you guys know guitar player and indie legend peter momtchiloff (we call him “momtch”) from his former bands talulah gosh, heavenly, marine research (and many others) and his current bands the would-be-goods, les clochards, etc. for his new project, deep hits by tufthunter, he has assembled a cast of musicians and assigned songs to a bunch of singers. the album is available for free (there are a handful of CDs out there he’s made for friends) and, despite demand for vinyl, he has no interest in capitalizing on it. the record is a true gem that features some of our favorite singers ever: (chickfactor co-founder) pam berry (black tambourine, withered hand, the pines, etc.); lupe núñez-fernández, (pipas, amor de días); claudia gonson (the magnetic fields, future bible heroes); jessica griffin (would-be-goods); amelia fletcher (talulah gosh, heavenly, tender trap, the catenary wires, etc.); lois, bid and loads of others. we asked momtch a few questions but be sure to read ben’s interview with him also. interview by gail
chickfactor: what made you want to do this record?
peter: I have always written a lot of songs, and a few of them have been played and recorded by bands I’ve been in (talulah gosh and the would-be-goods in particular). but I think there is something a bit uncomfortable about a singer being fed songs by another member of the band: fine now and then, but not as the basis for a band. ¶ with my midlife manpunk band hot hooves, I decided to try something I hadn’t done before: singing (some of the) songs myself. I enjoyed this, but was not surprised to discover that I don’t really have the voice to be a good lead vocalist. ¶ so what to do with my songs? asking a different person to sing each one seemed a good way to try to make the most of them. I’m surprised that more people haven’t done this.
cf: how did you go about selecting the people involved?
for most of the bass and drums, I turned to my clochards colleagues ian and gary—I knew they would do a great job. the singers are all friends, so that made it hard for them to say no (no one did). I know plenty of other singers, but these are the people I felt most comfortable asking. ¶ I regret that the music industry seems increasingly to favour the working model of a controlling auteur (artist, producer, or artist/producer combo). I knew I didn’t want to go down that path. for me, personal interaction is the essence of pop music. so I used a collaborative model, starting by working out the basic tracks with my crack oxford rhythm section. and I didn’t try to tell anyone what to play or how to sing their parts.
cf: how long have you been working on / writing the songs?
one is from the 1980s, one from the 1990s, and most of the rest from the last few years. In late 2013 I went through all the songs I could remember and picked the best ones.
cf: do you want me to ask debsey if she’ll sing on the next one?
sure! though I’d have to work hard to try to come up with something good enough. I’ve been a fan since I heard “been teen” on the radio in 1981.
cf: what guitarists inspired you growing up?
in the order in which I came to them: rock’n’rollers like scotty moore; then george harrison; steve cropper; wilko johnson; dave edmunds; tom verlaine and richard lloyd of television; leo nocentelli of the meters; and various people who played with howlin’ wolf and james brown. I apologize for failing to live up to this list. my favourite guitar players to listen to are steve cropper and django reinhardt.
cf: who are some of the best bands in oxford right now?
apart from my own, I like a couple of punk/metal bands called agness pike and girl power, and a lady/gentleman duo called the other dramas. my clochards colleague karen cleave is developing a very interesting act which I think she is calling mermaid noises. I imagine all these acts will remain local attractions, and I think that’s just fine.
cf: if you had to put tufthunter in a record store “genre” what would you choose?
it was nice when we could all think of ourselves as “alternative”—is that still legitimate, or would we be deceiving ourselves? I am certainly “independent,” given I don’t even have a record label.
cf: why did you not want to charge anyone for this record/package it and sell as vinyl or CD?
it was partly pragmatic: what I would like is for people to hear the music, and I don’t need a financial return. for a little-known band, putting a record on sale can be self-defeating in terms of dissemination, especially if you don’t work hard on selling it at live shows. many people who like music are now fairly unused to mechanisms for buying records, so those mechanisms tend to represent a barrier to dissemination. ¶ in addition, observing the rituals of the record industry and its media, I confess to a certain distaste, and an unwillingness to join in that game. it would be undignified for a gentleman of my years. ¶ so I decided that I would make CDs to give out freely to friends and acquaintances; and that I would make the record free to download, to enable it to reach a wider audience if there is one.
cf: do you have any memorable stories about talulah gosh, heavenly, would-be-goods or your time spent in chickfactor-land?
I’ve generally been content to let my past life slip into oblivion. I remember facts and scenes, but not experiences, on the whole. ¶ looking back I recall what a pleasure it has been to hang around with other bands. I must have met hundreds over the years and with very few exceptions they have been friendly and comradely. ¶ in place of forgotten stories, let me mention some of the most unusual shows I’ve played. ¶ talulah gosh supporting the blow monkeys at the new theatre in oxford—marooned with our tiny amps in the middle of an enormous stage more accustomed to the tread of quo and cliff. ¶ heavenly doing a tour of japan not only as ourselves but also as bogus BMX, stand-ins for the BMX bandits, backing their singer duglas, who ate only chips for the entire trip, out of fear of surreptitious seafood contamination. ¶ marine research playing with shellac and fugazi in east london—both bands were completely without pretensions and treated us as equals. ¶ would-be-goods on the same bill as an indie fashion show in greenwich village, thanks to chickfactor. ¶ scarlet’s well playing at an art squat commune in berlin, complete with a huge vat of vegan chili, authentically 1980s, but 25 years on. also ostpol, a bar in dresden offering a meticulous exercise in ddr retro chic/naff. ¶ les clochards playing as the only support to tom jones [sic] in the middle of a wood in suffolk.
cf: will there be another tufthunter LP?
the first time someone asked me this I found myself saying that maybe I had drained this particular wound. I report that metaphor in case it seems revealing. ¶ I am going to do a couple more tunes, because there are specific singers I still want to involve. I would certainly enjoy doing another album, but I have used most of my best songs and it might take a very long time to come up with enough again.
cf: thanks!
thank you! I suspect it was you who put pitchfork onto the record—most grateful.
