opened its digital doors to the world. It started out small: a young, mega-talented folk artist named
was the first to step up to the interview hot seat, and since then, we've hosted Grammy-winning songwriters like
. Sometimes we contact the artists directly; sometimes the publicists are the ones e-mailing us. No matter what though, we always try to develop a good dialogue, have uncovered some fantastic answers, and — most critically — have brought you the readers some funny, exciting, and downright fascinating revelations about the musicians who you love and care about just as much as we do.
So to celebrate our first year in business, the Globecat staff has assembled a list of fascinating facts, personal statements, kickass songs, and other goodies to usher in Globecat's second year of excitement. So, without further ado, let's begin with ...
Dave, I think you owe me a quarter for something ...
Just to show you that this is not all sunshine and chocolates, here are the bands who we have successfully contacted and have managed to speak to directly and/or through their publicists, sent questions in, and ... have received nothing back to date. If you're any one of these bands/artists, please check your inboxes again:
So yeah. We're still waiting.
questions, the co-founders of the site are submitting themselves through the exact same process. As such, here are
's responses to all 100 questions of the daunting, exciting, and damn-near inimitable Aleatory ...
Xenophobia.
And just 'cos we know you were asking for it ...
I have so many. You almost have to break it down by language. English? Carom, maybe. Or entopic. Escalate is good, too. Did you know it's actually a back-formation from "escalator," and not the other way around? Before the 1920s, when the escalator was invented, there was never an "escalation" of anything. Nothing "escalated." In fact, the common definition of the word today ("to increase or develop by successive stages") only came into use in the early 1960s. That's another word I like: etymology.
Other languages: Spanish? Gruñón, or refunfuñar. The first means grumpy, and the second is the verb "to grouch." Complaining in Spanish is awesome. Yiddish? Zaftig, hands down, though I am also partial to chutzpah.
2. Favorite board game?
My grandma had a game called Anti-Monopoly that we used to play that I've never seen anywhere else. It has nothing to do with Monopoly, but isn't really its opposite either. (I don't even know what that would be, a game about living in the woods?) I'm also a big fan of Cribbage and Michigan Rummy, though those are both card games that also happen to involve boards (or mason jars, as we used for the former when I learned how to play from my great aunt and uncle at the New Jersey shore; in that case, Michigan Rummy is without a doubt my favorite mason-jar game).
3. Favorite key to write in?
C, or G# minor, as you're either using all white keys or (almost) all black keys on the piano. It makes things a lot easier for me.
4. Favorite person to have worked with?
In high school I was in a band with two of my best friends, Tyler and Jason, who I've known since elementary school or earlier and am still in touch with. Our band was pretty bad in retrospect but band practice was always a great time.
5. Favorite piece of equipment?
My DD-6 delay pedal, and my beautiful Les Paul. Instead of painting it flat they put a stain on it, so you can see the wood grain and everything. You can tell it used to be part of a tree. I'm a sucker for pretty woods.
6. Favorite visual artist?/Favorite work of visual art?
I'm a fan of a lot of Kazuya Akimoto's work, especially "
The Head of Leviathan." They're paintings perfectly suited for ekphrasis (my favorite Greek word). I also love Mariano Fortuny y Marsal's "African Chief": I saw it at the Art Institute of Chicago and couldn't believe it was made with oil paint. It looks photoshopped: the entire painting is blurred slightly, but then you get to the man's face and it's unbelievably clear. You can see every tiny detail of his expression. I have utmost respect for people who can paint like that.
7. Favorite composer?
Arvo Pärt, Sergei Rachmaninov, Charles Ives, and Thelonious Monk have all held that title at one time or another, though some nights Mark Molnar (of
Kingdom Shore) is not far behind.
8. Favorite author?/Favorite book?
How did I ever think anyone would be able to answer these questions? What was I thinking? Here are a few books: Bohumil Hrabal's
Too Loud a Solitude, Nabokov's
Pale Fire, Richard Brautigan's
A Confederate General from Big Sur, Tim O'Brien's
The Things They Carried. Authors not listed: Flannery O'Connor, David Foster Wallace, Edith Wharton, Junot Diaz, and especially Bernard Malamud.
9. Favorite song to start (or end) a mixtape with?
Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" has started more than one of my mixtapes, because I love Jeff Mangum counting it off. Also, though I don't necessarily remember ending a mixtape with it, I once had a nightmare that ended with the exact sound that closes out godspeed you! black emperor's "Motherfucker = Redeemer pt. 2" (the last track on Yanqui U.X.O.). That was a year or two before that album even came out, and when I heard it I totally freaked, like Efrim had been stealing from my dreams.
10. Favorite lyric?
"I don't know but I've been told / You never die and you never grow old." - Modest Mouse, "I Came as a Rat." Also, the meteor/oid/ite rhyme from Joanna Newsom's "Emily," which is one of the most brilliant things I've ever heard in a song.
11. Favorite music video?
I love sending Evan links to the music video for Grizzly Bear's "
Knife" when I know he's stoned. It entertains me for hours. Maybe that's my favorite board game.
12. Favorite band when you were in high school?
I went through phases. I really liked godspeed you! black emperor, I really liked Sigur Ros — all those post-rock guys, really: Do Make Say Think, Mogwai, you know — but I think my heart belonged to Tori Amos. This was back before she started downhill. I listened to
Boys for Pele and
From the Choirgirl Hotel over and over and over again.
13. Favorite Shakespearean play?
I'm alone in this, but:
Julius Caesar, esp. the speech fight between Brutus and Mark Antony in Act III.
On a related note, I can recite most of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet in one breath. It's my one and only party trick.
14. Favorite sound?
Harmonizing train whistles from two freight trains passing in the rain.
15. Favorite exhibit or subject at the museum?
Huge dinosaurs.
16. Favorite campfire story?
It has to involve monsters. When I was young I read all the books I could find on monsters, and especially liked ones detailing ways to get rid of them. Hungarian vampires, for instance, are OCD. If you sprinkle mustard seeds on your roof, when they land on it at night they have to count all of the seeds, and will stay out until each and every last one has been counted, all the way up to sunrise, which destroys them.
As far as monsters that would make good campfire stories, the legend of the Wendigo is pretty good, especially if it's cold out and the person sitting next to you looks tasty.
17. Favorite plant?
There is an enormous tree in the courtyard at the University of Barcelona. I can't remember what kind it is, but I used to eat my lunch sitting on its roots every day after classes got out. It is my favorite plant in the world.
18. Favorite pick-up line?
I've awkwardly told a girl she was beautiful before, though I'm not sure it was a pick-up line so much as making sure she knew.
19. Favorite foreign film?
Werckmeister Harmonies, directed by Bela Tarr. Close, close seconds: Tarkovsky's
Stalker, or Kurosawa's
Ran.
20. Favorite new band?
I've been really digging Cymbals Eat Guitar lately. They're like the perfect blend of
Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse (a fine era indeed) with Evangelicals, who had one of my favorite albums of last year.
21. Favorite album(s) from the past year?
In addition to Cymbals Eat Guitar's
Why There Are Mountains, I've been listening to the new Bat for Lashes an awful lot. I'm pretending it's the new Tori Amos album, instead of the album that Tori actually released.
Two Suns: it's so good.
22. Favorite vice?
My dad has this great antique book press that he painted bright blue. My brother and I used to smash crayons in it when we were little. If turned on its side, it would make an excellent vice.
23. Favorite natural oddity?
Sonoluminescence. If you make a noise loud enough underwater, it will produce light. I'm totally serious about this.
Also, cymatics: the study of the effects of sound on matter. For instance, if you sprinkle sand or something on a metal plate and then vibrate the plate, the sand forms patterns corresponding to the sound waves passing through the metal. Try it at home with some table salt, a cookie tray, and a cello bow.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cymatics
24. Favorite historical time period?
Three Kingdoms China, ancient Egypt, the Reconquista and the Spanish Civil War. Some of the craziest things in the history of the world took place in those times.
25. Favorite historical figure?
Though you wouldn't guess it from my answers to #24, Ulysses S. Grant. I'm reading his memoirs right now and am in love with the man, who was at once humble, brave, funny, intelligent, and terrible at absolutely everything. He's one of the more interesting men I've ever spent time with, if only in book form.
Athanasius Kircher and I also go way back.
26. Favorite badass?
Tom Waits. He gon' whittle you into kindling.
27. Favorite chord/chord progression?
F#maj9, though whatever that chord is that starts Castanets' "Cathedral 2" is amazing. For progression: "Go Down, Moses."
28. What instrument would you most like to learn to play?
There are so many. I wish I were a better guitarist, a better pianist, a better trombonist. I wish I had a cello, a bass, a bassoon, a berimbau, a domra, a nyckelharpa, an angélique, a surbahar, and someone to teach me how to play them.
29. Who do you wish more people were listening to?
The Autistic Daughters album that came out last year,
Uneasy Flowers, though really, most everything Dean Roberts has been involved with has been anywhere from great to phenomenal.
30. How many languages do you speak?
I studied Spanish all through college, and I can read it pretty well, though speaking it is somewhat more of a challenge. It comes back to me in moments of panic.
31. Other than musician, what career would you most enjoy?
I think my calling is in education. I'd love to be a professor somewhere. Failing that, lottery-winner.
32. Best thing you learned this week/month?
Everything awesome I've learned this month came from Eliot Weinberger's
Karmic Traces. His essays on Iceland were incredible, though that could be said about pretty much everything in that book. As long as you're making a list, put his
An Elemental Thing on there, too. He has an essay on wrens in there that's one of the best things I've read in a long time.
33. What's something you could teach anyone in an hour or less?
How to count on your fingers in binary. You can count up to 31 on one hand, and over 1,000 with both of them. There's no reason you'd ever need to do that, but, you know, show your friends.
34. What's the best joke you heard recently?
A mathematician, a physicist, and a statistician are duck hunting.
They see a duck flying by, and the mathematician fires, missing by a foot high.
The physicist chides his friend for neglecting air friction and relative velocities, fires at the duck himself, and misses by a foot low.
The statistician exclaims, "Yeah! We got 'im!"
35. What's the best place you've randomly discovered while on tour?
At the Pitchfork Festival last year there was a food vendor selling these amazing Croatian sausages called ćevapčići, made from pork, beef, lamb, and garlic, and served with a red bell pepper, eggplant, and garlic sauce called ajvar, all in a warm pita. It was one of the best meals I've ever gotten from a cart.
36. Lyrics first or music first?
Lyrics. Unless I'm writing songs with Evan, in which case the lyrics are all improvised and come at more or less the same time as the improvised instrumental parts.
37. What do you consider most important about a song's structure?
Bridges can make or break a song. If you have a fantastic bridge it can help make up for a somewhat weaker verse; however, if your verse is good and your chorus is good but your bridge sucks, that clunky bit between the two of them is going to grate on your listener and draw away from the parts on either side of it.
38. What is your family like?
Extremely symmetrical. I have one brother (we're twins). My mom has one brother, eight years older than she is, and her mother; my dad has one sister, eight years older than he is, and his father. Neither my aunt or my uncle are married, so I have no cousins. My mom and dad also each have one cat.
39. What's something you could probably beat anyone you know at?
Fencing. I used to be pretty good, though I haven't done it in years. I don't know anyone else who fences, though, so I think I'd still have the advantage.
40. What was your best/worst subject in school?
English and I always got on pretty well. My worst subject was probably math. I was always a year behind. I'd struggle and struggle with advanced algebra all through that class, and then when I (barely) passed and moved up to trigonometry, suddenly advanced algebra clicked. It all made sense. Trigonometry, on the other hand, confused the hell out of me. If I hadn't stopped taking math classes after that one, however, I'd probably be able to trig-on with best of them.
41. If you could go anywhere in the universe, where would it be?
I've been missing Barcelona a lot lately. I'd try and find a planet that was just like that city and live there for a while.
42. What's an image that haunts you to this day?
There's that scene at the beginning of
The Mothman Prophecies where the monster swoops down and attacks the car that has pretty much scarred me for life. No one else ever seems to understand how terrifying that is to me. It comes out of nowhere.
43. What's the road ahead look like?
Grad school, but it might just be a heat mirage.
44. Something you've heard, know is false, but wish were true with all your heart?
The Mayans have some incredible creation myths, including one about one of their gods creating the world and another one jealously destroying it by sending jaguars to eat everyone. It's one of the most badass endtimes ever. The Great Flood? Not quite as scary as getting eaten by a jaguar.
45. What's the best lie you've ever told?
When I was I Boy Scouts we took a camping trip to Eagle Cave up in Wisconsin, which is the largest and only cave I've ever spent the night in. We spent all day spelunking, and people kept talking about how there were probably bats in there, so after dinner, as we were still crawling around everywhere, I pulled myself up into a little crevasse and starting chirping. The kids all came running and calling out, "Bat! There's a bat!" and while they climbed up to — I don't even know, catch it? — I climbed out the back way and pretended I was interested in the bat as well. For the rest of trip they kept talking about how they almost caught it but it flew away. I don't think I ever told them it was me.
46. Where do you keep things hidden? What do you keep hidden there?
I used to keep money in the inside cover of my favorite Goosebumps book (
One Day at Horrorland; I still own them all). I haven't done that for years and years, though, so don't break into my house and check.
47. Biggest fear?
People I love dying. Grievous bodily harm. Whales.
48. Biggest moment of triumph?
I won a whole stack of medals at a literary festival back in high school, probably because my poetry wasn't angsty and my stories weren't science fiction. I was a good writer back in high school, I don't know what the hell happened.
49. Now that you know a much larger audience will get to hear the music you've made, has your writing changed at all? How? What's changed and what's stayed the same?
This one isn't really applicable, as I don't think anyone has heard my music except the people I've written it with. I can say that when I write-write music, with notes, on the computer, the songs I write are far different from the ones I come up with on my own, messing around on the guitar or piano. I think about things more when I have a staff in front of me than if I'm writing from an instrument, though that usually means that the songs I write down sound more like intellectual exercises than music and the ones I don't sound sloppy.
50. What's your religious tradition or background?
I was raised Presbyterian, though my favorite part of church was playing hide-and-seek or sardines with the other kids afterward. My brother and I would always go to the kitchen after the service and drink all the extra little shots of grape juice that didn't get served as Communion. I really liked the pipe organ. Somewhere in between the three of those (childhood games, grape juice, giant instruments) is my current religious tradition.
51. What are you currently obsessed with?
I get obsessed with something new every day, but for a while now it's been cephalophores: Catholic saints who were martyred by being decapitated who then carry their heads around and speak.
52. At what point did you realize that music was going to be your full-time occupation?
If music somehow became my full-time occupation I would be more surprised than anyone.
53. So far in your career, what's been your biggest regret?
Having too many interests that take up too much non-music, non-writing time. I don't know if I regret that as much as wish the Earth spun a little slower and we all got 30-hour days.
54. So far in your career, what's been your proudest accomplishment?
I'm still incredibly pleased that the
Comic Book Tattoo feature turned out as well as it did.
Rantz Hoseley is one of the nicest men I've ever talked to, and went way out of his way for us to help us line up interviews and get it out there. When I first came up with the idea I didn't think there was any way we'd get it to work, but somehow it all came together.
55. You're curating a festival. If you could choose any two bands to open for you, who would they be?
Talk Talk and
Do Make Say Think.
56. Have you ever considered writing or producing for other artists?
I almost have to. I'm a terrible singer but most of my songs have words.
57. Most rock star thing you've ever done?
I wear Buddy Holly glasses, and sort of look like Rivers Cuomo. That's about as rock star as I get.
58. Least rock star thing you've ever done?
One year for Halloween I dressed up as a pun.
59. Worst venue you've ever played?
Just once I'd like to record in a room that wasn't designed for sleeping, storing things, and/or made of concrete.
60. What's the worst show you've ever played? What would you have done different?
I've never played live with anything other than a marching band, which isn't really the same thing. I whacked someone in the head with my trombone once during a field show, though.
61. What's the best advice you could give to a young, upstart band?
Do all the interviews you can. I hear there are websites devoted to that sort of thing now.
62. Your favorite song that you've done so far?
I did an arrangement of "Cloud 9," from Caryl Churchill's play of the same name, as the music director one term back in college. It was bluesy and wonderful and way too difficult for the actors who had to play and sing it, so it didn't make it into the show. Only a very few people have ever heard it.
63. Band/artist you're secretly envious of?
I don't think there are any artists I'm "secretly" envious of. I am pretty openly envious of everyone. I haven't publicly stated how much I love Erykah Badu yet, though, so we'll go with her.
64. Weirdest promotion you've been a part of?
On my drive to work for a long time there was an enormous man, probably 6'3", 275 lbs, wearing a green Statue of Liberty costume, with a giant mask over his face, holding a sign for the local tax preparers. I didn't get my taxes done there, but as a witness I still consider myself part of that promotion.
65. Ever see yourself penning the score/soundtrack to a TV show or film?
I doubt it.
66. Worst song you've heard recently?
I'm so sick of AutoTune. Anything that has been AutoTuned.
67. Do you reach any kind of personal catharsis when it comes to songwriting/performing?
Sometimes the only thing that makes me feel better is turning up my distortion pedal and playing nothing but noise for ten or fifteen minutes. Just sheets and sheets of terrible noise, long-delayed and let to repeat until it slowly fades itself out.
68. Favorite interview you've ever been a part of (aside from this one, obviously)?
My first Aleatory was with
Gotye, who is incredibly funny and kind. I hate to pick favorites, but getting back great responses from my very first interviewee felt like a wonderful validation of the site and its principles.
69. There's got to be one: who has been your craziest fan?
When I was little I had one of those visors with a solar-powered fan on it. It had a hole cut in the brim and the fan was supposed to keep your head cool, but my hair is too thick and it never really worked. Actually, I've changed my mind: that's the least rock star thing I've ever done — worn that hat.
70. What is a personal belief you hold that you would fight for to the death?
I'm trying to think of one, but "fight for to the death" keeps tripping me up. There are some things I feel strongly about, but I'm much more of a "let's agree to disagree, then" kind of guy than one who would fight somebody. Not even to the bloody nose, or to the sort-of bruised shoulder. Maybe that's what I would fight for to the death: non-violent interpersonal conflict resolution. Agree with that or I'll cut you.
71. How well do you feel your music lends itself to remixing or being covered?
You can cover one of my songs, that would be great. My songs are up for covering.
72. A few years ago, Beck gave an interview for SPIN in which he lamented the glut of reality TV shows and blogs about musicians, wanting to know less details about their life because he felt they were more mysterious that way (he liked to envision Devo as living in a crazed art-deco pyramid when he was young, instead of just some guys in a tour bus). Do you feel that there's a lack of mystique out there for musicians in today's YouTube age? Do you feel your band carries any mystique?
I feel there's less of a mystique about everything. If you look hard enough you can find information about whatever you want online. It's great for learning and discovery, but sometimes the mystery is what you really want after all. I often find myself somewhat disappointed when I see a picture of an artist or writer for the first time, because I always imagined them as different somehow. I guess it's the difference between "an" answer and the correct one.
73. Are there any songs that you're working on right now?
Always. I get stuck sometimes, but it's nice to have a constant problem to mull over.
74. Better to burn out or to fade away?
Ideally it's a series of slow fades, marked by flares of brilliance every half-decade or so to let people know you're still alive. That way you don't get used up all at once, and you don't get diminishing returns on your talent by churning out albums (books, whatever) you haven't given enough time to. Deadlines are the worst thing that ever happened to art.
75. Very first song that you ever wrote?
I remember when I was six or seven I re-wrote a version of the Christmas carol "We Three Kings" as "We Three Cats." They were on a journey from the Orient to bring baby Jesus catnip and rubber mice. Sadly the song has been lost.
76. Dream collaboration?
Someday I hope to get married to a woman who is far more musically-inclined than myself, and the two of us can write songs together. Other than my imaginary dream girl? Let's go with Burial. The music we make is nothing like one another's, but I'd love to be one of his vocal samples.
77. What was the hardest part about recording your current release?
Right now: finding a singer.
78. Your life has been reduced to a bumper sticker: what does it say?
It probably wouldn't say anything, it'd just look like a Band-Aid to cover up holes in your fender.
79. Best concert you've ever been to?
Yellow Swans, Frog Eyes, and Xiu Xiu at the Bottom Lounge. All three had absolutely incredible sets. I've seen Xiu Xiu several times, and this was by far their best. They could have been by themselves and it would have been one of the best shows I've been to, but the others were way more than just icing. Yellow Swans just played one fifteen-minute song and it absolutely destroyed, we all shouted for an encore.
80. Worst run-in with the law (to date)?
Speeding tickets? I got pulled over last week by the nicest police officer ever, though. Very very friendly, courteous, explained everything very politely, and only gave me a warning. Plus, the whole stop was over in three or four minutes.
81. If you could sync an album of yours to a movie (like Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz), what movie would it be?
I would love to sync something up with
Werckmeister Harmonies, but the music in that film is so incredible already that, really, I just wish I could write scores like Mihály Vig.
82. Current pop song that you would file under "guilty pleasure"?
I've been listening to a lot of Tom Petty lately. I do love me some "Break Down."
83. Have you ever thought of pulling a Jack White-styled Raconteurs/White Stripes thing and be in multiple bands at once? If so, what would the other band sound like?
Sure, if I had the time I'd play music with anyone who wanted me around. We could sound like anything in the world, really. I'm very flexible.
84. Most disappointing concert you ever attended?
Alien Ant Farm played at Oyster Fest in Chicago one year. It was outside on the street and kids were moshing (this is back when "Smooth Criminal" and Michael Jackson was still alive, but probably spinning in his grave regardless) and I guess this girl fell down and got her hand stepped on. She pulled her hand back and got her pinky ripped right off. The show stopped for a good ten minutes while the medical people searched for it, but they never did find her finger. So, that, plus it was Alien Ant Farm, who I was only watching because Cake was going to be up next, and it was just a terrible show. (To make matters worse, we didn't get to see Cake, either.)
85. What's the biggest mistake you've made that you inadvertently learned a great lesson from?
I try and learn something from all of my mistakes, so that when I do it again I'll remember, "Oh, yeah, I wasn't going to do that anymore." It's not that I stop making the same mistakes, but after a while I realize going into it that I shouldn't.
Like with milkshakes. I'm sort of lactose intolerant, but I really like milkshakes, and sometimes I'm okay with accepting that I'm going to have an awful stomach ache later if I have a milkshake now. This is pretty much my philosophy on art and relationships, too.
86. With Radiohead's In Rainbows release and Nine Inch Nails doing boffo business with his online releases, do you see yourself ever doing some alterative kind of release for any of your future projects?
I like giving things away. I can't imagine ever charging someone $15 for a CD of songs I've written. At some point, if I ever release music on a scale larger than four people or so, I'll definitely be considering alternative distribution options.
87. Ultimately, you will want to be remembered as...
It is my fondest hope that no one hears of my death and says, "Well, he was kind of a dick anyway."
88. What's your deepest source for musical inspiration?
Working around my physical limitations.
89. You just died. I'm sorry. Fortunately, your will states that you want very specific music to be played at your funeral. What did you choose?
And that's it for now! Come back and join us for another exciting year of interviews, Aleatories, and extreme randomness here, and only here, at Globecat!
