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1. As I mentioned in my Secret Chiefs 3 reviews, I'm not very familiar with traditional Middle Eastern music. Do you view yourself as doing new things within the confines of Middle Eastern musical tropes? Or are you just bringing standard ME music into a western venue? (i.e., aside from the production tricks, would an Arab view your music as anything unusual?)
There's a great way to answer this question by conducting a scientifically rigorous experiment on your own, in four easy steps:
First: take a Secret Chiefs 3 album that has a lot of said seemingly Middle Eastern music on it - say Book M - down to a market in town run by a person of Arabic descent. Second: play the music for this Arabic person and ask him what kind of "Middle Eastern" music it is. Next: observe reaction. Last: jot down the reaction on your clipboard and move on to the next survey target.
After ten or so such samples, you will likely have established by the scientific method that the music of Secret Chiefs 3 sounds even more "foreign" to an Arabic person than it does to your mother or father. This should come as little surprise, actually, since no one in SC3 knows anything at all about Arabic music --- for sure I've studied Persian systems in relation to Pythagorean theory and metaphysics, and a certain interpretation of this metaphysic is what governs the creation of SC3 music on every level (not just intonation/tuning and rhythm, but in the creation of 'bands' ruled by spheres, motifs arranged & distributed according to a musically temporalized 'neoplatonic' theory of emanation, etc). Our dim understanding of some of the theoretical elements behind Persian dastgah leads us never towards any ill-fated attempt at 'radif', or any other Traditional musics of the world for that matter, since that would only be embarassing for us. Same as we would be completely remiss in trying to literally 'reconstruct' some idealized "Greek" music according to the Pythagorean schemata, and confine ourselves thereto merely out of some futile sense of cultural preservationism; or worse, just because an attempt to resurrect some lost Graeco-Roman music (a doomed enterprise) would be wrongly perceived by liberal kulturvultures to be a less 'culturally remote' undertaking for a white American than learning modern Iranian classical would be. Not that we'd ever be so audacious as to undertake to do either...
It may in fact be natural for a vulture to trade something Living for something Dead. But I for one believe that Culture is Derived from Cosmology. Accordingly, SC3 focus on the the latter, not the former. In discussing the elements relevant to our understanding of the neo-Pythagorean Cosmology and its relation to music, let us just say flatly that we find 12th Century Suhrawardi to be more eloquent and on-target than most modern scholars of 'Harmony of the Spheres'. This is saying nothing against Bamford. Critchlow, Godwin, Lawlor, Gorman, Macaulay, of course, who are living expositors of the doctrine, all utterly brilliant in their own right. If SC3 try to apply Suhrawardi's understanding of the Imaginal directly, we hope we will be forgiven for not engaging in the mortifications/resurrections that seem to be required by the rest of academia in general, which seems to be demonically afflicted with this whole dementia borne of putting the Cultural cart before the Cosmological horse. I mean, according to a certain logic, since the story goes that Pythagoras was from a small island off the coast of Asia Minor called Samos, we should call all music based on Pythagoras' fundamental discovery of nature "Samosian music". Of course, since so many are still in the habit of calling everyone "Greek", including native Estrangelo/Aramaic-speaking Syrians (Iamblichus = "Ia-milik"), and countless other Phonecians and Egyptians, I hope I will be forgiven for turning my nose up to all the culturally precious debates on this account, and concentrate on the content instead.
Suhrawardi is caught in yet another maelstrom, that of historical invisibility in a certain 'Middle Age' whitewash. He himself being martryed at the request of the victorious Salaheddin, conqueror of the invading crusaders, for fear that his doctrines might be too "Sabian" for comfort, too magian/hellenistic for a defensive Islamicate to tolerate under pressure of hordes of invading Catholic psychopaths. Suhrawardi's ideas come into the West first historically under the promptings of the Maimonedes family clan, to be absorbed in a fundamental way behind the closed doors of Hasidism --- that's another story --- but are his ideas any less perennial for this?? The kulturvultur who would dare restrict the Philosophy of Illumination (which is rooted equally into the Hellenic and Magian worlds, and is itself steeped in Philosophical orientation towards an Imaginal "East") to a mere cultural ejaculation is really asking to recieve an ideological scimitar blow to the neck. And I confess I am prepared to give it --- make no mistake, we are "believers" in the most basic sense of the word. It's true that the transcendent nature of the Pythagorean Ur-Tree from which so much Sacred fruit falls means it is in no need of 'defense' from the likes of us --- but where certain of these fruits become attributes, aspects that can be applied *technically* to the creation of music, and hopefully music that is at least one vector removed from the pit of quicksand that modern music has fallen into, we will defend TO THE DEATH our right to side-step any such fucktfully mundane catechism that would substitute culture for cosmology. I'm grandstanding now... sorry.
Related question: what does *contemporary* Middle Eastern music sound like? Is it Westernized?
Depends. Sometimes sure. But music all around the world can be just as pathetic as anything here; and we may even be behind the times in some ways. The utter horror of cheap-technologized music is not at all confined to the phenomenon of 'Westoxification' --- but even so, I don't think there should be any controversy at all in siding with the Mullahs in the total banning of music (I am not against this at all). Sometimes in other cultures the Western elements are incorporated really gracefully and well, imo. The most obvious case is the guilty pleasure derived by both native and outside tastes for the 'lowbrow' elements of, say, Indian music. I wear my love for R.D. Burman and Ananda Shankar on my sleeve. Can it be said that this is for how "Indian" they are? This isn't Drupad --- it's not Ram Naryan, its ROCK! We can admit that very often the musical content of these recordings is wanting, and would be boring if not for the inclusion of Western elements, like electric guitar and drumset. And there was a magic in the way these instruments were viewed, being 'exotic' the way a sitar once seemed exotic to us in the West. I feel that all instruments are inherently 'exotic' in the sense that they can be epiphianized, made-new, re-linked to the imaginal, and baptized by the cleansed perception of the musician sage. Same goes for any recording gear, hi-fi, or crappy. Working on limited gear I've learned more from the production techniques on some of those A. Shankar and R.D. Burman records than I have from anything else. When I think of Omar Souleyman's use of distorted casio keyboards and karaoke boxes to scream and yell about Jihad, I'm temporarily tickled to think of the endless debates that could ensue over this question that you raise; all the the ironic erudite books that could and will be written... let's not get too entranced watching the dry bones being picked over by the kulturvultures long after the spirit has departed. It's uninteresting.
2. Is it more important that the music you write be intellectually stimulating to you, or emotionally stimulating?
There are low aspects of the emotion, and low aspects of the intellect. I guess I try to concentrate on the higher aspects of both.
3. What does the symbology inherent in the SC3's artwork mean to you? I've always gotten the sense that it means more than a simple visual correlation to the mystical/esoteric music you create, but being unversed in Persian philosophy, I have no clue what any of it means. Could you speak a bit about some of your beliefs and ways of viewing life? I realize that's vague, but hey!
Yeah, the visuals are of course intimately related to the process. I actually try to just establish the core system on the visual symbolic level to have it there as a kind of shorthand. People versed in the Philosophy who may suspect certain things from the music itself can essentially find confirmation there in the artwork. I'm absolutely incapable of "teaching" any of the intricacies of this stuff to anyone, and I don't expect anyone to 'decipher' it or any of that. It's really, like I said, a shorthand -- not unlike a grimoire, I suppose. In a very real way, the music is there to 'universalize' what some would see as extremely rarefied and particularized trajectories. But some people really get this stuff, believe it or not. I'm really lucky to have made a few good friends, a few advanced and very serious students of the Mysteries, people who don't see me as a freakish alien life-form or madman or whatever. Anyway, yes, the artwork is part of the same hermeneutic as the music. Unfortunately, barring a 500 page tome, I'm unable to really go into that in detail here. Sorry to be such a dick.
4. How did you get roped into The Three Doctors Band? Do you look back fondly on that experience?
Definitely. Like most of the hipster scum of San Francisco in the early-nineties, I was a big fan of Zip Code Rapists. After Gregg had finally split with that horrible, violent axeman man The Rapist John, some of us big name musicians with waning careers felt fit to buddy-up to this great and noble musician who was hot at the time, but estranged from his vehicle to success --- kind of like the David Lee Roth vs. Eddie Van Halen situation. Rumour had it that in the wake of the ZCR legacy The Rapist John was putting together some band full of famous professional hack musicians to play the ZCR catalog (the "Zip Code Revue", blech). So we decided to form another group of famous hack musicians and make a phalanx around the more "soulful" element of ZCR, and in doing so we declared an open war on the mediocrity and hateful revisionism of the Zip Code Revue. We took this war to Santa Rosa, California for two gigs. It was a defining time in music, because Santa Rosa was the locus of something very special (for one thing, a total disengagement from the memory of ZCR). A place for new beginnings. A cauldron for the New Weird America movement, but back in '96 before the Wire had pubic hair --- I remember some hippies who'd go on to form Sunburned Hand Of The Man were even in attendance. They can tell you themselves! "Sweet Caroline" never sounded as good as it did on those hot summer nights in Santa Rosa.
5. I know this is a tired old topic, but my readers would kill me if I didn't ask about it – why have you and Mike Patton not spoken in years? Did your friendship die out because of Mr. Bungle or Faith No More, or did you just go separate ways, or something else entirely?
As time wears on you find out who your friends are, and who they aren't. Mike and I always had the best working relationship imaginable. Really, very very good and fruitful. There are other things in life we see differently. I don't think those things are irreconcilable at all. But when you get used to having things your own way, and certain people around you resist the "natural order" of becoming subordinate to you, you may start nursing resentments. Even lashing out at them and calling them egomaniacs etc. for not assuming the position. I think in my case it was too painful for Patton to realize that where there are no subordinates there is no insubordination. Like most of us, Mike tends to begin the process of deciding whether or not he can afford to discard a person's point of view altogether, rather than facing certain difficult facts of life. So to answer your question, there was never any big mess between he and I specifically. The general dysfunction coming from being expected to silently endure more and more of this emerging top-down/top-dog order-barking thing he'd taken to just ended up getting really tiresome for everyone involved. In a band, strong personalities need to know where to draw the line on this kind of stuff. Anyway, since it wasn't going to happen, I was the idiot who started to draw that line. I admit I had more emotional involvement in the process than would be neccesary for a non-robot, having poured comparatively ridiculously copious doses of my blood into the project. Patton's subsequent resentment towards me is a fairly predictable outcome. You don't stand up to him and stay off the shit-list. A bummer, yeah, but its essentially a self-protecting reflex action - something I don't really feel a need to hold against him too much. He has his way. It won't change. And after all why should it? This method works well for him overall -- who am I to question it? I dare say it's even part of his charm. (we are a nation of pathological narcissists after all!). Whatever. Really, I feel fondly about the time we spent making music together, and feel we did some great things. And, while I am diametrically opposed to it on a human level, over time I do appreciate the clarity of his cut and dry approach: how black and white it makes things. You're either in the club, or out of the club. Unfortunately, I have to say I do prefer life as an excommunicate from that kind of 'friendship'. I know he prefers it that way too. I'm sure both of us would agree it was a good run, though.
6. Some have claimed that you are secretly a member of Faxed Head. Is there any truth to this rumor?
No truth. Only secrets and lies.
7. What projects are you working on right now? You're recording CDs with a bunch of those "bands" from the past SC3 album, aren't you? AREN'T YOU!?
You caught me. 7" singles first, actually.
8. Even though some of your projects have been humorous, you seem to take music very, very seriously. What is the importance of music in life? What makes it more than simple recreation or entertainment for you?
I've come to appreciate music as contemplative expression more and more. I think music, done right, lives somewhere between Philosophy and Meditation, and is an aid to both. I like it when it entertains too, but it has to engage in a kind of total picture for me to get excited about it. It's so easy to make 'just' music -- I can't find any motivation to do that. For the life of me I don't know how most music is even made... I'd get so sick of doing it if all there was to it was just something aimed at people's ears. Or 'just' their ass. Or 'just' their brains. It has to be more whole, and definitely has to be connected, above all, to the cavern of the heart, the seat of true contemplation.
9. Even in the very earliest Mr. Bungle demos, your guitarwork is unbelievably fast, tight and impressive. At what age did you start playing and how much did you have to practice to become such a gifted player? At this point, can you name any guitarists who are better than you? Is there anybody that you wish you could play like?
It's weird. I lost interest in guitar when I was about 20, which was in 1990. It really just became a means to an end for me, and still is. I like what I can do with it compositionally and all that. I leave the mastery of the instrument to others who are infinitely more qualified. All I do is wield it so as to have a part in the performance of compositions... I think this attitude has freed me up a lot over the years. I can kind of play the thing with transparent feeling and nuance now, and not just be the anal-retentive fuck I would be if I actually gave a shit about it. Playing saz and an assortment of other stringed instruments helps me bring different ideas to the guitar now, probably. My problem these days is that I own only one guitar, and it's a piece of shit Strat made in Mexico --- I never ever play it unless I have to record. Truly a piece of junk. I've been like this forever though, actually. I remember borrowing my roommate's piece of junk Les Paul copy (a $100 "Seville") for the Faith No More sessions, because at that time I literally had nothing resembling a functional guitar. Just a pile of synths and a broken G & L. Luckily Billy Gould had a decent hollow-body for some of the clean parts. This problem of mine is way worse now... I just don't care at ALL. But I really like playing other people's guitars that are well-taken-care-of. Someday I'll get a respectable guitar with normal fretting. I need that for the surf stuff I do --- all these modified instruments with proprietary tunings and various electrified baglamas etc. aren't so good for that.
10. Were you given any artistic freedom during your brief time with Faith No More? Or were you basically told to play like Jim Martin?
The opposite. They didn't want a Jim Martin clone. I thought his approach serviced that band really well, and that was what I was intending to do. I was very surprised to find that they wanted actual guitar playing and all that. This coincided with some different members wanting to write 'actual' songs instead of doing the "collective rhythm-section jam-session that turns into something over time" approach that had served them so well up to that point. So I think it was hard for them to figure out what the HELL they wanted from the guitar at all. In retrospect, even though I was not the right guy for that band, and promptly quit after the recording, I think I was actually the right guy for them on the CD. Since I never have any ego attachment to my precious "parts", and work always from a compositional and production point of view, they could build and tear down etc. and I'd be happy to accommodate the changes... that would've been murder for them with some 'guitar dick'. Man, their democracy was going through what seemed to me a difficult test at the time; it couldn't be said that people were in agreement as to how things should sound very often. And there was a pall of multi-faceted jaded-ness going on, despite the efforts of the great producer Andy Wallace and his assistant Cliff (both of whom taught me a great deal). So my job was to find the 'right' approach that could stand up to multiple angles of scrutiny. It was a great, healthy challenge. It wasn't easy since the band's sense of confidence about their direction was wavering both collectively and individually. So to answer your question, the "freedom" I had was to find the solution to all that from the guitarist's perspective. I think that turned out ok. You might have guessed that I don't like much of the music on that record at all. I do love Billy Gould's "Just a Man", and have always tended to like his musical ideas overall. But something happened to the balance of forces in FNM on KFAD, something not very good. Having been a fan since 1985, I knew no one was inspired in the way I knew they had been once before. The reasons for that are depressing, considering the talent in the band. Anyway, my proudest personal moment in making that CD is probably speed-scoring the string parts on it; no one had realized that the hired string players would need to have written parts until they were in the studio staring at the band members... ha!
11. What do you find so offensive about Mr. Bungle's management? Can you say anything about it without getting sued?
Not sued yet, but I can't say anything without him going into a hissyfit. Last time I did it ended in a smear campaign that ended up making it all the way to Rolling Stone. As flattering as such infamy can be, the game bores me. I think Greg's just sensitive because he's been at the site of more than one band break-up right after a popular lead singer has formed a record label with him. He's afraid people might start making a connection. Meh, who cares? Things destined to succumb to treachery will succumb to it eventually. Greg's no different than several million other people out there doing things the same way. I don't single him out as being any worse than any of them. And there's just too much dirty laundry to go through anyway. The way I see it, if the infection is there, all it needs is a catalyst. Greg was just a match of opportunity thrown onto the pool of black gold waiting there in Mr. Bungle's notorious LaBrea tar pit of dysfunction. We can't expect such fires to burn mercifully.
12. We have a mutual acquaintance who told me he got sick of San Francisco at least partly because of the overwhelming number of negative Nihilist Nietzsche-reading Church of Satan smug arrogant Feral House-reading (etc etc) scenesters. Did this subculture play in any role in your tiring of SF? Or was it something else entirely?
That definitely was a major factor. It's so weird how those people still today kow-tow to some of the major forces that set what they consider "cool" into motion, whether we speak here of Caroliner Rainbow, Sun City Girls, Neil Hamburger, Flipper, Culturcide or Three Day Stubble or whatever. I'll never EVER understand how such sublime acts have failed to inspire subsequent legions of angry drunken Disinformation-reading, Boyd-Rice-licking, tattoo-covered modern-primitives (and their emo/mod Grux-poser noise-geek little brothers and sisters) to something greater than the drug addiction and third-rate neo-humanist philosophy that saturates the "scene". When you consider the wit, loving-kindness, or dark and ferocious humor and deeply enigmatic character of the people behind the above expressions, it's simply not possible to reconcile the gap between them and the fart wafting through the audience of the 'subculture'. So if you are me, you say FUCK IT and GET THE HELL OUT & go live on a mountain in a log cabin & compose music no one understands, but some seem to like, thank the lucky stars.
13. Would you go insane if you lost your hearing?
Probably go sane.
Definitely I'd stop fucking around with these cochlear mirages & be forced into direct perception of the Music of the Spheres.
14. Aside from music, what are your chief interests at this very moment?
Right now the doctrine of the Secret Adam among the Nasoreans; and to cancel that interest out, I have the inescapable depths of St. Ephraim the Syrian to keep me cold at night. I like to fantasize about him and Artaud locked in conflict. It's like what happens after eating jalapeno peppers for too long. Too much Lautreamont and Hedayat, and eventually you are forced to graduate to habanero peppers. If the ulcers they give you aren't the desired result, then the superfluous delights they offer are just another form of machismo. I try to take these things as a curative, or immunity boost. To "taste the knife" as it were.
15. What do you like most about American culture? See? I'm forcing you to THINK!!!
I really like the mail system. It's definitely the best in the world. And the plumbing. We've got everyone beat there. Our toilets rule. Compare them with Japan's or Eastern Europe's... the Arabs and Persians are definitely cleaner because they actually wash down there every time. But their plumbing is nowhere near as good as ours. America wins! (on toilets and postal system).
16. George W. Bush is calling for an additional 800,000 soldiers to fight in Iraq. Thoughts?
He should send 800,000 plumbers, the prick. Not even HE capitalizes on or exports what's best about our society. Only the pathetic embarrassing things. "Freedom", murder, McMusic, McFood, McAgriculture, McReligion, McEducation - it's really not a very complimentary picture of "us". We'd definitely win at least a few people over if we gave them the U.S. Postal Service and good plumbing. If the campaign to win "hearts and minds" went astray it's because we couldn't make people stupid, fat and unhealthy fast enough. Bush's is just too cynical a view of humanity to implement effectively. You need a hundred years to take people from being full of blood, vigor and honor to being morally depleted sacks of consumerist shit. That happened here in 60 or so years, but I don't think it can happen faster than that somewhere else. Probably another approach is called for, anyway... um, when scary bastards like Zbigniew Brzezinski are trumpeting to that end, you know we're in big trouble. Even so, most Americans have realized at this point that stuffing our own country ever fuller with fatter, stupider, more morally degenerate fuckheads does not paint a particularly rosy picture for the future. One would hope that when even Kissinger and Brzezinski realize that it doesn't serve the national interest to try and convert the whole world to the statistical pseudo-religion of the 'market', with vassals all prostrate before a model of slobbish, slavish materialism. Even here in Work Camp A we see plenty of clear signs that the National Security isn't served too well by a counter-ideologal mantra like "eat, fuck, work, buy, drink, fuck, work, buy".
There was a brilliant Bedouin distillation at the front of the invading column during the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Remember? The guy was so happy our boys were there that when asked by an embedded hack what he liked so much about America, he replied "Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy". This is what the seedier elements from Iraq's own society once had in mind with a hoped-for "freedom" (a benevolent promise offered by invading troops, later understood to be an effect enjoyed only by relocation to Work Camp A), and it's an idea that has probably actually persisted somewhat. Because the strategists at the Brookings Institute and other think tanks seem happy to advertise these three things - Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy - as being the best of what we have to offer the world. Its certainly what the Iranians are being offered on LA-based Persian satellite networks --- this whole "look at how free and fun it is in the land of freedom, tits and drunkenness! Look what you're missing!!" My question is: are they wrong?? Since we are deliberately making an appeal to the basest, most scumbag-like elements of world society, does this not mean that the end result for our own country lies in that direction? If so, I believe "Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy" is what should be flying up there on our flag now. I say this out of deepest respect for the America of ingenuity, strong work, and good wholesome character. If these are just legendary archaisms, we should let Old Glory retire with some dignity, as a positive beacon of what once was and now isn't, and should not drag it through the mud of today. If "Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy" is more current with the times, let's change it to that. As a slogan on a flag it would have the merit of being honest. Unfortunately, I don't think our servicemen would be all that excited about fighting and dying for "Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy". Much to their credit.
17. Do you ever run across music critics who actually *get* what you're trying to do? Or is your vision so personal that it's an impossible feat?
Though I do complain of the lack of a latter-day Adorno, since the last CD I've been pleasantly surprised. I like it when people at least try to go into it, and don't just leave it at "like a soundtrack to A Thousand And One Nights scored by Ennio Morricone on twelve hits of LSD" or whatever shit. There are a few *very* sharp scalpels out there, maybe not in musical terms, but in say "sociological" ones. Overall, I like the honesty of the local newspaper or daily writer. We've gotten some really thoughtful excavations from these types of commentators. Its a sharp contrast to the hipster writers with reputations to protect; they tend to be the worst because they always try and show how familiar they are with our references, which tend to be less obscure than many think. If we wanted to be "obscurantists", my God the storm we could unleash.... anyway, writers like this will often hang themselves when trying to contextualize our inclusion of a song like, say, "Exodus" in terms of whatever fad is happening, like the Morricone one a few years back. By thinking I'd give a flying turd about anyone's up-to-the-minute coolness meter, or worse, that Morricone has ANYTHING to do with Ernest Gold who actually wrote the tune, such people really only do a disservice to themselves and to posterity, to say nothing of the music. I think it's always best to deal with writers who have a cleaner slate. But whatever. I'm always glad to hear what anyone has to say about this musical fiasco... even if it's the standard "like a chance meeting between (X) and (Y) with a bunch of mystical Jihadist philosophy on top", it's always good to know how well or badly the job of interfacing with the world of fellow humans is going.
18. Being so well-read and knowledgeable about various world philosophies, musics and histories, does it infuriate you that so many people (including me!) are so unworldly? Or can you understand why other people might not be as curious about these issues as you are? I ask this out of shame for being so ignorant about the topics that interest you most. :7(
Don't feel that way. The living people I respect most on this earth have no idea what I'm on about. It's only a neccesity as a curative for what ails me. Maybe you are ailed differently.
19. Are there any rock bands or artists that you find intellectually stimulating?
Definitely. Laibach takes the cake there. I guess the question is more what's "philosophically" stimulating, since I can't stand even one of the proggy smarty-pants "intellectual" bands out there --- all that mathy stuff that just sounds musically dead to me. Having said that, the automaton-mimesis of Devo was my first love --- and I still marvel at the sheer amount of sublime detail in their overall musical vision, and their humanity. It's good to remember that both Laibach and Devo were sprung from art/theater/film collectives, and neither started just as "bands". Psychoanalyzing myself, maybe I just appreciate the fact that the Idea is what all the music is derived from. I also must confess my joy at the total eclipse and transcendence of mere ideas going on in the work of Sun City Girls and Caroliner Rainbow, both of whom I have had the good fortune to admire at close range for many years. The poetics of Alvarius B and Uncle Jim have really lit up an otherwise dim world of musical poetics of late. And awhile back I was surprised by a black metal band called Deathspell Omega for what was done on their album Kénôse. These examples keep me from having to think of myself as the nostalgic and %100 aristocratic snob who spits on everything the modern world offers up as vulgar, stupid and spiritually impotent; especially since I enjoy a lot of that garbage as much as anyone else...
20. Running your own record label: Is it worth the headaches to be able to release any music you want?
Definitely NOT WORTH IT. But definitely WORTH IT for releasing the music of the narrow few bands who understand that they will not get rich and famous automatically through the inexhaustable resources and manpower now available to them through a record company with exactly one person doing all the tasks involved. In other words, bands accustomed to DIY have thrived on our label, and our 50/50 policy has made them very happy. Bands with dreams of fame and fortune placed before the grit and value of their music don't survive - on our label, or in the world.
BONUS QUESTION: Don't you miss playing funk-metal?
Of course. Do you think when retro gets to the early-nineties that it will come back? Fuckin' revisionists probably won't think its cool enough... they'll go straight for the flannels and heroin. Man, I really hope they set aside some space for neon body glove outfits, funny cat-in-the-hat hats, nipple rings and dreadlocks. I'll feel discriminated against otherwise.
I just can't wait for the next SC3 stuff!
Book of Horizons is one of the best experimental albums I know of.
Come on Trey, come to Europe this year puhleez!
However, their interests in cosmologies and displaying their interpretations/understandings of them were what initially drew me to them and still predominate my intrigue. Thanks for asking provoking questions, though I gather Trey likes to paint rather large, detailed, all encompassing pictures anyway!
In a very basic street press interview I read that Trey felt most fans were into SC3’s music more than the mysterious symbolism. Fair enough, but I was hoping for a token “something” at the show rather than just CD’s and t-shirts. L Not much to go on, but again, completely fair enough. Ahh, the fine balance of pleasing everyone in a world based on market trends.
Anyway, I don’t own a computer and am rarely on the net so this was an good insight.
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