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1:32 PM EST March 6, 2024:
Mike Polizze - "Do Do Do"
From the album
Mojo Presents In My Life: The New Singer-Songwriters
(August 18, 2020)
Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm
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Purling Hiss - Don’t Even Try It - Johnny Brenda’s Philadelphia PA - 4-21-2023
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#purling hiss#don't even try it#mike polizze#ben leaphart#pat hickey#garage punk#garage psych#psychedelic rock#noise rock#live 2023#Youtube
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Purling Hiss Interview: Piecemeal Worldbuilding
BY JORDAN MAINZER
“It’s finally here. I can’t believe it.”
That was Mike Polizze over the phone, speaking to me last month about Drag on Girard, the new Purling Hiss album out now via Drag City. It’s the catchiest, most power pop-forward PH record yet, Polizze’s lead-rhythm guitar arrangements and the singalong harmonized vocals leading the charge on sci-fi songs vaguely about Philadelphia, paranoia, and everything in between.
Drag on Girard seems like a return to Polizze’s skyward scuzz, after the dialed back, languid jams of his solo debut Long Lost Solace Find. In actuality, though, it was supposed to come out long before this year, just like the valiant “return” from Polizze’s other band, Birds of Maya’s Valdez, recorded in 2014 but released 7 years later. Polizze and company started tracking Girard at the tail end of 2019 and finished it in early 2020. Before he was able to do vocals and overdubs, the pandemic and lockdown happened. He eventually got into the studio in 2021, but delays in vinyl manufacturing backups and therefore test pressings, in combination with Drag City’s regular release queue, meant that the record didn’t come out until this March. “It seems on paper like a long break between Purling Hiss records,” the prolific Polizze said. “But the chronology was messed up.”
2022 was the first year since Polizze started his music career that none of his projects released anything. Because 2020′s Long Lost Solace Find was technically his last record chronologically, the world feels weirdly open. At the start of the pandemic, he and his wife moved from Fishtown in Philly to the suburbs where he grew up, and they now have a two-year-old child. “Coming out on the other side of all that is kind of a weird feeling,” said Polizze. “Now, I’m at an interesting point where there’s no big plan.” Even if the looseness of Drag on Girard is coincidental, you can see Polizze’s unbound attitude in everything from the way he’s honest about the piecemeal worldbuilding of Drag on Girard’s themes to the fact that he’s not currently working with a booking agent, planning shows himself. That includes tonight and tomorrow night at Union Pool in Brooklyn, with Chris Forsyth and Garcia Peoples.
Read my conversation with Polizze below, edited for length and clarity.
Since I Left You: Do you think the loose sounding nature of Drag on Girard was a result of your attitude to just have fun with it?
Mike Polizze: Yes, absolutely. We recorded at Jeff [Zeigler’s] again. I really wanted that “live in the studio” feel. There were even a couple songs that weren’t totally structured. The ones on the B-side are “let’s just have fun with it,” which is the spirit of the live stuff. I still feel like I want to go in that direction more. I wanted it to be off-the-cuff, not super refined.
SILY: It almost seems to me like the punkier, noisier, scuzzier version of the same spirit as Long Lost Solace Find. Same vibe, different aesthetic.
MP: The solo album is pretty much just me, and Kurt [Vile] on a couple things, and [Drag on Girard] is with the band. It’s weird, because the songs are new to people now, and they’re still fresh for us, but everything got put on hold for everybody.
SILY: Have you been playing the Drag on Girard songs live for a bit?
MP: The first song, “Yer In All My Dreams”, had been kicking around for a few years, in the live sets since 2017-2018, and we cut it in the studio in 2019. I still can’t believe how much time has passed. “Baby”’s been kicking around for a while. “Stay With Us”, [too].
SILY: I like how the record traverses the different eras of guitar music. There are some of your usual influences, and the closing track has a Crazy Horse thing going on, but songs like “When The End Is Over” and even “Out The Door” has that jangle pop feel to it. Are you a fan of Flying Nun Records?
MP: Yeah, I do like that stuff a lot. I don’t really know where influences come from. I consider it like fishing. You have the fishing rod out, and you’re waiting for something to come along. That’s how I write. I didn’t set out to write like this on purpose. The placeholder name for “When The End Is Over” was “Power Pop” because it felt like Cheap Trick or Shoes or even Teenage Fanclub. But yeah, I love The Clean and all that stuff.
SILY: How did you approach the lyrics on the record?
MP: Normally, I’ll sort of find a song or riff and work off that and come up with parts just by jamming on them and seeing where they fall. Lyrics are usually last. I’ll have syllables formed over parts, and maybe a word or two will pop into my mind as a placeholder that presents a theme. When it’s time to really figure it out and I have the pacing and tempo and syllables and inflection, I think, “What do I feel? What kind of words can I conjure up for this?” It fits like a puzzle, with the guitar, then structure, then we practice over it and I sing non-words, then I go to the notepad. It’s less of a story and more nonsensical poetry. I edit from there.
SILY: There’s definitely a bit of sci-fi in here.
MP: [laughs] Maybe in some parts. “Baby” has some funny lyrics. “Drag on Girard”, too.
SILY: What about “Something in my Basement”?!?
MP: Yeah. It’s kind of like my joke to myself, like Little Shop of Horrors. Kitschy and fun. I didn’t know it was going to end up being about that. Little quips or slogans or titles pop up in [my] memory that I build off of. “Something in my basement” popped up in my mind, and the idea of a story there, and the end of the song is, “There’s nothing in my basement,” so the question is whether it really happened or whether it was all in your mind.
SILY: Is it similar to your approach to the instrumentation and aesthetic, where your inspirations are a bit more subconscious?
MP: Yeah, kind of. It’s all right there. We’re constantly taking in information, and I don’t really think of the full idea first at all. I start scribbling, on paper or on guitar, then get a Voice Memo going on my phone. I used to just use my memory when I was younger, and then tape machines. But that is the formula.
I have goals, sometimes, or a general direction I want to go in, but the best thing to do for me is to improvise it and let it guide me and go for it. If I ever hit a wall, which happens all the time, I have to figure out how to navigate, so I keep it wide and vague and then hone in on it as I go. It’s not all figured out before I start.
SILY: Do you feel like this record is a balm when you consider how out of sorts the world feels?
MP: It feels celebratory, in a way. We had fun with it. Truthfully, it was all written before the pandemic happened. I’m happy with it, for sure. It’s kind of like an opposite record from [Long Lost Solace Find], which is refined-sounding in my opinion. It’s structured, pretty even. [Drag on Girard] is pretty off-the-rails. I don’t know if it sounds that way. Just because it took so long to come out doesn’t mean we were in the studio the whole time. It’s pretty shrill in some parts. I tried to balance between raw and unhinged with pop sensibilities. It’s all over the place.
SILY: What’s the album title mean?
MP: It’s an inside joke between my drummer Ben [Leaphart] and I. When I first moved to Philly in 2004, I met him and Jason [Killinger] from Birds of Maya. It was the first time I moved into a house with bandmates and roommates. Fishtown was starting to gentrify a bit, but it was still an affordable place. Part of me is talking about the glory days of that, but I’m not from that neighborhood, so what right do I have? [In any case,] it was affordable and became this artist utopia with a lot of music people. It was a good time right around then, the early 2000s, with Espers, Jack Rose, Birds of Maya, Kurt Vile, The War on Drugs. Johnny Brenda’s was one floor, no food, draught beer, a hole in the wall.
Girard Avenue is one of the main strips/arterial routes that goes through Fishtown, along with Frankford Avenue. Me and Ben had our used crappy old vehicles. In 2004, I’d meet up with him and there’d be nobody on Girard. It was pretty dead at night. There were no cars on the road after 8 P.M. We’d joke about drag racing on Girard Avenue. It was an edgier neighborhood. Since then, Fishtown has totally gentrified: There’s no parking, it’s overdeveloped, there are all these crappy buildings, and there’s nowhere to move. This isn’t anything political or social, just a personal inside joke. It’s actually kind of stupid, but I thought the title had a good ring to it. Philly can be “a drag,” and there’s other imagery invoked in that. I like it when things have or could have more than one meaning.
SILY: This record is also a windows-down, blast from the car stereo record.
MP: [laughs]
SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art?
MP: I had lots of sketches, and I drew and colored with different mediums a lot before I moved out of Fishtown in 2018-2019. I haven’t done it much the past few years. Jason is an artist and graphic designer. I brought a lot of stuff to him, but we actually went a different direction. It’s not what the cover is now. We had a couple other ideas, and the cover that’s now is one of them. It matched the back cover idea, which we did have. I think we hit a wall. We didn’t really know what we wanted. I pitched some of my sketch ideas, and my bandmates liked it, and Drag City [did, too]. I liked it because I made it, but I don’t know what the world likes. Every once in a while, I’ll draw things that don’t make sense. Kind of like the sci-fi thing, [the] guy [on the cover] is sort of my catatonic space traveler suspended in the multi-verse, or something. It’s half-baked, and tied into Drag on Girard. It’s funny how I stitched together this half-baked story and imagery, this theme of sci-fi imagery and living in Philadelphia. There are these songs, lyrics, album cover, and album title, and I almost put together the story in reverse that way. We’re people and take in all this information every day, and there are probably people who are way more organized than me. It’s fun for me, and it feels multi-dimensional, going from the sketches to Jason and me working on it to Drag City. It’s not the order I expected.
SILY: Have you been writing new material?
MP: Yeah. It honestly feels great, and sometimes, I don’t realize it until moments like this where I get to talk about it. There are irons in the fire. I feel grateful I always have something I feel like I can work on because I’ve compiled enough ideas on my own. I’m working on another solo record; slowly but surely, you’ll see something there at some point. I’m so lucky to have the bandmates I have in Purling Hiss, I’m sure we’ll keep working on stuff. Birds of Maya wants to do some more stuff. I almost miss editing music in my 4-track and computer at home. Any free time that’s rare, I miss messing around with things outside of what I just mentioned. There have been a couple ideas with collaborations, but nothing I can speak on because they might not happen. I’m trying to keep things moving.
SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading you’ve dug?
MP: I’ve been struggling to find time to read but I have a pile of books. Fiction-wise, I got True Grit. I got the SST [Records] book, Corporate Rock Sucks. Because of my toddler, I’m squeezed for personal time.
Since Wayne Shorter died, I’ve been on a jazz kick. My dad died when I was a teenager, but he played saxophone and started music school young and didn’t end up doing it because he had a family. But he had a pretty cool record collection. He left behind a bunch of jazz records, lots of Blue Note stuff. Lots of [John] Coltrane lately. I keep going through kicks, days where I listen to my own band practices and demos, and then I’ll get to the point I need to listen to other people’s music. Gábor Szabó. My dad had Dreams in his collection. Pharoah Sanders’ Karma. I really wish he had Sun Ra stuff. I know Sun Ra was between Chicago and Philly--we can’t take full credit for him.
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#interviews#purling hiss#mike polizze#drag city#ben leaphart#pat hickey#live picks#jeff zeigler#jason killinger#drag on girard#long lost solace find#birds of maya#valdez#union pool#chris forsyth#garcia peoples#kurt vile#flying nun#flying nun records#cheap trick#shoes#teenage fanclub#the clean#little shop of horrors#espers#jack rose#the war on drugs#johnny brenda's#true grit#corporate rock sucks
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Purling Hiss : Drag On Girard
Purling Hiss formed in 2009 as an outlet for Philly musician Mike Polizze’s solo work. Polizze was already an established musician in the Philly band Birds of Maya. After putting a band together to open for Kurt Vile and the Violators, Vile encouraged Polizze to put a full-time band together for Purling Hiss so they could tour together.
From there Purling Hiss became the main gig, a gig that…
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Purling Hiss — Drag on Girard (Drag City)
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This is the first record in seven years that Mike Polizze has released from his band Purling Hiss. Drag on Girard is full of fearsome guitar solos, an enormous sound from the rhythm section and sing-shout vocals that betray its alternative roots. In the record’s songs, Polizze is in no hurry to make an impact, allowing the music to grow organically, often spreading out into long-form improvisations. The rest of Purling Hiss consists of Kiel Everett, guitar; Pat Hickey, bass; and Ben Leapheart, drums.
The title tune is an example. Clocking in at over seven minutes, Polizze sings laconically in a narrow range, betraying an abiding interest in 1990s alternative rock. It is the guitar solos and big beats of the rhythm section that justify the duration. Indeed, if the song kept going, which it might well in live settings, it wouldn’t be unwelcome. “Shining Gilded Boulevard” has one of the best riffs among many memorable riffs, Polizze beginning the song with an extended guitar solo that is melodically generous and wide ranging, demonstrating abundant chops. Hickey digs into his bass, playing roots and ambling up the neck to craft a countermelody to Polizze. Leapheart’s drumming is thunderous, with periodic fills that punctuate the guitar solo. The coda brings together group vocals in laconic harmony.
“When the End is Over” has a sinuous chord progression that accompanies Polizze singing a more melodic vocal tune. Duet guitars soar on the instrumental break, which is followed by two more verses by Polizze, punctuated by insistent guitar melodies. “Out the Door” begins with strident distortion from Polizze’s guitar, to which is added a warm rhythm guitar, melodic riffs, and pressing drumming, with Leapheart hitting double time fills with unerring precision.
Pithy songs are well constructed too. The riff for “Baby,” as well as its two-minute duration, provide a slice of post-punk with sneering vocals and fierce guitar solos in the outro. Similarly, the ardent drumming, economical rhythm guitar, and anthemic vocals on “Stay With Us” create a hang that seems to close up early.
Worth the wait? Absolutely. But Polizze should consider another Purling Hiss recording sooner.
Christian Carey
#purling hiss#drag on girard#drag city#christian carey#albumreview#dusted magazine#rock#psychedelia#guitars#fuzz#feedback#philadelphia
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IN A MINUTE:
A BUZZ_BIN EXPRESS…
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“ON A MICRO DIET” is the lead single/title-track from @mystic100s’ forthcoming LP (3/31 @onlineceramics/Listening House) & it finds the Olympia-based sextet of Alex Coxen (guitar/vocals), Dave Harris (guitar), Charles Waring (bass), Abby Dahlquist (piano/synth) & Joe Rutter/Travis Coster (percussion) shedding their former Milk Music moniker while still bringing plenty of sprawled-out, grunge’d up & shapeshifting PsychRawk.
“DRAG ON GIRARD” is the latest single/title-track from @purling_hiss’ forthcoming LP (3/24 @dragcityrecords) & it finds Mike Polizze’s Philly-based project dropping damn near 8 mins of spaciously squalling, noisily dense & classic _rawking FuzzPop.
“INSEPARABLE” is the lead single/track from @vulture_feather’s forthcoming debut LP titled ‘Liminal Fields’ (6/2 @felte_label) & it finds the trio of Colin McCann (vocals/guitar), Brian Gossman (bass) & Eric Fiscus (drums) bringing their “post/pre/future punk band from the mountains of northern California & New Mexico, respectively” ethos across a 4:53 clip of urgently spaced-out AltRock.
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TASTY TUNES POSTED BELOW...
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#Songs#music#bands#artist#mystic100s#purlinghiss#vulturefeather#rock#indie#indierock#postpunk#psych#psychrock#rocknroll#punk#noise#altrock#alternative#alternativemusic#alternativerock#goth#rockmusic#indiemusic#Aesthetic#screamingforyears
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Mike Polizze - Revelation
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5/20/20.
Mike Polizze is the frontman of Purling Hiss - one of the more appropriately named bands I can remember. Their sound is fuzzy (hiss) yet poppy in spots (I choose to call that purling). Polizze’s new solo album “Long Lost Solace” is coming out on Paradise of Bachelors.
Polizze is a Philadelphia original and as such is friends with Kurt Vile (who plays and sings extensively on “Long Lost Solace”), Jeff Ziegler (producer for War on Drugs) and Adam Granduciel (producer of Purling Hiss’ 2013 release “Water on Mars” - released on Drag City). While Granuciel is the only one who didn’t get his mitts on this new release his influence is no doubt evident. Ziegler produced this release.
“Revelation” is the only current song available. But of this release Kurt Vile said,
“I love this music so much. ‘Revelation’ is the summer jam I needed, and this is absolutely my summer record. I’m not just sayin’ that because Mike is my bro, and I happened to play and sing on it.” He goes on to say: “I’m so proud and honored to have made the cut on five jams. I remember one day, fresh from the road, I brought over a National resonator that I had just bought on tour… some harmonicas… and my trumpet (on request) and, shit, I gotta say that might be the best trumpet I done laid down in a while’s time… for you, Mike! So many of these songs give me chills.” Kurt reflects further that “I think we all could use these catchy, beautiful jams in our respective quarantines (physical and mental)… I needed this shit! Mike Polizze is the guitar god of Philly, and Jeff Zeigler (recording king) knocked this one out the park, baby.”
After what we’ve all been through, I could use a summer jam album.
#Mike Polizze#Paradise of Bachelors#Purling Hiss#Philadelphia#Jeff Zielger#Adam Granuciel#Kurt Vile#War on Drugs#Drag City
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The Return of Spring 2
To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. – Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Spring”
If you like dreamy pop/rock music with some jangle, a little power, and just a bit of twee then you have come to the right place. Wub-Fur Internet Radio presents another (what else?) eclectic streaming mix — 21 contemporary indie tunes with a springtime feel. The long-awaited sequel to our original The Return of Spring mix, released 2 years ago this week, which leaned more to the psychedelic side, but had a similarly vernal vibe. Featuring Swansea Sound, Parsnip, Real Estate, the Painted Shrines, Paint, Catenary Wires, Cool Ghouls, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, and 13 more bands who enjoy the scent of blooming flowers wafting on a warm gentle breeze and stuff like that.
Cover Art: Invasion (Le Guêpier) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1892.
▶︎ Listen: Mixcloud | 8tracks
(or scroll down to use an embedded player below)
Running Time: 59 minutes, 38 seconds
Tracklist
Indies of the World (2:43) — Swansea Sound | Swansea, UK
Repeater (3:05) — Parsnip | Melbourne †
Panoramic (1:48) — Painted Shrines | San Francisco
Overdry (3:21) — Hoorsees | Paris
Bummerthyme [Radio Edit] (3:45) — Strange Magic | New Mexico
Ta Fardah (2:47) — Paint | Los Angeles †
Baby (3:34) — The Molds | Charleston, SC †
Half a Pair of Shoes (2:50) — Monnone Alone | Melbourne
I Don't Mind (1:39) — The Boys With The Perpetual Nervousness | Madrid / Edinburgh
I Think I'm Ready to Let You Go (3:14) — Jetstream Pony | Brighton, UK †
Ribbon (2:59) — Real Estate | Brooklyn
Feel Like Getting High (2:08) — Cool Ghouls | San Francisco
Beautiful Steven (3:47) — Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever | Melbourne †
Rock on a Feather (2:50) — Mike Polizze | Philadelphia †
Verfremdungseffekt (2:42) — Peel Dream Magazine | New York
Mirrorball (3:38) — The Catenary Wires | England
The Record Player and the Damage Done (2:21) — The Reds, Pinks & Purples | San Francisco
Wilson Jaqueline (2:54) — Savoy Motel | Nashville †
The Wind Was Like a Train (2:38) — Wild Pink | New York
Irish Suit (3:03) — The Peacers | San Francisco
Who Can Be Loved in This World? (1:54) — Elvis Depressedly | Asheville, NC †
All tracks released in 2021, except those marked † which were released in 2020.
🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷 🌱🌷
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21 Wire Mind Hive
22 Stuck Change Is Bad
23 Osees Protean Threat
24 Flat Worms Antarctica
25 Bill Callahan Gold Record
26 Waxahatchee Saint Cloud
27 Adrianne Lenker songs
28 Wasted Shirt Fungus II
29 Woods Strange To Explain
30 Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Sideways To New Italy
31 The Homesick The Big Exercise
32 Destroyer Have We Met
33 Wolf Parade Thin Mind
34 METZ Atlas Vending
35 The Flaming Lips American Head
36 Adulkt Life Book of Curses
37 Helvetia This Devastating Map
38 Melkbelly PITH
39 Peel Dream Magazine Agitprop Alterna
40 Holy Motors Horse
41 Mike Polizze Long Lost Solace Find
42 Perfume Genius Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
43 Four Tet Sixteen Oceans
44 Throwing Muses Sun Racket
45 Shirley Collins Heart’s Ease
46 Deradoorian Find The Sun
47 The Proper Ornaments Mission Bells
48 No Age Goons Be Gone
49 Wax Chattels Clot
50 Uniform Shame
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Güncel folk kayıtlarından bir seçki // A selection of recent folk recordings. Download.
01 – Bill Callahan – Pigeons
02 – Brigid Mae Power – I Was Named After You
03 – Aukai ft. Lisa Morgenstern – Zora
04 – Phoebe Bridgers – Halloween
05 – Haux – Killer
06 – Mike Polizze – Wishing Well
07 – Ezra Feinberg – Acquainted With The Night
08 – Andrew Tuttle – Hilliard Creek, Finucane Road
09 – Tenci – Joy
10 – Sally Anne Morgan – Garden Song
11 – Tashi Dorji – End Of State, Part III
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Purling Hiss - Another Silvermoon
#purling hiss#another silvermoon#mike polizze#kiel everett#ben leaphart#psychedelic rock#garage rock#weirdon#2014#Youtube
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Mike Polizze Interview: Tune Fishing
Photo by Constance Mensh
BY JORDAN MAINZER
What came first: The label or the artist? That’s not really a question you ask these days when it comes to independent music, as you hear tales of already done bedroom recordings seeking a home way more often than the music industry myth of the artist-making A&R person. When it came to Purling Hiss’ Mike Polizze, though, his solo career essentially started out of a suggestion from Paradise of Bachelors co-founder Christopher Smith, who needed an opener on the Philly tour stop of The Weather Station’s show back in 2015. On a whim, according to Polizze, Smith asked, “It’s mellow--have you ever played solo?” perhaps wary of the scuzzy fuzz riffing for which PH is known. “He twisted my arm,” Polizze told me over the phone last month. Polizze played that night sitting down with an acoustic guitar, armed with just a loop pedal and a little distortion. As with a lot of details, he doesn’t remember exactly what he played, telling me, “I could probably find the set list somewhere,” but names 5 Purling Hiss songs, a Spacemen 3 cover, and an introductory jam as possibilities anyway. It was a success, at least enough to the point where Smith said to Polizze, “No pressure, but if you ever wanted to do a solo record...” In the meantime, Polizze experimented with solo shows that gradually became a bit louder and more off-the-cuff, eventually causing him to retreat back to that fateful first night, making him realize that he wanted to be less “Purling Hiss solo” and more “Mike Polizze.”
The result, five years later, is Long Lost Solace Find, Polizze’s debut solo release, coming out Friday on Paradise of Bachelors, and his first full-length of any sort since the last PH record in 2016. “After the last full-length, I wanted to take a step back to think and get some perspective,” he told me. He had put out an impressive string of PH albums via Drag City and decided to take a break and take up Smith on his offer. He wrote Long Lost Solace Find mostly at home around 2017 and recorded it with Jeff Zeigler at Uniform Recording in 2018 and 2019. “It was a win-win because [Zeigler] needed time to move [studios], and it was a learning curve for me,” Polizze said. “Normally, when I go to record a record, it’s like, ‘You have 10 days, let’s go!’” Funny enough, he had to get used to being one of the only people in the studio, not having to worry about logistics like how he would gather all of his band members and gear. “It was easier to move around,” he joked.
The record certainly exudes this sense of ease, sounding right at home on the finger-style reveries of PoB. Opener “Bainmarie”, “Wishing Well”, and “Eyes Reach Across” sport Polizze’s sparkling and strummed acoustic twang and gentle singing, while instrumental jam “D’Modal” recalls the stylings of John Fahey and Jack Rose. And Long Lost Solace Find also falls within the at-large, PoB-adjacent Philadelphia scene that birthed indie rock breakouts like The War on Drugs and Kurt Vile, the latter of whom plays trumpet on lead single “Revelation” and harmonica on “Cheewawa”. (Indeed, you can hear Vile-esque lyrical absurdities on “Marbles” and Adam Granduciel-like shimmering guitars on “Sit Down”.) But Polizze stands out among both the Philly scene and the PoB catalog for his simple pop smarts, writing effectively catchy lines on wordless chorus-type ditties “Do do do” and “Edge of Time”. Overall, it’s this level of versatility that makes Long Lost Solace Find such an endlessly re-playable record.
Check out my conversation with Polizze below, edited for length and clarity, where he talks about the conscious decisions behind his solo career and debut and being inspired by both his parents and the good and bad events of everyday life.
SILY: Have you ever played live any of the tracks on Long Lost Solace Find?
Mike Polizze: I want to say no. That’s the funny, weird thing. I’m learning about myself that the habit I’ve formed--which is maybe not a bad thing--I have a hard time holding onto what I’m working on and what people want to hear. At the solo shows, people were like, "Oh that’s cool loop pedal stuff you’re doing." Some of the more far out, psychy stuff. People were asking, "Is that what your new album sounds like?" Even though that’s what I was kind of doing [live], it’s not at all what I did [in studio]. I went into a studio and multi-tracked. I wrote structured songs, and there’s a guitar track, a bass track, a drum track.
I was thinking, “Did I make the right move?" It felt like the right thing to do. I thought about it, and what I was doing live felt more like Purling Hiss solo to me. I played the Purling Hiss songs and noodled on guitar and made that part of the show. The tone changed for me when I heard I was putting out a Paradise of Bachelors record. I’ll pull from my imagination when coming up with something that would sound like a Paradise of Bachelors record. It’s what would make sense.
SILY: I feel like a lot of people who have been in a band for a while and are known for a band, when they go solo, they want to do something different like you’ve done. The audience that’s gonna hear your recorded solo debut is a lot larger than the audience who heard your live solo debut. You might as well differentiate, right?
MP: Yeah, exactly. There’s gotta be a difference. It worked out, I feel like, where my mind was going. In the beginning, with the solo shows, it was a special time. But because I multi-tracked [this] album, I thought, "Damn, maybe I ought to get a band together." I do want to represent the songs well, though given the [current] time, it may be hard to get a band together. Maybe I want to play just solo and try my best to represent the recordings live even though it will be just me. Maybe that won’t be a bad thing and it’ll be a good thing.
One thing that sucks about the pandemic--obviously, everybody’s life has been turned upside down--I would have just been on tour in Europe opening for Kurt Vile. And he was gonna do a solo tour. It would have been me and him in a band. I talked to a couple people who seem like they’d have the inside information about that sort of thing, and shows might not come back until the second half of 2021. A year from now. That’s brutal. Whatever we have to do to keep it safe. But yeah, I would have been playing in front of more people. It would have been a fresh start to get that practice in, just me and a guitar.
SILY: I feel like shows will come back before touring comes back. With a tour, you’re going into different states and maybe countries with different rules and levels of cases. So if people live in an area where there are less cases down the line, they’ll be able to play a local gig. But we won’t really know anything until there’s a vaccine.
MP: Yeah, that’s true. It’s totally hard to say. Depending on place to place and where you play. We’ll just have to wait and see. It sounds like it’ll spike again with a second wave.
We’re seeing the results. People are going back to normal even though we’re not ready. I don’t even know what to say. [laughs] It’s just not safe yet. The [Black Lives Matter] protests can happen at a distance; where they’re seeing an uptick is in certain states that never took the precautions. Some of the red states. It’s people being stupid.
SILY: To what extent did the difference in sound between this album and Purling Hiss, and this album and your live solo debut, factor in the decisions to release “Revelation” as the first single, as well as the overall sequencing of the record? I feel like a lot of times, artists want that first public perception to be markedly different.
MP: Right. I think that “Revelation” was definitely a good song to represent that, it being a totally different thing. There were a couple songs that were gonna be track releases, and I’m not sure if I was hung up under pressure, but the label was like, “Yeah, let’s do ‘Revelation’ first.”
SILY: And also, the first track of the record, “Bainmarie”.
MP: That’s an even bigger point. I literally wanted to pick “Bainmarie” as the first track because it’s so different than Purling Hiss. It’s slow and woozy. It’s the big reason why it’s the first track. I’ve done mellow Purling Hiss songs, but not something waltzy. “Bainmarie” was definitely gonna set it apart.
SILY: It’s also one of those songs where the album title’s in the song though you don’t have a title track. Did that factor into why you wanted to lead with it?
MP: I think that’s more coincidental, honestly. I had a list of potential album names. I’m trying to remember if I actually forgot that was even a lyric. I think it was serendipitous. Kind of a plus. It worked out. It’s not like there was one song in this group of songs I had, and I liked the lyric and made it the title and wanted to put that song first. I do remember going back through the lyrics and thinking it would be a nice potential title.
SILY: Was Kurt’s trumpet playing on “Revelation” a spontaneous decision?
MP: I remember asking him to jam on it, and he was gonna bring a trumpet, which he’s played on Blues Control records...but I didn’t know for a fact it would be like that. I had a loose idea, but he did what he did, and I didn’t think of that. I was like, “Here’s the bridge, maybe a trumpet would be cool over that?” What he did sounds like a jazz record. It was so inspired. It sounded like Pharaoh Sanders or something, his phrasing. I was just like, “Dude, yeah, it wasn’t just one note you dragged out.” The way he phrased it had so much feeling.
It was really awesome because not only did he show up and do that, he showed up with his hands full. He had a Dobro slide guitar and a bunch of harmonicas.
SILY: That’s him on “Cheewawa” too, on harmonica?
MP: Yeah, totally, and he does vocals on the back half of the song.
SILY: There are definitely a couple characteristics on Long Lost Solace Find that stand out among your past material, which are the finger-picked guitars and circular rhythms on “Wishing Well” and “D’Modal”, and the wordless choruses, which stands out for both you and PoB. “Do Do Do” and “Edge of Time” are basically pop songs. Can you talk about trying to make something overall unique?
MP: The essence of that, a wordless chorus, is just acknowledging, “I know there are no words right here, but it seems like the right thing to do.” It’s almost kind of transparent, in a way: “This is just an earworm that’s caught in my head right now.” People respond to it. I’d like to think I was more lyrical on this record, but I also like to know when you don’t have to have [lyrics]. I’m obviously not Bob Dylan or a Dylan-esque kind of writer. Sometimes, it’s good to know when a song’s simple. Sometimes, that can be a payoff. Hopefully, people like it, too, and I can share that.
It’s something my parents could listen to. It’s poppy, less about riffs and loud, written solos and more intimate song structures with pop hooks that get loose sometimes. Those little simple parts are what came back to me.
SILY: How would you describe your process of coming up with lyrics on the record?
MP: I usually just play guitar--that’s the first thing I pick up. I do write poetry sometimes, not in, "I’m a poet, here’s my book of poems," but rough sketches as part of the process. 99.9% of the time--who knows what kind of day I’m having or if something’s gonna stick--I think of it like fishing. Sometimes I’ll catch something by accident while playing guitar. It’s whatever comes at me, which comes from years of creating guitar patterns when I was younger. I’m still pulling from that palate. I’ll just end up building right off that. I’ll think what the next chord is gonna be and the feeling of the song’s gonna be, and I think of the melody and harmony. I’ll do the music first and hum stuff and shape words with syllables. In this juncture of my life, it is a good point to know where a song should be simple and not lyrical, since I do love dumb lyrics, like a Ramones song with feeling. But I am [also] at a point where I am more lyrical, doing an album on Paradise of Bachelors that’s more intimate and more up close. So I did take my time more with it. "What do I feel?" I tried to dig into my mind and pull out the best song that I could. It’s guitar first, then melodies, then lyrics.
SILY: What do you think are the different moods that you conjure on the record?
MP: In this instance, it’s funny, when [PoB was] asking me for a quote, I literally just took a picture of a note I wrote instead of transcribing the text, and sent it to [PoB co-founder Brendan Greaves] like, "Is that good?” and he just turned it in. It was me saying, "Here’s what the album is, it’s mostly acoustic, it’s mellower, and they’re moody jams and love songs.” That’s kind of what my life’s been. I got married almost two years ago, which has also played a big part in not touring too much. It was a combination of things: I just did three great records on Drag City, I’m getting married, now’s a good time to sit back. They also informed how I lived the past two years of my life, introspective memories. Sometimes I just write imagery that might not even be about my own life. Deciding to do a solo record informed my decision to go acoustic, and deciding to do a Paradise of Bachelors record informed how I went about the songs. Let me form that part of my brain: intimate settings, reflection, day-to-day life, mundane parts of life, exciting parts of life. I like to have all colors of the rainbow there. It doesn’t have to be boring. Life’s okay sometimes. Moody jams and love songs are everyday life, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Going through memories is the same, with perspective-type stuff. It’s the combination of where I was at at that point and knowing I was gonna do a mostly acoustic record, it was a good time to conjure those feelings.
SILY: Two songs that are later in the album that seem to contrast are “Sit Down” and “Marbles”. The line, “I’m not alive and you’re all dead to me,” might not be serious but is sort of macabre, whereas “Marbles” lyrically reminded me a lot of Kurt Vile. Especially the line, “Maybe it’s good to be crazy and laugh at the loonies crack up all the time.” I could hear him singing that.
MP: He’s a good wordsmith that way. I agree. I’m trying to think of the artist I was thinking about when writing that song. That song was my attempt at a Ted Lucas jam. Have you heard his records? His main thing was as a session guy playing on other people’s records. He also made one record, and it was barely a record because it was a bunch of loose jams. I don’t even know why I think it sounds like him or I was trying to, it’s a little more bluesy and a little less indie sounding. “Sit Down” and “Marbles” are definitely different vibes than the rest of the record. They’re like, “Fuck, the world’s crazy,” which you feel sometimes, but in an intimate way. An exaggerated, surreal sort of atmosphere. I feel like there’s some more musical inspiration when I wrote that, but I’m kind of blanking right now.
I was writing the record knowing Chris and Brendan are such heads when it comes to their knowledge of music. They have such a comprehensive collection of music. I’ll be the dork to say, “I started playing acoustic guitar in 8th grade, I like Nick Drake,” which is just an easy reference. But “Wishing Well” does kind of remind me of Nick Drake. I don’t even know why I went off in that tangent. I guess I was thinking of artists who inspired me. John Fahey, because I want to do more finger picking stuff. Jack Rose in Philly was a hero. I’m lucky to have met the guy, and my other band played with him, and he actually said nice things about us in an interview once. If I could be part of that gene pool, I feel lucky. Jack Rose, Kurt Vile, it’s such a nice thing to be a part of.
SILY: Is “Rock on a Feather” the only song on the record with drums?
MP: No, “Cheewawa” has drums, they’re just really light. “Revelation” has drums. You know what? Honestly, half the album has drums. It really messed with my head, as I was like, “Is this turning into another band record? I have to keep it solo!” But I really wanted it to be well-rounded. I wanted the finger-picking of “D’Modal” but wanted a little percussion, but not too much, but a little electric guitar on there. I wanted it to have some versatility.
SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?
MP: I’m trying to go through my mind right now...I know exactly where it comes from, I’m just trying to think what was going through my mind when I thought to myself, “Okay, now I have to make the album art.” I knew I had these pictures that my friend took not too long ago, but a little bit before the record, and I really just liked them. I thought they were vibey and cool and timeless looking. I don’t know if they were the greatest pictures of me, but they set the mood. I like that daze kind of thing with a lamp, where you could be somewhere in the middle of a song or a trance in that moment in your mind. My friend who took the pictures had also taken pictures for me before. He’s such a great artist and a writer. He has so many passions. He took classes when he went to school for photography, and he took the album cover picture for Public Service Announcement. That’s an old picture from when he was taking a class around when the record came out. I was like, “Can I use these pictures?” He took this album’s pictures, too; I was sitting on them, so I had ‘em.
For design, I had always worked with Jason [Killinger] from my band Birds of Maya, who is the best designer/artist I’m so lucky to know. He did not do the artwork for this record, which I welcomed. I love Jason, and I have so much art by Jason, and I want to do so much more with Jason, but Brendan at the label was like, “I happen to do art, too, if you’re into it, whatever you want to do though.” I was like, “Let’s go for it.” We talked about our ideas, and I’m trying to remember, but I do remember two things. I was like, “Man, I really love those early Impulse! jazz records, or Blue Note.” They’ll have a couple pictures in the moment. It seems to be good with solo artists. It’s intimate, and it makes sense. I was also hanging out at Chris’s at some point, and he pulled out a Terry Allen record, before the Paradise of Bachelors reissue, and it was from the 1980′s. I forget which record it is, but it’s a black record cover with three pictures in a row. I was like, “That’s cool, should we go for that but do our own thing?” It was the combination of Brendan’s ideas naturally with my pictures and the early jazz and Terry Allen records. It was great. He just started to put something together with different color schemes, and pretty much right away, I was like, “Yeah. That’s awesome. I love it.” I always have sketchbooks when I write lyrics and draw pictures, so all the inside stuff is my drawings.
SILY: Have you thought about doing any live streams?
MP: I’ve definitely thought about it, but more in the sense of, “Do I have to do this? Should I do this?” I would love to do it if I knew I was good at it. I have to figure it out. Do I get a GoPro camera? Can I do it on my cell phone? I think I would just approach it like, “If this sucks, oh well, who cares?” I think that’s the best approach. Have fun with it. I’ve thought about it. I guess maybe we’ll do it around the time of the release.
SILY: Is there anything else next for you?
MP: I’ll just use this as an excuse that I can almost relish in letting the music speak for itself. If people like it, great. Things are so random and fickle. It used to be 10 years ago, “Will Pitchfork talk about it?” Now, it’s, “Will Spotify put it on a playlist?” This is more natural. Do I want to talk about the record? Yeah, sure. Everything else is great. This is a good excuse to be like, "What’s next for you? Well, I can’t tour for probably a year, so the album will come out July 31st, and people have time to listen to music. People aren’t going to shows, so we’ll see how it goes." On top of that, there’s gonna be a Hiss record some time in the future. It might be a long time or not a long time. Right now, it’s just the solo stuff.
SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s inspired you, comforted you, or caught your attention?
MP: Let’s see. I have a list of books I want to read. I want to read some James Baldwin stuff. I never finished the last book I was reading, which was a Hemingway book. I want to read more autobiographies, too. One really cool thing, musically, my dad was a jazz musician. He passed away when I was a teenager. He was fucking good. I’m getting these random memories back from when I was a kid. I think that’s the thing that sparked at the beginning. He would play and be so expressive, yet he was a shy person. I went through his records recently, and it’s not the most records in the world, but it’s plenty for me to get busy with. About 200 jazz records. He had soul and funk records too, whatever came out in the 70′s, but I just got a lot of classic sleeves to put them in. Checkin’ them out here and there over the years, but looking now, he had so much stuff in there: Pharaoh Sanders, tons of Miles Davis, tons of Coltrane. McCoy Tyner. Lee Morgan. Herbie Hancock. Tons of classic stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of that. I’m trying to make a couple playlists other people have been asking for, and I’m sure this stuff will make an appearance on there.
youtube
#interviews#mike polizze#paradise of bachelors#christopher smith#jeff zeigler#brendan greaves#jason killinger#long lost solace find#constance mensh#purling hiss#the weather station#spacemen 3#drag city#uniform recording#john fahey#jack rose#the war on drugs#kurt vile#adam granduciel#black lives matter#covid-19#covid-19 pandemic#coronavirus#coronavirus pandemic#blues control#pharaoh sanders#bob dylan#ramones#ted lucas#nick drake
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Off the Air 1/5/21 Playlist
Best of 2020 Part ✌️
Traffik Island - Ulla Dulla
Thundercat - Dragonball Durag
Liv.e - Lessons From My Mistakes...but I Lost Your Number
Dirty Art Club - FMTI
Remi Wolf - Hello Hello Hello
Buscabulla - NTE
Toro y Moi - Ordinary Guy
Mike Polizze - Cheewawa
Whitney - A.M. A.M.
Bedouine, Waxahatchee & Hurray for the Riff Raff - Thirteen
Bonny Light Horseman - Deep in Love
Kurt Vile - Speed of the Sound of Loneliness
Jason Joshua & The Beholders - Poor Boy
Sven Wunder - Komorebi
Sessa - Sereia Sentimental
Mapache - Me Voy Pa’l Pueblo
The Seshen - Don’t Answer
Duval Timothy - Slave
HUMMUCIDE - 8 Mullups
Oscar Jerome - Give Back What U Stole From Me
Arlo Parks - Eugene
Biig Piig - Don’t Turn Around (Acoustic)
Faye Webster - In A Good Way
Ana Frango Elétrico - Mama Planta Baby
Greg Foat - Symphonie Pacifique
Rejjie Snow & MF Doom - Cookie Chips
Kevin Krauter - Kept
Chicano Batman - Invisible People
Destroyer - Crimson Tide
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Birds of Maya — Valdez (Drag City)
Photo by Dan Cohoon
Valdez by Birds of Maya
Birds of Maya’s fourth album, coming eight years after its predecessor and four years since it was recorded, sounds like an artifact of some rougher, louder, live-er time. It’s all brawn and howl and distortion, full of songs that go on for days without ever getting dull. These grooves are ponderously heavy, but fired up with a fuzzy, hoarse, in-the-moment kind of vibe, so much so my husband asks, “Was this recorded at a festival,” the first time he hears Valdez, already fingering its primitive vamps on air bass. No, it wasn’t, but it could have been, somewhere muddy and primeval. It’s from 2014, but it sound both very early 2000s and late 1960s.
And fine, Birds of Maya was always like that, steeped in Stooge-y psychedelic carnage and haring off in amp frying Blue Cheer-ish fits of feedback. The band, made up of Purling Hiss main man Mike Polizze, Jason Killinger and Ben Leaphart, started in the early aughts, recording in basements and slugging out their noisy, repetition blurred vamps alongside early aughts heavies like Comets on Fire and Endless Boogie. Then Polizze’s Purling Hiss took off and long intervals began to separate their releases, just two years between Vol. 1 and Ready to Howl, but three between that and the next one, Celebration and now, nearly a decade until Valdez. It arrives in a wholly different landscape, where live shows have been shuttered and rock hasn’t been back in a long time, and everybody writes and records in their houses — mostly soft, sensitive songs about being alone and weird and unappreciated. Well, this is not that, and thank god.
Shorter tracks like the hair-on-fire “BFIOU” may get more casual play, but the core of Valdez can be found in its extended tracks. “Busted Room,” lurches on for nearly ten minutes, its rhythm slow, but body-slamming; that motion where you bob up and down from the waist along with 50 to 100 fellow concert goers was invented for tracks like these. And, like Endless Boogie, Birds of Maya knows how to wring every sweaty drop out of a heavy groove. The basic foundation, thunderous drums, a gut-checking oscillation of bass notes, picks up various other elements as it goes on — mumbled spoken word, eruptive guitar solos, flailing drum fills. It is always the same but always changing, and you can get lost in it.
“Please Come In” is the other highlight, thwacking and wailing and pulsing like a medium-sized freight train as Polizze yowls over the top. The noise clears periodically like the smoke has blown away, leaving a hole for the title phrase. It’s blues set on fire and jacked up on speed, like MC5 but harder, with less give in the phrases.
It’s not clear why Birds of Maya sat on this for so long, or why they finally decided to let it out into the world now. Put it on loud and it’ll crumble in your brain like an electrified madeleine, bringing you back to another time, not that long ago, but still foreign. Damn.
Jennifer Kelly
#birds of maya#valdez#drag city#jennifer kelly#albumreview#dusted magazine#psych#rock#boogie#mike polizze#purling hiss#philadelphia
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