Kilt Vulture
"Kill the Vultures" is much more than a recording to me. It bookmarks a chapter in my life signifying a breaking down and reforming of just about every aspect of my world i recognise as "stable" (since music has been the only thread of consistency through out the past decade or so of my life). I don't want to talk about the actual recording process or funny little side notes, out-takes or bloopers. Not yet.
There was a subtle and gradual progession leading up to the recording, of which i can identify as growing its roots around the fall of 2003. At that point Oddjobs (R.I.P.) was living in a brown stone apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. We were preparing for a three-month tour with Atmosphere, the Micranots, and Brother Ali. The plan was to U-Haul our belongings from New York to our respective "folks" houses in Minnesota, go on tour and live in our mini-van dubbed "Critical Habitat," return from tour and live with our respective "folks" for a couple months, and then move to the Bay area in March, mean while peicing together our next record. Sounds simple enough, right?
The last studio recording that Oddjobs had released was "the Shopkeeper's Wife" EP (2002,Third Earth R.I.P.)" the "moody" follow up to the 'Drums' LP (2001, Third Earth), and we were anticipating the proceeding album to our most polished and developed peice of work to date. Before heading off to embark upon the longest stretch of shows any of us had or has done since, we recorded a few tracks with mediocre results.
We brushed it off and hit the road. cross-country, every possible inch of terrain, every flavor of sky, land, water and fire that mother nature had to dish out for us was seen, digested and passed along to make room for tomorrow. Everyone goes through transitions and rituals on tour, and in three months, some of those things can change how you think; Change how you look at people and how they look at you. Everyone went through similar shit and came up with completely different answers. We listened to different music, we talked to different women back home with whom we sought salvation, but at the end of the day we performed on the same stage as a band, and we slept on the same floor as something much thicker than friends.
After having a couple back packs containing everything we held sacred- stolen, me losing my woman, nomi getting hit by a drunk driver that totalled our tour van, we returned to Minnesota to the bedrooms we had grown up in. With our months of triumph, exhuastion, boredom, permanent hearing damage and sound-checks, we each curled into our beds with crumpled money in our pockets, all-access laminants, dirty laundry and conditioning, and began our individual rehabilitation procedures in the comfort of a dry, harsh Minnesota winter.
Deetalx rented out a rehearsal space in Midway, St.Paul, for his studio equipment. Anatomy set up shop in his parents basement off Cleveland and Fairmount. The dead air between our records was getting louder and we all knew it. We were unsatisfied with any attempts to visit our book of formulas and formats, and were quickly running out of spare parts in the bag of tricks we were digging in, in order to build a new machine that could fly as well as make creamed ice.
Life in Minneapolis/St.Paul was safe, home cooked and predictable, and sometimes those are the only three ingredients you need to build a monster in your basement. I had grown accustomed to the rock star life style of daily stage-dives, cheering crowds and all the Heineken I could drink for free. I was now running into ex-girlfriends and that one guy I met at some party, on a tuesday night with a wind chill advisory in effect for the metro area.
Noel, Adam and I would meet at Stephen's house and Devon's studio a few times a week, assembling verses and choruses together, listening to a never ending loop, recording freestyle sessions, trying to catch that spark. I think we all did a fairly good job of concealing our individual self-doubt; A looming question of "where do we go now?", inches away from bursting into hysterical "what the fuck are we doing?!" laughter, or maybe that was just me.
Part Two Coming Soon.
Alexei Moon Casselle
There was a subtle and gradual progession leading up to the recording, of which i can identify as growing its roots around the fall of 2003. At that point Oddjobs (R.I.P.) was living in a brown stone apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. We were preparing for a three-month tour with Atmosphere, the Micranots, and Brother Ali. The plan was to U-Haul our belongings from New York to our respective "folks" houses in Minnesota, go on tour and live in our mini-van dubbed "Critical Habitat," return from tour and live with our respective "folks" for a couple months, and then move to the Bay area in March, mean while peicing together our next record. Sounds simple enough, right?
The last studio recording that Oddjobs had released was "the Shopkeeper's Wife" EP (2002,Third Earth R.I.P.)" the "moody" follow up to the 'Drums' LP (2001, Third Earth), and we were anticipating the proceeding album to our most polished and developed peice of work to date. Before heading off to embark upon the longest stretch of shows any of us had or has done since, we recorded a few tracks with mediocre results.
We brushed it off and hit the road. cross-country, every possible inch of terrain, every flavor of sky, land, water and fire that mother nature had to dish out for us was seen, digested and passed along to make room for tomorrow. Everyone goes through transitions and rituals on tour, and in three months, some of those things can change how you think; Change how you look at people and how they look at you. Everyone went through similar shit and came up with completely different answers. We listened to different music, we talked to different women back home with whom we sought salvation, but at the end of the day we performed on the same stage as a band, and we slept on the same floor as something much thicker than friends.
After having a couple back packs containing everything we held sacred- stolen, me losing my woman, nomi getting hit by a drunk driver that totalled our tour van, we returned to Minnesota to the bedrooms we had grown up in. With our months of triumph, exhuastion, boredom, permanent hearing damage and sound-checks, we each curled into our beds with crumpled money in our pockets, all-access laminants, dirty laundry and conditioning, and began our individual rehabilitation procedures in the comfort of a dry, harsh Minnesota winter.
Deetalx rented out a rehearsal space in Midway, St.Paul, for his studio equipment. Anatomy set up shop in his parents basement off Cleveland and Fairmount. The dead air between our records was getting louder and we all knew it. We were unsatisfied with any attempts to visit our book of formulas and formats, and were quickly running out of spare parts in the bag of tricks we were digging in, in order to build a new machine that could fly as well as make creamed ice.
Life in Minneapolis/St.Paul was safe, home cooked and predictable, and sometimes those are the only three ingredients you need to build a monster in your basement. I had grown accustomed to the rock star life style of daily stage-dives, cheering crowds and all the Heineken I could drink for free. I was now running into ex-girlfriends and that one guy I met at some party, on a tuesday night with a wind chill advisory in effect for the metro area.
Noel, Adam and I would meet at Stephen's house and Devon's studio a few times a week, assembling verses and choruses together, listening to a never ending loop, recording freestyle sessions, trying to catch that spark. I think we all did a fairly good job of concealing our individual self-doubt; A looming question of "where do we go now?", inches away from bursting into hysterical "what the fuck are we doing?!" laughter, or maybe that was just me.
Part Two Coming Soon.
Alexei Moon Casselle
posted by Alexei Moon Casselle at 5:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home