DOCUMENTED DIALOGUES
ARTISTS INTERVIEWING ARTISTS.
#7: Tim Kinsella, Jenny Polus, Matt Mehlan The songwriter, author, publisher, always busy Tim Kinsella (of Joan of Arc, Owls, Cap'n Jazz, Friend/Enemy) & singer, beatmaker Jenny Polus (aka Jenny Pulse fka Spa Moans) - who together perform and record as Good Fuck - talked to Matt Mehlan (Skeleton$, Shinkoyo) in September 2020, on the eve of their releases "Timmy's Unbuttoned Gen X Meditations" (Good Fuck) and "If the Cat Come Back" (Skeleton$), respectively.
The conversation took place on Google Docs, where each attempted to type in an identifying font color, maintain coherence & follow where each other were writing, many months into COVID lockdown, days after the riots in Kenosha, WI - with the 2020 presedential election looming... We publish it on election day - November 3, 2020 - maintaining its original format. | HI IT’S MATT - I will write in this purple color! HI IS THAT U? I can pick a diff color! GREEN? I always pick too light of colors. OK THIS works. Is this working. Ok here we go. I will be blue. Green is a nice color too. I want to be light pink. It’s Tim I’ll be Red cuz I’ve always rejected Red but now feel nauseous and migraines all day and it feels Red MATT: How are you guys? What are you doing RN? Whoops the color thing is not working. We are trying to keep our cool same as everyone but this shit is all TOOO MUCH! We made all these plans too escape to Mexico and then the reality of dropping one’s whole life to be alone in a foreign country got too much so we’rre wrapping our around getting thru all this Man I changed colors Jenny: Am i blue. Here we go. I am making split pea soup. Jenny: Get down on this thread timmy. I called Dick Durbin’s office today to ask if they could tell me anything that might help me sleep but they said they don’t have the security clearance to reassure me in any way MATT: oh man yeah insomnia Since before March but just keeping on After getting really into learning the subtle differences between vodka / mezcal brands straight And not sleeping I’ve gotten really into exercising - which feels better I just made Mac & Cheese for my kid who is home doing remote learning We should be exercising more but we’ve been on too much xanax since March. MATT: Jenny where are you from? How did you two come to meet & start making music together? I”m listening to the newest Friend/Enemy rn - is this you singing Jenny? OH SHIT yeah Oh, well frist off-- I too, have been learning about vodka and mezcal brands. As to where I’m from, I would say HELL--AKA Green Bay, WI. I know a lot of people think it’s pretty there, but especially during this election season I only feel furious. Anyway, I’ve lived here for maybe...12 years now? Tim and I have known each other for years prior to making music, He asked me to sing on this FRIEND/ENEMY record….I thought, “This is random” and said OK. That’s really the start. It is! That is my voice. MATT: Jenny what brought you to Chicago? Jenny: I tried going to college in Milwaukee and failed at that miserably. I mostly went to shitty punk/hardcore shows with my friends who were doing well at the whole college thing. I just ran out of money after a year. Moved back in with my parents--torrented A LOT of music in my bedroom and thought...I need to get the fuck out of here. I think when you live in the midwest moving to Chicago is a no-brainer if you want to meet anyone that doesn’t bore your socks off. Is Dick Durbin doing anything good rn? I remember my best friend’s dad talking about him in like 1998 at the dinner table I thought where I grew up was the worst place in the world but now I live there The people that answer Dick Durbin’s phone assured me that he’s been working hard to allocate funds for election oversight and security and I was like ‘you mean the bills that McConnel has blocked forever?’ and they both sighed and were like yeh. Soo than I asked what else can we non-elected officials sick with worry count on and they just said they don’t have the security clearances to know so all we can do ois encourage people to vote in landslide numbers Also the O and P on my keyboard are weird FYI MATT: I am scared about the landslide part - want to keep hope but struggling Landslide seems to be only possible possibility of making the theft clear cut Yeah, i think we all are. Matt-- where are you from btw? MATT: I’m from NW Suburbs of Chicago - Hoffman Estates is where I grew up. I moved to NY after college and came back to go to SAIC after we had a baby - and moved into my parent’s old house as a temporary thing which has now been…………………….. Five years? Oh 5 yrs is nothing these days I played a lot of shows in Hoffman Estates as a kid. Active basement show scene and I was in Wheeling / Buffalo Grove MATT: Yeah I really forgot for a while how active and real the scene was in the suburbs when I was in high school - like shows at Knights of Columbus in Arlington Hts and church basements and other places - I thought it was like that everywhere - was it? Did you tour places like that when first doing shows? When were you in highschool? For me, I definitely went to VA halls for shows and that was really the only option to see live music unless it was a stadium show. MATT: I graduated IN THE YEAR 2000 - HEHS Yeh that KofC in AH started shows when my old friend and first JOA bass player’s dad was a meber and he put them on, Captain Jzz shows everywhere were basements and garages and living rooms, occasional cafes or college rec rooms OOur new “EP” out tomorrow is all stories of the 90s and how insanely wild all that shit was --I get the impression it just became like a ska dork thing I do love the first Specials record MATT: HA - actually my wife and I (we went to high school together) got in a car accident together on the way home from a show at Knights of Columbus of a hardcore band called Luke Skawalker - i mean at least I remember the music as being hardcore because in my memory it was not Ska but I also had a major concussion in the car accident and spent days in hospital… CAN you compare what it’s like now to be an artist making music recordings to that time? Or is that like WAY too big of a question - can you remember it without all the surrounding contextual / social happenings - I guess my question is what kinds of PRACTICAL differences you feel the most? Because I want to talk about what you guys are doing RN since pandemic hit, releasing constantly... I can say that the impulse seems 100% the same to me as it did then--some kind of vague instinct of what specifics one can express that will point others toward the inexpressible and the exhausting search and refining. Just the machines have evolved and of course the whole culture around it has basically been eaten by Walmart or Rainforst cafe or whatever Yeah, I was mostly a consumer of music during that time. I didn’t start making music until I was 25 or so and never thought of doing so until then. I always thought you had to buy all of these gear...take lessons. Find people to play with. It’s not until I bought a Roland synth with like 200 sound banks that I realized I could be an entire band. Just one synth and a karaoke machine. Dubbing layers back and forth on that. MATT: SO rn you are working on music all day everyday is what Tim told me over email? We decided to release an EP every month until December. In order to do this we’ve divided a lot of the work load. Like in some ways these EPs could be considered solo records with the flourish of the other person. Also, we have a huge bank of music to pull from during our time in New Mexico...20 songs or something that we’ve been developing and using for the EPs...seeing which ones really fit together. It’s kind of nice making EPs because you can execute them so quickly. Also, we are working in this way in order to hit the monthly deadline. Like I started working on October’s EP a month ago. And putting out new things on Bandcamp every week? Or every Bandcamp fee free day? Yes - I felt like the guitar was the kind of freedom / universal cheap tool that pulled me in - synths / drum machines too - a Q or thing I think of a lot is how much Guitar Center gets hated on when it’s also the pathway to a kind of thing: “inexpressible and exhausting search” for so many people… Not trying to be specific w Guitar Center but like big things that do both good and bad... Yeh far as I understand it the guitar’s portability is what made it The Thing that dominated music. Now laptops are even more portable. When we started playing shows we had this concept of such simple portability for travel and it expanded to be the most absurd exhausting traveling multi-media janky thing, wwaaaay too much for 2 people to deal with Also we had great momentum all day every day for a while -- not just the EPs but also a good number of remixes -- bbut as the fasict reality encroaches each day it gets harder and harder to focus. For example yesterday I couldn’t get out of bed Yeah, momentum is also a huuuuge part of this. The more art you make, the more art you make…..I’ve been painting a lot just to have something else to inform the music I’m making. And instead of the political nightmare we’re in informing the music directly, I like to filter that through painting and let the painting inform the music. So, when I paint I’ll mostly be listening to audiobooks or podcasts. MATT: DO you think it’s hard to keep making things - things that are someone self reflective or self involved (in ways good or bad) when so much is happening that feels like more ummm what’s the word - like immediately in need? I feel a bit stupid promoting my music - but I also resent the pressure to make it all about the news I suppose I totally agree with this. I resent music/art in general needing to be so pointed. If you are making music currently it will inform the time we are living in, even if it’s abstract. Like you don’t need to make a song where you’re saying “FUCK TRUMP” the entire time, or really inserting any of your political idealogies directly. To me, that’s not what are is about. It’s about how you can make people feel that without saying it. “Show not tell” as they say. Do you think that in times like this… sometimes people say “WE NEED ART MORE THAN EVER” or music that heals in times of conflict / struggle - or do times like now create art / music that matches the intensity of the moment? My work is - sometimes - and sometimes in what I think of annoyingly polite midwestern ways - trying to be subtle (maybe this isn’t even true I dunno) - but it also feels like RN it is very hard to get anyone to spend time in an intimate space with your thoughts / ideas (i guess in any medium - writing, film, music)... Yeah, I’m curious if people feel like consuming any art form is indulgent because our country is in such a dire state. Having said that, if I’m going to die soon, I want to be making art now more than ever and I really don’t care if people think I should be doing more. That’s not to say we aren’t protesting, calling our representatives, sharing our voices, donating, etc. But this is what i know how to do and now is the time to do what we know best. Our EP that’s out tomorrow -- which is actually one 46 min song -- takes that self-reflexive self-involved thing to the whole next level -- it’s literally me telling details I can remember from my life pre-2000. I can understand how people might casually brush it off as politically tone deaf, but from my perspective it feels like a major move to show in great detail the inexpressible depth and meaning and beauty of a single human life and what we are losing each day -- I mean, it’s my life cuz that’s the life I can list the most excruciating details from, but i hope the details are specific and universal enough that everyone is reminded of the beautiful old world slipping away at the hands of unimaginable monster tyrants MATT: Can I ask how the totally DIY zone / Bandcamp zone has been working for you guys? Is it feeling like doing gigs? Is it keeping the lights on? Do you wish you were working with some kind of label (whatever that means 2020) or partnership? Mmmm...it def does not feel like doing gigs haha. Is it keeping the lights on? Yeah, sorta. I can’t say we’re reaching peak audience with Bandcamp since now everyone is heading there to make a little bit of money. I am developing a warmth towards it. We know our fans. Like i literally know so many of their names because we are shipping our merch to them and writing e-mails or DMs to them. And in that way, it feels like how the music scene used to be. And I love that. Maybe because I’ve never been an incredibly popular artist, I’m just grateful anyone cares. And i love talking to music fans about music and their lives. Sounds wonderful - the new thing. You keep doing new things at such a constant and rapid pace - does it feel like people disregard all the work you have done over the years and the breadth of it? Sorry this is weird but I screenshot this when U posted on IG:Because I related so hard to it - I tend to think that there’s this big massive black hole in the middle of an artist’s career or something? Like middle age is not allowed for most people? Ha! That screen shot, yeh. I have an awful habit just like every couple months I’ll loook at some of my heroes to see what records they were making at my age--John Cale for example, only records he’s made that have never even been reissued! MATT: oh fuck - yeah exactly! A yr ago we were pretty frustrated with the admin of our band --it was the first tim esince I was 19 that I had no label, no booking agent, no manager--and it felt overwhelming. Now it feels super freeing Sometimes it feels ridiculous to be like ‘wow we just spent literally hundreds of hrs on these songs over the course of almost a yr and 20 people bought it’ but then also almost daily we get messages from people telling us how much they appreciate the pace we’ve been keeping. For a while I think we kept inspired thinking that covid couldn’t stop us from finding new ways. But now fascism is a totally different thing than a virus MATT: I have also been thinking alot about Bandcamp - especially the current narrative that I see from a lot of artists of: Bandcamp = good Spotify = bad Kind of simplified scenario But Bandcamp is also a web-meta-business (the kind of biz like ebay, uber etc) that doesn’t make any products just creates a service for those who do make things So in that way I kind of resent calling them anything but a service - like they are Stamps.com or whatever - but they’ve been very good at doing these fee-free days and activist-cause marketing… Yeah….oof. I mean, I can’t stay I am a fan of either ultimately because at the end of the day it is taking away power from the artist. Rather, making us all depended on them. Spotify….yeah, ok so I am all for people being able to access music. If you want to hear it, there it is easy for you. I don’t use streaming services. I think you have to pay for them? Unless you’re like...Beyonce or Cold play..hhahah like WE WILL NEVER SEE ANY OF THAT MONEY. I don’t like how these Bandcamp comp days have turned into a rat race. I think they take what…%15 usually? That’s a good chunk. Especially for physical releases. Obviously, it is nice because now you can release music with no overhead, but...ugh. IDK i’d rather sell music out the back of my car or something. MATT: yeah no - none of the Streaming scenarios work on the level that any kind of underground music sustains itself on… But it feels like an antique way of thinking to imagine getting anyone to visit one’s individual website - band website - whatever - but maybe that should be a vibe again. I’d like it to be. I spend a lot of time working on our website. I’m not sure if anyone visits it much, but I try to make it an interesting place in itself to poke around. Simply HTML - buy buttons - paypal - but even Paypal takes a cut - but honestly they take a cut on Bandcamp anyway? So we could just be using ONE service instead of 11… When we released Cherry Tree it was available to stream only on our website and you could only purchase it on there. When people buy directly from us it makes me believe we can function as a business and not get so bummed about the lack of a label, manager, etc. Yeah - I like the simplicity of selling things in person but that’s also a different culture - like we need booths at the book fairs or craft fairs Hey Matt would you want too do a second half of this later tonight ot tomorrow? I gotta run--getting trained on how to approach people in grocery store parking lots to talk about Biden and Harris. Gonna shave and cut my hair and visit Men’s Warehouse MATT: YES please! If yr down to keep going later or tomorrow let’s do it! I”ll email U WOW I hope U post pics of your Men’s Warehouse OK I gotta get on this zoom but email me and whenever os cool for us--later tonoght or sometime tomorrow Thank You!! MATT: THANK UU! We here! MATT: HI HI WELCOME BACK How was the training and the phone banking? Man the training was 75 mn zoom and both zoom and slack crashed cuz so many people were on it--so that was encouraging. And calls were scary at first but felt so good after I got the hang of it. Like I ended up talking to a man in North Carolina for 10 min whose mind was 100% blown that a white man would ever care enough to talk to him about racial injustice -- like it was a totally alien concept --and he didn’t sound young. And he was “Undecided” at first and by the time we hung up he was committed that it was worth voting to get tRump asshole out of the whitehouse even if he’d rather be voting for Oprah or Kanye, which is what he said his original hesitation was about MATT: What’s your take on Kanye? - or will this question derail us too much… Hahaha Oh boy. MATT: No Kanye comments? ha Well...Kanye said that he makes 10 beats a day. That’s something I can get behind. Him involving himself in the current political environment...sigh. But the 10 beats a day was when he was young and hungry. More recently he claimed he could build Rome in a day and while I respect the exuberance, and even love that one a cappalla song about “The Old Kanye” --the new Kanye is not for me MATT: Wow that’s amazing tho. I imagine it would be pretty reassuring to start having one-on-one phone calls or in person interactions with people, considering the somewhat hyperbolic nature of things (not to diminish anything by saying hyperbolic) but like - I want to get into this new EP you guys put out today!!! But I was also thinking about Kenosha… My brother lives in Kenosha - his work - he’s a cook - was set on fire... And I am thinking a lot about how we are currently in a dialogue of Fascists vs The Radical Left - and since I know Biden is not “radically left” - haaa… At this point they are defining people like Colin Powell as the radical left and I guess they are so radically right -- literally fasicts -- that the center has been skewed --the ultimate battleground as always remains our own minds and hearts and it really is tough to not give into primal fear MATT: I have been thinking about this thing tho - & NY Times wrote a bit about it - that the Republicans don’t seem to care if their strategy or whatever creates paradoxes or hypocriticality, that they will do or say what they need to win - while on the left there (and this is an old argument maybe) there is infighting - that saying anything about how the framing of protests in Kenosha as “rioting” will help Trump - or protests that are not peaceful… etc… So we have vigilante militia types who think of themselves as Patriotic, while protesters are somehow not - in the current narrative? In the end it is about who symbolically resides in the WH - in power - etc - I realize I mean there are historical forces that are irrepressible Racial justice cannot be a “compromise” -- it’s going to be won in one way or another or it’s going to be violently squashed. Last night the police in NY helped those militia asssholes drive into crowds -- there’s video we can all watch of the police quite literally and immediately and unimstakebly assisting them. At the same time I feel reassured by the military turning on him,. So long as the militias are not assisted by the military we have a better chance obviously And it’s not like Biden and Harris immediately “solve” everything, but anything less than straightup fascism is a good start! MATT: YES. I think that anyone else in power in the country would change the veneer of the country And I’m using veneer or patina maybe as like polite midwestern non-speak but I think that the overall aura of the country is deeply affected by the people in power and their tactics - so obvious OK - this new EP - you said in the email today: “to assert the depth and profundity and ineffable beauty of all sentient beings, using as source material the 5 senses & memory that I know most intimately—my own—in exhausting and gruesome detail.” MATT: and say “100% political statement [you] are compelled to make at this moment” - why is that? How is this EP / this poem / etc engaged with the politics of the moment and maybe even this new work you are doing in the political realm? Sorry, I’m lagging behind here...my coffee is just catching up to me. When we were talking about what this EP would be, I think we both agreed more than ever it is important to look inward and say the things about ourselves, our past that scare us. Our lives our currently consumed by what we read, watch, hear on the internet. A lot of it is political. A lot of it is horrific. Not that that is surprising. As media machines work--”if it bleeds it leads”. So I don’t think Tim’s meditation, digging into his past is about saying things that are shocking, but saying--there are horrific things that happen to all of us and how can we use this commonality to come together in a way… Well I hope it doesn’t come across as simply self-obsessed navel-gazing. I mean obviously there’s an aspect of that. But it’s not all so much about me as much as it’s about me as a witness -- to lots of beauty and loots of pain and struggle and they are all intertwined -- it’s largely about this constant struggle to feel centered in whatever way one can do so. And at the same time it feels important to me that it’s set in the past-- an old world before smart phones, in which we were all forced to remain more present -- and the ultimate fucking mystery of even just being someone at all -- like I am the central character that unifies all these things and details and events and even yrs later I don’t know hoyouw to fit them into any neat narrative, but only hope that the details are too numerous for any containment and spill over -- that’s the ultimate beauty of being in the world and that is precisely what oppressive regimes squash MATT: Do you place any inherent values on smart phones - for you, is being less mentally present in our physical spaces inherently negative? The smart phone is an incredible tool, but that’s how we should view it. As a tool. Like you wouldn’t walk around with a drill all day. You don’t need a drill at every waking moment...maybe that’s not a good example. What i’m trying to say is it is important to be mindful of how we use this tool because we can so easily become mindless while using it. And you wouldn’t want to be mindless while using a drill? You wouldn’t want to be mindless with any tool. There are many tools to use in the world. Books. Books are good. Instruments. Cookware. I just think time can pass too easily, get away from you on a phone and I don’t find it inspiring. It is super beautiful in that way - the detail of it I relate to a lot of it too - esp considering geographic details… CUBA ROAD! We used to drive there on weekends and try to find a sanatorium or cemetery or something I don’t even remember Also the stories about like jr high sex & drugs & weird parent things - I like what Jenny says up above: “things that happen to all of us” - it was really nice to sort of be confronted with memories - which were not my own but related to my own Yeah - you aalso write in your email that every day is “tough and huts like hell” - does it feel like the oppressive nature of current politics / events, prevents one from having a sense of self the way you are describing in this writing (the EP)? Well I feel like that is their first and most powerful weapon against all of us, the ultimate means of control is instilling enough fear that we censor our own thoughts and behaviors. Honestly the writing feels like a robot glitching out, like the current political circumstances have pressure-cooked me into meltdown --and the first draft was 3 times the length of this--and just asserting my humanity --asserting myself as a witness to my own past--was like an act of psychic resistance. I hope everyone dooes it. MATT: I’ve been thinking about asking you about embarrassment… Like I want to ask whether you get embarrassed, but that’s maybe the wrong Q - it’s more like how do you deal with embarrassment as an artist - is what I’m wondering - both as in relation to a kind of exorcism thing - like I relate to getting down to some facts / truths about oneself - getting into the dark details - but also, as people engaged in a continuous effort of GIVING - you continue to make and release things so consistently - as you move into new phases in your life how do you think about past work - how do you reframe it for your current self - how do you feel about things that you no longer relate to, both aesthetically and emotionally…? Yeh I don;’t think of it in terms of embarrassment. People do ask us about good fuck in terms of “intimacy” and I guess I just feel like the things that have really moved me have all contained an element of risk -- whether that be Tony Conrad risking boring people or coming across as not having musical chops -- oor the risk of making one’s self vulnerable. Maybe I lucked out -- I got soooooooooo many hateful and harsh reviews when I was so young, I needed to develop a tough skin. And in terms of the old stuff, if anything it embarrasses me it would be corny old songs -- but the embarrassing moments all came when we weren’t being true to ourselves -- it’s most embarrassing to sound like you’re biting on someone else’s thing. And Joan of arc for example would “cover” old songs of our own, and choose which songs depending on how they fit into our current status and operating principles at whatever moment, So it wasn’t like we were compelled to play something in the way it was written 20 yrs earlier but like what’s useful and contributes in the present Embarrassment seems to only arise when someone says something hurtful about anything you make. Even then, I don’t think it should be a major cause to be embarrassed. What’s embarrassing is to make nothing, do nothing. You might feel bad for a moment, but uhhh...all things shall pass. But yeah, when you generate a lot of output, you may not relate to something you made even a month ago, you may have wanted it to be a little more refined, but choosing to share it regardless of the lack of refinement also says something. Like the need to say something is more of the point, showing those flaws i think is a sign of bravery. And that therefore makes it part of the work. MATT: How do you think about those hateful reviews now, both as you get older, but also within the context of what you are currently doing? There is nothing in the world I love more and feel more inspired and thrilled by than seeing musical performances that hit me hard. I don’t even miss playing shows at all at the mooment, but I sure miss seeing shows. That said, nothing in the world embarrasses me as often as seeing a mediocre band cuz I am afraid to be superifcally lumped in with whatever impulse is satisfying enough to them. Me and Jen are just doing our own thing same as we were both doing on our own before coming together. MATT: So is there just a confidence there - that you know how to do your own thing and can do it whether or not there is positive reinforcement? I start to ignore positive reinforcement anyway maybe On the track “Reality Jock Hunger Jam” there’s a clip of someone saying something close to: “Young people use the like to avoid the oppression of their being certain” That’s the British guy . . . literary critic … wrote the Meaning of Life book in that Oxford Short Introoduction to .. series Terry Eagleton! Who’s that / what’s that from? There’s also Adam Curtis in there - and similarly to that sentiment I was watching Hypernormalisation and thinking about the ending - and the Patti Smith part - that he basically thinks that people have been conditioned to not know what they want? Or how to organize / strategize to get what they want? And I’m starting to see a similar narrative around racial injustice protests - the complaint that there are no clear objectives or something? Obviously somewhat absurd - but there’s a noise to ALL the many objectives and no clear voices directing things maybe? So Well, activism is driven by desire. The question is--is that desire informed by empirical knowledge and not a headline you read that morning. Not to say that, for example--watch the video of George Floyd, you’re not immediately compelled to take to the streets. That you need to directly experience oppression, but you cannot necessarily be a direct voice or leader of a certain movement if you have not been a victim of it and can say exactly why. I mean, also there are people who spend their daily life being activists and I do think it’s important to follow their lead because of their experience. That’s a classic critique of capitalism that it creates false desires as a means of control -- like do we even know what we’d want sans the advertising industrial complex. I mean in our small world the best we can do ois keep it expansive and ever-expanding--not in the superficial signifiers of “Psychedlia” but in like the true promise of what a Psychedlic experience means -- how it grounds you and at the same time expands you Not to mention-- the big first step to solving a problem is identifying the problem. You can’t be expected to know the answer immediately, but that’s no reason to not name the problem. That’s overwhelming on a personal level, how do we expect to expand that across a civilization without somoe false starts and mis-steps? Ha I was thinking after yesterday that I like the garbled collage aspect of this interview format but maybe we just passed thru its dark side together. Where are you guys? We’re OK. Let’s take a deep breath and keep going. MATT: I’m here! This EP - there’s also this mention of “tribute to my many friends that died young or ended up addicts or incarcerated” There’s a number of things that comment - and the recording - made me think about… One is the way that touring life really can contribute to unhealthy habits for adulthood Yeh it stuns me over and over how true all the rocker cliches become ingrained at even the lowest levels of “success” -- it’s primal. The schedule kills you, you gotta shut down 23 hrs a day then summon some great expressive energy on command for an hr every day. I don’t miss it at all. I miss restaurants and I miss chatting with friendly acquaintances but I am very happy to not be looked at for an hr and to not be hurried and feeling my biorhythms assaulted MATT: Oh man yes. I have struggled with other jobs for this kind of reason - like teaching - where I am conditioned towards a certain kind of flailing energy - the kind that would suit the stage but really is often inappropriate in other contexts - double whammy alienation i guess And how - classic music industry style - on a certain level you can’t escape that certain unhealthy behaviors get rewarded / but also judged by the contextual / business surroundings… So it’s kind of a systemic catch 22 And it saddens me the way artists often get framed, both when rewarded & judged - and of course, they will receive their highest honors upon death HA Yeah, I mean...If you’re not touring at a high level of success where you have a team working for you--driving you around, hauling your gear, soundchecking for you, touring is like running on a treadmill while hungover. Honestly, I think if I could be taken care of like a baby. Have a massage before every performance, drinking and/or drugs before performance would never be needed. Having said that, a well-adjusted person would be able to psych themselves up and be ready to go bone sober, i guess. I mean we love our music and get excited to share it with people and create this energy in a room and focus that energy in an intentional way, but not after driving 9 hrs for days in a row and not having time to eat and sleep and then load in and out and sell the T shirts and everything else, It’s OK to get tired but then you still have to perform somoehow Between the nerves and fatigue you kinda need a shot a day just to not have a meltdown.Maybe that’s just me. MATT: This record I just did that comes out next week - it revolves around the kind of systemic situation that is closer to the comment about yr new EP & tribute to friends - my brother, the one who lives in Kenosha - is finishing a 2 year “prosecution deferment” program - where charges against him (he was arrested) would be dropped if he participated in a Medically Assisted Treatment Program - because he was identified as being an opioid addict Which meant - he was given a pharmaceutical companies latest product to “correct” his behavior - which is called Vivitrol - an “opioid blocker” The way it’s imagined to work is that it blocks any effects of opioids / heroin & even alcohol - rather than trad heroin treatment where you wean off - you just can’t get the effects It’s actually Trump’s solution to the opioid epidemic So they give you drugs to get off drugs. Ah….I’ve heard of something like this. Where people take something and it actually makes them sick when they drink or take a drug? And apparently it works...according to the woman who gave this TED talk I watched whenever ago. MATT: Yep. It’s like Clockwork Orange Yeh I was trying not to say Clockwork Orange. Is he OK with it? And how did that shape your record? Just on your mind as an intimate topic? MATT: Not really - he’s almost done with the program - but it’s a really difficult situation. Like the kind of thing where he has to be at all these meetings and appointments and administrative tasks but also needs to have a job… but then can’t get to the appts etc - he actually, for example - lost his driver’s license for driving without insurance - but then got arrested for driving to his meetings without a license… It sounds very demanding for someone who is perceived to need help and yet he’s being asked to juggle so many different tasks. And losing your driver’s license in WI is no good. I think a lot of these systems/programs obviously have proven to lack a holistic approach hah. Ugh, it’s frustrating. Like I feel exhausted thinking about being your brother, having a job (which just got lost due to a fire because of riots, but really because a killer cop shot a man 7 times in the back) not being able to drive and then some new therapy that may or may not work, may not have been the way he wanted to do it, but was coerced into doing it. Like how people are given plea deals, which is a whole other can of worms that we don’t need to get into. So it feels like TO ME - each little industry - like one like the music industry or media industry around music - is somehow conditioned by the same kind of ethical / systemic paradoxes… & I’m bringing it up I guess because I started to write all this stuff From like “The Family” perspective or something - bystander - parent Something wholly as a viewer - which felt kind of weird - like writing from the perspective that was self-involved and reflective but also like about what it was like to watch something happen / feel the effects of something happen / as an intimate spectator - with no control of the situation Ugh that’s rough. So sorry man. We lost our insurance when we got pandemic unemployment cuz we were suddenly making too much money to Qualify. It is very real that there are interlocking paradoxical systems of oppression that create a negative synergy MATT: oh fuck - yes exactly that kind of thing I have always tended to resent “industry” - or definitely wouldn’t buddy up to it - in music work - which I think I have felt the consequences of as time goes on OK MASSIVE preamble to a question, or two Alongside that feeling - I also resent myself for “exploiting” my intimate relationships / ideas by putting them into songs - which I feel only begin to be a part of people’s lives if they are a part of the normal channels of music / art making distribution Selling records, etc… getting the music into the mainlines (streaming / etc) Do you feel any of these kinds of resentments? Do you wish this EP for example WAS like Nevermind? Like hitting some kind of massive scale of audience / working within some larger industry? I feel like all of our records could be Nevermind, but i guess that’s not up to us, but that brings us to the question--who is it up to? You can’t get written up without paying someone. If you have to pay someone to tell people you just wrote Nevermind, did you really write Nevermind?? MATT: HA What do we do about the fact that we need some outlet for music to be shared, covered, discussed - and that currently it requires that paid position within a certain industry? Or is co-opted by web platforms??? TOO BIG A Q Yeah, I do not know the answer to that question. If I did I would be doing it. The thing we’ve been trying to do is treat our band like our own business. A tiny business that like 20 people seem to care about now. And maybe only 20 people ever will. I have this belief that if you work it from the ground the people who are there in the beginning will be the ones to fold you out into the great ever-expanding universe that is the music business, but that’s maybe just silly. I don’t know how it works. And I feel very weird about the pay-for-play music industry standard. It makes me feel like you can’t be making something that good if you have to pay for it. But the internet is so vast….you need that platform boost. As you can tell...I’m totally unsure about how to cope with this issue. I’d for people to know our band. I’d like to not spend so much time doing administrative work. And yet...here we are. Do you feel any strangeness about talking about the details of these people’s lives from your past? I’m not speaking for you or Tim, but since you both dove into personal pasts/presents and chose to share it, the necessity to have people hear it must have significance and therefore a validity? I don’t know...I’m very shy about saying anything too direct, so maybe I would have a different perspective if I did. Like if I said someone’s name directly or talked about my family...I may later have a panic attack post release haha. Well I’m honestly totally mystified that Highway Galazozo isn’t this generation;s Nevermind but I guess I’ll take that mystery to the grave. It sold a solid couple dozen! This one would be more like the William Burroughs Nirvana collab which I’ve never heard -- but honestly I’m just old enough that I never had a Nirvana phase and resented them immediately. I remember seeing the Smells Like Teens Spirit video for the first time after school one day and thinking WTF is this Jawbox ripoff doing on TV?! As for the shame of mining other’s private lives, I guess I obscured some names to protect some identities and others I felt would be understood to be loving tributes. I don’t know where copyright infringement laws begin and end in shared overlapping realities MATT: OK I want to let you guys go so just one or two more thoughts… Do you have dreams of the future for yourselves? As artists? As a couple? As people? Or do you plan / make plans for the future? Tim and I are as together and together can be and we don’t seem to like doing much else besides making music and learning and creating and creating….I guess a dream would be to have an answer to the former question about how to handle the dwindling music industry, but also we shouldn’t complain too hard. We don’t work on anything that isn’t creative and for now we are surviving and that’s pretty good. We aren’t compromising with any label, manager, PR person. We’ve got total control right now and that feels pretty good. I just hope Donald Trump goes to jail and the COVID-19 vaccines are given out and we can all have a giant party and be with friends and like honestly i would be happy if I could just go to a house show or a show show or Rainbo or be in a yard with people. My future hopes aren’t asking for too much at the moment. I’m pretty sure the toughest part of the overlapping crises that are keeping us all locked in our homes is just how surreal it is that everyone in america is unable to make a plan at the same time. I’ve never had less sense of the future. If that happens too one person that’s probably a symptom of the blues. But when it happens to everyone at the same time -- the entire population of a country -- that is terrifying As artists I’ve always been jealous of bands like Bon Ivor and Animal Collective that get to be as weird as they are and still play Red Rocks or some shit. Not that I’ve heard everything that both those bands do -- they’re just examples -- and I’m not particularly dying to play Red Rocks. But it’d be nice to sustain ourselves while being true to ourselves. I guess that’s the classic artist dream. We don’t have a kid so it’s a little simpler for us to just do what we do and feel like we’re only risking our own securities As a couple, we surprise me every day. I get the impression most couples go to work and come home etc but we were already like pandemic living, 24 hrs a day side by side, a little weird to be honest. Haha As people, man I would LOVE to be able to smoke as much weed as I want withoout the encroachment of exterior terrifying forces MATT: Do you think you will keep up this pace of releases? New material? We got about 12-15 songs half done that we could develop. We’ve talked about taking a break from releasing and making a proper album -- like a Pink Flooyd album -- but we’ll see Yeah, we’re working on an EP for next month. I think it’s important to release something right before the election. JOA has their last record coming out in December, so I think we’ll be taking a break and maybe spend a year working on something. MATT: I continue to make like epic LP album things and as soon as I am close to done I think wow no one wants this eople want it. I think it’s a beautiful thing to care for something so tenderly. Do you fear, like I do, that we are way past anyone wanting “the album” - except for me who kind of loves it above most other forms of artmaking? LPs are forever….for me. Maybe not the general public. Like how are we past people wanting to watch movies and only want to watch long-form TV shows? But fans of music are always going to love an LP that was given the time it needs to develop into what it needs to be. That can take years and I think it’s great when you can spend a lot of time on something. Yeh I’m an album fan but that’s the age I grew up in. It feels like now that the whole world is basically Instagram even our 4-5 song EPs each moonth come across as a lot. But obviously we don’t make things with the lowest expectations of some abstract audience in mind. I feel like ouor Ep release schedule has been more about not touring than about making an album, just satisfying that impulse to be active. Once the music industry picks up again we’ll feel free to go dormant and grind on that Long Player MATT: LAST QUESTION & I’ll let you guys split Sounds good!> I remember an interview with Tim once where you said that Joan of Arc’s main goal, or something like that, was to make music without an audience? You just reminded me of it This is what I think has always been so inspiring about you and your work and the universe of projects it resides in And recently Bill Orcutt wrote this thing on FB “People think the music owes them something. But it does what it does” - and I felt a similar kind of inspiration there Like - personally I am in awe of the kind of work that I have no expectations around - even my own - and so that idea of making a music for no audience was / is kind of foundational in it’s inspiration. It’s a great perspective to create from. Everytime you finish a piece of work you have to start over...start from the beginning. From nothing it seems. And if you think about it like that you can’t really imagine an audience because you’ll be limiting what you create. Like you don’t know what will happen when you begin fresh and you can’t predict who will like it. There’s not really a reason to. It’s exciting to be unsure of what you’re doing, not having a clear end goal and it’s exciting to see who will be drawn to the final result of your various creative processes. Thank You! Especially in the context of Orcutt who I have endless respect for. You know I would never say that was our main goal but it was definitely a founding mission statement. We agreed on that operating principal before we ever played our first show and what we meant by it was more that we knew that we couldn’t do something that any scene would accept or it would ring as false-- and we’d be embarrassed later -- the No wavers hated us, the emo types hated us, the experimental types hated us, the folk and the punks and everyone -- we learned from all of them and watched them all closely and felt it all deeply, but we knew we didn;t want the David Bowie cut-of-yr-jeans scene identity. It blows my mind still all the time how totally unique Led Zeppelin is, and how totally different they are than the Rolling STones or Pink Floyd. They’re all lumped in in our rear-view cultural mirrors, but each of them created their own world. I’ve never heard The Beatles but I know they stink You’re not gonna clean this up before you shar eit with the world, right? I really like how scrambled it is Yeah i like the scrambled kinda stream of consciousness style of this whole weird document. It’ll be itneresteing to look back and see what each of us may have missed. I like that. Let’s keep it. MATT: I’ll only edit anything you want! I like the colors too And the fonts You can pop back in if you want to review anything - and I’ll send when I’m ready to post it Yeh thank you so much Matt! Super appreciate it! Have a good time ENJOY UR CAVATION VACAGTION Wow Va Ca Tion with with with w the family travels this weekend! Singing off? GOODBYE :) and thank you! Great! Thank YOu!! MATT: THANK YOU !! | GOOD FUCK's music can be found HERE. If the Cat Come Back, the newest LP from Skeletons, can be found HERE. Good Fuck is Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse Everything 50/50 They live in Chicago, IL | DOCUMENTED DIALOGUES is an alternative and auxiliary form of the artist interview. We initiate conversation between two parties with an active concern in the arts - and documents their dialogue as a fly on the wall, screen, or page. How might the documentation of the interview serve its content rather than abstracting it into an editorial form? Here we provide the platform for discussion, conversation, dialogue, or sharing that might enlighten and expose current issues, ideas, and topics among contemporary artists, curators, makers, and thinkers - via the technologies and platforms we are already using to communicate with each other. | DOCUMENTED DIALOGUES IS A PROJECT BY MATT MEHLAN & DAVID HALL. PRODUCED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ARTIST POOL. Matt Mehlan is an artist, musician, and producer living in Chicagoland. David Hall writes in sentences and often works with materials already charged with significance.