interview – chickfactor + enchanté records

Our interview with San Francisco songwriter GLENN DONALDSON (currently of the reds, pinks & purples and vacant gardens, formerly of skygreen leopards and art museums, etc.) is long overdue, as he’s been making great jangly music for decades. Of course everyone is still listening to Uncommon Weather, and Summer at Land’s End comes out today/on Feb. 4 but the U.S. vinyl has been delayed thanks to satan, I mean Adele or something. Collector nerds: If you haven’t already preordered the vinyl LP, do it. There are two vinyl editions: a limited-edition double yellow vinyl record with a bonus album of instrumental songs not on the album, which is only available in the U.S. from Slumberland, and a green single vinyl LP version. UK people: the vinyl is actually out today (Feb. 4) on Tough Love. Interview by Kevin Alvir

chickfactor: What is your life like these days in San Francisco?
Glenn Donaldson: Pretty simple and hermit-like. I work from home, take walks around the neighborhood, record songs. I’m really into making vegan stews from scratch lately. It’s all about having a base of shiitake mushrooms and fermented bean paste. They are pretty good!
cf: This is very chickfactor: What were you like as a teenager?
An insecure dork, but maybe most people were like that. I was hung up on girls and moping around.
cf: also chickfactor: What is driving you mad?
Constantly entering passwords, which is 90% of remote work.
cf: What spurred you into making music?
Punk was alive in Fullerton when I was a youth, and that was the siren song. It felt like a place where a loser like me could be great. In my hometown we had Adolescents, Agent Orange, Social Distortion, etc. These are world-class bands, so it felt like anything was possible.

Photo nicked from the Reds, Pinks & Purples’ Bandcamp page

cf: Did you always see yourself doing music? If it were not music, what else do you think you’d be doing?
I wanted to be an artist of some kind, maybe a poet or a painter or a musician. I wanted to wear striped sweaters and drink espresso in dimly lit cafes.
cf: Do you do anything else outside of music? Gardening, visual arts, etc…
I’m a crude artist as well, mostly collage, some painting and bad stoner drawings…and now photographing my neighborhood I suppose? I have a book of collage art coming out this year on a micro-press.
cf: Your work has a cinematic feel to it. I get a sense you are inspired by movies and books. Are you? Can you elaborate on that?
That’s a nice compliment, thanks. My favorite writer is Denton Welch. He had a way of taking everyday events like a walk through a garden and making it epic. Movies sure… but I feel like I’m more directly influenced by comedy, the idea of really opening yourself up as a performer and dealing with raw and personal stuff.
cf: Anything that you are watching on tv or (shall I say) streaming?
I like that new HBO series Somebody Somewhere. It probably won’t find a huge audience, but I think it’s beautiful. An old favorite is Detectorists. I love small stories.

cf: A great question for our auteurs: Do you prefer to play live or record?
Definitely recording. There’s nothing more satisfying that putting the final touch on a song, painting on some bits of feedback or melody lines. I struggle with even wanting to play live, but it is rewarding and helps you move onto the next bit of inspiration.
cf: Can you tell us what your first song that you wrote was like?
It was definitely a rip-off of a Dischord-type hardcore song. I didn’t play any instruments until much later, so this would be just me imagining hardcore riffs and writing really bad lyrics about “Justice” or something I knew nothing about.
cf: Is there a source of inspiration or influence that people who follow your music may find surprising?
I love Lana Del Rey. She’s my favorite contemporary songwriter. The more cringey she gets, the more I eat it up. “Arcadia” is the best song out right now. I’m a student of classic songwriting, so my list of favorites would be very long (see below), but I’ll mention Leonard Cohen, Kirsty MacColl and Peter Tosh off the top of my head.
cf: Can you describe your worst live music experience? As a performer / audience member.
Someone threw a lit cigarette at me at a festival in Belgium and almost set my shirt on fire. For some reason they stuck my band Skygreen Leopards, an acoustic band, on before BORIS, and the Belgian doom metal fans were enraged. It was totally stupid and insane but very memorable!

cf: I’ve asked you this over social media, but what does Astral Projection feel like? Reds, Pinks & Purples have a song called “I’d Rather Astral Project.” Hence, my audacity to ask this… I think I may have experienced this—I do a ton of meditation… but I would love to hear what other people have to say about it.
Oh, interesting left turn! That song is a bit tongue-in-cheek about having social anxiety basically, but I do wonder about the power of the mind sometimes, powerful stuff, especially if you get into visualization and meditation. I have taken LSD a few times, and you can definitely arrive without traveling.
cf: How do you feel the past two years have changed you? (y’know – the pandemic)
I am more comfortably and colorfully dressed with many clashing patterns. Also, I am into colorful sneakers all of sudden after never wearing them at all. I am suddenly more successful as a musician than I have ever been, and yet I barely leave my neighborhood.
cf: When things get back to workable normal, what do you want to do with yourself / yr music?
I want to tour and play some enormous festivals, really sell out and make big gestures like Bono. Set my shirt on fire with cigarettes and lose my mind permanently while onstage, then crash hard coming back to reality, realizing that it’s all pointless. CF

Records Glenn Cannot Live Without
Unrest, Imperial f.f.r.r.
Long Fin Killie, Houdini
The Magnetic Fields, The House of Tomorrow
Tracey Thorn, A Distant Shore
Cocteau Twins, Blue Bell Knoll
Bad Brains, I Against I
Colin Newman, A to Z
Codeine, Barely Real
The Smiths, Meat is Murder
Reptile House, Listen to the Powersoul
East River Pipe, Shining Hours in a Can
Jones Very, Words & Days
The Jam, Sound Affects
Augustus Pablo, East of the River Nile
Galaxie 500, Today
Die Kreuzen, Century Days
American Music Club, Engine
Hüsker Dü, Warehouse: Songs & Stories
Go-Betweens, Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express
Eyeless in Gaza, Caught in Flux

scrawl!

it is an honor and a privilege to present a long-overdue interview with scrawl. gilmore tamny (the yips, wiglet fame) chatted with sue harshe in november and got the scoop on the trio’s recent reunion and other stuff.

chickfactor: how was ATP? highlights? lowlights?

sue: ATP NYC was a lot of fun. we played very well, we had a nice place to stay, we saw a lot of long-time dear friends. I can’t ask for much more than that. for me, there were two highlights: watching these two young men sing every single word of every single song we were playing. I sought them out after the show because I was so shocked and touched. the other highlight was watching marcy sing “my curse” with the afghan whigs. she looked so beautiful and tiny up there and when she began singing, the whole place erupted. I was bawling like a baby. I can’t really think of any low points. I wished there had been more people there but more for the bands who had to play on the indoor stage during the day. it was a little cavernous. ¶ I’m glad I got to see afterhours, an italian metal band with violin. truly amazing. and I was able to see about half of dirty three’s set, which I liked very much.

cf: I see you played with cobra verde at ace of cups—very exciting! you have more shows coming up? how are you pacing it?

sue: we just played with cobra verde and tim lee 3. we (I don’t think) had ever played with cv before, which is odd, considering they live in cleveland. tim lee 3 is from knoxville and we’ve known tim & his wife susan (who plays kick-ass bass in tim lee 3) for years and years. it is always so much fun to play in columbus and to play at marcy’s bar. the sound is always good, the vibe is great, and most bands (unless they’re prima donnas) leave there pretty happy. ¶ this has been an unusually active year for scrawl. we usually play once every couple of years. this year, we’ll have played 8 shows in 6 months. that’s a veritable world tour for us! being asked to play ATP NYC and also being asked to play ATP UK has been a dream, something we feel proud of because you can’t submit to play; you have to be invited. and the two bands who knew us best (afghan whigs and shellac) did the asking. that makes me happy. so, we leave for england after thanksgiving for a week and then play a new year’s eve show in cincinnati with the afghan whigs, and then it’s goodbye 2012.

cf: columbus has really changed in the last 20 years, including the music scene. could you talk about that at all? interesting happenings? things that are irritating? etc. I think too of ace of cups (which I’ve been enjoying seeing video of shows shirley posts from time to time) and how that’s opened, etc.

sue: marcy is better positioned to talk about the columbus music scene because she sees more of it, owning the bar. I think in some respects the last few years have been very healthy and robust (times new viking did well), but I’m just old enough now that I could slip into that very annoying back-in-the-day sentimentality, so I best keep my mouth shut. same with your question “most irritating” (faux folk revival). oops.

cf: I’ve been prowling around the internet—forgive me if I’ve missed an article etc.—but I’ve (long) wondered what has been your songwriting process with scrawl? how has it changed?

sue: we don’t write much these days, though we have about three or four newer songs, but the process is very much the same: play a riff one thousand times in practice, add and take away, rewrite and rewrite, and then the lyrics are usually added as the last sprinkle on top. we’ve always put a lot of work into songwriting and so, for us, there’s no getting around the sometimes arduous process.

cf: how has playing live changed (presuming it has)?

sue: playing live feels very different for me now. I think it’s just a mindset, but it feels liberating in a completely different way, now that I’m pushing 50. a little more zen, a little less stroppy. regardless of why/what/how, it’s a total blast for me right now.

cf: any chance of a new scrawl record?

sue: we will never say never. I could play music with marcy until I’m 95 and be perfectly happy.

cf: who has been (some of) the most unlikely or unexpected scrawl fan(s)?

sue: hmm. for a while, we attracted very young men to our shows, who would come up to us afterward with tears streaming down their faces. that was always a little disconcerting.

cf: when / why / where you wrote your first song and what was it about?

sue: I can’t even remember. I think it was a hardcore song.

cf: do you come from musical families / upbringing?

sue: my family wanted to be musical but really wasn’t. the best thing my mom did musically was force me to keep taking piano lessons. she said that I would thank her one day. she was absolutely right. she also tap danced and played ukulele as a teenager. I think that’s pretty great.

cf: what are you reading these days?

sue: my husband found half-dozen old classics in the hallway of his office, waiting to be thrown out, so I vowed to read them all this winter. the first one I read was of human bondage by somerset maugham. fantastic! it is so over-the-top. next is tristam shandy by laurence sterne. after that it will be tom jones by henry fielding, and then david copperfield by dickens. If I’m not reading books rescued from the trash, I’ll read the scandinavian crime writers (mankell, larsson, nesbo, alvtegen).

cf: who do you have a crush on and you are welcome to take that in traditional sense or artistic sense or metaphysical sense etc. etc. etc.!

sue: my perennial 25-year crush is on the actor gary oldman. and, after seeing leonard cohen perform a year or so ago, I’ll include him too.

cf: any artists—bands, visual artists, writers, poets, dancers etc—you’re nuts for/intrigued by right now? pourquoi?

sue: there’s a woman from dresden germany called anna matur, who is very intriguing. she’s part performance artist and all musician. I very much like wussy’s record buckeye as well. It’s damn near perfect.

cf: sue, you have a new (fort shame) record coming out? how is that going? are you still scoring films as well?

sue: I haven’t scored any film music lately, but I was invited (along with 11 other composers) to write music for “finding time: columbus public art 2012,” in conjunction with columbus’ bicentennial celebrations this year. that was pretty exciting. and fort shame just released its first CD. it took forever to make but I’m very proud of it.

hear more from scrawl here. photo courtesy of scrawl.

Tag: interview

the reds, pinks & purples (glenn donaldson) interview!

an interview with scrawl!