Connie Lovatt, Coconut Mirror

Thanks to everyone who has given press coverage to Connie Lovatt’s Coconut Mirror. You can listen to the album on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and other digital platforms. The limited edition compact disc is also available at My Vinyl Underground in Portland, OR; Monorail Music in Glasgow, Scotland; and Main Street Beat in Nyack, NY. More shops coming soon (please contact me if you’d like to sell it!) Thanks to Daniel Gill/Force Field for PR.

From Uncut magazine, Dec. 2023 issue, writer Jon Dale:

From All Music.com:

From God Is In the TV:

From the great Rebecca!

Read the full interview on Fifteen Questions:

Thanks to Uncut again for recognizing Connie:

From Rosy Overdrive:

For the Rabbits debuted the second single, “Kid,” which features Bill Callahan:

Thanks to Bill and Brooklyn Vegan for always getting it! 

From A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed:

Thanks to BV again for choosing “Gull” as one of the top songs of August.

An interview with Connie Lovatt about Coconut Mirror

While we also interviewed Connie Lovatt in our 2022 issue of chickfactor (19), we interviewed her again just about Coconut Mirror, out Sept. 27 on our label, Enchanté Records (based in the U.S., not the one in Paris, France). Also read about the dream team who plays on it. Interview: Gail O’Hara

Connie Lovatt in Carrboro, NC, 2023. Photo: Gail O’Hara

chickfactor: When did you start making Coconut Mirror? Talk us through the timeline. 
Connie Lovatt: When [my daughter] Hartley was around 1, we needed to get help with childcare. We didn’t have family in Los Angeles and both our moms had been so generous with their time, traveling out to care for Harts as we adjusted into being parents. But as she got older, I needed to get some structured help so I could take a break during the day. Her name was Diana, and she was incredible. Later Lucy [LaForge] took over and was amazing with Harts, too. During my breaks I discovered I didn’t even like to go anywhere in LA. I started to hang out in my garage and read and work on songs. I didn’t play guitar because the sound would tip off Harts that I was somewhere in the house, so I didn’t do anything with an instrument. I started making up melodies with some phrases. After a few months doing that off and on, I had 11 solid song ideas.

That was 10 years ago.
So this was 2013. You can get into something for a little bit and then your kid gets sick and takes you out of it, or something happens, and I would put it away for a very long time. And years would go by, where like off on, off on, I gathered up melodies for each song. And then maybe three or four years ago (2019-2020), it was time to put chords to the melodies and see if the songs were indeed real. That’s kind of hard to do when you start with a vocal melody, to find the right chords and the flow. It was hard for me I mean, learning how to put chords to melodies that already existed because I’m not a great guitar player. And once I got that done, it took a couple years to figure out the directions of stuff. It was the first time I wanted every song to hold a sense of clear narration. I kept working on words all the time, and then when the pandemic hit, at some point, I would send lyrics to Bill [Callahan] and I’d say, “How’s this looking?” One day he gave the thumbs up, and I was galvanized!

Seven months after the pandemic started, we went to New Zealand. Ravi [my husband] got me this little digital four-track and I took it with me. We were there for six months, but two months before we were set to leave, I got it in my head that I had to get these down. I’d been sick for months with odd symptoms with what was eventually diagnosed as long COVID. We’d moved halfway across the world, and I wanted something to show for all this lost time. And it was time for me to face reality, to see how they sounded recorded. We were living in this pretty wood house right on the ocean. The weather in Wellington is extremely moody and beautiful. Almost every walk was challenging and wonderful. Every moment sheltered in the house was good. So, I started doing it, closing my bedroom door, and putting down the guitars and vocals. After months of being sick without any answers, it was incredible for me to hold in my hands something I’d made. It seemed impossible. 

The cover features a drawing by Connie’s sister Jennifer Lovatt

When we got back to Los Angeles, I found an engineer. He was a dad friend from our school. I’ve known him from the dozens of school events we went to with our daughters, and he was always helping with sound, at recitals or school plays etc. He’d been an engineer on tons of records from Veruca Salt to Barbara Streisand. His name is Joe Wohlmuth. So, I brought him all my files and I told him I wanted to work off these. I told him something magical happened in New Zealand and that my hands and vocals aren’t the best because of all these neuropathy issues but I want to build on what we have here. Then it took a little while longer to get other players. I was lucky enough to have beautiful Jim White secured but needed to wait for a break in his on-the-go schedule. Once we added Jim’s drums, I was able to send it to killers like James (McNew) and Rebecca (Cole) and Che (Chen) and slowly start building up everyone else’s tracks. Another person that helped me to build up confidence in these songs was Phoebe Gittins. She’s amazing and has an equally amazing mom, Philippa. Philippa was instrumental in helping us find the house we stayed in while in New Zealand, and she lived a couple houses down the road. She was the bestest next-door neighbor anyone could ask for. Her husband, Seth, had an acoustic guitar he generously lent to me while there. It sounds great and is mostly what I play on the record. When I met Phoebe, I learned she was a self-taught piano player. There was this piano in the house we were staying in and I had a couple songs down and I asked her to come by and put on headphones and play along to it and she sounded so beautiful. I kept those tracks, and they are on the album. She did so beautifully on those songs that when I eventually got back to LA, I sent her a couple more songs to work on. My friend Max Tepper lived close to us in Los Angeles, and I asked him to do some synthesizer stuff and he kindly wrote and handed over all sorts of cool sounds to work with. All the instruments, except for Lucy’s harmonica, were sent remotely. Joe and I would sit down and comp them in as they arrived and place them where we wanted, do little edits, and move things here or there to perfect the things we wanted. Then I re-sang everything except for some backing vocals that I kept from the New Zealand recordings. We rerecorded 3 guitar tracks, too.

You recorded this album next to the ocean. It’s hilarious that you went to New Zealand and made a Laurel Canyon record even though you were living in L.A. 
I didn’t know how it would all come together till New Zealand. Everyone that I’ve loved is in this record. Everyone that matters, women, men, they’re all in there somewhere. I wanted to show Hartley that after giving birth, that I could still make something. I wanted to make a record with acoustic guitar where I’m telling my daughter all the stories that mattered to me. My first few years in California, I listened to a lot of Neil Young and Judee Sill and some Stevie Nicks demos and Sandy Denny. I wanted their voices in my head as I got to know California. All the songs I had written with Fontaine [Toups] and Ed [Baluyut] (in Containe and the Pacific Ocean) were written so fast. They were immediate. I knew I was going to spend a lot of time on this. That I wanted to be certain of every word and note and it wasn’t rushed during the fun of hanging out with friends and trying to learn how to play or how to be in a band. I worked way, way faster then. Everything I did with people that was collaborative, the pace of that was not nearly as careful as I was now attempting. I’d never spent this much time writing one song, much less 11.

So, the recordings you made in New Zealand are these songs and you built on top of them, basically subtracting and adding after you got back. 
Yes. Almost all the acoustic guitar, lots of the backing vocals and a few of Phoebe’s piano tracks, all came from the work done on that little 4-track in New Zealand. 

Who else plays on the record? 
Lucy, who helped us take care of Hartley in the beginning, she writes and performs and is a strong singer. She plays all sorts of instruments. She’s one of those people that can play a million things. So, she came in and did harmonica and some backing vocals on “Sisters.” James Baluyut plays pedal steel on “Sisters.” And I think that’s everybody. Yeah. Phoebe, James [McNew], Jim [White], the other James [Baluyut], Lucy, Max, Rebecca [Cole], and Che [Chen]. And Hartley’s screams of joy as she played video games with friends a world away are heard in the background on a couple songs.

Bill Callahan produced one of your previous albums (The Pacific Ocean’s So Beautiful and Cheap and Warm). You’ve known each other since then, right (2002)?
Yeah. And then I played bass on his album A River Ain’t Too Much To Love.

Would you say that Bill was a consultant?
He was a loyal champion. He would check in and ask how the songs were going. Just by being interested, he gave me strength. He knows what I’m trying to do or trying not to do. No matter if I’m successful in my attempts or not, he’s kind and honest so the courage to work on remains no matter the feedback. I’m lucky to have him there telling me, “This is working. This could be better.” Everyone should have Bill as a friend. The end of “Kid” is now perfect due to him.

What else informed the record and its process?
Motherhood. Wifehood. My life changed course. I hadn’t touched an instrument for a couple years. When I started working on the melodies that would eventuality became the songs, I felt excited. I had so many happy moments playing in bands. I got curious if I could be happy trying this on my own. If the joys would still be there with just me in the room. I got really into it when I solved problems or things sort of elevated. I couldn’t quit caring about it. I wanted to finish this letter to my daughter, which is what it was becoming the more it came into view. You can’t give up on a letter to your kid! Sometimes I wish it hadn’t taken so long, that all those stops and starts and long gaps between stabs at the work hadn’t happened. But I was a different person in ways, compared to when I started, when I finally recorded it all. I’d became a bit of a perfectionist in that I no longer regarded impatience as a valid motivator to wrap it up. It had its own timeframe in my life and I was along for the ride. I finished when I finished and it felt good. 



Learn more about Connie’s previous bands here:
Containe Oral History
The Pacific Ocean Oral History

Listen to Coconut Mirror and other releases here. The album will be out Sept. 27 on select digital platforms and CD (via Bandcamp). 

Dream team: the musicians who play on Coconut Mirror

The New York singer-songwriter Connie Lovatt talks about all the amazing musicians who play on her new solo album, Coconut Mirror (out on our label Enchanté U.S. Sept. 27 on Bandcamp, CD and select streaming services). Workspace images courtesy of the artists.

Connie Lovatt’s workspace

Connie Lovatt, Coconut Mirror (Enchanté US, out Sept. 2023)
Songs written by Connie Lovatt / Produced by Connie Lovatt

Connie Lovatt: vocals, acoustic guitar, tambourine
James McNew: bass
Jim White: drums
Rebecca Cole: keyboards on Basin, Broke, Sisters, Snow
Che Chen: lead guitar on Sleep, Snow, Lines
Phoebe Gittins: piano on Broke, Gull, Heart, Honest, Kid, Snow, Zodiac
Lucy LaForge: backing vocals, harmonica on Sisters
Max Tepper: synthesizer on Heart, Honest, Snow, Sleep, Zodiac
Bill Callahan: vocals on Kid
James Baluyut: pedal steel on Sisters
Hartley Nandan: screaming on Sleep

Recorded by the artists and Joe Wohlmuth
Engineered and mixed by Joe Wohlmuth 
Mastered by Jeff Lipton and Maria Rice at Peerless Mastering, Boston, MA

Jim White’s work area

Jim White: A brilliant friend that gave the album the topography of dreams. I’ve listened repeatedly to him playing on some of my favorite songs over the years and can barely believe he’s playing on mine. What kind of magic is this?

James McNew recording his bass parts; drawing by James

James McNew: If you could walk up to a music library and ask it “can you play bass on my songs?” and then the music library sits up cozy next to you and says “watch this” and solves all your problems.

Rebecca Cole’s recording room

Rebecca Cole: I asked her to play on some songs when she was practically 48 hours from leaving on tour with Pavement. Her suitcase was probably 1/2 packed on her bed. I got a very sweet “I’ll try” kind of answer. What she sent back sounded so good you would have thought I gave her a year’s time.

Where Che Chen makes his magic

Che Chen: I think the most interaction I’ve had with Che is sharing a smile as we walk past each other at a club or a hallway in a rehearsal space. But I knew his guitar playing very well. To me he is psychedelic in that he’s both the mindset and the setting. I felt brave asking him to play. He was kind and overdelivered and I love it all.

Phoebe Gittins’ piano and her assistant

Phoebe Gittins: I was at the end of my tattered thready rope when I started recording and man, I just didn’t know. Asking Phoebe to come by and play on a song to just see if it could be even something another musician could hold on to was one of my better moves. She is so melodic and musical that I’m telling everyone I know you need to lay roses at her feet and ask her to play on your songs. She’s the sweetest.

Where Max thinks of his outer space sounds

Max Tepper: Max is a family friend and our daughters have known each other from months old. He plays guitar and is road-tested and knows all the bands and all the stories. I knew keyboards and synths were a part of things in his world. I don’t know exactly when or why I heard synths on certain songs, but I was so lucky Max understood what I meant when I asked. He sprinkled the heavy sparkles!

Where Lucy LaForge works

Lucy LaForge: For my young daughter she was magical like Mary Poppins, except the umbrella was a guitar and the chimney sweep was a stuffed cow. For me, on this record, she was a rock who tried everything from tap dancing on the studio floor to harmonica, to trying all the harmonies on “Sisters” to autoharp. She has a bag of tricks no matter where she goes. 

James Baluyut’s music room

James Baluyut: A very patient man who helped me send off some final backing vocal ideas as he simultaneously figured out some flawless pedal steel for “Sisters.” He’s a positive force to be around when making music. Nimble and always pushing things forward. I took up his time but I brought him enormous chocolate chip cookies.

Bill Callahan’s workspace

Bill Callahan: He’s one of my favorite songwriters of all time. I got to sing on a couple of his songs a while back. It took a few years for me to write a song good enough for him to sing on. He won’t be losing any sleep about my latest theory, but I do think I’ve shortened his 8 furlong lead by an inch.

Where Joe Wohlmuth and Connie worked on Coconut Mirror

Joe Wohlmuth: All contributors, except in-town Lucy, recorded their own work and everyone did an excellent job. This method, no matter how carefully done, created many sonic scenarios that were out of Joe’s control. Background noises, mic issues, consistency, tempo, etc., etc., had to be addressed and blended together to Coconut Mirror’s starry-eyed standards. Joe has an ear that no note can slide past unaccounted for and he helped guide these songs through every step with an attentive ease.

Learn more about Connie’s previous bands here:
Containe Oral History
The Pacific Ocean Oral History

Listen to Coconut Mirror and other releases here. The album will be out Sept. 27 on select digital platforms and CD (via Bandcamp). 

New Connie Lovatt album Coconut Mirror out in September

The cover features a drawing by Connie’s sister Jennifer Lovatt

In September 1993, Connie Lovatt and Fontaine Toups played together at a chickfactor party at Acme in NYC under the name Containe. When I heard them play, I immediately offered to put out a 7-inch single and our label Enchanté was born (not to be confused with an electronic label in Paris). That pivotal moment resulted in close friendships, two Containe albums, three The Pacific Ocean releases and a partnership that continues to this day.

Now, 30 years later, we are so proud to announce the release of Connie’s first solo project, Coconut Mirror. She wrote all the songs and brought together an amazing group of contributors, and it will be released Sept. 27, 2023. Lovatt grew up in St. Thomas and has lived in New York and Los Angeles. She previously made music with Containe, the Pacific Ocean, Alkaline, and Smog.

Connie Lovatt in Carrboro, NC, 2023; photo: Gail O’Hara

Coconut Mirror is a family record and a love letter/life guide to her daughter—full of carefully constructed songs about drownings, cockfights, the ocean, happiness, drug dealers, poverty, heartache and love—written over the past decade or more in Silver Lake/Los Feliz and Wellington. Because of time and space and COVID, the musicians who play on the album recorded their own parts and sent them in to Connie, who worked with Joe Wohlmuth on crafting her solo singer-songwriter debut into a beautiful whole with some of the music world’s most sparkling gems playing on it.

“Everyone that I’ve loved is in this record. Everyone that matters—women, men, they’re all in there somewhere … I wanted to show my daughter that I could still make something after giving birth. I wanted to make a record with acoustic guitar where I’m telling my daughter all the stories that mattered to me.” — Connie Lovatt


Connie Lovatt

Coconut Mirror 
(chickfactor’s Enchanté Records 007; US)
CD and digital out September 27, 2023

Track listing:
Gull 
Kid
Heart 
Basin 
Snow
Lines
Broke
Honest
Sisters 
Sleep 
Zodiac

inside of the Coconut Mirror CD book

All songs written by Connie Lovatt (BMI) copyright 2023

Connie Lovatt (acoustic guitar, vocals, backing vocals, tambourine) 
James McNew (bass) 
Jim White (drums) 
Phoebe Gittins (piano on “Broke,” “Gull,” “Heart,” “Honest,” “Kid,” “Snow,” “Zodiac”) 
Max Tepper (synthesizer on “Heart,” “Honest,” “Snow,” “Sleep,” “Zodiac”) 
Rebecca Cole (keyboards on “Basin,” “Broke,” “Sisters,” “Snow”) 
Che Chen (lead guitar on “Sleep,” “Snow,” “Lines”) 
Lucy LaForge (backing vocals, harmonica on “Sisters”) 
Bill Callahan (vocals on “Kid”) 
James Baluyut (pedal steel on “Sisters”) 
Hartley Nandan (screaming on “Sleep”) 

Produced by Connie Lovatt
Recorded by the artists and Joe Wohlmuth
Engineered and mixed by Joe Wohlmuth 
Mastered by Jeff Lipton and Maria Rice at Peerless Mastering, Boston, MA 

Connie in NYC, 2022. Photo: Gail O’Hara

Cover drawing by Jennifer Lovatt
Special effects by Adam Woodward 
Layout artist Jennifer Sbragia

Learn more about Connie’s previous bands here:
Containe Oral History
The Pacific Ocean Oral History

Listen to Coconut Mirror and other releases here. The album will be out Sept. 27 on select digital platforms and CD (via Bandcamp). 

Connie in Carrboro, NC, 2023. Photo: Gail O’Hara

Looking back at CF30 night one, Oct. 6, the Frying Pan, Manhattan

Photo: Gail O’Hara
our amazing venue! Photo: Dean Keim

When I arrived in NYC in early October, the remnants of Hurricane Ian were still turning the city into a nasty soupy mess. I visited Eric Fischer at the Frying Pan pier complex a few days before our event there, and the wind and waves were violently shooting up through the dock. But on Oct. 6, the weather and party gods shined on us and gave us a completely perfect NY evening. Luckily Eric, who pretty much built much of the pier complex and has been involved with running and maintaining the ships for decades, is the hardest working person in showbiz and pushed me to try to hammer out every detail before the event. We had special gold wristbands, a fancy ‘chickfactor’ cocktail ready as a special for the event, and even a special vegan menu. Eric’s wife, Christina, procured our giant inflatable CF30 letters. Josh “Other Music” Madell helped me wrangle my least favorite part of setting up shows: PA and backline. Our sound person Mike Yesenosky usually works with the Magnetic Fields, so we were very lucky to have him tonight!

Girl Scout Handbook / Photo: Dean Keim

When Beatrix Madell, the 14-year-old who formed a band called Girl Scout Handbook for our CF30 NY party on the Frying Pan, asked her mom (longtime CF contributor Dawn Sutter Madell) what makes a song a chickfactor song, Dawn told her it would have to be a song “Gail likes.” But it’s clear that, between the folks who contribute to, read, support, and sell the zine and the folks who play at and attend our events, there is a community of like-minded folks out there that like similar tunes! 

we love NY! fireworks went off as the first band went on. Photo: Dean Keim

Girl Scout Handbook, a group of 12- to 14-year-olds from Brooklyn, took the stage right as fireworks were going off out in the Hudson River. Helicopters were swooping into the pier next to ours as well. GSH’s set was made up of covers chosen specifically for the event: The Zombies, Heavenly, the Spinanes, Lois, B&S and it was amazing! So great! They only practiced four times and already got written up in the New Yorker! Watching their proud parents watch them was so heart-warming. What a way to start the show! 

image from @girlscouthandbook insta

Next up was DUMP, Brooklyn’s James McNew, who slayed the crowd with his solo set of classics from his repertoire and ace covers. The Jim Ruiz Set, as they often do, came all the way from the Twin Cities to make us swoon to their easy listening pop gems. And the Aluminum Group also flew in from Detroit and Chicago to show the world why it needs to listen to their fab new album. DJs Gaylord Fields and Stephin Merritt helped us keep things humming in between. Artist Kevin Alvir was offering quick portraits on demand, and the Aluminum Group brought a boutique’s worth of fun merch and handmade garlands. It was such a great night full of all kinds of people from different generations enjoying the venue, the music and each other’s company. Thanks to everyone who played, came to the event, and helped out (especially Eric and Christina, Josh and Dawn, and Y-Mike!)

Trixie, Ella, Nora & Claude from Girl Scout Handbook’s very first show ever! Photo: Dean Keim
Rose from Girl Scout Handbook Photo: Dean Keim
Girl Scout Handbook / Photo: Dean Keim
Girl Scout Handbook drummer Ella / Photo: Dean Keim
photo: Gail O’Hara
Girl Scout Handbook / Photo: Dean Keim
DJ Gaylord Fields / Photo: Liz Clayton
Dump / Photo: Mike Yesenosky
from @marcrisney’s insta
Dump! Photo: Dean Keim
Emily Ruiz at soundcheck / Photo: Gail O’Hara
Jim Ruiz Set soundchecking / Photo: Gail O’Hara
Jim Ruiz Set / Photo: Mike Yesenosky
Emily Ruiz / Photo: Dean Keim
Jim Ruiz Set / Photo: Dean Keim
Gail tests out the ‘chickfactor’ cocktail pre-show
The Aluminum Group’s Frank and John Navin! Photo: Gail O’Hara
The Aluminum Group! Photo: Dean Keim
Fireworks on the Hudson / Photo: Dean Keim
DJ Stephin Merritt / Photo: Dean Keim
Photo: Dean Keim
Poster by Tae Won Yu
Art by Tae Won Yu

CF30 New York: Oct. 6 and 8

chickfactor fanzine was founded 30 years ago by Pam Berry & Gail O’Hara (in DC/NY) and we are celebrating by having some parties in New York! We are so excited to have a friend-reunion and see all these rad bands play!

October 6 at the Frying Pan
The Aluminum Group 
Jim Ruiz Set
Dump
Girl Scout Handbook
+ DJs Stephin Merritt & Gaylord Fields

Vegan options in the restaurant, nautical photo ops and portraits and other fun stuff!
Get tickets

October 8 at Union Pool 
Seablite
Artsick
Jeanines
Gary Olson 

Get tickets

Thurs. Oct. 6:

The Aluminum Group / art: Tae Won Yu

The Aluminum Group
are the brothers John and Frank Navin of Chicago and Detroit, who recently released a wonderful new album. John says of this event: “Our performance is very audience interactive. We start with a brief demonstration and teach attendees how to make paper laurel necklaces, then we sing 5 new songs. Show a new short film by Frankie. Then sing sing 5 more songs from the new record, then encore with a new unreleased song from our next record, called ‘Punch The Lights Out Of This Crazy World.’”

Jim Ruiz Set

Jim Ruiz Set
Led by the Legendary Jim Ruiz (guitar, vocals), the set also features Emily Ruiz (drums, vocals), Mike Crabtree (lead guitar) and Charlotte Crabtree (bass, vocals). The Twin Cities outfit has been playing CF events since the olden days and never ever disappoints.  

art: Tae Won Yu

Dump
Brooklyn’s James McNew is the force of nature behind Dump, which was interviewed in Chickfactor 8 back in 1994. Some of you may have heard of his other band, Condo Fucks. We are pretty sure that he will be playing solo tonight and that this is the only Dump show happening anywhere in 2022.

Girl Scout Handbook / art: Tae Won Yu

Girl Scout Handbook
Girl Scout Handbook was formed by Brooklyn high school student Beatrix Madell, an avid musician and music fan. The band is technically 5 people, Madell, another guitar player, a drummer, a trumpet player, and a keyboard player. They will be doing a set of covers for tonight’s show!

Sat. Oct. 8:

Seablite

Seablite is a four-piece pop band from San Francisco inspired by 80s/90s indie and shoegaze. In June 2019, Seablite’s LP debut, Grass Stains and Novocaine was released by Emotional Response, garnering domestic and international praise. They’ve since released a 10″ EP, High-Rise Mannequins (2020) and most recently their new single, Breadcrumbs c/w Ink Bleeds (2022). Seablite are back in the studio recording their sophomore LP and looking forward to what the upcoming year will bring. East Coast/NYC debut!

Artsick

Artsick is an indiepop band from Oakland/Seaside, California, consisting of Christina Riley (Burnt Palms/Boyracer) on guitar and vocals, Mario Hernandez (Kids On A Crime Spree, Ciao Bella) on drums and Donna McKean (Lunchbox/Hard Left) on bass. They formed in 2018 and released a 7” inch single, followed by their debut album “Fingers Crossed,” on Slumberland Records. East Coast/NYC debut!

Jeanines

Jeanines specialize in ultra-short bursts of energetic but melancholy minor-key pop. With influences that run deep into the most crucial tributaries of DIY pop — Messthethics, the Television Personalities, Marine Girls, early Pastels, Dolly Mixture — they’ve crafted a style that is as individual as it is just plain pleasurable. Alicia Jeanine’s pure, unaffected voice muses wistfully on the illusions of time, while My Teenage Stride/Mick Trouble mastermind Jed Smith’s frantic Motown-esque drumming and inventive bass playing provide a thrilling rhythmic foundation.

art: Tae Won Yu

Gary Olson
OG Brooklynite Gary Olson is best known as the leader and founding member of The Ladybug Transistor, but he made a wonderful solo record in 2020 as well, and has collaborated with many bands including the Aislers Set. He also runs a famous studio in Brooklyn called Marlborough Farms, and will be playing as a duo tonight.

a new james mcnew / dump interview!

jm-dump

most people know james mcnew from his other band, the condo fucks (and yo la tengo). as long as he has been in yo la tengo, he has been making his own recordings under the name dump. dump songs have sort have been filtered into yo la tengo these days so he is less prolific. we interviewed dump + yo la tengo for chickfactor 8 back in the mid-90s and again later, but here we are doing it again! we love dump and gilmore tamny conducts the interview this time and asks some excellent Qs. ps. dump performs at chickfactor 21 on june 13 with the pastels, lois and jim ruiz set. he also plays with the condo fucks and the pastels on june 15 at maxwell’s!

chickfactor: what chickfactor show do you remember best? missed but wished you’d attended? any particular fond/joyful/amusing chickfactor memories?

james: I think I Ioved every one I ever saw, and I definitely loved playing at them. I saw a lot of them. getting to see nice at under acme was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. same goes for the georgia hubley trio at fez. versus were just bloodthirsty at the bell house last year (“another face”!). gail was really the only person who ever asked dump to play, and that always meant a great deal to me. I will always remember the sight of magnetic fields fans in the front row with their fingers in their ears while I played my opening set.

who else will be playing with you for the chickfactor show unless that’s ruining a surprise? are you getting besieged with requests?

that shit’s top secret.

how has your relationship with the dump songs (if it does) change over time? the things that you like/that bug you tend to be the same when you revisit?

I cringed a few times while putting together the reissues, but I guess everybody does that, like when you see old photos of yourself. unless you’re really good-looking. but I still liked most of the songs, or at least the ideas. I feel like I have gotten a lot better at writing songs since then, but I can still relate to old me. depression is timeless.

many are superstoked about superpowerless and I can hear music getting reissued—tell us a bit about how that came about?

I was approached by thomas moor of the/his moor music label, of berlin. I was already a fan of their catalog & bands; he was a fan of the dump records. I am always kinda surprised when anyone says that, since they were so difficult to find. I dragged my heels on doing the project until he finally convinced me. so I spent a LOT of time turning it into a deluxe package; bonus tracks, photos, a bunch of new artwork and a ton of new notes I wrote for them. there’s no doubt at least one frustrated moor employee will punch me one day. still, I am very happy with the results. I’m glad he thought of it.

I read once that charles barkley was so keyed up after his games that afterward he’d often vacuum the house to relax. do you have to do any such similar things after shows?

I love charles, so I’ll try that. I also heard he would get his lady friends to shave his head for him. normally I like to pretend like I didn’t just play, and get on with my life, then scrutinize it later.

I’d think touring so much would—if you were inclined—turn one into a bit of armchair sociologist/anthropologist, noting regional differences or ways fans interact, or bass player vs. guitar personalities, etc. any thoughts?

everyone, everywhere, is nuts.

who do you know or admire that might prompt you to say: “that gentlewoman or gentleman, __. _______ _______, has exquisite taste.”?

walt “clyde” frazier.

are there any human virtues you admire or weaknesses that depress you that, when manifesting themselves in music, make you admire/loathe even more? like: subtlety. or: showoffyness.  or, the opposite?

traditional “weaknesses” like not being a virtuoso, or having an unusual voice or take on reality, can be total pluses. fearlessness, whether to express yourself or challenge yourself, or just in general, is definitely something to strive for. also, personally, I don’t like when artists supply me with answers. I like mystery; I don’t want them to tell me what their songs mean. I don’t even want a lyric sheet. I prefer to use my imagination and come up with my own meanings.

what show have you played that has most felt like a hallucination? place you’d like to play you haven’t (parthenon, etc.?)

many of them feel hallucinatory, if all goes according to plan. the shows I played as a member of man forever were all that way. I have been insanely lucky to play at some pretty sweet places. that said, I would like to play at an aquarium.

what’s your perspective on musical literacy? If it isn’t too nosey, how technically literate are you or have you had to become? how would you say or observed it being a help/hindrance?

not very. I have learned to do some stuff. I am mostly self-taught, and completely self-taught on bass (I learned by watching and studying the greats, namely sue garner). I took guitar lessons from age 9 to about 12. one day my teacher refused (in disgust) to teach me a van halen song, instead trying to get me to play some fingerpicky blues thing. That was it for lessons. Technical proficiency is by no means a prerequisite for great, important music. by itself, without feeling or ideas behind it, it’s just dumb. to me, few use it for good. But just to name some who do, glenn jones, william tyler, mary halvorson, tortoise and the boredoms all make music I absolutely love.

what non-musical (piece of?) art(s) has had the biggest influence on your music?

the work of jim woodring, for sure.

do you ever feel like you glimpse, out of the corner of your mind’s eye, some instrument not yet invented that you wish was? can you describe?

no, but I would love it if I could get a car horn that is not only deafening but is also a flamethrower.

would you ever—presuming you haven’t, pardon if my internet research skills are lacking—like to do some sort of sound installation à la christo or spiral jetty (etc.)?

oh, most definitely. when do you need it by?

dump reissues!

mm114_dump_i-can-hear-music_cover

basically chickfactor has been into dump ever since we heard it and we have no idea why the rest of the world has been lazily ignoring it since its early ’90s brilliant genius recordings. now FINALLY some label has gotten the good sense to reissue some dump! at last! for chrissakes, what is wrong with the indie labels in the u.s. — um, matador, hello? if enchanté had the dosh, we’d have started the feeding frenzy way back in the day. instead we just forced james to play at our chickfactor parties.

earlier this year we saw the release of a new dump 12″ single called “nyc tonight,” try not to let the fact that it is a g.g. allin cover put you off! now chickfactor has the exclusive international news scoop that morr music of germany has the excellent wherewithal to reissue these first two dump albums that you see pictured here: I can hear music & superpowerless! according to james mcnew (also of yo la tengo, a band you may have heard of), these two will be available on vinyl (for the first time), CD and digital, with new artwork and lots of extra bells and whistles and bonus tracks! dump even had to consult chickfactor to find out the dates of all their shows from the olden days because apparently chickfactor is the only one who remembers (or wrote down this kind of thing). so there you go! there is no release date yet but we will surely be the first to have the scoop so check back with us. and hopefully all the other dump recorded work will be available soon on vinyl too!

here’s some way old fun stuff james wrote for chickfactor: brazil food diary. lambchop interview. and a mini interview here.

 

it’s a dump.

jm-dump
dump is a lazy band from brooklyn. they never do enough music for the kids. they go on the road with some other band, which is really annoying! get to work, dump. for chrissakes, we need a new dump box set. we tracked down the dump guy for an exclusive interview.

cf: where is my new dump album?
dump: it’s not done yet.
cf: what has dump been watching on tv? now that dump is a tv star who has starred on the gilmore girls and the simpsons, what other shows does he want to be on?
dump: I’ve been watching heroes, the wire, lucky louie, pitagora suichi and talk sex with sue johanson. I wouldn’t mind being in the audience of a judge judy.
cf: what is dump eating on the road with his other band?
dump: I’ve been eating cuban food in miami, somewhere near the corner of stab whitey and kill whitey. bbq from dreamland (the tuscaloosa branch, but delivered to us in birmingham) was stout and soulful. I couldn’t find anything to eat in orlando so instead I bought records (eddie bo, skull snaps, chubb rock, beach boys “breakway” 45, released the day I was born!). fried chicken in tallahassee. very good cheeseburger at pete’s in knoxville. jonathan marx brought me cookies from nashville’s best bakery, becker’s.
cf: what does dump download, listen to, watch, whatever, on the innernet?
dump: recipes, sports scores, directions, occasionally music, “can’t stop the bleeding,” hardcore pornography, flipper videos on youtube, and streaming wfmu.
cf: where is my dump box set? badges? promotional vinyl carrying case?
dump: I don’t know where your dump box set is. same goes for the badges. I don’t even know how to address the matter of the promotional vinyl carrying case. those would all be pretty cool, because the first two things could fit inside the third thing, and you could carry them all around like that, and then it’d be really easy to know exactly where they all were. but I haven’t made any of those things yet.
cf: why is dump ignoring the fans? when will he deliver the goods?
dump: I’m not ignoring dump fans, quite the contrary. I finally started a dump myspace spage, where I am conversing freely, practically like a normal person. I’m posting new, unreleased and hard-to-find songs there from time to time, as well as original artwork.
cf: normal, hmm? ha ha, keep trying.

dump is on myspace apparently, but we would prefer a new vinyl product