“The Energy of Death”:
An Interview with Andrew Whiteman of Apostle of Hustle and Broken
Social Scene
Andrew
Whiteman talks with Ross Simonini via email
Posted: July 21, 2005
Andrew Whiteman seems to be the force behind Apostle
of Hustle. He sings, songwrites, plays several instruments and pushes
the band further toward integration of Latin music elements. The
story goes that he started the band after a short junket to Cuba,
where he was inspired by the rich and complex heritage of music.
He learned from Cuban musicians and swallowed the sounds pouring
through the streets. When he returned, the band performed scores
of live shows, and spent each one learning how to fuse their love
for rock and Cuban music into something palatable. After recording
an EP of their first attempts, Andrew stepped back from the music
and decided to rerecord and reinterpret. The result is Folkloric
Feel, one of the few albums in recent years to sound more intricate
on each listen.
Andrew is also one of the primary musicians behind Broken Social
Scene, another Toronto band whose album You Forgot It In People
was, in my opinion, one of the best albums of the last ten
years. Again, this is an album overflowing with influences. The
songs are melodically strong and the sonic quality is a compilation
of the best elements from all the important music genres in the
last two generations. Both bands were born from the Toronto music
scene and both bands tend to push the limits of how diverse an album
can be. In fact, the albums have several overlapping musicians with
groups such as Stars, Feist and Do Make Say Think. There’s
some sort of weird commune thing happening up there in Toronto and
I think it’s to all of our benefit.
In our interview, Andrew talks about his fear of bats, makes exhaustive
lists (for your enjoyment) and pontificates about the true international
language (hint: it’s not love).
CUBA
Ross Simonini: Folkloric Feel obviously
incorporates an array of Latin music elements; would you say most
of these influences are primarily Cuban? In a few songs I can even
hear the specific placement of things like piano montunos and bass
tumbaos (“Energy of Death,” for instance); How deliberate
are you in your use of these elements?
Andrew Whiteman: Wow, well it's great to have
an interview start with the words “tumbao” and “montuno”!
For sure, in “Energy of Death,” that song went through
some crazy rhythmic changes—originally a bastard samba, but
the montuno bass in the chorus was a later addition that really
glues it together. I guess the earliest serious influence was Cuban,
although I certainly steal from whatever’s looking good. I
think we ultimately try to do the “serve the song” thing,
and not pre–decide too much. Elements like montunos are the
same as “hooks;” syncopation always sounds more fun
when it’s contrasted with repetition.
RS: How learned are you in traditional Cuban music?
Do you think it matters? Is authenticity bullshit? You pay respect
to certain mentors in the liner notes. In any way, is Folkloric
Feel an homage to traditional Cuban musicians? Are homages
bullshit?
AW: If you wanna hear how learned we are in trad,
listen to “El Reloj De la Pastora” (wristwatch of the
shepherdess) on the LP version of the record. It’s more like
a Valium Stooges! Well, Julian is actually pretty good at faking
it. I took a few tres lessons when I was in Havana.
I wouldn’t say the album is a specific homage to Los Ancienos,
but they are a huge inspiration to me—as are kickass old folks
anywhere, doing anything (except the ones in power—senile
bastards).
I guess the question of authenticity is too big for me to answer
. . . but maybe I find the concept boring. It seems a little rigid,
yeah? Not to mention exclusive. (Hmmmm on the other hand, what about
the element of “preservation” in certain musics? Isn’t
that a valid reason for including “authenticity”? It’s
just a personal preference that I seem to be attracted to the authentic
that has been bit–crushed or twisted in one way or another.)
As for homages, no I don’t think they are bullshit (I’ve
written a few), though they can get embarrassing. Alex Lukachevsky
once said he didn’t like homages and instead wrote the opposite—curse
songs, like William Burroughs.
RS: Do you have an opinion about the new surge
of popularity in Cuban music (a la Buena Vista Social Club)? Do
you have any general opinions about the integration of “world”
music into Western pop culture? Are you the type of person who uses
the word “exploitation” when referring to Paul Simon’s
Graceland?
AW: Wow more good questions . . . Well, I guess
I feel that the Cuban music “boom” is pretty much over,
although Buena Vista folks are now able to release their own albums
for the fans. These records won’t be heard in Starbucks a
la the first two, but often they are incredibly inventive and definitely
pushing some boundaries. I doubt any “typical” Cubans
would be freaking out over Ibrahim Ferrer’s second album,
though I do. (Hammond organ blasting out the tumbaos?! Yeah, go
Nick Cave styles!!)
Obviously, I am a huge fan of world music and wouldn’t have
gotten further than Getz/Giberto* if not for Luaka Bop*. My opinions
are usually more aesthetic then political—so while just said
that I’m somewhat “anti–authentic,” the
world music fusion experiments that flood the record stores mostly
suck. Does that make sense?
If we look at things from the other side—western pop culture
has been, er, “integrating” into the rest of the world
for decades. Let’s check out what the mirror says. Although
sometimes our marketing and consumption of “world music”
seems to smack of what Said called Orientalism*, or exoticism (i.e:
playing up Romantic and often false notions of the other cultures
of our planet), still I know what sounds true and vibrant to my
ears, and I’m thankful I’ve lived in a time when I can
listen and participate.
As for Mr. Simon—I dunno. Don’t really like his music
to begin with, so I’ve never engaged in that discussion. However,
I will say this: He was using Incan musicians on his first record!
Plus, when he was young he used to frequent a club (his father was
part owner??) in New York where he would see all the great Latin
bands of the day—the Palmieris, the Joe Cubas, Machito etc.
The man has always been into “world music” (ugh, whatta
title).
RS: You play the tres cubano on a few songs. Did
you write many of the songs on the tres? How is your approach to
playing and/or songwriting different on this instrument?
AW: The tres has become my main instrument in
our live situation. I wrote “Sleepwalking,” “Lorca,”
“They Shoot” and “Folkloric” on the tres.
It’s a very different beast for a number of reasons: more
open sounding chords because you can cloud the idea of a “root
note”—I leave that for Julian to figure out! It lends
itself to montunos very easily, as you noticed. It drones very well
so the capability of a more primitive vibe is possible, although
that is just a fantasy at this point: a more Morrocan roll trance
like apostle sound. My particular tres is electric, a Gibson sg
custom from 1971, like Frank Zappa, so it is quite unruly at times.
Plus any tres is only near, at best, to being in tune. At least
the good sounding ones—c.f. Arsenio Rodriguez in the ’60s.
RS: You’ve already mentioned a few names
in Cuban music, names I think most people would have little access
to. Do you want to mention any particular little–known artists
who your fans might appreciate? Contemporary, Latin, Older, Canadian,
Anything.
AW: Wow. Well, this is a question with no true
definitive answer. I spew a bit on the website, but I also don’t
get tired of it—plus it changes constantly, so here’s
today’s data:
–Maya Deren
–Arthur Russell’s “world of echo”
–Alex Lukachevsky/Deep Dark Untied—Toronto based, best
voice going
–A new label—congotronics
–DJ ruptures website and album
–The Zoilus website
–Enrique Morente (flamenco)
–I also like Animal Collective, Go Team, a girl called eddy,
Gonzales, Dears, Thomas Mapfumo, Stella Chiwesie, Vintage King Sunny
Ade tracks….
–K–os is a great Canadian musician, as is Dan Sanith
in whatever incarnation, plus Juana Molina is a fave the volume
of Ethiopique records
–1–18 is indescribably good.
–What about Charles Atlas? It’s overwhelming...
“GOD’S FUCK UPS”
RS: What do you mean by the lyric “energy
of death”? The full line is actually: “A wind that fills
the world with bitches breath is called the energy of death.”
I know you probably want to preserve some of the artistic ambiguity
but can you talk a little about this lyric? To me, it seemed to
be a focal point.
AW: Another way of putting it is the title of a “book”
a friend is writing called “Holding the Hand of the World
While it Dies.” I believe the world is “spent,”
so to speak, as many have believed thru history, and thus it’s
compared to a chicken with its head cut off—dead or dying
quickly and hysterically—a too easy explanation for God’s
fuck ups . . . Actually, it was originally written as a praise song
for the kids wearing furry pants trying to imitate the raves they
missed out on by 5 years. It coulda been me, but it wasn’t.
RS: How do you generally approach lyric writing? I know you worked
for a short while with Coach House Press and consequently worked
with a lot of the Canadian Sound Poets (BP Nichol, etc.). Do you
have anything to say about their philosophies on sound and text?
Did this affect your approach to lyric writing in any way?
AW: The approaches favored by the poets I came to know at Coach
house were (are) extremely varied . . . bp himself was an epic poet,
a “concretist,” a comic book maker, a songwriter, a
sound poet, etc. I was lucky just to have come into contact with
a vital piece of Canadian culture—not thru the classroom,
but around the lunch table—I guess I don’t have anything
to say about their philosophies! Except that community at that level
doesn’t last forever. My lyric writing is suffering currently
due to a bad case of “behind the shoulder.” Usually
perform some rituals and scream it out.
RS: Any other big influences in terms of text? Novelists? Other
poets? Short Story Writers? Other Lyricists? Lunatics who mumble
in the streets?
AW: Yep all of ’em. Leslie Marmon Silko, Jean Genet, Ben
Okri, Burroughs, Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Patchen, Michael Palmer,
Nick Drumbolis, Lorca, Kevin Drew, Alex Lukachevsky, Robert Graves,
Spanish textbooks, rereading old love notes, “Found”
magazine, surfing@ubuweb . . .
RS: What elements in music have you grown to treasure most?
AW: Distortions, heart breakings, improvisations, a live show that
you cannot get out of your system, a track that keeps giving even
after it should’ve collapsed.
“COHESIVE–IZING”
RS: Is it true that Folkloric Feel was essentially recorded
twice? If so, how did you change your approach to the album on the
second time?
AW: The second go–around was based on the fact that Kevin
and I had, at that point, been exposed to Dave Newfeld’s brand
of music making for 6 months . . . We decided that the “Energy
of Death” album wasn’t pushed hard enough in terms of
sonics—we needed to add some of the mania that we’d
begun to taste at Newf’s recording (of) You Forgot It
In People to the Apostle record. Thus, Newf did a lot of extra
production, mixing, and, er, haze to the proceedings. We went back
to the church and got new tracks, we flew in bedroom snippets from
the home computer, we used field recordings, etc.
RS: In the same way that You Forgot It In People has a
certain compilation–like quality to it, Folkloric Feel
sounded very diverse on my first listen. However, the more I listen,
the more cohesive it sounds. I know the album was recorded in different
sessions, but did you approach it with the intention of making a
diverse collection of songs, with each track as a separate piece,
or do you generally like the sound of concept–type albums?
AW: Well, I gotta give Dave Newfeld the props for “cohesive–izing”
Folkloric Feel . . . Obviously, I wanted the album to feel
like a single piece of work, not a jumble. But the recording circumstances
were just so ridiculous in terms of shifting locations, feel, instruments,
that I doubted it could work. It did. The intention was really just
. . . can we finish this fucking thing on time; and, is it Exceptional?
. . . The latter being the most important criteria.
RS: On You Forgot It In People, the track “Looks
just like the sun” reminds me most of the material for Apostle
of Hustle. Is this right? Was this the song you had the strongest
influence on? Conversely, did BSS’s sound have any effect
on Apostle?
AW: Yeah, “Looks like...” was written quite a while
ago, but it was always a BSS song. That’s the one I sing lead
on, anyway. Part of the great thing about the BSS process is that
an idea or song gets thrown into the ring and by the time you hear
it again, you don’t recognize it. I’ve been, uh, “unmentionably”
(that’s positive, right??!) influenced by all the members
of BSS, collectively and separately—they are very special.
RS: You’re holding something in the photograph on the inside
of the album. What is it? You even look proud holding it. Would
you say you’re a proud person?
AW: What I’m holding is the Univox drum machine I bought
off of Mocky 10 years ago when I was searching for the Sly Stone
“There’s a Riot Going On” drum sound. Damn right
I’m proud—that thing is the motherload!
THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
RS: Considering your intimacy to International music, what do you
think about the idea of music as an “international language”?
Do you really think music can be listened to without consideration
for culture or language? Do you think aesthetics can stand entirely
alone, without the aid of cultural reference?
AW: Ok so YES! to music as an international language.
(Thought I’d give a positive response, for my friend Torquill.)
It crosses borders, seeps thru cracks, and has always been considered
as a subversive element by various authorities . . . not for nothin’,
yeah? That being said, I’m more “nurture” then
“nature” if you catch the drift: It’s impossible
to dissect oneself away from their culture that they know best.
We will always be listening to “other” music(s) thru
our own set of cultural/language/media earphones. The consideration
you mention is great. Cultural reference is like a shadow, inescapable.
Thus, the “meaning” I derived from the Getz/Gilberto
album the first time I heard it when I was four years old was obviously
biased by “Sesame Street” and Alphabits, as opposed
to whatever the Brazilian intelligentsia were discovering in it.
In terms of “getting” something from a music whose lyrics
you don’t understand—well, jesus, most people can’t
understand their own first language when it's mumbled, spat, cooed,
twisted or otherwise “interpreted” by the artist in
question. Obviously, one would miss the subtle stuff—les
jeuxs de mots. It takes a bit of effort—most music geeks
are up for the challenge.
RS: What western artists do you think have done something truly
original with “world music”? In other words, what artists
do you think have integrated non–western musical elements
into western settings with success and/or originality? It doesn’t
have to be direct. For example, someone like John Cage seems to
have brought eastern philosophies into the realm of western art
music without bringing the altered system of tunings or other Asian–music
techniques.
AW: Good question . . . Probably there are a lot
of people I don’t know about that are doing this. I like Damon
Albarn’s production of the Mali Music record. Marc Ribot’s
Postizos Cubanos are incredible homage records, done completely
honestly, no cash–in bullshit and absolutely incredible playing.
I guess it’s easier for me to name some artists that are merely
“blurring” borders:
–lhasa
–Zorn’s Tzadik label (i.e. Yuka Honda)
–Fonono #1 from Congo
–all the Tropicalia stuff was very “vultured”
–DJ Rupture
–Double Famous from Japan
–Calexico mash it up, even Manu Chao.
–Mark Eitzel recorded an album of his songs in Greece—with
wedding style time signatures!
And let’s not forget it goes both ways; no James Brown means
no Fela Kuti, yeah? That’s just as interesting, to see what
“non western” artists do with the music they find. —see
Ethiopiques Series volume 5 for details . . .
TEXAN BATS
RS: Any interesting future plans for Apostle? Touring? New Records?
Songwriting?
AW: Well, Broken Social Scene leaves for three weeks in euro on
Wednesday—after that I go straight to LA to start a lightning
tour of the U.S with Apostle of Hustle, ends on July 1. Through
the summer there are some BSS gigs. In August there’s some
time to do pre-production for the next Apostle record (all my friends'
bands are turning rawk! I think we gotta switch it up and go the
other way), September is BSS relearning how to play the songs on
our new record. We start touring it in October . . . I dunno when
it ends . . .
RS: Finally, I’d like to prod at you a little
bit. What are you afraid of (musically or otherwise)?
AW: You’re supposed to face your fears, yeah? So I went last
time I was in Austin and stood on the Congress Bridge at twilight
and just let the swarms of bats speed past my head, whirring and
scooping, biting the mosquitoes outta my ears . . . its good to
have fear, it keeps you alive. The music I’m afraid of most
are the new songs from my close friends, it’s like a new weapon
they’re showing me and it’s almost always beautiful
and deadly. You think: “Fuck! I wish I had written that.”
Thanks so much, Ross, you might not know how great it is to have
a real conversation such as this about music, etc . . . It’s
a relief and a bit of a renewal as well much appreciated.
Definitions of selected musical terms or artists:
TERMS
Clave – The standard rhythmic figure in Latin Music.
Montuno – A sort of rhythmic piano hook/melody played throughout
piano music. There are hundreds of montunos.
Tumbao – Standard bass rhythmic pattern in Latin Music.
Tres Cubano – A plucked string instrument with three primary
strings and several sympathetic strings.
ARTISTS
Joe Cubas – Leader of the Cuba Sextet, the #1 Latin group
in the world, for a period.
Machito – Band leader, singer, percussionist of famous improvisational
Latin jazz bands.
Maya Deren – Experimental film maker/composer
Getz/Gilberto – Album collaboration between Stan Getz and
Joa Gilberto. One of the most important breakthroughs for Latin
Jazz.
Luaka Bop – David Byrne’s world music record label.
The Palmieris – A group of talented brothers (pianists, mostly)
who played some of the strongest Latin jazz in the last 30 years.
Arsenio Rodriguez – One of the most important figures in the
history of Cuban music. A prolific composer (he penned close to
200 songs), tresero, percussionist, and bandleader whose innovations
changed the face of Latin dance music and paved the way for what
would eventually become known as salsa.
CEREALS
Alphabits – Beautiful, just beautiful.
|
