mitre

FIRST UP, WHAT IS NEW FOR MITRE THESE DAYS? YOU SEEM TO KEEP A LOW PROFILE WITH YOUR ACTIVITIES. I've been continuing to write & record. I've actually got a couple of projects completed & at the point where I've got to figure out how to get them out. I'm kind of a packrat, so I tend to hoard recordings &  then realize I've got a bunch of stuff I'd like to release.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU? I'm inspired as much by what books I read & what movies I see as I am by what music I listen to. I'm influenced as much by William H. Gass, Alasdair Gray, the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini & Ingmar Bergman as I am by, say, Brian Eno & Windy & Carl. Oh, &  my cat. He's overweight & whiny, but he means well.

WHAT IS IT THAT ATTRACTS YOUR EARS TO EXPERIMENTAL SOUND? DO YOU BELIEVE IT CAN HAVE POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS ON THE MIND? It's not that I'm drawn to experimental music for its own sake, it's that I'm totally uninterested in whatever tepid garbage the mainstream music industry churns out for disposable consumption. I'd rather listen to something that people put some care and thought into. That being said, although I respect John Cage a great deal, I don't really "like" his music. As far as psychology is concerned, I hadn't really thought about it. For the creator I think it can be a great channel for whatever's inside. Steve Albini once said something along the lines of since he didn't have a wife to beat or a drug habit &  he wasn't interested in pounding his head against the floor, he had Big Black. It's sublimation. Of course, I don't necessarily think all music comes out of pent up frustration, either. Listen to Yume Bitsu or Landing -- they're all about beauty. That works for me as well. I'm not sure I can make a stance on what the effects are on the listener. If you want to say that it can have positive effects on the listener, I guess you could make an argument that it could just as easily have a negative effect &  cause people to go crazy and kill people, which is an argument I just can't believe.

DO YOU BEGIN WITH PARTICULAR THEMES FOR EACH COMPOSITION YOU CREATE, OR DO YOU PREFER THEM TO BE MORE UNIVERSAL & OPEN TO DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS? When I'm writing, the idea of anyone other than me listening to what I'm writing doesn't even enter into it. If it doesn't sound good to me, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of it. Is that selfish? Anyway, I feel weird talking to people about what I do musically, so I don't really know how people react to my music. I'd like to think people can relate to it on a personal level, maybe an emotional level. There's only one thing I've ever done that I was trying to evoke a particular emotion or idea. It's a track on my first full-length called "Run Aground". I grew up in Maine, right on the Atlantic coast, &  we used to get these incredible storms. I had this mental picture of sitting on the beach during a torrential downpour. I doubt the piece captured what was in my head, but I'd like to think it could work on some level. On the other hand, somebody might listen to that piece &  think that it really captured the feeling of hitting an emotional rock-bottom. It's pretty open, I guess. As most novelists will tell you, readers bring in far more interesting interpretations than they'd ever intended.

HOW HAS YOUR SOUND DEVELOPED SINCE THE SYMPATHY FOR AGAMEMNON EP. WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF HEADING IN THE NEAR FUTURE? I've tried to add different sounds &  textures, &  I've even used some vocals. I'm really self-conscious about words -- I love language a great deal, but I feel like I'm terrible at expressing myself, so writing lyrics is kind of a big step for me. I also recorded a cover of a Cerberus Shoal song that I translated into Middle English &  played on a de-tuned violin.

HAVE YOU ANY PLANS TO VISIT AUSTRALIA FOR A TOUR ? Sure! You paying?

WHAT ARE YOUR FEELINGS TOWARDS CD COPYING, MP3 &  SHARE WARE MUSIC WEB BASED PROGRAMS? It's kind of a sticky subject. On the one hand, there is a lot of great music out there that's all but unavailable through regular channels. Until recently, a bunch of Neil Young's mid-70's albums were completely unavailable other than on used vinyl. They're finally releasing most of them on CD (including On the Beach, thank god), but Time Fades Away  is still unavailable. It's a great record, but it's really hard to find, so what are you going to do? On the other hand, people swapping MP3's instead of going out &  buying an album that's readily available is bullshit. If you really, truly like the music, you want to support the artist. I think it's okay to download a track to see if you like an artist (those sample files they provide on a lot of online music websites don't really give you a feel for an artist -- can you really tell if John Coltrane's A  Love Supreme  is a good album or not by a 30-second sound clip?), but if you like it you should buy it. On the other other hand, if people stopped buying crap, maybe the record companies would start focusing on more worthwhile artists. On the other other other hand, swapping MP3's of crappy music still shows there's a market for it, &  it takes up bandwidth I could be using to find obscure Sun City Girls B-sides. A rebuttal to the whole thing is the issue (or non-issue, really) of buying used CD's. When you buy a used CD, the artist doesn't get any money from it, but the RIAA isn't complaining about that. I get really frustrated thinking about this. And confused. Can we go to the next question?

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON CDRs BECOMING MORE WIDESPREAD FOR EXPERIMENTAL LABELS IN THE FUTURE? I think it's fantastic. It's a relatively inexpensive way for both the artist to get his/her music out, & for the audience to try new things. Paying $5 for a CDR of a band you've seen once is a much more attractive idea than paying $15 (or whatever). I've seen bands before, thought they were really good, bought the CD, &  been totally under whelmed. I wouldn't have felt as bad about that if I'd bought a CDR that cost a third as much.

THERE IS DEBATE IN REGARDS TO USING LAPTOPS FOR LIVE PERFORMANCE? DO YOU AGREE WITH THE "AS LONG AS IT SOUNDS GREAT ITS OK" PREFERENCE, OR DO YOU BELIEVE IN GIVING AN AUDIENCE MORE OF A SPONTANEOUS IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE USING LIVE INSTRUMENTATION COMPARED TO SITTING BEHIND A  MONITOR? This, actually, is where I part ways with a lot of my peers. Laptop music is totally uninteresting to me. There's no human aspect in it, there's no energy in it, it's just some guy in the middle of a stage hunched over a computer. If I wanted to see that, I'd stay at work after hours. That being said, I don't have a problem with electronic music in general, as long as it's interesting and inventive. I saw Experimental Audio Research a couple of years ago, back when Sonic was doing his Data Rape thing. He was standing there, back to the audience, flipping switches and twisting knobs on all these old rewired Speak and Spells, &  it totally blew me away. I find the Data Rape album sterile and cold, but live it was warm &  had life. I realize I've just contradicted myself somewhat, but there's something ingenious about rewiring Speak & Spells that just doesn't happen in laptop performance. I hope I haven't offended anyone. If I have, I hope they're able to differentiate between my views (such as they are) &  my music. As Werner Herzog said of his tumultuous love/hate relationship with Klaus Kinski, "In the end, it's what you see on the screen that matters."