Interviews

Verbicide (Issue 22)

Heart of the City

My interview with Detroit's primier rock poster artist Kevin O'Rourke.

O’Rourke’s style, if he can be said to have a single style, uses elements of commercial advertising to create a current of bold colors, explosive shapes and clearly defined messages. Much like a club DJ Kevin samples influences from disparate sources to create some thing new; a reconfiguration in which the base elements are powerfully redefined in proximity to one another.

A Beginner’s Guide to Scotty Karate

Scotty Karate’s music can run the gamut from more or less straight country (your parent’s country, not the new country of Big and Rich) to self-indulgent quasi-psychedelic jam rock. Some folks categorize his music as cowpunk, but it’s a label Scotty isn’t entirely comfortable with. “I always wanted to be cowpunk, but I don’t listen to much of it aside from Hank III.”

Verbicide (Issue 21)

Skin Deep

An interview with Adam B. Forman (aka Dutch Rubb). Adam gives his thoughts on tattoos, art and working on major motion pictures.

For Adam, blending the everyday with the abstract has become reflexive, resulting in images which are cool as Novocain and sharp like a four letter word. To the posers of the art world Forman begs the question, “Why are so many artists willing to suffer for their work and so few of them willing to learn to draw?" One can only gue

The Record: Detroit's Music Journal (January, 2007)

An Interview with Goudron

Q. I was told that chip bending can only be done with old circuits, because the new circuits are too small to soldier by hand. So I’m wondering if you are simply unconcerned with electrocution since you only work with old equipment and a lot of it seems, well, not quite up to OSHA standards?

A. I only do this with voltage low enough so I won’t get hurt. Sometimes I put wires in my mouth to see if it works, to see if the machine has a pulse. I started circuit bending with toy robots, mixing wires, experimenting. I lost a lot of toys that can’t be replaced. I fried them.

The Record: Detroit's Music Journal (March, 2007)

Mark Arminski tells me about his newest project: producing 7'' live singles from some of Detroit's finest bands. Arminski's joint venture with Noiseville Records includes a concert poster as the sleeve for each record.

The Record: Detroit's Music Journal (September, 2006)

Interview with Detroit's Larry Hull

Keeping an Afro-Caribbean beat on the streets of mid-town Detroit is what this homeless drummer is all about.

The Record: Detroit's Music Journal (November, 2006)

An interview with Teresa Murry

Female sound engineers are a rare, but female sound engineers who’ve traveled around in freight trains are rarer still. Teresa Murry is such a person.

An interview with Teresa Murry. Sound engineer, occasional transient and tattoo enthusiast.

Q. What was it like taking a bath in a tub knowing that someone had been murdered there?

A. It was awesome.

The Record: Detroit's Music Journal (July, 2006)

An interview with General Bastard.

Q. What are your thoughts on punk themed movies such as Repo Man, Suburbia, etc.?

A. Repo Man is a classic! Look at when that came out. The punk scene was probably as underground as you could get. There was very few of us at that time in my high school that got it. So when all of a sudden you have The Circle Jerks in a semi-major motion picture release it was too cool, almost a validation because most people thought they sucked along with every other punk band there was. Because of movies like Repo Man, Decline of the Western Civilization(Part 1) the early 80's punk scene got documented pretty well on film. As a whole there’s now have a much larger appreciation for those bands than ever before. To this day them bands are still gaining new fans and the kids nowadays have a serious knowledge of the music. So it's great to see another generation getting into it.