by Brad Rose

I didn't get into music till I was in my early teens. After hearing punk music like The Sex Pistols, Black Flag and Dead Kennedy's, I started jamming with two friends. One played guitar, one drums. I sang. The first band I was in was called Novelty after the Joy Division song. That was one of the first songs we played after we learned “Anarchy In The U.K.” and “Holidays In The Sun”. “Bullocks,” then “Unknown Pleasures” were the first albums that really made me think about music, really identifying with them.

Before that I had albums here and there. Random stuff. Mostly Comic book records with Sound FX and Narration.

I was probably 15 or 16 at the time I got “Never Mind The Bullocks”. I bought it off of a kid in 8th grade who wanted to become a "Burn Out". I guess it was stopping him! I paid my whole week’s lunch money for it. Then I met the Two Mikes and started Novelty. These guys were bad news. They totally corrupted me. Even dosing me with LSD. They gave me “Daydream Nation” and Spacemen 3 tapes for consolation. It really ripped my head off. That next day I decided I had to do music for life.

Things got weirder. We started digging Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth. We started thinking about getting echo pedals. I remember a friend had a space echo and a mic. I was blown away by the sound it made. I found a cheap, used echo pedal and I spent hours just listening to myself talk through it. We played at parties when peoples’ parents would be out of town. Drink and trip. At one of these parties we got heckled by some kid from another school. It was this kid Andy Ortmann. He was saying stuff like play some Butthole Surfers. Which we were just kinda getting into. So for years after that I always used to tell people that went to his school that I was going to beat him up. And he would do the same. So at homecoming we had this kinda standoff. Nothing happened.

Shortly after that one of the Mikes killed himself. He was taking lots of LSD and really freaked out and started showing signs of schizophrenia. It really affected me. He was my best friend. I kinda dropped out of the scene after that. I really stopped talking to anybody. I dressed in all black, the whole nine yards. Everyone thought I'd be next I think.

Anyways. I met someone who had a 4-track cassette recorder and they would let me borrow it on occasion for a week or two. I started experimenting with overdubbing and bouncing tracks. I made tons of tapes in this period. I remember finding a box of all these old comic book records that were in my attic that had warped. I was really upset they got ruined so I took them and recorded bits of them onto the four-track. They were skipping all around because of the warps. Then when I was listening back I was mixing all these cut up sound fragments and ridiculous vocal phrases. I had no idea about Burroughs or musique concrete but I was doing some form of it on accident. I remember I made a tape of it just to listen to when I was stoned. Everyone hated it when I played it.

After high school I went to college and hung out with a lot of freaky hippie types. Started listening to ‘60s music for the first time. I had never listened to the Beatles till I was in college. I met some musicians and tried to start bands but no one really liked my music. After University ended and my philosophy degree aspirations no longer convinced my father to fund it. I moved back and went to community college, worked. Bought records. Got a job at a record store. Then I started meeting more people with similar tastes. I fell in with a group of slightly younger kids whom were really into Sebadoh and lo-fi type music. We started jamming all the time. Just these massive noisy free-form things that were just really noisy. Like the Dead C at times. They all owned 4-tracks and nice Fender guitars. I was just trying desperately to record and learn about the whole process.

After a year of these sessions I formed a band called Injectzen. We were the first band I was in that actually played paying gigs. I guess if you were from Saint Louis you'd say I was part of the old Cicero's Crowd, a tiny basement bar that catered to the indie side of things. It was a magical time when things really picked up pace here, ‘93-‘95. First show I saw there as a legal kid was Guided By Voices I think on they're first show in Saint Louis. Tons of bands came through. I
drank wine with Chan Marshall, met Sara Lubeski. Saw Beck play before he even had a record out. It was the happiest time of my life. I worked at a record store and got in free to any concert I wanted to go to. We were playing at what we considered the greatest basement on earth.

Around this time I met up again with Andy Ortmann. He came into my store and I didn't recognize him. He was looking at a Blast First comp and we started talking. Then we started playing in my dad's basement and I would hang out at his place. He turned me on to everything. Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Merzbow, Whitehouse, etc...

I was not immediately won over but this music was something I kept thinking about and coming back to. Andy took me over to this guy named John Coker's house. They were talking about Stockhausen and John Cage. At the time, we had a really amazing classical records room at the store I worked at and I started opening CDs and listening to them while I was checking in product. Also I stumbled upon “Interstellar Space” by Coltrane. That was the first jazz record I ever bought.

Strangely soon after this time I focused mostly on playing acoustic guitar. I sold all my records and anything I could to buy an acoustic. I went through this period when all I would listen to was Nick Drake, John Fahey and Bob Dylan. I was teaching myself finger-picking and learning to play "Music" for the first time. I think Andy moved away for awhile and I had no one to hang with. My dad developed cancer and I couldn't be making a racket anymore, so I went acoustic. It was a dark period for me. The only thing that I did was play guitar and read Rimbaud and the Beats. That sort of thing. I still went to Cicero's a lot. Especially to take pictures of friends of mine. I took the only pictures of Andy's first band Pound Of Flesh. I was into Darin Gray's treated bass performances. In fact I tried to see all of Darin's shows at this time. He was a real sort of mentor figure for me and some other musicians around the area. Really supportive of my photography and later music.

Andy came back to Saint Louis in late ‘95 or early ‘96 and we started recording together, discussing music and gear. I even played in a few live Panicsville performances. I think the first one was maybe opening for Nautical Almanac or Laddio Bollocko. Andy moved to Chicago and I went back to doing the folk songs. But before he moved there, we drove there for a weekend and we stayed with Mark Fisher (Skin Graft Records, from Saint Louis guy). We saw Ottomo Yoshihide play in a large noise band. That show really affected me. We saw Kevin Drumm do his guitar thing too that weekend. First time I heard someone play very softly like that before.

After my dad passed away, I moved downtown and used some money I had inherited to buy an 8-track player and later a Mac. I had a decent warehouse space back when they were really cheap. I started my own studio and recorded the occasional paying customer but mostly I recorded my friends and my own projects. During this time I started recording songs with the help of many local musicians. Over the course of several years I worked and reworked the material, recording strings when I met a string player or horns when I met a horn player. I would trade them studio time for their work.

I finished up the album in 2001. No one would listen to it. It would put everyone to sleep. I really felt crushed. I remember playing the album for Ortmann and him just smiling and saying, "So this is it? Blues rock? Really?"

I stopped doing music for awhile. Started showing my paintings more often and got involved in this tiny scene that existed for a few years. People knew I played music and would ask me to play at art openings. So I started playing out abstract music. Played in lots of art spaces around that time and did two 3-inch CD-Rs on Pegasus Farms. Which was the name of a neighborhood that sprouted up and demolished the woods I used to play in as a kid. In 2002 I went and saw Ottomo Yoshihide again, this time in Saint Louis. I think that was a turning point. I decided to take an entirely different course after that. I dropped everything I had done and just started over I think. I found an old wave generator and started to manipulate those tiny thin sounds. I was re-learning how to hear and listen. I thought of it in terms of visual art more than emotional music. Like Rauschenberg who started with white paintings, I wanted to start from the most minimal sound data and work my way into other colors or tones. I think that only within the last few years have I kinda stepped out of that mindset. Now I'm more comfortable with mixing all my influences, knowledge and experience.

I was given an ultimatum when I was 13: play a sport, play an instrument or you’re going to military school. Not a hard choice. So I chose the obvious, guitar. First song I learned to play was "Pretty Woman".

Well I think of music in visual terms. I never learned technically how to read music or to think of it in those terms. So it was always about the layers of sound. In simple terms. Overdubbing became my way of throwing elements together and seeing how they related. Just like painting. I would throw down some colors and look. What was forming there?

Then once something appeared I would bring it out, then everything else made sense. That's how I started with sound work too. I guess you get better at it but I never tried to control it totally.

No. Except the occasional flier. I really want to end up doing film or video though. I study film quite a bit. Probably more than listening to music at this point.

It depends. I'd say it is mostly a mixture. It's all about editing and creating a personal library of sound data. Sometimes it all comes at once and sometimes I have to dig through sounds to find ones that fit with one another. Since I got a Modular I rely less on field recordings. So it's more immediate, at your finger tips. But as a rule I try and use as many different types of sources as I can on a full length release. Although the last cassette I did on Pegasus Farms was almost all spontaneously composed on a borrowed Yamaha CS-5.

So I'm not really sure. I think I'm turning a corner again, on to something slightly different. I feel
like I've found my sound and it would be too easy at this point to do another "Promise Of Wood And Water". So I think it's time to incorporate some different sounds. I'd like to do something like a doo wop/country/noise/Indian record.

John Tamm Buckle saw a show of mine and asked if I'd be interested in doing a release. I was like, "Yeah right." I kinda didn't take him seriously until he showed me the record he put out. Then I knew he might be serious. You have to understand people in Saint Louis talk a lot about doing stuff but don't actually do anything. John is a go-getter! Really a pleasure to work with him. We've become good friends in the process. I have high hopes for KVIST. I'll be doing more with John hopefully. I think we collaborated well.

Not really sure if that’s something I do consciously. I think I tend to contrast beauty and ugliness more. Or more precisely I think beauty stands out more and has more depth if it's placed in a context in which horrible things also exist. Maybe this is the tension to which you refer. I often think of Herzog's ecstatic truth, truth containing both the horrible and the beautiful. I'm interested
in their relationship, how they balance in life, and in music. I don't think most music has this balance or truth in it. Most artists tend to focus on a particular shade of this dynamic. I'm interested in reflecting the world in this manner. It's a form of magic I believe. Or it seems magical to me, to be able to project all these different kinds of ideas and experiences through vibrations. I haven't really achieved it yet but if there is a goal then this is probably it.

It really depends. I draw inspiration from all different sources. Film seems to have the most immediate impact on me at the moment. When I see a Godard film, I marvel at the form and the invention and how he plays with our expectations of observation. I don't hear a lot of these ideas being translated into musical terms. I really enjoy hearing albums that do really have unexpected juxtapositions, even if it's not "enjoyable" by most people’s standards. I'm thinking of artists like Raionbashi or Runzelstirn & Gurglestock. These types of artists always satisfy that part of me that needs to be challenged and makes me reconsider what recorded sound can offer. Even if initially the inherent beauty is not apparent. They draw me in and in a sense readjust my hearing and ideas of what entertainment can be.

But back to the film influence, yeah there is surely a connection. “Of Sirens Born” was specifically drawn from movies like Agguirre’s “The Wrath Of God”. Even Malik's “The New World”. “Black Robe”. Even “Blade Runner” was an influence. I had the album mostly finished except the first track "Rivers In". My collaborator Michael Ferrer was like, "You need an intro to this world; you should re-score the first 5 minutes of Blade Runner". I was very hesitant at first but sure enough I did pop it in and turn the volume off and feed off the images. I had done this once before with "American Grotesque" from the split with Scenic Railroads. I was obsessed with trying to recreate the horror of “The Shining”. It played on repeat in my apartment for several weeks as an ambient wallpaper.

I hope I'm not ruining it by giving too much away. I think people should bring their own interpretation to the table. It really doesn't matter so much what influences an artist. I think people really get hung up on it. Once they make that connection they are more likely to turn their minds off and put it in a nice little box. I'm more interested in creating a sound world in which things are not explained and wonders are there for the taking.

I studied film in college. That was forever ago. I don't remember much about it, but it did start me thinking critically about film. I started appreciate shots and things like that. I also saw some experimental films in that period that really effected me. Brakhage, stuff like that.

Ferrer and I are planning on writing the script for “Web Of Light”. He already has the outline pretty solid and I would like to film it someday. As far as DVDs go, yeah I would like to do something visual/musical. Maybe Kranky would be into it? I'm not sure.

Keith Fullerton Whitman pretty much discovered me. He was the first person to ever write anything anywhere about my music. John Tamm Buckle (owner of KVIST Records) wanted to bring Keith into town and apparently Keith asked if he would get in touch with me and have me play the show. I did and it went horribly but Keith was really nice and had nothing but good things to say. We hung out and talked at length about electronic music. He is the most knowledgeable person I have ever met. Really a walking breathing encyclopedia of musical knowledge. I handed him some CD-Rs of stuff I had been working on, which he responded to and made some copies for Joel at Kranky. From what I understand, Joel really likes pedal steel. And I had a track with pedal steel on it (first side of the IDES tape). I guess that's what initially drew Joel to my music. A really happy string of circumstances. I really owe Keith a big thank you. Thank You Keith!

Yeah I'm under a two album contract. Hopefully more. But I really like being able to put stuff out on different labels too. I'm sure not every aspect of what I do would appeal to Kranky or its fans. I'm currently working on stuff for Chondritic Sound, Arbor, Catholic Tapes and a few others.

I've been in the Midwest for most of my life and have always had an affinity for this part of the world and I'm always happy to find like-minded people in and around here. It serves its purpose. It's cheap living in some ways. I don't really have any special affinity for the Midwest at all. I've lived on the West and East Coasts and I feel like I've been almost stranded here. I think it's about time to move on. Which hopefully soon, some opportunity will pop up.

Only in the sense that it has pushed me into an extreme. When I was growing up here in high school the pressure to conform was so incredibly strong. I think it caused people to react and really freak in ways that don't happen other places. I mean there are so many weirdoes from where I'm from. Andy Ortmann, Fruitcake, Drunks with Guns, John Coker... lots really. And I think that they would agree that the environment caused them to react through disdain for what was handed to them and expected of them. Nowadays things have mellowed around here and it seems like Saint Louis is at least attempting to compete in some areas although it still looks to New York or Los Angeles for some kinda of guidance instead of making its own mark which really is the tragedy of this place. There are some really wonderful people here and that is probably what keeps me here more than anything. People like Mike Ferrer and Jeremy Kannapell (Ghost Ice). They are definitely an influence.

Right now I'm working on some soundtracks to some video art pieces by a New York-based artist named Heather Bennett. The LP on Arbor will be sort of a greatest hits thing. The tape on Chondritic Sound should be done soon. A split LP with Workbench and a one sided collab LP with Ortmann (Cables) on the Nihilist label. I'm editing some recording I did with Mike Shiflet of the Gameboy label. I've talked to Karl from Axolotl about doing a split tribute LP to Josquin Desprez. Also I've been talking to Pete Swanson from Yellow Swans about doing some collab. And Mike from Arbor/Treetops too. Pegasus Farms is alive and well. I just put out a CD of Brain Transplant and a Raglani tape called “Dusk Ritual”. Upcoming releases include a live Darin Gray CD and a Mike Pitts CD. Mike Pitts is a young guy here in town that is doing really amazing stuff. I keep prodding him on to record more and more because it's really fantastic stuff.

Gee that’s hard. What I've been loving lately is the M.B. and Tietchens boxes on V.O.D. I really really love the latest Edmond De Dyster record. I love most of what Burning Star Core does. And EVERYTHING on the Hanson label. I fucking love that label. Anything he puts out on vinyl especially is gold in my opinion.