Interview: Venice is Sinking

Indie act Venice is Sinking continues to evolve on their top notch effort, Sand & Lines. Frontman Daniel Lawson took the time to chat with Joe Pelone during a very awkward phone conversation. Topics included vinyl (good!), the music industry (bad!), and their recent stint at SXSW (urine-free!).

How soon were these songs ready after AZAR?

It was kind of strange, because there was definitely some overlap. We were approached by [Georgia Theatre owner] Wilmot Greene while still recording AZAR. We didn’t take him all that seriously. He approached us later and had everything set up. At that point we were still mixing. Some of the songs [on Sand & Lines] are older than AZAR. A couple are some of the first songs we played as a band that just didn’t fit on our other records. We chose covers that we were playing live and thought we could do something interesting job with. It’s a lot of country stuff. A lot of the older songs too--“Sidelights,” “Lucky Lady”--were kind of in that vein. And I think that’s why they didn’t sit well on our other records.

When we finished it, it felt different compared to our other records. But we did exactly what we set out to do. It took a little while for me to warm up to it. All the flaws are there for everybody to hear!

What prompted the decision to record live without overdubs directly to ¼” tape? Do you think it opened new avenues to your songwriting?

The whole idea was Wilmot Greene’s. I know he liked the Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Sessions record. He wanted to document the way our band sounded in that room. It was really all him. We liked the idea of making a live record. AZAR took us like a year and labored over every little overdub. We hardly ever played anything on that album live as a band. We were excited by the idea of making a record in a week and actually being done.

He just wanted to make a record the way people used to make records. He didn’t want it to be put into a computer in any way.

We kind of knew when we were writing some of the songs that it was gonna just be us live and that was kinda scary.

BTS: Venice Is Sinking Takeaway Show from BLVD Magazine on Vimeo.

Could you see yourself sticking to live recording? Are there any techniques you’re dying to try?

I don’t know. I think we definitely learned a lot from doing it this way. Whether or not we’d do it the same way… probably not. I like the idea of putting ideas straight to tape. We also had a pretty extensive rehearsal leading up to the theater. It was kind of nice to go into a recording process and be comfortable with the songs for a change!

Who would you say were the strongest influences on this batch of songs?

Galaxie 500 has been a big influence.

You do a sweet cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” here.

The response to covering a song that well known has been mixed. We were worried about bringing something new to the table. Our old bass player… he’s a big metalhead. He kind of always stood out in our band. He didn’t bring a whole lot of ideas, but when he did, we all listened to him. He suggested we do the song this way, with a waltz time signature and slowed way down.

You recorded the album at the Georgia Theatre, which was later damaged in a fire. When did you decide to donate proceeds from Sand & Lines to rebuilding the theater, and how are things coming along?

Last time I talk to Wil, he showed me the final construction drawings they were planning and he got good news from investors to start in a couple weeks. Demolition should be starting soon. The goal is to have it done by 2011.

You’re going vinyl-/digital-only for this album. Do you see yourself ever returning to CD? Is the era of the compact disc… over?! Will AZAR and Sorry About the Flowers see a vinyl release?

We’ve talked about it with the label. Vinyl’s not really as cheap as it used to be, so I don’t know if it’ll happen. We definitely want to move away from CDs, but it’s hard because a lot of press people prefer to have a physical copy and it’s just too expensive to mail people vinyl. We did a limited CD run just so journalists could hear it. It’s hard to make that decision, and it’s all so expensive. To get a record to sound good on vinyl you have to do a whole separate mastering process, which a lot of people don’t even bother with! So a band will end up putting their album out on vinyl because it is the best sounding format and it will sound terrible because they mastered it for CD/Digital only!

You recently played a bunch of shows for SXSW. How many did you end up playing? How was the reaction?

Six in three days. The year before we didn’t have that many, and we were there a lot longer. This year I felt like we were just constantly moving amps and moving to different sides of town. But before it was a lot more fun. We got to see bands we wouldn’t see otherwise.

It’s hard to gauge [responses]. We’re not able to tour very much. We all have day jobs or are in grad school. We don’t get to go very far. It’s nice to play for people who have maybe written about you but can only see you in Texas.

Can we expect a full tour?

There’s talk of it. This summer’s been kind of crazy. We all thought we were gonna go out for a week or two, but I think we’re going to stick to regionally playing this summer. It’s hard for us to get out

What can we expect from Venice is Sinking in the future? Is LP #4 already in the can?

No, but we have started writing it. That’s part of why we’re not big on touring this year. We’re all really at a point where we’re excited for new stuff. We’re not exactly sick of the old stuff, but we’re definitely ready to start new stuff. We’ve already got three or four songs started. At one point we wanted to do all the songs in reggaeton. But it’s so limiting! I think one thing we want is for the next record to be more rhythmic.

You mean like a remix album?

One guy actually did remix one of our songs for a BBC1 radio program. That was interesting.

Interview: John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats)

[I've been sitting on this article for about a month. Now that punknews.org has finally run it, I'm happy to introduce to you my interview with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats. It was a huge honor to talk to the guy, even if it was from the awkward distance of e-mail.]

For almost 20 years, the Mountain Goats have been turning out literate, evocative folk-rock. Their latest album, The Life of the World to Come, is among their best yet, coupling religious images with stories both personal and fictional. It's their, I believe, 434th full-length release, and the group shows no signs of artistic fatigue. I was able to secure some talking time with frontman John Darnielle during a break from touring, via e-mail. He was awfully coy in places - especially when I asked him some questions about his appearance on The Colbert Report - but pretty open on others. Here now are his thoughts on touring, Barbara Streisand, anniversary shows, and the Bible.

Hi. Hey. Hello. How are you?

I'm doing great! Got home from a short European tour the other day and have been working in the kitchen ever since, I really love to cook and bake so it's good times for me right now.

How long did it take you to write the songs for The Life of the World to Come? Did you decide going in to incorporate the Bible for every song, or did the idea spring itself on you? How did reacting to the Bible affect your lyric choices, as of opposed to, say, discussing your relationship with your stepfather in The Sunset Tree?

It sort of came together gradually throughout 2008, and by early '09 I was well into it - first there was this song on the Black Pear Tree EP, "Supergenesis," which was the first Bible-related song I'd written in a while, and I noticed while I was writing it that it kind of woke me up in a way other writing wasn't - I used to write a lot more Bible-driven songs, way way back when in the cassette days. So, around the same time, I wrote "1 John 4:16," and it was a pretty emotional song for me, and I thought, there's something going on here - keep looking at this. And then I learned about a Biblical translation I hadn't known anything about, Young's Literal Translation, and I get pretty excited when I think about translation generally speaking, really inspired. So at that point I was kind of off to the races.

You described your new album as 12 hard lessons the Bible taught you. “Matthew 25:21,” “Philippians 3: 20-21,” “Hebrews 11:40,” and “Isaiah 45:23” all deal with declining health. Are they all about your mother-in-law? Other people? Care to explain their meanings? How did the Bible help you deal with loss?

I try to avoid doing too much "here's what this song is about" stuff with songs, because once a song's writer does that, it kind of puts the song into a coffin and nails the lid shut - no more fun playing with this song and its meanings, listener: the Author has spoken, nothing more to see here, keep movin'! At the same time, I like to be a good sport, so I'll take one: "Philippians 3:20-21" isn't about anybody I knew personally - it's for David Foster Wallace, whose work I don't even know that well but who had such a profound and positive effect on so many people, who was one of those guys about whom, when you get exposed to how he thinks about people and their essential eventual goodness, you think, man, if there were a God, God would have to like this dude, because this dude is so full of goodness and love of life and love for other people, compassion for their struggles, insight into both the good and the bad about people, into the raw humanity that makes the whole world hum. So then he goes and hangs himself, and you think, you know, how could a kind God not give a guy like that the basic equipment needed - the right brain chemistry, I mean - to be able to even bear being alive? You know what I mean? Suicide, the fact that people get to that point of total despair and hopelessness at all, that's like the harshest interrogation of the concept of the Christian God there is. Born-again types have a very simplistic explanation of the whole thing that involves cartoonish concepts like tempting demons and so on, but of course that shit is just infantile. How could a merciful and benevolent and loving God create a good, talented, giving person with a time bomb in his head? How can a good God unleash Hell inside a good man's head? This has troubled me since I worked in mental health. Naturally, if you're an atheist, this one's easy, unless you're a more creative atheist who's able to say "OK, let's posit 'God': how do things work if we do that?" Unfortunately we kind of don't live in a time when people are really able to do a lot of "if x then y" thinking, which in my opinion is what punk rock was all about in the first place, but that's another subject.

What kind of reaction have the new songs gotten so far?

Pretty good I think! I think people hear that this is a pretty emotional record, for me, and I think for the band too - that there's something at the core of it that's kind of freshly-wounded and raw, something physical in the feeling we're going for.

Would you describe yourself as spiritual or religious? What are the top three things you’d change about the Catholic Church, if given carte blanche? What does the Bible mean to you?

These last two questions would require a little more space than I can really stretch out for, but - I mean, yeah, I'm as spiritual as a person who's not sure there's any such thing as "spirit" can be. I think I know what people mean when they describe their "spirit," whether that's actually a construct within one's personality or the essential part of one's self that you share with the world (or not) - the part of you that's uniquely you, that either never dies or which dies forever when you do - I think there is such a thing as that, whether it's an eternal thing or just the most adamantine aspect of your personality. And I think it's an important thing, that concept of The You Which Is Uniquely You. The Church - I mean - part of its charm is its resistance to change. I am not a practicing Catholic though I do go to Church sometimes - I can't call myself Catholic because I don't believe what they believe, but I think it's kind of lame for me to say to the Church "you must change!" in order to please me. I am free to worship or not as I see fit; if the Church doesn't share my beliefs, no-one's forcing me to stay in it. The whole question is a lot more complicated than that, obviously, because of cultural identity (esp. heavy with Catholicism) and how one thinks about doctrine (fluid or rigid? dogmatic or descriptive?), but I think at the end of the day I'm kind of Old School Catholic, which means I don't think the Church should change its teachings to make anybody happy. The Church should be who she is. If over time the Church's understanding of dogma becomes more inclusive of more people, then I think that's great, but the Church isn't the scene or anything. It doesn't have to change for anybody, and it kind of shouldn't.

How has having a steady three-piece affected your songwriting? I know you’ve been playing with Peter Hughes for a while, but do you write differently knowing that Jon Wurster will be around for tours? How much do Peter and Jon contribute to the music overall?

The songwriting process stays essentially the same, though we have tried a thing or two that involved writing the song in the studio - not the lyrics; the lyrics I write in solitude, usually, even if it's the dug-out solitude of whatever corner I can find in a dressing room. Peter and Jon write their parts and the songs grow and change in response to what they see and hear and feel in the skeleton I bring to the table - I write the chords and the melodies and the words, but there's more to a song than that stuff, and the "more" is what they do: sort of putting muscle and skin and spirit into the bones.

You’ve been known to put out high quality vinyl. All of your 4AD stuff has stayed in print, and you’ve released some incredible tour-only vinyl and color variants. What’s your favorite record find and why?

I am more of a pack-rat than a "seek out essential items" dude but this very, very obscure midwestern vanity pressing thing by a band called the Cause that my wife and I found at the Ajax store in Chicago years ago, when we were first dating - that's a huge find, because it's very much its own off-in-space thing. I have a near-complete original run of Man is the Bastard vinyl, much of it bought directly from Wood himself, I take some pride in that. Especially the Born Against split 8", one of my favorite records ever.

Could you talk about your experience on The Colbert Report? Do you get a lot of TV requests?

What can I tell you - it was fun, we enjoyed ourselves!

Is there anyone left on your short list for collaborations? Perhaps a Boz Scaggs duet?

Mostly classical musicians right now - I have a whole lot of ideas for strings and I am hoping to work more with Miranda Cuckson. I would like to work with the choreographer Trisha Brown - would like to write music for her to choreograph. That's a dream though, she's a titan in her field. Me singing with Boz wouldn't be a very good idea, I don't think. He is a truly great singer whom I admire tremendously. I'm good at what I do, but I'm not in his league. Like, at all.

Call it now: What is the best Mountain Goats record? What’s your favorite song to perform? Have you ever thought about performing an album in its entirety? Maybe do an All Hail West Texas tribute when it turns 10, or teach your newer fans the wonders of Sweden?

Well, OK, this is five questions - taking them more or less in order: my favorite record is always the new one, which is not because it's the one being promoted, but because I'm always most interested in what's newest, what's freshest - I mostly lose interest in an album once I've moved on to the next one, I sort of say "here are the songs I loved best from that record and here's what I learned how to do from writing them and playing them and recording them and touring with them, living with them" and then move along, keep goin'. Swim, shark, or die! you know? So, my favorite stuff is the newest songs that nobody's heard yet, and my second favorite is the new album, and after that -- I don't know; I mean, I have an affection for The Sunset Tree because it's meant a lot to a lot of people, and that means a lot to me, and it was hard to write, so I got something from the whole process. And I'm super proud that with Get Lonely, we did what we felt instead of trying to do "Sunset Tree II" or anything - we followed our hearts and I'm proud of doing that and of the record we made. I have no interest at all in doing a pat-self-on-back thing like presenting an old album in its entirety, to me that's "hi I'm an old man now dwelling on past glories," fuck that in my opinion, no disrespect to anybody who's into it. OK maybe a little disrespect because seriously, art is about growth, not K-Tel commercials for the great hits from when life was simpler and we were all in high school. I don't go to anybody's "playing their classic album" shows, I hate the whole concept, it's like very major label Las Vegas. Though I would go see Streisand do Je M'Appelle Barbra but that's different because it's a whole different world. I don't think good rock music should be about ideas like "classic." The idea is keeping it new.



You’ve dropped so many more non-full-length tracks since your trio of rarities compilations in 2002. Any thoughts on doing another rarities collection?

There really isn't any point in doing a rarities collection now that everything's free, I don't think. Back when we started putting together the three singles comps, people who really wanted to hear those songs couldn't, or had to work super-hard to get their hands on dubbed copies. That's not the case any more, so the utility of the rarities comp is questionable now.

Your entry in the 33 1/3 series, on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality, doubles as a short story, in which a troubled youth describes the album in his vernacular while dealing with treatment in an adolescent psychiatric center in 1985. Have you ever though of writing/releasing more fiction?

Yeah I am working on another book.