My kids are tweens and doing good. We have the same ancient cat (long may she reign!) and a newly adopted bearded dragon we call Tobias Jordan. Kim: My husband and I own a small film production company. We have a teenage son who is so awesome, and I love spending time with him! I’ve been trying to spend more time sewing and making art. I also play a lot of futsal and I’ve been getting into bouldering. Kathy: I’m a part-time bookkeeper. I’m the only AGSFB member without human children, but I have a dog daughter named Ronette (Ronnie) who I adore. She’s two. I’m currently in the mastering phase of my solo album (Roseblood). Slang will probably be playing more later this year. Janet Weiss, who is in Slang, has been touring a lot the last few months with Quasi but they’ll be home soon. I’m starting to DJ a little more (DJ KM Fizzy). I DJed regularly and had a radio show (Strange Babes on XRAY FM) before the pandemic but have only DJed a couple times since. I also like to sew, make beaded jewelry, and I’ve been reading more this year.
If you do have kids, what kind of music are they into? Do they know about your music past/present? What do they think? Jen: My kids’ music preferences are a mystery; they listen to and view stuff on YouTube mostly. They know how vinyl records work and how to hold ’em by the edges, so my work is done. (ha) My daughter wants me to pay for Spotify, but I just can’t bring myself to pull the trigger on that. They got to see me play a secret Softies set in Seattle (with the Umbrellas, who they loved) a few months back and they were so sweet. After each song I glanced over and they were waving and cheering, so sweet. Kim: My son loves EDM and records his own music. He’s supportive of my music but I know it’s not his favorite style. When he was 3, we brought him with us on a European tour for my solo album. Since my husband and I both play music, it’s always just been a part of his life. Kathy: Ronnie gets really relaxed when I sing to her or play music. 🙂
Got any crushes? Jen: I fall in love with people who make music I love. Always have. Matthew Rhys as Perry Mason could get it. Kim: I have crushes on everyone finding time to make music and art after being so mentally exhausted by the pandemic and the craziness of the world. I see you and I’m cheering for you all! Oh, and I also totally have a crush on Diego Luna. Kathy: Pedro Pascal like everyone else.
What are you watching? Jen: Just finished reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell to my kids and now we are watching the 2015 miniseries. Also burning through Succession and Perry Mason. Kim: I’m re-watching My So Called Life and Freaks and Geeks. Kathy: The last show I was excited about was The Last of Us (hence the crush). I’m excited for the second season.
What are you reading? Jen: Just started the His Dark Materials series with the kids. Kim: I’ve been on a big Steinbeck kick lately. I read 8 Steinbeck novels back to back. I recently switched gears though and now I’m reading the Mötley Crüe book, The Dirt. Kathy: I recently read two books by Kristin Hannah – The Four Winds and The Great Alone. Both were incredible. She was recommended to me by a friend. She has a long bibliography so I’m excited to read more by her. I’m currently reading Good Neighbors by Sarah Lanagan. I like it so far.
What are you eating? Fave food carts? Jen: Just started going out for food again, so EVERYTHING is exciting. Our fave sushi is Kashiwagi PDX. I didn’t get the appeal of La Croix for the longest time but now I’m fully in the cult. Also I love diet coke. Kim: There’s a food cart by my house that makes delicious food from Guam. It’s so good but they’re rarely open. Kathy: I get overwhelmed by the amount of food carts in Portland. There are so many that it’s hard to choose so I just freeze. Plus, I don’t eat out a ton. There’s a good Mexican & Yucatecan cart near me called Loncheria Los Mayas. I also go to the taqueria down the street from there called Santo Domingo. I’ve been on a protein smoothie kick lately. I make one most mornings. Other than, it’s kind of all over the place. I love all kinds of food.
What are you most excited about doing on the upcoming tour? Jen: I hope I smile so much my face hurts. I miss playing shows so much! Kim: Spending time with Jen & Kathy, seeing old friends, making new friends, putting smiles on other people’s faces. Kathy: Yeah, same. Just playing again, hanging out together, having fun, seeing friends, lots of smiles all around, and seeing The Softies! Omg.
Any special gear you are using these days to record? Learning new tricks? Jen: I got an EVO 4 interface so that I can record straight into an iPad using Garage Band. It’s been really helpful writing music remotely. I also got a BOSS loop pedal for experimenting with, and a Blues Driver pedal that seems perfect for beefing up those old clean-guitar songs a bit. Kim: I recently got the Data Corruptor pedal from Earthquaker for bass. I’m still learning to use it, it’s a beast. I currently just step on it at random moments during practice to make Jen & Kathy laugh. I also have been recording songs using a Poly D Analog Synth which I love! Kathy: I been recording with Logic for the past few years. I recorded the Roseblood demos and album in Logic. When I made the demos, I was new to Logic and I found it to be a cool tool for songwriting. It helped me write songs in new ways by being able to mess around with all the different sounds it comes with – amps, instruments, effects and beats.
What can we expect at the upcoming shows? Jen: Maybe matching WILDFANG coveralls? And some new pedals. A mix of old songs. Not sure we have the time to get anything new together in time. Kim: Giggles, nerves & pure happiness! Kathy: What Kim said!
Please tell us about what music you are recording / making / practicing / selling for this tour. Jen: Kim and I were writing some new songs when it was just the two of us. Now that Kathy is practicing with us, those songs might become new AGSFB songs. Mostly we are just trying to practice a set list of established songs, but who knows? Mike Schulman from Slumberland and Alicia Vanden Heuvel from Speakeasy Studios were talking about co-releasing a cassette of Tony and the Softies covering a few of each other’s songs just for this tour. A fun little limited edition gem. Well, Rose loves doing covers (if you haven’t heard her September cassette it’s incredible). So she learned ALL the songs on Tony’s Dissed and Dismissed. She laid down the guitar tracks and her vocals on her own, we recorded my vocals together during one of our many practice sessions, and then I did my guitar parts in my little office with my iPad. Tony did three Softies songs. We put so much of our hearts into covering his songs because we love him so much. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. Kim: I think we are close to finalizing our set for the upcoming shows. The bulk of it consists of songs from our album, 2. Plus some from the s/t album, some from “Looking Into It”, and maybe one from our first 7-inch. Kathy: Not music, but we’ll have new t-shirts and buttons!
What’s on the turntable, er, bandcamp right now? Jen: The Lost Days – In The Store Chime School – s/t Lisa Prank – Perfect Love Song Black Belt Eagle Scout – The Land, The Water, The Sky OVENS – s/t Weedrat – The Rat Cometh Julia Jacklin – Crushing
Kathy: Ribbon Stage – Hit With The Most Various artists – Strange World (compilation of “cosmic and earthly Doo Wop and R and B from America and Jamaica released by Mississippi Records) Quasi – Breaking The Balls Of History Dateline podcast Tig & Cheryl: True Story podcast
Photos: Michael LavinePhotos: Michael LavinePhotos: Michael LavinePhoto: Todd Baxter
