Three Stars: True Womanhood

RK: And it was, what, less than a week before the show?

TR: Yeah. We weren’t going to say no. That was really cool. We also played with Crystal Antlers.

MB: The HEALTH show was really cool. A lot of energy and I’ve never seen The Velvet Lounge so packed. Crystal Antlers was fun. It wasn’t very well attended and I think it was because it was raining. It was the first crappy day of the year.

TR: And it was a Monday night. Although the people we recognized were a good portion of the people there. The people we did know got a great show. We got a lot of great feedback as well. So, I think the diehards came out that night. So, we’re very appreciative. I don’t even know if I would’ve gone out that night. I mean, raining, freezing cold, Monday night. I’d say HEALTH was probably my favorite. It was really exciting and they’re probably my favorite of the big national bands we’ve played with.

MB: They were very friendly.

TR: It was like 20 minutes and it was really great. It was like the opening scene from Jurassic Park where the guy’s screaming “Shoot her! Shoot her!” and there’s electrocution and white light. That’s what their show looks like. And then I actually got a chance to talk to them afterwards and they’re like, “Oh yeah! That’s one of our influences!” We have the 3 disc edition and we watched the part where there was crazy guys with huge microphones making the sound. What do you think dinosaurs would sound like? And use guns and big pieces of metal and stuff.

MB: Thomas and the singer talked about that for about 45 minutes.

TR: So the Velvet Lounge is completely packed and they only have one bathroom. At least they did back then. So neither one of us was going to stand in line. There was like a ten minute line for the bathroom. I was back behind the Velvet Lounge peeing on a dumpster and he came back and I said, “Are you about to do what I’m doing?” and he said “Oh yeah!” and we started talking about Jurassic Park.

Are there any less obvious influences for you guys? I know you have some very creative percussion in your live show. The two obvious influences, I know and everyone that has reviewed you knows.

TR: You’re talking about Steve Reich and John Cale right.

Oh yes.

TR: I feel that [rampant Sonic Youth and Radiohead comparisons] is just convenience. That’s all it is. What those two bands two is they mix crazy avant garde stuff with pop stuff. And let’s be honest, that’s what we’re trying to do. We call ourselves an avant-pop band. But I think what’s really important to us is the new music that’s coming out now. We’d be more comfortable with a No Age and Beach House comparison. Or HEALTH and Beach House. Or No Age and Slow Dive. So I think it’s just convenience. We do make crazy avant garde stuff and beat on metal and those are the two biggest bands that do those kind of things. Bjork does it too. We’re definitely aligning ourselves with new music. There was definitely some doldrums in late 90s, early 2000 but interesting music is starting to crop up again and I feel like that’s what we’re a part of. We’re not looking backward. And of course people are getting more familiar with us. And at the beginning of any band you haven’t had a chance to forge your own identity and sound. So of course people are going to take whatever’s the most convenient, easiest comparison and go with that. Of course every band is going to have things that sound like Radiohead because everyone hears Radiohead but not everyone hears HEALTH. So it may be a little harder for someone who’s out of touch with that underground scene to go, “Ooh! HEALTH!” I mean, we have gotten HEALTH comparisons before too. Bjork is kind of a shared influence. I’d say Bjork and David Lynch. Bjork won’t be less obvious for long. We’re ramping it up.

RK: We have a timpani.

MB: We’ve listened to a lot of hip hop lately.

NE: I think it’s been showing up more and more in what we’ve been playing. In the oddest of ways. People wouldn’t really consider us a hip hop band.

In what sort of ways?

NE: We were just fooling around in practice and Thomas started playing this guitar riff and it sounded like it ought to be a Coolio song.

RK: We’re starting to get swagger, ya know? A “don’t mess with us” attitude. It takes a lot to build up that. That kind of attitude. Before we had the sound but the presence, not yet.

TR: It’s kinda scary when you’re onstage and the Velvet Lounge is completely full of people.

MB: We are so new, still so it has taken some time to get used to playing onstage.

TR: And I think a lot of the stuff that happens at practice, we’re still trying to become good enough to make it translate to the stage. A lot of times it’s just textures and stuff that we borrow from newer hip hop or a Bjork song. There’s this one new song we’re working on where I play the bass clarinet note and Ross recorded them onto a sampler. And he took the things he recorded and rearranged them into a song. And then Noam was playing a hip-hop beat over it. I mean, the end result sounds nothing like hip-hop but it’s that kind of beat and then the bass line comes in. And the bass line and the bass clarinet pretty much are the song. And then I have these two, actually four little windchimes that I hit a metal bar with. And it actually sounds like the sort of thing that would be going in a Lil Wayne song. A lot of what we try to do is take electronic glitchy noises and perform them live. And that’s where a lot of this metal and stuff that we play onstage is coming from is trying to get that song without being a laptop band.

What are some other things that have grown as you’ve been together?

TR: Well the piles of crap in my basement has been growing!

RK: Like today we did some improvisational stuff and for a long time we were working solely on songs and today we’ve growing new songs with improvisational stuff. And I think our comfort level with that has grown a lot as a band.

TR: Yeah, it takes a long time to develop that kind of chemistry to the point where you can play some that’s coherent and worthwhile. A lot of times you’re just jamming and it’s like getting stuck in the same ride over and over again. And for a band like us where we usually never jam, it’s kind of refreshing because we’re getting a lot of good ideas out of it. And then like, that’s how the whole band started. Ross and I were in a post-rock sort of jam band.

RK: It was more experimental!

TR: It was post-rock.

MB: Yeah, it was.

TR: But the thing is we played so much that we were able to generate hundreds of ideas. And now a lot of the songs we have are taking those ideas and putting them in different places and making actual songs. So I’m excited to see where the new ideas that we can generate really go.

MB: I think it helps that we’ve known each other since middle school.

NE: We all went to the same middle school and high school.

You were talking about some of the other bands that you like in the area. Who have you had a lot of fun playing with and watching?

TR: The show that we played with Imperial China and Caverns at the Black Cat was so much fun. That was like a huge party. We had a back room. I think we were sharing with Caverns.

RK: Normally they separate the bands into two separate rooms but all of the people from all three bands were just kind of hanging out in one room. That was cool. And that was a really awesome and well-attended and fun.

MB: I was really happy. That was on a Wednesday. I was really happy to see that people came out to see DC bands.

TR: The three bands are probably the most out-there bands. So I just thought it was really cool. Imperial China’s got crazy instrumentation as well. Caverns, I don’t even know.

MB: Really funny group of people, too. And afterwards I was reading comments on message boards and blogs and they were kind of like, “Yes! This is one of the best local shows I’ve seen this year!” or “It was the show I was most looking forward to this year!” It was really great to see that. I think Caverns put out an EP or something recently called “Kitty!”

TR: Oh yeah, and then it’s got an exclamation point and the dot is a cat. I love cats. We were taking pictures with my cat earlier today.

Do you think those will appear on future posters?


TR: Hopefully. The last time we did a photo shoot cats were involved and Farley who is a band called Cannot Be Stopped at AU used the picture of the cat in front of a True Womanhood banner as the icon for the show we did there.

MB: Cannot Be Stopped is another really great concept.

TR: We played with him and Capital Punishment in the Religious Center Basement. He does some neat electronics and the theory behind it that he’s doing is pretty interesting, too. Drum triggers and the triggers are hooked up to a computer synthesizer or something. So it’s pretty cool and we might have to steal some of his ideas maybe.

RK: We’ll steal from anybody. Even Girl Talk. This is my plan. We want to sample Girl Talk and see if he sues us.

TR: I would love to get sued by Girl Talk for sampling him. That would be even better than the whole Joe Satriani/Coldplay thing. Cause it’d be soaked in irony. The irony blast of the century. Then we could go on tour with Girl Talk. He could sample us and we could sample him sampling us.

RK: He could sample us while we’re playing and then use it for his next set and then we could sample that for our next set.

TR: It’ll be the next generation of what Wire used to do. Wire didn’t play for ten years or something. They came back and they were touring from their new albums from the 80s and of course their albums from the 70s were the ones with all the good songs that everyone was waiting for. So they had the opening band as a cover band covering their most famous songs.

RK: We should do that too!

TR: Some other DC bands I’ve been listening to lately are Deleted Scenes. They just put out “A Birdseed Shirt” and we’ve been trying to do a show with them for awhile. Also there’s a band called Hume that I’ve been checking out. They’re pretty cool. It’s more lo-fi experimental kind of stuff.

MB: We also went to high school with some of the guys from Magruder Grind and Turboslut and they’re doing excellent things for the DC music scene. Very DIY.

TR: Yeah, Magruder Grind is taking off. They’re a grindcore band and Ross and I saw them at the Black Cat with Pig Destroyer and for my money Magruder Grind was definitely the best. They definitely had the most punk sort of energy. Pig Destroyer was interesting. Dark red lights and smoke and this crazy man just pacing up and talking.

MB: Some of the best shows in DC are these small house shows. Like the Girl Cave.

TR: We played a show there and it was really fun. The people there were genuinely interested in music. And it’s not that expensive and there’s food for everybody. A lot of times with club shows there’s pressure to bring people out so that they’ll buy alcohol and make the whole thing worthwhile but at a house show it’s definitely more about the music and you don’t have to worry about stupid stuff like that.

MB: And Becks from Turboslut and Chris from Magruder Grind, they do a lot of booking in the area. And they really make sure to hook you up with a place to stay after you play a show. They make sure to pay you. Sometimes they pay you out of their pockets, if I recall.

RK: They do really good publicity stuff. They do all the posters for the shows.

TR: And since that kind of music is a little less successful than the kind of music that you’d see at Rock and Roll Hotel or the Black Cat it seems like it flies under the radar and it would be pretty easy for people to miss it, but that would be a mistake because there’s some pretty cool stuff going on that nobody knows about.

Would you say that those are some of your favorite venues in the area?



TR: We saw a show at The Lighthouse and it was really cool. I forget all the bands but I know Pwrful Pwr was playing. That kind of house was awesome because they’d have one band setting up in the basement and Pwrful Pwr playing upstairs and there was a lot of people there. There were sixty people there, maybe. And then those people would migrate downstairs. It went a lot quicker. There was food. Everybody was having a good time. And plus it was a little more accessible; it was in a neighborhood. So that was a little bit more fun to play than a club where if you don’t bring out more than thirty people, you’re going to get half of the record for that.

RK: Gallery shows are cool too.

What galleries have you played in?

MB: Civilian Art Projects.

TR: With Velodrome. That might be my favorite show so far.

RK: It’s like a dance party but they’ll also have a band play. And I think the idea behind it being that you get these kids out who wouldn’t ordinarily be dancing if they’re going to a show to see a band and then all these people who like to dance but wouldn’t be into the band scene and get them together and everyone has a really good time. The kids who normally just sit there and wait patiently for the music start dancing. I thought it was a really fun show.

TR: We had an amazing turnout as well. Ed and Scott are the ones who run it. Scott is in Lode Runner. It’s all more based on post-punk and weird European dance music, so it’s not popular dance stuff. But people got their groove going.

MB: And people could alternate between an area where there was DJ music playing or they could go into the next room where there was all this art and a gallery. And they served alcohol.

TR: The only thing that was a little harrowing was the three flights of extremely steep stairs to get to get up there taking all our stuff. We have a timpani, then we have some drums, we have bass amps, guitar amps, but my guitar amp in particular probably weighs 200-250 pounds and we had to carry it up like a coffin. That was seriously hard work. The good thing about the show and how much we enjoyed it is that I didn’t even think about that until just now. I enjoyed the show so much.

RK: That kind of environment kind of stimulates you for art in general.

TR: To be honest our band is less of a rock and roll, hell yeah, smashing beer bottles and that kind of stuff and brick walls. I feel like our music would probably do better in a gallery.

Is this stuff that having grown up in this area that has been going on for awhile or is this stuff that you’re just starting to see?

TR: DIY punk obviously has a history here, but the gallery shows I personally knew nothing about. Or the dance parties. Velodrome is very new. Before we started doing this band thing, I personally had no idea about that. I knew that there were house shows going on with punk bands but just recently seeing that there’s a great diversity of bands playing house shows. I thought it was all punk, grindcore, stuff like that. That Pwrful Pwr is doing a house show is really cool to me.

RK: I think that’s awesome and I think the more of that you see, the more little kids who can make it to all ages shows and not and not barred from entrance because they can’t buy alcohol, you’ll get a better art and music scene in DC. Cause all ages shows, face it, are better than 21 and over.

MB: Our friends from Magruder Grind and Turboslut, they have been putting on shows since high school. And there would be one hundred people coming out, having a wonderful time. So that’s been going on for awhile but I didn’t know too much about the gallery shows until recently and I love them. And I think a lot of people like them, they like the idea of being around art and wine and a band that has a cool projection screen behind them. It’s fun.

RK: I used to go gallery hopping a lot. I’d just wander around DC but there was never any music playing. There was the wine and all the art and people and that was cool but I think the music adds a sort of interesting venue. I think the rock club, I really enjoy. But it’s just a different space.

MB: It seems like the people who came out to the house show we did like a month ago to the house show we did at the Girl Cave and the show we did at Civilian Art Projects consistently come out to the other shows we play at venues or whatever.

TR: There’s this one guy that I’ve seen four times and we have this continuing conversation from show to show.

MB: I wonder why it is, I guess people feel like they’re in a more friendly zone when they’re at a house show, maybe?


NE: I guess I also feel that when you’re in a big club and you’re standing on the stage, there’s this big separation between you and the audience and the audience and you and you don’t really feel as an audience member. I would go to shows and there would be this weird sort of distance. And then if you go to the house show or the gallery show, you’re on the same level. And playing in a band you feel a lot closer to the audience. It gives you a lot of energy. And then you feel like it’s much easier to connect with people, talk to them and I really like that. And I like being integrated into the environment rather than being the environment itself.

TR: I wish more art galleries would open themselves to concerts because in DC in particular, most of the cool spaces and buildings are art galleries or museums. A rock club is like 15 feet wide and pretty long because it’s a converted row house or something and that doesn’t really get your imagination going in terms of space or sound. And it’s a hard environment for sound because it’s often times excessively loud and it’s not the good kind of loud. There’s a lot of high end reverb going around it and it spoils the sound a lot of times especially for a band like ours where the actual sounds are very important. It’s kind of a shame that the major acts that go around, at least in this city, I don’t know about other cities, always get stuck in the same couple of clubs. I mean, Dan Deacon did a show at the Hirshhorn. That’s amazing! We couldn’t go. We were actually doing “We Fought the Big One” with Rick Taylor. We’ll get to that later.

RK: We saw the Apes at that huge place, Artomatic. We saw the Apes and Food For Animals and Video Hippos. That’s what turned us onto Video Hippos.

Okay, tell me more about “We Fought the Big One.”


TR: We Fought the Big One is a DJ night the first Friday of every month at Mark’s Cafe in Mt. Pleasant. And it’s run by Rick and Brandon. Rick is a very good friend of our band. He’s one of the first people to actually take notice. He did a pretty in depth interview for Brightest Young Things awhile back.

MB: About us.

TR: And he invited us to "We Fought the Big One." They really do a good job of focusing on weirder more out there music. And what they’re playing is kind of commendable. They have this great space in a pretty hip neighborhood in DC on a good night and they’re using it to promote music from record labels like Slumberland and What’s Your Rupture? up in New York and local bands like us. Rick has so many connections to bands in DC like The Antiques and Exit Clov and tons of bands and he plays that stuff and people are there drinking their Belgian beer, listening to it, soaking it all in hopefully.

MB: But he has an email list where every month he recaps what he and his friend Brandon have played. And it creates this kind of community.

TR: It’s great exposure for DC ‘cause DC doesn’t have the greatest reputation for being experimental I feel like. Part of DC’s history is kind of conservative. Not in a political way but in an artistic way. And that’s not to say that we don’t love Fugazi and Minor Threat and stuff like that but Rick’s so well connected with the owners of record labels and stuff like that. When he brings in people to a DC DJ night, then he lists the choices of their songs for the night and then he sends them to everyone. Like really really important people. I think it’s just such a great promotion for DC. He is a tastemaker and it’s beautiful and he does great interviews with, like, Thurston Moore.

MB: Love Is All.

TR: Mahogany. Rick Taylor is the man. He definitely has big plans for "We Fought the Big One."

You were talking at a recent show about recorded material. Are you in that process right now or is that forthcoming?

TR: I guess looking ahead a little bit, we’re basically working on that full throttle right now. We’ve got a whole bunch of ideas but right now what looks most promising is we’re either going to try to do a series of 7” singles and then an EP. I’m not sure how all of this is going to work out but we’ll figure it out. We’ve been talking to a member of the Death By Audio collective up in Brooklyn. They’re a venue, record label and effects pedal company. His name is David Levin and he actually went to high school with us as well. He’s actually the live engineer for A Place to Bury Strangers fresh off of the Nine Inch Nails tour. So we’ve been talking with him about helping record future singles or an EP or whatever and hopefully we’ll be doing some of that up at Death By Audio using their really cool spaces and live space and small practice space and huge living space with thirty foot ceilings and everything. Brooklyn’s already so important but Death By Audio is definitely one of the focal points of that whole scene right now. So we’re really excited to work with them.

MB: That would be really cool to go to a different city and maybe be inspired by something that will translate to our recording.

TR: And outside of that one show we did in Baltimore, we haven’t left DC. I guess we’re also considering doing some of the tracking at College Park at WMUC studios. They also have a great space, tons of great equipment and the people that work there are some of the biggest music fans in DC and just extremely knowledgeable.

MB:They’ve been extremely kind to us.

TR: We’ve played up there a couple of times, too. We have another one coming up. January 4th. Another Third Rail. And the people up there like Christopher Berry and Sean Grey just to name a few for bringing in amazing bands. They had Vivian Girls play there. They had Jay Reatard, Times New Viking, Fucked Up, all kinds of bands. The College Park scene is amazing and I also think it’s a little bit at times, forgotten.

MB: But kind of back to what we were saying before, the college shows that we’ve done have been really fun. Those are some of our most successful shows because people are really interested in music and building a community.

TR: A lot of times people go to those shows are active participants in it and not just “Oh, this band was on the internet, I guess I’ll go.”

RK: We had this guy from Pittsburgh who was dancing like a maniac.

TR: And he came up to us afterwards and was just like, I just want you to know you’re music really affected me and I just had to dance.

MB: And it’s hard for people to get DC to dance.

TR: And Ross and I were at a Video Hippos show up in MICA in Baltimore and the people were going insane. The music would stop and they were still moshing. Moshing just for the hell of it. People were throwing each other around getting really into it so I thought “Wow. Hm. We’d better start playing in Baltimore.”

MB: Yeah, we’re about to go on a tour in February. A couple shows on the East Coast and maybe follow that up with a bigger tour a month or two after that. I don’t know. Should be fun. Things are going really well for us I think. I’m really happy about it.