interviewed by J Kaw
Page 2
J K: There was hope, pressure maybe, that it would be completed, because you knew Heather wouldn't be around as much.
W C H: That's what it comes down to. It's understandable. To me, it just wasn't quite ready. Sonically, it wasn't ready. Everybody put up with a lot. It makes a lot more sense now. "What is your deal" They didn't say that, but I could see it, I could imagine that. "Are you just scared?" But that wasn't the case.
J K: As I was saying before, soon afterward, you had the distractions of the house being worked on, the Olivia reunion taking up most of 2005.
W C H: Good times. It made me really happy to have somebody be interested, some guy I had never heard of.
J K: Right, Vincent Gallo. You got to meet some interesting people... Yoko...
W C H: Didn't actually meet her. I was too scared. Bill [Doss, of The Olivia Tremor Control] went over and talked to her. Vincent Gallo had his mellotron shipped over. Flew it over. It was just in a room, with all kinds of stuff set up. Pete was playing mellotron. We didn't take it out, but it was fun to have a little jam room. Pointlessly great.
J K: That takes us up to 2006 almost. When you say that the record wasn't sonically there, were you working on it mostly by yourself at that point? Were there still recordings of the full band that came later?
W C H: There are twenty-something songs... There's so much stuff. Everyone was probably wanting me to pick, and stand behind it. I wasn't sure... Frank Zappa said the first six albums could be edited together, in a different order. I feel I could edit all the twenty remaining songs I have, plus this album, plus any of the Olivia stuff into a whole new thing. To me, it got confusing.
J K: The material all flowed together.
W C H: It got too close. When you've heard a mix 16,000 times.... We saved some of those for later.
J K: In 2006, Derek went through things, worked on the mixes.
W C H: He did tons of work. It was great.
J K: How did it come around then, getting into 2007, when Charlie [Johnston] began working with you on editing the album together, sequencing the tracks, mixing...
W C H: We were becoming good friends. Definitely have the same thing going on, sonically. Had my low-fidelity... whatever. However you want to put that...
J K: That mixture of the low-fidelity aesthetic, at least with regard to a Rock-band recording, with the electro-acoustic manipulations, the cut-ups, wanting to break the recordings apart, then put them back together.
W C H: Yeah. I just gave him a couple boxes of C D's. You've seen the boxes - mixes. Maybe some of them being probable tracks, but "Here's a bunch of other shit too." Mixes I'd over-populated my own bandmates with at the time. "Pick one of the six!"
J K: They were saying that to you?
W C H: After a while. After three years. Not anyone specific. That would be annoying to me too.
J K: Comparing the first album to the new one, with the first, you have some long songs, with elaborate structures fully worked out. Towards the end of the record, you have more fragments; there's a reprise of a portion of one song, and a reprise of lyrics from "Outside Blasts." Nonetheless, the recordings, the electroacoustic parts - the sitting at home, editing it all together - came more in the form of layering stuff on top. With this record, there are more cut-ups. The songs are more in pieces. You have the song which was originally called "Blasting Through" with just the one part repeated in different aural settings. One song is about 20 seconds long. "Overjoyed" is two parts quite separate from each other.
W C H: "Particle Parades" is like that.
J K: Yeah, pieces of songs mixed in throughout the entire overlapping structure, whether or not there's a some sort of unifying concept.
W C H: It's interesting to hear your take.
J K: As you were trying to decide which mix to use, to get towards a completed album, some of your bandmates thought that maybe the songs sounded good. I assume they were comparing them to the first album. Well-recorded songs, that you had been performing live. And you had been performing live regularly in Athens during all this time. There was no extended period when the band didn't play live.
W C H: It's true. I thought the album was going to be finished. I thought it was just going to magically happen.
J K: Were you wanting to move in that direction, with the songs being in a state of disarray, of falling-apart?
W C H: Well, I asked Charlie and Nesey to try something. It's as simple as that. Somebody outside the band could step in, lend a hand. No-one was arguing, but...
J K: Charlie, and Suzanne [Allison] too, joined the band in 2007. Nesey comes to Athens with Julian [Koster] in 2008, with the new Music Tapes album coming out. And you guys do the Elephant 6 Holiday Suprise tour.
W C H: Yes, it helped boost my spirits. To see that people are still interested. I'm confused about the world. You'd used to try to get reviews, and that's all gone sort of, and I'm confused. But people still like us. They're kids - 17, 18 - coming out to shows. Elephant 6, really? Thank you! It's real. It was nice to have that.
J K: I've noticed with some of the articles now coming out, you'd think Circulatory System was coming back from a long break, that the shows that had been going on in Athens hadn't happened. People are excited about it.
W C H: I assume people have downloaded some live shows, if they're interested. Maybe they knew some of the songs, but maybe some of the songs aren't even on the record.
J K: Yes, there are a few songs that you've been performing live quite often that aren't on Signal Morning. Will the next album be coming from the same pool of recordings, just a different interpretation or sequence? Or is it going to be new stuff?
W C H: Yeah, good question. There's been talk. Nesey suggested that we have Sound on Sound, that I put out the rest of my entire catalog of unreleased material. Everything else I got. 5 C D's. But really, come on! Nobody even buys shit anymore, do they?
J K: Edited together, though, like this new record is.
W C H: Yeah, not raw. One side would be the tropical side. "Tropical Electronic." It's fun to talk about.
J K: It could get people's attention, if it was 5 C D's.
W C H: That's what he said too.
J K: Also you have the Toy Box project, which is going to be available soon. The idea there was...
W C H: I just have a little box where I keep toys, novelties, whistles and stuff. It's musique concrète, with toys. I wouldn't want to give anyone the idea that it's some kind of children's...
J K: So you finally finished that. A long-form electroacoustic work.
W C H: We threw some pop-esque melodies in there to balance.
J K: That'll be a tour-only release?
W C H: It's not being pressed.
J K: It's a C D-R.
W C H: Rewritable even. If you don't like Toy Box just write over it. Just put a fucking Allman Brothers... I couldn't come up with something better than that. Desi Arnez...
J K: Let's go back to idea behind Black Foliage. There was an underlying concept that the songs were coming up out of the overall bed of sounds. The "animation music" - the sounds constantly shifting - with songs forming out of it then submerging back into it. This record seems closer to that than the first Circulatory System.
W C H: Yeah. It actually has a couple of out-takes from Black Foliage. "Signal Morning"... it's not an out-take, it's one of these songs I keep around. They're all my babies. But that's Eric playing drums. That was '98 maybe. The chop-up aspect came with handing it to other people, and giving them access to all this stuff. "Woodpecker Greeting Worker Ant," Charlie didn't know that from anything else. He said, "This should be first. It'll be great, not what anyone expects." Others in the band probably don't even know it. But we had all these songs we're playing; do I need to add another into it? You see what I'm saying?
J K: "Woodpecker" has a heavier sound.
W C H: In fact, it was on the same tape as "Giant Day." The next instrumental was that. Whenever I could, I'd just do a drum beat, and then make up a guitar part: make something to be added onto later. Those are both examples of that. And there are still more from '93 that I like. I had a certain guitar then that I sold. So it's possible nobody in the band had even heard it. I didn't want to throw anything else into the mix. It was already confusing for everyone.
J K: But you'd included it with the stuff you gave to Charlie.
W C H: Oh yeah, I gave him way more than he actually... I didn't realize. He believed in it, he worked his ass off. I was like, "Holy shit, man, sorry." We wouldn't see each other for a week. I figured he was doing his thing.
J K: You hadn't realized you had given him...
W C H: So much material. It was overwhelming. I could've given him one box... but if I liked what they did, if someone else gave me so much, I would go through it. I'm a good editor as well. I could go through Jeff's material. Hint hint, Jeffrey Nigh Mangum.
