<She's Gone from the Album >

Jason M: I was playing with Jennifer, someone that I worked with and we got serious and wanted to find some other musicians to play. We put out an add in The Stranger. Craig and Jenn and we played with Jenn for about a year or so and then she left and was also playing in another band Dafil Eleven and we picked up Sarah from The Stranger who played with us for about a year or so and Sarah left and she went on adventures to Montana and wherever else. We did a search again. We found Jason who been with us for almost two years now?

Jason B: Just about, yeah. About a year and half. The rest is history.

Jason M: That's the running joke. If anyone messes up’Ķ

Jima: If anybody screws up we always just like, Call The Stranger, get somebody new!

Jason B: Call The Stranger.

<She's Gone from the Album >

Jason M: Craig came up with that.

Craig: Yeah I thought it up with the help of a girl.

Jason M: And then we had a huge list of names that we were going over for a few weeks and’Ķ

Jima: They sucked.

Jason M: How about The Purrs! We were all psyched about it and he was like, "ugh, I don't know" . So it took us three weeks of convincing him.

Jima: He changed his mind, but it doesn't matter because he is the drummer and he doesn't get a say, even though he came up with the name.

Craig: Yeah, I cam up with it with the help of a lover.

Jason M: He was forced into since he chose it.

Jima: It's epic. It's long. It's over 70 minutes. We've been working it for about six months.

Jason M: The recording part was six months.

Jima: About six months of recording time. Which seems like a lot, and I guess it is, but we just did it all at my house so it was free.

Jason M: We all have day jobs so we gotta' kinda' piece it down.

Jima: Every evening for about six months we went into my garage and came close to killing each other several times and ourselves. It was a horrible, wonderful, terrifyingly beautiful, awful great time.

Laughter

Jima: I loved hating it every minute.

Jason M: Well, I think he wanted to do more of the killing than anyone else. He was the man at the controls.

Jason B: Jim took on much of the work. So he needs to be blessed by that.

Jima: See, I had to press record and play all the time. So, that means I had to be there all the time, because no one else no else was pressing play and recording so I had to be there for everyone's part pressing play, record, rewind, play, record, rewind hundreds and hundreds’ĶI don't know how people in studios do that, man, whoa. No wonder they charge so much. I would.

Jason M: So yeah, after six months of recording that we went to electrokitty and they mixed and mastered it.

Jima: In a marathon, 24 hour, three-day death march.

Jason M: Yeah, those were some long nights.

Craig: Yeah, they did a good job, though.

Jason M: They did an excellent job.

Craig: You can get it in Seattle Record stores. Sonic Boom, Easy Street.

Jason M: And it's all over the Internet.

Craig: Our website.

Jason M: CD Baby.

Jima: CD Baby, and The Purrs.com.

<Recorded by BSB>

Jima: You look at it from a percentage point of view and it's amazing. I think we sold 20. (Laughter) Which makes it 20 times better than the last one.

Jason B: We've done okay. KEXP has really helped us out.

Jima: Anybody who's heard of us has heard of us because of that radio station. A couple of others have picked us up and done well by us, but it's been mostly them because they have such a huge reach.

Jima: We didn't really know much about it. They just emailed us and said, "Hey, do you want to be on our first ever podcast?" And we were like’Ķ

Jason M: Hell, yeah!

Jima: Okay no we've gotta' lookup this word. So we looked it up and said, "okay, podcast. That sounds like fun." We didn't care. We had nothing to lose and they had been stroking us and being so nice and we were just like’Ķ

Jason B: I still want one of those pods. Those pods are cool.

Jima: Yeah, see I don't even have a device.

Jason M: Do you guys own pods?

<You Don't Look So Good Recorded Live by BSB>

Jason B: Two words for you. DAY JOBS.

Jason M: Yeah, we all have day jobs. Pretty much 9 to 5 jobs. We rehearse twice a week and’Ķ

Craig: Sex, work, play, sex, sex, sleep, over and over again.

Jima: Pretty much. That whole rock 'n' roll thing is just a total illusion. It's like just a total illusion. It's just so sad. I keep doing it though.

Jason M: Tell Radiohead it's a total illusion.

Jima: Well, it's a total illusion except for like 10 people on the planet.

Jason M: Right.

Jima: For the rest of us it's a total illusion. Sorry. Sorry to burst your bubble out there in podland.

Jason M: Can't you just feel the wonderful warm vibes flowing through us?

Jima: Hey, man. It's horrible. It's like day jobs, soul-sucking day jobs, climing honky's ladder at night (laughter) just trying to get a couple of chords together.

Jason B: I consider it a really nice hobby. It's the best hobby in the world.

Jima: We play a lot; we practice a lot. But flat out, it's a hobby. I mean there's no way’Ķ

Jason B: It's a hobby.

Jima: The only way to make a lot of money is be very, very lucky and a lot prettier than the four of us. (Laughter) You have to be damn good looking. (More Laughter).

<Song>

Jima: We are trying to build a little circuit up and down the I-5. Just up and down, up and down.

Jason M: Pretty much between Eugene and Bellingham.

Jima: We've been going at it for four or five years and all the farther we've gone is Eugene. But at the same time we've been playing a butt-load of shows. Just economically, realistically, with people's vacation time, and the lives they lead we can't really. We want to go farther. We're trying to. We're trying to get together a San Francisco thing right now. Seems to be working out pretty well. Maybe, someday.

Jason M: Yeah, we'll be in San Francisco in October. I'm Pretty sure of it.

Jima: So optimistic. It's so hard. When you do it all yourself it's just hard and the only reason you do it is because you love it, because you are not getting paid, your not getting, your not getting nothing. Maybe a couple of free beers in a shit-whole bar. People ignoring you. You know, ignoring you on the bad side and throwing stuff at you on the good side. I don't know. We play a lot of bars that are real dumps. I love it.

<Song Space Junk>

Jason B: For one Galaxy 500. I really don't’Ķthey're way to sparse.

Jason M: Our sound is like them at times, but overall’Ķ

Jason B: I think it's a lot fuller than they ever were.

Jima: We're also probably a lot more normal than them.

Jason B: Right.

Jima: They had the artistic, freak flag-waving for sure.

Jason B: Our sound is just fuller.

Jima: Record part, verse, chorus, solo. It's kinda' psychedelic I guess. It's probably great to listen to if you are on psychedelics.

Jason M: We recommend.

Jason B: I like the Love comparisons. I actually really like the Love comparisons. That works.

Craig: I can see a Lou Reed comparison in the vocals.

Jima: Yeah I wish. Whatever. As long as people like it that's all I care about. You can call it whatever you want. Just come to the show. Come see me. Have a drink. That's all I want. That's all I want, man. That's not much to ask. I think we charge like three bucks. And actually anyone who's out there in podland that wants to get in free to any of our shows you just have to join our email list. I give away tickets to almost every show. You just have to be lucky which isn't too hard when there's only like a hundred people on the list and most of them don't even live in the town we are playing in. It ain't tough. Figure it out. I'm I bumming you out? I'm not used to answering questions.

<Song>

Jima: I guess I've been writing songs for 20 years or something. I started when I was like three or something. It was really sick. Just buh, begh, buh and whatever. I guess I pay attention to structure of songs. I listen to other people's songs and basically mimic what other people do. I just pick out song writer people that I thought were cool. They had good actual structure to songs. It doesn't matter what genre of music it is. All that matters is whether it's good or not. There's great metal, there's crap metal. There's great pop, there's garbage pop. There's great disco. There's great everything and then there's crap. 90% of everything is crap, but 10% and you listen to it and you pick out the stuff that has interesting structures. I was attracted more to music where people didn't spend so much time worried about how many triplets they could cram into ten seconds and worried more about how beautiful the chords sound. I wouldn't say the meditational quality of it, but just sort of the regular kind of’Ķ

Jason B: Pulse.

Jima: Yeah, latch your brain onto. Something more sexy than just beeda, badda, boo, boo, bee, doo. I mean there's good beeda ba stuff too out there but I don't check that out too much. My brain doesn't work that fast. So anyway I just started listening to that and I write songs in my home and I record them onto CD and they always sound alright. And then I bring them into the band and I have the CD. I give each band member a CD and it's got the lyrics, my pathetic attempt at trying to figure out what the chords are because I never seem to be able to identify majors and minors. I don't know what the fuck my problem is. But I can't. There's always chords that are wrong or whatever, but I bring them in and everyone goes home and they take it home. It's like homework. And they listen to it for like a week or two. We come back and say, "hey let's try it" yeah know? Almost every time it always sounds better. It just sounds better with four people trying to do stuff than the "Jim Show". You know, it's just like one person. I have the idea and bring it in, but in the end the song works or not because it sounds better as a band.

Jason M: I think stylistically there is a common thread what we listen to.

Jima: Oh, totally.

Jason M: That's what brings it all together.

Jason B: If you are talking about what we actually listen to we have a lot of indie rock roots. A lot of, I would say, 60s psychedelic roots. 70s psychedelic roots.

Jima: I bring a lot of 80s New Wave stuff into it. And there's Mister New York State over there. He's always bringing in Stadium Rock.

Jason B: The question of influence is it's kinda' like whatever. I don't know. I just try to play the songs that Jim hands us, but I don't know. I listen to everything from Sebado to the Grateful Dead. Whatever, it's all good.

<Song>

Jason B: Jim can write a really good song. And that's what it is all about. I mean everyone that's played music has done time in so many bands that don't really respect what a good song is; what a good verse, chorus, verse, bridge, verse, chorus, whatever, blah, blah, blah is. After doing time in so many bands that weren't focused on that sort of thing it was really refreshing to come into this scenario and be able to play that sort of music. My mother taught me the violin when I was about five years old. She was Suzuki trained and everything. She was a teacher in the public school system and she started me on the violin and I played that for a long time and then discovered the guitar when most kids discover the guitar. I don't know. 15 or 16. I kinda' put down the violin after that.

Jima: I learned by watching MTV.

Jason B: That's how I learned the guitar. I mean, for sure.

Jima: I learned by watching Johny Ramone on MTV. I actually started with drums when I was about 12. There was a Ramones Live concert. Somewhere. I thought it was MTV. I recorded on one of those big videotape machines.

Jason B: It might have been Night Flight.

Jima: Yeah, it might have been Night Flight.

Jason B: USA. Remember that?

Jima: They would have the Ramones in concert and every time they would show Johnny Ramone he would be standing there with this two-finger bar chord. I knew all the songs in my head. Just like dee, dee, dee, doo. But I could not make a chord to save my ass. Every time they showed Johnny I would freeze it and sit there and go, "okay, it looks like he's got his finger here" and I would count up the frets on the screen and would be like, "one, two, three, four. And then there's two over and one down, okay". And I would go "ughm" (strumming a chord in the air). I would be like, "oh, that sounds pretty good". Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh (strumming more chords) and I would keep doing that and I would rewind the tape a little bit and go Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Oh, I would have to stop it again and I would be like, okay it looks like he moved’Ķhe didn't really move he just moved over everything, the whole construction of his hand over on string. And I was like, "oh you can just move this chord formation anywhere you want up and down’ĶWhoa". I was like ugh, ner, ner, ner (playing air guitar).

Jason B: The rest is history.

Jima: Once you learn that two-finger bar chord you can literally, at least, chord along with any song. Any song under the sun. It was such a magical moment for me. "Oh my God". Ner, ner, ner, ner (playing air guitar).

Jason M: For me, it was tablature on the Internet.

Jima: It was beautiful, man. I never looked back. I never read tablature or nothing. I just started trying to find chords that I could slide up and down the neck so I didn't have to think.

Jason B: For me it was ear. I just heard everything.

Jima: Well, yeah you would if you were trained.

Jason B: Yep.

Jima: It makes sense.

Jason B: It made things easier. It didn't necessarily make things better, but it made things easier.

Jima: Smoking weed really helps too.

(Laughter)

Jason B: Well, then there's that.

Jima: It slowed me down enough to actually sit around pressing play, pause, record, rewind on a videotape machine watching Johnny Ramone is a great way to spend a Friday night. It's not like my phone was ringing. I had no freakin' friends. High School was a God Damned abomination, man. God, I hated High School. I hate everybody at my high school. You hear that out there in podland?

Craig:

Jason B: Yeah, I loved high school.

Jima: No friends, no fun, no parties, nothing, man.

Jason B: I had lots of friends and lots of parties.

Jima: It was a fucking nightmare.

Jason M: This guy was in the wrong place.

(Laughter)

Jima: You got any other questions? This is fun! I didn't think I was going to have so much fun.

<song Recorded Live by BSB>

Jason B: Bar none. People there to see you makes anyplace the best place to play.

Jason M: The High Dive for our CD release show. We had a ton of people there. It was really great.

Jima: Yeah, that was genetically altering experience playing in front of people who were’Ķ

Jason B: Who were there.

Jima: Who were psyched to see you. Excited to see me. It was a very weird, strange, almost scary time. We came off that stage and I couldn't even get to the bar; couldn't get to the bathroom. Everybody was stopping me, buying me drinks. At one point I had four drinks in my hand. This Polish guy was like, "I'm going to buy you some vodka" and I'm like okay! I didn't have any place to put it. I am just going to open my mouth and you through it in. I didn't know what to do. I felt like you couldn't turn down the drinks that people were offering. They were just trying to be nice. How often do people buy you drinks like that for no reason? It was a very magical time for me. But if you go into an empty bar to play a show and you're looking for a reason not to swallow razor blades you're in the wrong place.