Orafice Interview--March

TheFloatingCorpses — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 20:23:00 GMT

Orson: Why are you called The Floating Corpses? Roxy: In this culture that glamorizes and exploits violence and death, yet is afraid to face it’s own mortality, with The Floating Corpses, we are saying, ‘we are not gonna look the other way, we are not gonna let fear control us’; but also, as ghoulz of sub-nature who get off sifting thru various cemeteries of existence, and as witches unknown by many names, The Floating Corpses seemed to sum up our soundscrapes and spell castings. LuLu: We’re saying fuck you to the Corporate Empire; we are trying to change minds. Roxy: We don’t want to be another band peddled as product, nor do we want fans as consumer sheep, we strive to create community, together with the audience. LuLu: That is if we aren’t zapping them out of their complacency. Roxy: Or running for our lives. Orson: When did The Floating Corpses form? Roxy: When would you count it, Frog, er, I mean Orson? 1999: me alone with broken guitar and body singing songs on the street; 2000: when Frog and I wouldn’t let anything kill the newly created Corpses, be it our drunk drummer or our spun drummer, or our own habits of misfortune; or maybe the most accurate would be 2002: when LuLu joined, that is when we started to really find our sound. Orson: This planet is pretty hostile, do you ever feel like your from another solar system, that this planet is doomed, and that you should start looking for a new planet? Roxy: Yeah, I’ve written too many songs about that, but I love this planet a lot, I’m standing up for the planet; humanity is nearing it’s end, I think, or maybe just sort of hope, I hate to be jellyfish about it, as beautiful as they can be, but I have mixed feelings on the matter; shit, listen to our records, these are some of the conversations, poems, koans, divining musical puke, whatever you want to call it, that we are moved by and makers of, words cannot fully describe. Orson: Where did you two meet? How did your musick come together to create the driving force it is today? LuLu: Our mutual friend Camille hooked us up. We noticed each other around town for a few years, but I was dating someone else, and Roxy was dating whoever she could get to take her home for the night. Camille knew I was single again, and knew Roxy had a crush on me, her and Roxy, as well as Frog, all lived at the Ruby Rose Hotel at the time, so Camille set up a date. Orson: How did it go? Roxy: Love at first kiss. Followed by a series of dramatic dates, painful fights, passionate fucks. LuLu: Ok, let’s change the subject, now we’re getting too personal. Roxy: I’m getting too personal, you’re getting to personal. LuLu: Our relationship is personal, and well documented at our live shows. Orson: Roxy, are you playing thru two amps? Is one a 350 watt seventies tube Ampeg with a two 15 cab? Roxy: I don’t wish to discuss equipment in this interview, although I do enjoy geeking out, not in a Carnival of Lost Souls sordid way, well, maybe, if the liquors good. Orson: LuLu, where did you get your synth, what year is it, is it a Roland? Are you still rocking that Peavy bass amp? LuLu: I played the Roland sh-3 analog synth since the early 90’s in various bands and projects out of that Peavy bass amp, till about 3 years ago when I got the CAT SRMII by Octave Electronics, made in 1978--this rare pussy can roar! Duophonic 2vcos, 1lfo vca, vcf, adsr generator, the capabilities of patching these modules goes on and on . . . I play her out of that Roland Jazz Chorus that I bought from Margaret, remember? Roxy: Does this look corrupt, all the nudge nudge, wink wink, between interviewer and interviewee? LuLu: Anyway, love the tremelo and reverb on it, but I’m still nostalgic for that beat up Peavy with its monstrous fat bass tones. Oh yeah, and my various samplers . . . Orson: Who are some of your influences? LuLu: It is important to me to include insectal, animalian, and earth’s natural forces, samples procured both live, like catching the elephants seals during mating season, and from various scientific source materials collected from different libraries and individuals, and then playing them back live at shows, and during recordings, to honour the magnificence of wild earth, albeit thru an electronic medium. Also, confronting human hierarchy, not that humans aren’t neverending influences. I have a special passion for early electronic music and I owe much of my influence to Iannis Xennakis, David Tudor, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Edgar Varesse, Pierre Henri, Debbie Derbshire, Schaeffer, I could go on and on, but stay detuned, for my upcoming article, “Bring The Noise”, which will talk about more great composers, focusing on rhythms, frequencies, and intensities expanding the musical palate. Roxy: I don’t know if I can answer this question either, it’s stressing me out, shit, but for sure Billie Holiday, Little Richard, David Bowie, New York Dolls, I can’t do this, my friends, my friends, my bandmates, my peers; what about literary? Los Bros. Hernandez, Jack Kirby, Smut, trashy queer feminism, phantasies, experiences, the world around us, anti-racism, what we are trying to do, in spite of, because of, these shrinking words. Orson: Do you have any shoplifting stories? Roxy: Saving them for the memoirs. Orson: How many recordings have you done in the years you’ve been together as a band? Roxy: We have five records that are in our current catalog: 2003’s “Angel on the Nod and the Phantasy Defylment: sixty minutes of music”; 2006’s “Past Lives”, which we just got mastered, as well as the experimental “A Spell to Break the Mind Control”; and the just released “Future Cells” album, which we did on 1 inch 16 track analog in 2007, and also just got mastered; and 2008’s live release, “Live from Ragnarok!”. With you, I mean, with Frog, we recorded and released two records, 2002’s “Infectious Waste Revolution” and 2003’s “Oblivion”. We have made numerous other recordings that remain unreleased, but usually end up spending our time with new material. LuLu: Material is morph able, matter/antimatter. Roxy: Lu and Me’s musical collaboration has been marked. As perennial reeds for the muses, we are used. Did as thou wilt; I also like basketball and plants. Orson: What do you think about Satanism? Do you ever feel like Satanists are just a bunch of Christians in drag? Roxy: Satan is fun, although most of the campy glamour and charged debauchery seem to have been drained from it; I’ve sucked on Satan’s--Oh, I’ve sucked a lot of things, now I blow the T-Sax, which is the most symbiotic of all my musical equipment relationships; I was gonna get sucker tattooed on me once, that was before I become a hardened martial arts galactic rockian self made almost super anti-hero, heroine really, but don’t wanna go into the other meaning or the old rumors. We got all the drugs in us, although I am about do for an hallucinogenic pilgrimage. Orson: If you could do anything and not get caught, what would you do? LuLu: Freeing animals from research labs and taking them to animal sanctuaries has long been a dream of mine. Orson: Do you have anything else you can tell me, like when and where your next gig is? Roxy: Krispy Pickles is now Krispy Corpse, our rockin rollin sweetevilheart drummer. As for upcoming shows, we’re playing LA on March 15th, for a Mutant Transmissions Festival, with a bunch of other bands, all ages at a big warehouse; and on April 25th, in S.F., we are doing a sparsed, intimate rendition of our songs, also all ages, opening for M. Lamaar. I hate to say this, but, check out: www.myspace.com/thefreakmafia for more info. Plus we’ll continue to put up show and protest flyers, dig our names into wet cement, scream hysterically down the street, and whisper seductively on the astral plane.

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Orafice Interview--March