5 Questions with Chris Vena

I first met Chris Vena ten years ago while at the San Francisco Art Institute. We were both enrolled in a studio painting class with the cooler than should be humanly possible Dewey Crumpler. However, it wasn't during class that we had our first conversation. Rather, it was a chance run in at the studios on a Friday night.

It was the first Friday night of the first week of class, the biggest meet and greet party weekend of the semester. Not being anywhere near cooler than should be humanly possible, Chris and I had both individually decided that the best place to spend that night would be the painting studios at school, not the bar or parties. Back in those days, the studios were left open to the students 24/7, why wouldn't you go there after class?!?!?

Nerds.

At this point, I can't remember who was there first. Let's just say it was Chris. So, I set up my easel and canvas next to his and we started talking and painting. We had a lot in common. We both transferred from community college, played bass, had both came to SF to escape the art voids of our former So Cal beach towns, etc, etc.

The deal was sealed when I reached into my backpack and pulled out a 22oz Anchor Porter. Chris pretty much immediately ran to the store down the hill and came back with more beer. I think we walked the stairs between the school and market 2 or 3 times that night. The conversation drifted from favorite painters into music, from philosophy & religion to history, around The City and back into art.

Synchronistically, Chris took his abstract canvas and turned it into a rough gestural still life of a pack of Camels. I had started a portrait of a guy drinking a 40oz King Cobra.
Friends.

1. What's the bottom line, good & bad, to being an artist in Seattle?

Seattle has been great compared to the previous places I've lived and worked. I've been able to make, show and sell more work in the last four years than the all years I lived in San Diego and San Francisco. I've never seen so many nonprofits and government agencies devoted to the arts. On one website I counted 20, just in the city of Seattle. Compare that to 30 in the whole state of California. That says something about the tax paying people who live in this city.

Despite that being said, the particular type of painting I do is not very well represented around town. Many artist co-ops tend to feature installation, video and conceptual art and a lot of the private galleries tend to deal exclusively in lowbrow/Juxtapoz types of work. My work doesn't fit very well into either category. The galleries and venues that I work with, they don't always get a lot of press, although they do show some great work. There are a lot of talented artists in town that no one knows about. It's a shame.

The Seattle art scene, and sometimes the music scene, it's a little self-conscious. The critics, in particular, seem overly concerned with representing Seattle as having the same aesthetic you see coming out of Los Angeles and New York. They're trying to prove that we're not a bunch of backwater, grungy hicks that got lucky in the 90's who don't really have anything serious to offer the rest of the world. The art that's written about, it's an imitation of what's coming out of the two "culture meccas" listed above. It isn't good because it's not original.

The irony is that when you spend all your time obsessing about and imitating what's going on in the big cities, that's exactly what you end up looking like; a bunch of hicks. It's funny, but it's kind of like an art cargo cult. They think if you imitate the trappings of high art, then the notoriety will come. Unfortunately, this dooms anything truly unique to this region to go unnoticed. This seems like a problem in a lot of local art scenes though.

Although I was never a huge punk fan when I was young, there were a few bands I liked and I knew a lot of kids in the scene. What I appreciated and respected the most about punk was the ethos of supporting your local scene. Grunge was nurtured and cultivated by that punk ethos and Seattle shouldn't be ashamed of that. If the people of Seattle were fiercely loyal to and supportive of their local art scene, I think we would see a lot more interesting original work coming from unexpected.

2. The previous answer references Grunge & musical integrity. How would you relate what you do as a visual artist to music? What influence does it have on your work?

Music is important to me. I grew up in a family and a town that was not very interested in art, so I never thought about artists when I was young. I didn't have anyone around who knew about or made art but I did have friends who made music so that is what I got into. I play bass in a band to this day. Because of my experience with music, musicians usually come to mind before visual artists when I think of artistic movements and philosophies.

There are certain musicians whose prolific output, integrity and vision I hold in high regard: Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Neil Young, David Grubs, and Rob Crow just to name a few. James Brown was important to me early on and still is to this day. I still have tremendous respect for him. I can't think of a visual artist who had the kind of impact on our culture that he did.

He grew up in deep poverty in the segregated south and yet became one of the most powerful and influential artists of the twentieth century. It's humbling to think about what he accomplished. He had incredible energy, he was an innovator and he continually reinvented himself. His work was based on modification and reinvention of certain traditional forms, which is something that I am interested in with my own work.

His music was technically sophisticated, required precision from his musicians, but was also accessible to the audience. It was more than just accessible actually. It grabs you on a deep level and it's hard not to move when you hear it, not to mention his live performance. On stage he was an amazing entertainer but managed to control the band like a conductor throughout the show with subtle cues that the audience sometimes wouldn't even notice.

He was also an important political figure and a tough businessman. I could go on and on about him but I hope you can see what I'm getting at. These are things that I want from myself.

3. The subject matter of you paintings (human, animal, bottle of wine, etc) all receives the same level of attention in your paintings. Is this intentional, and is there anything underlying that you want your audience to take from this?

Not really. The paint handling is intentional but there is nothing in particular that I want them to take away. They can take whatever they get. I don't want viewers to think about my intentions very much. I'd rather they focus on the moment, on their direct experience of the painting. I would hope that they would project something of themselves into it regardless of who I am, what socio-political subgroup I come from or what I think about any particular issue.

A thoughtful person can take that information from any piece of art without it being spoon fed to them with an artist statement or a little museum plaque. I think most artists feel the same way. Actually, it's the gallery system; the critics and the institutions we have that make the viewers act otherwise. The artists I'm most fond of, visual or otherwise, work from general ideas down to specific. There is a direction but no target. They allow themselves to be surprised and that's what I try to do.

4. Is there a person or philosophy that forever changed your perspective on art...particularly painting?

There isn't a single person or philosophy but there were a few people that were important to me. For instance seeing Van Gogh's work in person for the first time was a revelation. I used to think his work was terrible and I didn't see the appeal at all. That was because I had only seen reproductions of his work in books, in movies and on the internet.

The color and the texture do not translate to those media. I saw a painting of a pot of irises that he had done hanging in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and I literally got choked up. I don't know how to explain it.

There are other people too. I like Nietzsche's ideas about art. In particular the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy that he talks about in The Birth of Tragedy is interesting and still relevant I think. You can see similar conflicting ideas in the arguments between the academy and the impressionists, modernism and post modernism, Shakespearean and method acting and even Gong Bi and Xie Yi in Chinese painting.

One style refers to something that it is not through mimesis and the other is an artifact to which it refers. I don't think these two ideas are mutually exclusive though and I try to shoot for some place on the spectrum in between.

5. What's one non-art world experience that has most affected you as an artist?

Traveling really takes you out of yourself. Europe for example was an amazing experience for me. You take a wrong turn down a side street and you practically trip over a roman bath, a Greek amphitheater or a gothic church. A connection to history is palpable and it will change you if you let it. Nature is another big influence on me and my appreciation of it increases each time I arrive in a new environment.

5 Questions with Mike Gleeson of Lovebird

What to say about Mike Gleeson? From what I understand he seems to know what he likes. He once played drums for the hardcore outfit Glass & Ashes, which released 2 albums on the Gainsville, Flordia label No Idea Records, and consequently toured all over North America and Europe. In a recent conversation he admitted to believing that the moon landing was a hoax. Bigfoot and him are tight. His new band, Lovebird, is somewhat of a departure from past projects, for starters he isn't playing drums, but guitar. Their female fronted sound is already drawing comparisons to Mazzy Star and the like. He has been a safety pin in the Ventura music since before the days of Lazerstar. Wait and see what he does next.

1. What would you do if you found a bag of $500 on the street?

Well, I have to think about this realistically: There would probably be drug-money in the bag, right? And the chances of me picking up a bag on the street and actually looking inside are very slim... unless of course the bag sparked my interest for some reason. If I were to find such a bag on the street, chances are that I would find it on Main Street in Downtown Ventura, on my way to or from work. I would probably hold on to it for a couple days and not tell anyone that I found it. If I heard some poor sap crying about his or her lost bag of cash, then I would return it to them (and keep in mind, poor saps come into my work on a daily basis).

If that didn't happen, then I would probably tell the most honest person that I know and listen to what kind of advice they have for me... and after they "talk me into keeping it", I would spend it on the recording of my music. Remember, we're talking about drug-money here, so "morality" really isn't an issue. The old me would have just kept the money right off the bat and blown it on a huge bag of marijauna or something stupid. Actually, the current me might consider that too.

2. What was it like to tour Europe?

Awesome. There's an amazing network of kids and promoters out there that really make touring in Europe a lot easier and more fun than touring in the states. Also, it seems as if kids out there really do their homework and seek out new bands. I know kids out here do the same, but I've never played a new town in the U.S. where over 100 kids would come out to see my band without actually knowing anything about us. Braunschweig Germany was just that, and easily the greatest show Glass & Ashes played on our first tour of Europe.

Last Summer I had the opportunity to go out to London for a couple weeks to play the night clubs with Michael Runion and The Royal Family. It was a completely different kind of trip, more of a musical vacation, very relaxing. I was actually able to take in the sites for once. That's really the only problem with touring in general; there's a good chance that you won't be in any of the cities long enough to really take them in.

3. What is your most memorable show that you have played?

This is a tough one because so many great shows come to mind... but I'd have to say that playing The Roseland in Portland with Michael Runion will go down as one of my most memorable shows ever. It was the second sold-out show on Rilo Kiley's final west coast tour. The Royal Family played great, people that had never heard the music before were clapping and dancing, girls were shouting at Michael, telling him to take his shirt off (which was soooo surreal) and friends that I hadn't seen in years came out to the show. The Royal Family and Whispertown 2000 combined forces for one song in an attempt to bring the house down before Rilo Kiley took the stage. We did this at every show for the rest of the tour. It was rad.

4. What is a guilty pleasure band/musician of yours? One you can't help but like, no matter how "uncool".

I'm not sure what constitutes as a "guilty pleasure band" anymore. A long time ago I would have been embarrassed by admitting my admiration for Depeche Mode, in fear of being chastised by the punk rock community. But now I don't give a shit. I'll take "Never Let Me Down Again" over any Black Flag song any day of the week. You might call it blasphemy... or even kinda gay... maybe even "gayphemy". Whatever, you don't gotta be a dick about it.

I also really like Neil Diamond... but he's not even considered a "guilty pleasure" anymore. In fact, it's actually kind of "cool" to like Neil Diamond again. What the fuck happened??



5. What is up with Lovebird? How'd you get started, what are your plans?

Lovebird got together last Summer as a recording project between myself and the brutally talented Nicole Eva Emery. The two of us have actually played together off and on for about 7 years, but last year we decided to get off our asses and actually make something happen. We asked Brian Granillo to play drums with us... because he fuckin' rips and he's one stellar dude. We were also recently blessed by the addition of Ashley Heatherly. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a girl that can both sing and play keyboards (and bass!)... and Ashley totally rules it. My buddy Joe Baugh will be playing guitar with us for our first show at Nicholby's on April 8th. Joe and I were in our first band together back in 8th grade, so you can imagine how excited I am to finally play with him again after 15 years.

Lovebird plans to go back into the studio next month with our buddy Armand to finish up an LP for Blackbird Records. We should expect a release early this Summer. After that, who knows. We've been getting a little bit of press in the UK, so we're going to shoot for a European tour as soon as we can, which still may take a while. In the meantime, we just want to write music, play shows with our friends and have a good time... before the world blows up.

5 Questions with David Kramer

On an average day, the established art world barely speaks to anything that even remotely represents life outside it's four sterile white walls. Where are the self-questioning moments? Where are the drunken regrets, the unfulfilled dreams? Where is the real life, the truth?


David Kramer's work is about real life, the good and the bad. So far, things haven't turned out how you expected or dreamed they would be, and they most likely won't...but they could. To quote the text from one of his paintings in which a silhouetted, nostalgic 1970's couple frolic across a romantic beach at sunset, "One of these days I am finally going to get to ride off into the sunset...And not have to wake up the next morning feeling hungover and like I am already late for work."


1. Was there been a defining moment in your life that led you to pursue art as a career? Was it a choice or was it inevitably unavoidable?


Well, that was a long time ago...When I was in school, I took lots of art classes but sort of kept on changing my major all planning on eventually going to law school. My dad was a lawyer; it seemed like what I would do too.


I was taking accounting and calculus and studying business and economics, doing terribly in school. I remember working my ass off and still getting shitty grades. One day I had this confrontation with my accounting professor and told her that my grade did not reflect how hard I was working. She told me that there were always a certain number of A's, B's and C's etc every semester and that the grades were divided up on a curve and I got a D and that was that.


I decided that I needed to be in a career where things were more subjective.


Of course looking back, I should have realized that art really isn't all that subjective after all. And if I couldn't talk my way out of getting a D back then in school, I certainly was going to have an uphill battle as an artist. But I don't regret my decision.


2. Being a born and raised New Yorker, what are the best and worst changes that you have seen come about in the city during your lifetime? How has being a native affected your perspective on the local art world?


Sometimes I feel very provincial having lived here my whole life.


New York was a totally great place back in the nineties. Real estate wasn't that expensive. The art galleries and art world was so much smaller and people took huge risks and expected rewards that didn't involve money.


The last bunch of years have been exciting but kind of one sided revolving around money and the monied. I am anxious to see how the next few years go.


I have been working in Brooklyn since the late 1980's. I always got a kick out of the Brooklyn art scene as I grew up as a child of Brooklyn raised parents who tried like hell to leave Brooklyn in the rear view mirror. Brooklyn always has been something interesting to me because of my background. Brooklyn was the destination of failure. When I got an MFA I went to Pratt and my folks were like, "We've worked our asses off just to get the fuck out of that place!"


3. Your exhibitions combine multi-media installations, theatrical lighting, and drawings and painting on paper and canvas, which heavily use both hand written as well as type written text. Do your initial concepts have their start in one more so than the others? Also, do you find a favorite amongst them all as of lately?


I tend to start out by writing and telling stories. Everything else falls into place.


4. Being an artist who heavily uses text in their work, how has maintaining your personal blog, toothless-alcoholic www.toothlessalcoholic.blogspot.com, affected your use of words and expressing your personal thoughts? Also, what are your thoughts on the importance of an online persona as a creative person?


Recently I've been meaning to get back to blogging. I've been kind of burnt out or just plain too busy. The writing on the blog helps inform the writing in the studio (or visa versa) and I am going to get back to blogging very soon. I've been busy this month but things are slowing down.


5. Is there any advice that you could give young/emerging artists who still have not made a breakthrough, as far as getting into respected galleries, receiving proper recognition and having their work be more than just something they do late at night, in between working a full-time job and trying to maintain a personal life; what some would call a hobby?


If you really have the burn and desire to be an artist, keep going.


My advice about getting the work out there is to read that book: THE RULES about dating www.therulesbook.com. The art world seems to work something like that.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w_Y_0_tfwQ

5 Questions with Britt Govea of (((folkYEAH!)))

Britt Govea is a real dude. He and (((folkYEAH!))) present shows like the ones you heard about happening in the good old days of rock n roll. California has since been taken over by bullshit in many regards, but next time you let that get you down, go see the Beachwood Sparks play at the Henry Miller Library. You soon remember the magic of this vast state and all it's treasures. Britt often comes to mind whenever I think of Big Sur and some of the best concerts I have ever attended.

1. How did you get started with (((folkYEAH!)))?


The first (((folkYEAH!))) event was a weekend of Superwolf (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney) shows in January. 2005. After that, I thought why not more live music in Big Sur and other awesome rural locations. Then the true love became curating unique billings in various locations form Henry Miller Library (one of the best spots on earth!) in Big Sur to larger events @ GAMH in SF and beyond.


2. What is the best show you've ever seen?


Wow, so many come to mind but perhaps Bonnie 'Prince' Billy @ Henry Miller Library in Oct. 2007 or Bob Dylan @ The Santa Cruz Civic in March 2000 or Merle Haggard @ Crystal Palace right after his bout with cancer.


All were unbeatable on many levels but who could deny Cluster @ Farmlab in LA, or Entrance Band in Big Sur...so many, so many. It is best to just live in the musical moment and enjoy it while you are in it and then move on down the line.

3. If you were forced to choose between a house with a beautiful view and no land, or a house with land but absolutely no view, what would you choose?


I'll take the view because I am a dreamin' man so I need the inspiration.


4. What was the last music you overheard that made you ask, "who is that?


The Durutti Column who my very good friend Matt Baldwin turned me onto.


5. Who are your heroes?


Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Leonard Cohen, Konrad "Conny" Plank, Bob Dylan...man, that's a lot of heroes. Perhaps they are not heroes but more people with whom I have had a prolonged respect/admiration for in the sometimes fickle world of music. I admire people that do what they feel and move forward as such without restraint. That said, Tom Waits, David Berman, Neil Young and Will Oldham should be saluted too.

5 Questions with Deepakalypse

Is Deepakalypse a musician whose love for music has leaded him to travel the planet? Or, is he a born traveler who’s found himself in music along the journey? For having known him for the better part of over 15 years, I’d have to say that he is both, a tangled combination of the two.


If you asked him these questions, you might get an answer like, “I don’t know…I’m a Gemini.” He’d then probably laugh a bit and change the topic over to where he’s headed to next. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, New Orleans, New York, Paris, Caracas, Wellington, back to Ventura…anywhere is fair game.


His songwriting style combines loose jazz-punk guitar melodies with philosophical lyrics that serve more as questions and metaphorical reflections rather than a preached truth. Sometimes accompanied by as little as a drum machine or as much as a 4-piece band, you will never hear him play the same song the same way twice. He just plugs in and plays. Whatever happens, happens.


His style sums up a mixture of personal narrative and poetic observations of the world that seem to pull people in, no matter what their perceived musical tastes are. He’s played kitchens, coffee shops, dive bars and wine bars where he’s had the hip-hop heads, rockers, hessians, hipsters, hippie moms, soccer moms, intellectuals and even a rogue republican or two feeling the greatness of the moment that they’ve found themselves in.


So, try to track him down. Run to where he’s playing next if you can keep up. Or, sit and wait if you have the patience. Either way, he’s probably booking a show in your city, town or village at this very moment. Just be on the lookout for an 80’s Mercedes Benz that smells like french fries.


1. For Deepakalypse, what’s more important, the music or the message?


The music is more important than the message. I like to have messages in my songs but music doesn't have to, really. I do want to make people think but I also want people to be able to forget about life's bullshit and have a good time and dance.


2. What is the one globetrotting experience that you wish you could share with everyone like they were there with you?


The globetrotting experience that I’d like to share with everyone would be my trip to France for sure. It was just a fun 3 weeks and I got to play a lot around town. My friends Francois and Nicolas took good care of me and it was just a great experience all together. Great clubs and people and the city is beautiful.


3. If life is a bus, are we driving or are we passengers? What stop do you want to be let off at, or will you ride till the end of the line?


We are definitely driving the bus! We all have choices even when we think we don't. I rule my destiny just like you rule yours, and she hers, and he his. I guess I’ll get off when I feel its time...




4. Not many people outside of your general vicinity would probably know this but; you’ve been involved in the alternative/renewable/sustainable fuel industry (primarily for automobiles) for quite some time now. Can you explain to the average person a little of the: who, what, when, where, how and why of this…and how it could relate to their life?


Right now when it comes to alternative fuel it usually requires a person who likes to tinker with stuff and work on things like cars and such. I’m one of those people so I got involved in veggie oil stuff a few years ago. I went in over my head but got out without any crazy lawsuits or injuries, luckily.


I still drive veggie but am more interested in using electricity and water to make something called HHO. It works really good with gas cars which, is what we have more of, way more of so it’s getting exciting cause we don’t need to get some oily fuel that’s all dirty. We can just use water as an additive to the gas we get to buy so conveniently at the corner.


5. Ok, so…in your songs, you've spit on a window and you've spit in the face of a general. Don't get me wrong, that's cool but...what's up with that? Also, what are you going to spit on next?


Well actually I didn’t really like that spitting on a window part so I tend to say "a brick through your window.” I know its lame to change lyrics after they've been recorded but who cares.


I’ve been spitting on the ground lately cause I bought a bag of sunflower seeds for the trip that I’m on and I like to pack them like tobacco in one cheek and then split them in my mouth and save the shells on the other side. I roll down the window and spit them out the window so I don’t spit on the window like I did in my past. So it does make sense!

5 Questions with Brook Dalton of 86

Not only does Brook Dalton have a gift for music, he is respected in his community as an organizer, artist, poet, and a curator of the 86 Art Gallery (where he also dwells) in Ventura, CA.

Brook's knowledge of life is vast, and his reputation as a raconteur--in combination with an easy wit--can't help but draw others into his gravitational pull. His formidable talent is augmented by an affection for narrative art: this man of stature is also a serious comic book collector. To check out Brook Dalton's published work, please visit: X-Ray Book Co..

1. What is 86 to you? When did it become such a community center?

That’s kind of a big one to start out with. On a basic level it’s a house and an art gallery. There are five rooms here and I do what I can to continually make it as affordable as possible, so as a consequence I’ve lived with dozens and dozens of different folks over the years. I literally couldn’t name all of the people I’ve lived with. There have been roommates that have put out albums, published books, received Master’s Degrees, absorbed astronomical amounts of THC, etc. We’ve had a steady group for the last few years now and they’re all amazing people.

As an art fan, I feel luckier than I can express to live here because there are hundreds of pieces in the house that I get to come home to every day. Each work of art (except for four) contains the number 86 in it, in some form or another, as a symbol of the sense of community that sort of embodies the place. There really is an astounding atmosphere here and we’re constantly surrounded by the funniest, smartest, most talented people you can hope to meet. I think the sense of community probably started around 1994. We used to be more of a party house until then, but that’s when the first Eighty-Six paintings started to roll in and also when we began to organize events rather than just have random parties. To this day, we’re known for our events and it’s nice to see them gain steam every year.

We’re also pretty heavily involved in the music scene(s) around Ventura. Everyone who lives here is a musician and we do what we can to help promote shows or let touring bands crash on our couches in order to help out in any way we can. Through it all, I think it’s safe to say that the sense of community has remained so strong over the years because we always try to stay as positive as we can while providing a fun/entertaining outlet for people. Well, as much fun as you can have without waking up in the clink or having to visit the free clinic the next day.



2. Do you have a certain personal vision of what you want out of your drumming or do you try to emulate techniques you admire? Or both?

Over the last couple of years, my goal with drumming has been to ride the fine line between being a role player and adding a creative element to songs. I mean, I don’t want to stand out by being flashy or incorporating weird timing changes, but I do want the drums to be integral to the way the song is meant to sound. I don’t ever consciously try to imitate other drummers or techniques, but I certainly get motivated by specific people. For instance, I’m really into Glenn Kotche right now but I wouldn’t go to band practice and try to add some fills or beats to a song that might sound like his style. However, I will take notice of the care and scrutiny that he takes with his drum parts and in turn I’ll try to do the same with songs that I play on.

Listening to good drummers usually lights a bit of a fire under my ass to pay more attention to what the drums should be doing in a song and to try and adhere to that.

3. Who are some of the poets you enjoy?

I’m eternally thankful for the poetry of Bukowski. I would never have motivated myself to start writing if it weren’t for him. Some others that stand out are: Sharon Olds, Billy Childish, Gerard Manley Hopkins, e.e. Cummings, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Dan Fante, Raegan Butcher, Raymond Carver.

Poetry is kind of a weird beast to me. I appreciate a lot of the underground/counterculture stuff because it appeals to my punk rock upbringing and disposition, but I truly feel that much of the canonized pieces are more than deserving of their status. It’s almost like the angry, more colloquial stuff really jives with my emotional state, but the anthologized poems become incredibly engaging when dissected and explicated. Especially the Victorians…I dig them friggin’ Victorians.



4. Do you consider comic books to be high art? Is there a particular example you can give?

Some of it, certainly. The beauty of comics is that they can appeal to two sensibilities simultaneously. There really are a lot of phenomenal, intelligent writers doing top-notch work on some titles. Authors like Brian K. Vaughan, Bill Willingham, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman really understand the craft and write better than most other people who put out books that don’t have pictures in them.

On an aesthetic level, some of the very best artwork being released today is in the comic medium. I’m also happy to see the borders between the gallery/fine art scenes and the comic book world starting to blur. I think that comic artists such as James Jean, Ashley Wood, Charles Burns, Alex Ross, Dave Cooper, Eric Powell, and Ben Templesmith are going to help merge the two realms. Also, I’d like to say that there is absolutely no truth to the assumed edict that the true ‘artistic’ talents in comics lie in the indie/underground titles and that hero books are nothing more than spandex and uppercuts. Some of the most thoughtful and intriguing writing being published today is coming from super hero books. Seriously.



5. What's your current passion?

I’m always juggling a handful of things that I’m passionate about, but lately I’ve been inundating myself with music. I’ve been going to a shit-ton of concerts, as well as playing as many shows as I can, and for some reason it seems like I’ve been having more and more really good conversations about music lately. I’ve also been introduced to a bunch of bands recently (thanks, Lingua) and that kind of serves as a catalyst for the enthusiasm. Furthermore, I can’t stop record shopping. It’s getting ridiculous. I don’t really think twice about spending money on records, but I don’t view that as a fault. It’s not an obsession, it’s sustenance. Besides, if I start to spend too much on music I’ll just cut corners on other expenses. For instance, I’ve bought about 20 records this week, but I barely picked up any crack cocaine or Cambodian porn. It all works out in the wash.

5 Questions with Matt Eckel of Jack Wilson Jr.

Clockwise from top: Mike Corwin, bass / Dave "Mustang" Lang, piano / Matt Eckel, guitar & vocals / Brian Demski, drums

It's another Friday night in Los Angeles. Haloed streetlights lace the quiet fogginess of Echo Park, casting shadows along the quiet stretch of Glendale Blvd. between Temple & the 1st St. Bridge. Behind an unassuming, rolling metal gate, a small crowd of brown baggers in a tiny parking lot assures you that you've found just where you need to be... welcome to Pehrspace.

It's Friday the 13th to be more precise, and Jack Wilson Jr. will be killing it here tonight. The house lights cast a dim red glow over the band as they warm up into their fitting 1st song of the night, "Red All Over." A slow bass groove notes the tempo as "Pt. 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" looms in frozen frame on the back wall. Next, guitar and high hat lead into vocals.

With total "tell it like it is, brother" honesty, the love-life advice lyrics evoke from the crowd heart felt "uh-huh's" & "damn, that's true" laughter. There's no other way to properly express the feeling in the room. By the time that the verse has reached the brutal truth, "...you'll never be in love until you're happy on your own," someone cries out, "THAT'S COLD!!!" The crowd nods, claps, dances and raise their drinks.

This is how Jack Wilson Jr. works a room.

1. To date, what is the Jack Wilson Jr. story?

The idea for Jack Wilson, Jr. came at the tail end of 2007. At that time Brian and I had been playing for several years in a band called The Natural Disasters. We had just released an album earlier that year, but by this point we'd been performing some of these songs for a very long time. In addition to that, I was feeling like we weren't really getting the recognition we deserved, specifically with regard to the blogger/promoter community. In retrospect, I could have been more proactive in terms of soliciting this kind of attention. I think my attitude at the time was that it was their job to find us. At the same time, I found myself wanting to write more musically expansive songs. Don't get me wrong; Brian is a great drummer. He plays with a lot of taste. One thing I loved about Natural Disasters was that he was able to come up with a unique "signature" for each song, whether it be the beat itself or some kind of fill or set up. That's not an easy thing to do, especially when the songwriter shows up with so much similar-sounding material. But in the end, there's only so much you can do with just drums and guitar. That was kind of the point of that band, to see how far you could go with it. And we did. But then I started wanting to play ballads.

During this time I was also playing in another band called Lucinda & the Lost Dogs (they have since changed the name to Dustin Fire). There were some lineup changes throughout the years but for the most part it was Lucinda, Mustang, and myself. Lu is a huge lover of country music, among other things. The three of us collaborated on probably 20 different songs and it was a great learning experience. Thinking back on it, this is probably what inspired me to want to write songs with more of an ear for melody, or to experiment more with different feels and tempos. You can get a whole new depth of feeling out of a song just by slowing it down a little bit. Towards the end I brought Mike in on bass. He had been a friend for a while but we hadn't had too much of a chance to play together up until that point. A lot of people know Mike as, like, a genius guitar player, but I think he actually likes playing bass more!

When the Jack Wilson band started up, we had Mike on guitar and his old buddy Noah from Cal Arts on bass. It was really rad to be surrounded by all these great musicians; they'd be warming up to Charlie Parker's "Confirmation" and then I'd have to show them my little four-chord song. Eventually Noah left the band when his other group got signed [the Airborne Toxic Event]. Actually, I just heard today that their label merged with Island, which is huge. It's funny seeing him on TV with all his ridiculous rings and necklaces. I get a real kick out of it.

2. What's behind the name Jack Wilson, Jr.?

The name Jack Wilson, Jr. comes from a historical figure I learned about while working as a teacher at the Autry Museum in Griffith Park. Brian worked there also, along with Joey Siara, artist Michael Hsiung, and Grant and Justin from Echo Curio. Jack Wilson was the English name, or "white name," given to Native healer and self-proclaimed prophet Wovoka by the Wilson family, for whom he sometimes worked as a teenager. Wovoka became a national celebrity among Indians in the late 1880s as the originator of the "ghost dance" phenomenon. This was a communal dance involving a large number of people, who would join hands and dance in a circle sometimes for hours, to the point of fatigue. Performed correctly, the dance was supposed to result in a mystical erasure of the white man and the return of the buffalo to the plains. Dancers would occasionally collapse with exhaustion and later claim to have experienced visions of the new world. This was during the time just after the close of the frontier when the last of the tribes were being forced onto reservations. It was an act of desperation.

What's interesting is that Wilson's philosophy incorporated Christ's teachings of forgiveness and non-violence. Ironically, the hysteria of the dance was seen by the US Army as a prelude to war, and resulted in the assassination of Sitting Bull. He was actually shot by a member of the Indian Police. The fallout of that event led to the Wounded Knee Massacre just two weeks later, an ugly, shameful end to one of the ugliest and most shameful chapters in US History. Jack Wilson though, as a person, was never really qualified as a political leader. He was a self-mythologizing con artist, whose "magic" was fairly close to magic as we understand it today-all illusion and slight of hand. We did a song on the Natural Disasters record called "Ghost Dance." Robbie Robertson and Patti Smith also have songs by that title.

Then there's also Jackie Wilson, "Mr. Excitement," whose unique style of dance was derived from his training as a boxer. If you watch his videos on YouTube with that in mind, you can see it right away. They're the same moves that "made" Elvis. Not to say that Elvis wasn't a great dancer, because he was. But a lot of what you might recognize as his signature moves actually came from Jackie.

Lastly-and I didn't realize this until after we'd settled on the name-Jack Palance's character from Shane is also named, guess what, Jack Wilson. He's one of the baddest dudes in the history of Westerns. So there it is: cowboys & indians and rhythm & blues.

3. What are your thoughts on the local LA music scene?

God, there are so many bands. Probably the highest number per capita anywhere, ever. But it doesn't bother me. I think it's great. It's the harvest to the proverbial seed planted by bands like The Minutemen and Beat Happening. I think what bothers me about it is that the bands that wind up getting attention are not necessarily the best bands. Some of them are. There doesn't seem to be any correlation; it has more to do with promoter politics and a willingness to play that particular game. I'm probably being na•ve by pretending it has anything to do with anything other than hustle and, eventually, money.

I'll clue you in on something I'm a bit hesitant to admit-for the past several months, we've only played two venues in LA: Pehrspace and Echo Curio. I can't say enough about either of these venues, or rather about the people that make them what they are. Five bucks, tops, the bands get paid out, you can drink for cheap as long as you agree to be discreet... you can't beat it. I don't want to name names but we've had situations before dealing with other clubs where you have last minute changes to the lineup, to set times, and then a real hard time getting paid to top it off. Which would be one thing if the organizers made any effort to promote the show (did any "organizing" as it were). But if it's all on the bands, then they should receive a larger portion of the profit. Or retain the option to limit the door price.

To be honest, I don't know how much of a "scene" it really is. In my mind, a "scene" is a bunch of local bands influencing each other, resulting in some kind of unifying "sound" (ie. "the Seattle sound"). LA has everything. Except hip-hop, which is lamentable. I'm talking more about the Silverlake/Echo Park scene, not the city at large. There are so many talented people pursuing so many different musical paths that it's hard to define what the so-called Eastside Scene is really about. I remember one night playing poker with a bunch of musicians from different bands. We were listening to Creedence and someone said, "God, how can you guys listen to this? I mean, didn't they ever hear of distortion pedals?" Which really shocked me, you know, because most people we tend to play with don't own any guitar pedals... maybe an old Metal Zone or something, for sentimental value. But that shows you how diverse it is. And I love that about it.

4. What's one quote or piece of advice that forever changed your perspective on music...particularly songwriting?

I'm reading a book right now called Songwriters on Songwriting, which is full of good stuff. One thing a lot of people say is that you can't lead the process too much. You have to let the song lead you where it wants to go. You have be able to sort of "unfocus," I don't know, like one of those magic eye paintings or something. I was never any good at those; I could never see the sailboat or whatever. Paul Simon does this thing where he throws a ball against the wall to preoccupy his conscious mind. He says if a line jumps out at you, just take it down, don't start worrying about what it means. I tried it a day or two after reading his interview, and sure enough, I got a great song out of it. At first it didn't seem to be "about" anything, but after I had most of it down, I was able to step back and see that it was very specifically about two things that were very current and very personal.

Tom Petty is really annoying. Most of his big songs came instantly, or "in as much time as it takes to play the song." But then you look at a Tom Petty song, "Free Fallin'" for example-the whole chorus is just one word that gets repeated. I wish I could write a song like that; I don't know why I feel like every song has to be a page long. He talks about trusting in your subconscious. Like with "You Wreck Me." He had a placeholder lyric-"you rock me"-which he knew was corny but he left it because something about it sounded right. Then one day he had the idea to change it to "you wreck me" and boom the whole song came into focus. And I think a lot of what makes that a powerful lyric is that it does sound so similar to "you rock me." There's a lesson.

When I was in college, I sang in this band called The Dirty Tanners. The rest of the band had no musical training at all, with the exception of the drummer, who was a jazz guy. Because we were limited in terms of what we could do musically, the songs all evolved from jam sessions in the basement. I couldn't just walk in with a song and start calling out chords. So I would take these jam tapes and play them loud on my bedroom stereo, and kind of walk around singing nonsense syllables in order to get ideas for a melody. And I would record that. And what was cool about it was that listening back, I could hear myself using certain vowel sounds or words or even phrases. So once I could figure out what I was trying to say, the conscious mind could then kick in and finish it. That was productive for me, and I don't know why I haven't tried it since. Maybe I will.

If I had to single out one specific quote, I guess it would be something Bob Dylan said, in that same book. Which is ironic because he absolutely refuses to take the interview seriously. It was hard for me because I'm a huge fan and it's sort of childish... I mean it was cute when he did it in 1965 and the press was coming at him with all these dumb questions about what does he have to say about "x" as the spokesman of his generation? My girlfriend doesn't like Dylan, she says he's "a liar" for all the stuff he came out with early in his career about having been in the circus as a kid and living in New Mexico or whatever. I mean, when you look at some of the stuff, it's not to be taken seriously: [telling his life story, Playboy, 1966] "I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down." But anyway, after 15 pages of jerking this guy around (most of which I skimmed, or skipped) he finally says, "There's something about my lyrics that have a gallantry to them. And that might be all they have going for them." And that's the end of the interview. I think that's true. Songwriting is not like writing a short story, or a magazine article. If anything, it's like... instant messaging. It has to be simple. Fragmented. Ordinary. It just has to sound right.

5. What's your favorite bicycling in LA story/experience?

That's hard... I guess it was four or five years ago, right when Midnight Ridazz was starting to get big. I lived in an apartment with a couple and their two cats and a dog and an injured bird. We met some people on the ride, and afterwards everybody came back to our place. I cooked breakfast burritos and we continued to drink and at some point someone had the idea to play charades so we did that for like an hour, taking it totally seriously, you know? With these kids we'd barely just met. I haven't done any of those group rides for a while now, but I used to love it when someone would roll down their window and yell, "what are you riding for?" The best moment was when someone did that and this guy wearing a chicken suit cruised by, screaming his head off. I don't think I've ever heard a more perfect answer to that question; if there is one I'd like to hear it.