THE BLOWTOPS FROM BUFFALO, NY IS THE KIND OF BAND I LIKE: THEY'RE STRANGE, PERSONAL, THEY'VE GOT A CREEPY SOUND AND THEY'RE ADDICTIVE LIKE YOUR FAVE KIND OF DRUG. I FIRST TRIED TO DROP THEM QUESTIONS FOR THIS INTERVIEW A LONG TIME AGO, BUT DUE OF SOME E-MAIL FUCK UPS ME AND CREEPY DAVE, THE SINGER, ENDED UP TALKING ABOUT HIS CRAZY BAND JUST NOW, AFTER MORE THAN SIX MONTHS. THANKS TO BART AT BIG NECK RECORDS WHO HELPED ME OUT WITH THE CONNECTION... LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, HERE YOU HAVE THE BLOWTOPS.
GD- Tell us a brief band history for the unaware readers...
The
Blowtops started in 1997 in Buffalo, NY. It started as an experiment. We dissolved
a band called The Headknockers and everyone took a position in the band that
they never had before. (vocalist on guitar, bassist on vocals etc.) We used
to play a club called the Sanctuary which was shut down for "lewd behavior".
After that, Bart, the club owner started Big Neck Records and the 1st release
was our "Voodoo Alley" 7". Since then, it seems that there
is always some small label willing to release our recordings and we manage
to tour throughout the year so we stay together.
GD- How do you call your kind of music? I think it's pretty personal and strange...
I would agree with you. We don't have a name for it. Sometimes it helps with setting up shows to label it experimental/noise/garage/punk etc. but we never set out to make a particular type of music. We like a lot of different kinds of music and it's inevitable that we will sound like some genre at some point.
GD- What's your link with B-culture and horror movies??
No real links yet. Hopefully, someone will feature
us somewhere. We can be one of those stupid bands in the background of some
movie set where people die. I think we'd fit there. We all like B-culture
and horror movies so it gets thrown in the soup eventually.
GD-
Some of your songs remind me of the fury of serial killers, what do you think
about this opinion and about the phoenomenon in general?
Is that a good thing? At least two of the Blowtops
have read quite a bit about serial killers and you can only indulge in that
kind of evil so much until you have to unload it. It's a good thing that it's
only music. I just found out that one of the Blowtops has a dog named Speck.
I guess he needs more of an outlet than the band.
There IS a sick sense of humor somewhere in the music but I don't think people
get it too often. That's OK, we may leave more of an impression that way.
I'm kind of sick of the fascination to tell you the truth but I guess that's
human nature. It's hard to look away from something so repulsive if you're
any kind of human at all. The indulgence of serial killers in the entertainment
business is repulsive in an entirely different way. The only real reason we
hear about it over and over again is because there's $ to be made. The obsession
comes from wanting to hear and see it in order to understand it. What ends
up happening, I think, however, is that we become numb to it instead of understanding
it. You can understand the mechanics of it but that won't satisfy you. As
we become numb to it, it becomes like an
addiction and we have to fix more often to get that rush but it's never like
the 1st time. This is what junkies go through. An addict is constantly trying
get as high as they did the 1st time they tried whatever it is that they're
addicted to. Serial killer obsession is no different. Numbness and indifference
scare me more than anything. This is why people create art (for lack of a
better term) as disgusting as The Blowtops. Without it, we'd have no proof
that we're here and affected by the world we live in-for ourselves or anyone
else.
GD- What are your main influences? I remind you did a wonderful job covering the Alice Cooper band on your "Blood and Tar" 10"...
Thank you. I always liked that song so I hope we did it well.I'm assuming you mean what bands influenced us. This is kind of hard because, between all the members of the band (past and present), it's a pretty extensive list. I think some common threads at the time the band was formed were as follows: Pussy Galore, the Birthday Party, Foetus, Butthole Surfers,Big Black, old blues records dating back to the '30s. Most of us like '70s&80s punk/post-punk whatever consistently and have been record collecting geeks for a # of years. I think everyone started out liking 60s&70s rock and roll-like most kids searching the radio dials to escape. I'm sure you'll find records by AC/DC, Kiss, Jimi Hendrix,the Who, Devo at any one of our houses-along with the Stooges, MC5, Ramones,Damned which are kind of the basics when you discover the world underneath the radio. All of us have a heavy metal, "new wave" and/or hardcore "period" in our pasts that we're not ashamed of. There are a few bands right now that are making great records. They don't influence our sound but they inspire us to work hard on whatever we're writing/recording at the time. I think we all like the Lost Sounds and the A-frames records.
GD-
Is there any strange/weird thing happened during one of your shows you'd like
to tell me?
There's a couple shows that stand out. In Germany we had some of the best
shows. I think that's when we started to understand what performing really
means. A friend of mine dragged me around the club on a dog leash while I
sang a song called "Strangled" in Bremen. That was memorable. Some
big blonde woman kicked me in the face in Hamburg and I bled all over the
place. She said it was an accident. Her legs were worth it. Some girl in Buffalo
that we never met before burst into tears apparently because I was slithering
down the bar next to her. I swear I didn't touch her! Our guitar player has
had bras thrown at him. We've all bled a lot on stage. We thought it was weird
the 1st time we were told that people wanted an encore and were serious about
it. A pretty girl straddled my face while I was on the floor once. That was
exciting. There's probably a lot of other things I'm forgetting. These things
might seem boring in this day and age but it's what I can remember.
GD- Your records are released mainly on garage punk labels such as Big Neck, Estrus and more, but I don't think you sound like any of their other bands at all. How do you feel into this music biz, and how do you like it?
I don't think we really have a niche but the garage
labels seem to like us so we just kind of get lumped in with the current crop.
It's starting to get a bit more diverse now though. Big Neck just sent me
a compilation to do the liner notes on and it's a great record. The bands
don't all sound alike despite the common thread. When I first started listening
to "underground" music, there were so many different types of bands
that all toured together and shared labels. You could go to a show and hear
three completely different bands and they were all great. I feel like it's
starting to get that way again. I hope I'm not mistaken. No Blowtop listens
to one kind of
music.As far as the business end goes, touring is the only time that it feels
like actual work. It gets frustrating looking at the time and effort and overall
lack of appreciation for it. We make music because we want to but the fact
remains that, without some $, you can't really continue to do it. We aren't
looking to strike it rich with this shit but when you travel somewhere out
of your way and the "good crowd (due to promotion)", "gas$"
and "drinks" you were promised turn out to be 10 people, 20$ and
half priced drafts, it is nothing less than frustrating. For every bad show,
there's at least one good one though and sometimes it feels worth it.
GD- What about Buffalo, the city where you come from, and its attitude towards music?
Buffalo's music scene seems to be suffering quite a bit lately. It was pretty good for a while but it seems like most other cities in the sense that, if it's not rammed down peoples throats via MTV, Rolling Stone etc., no one cares. No one is curious or supportive or creative. People just want their music like fast food-predictable, accessible and neatly packaged. There are a handful of good bands here that support each other so, at the very least, you might have 12 band members and their friends to play for.
GD-
How did you chose a moniker like yours?
If you mean "creepy", I didn't choose it. It chose me. People started
calling me that a few years ago and it stuck.
GD-
Do you think the Blowtops are an answer to today's declining conditions or
what?
That's funny. Yes!!! Everyone reading this should go buy or steal a Blowtops
record and improve his or her life so he or she can improve the world!!! Do
you think you can spread some message around with your music? I'm not sure
what that might be but now that you mention it, yes!!! All of
the putrid, rotting, corpses of the human race should express themselves as
honestly as the Blowtops!!!!!!!!!!
GD- What do you think of today's american music scene, and the underground in particular?
I've
always loved the underground. It's the only place where people are creating
music for the sake of creating music. Everything else is just business. The
American music scene is probably no better or worse than it was before 'punk',
"garage" or "Rock and Roll" were household names. There
are still handfuls of creative bands scattered throught the US that are doing
interesting things and, like years ago, only a handful of people care enough
to go see them or buy their records. How many people do you really think saw
the Screamers or Crime at the time when they were around? If they were alive
now, hundreds of people would go see them-maybe even thousands. Practically
every band that has enough living members has reunited and toured. Rocket
from the Tombs just played a few dates last month. If you would have asked
the average rock&roll hipster 10 years ago who they were, you would have
received a blank look. Same thing with the Stooges 20 years ago. The only
reason enough people worship these bands now is that, the older something
is the safer it is to like it. "Punk" Rock is safe for the kids
these days so when some bubblegum punk band plays "I wanna be your dog",
1 out of 20 bazooka joes goes out the next day and try to find the cd and,
if they know how to read, they discover, sooner or later...the Stooges.And
the Stooges were great! I'm glad I was enough of a loser when I was a kid
to look for salvation in records and hear FUNHOUSE by accident. I'll never
forget it. The thing is, at the same time, I went out looking for new records,
new sounds, different sounds etc. I actually went to any show I could just
because I was curious. It was a case of hit or miss sometimes but that didn't
bother me and it didn't bother the 30 other people at the show who had a "Funhouse"-type
of record on their turntables at home either. We were hungry and eventually
formed our own bands. This has been happening in America for decades. I mention
the Stooges because I think there are too many bands that try to sound like
them right now. I think the American music scene is saturated with cheap imitations
of 60s/70s era underground rock and roll and they are more fueled by a desire
to be the next most-noticed piece of shit instead of being fueled by a desire
to make challenging, interesting music. This is nothing new and it won't change.
What scares me now, is that music seems to matter less than ever to people.
It seems like the people who should be responsible for starting new bands
are more concerned with video games, the internet and who knows what. Hopefully,
I'm wrong. It does seem like we, as a race, are destined more and more to
become part of a machine of some sort. I think I like about as many existing
bands as I did any other year. Some years, for whatever reasons are particularly
better than others. Whenever I actually think about his kind of thing, I get
annoyed because people's perceptions seem so warped to me. Maybe it's me who
is warped but I'd rather be warped than to say idiotic things like "there
just aren't good bands like there used to be". That's a bunch of crap!
Just because your perception has been altered and things don't seem as new
or interesting as they once were doesn't mean that they're not. It's easy
to roll over and quit. It's also boring. I'm sure that if I had the time to
hunt down music that I like as much as I used to, I'd find all sorts of great
bands that I never knew existed. I don't have the time so I have to fight
the mental magnet of commercialism in order to not succumb to eating poison
that is no more poisonous than it was in previous generations.
GD- What about being an artist in a so narrow-minded world?
Are you making fun of me already? You should be!This question is loaded and I'm going to swallow it.There is no art in this narrow minded world. That's why I try not to live in it. Tee narrow minded world of which you speak are just those perceptions that dominate the airwaves, the press etc and are fueled by a desire to make $, kiss ass and be part of the next most talked about piece of shit that's crammed down everyone's throats.
GD-
Since you music is such experimental rock and roll, do you guys have any liking
for industrial music/power electronics and stuff like that?
Yes!!! Foetus was amazing! Einsturzende Neubaten, Cabaret
Voltaire, THrobbing Gristle etc. That is a genre I wish I knew more about.
If you have any
suggestions, let me know. We like a lot of the 70s-80s San Francisco music
like Tuxedo Moon, the Residents etc. also. Most of us like that music but
we never really wanted to invest the $ to incorporate electronic/synth into
our sound-until lately. You may be surprised at what spills out of us in the
next year or so. Then people can say we're trying to be like...
GD-
I like to listen to your music reading scary books, what about literature?
What are your fave writers?
I can't speak for everyone but I like a lot of different writers. This year
I read books by Lovecraft, Poe , Hawthorne, Twain, Dee Brown, Conrad, Anthony
Burgess, De Sade. I read parts of the Bible, medical books, poetry, newspapers,
EC comics and even some tabloid crap.
GD-
That's all now, please take your space to tell whatever you want to our readers...
Thanks for the interest. Please contact the Blowtops for any reason at all.Build
your own perception!
