The Fix

Named after “the coolest guy in town,” the new record from San Francisco’s Ian Fays arrived at Fuzz headquarters with a sticker, a postcard, and a candy necklace. Clearly, this pop quartet knows the way to our sugar-loving hearts. The love theme continues with heartbroken lyrics, bittersweet harmonies, and golden doily-heart graphics. Though it’s best not to judge a book–or band–by its cover, the Fays, in their color-coordinated pop-art outfits, actually sound as good as they look–and vice versa. Were Sassy magazine still around, editor Jane Pratt and her staffers would be all over this tuneful foursome (remember “cute drummer alert”?).

Originally from Humboldt County, the quartet consists of twins Lizz (vocals, guitar) and Sara (vocals, bass, keyboards), sister Lena (triangle, castanets, cymbals), and non-relative Bradley (drums, xylophone, programmed beats). All bear the name Fay. Lizz and Sara’s soft-spoken voices summon a blend between Kate Bush and Perro del Mar’s Sarah Assbring. According to a 2007 interview they gave to Italy’s Youthless zine, “We write everything together. No real rules though, everyone contributes ideas.” The Fays may not be a household name yet, but they’re on their way. Sample comments at their Fuzz page include, “Close, warm, and distant where it needs to be,” “It’s fun and a little freaky at the same time,” and “Fabulous. Indeed.”

For those who like a few tears mixed in with their treats, this follow-up to their 2006 lo-fi gem The Damon Letters is just the ticket. (Five songs from the hard-to-find debut are available on their Fuzz profile.) If Dylan’s Lost Years were a dessert, the album would be a box of chocolate caramels topped with sea salt. Without the calories, of course. Or the sticky fingers.

Beck is about to do something sneaky. Having spent the past few months holed up in the studio with producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, he’s getting ready to drop his 10th studio album, Modern Guilt. But since there isn’t a release date attached to the project, fans can pretty much expect the album that Rolling Stone claims has “an overall 1960s British vibe” to hit digital outlets guerrilla-style in the coming weeks, much like recent releases by Gnarls Barkley and The Raconteurs. So while we wait for the big day, we thought we would look back at some the 37-year-old’s career highs via magical YouTube technology.

We were on the sidewalk out front of the Antenna Club in Memphis, late one winter’s eve. I was gassed up with triple-distilled courage and standing next to Barkmarket’s tour manager, Brian. To my other side was my bass player. He and I were brandishing the two components of our van’s steering wheel Club®. The three of us (this is how I remember it anyway) were facing down the venue’s owner and two or three huge motherfuckers–a bouncer and a couple of massive meat mounds–fellas chummier with the owner than with us. The guys from Barkmarket might have been just behind us or on the periphery, but their rhythm section (drummer, Rock Savage and bass player, John Nowlin) weighed all of two hundred pounds between them. Anyway, we were in a shouting match over fifty dollars. Barkmarket, a trio from Brooklyn, NY, had booked a tour and my band had butted our way onto a few of the dates trying to get gas money from California back home to Detroit. Brian insisted that the owner had, in advance, agreed to pay my band fifty dollars as a late add to the bill. It was a Sunday or Monday, the show had been a disaster at the door, and now he didn’t want to pay us anything and was calling Brian a liar and a troublemaker.

After a few minutes of this, the owner went back inside his bar and seconds later a car engine revved somewhere behind the building. All of a sudden a souped-up Mustang with glass packs came roaring and squealing out from the alley behind the club and tried to turn onto the side street. The driver lost control and ran smack dab into a telephone pole. He slammed it in reverse but the front end was wrapped around the pole, so, with tires screeching and smoking, the car started wheeling itself around the pole, still tethered to it by the front end. It finally came loose and the rear end of the car smashed into the corner of a neighbor’s front porch. We could now see that the windshield was spider-webbed where the driver’s forehead had shattered it. When he put it in drive it was instantly clear that the radiator, fan sprocket and whatever else, were jammed up from the collision and the car wasn’t going anywhere. He managed to get it into a spot off the street, right next to telephone pole. With steam billowing from under the hood, the club owner wrestled the door open and emerged unsteadily from the car. Blood streamed down his face as he staggered off down the side street, into the night, and we saw no more of him.

So, with the fifty-dollar issue settled we started to load our gear into the van. Only when we got to Barkmarket’s van, three of the tires were flat, all bearing six-inch long knife slashes to the sidewalls. A note on the windshield read, “Love Memphis. Don’t Dis Elvis,” apparently in reference to some innocuous wise crack Barkmarket’s front man, Dave Sardy, had made at the expense of The King.

While we drank at the bar across the street waiting for the tow truck there was a murmur-cum-rumbling spreading through the local patronage and a number of nasty glances were cast our way. Apparently one of the bartenders sensed trouble brewing and made a phone call. A couple minutes later a cop car appeared on the street in front of the bar, where it sat until the crippled van and all seven of our Yankee asses were spirited away to the refuging hospitality of strangers.

If you are already hip to Barkmarket, I hope you enjoyed the story. If you are not, they started releasing records in 1987. Their third effort, Vegas Throat (Triple X, 1992), saw them distinguish themselves from an immense field of dirgey, drop-tuned, New York “industrial noise” bands. Their distinctive characteristics may have been the novocaine-free tooth-pulling, melodic grind of their music and the sardonic wit of Sardy, which wasn’t immediately apparent in what at first could be taken for unedited, throat-mangling, vocal catharsis.

Barkmarket was all hooks embedded in a tangle of weird noises and franticly precise tribal drum beats, which often got washed over by the preponderance of elegantly distorted and percussive bass guitar underneath Sardy’s (who produced all of their records) deftly open-tuned wall of six-string sorcery. They were rarer still, among bands of such sonic might, in that their records were pert nigh as powerful as their live set.

Rick Rubin signed them to Def American Records after Vegas Throat and Sardy become steadily involved in engineering and producing Rubin-related projects in Los Angeles studios. Barkmarket continued to make beautifully jagged-edged records. Sardy said that after he handed over to Rubin Barkmarket’s freshly completed third recording for Def American–a typically swampy slag heap of infectious metal mash-ups–the enigmatic legend listened to it and his only response was, “I thought you’d be over this shit by now.”

Well, although Barkmarket never got over it, they did, quite unfortunately, quit doing it around 1997.

Discography:
1-800-GODHOUSE (Purge/Sound League, 1987)

Easy Listening (Brake Out, 1989)

Vegas Throat (Triple X, 1991; re-mastered and re-released, Def American, 1992)

Gimmick (Def American, 1993)

Peacekeeper Vinyl EP (Man’s Ruin,1994)

Lard Room EP (American Recordings, 1995)

L. Ron (American Recordings, 1996)

I Want a Ritalin Patch

Last weekend my beautiful 15 year-old niece and her mother/my sister were visiting me from Indiana. My niece is all about hip-hop and ironically the one part of her body that I got to know very well during her trip was her hip–because that’s the part of her body where she wears her Ritalin patch. If she doesn’t wear her patch, according to her mother, she’s moody. When I complained to her that I don’t believe in putting minors on mood-altering drugs just to suit our comfort levels, my sister reminded me of my last trip home. “Remember when she screamed at me ‘motherfucker, don’t touch my yearbook?’ She wasn’t wearing her patch that day.”

The patch is like a giant piece of packing tape–so my niece has to follow re-applying her lip gloss with yanking her mini skirt down and yanking at the hairs that have gotten stuck to the patch. Cat hairs, sweater hairs…hairs that were blowing by in the wind.

When I was young, my parents were convinced that I had petite mal epilepsy because I seemed to ‘be in my own world’ and I laughed too much. Plus I was adopted, so who knows what had happened to me those 8 days that I was just laying in the garbage bin waiting to be found. So, I’ve always felt almost angry that my niece is being medicated. She’s intense–like I was–so I’m sure that if the ADD thing had been as big back then as it is now, it would be me, and not my niece, yanking my mini skirt down in order to yank the stray hairs that had gotten stuck to it in the course of a day.

Our first stop on their “Lauren’s Hollywood Tour for Visiting Family” was Rose’s Café in Venice for brunch–light and airy and lovely and sunny. My niece and sister said nothing about how lovely the restaurant was… hich made me think they were mad there wasn’t a race car hanging from the ceiling.

My niece spent most of the meal hoping her friend would text her. She liked this friend even though she was a “cockblocker.” That word was like a magic wand–cockblocker tapped me on the forehead and poof I was a fucking granny. Clutching my heart , I asked her if she still had the finger puppets I’d given her for Christmas when she was three, “or have you been using them as whimsical condoms?”

At the end of a long day of shopping I took her and her mom to another café so they could watch me drink. I ended up taking them to a place that I thought would have a Venice Beach-y vacation feel, but instead was a complete date rape sports bar. As we stood at the hostess stand, my niece started hiking her mini skirt up–or down (what’s the difference really)–and ferociously weeding the stuck hairs out of her patch. When she noticed me watching her, she told me that “mommy’s gonna bring one for you tomorrow…you’ll love it. You’re never hungry.”

It was stressing me out wondering if the patch was working…not working…if the restaurant would be appropriate…and would my sister really bring me one of those patches like she’d promised? I had a bunch of phone calls that I’d been putting off…

The voice that Teitur Lassen sings with sounds–to this American listener–sweet, forgiving, and proper. These are all characteristics that I identify as vaguely Scandinavian, though I’ve no idea what kind of lingering evidence growing up on the Faroe Islands, as Teitur did, might actually leave in one’s voice. Its other qualities–the delicate, charmed delivery, his cadence that sometimes is as slow as speaking, the breath that gives it volume and humanity–are more familiar than foreign, more local than global. If nothing else, Teitur can use the instrument he was born with to make you trust and believe him.

The songs that Teitur sings on The Singer are poems about ordinary things. He falls in love, meets friends, feels happy, confused, and lonesome. The melodies that deliver them are built by his faithful guitar, flourished at times by horns, or orchestras, or vocal harmonies. These songs are gentle to hear and easy to sing along with; they feel like songs you know on the first listen. Teitur can use language and sound to create music that makes you feel like you’ve always trusted and believed him.

Teitur is awkward, inordinately direct, oddly self-conscious, sometimes morose. “Letter from Alex” presses on with the melancholy weight of a funeral dirge or a last waltz, with horns that are both gravitational and heaven-directed and articulations that would be tearful if they weren’t so plain. The album’s bouncer, “Catherine the Waitress,” is playful and adoring as it narrates a childish crush on the song’s namesake. Even here, even in joy, Teitur is unrequited, left wanting.

Teitur is not for everyone, not for everyday. He won’t meet you when you are angry, or sarcastic, or ebullient, or wasted. He sounds better on a rainy day, lulls you to sleep when you are tired, wrests heartbroken emotions out of your heart and mind. But this is what he does, and he does it well. This, his third album, is convincingly his finest. Ultimately, Teitur makes you want to listen.

It’s not as unlikely as it ought to be: the #3 slot on the Billboard album charts–dominated in recent months by Disney soundtracks and NOW That’s What I Call Music collections–is held by a scraggly, upbeat, politely humorous folk duo from New Zealand. It’s the same duo who was virtually unknown on American soil this time last year, and who, six months ago, was potentially looking at an abrupt end to its cult cable television series. Yet here are recent Grammy winners Flight of the Conchords, the comedy duo of Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, celebrating the first of two sold-out nights at NYC’s legendary Town Hall.

The popularity of the Conchords really isn’t all too difficult to map. Playing hapless, itinerant musicians under their real names, the two engage in a celebration of deadpan responses to both comic mismanagement and small, accidental joys; a staged uncertainty in the shadows of the all-too-real uncertainty that current American culture faces with each passing day. Yet they still find it within them to be able to break into songs that channel Prince, Beck, the Pet Shop Boys and Serge Gainsbourg, and which reflect their art, their passion, and their problems. Occasionally these songs allow them to break character from the hapless goofs they portray, and it’s in these moments that they make the deepest connections with their audience. The fact that they’re attractive, successful guys riding a growing tide of mass acceptance doesn’t hurt, either. They’re becoming the most successful musical comedy act since the Smothers Brothers, operating at a level of success they’ve earned, seemingly, by validating our concerns through outsized reappraisals.

Television (and to a more likely extent, the Internet) is how U.S. audiences first caught wind of Flight of the Conchords. Most of the songs from their HBO series have been released, sans backstory, on a self-titled album released recently on Sub Pop, an unexpected success that represents the highest chart appearance of a comedy album since Steve Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy hit #2 upon its release thirty years ago. Stripped of the series’ backstory, it’s merely a collection of mild, pleasant, quirky folk-pop, but one which has struck a chord with a growing audience, as evidenced by the 1400 people who turned out for the show, who were so eager to see the two onstage they would have offered up a standing ovation had McKenzie dropped his guitar pick.

Favoring an ascetic stage set of two chairs, a couple of acoustic guitars, small synthesizers, and a few mics, the duo skillfully worked their way through almost 90 minutes of material, padding out a near-complete performance of their repertoire with prepared anecdotes, banter with the boisterous, fratty crowd, and a handful of new songs. The mannered veneer of early between-song jokes soon wore off as shouts of “I LOVE YOU BRET!” and “I LOVE YOU JERMAINE!” rang out at every possible moment. These, of course, led to requests, and predictably to “Freebird,” which Clement acknowledged the only way he could: an amateur attempt at playing the Lynyrd Skynyrd chestnut, over and over again throughout the set, just stopping short of humiliating the genius who shouted it out. Displays like those were perhaps the most refreshing aspect of their performance, the gradual unveiling of duo’s real-life personalities rising out of their meek, unassuming counterparts on television, as it bluntly sold the growing divide between their comic virtuosity and prepared material. This behavior struck me as somewhat refreshing–and struck home the point that we might have been seeing a live performance not long for the medium; a prickly temperament that, by set’s end, framed an act that’s beginning to reveal a potential dissatisfaction with its public image.

Six years ago, it was all over the news: R&B superstar R. Kelly accused of videotaping himself and a minor possibly as young as 13 at the time, performing sex acts famously parodied on “Chappelle’s Show”.

Such an obscene scandal under intense media scrutiny has tanked other superstar’s careers, but for now, Kelly seems bulletproof. Gary Glitter, convicted of possessing child pornography, fled the country and lives as a recluse. George Michael has parodied the events that led to his downfall–sex in a public bathroom–but has still not fully recovered. R. Kelly, however, is still a huge star with no visible dings, and it looks like he might even win this case.

A bit of backstory: Kelly was arrested in February 2002 after the video tape (which may have been made between 1998 and 2000) was sent to police by his local paper, the Chicago Sun-Times. Four months later, Kelly was charged with 21 counts relating to child pornography and released on $750,000 bail. Seven of the charges have since been dropped. Kelly’s lawyer has filed a motion to further postpone the case, but Chicago Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan is reported as not being likely to agree.

As of May 12th, three jurors had been selected. MTV news has reported that Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis’ name came up as a witness, and former R. Kelly manager (and Aaliyah’s uncle) Barry Hankerson was mentioned as another.

Kelly has been present for the jury selection process. Writer Jennifer Vineyard was in the courtroom and wrote for MTV.com, “For the most part, Kelly seemed disengaged from the process, staring at the table, often holding a tissue to his face as if he had a runny nose or was warding off a bad smell. (The men’s bathroom was only a few feet away from him, and at one point, deputies scrambled to find Lysol to spray in there, though no one else seemed to be affected. However, on Tuesday, May 13, a jury consultant asked Kelly if his cold had improved.)” Each juror would then be asked, “Can you look Mr. Kelly in the eye and tell him you can give him a fair trial?” at which point the singer would put down his tissue, look straight at them, and nod.

Provided 13 more jurors are selected in time, the trial is scheduled to begin on Friday.

The Los Angeles underground is exploding with the sound of music, and while angel-voiced siblings are on our minds, let’s talk about Tweak Bird. If you listen closely, two clear, high-pitched voices penetrate the cacophony of a thousand sonic battalions vying for recognition within the Los Angeles sprawl. One of these days, Tweak Bird will bring a riot to your town, and should you come late, you’ll still consider yourself lucky just to catch the echoes of their fearless brand of rock ‘n’ roll. Brothers Ashton and Caleb are recent Los Angeles transplants who have made a name for themselves in the past year on the strength of a sold-out 7-inch debut and a furious live show. Theirs is a snarl of loud, beat-heavy rock loaded with deceptively simple riffs that get heads banging and enviously catchy vocals that, as you can probably guess, get people yelling along. In appearance, Ashton and Caleb could be called Big Bird and Little Bird, respectively, and they are affable conversationalists who often inject their fraternal rapport, which is often complementary and occasionally prickly, with sports references and deadpan sarcasm. In addition to the obvious topic of music, the band recently spoke to Fuzz about the joys of brotherly conflict, Pink Floyd, and spaceships in the desert.

Fuzz: Hey, guys, are you ready?
Ashton: …Yes. Two Tweak Birds, one interviewer.
Caleb: This is Red Five.

So what’s in a name? A friend of mine wondered whether your band name had anything to do with British babes who do crystal meth.
A: (Pause) Yeah, that’s actually it. That’s pretty insane. (Laughter)

Oh, really?
A: Yeah, that’s crazy. Your friend must be psychic.
C: No, I do remember distinctly we were sitting in the rehearsal space one day, and I came up with some probably terrible band name. And I remember you, Ashton, were like, “No, dude, it’s gonna be called”–and he paused for a really long time–“Tweak Bird.” Tweak sounds like ‘tweet,’ and birds are cool, so that works for me.

As brothers, were you guys playing music together from a young age?
A: Yeah, I asked for a guitar when I was eight or ten, and of course, Caleb, being older, got the guitar, and I got a drum set. So by default, I got stuck on drums. We’ve been playing for ten or twelve years.

When did you guys decide to make Tweak Bird an official band?
A: It was probably late 2006? Or was it 2005?
C: I’ll have to check the MySpace. (Laughter) When we started our MySpace is when we became official. We moved out here over three years ago as a three piece band with another dude from our hometown. He was a cool guy, but that band wasn’t doin’ it for us, so he took off and went back to Illinois. Ashton was playing bass at the time, so he switched back over to drums. We just started jamming and said, “Let’s just do it this way,” and we liked it. It was a natural thing.

Why did you choose to move from Illinois to LA as opposed to, say, New York City?
A: LA’s cheaper than New York. And it’s warmer.
C: Yeah we actually were in New York City for a little while, but we didn’t get to see much of the city while we were recording there. We come from the country, and New York City [seems to have] absolutely no nature, and LA at least has, like, spots of it. That’s where we chill out–in nature, in the woods.
A: Yeah, we chill out in the woods, man. (Laughter)

What woods? You guys go hiking around here?
C: We used to go up to Switzer Falls. That was killer.
A: There’s some really nice hiking in southern California. Aside from the city, it’s a really beautiful place.

Speaking of LA, the music scene here is getting a lot of attention these days. No Age, Health, and Mika Miko spearhead that whole Smell scene, and there’s been a resurgence of electronic music represented by Steve Aoki and the Dim Mak crew. As an LA band playing music during this time, do you guys feel an affinity for any scenes? Are you conscious of any greater sense of community within LA?
C: Yeah, it contrasts greatly from our hometown where bands only played punk or hardcore, and it was more of a family than a scene. [In LA], we’ve been trying to do the same thing. Big Business and the Melvins have been great to us, there’s 400 Blows, but we haven’t been like, “This is an LA sound,” or “This is a movement…“
A: At any given time, it seems there’s a city that gets attention for its music, and it is interesting to be a part of it in LA. It is going on, and we are here, and bands we know are a part of it, so I’m really excited to see where it goes. It seems there have been so many musical droughts, but if you happen to make the right decision to be in the right place at the right time, it can work out really well.

LA is a commuter city. What do you guys find yourselves listening to when you’re driving around the city?
C: Om. All day. I work for a catering business, so I’m driving all day. What’s beautiful about Om is that one song is, like, fifteen minutes, so after four tracks, you’ve killed an hour of your life, and you’re, like, “Yes, this is awesome!” (Laughs) It’s patience in music form.
A: I ride my bike or take the bus around the city. I usually listen to podcasts of “This American Life”.

There’s a well-documented history of brothers in bands who don’t get along personally but have an undeniable creative and musical chemistry. Bands like Oasis, Jesus & Mary Chain, and Black Crowes come to mind. You guys seem to get along, but is sibling friction an integral part of your chemistry as band members?
A: It’s a huge part. That’s where all the magic comes from.
C: Yeah, we talk about this all the time. Our styles are pretty opposite, but arguing it out and adjusting and tweaking everything we do until we’re both happy hopefully means we’re doing something good or at least something different.

As you guys continue to write new songs, do you guys find that it’s getting easier to reach that middle ground?
C: I think so, especially these past few months. This spring, with these last two or three songs, we’ve been on the same page more than we’ve ever been. We have the same ideas in mind now.

You guys just released a new EP. Tell me about it.
C: It’s the Whorses 7”.
A: It’s a cool record. They did a really good job, and it looks really great. You can order it off our MySpace.
C: It just came out on Challenge the Throne, a small label in Ventura…

No shit. Ventura’s my hometown.
C: Really? Yeah, the guys at the label are awesome, really laid-back guys. Those two songs will be on an EP that we’re putting out this summer. We’re mixing the final tracks. We’ll have six songs complete.

Will the summer EP be a vinyl-only release or are you guys going to put out the EP on digital and CD formats, too?
C: We’re not sure yet. We’ve had a few different offers, so it’ll depend on who puts out the EP. If we end up putting it out ourselves, it’ll probably be digital and vinyl.
A: There’s always going to be vinyl. Everything that we put out will be released on vinyl.
C: Yeah, vinyl’s a guarantee.

That’s great that you’re committed to vinyl releases. It seems that vinyl is increasingly seen as an archaic way to collect music.
A: I totally agree.
C: Vinyl to me is like a musical baseball card. Even if you put it in a box and shove it in your closet, it’s still part of your collection. It’s there. You can say, “I have over ten thousand baseball cards,” and you hate all them, maybe, but you have a lot. So whatever.
A: (Laughs) As long as you have it, that’s all that matters.

At one of your recent shows, the guitarist from Ancestors come onstage and played with you. Do you guys plan to expand our lineup in the future?
A: No, not really. It’s just fun for us to play live with other people. It’s a little more entertaining for us. You get isolated as a member of a two-piece band, and we have good friends who are in good bands, and they happen to like our songs, so they’ll jump in and play a bit.
C: It’s cool to play with people who have their own take on our songs. To me it seems our songs are pretty elementary–it’s a riff and some drum beats, so you can interpret it in a lot of different ways. It’s cool to hear someone else play with us. (Pause) It’s weird, but it’s cool.

Well, I wouldn’t say your music is elementary. I could be wrong, but your music seems to be informed by minimalist aesthetics, where it’s more about being tasteful and knowing how much to add to a particular song or, rather, knowing when to leave stuff out.
A: Yeah, we’ve always enjoyed that. Over the years, we’ve developed the mentality that “less is more.” We definitely think there’s something to making music that, like you said, is tasteful.
C: But to contrast, one of our most favorite bands is Pink Floyd, and they’re one of the most highly orchestrated, over-dubbed bands. I think we both agree that it’s the feeling, the emotion that comes out of a song, and if we can do it with [just] a guitar and drums, that’s success. All we want to do is evoke some strong feeling.

Being in a two-piece band makes it easy for people to pigeonhole you and compare you guys to the two-piece bands. But I noticed that you [Caleb] have been using a theramin onstage which expands your sound and the possibilities of a traditional drum-and-guitar setup.
C: The theramin is becoming an ever-bigger part of our live sound, and on the last six tracks we recorded, there’s a lot of theramin added to it. And Ashton will play a mini keyboard every now and then. We just like to keep it varied enough so that after hearing the first couple songs, people don’t assume that’s what they’ll hear for the next thirty minutes. It’s for ourselves as much as anyone else because we get bored.

Your dual vocals have been described as “eerie,” and to me, you guys sound like a gang of ghostly banshee children.
(Laughter)

How’d you guys decide to sing like that?
A: Caleb’s always sang with this almost falsetto-y, high-pitched, orchestrated voice, and I’ve always been in punk bands and stoner bands and metal bands, so I’ve always yelled. We’ve always been able to harmonize with each other well, and we’ve sang with each other more than anyone else. In the incubator stage of the band, we were worried about Caleb being the lead singer because we felt that would put us in a two-piece band stereotype, so we decided to double the vocals. I sing with a higher pitch and a little more aggressively, and Caleb sings high and… pretty. (Laughs) I don’t know if people like it so far.

Well, you guys seem to have been getting good responses at your shows. And you guys always look like you’re having a good time performing. That said, what’s the worst show you’ve ever played?
A: I think I’m devastated by all of them. They’re all terrible.
C: Yeah, we just like rehearsing. Shows totally suck. (Laughter) The most memorable show was when we got to open for the Melvins last year, and I broke a string in the middle of the set, so it was the best and worst show for me.

There’s an artist, Max Neutra, who sometimes paints on an easel onstage while you guys perform; it’s an interesting mixing of media. How did that collaboration come about?
A: I met him through mutual friends. I ended up working with him, became friends with him, and I always liked his art. I saw some videos online of him doing these fast-paced, impromptu paintings. I said, “Man, that’d be great if you’d do that onstage with us,” and he was really excited about the idea, and it worked out. We’ve done it a few times, and now he’s painting with other bands in LA.

You guys are making music during a time where the music industry is constantly changing; where, more and more, young bands like yourselves have to make your own way. Do you guys ever feel any anxiety or fear that you guys won’t “make it” or succeed, even on your own terms, whatever those terms may be?
C: We’ll always be playing music. We’re not that good at anything else. And we’d consider signing big if we had the offer; we’ve never said, “We want to be an underground band. That’s who we are, that’s what we do—“
A: That’s not true, that’s totally not true. We’ve never agreed on that, ever.
C: (Laughs) No, but… we’d consider it. If we were given the offer, if it was right.

This is an admittedly shitty question, but, between the two of you, what are your top five albums?
C: I think Pink Floyd’s Meddle is on there. Ashton?
A: Yeah, that’d be on my list, too.
C: And then Black Sabbath’s Paranoid.
A: Uh, probably not for me. My top five would consist of NPR podcasts, probably. That’s pretty much what I’ve been listening to. And I just got this Sony Institute box set of folk music.
C: Oh, so you mean current top five?
A: Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. There’s no such thing as a permanent top five for me.
C: I thought we were talkin’ All-Madden here.
A: Not the All-Madden team, dude.

Ashton, you’re a new father.
A: That’s correct.

How’s that going? Has that affected your music at all?
A: It’s pretty crazy, man. There’s some sort of enlightenment. Having a kid, I think I’ve finished a level of life. It’s changed me. It’s awesome. But I don’t know if it’s really changed me as a musician. I’m definitely more tired at practice. (Laughs)

Last question, guys. In your song “Spaceships,” you guys sing about seeing fourteen spaceships in the desert. Is that a true story?
A: (Laughs) Yeah, pretty much. I can’t go too deep into it, or it’ll get too crazy, man. You gotta be there to understand.

Well then, what desert was it?
C: It had to be one we’ve been to? When we were driving out here through the Mojave, it was pretty insane. It’s an entire day’s drive of nothingness. It’s like being on another planet. It starts with one weird feeling or thing you see, and your brain can trip out on all these ideas, and you think you’re seeing things or hearing things. And then it goes all Stanley Kubrick from there. (Laughter)

Thanks for your time, guys. I appreciate you guys taking the time to do this.
A: No, thank you, man.
C: Yeah, thank you. This is Red Five signing off.

Check out Tweak Bird at myspace.com/tweakbird

The Rule of Three by Three

Today we take a quick linguistic and historical detour to learn a bit more about how to make a small pile of money into a bigger pile of money by using the “Rule of Three By Three”–a rule that has been employed by multiple generations of Chinese in search of opportunity or, perhaps better stated, survival in the face of crisis. There are probably other ethnic groups utilizing a similar method of value creation, but I learned the fundamentals of this rule while living and working on the frontiers of China. You may find the origin and applications of the rule to be the best three and a half minute financial lesson you will ever have. Even if you are dedicated to “art for art’s sake”, if you can’t eat, you can’t create.

It is instructive that the Chinese characters for “business” are a combination of the words for “buy” and “sell” which are themselves actually the same characters in duplicate placed alongside each other but with the addition of the symbol for “dirt” above “buy”. Moreover, another way to write “business” in Chinese is a combination of the characters for “life” and “meaning”. Think about this, I just suggested that etymologically the life of business is the business of life and there is a linguistic road map of how to get to your destination–a road map of the fabled Chinese search for “the Golden Mountain” using a sure-fire method of value-creation even under conditions of hardship that should be useful for us all.

Before we get to the history part of today’s lesson, let’s consider the notion of “value”. However meaningful it may be to life, it is difficult to organize your thoughts about value (try it); it’s easier to be very concrete about money. (Indeed, I suggest that the value/money conundrum gets to the very heart of the quality vs. quantity distinction that continues to challenge our sensibilities). You can think of money as the tangible side of the more subjective, and therefore elusive, notion of value. In this sense, if you create value, it is worth money, and vice versa. In symbolic and practical terms then, value = money. To think of value in quantitative terms provides the necessary “discipline of equivalences”that allows us to exist in society. Money focuses the mind. After you have developed the cash flow to survive, or even to thrive, you can “afford” to consider whether the equation was a good trade-off. Where we place the fulcrum of balance between value and money in our search for either during the day is a private matter that each of us must weigh in our souls at night.

Basically, there are three things you can do with (value and) money: (1) create it; (2) exchange it; or (3) store it. A useful way to think about these three aspects of (value and) money is the “Rule of Three by Three.” In mathematical terms, 3 x 3 = 9 or three squared–this is a power law. In broad economic, or even philosophical, terms, a power law is a way to leverage values or, in practical terms, a way “to get more bang for your buck.”

Let us then consider how this powerful rule came into being so you may determine what parts of the formulation are relevant to you given where you are in your cycle of life as student, starving artist, head of household or, perhaps, some combination of these roles. Many of the underlying notions of this power law have been instinctively used by about 1.5 billion people on the planet; but only a successful few have reduced it to an easy to remember rule to follow deliberately and consistently. I will give it to you now.

One of the most valuable lessons that I ever learned in my decades of living and working with the Chinese diaspora throughout Asia was their abiding application of economic leverage, as (i) a family unit or (ii) alternative social network, for survival amidst chaos and uncertainty. I have distilled what was shared with me by multiple generations of successful entrepreneurs to a simple formulation for survival that I now call the “Rule of Three by Three.” which means “work, gold, and land–three times over.” What I now teach at our Nightschool for Entrepreneurs, as a “quick-and-dirty” framing exercise, is that in order to survive in society, you take a thing of value and divide it into its three functional equivalents.

To the Chinese, Work related to what one does best in life. Gold meant any asset you could carry on your person or put under your mattress. Land was anything you could not carry, or to be more historically to the point, any fixed asset that you could “mark with your own water” (or to be even more direct as Fuzz folks tend to be, to their credit, anything that you could piss on). In time, the triplet of “work/gold/land,” became the practical proxy for how capital is (i) created, (ii) exchanged, or (iii) held. And, for safety and opportunity among those living on the frontier, one learned to perform these three value functions “three times over” (that is, (i) HERE, (ii) NOT-HERE, and (iii) BY CHANCE) by yourself first and foremost, but if that were not possible or practicable, then with your “extended family and friends.” That is why you first hold your sons and daughters close to your bosom, but then send them away to grow and prosper but always as part of your intimate social network–“here” and “not here”, by “trial-and-error” as chance will have it. Without family or friends, chance has no leverage.

Through trial and error, fault and default, the exhilarating or bitter experience of your changing fortunes on the frontier evolved to become the Rule of Three by Three. “Work/gold/land” are tangible proxies for how capital is (i) created [work], (ii) exchanged [gold], and (iii) held [land]. And to do it “three times over” (i.e. here, not here, and secretly) meant (i) locally, (ii) globally (elsewhere for diversification), and (iii) seamlessly (to set up the framework for connectivity in an ever-changing and expanding network that sits precariously by definition at the edge of chaos.) Again, the Chinese say, sometimes you have to “eat bitter” before the good comes.

What about Fuzz artists and fans who are just getting started in life? To be sure, you may possess few assets (portable or fixed) while living on the frontier. Nonetheless, you do have your passion and your brains, to do the thing you do best. This is the “work” part of the work/gold/land value triplet. In capital formation, this is often referred to as “sweat equity.”
Your sweat equity will provide the small but powerful perch that you can leverage “to tilt the earth” to your advantage. Trust me on this. Struggling artists must often eat bitter while developing their calling. But they, or better, I should say we too have more than a zero base of social capital to provide that critical starting point to deploy our own Rule of Three By Three on the frontier…where we all choose to live for a reason.

Chicago music is in a bit of a pickle. On May 7th, the Chicago City Council committee approved a plan to implement an ordinance that would require all venues with less than 500 fixed seats (read: 99% of venues) that host events to register with the city for an Event Promoter license. The cost associated with purchase of the license could cost establishments as much as $2,000 every two years. It would also require businesses to purchase liability insurance in the amount of $300,000–and that’s just the beginning of the regulation. The ordinance would also demand that event promoters be over the age of 21, submit to fingerprints and notify police seven days in advance of any event. Further, the definition of “event promoter” is so ambiguous that it puts at risk many more than simply the venue staff that could be subject to fines and penalties.

The cost incurred in paying these fees could serve as a pretty formidable obstacle for small venues and compromise the creative communities that they are centers for. Instead of supporting independent artists and local businesses, Chicago city government is on the cusp of making a decision that could effectively nullify the validity of Chicago’s music scene, fracture its creative communities and send young artists to other cities that welcome local music events.

If you live in or around Chicago, have lived there or simply understand the importance of preserving this city’s cultural richness, you can act. Send an email or make a phone call to a Chicago Alderman by clicking here or, at the very least, go to the Save Chicago Culture blog and leave a comment that will be submitted at the City Council meeting tomorrow–Wednesday, May 14–when they vote on the ordinance. Thanks for your support!

UPDATE: Thankfully, due to a “nearly unprecedented outpouring of concern,” according to Jim DeRogatis’s Sun-Times blog, the committee has scrapped their plans and are taking it all back to the drawing board. So Chicago is safe, for the time being at least. Thanks for listening, City Council!