This week’s East Village Boy of the Week is Florian, from Paris
Photographed by Florent Routoulp, aka Chocolat_Poire, entitled Pull Marine
Isabelle Adjani and Serge Gainsbourg - Pull Marine
The shoot began as a project about “blue”. I wanted to create a story about blue as a feeling, and was inspired by the song by Isabelle Adjani and Serge Gainsbourg entitled “Pull Marine”, about suicide, love, swimming pools, and of course the color blue. I wanted a very intimate feeling so I’ve used the pixels from the computer screen in the photos. In the end, I produced a book with the photos and the lyrics of the song. - Florent Routoulp
Pitchfork wanted to call him, but he has no phone. Luckily, for that man with no phone who describes himself as someone not up-to-date with just about anything, his music sounds surprisingly nu. Dayve Hawk is the camera-shy man behind the wistful yet at times catchy Memory Tapes (AND behind Memory Cassette AND Weird Tapes, AND formerly from a band called Hail Social), who’s remixes and original tracks are lauded by everyone and their brother. From the dreamy, escapist stuff like ‘Asleep At the Party’ to the more danceable ‘Bicycle’ from his just-released debut album Seek Magic, Hawk’s new turn has resulted in some critically acclaimed and lovably escapist tunes, direct from a secret location in rural New Jersey.
Stef Siepel: You don’t have a phone, you don’t know how to drive, you say you are not up-to-date, don’t know much about computers, don’t know how people discover new bands: how ironic is it that you became an internet and blog sensation?
Dayve Hawk: Well, on one hand it is, but in another way I think it makes sense that this is the only way I could possibly have been discovered. It certainly wasn’t going to happen by me going to parties and meeting people!
SS: For a while no one knew who was behind your no less than three different monikers (Memory Tapes, Memory Cassette, Weird Tapes). Are great artists genderless and ambiguous or is there something else at work here?
DH: I do prefer art to be ambiguous. I know some people admire celebrity and charisma, but for me it’s like when you recognize an actor and it takes you out of the story in a movie. At this point I’m tired of my “mystery” being a talking point so I’m trying to be more open but I can’t change my basic personality.
SS: You didn’t want to do a shoot for this interview. Are you shy or nurturing your enigma?
DH: I don’t want to be an enigma… I feel genuinely uncomfortable with the performance aspects of being a musician: pictures, videos, shows. I’ve realized that you end up attracting more attention to yourself by avoiding it but I’m still trying to find a balance with what I’m comfortable with.
SS: There is this story, I don’t know if you’ve heard it, about this Black Devil album called Disco Club, which was or wasn’t by Joachim Sherylee and Junior Claristidge, and which was or wasn’t made in 1978 and “happened” to be discovered twenty years later, and it was or wasn’t a hoax by two French producers. Are these stories of ambiguity and mysteriousness what you like to see?
DH: No, that’s more like novelty PR stuff. I mean it’s fun, and I’m sure it was a cool framework to create an album in but what I like is genuine ambiguity. I don’t like a “story”, I like not being able to explain something properly… like trying to tell someone your dream.
SS: Are you going to tour Memory Tapes? Does touring appeal to you at all? You could at least cross the river and do a show in New York.
DH: I am considering it. It doesn’t appeal to me because I get incredibly nervous but would like to overcome that. Possibly after the winter.
SS: You’ve got a lot of people being positive about your work on the web though. Doesn’t that inspire confidence, or does that make the prospect of a live show even more nerve wracking?
DH: Honestly it has more to do with me feeling that performance is inherently artificial. I know some people love attention and love to connect with other people so for them it’s probably more real than making a record, but for me it’s the other way around: my emotions are tied up in the fantasy. Bringing it down to earth makes it kind of boring and I lose interest.
SS: You’ve talked about transition anxiety from the listeners when, under one name, you explore different styles. Is that a result of the reaction to your second Hail Social album?
DH: In part, and generally just how people react to other artists. I’ve always said that The Beatles or David Bowie could never exist now. People don’t have the attention span to allow artists to develop. When “listening” to music means scanning a streaming track what we’re talking about is really just stylistic recognition…. I feel like people want to know where they stand on things immediately, so they assign it some sub-sub-sub-genre that they either love or hate and file it away. That first impression then becomes like a filter that everything after goes through.
SS: You recorded two of the your EP’s songs when you were 18. Do you regret not bringing them out then? You would’ve been a true pioneer!
DH: Well I didn’t really know how to then! I’m slow on the uptake with these sorts of things so will probably always seem a bit behind the curve.
SS: You make your remixes without listening to the original song. How?! Why?
DH: Well I just look through the parts they send me, find a starting point and build from that. I do it to keep it interesting for myself and hopefully others. I’m not the guy to go to if you want a “club-ready” single.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (Weird Tapes Version)
SS: Pre-listening to the song doesn’t automatically mean it is a club-ready remix though. Do you want the song to be more your own than a collaboration? Would it pollute your own sound?
DH: Oh, I don’t mean to imply that it does… I just meant I don’t have any real goals when I do a remix. I don’t think I take it very seriously.
SS: You mentioned how labels ask you to do a remix and then reject it, knowing it’ll be on blogs anyway. Is that the labels being a bitch or is that their way of adapting to the changes in the way music is being distributed?
DH: I have no idea. I imagine it’s very hard to be a record label these days… but when you talk to most labels you spend a lot of time talking about them protecting themselves from risk. I think the point of a label should be to TAKE risks on artists they believe in. Anyone spending time making records instead of working at a paying job is taking a risk, but no one protects them. I still think artists are at the bottom of the pile. SS: I read that you’re a fan of Ziggy Stardust. Why Ziggy?
DH: I didn’t have MTV or a stereo growing up, all I had was a Fisher-Price turntable. I used to steal LPs from my friends’ parents, mostly based on covers and titles, so Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars caught my eye. When I listened to it I flipped. It was a musical epiphany moment for me. I’ve become a huge fan of all the Bowie records but Ziggy was the first I heard so just holds a special place for me.
SS: Bowie’s back catalog is huge! Which album is not as heralded as Ziggy but you feel should be?
DH: Well I really love Diamond Dogs. It’s a real patchwork kind of record… you can tell his ideas were going in a bunch of different directions: there’s stuff from the unrealized 1984 musical, the beginnings of the soul stuff he’d do next, remnants of Ziggy… and it doesn’t really work. I really like those sort of records though. I like half-baked ideas because they seem more natural sometimes.
SS: I read an interview with Morrissey way back when who said that when Ziggy Stardust came out, there was this massive outrage, and he said that people have forgotten how serious it all was. Between the make-up, the outfits, the extra-terrestrial references, the glam - how was that so sincere, and is that missing from music nowadays?
DH: I really don’t know what the difference is from then to now, or if there really even is one. It does feel like it gets harder and harder to believe in anything, and in turn harder and harder to reach out to people. I think when people create a persona now they just act. With Ziggy it seemed like an act through which the real Bowie could communicate his sort of superficial but genuine emotions: “I could fall asleep at night as a rock n’ roll star”. SS: Your musical references run deep. What are some of the people you think are due for re-emergence?
DH: I always wish The Cocteau Twins were more respected. To me they deserve the sort of worship that My Bloody Valentine or Pixies get. I’d like to see a resurgence of doo-wop but can’t imagine people could do it without irony. Irony is killing music.
SS: How is irony killing music?
DH: I just mean people are so self-aware and culturally aware that it gets to a point where everything you do is sort of ironic. I guess really the irony is a response to overwhelming cynicism. Everyone has too much information and they seem to use it defensively. You would think that artists are trying to trick listeners based on the way so many people react to a new song.
SS: Tell us about your new album Seek Magic.
DH: I wanted to make a record that was very dynamic, tracks that seemed like they had a sort of architecture to them. I also wanted it to not work as a specific type of album: it could be a “dance around your room” thing or a “fall-asleep with headphones” thing, but not completely either.
Memory Tapes - Bicycle
Memory Tapes - Green Knight
SS: Your music has a bit of an escapist, dreamy quality to it. Does that reflect you as a person? More so than Hail Social?
DH: Hail Social was like a bad relationship I should have left much earlier and that doesn’t reflect me as a person at all. Everyone who knows me and has heard what I’m doing now has reacted by saying that Memory Tapes reminds them of me in ways that Hail Social never did. I’m sure the dreamy aspect is a big part of it. I’m a space-case for sure.
SS: What sort of escapist dreams and fantasies do you harbor?
DH: I really just think about sex and music, but I’d like a farm where I could make a lot of noise and the cops wouldn’t show up. That’d be my escape
SS: For a lot of people old-school raves were their escapism. Did you ever go to any?
DH: No, there was nothing like that around here - too rural. I feel like I would have loved it though. Drugs and loud music are some of my favorite things.
Chapter 4 of Lex’s experience with his year-long self-imposed attempt at celibacy.
If you missed Chapter 3, read it here.
Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky
In high school I knew a girl named Eileen from Corpus Christi, Texas. We hated each other. She was an instant sensation at my school where her accent was seen as “exotic” by the students. It was there that she met and dated a local boy, a halfback on our football team and Vice President of our school’s Christian club. It was like fucked-up Danny and Sandy.
The first week of school, after invitations for the homecoming dance were sent (the theme was “A Tale as Old as Time”) there was the normal discussion of who’s going with whom, and eventually Eileen was asked.
“Oh, I don’t go to school dances.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like them, they’re just excuses to promote vanity and sexuality in youth. I’m not okay with that. I really only go to church socials.”
“What does your church say about self-righteousness?”
I was very abrasive in high school. We hated each other right then.
After high school, Eileen moved back to Texas, her boyfriend in tow. Various facebook updates showed them volunteering for pro-life causes and preaching at their school’s various Christian clubs.
This year I found out that Eileen and John got married. Correction, this year I found out that Eileen and John had to get married. Yes, apparently John couldn’t “Come On Eileen,” and knocked her up despite her high school lectures to me and others about how the Lord wants me to remain pure until marriage. I called bullshit back then. It’s nice to be right.
This presents a problem for me, though. If two Jesus freaks can’t even keep themselves off each other, how much more hope can I hold out for myself? I’m already beginning to feel the cracks forming. My standards have drastically dropped and now there’s a bet running amongst my friends as to how long I’ll last. It’s getting harder to remind myself why I’m doing this to myself. It almost seems petty and juvenile. It’s extreme, no?
This week’s East Village Boy of the Week is Guido, from Buenos Aires, Argentina
Photographed for EVB by Ivan & Gabo
We like to shoot different types of people for our portraits - drag queens, trannies, young and cute boys, bears, daddies, girls, partiers… Our shoots are always a time for fun between the model in front of the lens, and for us behind it. We see and freeze the modern world, playing like a child with a camera in his hands. We are not concerned about the technique, the camera or the pose. The idea is to have fun at all times. For this shoot we worked with Guido - a young guy with a lot of power and a punk attitude, but also very funny and natural, which we tried to capture in these shots. - Ivan & Gabo
Miguel Gutierrez is a Bessie-winning dancer and choreographer whose most recent show Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People: Last Meadow enjoyed a critically acclaimed East Coast premiere at Dance Theater Workshop (DTW) in the Fall and returns to Abrons Arts Center for three performances beginning January 8 as part of American Realness: A Festival or Contemporary Performance. Gutierrez conceived, choreographed and performs in the piece along with long-time collaborator Michelle Boulé and Tarek Halaby. Recently he sat down at a cafe in the East Village to talk with independent curator and producer Earl Dax. Highlights of their conversation follow.
Portraits of Miguel and Last Meadow photographed for EVB by Ves Pitts
Earl Dax: The three dancer/performers in Last Meadow inhabit a cinematic world inspired by the three films of James Dean: Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden and Giant. You’ve said that you were drawn to Dean, in part, because of the hyper-conscious awareness the actor had of his own iconography and how he intentionally played with it. Can you elaborate?
Miguel Gutierrez: I had all these ideas of working with misrepresentation… the idea of dance as an esoteric language being its strength rather than it’s curse (which is often what it’s cited as), and I was also intrigued by the way that people create mythologies around identity and nationhood. Then I went to borrow a friend’s copy of East of Eden, and it was a two disc set. The movie was missing, so I just watched the special features. They had all these wardrobe tests that were like these silent movies, and I really got sucked into that and fascinated by James Dean in all that. I kind of just went with it and watched all those movies. It seemed like an interesting thing to follow. He only made three movies. There’s three of us. The three movies are love triangles. This idea that he’s like a perpetual child. This idea that he’s this moment between a certain kind of acting and another kind of acting. This way in which he’s queer in his own kind of weird way. Super slouchy and feminine in a way. All these things were evocative of a certain interpretation I had thought about. ED: You dropped out of Brown University, moved to San Francisco and got involved with Queer Nation for a year before dancing with Joe Goode. What impact does your activist background have on your work?
MG: I think that doing all that activist stuff was really extraordinary because it instantly gave me this relationship to the idea of the body as potentially dangerous and also filled with feeling and expression and also agency. I think that whenever you’ve spent any time of your life doing work for something that’s about being on that “fringe,” and then when you realize that being put on the fringe is just a, it’s just a power dynamic that society enacts upon you. You see how everything about everything becomes questioned. To say that I work in this weird experimental form of contemporary dance… Yeah, sure, maybe some people think it’s weird, but for me I think Stomp is weird or I think Shrek, the Musical is disappointing. Or for that matter ballet, something that is often considered the avatar, the paragon of what dance is supposed to be, and I look at it and think those poor women, they’re so skinny and why do they have to be in those strange heterosexual relationships onstage? The politic is infused in so many ways, and in my own work where I feel like the politic is imbued into the body because it’s a very ferocious body. It’s a very hyper-present body. It’s a body that’s turbulent. It’s a body that both has a lot of belief and has a lot of doubt. It’s a body that’s very semaphoric and obvious at times and then it’s also a body that deals with these subtle, almost non-action actions. That to me is a total expression of politics.
ED: Given your medium is dance, it’s not surprising to find you discussing your work in terms of “the body,” yet it’s a topic that seems more central to the discussion of contemporary dance. Certainly it’s a topic that many of the other performers in American Realness are dealing with.
MG: I think that the bodies in the work that I do are unavoidable, and there’s a kind of forcefulness about that unavoidability which is a total extension of being a protest body. I think it’s a little more nuanced now, and I’m a little more… I’m not interested in creating divisions in the way that I think… There was a moment with my experience with protest “I’m on this side. You’re on that side.” I don’t want that. That’s not my interest anymore, and I think that’s why art-making is a cool place to be because it’s that weird in between or extra-rational place where things can be multiple and multiple things can be true. Unfortunately, I think when you’re doing activist stuff you kind of have to believe one thing because it’s the only way to get things done, and it’s effective. And there’s a right time for that, but I’m way too doubtful all the time and skeptical to live in that way of being.
ED: Certainly there’s a lot of questioning in your work. In Last Meadow you’re exploring - among other things - iconography, heroism, myth-making, and you’ve talked about these things in relation to your work at a dancer and choreographer. What’s the relationship here?
MG: I don’t know that I subscribe to this hero worship thing, and that’s a doubt that infuses the work that I make. That’s the thing that I think about as I make work and as I continue to make work transitioning from a person who’s not known to a person who is more known. I don’t want to fall prey to believing my own myths, but it’s hard because part of the equation of longevity in this field is the ability to be branded as something. “That’s the person that does this thing,” and everyone can say it, and it’s cool, and it’s this thing. Well what if you’re not that? What if you’re someone who makes something different each time or is unsure? [gasps] Oh, that’s so scary! I think that’s one of the gifts that I got from working with John Jaspers. He is a skeptical artist. He’s not enamored of his own ideas - almost to a fault. I thought that was really powerful, and actually an incredible gift to witness. Here’s this person who’s not sure. We have these myths of the artist being, like, “It’s this way!” Instead of it being the person pulling their hair out going, “I don’t know. Maybe this sucks.” I’m often really inspired by those kinds of people which are not the ones that history books get written about.
ED: American Realness tackles this head on with a mission to draw attention to choreographers who are making work outside of the primary traditions of American dance and performance. The festival website quotes Michael Kaiser’s “Why I Worry About Modern Dance?”
MG: Did you read that piece? It was like “Where are the Merce Cunninghams? Where are the Martha Grahams…” bemoaning the death of modernist mommies and daddies, and I’m just like, “Dude!?! Open your fucking eyes!” There are artists everywhere making work in all kinds of ways. I adore Merce Cunningham, God bless his heart, but he was not a beloved artist everywhere. I saw him perform at ADF, and people walked out because the music was too fucking loud. So where are the presenters who are willing to present work that people aren’t going to like? Like if you want to sit here and bemoan the death of modern dance, well, you know what, take a fucking risk! Cunningham Company, they drove around in a van for ten fucking years. The man did not spring from the head of Medusa crowned the modernist master. These mythologies are so powerful they’re difficult to break.
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