Interview with Ed Askew

 Hi Ed,
 

First of all, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Are you recording new songs right now? What's your usual music-making process?

I'm working on songs, or some kind of music almost every day. Aside from what gets occasionally released on CD or records, i am always trying to come up with something here at home (using a very simple proTools set up) that i put on Bandcamp.  Or make copies to sell at shows, and give to friends. 

My process varies a good deal, but basically, i start by making a chord sequence and than listen to what i have until some words come to mind. Of course, once i have that, i edit and move stuff around. Like today, I had some organ chords i liked but had to change the position of the chorus; i didn't like its length, so i cut it in half and repeated it toward the end of the song. 

What words would you use to describe your music?
(Ed's Bandcamp page: http://edaskew.bandcamp.com/ )

I'm tagging it art-pop, outsider, and psych-pop lately. It's evolved over the years.
Mostly it's some version of indie singer-songwriter music. Poetry of sorts. Little inventions. Little compositions, but not art song.

Do you still play the tiple?

No. Hand problems make it painful sometimes. I do some recording, but very rarely, strumming or simple flat-picking. The last tiple project i made was  "Paper Horses", an album on Bandcamp from 2009.

Tell us a bit about your current band ( http://eaband.tumblr.com/ ). Back to the 60's, what was like playing with Gandalf and the Motorpickle?

My current band is Ed Askew Band. There are no available recordings yet. Except for a lo-fi live performance (also on Bandcamp..free download) it's me singing, Jay Pluck on the piano, and Tyler Evans playing the tiple. "Ed Askew Band @ Zebulon".  We do have a new recording, with some additional people, but i don't know when it's coming out or who is releasing it.

I met Jay after i had played ,with Steve Gunn, at the Stone. I was no longer playing with Steve and i needed an accompanist on piano. And Jay said he wanted to do that. Later we met Tyler, who is in the Black Swans. We were touring with them. And when Tyler moved to NY we asked him to play with us.      

I did my first public performances at the Exit CoffeeHouse in New Haven. In 1967  (i guess it was) i was the last performer of the night, and it went over rather well, i think, even though i was nervous. Russ, who was running the show that night introduced me to some people and invited me to join his band, which they were putting together. That was Gandalf. We were a straight ahead rock band; two guitars, drum kit, bass, and singer. I was the singer, and we played my songs mostly. I was with them for most of a year before i quit.  I didn't play the tiple with the band. We played around New Haven mostly, and never recorded anything.

Later i was part of a trio, also in NH, that lasted for a few months, till the other two guys left NH. And i played music with Russ, off and on,  for years, though nothing was ever recorded. Most of my performing, however, was as a solo act. And since the early 1968 i did lots of local shows playing the harpsichord, and the tiple.  I also did solo shows at a bar in Mystic Ct, and at some stuff in Boston.

Ask the Unicorn and Little Eyes are unforgotten masterpieces. What do you remember about your experience with ESP-Disk' and Bernard Stollman? What were your influences back then?

After i graduated from art school i moved to New York City for a time. I was playing around the city at coffee houses; i would just show up and play. You could do that a lot then. Someone suggested i play for Bernard Stollman of ESP Disk'.  So i got his number and , as requested, i made a tape. And took it down to his office and he listened to it. He offered me a contract on the spot. I made the first record in 1967 or 68. It was released in 68. Except for some local attention (i had moved back to new Haven) the record was a non-event. And soon even my friends forgot about it.

But i kept writing and performing.. so it didn't seem that important. Then i made a second recording (Little Eyes) but it didn't get released until years later.

Back then i liked all the Woodstock people..Hendrix , Joni Mitchel, the Doors..Dylan, all the stuff  my friends were listening to; mostly on records. I would occasionally go to a concert. I almost never went to  clubs. But you would occasionally go hear a band somewhere.. someone not with a record out.   I had also listened to John Cage and Kurt Weill (THREE PENNY OPERA) and Harry Parch. Stuff like psych-folk and outsider music i didn't know about, and never liked when i did hear it. Though my taste has broadened over the years. A bit.  

Do you think 'psychedelic folk' was a well-chosen definition of your music?

It seemed ok in the early 70s. Everyone was smoking pot and taking acid. No one ever called it psych-folk back then. It was year later i started hearing that term. My music had a sort of manic quality. Someone said it was acid folk. It really wasn't  much of a concern.

What did you like about your job as an art teacher?

Well, i had tons of part time positions in various programs over the years. Mostly working with kids. (And  teaching design at a university for a few years, until they closed the school). I always liked working with Children, of course. I like kids art. It's quite beautiful sometimes. I  liked to have small classes  best. I did a lot of Summer programs also. Summer is hot and always packed with as many kids as they can get in the program. So it's more intense. Less fun in some ways. Especially if your job is also getting teenagers to clean up the camp area.

I absolutely love those collages you sent me (Ed's paintings, drawings, collages: http://www.facebook.com/ecaskew/photos )

Your music and art seem to have in common the gift of spontaneity. What were your favorite artists when you studied at Yale Art School? And what are your inspirations now?

I liked the so called abstract-expressionists  like DeKooning.. and all the best so-called modernist artists,  like Paul Klee and Picasso.  I still like picture makers ( abstract or figurative) best. I haven't kept up. and don't go to galleries very often. I go to the Met Museum fairly often. I like Chinese  landscape painting a lot. I like some of the German figurative painters i first saw in the 90s.

What are the pros and cons of being an independent musician? Is the Internet an effective tool to self-promote one's work?

Well,  i'm in the situation i'm in; i can make any kind of music i want and if it changes, i don't have to worry about upsetting too many fans or critics, or music business people. So one has a great deal of freedom as an artist. But even in my situation i get people who would rather hear only my older music. People who only see me as someone who wrote music in the 60s and 70s. And it's still almost impossible to find a label that is willing to release anything written or recorded in the last 25 years. So i do it myself. And that works ok on the internet. at least people can hear my new songs there. So the internet is good for promotion, but i don't sell all that much.  It's like, getting $6. Occasionally. But having a sort of internet profile; reviews, and pictures certainly helps get shows. And i sell some stuff at shows also.

Do you think the environment affects an artist's inventiveness? If so, does New York City influence your work to a certain extent?

Yes. Definitely. Even though i keep to myself mostly. Getting gigs in Brooklyn and playing around New York is very good. And working with other musicians, and doing occasional short tours gets me out of myself in a healthy way that affects my music in a positive way. I also hear kinds of work that i probably would not listen to if i was by myself. So that's good.

How would you describe your life? What are your projects for the future?

My life is sort of day to day.. one foot in front of the other. I don't tend to make future plans because something is always coming up. I mean, if we are considering doing a tour.. we do whatever we have to do (Jay does most of the organizing, with some input from me and Tyler)  .. if we are planing that, we do whatever planing we have to do for that. But otherwise i don't make too many plans.   

Day to day, i make art and work on new songs, hang out at home, go for walks, watch videos, read.  

Other Ed-related pages:

http://ed-askew.blogspot.it/

 
http://www.youtube.com/user/singercity40

http://www.destijlrecs.com/askew.html

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Interview with Dupobs

As Les Dupobs were mentioned in the previous post, I have decided to post an old interview I did with them in 2009.

From ReverbNation: "Dupobs is a satirical noise duo based in Vancouver, Canada. Originally formed in 1988, dupobs’ sound is somewhat reminiscent of early DAF, or Violent Onsen Geisha. The group takes elements from noise and industrial music, and have labeled themselves “regressive”. According to their Manifesto, “Regressive music is the act of vomiting the world back onto itself”. One of the group’s members, Jean H., is also a member of A Spectre Is Haunting Europe, a death/gothic-rock group. The other member, Patrik Sampler, also records as Splattertron."

And now, the interview.
Certain aspects of the regressive movement remind me of DADA and surrealism. Were you partly inspired by those art movements when you wrote the regressive manifesto?

Patrik: That's right. We were inspired by DADA and surrealism, and, more specifically, absurdism. The manifesto, incidentally, came after the music. Speaking for myself, I wanted to know why I wanted to make music like that, and intuitively I felt there was some purpose to it -- not simply to make the worst crap imaginable. Jean put me on to Eugene Ionesco. I wanted to know more about what it means to be absurd, read Camus' Myth of Sysyphus...

Jean: Yes.

I, for my part, am strongly convinced that regressive music is the music before the last global decadence because it just shows how old this world is by now and how all the past and present music is inadequate when it comes to the search of the current truth. Do you agree with that?

Patrik: I would agree with that. Objectively, we live in a very decadent time -- especially in a material sense. This may sound trite, but the destructive capacity of our species is greater than ever before. We may be, in fact, on the verge of "the last global decadence". Most popular culture, as far as I can see, celebrates a society based on crap. I can't say I'm not sucked in by it to a certain extent, but I try to live truthfully. The problem is that people seem to be unwilling, or too afraid, to take action. This gets exaggerated in Canada. Things happen here that would cause riots in normal countries, so I feel especially oppressed by the environment. Getting back to your question, I do believe that mainstream music is inherently inadequate as a reflection of the truth because it accepts and reinforces fake sentimentality ... dupobs is just throwing it all back in mangled form. Because what's behind it is already mangled, and we're just showing it for what it is. This might sound nihilistic to most people, but we're rejecting only what is truly worth rejecting. Really I think we're doing everyone a huge favour. I mean, we want to educate people. And we want to reach out to people who see the world more truthfully.

Jean: Agree.

As one can read in your blog, “the language of DUPOBS is free of constraints: a signified is rarely referred to by the same signifier twice. This allows speakers to more accurately express the inner sound” I really like this. If everyone would adopt this method, we wouldn’t probably understand one another. However, a personal instinctive language seems priceless to me. How would you personally say ‘unfortunately my cat is dead but I bought another just yesterday, now I’ll have a beer’?

Patrik: Personally, I would say it, "Heuxgleughdokalskdeurfjongleuuu!" Most of what I say in regressive-talk is quite excited. The 'inner sound' is taken from Kandinsky, from On the Spiritual in Art. The point is about aesthetic liberation, and it's a joke, too. There's a lot of nonsense out there even with 'real' words. Talk about a war for peace. At one point we considered giving a regressive vocalization workshop...

Jean: I wouldn't say that at all. I'm not sure that it's a justifiable expense of breath; the amount of things I can say is finite.

When I listen to your music, I realize it’s even more ‘outsider’ than what is ordinarily considered ‘outsider music’ because what you do must be mostly random and not even inspired by any real musical logic. Do you think regressive music is the real way to express oneself since you’re not limited by any musical rules and the demand to write sensical lyrics?

Patrik: Well, that's how we like to express ourselves. It seems that 'outsider' music is a genre with its own rules -- so I don't really think 'outsider' is a helpful label. dupobs could fit within the realm of outsider music, improvised music... but a lot of these terms -- and the people behind them -- don't really mean what they say. We once approached an improvised music festival -- because we make improvised music -- but they didn't want us. What they wanted was a certain kind of improvised music, which doesn't seem very improvised to me. To be fair, we have a certain idea of what regressive music is. But I'd like to invite others to make their own regressive music, to expand the genre. Maybe one day there will be a regressive festival.

Jean: No, regressive music is just as convention-bound as any other formulaic music. For example, there are verses and choruses that must proceed in a certain order, must be announced, and both forms have distinct characteristics according to the rules of regressive music - see the manifesto.

Do you want to recommend us some regressive bands from all over the world?

Patrik: A lot of those bands can be found through "connections" at the Regressive group page at Last FM <http://www.last.fm/group/Regressive/connections >. It's really too bad that Last FM has started charging for access. We're probably going to start promoting ourselves elsewhere. On the regressive group page, we've been collecting anything we come across that has something in common with regressive music. There's a lot of crossover with noise and industrial, but not only. In terms of combining sloppiness and satire, I think Violent Onsen Geisha (from Japan) is quite typically regressive. He's one of the 'classics'.

Jean: There are very few that fit the bill, and understandably so, since Dupobs invented the form. We're (meaning the fans of Regressive) trying to put together a list. See http://www.last.fm/group/Regressive/connections#artists, and related discussions for that group.

A friend of mine would like to ask you if you ever listened to Demetrio Stratos’s ‘criptomelodie infantili’ (http://www.last.fm/music/Demetrio+Stratos/+videos/+1-6kxIWWW1_GQ) which is an effort to reproduce the subconscious musicality of children. He thinks there are some similarities between that and your music.

Patrik: Thanks for passing that on. I do think Stratos was getting at the same thing. It's humbling to know that someone was making this kind of music long before us. Subconscious musicality is certainly a part of what we do, and then we bring in elements of satire and social commentary...

Jean: No. I’ll check it out.

This is the last questions. So, "crappification" is equal to catharsis. Did you guys feel it was necessary to make regressive music to set free?

Patrik: For me, personally, crappification is a kind of catharsis. Musical regression helps me feel more free. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, I'd like everyone to feel free to express themselves however they want... wear 'regressive' fashion or no fashion, run around screaming, curl up and roll on the pavement, make choking and grunting noises, walk with contorted movements like butoh dancers... whatever. We're far too constrained by rules. Regressive music is all about subverting or ignoring rules.

Jean: No. There are far better ways (than music) of liberating people from the things that imprison them - pamphlets, boycotts, protests, labour action, revolution, etc. We're simply confronting a prevailing symbolic code and inventing/promoting our own in its place. I actually disagree with the cathartic theory regarding Regressive music. To me, Regressive music will succeed best if it becomes a form of music people use to decorate their aural environment - I look forward to a world in which regressive music occupies the same space now occupied by albums such as Eno's Music for Airports, music designed to enhance inhabited spaces. & it's not that I necessarily want to hear Dupobs played in airports with the intent of calming down air passengers. I would simply be interested in observing a world in which something like that is conceivable, and perhaps even discussed on television.

So that was the interview. Now go listen to Dupobs, you owe it to yourself. You won't regret it or maybe you will but it's simply something you can't ignore.

Official website: http://www.dupobs.ca/
YT: http://www.youtube.com/user/dupobs

 

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