Art for Spastics: AFS v. 196 ~ Knife Hits!

11:57 AM me: So, what about this new LP?
How's it gonna carry?
11:58 AM Twin: the new lp is a party / its like a new madonna lp from 84, no joke!!
me: Well, some of those songs are indeed moments of pop brilliance. What kinda things am I gonna hear that I haven't heard before on your CDRs and 7"?
12:00 PM Twin: well for once it should be all new songs , no demos no scrappy live traxx, its all guitar based now , jeremiah is playing more bass type stuff on the moog, theres a soft cell cover on there that kinda holds the lp together. we recorded it ourselves.
12:01 PM whereas the last record we did "two girls 7" was recorded in a fancy studio with the engineer taking control and adding in his own sounds. it worked but we wanted something different.
12:02 PM me: How many songs and minutes is it?
Twin: 8 songs 26 minutes
12:03 PM me: So, less atmospheric then?
Twin: no, not necessarily. side b is more dreamtime, and side a is pop madness.
12:04 PM me: Is this still gonna play well at a dance party?
12:06 PM Twin: it will play very well, we got sick of people calling us a dance band cause we were on Summer Lovers, and cause we had two moogs, so we wanted to make more of a early nineties party record, kinda like the story i heard of charles peterson playing out his copy of nirvana's mollys lips live single at his house parties.
12:07 PM me: You realize that your split cassette w/ N.213 that was limited to 47 shoulda been on vinyl, right? Your side of that is pretty great!
12:08 PM Twin: i know i know / me and nic are trying to get a label to release it. it was meant to be on vinyl from the start.
12:09 PM me: It has a few mastering issues, but that's easy enough.
Twin: i know nothing about mastering, all i know how to is stay up till 6 am mixxing and mixxing songs over and over.
12:10 PM i spent weeks mixxing the new lp.
12:11 PM me: There's a dark despair and desperation in a lotta music coming from Vancouver, and yet it seems like people are all excited about the music from there, whether it's kids here in Sacto and Davis or folks like Exclaim doing feature articles on it.
12:12 PM Why is Vancouver music so glum-sounding, yet also sparking a lotta interest these days? Twin Crystals included!
12:15 PM Twin: well for one thing all our bands - Shearing Pinx / Mutators / Twin C / Defektors....... all practice on Hastings Street for the low rent, but that street is home to some 20000 addicts. i'm talking the cops have no idea what to do, all day everyday people are smoking crack freely on the street, shooting up in front of cops. the Emergencry Room just got robbeed, and we hall had our guitars stolen. this city is fucked...im not really sure why people are taking notice now, though. all of us have been doing this for years, and we have had zero interest up until now. in Channels 3 and 4, we all worked so hard but we got nowhere with it. it seemed no one cared or anything. we never even got local press.
12:16 PM me: I hear that a lot about the Vancouver press....even D.O.A. complained about it back in 1981-82, I read.
12:17 PM Twin: yeah and look where they are now. hahahha...maybe thats what we have to look forward to.
me: No wonder you guys are so downcast, eh!
12:18 PM So, who's putting the LP out?
12:19 PM Twin: our friend david from NMR records here in Vancouver is releasing it. Summer Lovers wanted to do it, but they are too slow, and project us towards a different audeience...not a bad thing necesarily, but just not really what we want. dave is letting us have complete control. so i have sorted out our distro and cover art and everything. we are really really excited for it.
12:20 PM me: What's it like for Twin Crystals to share Jeremiah with a million other bands?
12:22 PM Twin: well, we all play in different bands, so it's not really a problem ever. it might be a struggle for him, but for us it's really quite exciting to see our best firend have success with other people he plays with. the thing about jeremiah though is he is a player not necessarily a songwriter, so he can just jump into a situation and play along perfectly to someone else's songs.
12:23 PM me: Jordan also strikes me as the sound/engineering kinda guy, so is that also kinda like a part that plugs into a system pretty well?
12:25 PM Twin: yes indeed...jordan is a full time sound engineer. he records most of the vancouver scene and does it perfectly. he is really easy to work with, but he never records twin crystals cause i think he finds it a bit frustrating trying to balance the sound and the playing. so i usually just record us. but yeah...it's a really good thing that we all have going...jordan records all the bands...all the bands are our friends, all our friends go on tour, all our friends make rad music, and that's kinda why i think everything is coming together nicely.
12:27 PM me: It's always so cliched to ask the same old question of "Who are your influences?" But tell us one influence that we wouldn't expect based on your sound.
12:29 PM Twin: well, when me and jordan first put the band together i was (still am) heavily into Fela Anikulapo Kuti, and i was showing jordan all this great afro disco beat, and we kinda imagined these rhythms over pop songs. i think a perfekkt example of that is our song "Trinity".
12:30 PM me: Hmmmm, I never realized that....
I always thought it was like a jungle/DnB-type song minus the drum machine and sequencers.
12:31 PM Twin: hahaha
me: That's your signature song as it's appeared on a lot of different releases. So why is its meaning still so mysterious?
12:34 PM Twin: i think all our songs are surrounded by mystery, but that one in particular is a bit dfferent. it's a really positive song if you can listen though the edges. it's kinda about the three of us sticking together through anything, 'cause we have all been through a lot in our lives...through friends suicides and overdoses, and it's just about the three of us being a family...not just ones that say they are; [we] really mean it.
12:35 PM me: Ah, we must all be imagining that it's more metaphoric than it really is!
12:36 PM Twin: haha probably
12:37 PM it might have a little bit to do with the break up of Channels 3 and 4 where i say "can you tell where my arm got torn"
12:38 PM "don't come and tear it apart"...that means i couldn't believe we didnt make it through 'cause we were supposed to be family. but now that family is back, and it feels good.
12:39 PM me: That coulda been a great record cover photo concept.
Twin: haha yeah probably
me: Put a little baby bonnet on Jeremiah.
12:40 PM Twin: we wouldn't even have to force him.
12:43 PM man that san kazakgascar band rules; they sound incredible.
me: Yeah...Jed, the guitarist of San Kaz is really great! They have a clarinetist, too, which just takes it over the top into magic carpet land.
12:44 PM Twin: awesome...i cant wait!