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Jazz What? | The Latest From The Jazzy Gunman. | Live. In Concert.
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Jazz What? | The Latest From The Jazzy Gunman. | Live. In Concert. |
The Jazz Cannon Spaced Cowboy - A Rose going TripHop That a lot musicians in guitar bands go searching for a different kind of sounds is no big news anymore. That one of them actually manages to produce an album that leaves the region somewhere between "self-indulgent" and "okay" however, is still quite rare. One of the few exceptions to the rule is The Jazz Cannon, the new project of former Madder Rose tunesmith and guitarist extraordinaire Billy Coté. Having fronted one of the best, but often criminally ignored US pop band of the last decade, Coté now blends slow HipHop grooves, urban imagery in the lyrics (often co written and sung by New York underground poet Don Greene, once the subject of a Madder Rose song) and some samples with his still undiminished sense for a great hookline. Most apparent on two tracks that feature fellow Madder Roses Johnny Kick on drums and Mary Lorson on vocals. Coté is currently the only East Coast musician to relaese his records on the up and coming San Francisco-based label Function 8. Look out for other releases by Tommy Guerrero & Gadget plus their band project Jet Black Crayon. The label looks to be on its way to fine things and The Jazz Cannons imaginatively entitled debut "Amateur Soul Surgery" might even be the unlikely highlight of the current releases. Billy recently took time out to talk to me and here are some excerpts from our conversation.Carsten: I for one have been pretty surprised by the album's sound, even though I knew what was coming. Do you have an idea who's listening to the album, the old Madder Rose fans who've moved on or just an entirely different audience?
Billy: I think mainly it is kind of a newer audience, because of the label we're on. It is more downtempo, jazzy stuff. I think that's who's picking up on it. I don't know how many Madder Rose people really are as yet.
Carsten: Was that the plan in the first place, to get the album released on a label that is somewhat removed from your indie-rock past?
Billy: It was pretty oragnic, because I met the guy who runs the label, Gadget, when Madder Rose was opening for Hole. He was our sound man. We became really good friends and we stayed in touch and when he started the label he just asked me if I wanted to do anything for it. I told them that I had a different type of music than Madder Rose that I thought would work well with it. It was a good coincidence.
Carsten: How did the whole project get off the ground?
Billy: I started doing the music first and as it delevloped I noticed that I'd want to get some different types of singers involved. I used to live with Mary from Madder Rose so it was easy enough to get her to sing on a couple of tracks. Don Greene, the main guy vocal, he's one of my oldest friends from New York City. He's this crazy poet guy and when I saw that the record was taking this creepier turn, I thought that he should do some vocals, too, because he has the kind of voice that fits really well over those kinds of beats. So again that was sort of organic. Whenever I did a track I thought: What would be the best way to compliment this music?
Carsten: So did you do those tracks with an album in mind or did you build it up track by track?
Billy: I did a few of them and I did it just to do music, because I try to do music a lot, just for the pure joy of it and then I started to do this group of songs that certainly didn't sound right for Madder Rose: I just wanted to keep going with it and try to put a collection of them together, make a whole record.
Carsten: Do you see this as a natural progession after you've been moving into the more beat-oriented and electronic-induced direction with the last couple Madder Rose albums as well?
Billy: I think so. Madder Rose didn't want to go any further into that direction and instead of imposing my will on that project, I just decided to do a seperate thing. Madder Rose broke up anyway last year, but it seems to me that I still should seperate things. I love melodic pop music and I also love grittier beat music, so I figured I should seperate these two things.
Carsten: Are you more interested in the whole studio process these days? More than, say, playing guitar on stage? You've been producing Madder Rose for many years, for example.
Billy: Well, because I have a home studio I can do it anytime I want and I've been doing some music for a film and stuff like that, so I am in the studio much more than I am playing guitar in a band. But I also have a little band around where I live and we play once in a while and I played guitar with the band the other night and I had a great time as well. I'd love to be able to balance the two.
Carsten: I guess by the time you started work on the Jazz Cannon album there was still talk of a possible next album by Madder Rose. How did your hopes and expecations for this record change now that The Jazz Cannon supposedly is your main musical interest?
Billy: I went through a peroid when Madder Rose was still on a major label where everything you did was: putting out an an album, trying to make a good single from it and going on tour. You just got into a routine. Now that I don't have to deal with major labels and stuff I feel kind of free. I'm already doing another Jazz Cannon record, but I also working on an instrumental record with some other friends, really organic not-beat-oriented instrumental music and that might come out this year, too. I'm trying to do a bunch of things and I am producing some people. It's not that I have a main band and that's what I do, I like to do a lot of different things if possible.
Carsten: I guess that also means you kinda left behind your days when you were in a touring band as The Jazz Cannon doesn't seem to play live that often?
Billy: We did a few things, like the CMJ seminar in New York last fall. For the shows I got a bunch of my friends to play and we approximated the record, we didn't reproduce it on stage, because obviously there are a lot of samples and stuff. And instead of trying to program that, we just kind of re-learned the songs and interpreted them. It was really cool actually.
Carsten: But that's mostly one-off shows you're doing then?
Billy: Since function 8 has three different albums coming out right now, we're trying to put together a Function 8 tour, where all the different artists on the label would form a band and play each others songs. And we'd have Gadget come and DJ and so forth.
Carsten: We're definitely looking forward to that, thanks for your time!
[a full transcript of the interview may follow at a later time.]
Copyright © 2001 Carsten Wohlfeld
The Jazz Cannon interview Your name is Billy Coté, you write and direct Madder Rose. So what happens when your golden-voiced singer Mary Lorson takes a solo sabbatical under the banner of Saint Low? Sit at home, mope and smoke dope? Hell, no. Remember you are Billy Coté, you have too many ideas and pop melodies to use with just one band. So you fire-up your home studio, call up your scary looking pal with a fixation for serial killers (Don Greene) and you finish messing around with those demos of dirty dub-flavoured sampler stuff that didn't quite fit into the Madder Rose equation. Before you know it a couple of other friends (including Mary and Johnny from Madder Rose) call by to join in the fun and you complete a great little record called 'Amateur Soul Surgery.' An album that hangs around the same dark inventive neighbourhood as Public Image Limited, Primal Scream, David Holmes and Death In Vegas. You are Billy Coté, you clearly are a very talented chap, congratulations. Thanks for giving your thoughts to UTS. Billy, how did your Jazz Cannon project come into being? Was it some part-time experimentation that became more serious than expected? We've been putting together a home studio for a long time, so that when you have a musical idea, you're already working on the finished piece, as opposed to making a demo of it. This project started out as a bunch of musical ideas that were expressly not for Madder Rose. My friend Jamie was starting the Function 8 label a couple of years ago, heard some of the songs and said let's make a record. I was excited to do a record for a small label, as we had just been dropped by Atlantic-East/West, who at the best of times were scumbags. Was it a challenging transition to make more electronic-based music or were you just expanding on ideas you have been adding to Madder Rose over the last two albums? Although the working techniques are different, it boils down to making a cool song, be it guitar based, sample based, or tubas. One thing I like best about all my favourite artists is the setting they put their songs in. The mood you evoke through the music and arrangement is w hat's most fun in doing a song. This project was not about collaboration. I just did it the way I wanted. It is an expansion on everything we've learned in Madder Rose, without the crushing weight of Madder Rose on my shoulders. That last bit was a joke. Who provided the most influence on Jazz Cannon album? I'm guessing at Primal Scream, Death In Vegas, David Holmes and Public Image Limited. One big influence was the first four solo albums by Nico, some of the most haunting music I've ever heard. Funk era (late 60's, early 70's) Miles Davis also, something very sinister there. Definitely the first 3 PIL albums, as my friend and cohort Don Greene has always reminded me of Johnny Rotten, both in voice and demeanour. Another influence would be Can, though everyone says that. I have really liked the last two Primal Scream records, though I wouldn't call them influences. I saw Bobby Gillespie on the street in New York the other day, how old is he now, like 40? Coming from a more guitar-orientated songwriting background did you think you approached using computers differently from than people making dance music? Maybe, cause I played guitar on almost every song. Although most of the drums are sampled, most of the instrumentation is done live, usually one painstaking note at a time, although I can play keyboards with up to two fingers at once, so I got that going for me. There's certainly a darker more urban and atmospheric feel to the album. Have you been back to NYC a little more recently or is there something from that city that never leaves once you've left it anyway? I go down to the city at least once a month, so I still feel connected to it. Also, after living there for nine years, I have scars that probably won't go away - literally. One of the good things about living in the city is, that no matter where you go, you still feel cooler than everybody else. And you know what? I am. I'm sorry, what was the question? Tell me about Don Greene who sings and co-wrote about half the album. He seems like quite a character, your own Iggy Pop or Thurston Moore maybe? Don is a little like Iggy Pop, although I don't know Iggy Pop. We've been friends for like ten years, and we've done other projects together, though nothing you've ever heard of. We tried to immortalise him on the 'Tragic Magic' album, but the album bombed, obviously his fault. I recommend getting drunk with him some time, but wear comfortable shoes, and don't let him near your medicine cabinet. Or your cat. Are the lyrics he sings the result of collaborating with your good self? Does he share your interest in the seedier side of Stateside life? Don wrote all the lyrics that he sang, but hopefully didn't live them. He's much more interested in the seedier side of life than me, he actively pursues it. Not just Stateside either, he's thinking global. He's working on a book of correspondence with jailed serial killers, which involves sending them pictures of himself in his underwear. Excellent. '(Last Days) In Candy's Room' is a pretty weird and somewhat disturbing song, what is the tale behind that track? Don and I were watching an Elvis Presley special on TV one night, and as we were making fun of him, we wrote down lines for a song. I later made it into a one act play, which you hear on the record. It's really just a joke, as the whole thing takes place in Candy's Room, from the old Bruce Springsteen song. We wanted to insult as many American icons as we could with that one. 'Thinly Veiled' is practically a duet between Don and Mary Lorson, what's that about? The song is about walking around in a swamp, I think. Since the music was so murky, we thought it would be good to bring in Mary on the chorus, to shed a little light on it. I like the way Don and Mary sound next to one another, and it's cool because they're good friends. My favourite track is 'Where You Are, Star,' another with Mary on vocals. Is that a more traditional Madder Rose type love/obsession pop song? That one could have gone either way, although if Madder Rose recorded it, it would have sounded different. It's like a sister song to 'Overflow,' from the last MR album. I've heard that love/obsession thing before. Maybe what you call obsession I call love. Maybe I just love too much. Hold on, you've made me cry. Actually, I'm much too lazy to be obsessed about anything. "You're good to me and I don't even know why." Where You Are, Star (2000) I get the impression you've helped build up a small music community in your New York State with Madder Rose members collaborating heavily with local musicians there. Is that the case? Yeah, it's interesting, because the predominant kind of music around here is old timey folk (groan), jam bands (shudder), or Cajun-Zydeco (wretch). You know, people up on stage with no shoes on, badly in need of a good scrubbing. But on the fringes of that, there are some really open minded, younger people who approach music with a lot of adventure. The players in Mary's band, Saint Low are like that, as well as the guy who did the remix of 'Overflow' on the last MR single, Matt Morano. I've also put together a version of The Jazz Cannon Orchestra with some of these guys. I understand you're working with Mary on some film music. What is the film about? Is it a looser, more liberating experience? How does it compare musically to things you've both done before? The first film we did was a short called 'Two Left Feet.' It was a fable about fitting into (or not) a weird little society that wore these tight fitting (and unflattering) tunics. The guy wanted Germanic, Impressionistic music from the 1920's. Since we had no idea what that meant, we gave him our version of what we imagined that to be. It came out pretty cool. We also just scored a movie made by the Newport Film Festival called 'Five Actors In Search Of A Movie.' It's much different than writing music for a band, because although you don't have to come up with a killer chorus, you have to very simply support the mood of the film, and also make the director happy. We try not to make it sound too much like any of our projects, whatever the film requires. We've really enjoyed doing it, and it's much more pleasant then lugging your amplifier up the stairs at 2:00am. With all your extra-curricular activities taking priority right now, when/how is another Madder Rose album likely to emerge? What other things do you have in the pipeline? We hope to put out another MR record sometime next year. Mary and I already have about 5 pieces started. It will be very different from what's come before, partially instrumental, and with lots of guest musicians from around here. We'll keep you posted. Also, the Jazz Cannon is doing a vinyl only 12 inch battle record for Function 8, out in late fall. On one side will be two versions of a song called 'Upstate Prison Style' by Jazz Cannon, and on the other side versions of the same song by Tommy Guerrero and Gadget. Not remixes, but reinterpretations. Tommy Guerrero just put out a record on Mo' Wax called 'A Little Bit Of Somethin' that's really cool down tempo stuff. (c) 2001 Adrian Pannett. This interview originally appeared in Under The Surface #4. Used by permission.