Oneida / Image courtesy jagjaguwar1. What's the first piece of music you listened to today?
“Yankee Doodle,” played on the glass armonica (an invention of Ben Franklin). Don't ask why...
2. What are your vices?
Procrastination, fantasy, lust, green tea.
3. What is one of your prejudices?
13-year-old-boys are all inhuman monsters.
4. In what way do you think music has the ability to change the way people live their lives?
It can certainly pep them up when they’re shopping; it can also provide an outlet for upwellings of dread when confronting ultimate mysteries—it’s a fairly versatile medium.
5. At what age did you first feel distrust?
I don’t know. Probably very, very young, due to countless repetitions of “don’t talk to strangers” breeding fear and mistrust. Wait, are mistrust and distrust the same thing?
6. Do you think that your name is appropriate for you? (If not, what name would be more appropriate?)
My names generally fit. When they don’t, I cook up a new one.
7. What is the best piece of music you've ever created, in your opinion?
That is a seriously difficult question to answer. I think the best music I’ve created hasn’t been recorded (or sometimes, even, recordable), so I don’t have any way of reflecting on it; much of the most satisfying musical creation in my life has been the result of an altered state of consciousness—and not necessarily by chemicals, you cynical, smug fellow who snickers at that – and so it’s difficult to recall/quantify/judge. So I guess some of the improvisational moments over the past four years or so with Oneida, probably, but I can’t really be more specific because I just don’t know.
8. Right now, how are you trying to change yourself?
Production of offspring—replication of my ethics and ideals in another vessel.
9. If you had the time, what else would you do?
Learn to speak fluent Italian, and participate in some sort of athletic activity with other people my age.
10. What social cause do you feel the most strongly about (negative or positive)?
Depends on my mood, or what has caused me to consider the relative merits of various “causes”—for the purposes of this question, right now, the reapportionment of wealth and opportunity around the world. That will probably change by teatime.
11. What are your fears?
Death and oblivion are right at the top of the list, followed by loss of memory/reason/comprehension.
12. What is your favorite joke (tasteful or tasteless)?
At the moment, the Green Bay Packers. I’m hoping that joke won’t be funny next fall, though.
13. Who is your favorite author?
I don’t have one. I’m not just avoiding the question, I really don’t. I like a ton of things that are written down, in varying styles. I don’t really feel like listing a whole bunch, because I think lists that always seem disingenuous and forced, like I’m trying to bask in my own good taste. So, if you need one name let’s make it Don Martin. Does he count if he’s mostly pictures?
14. What is your favorite movie?
Last movie that I saw and loved was Gold Diggers of 1933 – I’d be hard-pressed to defend it as the definitive favorite, but what the hell, it’s a great one.
15. Favorite album(s) from the last few years?
Same deal here—I don’t really have one favorite. These days I listen a lot to the Circle album Forest—it sounds like an amazing soundtrack to a children’s movie, like Dark Crystal or Neverending Story, or something. I haven’t gotten sick of it at all, which is a pretty good recommendation.
16. What would you like to know more about?
Time travel.
17. What is one thing you would like to do/see/accomplish before you die?
Travel in time.