|
||
Interview from September, 2000
For many musicians, sound can be very intimidating. No matter
how great a batch of songs is, finding the perfect frequency,
timbre, and volume to express yourself can be downright
terrifying, and can turn an otherwise excellent song into
an awkward mess.
When I first heard David Grubbs' work with Gastr del Sol, I
was amazed by the fluidity with which he and bandmate Jim
O'Rourke employed sound. Every sonic nuance seemed to be
expressed perfectly through instrumentation and production--
a level of sonic mastery very few artists can lay claim to.
A few weeks after grabbing a few words with him after a
remarkably well-played acoustic show at the Knitting Factory,
I met up with David Grubbs at Ozzie's Coffee in Brooklyn, one
of the few good coffee houses that have survived the
Starbucks-ization of New York. Within seconds of my arrival,
I see Grubbs approaching on a bicycle. As he dismounts, he
explains to me that this is the first time in a great while
that he hasn't had a car. He grins, "I feel like a hippie."
We grab a table inside Ozzie's, get some grub, and begin the
interview. Right off the bat, I feel that I have to get some
geeky guitar talk out of the way. I ask him if he's been to
Carmine Street Guitars, my personal favorite guitar hangout
in the city. "I think I'm always just afraid to go to guitar
stores in Manhattan. I just assume that they're so expensive.
I've never looked for an instrument in New York because I
travel... we're in Ottawa and somebody will say, 'There's a
really cheap guitar store.'"
Descending into the murky depths of geeky guitar talk, I ask
Grubbs about the Martin Sigma guitar he was playing at the
show. "I always think that there's great variance between
individual guitar makers. If you're going to buy a new guitar,
you try every one that they have on hand. That guitar is,
believe it or not, the first steel-string acoustic I've ever
owned. I bought it seven or eight years ago, and it's survived
three guitar cases that have been destroyed in travel. And
I've been sitting in an airplane and I've seen it... thrown."
"I'm kind of scared to buy a much nicer, much more expensive
acoustic traveling instrument," he explains. "I know Jim
O'Rourke had a really beautiful handmade acoustic someone in
San Francisco built. One day, he just opened the guitar case
after he'd been flying and he'd been forced to check it which--
I mean, despite good intentions, frequently you really are
forced to check it-- he just opened it and the face-- pop!--
just smashed in. I should perhaps consider buying a really
nice guitar for recording purposes, because frequently, what
you're hearing a lot is the sound of the pickup."
Segueing into studio production, I ask about Nicholas Vehrnes,
the man responsible not only for the crystal-clear production
on The Spectrum Between, but the full-on sonic assault
of fellow Brooklyn residents Les Savy Fav's last two records.
"He was great. Absolutely great. Extremely personable, funny,
philosophical. He'd kind of take everything as a hypothetical
question. One of the reasons I enjoyed working with him is
that he would be interested in what's going on in the music.
His perspective, I thought, was really interesting. I would
definitely work with him again."
"It's the rare, unfortunate situation when I find myself
working with an engineer who really just doesn't get it,
doesn't show a particular interest in it, makes aesthetic
suggestions that are just, like, completely off the mark.
There are lot of pressures in a recording situation,
budget-wise. You know, the clock is always ticking. You
always wish that you had an endless amount of time. So you
can get into some really bizarre situations with an
engineer who's just providing his or her very strange
perspective on the situation."
Vehrnes isn't the only recent collaborator that's helped
David Grubbs explore new sonic territory. On Apertura,
a record released on Grubbs' own Blue Chopsticks label,
insanely cool Swedish reedist Mats Gustafsson lends his
immeasurable talent to Grubbs' harmonium, resulting in
one of the most engaging improvised jazz pieces to come
out in years. "Mats plays in Chicago a lot-- actually,
he plays in Chicago more than he plays in Stockholm. It
was mainly through his connection with John Corbett-- who
works at the Empty Bottle and has a completely fantastic
new label called the Unheard Music Series, which is
primarily unreleased improvisation and free jazz recording--
that I met Mats."
"I don't know... it depends on who it is, but [jazz
musicians] can be intimidating. As much as you wish that
there weren't barriers between players and styles of music,
sometimes it really feels like, 'Whoa! Mats Gustafsson...
this guy must have played for like 10 hours today.' He is
of such formidable, profound technical finesse. I was
really surprised to see him at a Gastr del Sol show in
Chicago. And it was this completely crazy show where there
was this complete Squirrel Bait fan who had found out that
Gastr del Sol was playing, and showed up and got incredibly
smashed, and was throwing beer at us. Really, completely
bizarre. And then afterwards, Mats was like, 'That was one
of the greatest shows I've ever seen!'
Aperture, as it turns out, came together when David
Grubbs invited him to play on The Thicket. Gustafsson
never appeared on the album, but while they were in the
studio together, they recorded two improvisations that later
became Aperture. "I had brought the harmonium with
me and we simply recorded two improvisations, which is really
rare for me because I'm a fan of improvised music, but, in
general, not a from-scratch improviser. It's a record that
I really love unabashedly. And I love Mats' playing on it--
it's just really at the peak of his playing. The first 25
minutes of the record he's circular breathing, but he's
doing so very quietly. I think his playing is really stunning.
It has a consistency of scale that seems unlike an improviser."
Gustafsson also contributed to The Spectrum Between,
lending a blistering solo to the record's standout, "Gloriette."
Says Grubbs, "He basically played to a click track and an
acoustic guitar. I mean, the crazier thing with that was Mats
is playing that scorching solo literally just with an acoustic
guitar. He'd played at Tonic, and once again, I said, 'I'm
working on a record, if you want to stop by.'
"It's just a light acoustic guitar track, and he's like, 'Oh,
maybe I could play something light on the fluteophone.' And
I was like, 'No, no, I want you to play tenor and I want you
to imagine it's a full band and John [McEntire] is playing
drums.' It was really kind of an absurd fiction of him playing
along with it. But then, what he played was actually decisive
in terms of working out the arrangement. It was put together
backwards. John's tape was slowed down and he had to try to
make some not-too-subtle moves."
As I finish my coffee, I ask David Grubbs more about The
Spectrum Between. Nonchalantly, I say something to the
effect of "The Spectrum Between seems more song-based--
less epic-- than The Thicket." David pauses. "How so?
I'm interested to hear what other people think of the
difference between records." I stumble for an answer, and
wind up blurting out something about more traditional song
structure, verse-chorus-verse, and simpler arrangements.
Before I can embarrass myself further, David chimes in. "I
start four or five things at once and then, a couple of months
later, I more or less finish four or five things at once. And
there are parts which are kind of up for grabs, like, 'Which
song is going to have the honor of getting this great part?'
So, I would say differences between records have less to do
with an idea of what would be the best approach for the
individual than how the batch turns out."
David Grubbs forgets how long The Spectrum Between is.
"34 minutes? 35 minutes? [laughs] It seemed like a
tremendous amount of material when I was working on it. I mean,
I was also working on a track that became an installation for
the Pompadou Center, and a couple of things for compilations.
It seems like a record that can easily be digested in one
sitting, and that appeals to me." So, does that mean that
The Spectrum Between is a more accessible record?
David pauses quizzically. "I don't know, that's such a fraught
term."
Accompanying Grubbs' more down-to-earth sound is a new, more
down-to-earth image. Somewhere between the leather-clad,
"pensive" Grubbs on the back of The Thicket to the
laid-back guy I saw play an acoustic set at the Knitting
Factory, there must have come a dramatic change. I stab at a
tactful way to inquire about this, without using the word
"older." Thankfully, David seems to see what I'm getting at.
"You mean I look less like a grad student? [laughs]
Well, I am less of a grad student! I guess, technically, I'm
still a graduate student. I'm in a Ph.D. program in the
English department of the University of Chicago. And for a
couple of years, I taught a class at the U of C-- I taught
at the school of the Art Institute. Things have changed
professionally in that I am no longer so plugged into
academia. I'm a professional musician for the first time in
my life, and I also do a lot of freelance writing. I'm a
music critic for the Munich newspaper."
A music critic and a musician? Seems like an odd pairing,
considering that many musicians consider critics the scum
of the Earth. "Well, it's published in a different language,"
he laughs. Is it odd, then, for him to be in the position
of reviewer while being reviewed by others? "People who have
made dozens if not hundreds of records still have trouble
with even mixed reviews. That's a really interesting subject.
I got two nasty reviews of The Spectrum Between from
weeklies in Chicago. I'm not sure if it ever gets easier to
read stuff like that. Certainly, after reading reviews for
The Spectrum Between, it makes me really not want to
hammer somebody in print-- just be a little more thoughtful
of the sensitivities of the person I'm writing about. In
English, I tend to write art pieces more-- I just finished a
long piece on audio art. I don't know if this is something
I'm moving to more seriously, or [if it's just] a way of
paying the rent."
Despite being evicted from his previous residency in Brooklyn
due to a sudden changeover from rental to co-op, Grubbs has
found that being a full-time musician has its advantages. "On
one level, I feel less pressure because the activity of
working on music is something that I have so much more time
for doing now. So it's not like trying to cram in all of
these preparations for a show or a tour or a record while I'm
trying to write a dissertation or prepare to teach a class. I
have a lot more time to work. There is a certain... economic
terror to doing it. [laughs] Particularly in New York.
But I'm getting by, and so, it's working. I'll be frank: it's
a little scary. I don't know what else to do. I'm so obviously
drawn to what I like to do that I feel fortunate that I can
make a living at it."
For somebody as impossibly prolific as David Grubbs, could
this mean an even greater increase in recorded material? "I've
been doing a lot of work on a computer at home using Pro Tools.
The sound source that I use is a Moog analog synthesizer that
I've had forever. And yet, I don't find myself processing the
source material-- it's all in the editing and the mixing and
combining, which is very similar to the effects-less approach
I use to playing the guitar."
Against my better judgment, I decide that there's one cornball,
James Lipton-esque question I just can't help but ask. Ranging
from the post-punk angst of Squirrel Bait and Bastro, to the
intricate dynamics of Gastr del Sol, to the laid-back acoustic
strum of The Spectrum Between, Grubbs has spread his
unique style across many genres. I ask him, unabashedly, "What
album do you want to be your legacy?"
He pauses. "I haven't made it yet."
|
||