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Q&A with by Charlie James To many Localist readers the name Jerry Colburn is familiar. He's the man with the white hair and short cropped white beard who has held down the drum stool in the Bloodless Cooties all these years. He has hammered the skins for a handful of other notable bands too, while he and his son, Jeremy, have been general troublemakers here in town since back when Sonic Youth were actual youths. Just so you know, Jerry has played in bands with me for a long time, and our new incarnation, The Behaviourists (with Sarah Gibbs), is almost ready to sully itself in the public forum. He and I have downed many a pint together, and traded insights of both high and low pedigree. I guess that makes me a bit more than a disinterested party to his comings and goings. Aside from Jerry's skills at the traps, Jerry is also a fine visual artist, having helmed many a show, and flaunted his photographs, collages, and paintings onto a mostly unsuspecting art community. As if this wasn't a weighty enough CV, we must add one more talent to the list of Mr. Colburn's accomplishments—that of sound sculptor and loop meister extroardinaire. Jerry's boxes of four track experimental cassette tapes and his war torn Fostex attest to a long carreer as home tape auteur. More recently he began amassing the computer and music equipment necessary to float a viable home studio. Out of this array of hard drives and cables he has managed to cut and paste some extraordinary music. His first CD, last year's Smell The Love (2005, Stripmall Of Sound Productions),was a vast melting pot of hip-hop beats, psychedelic mayhem, sitars, and banjos, all seasoned with a good deal of humor. The ghost of Carl Stalling presided over the sessions. Jerry's talent for deconstruction and rearrangement is evident in all twenty three songs on that sprawling debut. Every slippery note on Smell The Love was arranged, abused and produced inside Jerry's trusty Macintosh G4. Here it is 2006, and Jerry is about to drop another musical bomb. His second CD, On Fire, will soon to be heard booming from sick stereos everywhere (and available at better shops, too). The Localist deemed this a good time to find out what makes Jerry Colburn tick. I cornered the elusive man in my living room and put his substantial feet to the fire. OK, so I lied. We actually parlayed the following Q & A by email Localist: So Jer, did I miss anything in my intro? Anything you'd like to add before we get to the paydirt? JC: Only that I'd like to thank Bill Jagitsch for talking me into buying a Mac and getting me started in Garageband... Localist: Not to backtrack too far, but I know you went to San Fran, Haight Ashbury, in around 1968. Sweet memories for you no doubt, and a world that gave birth in many ways to the good music going down today. What were some of your key influences, musical or otherwise? JC: Well, since the statute of limitations has expired, I guess it's OK to talk about all that...it was probably the most interesting time of my life...living with some friends from Little Rock who had gotten there a bit earlier...it was a non-stop party...lots of drugs and free music in the park (Golden Gate)...local bands like Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead (of course), Country Joe & the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother & the Holding Company (Janis), Dan Hicks, etc. etc., who went on to bigger (but probably not better) times...I was soaking up all the auditory, visual and social influences I could during my time there...also, no one seems to know these people but there was an improv comedy group called the Congress of Wonders that was the best comedy group I've ever seen...and they played free all the time...but probably my fondest musical memories from that period were seeing Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers at the Fillmore and The MC5 at the Straight Theater...curiously Gram was not very well received, probably because his blend of country & rock was too radical even for the SF hippies...and MC5 was even less well received, probably because their music was the antithesis of hippie love rock...but I enjoyed it all...I really love music! Localist: My first impulse is to say, "far out!" Is that wrong of me? So here we are in 2006 with a different war, different drugs, and a different musical landscape, yet here you are making the now sounds. What's your secret? How do you keep it fresh? JC: I've always sought out music that I felt was the most creative, regardless of the players' technical abilities...To me there's no difference between Amon Tobin and the Mummies...They are both on the cutting edge creatively, and that's what I'm always listening for...by continually seeking out the most fertile and seminal music that's happpening at any given time, it can't help but have a positive influence on any music I might make...uuummmm...yeah! Fresh is go! That's my secret...don't tell anyone... Localist: Being a drummer all these years has honed you in pretty good to the beats. A lot of drummers I know are always tapping out a tattoo on the dinner table and such, but you don't go with that. Your cut-ups are always right on the beat, however far the craziness might seem to stray. You put the beats into all the sounds, not just the drums. Like, if one segment ends with a snare hit, the next hits right on the one with a banjo plunk. To me it's a natural fit, and very funky. Any flack on the radar, or just general scratching of heads from the uninitiated? JC: Yeah, coming from a background of being a drummist, I think in terms of rhythm, regardless of the instrument that's playing. It's similar to the way a DJ uses turntables. I watched DJ Swamp recently at Juanita's and suddenly realized that DJ's are essentially drummers...whatever the sound that's coming out of the speakers, they're using that sound to tap out a rhythm, (a very complex rhythm), by spinning records. Drumming for the past 14 years has definitely been a benefit to my computer recording. I'm not a great technical drummer, but I know 4 and 8 and 16 and those numbers seem to be pleasing to the human ear. That's where we typically expect the changes to fall. (Any acoustical theoreticians out there?) And the changes don't have to be carried out with drums...anything can become a rhythm instrument. Lately I've been using a lot of horns to add rhythmic punch. Prez Prado and Xavier Cugat influence. Another rhythm trick I've found is to take loops that were originally recorded at a high BPM and slow them down to around 40 BPM...way too slow...so that the sounds get very "glitchy".....I love me some glitches! My new album, "On Fire", has several songs where that effect is obvious...."Diddy Wah Diddy" is a good example. Using technology the "wrong" way usually works....I think....and I do tap out a tattoo on the dinner table sometimes. Localist: I mentioned Carl Stalling earlier. I don't know how many readers know who he was, but he was the musical director for the Warner Brothers cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Road Runner. His orchestra could stop on a dime, and go from Wagner to jazz to cowboy music and back again, all in just a few seconds. His juxtapositions and fall-offs added drama and great humor to the cartoons (for more on the amazing Stalling, see the two Carl Stalling Project CDs on—what else—Warner Bros. Records). Your music strikes me as full of good humor, without sacrificing the seriousness of the intent. It makes me smile without being tedious. A reflection of the man at the controls? JC: Yeah, the tongue is firmly implanted in the cheek in a lot of my music. Not all...but typically. And while there is a lot of humor in the music, at the same time I am totally Serious about the songs. Curiously, I was unfamiliar with Carl Stalling when I began composing (a couple of years ago). Of course nearly everyone in the world has heard his music for many years in the WB cartoons. But you mentioned him to me and I bought both of his albums. They are excellent! It's a different experience to hear his compositions apart from the cartoons. So the Stalling influence happened subliminally. You mentioned drama and humor in your description of Stallings' music. Those are the two qualities I primarily try to bring out in my little tunes. It's more difficult when there are no lyrics. I do use vocal loops sometimes but no actual lyrics. Another influence, more overt and possibly the strongest, is Spike Jones. He and his City Slickers were mainly active in the 50's and 60's. They wore outlandish outfits and used lots of sound effects and rapid changes in their usually humorous tunes. I think he's an influence on a lot of the more adventurous electronic composers today. And I've always felt I owe a debt to the late Esquivel, the Mexican composer whose original recordings now bring large prices. His arrangements were very precise...kinda like loop music only played live! Current influences would definitely include Amon Tobin and Mouse on Mars. Localist: Good folks to be sure. It's funny how both those artists sounds have changed with the times. Things go so fast these days. All the electronica purists of old are injecting acoustic instrumentation into their sound over the last couple of years. Even the great techno-minimalist, Plastikman (Richie Hawtin) took a stab at singing on a recent release, to dire effect. How does it feel to be coming out with your second CD? Any lessons learned between the first CD and the new one? JC: Well, I've learned a lot about mixing between the first and second CD's. The first CD, "Smell the Love", is very, eh, lightly produced. But I think it sounds pretty good even though I really didn't know what I was doing then. Mixing is important, but at the end of the day it still boils down to the songs ....Are they pleasing to your sweet little ears? The mixes on the 2nd album are much more complex, but I don't think the songs have any more creative juice. Localist: Sometimes the further down a road you go, the more restrictive it becomes. What started out expansively can tend towards the formulaic just by the sheer fact of repetition. The new CD has the tang of a new experiment to it, a leap and a logical step away from Smell The Love. What are your thoughts looking forward? JC: Yeah, the formula.......I don't quite know how to describe it, but I feel I've developed a "formula" at this point in my compositions. People have told me they can recognize one of my tunes before knowing it's mine. (Some interesting descriptions I've gotten are "cold fusion" and "melty mainstream"). Ha! the formula...using loops as your building blocks can easily lead to excessive repetition. Even though I now have over 20,000 loops, it's still tempting to use those really great ones more than once. But the main task for me at this point is to start injecting live instruments and live vocals...That's a very daunting task for me. I think a 3rd CD of all store-bought loops would be pushing my luck. Easy but fraught with dangers! And I can always go back later and release some of the early all loop songs. I have over 400 songs already. I should get out more...Actually I do get out when I play drums (Bloodless Cooties and Behaviourists)....and that's a real thrill! Localist: Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. It seems to me that the new CD is less "rocky," and more experimental than the first one. Some daring sounds going down, as well as some funk (not to mention a modern Classical moment here and there!). It's more "shake your ass" than "tap your toe" at some points, but the Jerry humor is alive and well. It's been a standing issue for the DIY bedroom auteurs that translating computer based music to the live venue takes some transformation, and doesn't always work. I'm not a huge fan of men with laptops sitting on stage tapping their keyboards. Any plans to stage some of this stuff? I don't see you sitting at Whitewater with a laptop. JC: Hmmmmm..sitting at Whitewater with a laptop? Nah. But I have been trying for the past 2 years to come up with a way to play these songs live. My latest "plan" is to learn the art of DJ-ing and take my songs to the people that-a-way. Maybe. Mix in other people's music? It's a large investment so I'm thinking on it awhile......but it's the only plan I've come up with that seems do-able. Localist: Still a one-man show, or do you see bringing other people in? JC: Maybe some Go-Go dancers, that's about it. Localist: That seems like a good note to go out on. Any last thoughts? Speak now or forever hold your piece. Ummmm....last thoughts.....I'd like to send folks to my Myspace page, www.myspace.com/11594814 . I post new songs there every couple of weeks. I would also thank H. K. Stewart for doing excellent layout and design on both of my CD's, and to Jeremy and you for providing artwork for the CD's. There's a Cardboard CD coming one of these days (Charlie, H.K. and me), and an Empty Boat People CD (my early 4 track project) as well. But most of all, I'd like to thank God...for putting this Devil music in me and squeezing it out! Gracias!
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