*This originally ran on Buddyhead back in June 2002
The following interview took place in a very clean and simple motel, amidst the seediness, glamour, and confusing glitz located here in the heart of Hollywood, California. Sam and I had the great privilege of meeting up with two serious rock legends to do this interview. The rock legends being none other than Duane Denison from the Jesus Lizard and John Stanier from Helmet, both who now make up exactly one half of the amazing four piece rock band known as Tomahawk. (Mike Patton and Kevin Rutmanis being the other two members who weren’t present) Our excuse for the documented conversation was under the guise of discussing their new album with them. What transpired, turned into more of a soul saving rock n’ roll sermon delivered by Brother Duane and Brother John, rather than the interview we planned on. And that was more than fine by us. All we could do was pump our fists towards the heavens and shout… “Amen brother… preach on… preach on!”
Introduction by Travis Keller
Interview by Sam Velde and Travis Keller
Photos by Eric England (yeah we used a press shot)
Sam Velde – First question and a real original one, for those unfamiliar with Tomahawk. Who is in the band and what do they do?
John Stanier – Duane Denison on guitar, Kevin Rutmanus on bass, Mike Patton on vocals and other things, and myself John Stanier on drums.
Sam Velde – How did Tomahawk come together? I figured all your paths had crossed before.
Duane Denison – We all kind of knew each other. I got taken to a ‘Mr. Bungle’ show in Nashville (TN) about 2 years ago and someone introduced me to Mike. At the time I was playing with Hank Williams III. So Mike said, “Are you doing anything on your own? Are you doing any of your own music?” I said, “Yeah I’ve got some songs, I just don’t have anything really going.” Mike replied that he had a new label called Ipecac and, “If you get something going give me a call.” So I went home and thought about it, got back to him, and said, “I wanna get a rock band going and would you be interested in singing and collaborating?” He said yes, so we started sending tapes back and forth (Nashville to San Francisco) to each other. Then we just decided we needed to put a ‘real’ band together. My pick was John (Stanier) on drums and his pick was Kevin (Rutmanus) on bass. We then just all started sending tapes to each other in the mail. Then one at a time everybody came down to Nashville, got together, played music with me, and hung out a bit. I quit playing with Hank Williams III to focus on getting the songs together. Then everyone came down in May 2001 to rehearse for less than a week. Then we went in and knocked out the album.
John Stanier – We rehearsed for about 2 days!
Duane Denison – Four.
John Stanier – Four days?
Duane Denison – Four days.
John Stanier – Was it four days? …… Three!… hahaha.
Sam Velde – So you’d send a tape to Mike and he’d put vocals on it? Then you would send it to Kevin and he’d put his ideas down? How did that process work?
Duane Denison – I would do like a basic home demo. Very simple. I’d do bass and guitars with a drum machine beat to it, and explain that this is a basic feel for the song. Then everyone could add stuff. When we got together we just hashed out the final arrangements of the songs that were on the tapes right there.
Sam Velde – So let me get this straight, you rehearsed for 4 days after tape trading and then went and recorded a full-length record?
John Stanier – Yeah. We recorded and mixed the record in two and a half weeks.
Duane Denison – We did two days practicing… just you, me, and Kevin. And two days practicing with Mike. And then two and a half weeks recording.
Travis Keller – Where did you record the album?
Duane Denison – In Nashville, TN at this place called ‘Sound Emporium’. We mixed at a place called ‘New Reflections’ also in Nashville.
John Stanier – We recorded it with a witch!
Duane Denison -A hillbilly from Mississippi, TN named Joe Funderbirk who has worked with Emmylou Harris, Jerry Reed and artists of that nature, as well as local Nashville kinda punk rock stuff. I’d met him through the Hank Williams III crowd. He knew all about our past bands. He knew about Helmet, Bungle, Jesus Lizard, Cows and all that. Just a real interesting guy who is a witch that sometimes wears a kilt!
John Stanier – The first day of recording he showed up in a full Scottish kilt with this black ruffled shirt on and weird jewelry. His hair was white and shaved on the side and perfectly straight on the other….. with a goatee! He’s like 40 and really stands out in Nashville!
Duane Denison – Which is good. It really set the tone for the recording. A ‘anything goes’ kind of vibe. We’d look over at the console while recording and he’d be about a foot or so off the ground just kind of levitating……..
Sam Velde – The record’s interesting to me. I listened to it yesterday in it’s entirety and it covers a lot of ground musically. Shifting from bombastic parts too ambient moments and more. In speaking with John (Stanier) prior to hearing it, he had mentioned that he felt it was a ‘pop’ record of sorts, and that at times it reminded him of The Cure, not in sound, but in the fact that each song had an entire life of it’s own.
John Stanier – Yeah. Not so much in sound but if you listen to their older records you’ll notice that they’ll be completely different instruments on each song in one record. It’s like they recorded each song in a different studio….. and they have a ‘gay’ singer like us…. hahaha.
Duane Denison – One of these days I’m gonna be in a band that doesn’t have a ‘gay’ singer. I don’t think it’s happened or is ever gonna happen.
Sam Velde – Did you have any premeditated thoughts on the sound of the record and songs. When you wrote the songs were you coming from a certain place of reference?
Duane Denison – No, because those songs took a couple of years to accumulate. They tended to come in ‘clumps’. So literally the first batch were when I was still living in Chicago. The second batch was when I had moved to Nashville. Then the next batch was after getting together with these guys (Tomahawk). Like when we were clowning around on that bass line that you (John Stanier) wrote, you and I were like, “Hey Keith Levine would do this” and that became the song “Jockstrap”. I tried to have some continuity to it, so you have some certain amount of variety so it’s not all the same. But too much variety is worse. I told Mike form the start that this is a ‘rock’ band and I like things that are fairly stripped down and repetitive and I don’t want it all over the place like a Mr. Bungle or whatever, and he was down with that and……. what was the question?
Sam Velde – Just where your head was at, where you were coming from when you wrote the record…
Duane Denison – You want it to hang together somewhat. I like to think of it as “cinematic” or “cine-ma-tic” ala France! I didn’t want a different style for every song. They are reoccurring motifs throughout the record. I wanted a consistent mood or vibe while having some variety. To me the easiest thing in the world to do is to write an album where the mood changes from song to song. To me that’s easy! But if you can somehow come up with 45 minutes worth of music that… like a movie, everything fits together, or a collection of stories where everything leads to the next step. Even though they’re different it’s not jarring one completely different thing to another completely different thing. To me the jarring is an easy thing to do. It’s much more difficult to come up with things that hang together and sustain a mood. I don’t know if we did it, but we got close to that.
Sam Velde – The record definitely takes you on a journey. When I say it covers a lot of ground, I don’t mean in a ‘genre hopping’ sort of way. It definitely has continuity and is expansive and reaches that goal of ‘cina-ma-tic’ you spoke of. That’s why I was wondering where your headspace was. Whether it was wrapped in personal things or you were……… I don’t know, listening to a lot of PIL records or something! Just the influence and idea behind it because it is so expansive.
Duane Denison – Well one thing we all really have in common is that are all real movie literate. Movies, soundtracks and stuff. It’s the common thread that extended to the record.
Sam Velde – So what are some of your favorite movies?
Duane Denison – Fellini’s “Casanova”, “A Clockwork Orange”. I don’t like a lot of the classics. Like to me Citizen Kane… big snore!!!!! Have you seen “Brother”? Oh shit, you need to see that. Japanese Clint Eastwood! It’s bad ass! Not to be confused with John’s favorite movie “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”…. hahahahahahahahahaha.
John Stanier – Haha… the soundtrack is great though. “Man of constant sorrow”.
Duane Denison – To me that does what a popular song is supposed to do.
John Stanier – Make a grown man cry!
Duane Denison – Make you happy! I was stuck in traffic, rush hour, downtown , blazing fucking hot Nashville weather. The car’s over heating. Song comes on (Duane starts singing, humming the song) and suddenly it’s not so bad! For 3 minutes its alright. That’s what popular music should do.
Sam Velde – I hear ya. That’s why I love Randy Newman’s “I Love LA!” you know “we love it!” So were any of those movies an inspiration to the writing of the record? Was it anything specific or just a sum of it’s parts?
Duane Denison – No. Maybe we didn’t do enough of it on this record, but maybe when we do some of this improv stuff live were talking about doing…. we’re gonna get heavy here in a minute… The 1st half of the 20th century in music has always been about melody, rhythm and harmony, right? They say when Stravinsky and them came along that rhythm was emancipated. To me the 2nd half of the 20th century was all about sound and sound manipulation. Like when electronic music happened and suddenly control of certain things… like in the psychedelic era that became a big composition of detriment. People actually started paying attention to using different sounds, just sounds as a piece of music. It wasn’t this monochromatic, symphonic thing. To me the type of rules, ideas, or strategies that you would use from a rhythmic or harmonic sense… modulations, themes, variations, that sort of thing… now you apply that to the sonic thing. So it’s not just random like, “Oh look I found a ‘Toys Are Us’ thing lets pour water on it and mic it and…… zzzzzzztt… yeah.” You wanna modulate it, now you wanna tie it in with other sounds. I’m not quite sure if we did that. I don’t know why we would…..who cares…. bleebleebleebleee!!!!!!! Hahahahahahhaha.
*note – much group laughter here!!!
Travis Keller – You said you think that popular music should make people happy. What do you want your band, your music to do? How do you want it to make people feel?
Duane Denison – To keep the avenues and waterways safe for the American way of rock! Look around you. We’re in the worst era of popular music ever! It’s just push button machine music. People who don’t sing their own songs, don’t write their own lyrics, they don’t play their own instruments. They sure as hell don’t produce their own records. And kids are turning on that shit when they turn on the television? When I was younger I can remember when for instance, in black popular music like Sly Stone, Graham Central Station, etc. you saw black musicians… there were black guitar players who were famous, popular. Ernest Isley, etc., drummers who were famous in the ‘pop’ world. That doesn’t even happen anymore. When was the last time you turned on the radio and consistently heard music that wasn’t just a guy on the mic? It doesn’t happen very often, it really doesn’t! Where are these standout musicians being recognized? Where’s the new Ernest Isley, Clyde Stuttlefield, etc.? That’s sad to me. It’s tragic. And in ‘rock’ it’s just as bad. It’s one band after another. You gotta have a 7 string. You gotta tune it down.
John Stanier – You gotta have a DJ in the band.
Travis Keller – You gotta have a bald guy with a goatee!
Duane Denison – You gotta jump around. “OK, now it’s the jumping part. Now it’s the quiet introspective part. Now it’s the jumping part!” What happened to craftsmanship? I hate to sound like the crazy uncle locked in the attic but it’s true! To me, and I truly mean this, If someone who doesn’t know anything about anybody in this band but they just happen to go because they hear about it, and they see us and say, “wow, now that’s a rock band.” To me that’s a good thing!
Travis Keller – Where do you think it all went wrong? Why is there such a lull?
Duane Denison – You could say a million things. We live in a society of instant gratification where it’s just…
Travis Keller – Easier?
Duane Denison – Yes, easier. Technology. It used to be the music influenced the technology. Like you had a 100 piece orchestra and you needed these types of microphones and you needed this way to record it. You had a jazz group or a country group… where people were dancing and couldn’t hear the bass, so they invented an electric bass. Now it’s the other way around. Technology happens and the music comes form the technology, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
John Stanier – Well there’s different points to that…
Duane Denison – I agree, but when it gets to the point that the song writing is all about modular units of sound blocks, and it doesn’t even matter what order they’re in, you can just move them around randomly, and that’s a song? To me it’s like a story. Like if I buy a book, a novel, I don’t wanna open a page and it doesn’t matter where I’m reading. You know what I mean? It should start, middle, end. I think that’s a basic thing that doesn’t ever go out of style. I think that it’s consumer culture. Instant gratification. Why do I want to spend 5 years learning how to play something well when I don’t have to, I’ll just go get a sampler and a mic and 6 months I’m out doing it. Why should I? I don’t have to, I can just sample this record. Why should I write lyrics and think about what is important to me when I can turn on the TV and there’s someone telling me “fist in your face” or whatever! Why bother? It’s reinforced again and again that you don’t have to do those things. And it never used to be like that. MTV too! It saddens me. I’ll wind this up here. My girlfriend is a music attorney and so she works with a lot of younger musicians back in Nashville. She’ll bring them to the house and she’ll introduce me to them. Not like I’m a big deal, but some of them know who the Jesus Lizard is, but there seems to be an entire generation now of kids who do not know anything about rock pre-MTV, pre-1981. There’s like 50 years of rock history and its as if the 60’s and 70’s never happened. The 50’s are a little more visible because of ‘rock-a-billy’ culture and because of ‘Happy Days’, and the cars and the tattoos and all that. It’s like the 60’s and 70’s just never happened. When I meet kids that are half my age and they don’t know what the Civil Rights movement was about? In the 60’s when I was a kid, I thought the world was coming to an end. The Vietnam War, The Civil Rights movement, The SDS, Kent State, the pill, LSD, all that shit was happening at the same time. It’s like that all never happened. All these kids saying “Free Tibet”… I’d like to pull a map out and say “find it!” They probably can’t. Most of em probably couldn’t find Afghanistan! It’s because of the culture we live in. There I said it!
Sam Velde – I like to refer to it as LCD (lowest common denominator) culture.
John Stanier – But also, there’s plenty of music right now that’s completely tearing apart music of the 70’s. Going back and picking through it, analyzing it, a lot of modern dance music is doing that. It’s all about the 70’s. Like 70 to 76.
Duane Denison – In rock, when you see it, it’s in a real obvious terms like the band Fu Manchu!
John Stanier – In rock definitely!
Duane Denison – I’m not saying everything presently is bad. It’s cool that you have computers and you can access so much information. You can walk into any music shop now and you can find almost anything from anywhere in the world. Technology provides some cool things. And there are cool things happening out there. I’m not saying there isn’t. Yet the overall level of popular music to me is so low. It’s such huge population. What did David Lee Roth say? “The bigger the crowd, the lower the IQ!”
Travis Keller – We were talking about it the other day, the biggest bummer is that kids don’t have an alternative to what they see on MTV. There’s no alternative to Jay Z!
John Stanier – Staind!
Travis Keller – That’s the pick. That’s what they know.
Duane Denison – If it’s not on MTV it doesn’t exist to most people in their world. That’s what’s real to them.
Travis Keller – There’s this whole generation of kids that don’t know any better. They’re just fed crap!
Duane Denison – I have a feeling people were saying this in the 50’s though.
John Stanier – In the 50’s and 60’s and 70’s and 80’s as well! Like in the 70’s with the Monkees. Well, the 70’s maybe a little different because rock was still new.
Sam Velde – I was on a plane ride a few years back and I was sitting in the emergency exit seats where you face other people. I sat with these 4 kids. They started talking about music and looking at each other’s cd’s. One kid was claiming that he had just been at ‘Woodstock 99′ but I think he was lying cuz he was about 9 years old and he was telling the other kids he went by himself. Anyway, they were talking about how much they liked Korn and Limp Bizkit and whatnot and what the lyrics were when the singer from Korn starts scatting and sounding like a monkey and I was totally fascinated by what this younger generation was getting out of music. At the same time I had a feeling they were checking me out and were going to ask me what I was into musically. I knew it was coming because they had already asked me about the GameBoy I was playing. So I’m thinking if they ask me what I like, I’m going to seem so old to them, because I don’t necessarily like any of the music they were discussing… Korn, Limp Bizkit, etc. And this totally reminds me of what we’re talking about. These kids probably have never heard of an “underground” music scene cuz they are beat over the head with pop culture media. MTV, etc. They aren’t privy to any other avenues of finding out about music and whatnot. I felt such a separation from them. It bummed me out.
Duane Denison – It’s media saturation. When I was a kid they didn’t have 5 different guitar magazines and 5 different UK music magazines and 5 different whatever. It was harder to find unusual things. You had to go out and look for it. You had to make a conscience decision to go out and find that weird record store that had that kind of shit.
John Stanier – I even remember that shit. That’s pre-internet!
Duane Denison – You’re probably right.
Travis Keller – Where I grew up you had to drive 2 hours to get the cool record store for anything remotely punk rock.
Duane Denison – and that was part of the deal. You knew you could go there and they’d be playing stuff that you’d wanna hear and you’d wanna hang out. You’d run into other people that wanted to hang out. It was a whole network. It doesn’t happen that way anymore. When punk rock clubs were crazy. When shit was dangerous! When the band was fucked up and their fans were even worse!
Travis Keller – Now it’s like going to the mall.
Duane Denison – On the way out here I saw some metal band in the airport and they were just fucking clones. You gotta have the one guy who looks like his face fell into a tackle box. I can’t take anyone seriously that over pierced in the face. The things that come out are negated by what I’m looking at.
Sam Velde – That doesn’t bother me. It’s no more than a Mohawk. It’s fashion. It’s “outrageous”. It’s doing what it’s suppose to, evoking a reaction. It’s serving it’s purpose. I do understand the clone feeling though with music groups. The absence of originality. I recently worked on a music video for this “nu metal” band and every member looked like another member of a prominent “nu metal” or “alternative” band. There was the Korn guy, the STP guy, the weird Marilyn Manson/Cold guy (with the tackle box face!), and the hip hop guy. It was a joke!
Travis Keller – Bands just keep getting bigger too. Now there’s the DJ guy, the sampler guy, and 2 singers. One guy just raps!
Sam Velde – Getting back to the origin of Travis’ question…
Duane Denison – Well just a recap of what we were talking about. You can come from different angles and put things together and make something interesting that at least isn’t like everyone else’s shit! If you put some work in, take your time, and have some integrity, then you don’t have to play their game. You don’t have to look like everyone else, you don’t have to sound like everyone else. You don’t have to enter that world. You can by-pass it!
Travis Keller – What’s the plan for Tomahawk? Is it a real band? Is it a full time band?
John Stanier – It’s a full time band, but everyone else is in other bands! Yes.
Duane Denison – We’ll be making records and touring hopefully for years to come. Everyone is involved with their other bands and projects pretty heavily, but with some flexibilty. For me, Tomahawk is all I do! I’m focusing entirely on this. None of us wanted to do a band that was on the road 9, 10 months out of the year. We’ve all done that. It’s exhausting, you lose your creativity, etc. etc. If we can get 3, 4 months on the road and record… to me you don’t need to play every damn town in the world twice a year. People get sick of you. I’d like to keep it special. More of an event. When the other guys are out, when John is surfing, I’m in Nashville being Brian Wilson. Working on songs, sending tapes…….. boo hoo hoo, riff riff riff, sending tapes, boo hoo hoo…. hahahaha.
John Stanier – Hahahah….. with sand on the floor!
Duane Denison – So this is all I’m focusing on. I was playing with other people and playing their music. It’s not for me. I’m doing this. So yes it’s a real band!
Sam Velde – Since we’ve talked so much about pop culture… MTV, modern technology, etc. What do you think of the internet as it relates to music? Napster, MP3’s, music promotion, etc?
John Stanier – I think its beneficial. I play in a band from Australia called “The Mark Of Cain” and the guys in the band were at home in Austrailia, and their producer Andy Gill was in London working on mixes of the new record. The MOC guys have their TV and computer hooked up together… some sort of web tv thing. They’re watching DVD’s and emails are coming through from Andy Gill with music downloads of the mixes. So they’re putting the DVD on pause and listening to mixes in stereo. Emailing him back right away with opinions and ideas and whatnot and then just hitting pause and watching the rest of the movie. It’s insane! Halfway around the world. I love the internet! I’m all for it. I’m 50/50 with Napster.
Duane Denison – Napster is like Blockbuster. In that if you go to a movie your paying full price because you’re seeing the real thing right there, right? It’s like buying an album. If you rent a movie you’re still seeing it, but you’re not really seeing the original because it’s on the television. So sonically if you’re downloading it onto your computer, laptop, etc. It’s not the same.
John Stanier – I don’t know many kids that download entire albums off the internet.
Travis Keller – I do. But I think I’m a minority because I really like actually owning the record, physically having the artwork and compact disc or vinyl in my hands. A lot of times I’ll download something out of curiosity even if I’m not planning on buying it. Example: I was curious about that fat white rapper guy, Bubba Sparxx, so I downloaded his record. Well, that’s a bad example because I thought it sucked… but sometimes I get turned onto something new.
John Stanier – But the majority of people mostly download songs.
Duane Denison – That’s a good thing though.
Travis Keller – I think it’s great. Especially for smaller bands. For a friend of mine’s band, I think it’s one of the reasons people go see them play live. For one, they’ve never been on a proper label and they haven’t had any other chance for people to hear them because they can’t find their records in stores. MP3’s provide this chance. Even if they can’t or don’t buy the album, they’re gonna come see you live. It’s the return of the live show as far as I’m concerned.
John Stanier – I think kids still want to go and get the actual product with the artwork and hold it in their hands and look at it and read the lyrics and whatnot, rather than a blank CD with “Tool” written on it! Oh, and I just love the chat rooms! Just kidding.
Duane Denison – When I first got my laptop I just couldn’t leave it alone. It was all just stupid. Just gossip and porn and stupid shit. Then you get used to it. It’s always there.
John Stanier – Web radio is cool. You can listen to like “Uganda radio” right now……. ubbaganndanadududda…… hahahaha.
Travis Keller – Has Tomahawk played a show yet?
Duane Denison – No. Not a single one yet.
Sam Velde – When you do, what can people expect when they go to see Tomahawk live?
Duane Denison – Oh, I don’t know. We’ll play some songs, wiggle our rumps! It’ll be a traditional performer-audience format.
John Stanier – There won’t be any multi-media extravaganza?
Duane Denison – No light show or anything like that. Four guys on stage playing songs. There will be a bit of improv, however we’ll let the songs take on a life of their own without restricting them to the rigid formula of preordained structures. We’ll be pimping the album a bit you know. We’ll be hawking those wares, cuz we only have so many songs! A couple covers.
Travis Keller – What covers might those be?
Duane Denison – What covers you ask? Roxy Music maybe. Mott The Hoople. Possibly a jazz ballad ala Frank Sinatra or Chet Baker? Who’s to say? The skies the limit with Tomahawk! It won’t be your basic rave up rock show with guys jumping around with fists and slapping high fives in the front row and yelling “do a shot with me!” I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of that.
Sam Velde – Except for Travis and I!
Duane Denison – It’ll be 4 guys up there playing music as long as the consumer-provider relationship remains in tact.
Travis Keller – Where did the idea and name behind Tomahawk come from?
Duane Denison – To me the misappropriation of cultural artifacts is endlessly fascinating. I just like the name Tomahawk. It had a built in imagery and a built in aggressiveness; yet it’s open for different interpretations… mythology around it. Looking through the dictionary and seeing that word with a period at the end of it and the picture that accompanies it… it just jumped out at me. Now of course Tomahawk missiles are everywhere. My mom asked if I thought the native groups would be upset. But what should we name it? Toboggan or moccasin? Half the states in this country are named after ancient Indian culture! It had a built in resonance.
John Stanier – It’s a strong word and seems as if someone should have used it already. I’m sure some obscure 60’s surf band used it. I think I saw a sticker for a band in Australia called “The Tomahawks”.
Duane Denison – It’s the kind of name an average kid says, “Hey TOMAHAWK is coming to town.” It sounds like it would be this hard, aggresive, typical “nu metal band”… and we’re not. There’s some hard rock to it, but it’s not typical. It’s not wall to wall big riffs and kicking riffs. It’s varied and the name can be deceiving.
Sam Velde – The name isn’t obvious of your sound. Not entirely.
Duane Denison – Its not like “Helmet” or anything…… hahahaha.
Travis Keller – I really liked the album imagery.
John Stanier – Wait til you see the press photos.
Travis Keller – Ok, basic interview question, what kind of music have you guys been listening to lately?
John Stanier – I’m probably more into unsuspecting, weirder shit than the rest of these guys cuz I DJ. I’m into “House”.
Travis Keller – Is that what you play when you DJ?
John Stanier – No. I mostly play modern hip-hop and R & B.
Travis Keller – What newer hip-hop do like?
John Stanier – I like some back packer stuff, but not too back packer! I like Dilated Peoples. To be honest, and this sounds lame, but because I DJ, it’s hard for me to keep up with other music than what I DJ. Cuz I really have to focus on the stuff I’m playing and what people want to hear. Generally I really listen to old rock or I’m buying new records every other day to play. Remixes and shit. I really have to stay on top of that world. It doesn’t make much time for listening to other stuff. As far as current hip-hop… I love the new Jay-Z and new Beatnuts, shit like that.
Sam Velde – Tell us about that Japanese band you really like…. hahaha.
John Stanier – Hahaha. I love… my favorite record right now is Tristeza. I thought they were Japanese til Sam told me they were from San Diego. My friend Kaito Man in Tokyo put out their record there. I was convinced they were Japanese.
Sam Velde – Yeah John was like, “You gotta hear this band from Japan called Triz-teeza!” I just laughed and said those guys are from San Diego. What about you Duane?
Duane Denison – I was having a 70’s phase with the NEU re-issues. That “Nue 75″ was like my favorite record of the year. That and a Roxy music kick. The 2nd one “For Your Pleasure” holds up amazingly well. It sounds so great and dated so well. Can you imagine what Atari Teenage Riot is going to sound like in 10 years? I’ve been listening to West, Bruce and Lang, then some electronic stuff like Amon Tobin and Boards of Canada and DJ Shadow. Every now and then some Nashville stuff like Dave Cloud. Schitzo rock 4 track recordings of older stuff like 8 Miles High. Shit even ZZ Top “Tres Hombres”. Great Album!
John Stanier – The new Basement Jaxx.
Travis Keller – Any last words before our tape runs out?
Duane Denison – “THE CHOP!” Everyone do the chop! ……. oh boy …..ssshhhhhhhh ….crash.