(1996) Unknown

Post Reply
User avatar
Ross
Environmentalisations Se7en
Posts: 4483
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2011 8:03 pm
Contact:

(1996) Unknown

Post by Ross »

"Mess Works as an Entertainment Concept": FSOL's Garry Cobain on ISDN, BBC, USA, EBV, MTV and other abbreviated concerns...

Interviewer: Any big ideas behind Dead Cities?

Gaz Cobain: Coherent concepts and simple ideas for entertainment are just killing things. I'm going against that by producing mess, really. So, I'm not sure if there is a concept. It's just a mess. Around the world, mess is working as an entertainment concept. An example? Us. Despite the fact we're successful, we're not given that much support, so we have to battle for say, a different kind of radio broadcasting. We realise our music doesn't fit onto conventional radio, so we've shown them a way it can work. Coldcut have done it too, they make their shows entertaining. If you're creative, it works.

Interviewer: Any more ISDN broadcasts?

Gaz Cobain: It's turned out pretty rock'n'roll actually - we've got two dates a night from the end of October on the BBC and radio stations up and down Britain and the USA. We've got the national station in Israel for two hours. The show's a mix of a gig and a radio broadcast. A small point, but important to make.

Interviewer: Dead Cities seems more lo-fi than previous offerings...

Gaz Cobain: Yeah, odd that. Brian's getting more and more into high tech and I'm going the other way, more traditionalist. Brian calls me a traditional prick these days. Having said that, we're doing an hour-long film on MTV on 3 November. It's not like the Lifeforms animated one - there's ordinary film and speech in there too. What's it about? It's jumbled-up madness, basically. I'm into coherency and incoherency at the moment.

Interviewer: You've got your own label now.

Gaz Cobain: It's EBV - Electronic Brain Violence. The logo's always been on the back of our labels. The one minute guitar reprieve at the end of the album is by one of our signings - Simon Snuff (of former indie-thrashers Snuff). The first release is by a guy who's working under the name Arcon 2 [aka junglist Leon Mar] at the moment.

Interviewer: You've not given up the grandstanding, then?

Gaz Cobain: We're not making pompous statements - that we're great at radio or broadcasting or anything like that. We're just saying we want to realise our desire for what we want to see on TV and radio. We want to come at the mainstream with left-field stuff, and that's hard to do. But I must admit that in the past, I have fallen into hitting people over the head all the time. The spoiled child thing - 'You think FSOL are like this! But actually we're like this now!' I've relaxed a little bit since.
Post Reply