INTERVIEW: The Breeders (Part 5 of 5)

...if you've hung with us through the previous four parts of this interview, thank you. We know it's a lot of information and, quite frankly, not many of us have or take the time to digest something like this. For whatever it was worth, we hope you enjoyed this interview. We most certainly did. And now for the exciting conclusion of The Buddha Den Interview with The Breeders....

Kelly: Did you know about the video? We have a new video…

TBD: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that.

Kelly: It should be out today or tomorrow on Rollingstone.com. It’s cute. Oh my god, the girls are so adorable.

Kim: St. Louis…

Kelly: We went to St. Louis. I drove down from here and then Mondo, the bass player in the band, who’s actually a film guy…

Kim: He’s got a nice camera, Mondo does.

Kelly: Yeah, he’s got a nice camera and stuff. He flew out from L.A. and a friend did it, did the filming.

Kim: They went to a Skatetorium.

TBD: It’s not a skating rink anymore?

Kim: Apparently not.

Kelly: Skatium. No. Skatorium. It’s dingy. It’s a dive.

Kim: I wasn’t there. I was just thinking that we needed something visual because I tend to YouTube things, even if I just wanna hear a song, I YouTube it. And I was thinking if we give this away, how will people actually see it? How will people hear it? If it’s me, I would wanna YouTube it. So, it’s like we need something visual to throw up there.

TBD: So you guys know the girls in St. Louis? Is that what it was?

Kim: Yeah, she came up when she was like in her teens, she drove from St. Louis to I think Cleveland or Detroit to Lollapalooza and her mother didn’t know she was gone, she didn’t have any money, but she said hello to us and we introduced her to our parents. My mom and dad freaked out and gave her bus money and hotel money, too. Or gas money, something like that. And we just kept in touch with her all these years. She’s in a roller derby league and we ran into her and Kelly had the idea of not just….I was thinking if we wanna put it on YouTube it has to have some kind of visual aspect to it. Maybe we could just put a picture, I don’t know, we just need something, placeholder, it has to be visual. Kelly said that her and Amy Whited, the girl who’s in the roller derby, Arch Rivals, that’s what they’re called, that’s the team name because there’s the big St. Louis Arch, so that’s the Arch Rivals. So they talked, Kelly and this Amy girl talked and said that it would be really good to get them on skating. So I thought cool, Kelly went out there, I thought they would come back with some girls spinning around the rink, and that’s what you could YouTube, you know? I thought that would be great. But it turned out to be a real video. It looks really cool. They’re singing along to the song because they were given the information and they had they lyrics. There’s even shirts made with some of the lyrics on it. It’s done really well. It looks like a proper video.

TBD: Cool.

Kim: I know. I can’t believe it. But there’s no place to put it up. I mean I guess there might be an MTV still, but I don’t know if there is. It really doesn’t matter. It still looks cool.

TBD: I’ll put it up.

Kim: There you go. Exactly.

TBD: So you did all this yourself? All done in-house?

Kim: Yeah, Kelly did. And the bass player, Mondo. He has a friend named James Ford and he helped, too. Just them three.

TBD: So that’s coming up this week?

Kim: It should be out today. They’re putting it up somewhere. Rollingstone.com said that they wanted to show it, which is cool. I mean, I don’t know who goes [there]. It’s a good place. I don’t know how to put it up. So there you go.

TBD: Eh, it’s on YouTube.

Kim: Exactly.

TBD: People that wanna see it can find.

Kim: That’s how I would find it. Exactly.

TBD: So what’s next beyond all this?

Kim: We’re trying to get more shows for the summer. We’ve got some more songs on the 4-track. I don’t know. I think one of them sounds alright.

TBD: You have standards, and that’s OK.

Kim: The only standard is I have to sing it and it’s like, uh.

Kelly: Yeah, so in August we have a couple shows in England and then we’ll work out from there to get more shows around that.

TBD: Do you see more releases?

Kim: Oh yeah.

TBD: Do you think the model of doing it this way on your own is something you’re gonna keep working?

Kelly: Ask me in about a month. We’ll see how this one goes.

Kim: I don’t know how. It’s gonna end in tears. There is no record company anyway.

Kelly: Right. I think this actually makes a lot of sense to me. So far. I’ve really enjoyed the process. I think it’s very creative.

Kim: Yeah, it has been. It’s been really fun making the vinyl. It’s been really fun handscreening it.

Kelly: It’s weird, because we’ve always…Vaughn [?] from 4AD always did the artwork, we weren’t really involved. We were as involved as we wanted to be or could be at the time, but he was always really good about that. It doesn’t really feel like that much has changed.

Kim: Even when we did like shirts we used the guys from Dayton to the hand screening, you know Alien Workshop is from here, so there was always handscreening here in Dayton so it’s not like we were…

Kelly: We made t-shirts here. We recorded.

Kim: We used Refraze, we used Cro-Mag. Yeah, so. It’s like an EP, so it didn’t make sense to have a sit-down meeting with a record company for an EP. Quite frankly, we wouldn’t have been able to get it out in time for All Tomorrow’s Parties anyway because they take to long.

TBD: Yeah, there’s a schedule to it. It’s prohibitive.

Kim: It is.

Kelly: Prohibitive. Good word. I’m gonna use that word a lot.

Kim: Oh god.

...and here's the video they mentioned for the title track off their Fate to Fatal EP, featuring the Arch Rival Roller Girls...

INTERVIEW: The Breeders (Part 4 of 5)

...we've been getting some good feedback from our interview with The Breeders, so thank you all very much for reading. We know there's a lot of information in here, so take all the time you need to digest it. It's not going anywhere. So, without, futher ado, we now present Part 4 of The Buddha Den Interview with The Breeders....

TBD: It’s one of those things. I saw you guys at Bogart’s in ’93 and it was the first shows I ever went to, because I didn’t know about big shows. I saw the show and I didn’t know anything about encores. I was going to International College of Broadcasting at the time and my teacher, Dennis Mutter [from the Alternative Edge video program], he asked me what I thought of “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”. I didn’t hear it because I had left.

Kim: That’s so cute you didn’t know. That sounds like me. Did you ever go to any of those shows at Hara Arena and see any of those bands? Maybe that was too far north for you guys…

TBD: The only thing I really saw there was Phish. I was really into jam bands for a while…

Kim: Really?

TBD: I got tickets the last minute, the day of the show…

Kim: What year is this?

TBD: Late 94. It had sold out but they opened floor tickets the day of the show. All my buddies had bleacher seats. We got there two hours early to hang out in the lot…

Kelly: You know, hang out in the lot…

TBD: Right. There’s nobody there, so we go in and we’re on the floor and we’re front row. They opened with “Helter Skelter”.

Kim: Oh wow! That’s weird.

TBD: They had just done the White Album for Halloween that year.

Kelly: That’s a lot of work.

Kim: It is, isn’t it?

TBD: It wasn’t like they just covered it, they rearranged…

Kelly: That’s neat.

TBD: So yeah, that’s the only show I saw at Hara Arena. I found out later, ‘What do mean The Breeders and Guided By Voices played at Hara Arena?’

Kim: Yeah yeah, and [The Afghan] Whigs and New Bomb Turks.

TBD: I have people that I know that that show. That’s a huge point of point of Dayton pride. That was something else I wanted to ask you guys about was your relationship with the Dayton music scene. As you were saying earlier, you’re from here and you would love to say [something]. How do you feel about your relationship with the Dayton music scene? Do you feel you’re part of it?

Kelly: I have real fond feeling about it. Like when we’re doing ATP, The Tasties are gonna be there. Heartless Bastards are gonna be there…

Kim: Times New Viking. But they’re Columbus…

Kelly: We saw Louie at the farmer’s market last Saturday.

Kim: Louie’s a superstar. Everybody knows Louie.

Kelly: So they’re gonna be there. It’s a big deal because Terry’s coming from Portland and Gale’s coming from Arizona and they gotta get together. I’m sure they’ve gotta relearn everything.

Kim: You know what? I’ll put a bet, Fifty bucks, that they can’t organize themselves overseas…Right now. Fifty bucks says they won’t make it overseas…

Kelly: Okay.

Kim: And I hope they do!

Kelly: We’re excited and we’re very hopeful that it’s gonna happen. You know, we did a cover of Guided By Voices’ “Shocker In Gloomtown”?

TBD: That was actually the first version I ever heard of the song. I had the Head to Toe EP. My teacher from ICB gave it to me. Somehow I lost it over the years…

Kelly: I don’t know if you ever saw the video, but you can YouTube it and there’s the GBV guys looking in the garage.

Kim: And we did a cover of a Tasties song. I can watch the TV and there’s this Pirate’s thrift store thing that comes on that has a Tasties song on the commercial. It’s so good. They’re a really good band. And they are not coming over to ATP…

Kelly: I have really warm feelings about Dayton.

TBD: Do you guys wear the Dayton badge with pride or is just sort of an incidental?

Kelly: I wear it. It means something to me. Does it mean something to the rest of the world? Hell no.

Kim: I like being from Dayton.

TBD: I think it’s a special place.

Kim: Yeah, me too.

TBD: It’s not flashy.

Kim: Not at all. They don’t care. They don’t not care, they’re not player haters, either.

TBD: It’s what you do.

Kim: Yeah, it is nice.

TBD: Speaking of All Tomorrow’s Parties, jumping around, you guys are curating. How did that come about to where you got to curate and how did you decide who to pick? I mean, Wire? Shellac? You guys picked some ace bands.

Kelly: There’s four of us, so we each get to pick some. We each sent in our wish list.

Kim: Yeah. There’s somebody that we told Barry Hoken to ixnay on one of Jose’s choices. Wouldn’t it be awful if we actually remembered their name? I know that Jose doesn’t know that we did this. Us talking about means that he’s gonna know that we interfered with his list. You can tell ‘em. You can tell ‘em that he’s not gonna have the Jazz Improv in 12/14 Time coming over that we’ve never heard of, instrumental craziness from Portland…

Kelly: But yeah, everybody just sent a wish list….

Kim: Mondo put in Gang of Four. I looked at that and just went, ‘You’ve got a lot of balls. They’re gonna do it?’ And they’re they’re like doin’ it! It’s incredible.

Kelly: And X?!? X?!?

Kim: I think I might’ve put that one in.


TBD: Now that’s in May? Mid-may?

Kim: May 15 through 16 and 17, yeah. Then we do…well, we do a festival in Spain on the 14th. Then we do after All Tomorrow’s Parties we go to Dublin, Ireland and play a show there. Then we go to Glasgow, Scotland and play two shows there. So that’s nice. Yeah. You don’t tend to see much…We’ve been there before and I’ve seen Dublin before, but this trip it sounds like we’re not gonna see much at all.

Kelly: No, because we get in Monday….

Kim: …and that’s a drag because the Scottish accent’s very attractive. I like that accent. Yes…

...see you all tomorrow for the exciting conclusion...

INTERVIEW: The Breeders (Part 3 of 5)

...well, it's midweek so here's the midpoint of The Buddha Den Interview with The Breeders. We hope yr enjoying this as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Enjoy Part 3...

TBD: I think with any technological wave, everyone’s trying to figure out, ‘So we’ve got the Internet, and now digital’s now replacing CDs.

Kim: Thank god, I hate CDs…

TBD: Now everyone’s trying to figure out what to do with it. Some people obviously like vinyl…

Kelly: They’re trying to figure out how to monetize it.

TBD: Exactly.

Kim: There’s no way to monetize it. It’s free, ‘cause it’s free. I mean, you can monetize M & M’s, but you can’t monetize virtual M & M’s….

Kelly: [laughs] It’s true. I read this thing: do you guys know about Sims? They have cafes, you know music cafes. They have avatars, that is your screen representation…

Kim: That would be so cool, to start a band…

Kelly: One girl, she made, she’s from Georgia, she made like $10,000 in tips…

Kim: Are you kidding me?

Kelly: In virtual tips. And like $100 of these virtual dollars equals a [real] dollar…

Kim: Are you kidding?

TBD: There’s your future….

Kelly: She actually cashed in and made like….it doesn’t support her, but it helps her be able to get strings, ‘cause we all think about that, getting things like strings…

Kim: …battery, a 9-volt battery for your tuner.

TBD: There’s an overhead to being a musician.

Kim: Yes, there is. Even the most virtual one.

TBD: OK, I’m gonna steer us back into focus here….

Kim: I don’t know if you can. I’m still on ‘Sims’?

Kelly: My avatar would be hot. So hot…

TBD: So you guys worked with Albini again. What keeps you going back going back to Albini?

Kelly: His sounds. Not that it matters apparently….

TBD: No. Pod matters. I have a conversation a week about the sound of Pod.

Kelly: It’s beautiful. And for like “Chances Are” just….or “Here No More” from Mountain Battles, the sound of that upright is just beautiful.

Kim: He’s a really great technician. He really is.

TBD: And then Mark Lanegan. How did that happen?

Kim: So I’m in the basement with the Pro Tools. I don’t know how to run it. I have a friend that knows how to run it. I’m playing the instruments, it’s not programmed, it’s just played and recorded. Recorded means sound values are captured. I had written this song. Whenever I thought of the song, I’d thought of a guy singing it. In my head I could hear a guy singing it. Then me and him started this conversation about Mark Lanegan, but he’s talking about something else. That stuck in my head, and eventually I said to him ‘You know, it’d be so great if a guy sang this. Do you know how to get a hold of Mark Lanegan?’ [in a deep male voice] ‘I sure do. I recorded his solo album and I know….’

[Kim and Kelly diverge into how distracting the speaker near us at the Starbucks is…]
Kim: So he called one of Mark Lanegan’s band members, I think it was maybe the Gutter Twins because you know that [Greg] Dulli moved from Cincinnati, I think he lives in Louisiana now, New Orleans. I think Dulli owns a bar in New Orleans and this guy happens to know him a little bit. [Dulli] knows somebody that’s in that Gutter Twins band, or who had recorded it, I don’t know, some New Orleans connection. The guy gave him Lanegan’s email or number and I emailed him or texted him, ‘Hey Lanegan, would you like to do something like that?’ You know what he said? He’s a fan, he’d love to. Isn’t that sweet?

Kelly: He seems like a serial killer. Doesn’t he sound like a serial killer?

TBD: It’s intense.

Kim: It is intense.

Kelly: Yeah, it is intense. That’s a good word for it.

Kim: He’s actually a good singer.

TBD: It was very unexpected.

Kelly: So you’ve [tracks] already?

TBD: Yeah, I asked you’re publicist for them. I wanted to be informed, if I’m gonna ask you about what you’re doing…

Kim: Now see, Kelly thought that maybe [The Last Time] would be a duet of some sort.

Kelly: I did. When you said, ‘with’, I don’t know for some reason…

Kim: OK, there was no harmony to do.

Kelly: That makes sense when you say it.

Kim: And, it wouldn’t be cute back and forth…[imitates a line of back and forth to illustrate the point…] That would be so bad.

Kelly: It makes sense. We have a friend who had heard it, and he goes, ‘What? Wait.’

Kim: Oh yeah, his name’s Kyle actually. [in heavily affected male voice] ‘What am I doing playing a Breeders record and Mark Lanegan’s singing?’ Yeah, get over it. I think it sounds really good.

Kelly: Is [Lanegan] going to ATP?

Kim: I don’t know Kelly.

Kelly: ‘Cause we’re doing that song and from Pod we’re doing that song “Oh”…

Kim: Carrie [Bradley] plays the violin on that. Michael Allen did the vocal back then…

Kelly: And then we can do the new song. See, it’s all working out…

TBD: I actually played Pod at my weekly event last week.

Kim: Really?

TBD: Yeah. at the end of the night I put on Pod. Everyone was like, ‘What is this?’ Seriously. I was like listen to this: you’re version of “Happiness is a Warm Gun” came on…

Kim: Yeah, that turned out really good.

Kelly: You guys always said it was because you didn’t know the song very well that it turned out so good. That you didn’t learn it verbatim.

Kim: I think we knew it, but we just didn’t pay attention. We just did the parts we liked.

Kelly: That’s great.

TBD: the ‘Mother Superior’ part is one of the greatest…

Kim: Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah.

TBD: The first time I heard that I thought, “Wow, somebody actually beat a Beatles version.

Kim: Yeah yeah

Kelly: It’s hard to do that live ‘cause [Breeders drummer] Jose can’t really hear her vocal and he’s playing really hard. He’s banging real hard…

Kim: You what’s unfortunate is that there’s a really cool Tanya [Donelly] bark.

Kelly: I thought it was Britt.

Kim: No, it’s her. It’s like [makes sound]. Something like that during it. I love that part.

Kelly: I can’t do it at the same time. I tried.

INTERVIEW: The Breeders (Part 2 of 5)

...picking up where we left off yesterday, here's the second part of The Buddha Den Interview with The Breeders...

TBD: That leads me to another question: I saw that when Mountain Battles came out, the whole All Wave recording thing…

Kim: You know, it was rough because it was completely All Wave, that means even the mastering, and the record itself.

TBD: So, I went back to refresh my memory, do me and my readers a supposed favor: What exactly is entailed in the All Wave process?

Kim: OK. Analog comes from the word analogous, so analog is analogous to a sound in the room. A natural sound of me pushing the airwaves and tickling your three bones in your ear. Vibrations. So analog music is analogous to that soundwave and vibration. So analog recording would be me speaking into a microphone or an amplifier hitting a diaphragm in a microphone, which is your ear bones, setting the diaphragm into a vibration and the electrical current going and being captured. Still, in the dimension of time… this is what I say, in the dimension of time, but analogous to the current, the ions, the magnetized oxide, and then capturing that electrical current onto a surface, so that when you play it, if you fast forward it, it speeds up. It’s based in, I think it’s based in the dimension of time. That’s what I think. But it’s even more than that. You’ve got it on a reel-to-reel, right? You’ve got this reel-to-reel. So then you take it to this mastering place and then you cut the lathe. Well, a lot of times nowadays, people will cut the lathe after it’s been transferred over to an analog-to-digital conversion. It’s easier to do it then. But it’s already being cut from a digital conversion. Honestly, I didn’t think it was gonna be that fucking big of a deal but it’s really hard to find people that will just take the tape and just make the record from the tape. There’s only like two or three places left in the world that can do it.

TBD: It’s getting better though.

Kim: Actually no.

TBD: Really? Is it getting worse? I’d heard there were starting to be more people getting into that.

Kim: More people are cutting records, only off of the digital music [source].

TBD: That’s unfortunate.

Kim: Is it? No. I don’t know. I mean, if it’s that hard…Honestly, if it’s that hard…I didn’t know it was that big a deal, man…But yeah, it is.

TBD: The other angle of [All Wave] from what I remember reading about it was that it was all about everyone playing together in a room. But there were overdubs, right?

Kim: Yeah, there were overdubs. It’s just the nature of playing. Remember in 93 right after that what did you hear about all the time? ADAT. Oh my god, the Hi-88s? Remember that?

TBD: They sucked.

Kim: They sucked so hard. But you know, all the engineers talked them up like they’re the best thing, and they’re not. They’re shit. They were then. And they were new.

TBD: Yep.

Kim: Anything new out of the box with the peanuts, the guys love. It doesn’t mean it’s good gear, they just love it, because it’s new.

TBD: It has nothing to do with real [unintelligible]….

Kim: It’s just them having something new to play with. So the digital and analog, again it’s just now it’s something even totally different from back then. Remember the engineers would say that it’s 66 times the sampling rate? They would try to draw it on the wall, as if digital recording is a better sound than analog recording? I had to deal with that. A lot people won’t even say that nowadays, it doesn’t even matter. It’s digital or analog. Nobody compares the sound anymore. It’s just what you’re used to and how you like the song or not, it doesn’t really matter. But what does matter, kind of, is the programming involved in digital music. There’s still something about sitting down with good friends and actually playing something. A lot of times, bands, even rock bands, can’t even do that because it’s all programmed. A lot of it is programmed with noises that don’t exist in real life. Which can be superfun…[imitates weird sounds]…it’s really to listen to. But, then are you gonna go see them play. I dunno, because it only exists on that spacebar, that hit, it can only exist right then on that file. It is an interesting thing and it’s not something that I’ve just had to come to terms with now. Back in 93 even, the minute you decide if you’re gonna have a second guitar come in the whole way to make a song sound better, it’s time to start thinking about what kind of live band, if you are gonna be a real band, that one wants to be. Because if you crunch the second guitar in because the song’s basically not good enough, honestly, and it needs that, then I would try to make the song better. An easy fix is something to add something for sugar or something, it super works easy and it really works a lot. But, ok, if you look in the room and you can tell that nobody on the stage is gonna be able to play that part, then you’re gonna be the band that plays that song without that part and you’re gonna be that band that’s playing that kind of sucky song because you didn’t fix the song, that moment on the record. So that happens every moment, and it’s not just because digital’s here. Think of the choices that bands are making nowadays. They actually have like 92 tracks up, but their fronting like they’re a rock band, which is fine. But am I gonna go see them play because I’m supposed to like them for who they are and it shouldn’t matter if I fell in love with their record, ‘Hey man, they’re artists, they don’t have to reproduce their record.’ Because they’re artists…I dunno, all of sudden they need 92 tracks to make a good record, but when I go see them play live I’m not supposed to hold their performance up to what they played, or didn’t play?

TBD: There’s a disconnect.

Kim: Exactly. For me, there’s no specific yes or no answer, I just take each individual case. I don’t know. It’s not just programming. Like I said, people with huge guitars, they better be able to repeat that huge guitar sound on stage. What’s weird is that even back in the old days in the 90s when Nine Inch Nails played Lollapalooza and they would destroy their gear, I never saw the show, but I would suggest to them, the guy who just rocked the Nine Inch Nails set, I would suggest to him if Trent Reznor or the keyboard player just destroyed their keyboard, what were you listening to? [It was] blowing their mind, thinking that actually that was a show and they were actually playing music, but the music was taped or looped or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays. It was a sample or such. So I don’t know, do you wanna be in a band where the drummer’s wearing headphones? It depends. Some people don’t have any problem with that at all. Do you wanna be in a band where one of the instruments onstage is a laptop? Not even pretend laptop, a synth, a keyboard, I’m talking about a real laptop, and you’re not a DJ, you’re gonna call yourself a rock band. Then, I dunno. I’m kinda weirded out by that. I dunno.

TBD: So you’re just purist is what you’re saying.

Kim: I don’t know. I kinda just like to know what it is. Maybe I shouldn’t like to know. I don’t know.

TBD: It’s a completely different thing. I hosted a show last Saturday night at South Park Tavern…it had two laptop guys.

Kelly: That could be really good….

TBD: …and I thought it’s….

Kim: …It is what it is…

TBD: Would I rather see a band get up there and kill it? Yes, but….

Kim: …it’s too expensive for a band to get up there and kill it.

TBD: They can’t rehearse.

Kim: They can’t rehearse. Now the two laptop guys can send files back and forth to each other and their lunch break from their real job.

TBD: And that’s what it is. No one has time to be a rock band anymore…

Kim: No, because their music is free and they can’t ever pay that back. It’s weird. It’s like it’s not the first time it’s like that. Animotion and all the MIDI stuff was programmed…Thompson Twins….

TBD: It goes way back.

Kim: Yeah, it does.

TBD: It’s just technology.

Kim: It is. I’m not saying it’s bad, I didn’t want be [that]...just because it’s trendy. Hell no.

TBD: So how much of that working model accounts for your schedule as far as releases and stuff like that? The fact that you work hard enough that to make sure that when you put it out, it’s exactly the way you want it to sound, so that when you play it…

Kim: That we can actually play it.

TBD: …How much of that All Wave working model do you think factors into it?

Kim: I don’t know. You know, a lot people don’t even work on their music, they just send it to producers. Even rock bands it to producers nowadays. They don’t have a drummer, these are just front people, they’re personalities, they’re entertainers. They have a team of people working on it. They’re taking the instrumentation from somebody else. They don’t have to worry about rehearsals and working on an album. The producer has the music, or an idea of some music. They schedule the studio. They’re just like, ‘Kyle, we’ll be ready for you day after tomorrow.’ Then they’ll sit down with and you will have gotten a file already of some of their ideas. You’re supposed to take your diary, your journal, from your last tour about how you felt. You’ll come in and talk about how lonesome it is being you or whatever. You only need to say a couple of lines and then ‘Thank you very much’, because I’ve got your voice and I can just put it wherever and I want and you’re done. It’s really not a question of how fast it takes you. And Kelly and I are ready to work with you at any time…

TBD: Nice to know. I was shopping for a producer…

Kim: That might have something to do with something…

Kelly: …and the fact that there isn’t really an impetus anymore. There’s not a music industry anymore. I’m not being like ‘Oh, the good old days…’. There just isn’t. The huge people like Madonna and U2 aren’t trying to be punk rock when they don’t sign with the record label. It signifies that it doesn’t exist anymore.

TBD: There’s no value to it.

Kim: Absolutely none at all.

TBD: Why wouldn’t I just put it out myself?

Kim: Exactly. And putting it out, why wouldn’t I just give it away myself? That’s all it is: promo. It seems. I don’t think it’s the coolest. Kelly said that she doesn’t know what the answer is, but free probably isn’t the answer.

TBD: It was a legitimate point. At the level you guys are at, you should be able to sell a record.

Kelly: Anymore when you think about it, it’s so interesting, like recording. Granted we did record at the big analog studio that is apparently no longer valid anymore. Do you know the guy who’s sitting there, it’s not like he came after his day job. That’s his job. He has child, a newborn by the way.

Kim: A wife

Kelly: He actually needs to pay his rent. So, if music is free, then how do we pay him? Then obviously you shouldn’t be in an analog studio, you should be downstairs. Then it just tells you what it can be.

Kim: It’s actually telling us what we can do. And the only thing we can do is laptop it and give it away for free. Which is like, you know, it’s fine, we can do that. Whatever. If that’s what’s left, okay...

TBD: Well how disappointing is that to you guys as far as a working model?

Kim: You know it was more disappointing in 2002 [for Title TK] and stuff thinking, ‘It’s not gonna go there! No!’ And now that it’s there, eh, it’s like five years late.

Kelly: The idea of being a musician and the excitement of being on the road and setting up your gear and getting your guitar and that string, yeah it needs changed, but man, it sounds good like it is and all these little minor things, the smell of stale beer and all that, is so awesome. Rolling into a new city and seeing…what do the cool people wear in Stockholm? Ooh, I wonder if they’re considered or oh god, that’s eastern European fashion? All that really cool stuff. So what you’re telling me is instead of that whole thing, you’re telling me that I have to go back to when I was working at the defense contractor in a cubicle in front of a terminal, and that’s gonna be job? Sitting in Kim’s basement in front of Pro Tools? And that’s how I make music? I can’t do it….

Kim: It’s interesting actually that somebody said that they went into a studio, it was Sony or Universal…not a studio, a record label. Not me, I didn’t. Somebody on the coast in L.A. had gone back into the Universal record label building and all that was left was a line of interns sitting at these tables in front of laptops and all they were doing is they were blogging and what is it called…when you search engine shit to the top?....they’re doing promotions. They’re doing marketing. By marketing and promoting, what they’re doing is they’re saying…

Kelly: …the record’s out…

Kim: They’ll get in people’s blog and talk about it. You’ve seen people, I’ve seen people, say ‘Oh my god, get them out of here! I know what they’re doing: Oh, I was just wondering if you guys have heard the new….

Kelly: …Dresden Dolls…

Kim: …yeah, or something. [They say] ‘It’s really great!’, and that’s they’re job, and somebody said ‘If that’s the record business now, I don’t think I ever would’ve wanted to be a part of that.

TBD: It has nothing to do with music.

Kim: It doesn’t seem very exciting, does it? Sitting in the laptop to just sneak, not sneak, but to just drop the name over and over again.

Kelly: Do you think people that used to drive like that Sissy Spacek movie, Coal Miner’s Daughter, where dude got in the car and went from radio station to radio station…

Kim: That sounds cool.

Kelly: I mean, OK, the advent of the telephone…

Kim: There was the telephone back then…

Kelly: I know.

TBD: Maybe not in Appalachia…

Kim: No, but I tell you what the period of time reminds me of: it was in the 40s when Columbia [Records] had to rely on…

Kelly:…back in my day…

Kim: I read the book, it was about Hank Williams and back in like ’38 to ’40 the unions, the musician’s unions, went on strike because there’s [affected voice] new-fangled thing called the record [end affected voice] and it could capture musical performances and you’re saying that if you use that then that’s gonna be my job. And they probably went ‘You want this thing? You want this record?’ That’s not how the real thing sounds. This is totally different than the real thing. Anyway, they weren’t getting paid because of [these records], so they formed a union. And what happened? Columbia said ‘Fine. Go start a union. Fuck ya’ll. We got two years of records in the vaults and for two years the only records that were coming out…there were no musician work from Columbia and all they were doing was putting records out from the vault. That’s how the musician’s union started.

Kelly: Interesting…we need to start a union…

Kim: [laughs]

...as an added bonus, here's a clip of Kim and Kelly working on the handscreening for Fate to Fatal...

INTERVIEW: The Breeders (Part 1 of 5)

...last week, The Breeders dropped their second release in as many years, the Fate to Fatal EP. Now, for most bands, this would be a non-issue, but for The Breeders to issue two releases so quickly is notable. Somehow, we were able to arrange an in-person interview with Kim and Kelly Deal. For us, this was a very big deal as we're very much in love with their work over the years. So, on a grey Tuesday afternoon, we talked about, well, a lot of things. Some relating to The Breeders, music, and Dayton. Some things we have no idea how they came up. Rather than drop the whole thing on you at once, we thought we'd break it up into slightly more reasonable chunks. So, today we give you Part 1 of 5 of The Buddha Den Interview with The Breeders...

[ed. note: upon arrival we talked for about 15 minutes about being a musician growing up in Dayton, etc. Eventually, we started recording. This is where the tape rolled...]

Kelly: We’re doing All Tomorrow’s Parties in England in May. We’re having Carrie Bradley come over. So, since we’re having her come over, we’re gonna do “Drivin on 9”, but she violin on a couple other songs, so we’re starting to relearn those and get them up and going. “Do You Love Me Know” is a great song, she played violin on that. So we thought we’d play “Do You Love Me Know?” this Saturday [at Shake It Records for Record Store Day]. It’s hard because it’s not the whole band, so OK Kim, you’ve got play that one guitar part, you have to play that. I can play this part, that part we don’t really need that part, but what about the bass playing during the solo? So it’s interesting how to break it down to make it interesting acoustically without drums and bass.

Kim: It is weird, some songs lend themselves to just singer/songwriter playing on acoustic with harmony or something. Some songs like if you don’t have the bass line, the song doesn’t make sense anymore.

Kelly: “Do You Love Me Know?” sounds really good as a two-piece, soon-to-be-three-piece. So when we went on tour last year, we found on Craiglist, we found a utility player. She sings, she plays some guitar, she does some keyboard. Jose Medeles, our drummer, was living in L.A. at the time and he just went on Craigslist because we were looking for somebody. We talked to a couple people and one girl was interested, but she couldn’t really do it. We talked to Rachel Hayden. Do you know Rachel Hayden? She was in That Dog and her dad is Charlie Hayden, jazz guy. She was really nice, but her guitar wasn’t as good as her vocals, she’s more of a bass player. So Jose just went online, checked out Craigslist, and that’s how we found our person that we tour with, Cheryl [?]. So she’s gonna come out from L.A. and do some songs with us this Saturday, so we’re excited about that.

The Buddha Den: So how did you get in with Shake It? Did they just call you up and ask?

Kim: The studio where we did our hand-screening, for the [Fate to Fatal] EP covers, the guy who owns that works Fridays at Shake It Records. He said ‘You guys should do an in-store at Shake It Records.’ It was like, ‘OK, ask them if they’d want us to.’ Then he asked them, and I started to talking to Darren, he owns it with his brother, Jim. They’re real nice guys.

Kelley: I think we had to go down and check the artwork, because the hand-screening thing we’re doing. So, this guy works at Wire and Twine in Oxford. They’re kinda like a t-shirt place, kinda art think tank almost in a weird way. He did the Obama [poster], Chris Glass did. You read about that?

TBD: Yeah.

Kelly: He designed our record cover, too. They had done up a prototype and we had went down there to check it out, to Shake It Records.

Kim: They showed us where we could stand, if we can get three people in there. I’m worried that we can’t get too much equipment. We just worked on it today.

Kelly: I know.

Kim: I don’t wanna show up with just an acoustic.

Kelly: No no.

Kim: I think that they want us to go through a PA, which means we be a little louder.

Kelly: I don’t wanna go on a PA.

Kim: Well, that or we have to be through amps.

Kelly: Right.

Kim: We’re gonna need microphones for our voices.

TBD: That’s usually what they do down there.

Kim: I’ve asked about it, but I haven’t seen anything. We don’t have a drummer or a bass player or anything like that. Just me and Kelly and the Cheryl girl.

TBD: You guys will be fine. They have a minimal PA.

Kim: I always getting pretty particular about it. It’s so easy to suck.

Kelly: It is. It is.

Kim: If you just let somebody put it through all of a sudden your voice sound like this [pinches nose to emulate nasally sound]. It’s just all you can hear.

Kelly: What are you gonna do?

Kim: When me and Kelly were playing like at Mick’s and stuff, not so much there, but when we were playing around at Ground Round and Joe’s (?) Fish House, we had our own PA we would bring with us and we would sit it on our grandfather’s…..you know…old people can’t use the bathroom so they have to use the potty chair? We used that and took the toilet seat out, and we had the frame and we used to put the PA on the metal frame and that’s what was our PA system. Our grandfather’s potty chair.

Kelly: Oh wait! I’ll go grab it, it’s in the car…

[Ed. Note] At this point in the interview, Kelly returned to her car and retrieved a photo of the PA system Kim just described…

TBD: So you’re playing at Shake It support of the new EP, Fate to Fatal, right? So, which considering it’s release date, considering your usual release schedule, it’s very quick. It’s very exciting. Mountain Battles just came out last Spring. So, what has changed in the work schedule that has allowed this to come out so quickly?

Kim: Nothing really changed, I don’t think. It’s only four songs, so it’s easier. I don’t know. We started writing them last summer. Then…

Kelly:…started recording…

Kim: In the fall, we finished the song “Fate to Fatal” in London. In September. And then we just got the other ones together. We went up to Albini’s to do “Chances Are”, the 4-track version of the “Pinnacle Hollow”. Then Ben came up to the basement to do the “Last Time” one.

Kelly: I think too that we knew we were doing ATP, so we thought ‘Oh, we should put a single together,’ since we had “Fate to Fatal” already tracked. It was like, ‘Ooh, we could put a 7” out.’

Kim: Then it’s like, ‘Really, we should put out more than two songs…’”

Kelly: It became, ‘We’ve got three songs. Should we put em all out?’”

Kim: Actually, an EP’s better with four songs on it…

Kelly: The we thought, ‘Alright, we’ll do the cover then, too.’”

Kim: Right, and that’s like 15 minutes of music. At first we weren’t even gonna do that. We were just gonna give it away. But honestly, through a download just one song, but I…if I knew how to give it away I wouldn’t know how to sell it. By the time I’d write…I still don’t know how to actually give a song away, other than just upload it.

Kelly: iTunes

Kim: Right. But how would you even know anyone was there?

TBD: I’ll show you how to do that. So, two of the four songs you did at your place. One is obviously more lo-fi and one is a little cleaner.

Kim: Which one is the lo-fi one do you think?

TBD: The last one, “Pinnacle Hollow”.

Kim: So here’s the thing: So we’re thinking we’re gonna give em away. I was still thinking we’re giving this away and it’s only going to digital. So it’s like, well I’m definitely gonna just Pro Tool it since it would be ridiculous to pay real money to actually to an analog studio because I can’t afford it because it costs too much to record when music is free. To record analog. My hobby of analog recording can’t be paid for anymore, unless I do 4-track. We did drive up one day to do the cover of “Chances Are”. We had gone up in December we had done the benefit that Steve and Heather [Albini] do for the Santa’s Children, they do some sort of benefit. Steve Albini’s wife person, she runs Second City and they do a benefit. Second City has all their improve people stay up for 24 hours straight and they raise money by auctioning off things through this 24-hour benefit fundraiser. Me and Kelly went up there and we performed through the 24 hours, they get Jeff Tweedy to do stuff a lot. So we were there doing that, the drive up Chicago isn’t that bad. And if it’s only a day, it wasn’t anything that we’d wrote, it was only acoustic, so it didn’t take that long to do. I think we turned around and came home. So that was the analog recording…but you know what? We did do an analog recording on this, “Fate to Fatal” we went to a real studio in London, England, but we were on tour. It took like three days to record and mix it. But you know, I swear, after that it, you know, was still kinda pricey. For giving it away, that’s still a lot of money to be putting in there. So then when we were thinking about giving it away, then that’s when it started going, ‘You know what? We’re just gonna have to go to the basement. Start doing it on Pro Tools, because if it’s gonna be given away first of all, that’s one thing ‘cause I can’t even afford it. Another thing is if it’s gonna be given away through a digital medium, why spend all the time to go analog when it’s only gonna be given away through an MP3 file in the first place? My stance did not make any sense anymore.

TBD: As far as being like pure analog right?

Kelly: We did end up doing a vinyl on this though, so it’s kind of a strange thing.

Kim: Oh yeah.

Kelly: Two analog, two digital.

Kim: But the analog feels more like it’s not actually for a musical collector, it feels more like they’re a toy collectors or comic book collectors. It’s just in the collector genre. It doesn’t really feel like it’s a purist-of -analog guy wanting to take it and listen to it off his vinyl player, it’s more just to have it as a collector.

TBD: Some people.

Kim: I don’t know.

TBD: Not me. If I buy something, I’m so broke so I don’t buy anything, but if I buy anything, I buy vinyl. I don’t spend money on digital anymore.

Kelly: You’re not gonna buy the CD either.

Kim: You know, that’s another thing. It’s not like I hated digital and I didn’t want it to replace CDs. CDs suck. I just like vinyl better.

Kelly: I like CDs. Cause of my car. I like playing music in my car…

TBD: But see now they make the turntables that convert vinyl to MP3s, so best of both worlds…

Kelly: In the car though, the MP3 player that you use with the cassette thing…

TBD: Just burn a CD.

Kelly: That’s true…

TBD: Send it to your iTunes and burn a CD.

Kelly: That’s true.

Join us again tomorrow for Part 2...

MP3: The Breeders "Fate to Fatal"

VIDEO: The Breeders @ Shake It Records

...this past weekend, independent record stores around the world celebrated their mere existence with Record Store Day. In addition to numerous special releases from high-profile artists, many stores hosted some great in-store performances. One of the best record stores in the region, Shake It Records in Cincinnati hosted The Breeders for a special set in support of their new Fate to Fatal EP (due out tomorrow exclusively through the band). Thanks to our friends and Each Note Secure, here's a couple of clips of the Deal sisters in case you missed it...

Celebrate Record Store Day @ Gem City Records

...with the weather so beautiful today in Dayton, it's a perfect excuse for you to get out to Gem City Records today to show yr support for Record Store Day. Gem City Records will be giving away plenty of swag. If nothing else, there will be several local musicians performing today and tomorrow including Brandon Hawk, John Gassett, Jordan Hull, and Mascot. You can get the performance schedules here. If yr up for a road trip, Dayton's favorite sisters The Breeders will be doing a very special in-store performance at Shake It Records in Cincinnati at 8 pm this evening. The ladies will also have on hand their new EP, Fate to Fatal which they handscreened themselves before it's Tuesday, April 21 release date. You'll wanna grab those up before they're gone...

Breeders Shoot Video with Rollergirls...in St. Louis???

...last weekend, The Breeders spent their Valentine's Day in a way that is so the Deal sisters: filming a video with rollergirls. According to the St. Louis Riverfront Times, the band filmed a clip that will appear in conjunction with an EP due out this Spring, although the band only have an All Tomorrow's Parties date booked in May at the moment. While we're excited to see activity in The Breeders' camp, we're more baffled as to why the girls went to St. Louis to find some rollergirls. Who dropped the ball in Dayton???

The Breeders/Mountain Battles-Out TODAY

...after the sheer thud that was Title TK, The Breeders new album Mountain Battles seems to echo back to the band's heyday and justify their continued existence. From the loping drone and swell of We"re Gonna Rise" to their instantly recognizable swagger of "Walk It Off" to the pulsating "Bang On", we're pretty excited that the Deal sisters have bestowed another new work upon us...

The Breeders Announce US Tour Dates!

...don't get yr hopes up though. They aren't playing too close to Dayton. Following some warm up festival dates in the US and Europe, Kim Deal & co. will kick off an extensive US tour with a high-profile show at Coachella. If you got the gas money, maybe you can catch a show or two...

April
25- Indio, CA - Coachella Festival
28-San Diego, CA - Canes
29-Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre
30-San Francisco, CA - Slims


May
2-Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues
3-Tempe, AZ - Clubhouse
5-Austin, TX - Emos
6-Dallas, TX-House of Blues
7-Houston, TX- Meridian
9-Laurence, KS - Bottleneck
10-Sauget (St Louis), IL - Pops


23-Vancouver, BC - RIchards
24-George, WA - Sasquatch Festival
25-Portland, OR - Bebatti's Pan
27-Salt Lake CIty, UT - The Depot
28-Denver, CO - Ogden
30-Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
31-Chicago, IL - Metro


June
1-Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
3-Cleveland, OH- House of Blues
4-Northampton, MA - Pearl Street
5-Boston, MA - Paradise
7-New Haven, CT - Toad's Place
8-Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts
10-New York, NY - Webster Hall
11-Washington DC- 9:30 Club
13-Atlanta, GA - The Loft

...don't forget, the new album by The Breeders, Mountain Battles, hits the street on April 8...

sons and daughters

...it's just like '94 today as Pitchfork ran features on both The Breeders and Robert Pollard. In an interview with Kim Deal, she covers everything from her writing process to why the Pixies aren't going to do anything else to the upcoming album Mountain Battles to an on-stage interview with sister Kelley and recording guru and longtime collaborator Steve Albini at 3 am for charity...

...as if there isn't enough Robert Pollard material in circulation to establish his own wing of Library of Congress, here comes a regular. Due out Feb 12 is a single by The Takeovers, Little Green Onion Man(pictured above). In addition to Chris Slusarenko, this one features members of The Decembrists and Quasi...

...do what you must...

We're Gonna Rise

...despite the half decade that's passed since the underwhelming Title TK, we still get excited about the proposition of a new album from The Breeders. Yes, we said The Breeders. According to Pitchfork, the new album, Mountain Battles, is completed (finally) and will be out April 2008. The leaked track, "We're Gonna Rise" seems to stand up well against their finest material and hearkens back to some the drowsier material on Pod and Last Splash. Sure, we've waited long enough, but you know there's a shot it's still gonna be awesome. Head over here, have a listen, and let us know what you think...