Excepter: A Swarming Mass Of Life-Like Fingers

To a large extent, their recordings come from taped live shows and/or improvised jamming sessions later to be reworked and finished in the (large) living room/working junction of JFR`s home. There are no guitars in the recent thermal Excepters outings, but not intentionally (we are open to anything, we just didn´t find a guitarplayer that fits, JFR says). By entering the hometurf thru a narrow hallway into the living room you can find yourself placed in a somewhat riddled conceptual order: cardboardboxes to the left and right, some kitchenware, music hardware equipment, a turntable with a stack of vinyl, a large dinner table, two sofas, a couple of books littered around, posters and paintings on the wall. The two cats, one of them seems to be always in heat while visiting (its helpful to keep me thinking about things, JFR says), and there is Lala of course, the delightful lady of the house, being the good spirit and secret 5th member in the band. It was nice to hang out with the guys, going for the occasional beer & pizza (triple sausage, er...) nearby their homebase area of North-East Brooklyn, talking about the lay of the loaf, the daily running icecream-van driver, how to tip a tip, best bars or some arcane band of the sixties/seventies. This interview was done in December 2006. Excepters recent album Alternation was originally released in July 2006 via 5RC/Fusetron.

Excepter: Lypse, live at North Six How did you find your way into making music? Punk rock made me realize music was something you could be, whether you made it or not. I think I caught last wave of punk being something that you get shit for being on the street walking around or alienating your parents. After Nirvana, it became an earmark of success. I got talked into being in bands, even though I didn’t play an instrument, because I was cool.

What instruments were used for songs like Rock Stepper, Whirl Wind or Knock Knock on Alternation? How did these this songs originate?

Rock Stepper originated as a drum loop sample Dan made on his minidisk. I synched the loop with an analog sequencer/synthesizers combination. Nathan and Dan improvised over the loops and I remixed the thing through compression and echo. I wrote the lyrics while listening to the track on headphones and recorded the vocal through compression and chorus. This whole process took three years, in steps.

Whirl Wind started as a drum pattern Dan developed and was using live quite a bit. When we went into the studio to record Alternation, Dan said, “this is my jam this record,” so we recorded it first day with Nathan and I improvising the two synthesizer lines, and me the vocal. Half a year later, I had Jon come in and overdub his vocal and then Lala overdub her bass clarinet. I threw bits through filters, echo and reverb, and then I think Nathan came in and added synth percussion at a joint part of the piece. Dan’s drum machine was totally unique so we had to invent a whole new genre of music to match it. We were worried it would be impossible to master to vinyl.

Knock Knock started as a stock drumbeat I used to use all the time back in the NNCK days, so when I first got a drum machine, that was the first thing I programmed. The lyrics are halfway grabbed from “Froggy Went A Courtin” aka “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Kie Me O.” In the studio I’d riff on the frog/mouse romance/rat killing theme and mess with the filter on the drum machine while Dan and Nathan improvised on electric piano, drums, and synthesizer. Later, I cut the whole twenty-minute jam into pieces and stitched together and re-voiced the six-minute version on the album. We got to doing it live fairly often last year, and we cut-up a new version of the track re-titled “KKKKK” for a split single.

How did you find the lyrics for songs like Knock Knock, Rock Stepper, The Ladder and Apt. Living?

Knock Knock, as I mentioned above was inspired by an old folk song. Rock Stepper was inspired coincidently by the electronic religion in Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” In the book, worshippers jack into a virtual reality game in which they try to walk to the top of a mountain while boulders crash down around them. So the song imagines this kind of spiritual/electronic struggle to get to a higher level, which I compare to the struggle of a male dancer in the competitive, judgmental world of an NYC Saturday night out. The Ladder steps inside the view point of a bouncer or bored gate-keeper type. His viewpoint has become by necessity of his position, the viewpoint of his superiors, and so he gets no pleasure from the visible world. He has become a passive tool and his only release is the end of the night. Apt. Living is a sort of sketch on the thin-wall existence standard in NYC. It’s also sort of a satire on the kind of sob stories you hear if you put your ears to the neighbors too much.

The lyrics to Excepter Songs play mainly with the subconscious. To what extent does the band refer to this or/and to Tony Conrad/La Monte Young`s idea of The Dream Music?

Since so much of our music is improvised, it’s only natural that it would tend towards the subconscious. The conscious mind is too busy trying to keep the music going, thinking about which button to push or key to hit. When I sing, I form word-like sounds without really thinking about them or try to describe the images inside the mind’s eye as they appear. This process is kind of a feedback loop in which the music informs a vision which inspires the words. Sometimes words crystallize and become repeatable “songs,” but the music comes first. I suppose another question could be which areas of the unconscious the subconscious uncovers, but we would have to agree on a common psychological language with which to map out the mindscape. I’m afraid society provides little consensus here. The past century of research in this area is still considered “occult” and it might take another century to even be considered a student of “It.” I first read about La Monte Young in Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga’s Velvet Underground biography. The book describes John Cale’s participation in a 24-hour performance of Satie’s “Vexations” and The Theater of Eternal Music’s endless drones. At the time I was reading this, say 1992 or so, I was into the way Grunge was progressing on the underground level. Melvins were slowing and lengthening metal riffs and Earth took that and stretched it out even further. The upper-underground/lower-mainstream at the time was getting so trivial and imitative, I felt compelled to drive even further underground. I started this band called The Black Lotus which would be collective guitar noise feedback sessions that would last five, six, seven hours. The idea was total immersion, endurance and obliteration. Things got really strange, especially because LSD was still available and noise music was far from being as accepted as it is today. I can still hear that chord we blasted out. The idea of La Monte Young was a big inspiration, but I didn’t hear his music until fairly recently.

Excepter shifted from black-noise dub-disco (on "KA") over raga and drone elements (on "Throne") to a different and more sophisticated outfit by mixing the genres, with a dominating use of keyboards and pre-programmed beats. Would you consider this shifting a kind of natural progression?

Your question is curious because we have used the same basic equipment throughout our recording career. Almost every Excepter track is based around vocals, synthesizers and rhythm programming, accented by the odd percussive or acoustic instrument. What you are noticing is perhaps our way of seeing records not as documents of a band’s progress, but more as conceptual, fixed “places” designed to exist outside of time. The records are designed to be listened to repeatedly, so we feel no need to repeat the sound of any given record. If you want to hear another “Ka,” just listen to “Ka” again. It’s not a “natural” progression, because for the lost part, the overall sound, look and feel of each record is consciously pre-determined. When I edited “Ka” it was with the watchword of “This Is What We Don’t Sound Like.” “Throne” was meant to be a musical nap, a “chill-out” record. We went into “Self Destruction” with the idea that we would play with restricted freedom and general isolation from each other. "Sunbomber" was the opposite idea, with us all playing live and connected to each other. "Alternation" was always supposed to be a double album with a patchwork of styles and a more “street life” point-of-view. More often than not, the album titles and covers are determined well before the music is even recorded. The live show can be the churning cauldron from which new ideas arise. We’re still playing catch-up with our records to solidify all the concepts making the rounds in the live band.

Would you assume that sonic waves can transform or alter a state of mind?

I recently saw a video on youtube of demonstration in which a cornstarch solution vibrated at a certain frequency radically developed a swarming mass of life-like fingers. I imagine certain frequencies have similar effects on the brain, igniting quantum changes and opening doors to non-linear thought-forms. Beyond pure sound, I’m sure certain forms of cultural taboo-breaking could also trigger radical responses in the brain. This is what rock ‘n’ roll has been about since its inception, right?

Alejandro Jodorowsky`s early films are just re-released on DVD: El Topo and Holy Mountain are both works with heavy surreal intention. How much were you inspired by these?

Similar to my early experiences with La Monte Young, I first came in contact with the idea of Jodorowsky by reading descriptions of his actions in a book called “Midnight Movies.” The book detailed his esoteric preparations for filmmaking like not sleeping for a week before the shoot, wearing fetish underwear hidden under his costume, filming everything in sequence, etc. The idea of being the art, embodying ritualized creation both on camera and off –- that idea was a big influence on me. -- That, and having a thing for bitchin’ headgear!

What book of science fiction author Philip K. Dick would you recommend? How do you feel about the filmadaptions like Bladerunner or A Scanner Darkly?

“VALIS” is probably the central PKD text for me, probably because it was this down-to-earth attempt by the author to make sense of his visionary experience. His writing is so ordinary, even when his concepts are genius, so it’s cool with “VALIS” that he’s applying visionary techniques to his writing style with all the feedback loops of self-referencing. I was reading VALIS about the same time I was heavily into Ziggy-era Bowie. I think Bowie was on a similar trip of endless self-reference through semi-autobiographical science-fiction. It’s a dangerous stunt to pull. Of course, Bowie survives while others self-destruct under the pressure. “Blade Runner” is its own thing, obviously. It touches on notions of identity and humanity that are inherit in PKD’s vision, but largely it’s a triumph of, let’s say, the science-fiction community of design. Perhaps it captures PKD’s sense of melancholia, but PKD was never that cool. In fact, “Total Recall” might be the more accurate film in capturing PKD’s sense of the awkward and clumsy. “A Scanner Darkly,” is perhaps the most faithful in getting the street-level banality of PKD, but I thought the colors were wrong. PKD is more like cheap color television with lots of bleed and noise. No film has really captured how much a part of the nerd culture that guy was.

Can you relate to the late seventies/early eighties No Wave scene?

Relate? Not much--probably as much as I relate to Jim Jarmusch. I was always more of a (David) Lynch guy.

In Europe it never was common for the art people to mix with the rock crowd. In many historical views the "rock people" quite naturally separated themselves from the "artsy people", especially in England.

Class is different in America. We don’t have the heavy lined middle-class vs. working class conflict that exists so evidently in British culture. It’s more of a hyper-class conflict that is more on the micro level, an anxiety about belonging or not-belonging to cultures that shift with every possible socioeconomic combination. Add the American “rebel” and “bullshit” traditions and things get really confusing. I think Americans are banding together less on economic sides and more on sides of creative vs. non-creative. Creativity in America is still suspect as some sort of mental defect, so safety in numbers.

Rock Music had to origin from working class almost strictly, even secretly hidden in case of a bourgeoise or privileged backgrounds. In the 50s artists like Joseph Beuys prefered to teach students without any highschool diploma or degree.

Maybe Marx was right? I’m thinking of all the friends I have and they come from a wide spectrum of backgrounds. The common denominator is creativity. I saw Charlemagne Palestine say “Some art is expensive to buy, some art is expensive to be.” I’ll assume this truth hangs heavy in the heart of many of today’s “existence” artists.

Would it be helpful to start as a non-trained musician to reach a point in the art scene?

If you look at a spectrum with art at one end and entertainment at the other, then yes, a lack of training would make it easy to produce art. If you look at the same spectrum but replace the word “art” with “costs money” and the word “entertainment” with “makes money” perhaps you can see why eventually everything becomes training, or survival.

Excepter`s Alternation was reviewed in Frieze Art Magazine. They mistook your name as John Fell "Miller" (or "Walker"). Was that an accident or a prank?

John Fell Walker is a pretty cool name! Maybe it fits me better than Ryan. That review seemed based on cursory internet research and what was probably a tight deadline. I wouldn’t expect every writer to be a rabid fan. Reviewers have a hard time even spelling our band name right. Frieze is an art/design magazine, right? I’m sure it’s part of the design culture to hold everything at arm’s length. Surface is the medium for the designer. I don’t begrudge them this point of view.