Unlike other careers people choose, the music industry is one of the strangest anyone does. Although nothing is guaranteed in life, the path to become a doctor, engineer, accountant, etc., has been traveled by many before and is a reasonably safe journey. When you enter the music industry, there is no path. You only have a vague map to your destination, whatever tools you have with you, and off you go. When you talk to others that have entered the music industry, they can only tell you what worked for them. Sometimes that will work for everyone or it will only work for them. Sometimes you have a guide to point you in the right direction or you won’t have anyone. Sometimes you just throw your hands in the air and see where the wind takes you. It takes a certain kind of person to take on a business like this.
So this is an on-going series for those who are working in the music industry and for people trying to break into it.
While the Band is Playing
by Jesse Davidson
In this edition, we will be interviewing Paul North. Paul North is currently a tour manager for the UK Subs and runs a vinyl selling and tour service business called North Records in the UK. WE caught up with Paul after the UK Subs recent West Coast tour in America.
JD: Can you give you give us some background info about yourself and how you got into the music business?
PN: I’ve always been a music fan, I saw the Damned/ Adverts when I was 14 in 1977. I consider myself lucky to work for the bands I watched as a kid. I had pretty high-end retail positions when I was very young. I got a job with a record company in London but got sick of living down south. I moved back to Blackpool where there was no work available and I started to sell records full time. I started selling records at punk festivals and from there started driving band, selling merch and learned from there. I haven’t had a proper job since ‘89.
After the show in Berlin. Charlie Harper (Center).
JD: Did you have a mentor or anyone to help you out?
PN: Not especially but your always learning when you’re both selling records and working for bands. My dad had no idea what I did but he was self-employed and was always there just to have a chat or lend me cash if I needed it. He was a calming influence on me.
JD: I’ve been checking out the North Records website and I’m really intrigued by it. Can you tell us about it and take us through the day to day of running the business?
Our mail order business is shit. Because, neither me or my business partner have enough time to dedicate to it as we are always working away for our bands. We update it as much as we can but I have lots of vinyl customers I can call up. So most doesn’t get online. We spend a couple of days a week on it, which is all we can do. My job is to find new stuff. Ig (my business partner) puts it on eBay or our site. We account every 6 weeks and split the profit after costs. Very DIY!
North Records: Very DIY!
JD: You and the UK Subs were really cool and professional when I had the chance to work with you, which is what I admire in bands that come through town. What are some ways you feel have helped maintain that reputation with you and the band?
PN: I have a few simple rules.
I only work for people I like.
I don’t work for arseholes.
I only work for bands I would watch as a fan.
We are on time. We do our job as best as we can do.
If you do those things, you won’t go far wrong.
Oh and be honest with the bands. Keep them informed and get them as much rest as possible.
JD: It seems out of any form of music, punk is one of the most unpredictable and wildly exciting forms to work in as a musician, sound engineer, tour manager, etc. What are some pros and cons you’ve experienced working in it?
PN:
Pros:
(+) It’s the best form of music.
(+)There’s less industry nonsense.
(+)The vast majority of people are cool especially with the smaller bands I tour with; where the promoter feeds us and puts us up at his own place. Usually, at his expense. I don’t think that happens in other genres as much..
Cons:
(-) Well there’s not much money for bands
(-) USA and UK venues don’t treat bands well (there are exceptions).
(-)Van breakdown issues are the worst and can destroy a tour financially.
But as a rule, even after a bad tour/gig, you can’t wait to do it again.
On the way to a gig. Lots of this on tour.
JD: How do you manage the stress that can come with being a tour manager and business owner?
I have the best job in the fucking world! If I have a bad day, I think of all the people doing normal jobs. I feel ok then!
Just another day at the office.
JD: After meeting you, I was reminded of Ian, the tour manager character from This Is Spinal Tap. Is there a lot of similarities between the movie and what you experience on the road?
PN: You won’t believe this but I’ve never seen it! But everyone says I should and it’s very relevant! I’m sure it is and one day, I’ll watch it!
JD: Do you have an advice for young people entering into the music business?
PN: Be brave. Give up everything for your band at least until you’re 30! Get one honest organized person to look after money, etc. Split money evenly between band members, the crew, and the manager. Be the absolute best you can be on the stage and not be an arsehole off it!
JD: Thanks again for taking the time to talk with us and for playing in Lancaster!
PN: Well touring the west coast with the Subs was a challenge! But we came through relatively unscathed, and the vast majority of people and promoters we met were great.
We had a ball! Thanks to all!!
If you’d like more info on North Records, check out
It seems like there are almost two sides to events, what is going on in the venue and the stories people are creating during the show. The potentially booze induced, hormone fueled nights your parents are afraid to tell you about. Some people having the night of their lives and others the worst. Regardless, the stories are the hidden narrative that aren’t usually discussed. So here’s one young woman’s recap of her night at West Hollywood’s Pride Festival. We hope you enjoy it.
“Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride” -Hunter S Thompson
On the Streets: LAPRIDE
Photo by Uver Verona
By Danielle White
Just south of Acton, I received a message from editor, Jesse Davidson asking if I could review my trip to West Hollywood’s GLBTQ PRIDE Festival. If I remember anything, I lamented. Asking a 22-year-old Los-Angeles-native alcoholic butch lesbian to refrain from getting blackout drunk at LAPRIDE was a lot to ask. But still, I persevered (mostly). Here is what I (am able to) recall from the past weekend.
THE DRIVE
After responding to Jesse’s request, I felt a surge of energy and excitement for the day to come. Just as quickly after, I felt my seatbelt strangle me because some asshole cut us off all the way from the far right lane. The dipshit missed his exit and thought he could take a chance and hug the off-ramp. I prayed to the SoCal Traffic Gods that ‘maybe you could just give me one trip to LA without this bullshit.‘ The SoCal Traffic Gods are blatantly awful at responding to prayer. So, I sparked a bowl of some foul tasting but stoney Humboldt Gold Rush and made goofy faces at passing drivers for about 2 hours. Upon arriving to Hollywood, we realized that we had overlooked one very vital part of our trip: fucking parking.
FUCKING PARKING
We had arrived. The sun was barely peeking through the morning marine fog, few people had actually started partying (“attending brunch” is what we call it in the GLBTQ community), and the smell of over-priced but still essentially cheap coffee was rich in the air. Though there were few human bodies to be found on otherwise busy Santa Monica Blvd, the amount of cars parked on the streets was unfathomable. There are approximately 3.5 million people in Los Angeles and I can almost guess that every single one of those motherfuckers was parked RIGHT THERE. We backtracked for 30 minutes or so, always minding Mary Jane and her rage-reducing charms. Eventually we ended up in a parking garage on La Cienega and Sunset. Mind you, the festival was about ¾ of a mile away, on a hot day in June, and we would be drinking heavily. We ignored these conditions because we saved $17 on parking being this far and that meant we could drink heavily-er. We parked the car and pounded three beers each before making our way onto the street.
GETTING DRUNK WHILE SURROUNDED BY DONGS
After the celebratory arrival beer, we wandered into the West Hollywood Pavilion’s Market and immediately bought more alcohol. After pounding a bottle of Malibu, we wandered for a bit before consuming a couple more beers we had left in the car. By this time I was already questioning my ability to form proper sentences, meanwhile watching in awe just how many people were showing up to the festival. Now, while I had imbibed in many alcohols and was feeling pretty confident in my physical appearance, I had NOTHING on the men of Gay Pride. Muscle-bound gym junkies in nothing more than banana hammocks flocked the streets. It was reminiscent of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ sock foray, if RHCP was 8000 dudes instead of four and everyone’s socks were a neon hue.
My girlfriend and I broke away from the group we were with to find a bathroom, as beer bladder had set in with a vengeance. Never have I seen so many live sausage links. And hopefully, I never will again. However, I did get $30 worth of free beauty products so it was totally worth it.
DJ’S
Three stages were presented: Top 40 Pop Stage, Hip-Hop Underground Stage, and the Main Stage, which played a mix of 80’s jams and queer culture hits before and between the live performances. I desperately tried not to get sweat on the entire time. Breathing was difficult. The music was awful. Point to the main stage for playing Echo and the Bunnymen and to the hip-hop stage for having male AND female go-go dancers.
PERFORMERS THAT AREN’T KE$HA
Who cares?
Wilson Phillips was there. And they were just as forgettable live as they were in 1994 on alt radio. I literally had to look up the band as I’m writing this. ‘What was that band that played before Ke$ha?’ I had asked myself. And I was sobering up at this point.
‘This is called “being responsible.” ’ I would tell myself, ‘This is what will help my article.’
Never was I so wrong. The prospect of seeing Ke$ha semi-sober hit me like a bag of bricks. So the lady and I set off on another adventure to acquire alcohol. We left the festival itself and hit the streets. I acquired a $4 bottle of Taaka and was approached by an elderly man with a gallon of Kessler. ‘Why not?’ I asked myself, and quickly helped to devour the 200+ ounces of cheap whiskey on the street behind Rage. I stumbled back into the park feeling like Barney from The Simpsons and fought my way to the main stage where Ke$ha would be playing.
THE FINAL ACT, KE$HA
I was nearly attacked by the crowd. Four thousand people in attendance, and I had chosen to stand in the very center. A young man in an obnoxious Hawaiian-style shirt elbowed me constantly in the ribs and his friends were fist-pumping into the back of my head. Ke$ha had barely reached the stage before I had had enough. I left the crowd and stood out on the side for an extra-echoey rendition of “Tick-Tock.” I can’t say whether or not I enjoyed the show, but I can say that finding lounge couches behind the vendors’ booths saved my life. Pride is an exhausting experience. I finished the show on my ass, and trekked the long way back to the car on jello knees before passing out in the passenger’s seat.
OVERALL
Overall, I would say PRIDE is a tradition of inebriation and over-indulgence. For those in the mood to party like animals and end up bruised and sore and probably hung-over perpetually for the week ahead, I’d say this is the place for you. As for myself, I’d say I’m getting way too old for this shit. I’ll stick to music festivals with carry-in seating and shows at small venues. Provided they have comfy chairs and fucking parking.
Unlike other careers people choose, the music industry is one of the strangest anyone does. Although nothing is guaranteed in life, the path to become a doctor, engineer, accountant, etc., has been traveled by many before and is a reasonably safe journey. When you enter the music industry, there is no path. You only have a vague map to your destination, whatever tools you have with you, and off you go. When you talk to others that have entered the music industry, they can only tell you what worked for them. Sometimes that will work for everyone or it will only work for them. Sometimes you guide to point you in the right direction or you won’t have anyone. Sometimes you just throw your hands in the air and see where the wind takes you. It takes a certain kind of person to take on a business like this.
So this is an on-going series for those who are working in the music industry and for people trying to break into it.
While the Band is Playing
by Jesse Davidson
In this edition, we sat down with Sean Gilmer over lunch at Mi Ranchito on Palmdale Blvd. Sean is a live sound engineer at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center, a recording engineer, song-writer, producer, and musician in the band Lamarche.
Dallen Jimenez (left), Meredith Lamarche (center), Sean Gilmer (right)
How did you get your start?
“I started with piano lessons when I was about 6 years old. I took lessons from a lady named Joyce Garrett, who was really instrumental in my music career. She had directed gospel choirs and played piano. Then I started to take more trained piano classes and play in classical concerts. I was playing by ear mainly. I wasn’t a great note reader. Then by the time I was in high school, I just played in bands from the D.C area. It was the Go-Go scene so I played in Go-Go bands through most of my teenage to young adult life. That was my heart.”
Like Chuck Brown and Trouble Funk?
“Yeah like Chuck Brown, Trouble Funk, Rare Essence, E.U. (Experience Unlimited), and it goes on. There were different stages of that type of music, which I considered what most people knew to be more commercial. We did that for years. Playing in bands like that for parties and different concerts. Then I got in a Top 40’s band and sang Top 40’s music with a big twelve-piece band. I went to college and played music in a smaller band called Three Way that was doing really well. We started producing for people and had a group we produced music for. Then I went back home and decided to get into engineering because I wanted to stick with the music industry. I felt like if I could be an engineer, I would at least be near it and I would always hear music. So I decided to either go to New York, Tennessee, Atlanta, or L.A. I ended up flying from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles to follow the big dream in ’97.”
“I went to school and worked with engineers Doug Kern and Steve Miller. I also worked with John Barnes who was the musical director for Michael Jackson. I got to work in his studio as an intern and learned how to use a lot of equipment. Stuff like drum machines and different keyboards I liked. Then it was like ‘Let’s build a studio!’ and my partner and I built a studio called Plugs Entertainment in North Hollywood. We worked with artists that are fairly well known. There were a lot of facilities around us and artists would record in them for their label. But they wanted to record stuff that wasn’t on their label. They would work on tracks or record with other artists they couldn’t normally work with. It was just a cool spot. This was the place I told you about that got robbed.”
Yeah.
“It was a real sketchy thing. Whoever robbed us didn’t want us to be in North Hollywood, let’s put it that way (laughs). I ended up moving to Palmdale and continued the dream of recording and did some solo work. I’ve recorded probably 100 songs on my own and put out about 10 of them. I also did some music with Raptile who is an artist in Germany. “
When you first started out, you also played worship music with your family, right?
“Yeah. We sang at different religious events. I would play keyboards. My dad plays guitar. Basically it was just piano and singing. Over the years, my dad has evolved into this big musical director for the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. Every year, they have a huge event and I would go. That’s where I met Meredith (the singer of his current project, Lamarche.). We started working on songs and we became real close. We’ve been going to this event every year and it is our ninth year attending. About three years ago or four years ago, she came to California and told me she wanted me to produce her. We were working on something and I played keys, she sang. The first time we met, it worked out. The second time we met, she said, “ I got a show for us”. I said, “What?” She said, “Yeah I booked us on a show”. She wanted to do a whole concert with just her vocal and piano and I suggested doing an acoustic group. We found a guitar player and I played percussion. And that was the origin of the group.”
That’s awesome. Did you attend college for music or did you just end up going that way?
I went to Tuskegee University as an Electrical Engineering major and I changed majors to Business Administration.
Has the business knowledge you’ve gained in college helped you navigate in the music industry?
In a lot of ways, it has. And in a lot of ways, it hasn’t. The music business is different from other businesses. There are basic techniques like marketing and how to manage money that help. But overall, the music business is so different. There’s some shady things, not shady things, and things can just happen on luck. People can get opportunities handed to them because they know people in certain places. Almost everyone I know that’s a star has someone in their family that’s a star. They were all helped by someone because originally, it was really expensive to get things recorded. People could charge anything to do whatever in the music business. You can’t charge anything you want for a cup of horchata. There’s only gonna be one price. But for engineering, you could charge whatever you want. If I could have re-thought what I would have done, I would have take music entertainment or law. But that wasn’t really what I wanted to do; I just wanted to play (laughs).
(Laughs) That’s the good thing about working as a tech is that you can still be near music. Can you talk more about your experience in recording engineering?
Yeah. When I was working at West LA Music (a music store in Hollywood), because I had helped build my friend’s studio, I could refer them there. It was called Platinum Sound and I was working there. as a producer lets say. People would come in and ask, “Do you know where there is a facility we can use an SSL (console) with 2-inch (tape)?” And I’d give them my card and get them over there. We had people like Missy Elliot, Mya, and B2K. We also had a bunch of different engineers that came through. It was amazing to hear all these things first hand. You learn a lot of techniques because everyone does things differently. And what you might work or sometimes it doesn’t depending on what kind of music it is. Even so, some things can cross platforms. Even in rock now, you hear mixes that a hip-hop producer would make because artists want a big bass or snare sound. It’s different from the rock we knew of because things are recorded differently and there are new types of equipment. Something new comes out everyday.
Definitely. It’s funny to hear about how all these things just came into your path and you just took advantage of these opportunities.
All of them were lucky situations. There was an engineering school and my friends in school. All of them graduated and went out and started working. I was still friends with them and they helped me with different things. Then working in West LA Music on Cahuanga, everyone came to that store. Artists would come through because it was kind of hidden and underground.
Anyway, when I told you I was in a group called Three-Way. In that group, we wrote and produced music for people. One of the groups that we wrote songs for, they always got these shows. They were like a Boyz 2 Men type of group. Every time they would show up, they’d show up in a limousine! Everyone would be trying to figure out who they were. We were in Tuskegee, Alabama and they would do that every time they played. Someone from that group told me, “If you act like a star, people will treat you like a star.” So I kind of took that idea when I came to California. I went to the Los Angeles Recording Workshop. It’s now called the Los Angeles Recording School. That’s where I learned how to splice tape and all that good stuff. A lot of those guys in my class were really smart and ended up getting really good gigs. So my friend and I decided to start our own business. We found a guy that did construction, started buying equipment we needed, and took our time. We knew the world was going digital even though everything was analog at that time. So the first console we bought was a Mackie DAB. Then we had the blueprints made up and built the studio ourselves on Camarillo in North Hollywood. That’s how Plugs Entertainment was created. How we got popular was that I took the idea of that group I knew in Tuskegee who acted like stars. We found a guy that had a limousine service. He was my neighbor and had nowhere to store his limos. He had to keep moving them because of street cleaning and he couldn’t park in places on certain days. So we told him he could park them in our garage at our studio. Provided we could use those cars. Then we started advertising big and said if you’re an artist, we’ll pick you up in a limo and drive you to the studio. Our first clients were The Intoxicants from New Orleans and we picked them from the airport in a limo and drove them to the studio. They were so excited, man. We became kind of popular because of that. Anytime we had something big we wanted to do or even just going to the club, we never drove. He was driving us (laughs).
What year was that?
1997-1998. We would just go to these big clubs and mingle with people. We’d give them cards for Platinum Sound or Plugs Entertainment. We just kept going and we met artists but mainly producers. A lot of them were around my age and easy to talk to. Many of them were from Washington D.C so we had a lot in common. We went from studio to studio and helped each other out, sharing sounds and ideas. I did stuff for films I never got recognition for but it was fun. I learned a lot because I got to use equipment I didn’t own.
That’s awesome. When you were going through hard times, is there any advice that has helped you through those times?
That’s a hard question to answer but I can tell you this. I have had times where I thought I had an idea and it worked for a time. But the music industry is changing continuously. You always have to be thinking ahead. A lot of people my age didn’t think of the digital world and they totally got stuck. They only knew how to do one thing. So I would say stay on top of technology. The other thing is to learn how to manage your money. That’s probably the most important thing. The second most important would be understanding contracts. If you’re going to be an artist, you need a lawyer. There were so many things I was supposed to be paid for but I never was because someone got the one up on me. Someone will always get the one up on you. But the main thing is, if you’re going to be in charge of your own stuff, make sure you’re actually in charge of it. Because someone could end up getting 50% of something you did that had nothing to do with the song, which is not nice. Or 100% in my case (laughs).
What I’m talking about was a deal through Universal where I worked with some guys that were apart of LA Confidential. One of my friends was in LA Confidential. I made a song with him and it got placed in the Lawrence Fishburne movie Biker Boyz as credited as LA Confidential had produced the song. But I produced it and I never got paid for it. And that happens. Right after that, there was another opportunity for a Paris Hilton movie called The Hillz and my partner and I knew what to do that time to negotiate the proper deal. You have to know what you are getting into and how to get your dues (laughs).
To find out more info on Lamarche or Sean, go to http://www.facebook.com/LaMarcheBand
In any music scene, there is an unusual cast of characters that become almost permanent fixtures in our lives. Nick Humphrey is one of them. I recently met with Nick – a friend and the main force behind the electronic rock band, Synthecircuit, and scheduled an interview to discuss their upcoming show. I caught up with Nick at Maxdon’s Bar and Grill in Lancaster to talk with him about the history and re-launch of this local staple in the AV’s electronic music scene.
How did Synthecircuit get its start?
It actually started when I was in high school. I was living in Santa Cruz at the time, where there are a lot of “hippie”-types (if you want to call them that) and a lot of really talented underground hip-hop actually. There were also a lot of classic rock and “grunge-ish” bands, but there wasn’t really any focus on electronic rock music. I was so young at the time that I didn’t really had any tools at my disposal to make the music I wanted to hear, but I had just enough to write at home. And I wrote – looking back on it – what was a really crappy demo that had one song (that we’ll still play live) that was actually worth a damn. Anything else was overdramatic, as any teenager would be I guess, and was written from that perspective of being completely self-centered and really honestly ripping off a lot of influences, like most teenagers trying to find out who they are and how they want themselves to be heard.
Really – it never started as a band. I had friends play with me for a few shows and gave it up for a while because of relocating and different things. Then I kind of gave up on music for a while entirely because of being in a few relationships that weren’t really supportive of pursuing anything musically. Then I started listening to certain songs recorded for a second cd that never happened. Once I started listening to those I said to myself, “Wow, these are really bad recordings but there are actually some good songs on here.” About two or three of those ended up on Strange Behavior, which was the last cd we released. Everything else was freshly done with “Bubonic” Nate Dillon. He helped me a lot because he’s about the only person I know who can be in the studio with me and actually steer me in a direction where I can experiment with trying things a different way that I’m not normally used to. 90% of the time, he’s absolutely right about “this is exactly what the song needs to sound like”. The other 10% percent was me being stubborn or me being right, which is left open to opinion.
Can you talk a bit more about recording at No Exit Records and how that came about?
Sure. After not playing music for almost ten years, I started playing in an 80s cover band with a few good friends called 1 Night Affair. I kind of…put a strain on my relationship but it was worth it because I was having so much fun doing what I loved and it made me a better player because of it. I hadn’t played in a long time and I was learning all these different styles from different artists of previously written material. There’s this kind of stigma that artists, either locally or in general, put on musicians who are in cover bands. But it made me a better player so I don’t regret my involvement with that even currently. If I didn’t enjoy the people I was playing with in those cover bands, I wouldn’t have continued playing.
Anyway, we had the idea to make Strange Behavior and I gave myself a deadline because I work better under pressure. Literally within six months, I wrote and recorded the rest of the songs with Nate. He helped out with a lot of the backing parts, aside from the overall sound. I actually had my niece come in, which was a lot of fun too, and some other people that were really instrumental in making it sound the way it did. For the first time, I was really happy with something I’d made musically. A large part of that falls in Nate’s lap, not just mine.
How did this line up come about and what steps are you looking to take in the future for Synthecircuit?
Well, the lineup that originally happened was made of good people, but they weren’t really interested in spending time learning previously recorded material. In all due credit, people like Alex Dougherty from Litaoa and Erik Orrell – who spent a long time in the Feel Good Music Collective (previously Rhyme and Reason) – found it wasn’t to their full potential or their full interest of where they wanted to go money-wise or skill-wise for what they were really interested in doing, which I understood. I was looking for people who were more in line with the holistic sound and perspective of the overall songs and interested in contributing to songwriting in the future. Luckily when we played the CD release show at Fresco’s, that lead to me being in Tramps in Stereo after Jesse Vasquez became an immediate fan along with Brett Custodio (also from Tramps in Stereo).
I was asked shortly afterward to join that band, which I did, and playing with them, I met Dani White who was paying bass. She listened to my music and she was really into the idea of wanting to contribute to where it was going. Through one of our shows, I also met Ben Minton. Ben was also really talented and eccentric and was one of the only people I knew of who could juggle playing synth, guitar, and doing backing vocals when needed. We had a hard time find drummers for a while so I just focused my energy on work and going back to playing in two bands. The 80’s band died off after a while and Tramps in Stereo is more lax because we really only usually rehearse a few number of times before having shows. But Synthecircuit is getting back on it’s feet with what I think is our best lineup so far with Anthony Scaglione on drums. I think it’s really important to get along with everyone you play in a band with, along with everyone having the same perspective of where it needs to go.
That’s awesome. I’ve only seen the band a couple times but I really enjoy the experience of seeing the band live.
Thank you.
There’s aggressiveness to this band that I don’t see in other bands. Do you think that comes from a meld of everyone’s personality or is that your force in the band?
If you think that it’s there.
(Laughs) I know what you’re talking about and I think there is an aggressive force in the band. I do try to battle between feeling like I’m wasting my time on negative energy and emotion versus really getting so pissed that anger becomes positive motivator. With the situation with the Industry Theater (a former local venue) and “The Icarus Trend” video, we kind of spearheaded that into being a thing where we could get everyone involved who’d been frustrated with what was going on at that venue at the time. But at the same time, it was undeniably shameless self-promotion. I’m slapping myself on the wrist now because we were sort of typecast as the “hipster song” band. But ironically enough, a lot of that energy comes from being a Tupac fan and a fan of rap battles, even down to Epic Rap Battles of History on YouTube. (Laughs)
Anger can be a good energy force to draw from, but the main thing is that I always try to focus on the diversity of different source material in terms of overall subject matter. We can go from being angry with someone politically or about someone locally, but some of my favorite stuff I’ve written about comes from love songs or songs about being brokenhearted.
Yeah it never struck me as aggressiveness for no reason but done in an articulate way. Like classic punk or Tupac.
It’s funny; when I’m pissed, I always try to come from the perspective of “playing dozens” so hard, even when it comes to a medium like electronic music, but trying to do it in a poetic and lyrical way where the other person just drops the mic and walks away. If I can get enough across, I’m satisfied. On the flipside, sometimes that negative energy is like a bad fire and just needs a lack of oxygen to die – which is why I’m staying away from the “locally” part – but, with the previous situation with “The Icarus Trend”, when you can look down at people enjoying it and singing the word “hipster” back to you, it’s fun at the same time. Looking back I don’t regret any perspective I’ve written from…except as a teenager. Because I don’t know that guy now and he didn’t either.
(Laughs) Writing in an electronic style, especially as you do, do you feel that electronic music is a more expressive medium than other forms of music?
That’s a good question. I think electronic music by itself would be just as straight-forward of a medium as let’s say “strictly punk music” or “strictly metal music”. Not to say that those aren’t some great people’s cup of tea, but I like having so many elements of different genres that work well together (at least to my ears). Maybe my music isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I totally understand that, but I do like having a large palette to draw from when it comes to writing, sampling, or songwriting. I was mistaken for the longest time in thinking the music scene in the AV was strictly punk and metal because – while a lot of stuff is (and hardcore, post-hardcore, apple core or any genre you want to throw the word “core” at the end of) – in the long run, there are so many great acts out here. I do believe this band will be more successful outside the local scene because the reality is that that’s where it would have to go, but I am also very proud to be a part of it. There are some awesome people out here that work their asses off and some awesome people out here that are really talented that I just wish would work their asses off more because I’m waiting for more material from them.
So I think that when electronic music is mixed with a bit of rock and elements of pop, you get something that sticks in your head. At the end of the day, you want something that makes you feel something like a good movie where you say “ Wow, that really sticks with me.” And I try to do that.
So do you have any info on your upcoming show?
Sure. We’re playing with our good friends, Carved Souls. I’ve played with them in Synthecircuit and Tramps in Stereo before and they’re phenomenally fun guys to play with. I’m also stoked about playing with Plastic Jewels because they have a great sound and reputation among local artists in town. We’re playing at the Vu In Newhall, which I feel is a good starting point. We were originally going to do the starting show at MyLounge in Palmdale but I think this is a good opportunity to play in an environment where we’re more comfortable and we can test out before coming home and we feel even more comfortable presenting newer material. I’m very proud to say everyone in the band has pulled their weight and we’re really ready for this show.
Synthecircuit performs June 6th at the Vu in Newhall, California. If you’d like for info on this show or the band, visit www.facebook.com/synthecircuit.
