INTERVIEW WITH KRISTEN BAN DRAKE, AKA ANN B KLOROX, FLUXMONKEY COLLABORATOR

I was delighted to next pose questions of noise, language and consciousness to Kristen Ban Drake, one of my favorite performers. Kristen often performs under the name Ann B Klorox, whose Facebook page describes as "a one woman band of Voice, Vowel, Nostril & Analog Synthesizer & other ready noisemakers." She plays low to the ground, using everything: her toes, her many voices, mysterious texts.  

I asked Kristen for a brief biography, and she efficiently synthesized her impressive body of work as follows:

Bio by Decade

20’s--Mad Dog 20/20 Induced Poetry Readings.

30’s-Sound & Language Group Improv Work: MommieHood.

40’s-Slam Poetry & Audio Art Work. 

50’s Gone.

60’s Back, sorta. GranmaHood.

ARH: What are you working on now? Please describe current projects you’re most excited about. Are they collaborations or solo work?

KBD: Well now Amanda I do wish I was sitting across from your gorgeous head & body now and we could just hear this interview. I know (snaps finger) I will just write in the sounds I would be making like they do in dramatic scripts, how’s that? (nod and shake swish of Amanda’s gorgeous hair).

So I am sorry to say I am never working on anything. If you take the ING of it, you might say that I have work in my head, but I rarely entertain the thought of doing much about what is in my head unless someone asks, and I feel like I have the time. But right now what is in my head is Aunt Kris’s Dance Party. It’s either going to be an actual party or a performance if someone asks me to fill a slot-- maybe both. It will be a dance mix featuring my baby synth, my feet and exciting toys I am going to steal from my huzband and grandson (cackles merrily)... But yes,  Aunt Kris’s Dance Party is just the sound and motion about how my body has changed as time has gone on. Lucky for me I have been doing Yoga since I was 16 and I danced all through college and practiced a marital art for quite a while too. But  much of that (twirling sound of desk seat as I spin round and round happily) was 20-30 years ago. And I still love my body. 

ARH: When and how did you get into performing? Feel free to discuss any influences and early experiences.

KBD: I am realizing that I was very to fortunate to HEAR at an early age both the sound of Alice In Wonderland being read out loud and Shakespeare. I remember being furious (snarls)  that I had to wait for this babysitter I did not care for to come and read it to me, and that was a huge impetus to teach myself to read rather early--so I could read it out loud to myself. And In the fourth or fifth grade, I saw Macbeth onstage.  I was totally blown away.  I mention this as way of performing because when I began writing, nothing I wrote was ever unspoken--even if I did it up in my bedroom closet.  The first time I did a reading In Cleveland in the early seventies, no one was more surprised than me at people being surprised that I could do it so well --for a girl (giggles). The other big surprise was how wonderful the whole sound of it was--bar sounds, whooping from my friends---a bunch of hookers were clapping and dancing along, it was fantastic.  That’s probably when I realized how elemental sound was, and how it was nothing more than Cause & Effect.

ARH: Since you’ve started performing, have you noticed repeating cycles in terms of style and energy of experimental music? How would you describe the current zeitgeist?

KBD: Hmm..experimental music. Talk about Cause and Effect. Sometimes I think experimental music is really just the deep respect for cause and effect--so respectful that you leave everything else you know behind when you play and/or listen to it. It’s been around forever. I could not tell you about any cycles but I expect my huzband Bob Drake could, and I have to say, when I dropped the notion that he was just this dopey hippie boy (big laugh) who was following me and my cool avant garde friends around many years ago and sat next to him to watch Tom Cora and Skeleton Crew play, I felt that openness for the first time. I knew very little about improvisational music at that point, but it changed my ears forever. 

ARH: What qualities excite you in performances of others? What takes you by surprise and keeps your interest in experimental music

KBD: I could not tell you how I decipher this but--but I like mastery. It is quite wonderful to watch someone who knows their equipment, their craft, their body & mind & therefore knows and embraces all the infinitesimal possibilities that come from putting all that together. Knows--and (chuckles) has no fear.  Because that’s when the essence escapes.  Even when someone becomes momentarily furious or absent  because something didn’t work--that can very masterful too.  And when you get that among a group of people who are also really REALLY listening to each other in a collaborative effort, the surprise is--(claps hands excitably) you get to go along with them too. So that is my interest & surprise, yes. I am happy to report it STILL surprises me, even after all these years. No one will ever hear it all. That’s quite grand.

ARH: Do you feel performing is a spiritual act and/or ritual? If so, how does that work – how do you use ritual awareness in your work? If not, how would you describe the performing process in terms of mental, physical and emotional transformation?

KBD: It’s so hard to say why people perform. There must be several reasons and I expect for some people, it’s a need to be heard, to express themselves, to be  Somebody. There is nothing wrong with that unless it often leaves you disappointed or somehow feeling even less heard. That could happen.  (Big sigh) What I know of spirituality which comes from being a practicing Buddhist (Tibetan-Vajrayana) is that the more you dissolve your I am This and I am That the closer you come to who you (and who we all ) really are.  I will say that this is not an especially calming, comfortable, therapeutic  or um, stress-free process.(guffaws). Here’s is an interesting story. When our kids were finally on their own, I elected to go on a seven year home retreat with my Sangha. I made some serious commitments to my practice, which abruptly changed my priorities and the way I spent my time. At about the same time, my huzband, who I had always performed with, got himself back out in the world again with his wondrous  talents and a whole new group generation of people rediscovered what an incredible musician he is. And I just pretty much disappeared. On the rare occasion I would go out, people I’d never seen 

before  would come up to me and say things like “do you know who he is, he’s like the Synth Godfather blah blah..” and they wouldn’t even know I was his wife, much less a performer myself. I was no longer my Stories. It was very very difficult--until it wasn’t. 

I suddenly found myself back at square one, muttering to myself in my bedroom again & possibly more sure about the value of performing than ever before. That indeed, it had never been about  me, but about what was happening to everyone around me and how I fit into that.  Now its interesting to think that possibly performance is just a Ritual that enables to to get back to that,  to let sound & language & motion trip us into a present tense that might actually be our true nature after all. I have no idea if that is the case.  But I do know you don’t necessarily need a power strip to do that. Well, maybe you do at first......(twirls around on chair giggling)

INTERVIEW WITH MITCHELL R. RIBIS JR. OF FASCIST INSECT

I interviewed my husband Mitch, aka The Doctor, for the second interview in this summer series. Mitch has had wonderfully diverse music experiences from living in several countries and playing in many genres. Mitch has always been interested in pushing his band Fascist Insect into all kinds of strange eclectic places, especially the farthest regions of grind and abstract electronics, as well as all kinds of in-between cut-ups/mash-ups. He’s also put out many beautiful releases over the years, including annual four-way splits. He used to release under the name Black Maggot Noise Productions but has lately preferred to simply describe his releases as self-released. When he chooses to book shows or fests, he always puts thought into booking diverse bands, as he is a strong believer in cross-fertilization. He puts energy into every aspect of whatever project he’s working on, including developing a unique style of flier art. 

MRR: Hi, my name is Mitch Ribis, 36 years old from Cleveland, Ohio. I go by the name The Dr. in Fascist Insect. We formed in 2007 as a Hardcore/Metal outfit but veer wildly between anything we consider heavy. Right now we (Fascist Insect--which is also Ammo Killson on vox and drums) are working on super-short/bursty HC/thrash/Doom songs with myself on vox and guitar.

ARH: When and how did you get into performing? Feel free to discuss any influences and early experiences.

MRR: I come from a family of performers – my first public musical performance was with my then-band Slum Scum in Shah Alam, Malaysia when I was 18. There was another band on the bill that night called Happy Nightmare whom I sat in with on vox for covers of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "Creeping Death" at the end of the show. Other unusual performances? Lessee...opening for Japanese grind legends Damage Digital with my old band Enslaved Chaos in Kuala Lumpur in 1997, winning a litre of vodka at an open mic contest in Britain in 2001 (doing "Looking Out My Back Door" and similarly terrible), doing Anthrax's version of "Got the Time" at karaoke in Budapest in 2005, and doing "Rocket Man" at our DFAC (cafeteria) during lunchtime karaoke in Iraq in 2008. General experience? Practice as much as possible for even the seemingly most insignificant performance...

ARH: Since you’ve started performing, have you noticed repeating cycles in terms of style and energy of experimental music? How would you describe the current zeitgeist?

MRR: Before, you could get several different genres...let me revise: before people (well fuckit "I") didn't know there were even different genres of Noise. Now there are more shows but each show is a different subgenre of Noise/Experimental...Noise bands are migrating to different scenes/genres like Doom and Thrash. There's more crossover than ever. It's like jazz-fusion all over again but with heavy post-Industrial era music.

ARH: What qualities excite you in performances of others? What takes you by surprise and keeps your interest in experimental music? 

MRR: Energy and originality for sure. I guess what grabs my attention the most is originality, heaviness, and emotional response to the jams being played. I'm not super-into comedy or irony.

ARH: How does language factor in your creative process? Does your inspiration often begin with words or sounds – how do these interact? (Mitch is fluent in Indonesian/Malay and can read and write Arabic)

MRR: I think that different languages lend themselves to different melody, tonality, and scales, and languages and their syllables are like different notes on different scales. If you have four syllables you basically have four words, which means, you have the complete lyrics to a song. “Tetsuo” (off of the split with Generichrist), had words in Malay, Japanese, and English. Different syllables and words in different languages have interesting possibilities for rhythm and timing as well. If possible I will definitely try to start a lyrical composition with a cool vocal hook or song title and then I reverse-engineer it, putting lyrics, and whatever content in. Saying this—this process can go in any number of orders, as well. But if you have a good basic title and chorus/hook, 85% of your songwriting is done in my own personal experience.

ARH: Do you feel performing is a spiritual act and/or ritual? If so, how does that work – how do you use ritual awareness in your work? If not, how would you describe the performing process in terms of mental, physical and emotional transformation?

MRR: There is definitely some rituals I like to do beforehand and it does put you in a different state of mind that is a state of focus and release at the same time. It's almost as if you are have a dialogue with both your self (or selves) and a dialogue the audience simultaneously. I'm screaming into a mic, so I'm highly oxygenated and there is definitely an adrenaline rush in addition to the mental/emotional reaction to hear the live music.

ARH: What do you think the future holds for you as an individual artist and experimental music generally? What is the relationship between local and global experimental music now?

MRR:  Not sure but I hope to continue to write, perform, and record with Fascist Insect. For Experimental music in general? Hard to say. I like to believe that if the majors wanted to get hold of it (Experimental and Noise) and popularize it to the general public at large and sell it to them I think they would have by now, but Experimental music is still sonically unpalatable to a lot of people, to say the least. The farthest the majors will go (for now) is Skrillex but Wolf Eyes being on Sub Pop (and to another extent Merzbow being on Relapse) was an interesting study in the parameters of the general public's acceptance of Experimental, particularly Noise and it didn't take off the way some other stuff on Sub Pop did. There's still widespread hostility and belligerence to Noise. It's still on the fringes. But there are further experiments by the majors (no pun intended) in fielding softer and softer quirky bands so who knows how that will go? I think Experimental and Noise will continue to get bigger and fragment again and again but remain underground for the most part. And Crossover? Oh yeah.

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT BEVERIDGE, AKA XTERMINAL

Robert Beveridge, noise name XTerminal, was the first noise performer I ever saw. My brother and I came to Cleveland in 1999 to check out the underground venue Speak in Tongues. We were into extreme abstract music, but had never been in a venue for that kind of sound before. We stuck to the corners, shy kids with our cardboard box of canned beer, feeling warm excitement at the strangely textured walls, the strutting weirdos and the darkness. Then - the harsh sound began - coming from a man with a computer and a table. XTerminal.

Speak in Tongues closed months after we moved to Cleveland, and we lost touch with those strangers until nearly ten years later when Steve Makita's Audio Visual Baptism (AVB) series brought the former Speak in Tongues crew together with those of us performing at Bela Dubby, Now That's Class, and other venues.

My brother and I were at an AVB at rugged gallery Doubting Thomas, when he nudged me and pointed to a man with a table and a computer, and he said, "Hey, do you see who that is?" And our friendship with Robert Beveridge was ignited. 

We discovered that not only was he a killer noise artist, but also a poet and reviewer of poetry and film. I am excited to share his thoughts. 

ARH: What are you working on now? Please describe current projects you’re most excited about. Are they collaborations or solo work?

RB: “Excited” seems entirely the wrong word to describe my feelings for the musical project I'm working on now, an album-length piece (with the working title “Larvatus Prodeo”, which translates to “I Advance Masked”; it may be a quote from René Descartes, or it may be William Gaddis quote that Gaddis attributed to Descartes, no one seems to be sure anymore) that focuses on my perception of clinical depression. It's solo, but I did borrow a bass from Jason Rodriguez...

I'm also getting back into the grind of writing, prepping, and submitting poetry to magazines. I had forgotten how much work that is.



ARH: When and how did you get into performing? Feel free to discuss any influences and early experiences.


RB: I started out in marching band. I think a lot of drummers started out in marching band... I honestly can't remember what year it was, but it was sixth grade, so it must have been around 1980-81. The first rock band I was in—I like to say I was in it for fifteen minutes, but in actuality I was a member on and off for a few months over two or three recording sessions—was called D.I.N. (it was supposed to be a secret, I think, but the name stood for “Drug-Induced Noise”, and was a pretty accurate reflection of our mental and psychological state when we recorded), and since I gate-crashed a recording session at my friend Steve's house and he was already the drummer, I switched over to vocals. I've since tracked down two of the other members on Facebook, and all three of us are still making music... I do XTerminal, obviously, Steve has been in a string of bands (the best-known of which was Brownie Mary), and Jeff was the guitarist for The Floors. Those two guys were both on major labels, I gotta step up my game...

The switch over to noise happened in June of '99. (Specifically, June 26^th.) I'd been wanting to get into noise since I first heard it back in the early nineties, but I was a computer kid with no disposable income to pick up pedals, so I had to wait until I could find a computer program that did the right kind of noise/tone generation for the stuff that was in my head. That took eight years. Then I found Audiomulch, which I'm still using fifteen years later—though I've added some analog components along the way. The rest of the world started off making analog noise and are now using laptops... I started out using a desktop and am going the other way.




ARH: Since you’ve started performing, have you noticed repeating cycles in terms of style and energy of experimental music? How would you describe the current zeitgeist? 


RB: With the Cleveland scene, I think things move slower than they do in most places. Hell, we still have a thriving Industrial scene. So yeah, there's definitely something cyclical, but I think we're still on the second spin. The first probably started before I moved to Cleveland in 1994; I know Bacillus was on the scene back then (he moved to Seattle right around the same time I moved to Cleveland), and by the time I went to my first noise show in '96 (Quell and an early Stephen Petrus project were the openers, and I no longer remember who headlined), Speak in Tongues had become the focal point for a lot of what was going on. That first cycle lasted until Speak closed at the end of 2000, and things kind of went dormant for a while until the rise of Bela Dubby and Doubting Thomas in 2007-2008. Bela Dubby almost had that same gravitational pull that Speak did, but when it went the way of the great auk last year, there were a lot of other places that stepped up and took over, so we haven't gone back into dormancy. Hallelujah.

To me, that says the scene is stronger than it was back in the nineties, and with a larger outreach. Back in the nineties noise kids were noise kids, and no one else really noticed. Noise shows didn't come with sold-out crowds unless you were Merzbow or KK Null, and the idea of a noise band getting on the bill with other kinds of music was outrageous, really... eight years later I go see Caustic Christ and Satanic Threat, and Steve Makita's closing the show. (I don't think most of the hardcore kids there had ever seen a noise gig... hilarious...) The same year, Prurient opened for Xiu Xiu at the Grog Shop... WHAT. I think that expended a lot of minds. Less than a year later it wasn't uncommon to see grindcore bands playing noise gigs and vice versa. Hell, we had a power-pop band open for one noise gig at Bela Dubby at one point. I think it's great.




ARH: What qualities excite you in performances of others? What takes you by surprise and keeps your interest in experimental music? 


RB: It happens on a case-by-case basis, and I often can't put my finger on it. You get guys like Jeff Hatfield (Field of Hats) or Tristan Trump (Poverty Hymns) who just sit there with a guitar and mess with a couple of effects pedals and make this absolutely mind-blowing music that I can sit there and listen to for hours on end, and the way I'm describing it it sounds like the most boring thing imaginable. But it's so, so good, both recorded and live, and for the life of me I can't tell you why. It's a lot more obvious with bands who have a theatrical aspect to what they do—the show PascAli played at the Black Cat Factory last summer is a prime example, these two guys doing absolutely ridiculous things with upright basses, watching them is interesting because you never know what prop they're going to pull out next and what it's going to do to the music. Incredible stuff.




ARH: How does language factor in your creative process? Does your inspiration often begin with words or sounds – how do these interact?

RB: Almost everything I do musically is vocalless (or at least lyricless, I throw in various nonsense syllables now and then, heavily effected), but there's usually some sort of core of language at the bottom of it, whether it came from the title of the piece, a poem I wrote years ago, someone else's song, a news item, etc. “Larvatus Prodeo”, since I was already talking about it above, is a good example; I ran across the phrase in Camelia Elias' book Pulverizing Portraits: Lynn Emanual and the Poetry of Becoming and within two or three minutes I had the basics of the thing in my head—I've revised it over the past couple of months, but not much. It still sounds in my head a lot like it did right after I conceived it. I'm in the process of trying to replicate it in the real world now.



ARH: Do you feel performing is a spiritual act and/or ritual? If so, how does that work – how do you use ritual awareness in your work? If not, how would you describe the performing process in terms of mental, physical and emotional transformation?


RB: Not at all—I am not a believer in things beyond us. The second half of that question is something that has always intrigued me, the idea that more extreme modes of physical performance can lead to altered states of consciousness (specifically, the work of Fakir Musafar has fascinated me for decades), but I am both too much of a control freak and too pain-averse to ever actually go there. If I allow lizard brain to take over, who knows what would come out of my mouth? I do know it would probably end up pissing people off even more than I already do...



ARH: What do you think the future holds for you as an individual artist and experimental music generally? What is the relationship between local and global experimental music now?


RB: The great thing about XTerminal being a solo act is that it's guaranteed to never break up... I've gone on hiatus at times in the past, but XTerminal will always be there in some form or other. Even if I get to the point where I'm no longer releasing anything, I'll still keep doing it. It's always been my way of making sense of the stuff in my head.

Regarding the relationship between local and global music now...it's incredible. There's always been something of an international link with the Cleveland noise scene; back in the nineties, we had our share of international acts come through, and XTerminal was actually getting radio play in Croatia in the early 2000s from what I've been told. But things are on a whole other level now. It almost seems like Tatsuya Nakatani has made Cleveland his second home. And with the wealth of places we have to play now, we've gotten to the point where it's a semi-regular occurrence to wake up on a Saturday and say, “my god, which show am I going to be able to make it to tonight?” because there are so many great choices to be had. I've been known to complain about this, but it certainly beats “every show I went to between 2002 and 2008 either I booked or it was out of town”...




ARH: What else has been on your mind lately?

RB: Berberian Sound Studio. Must-see for noise kids, especially those who utilize field recordings in their work. 

JULY 2013 - Interviews Coming Soon!

Look out for upcoming interviews with  Kristen Ban Drake, Robert Beveridge, and Mitchell Ribis. These three performers will be sharing their thoughts on changes in experimental music over the years, as well as exciting current activities. They will explore how they perceive the relationships between language, sound, performance and ritual.

SURVIVAL OF THE LOUDEST III

THIS SATURDAY - JULY 28 - FIVE PM TILL CLOSE

NOW THAT'S CLASS

11213 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, Ohio 44102

• THIRD INSTALLMENT OF ANNUAL SHOWCASE/MIN-FEST WITH RETURNING ALUMNI AND NEW FACES-EARLY SHOW 5PM! $5 DONATION FOR TOURING BANDS:

DEAD PEASANT INSURANCE (+ PAULINE LOMBARDO)
MURDEROUS VISION
ELECTRIC BAAT
BRIDESMAID
FASCIST INSECT
SLUDGETHRONE
PAPER MICE
MDFL
EXTREME NOISE TERRIER
POSTURE
NORTHERN AGGRESSION
GHOSTBREAD

the ok vastness

of Duende power.
Power turning, living in wheels,
chakras, yantra, pujas, mantra -----
the seed breaks open - the tree
things fall apart
the Oak
look deep inside your bread to the grain to the seed to the worm
and look inside your lover's eyes - into the the seed of the soul inside
Durga says, look into me to understand your true nature and be free
invoke! invoke often!
seek out the true ecstasy
over false oblivion
blunted stunted
earn the ecstasy of true all-at-once-ness
burn the white fear clear away
is a slow burn paradox
the strength to savor the banal, the pain even
burns the white fear
clear away
faith is nothing-lost-ness
love is namaste
wheels spinning the dove and lion paired,
the lover and the dancer paired,
both honesty and compassion bared.

in the Malay language,
the only word that rhymes with sakti
is bakti
sakti is magic, enchanted and enchantment
bakti is devotion.

Sakti-Bakti

Houses

I walk past houses and I feel hit with things - maybe they are the subtle energies of the beings inside, or dreams of the past, or maybe just rapid association. The city I live in is full of doubles built in the thirties - streets from here to up Athens Avenue past Marlowe and Belle, Mars to Carabel Avenue and beyond.

I am still and the houses move past me - a street with little stubby trees, exposed and Lego built fifties fast. Then dense lush oaks, the temperature drops, and I feel the forties, the fever of the fence and the things inside the fence. Then I come to a street two miles away that looks identical to my street. The west side was built so fast - these cities built so fast. Like they knew our country would be begin de-industrializing by 1960, and they wanted to get folks lined up for the last and most massive American thrusts into the production machine.

I walk past and I ask the houses what's inside. Like strangers as lovers I wonder in passing what it feels like to be inside.

I walk past a yellow and brown double and feel bad parties and overhead lights and what am I remembering - is it the memory of the house or a memory from a past life or just from my earliest childhood?

I always dream of houses. I've been through all kinds of structures, and I'm ignorant, I don't know what things are called. Once in a dream, I sipped soup in a split level as the sun went down and felt gut level regret. I met my grandmother again in a vast ring shaped house and introduced her to my new husband, and we showed her our moonstone wedding rings and she gave me a crown. More, though, I lucid dream into the house I grew up in, or places with walls soft from mold or flickers in the corners or heavy with the Murphy's oil soap smell of still old death.

In walking and in dreaming, I'm hit with otherness breathing in houses.