merge records – chickfactor zine

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023

chickfactor 2023 lists, round three

Kim Baxter’s (All Girl Summer Fun Band)  Top 10 Favorite Things About Reuniting with AGSFB in 2023 

The amazing feeling that occurred when the 3 of us got together and started playing music again. It was like no time had passed at all. I didn’t realize just how much I had missed playing with Jen & Kathy.
Having friends come to our shows that we hadn’t seen in ages!
Encountering the nicest and most helpful sound people that we have ever worked with.
Jen’s contagious excitement for playing shows & recording music again, her awesome playlists & podcast selections, and her ability to drive for hours on end.
Figuring out that if we rent an AirBnB with a garage, we don’t have to unload our gear each night. Our favorite new tour hack!
Getting to play shows with so many awesome bands & people-Tony Molina, Mo Troper, The Softies, Growing Pains, Who Is She?, Love in Hell, Tony Jay, Kids on a Crime Spree, Rose Melberg, Lunchbox, Wifey, Field Drums.
Catching up, cracking up, and built-in therapy + pep talks with Jen & Kathy at band practices and on the road.
Hitting all of the health food co-ops on tour (Kathy is an expert at finding them) and being instantly transported back to the 90’s by the smell of nutritional yeast and nag champa.
Sitting around in our PJs after shows and watching back-to-back episodes of Selling Sunset together (so bad, yet so good).
Making plans for future shows and writing & recording new music!

Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney, Filthy Friends) 2023!!

Best Portland Thai Food – Rukdiew Cafe

Best Live Album – And the wind… MJ Lenderman

Favorite Live Show – The Cure at Corona Capital

Best sport trend – Pickle Ball

Favorite Youth Slang – LFG! (In a text, it means Let’s Fucking Go)

Great albums – Black Rainbows by Corinne Bailey Rae; The Water, The Sky by Black Belt Eagle Scout

Favorite Books – My Murder by Katie Williams and The Fraud by Zadie Smith

James McNew’s Favorite songs 2023:
Staple Singers, “The Gardener” (1970)
The Cyclones with Count Ossie, “Meditation” (1973)
Thin Lizzy, “The Friendly Ranger at Clontorf Castle” (1971)
Jimmy Flemion, “Oh Babe, What Would You Say” (2022)
Little Obsessions, “Can’t See What’s Mine” (2023)
Rob Sonic, “Mink” (2023)
Dave Edmunds, “Where Or When” (1977)
Flo and Eddie, “Keep It Warm” (1976)
Ceremony, “Your Life In France” (2015)
Yozoh, “Tommy” (2022)
The Notwist, “Sans Soleil” (2021)

Evelyn Hurley (Cotton Candy): Top fave shows of 2023

I watched a lot of good television shows this year, so in no real order, here’s a list of a few or my favorite tv shows for 2023:

Slow Horses – this TV show is on a lot of peoples “Best Of” lists and there’s a good reason for that, it’s really good! The acting and stories are super suspenseful, and it’s really funny. Highly recommend!

Rain Dogs – this is a British TV show which was really touching, even though the protagonists are somewhat unlikeable and flawed. The lead actress/writer/creator, Daisy May Cooper, is super talented, and she has another show on my list, which is called…

Am I Being Unreasonable? – this is the other Daisy May Cooper show on my list, and it’s completely different from Rain Dogs. The story is so compelling and the twist at the end had me literally screaming. Definitely watch this if you can, you will not forget it.

Schmigadoon – the second season of this show was based on the musical Chicago rather than Brigadoon, and songs are catchy, the story is clever, and the singing and acting is so good. It’s a great series, watch it if you get the chance, especially if you’re old an old theater kid like me.

Afterparty – this is also the second season of this show, and it’s really so well done with clever, jokes and great acting by everyone. I did not predict the ending at all!

Physical – this was the third and final season of the show and in my opinion it’s really one of the best TV shows I’ve seen in years. Rose Byrne is so excellent, which is saying a lot because every single actor in the show is fantastic. I can see why some people are uncomfortable with this show because it might trigger some trauma people have had with an eating disorder, but the way she portrays a working business woman in the 80’s, with all the references to exercise trends, clothing, foods, is really well done without being preachy or grating. Also, big shout out to Zooey Deschanel, whose portrayal of a zany character was so great.

Big Door Prize – the show was kind of a sleeper but I thought it was really good. Chris O’Dowd is really hilarious in an understated way, and Josh Segarra was so great as the almost-successful hockey player-has been. I still can’t really figure out what is going with the plot, show but it’s a good show!

Hijack – this Idris Elba show was so good, but it’s really suspenseful, so don’t watch it if you don’t like being stressed out.

Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields – this is an amazing documentary about Brooke Shields and how she grew up in the public eye in the 70’s & 80’s. I grew up the same time as Brooke, so all the footage of her childhood was a trip down memory lane for me, only this time I realized how incredibly exploited she was by almost everyone in her life. She handled every single man, woman, TV star, movie star, interviewer, journalist, etc… with such grace and respect, even though they were all usually acting like massive creeps. (Looking at you, Bob Hope.)It’s incredible how she turned out so well adjusted, because she seems like a really cool person.

WHAM! documentary – I’m a big George Michael & Wham! fan, and this documentary was really well done and very sweet. It showed how incredibly talented and driven George Michael and Andrew Ridgely were. I especially loved how tormented George Michael was when he knew that his song “Last Christmas” wasn’t going to be the number one Christmas song because Band Aid would knock it off of its 1st place space, even though he was also on that song. But I especially loved the sweet friendship they had, and it makes me sad that Yog died way too young.

Sukhdev Sandhu (English professor, critic, event creator, and CF contributor/MC)

* Chiara Ambrosio is one of the most teeming, tireless people I know. She lives in London, is a writer and an artist and a filmmaker and a puppeteer and a publisher, and champions that which deserves championing. In this year alone: a linocut response to Yannis Ritsos’s Monochords; The Book of Raft – a companion to an upcoming film championing cultural hubs/ holdouts in London; a wonderful event at The Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury – which featured broom-dancing children, Kurdish singing and mulled wine-enhanced wassailing deep into the December night.

* I’m not sure if Mike Rubin ever sleeps. Almost every night he ranges across New York, shows in places both lofty and busted, often attending more than one event – jazz, hip hop, soul and post-soul, mangled electronica, beats from all across the world. He documents these fastidiously, making sure musicians and performers are properly credited, and flagging them up on his crucial Instagram page. It’s a wonderful resource and, in the words of the Caught by the River magazine, ”an antidote to indifference”.

* Archive Books. These days, every bookshop, big or small, cussedly individual or corporate, deserves at least two cheers. And then there’s Archive Books in Marylebone, London. It’s hard enough to get inside, far less glide down its aisles. There’s no space – except to wonder. Its shelves tower and teeter. Edwardiana for a couple of quid. Cricketing autobiographies, collected journalism of long-forgotten Fleet Strack hacks, self-published cookery books, an Aladdin’s cave of a basement crammed with music scores. Impossible to leave, most likely hours later, without a couple of bags of unknown pleasures in hand.

* There are more famous names in food journalism, but Sheila Dillon is in a league of her own. Since the late 1980s, she’s been reporting for – and later presenting – BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme. Week after week, with clarity and dry wit, she has kept listeners in the now about topics such as the baneful power of the big supermarket chains, the BSE scandal, the fall of Communism’s impact on Russian food systems. Never talking down, pretending to be our pal, or following critical fashions, she is a truly great broadcaster.

* I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. If England still exists, it’s here in this BBC Radio 4 panel show that’s been running since 1972. Its first host was jazzbo Humphrey Lyttelton, about whom Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood said, “Without his direction, we’d never have recorded/ released ‘Life in a Glasshouse.” One of the programme’s quizzes – Mornington Crescent – is as recondite as any Fall lyric. Another – ‘Uxbridge English Dictionary’ – requires contestants to supply new definitions for existing terms; among those proposed in the Christmas 2024 edition were “aspic: disgusting habit”; “jacuzzi: French for ‘I blame myself'”, and “criteria: cafe for sad people”.

* Radio – live, now, happenstance – is still a thrill. My favourites are Andres Lokko on Sveriges Radio – 2pm every Sunday. Kevin Pearce-style Modernism forever! And Jack Rollo, half of Time Is Away, helming The Early Bird Show on Fridays from 7-9am. Aching folk, glassy ambient techno, worlds of echo, a hush and a huddle for everyone who’s just about made it through another week.

* Back in March, I was lucky enough to be allowed to stage a screening, the first in North America, of Being Mavis Nicholson. How I adored the Welsh TV interviewer when I was younger. So curious, warm, intelligent. She called herself “a natural gasser”. The documentary’s director Carolynn Hitt was closer to the truth: “When a conversation is good, you’re so engrossed in it, it’s like a blanket going round you both…”

* Art galleries: take them away. Too many pious shows, lumpy wall-text, the visitors samey-same. I’ve been going, more and more, to museums. More history, sense of place, modesty. More ‘there’ there. Among my favourites this year the Stadsmuseet in Stockholm, the Franziskaner Museum in Villingen (particularly the spectacularly alarming masks and colourful costumes associated with the annual Fastnacht festivities in southern Germany), and the KattenKabinet in Amsterdam Bob Meijer founded in 1990 to celebrate feline portraiture. There are sleepy cats in some of the townhouse rooms and in the garden. Everything about the place is purr-worthy.

* Monica Zetterlund and Sivuca performing together. That scarf!

* East Broadway, New York City. When you want to get away, when you want to stay, when you want to feel like you’re somewhere: East Broadway – in the autumn, Thursday afternoons, breezes and leaf-carpeted sidewalk. Stay outside, go inside – it doesn’t matter. Carol’s Bun, Ritualarium, The House of Sages. Walk your blues, walk into blue, walk off your blues.

As always: The Style Council, ‘It’s A Very Deep Sea’; Woo, ‘This Love Affair’; Kevin Ayers, ‘May I?’; Nico Fidenco, ‘Ligados’. But also: Erlend Øye & La Comitiva, ‘Mornings and Afternoons’; The Embassy, ‘Escape’; Guy Cabay, ‘Pôve Tièsse’; Romy, ‘She’s On My Mind’.

Gail O’Hara / CF editor/photographer’s ten songs stuck in my head:

The Zombies, “This Will Be Our Year”

Gene Wilder, “Pure Imagination”

“I’ve Got a Golden Ticket”

Little River Band, “Reminiscing” (because…karaoke)

Bee Gees, “How Deep Is Your Love”

Cynthia Erivo, “Alfie”

“Fairytale of New York” (because … karaoke and RIP, Shane, my old neighbor)

She and Him, “I Thought I Saw Your Face Today”

The Clientele, “Lady Gray”

All year: Connie Lovatt with Bill Callahan, “Kid”

Things I’m looking forward to: New Softies and Umbrellas albums, Heavenly and 69LS shows

Pete Paphides (author, critic, Needle Mythology records)

Condiment/seasoning of 2023: Vegan Smoky Bacon Nooch by Notorious Nooch Co.

Protein shake of 2023: Milk (semi-skimmed or oat), peanut butter, whey powder, one frozen banana, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, almonds. Blend. Drink. Oh my god.

Sandwich of 2023: The simple tomato sandwich. Trust me. Nothing else. Just some buttered bread and a sliced room-temperature tomato with a dash of salt.

Various artists anthology of 2023: Disco Discharge presents Box Of Sin. A four LP soundtrack to the gay clubbing experience of the 80s.

Single artist anthology of 2023: The Teardrop Explodes: The Teardrop Explodes: Culture Bunker 1978-1982

Music memoir of of 2023: Paul Simpson: Revolutionary Spirit – A Post-Punk Exorcism

Memoir of 2023: John Niven: O Brother

Most heroic, articulate and humane corrective to toxic masculinity of 2023: Caitlin Moran: What About Men?

Late to the party TV experience of 2023 (i): Better Call Saul

Late to the party TV experience of 2023 (ii): Season one of Fargo, especially Billy Bob Thornton as Lorne Malvo

Cereal of 2023: Robert Forster’s Spring Grain muesli

Football (soccer) hero of 2023: Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou in the interview after losing to Chelsea with two men sent off and refusing, on point of principle, to adjust to a defensive formation in order to avoid being pummelled by their eleven man opponents: “It’s just who we are, mate. As long as I’m here, that’s what we’re going to do. ‘Even with five men, we’ll have a go.’”

Carb replacement of 2023: Edamame spaghetti.

Gig of 2023, not including gigs by humans I had a hand in making: The Northern Soul Proms at The Royal Albert Hall; The Soup Dragons at Electric Ballroom; The Bluebells at Glasgow St Lukes

Gig of 2023, including gigs by humans I had a hand in making: Eaves Wilder’s last-minute set on the second stage at Glastonbury (replacing the also-brilliant Japanese Breakfast, who were/was stuck in transit).

Song of 2023, not including songs by humans I had a hand in making or artists whose album was released on my label: Nadine Shah: Topless Mother

Song of 2023, including songs by humans I had a hand in making: Eaves Wilder: Freefall. Literally my most played song of the year

Song of 2023, including songs by artists whose album was released on my label: Iraina Mancini: Cannonball. Or maybe this was my most played song. It’s close.

Album of 2023, including albums released on my label: Iraina Mancini: Undo The Blue.

Album of 2023, not including albums released on my label: Grian Chatten: Chaos For The Fly; Beatowls: Marma; Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

Exhibition of 2023: Women In Revolt!, Tate Britain

Parental pride moments of 2023: Seeing the results of Dora Paphides’ astonishing work for The Last Dinner Party’s My Lady Of Mercy, Fred Roberts’ Say and Chinchilla’s Cut You Off; Running along Brighton seafront to a Eaves Wilder’s just-released Hookey EP and thinking my heart was about burst (in an utterly wonderful way).

Inspired musical collision of 2023: John Douglas from Trashcan Sinatras on my Soho Radio show, creating a brand new acoustic accompaniment to the vocal of Stormzy’s Firebabe.

Lazarus-style return of 2023: The Bathers: Sirenesque

Label of 2023: Last Night From Glasgow

Drink of 2023: Sainsbury’s own brand peach iced tea. And you can have as much as you want because zero calories

Meet your heroes pinch-me moment of 2023: Interviewing Chrissie Hynde for Record Collector. I was told one hour. Three hours later, I left and somehow my car hadn’t been clamped or ticketed.

Best album recommended to me by one of my heroes: When I got to Chrissie Hynde’s apartment, she played me Spooky Two by Spooky Tooth. The first thing I had to do after I left was locate a copy.

Chocolate of 2023: Snacksy Raw Chocolate with Ginger

Cake of the year: McVities Jamaica Ginger Cake with Madagascan Vanilla Custard. In a teacup or mug, eaten with a teaspoon. Whilst watching Great British Bake-Off on the sofa.

Belated realisation of 2023: Boiled eggs make great hand warmers + once you’ve warmed your hands on them, you can eat them.

Record I Didn’t Realise I Most Needed In 2023: dEUS: How To Replace It

Most perplexingly ignored album of 2023: Keaton Henson: House Party

Best Instruction Given By An Artist When Telling Their Band How To Play Their Songs During The Recording Of An Album: “Just try and channel the soundtrack of Ten Things I Hate About You” – Keaton Henson

Big-hearted, perfectly judged, very very very funny movie of 2023: No Hard Feelings. Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman both just utterly perfect in it.

Andrew Bulhak (music writer, DJ) Top Songs of 2023 (not necessarily in this order):
Emma Anderson – Clusters
the bv’s – warp
Hot Coppers – Hot Coppers
Jimmy Whispers – Ice Cream Truck
Lael Neale – I Am The River
Leah Senior – The Music That I Make
Pickle Darling – Kinds of Love
Slowdive – Kisses
Spearmint – tell me about my sister
Spunsugar – Metals
Strawberry Runners – Circle Circle
yeule – dazies

Borrowed from https://www.instagram.com/macsuperchunk/

Mac McCaughan (Superchunk, Merge Records): Fave Reissue / Archival Releases of 2023

Pharoah Sanders – Pharoah (Luaka Bop)

Reissue of an album by the jazz giant we lost last year that you pretty much just had to listen to on YouTube until now unless you had hundreds of dollars for an original copy. The music (incl a bonus LP of unrelease live performances) is amazing and the package includes a booklet, photographs, flyer reproductions and other ephemera.

Chin Chin – Cry In Vain (Sealed Records)

My fault for not knowing about this incredible all-girl Swiss punk group from the 80s. Amazing songs which remind me of a slightly more aggro Look Blue Go Purple. Can’t stop listening!

Milford Graves / Arthur Doyle / Hugh Glover – Children of the Forest (The Black Editions)

The Black Editions label has uncorked a flow of powerful free jazz archival releases over the last few years and this previously unreleased home-recorded by Graves performance from 1976 is essential. The world will be catching up with Milford Graves forever i think.

Masayuki Takayanagi – Mass Hysterism In Another Situation (The Black Editions)

Electric guitar destruction from ’83 and a two-guitar & drums trio led by Takayanagi. Massive.

Milford Graves / Don Pullen – The Complete Yale Concert 1966 (Corbett Vs Dempsey)

Speaking of Milford Graves, i keep trying to imagine what the audience expected / what they got when they attended this intense performance in 1966… Long out of print and lovingly put back together by the fine people at Corbett Vs Dempsey.

Arthur Russell – Picture of Bunny Rabbit (Rough Trade)

The Arthur Russell archive may be bottomless but if it’s all as listenable as what’s been excavated so far I hope they keep it coming.

Hiroshi Yoshimura – Surround (Light In The Attic)

“Environmental music” commissioned by a home builder to play in their living spaces or something like that… recorded the same year as one my favorite ambient records ever, Yoshimura’s Green LP and never reissued before, Surround is as liquid and beautiful as the sleeve suggests.

John Coltrane – Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy (Impulse)

Minor Threat – Out of Step Outtakes 7″ (Dischord)

The titles of these two releases tell you all you need to know!

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023

The Clientele Is Back. YAY.

When I first listened to I Am Not There Anymore, the brand-new The Clientele LP coming out July 28, 2023, on Merge worldwide, I was a bit shocked. As you probably know by now, it feels different. The strings, the spooky goth vibe, the odd beats. It may not have the flow of a cohesive album, but the pop lovers among us will have more than enough to fall in love with, despite the dark undertones. In case that makes no sense, I’ll just say it: I love this album but it took a few go-rounds to get used to it all. I mean, it’s not that radical. It sounds like a band taking their time and flexing their creative muscles in the recording process. It sounds like one of the greatest living bands because it is. We caught up with Alasdair about what was going through their minds making the record. Scroll down for their U.S. tour dates; and hopefully more countries too since the UK seems to have finally noticed that these pop gods walk among them.

The album was recorded at Bark, Snap and Klank Studios, London from 2019–2022 with assistance from Brian O’Shaughnessy, Marco Pasquariello and Simon Nelson. All time greats Alasdair MacLean on vocals, guitars, tapes, beats, bouzouki, Mellotron, organ; James Hornsey on bass, piano; and Mark Keen on drums, percussion, piano, celesta. Additional parts played by Daniel Evans – extra drums on ‘Blue Over Blue’; Sarah Field – trumpet; Dave Oxley – horn; Ruth Elder – violin; Non Peters – violin; Stella Page – viola; Sebastian Millett – cello. The strings and horns were arranged by Alasdair MacLean and Mark Keen; ‘Through the Roses’ arranged by James Hornsey and Alicia Macanás, who also cowrote and sings on the lead track, ‘Fables of the Silverlink.’ That’s Jessica Griffin from the Would-Be-Goods doing the English spoken bits as well. Interview by Gail O’Hara / Thanks to James Clientele for the studio shots (even tho he didn’t take any of Mark Keen)

Front cover image: Long Life, 1823 by Kameda Bōsai, Minneapolis Institute of Art

Chickfactor: How long has this one been in the making?
Alasdair MacLean: Three centuries.

If this one has a theme, what is it?
Beautiful complexities (I hope). Above all, the feeling of not being real, of being outside yourself. I like to think of it as a kind of emotional autobiography set to music, but where all the details have been blurred and edited out, there’s just fragments and moods.

The first time I listened, it felt *different* from previous stuff. What kind of record did you want to make here?
We always tried different stuff in the studio before, but it was always a catastrophe. We tried to make a dub version of ‘House on Fire’ in a studio in rural Kent once, it was one of the most embarrassing episodes of my life. We did some jungle/drum and bass recordings with a live drummer when we were recording ‘Suburban Light’ but I had no idea what to add to them – it ended up with backwards tenor recorder and tritone chords on the guitar – horrible.

This time round we had a computer, so we could record in a studio and take tracks away to edit and add to, then bring back again, and slowly I worked out ideas which could bring in things I loved – flamenco rhythms, modal scales etc. which didn’t feel awful. It wasn’t like there was a band and a producer sitting there, looking at their watches and saying “er, where are you going with this?”

I joked that this was a goth record; but it is spooky and vintage sounding at times. What mood were you trying to conjure with Mark’s Radials and Alicia and Jessica?
Mark has been writing spooky piano tunes for us since 2001 I think. So that’s nothing new – we got him a celesta to play on this time, which is an innately spooky instrument. Alicia sang notes I couldn’t reach in the Phrygian mode, and Jessica has such a lovely speaking voice. I was so glad when she agreed to help – it was like her voice was another of the instruments we could put together in harmony.

How is what you listen to informing what you do?
I like some electronic music and jazz and Spanish guitar music. I love this small group of artists from California, they are mostly released on the Cold Blue Music label. At the moment I’ve been playing Phillip Schroeder – ‘Passage through a Dream’ loads – it sounds a bit like Mark’s Radial pieces.

Where does the songwriting process begin?
Somewhere I have no access to.

How do you capture lyrics? A pen? A smart phone app?
It always used to be a pen and a piece of paper. I’ve now changed to notes on iphone. Tragically, I also use a Trello board to swap things around and see if they look different in a different order. Quite often ideas come from quotes or images from books I read, so I take photos of the page too.

Is your lyric book still available?
I think there are a few left, somewhere at the back of my storage lockup.

How did the pandemic change The Clientele? How did it change London?
It didn’t really change the band; in some ways it made London better, less crowded. But it probably finished the arc which started in the late ’90s, where small businesses were made uneconomical, and everything became a chain store. Now the chain stores are going bust too.

You seem bigger in the UK than you were; true/false?
True, among gentlemen of a certain age.

Brexit WTF?
I’m tired of thinking about it, but I expect in some future time we’ll look back and realise just how truly sinister the consortium of people who took over the country were.

If any good comes of it, it will be a general awareness of the obscenity of class privilege. Boris Johnson is a useful idiot in this regard – a very public symbol of unjust rewards.

How is fatherhood impacting the music-making process?
It changes month by month. I’m happy to sit back and learn.

If London has a sound/smell/taste, what is it?
Fermented fruit on the top deck of buses.

What is nature giving you that you desperately need?
At the moment, mud.

Who are the 5 most underappreciated musicians in London?
Musicians can’t afford to live in London anymore.

Got any recurring dreams you want us to explicate?
Not of my own – I enjoyed reading one of T.H. White’s recently though – in the dream he was very anxious to hide his shotgun in the trunk of his mother’s car to avoid it being struck by lightning. It made me laugh a lot.

Best pub in town?
I like the Flask in Highgate, or the Swimmer at the Grafton Arms in Holloway. The Great Northern Railway Tavern in Hornsey is a perennial favourite.

If you have to make food for friends, what is your star dish?
Tortilla soup

What’s wrong with 2023?
Music streaming, newspaper owners

Who is the comedian in the band?
Mark and James are both naturally funny, I have to try harder. I’m sort of the annoying one who tries to get a quip in every sentence, which is why I tend to dominate the interviews.

Do you have any band rules? Dress code?
Absolutely no ukuleles under any circumstances.

Not the usual drummer / courtesy of James Hornsey

What are you reading?
I love Anne Serre and Marie N’Diaye

‘26 views of the Starburst World’ by Ross Gibson is a wonderful, reflective book, it was recommended to me by Anwen Crawford who also wrote a beautiful book last year called ‘No Document’

There’s a forgotten English writer from the early 20th century called Mary Webb who I’m tracking down slowly.

Perhaps because I’m getting old, I’m revisiting a lot of classic British children’s literature: The Dark is Rising, The Box of Delights, Ursula LeGuin and Diana Wynne Jones

What are you watching?
I haven’t been watching much of anything. I need film recommendations.

What is your advice to fans when it comes to supporting you?
Buy records, use bandcamp, book tickets.

On behalf of all CLIENTELE fans, why can’t you just put out one album per year?
We used to put them out once every 2 years, and that nearly killed us. We were told we had to, or people would forget us. But when we stopped, we got more popular! I guess there are enough records in the world already without releasing more just for the sake of it.

What’s on the turntable these days?
Pharaoh Sanders- Floating Points
Arthur Verocai
Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids
Jimmy Campbell – Half Baked
I’ve also been listening to a lot of Tom Verlaine since he died. A lot of what he did beyond the guitar playing – the approaches he took – really fascinates me.

btw, of course we interviewed the Clientele in our paper zine chickfactor 13, Y2K, still available in our shop. Get the new album here.

Not the usual drummer either / courtesy of James Hornsey

Artwork by Tae Won Yu; created for a CF22 poster (2014)

March 2, 2022

gary olson!

for the past 30 years, vocalist-songwriter-trumpeter gary olson has led the brooklyn-based pastoral-pop band the ladybug transistor through seven full-lengths, mostly all released via merge records. he’s also established himself as a go-to engineer, working from his home studio, named marlborough farms, on albums by hamish kilgour, jens lekman, and his very own self-titled solo debut LP, released via tapete records in may 2020. ¶ though billed as a “solo release,” olson was supported by norwegian artists ole and jorn åleskjær (of the band loch ness mouse), and the album was recorded in both brooklyn and hayland, norway. we asked the kind-hearted, soft-spoken singer-songwriter about the trans-atlantic recording experience and how it was to release an album during a pandemic. interview by janice headley

chickfactor: what made you want to release a solo album after decades of being ladybug transistor?
I had been thinking about it for a long time, even going back to 2005. and then whenever I’d gather a few songs together, it would just wind up being becoming whatever the next ladybug record was. ¶ I think some of it was just… a clean slate after all this time. also maybe some flexibility as to who I could play with. I haven’t even got to play many live shows, but when I get around to doing it, it could be a duo or a full band or … just not being kind of bound to the strict “band” structure, and just being able to be more flexible with things.
cf: so the songs on this new album, how far did they date back or were they written fresh in that 2019 period?
we probably started in 2017 or 2018. I got a lot of encouragement from the guys who wound up co-writing all the songs on the whole album, where in 2017 or ’18, they just started sending me scraps of song ideas and we started trading ideas back and forth. and that’s what led to the 7-inch that came out before the record.
cf: did you email files back and forth? or is there some website where you can collaborate?
I did go over to norway—both the brothers, ole and jorn, they’re old friends of mine from the first time [ladybug] visited, going back to like 1999. we had always talked about doing some projects together. ole, the guitarist, had accompanied me for a little solo tour in norway and sweden and spain, when I wasn’t doing stuff with ladybug. but somehow, we didn’t write that much together. ¶ so we finally got around to doing it, and it was good to get a little bit of a push from them. they’d send me a rough draft—sometimes just a riff of a song or something that’s a little more fully formed—and then I’d start working on it and send it back. then I actually wound up going over to norway to record with the musicians that they put together, probably like four or five times over the process of it. so I did make it over there quite a bit, to work on all the basic tracking and all the things that kind of help to do in person and some arranging. and then from there we were able to send files back and forth to get it done.

cf: how do brooklyn and hayland differ?
well, in hayland, there’s no town. It’s maybe 90 minutes outside of oslo and it’s real farming, rural country. the closest supermarket is maybe 15 minutes away and there’s a little village that’s maybe half an hour away.
cf: that sounds like where I’m living in michigan.
ole and his brother, they’re real country boys. they grew up out there. ¶ the things that are similar, though, is we both have operated our little studios outside of our house, and in his case, out of the barn in his backyard. he manages to get a good sound out there and the barn looks awesome. They’re really easy. It’s a real family vibe when I’m out there. they’re always happy to have me stay for a week or however long it takes. so it’s almost become this nice tradition over the years of going out there and visiting them. when I was there a few summers ago, I stayed at a little cabin in their backyard and you could see the moose walking out of the forest at a certain hour, if you were lucky.
cf: that must have been really strange for you when the pandemic hit and then you weren’t doing these trips to norway.
yeah, I mean, thankfully, I was able to get over there a lot, and airfare to oslo is amazingly inexpensive. It’s as cheap as flying to california or to the west coast. we did have a lot of plans and we were going to try to tour as much as possible and take whatever opportunity came our way. so yeah, the timing couldn’t have been worse. the record came out in may 2020, and that was pretty much the peak of everything: of COVID, of social unrest, political unrest. it was a hard time to find the space for this little record.

Gary playing with the Aislers Set at Chickfactor 20, Bush Hall London, 2012. Photo: Gail O’Hara

cf: a lot of bands delayed their release dates, but you held fast to 2020. why?
my record label is in germany, and they were a bit more optimistic about things. the record was already manufactured, it was already going into distribution, and at that time, I think that no one thought we’d be in the same place nearly two years later. maybe it would just be a few months before everything got back to normal. so, it was a little bit of a gamble. I think the worst part of it is that many shops were closed for so long that it didn’t get into the stores at that crucial time. as far as browsing, I don’t think people really got to see it on the shelves very much.
cf: now that restrictions are starting to lift, do you think you’ll eventually do a tour?
yeah, I have plans that have been canceled twice already. [laughs] there’s a german tour that was supposed to happen in april that looks like it’s happening in november now, and then there’s some little festivals in norway that are coming in the summer, and I’ll probably do at least a few more shows around that. and I did do a show in new york last summer, in that little window right before delta hit.
cf: gosh, that’s right. was it an outdoor venue?
no, that was indoors. it was a little hectic. no one really knows how to act when you’re in an indoor setting. to have a beer, you have to pull your mask down for a second. especially at that time when things were really coming back strong. it was hard to get the etiquette down, at a show.
cf: totally. [ladybug bassist/violinist/vocalist] julia came and visited me when I was in new york for the yo la tengo hanukkah shows. and it was exactly like that: you’d pull your mask down to drink, and then, the music’s so loud, if you want to talk, you kind of have to get up in each other’s faces. yeah, it’s a strange time for a show.
yeah, I’m hoping we turn the corner now because I’d really love to get out there and play again. I only did that one show in new york, so I’m just hoping there’ll be more sometime this spring or summer.

cf: that would be so awesome. so, you came up with this very clever idea during the pandemic to deliver album purchases in the new york area via your bike! can you tell us about this brainstorm and what those bike rides were like?
well, I really wanted to get the record distributed in new york because all the stores were closed. so I had the label send me a big box of them, and then got the word out that I’d be willing to deliver anywhere within the five boroughs. I’m not normally much of a long-distance cyclist, but I thought it would be an interesting way to see … I lived in new york my whole life, but I saw so many new streets and parts of neighborhoods that I’d never seen before when I was getting all the way out to queens and into manhattan. and it was also really nice to see people, because at that time, a lot of people were just emerging from isolating for a couple of months. I met a lot of people who hadn’t seen their families and hadn’t really left their neighborhood even. after a couple of months of just more or less doing the same, it was that thaw of seeing people face-to-face and having a short conversation and checking in—sometimes a longer one, I’d sit outside and have a beer with people and it was really nice. I even made a couple of new friends along the way that I still hang out with.
cf: oh my goodness, that couldn’t be sweeter. so the new album, it definitely sounds kind of ladybuggy, but it also has maybe more of like a ’70s pop thing going on. and I was wondering, what were your influences in the making of this album?
I’m trying to think if there is anything in particular. I’m always bad when I’m put on the spot about influences, but it’s OK. I think it’s more about trying to get a natural sounding production, which has always been something that I go for. so it might sound like the ’70s. maybe that’s where I’m wandering around [laughs].
cf: I can’t remember the title of it, but there was one song in particular that reminded me of that bee gees song “massachusetts.”
oh yeah, which ladybug covered, oh, a good 20-odd years ago.
cf: it just kind of had that sort of hazy, melancholy kind of quality…
probably something with a lot of strings, I’d imagine, if it sounded like the bee gees.
cf: I don’t know if you still do this, but what cassettes do you currently have in your kitchen?
Let’s see. we had our kitchen painted, so there’s only a few dozen in there, but I do have a box that I stored here on this couch. let’s see what we’ve got: the bobby fuller four…
cf: oh, I’m not familiar with them.
you know, “I fought the law”?
cf: oh, yeah!

cf: do two more.
the shop assistants…
cf: yay!
and oh yeah, gail might like this one: the cure’s standing on a beach and side two has all the b-sides and rarities from that time, so it’s a double play cassette. this one is actually what inspired me to do my own little cassette release. I did an edition of the album that’s 50 copies, and the b-side to the cassette is an instrumental version of the whole album, but I replaced the vocals with trumpet melody, so it’s almost like the easy listening version of the record, and that’s only available on the cassette itself. there’s no digital version of it, but maybe I should get around to putting something up.
cf: classic chickfactor question: what would be on your rider?
our classic one was, we’d always ask for chocolate, especially for san [fadyl] when he was with us, our drummer, and we’d always ask for candy, especially when we were touring in europe, because we just wound up with a lot of local or random stuff or some easter candy. whatever local junk food they had was always interesting.
cf: what was your first concert, as a youth?
[pause] do I have to say? [laughs] It’s so embarrassing. I could remember my first five, and the contrast is pretty wild. my first one was rush at nassau coliseum on long island, and I think my second was u2 on the unforgettable fire tour at radio city music hall with the waterboys. yeah. and the third was either like depeche mode and the smiths, around that same time.

cf: were they on the same bill?
no, but they both played. I went to a lot of shows at the beacon theater and they were both at the beacon. we got really lucky with the smiths tickets because my friend brian and I were waiting on line to buy tickets. you used to be able to get the best seats if you went to the venue the day they went on sale, because they always held the first five or six rows and you could only get those in the box office…
cf: wait, when you say “on line,” you mean like a physical queue?
yeah, yeah, yeah. these were paper tickets. this was 1985. [laughs] the whole culture of kids my age waiting in line for concert tickets, you know, it was a very social thing you could do. so, we went up to the beacon theater to wait on line to buy smiths tickets. and as we were getting closer and closer to the box office, there was this rumor making its way down the line that after the first show sold out, they’d start selling tickets for a second show. so we just hovered around the box office until they started selling tickets for the second show and we got second row center tickets.
cf: oh my god, that is so fortuitous. oh my god, so jealous. [laughs] so, I read that you are a gardener. and I have to ask, like, have you started anything yet? or like, what are you going to plant this year? or, what’s your favorite thing to plant right now?
It’s still a little too cold out to do any prep outside, but I think sometime in march or april, we’ll start turning over the soil in the backyard. we grow a lot of tomatoes, and cucumbers do well over here, and like a big variety of peppers. we make the most of our yard in the back. normally, we’ll have at least a dozen tomato plants back there.
cf: it must be really sunny?
we do what we can. we had to prune a couple of trees to get a little more sunlight back there, but yeah, that does keep us busy.

cf: my partner has a huge backyard. it’s like an acre big and he gardens, which is why when I read that you garden, I was like, “oh, I wonder what he grows?”
do you have any pests that come and eat your stuff? any deer or…?
cf: yes, but I’m not sure what it is [laughs]… we have deer here. we have wild turkeys and they’re huge and they run in, like, flocks.
yeah, they’re exciting when you see them. i see them in pennsylvania sometimes. there’s a grape arbor on the side porch here at the house, and normally you don’t get many pests or animals bothering anything in the back, but they love the grapes, the raccoons and possums. so, in the mornings, in the summer, in the fall, they’ll just come and sneak in in the middle of the night and have a party and the whole porch is just covered with grape skins and like the remains of whatever they’re eating.
cf: we have a black walnut tree, they kind of have like this tennis ball casing and then the actual nut is within it. and I think it’s raccoons, squirrels, or one of those guys, but they crack them open and they just leave all the shelling in the yard. we cleaned the yard at some point last year and had bags and bags of shells.
wow.
cf: well, I only have one more question for you, and it’s another classic chickfactor question: gary olson, what do you have in your fridge right now?
[pause] can I go look for you? taking a look really quickly. I just took a picture so I could look at it while I’m on the call with you and it’s like a crime scene. There’s way too much stuff, but let’s see. There are not too many things that are fresh because I’m about to go out of town for a week and I’ve been working for a while. but there are some blueberries, there’s miso, there’s kimchi. there’s a lot of cheese. I make kombucha, so there’s several bottles of kombucha. those are all the interesting things. There’s some beer, but sometimes I’ll have beer in the refrigerator for like two months. I just don’t go through it very quickly. CF

June 27, 2017

music for the age of miracles

new album from one of the 21st century’s greatest musical groups. out sept 22. listen to the new single here. buy the new album here.

March 15, 2014September 27, 2016

mini-interview with the clientele

we first heard the clientele when they played a chickfactor/papercuts party in london in 1999 and were dazzled for life (we interviewed them in CF13, 2000). they continue to be one of our favorite bands, even if they’ve been less than prolific the past few years (we also love alasdair’s other band, amor de días, natch). we asked alasdair a few questions in advance of their first US show in 4 years (and first with this classic lineup in 9): we cannot wait to see them! the clientele plays at chickfactor 22 with versus, barbara manning and the saturday people on march 21 (night two of two) at the wonderful bell house in brooklyn. be there!

interview & polaroid by gail o’hara

what has the clientele been up to? are you back together for good or just a few shows?
I’ve been slowly and painfully writing a novel, and playing in amor de días. mark has moved into a canal boat and is tuning pianos. james has been growing chillis and playing bass for comet gain. ¶ last year I wrote a couple of songs that sounded more clientele than amor de días and it coincided with an offer for the old lineup to play a festival in denmark, which we decided to do for fun. then merge asked us to record a song or two for their 25th-anniversary 7″ singles club so we had a chance to record together again. that’s all so far.

why was it important to reissue suburban light?
again, it was merge’s decision, as part of their 25-year anniversary reissues series. I over-listened to that record when we mixed it the first time round and I got sick of the songs. james and I were talking about how frustrating that whole time was, we kept losing drummers and we wanted those songs to be on the radio but we were in a little studio trying to cut out the hiss on the tape by sliding the faders up and down. every sound engineer we met tried to make us sound like radiohead. ¶ coming back to it was really positive though—we unearthed a lot of stuff everyone had forgotten. It was weird being in a room and hearing our younger selves bantering on tape. I think the reissue does it justice, and it seems to be a lot of people’s favourite clientele record so hopefully it will be enjoyed.

how has your songwriting process changed since you were a teen?
I learnt that songs don’t need to be symmetrical—if one verse has four lines it’s okay for the second to have three. otherwise, not in any way!

how do you keep your guitar nails from chipping?
on tour you can’t keep them from chipping but once they do chip you can replace them with estee lauder press-ons and superglue. kurt wagner showed me when we toured with lambchop and since then both have become an essential piece of tour kit.

what records are you most excited about these days?
I really enjoyed gerard love’s lightships record. the new boards of canada is interesting. I’ve been catching up on old martin newell and cleaners from venus records and also listening to a lot of virginia astley.

what’s the best pub in london?
for me the pembury tavern in hackney central is OK. also the elderfield in clapton.

who is the comedian in the band?
we are all equally amusing.

what will you do in NYC when not playing?
have lunch at angelica kitchen.

best chickfactor party memory/story?
flying in to play one of the london chickfactor shows after a gig in berlin. we arrived backstage with several bottles of berentzen apfelkorn, which is a kind of schnapps which sends you completely bananas, god knows why we had picked them up but we did. we tried to get club 8 to drink it, a german guy personally interceded and warned them not to deal with us.

March 13, 2014September 27, 2016

mini interview with versus by lois!

versus are one of our long-running music and people crushes. we cannot get enough! they are a chickfactor house band! anyway, we asked another CF event regular (lois maffeo) to interview them for this year’s fest. they play chickfactor 22 friday, march 21, with the clientele, barbara manning & the saturday people at bell house.

interview by lois & photograph by michael galinsky

lois: I was in the middle of a room full of indie bands sleeping on the floor of dave auchenbach’s house after a big night at the providence pop fest in 1992. versus had arrived late, after a gig in some other town. it was probably four in the morning when I woke to see figures with guitar cases moving gingerly across the bedrolls. richard baluyut was stepping over my sleeping bag when he looked down and darkly intoned, “I heard you made brownies.” that phrase (accurate, I may add) kickstarted a long friendship with richard that soon came to include his versus bandmates fontaine and ed and patrick and james. you’d think that over the past 20 years, I would have gotten around to asking richard some of these burning questions. so thanks, gail, for assigning me to interview richard in advance of versus’ appearance at chickfactor 22 on friday, march 21 at the bell house in brooklyn.

is it true that you once got a guitar lesson from roger miller of mission of burma?
richard: I never had a lesson from roger. he did sell me his guitar from mission of burma, before they got back together. when he needed it back, I sent it back to him of course! I believe I still own it, but I haven’t held it in over a decade!

can you describe the ownership timeline of the famous black rickenbacker guitar?
richard: I bought it in 1990, and used it on our early singles. traded it to tae won yu for his SG, which became the versus guitar. tae brought the rickenbacker with him to olympia and made it the classic kicking giant guitar. but he got bored of it and sold it back to me when we were passing through on tour. I sold it to jeff cashvan, who later sold it to carrie brownstein, who made it the signature sleater-kinney guitar. quite an illustrious history! I haven’t seen carrie play it in a long time though; I hope she’s passed it on…

if you could play in any band from the past, which one would it be?
richard: I wish I’d been in the who, isle of wight-era so I would be wearing a jumpsuit…

what is your favorite sci-fi novel?
richard: invisible cities by italo calvino? I was more of a fantasy guy. I only read civil war history now…

what are your top 3 favorite things about new york city?
richard: double-features at film forum. mamoun’s falafel still standing. not living there.

December 3, 2012September 29, 2016

exclusive world premiere of a brand-new amor de días track!

Listen: Amor de Días, “Jean’s Waving”

(Merge Records)

chickfactor is thrilled to present a new song from from London supergroup AMOR DE DÍAS, featuring Lupe Núñez-Fernández (Pipas) and Alasdair MacLean (the Clientele).

“I have no idea what it’s about,” says MacLean about the song. “Maybe describing a movement away to suburbia, leaving behind the eerie/bohemian life in the city. The song wrote itself.”

Their second long player The House at Sea is every bit as tremendous as 2011’s Street of the Love of Days. The combination of Spanish guitar, English melancholy, the spirit of Gal Costa and a touch of cinematic magic makes them one of the most intriguing songwriting pairs working today. They recorded it in nine days because they liked the idea of a quickly made, minimally arranged, no-fuss record. Plus: the musicians on board nailed their takes quickly. Amor de Días will tour the U.S. in February and will play some Spanish dates.

The album will be released on January 29, 2013. Pre-order The House at Sea now in the Merge store. LP Preorders will include a free Merge Records LP slip mat and a poster. Preorders will ship to arrive on or around the release date of January 29, 2013. Don’t forget . . . the Merge Holiday Code works on pre-orders, too!