Responding to something that Pete said—a lot of people our age seem to have grown up with an eternal gratitude towards Sonic Youth or Forced Exposure, 'zines and bands that were almost gateway drugs before the internet for people who didn't live in cities or have access to stuff that was a little bit more avant or obscure. . . is this a role Magik Markers are trying to play now? Does the internet change any of the rules of a game like this one? What's it like when you tour and you get into a town like the one you grew up in?
Pete: Yeah I still have some copies of
FE that I got back in high school. I poured over them with a religious fervor. They were like a blueprint for my early musical education. I know some people that thought that the writers actually made up the bands that they talked about just so they could come up with these fanciful descriptions. But for me it was so good to know that all these bands were real and that there were secret histories to be unearthed... whole zones that I had no idea about. The quality of the writing really made me wanna hear the music and it was so rad when it actually surpassed my expectations and literally changed my life. Like when you first discover a weird alien world like krautrock, where uber grooves and futurism combined with chemistry can alter your brain channels.
I recently had the experience of performing a Spectre Folk set after a reading by
Byron Coley. It was for me one of the coolest readings of the sort I've ever witnessed. Byron read a few different stories about Joey Ramone, Sandy Bull, and John Fahey. There was a particularly awesome one about D. Boon and how he leapt into the air when he played causing the whole stage to buckle and resonate like thunder on touchdown. Man it was heavy taking the stage after Byron had invoked these spirits who'd rewired the genetic code of American sound… like we were performing on hallowed ground. It was a really awesome reminder of why I got into playing this kind of music in the first place. I had the feeling that we'd gone through some kind of rite and I went through the pass with a total regeneration of my beliefs in the limitless possibilities open to me as a musician.
I don't know if we actively play this kind of role as a band. It might be cool one day… but right now I think we're just working on getting our own sound together. It seems like the internet makes it easier to find out about stuff, but it doesn't necessarily point the way. I haven't seen a whole lot more great writing as a result of blogging or whatever than there was in the great age of the 'zine. There's probably an equal amount, but there's still nothing quite like the tactile experience of holding some underground rock mag in your hands and hearing some would be scribe pontificate on the latest Royal Trux or Dead C record.
It's cool beaming down to places in America that are stuck in some other era. Like Iowa City, looks like some idealized Hollywood version of a 1950's downtown. Or Missoula Montana where quiet insanity takes place in elks lodges in the shadow of the most enormous gray mountains I've ever seen in my life. Or New Orleans, remaining New Orleans in spite of the fact that they're still fucked up 3 years after the levy broke. When we hit towns like these I get filled up with the feeling and I really wanna do it.