by Scott McKeating

My first experience being aware of it was through my local record store in Houston called Sound Exchange (they’re still going!) when I was in high school. It was a goldmine of records and they had a really friendly staff cwho noticed that I spent a lot of my time and certainly all of my part-time job dollars at their store and started turning me onto things at least tangentially related to what I was already buying. I was totally hooked on discovering new music. Christina Carter and Tom Carter of Charalambides were working at Sound Exchange and once we became friends was when I REALLY become much more knowledgeable about all sorts of underground free music. We spent a lot of our time listening to records and talking about them in a totally relaxed way, that was suh a precious time in my musical development. Well kind of in conjunction with all of that record listening Charalambides had been running a Sunday night at a local venue called the Axiom and my boyfriend and I would go check it out almost every Sunday, the audience was basically a few people, but it was such a cool experience because Charalambides would really push themselves and play different stuff all the time including using different instrumentation and doing stretched out improvisations mixed with their songs. Also in this time period I traveled to see the first few Siltbreeze festivals and caught the Dead C on their US tour. One of the most memorable music experiences from this period had to be seeing Harry Pussy live so many times. They really blew me away on every level. They were totally incredible musicians, Adris is obviously a genius and Bill Orcutt is one of my favourite guitar players of all time. I wrote a column recently on Volcanic Tongue about a memorable show I saw them play in Austin and kind of about that time period in my life in general. While all this was happening there were also a ton of free jazz shows happening in Houston and Austin, seeing so much free jazz had to have been a huge influence on my playing and approach to music. And I quickly discerned what type of free playing I was into and how I defined free. I saw a lot of improv musicians who certainly billed themselves as free but whose music, and often personalities, felt anything but free to me. Regardless of good or bad, I just saw a lot of live music living in Texas and I think having such varied exposure influenced my listening and playing. From the start though I’ve always played free which to me means not dictated by anything except being true to how I want to play and not constricting myself with notions of musicality or technique. The way I started playing my own music was just picking things up and playing! Even if my music takes on form, as it always does when I improvise, I still feel it is inherently spontaneous and free. Through the years though I have become more and more interested in playing inside/with the form that’s birthed in improvisation.

I listen to a lot of different things. I mean, I basically listen to music all day and night so I try to listen to different stuff all the time, certainly in terms of genre, however you define that, but I definitely love the feeling of getting into ONE record that you just can’t stop listening to again and again. I’m not even about to start listing all the shit I’ve been digging lately, the interview will be too long! I’m mostly attracted to personal music whatever the genre really. I mean it either has it or it doesn’t. It’s hard for me to get into modern stuff that’s TOO reverent and nothing turns me off more than groups that proclaim they’re shamans and/or their music is mystic/alchemical which I think there is way too much of these days. I really like focused groups and projects and find musicians involved in a gazillion side-projects and collaborations very off-putting. CD-R culture makes this sort of thing way too easy in a way I think. At work I mostly listen to new underground music, basically stuff we’re stocking at Volcanic Tongue, and at home it’s not that different except I pretty much only listen to vinyl at home. I also play more “classics” at home, records I do come back to again and again, off the top of my head records I really would miss if they weren’t in my collection: Jim Shepard Picking Through The Wreckage With A Stick, Conrad Schnitzler, Minimal Man, John Cale Paris 1919, Catherine Ribeiro, The Bachs, Rayne, Department Store Santas, D.R. Hooker, Hackamore Brick, Suicide 1st AND 2nd LP, Fraction, Popul Vuh, Bob Dylan, Patty Waters, Jandek, Germs, 1st Red Crayola LP, Peter Laughner, Beauregard Ajax, Cramps, Dead C Trapdoor Fucking Exit, pretty much all the Roxy Music LPs, Thirteen Floor Elevators, Archie Shepp Blasé, Mayo Thompson Corky’s Debt To His Father, J.D. Emmanuel, Steeleye Span, Throbbing Gristle boots, VU, Kousokuya, Bobby Fuller, Royal Trux, Chimera, MEV Leave the City, Godz 2, Alastair Galbraith Morse, Milford Graves Babi, various Coltrane, Aylaer, Sun Ra, ok, I’m gonna stop before I sound like a real fucking name dropper! New stuff I’ve really been into is the new comp on Enfant Terrible that focuses on contemporary minimal synth stuff, Aaron Dilloway Infinite Lucifer, Ruth 7”, Raven reissue, Graveyards, Eat Skull, pretty much all MV & EE stuff, Fabulous Diamonds…

I’m trying to communicate, the word exorcise for me suggests trying to rid myself of something when it’s the opposite, I want to know whatever it is much, much more intimately, I don’t want it to escape, be driven away, I want to experience what it does to me and what it hopefully does to other people listening if I’m playing live or it’s a record. I’m driven to do it, I love sound, I love the feeling I get playing music, but it can be tortuous too in a way. A good way. I always want to experience breakthroughs and like I’m moving closer to my true voice but any artist knows that those type of breakthroughs aren’t constant, so it’s hard work in a way, productive work, but hard work! I’ve been obsessed with music since I was a kid and I always knew that music would be the biggest focus in my life. I could live without almost anything except not being able to play (and listen) to music. Who knows if that feeling will always last so I gotta go for it now! I surely hope that I am communicating something when I play. Both to myself and people listening, I mean I of course want people to be into what they’re hearing but I like extremes, they love it or they hate it. It’s pretty amazing to feel like you’ve resonated/communicated with someone, and playing live for me is definitely a two-way deal. Some of the most memorable audience reactions I’ve had are from people who I wouldn’t expect to be into what I’m playing, which can be a real eye-opening aspect of music to me, how you read and understand other people, how much of their being is created or projected by you. When I play I’m projecting me, whatever me is. Some people have said it’s confrontational but I don’t think I’m ever deliberately confronting anyone listening really beside myself. And hey! I can’t deny, I do like to rock. Playing music is also a sexual thing for sure!

Sure, there are a lot of guys doing music, but there are a lot of really cool women doing underground music and even if they’re not playing themselves, they’re involved doing other things, be it artwork, doing sound, organizing shows even just listening to music. I don’t really think of music in terms of scenes though, cause I like a lot of different music that doesn’t come from one scene. Who wants to listen to stuff that all sounds the same or is regenerated sounds from the same group of people, not me! I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like even MORE women involved though. Who doesn’t want more chicks than guys in a room?! I mean especially working in a record shop the ladies that walk through the door and actually browse the bins are too few and far between. But it’s always felt this way to me as a girl-to-woman into music. I remember going to record stores when I was in high school feeling like sort of a tomboy in a way because most other people involved were guys. Hey, I dig it but I still want to wear high heels! Sticking with underground music all these years I’ve become good friends and collaborators with some really inspiring women. The only time I really think about male/female music dynamics is when I play live or tour. Little things like having to deal with promoters all the time who think you can’t figure out how to work an amp and even daring to start changing your settings for you. Fuck that! I think women are judged/described differently for sure but I work to create my own reality and not fight against how a scene or audience or whatever is populated by, but how I’ll work within whatever dynamic exists. What a waste of time to be focusing on sexist ideologies in the scene, I’ll listen to and hang out with people that transcend these clichés. There are a lot of guys in underground music who I am into as artists and who I definitely feel treat me as an equal regardless of my being female, but male/female, it’s part of everything really, the dynamic exists in every part of life so of course it’s present in the music scene too.

You know, I’m not sure what’s in the vaults anymore. Not only my time with Charalambides but I also think of the hours of Ash Castles On the Ghost Coast, Taurpis Tula, Scorces and solo stuff that lies in cupboards. I periodically go through that stuff though to just hear where I was at, where I am now, it can be inspiring to listen to old stuff. When Christina, Tom and I played as a trio we recorded a lot of stuff, but I think the strongest stuff has been released at this point, with Joy Shapes being the best document of the trio existence in my opinion. To be honest I’m not a big fan of releasing archival material unless it’s truly special, but that’s my feelings about releasing recordings in general, I’m very picky about what I release. I think there’s a real tendency in CD-R culture especially to just release it all. I’m not gonna knock someone’s style that does that, some people’s art involves that process of using CD-Rs in a documentary way, charting a music history of a group/artist whatever. But it’s not my style. That’s part of the reason when you look at my solo releases there aren’t a ton and I only recently released my first vinyl full length. In a way there is a part of me that feels like, shit!, I should have released a lot more at this point! But my style is to take it slow and be really thoughtful and serious about every release I do. I want to feel like everything I’ve decided to release will hold up, you know, though I like that CD-Rs inevitably have a shorter shelf life than vinyl. Playing with Charalambides was such an important experience for me. When I started playing with them I had almost decided beforehand that I was going to stop playing music. Long story. Anyway, Christina and Tom were going to be touring on the West Coast, this was in 2000, and they invited me to sell merch for them and sort of tag along but eventually I started practicing with them and ended up playing with them on the whole tour. It was my first touring experience and the whole thing made me much more confident as a musician. We played in really loose structures, looking back I think at the time I felt hindered by even the loosest of structures in a weird way and ultimately it was really clear that Charalambides were best as a duo. I had a great time touring with them on the East Coast last fall, and seeing them live again they’re better than ever before! I will always have an enormous amount of respect for Christina and Tom as artists and as friends. Regardless of any current underground trends they continue to develop true to their own vision which is why I think they still confound a lot of listeners and reviewers. You can’t pigeonhole them and they always achieve breakthroughs.

Playing with Jandek was incredible. I really didn’t know how I would feel about it when it came down to it, if I would feel nervous or in any way constrained. That was a concern of mine actually, I wanted to do something completely improvised rather than playing songs with even loose parameters, at least the first time around. It was great that Alan Licht played guitar as well, I was so into Blue Humans, I knew we would complement each other well and playing with him on guitar and Jandek on drums just felt so natural. It was pretty wild and heavy. I remember walking off stage and all of us being wind-blown, just shattered. I felt totally uninhibited, and I still feel like it was one of the most important things I’ve ever been involved in, musically or otherwise.

Touring as Scorces again was so wonderful! That was one of the best tours I’ve ever been on, I’ll never forget it. Musically, I felt like Christina and I immediately were *there*. I just knew that even after not playing together for years that we would play together again and not only have that same connection we did then as always, but also that the sound would incorporate where we have grown as solo artists and playing in other groups into the sound. Christina and I have always naturally played well together and it felt like there wasn’t any time lapse since we last played together. It was amazing that Thurston invited us to play those dates, I loved his group and felt like musically it worked so well to be on the same bill. We would open the night with something completely wild and free, definitely a more full-on louder style than has been previously heard on record, though it’s always been part of our playing from day one. It was nice to play to bigger audiences and in venues with nice sound systems. Plus, it was just so great to tour the States again. It’s such a different vibe than touring in any other part of the world. To actually get reactions to what you’re doing and to meet so many interesting people that are involved in doing their own thing. Not that you don’t get that when you play in other parts of the world, but I guess being an American makes me feel like I’m closest to an American aesthetic and energy that you don’t get anywhere else. I mean, sometimes when I’ve toured the UK I feel like I’m playing to a black hole! About a month after the Scorces tour I also played a set of solo dates with Thurston and his group in the UK and Europe. Again it was such a great experience. Playing for audiences that wouldn’t normally hear what I’m doing is always cool and for the tour I played solo electric guitar/vox rather than pedal steel, just to push myself harder and do something different, which felt really cool. Even in these bigger venues I was asked by the house staff to turn it down cause I’d be breaking the legal decibel limits. Wtf?!

Yeah, David and I did some drum and sax duos and we recently played a live show as Jailbreak. I love really love playing drums actually and it’s something I’d like to experiment doing more of. I haven’t played drums a lot but I did play drums on some Taurpis Tula recordings as well. What really got Jailbreak playing live and us doing more recording is David was invited to play a show with Simon Finn in Glasgow and soon before that I had just gotten back copies of a double lathe release I contributed a track to and my track on that comp was a vocal/drum recording and David and I listened to it and he was like, shit!, we gotta do some stuff with you on drums. I’d say it’s way more primitive than Tight Meat. My style, if I can really have a style this early on, is very sort of tonal and spacious and also quite hard and repetitive, pretty punk I guess. I can’t say whether or not this is a project that will continue cause David is focusing more on writing than music at the moment, but I imagine drums will turn up on more of my solo recordings.

Well, when I first started playing music I played random things, this is kind of pre and during Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast era, like mid-90s, I played a lot of chord organ, bells, keyboard and singing but never really played much guitar, I mean now and again but I wasn’t particularly drawn to the instrument. I did eventually start playing and over time found I enjoyed playing most when I played with slide. So I toured with Charalambides playing mostly slide guitar and when we got back from that tour Christina and I played our first Scorces show at this cool school called MECA in Historic 6th Ward in Houston. We did some duo vocals and chord organ and guitar, and I played slide guitar at the show. Well, the incredible pedal steel player Susan Alcorn was in the audience and her reaction after the show was inspired! She basically insisted that I try the pedal steel guitar after just seeing me play slide guitar and the next day she gave me an old 70s MSA pedal steel that I still play. Our deal was that she didn’t want to tell me how to play it or really explain anything to me about it at all. She wanted me to find my own voice on the instrument. I imagine when you’re as accomplished a player as Susan you want to experience the freshness of seeing someone untutored playing the instrument you know and love so well. Since I’ve been playing it a while now I totally understand that feeling. When Christina and I recorded the Scorces 2xLP that just came out on Not Not Fun she played pedal steel on a track and I remember feeling so excited being able to hear her play the instrument for the first time. But I’ve always had that attraction to seeing someone play music who is not a musician or a musician play an instrument they don’t regularly or have never played before. It can be really inspiring. But yeah, pretty much immediately I felt a strong bond with the instrument, more so than with anything I’ve played before. It’s been interesting to play guitar again recently after playing pedal steel for so long. It’s super challenging. Listening back to old Charalambides and Scorces recordings it’s been interesting to chart how my playing of the instrument has changed. When I first played I always played completely clean but as time has gone on I play with a few effects, but never a lot of effects cause the sound of the steel can quickly turn to mud. I still consider it my main instrument, but like I said before, I like to still play other instruments to keep pushing the sound into something new.

Uh, so about the weather, haha… It is really really different living over here compared to the States, but I feel big differences between Scotland and England too which is interesting to understand more as I’m here longer. I really love Scotland, my ancestry is here and it’s the first place I’ve lived that I could truly feel was my home in a deeper sense. But I’d be lying if I said there aren’t a lot of things I miss about the States. Culturally, while there are a lot of similarities between the States and here there are a lot of differences that seem like they might be small but can feel huge. The DIY aesthetic is stronger in the States I feel, and I don’t just mean that in terms of underground music really, but there are a lot of hand built/created lifestyles that I felt in the States that I don’t feel as much here. It’s hard to pinpoint why that is, but certainly it’s much more of a nanny state here, which has its advantages and disadvantages of course. I love having free healthcare but I don’t like everything being more regulated and knowing there is a camera eyeing you for every 14 people or probably less now. The space is radically different, I mean to go from Texas, much less the States as a whole, to Scotland, you just feel more cramped. I of course miss my friends back in the States, house shows, BBQs. I do love the wildness of Scotland though, the mountains, and the people. I mean, there’s a real wild redneck tradition here that feels so parallel to the South for me, a real headstrong down to earth mentality that feels restless and punk. I’m into the isolation here as well, it affords me a lot of time and space to work on my own stuff.

Sure there’s some really male noise music. And I can get into it. The stuff I’m not into I just don’t listen to or see live so it doesn’t bother me really. I think people should be free to play and release what they want, If I’m not into it, I won’t engage with it. What can be daft is these kind of already developed a chip on their shoulder young noise guys that are all posture and over-exaggerated maleness. It’s doesn’t really feel male at that point, I mean I’m into maleness, I’m heterosexual, come on!, but some noise feels more about being a boy rather than a man, just very adolescent. And what the hell are some of these guys grimacing about anyway? Did mom not iron their camouflage trousers or maybe their acne treatments aren’t working as well as they would’ve hoped? Too much exaggeration in any direction just feels fake and inartistic really. But I love a lot of noise music and not all noise music even when played by guys feels male-centered to me.

Haha. Oh yeah, that’s a frequent one alongside my music being described as witchy, cathartic, ethereal, cleansing. It’s funny because I do think the same music being played by a guy certainly would inspire different adjectives, but whatever. I don’t really get hung up on the same descriptions being used again and again. I of course like to see reviews that describe my music from a completely different perspective and bring up references that I’ve neither seen before, and even better, things I haven’t thought of/heard in my music myself. I mean, probably in conversation I use the same descriptions of music again and again, that’s why you don’t see me writing about music, it’s difficult for me to put it into language, to put things into language might be a problem for me in general, haha, maybe that’s why music is for me really. But that’s why I think genuinely good music writers are few and far between. It’s a real talent and skill to be able to articulate sound with words that make you feel like the music makes you feel. Context also has to be considered. I have seen reviews, even negative ones, that are so great because even though they may use those same adjectives, they’re getting at something different in the music and not just focused on the fact that I’m a woman playing music.

Haha. I’m never really “lost”. Though I certainly get out, I’m always aware of what I’m doing and it’s focused and under my control and it’s formed, even when improvised. But how far I go depends on so many different factors, the playing space, my mood, the audience. But it’s true, I like to go deep! One thing that I’m always acutely aware of when playing no matter what is rhythm.

I definitely have ideas about doing more stuff using harmonica. I really love playing it! Really though I want to do some recording utilizing instruments I haven’t played before or have played very little and also using recording techniques, simple things like overdubbing, that I don’t normally do. All the releases I have done thus far solo have been recorded live to tape pretty much, so I want to hear where I go expanding on that. I felt like Devil If You Can Hear Me was pretty much my strongest recorded work to date so my plan is to focus on recording a lot this year for a follow-up to that release, but also just to get in the mode of doing a lot of recording in general.

Doing VT is amazing! I certainly wouldn’t want to be doing anything else! I won’t lie, it’s hard fucking work that’s difficult to walk away from in closure at the end of every night. We ran it from our flat for a while and were so relieved when we moved it out of the flat and into a shop. The building we’re in is a super cool 16th century cottage that’s kind of obvious but hidden in Glasgow. The shop is really small but really crammed, a style of record shop I’ve always preferred, nothing drives me crazier than an austere whitewashed shop where you feel like you can’t touch anything! To be honest, running it is like a dream really. I’ve been obsessed with music all my life and as soon as I was old enough I spent all my time at record shops or going to see live music so I’m doing what was always my passion to do really. I love being so wired into what’s still happening in music rather than being a dude who says, “well, back in the day blah blah blah”. It also is just great to be in constant contact with so many creative musicians/artists and also listeners. Our customers really blow me away with their knowledge and experience of underground culture. Also, after so many years of being involved in underground music it feels good to support artists directly the way we do. I got into the underground pre-internet and I’d like to think that VT, even though it’s on the web, holds that same kind of buzz that great zines and mags like Forced Exposure did. We’re super picky about what we’ll stock and review pretty much everything we carry so the site is a direct reflection of stuff we’re listening to ourselves, I just can’t muster up the will to support music that I wouldn’t blast on my own. I do still feel an excitement of discovery and that rush of tracking stuff down and then feeling enthusiastic about what I’ve heard and wanting to share it with other people. That’s what VT feels like for me really. Growing up, until I met likeminded people, I always wanted to have someone to talk to about my ideas/reactions/passions for music and with VT I do, but now people are actually listening to me and don’t think I’m a total freak for being so into it!