I first heard of Brad Walsh in 2006, when he was performing at the now legendary Misshapes parties, and running the photography site Junk-Mag, a project he started with his friend Kathy Cacace while attending Oberlin College to “get our college friends naked and on the internet because we went to school in very rural Ohio and what the fuck else do you do out there?” Since then, Brad has made quite a name for himself in New York as a photographer, party promoter, DJ, and most recently as a jewelry designer, all while chipping away at his own solo music. The end of 2009 saw the release of Brad’s latest album, Human Nature, a slick, beautiful album. Drawing equally from the underground and the Top 40, Brad is making a totally charming, clever and catchy kind of pop music.
Max Steele: I first saw you performing at Misshapes when it had just moved to Don Hill’s. Something that I think contributed to the success was the mix of genres / communities / vibes at the party, which has sort of gone missing from New York City nightlife lately. That mix of styles is also something I really like about your work.
Brad Walsh: My Misshapes show in 2006 was my first live performance in New York City. It will always be special to me because of that, and because so many people I admired were there that night and watching me. Misshapes was a great thing in its heyday - it was so comfortable to me. Anything went. You could be crazy, but you didn’t have to be. People always thought it was this clique-y, exclusive thing, but I think it was a really genuine and exciting moment for New York. Nothing really has compared since then.
MS: You had made your first album before you arrived here from Ohio, right?
BW: I moved to New York in 2005, had one very bad album under my belt before I got here, and finished my second bad album as soon as I got here. The press refers to my new one as my debut, and I don’t correct them.
MS: I’ve heard your second album and it is not bad, I really liked it, but I’ve never heard your first, Look At Me. What is your most and least favorite track from it?
BW: Oh, Look At Me was just that record you put out before you put out your record. It worked out my kinks and my discomfort with performing alone even to record. Worked out my influences. I do cringe when I hear most of it nowadays. I’m not ashamed of it by any means, but it really just amounted to a bunch of bad demos that needed to happen in order to get here.
MS: If your music was indicative of any specific time or place, what would it be? Do you feel like a real “New York” singer?
BW: I think I’m not particularly “New York” because what I’m doing is not what I’m hearing in New York. I think the two struggling musical communities - not struggling, maybe, but upcoming - are gritty real rock, and poorly-produced electro. People call me electro sometimes but that’s not right. And I like to think I’m well-produced. But both of those semi-genres are extremely artistic and still somehow underground around us here in New York. I’m amazed that anything underground about New York remains underground with someone like Gaga out there dragging it all up and putting it on “American Idol” - which I appreciate, by the way.
MS: Speaking of Gaga, what are your thoughts about her, vis-à-vis “realness”.
BW: She’s as real as she is fake. I’m not trying to sound that pretentious, I promise. Let me think. I love her. I love her music, I love my interactions with her and I think she is a genius in several obvious ways, and that itself is its own genius. She lets us all see what’s happening, and everyone knows that she has manipulated us all, and we still want more. That itself is not a new concept, but somehow it feels very new coming from her. She admits the fakeness about herself, but the fakeness about her has nothing to do with her hair or makeup or clothes. A lot of her lyrics are about lies and holding back and hiding and false faces. They deal with love and feelings and that’s what it’s all about. She uses it to feed the genius. I’m proud of her, and thankful for her.
MS: I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but one of the things I like about your work (both photography and music) is that you’re really earnest and sincere in a culture that’s sometimes too ironic for it’s own good. Am I way off the mark? Is it all a big joke to you?
BW: It’s not a joke at all to me. I think some of my work comes off as jokey or ironic because some parts are familiar. Ripped off, even. Some, I say. Maybe it’s unconscious, but I think it’s just the amateur in me showing. I usually very much mean what I’m doing. I put a mask over my face but I try to draw my face on the mask, you know? Sometimes I think that you, Max, have a face that’s very bare and you don’t even have a mask in your closet as a safety. I respect that about you.
MS: Do you see yourself as part of a particular scene or community? Who do you think of as some of your musical contemporaries?
BW: I don’t think I’m part of a New York scene, because I don’t go to shows or do many myself. I don’t know who would be my musical contemporary here. My musical friends make music that’s nothing like mine, and the people who make art most like mine are not musicians. Maybe the closest would be someone like Josh Madden? He’s an excellent DJ and he likes to inject people with feeling through music. I think stylistically I’m on par with one of my best friends Kerin Rose, who is the designer behind A-Morir. Our brains mesh well and we like to be loud, but behind some obfuscation.
MS: How long were you working on your new album, Human Nature? You recorded the whole thing at home, right?
BW: Ideas and basics for a few years, though it was all recorded last year at my home studio, which is my ancient equipment, a mic on a stand, and me in a chair trying to figure out what’s next. It made me very wary of going outside which is why I now talk like this. I’m turning into Juliana Hatfield, who I really love, by the way.
MS: The cover art is really striking. I think it’s an apt metaphor for the music - there’s a very subtle amount of magic and trickery in it. What are you hoping to reveal about human nature?
BW: The album art has a clinical feel to it but the images of me are animal, which really was just a comment on the content. The album is about relationships, my relationship, and instinct and decision. Shrinkwrapping and sheening the animal chaos going on in each one of us. Turning a fit of human rage into an arrangement on a plastic disc. The same old feelings that every sex-focused living thing has, which is what we most associate with “nature.” We force formality onto it and call it “culture” so as not to kill everyone around us, but even mentioning that this is what humans do brings back the fact that we are animals. Don’t you feel a little sexy, or insecure, or dangerous, or at the very least hungry for food just thinking about all this right now? Thinking about being an animal makes you feel like the animal you are.
Boy/Girl (feat. CariDee English)
I Got What U Need (feat. Amanda Tannen of Stellastar)
Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah) - (Gary Glitter cover)[download]
MS: What record we be most surprised to find in your collection? Are you a closet country queen? Are you a secret reggae fanatic?
BW: I actually don’t think I have any contemporary country, maybe some old Shania. I mean, I have the odd oldie here and there. Hank Williams, Juice Newton. The most surprising CD in my shelf might be Meredith Brooks’ second album - the one after Bitch. Love her to death but I don’t know why I still have that.
MS: I want to know your biggest guilty pleasure.
BW: Probably snacking and watching cartoons. I fall right in. I’m interpreting “biggest” to mean “most often engaged.”
MS: How did your dog [Topper] get his name?
BW: There’s an old Cary Grant movie of the same name, but I think it really all boils down to my puppy’s last name, which is Bottom.
This Wednesday, February 17th, East Village Boys is co-hosting the latest (and potentially greatest if we have any say in the matter) BLVCK AMERICA party, “BLVCK IS THE NEW BLACK”. Saheer Umar from House of House will be DJing at this traveling temple of dance, so we thought we’d introduce him to you all here first. (But first, scroll down to the bottom, pick some music, scroll back up and have a long read. He’s a talker.)
Saheer is one of those guys you always see around and about downtown. He is, I guess, a bit of a downtown face… but unlike other downtown ‘faces’, who through their branded monikers seem to be living a facsimile life, Saheer quietly, but relentlessly keeps twisting and turning, and at each twist and turn, whether it’s something he’s written or a set he’s just DJ’ed you can see and feel thats its not about him starring in his own movie, it’s simply him doing his thing.
Richard Welch: You’re not only a DJ, but you write about the arts, make music and sing under the name House of House, you’re involved in fashion… are you a slash kid?
Saheer Umar: I look at the artist as a holistic entity. So, any fruit borne from the tree of said artist falls under that umbrella of ‘art’. I feel that art surpasses categorization. Everything is art and art is everything to me.
RW: You’ve been into clubs and ‘dance’ music for years - tell us about our first experiences and about how the New York ’scene’, has changed over the years?
SU: Some of my fondest, and earliest memories of New York nightlife were sneaking out of arts camp during the summer at the ripe old age of… Jesus, I dunno, maybe 14, to go to Michael Alig’s ‘Disco 2000′ at The Limelight. I remember I was wearing too big pants and a super-duper tight striped yellow and blue polo, Dada brand platform sneakers that were altered on St. Marks and a giant pom pon winter hat. I remember some of the other kids I went with were all nerves about getting in but it all melted away once you got that knowing feeling that you looked the part and it wasn’t going to be a problem. Getting in felt like I’d stolen and gotten away with it. I also remember all of the Club Kids’ psychotic candy-colored outfits, seeing Amanda Lapore for the first time (before she started dancing the cube at Twilo) and Richie Rich working the door. And all of the ravers at ‘Kurfew’ at The Tunnel and the clubbers who went to ‘Arena’ at Palladium.
The thrill of sneaking into a club at that age was immeasurable. I’d hear the muffled thump of the beats outside while squeezing my way towards the front of the line. Sure, in retrospect the music was awful, but that didn’t matter at the time. I was there for the culture. So in I went, and I guess I never turned back, but unfortunately New York did. The post-9-11 club scene is a dismal joke comparatively, and it’s not worth the words. There were a few parties in the late ’90s that lasted through the early ’00s, like Body and Soul (which was life changing for me), but the vibe has been swallowed up by the rising tide of a fear-mongered, Bush-era New York City. The large clubs are gone, in favor of the more profitable bottle service clubs which are filled with only the worse sort of people: patrons who think they’re in a music video. And can we all put a moratorium on talking and shirt-lifting on the dance floor? Leave that for the chat rooms!
RW: Which DJ has had the greatest influence on you and your own DJ style?
SU: These “greatest” lists are tough to produce, and honestly, it’s because as a working artist you have to skate the razor thin line between appreciation and adulation. While these people may be legends, they are still technically the guys you’re trying to eventually take over from, and we’re gunning for the same audience. But, with that disclaimer in mind, I will say that a good deal of influence came from seeing DJs like Masters at Work, Danny Tenaglia, Jeff Mills, Joe Clausell, DJ Harvey, Daft Punk, Francois K, Kerri Chandler and Timmy Regisford in my personal halcyon days of the mid to late ’90s.
But the DJ who takes the prize, without question, is Larry Levan. Granted, this is the default answer from many a DJ who aspires to keep an open-minded approach to programming an evening, but when it’s undeniable, you submit. Sadly, he died in 1992, just two years shy of my first forays into New York City nightlife, so the majority of his influence came through rare interviews I found, word-of-mouth and eighth generation cassette recordings from nights of his residency at the legendary Paradise Garage. The very fact that he’s been able to be a leader to an entire generation of DJs and fans that never actually saw him, while mining and playing the full musical spectrum from rock to disco to house to new wave and to funk, is beyond my comprehension. He was fearless, reckless and understood the power of a song. Not a just a dance track, but of some truly unifying, wall-melting, orgiastic songs that could, and often would bring an audience to tears. He could work a record like Sylvester’s celebratory “Over and Over” or extend Crystal Waters “Finally” for a half-hour straight until the floor felt like it would collapse. Or so the legend goes. Alas, I was too young. That’s some kinda power. Most DJs crave it, and he got me hooked.
RW: Nightlife is traditionally about sex, drugs and rock n roll and you are a teetotaling muslim. How do you find you are received in the dance/electronic scene?
SU: My religion is never really an issue when I go out. I love being Muslim, I love Allah and I wear it proudly. I’m always open to discussion and explanation with any and all who approach the subject. Though in all of my days playing records, the majority of my questions come from the general pool of “why don’t you drink?” or “wait, you DON’T want a bump?”
The thing is I grew up playing in straight edge vegan hardcore bands, so needless to say, I’m adamantly against it. I just never felt the need to experiment with drugs or alcohol. My drug is the potent relationship between audience and artist. I need nothing more.
RW: You DJ all over the World, what is your favorite club to play?
SU: I’ve really enjoyed all of the places I’ve played with the exception of a few clubs that will remain nameless. But of the good ones, a couple stick out in my mind as favorites, and for terribly different reasons.
For sheer volume and size, it’s got to be Berghain in Berlin. It’s a warehouse style, three-tiered predominately gay club with terrifyingly powerful sound system and a fabled bottom level that’s host to several parties that sit comfortably in the scatological realm. The resident DJs (Marcel Dettmann, Ben Klock and Shed) treat music with the respect of art handlers and the audience like eager collectors, thirsty for inspiration. The city of Berlin itself is also the Wild Wild West. It’s hard not to love it just for the fact that Berlin is every young-artist-who-moved-to-New-York-City’s dream come true: a surplus of cheap or free apartments and squats, no jobs and a nightlife that rivals the best in the world. Plus the German “perverted” makes Western perverted look like an episode of Full House, and that’s always good entertainment value.
The other club is a tiny club (and I mean my bedroom is the same size) in Tokyo called Grassroots. It’s tucked away at the end of the hallway on the fourth floor of an unassuming office building. Run by a wonderful group of guys who run a record label, record store and again treat music with such importance that one could assume this a place of worship. The entire club is wooden, so the sound is warm and punchy. It fits 20 people maybe and everyone, literally EVERYone dances. I liken it to walking into a temple of music and being greeted with instant paradise.
I also would have said Fabric in London, but I want to play their main-room before putting them on that list. RW: What was the motivation behind starting the BLVCK AMERICA parties?
SU: In spring of last year, we started a discussion about our dissatisfaction with the public perception, cultural significance and artistic merit of dance music, so we started throwing our own events and gatherings at gallery spaces and lofts and restaurants around Chinatown (the last bastion of old New York City in my opinion) to try and break up the monotony and put some fire under the feet of the old guard. From our first outing, there was an audible buzz about what we were doing: real dance parties, with real dance music with a really really good looking crowd. A damn near impossibility these days. We were stunned by how fast word traveled, and not only in the New York City underground, but among our friends in Europe and Asia, yet it still remained coveted by those in the know.
It all galvanized when we took inventory of all of our friends and realized that we had diversely talented and un-jaded creative collective, sitting in our laps the whole time! We saw the potential for this collective to promote and support the under-exposed artists and designers yet to be discovered, as well as create a cultural forum where ideas can be exchanged, discussed, debated and built.
RW: Explain the name BLVCK AMERICA.
SU: It says so much, yet so little about our identities, politics and mission. It’s bold, unapologetic and slightly confusing. With information so rapidly served to inattentive audiences, we felt that it was time to re-examine what that apathy and lack of participatory spirit was doing, not only to the creative process, but the creator themselves.
Misconceptions about the name (’black’ traditionally symbolizes absence, void, mystery), questions about the use of the V (our secret) instead of the standard A and the uncouth nature of using ‘America’ in anything pertaining to subculture (very taboo don’t you know), have run amok. But this was our exact intention from the start.
We try to look at BLVCK AMERICA as a symbolic match to light the powder keg that is the complacency of our generation. The identity crises that is plaguing the American diaspora is part and parcel of what it is we’re trying to fight against and dissect. If we’re throwing a party, we want those attending to not only feel special and chosen, but that they get a new experience. BLVCK AMERICA wants to make lasting memories, indelible images and explore the void in American creativity. I think we’re well on our way.
RW: The name House of House is, I assume, a play on the vogueing scene that Madonna hijacked. Has the vogueing scene been an influence on you?
SU: Indeed! There is an allegiance to the legendary Houses of yesteryear (House of Dupree, House of Labejia, House of Ninja) in the choosing of our name House of House. It’s a play off of that subculture as much as it is a nod of gratitude to their pioneering of modern dance. But the performative aspect of ball and vogue culture has been a large influence on me since my discovery of it the early ’90s. And sad to say, it was Madonna who was instrumental in that discovery. Granted, I had caught Malcolm McClaren’s “Deep In Vogue” a few times prior to seeing Madonna’s rip-off version on MTV, but it was hers that stuck and made the connection.
At that time I also began getting more and more interested in fashion and design, so there was a crossover interest in the presentation aspects of the vogueing and fashion shows that fed off of one another and influenced my understanding of music, primarily house music, in relation to space, environment and context. Unfortunately, due to stigmas associated with the gay black and latino community - the purveyors of the vogueing scene - pop culture never fully embraced the culture, so it took artists like Madonna to yes, steal from them, but at the same time expose them to the rest of the world. I wouldn’t have known about it otherwise.
RW: Tell us who House of House is, what you’re up to, and when we’ll be able to get our hands on your tracks and see you perform?
SU: House of House is comprised of Liv Spencer (of Still Going/DFA fame) and myself. We released our first 12″ single ‘Rushing to Paradise’ on Whatever We Want Records early last year which garnered quite a bit of praise from the dance community. The fact that the record still has the impact that is has on dance floors is not entirely in our control. I think after the over-saturation of minimal coolness and the blips and beeps that it comes with, people in the dance music world were craving something that was uplifting, soulful and honest, so we tried to deliver that.
We spent a lot of last year touring and performing and/DJing overseas. But one of the highlights of this past year was opening for Grace Jones at the Hammerstein Ballroom. She’s a legend. Words couldn’t form in my mouth after she performed. I just felt honored that we could contribute in anyway.
We just saw the package of ‘Rushing to Paradise’ released with a remix by the amazing DJ Harvey, and we did some remixes for The Juan Maclean and A Mountain of One as well. When we’re not on the road, we try to lock ourselves in the studio and just make music. We’re currently putting the finishing touches on several remix projects, hammering out a few new mixes and working on our next 12″ record. So if you’d like to catch us live, it’d be beneficial to have a valid passport handy. Basically, expect more touring in Europe, South America and Asia. But fear not, we’ll be doing a few here in the states as well.
RW: Outside of “club music”, what do you listen to at home?
SU: This mix is an accurate example of what I listen to when I’m not DJing. This is, in my opinion, the sound of the seedy and sleazy side of NewYork City. The “dark side”, if you will. I feel like creativity flourishes in the wee hours of night for many artists so I’m drawn to the darkness and solitude inherent at that time. You know how when you’re leaving a club at 4AM and your energy is still running at 100 miles per hour? Well, this is how I comedown.
Blvck Nights of the East Village Mix - Saheer Umar [download]
Tuff Guys - Sonic Youth / Real Live Flesh - Tune-Yards / Title Unknown - Sympathy Nervous / I Need Somebody To Love Tonight - Sylvester / The Memories Returning - Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd / Time Scale - The Advisory Circle / My Time - Ohama / In Your Wildest Dreams - Tina Turner / Minus - Robert Hood / Nice Mover - Gina X / Hey, Volte-Face! - Mordant Music / Lonely Boy - Vincent Gallo / Otherwise My Conviction - Les Rallizes Denude / IRM - Charlotte Gainsbourg / Interlude - Michael Watford
RW: What can we expect at the upcoming BLVCK AMERICA party?
SU: As always, it will be a celebration of the spirit of Downtown New York. You’ll dance, you’ll connect and most likely you’ll leave with a smile, and you may wake the next morning with your pants around your ankles, wondering why you’ve got a headache - not that you’ll be complaining.
The music sits in a dedicated pocket of deep, dark, druggy, more party-oriented dance music. But that’s not to say we’re dogmatic about it. There are literally millions of tracks to pick from to give you a taste of the BLVCK AMERICA sound, but here are a few of my favorite early ’90s underground house treats. Some of these are bona fide classics, the others are lost gems waiting to be unearthed.
Don Carlos - Alone (Paradise version)
Rudolpho - Touch Me
Debbie Gibson - One Step Ahead (Underground Mix)
Ten City - Fantasy (Masters At Work Dub)
Classic Man - Mellow (Ambient Mix)
Mood II Swing - Ohh (feat. John Ciafone)
and my personal favorite, the last song of the night, The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds (Cumulo Nimbus mix by Pal Joey)
We try to stay away from attaching ourselves to any of the thousand different musical trends created every day, and simply strive to keep make the night interesting, unpredictable, honest and dedicated to the dance floor. The point is to dance, so that’s what we make our parties about: DANCING!
This Wednesday, February 17th, BLVCK AMERICA presents “BLVCK IS THE NEW BLACK”. Co-hosted by East Village Boys and Solomon Chase. DJs Saheer Umar of House of House, Invisible Conga People (DJ Set), a super secret special guest DJ, and performance by $hayne.
86 Forsyth (between Grand and Hester), 5th floor. $0!
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.
I first watched Clifton perform at the LES bar Home Sweet Home, at an after-party for one of the Envoy Gallery shows, my apologies for not remembering which one it was, but it was a fun night, I remember that much. He entered the bar to a host of screaming and wailing friends and suddenly snapped into his performance. In a matter of a few seconds the whole bar stopped their chatter, enthralled by his enigmatic vocals and his tight choreography. His performance at one of our EVB parties a few weeks later was, as promised, both strange and wonderful.
RW: Tell us a little about where you grew up, your family background..
C: I’m from small town called Lusby, Maryland. There’s a sign as you leave that reads “God Bless Y’all Real Good”. That’s pretty much all you need to know about that place. I grew up in the same house my grandfather and mother grew up in. Hated it, always needed to leave, so I did. I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with this story.
RW: Have you always wanted to be a performer? When did you first start performing?
C: Pretty much. I have been doing theater since elementary school. I moved here to New York to go to school for it. But I’ve also been playing the saxophone since the fourth grade. I have always, I guess, wanted to produce something for others to enjoy. I often wish I could draw or paint but I can’t. I’m envious of that skill. That draws on that not-so-nice side of my personality that wants to be the best at everything.
RW: Besides performing, what are you the best at?
C: Giving my opinion [laughs]. I talk a lot - mostly because I have a lot to say. I do believe that people should be opinionated. I also believe people should be adequately informed about what they are talking about. More often people are not. Sad really.
RW: What needs work?
C: I have no patience. I really need some. Life would be much easier if I had it.
RW: Describe your sound and style of performance?
C: I’d like to think my sound is just like everything you’ve heard and like nothing you’ve heard before. In the song “Shine”, for example, I went for a very catchy pop tune but by the end of it the three main instrumental melody lines are done by ragtime piano, harpsichord, and sitar. American black, European classical, and Indian sounds all together and it doesn’t sound strange. It’s my musical manifesto. When The Beatles made pop songs, and that’s what a lot of them were, they stretched the idea of what a pop song could sound like. That is what I’m trying to do. Too much pop music today sounds just alike. It seems like they give it no thought. They give you songs where the chorus is just one word like “Womanizer”. I don’t know about you but I feel like my intelligence is being insulted when I listen to the radio these days.
As far as Performance goes I have a theater background and I use it. I want the people who see my shows to see that I care enough about their time as to not waste it. If I’m going to perform for you, I’m going to be prepared because I respect you. I feel disrespected often when I go to shows and they just stand there or jump up and down with that “I’m so awesome I don’t even have to try” attitude. It’s been done, and usually they should be trying.
RW: Your performance for EVB at our party last fall was fantastic, and thoroughly thought through. I know you’re a perfectionist as you spent the entire day setting up the stage and rehearsing. Can you tell us a little about your creative process. Do you create the songs and performances together or otherwise?
C: I always create the songs first. Concept, music, then lyrics. I work with Adam Joseph on the songs and it works really well because he understands that there is a concept to each of the songs. They are each their own entity. The performance is informed by the songs, but again, it’s all about a concept. I have to try to figure out what can bring these songs together and what story can I tell through them. I could perform the same three songs over and over again and as long as I changed the concept you could get a completely different show each time.
RW: In terms of pure performance who do you think is worth paying attention to right now?
C: Grace Jones, still. There is an example of someone who wears a look but doesn’t have a look wear her. She is artistically crushing performers much younger than her. Also, Kanye West. The glow in the dark tour was a major piece. It was on the scale of an opera. Everytime he does a show there is a lot of thought in it. His VH1 Storytellers, was gorgeous.
RW: Introduce us to your group, there are three of you - do you each have specific roles? Tell us about the group dynamic?
C: Well we’re not really a group. My group of friends and I are essentially an art collective. Everyone is spearheading their own thing while being involved with everyone else’s thing. The two that were in the EVB show were my friend Linwood and I’m sure a lot of you know Xander, though in future shows there will be more people.
Xander and I work on the theatrical throughline and concepts of the shows. He knows how to pull ideas out of me and add to them in a great way. That’s something you don’t find everyday. My friend Linwood is a trained dancer which is also a great perk of our friendship. I also work with DJ Nita on music, who did an amazing remix of the song “Ice Creaks” for me. Our friend Troy does graphic design, and some of the clothes I wear when I’m performing are designed by my friend Ben Copperwheat, who just launched the COPPERWHEAT fashion line. Everyone has something to add and a purpose in our group. I’m lucky to have found them.
Clifton - Ice Creaks
RW: Your music is intimate yet energizes the whole audience, how do you build this interesting energy?
C: Like I said I’m there for the listener and the audience. I guess the music is different enough that it makes you want to listen but you still want to dance.
RW: Who would you like to collaborate with? Who would you like to see influence your performances?C: Honestly, I would love to work with Kanye. He’s taken his genre of music to a new place. I would also love to work with TV on the Radio. They are geniuses. Of course David Bowie - he’s the bar as far as I’m concerned.
RW: I hear you’re amazing in drag. When did you start doing it? Have you performed or is it just for personal pleasure?
C: Oh yes, that! I guess drag was also a way for me to be out performing. Not in shows necessarily, as I only did two, but as a character. Being someone else for the evening. My drag name is Nanya Bidness. I do occasionally do shows as part of a trio with One-Half Nelson and Erickatoure Aviance called “En Subtitles”. It is a performance art side venture for all of us. It’s drag if you consider three giant cupcake people murdering, and cannibalizing themselves to Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People” a drag show. We have no boundaries as to what that project can and will be.
RW: Do you think traditional drag is still relevant to young audiences?
C: Yes. Drag queens will always be relevant. I think the success of RuPaul’s Drag Race, has proven that. Everyone loves a good queen!
RW: What do you think of the New York gay scene at the moment?
C: Honestly I think it’s tired! Before anyone notices we’re going to be like Paris - a museum city. A pretty shell. When friends come from Europe you have to really look for fun things to do that are only in New York. It used to be that you could do something great every night of the week. Sadly that’s not the case anymore. There is no gay scene. Really it’s just a bunch of small groups identifying themselves as something like bear, twink, jock, leather daddy, art fag, etc, and having parties for just themselves and people like them. That exclusivity is not how a community works or thrives. I noticed that the best parties are the ones where everyone is represented. I’m including heterosexuals as well.
Also, I think that the gays tend to be too easily amused. It’s disconcerting to me when I see 40 year-old men with the same taste level of a 12 year old girl. I’m not judging, I’m just stating a fact. If, out of all the music that has ever been made in the world, you think Lady Gaga is the pinnacle, there’s something wrong. I think even she would agree with me there. OK, now I’m judging [laughs].
I have to admit I’m not much of a winter warrior. Maybe being born in the spring explains the reason behind this. I’m definitely happier in Speedo than smart wool, that’s for sure. I do like snow, yes, but “naughty snow” isn’t what I’m here to chat about.
The one thing about winter I love, however, and I know this will sound all adult and dare I say romantic, is staying with Andrew, my older gentleman friend, in his cabin in Vermont. It usually starts with a text message and ends with me and Andrew knee-deep in animal pelts and big fluffy down pillows in front of a roaring wood fire. This is where I write to you from. Yes, deep in the woods, cozy in front of the fire. Don’t hate. I do, however, have on my red hot Speedo’s - all the better to poke the fire in, that’s what I say. Enjoy the winter and keep cozy…
To spring 2010! Love, Dick
East Village Boys Log Cabin Mix - Dick William [ download ]
Christmas Time Is Here (Alternate Vocal Take) - Vince Guaraldi Trio / Merry Christmas Baby - Banjo or Freakout / The Last Christmas - The Favours / Come Closer - Salma Agha / What Did He Say - Nite Jewel / Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - She & Him / Billie Holiday - Warpaint / What Does It Take - Pillow Talk / Sugar Man - Rodriguez / It’s Alright - Little Red / Feel It All Around - Washed Out / Time For Us All To Love - Bullion / Can’t Hear My Eyes - Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti / Naïve - Lily Allen / Waiting On You - Sun Airway / 1901 (live) - Phoenix / All Time High - City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra
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Earlier this month Taylor Mac premiered his five-part extravaganza, The Lily’s Revenge, which follows an uprooted lily on a quest to become a man and find a bride, but finds himself at the center of the eternal feud between the God of Presence and the God of Nostalgia. Oh that old story. With a cast of more than 40 performers and six directors, a live band, and a five (or more) hour performance time, The Lily’s Revenge takes as it’s inspiration from anti-gay marriage agendas, the ever-growing homogenization of our cities, and piles of plastic-wrapped funerary flowers, all while “squishing genres” as diverse as Japanese Noh dramas, poetry, vaudeville, art installation, film, and dance. It’s nearly impossible to describe it with words alone, so luckily for us, Ves Pitts documented this monumental spectacle for EVB, while it’s creator Taylor Mac does a bit of explaining and insightful commentary. Enjoy! And then go enjoy the real thing at Here Arts Center through November 22 (if you can somehow manage to get a ticket).
ACT I Scene 1: Bianca Leigh as Time. In the play Time has been fixed to the atomic clock, trapped in the hourglass and cuckoo clock. Once she was the lead of the story and spoke the lines of a face, the drips that made the canyons. She had breadth and possibility but now, because of her child The Great Longing Deity (God of Nostalgia) and its malicious reign, she has been reduced to a stock character. A side-kick. If you’ve never seen Bianca Leigh act you’re really missing something. This is the third time I’ve cast her in one of my plays. She’s a muse.
Scene 1A: Time tries to get the audience to leave before the play starts.
Scene 2: Time warns the audience that if they don’t leave they are likely to become trapped here forever. She points out that the Flower Girls (pictured) were once audience members. Our Flower Girls, in real life, are four of New York’s finest (three of which, along with our ever-calm and insightful first-act director Paul Zimet, worked with the Living Theater). These are the women who helped make the scene and to watch their fearless performances in this play is complete bliss. They are Tina Shepard, Ellen Maddow, Muriel Mugel, and Rae C. Wright. The youngest of our Flower Girls, who later in the play is revealed to be critical theorists Susan Stewart, is fairly new to the scene but destined for greatness. Her name is Heather Christian and I think she’s the most multi-talented person I know.
Scene 3: A Lily (played by me), who has never known love, comes to see the show. It desperately wants to be a part of the show and so becomes a heckler of sorts. Time sees that the Lily is disrupting The Great Longing’s tale and forcing the players to acknowledge the present moment. She devises a plan to infest this tale with a Lily in hopes that the here and now will bring an end to the tyranny of nostalgia. The Lily has other hopes. Though one petal is hiding in this photo, the Lily is a five-petaled flower. Just like a star. It wishes to be the lead in the play so everyone will love it.
Scene 4: The play, as told by The Great Longing Deity is one of a sorrowful bride hopeful who is saved from life’s drudgery by true love. The Lily devises a plan to become true love and woo bride’s sorrow to rosy picture hue and so become the lead in the play. The Lily wins the heart of the Bride Hopeful who is a puppet made by Emily Decola (whose craft and care are just delicious) and played by Kristine Haruna Lee (who is able to sacrifice her ego for the puppets personality to shine and yet shine at the same time).
Scene 5: The Great Longing Deity (played by James Tigger! Ferguson) is represented by a giant stage curtain. It does everything it can to stop the Lily from taking over the story. Tigger is a dream in this role. I wrote the part for him as he’s always been an inspiration to me. There’s no one like Tigger. He is a true original as a human being and a fantastic performer.
Scene 6: The Great Longing Deity forces The Bride Hopeful to grow up and let go of her childish love for a flower. She sings a song to the Flower Girls about how she is teetering on the edge of too little to late and must settle or never marry. Amelia Zarin-Brown (aka Lady Rizo) plays the bride as adult and has the best comic timing of any artists I’ve ever worked with (plus that singing voice - hmmmmmm).
Some other stuff happens in Act I but I don’t want to give it all away.
ACT II Scene 1: In an attempt to take the story away from The Great Longing, and win back the love of the Bride, The Lily leaps from a windowsill. It naturally sings a song on a uke as it falls.
Scene 2: In the garden the Lily meets the other flowers who are convinced it is The Chosen Flower: a self-uprooted flower (did I mention the lily uproots itself in an act of desperation) who can save them all from the eternal suffering of flower kind and free their deity, The Dirt, from imprisonment on The Great Longing’s factory farm in Ecuador. In this scene Master Sunflower scolds the Lily for treating Baby’s Breath (Barb Lanciers) as less than. Someone needs to cast Barb as Puck immediately.
Scene 3: Rather than give you plot points let me just say something about our Flowers and Machine Dazzle the costume designer. From left to right: Kim Rosen as The Rose. I’d never worked with Kim before and had never seen her in anything. I don’t believe in auditioning people. Instead I scout for casting choices or rely on recommendations. Rachel Chavkin our director of Act II had worked with Kim so I took a chance (even casting someone from an audition is taking a chance so you might as well take the chance in an honorable way rather than a disrespectful one). She has been a complete delight to work with and proof that you should always trust Rachel (the lady knows). Glenn Marla as Poppy: every time I’m in a room with Glenn I’m happy. Frankly I want to have his baby. Ikuko Ikari plays Tulip and I want to stitch Ikuko into my work for all of time. She just gets it. And then there’s Daphne. Daphne Gaines is one of the most talented actors I know. Someone described her as dripping talent and I think that just about says it. Finally Machine Dazzle who is not pictured here but is in every second of The Lily’s Revenge (even the blackouts as his costumes are so fantastic the afterglow of them defies visual limitations).
KYOGEN Kyogen 1: This is me getting ready and using the open dressing room mirror. I decided a way to create community (which is what the play is really about) was to break down the usual walls that create a distance between the user and the maker (in this case the audience and the performers). So we have an open dressing room where the audience can hang out with the performers during the intermissions (or what The World Famous *Bob* more appropriately calls recess. Nick Vaughn created our sets for Lily and did an extraordinary job with so little. I told all the designers and directors the aesthetic for the show should be, hey-kids-let’s-put-on-a-show. The more human the better. I wanted it to look like the winning parade float that was made by the community and not sponsored by a bank.
Kyogen 2: Tina Shepard’s back says it all. She is a star.
ACT III Scene 1: Act III, or The Love Act, is primarily a dream ballet. In this act the adult bride has a dream version of herself who is essentially her subconscious. I didn’t really know Darlinda Just Darlinda before casting her. We’d performed on a couple bills together and I always liked her but didn’t really know what she was capable of as a performer. I got a hint of it in Fire Island last summer when we hung out all day at the Invasion of the Pines and decided to take a chance. The best decision I could have made. She’s put so much of herself into this role and I’ve fallen in love.
Scene 2: The Flower Girls in The Love Act are younger and are all dancers. Here they are forcing Susan Stewart to climb a wall. It’s because of them I’ve decided I want to write more dance theater.
Scene 3: Something I said to Faye, our director/choreographer of The Love Act, was that this is the part of the play where everything starts falling apart: narrative, structure, and the aesthetic. It’s a difficult challenge to be in charge of the part of a play that isn’t supposed to work and make the not working work beautifully. Faye pulled it off with aplomb and such wondrous creativity. I’m not in this act that much and was so jealous of the performers who look like they’re having the best time up there.
Scene 4: The characters in The Love Act are bored out of their minds and so create drama from nothing to pass the time. Here they are waiting for the outsourced party supplies to arrive. Scene 5: Philip Taratula plays the dream ballet Groom. It was important to me to find some way, in this very female and flower heavy show, to let the Groom have his say (not too much of one as the man always gets his say but just enough). I gave Faye and Philip a difficult task of making a dance out of stage directions like: “He does a Man-Through-The-Ages dance”. They surpassed anything I could have dreamed up. Everyone’s in love with Philip not only because he’s a great guy but also because talent is sexy. He’s just so damn good.
Scene 6: What would a five-hour epic be without some simulated cunniligus.
Scene 7: As the story is getting taken from The Great Longing he begins to shrink. Here he does a strip-tease.
Scene 8: The Great Longing curtain is saved from destruction by the arrival of the party supplies. A cocktail napkin is strategically placed.
Scene 9: The Great Longing discovers that it can be rebuilt via everyone’s dreams. The company writes dreams on cocktail napkins and they bring back the curtain.
ACT IV
We don’t have shots if this as it’s a film but perhaps once the show has closed we’ll put it up on the internet. It is a delight. Essentially what happens is The Lily travels to Ecuador and frees the Dirt from the factory farm. It’s all done with dolls in stop motion. Aaron Rhyne did wonders with the film and Justin Bond gave his genius to the voice of The Dirt.
ACT V Scene 1: Here you see The Great Longing Deity rebuilt by nothing but cocktail napkins. The Flowers have infiltrated the wedding party and are about to begin their revolution against their oppressors. This act has everyone performer previously seen (all 36 of them) and was helmed by director David Drake. This is the second time I’ve worked with David. The first was on a one-man show I did called The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac. It’s extraordinary how easy it is for him to switch from directing one person to 36. A great director.
Scene 2: Baby’s Breath pretends to frame the white rose bouquet. We wanted the White Rose to be the perfect specimen and so Emily (our puppet designer) used Amanda Lapore as our model for her. The Brides are mesmerized by her beauty.
Scene 3: The Flowers take charge of the curtains movement and the Flower Girls will soon fight back.
Scene 4: What you’re not seeing in this photo is that a giant turd ballet is happening on stage.
Scene 5: After being stripped of my petals throughout the course of the play and getting a makeover on the Factory Farm, I become a physical man with a flower’s core. Here I’m taking turns kissing everyone. This play is about altering our pre-existing myths and traditions just enough to foster and expand community. The allegory of the play is about choosing to love others rather than wishing for love. The Lily chooses to bring everyone closer through intimacy and in doing so the ruling traditions and myths, that create distance between the lover and the loved one by saying say we must hope and wish for love, are disempowered.
Scene 6: Here The Great Longing Deity makes a last ditch effort to destroy the Lily.
Scene 7: Ultimately The Great Longing is defeated and everyone thinks we will live happily-ever-after but then the Pope enters and shoots everybody with a bedazzled machine gun.
Scene 8: But being shot simply reminds us of how to live in this moment and we live happily here and now and forget about the whole ever-after thing.
And that concludes my reductive explanation of what The Lily’s Revenge is all about. But hopefully we’ve given you a little pleasure in this moment by sharing the photos and story with you.
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