moodgusic got together with Steven Hall of Arthur's Landing before their June 25th performance at Tramway in Glasgow. Long time collaborator and dear friend to Arthur Russell, Steven Hall talked about his solo project Bhuddhist Army, Arhur's legacy and how it translates into Arthur's Landing, as well as the projects longevity.
Ernie Brooks, Steven Hall, Mustafa Ahmed, Bill Ryule and Peter Zummo
moodgusic: So Steven, how are you doing today?
SH: Exhausted, but I am okay.
moodgusic: And when did you get in?
SH: We came yesterday morning. We stopped in Dublin, then we took another flight to Glasgow. Um, we were in yesterday morning.
moodgusic: How was it all?
SH: The flight from Dublin was great because it was a small plane. So it was flying very low, we could see all the farmland, it was really beautiful. If I speak too fast is it going to give you a problem?
moodgusic: No not at all, not at all. So you grew up here in Scotland. Could you tell me about some of the memories, of your time growing up here?
SH: Drunkenness and gang fights.
moodgusic: You were quite young at the time.
SH: I wasn’t involved in them, when I was younger Glasgow was much more dangerous, and rough. I mean I know there’s a big heroin scene here but that’s not violent. But when I was growing up here there was a big gang scene, street gangs.
moodgusic: But you do have a fondness for this place, don’t you?
SH: Umm *a baby nearby screams lougly* that’s how I feel. No, I have very mixed feelings about it, it’s really weird to be back here.
moodgusic: Do you still play the bagpipes?
SH: I stopped playing the bagpipes when I was about 13 or 14. So I haven’t played them since, I do have a chanter but I don’t practce.
moodgusic: Do you ever think you’ll pick it up again?
SH: I thought about it, but I’m too lazy. It takes so much breathe and I don’t know if I have enough breathe for it.
moodgusic: Will you be performing with Zuni Zunique and Leigh Ferguson this evening?
SH: Well Leigh’s already here and she seems like she’s really ready to go. Zuni got cold feet, she was very nervous about it. She didn’t know if she could get things right and she’s supposed to turn up for the rehearsal. And if she feels comfortable she’ll sing with us also. We often add people – local people. Usually we look for a local cello player obviously because of Arthur, and then if anyone is hanging around and they seem motivated or interested, sometimes we invite those people to join us.
moodgusic: That’s nice, so it’s all relaxed and informal?
SH: Well usually the people who are interested are really fascinated and obsessed with Arthur’s music, so they bring with them – the same as our fans is like we have readymade goodwill. We don’t have to go out and like sell ourselves or try to get people interested in us because they are already interested in us, because they know Arthur’s work. So everything that’s happened has come to us rather than us going after it and trying to make something happen. That’s what’s unique about this project compared to other projects that I’ve done, including my own music.
moodgusic: So Buddhist Army, are you still working with that?
SH: Yes, in fact we’ll have the first Buddhist Army release will be a vinyl EP on this new French label called Hollie, in Paris. So that will be coming out in September. It has one of Ernie’s song, that I’ll be singing.
moodgusic: I think you posted that on facebook.
SH: Yeah, it has a great long title: There’s a Word for Everything Over Here. It’s a great song.
moodgusic: You’re very active of facebook, you’re always posting remixes and songs you find interesting.
SH: My ex-boyfriend who’s the DJ Danny Wang, said that I’m like a 15 year old who craves attention. I keep on posting things and putting pictures up. So he thinks it’s like obsessive and unhealthy [laughs].
moodgusic: I was reading through your facebook, scanning through it and I saw something interesting, you said that you’re trying to get shows set up in London, Oslo and even Belfast.
SH: Yes, well we have a new booking agent called Isla. From No Menace agency and she – Wow. *A lady wearing an uncommon raincoat walks past * There’s some great raincoats in Glasgow [laughs]. I’ve seen some great raincoats and some great dyed hair also. It’s like still in fashion here but not other places. What was the question again?
moodgusic: Oslo, Belfast and London shows.
SH: Oh yeah, yes we have a new booking agent and she’s working on an offer we got from Fabric in London, the Belfast Music Club and Club Blaa in Oslo and a few other places.
moodgusic: I’d love to see you in Belfast, it’d would save me from having to travel.
SH: I’d love to, I think it will happen. Those guys seem pretty motivated.
moodgusic: And you last gig, wasn’t that on June 4th at Howl Fest?
SH: Yes that was the Howl Festival celebrating Allen Ginsberg which is this big weekend long festival they have every year. They use a lot of different venues and the main part is in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, we played in the park. The history of that links with Arthur because not only did both Allen Ginsberg and Arthur live thee blocks from there, but we used to hang out in that park together. It’s like a gay themed, gay friendly kind of festival and that was a lot of fun.
moodgusic: Are you noticing that there’s a lot of young fans?
SH: No, our main fan base so far has been older. But we have two groups of people, there’s the older people like around my age who are in their 50’s who for this it’s like revisiting or re-evaluating. And then we have a bunch of younger fans, the younger fans tend to be more from a dance music scene. I think as we perform more we’re beginning to see more of a mixture. The only audience we haven’t really reached yet is a gay audience, which is really – because that’s where the money is [laughs]. No but I think it’s a vast audience which is untapped yet in terms of Arthur’s work even though the connection between the gay disco scene and Arthur’s music is very real.
moodgusic: I remember reading something Ernie said, that playing Arthur’s music is something he’d like to do for the rest of his life. You all share this thought I’m sure, but do you see yourself doing this?
SH: No, because I think that each member of the band - almost all of them are composers in their own right, or already have their own bands or their own projects so there’s a certain tension between your personal music and then working with Arthur’s music. So for me it’s very heavy because it’s like dealing with a legacy, and by default I’m like the official singer because Arthur trained me to sing in a particular way. He groomed me to be the singer of his songs because he didn’t feel like – he didn’t think he was cute enough to sing his own songs to be accepted. And so that’s why he trained Ernie and me to sing his songs because he thought Ernie and me would be good front men. And Joyce Bowden, she was like the main female singer, she’s not with us on this trip but she’s also in the band, sometimes. So for me I’ve often felt like giving up this project, Arthur’s Landing, because it gets in the way of my own music. It’s complimentary because my own music is kind of similar, but then every minute I spend working on Arthur’s music is a minute not spend working on my own. I have many mixed feelings about how long I will keep dong it. We’ve also discussed bringing our own material into the band, like maybe doing some of my songs or some of Ernie’s songs but we haven’t done that yet.
Steven Hall in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens Photograph by Take
moodgusic: I’m sure that could be something that would go down very well with the fans.
SH: I think later on we will get into that. The thing is with Arthur’s music is that it’s endless, it’s just endless. It’s like this perpetual motion, a machine or something. There’s so much stuff that’s not recorded and then there’s so much stuff that’s in manuscript that’s still to be discovered. A couple of the songs we do come from manuscripts that were never fully written out or recorded so the idea is that it’s kind an archaeology.
moodgusic: Do you feel a responsibility for maybe you and Steve from Audika records to almost keep putting out this material?
SH: No I don’t feel any responsibility, I think that the main thing about Arthur’s Landing is that I see it as a vehicle for Peter, for Peter Zummo. Because I think that Peter is like the greatest trombone player that every lived, and he’s this national treasure so to have him – and I think out of all of us he was the closest to Arthur musically, in terms of thought, musical thought. So the idea is that the band is a vehicle for Peter who basically improvises on Arthur’s themes and develops improv’ for um, I can’t think of the right word. So I don’t think of it in terms of a responsibility, I think of it in terms of celebration, and also to show since I’m still alive to show what I was taught. In that certain way of singing that I was taught, so to show that. So I don’t see it in any heavy terms of responsibility – we get pressured to do certain songs but we really resist that because we’d rather explore new material. I think that as time goes on more and more people will do Arthur’s music, so I don’t feel like we have to cover things, other’s will cover them.
moodgusic: Do you think Bhuddist army will be ‘stepping into’ dubstep soon?
SH: I really like dubstep and my new thing is techno-dubstep, I was joking about kind of doing a techno-dubstep tonight – I’m not really sure what dubstep is, except it has a lot of very wild synthesiser sweeps.
moodgusic: Yesterday it was announced that gay marriage is legal in New York where you all reside.
SH: Yeah, I’m the only queer member of the band so I share that very intimate connection – that part of Arthur’s life. And also, not so much now but when we were playing the music world was and still pretty much very macho, so even if you’re introducing a feminine sensibility, even if you’re a woman, into this macho scene it’s an interesting musical discussion. Also the word ‘gay’ is very interesting, usually I use the word ‘queer’. ‘Gay’ is more generic, I think ‘gay’ comes with a lot of baggage, entomological baggage.
moodgusic: Does it ever dishearten you as that queer themes haven’t really come into popular music. As with ‘Is It All Over My Face?’ you were adamant about it having male vocals.
SH: I think Arthur would’ve said that maybe that he would want it to apply to everyone, but when it was written he definitely had an idea about what it was but that’s an interesting question, I can’t come up with a full answer right now.
moodgusic: No matter how far the culture has come, it still hasn’t perpetuated into mainstream music.
SH: Yeah, and also an interesting question would be: would it be good to be mainstream? Because maybe it’s better to be something special that’s more on the outskirts of things.
moodgusic: Just one more question, what have you been listening to lately, any favourite records of the year or older stuff you’ve picked up on?
SH: There’s a really good singer, this discovery I made called The Boy Called Hedge. So I’m excited about him, I’m also listening to The Fania All-Stars CD which just came out on Strut. It’s like a survey of Porto Rican musicians in New York in the 80’s and 90’s, so I’m listening to that. That’s about it I mean the best comment in terms of listening to music I heard was, Bob Dylan stayed with the French Elvis. This guy Jerry… Ernie! Who’s the French Elvis Presley? Like that guy ‘Jerry’..?
EB: Johnny Hallyday.
SH: Johnny Hallyday.
EB: Please don’t say anything good about Johnny Hallyday.
SH: I’m just saying a comment he made about Bob Dylan. Okay, Bob Dylan stayed on Johnny Hallday’s farm for a couple of weeks and Johnn Hallyday said: “The only thing that Bob Dylan ever listened to was Bob Dylan.” That made me feel much much better, because usually the only thing I listen to is myself, or Arthur’s Landing.
Steven Hall in Allen Ginsberg's Kitchen Photograph by Allen Ginsberg
moodgusic: Well thank you very much for taking the time to talk, I’m looking forward to the show. It’ll be the first time I see Arthur’s music performed live and I’m very excited about it. I wish you all the best – hopefully you can keep continuing the project.
SH: Yeah well we didn’t get into the difficulties of the band itself, that would be a whole other interview because three of the member are not here. There’s eight members in the band, one member [Joyce Bowden] has kind of quit the band because, Joyce and me were fighting all the time. The other member Elodie doesn’t really want to be in the band because she’s such a composer in her own right and it takes time away from her music as I mentioned earlier. So she only wants to play sometimes with the band, she doesn’t want to be an official member. John Scherman couldn’t get his passport renewed in time to come.
moodgusic: That’s unfortunate.
SH: That’s part of the dysfunctional aspect of the band, we’re supremely dysfunctional. It’s also part of the legacy of Arthur, because Arthur was very dysfunctional – so it’s like we’re dealing with this dysfunctional legacy, and then Elodie our keyboard player said: “The real difficulty about having a band like this is the 9th member.” Which is Arthur, so we have like a ghost member in the band. So that’s what makes it really complicated as we always imagine Arthur’s actually there with us, or what he would want us to play. And then you also you’re dealing with – this agent friend of mine said – I asked him to be our agent and he said: “No way. I would never be the agent for old musicians they are all impossible!” [laughs] They’re all spoiled brats [laughs]. So that’s another aspect of it, musicians by nature are spoiled, so when you get to be 50 years old – our youngest member is me, I’m 53 and we have a couple members who are 60, Ernie’s 60 and Peter’s 61. So when you get older people set in their ways who are spoiled or dysfunctional it becomes like this carnival of dysfunctional behaviour – which on stage makes a great show. Because there’s all this hidden tension going on underneath and that helps when we get to improv’, that’s when the fireworks start.
moodgusic: Okay, thank you very much Steven.
Arthur's Landing's self titled debut release is out now on Strut Records.
Unedited interview recording~ [audio http://moodgusic.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/caff8-vn860011.mp3]
VN860011.mp3
*Special thanks to Philip Larkin for giving me shelter and bein' the best.
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