CB formed in Boston in the fall of 1994 when Caleb Mulkerin relocated from Portland, Maine to join his fellow recent high school graduates, Chriss Sutherland and Thomas Rogers and guitarist Josh Ogden (who commuted each week from Falmouth, Maine) for rehearsals at the Berklee College of Music, which Rogers was attending. The following March, they played their first gig at ABC No Rio, a prominent punk hangout in New York City. That summer, they self-released their eponymous debut, which introduced the lengthy, angular, syncopated, progy improvs that would remain a stalwart of future CB releases. The lengthy, 'Daddy as Seen from Bar Harbor' is very dark and foreboding, and Chriss' vocal technique is of the stream-of-consciousness recitation variety, building from a conversational monologue to a larynx-shredding scream.
Tell us how that debut gig came about? How do a bunch of friends from Maine, going to school in Boston end up playing their first gig in NYC?
We ended up in NYC at ABC No Rio through the help of our friends and rehearsal space mates Coleman. At the time we were very into the political punk coming mainly from the West Coast and Ebullition Records. ABC No Rio was kind of a bastion for these groups as well as everything else under the sun. So it was a natural place for us to try to play. It was very typical for the show spaces we would play for the following three years. Boston was dead, at least for us, so we traveled with Coleman, who had played a few gigs at ABC and they got us our first show.
What was the scene like down there in the mid-90s? It seems to me there weren't that many bands playing 11-minute prog suites back then! How did your early gigs go down?
I think that we kind of missed the scene for better or worse. As I said before Boston was never friendly for us. We didn't play Boston until about two years after leaving. We were pretty isolated with few friends or contacts in or outside of music. The shows we played at that time were usually filled with very screamy, heavy, or straight edge groups so we fell somewhere in the middle of all that. But, I think I remember being received well by most audiences for we were offering up something, we felt and hopefully they felt, was different and sincere.
What's up with those vocals, Chriss? Is that just a stream-of-conscious rant that changed from performance to performance or is there an actual story going on - the vox are mixed down and a bit hard to hear/understand
The vocals/words in "Daddy..." were written specifically for the recording and the spoken stuff was never performed live. The more intense screaming toward the end though would usually make it to the live show. I think that the low level of the vocals was a mix of our timid ness and poor recording quality. Vocals at that time were super difficult for us. None of us were singers and our practice space had no PA so we always ended up singing out of a guitar amp. Most of the time, shows we would play would be of the DIY variety and they seldom had a PA or an adequate sound system. We learned to kind of go without vocals for most of the music.
The debut seems an anomaly in your discography's it something you view as a stepping stone/learning experience/bastard stepchild, or have you returned to some of those songs in your subsequent live performances?
The first LP is definitely a fond memory for us. It was both a stepping-stone and a learning experience as each album is. That was a very pivotal time for us as we were very young. We have a lot of memories of who we were at that time. The only song off that record to survive the test of time, as far as live shows are concerned, was "Daddy as Seen from Bar Harbor". We continued to play that song until around 1997. Actually, Tim Harbeson and Tom Kovacevic helped us work up a version for the tour we did together in the summer of 1997.
There was an enormous developmental leap (to my ears) between the debut and the following 'Lighthouse in Athens' singles. The music is smoother; the trumpet adds another dimension to the sound the vocals are upfront and easier to follow. Something more than just a new guitarist (Kristen Hedges replaced Ogden) happened between the debut and the singles. Fill us in on the transition between the two lineups.
Well, before Kristen arrived we went through a tough musical period. We had arrived back in Maine after a long summer of touring and we were kind of scattered and unsure as to what we were doing. By the time we got ourselves settled into Caleb's dads' house with a practice situation sorted out we needed a major regrouping effort. In the time between finishing our first tour, moving back to Maine and starting to write new music I think we all went through some taste and style changes. On our tour we saw and played with a lot of groups that turned us on to new approaches and turned us off of a lot of what we were into. I think that we really started aspiring to be musicians as well as a band. We thirsted for more music in our music. While Josh was figuring himself out and hedging back and forth we started to experiment with different stuff. We had a keyboard player come and rehearse for a while and we tried to expand. This was a tough period, as things just didn't come together until Kristen arrived. He came at a perfect time because we were starving for new direction and an inspiration in our chemistry. Kristen is such a melodic musician and he brought exactly what we needed.
By the time you recorded your second album, the loud/soft, fast/slow dynamics had been jettisoned and you're future material concentrates predominantly in the soft/slow end of the spectrum. What prompted the change in musical direction?
Again, I just think that we were maturing. Basically, as you listen from recording to recording in a chronological fashion your hearing young musicians/artists mature and grow. If the first LP was considered "birth" then "And Farewell to Hightide" could be considered the teenage years or adolescence. We were listening to Pink Floyd, Dead Can Dance, Tortoise, Hoover, Cocteau Twins, Jessamine, Bardo Pond, Peter Gabriel, Will Oldham, Codiene, Rex, etc. We rehearsed a lot, like five or six nights a week. We worked on our music very hard at that time and nothing came easy though the album seems smoother and more relaxed than anything we had done to date. That relaxed feeling was tough to attain.
CB is probably not only the first band from Maine the Terrascope has ever interviewed, you're one of the first bands we've ever HEARD OF from Maine not exactly known as a bastion of rock and roll. Tell us about the scene up there?
For us Portland and Maine in general has been very nice. It is an easy place to live, make a living, and create art. We have never really felt part of any scene here unless you go back to high school when we were playing hardcore and punk music. Tom Rogers and I were playing in a punk/hardcore group through high school and we would travel south to Portland to play as Caleb was doing a similar thing traveling north to play where we were from. But, when we returned to Maine, after our gestation period and the beginning of Cerberus Shoal, from Boston we found a house and a new system of living but no scene per se. Our first shows in Portland during the "Lighthouse in Athens" period into the "And Farewell..." time were poorly attended and flew well below the radar screen. It wasn't until "And Farewell..." was released did we start to receive some local attention. Though we did get a great write up for a live show we did in early 1997 which was one of our first "almost improvisations" in the live setting. This was an important show for we didn't take too much time to prepare, as we were very accustomed to doing. The music we played actually went on to become "Breathing Machines". After that news article we began our journey as Portland's quaint space or if you prefer art rock band. The coverage and support of our group has steadily improved but, only through a lot of hard work on our part. Maine is cloistered and anything new is looked upon with a very critical eye and most likely a closed mind. This is why we feel the need to constantly keep touring. There is a very low ceiling here and I think we have hit it. At least for now. Yet, I think it is important to know that a lot of the people who have been involved with the group are not really from Maine but transplants. Maine attracts a good amount of solid people who end up loving the vibe here and staying. Eric LaPerna is from New Jersey, Tom Kovacevic is from Indiana, Tim Harbeson is from Philadelphia, Colleen Kinsella is from New York City, Karl Greenwald is from Pennsylvania, Kristen Hedges is from Columbus, Ohio and David Mulder is from New Jersey.
"Broken Springs Spring Forth from Broken Clocks" has a very loose, improvisational feel to it, combining elements of prog and jazz a la King Crimson and more recent bands like Tarentelvery distinctive guitar lines, fluid basslines, and very light, jazzy drumming throughout which eventually bursts forth into a spacey, Floydian, psychedelic maelstrom. 'JBO vs. Blin?' begins with your stream-of-consciousness recitation over a musical backdrop that recalls a psychedelic Western with a sleepy, dreamy, swaying melody on the soundtrack. Who are the combatants in the title?
"JBO vs. Blin" is a tune, lyrically, about Josh Ogden who was a founding member of our group. I had the lyrics taped to a mic stand in the practice room and Josh, who lived with us well after he left the group, saw the paper and read the words, which are the words I actually sing and not speak. He then wrote a reply that I found later the next day. In the reply are the words I speak in the beginning of the tune. So it's him responding to me responding to him. I think. Almost conversational.
Jeremy Federman's trumpet adds a nice melancholic touch to my favorite song, 'Make Winter A Driving Song.' It's very visual in execution can almost imagine myself tooling across the snow-covered terrain up in the wilds of Maine. Is that, as the title might imply, a "road song?" I would think you spend a lot of time driving between gigs up there and have a lot of time to compose in the tour van. Hell, a beer run or a trip to the grocery for smokes probably encompasses the track's 12 ˝ minute length!
Oddly enough, the title of that tune was coined by Kristen Hedges who is from Columbus, Ohio. I'm not too sure what was behind that title for him. There were lyrics for the tune but they never made it to the recording. He moved to Maine on a whim and it was in the dead of winter I believe. Our time with Kristen was very intense and productive but, way too short.
You bookend the album with the two-part 'Falling To Pieces.' Was that originally written as a single piece, and later split to form closure to the album to give it an elliptical beginning and end?
"Falling to Pieces", if I remember correctly was written as one piece but, as with many of our musical ideas, it ended up comprising many different ideas therefore making it impossible to fit everything we wanted to say into one tune. This happens often with us. As we work and rework music ideas come and go but more often we end up with more than less. It becomes impossible to fit everything we wish into one piece and still have musical sense and fluidity. So we'll split the piece apart or create a brother or sister piece. This is to ensure that there is no mistake as to the origin of the idea and an attempt to eliminate any confusion in the sentiment or idea were trying to convey.
'Part 2' sounds like excerpts from your diary, or from the writings of someone who did just that" fall to pieces." Have you ever performed the piece live, and does your monologue vary with each performance?
We have never really performed part two live. We toured with part one quite a bit but part two really came alive in the studio.
By the end, David Mulder's piano solo reminds me of the New Age music I'd hear whenever I walked into one of those shops up there when my wife and I vacationed in Bar Harbor and some of the other tourist stops up there. Was this segment inspired by similar events that you encountered it seems far removed from the sound on the rest of the album?
David's piano solo was kind of a last minute addition. As a group we have always been very concerned with everyone involved having an equal part and say in the making of the music. Were constantly trying to bring out each other's strengths and personality. We heard David fooling around with the piano in the studio and he played that piece. I think at the time we felt that the album comprised mostly the musical ideas of Caleb, Kristen, Tom and myself as David was living in Boston and he wasn't able to make the trip to the house as often as we wished for we rehearsed nightly at that time. So I think we wanted to include David's personality more and tacking that piano piece on the end of the record was our attempt at that. We loved the piece too but I think that goes without saying.
Following a couple more personnel changes, you hooked up with Portland-based Tarpigh and on May 11, 1997, you improvised the soundtracks to two of Tim Folland's independent films, "Elements of Structure" and "Permanence." Were these recordings done in real time with the film rolling in the background, or did you go back and edit anything for the final release?
Yes, the soundtracks were done real time to the films with no editing. What you hear is what we originally played while watching the films.
Did you ever perform live with the showings of those films, or was it strictly recorded in the studio just for future viewings of the film?
We actually did perform those pieces live a few times but, never simultaneously with the films. Those two pieces, in there many forms, were some of the first music that Cerberus Shoal and Taprigh performed live together.
Was the recording done in one take during your initial viewing of the films, or did you watch the films first and then discuss how to approach the recording of the soundtracks?
We had a session earlier in the week where we set up a mock recording situation in order to practice our improvisations. We ran through each film once or twice for they are quite long. So we did get a general idea of what we liked from each other and we had a discussion on the day of the recording to clarify just what each of us were going for. We did the first practice session for Tims benefit to make sure that he approved of the direction. Yet, when we did record, we got "Elements..." in one take and we did "Permanence" in two.
I note in your bio that you never intended to release the music separate from the films, yet Audio Information Phenomena did just that in 1998. Why the change of heart? And, more importantly, why just release the music? With today's technology, it seems it would have been possible to append it to the CD, especially for the Stella White re-issue. Is that under consideration for the future?
We decided to release the music, independently of the films, with the encouragement of Marc Bianchi from AIP. We were in San Francisco and we met Marc and he had just begun his label. He saw us live and decided that he wanted to release some of our music. We liked him a lot and agreed to get him something when we returned home. We had just finished the soundtracks before the tour so we kind of talked them up to him. He was interested so when we got home we sent him a copy. Due to there long and abstract nature we didn't think that he would want to release them but, on the contrary he got excited and kind of talked us into it. Though I don't think we needed too much persuading as we liked the recordings very much and to have them released was awesome as far as we were concerned. As far as the unavailability of the films and their failing to make it to reissue that is up to Tim Folland to answer. I think for him the films were more of an experiment that he kind of lost interest in where as for us the music became something of its own entity again marking another era in our growth. They also represent our union with Tarpigh so their importance to us became great. I doubt if Tim will ever reissue the films.
Now that you've provided music at the independent, avant-garde film level, is that something you'd be interested in pursuing if approached at the more commercial level?
Yes, we definitely would love to work on another film soundtrack. Combining music with visuals is a very exciting process and I think now more than ever we are equipped creatively to take on that type of task.
Did you find it a challenge being somewhat limited in the sense that your music was finite it had to end when the film ended? I sense a floundering about 18 minutes into the first film, and I'm wondering if you had to stretch your piece to fit the running time of the film and started to run out of ideas?
'Permanence' operates in the opposite direction the piece takes about five minutes to take off and I'm wondering if that's representative of the slow beginning to the film, or was it just a bit of fumbling around trying to get into tune with the films progression?
I would have to say that we felt the pressure to provide enough music for the total time of the films. I think that the floundering that you sensed was representative of the action in the film. The films were very abstract. Each was a series of situations without dialogue linked together to tell or infer to a story but a lot of the meaning was left up to the interpretation of the viewer. So we as viewers were individually interpreting and then trying to forge those separate takes into a cohesive piece. The floundering may represent a point where it was unclear, in the film, as to what emotion if any was being expressed.
Around this time, you decided to permanently collaborate with Tarpigh, at least over the next three releases. I understand a lot of this had to do with needing additional musicians to help on your upcoming six-week summer tour. At what point did everyone decide that this was the beginning of a beautiful relationship in the studio during the soundtrack recordings or on the road after seeing how well you all got along?
I think that the whole soundtrack experience was the main basis of our mutual decision to join forces and give it a go as a six piece. We had many meetings together over dinner, at the bar, etc. and often we would end up discussing the possibility to further collaboration almost to the point of permanent togetherness. We were kind of flirting. Then when David Mulder quit unexpectedly, while we were home having the van repaired to resume tour, our only option after a night of heated discussion was to ask the Tarpigh guys to help us resume. Tim and Tom could work it out but Eric had prior responsibilities. Yet, a day before we left, at a breakfast meeting, Eric let us know how excited he was for Tom and Tim and that he was very interested in joining the groups when we returned home from the tour. Finally, in Arkansas about a month later we talked to someone at home who let us know that a local paper was interested in doing a feature on Cerberus Shoal. We thought that would be a great opportunity to debut the marriage and we kind of sealed it then over the phone lines to Eric. The tour also did a lot to bring us together. The road is the ultimate test for friends, band mates, etc. Tim and Tom made a sometimes-unbearable journey amazing and new. They were older and wiser musicians with experience that proved indispensable out there and when we got back home.
"Homb" was the first official collaboration. This sounds like a homonym for a personal pronoun, but I'm sure there's more to it? Did you just like the phonetics, or is there a closer relationship to the material on the record?
There isn't too much behind the title "homb". It was a big record for us and I think it set the tone for our three-year ride with each other. , Kind of like homb base, the start or the foundation. It took us eight long months to write that material and in doing so we tested and ultimately strengthened our new found relationships. From there we launched.
Your music has been compared in some circles to the space rock elements of Pink Floyd and 'Harvest' even begins with a heartbeat that figures prominently on one of their songs. Is that a conscious tribute to perhaps update elements of their sound for the nineties certainly they've lost the plot over their last few releases and I'm wondering if you've specifically discussed molding elements of your sound to recapture that vibe that they layed down for us back in the Barrett days?
There was definitely no pre-conceived idea with the "Harvest" thud. That pulse just happened as it happened without too much thought. We are fans of Pink Floyd for in their critical period they proved that creative motives and emotion could be married very tightly. I think we learned this from them, among other things, and were trying to improve upon that idea.
I also find it interesting that you're coming off a soundtrack album for what, I'm guessing, was a silent film, and 'Harvest' opens "Homb" with what sounds like a film soundtrack with dialog playing in the background. Coincidence, or intention?
Coincidence
.You list nearly three dozen instruments "and a couple of toys" that were employed in the recording of "Homb," including a couple I've never heard of, such as a deff, zamponas, caxipi, dholak, and a dombek [feel free to correct my spelling, I had a hard time reading the handwriting in the liner notes]. Are these ethnic instruments that the Tarpighs brought to the recording studio? I can almost picture Paul Newman in "Slap Shot" complaining about the Hanson Brothers: "They brought their fucking toys!"
Yes, here entered the amazing musicianship of Tarpigh. Eric LaPerna is one of the most creative rhythmic musicians I have met to date and to him the sky is the limit as far as instruments and sound makers go. Tom Kovacevic and Tim Harbeson are close behind for their usage of seemingly lost instruments. Eric used to run an ethnic instrument shop so there he was able to test many different tools that most of us would never come in contact with. Tom has studied Andean and Arabic music and you can really hear his feel on that record. Zampona are commonly referred to as "pan pipes" and the doumbek is very common Middle Eastern goblet drum. It is a rhythm staple in Middle Eastern music. A dholak is from eastern Asia around India. It is a double-sided drum which sits in your lap. He plays this drum on "Unmarked Boxes" from "Mr. Boy Dog" as well. The deff is a frame drum and caxixi are small shaker type things.
Do you more often than not start to write out the music and then hunt around for instruments to reproduce that sound, or is it more the other way 'round?
It's more the other way around. The sounds of the instruments write the music more often than the music calling for the sounds.
You must have a helluva big tour van to lug all this shit around with you. One of the photos you considered for the inside cover of this release seems inspired by that photo of Neil Young's equipment on "Decade," only I think you give him a run for his money in terms of the number of pieces. Is it easy to recreate your sound on stage or do you intentionally leave a lot of this stuff at home and only use it on the recordings?
We try to take as much shit along with us as possible. We are definitely known for our cramped and packed style of touring. Our intention in the live setting is to set the best and most effective mood we can and often it takes a whole lotta gear, acoustic and otherwise, to make this possible. Obviously, some things can't make it to the road but, we did tour with a Hammond organ once during the "...Hightide..." days.
What or where is 'Omphalos?' It has a very ethnic vibe akin to what Stone Breath, In Gowan Ring, and The Magic Carpathians are doing these days.
"Omphalos" literally means "bellybutton".
Do you listen to the latest material from what has been dubbed wyrdfolkthat acid/folk, occasionally psychedelic acoustic music those bands I mentioned are doing these days, or are you more interested in a wider range of sounds, dare I say "world music" or, more accurately, "ethnic music?" It seems that all these weird instruments afford you the opportunity to develop material along the lines of what is being played over in Asia and Europe?
I think that what we tend to search out for listening purposes is the real deal. The real deal being music from artists, contemporary or in history, trying to do something uniquely personal and expressive. Our tastes as a group are very broad and I think we like to use certain music for certain purposes. The amazing traditional and folk music that exists in our world has its specific purpose and for us I think that purpose has been to expand our ears, minds and hearts to look beyond what has been given to us as our musical options. The skill of expression through music has been taken very far by the many traditional folk and classical musicians of Turkey, Armenia, what was Persia, India, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Zimbabwe, Korea, Afghanistan, Peru, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. It is impossible to ignore these musics because they move beyond the usual western scales, rhythms and melodies. I guess often they can seem more organically human as though they are unfolding a story comprised of who they are and their music represents this in an ever-evolving melody. A lot of this music just seems more linear. I think also it is the fact that we can't understand the language which helps to build the mystery. We are rebelling against the amplifier and the drum set as this is where we have been and come from so it wouldn't make too much sense in our evolution to continue to go back there. So we have to expand and the music of our world, especially the areas I have mentioned, helps to guide us. Like many others, we are westerners synthesizing the traditional musics from all over, including from our own history, in order to find the right combination to express our unique sound and idea.
The centerpiece of "Homb" is the massive, half hour 'Myrhh," which is segmented into three pieces (as is 'Changabang' on the next album and 'UR' on "The Whys and Hows…" split EP with Herman Dune). You started this trend for multi-part songs way back with the two-part single, 'Lighthouse in Athens,' and 'Falling To Pieces' on the debut LP. Now King Crimson used to do this for songwriting royalties divide a song into multiple segments to get more money. Was economics involved in your decision to do this, or was it simply to avoid turning off listeners who might run the other way once they see 20 or 30 minutes pop up on the CD indexer?
It definitely wasn't for economic purposes as we have just got our publishing stuff together in the last three years and besides to think that way would be disastrous for a group like us and we rarely put thought into whether or not the length of a tune is going to turn off a listener. So it comes down to artistic reasons, I guess. It's like I said before, often we have many musical and artistic ideas for a piece. When you have six people working on an idea you usually end up with more ideas than less. Were constantly struggling to fit everyone's personality into the equation so we have to be very creative with how we structure our material. Hence the multiple part pieces. We wrote "Myrrh" over an eight-month period and in other peoples ears we might have written ten different pieces in that time but to our ears we were working on one "Myrrh". It's like a novel with many chapters. Why don't we force literary writers to work within a three-minute period? It is obvious. Any good and interesting story needs time to unfold. The beginning relates to the middle and to the end. Each part would be lost without the other. So I think were comming from that angle. As far as Changabang is concerned, that is more of an idea of variations on the same concept. A lot of that came out of the studio where we could mix differently to highlight different aspects. Above all were looking to unfold a story just as our story is unfolding. Our birth is just as important as our death and then there is everything in-between but it's all Cerberus Shoal.
You're one of the first bands to my hear to successfully marry the angular syncopation with the fluid, melodic psychedelia of Pink Floyd. Aside from these obvious influences, who else has helped shaped the CB sound?
The idea of our influences is very big as we are talking about twelve people over the span of eight years. I'll attempt a list but be sure that i'm leaving out many artists as i'm trying to think for twelve.
Super Diamano De Dakar
Salif Keita
Sun Ra
Necdet Yasar
Bembaya Jazz
Erguner Brothers
Nusrat Fetah Ali Khan
Neysen Tevik
Thomas Mapfumo
Bob Marley
Culture
Ras Micheal
Peter Tosh
Burning Spear
The Velvet Underground
Captain Beefheart
The Sun City Girls
David Bowie
The music of Gurdjeif and Thomas De Hartmann
Steve Reich
Phillip Glass
Eyvnd Kang
Iku Mori
Neil Young
Bob Dylan
The Clash
De Kift
Van Morrison
Radio Tarifa
Pink Floyd
King Crimson
Black Sabbath
Fugazi
Merel
Still Life
Miles Davis
Dizzy Gillespie
Thelonious Monk
Charles Mingus
Jack Dejohnette
Radiohead
The Beach Boys
The Beatles
Nina Simone
Baba Maal
The Art Ensemble of Chicago
Kampec Delores
Guapo
The Magic Carpathians
The Pogues
The Chameleons
The Cure
The Residents
etc. etc....
You've used musical saws, wooden blocks, whistles, wind chimes, belts(?), and other everyday objects in your songs. Are you constantly on the lookout for unusual objects that might emit a unique sound that you can translate into "music?"
Yes, very much so. I think that we feel anything is a possibility, as the music should be filled with as much of everyday as possible.
"Crash My Moon Yacht" is a little harder to get a handle on. Stylistically, you jump around more so than on any other album. It also features your "heaviest" track to date, 'Breathing Machines.' Your thunderous bass reminds me of the Lemmy era of Hawkwind. And this is followed by perhaps your "jazziest" track to date, 'Elle Besh,' which sounds like an avant/jazz soundtrack excerpt from a Bermard Hermann film score, and also a little of the work of Tortoise. What was the band's thinking at the time you recorded this that resulted in such a different sound?
"Crash My Moon Yacht" was definitely our most pieced together record to date. In the period after "homb" we were trying to kind of cool down and relax as the entire year before was spent writing, performing and recording that music. We got really serious really fast so I think that we were in a much more playful mood post "homb" era. The record was also our most studio-finished work. Meaning we wrote a lot of the material in the studio or we ended up finishing up a lot of ideas in front of mics and soundboard. We kind of took a bunch of incomplete pieces into the studio and proceeded to put them all together. "...Moon Yacht" was also started at one studio with the help of Paul Agnew and Northeast Indie and it was finished at our regular studio in Portland. This record also marked Caleb's first go at recording the group. I just think that after the success of "homb" a lot of pressure was taken off and we were freer to experiment.
The three-part 'Changabang' employs trumpet, whistles, and blocks, and sounds like you raided the toybox for anything that made a sound. Was this intended as a sort of sorbet to break up the lengthier main courses on the albumjust a bit of improvisational fun?
That could describe it for sure. We had three different takes on the piece: cheery/fun, eerie/dark and just all out crazy.
Tim Harbeson's flute work on 'Long Winded,' combined with an Eastern backing and more unusual instrumentation makes me think of a latter-day version of Blues Project's 'Flute Thing.' In the second half of the song, Tim switches back to trumpet and the song assumes a late-night, smoky, film noir-ish groove. Had you been listening to different artists at the time of recording? What influences did you bring into the studio this time around?
Actually Tom Kovacevic plays quena on that tune preceding Harbesons trumpet. "Long Winded" is a bit of an exception for the record as we wrote it in Miami during the 1997 summer tour. We were are Space Cadette records in Miami, home of two great musician artist Rafael and Alfredo Galvez. They were fans of the group and they set us up a show in Miami as well as a few days recording in their studio. So we wrote "Long Winded" there without Eric and it became the first piece written by the new group. When it finally was recorded about a year and half later with Eric we built it up more with the trumpet and the cymbal wash beginning. It's hard to say what exactly we were listening to at the time.
You return to the microphone for a rather mean Tom Verlaine impersonation on 'Yes Sir, No Sir,' which almost sounds like a gosh-darn "pop" song. Were you trying to make the music a little more accessible here?
I don't think I was trying to do much more than make another attempt at vocals and singing. As time has progressed I have become more comfortable with the idea of vocals, singing and specifically my own voice. Often it is difficult for me to express everything i'm feeling through the instrumental music especially when i'm tied to the bass. So i'm always pushing myself to do more vocals and write more words. "Yes Sir, No Sir" was just another attempt. I had been listening to a lot of reggae and inspirational music so I was trying to pass that type of vibe on with a little bit of a message that culture especially western culture and society is greatly fucked and resistance is the only consolation we can afford. I think that the success of the tune was really enhanced by Tom Kovacevic for he helped me greatly with the words, phrasing and singing itself. It is as much his vocal work as mine.
The 2xCD, "Mr. Boy Dog" is the final release in the trilogy of recordings you did with Tarpigh. Was that an acrimonious split?
The split was a surprise but, logical. The pressures of touring without funding and adequate support had taken their toll. We hadn't yet gotten to Europe so we were stuck in the US where touring as an underground original group can be compared to the life of a traveling salesman but worse because at least a salesman gets paid and has no personal ties to the outcome of his visit. Touring had beaten us up but some of the group pushed for more because of all the obvious reasons and others shrunk away from the idea opting for a more home based operation. We just couldn't continue together without a compromise and none could be found. But, we all understood each other very well and the hard feelings quickly faded away. We live together and work together and hopefully that will continue for a long while.
Why was this issued as a 2xCD?
"Mr. Boy Dog" was issued as a double cd because the material dictated so. We had to distinct moods going on and each one deserved its own platform. The music on that record was some of our best and we had been building those songs for about a year and half. One cd would have been too crowded and possibly way convoluted. I think that the record with its two cds represented, finally, the two sides of that Cerberus Shoal. The whimsically mathematical side wishing for playful but challenging music and the moody, personally political side that pushed for heartfelt expression and human connection. What?
'Round Valley' blasts out of the speakers right from the git-go with a heavily syncopated, Crimsonesque onslaught that melts beautifully into 'Nataraja,' featuring Tim on trumpet running up and down the scales over the rest of you guys organizing confusion in the background. When you're writing songs, did the members of the individual bands tend to work together and then bring the material to the other half of the group?
Definitely not. We were very wary of that type of thing and did our very best to make sure that the two groups wrote as one. We were interested in being one group so we forced that into naturality.
Is a lot of your recording done spontaneously or do you plan things out in a blueprint of where you want to go before you hit the record button.
I think that it depends on the record and the time. As I said before during the "homb" era we were very seriously intent on getting down on tape the music we had worked so hard to write and prepare, but for "...Moon Yacht" we left more up to chance and moment. The soundtracks were obviously not all that planned out but, "...Hightide" was very mapped out and executed according to a plan. It just depends on the situation. Studio time is very pricey so it is in our best interest to be prepared in order to not waste time but, when we have a situation like "...Moon Yacht" where were recording at a smaller project studio we felt more inclined to take chances and possibly waste time on ideas that weren't certain.
What's going on with 'Tongue Drongue?' I mean, it starts out with about 6 minutes of vocal chord exercises before the song actually starts what's going on here? I only ask 'cause I fear listeners may fast forward about 6 or 7 minutes to get to the music and I wonder if that's defeating the purpose of beginning the song like that?
"Tongue Drongue" was a tune that was formed mainly from the live setting. The guttural voicings in the beginning were kind of born out of the live room. This song celebrates for us and the beginning which does take a while to develop represents the illogical nature of writing music. The activity of those six or seven minutes, in our individual eyes, justifies the party to come. You have to work before you play. When your playing live it is so important to allow the listener to breath and find perspective on the music being presented to them. Dynamics and space make music exciting and real, it's kind of like our lives that way.
'Nod' also starts out like it was sung in the original tongue-drongue of the inhabitants of the Land of…. Intentional, or is that a real language?
The vocals in "Nod" represent an emotional expression from deep within. Beyond that, they are to be interpreted individually be each listener. In my opinion that is the beauty of disregarding language when singing. To sing in order to emote and call out is beautiful. There is so much language out there, misunderstood, misstated and mistook. Sometimes it's better to howl and growl, chopping and hacking away at an emotion than to try and pick and choose your way to some sort of specific articulation that you'll only need to explain later for words can let you down even when they seem plain and simple to your writing ears. Words and language are great when you understand them to state how you really are feeling. For me that is one out of ten tries.
I like that segue into the dancy, happy feet tune with bazoukis and balalaikas, shakahachis, whateverit comes across like a long lost Camper Van Beethovan track from the good old days. Who came up with that rhythm and can you tell us about its inspiration?
"Nod" was a tune written primarily by Tim Harbeson on his travelers pump organ. The music from the organ is very reminiscent of what Tim was expressing in those days and a glance into what was to come from him in the future. Caleb and I worked on the tune with Tim in our kitchen for several weeks trying to come up with an arrangement. Then Tom Kovacevic got in on the action with his oud to complete the orchestra. It was a challenge from the start and one of the harder pieces to nail down in recording. The actual instrumentation is acoustic guitar, banjo, oud and pump organ. Maybe it's our individual transportation to our desired destination of a land where things make sense artistically and otherwise.
I also like the ending horn riff that reminds me of Gato Barbieri's soundtrack to Last Tango in Paris. Am I hearing things or was there a bit of borrowing going on?
Your hearing things but that is great as far as were concerned. In our eyes, you're listening and drawing relation to your personal world. That is one of the ideals.
Are you the real 21st century schizoid men? No one has captured the spirit of the original Crimson through the first half dozen LPs or so before Fripp decided he wanted to be Talking Heads better than you guys and I'm wondering if one can deduce that you're trying to capture that approach to music since no one else is doing music like this today. I mean, Don Cabalero tried it for a while, but I think they've disbanded. I don't mean to take anything away from Cerberus Shoal's considerable accomplishments as an identity unto itself, but I just wondered if the similarity in sound is intentional, without coming off as a Crimson tribute band?
I think that we appreciate your comparison but, I have to say that it is more in your mind that ours. Yes, our group has listened to Crimson, some more than others. I know that Caleb, Eric and Erin were very into Crimson at one time in each of their lives but besides that I think that it is merely your conclusion which again is fine with us. Nobody can claim complete originality in music or art but ones own experience is just that ones own experience.
Your latest release, "The Hows and Whys of Herman Dune and Cerberus Shoal" is the first in a proposed series of split CDs with like-minded artists, beginning with the French trio Herman Dune. Did either of you hear the other's work before assembling the disk to try to ensure some sort of continuity?
Actually, Herman Dune are from Switzerland but they reside in the Paris area. That was kind of our mistake for a while until we learned of there actually homeland. But to answer your question, yes we had sent Herman Dune the material we had in mind for the split and they responded with their contribution. They said that they wrote their songs with our in mind. We had played together in Switzerland and met there only to meet again at South by Southwest in Austin a year later.
You have several more splits lined up, with Magic Carpathians and a reunion of sorts with the Tarpigh folks already scheduled. How frequently do you hope to issue these?
Are you choosing the artists you want to work with (in a manner of speaking), or have some artists contacted you?
How would someone whose interested get in touch with you're you accepting submissions?
If all goes well and nothing awfully dreadful happens well release a split every three months or so. We are finishing up the last touches on the second installment as I write this; it is called "The Vim and Vigour or Alvarius B and Cerberus Shoal". This one is kind of a dream come true for us as Alvarius B is Alan Bishop from The Sun City Girls and we have been long time fans of their art. You could almost call them living mentors as they have succeeded in lasting over twenty years writing, performing and recording their own personal art and music in a country void of a supporting culture to sustain such a troop. They have done the impossible. The split will feature Alvarius covering one of our tunes, a 19 minute poetic epic called "Ding", and we in turn cover two of his tunes from his 1996 double LP. The record will contain each of our original versions as well. We'll have copies for our upcoming west coast tour. Other installments will be with Amsterdam's' De Kift, London's' Guapo, Hungary's' Kampec Delores, Poland's' the magic Carpathians and yes our very own Tarpigh. So far we have chosen each artist but the door is very wide open for anyone expressing interest. Just drop us an email or see us at a show or whatever.
This is your second release (following the 'Garden Fly, Drip Eye' CD single) with the new six-piece lineup. How did you hook up with these folks?
For the first time, you've invited women into the men's club: Erin and Colleen add another dimension at least providing CB with a distinctive "voice," literally and figuratively. Was this a consideration to open your sound more, or were they simply the best musicians available that fit the direction you had in mind?
We were very lucky, again, to find these three great individuals. Without any offense I have to say that this group is the most well suited for the mission we have laid out for ourselves. Erin Davidson was playing in a local group called Red Light City and they had disbanded around the time of our last show with the Tarpigh guys. We were kind of panicking, for obvious reasons, so we just started moving ahead and trying to find new people. We gave Erin a call and invited her over for a few rehearsals. She fit quite immediately as she is an amazingly natural musician with a similar dream and ethic as us. Colleen Kinsella and I had been doing a singer/songwriter duet for about five months and she had already worked on the "homb" and "...Moon Yacht" cover art. She was well in tune with what we were going for but she had never really tried to work in a band context. She had been singing all her life but visual art was her expertise so to speak. We kind of coaxed her into the practice room and over a period of four or five months she finally decided to commit. Karl Greenwald who is a writer and thinker extraordinaire without any history of music other than being a fan came to us as a roadie and sound person. He did two long tours with us and through that time we realized how well suited he was in his vision and idea for life. He was a natural fit as far as everything was concerned although he had never attempted music. It took him a about six months to finally feel comfortable in the practice room but, his contributions when he came around, were and are brilliant. He is fresh in that he has no experience with music or its evil formats so he has helped us to break out of what was and enabled us to move into what is and will be. The same goes for Colleen in her lack of experience which creates a beautiful new unexplored person who helps push us entrenched old fogies who feel they have been their and done that. Erin had a lot of band experience yet she had never been on tour or completed a record so she too offers a new energy that assists us in lifting us out of our doldrums. With Erin, Colleen and Karl came our first real attempt at singing, writing real concrete words and using the voice as a regular instrument. Karl is a beautiful poet and a wordsmith so he is now shouldering some of the great burden words represent. Colleen and Erin being solid singers have enabled us to use three part harmonies and other arranged vocals to achieve the type of layering we would usually use instruments for. Finally the voice of Cerberus Shoal has arrived, I guess.