Within the strange and beautiful world of western Massachusetts and the cross-pollinating winds that blow through Ecstatic Yod and Ecstatic Peace! — where layers upon layers of music history-and-futurity seem to bubble endlessly, flowing from Brooklyn, Boston, Hartford, Brattleboro and elsewhere back through the world again — an enigmatic artist known as Gown has emerged as one of the more uncategorizable figures from the milieu. Last month Gown (whose name is Andrew MacGregor) sat down to talk to Aaron about his early days, his influences, and his many projects — which range from tenderly dissonant, vocal-based solo albums to duos with Christina Carter (The Bastard Wing) and Thurston Moore (Bark Haze), to a recent tour and collaboration with Sunburned Hand of the Man.
We also took the opportunity to ask about his early experiences in the the pacific northwest and Vancouver scenes, his struggle to find a musical community there, his own recording history and chronology, and his different approaches to writing, recording, and engineering for the many projects on which he now works.
Many thanks to Andrew for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk with us (at the time he was only days away from moving to Nova Scotia, where he has bought a house with his partner, Christina Carter).
Early Years, Early Works
Popcorn Youth: There is not a lot of information about you available online. Could you tell us something about your background? Where you are from, when you began performing, when you made your first recordings?
Gown: I am originally from a sizable town of about 70,000 people on an island in British Columbia. And although it’s a large town, in a way it’s quite isolated. When I was growing up, when I was about seventeen years old, Nirvana broke. I’d heard bands like Mudhoney before and just as anyone who was between the ages of 12-19 at the time, we had our lives changed in a certain way and, as a result, at a certain point I decided that I could do this myself. I was artistic as a child, I drew a lot as a child, but in high school I stopped. I always think of what I am doing now, even though it’s not necessarily classified as rock music, I feel like I am playing rock music. And I feel like I’m either playing rock music or, in a way, indigenous music from where I came. Whatever is going on musically for me is both coming in and passing through me, going out of me. So for me perhaps it is a different perspective than for others, because for me the music is constantly both coming in and going out of me.
And growing up, being so isolated, pretty much throughout my twenties right up until I was 30, this gave me time to develop artistically. Whereas perhaps many people would become involved in many different things at that time of their life, I spent most of my time devoted to music. At the time I was playing in bands that would be classified today as indie rock, however, in those bands I was playing the way that I play. And the experience was a bit confusing for me. Because I thought that this was what everyone was playing: what comes in and goes out of them. But I eventually realized that maybe that’s not the case with everyone else. It turns out that they probably were not playing that way. Which put me in a weird position because I didn’t always understand or grasp where people were coming from.
Popcorn Youth: When you heard Nirvana were you already playing in bands, or was Nirvana the original impetus?
Gown: I was going into grade 11 at that point. And I had Mudhoney tapes and Minor Threat tapes. I had heard various different things from what would be called the underground, pre-Nirvana. But what changed at that point, at least regarding my perspective and my community’s perspective, was that everyone was now open to all sorts of different things, at least for a very short period of time. People would listen to Beat Happening, but also to Guns and Roses (laughs). And that wasn’t a stretch at all. People would be listening to music that might sound absurd next to each other today, say, Pantera alongside Steven Jesse Bernstein. Okay, so maybe Dinosaur Jr and Pantera next to each other was not so absurd (laughs), but at least for a very short period of time, at least in my community, it seemed that, to me at least, that maybe things were going to change, historically speaking. We all know now of course that they didn’t, to a large degree.
Popcorn Youth: How did you make the transition from an aspiring 17 year old musician to becoming involved with bands and the local music community? What path did you take toward finding your own voice, toward eventually establishing your own identity as a recording artist?
Gown: I think that I spent a good deal of the first part of those years just listening to different kinds of music and dealing with that. And finding my own way to play, then trying to play that way, then trying to learn how to play the instrument itself, playing in bands, then realizing that ‘playing in bands’ did not accomplish what I needed it to do. I also opened a record store [Blackball] at the time and ran it for six years. Largely I decided that I wasn’t happy going to the bar every night, drinking all of the time. I lived on a small island of a few hundred people for a while, then I lived on a private island of just, well, me. And in that time I figured out what did and did not make me happy. Or what conceivably was not making me happy, at the very least. And part of the musical life for me was figuring out that I couldn’t really contend with being part of a bar scene. Things that made me happy in my early twenties, being a part of that scene—yes, I saw some great bands, I booked some bands and brought some bands to town—well, it no longer made me happy in my late twenties. So I shut down my store and spent a year on my island alone. And through that, I think that I developed, to a point, you know, I figured out how to fuse the initial thrill of picking up a guitar and learning to make a noise that I was somewhat happy with, with some sort of technical ability, or style, at the very least. I don’t know if I would call it ‘ability’ (laughs). But it was something that I could be happier with, a melding of something that was both inside and outside — and of technique, and vision.
And largely after that I was extremely lucky: I put on a Charalambides show in November of 2004 and Christina [Carter] took an interest in my music. During that same period, earlier in the autumn of 2004 but also after, I experienced a great convergence of events. The boat that I used for traveling to and from the island on which I lived was stolen, and at the time I felt as if I was drifting. I was heading into a year in which I was about to turn 30 and did not really know what I wanted to do with myself. And I was without anything really, apart from merely living, and to an extent I enjoyed it, but at the same time I was becoming increasingly isolated and desperate in my own mind. And then I put on a show for Charalambides, and, in the course of that show, I was very nervous because I’d never played a show with someone whom I admired so much. And I ended up cutting and slicing my fingers during the performance. I really pushed where I was at, musically, at that point. I pushed it to the end of where I could go. And people responded.
Popcorn Youth: You booked the show and also played — was this in Vancouver?
Gown: Yes, in Vancouver. And in the course of that I met Christina [Carter]. I had corresponded with Charalambides and bought records from their label for years for my store. And then Christina and I met and began a relationship soon after, and in the course of events I ended up spending time in Northampton [Massachusetts].
Popcorn Youth: To go back to the show for a moment, it sounds as if your performance was a success. You began by saying that because you were nervous, and admired them, you played more aggressively, or took more chances . . . was that what you were about to say?
Gown: Yeah, exactly. Christina, I think, felt as if maybe I was coming from a similar place as her. I’m not sure that she would feel that way now (laughs). But I think that the rawness appealed to her and in turn put me in a position where she wanted to know more about me. And that was lucky for me.
Popcorn Youth: So that was November, 2004. What about the interim, primarily about your early days playing in bands in the mid-90s and your decision to become a solo artist. During the mid-to-late 1990s, were you both playing guitar and singing, or just playing guitar?
Gown: Yes, I was doing both, I was playing guitar, writing songs, and singing. I would say that I was learning how to become confident in doing that. You have to do that, to go through that period of learning, whether you are in your twenties or in your teens. I was in a few joke bands in my teens but we didn’t play really, we just imagined playing.
Popcorn Youth: At what point did you begin to conceive of yourself as a recording artist, no longer just a band member? And when did you adopt the Gown moniker?
Gown: The first Gown thing came out in 1997, I believe, it was a tape. And another tape came out in 1999. There is another missing 120 minutes from that period which Freedom From was supposed to put out, but didn’t. So when that didn’t happen I reassessed what I was doing and headed in a slightly different direction, more song-based. Which, looking back on it, was part and parcel of getting in touch with my own voice. So I was always doing this. I got a guitar for Christmas in 1993 and bought a four-track recorder soon after that.
Popcorn Youth: Did you sing on the first tape?
Gown: No, I just played. The material is on the Early Works CD-R.
The kind of thing that I was doing at the time, well, people really, really didn’t know what it was or where it was coming from. It was made, basically, just for me. It was very personal music — which is not to discount it, because some people did like it, and that was obviously the reason why I was able to keep doing what I was doing, to a certain degree.
Popcorn Youth: Were you sending out your tapes to reviewers or labels at that point, when you first began recording?
Gown: I think that I just sent my first tape to the guy from Freedom From because I had corresponded with him a bit. And . . . (pauses) . . . I think that that was probably it. I wasn’t really comfortable (laughs) with sending them out. Even sometimes now, it’s such a personal thing, it seems almost absurd in a way to have attention paid to something so personal.
Popcorn Youth: And during this period you were living in Nanaimo, or in Vancouver?
Gown: In Nanaimo, which is on an island. Vancouver was about an hour and a half by ferry.
Ecstatic Yod, Western Mass, and Bastard Wing
Popcorn Youth: How did you get from the Charalambides show in Vancouver in 2004 to the world of western Massachusetts, Ecstatic Yod, Ecstatic Peace, such a fertile cultural orbit?
Gown: Christina and I went on a tour and ended up spending time in Massachusetts because Yod is here and Kim and Thurston are here, and Byron is here, and that just led to sticking around more or less for two years off and on. We found a place where we could visit for extended periods of time and we were surrounded by quality people, truly great people whom we both knew and cared about. That was a really, really wonderful thing to experience.
At that point — things are maybe a little different now — at that point in time the CD-R culture existed to a certain degree but tape culture was completely gone — now it’s back — this has nothing to do with it (laughs) — but to have anyone notice you or pay attention to you seems to me to be extremely lucky. There’s so much out there, everyone’s busy, to expect anyone to pay attention is a bit presumptuous I think. So I feel very lucky today. At the point [of the Charalambides show] my entire sphere changed instantly.
Popcorn Youth: You released The Rich Lives of Trees, as Gown, more recently. How did that figure into the chronology of things?
Gown: That must have come out the summer of 2004.
Popcorn Youth: So it was released prior to the Charalambides show.
Gown: Yes.
Popcorn Youth: And you began touring with Christina when?
Gown: That was 2005, February and March. Our first release together was recorded on December of 2004, when she came and visited the private island on which I lived. It was released in March or April. It’s the split with My Cat Is An Alien. Then, when we finished that tour, I immediately recorded Sacred Mountains, in Massachusetts. This was at the end of the tour, in 2005.
Popcorn Youth: When did you make your next recording with Christina, entitled We’ve?
Gown: We’ve was recorded on that tour, in Sacramento, in March of 2005, maybe late February.
Popcorn Youth: And your record with her as The Bastard Wing, entitled The Crystal Thicket?
Gown: That was recorded . . . (pauses) . . . when was that recorded? The Bastard Wing album was recorded last winter, in winter of 2006. Christina also has a solo record called The Bastard Wing, by her alone, but our record is by the band The Bastard Wing, and it’s called Crystal Thicket. My solo album as Gown, Sacred Mountain, came out in December of 2005 on Ecstatic Yod.
Popcorn Youth: I see that Sacred Mountain is hand painted.
Gown: Yes. It’s an edition of 700, all of which I painted.
Popcorn Youth: How did your association with Ecstatic Yod begin?
Gown: With the record store that I had in Nanaimo we had a relationship with Byron and Thurston and Ecstatic Yod. As in, we would trade and do record shows together. My partner in the store, Jack, he’s friends with them. And for a while Blackball (my record store) was doing the manufacturing for Ecstatic Peace releases. We did the Jackie O’ one, the Kjetil D Brandsdal one, the Aesthetics one. Got them pressed, did the mastering, the cutting, and all of that. We basically handled all of the manufacturing and sent them to Thurston. So I’ve had a connection to the area for some time. I’ve known them for a while, Byron for 10 years, I think.
Popcorn Youth: How would you characterize your musical and cultural universe during this period, from the late 1990s until now? You mentioned CD-R and tape culture earlier. Have you witnessed demonstrable changes or shifts over the past ten or fifteen years? At what point did the CD-R underground begin to change the way that people in your world did things?
Gown: I think that people . . . (pauses) . . . Nanaimo was a place that was woefully behind the times in a lot of senses. I certainly had a group of customers who would buy underground music, but I guess that now I notice the difference between underground culture more when I’m around Northampton than I did in Canada. I think that one of the reasons that CD-R culture is so viable at this point is that the shelf life of a CD or a record is so short. People always want the latest thing. So, in a way, it forces artists to release more things. Because instead of selling, say, 1000 copies over a year, they sell 200 of five different CDs. I mean, of course, that’s not the same in every case, obviously. But for the very small bands it’s the cheapest, easiest, and most personal way to release their music, either on a CD-R or on a tape. It used to be a seven inch, of course.
Popcorn Youth: For the smaller bands, the days when you waited two or three years for a band to release a new album seem to have passed. Now sometimes an artist releases something before you know that they have been working on new material.
Gown: It makes it very difficult for a casual fan or for someone without endless income to keep up. On the other hand the bands have to make a living, these people are artists, and they are not really being supported any other way than by selling their goods; and if someone is willing to pay, then they should be able to sell it. It’s unfortunate if you want to be a completist or keep up, though.
Popcorn Youth: It does increase mystery and desire in some ways. For example, fifteen years ago, if you wanted everything recorded by a band you could basically get it, whereas today there are more objects, more recordings, more media, more ways of discovering a band’s output, especially for people who are active in independent and underground music. In some ways, this adds to the excitement of following a regional act — the ability to discover not only a record or two, but to unearth an entire corpus of contemporary work that has yet to reach any kind of mainstream audience or press.
Gown: True. The great thing about CD-Rs and tapes is that they are very immediate for the artists. They do not have to wait six months for it to come out. And it’s a personal thing, it’s something that they made, that they can trade or give or sell, it something from their own hands, something that they might not feel comfortable releasing under normal circumstances. Or if maybe it does have a few blemishes, maybe that’s a good thing, too — sometimes CD-Rs are better than the real release.
Popcorn Youth: On a related topic, was Bark Haze’s decision to release two recordings at the same time, one on vinyl and one on CD, made for a particular reason? Was this a nod to the underground in some way?
Gown: No, it’s just that we were asked to release both. Originally we were asked for a record, and then they asked if we had material for a CD too. And we said, sure. At that point, it was easy enough to go down to the basement and make it happen. But it’s good in a way that we did that because we explored the material in different ways. I think that the two recordings sound very different. The vinyl version is more raw and noisy while the CD is more meditative, it goes deeper into a calmer place.
Popcorn Youth: There are no drummers on the CD but I know that Bark Haze does include drummers on occasion — there’s Pete Nolan on the album, and I’ve also seen footage of John Moloney playing with you two.
Gown: On the vinyl version it’s Pete Nolan, but just on one song. He drums with us live sometimes too. When John drummed with us, it was just a thing to do.
Influences and Inspiration
Popcorn Youth: Regarding the music that you make on your own, as a solo artist, how would you characterize your major influences? People in the press always seem to mention Jandek.
Gown: The obvious examples of influence are the people I play with: Sonic Youth and Charalambides. But I think that for me a major influence in my approach was — hmm, I wouldn’t say that Jandek was an influence exactly . . . for some reason I sound a lot like Jandek at different times, but this was not intentional — I like him a lot, but it just seems to be that it ended up that way for me, the similarity. I think that Led Zeppelin are a huge influence on me. Loren Connors. The Dead C. (Pauses to think.) For me, influence is such of a weird thing because I don’t actively consider any of these things when I am doing something on my own, because I don’t have that kind of understanding. An understanding of how, for example, or of where the notes are, of technique. I play the guitar pretty much the way that I play guitar and I’m not really capable of doing it any other way. I think that Jandek is an obvious connection. I think that Dead C are too.
Popcorn Youth: The Dead C were key for so many people making music today. When did you first become aware of them? At what point in your development?
Gown: I think that I was aware of them in 1994 or 1995 but I don’t think that I heard a record until 1996. However, I always felt that New Zealand music in general was pretty much the perfect amalgamation of (1) American effort—or American emotion—on the one hand, and (2) a British pop sensibility on the other. If that makes any sense. There seems to be this weird understanding that artists from New Zealand possess in a very specific, and different, way. I’ve always had a connection to Peter Jefferies and that kind of thing, and anything that comes from that milieu has always been huge for me.
Popcorn Youth: You mentioned Loren Connors. At what point did you first encounter his music?
Gown: It was probably 1996 or 1997. 1996, I believe. I worked at a record store where I could order anything that I wanted, it didn’t matter that it wouldn’t sell. And Loren falls into that category, or at least he did at that time (laughs). Though actually, even then he’d already begun to gain some popularity. Things had begun to be reissued and so forth.
Popcorn Youth: Did you spend much time worrying about differences in US music scenes from, say, city to city? Was there an awareness of the music in New York City, DC, Chicago, Louisville, and so on?
Gown: Well, to a certain degree yes, but when you’re not in America . . . well, there’s obviously DC and NYC, but not being in America, it’s maybe not that important . . . being in the pacific northwest a lot of stuff is influences by the K aesthetic and other styles.
Popcorn Youth: So in the early 90s was the music of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest — K Records, or Sub Pop, or well known bands in the neighboring region — widespread and more mainstream as the result of proximity, or was that music still somewhat unknown, still basically the provenance of record store types, musicians, and enthusiasts?
Gown: I think that it was popular at that time only among record store and music people. I think that looking back on that world with two and a half years’ separation, that feel and aesthetic had something to do with the landscape there, the life there, the pace. People are more mellow and happy-go-lucky — not that Calvin Johnson is necessary mellow or happy go lucky! — but a lot of the music has that feel to it. And that comes, I think, in part from the lack of extremes in the weather and climate. At least that’s my working theory on it, that it’s partially due to geography and climate.
Popcorn Youth: And what was the relationship between Seattle, Portland, and other prominent neighboring scenes in the early or mid 90s and Vancouver? Were the differences and simarities something that you were aware of or concerned with? Was there a particular musical culture in your particular area that you could characterize in a specific way, and if so, how widely did it vary regionally?
Gown: I’m not really aware of that world because I was just doing stuff for myself at that point, and I’ve never really fit into the Vancouver scene quote, unquote. I’ve been interested in it, and I have loved for a long time musicians who were from there. Destroyer, I was really into for a long, though I’ve not kept up with the last two albums. A guy called Mark Szabo, and Good Horsey. Pork Queen, Near Castlegar, Superconductor, there’s a group of people who were older than me, whom I really liked a lot, and still admire. Though to be honest I’m not really sure where they’re at now and where it fits in with where I’m at. I didn’t really fit into any one thing that was going on there. I put on shows for some of those people, yes. I put on shows for some of the people who are more well known today, but also for some who are less known. They are all friendly and nice people.
You know, having a record store in a town of 70,000, you have to satisfy quite a lot of different people. So mainly my involvement at that point was through my store [in Nanaimo]. We had Dub Narcotic play there two or three times. Neko Case. The Evaporators, which is Dave Carswell, who produced the New Pornographers, and John Collins. You know, a bunch of those people are sort of acquaintances of mine, on various different levels, but they don’t really enter into the . . . I think that Beat Happening and a lot of the K stuff has been a big influence on me, since I think that I managed to take something from the K aesthetic whether it existed or not — to go back to the question of influences for a moment — I tend to view things in such as way as to try to get something useful from the music whether or not that ‘something’ is actually there or not. So for example I would have said that the K aesthetic meant “Do what you want!” even though that may not have been their aesthetic at all.
Popcorn Youth: Well, creative reappropriation of influence is the mark of an artist—whether it is transforming it, incorporating it, rejecting it. It can separate originality from pastiche.
Gown: Right, exactly.
Gear Talk
Popcorn Youth: To shift topics for a moment to the guitar, do you use alternate tunings?
Gown: Until 2004 I used standard tuning and would simply detune. And then I’d try to make whatever sounded good and just play it. Then I started playing DADGAD, which is what I play mainly now for Gown stuff. With Thurston I use one of his tunings.
Popcorn Youth: Do you remember which one?
Gown: Let’s see. It’s CGDGCD. [The same tuning Thurston uses for “Reena,” “Turquoise Boy,” “The Neutral,” and “Lights Out” on Rather Ripped, as well as on numerous songs from Sonic Nurse and Murray Street — Aaron]
Popcorn Youth: How did that come about? Were you attracted to the sound of it, did Thurston suggest it, or?
Gown: I think that when we practiced before our first show, we played in the basement once so that when we went onstage I wouldn’t become so nervous that I’d die (laughs). Which I think is honest. But yeah, I asked Thurston, ‘What tuning are you using?’ and he told me, and I tried it, and it sounded nice, so I used it.
Popcorn Youth: So all of Bark Haze is in the same tuning? That’s interesting.
Gown: Yes. I think that it is sort of different for him to do that.
Bark Haze
Popcorn Youth: And when was the first actual Bark Haze show, if you recall?
Gown: Our first gig was in . . . October of 2005. I still have the poster for that show. [Andrew’s been packing to move house, so has the poster at hand, and checks the date to confirm.] It was October 8th, 2005, our first performance.
Popcorn Youth: How much did you rehearse before the show?
Gown: Just the one time in the basement.
Popcorn Youth: Bark Haze performances are completely improvised, I am guessing?
Gown: Yes.
Popcorn Youth: And do you talk beforehand about what you want to play? Do discuss it, or simply plug in and play? What is the preparation like?
Gown: Pretty much nothing. We might have said, “you know, this might be a rockin’ one” but anything beyond that, we don’t really communicate about it. We both know where the other is at mentally, so to speak, going into it . . . we just know . . . I don’t know if we could really even discuss it, I’m not sure if that would help (laughs).
Popcorn Youth: Given that format, how do you know when a piece is over? Visual cues?
Gown: Usually we just look at each other. Usually I think that it’s over a few times before it actually is, and then it’s actually over. Because I’m used to playing shorter sets and he’s used to playing longer ones, obviously, so maybe as the result our feel for the passage of time is slightly different. But it does become obvious at some point when the piece is over.
Popcorn Youth: Are you plan to release more material as Bark Haze?
Gown: We have to record a CD that is going to come out for the Three Lobed subscription series. Then after that, I don’t know. We have to record that soon. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep playing in some capacity. When you move or change your living situation it is always interesting to see what comes out of it and what changes. And not being able to play with him whenever, in an easy way, it sort of seems, well, it is a bit scary for me. But at least to my mind we have a certain way that we gel — we don’t really play unless we are recording or playing a show anyway. In fact we’ve only played once when we weren’t recording or playing a show.
Popcorn Youth: And that was the first rehearsal?
Gown: Yes. Well I guess that’s not really true, we’ve played, because he has been in the process of recording a solo record, and I play on two songs. So we practice that. But that has nothing to do with Bark Haze.
Popcorn Youth: And are you playing actual parts on his solo tracks or are you improvising?
Gown: Actual parts.
Popcorn Youth: Do you write them out, or does he compose them?
Gown: Let’s see, how did we do it. I think we sort of it collaborated on it. He showed me where he wanted me to be, in a way, and I figured out something that would work for me, in that area.
Popcorn Youth: ‘In that area’ of the fretboard, you mean?
Gown: Yes.
Popcorn Youth: When Bark Haze are recording in the studio, do you record a number of takes and decide which one you prefer? Or do you edit individual takes? Or do you use another method?
Gown: For Bark Haze we just record directly to hard drive, to digital recorder. And then I usually listen back to it and pick passages that seem good and then I take a CD-R down to Thurston and he says, “Those passages are good,” and that’s it.
Popcorn Youth: So you do edit, at least to some degree, after the recording is made?
Gown: Yes, but very minor. On the CD, the editing is those two songs.
Popcorn Youth: Ah, I see.
Gown: As in, “Oh that’s good, let’s cut it off here.” And then, “that’s good, let’s cut it off there,” and that’s it.
Popcorn Youth: And so within the pieces there is no editing?
Gown: No, none at all.
Popcorn Youth: Because both methods are interesting ways of working . . .
Gown: Yes it would be interesting, if we had more time together, to try different approaches. It is always interesting to approach things in different ways, and I think that the other way is closer to the way that I approach Gown material, where I play guitar, then I add something more to it, I edit it, and so on.
Popcorn Youth: Right — on Sacred Mountain there are usually two guitars at one time on each track. I assume that you overdub a second guitar yourself?
Gown: Yes, that’s right.
Popcorn Youth: For the Bark Haze material, do you do the recording and engineering yourselves?
Popcorn Youth: Yes. I have a digital 8-track recorder, a Tascam. And now I’m using Garageband. It seems to work fairly well and easily. For me it’s always about the easiest way to get the best quality. I’m not really interested in perfect quality, so I just want to make it simple to edit, to record, and to set up very quickly. But actually this Wednesday I booked some studio time. Part of Sunburned [Hand of the Man] is going to be my backing band. And we are going to try to make a record.
Future Plans
Popcorn Youth: Is it going to be a Gown record or a separate project?
Gown: It is going to be a Gown ‘Big Band’ record. That’s what we call it, the Gown Big Band. We’ve played four shows like that now.
Popcorn Youth: Do you have plans to release it on a particular label?
Gown: Hopefully on Ecstatic Peace. They’ve asked for it.
Popcorn Youth: Great. Is your planned move to eastern Canada, by the way, permanent?
Gown: We [Christina and Andrew] have bought a house there. It is in eastern Canada about 12 hours from Northampton, by car. It’s not the end of the world, it’s close enough to do in a day. But it’s been good to be able to buy a house.
Popcorn Youth: Do you and Christina have plans to record more material in the near future?
Gown: Yes, we have another record as Bastard Wing, which we just finished. I just finished editing and mixing it on Saturday, in fact. That will come out, hopefully, in the fall. I also have a new Gown solo record, hopefully that will also come out soon. Ecstatic Yod says that they are going to put it out, so we’ll see.
Popcorn Youth: For the Bastard Wing material with Christina, do you do the mixing yourself, or is there an engineer who assists?
Gown: We do it ourselves. We do all of the editing and mixing ourselves.
Popcorn Youth: And who does the mastering?
Gown: The person in Europe who will release the Bastard Wing record, he has someone who masters for him. I’m not really sure what’s going on with that one, though. For Bastard Wing material Christina and I always try to take a different approach to the making of the record. On the first Bastard Wing record she recorded a bunch of stuff, and then I recorded a bunch of stuff the first time through without ever having listened to it . . . I just recorded, and would record again, until I had filled up all of the tracks. And then she mixed it all.
Popcorn Youth: You had already listened to the part that she recorded? Or did you overdub your own parts blindly, so to speak, as if you were improvising?
Gown: I listened it for the first time as I was recording along with it. And then she mixed it and that was that.
This time, on the new one, however, I recorded all of the guitar tracks first. And then she listened to it and wrote words, and added the singing and vocals later. And I mixed it all. And then it was done.
So we try different approaches — even though we live together and talk all of the time, every day, we still try not to speak at all about the content of the new project, so that it exists in a different space. Almost like recording through the mail, like sharing 4-track recordings through the post.
But the next album that we record we are actually going to sit down and write all of the songs together, to work on everything together.
Popcorn Youth: So the next record will be the first time that the two of you have actually written together?
Gown: Yes. We’ve actually only played together twice, no three times, in the last two years.
Popcorn Youth: Really? Is that a conscious decision for aesthetic or compositional purposes, or is it the result of being in such close proximity as companions? Or for other reasons?
Gown: It’s not really been a conscious decision, though now it is almost a conscious decision, because it’s sort of ridiculous how long it’s been since we’ve played—those three occasions have all been shows—but I like the idea of releasing records and never playing together. It’s an interesting idea, more than anything else. It’s probably not so fruitful any longer (laughs). For this period though it’s been interesting.
Popcorn Youth: What about the media’s use of labels such as “noise” and “free folk” and so forth, which are commonly associated with music from western Massachusetts, Brooklyn, Boston, and so forth?
Gown: I think that some people fit the bill for those terms to a certain degree, whatever those terms might mean. I think that the terms are mainly just to help people market themselves, or to help labels market, or to help reviewers who are lazy to write their review. I don’t think that they are entirely wrong—every generalization has a kernel of truth, I suppose—but to lump all of these artists together is somewhat . . . (pauses) . . . presumptuous. It makes it easier for people to consume the music, but I don’t think that it makes it any easier for the artists to make the music, to make their art.
So, as valuable as the terms may be, for the reason that people need them in order to sell their records and make a living, the marketing labels can also hurt to a certain degree, because they can be reductive. Does that make sense? I mean, I don’t think that it is a bad thing to have these labels, but it doesn’t necessarily help either. And people go through terms so quickly these days, it is difficult to tell what anyone is. I struggle with it personally because I don’t fit into any of those categories, and I think that most people feel that way too.
Popcorn Youth: How aware are you of the digital dimension of music culture today, e.g. whether to sell through i-tunes or Emusic etc., the effects of downloading on the spread of music, the changing modes of dissemination, and so on?
Gown: I’m not concerned with it at all. I don’t sell enough to worry about it, for one thing. I don’t know at what point I would be worried about people downloading my music. On the one hand I guess that I would prefer that people buy music or to get it from their friends, but on the other hand I understand the changes, and if people would like to hear my muisc, I would like for them to be able to do so. Is that what you meant?
Popcorn Youth: I wasn’t concerned so much about illegal downloading but more about the changes that have occurred for your musical community and peers as a result of the digital distribution of music, the impact of the internet, the changes in technology and what they mean for music, and so on.
Gown: Hmm. I don’t really listen to mp3s, though I understand that younger people do, and that’s fine by me. I’ve always cared about the object, maybe to a greater degree than the average listener. I am much more likely to go home and listen to a record than I am, say, to put on an mp3. I tend to enjoy listening to a record more than a CD, even though I probably listen to CDs more often, simply because it is easier.
Popcorn Youth: You prefer vinyl to CD in terms of sound quality, or for the experience itself?
Gown: Because of the experience itself. The experience of vinyl is a better one than listening to a CD, just as reading the paper in the morning is a better experience than reading the paper online in the morning. Though of course reading the paper online is probably better for the environment.
Popcorn Youth: After the move, will you continue to tour?
Gown: I’ve never toured that much to begin with. I’ve played in the area a bit. Some in upstate New York. Some in the city. In Europe. I did the recent US tour with Sunburned. I find that the reason for the difficulty of touring is economic, for one thing, but more importantly it is a bit difficult on me because I am a morning person and I get worn down by being up late all of the time. And though I enjoy it immensely, it wears me down a bit. I like touring, because it is a great way to meet people whom you’d otherwise never meet. But it’s almost like being on vacation, and you have to limit how much you do of it, unless you’re independently wealthy.