When does a local band start to really become local? When does it cease to be local? Is Laughing Man considered local even though they only recently moved to D.C. from Philly? Are Jukebox the Ghost or Thao Nguyen still local artists even though they no longer live here? Can D.C. claim Animal Collective at all since Geologist lives somewhere within city limits? For several months, I wrestled with this question, and as such hesitated to interview Farley Miller, the brains behind local avant-garde project Cannot Be Stopped. By the time I’d really gotten a chance to check out his brand of drum-initiated electronics, I’d found out that he’d be moving to California upon graduation from American University (which happened in May.)

The impetus for doing this interview is not that D.C. residents will only get two more chances to see Cannot Be Stopped before Miller relocates to the left coast. It’s that the complex electronic tunes that he has constructed were the result of being a recently transplanted musician in D.C. (and what’s more, a drummer) with nobody to play with. The music is interesting and Miller, equally so. We sat down with him over coffee to talk about his foray into booking local bands at American University, his future plans for Cannot Be Stopped and what he thinks it’ll take for D.C. to care about avant-garde music.