NP: I AM NEON PHOSPHOR.
MW: i'm mark williams and i've been writing songs
NP: INDEED. SOME LISTENERS IN A FOCUS GROUP HAVE DESCRIBED "MEAN SONG" AS BEING LIKE "AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING." CARE TO RESPOND?
MW: why would deaf people be in a music focus group?
NP: WELL SAID. SO, HOW'S THE ALBUM COMING ALONG?
MW: beautifully. it's starting to make good sense now. which is to say, almost all the songs we've been producing for the past 6 months have a coherent sound. this is not sculpted static's leaping from "lost child" to "mad men"
NP: HAVE THE TONICS BECOME "MAD MEN"? IS THIS ALBUM THE WORK OF INSANE PEOPLE?
MW: there's no sanskrit verb paradigms, here. i'd like to think this is pretty sane stuff, with a drinking problem, maybe.
NP: AH, YES. THE LAST TONICS MEETING WAS AT THE CHALET IN EAGLE ROCK. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT BAR?
MW: imagine a closet in a ski lodge equipped with a surprisingly diverse jukebox. it was a hit, like the tonics. shall i say, will be a hit
NP: OF COURSE. I'VE LISTENED TO THE ALBUM-IN-PROGRESS, TOO. HIT AFTER HIT AFTER HIT...
MW: it's getting dangerous
(by the way, it never occurred to me that mean song would be interpreted as a suicide song. makes me feel like an idiot-savant, considering how many different things i've said about it)
NP: THE BAND RECENTLY VETOED "APART", ONE OF THE BEST SONGS FROM SUNNY ASH. HOW DO YOU FEEL?
MW: apart was seemed a little amateurish to me. there was no bass on it, nothing exciting going on in terms of the chord progression. the lyrics alone seemed to pass muster to me, but even then... "on a foreign ceiling/in a lost room" did i really need to tell you where things are spelled out? why didn't i just say "a big goddamn chalkboard on which things are communicated obliquely"
NP: SHOWS HOW FAR THE BAND'S COME ALONG, DOESN'T IT? I MEAN, JUST TWO YEARS AGO, "APART" WAS A BIG HIT.
MW: it was half-hearted, we all knew something was awry. steven and i wrote [i expect produced is more accurate] this song called "jaguar" during the same time we recorded the guts of apart. we were running around with a tape recorder, chasing after car alarms for this. does the world need car alarms in pop songs? i mean, really: that line of thinking does not produce hits. it taints everything
NP: BACK THEN, IT WAS PROG, THOUGH. I SUPPOSE THAT'S WHY THE NAME CHANGE FROM SCULPTED STATIC WAS SO IMPORTANT.
MW: i'd agree. it's a pretty succinct way of looking at things. the name "sculpted static" was a lot like the music. there's some novel internal dynamicism that wears thin to reveal something vaguely annoying and insipid. i have to dilute that a bit, since i was in the band then
NP: LET'S TALK ABOUT THE BAND NOW. YOU'VE MORE OR LESS SETTLED ON THIS EARLY 60s AND 80s SOUND. AS ARTA SAYS, "A LINE TRACEABLE FROM THE BEATLES TO THE SMITHS."
MW: yeah, i think that's pretty insightful
NP: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LATE 60s AND ALL OF THE 1970s?
MW: that was sculpted static, to be sure. "marbles"? "last sun"?
NP: DO YOU THINK THE WORLD IS READY FOR THE TONICS?
MW: i hope so. i think so. my sister compared us to jon brion, which i think is apt.
even though our songs form a pretty coherent whole, though, we're still settling into whatever it is we are. so the world's going to listen at some point, and the world would be pretty impressed if it let us play at the troubadour.
NP: SO, HOW ARE YOUR SIDE PROJECTS DOING?
MW: ridiculous. ahem.
NP: MOST READERS DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT YOUR SIDE PROJECTS. CAN YOU EXPLAIN A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR BAND?
MW: well, i'm not going to say the name, because it's not yet time for those two parts of my life to come together. but this band that i've played in occasionally, here in davis, is a party band
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