E*Rock: An Interview with Awesome
Behold, he who is E*Rock- most acurately described by Willamette Week as: "Portland's greatest unknown electronic music multitasker, ever."
Emphasis on greatest and ever
If you don't already know him by name, you'll be asking yourself how you don't as his relevance spans several acts and media. Probably his two most visible efforts to enter mainstream territory have been the release of the debut single 'Seventeen Years' from his brother's band Ratatat on his label Audio Dregs as well as the music video for the Gossip's 200K selling single 'Standing in the Way of Control' (not to mention one for Beck as well as the animation for a live action video for the Blow). He makes his own music, releases it as well as others' tunes on CD and vinyl over his two record labels, creates poster art and does so much else that's it's a bit hard to keep up with the chronicles of E*Rock.
Maybe you can follow along. . .
1. What was it like growing up in Nordenham?
Oh, I see you've done your research! Well yeah, it was cool, I guess.
2. a. Did you meet any celebrities while working on the cruise where you met your Fryk beat label partner? Who?
I met the guy from a popular TV show and his infamous wife! I tend to forget celebrity names. I'd like to see that Daft Punk movie that's coming out.
b. Share a story about one particularly memorable and/or strange meeting:
They were despicable human beings. When they weren't looking I put gum in their hair and farted in church and told God it was them.
3.How do the different partnerships in running each label vary?
Running labels is kinda boring business with lots of work for very little payoff. I'm going to take a little time off to work on music and other neglected projects, like music and drawing and video. Don't get me wrong, I'll still keep doing it, but there's less need for it than there was when I started. Everyone has a label these days and no one really has money to buy records.
4.What about the music or the artist makes you want to release their music?
Its mostly friends and sometimes you make a long distance friend and then you're like, hey let's do this! The label is about relationships and ideas, which is what music is about, which is all that life is about. We're all social creatures, more than most will admit. To me a label should be a little more than reproducing plastic discs though.
5.When will you be posting this year's mission statement on Audio Dregs?
Oh yeah, I keep forgetting. Maybe tonight? I'm making a note to myself right now.
-okay-I'm going to abandon the numbered format now-
How do you approach remixes? ie by what you feel the song could be or a desire for it to become a whole new entity, or for it to sound like only you could have made it, or . . .
Well, I usually remix songs that I already like, so I try and just
put my own take on it. I think of what sort of beat I would put in there if I was working on the song with that person. Some of the Panther songs I was working on the original with Charlie, so the remix was just trying to find a different way to approach something I had already thought hard about. I'm trying to finish a new mixtape of unofficial remixes, so I have to take acapellas and start more from scratch. My brother got me into that, and has a new mixtape out like that and I love it! Also DJ Copy is totally got me excited to do it as well. His mixtapes are totally crucial!
-What dictates what it will become?
Its like a puzzle. You listen to the the melody and see where it can go, or if it needs to get more dancey. Usually it needs to get more dancey. My brother sticks really close to the original song structure, whereas I never did, so I'm going to try that method. Keep it pop. Sometimes you gotta force the pieces to fit though.
Were you blogging elsewhere previous to your blog Light and Sound on Urban Honking?
No, though I had kind of a fake blog on the Audio Dregs site, like in 2000. It wasn't very good. I had a "news" part of the site and then I had a hidden "fake news" section, which was blog-like, but the word blog hadn't been invented yet. I was influenced by Mumbleboy's blog- like section at the time.
Did your friends at Urban Honking approach you or did you make the suggestion?
Yeah, when they started Jona asked if I'd like to do one, and I said no. I'm not a writer, and I don't really like writing about myself. I thought the whole blog as diary thing was weird, because I don't get into the whole "this is what I like, this is my opinion, blah blah, me me me..." thing. But then I was dating this girl that was doing a blog with Urho (loves made me do weirder things) and I was getting into Jona's tour diary blogs at the time too. So I realized I could just put up pictures with no text and that would be fine.
Also, as the economy got worse Kinko's made it harder to steal copies (Ed- Seriously, what is up with their pre-pay?) and this caused less people to do regular zines. Blogs sort of
replaced personal zines, and became the new zine.
Is your zine Thumb still active?
Its been dormant, but I'm planning to publish one more issue together with Yeti Publishing. Just as soon as I get some time.
You have a show coming up in June in Tokyo-will there be a theme? Will it be all 2d art or . . . ?
It's at Hanna gallery with my friend
Has anything (weird fan mail, . . .) resulted from your doing the video for The Gossip's 'Standing in the Way of Control'? When creating the video did you think they were soon to reach the international exposure that they have now? Were they involved in the concept?
The weirdest thing that resulted was a feature/interview for "video of the week" in the NME. Otherwise, nothing weird came out of it. The UK label didn't even like the video and wasn't going to use it at first. Then they used stills for a CD, 12" and 7" singles for the song and never sent me copies of the records! I even emailed them and they didn't write back. I've never seen the records in person even. I think its a good video, and a good song, but I don't think anyone had an idea they'd get so big. They're super stars in the UK and that's awesome.
I still haven't heard the entire record, Nathan said he'd give me a copy of the record on vinyl, so I never picked it up, but I haven't seen him in months.
Before we made the video I got together with the band and Maggie from KRS and we talked about a concept. What we came up with was "gayos", which is gay+chaos. That was all we came up with and I had like two weeks to get it done. So I painted a make-shift green screen, we shot some video, and Ben Jones and I made some animations and put it together in the last 5 days or so after that. It was a fun project.
Do you have a preferred creative medium?
email interviews.
Who are you currently listening to?
Ratatat, Copy, Kavinsky, Suicide, Chromatics, Sarcophagus comp, Boredoms, Eats Tapes, Yacht, White Flight... the usual stuff.
Please describe yourself in five words or less-as a complete sentence or just a jumble of words:
Mirror or window? You decide.
What can we expect in the rest of 2007 (related to you and/or anything that takes your fancy-- alien invasions? a new record for world's largest pumpkin? . . .)
I'm trying to make a book of art, another issue of Thumb, release a new record of some of my own music, a mixtape, a collaborative DVD with Ola Vasiljeva, and move to Berlin for the summer. I'd love to go on tour again someday. Also, there's a bunch of music videos in the works I'd love to finish.
I have no idea what will happen in 2007.
Thanks so much!
YEAH NO PROBLEM!
'Victory at Sea' Bobby Birdman E*Rock remix MP3
Buy the 12 inch here and visit Fryk Beat's myspazz to add the song to your profile. It's been up on mine for the past month.
Wanna stalk E*Rock? You should!:
Informative Willamette Week mini-Interview-find out the difference between Audio Dregs and Fryk Beat
Fratatat: Brothers Eric and Evan Mast joint interview
Yacht's Kancho Poncho Tour pics
Watch animation on Collective Jryk (a site made possible with a grant from Microsoft haha :) P.S. It'll make your eyes [insert antonym for bleed] in the same way/in the good way that Casette Playa's does (stylist to M.I.A., Klaxons, and sometimes Patrick Wolf)
Related, unrelated: Mumble Boy+Hanna Gallery circa 2004
Oh- and my live mention of E*Rock in March: Panther Album Release Show - where I shot the photos of him included in this post
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