HUH? What’s that? What’s BLASTING outta my Ear-Buds?
Man that’s the NOW SOUND of the yesterday from the
future. Turn it up? I CAN’T! IT WON’T GO ANY LOUDER! Oh, turn
it down! I CAN’T DO THAT EITHER! I need it to hurt me
to feel it. And anyway, I work in a windowless room in
a shitty city (true story) and it’s the only way I can
sufficently pretend I’m riding a nitrous balloon to San
Francisco with Noel Redding (on the same size handful
of horse tranqs as K.Moon) givin’ a hand buzzer to the
Dead C. This is music for grownups who shouldn’t be
this nuts. Crawl down into the sewer and plant and
nurture some fresh basil. I don’t wanna write an intro
any more than you wanna read one so let’s do this.
So, my favorite interview thing is when the band just
goes through a record song by song and talks about
whatever they want, which Mike Donovan kindly obliged:
Lars: Side A – “Description of the Harbor”
Mike: Strapping Fieldhands cover…
Lars: Side B – “Love is Strange”
Mike: “Magic Bus” wood blocks are a curtain rod halved by
Matt that day and played by me. It was the first tune we recorded and all
of side two is actually in the order we recorded.
Lars: “A Story Over There”
Mike: “First take” drum overdub by Matt. “…by Mennon” ending
is a tribute to an old bandmate.
Lars: “Be a Song”
Mike: Pretty straightforward lyrics about crossing over into
songland. Flute by Kim West.
Lars: “Message From the Law”
Mike: First verse: our hero receives a letter from the
government inquiring into his delinquency or lack of interest. Second
verse: our hero receives answering machine message from his mother
concerning endurance training. Third verse: receives eviction
letter and finds himself free of all responsibility. The word
“squarely” is used here in the hipster sense as in “your Dad is square”.
Lars: “Who Has Time to Protest?”
Mike: Meant to sound like a Berkeley protest singalong.
More flute by Kim West.
Lars: “Bells (w/Tremolo and Distortion)”
Mike: General fuck you tune.
Lars: “The News Today”
Mike: War on the turf of the United States from the
perspective of the young and rich. As the Chinese are landing he sets
down his beads and expensive cake and…
Lars: “Hey! Sofia”
Mike: Based on true events in the Bulgarian capital.
Lars: “Dr. Bag and the Pomade Nature Giants”
Mike: Four track improv plus Matt’s giant bass and drums.
Includes scrambled lyrics.
Lars: Can you tell me a little about living in San Francisco?
Mike: It’s getting to be more and more rich guy turf with
the chorus of new luxury high rises and tons of Bio-tech capital. I keep
getting cut off by Prius drivers when I’m working, they drive like
post 9-11 firemen, strange entitlement with their moves. But still, it’s
a beautiful place and if you know where to look you can find
cheap eats and living.
Lars: Where are you from and when did you move to SF?
Mike: I’m from Hinsdale, IL which is sheltered western
suburban Chicago. I moved to SF on Halloween 1996 from D.C.
Lars: What’s your perfect day off there consist of?
Mike: Coffee at Cafe Abir (to go!), breakfast at home with
my girlfriend Amanda, thru the Panhandle to Amoeba for a low priced
score as it opens at 10:30, “Hi” to Shayde there, bike downhill to
pick up Eric Bauer in Chinatown, walk thru the Financial District
for lunch at Tulan, back home for some quiet time with the cat,
over to Hartman’s for some recording in the basement, slow ride back
home with the bike in Paul Allan’s truck to the lady and the cat, cool
and misty in our neighborhood now, order in take-out, eat it in bed,
fall asleep watching Entourage or Withnail and I.
Lars: Can you talk about the metamorphosis of the band?
Mike: It all really started with a band called Mesh that
was myself and Luke from Child Abuse. Our Woodsist 7″ has a couple
of tunes that were originally from that band. It was a
keyboard/guitar/singing band and we would throw in recordings of noise over it live
and it was always a disaster, except once or twice when we got Bobby
Adams (Loach Fillet) to play drums for a show and it clicked for a second.
When that band dissolved, a year or so passed before I became
friends with Stonehouse and came up with the name Sic Alps. That
was 2003-4 I guess. I gave Adam a tape I put together for Folding Cassettes called
“Pre-Museum” which had primitive versions of “Reconnectionland” and maybe
“Surgeon and the Slave” on it. He kinda liked it and quickly taped
something over it. Soon after we recorded “Semi-Streets”, which was the
first thing we did together. We never practiced or played SF shows but
pulled a very shitty U.S. tour with California Lightening (Jenny
and Bianca from Erase Errata) and did a split 7″ with them. Then I
managed to get Stonehouse, Bianca (his then girlfriend), the eight
track and a bevvy of gear borrowed off Eric Bauer into a rented minivan
and drove up to a Mendocino vacation rental property and recorded the
bulk of “Pleasures and Treasures” over 4 days. It was the
beginning of the beginning and the end. When we got home we tried for
a while to mix and put a record together, but Stonehouse and I split
at that point for some pretty good reasons. Enter my personal savior
Matt Hartman, who basically wrote to me when he heard the news of the
split and said “I’m in your band.” He then proceeded to mix,
sequence, make the cover art and generally realize “Pleasures and
Treasures.” I was 34 and I had just finished my first album.
Lars: Can you talk about the songwriting process? Do you
and Hartman write together?
Mike: I write the tunes and the lyrics and I bring ’em in,
more or less, in a completed state. Then we usually record an acoustic
guitar and the vocals to start and then flesh it out from there one
track at a time. Sometimes Matt will play nearly all the instruments
except the singing, that’s been happening a lot lately and Matt
always engineers the whole thing. We always use the same set-up, which
is an 8-track, one mic, one cheap pre-amp, an old reverb tank and a
memory man pedal. The big variable becomes mic placement.
Lars: How much does he contribute to guitars/songs/lyrics?
Can you talk about his input into the recordings?
Mike: Even though I could play you the tune I wrote before
we record it, we really write em 50/50 ’cause Matt’s in charge of how
the song is gonna come across in a lot of ways. It’s a successful
division of labor.
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