Three years ago, while playing music on the air, a caller asked me to play Sun City Girls because he was having a bad day at work and needed to get out of his nightmare. As I wasn’t very familiar with the band, I grabbed all 6 cds from the library, picked Dante's Disneyland Inferno and played Hector & Chino, a cut I’d heard before. Then I looked at the other CDs and the magic started.
But so did the confusion. In front of me were titles like 330,003 crossdressers from beyond the Rig Veda, Midnight Cowboys from Ipanema, Carnival folklore resurrection, The fresh kill of a cape hunting dog, other strange song titles and the most amazing sounds of Asia/Lo Pacific. This was the most unpredictable, esoteric and mysterious raw interpretations of everything imaginable in the world of sounds and music. Free-jazz, prank phone calls, punk rock, cowboy ballads, tape experiments, lullabies, anthemic improvisations, gamelan, acoustic instrumentations, lounge, pop, answering machines, psychedelic drones, radio collage and other indescribable weirdness.
And to my delight, their delirious adventure in modern music was delivered in costumes in an unpremeditated theatrical exploration. Some guests included Eyvand Kang, a San Francisco violinist, members of the Boredoms and Eugene Chadbourne. Their Abduction label, formed in 1993, includes my personal favorite Neung Phak, along with Gerald Hawk, Alvarius B, Specs one, the Master Musicians of Bukkake and, of course, most of the Sun City Girls releases. www.abductionrecords.com / www.suncitygirls.com
For a first time listener, what are the 3 albums you could recommend so one can understand who the Sun City Girls are?
I'd probably shove Horsecock Phepner, Dante's Disneyland Inferno, and the WFMU Radio show in their face. If they can't deal with our humor or verbal assault, then they should not get involved.
Now that I’m all into this I’m realizing that all the answers to any questions anybody could ask you, are in
all your releases. But because they are so anarchistic, some people may need guidance. I thought I’d look
again in the dictionary for the definition of anarchy to see if I’d been interpreting you correctly. "Absence of any
cohering principle, as a common standard or purpose. Political disorder and confusion." Confusion, yes, but absence of purpose, no. Some people rather have a greatest hits. And talking about humour, I would need to write a long chapter.
I think you can handle it. My sense of humor keeps me from committing atrocities! I love rearranging words and destroying language and the established forms of art and music/challenging the reasoning of others. I'm not satisfied with the state of humanity. If I must live on the same planet as Mr and Mrs out of touch, I will do whatever I can to jolt their zombie-ass skulls from the upside-down veal market they hang from. I have nothing but respect for a saint but I love dueling righteous souls with a razor sharp mirror and the complete, unedited verbal repertoire of every smart ass drifting spirit I can channel in my lip pocket! If I couldn't channel THEM, I'd be summoning demons to clean house! My life is an endless collection of chapters on humor.
Where outside the US do you have the most followers?
Falujah, Cambodia, Palestine, Lagos, Yemen, Burma, Karachi, Indonesia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Algiers, the Blue States, Canada, Tripoli, Cairo, and the Outposts of Tyranny multiplied by the triangular root of the Axis of Evil!
Is there any way you can tell how many cds, singles, cassettes you have released?
Probably but I'd rather not....over 100 for sure.
Out of the trio of members, who decided to put out so much material?
That would be me.
Do you start with a project and improvise it or the other way around?
Both, and then some.
Do you release it all because you don't want to leave any idea behind?
Not really, way too many ideas are left behind anyway and we'll never come close to realizing most of them. Anybody can come up with great ideas. Its executing those ideas to accomplishment that matter. And then living with the final form of those ideas and moving on without regret. I release so much because I don't have many things better to do.
I must say that 2004 was a very prolific year for Sublime Frequencies, your field recordings label. It does not matter what kind of a traveler one is, at one point or another, one is familiarized with certain sounds; tribes singing, crowded markets, radio commercials, women gathering in prayers, children playing, cars honking, bells ringing, animals howling at night, mountain wind… Did you decide to create the label to expend the field recordings you have used in a collage way in Lo-Pacific?
No, I really wanted to do it a long time ago...or at least some elements of what Sublime Frequencies is doing now like the Radio Collages. Princess Nicotine originally came out 10 years ago on vinyl (Majora Records).
You did extensive traveling in Indonesia. What fascinates you the most there?
Thats just it....there’s way too much to fascinate anyone there. It’s a pleasure to go to Indonesia. The people, food, music, climate, landscape, its a psychedelic experience 24 hours a day for me. I even like the water.
Do you still consider yourself a tourist when you go there?
Being a tourist is a state of mind I chucked out the window of a moving bus years ago on the outskirts of Tetuan in Morocco. Wherever I go, there I am. I've been to The Middle East: Palestine/Egypt and North Africa (Morocco). Never to China......I was in Nepal and wanted to get to Tibet but it was only possible if I took an official tour with guides and that is unacceptable to me.
Morocco!! I went on a tour there and hit all the towns. It was a tourist adventure but the guide left us alone because we were cheap and only interested in Henna, music and local spices. We had the chance to get away from the bus crowd. What I love in retrospect though, was the fact that we were in a big confortable bus, everybody inside was filming and taking pictures and we honestly were looking like moving caged animals. A zoo on wheels. It was quite a trip.
That reminds me of a scene from HOLY MOUNTAIN (Jodorowsky film)!!!!!
Did you ever have a violent confrontation?
Not many.....I know how to keep that to a minimum.
How about a magical one?
Well, I smoke cigarettes with monkeys in jungles a lot. They like smoking. I thought it was natural but someone told me once it was magic. I also attend ceremonies when I get the chance. Plenty of magic there. Magic is personal for me and I don't make it public.
Did it ever occur to you that the reason you were going to release those was because the existing recordings done by Bruce Fahestock and his brother Sheridan, Robert E Brown or David Lewiston and many others were only about traditionnal music and that you wanted to present a more detailed and wide range of popular sounds?
I like traditional music. I listen to a lot of it. There is no particular reason to present these recordings. I love what I do so I find ways to keep doing what I love. Music is certainly not all that interests me. I hear things my own way and I present them. Sound is inspiring and I can be quite obssessive with certain sounds.
I have not seen all the videos, only Isan and I thank you for not putting any narration. Do you do that because you have been yourself disappointed in the narration of some traditional documentaries?
I don't like narration unless it’s unobtrusive and serves the purpose of something other than trying to educate the viewer or explain the culture. I prefer the film being its own narrator with no voice overdubs. We are taught that we need to put images of events or cultural differences in some type of context for understanding. I am not so interested in understanding from the perspective of OUR culture. I prefer to learn from what I experience in the natural language or setting of the experience itself. I want to perceive without predictable judgements in my way. Our culture's perspective usually works against that by trying to define phenomenon absolutely.
On Folk and Pop Sounds of Sumatra Volume 2, you write "Keep in mind that this is NOT a document for the mere purpose of preservation, although it may serve as such". With the Tsunami disaster, don't you think you have kind of preserved parts of those islands?
Not necessarily since Aceh province has been closed to outsiders on my visits to Sumatra so the area on the northern coast hit by the tsunami was an unexplored musical treasure chest I could never legally access. I kick myself for not making a clandestine effort to get in there but Sumatra is so vast that there is plenty of music. It has become difficult to find cassettes of this material and even more difficult to see it in a LIVE setting. I imagine that almost all living musicians and their documented music in Banda Aceh was floating in water or crushed by the earthquake (or whatever it was!) and THAT'S a huge loss.
How many times have you been to Indonesia and have you been able to learn any of the languages?
I've been to Indonesia twice and the national language (Bahasa Indonesian) is much easier to learn and use than any other foreign language I've encountered. I am not a speaker of the language but sometimes I can communicate effectively in Bahasa.
In Morocco, the women do most of the household chores. They make the bread and carry the loaves to the corner bakery to bake while the men are in the bars sipping mint tea. Is it anything as close in Indonesian land?
Islamic cultures are somewhat similar around the world and men and women are not seen socializing together very much. Of course all men aren't sitting in tea shops either....some of them actually have jobs and work. The unemployment rate is high and that accounts for men sitting in tea shops as much as anything else. Western culture does not understand Islamic culture and I am a bit hesitant to criticize the way things are in the Islamic world. I don't believe in imposing cultural views upon those who are different. Americans are engineered to make quick judgments without researching or experiencing first hand what they are "judging". And they listen to "experts" too much and give them too much credit because they are socially engineered to do so. All spokespeople and experts have agendas. Most don't even realize that they serve an agenda that they are not even aware of. They cannot be trusted EVER! If you want to know something about anything you must do the research yourself. The modern Islamic world has many problems as do all cultures. I am not here to criticize or change them. I respect differences even if I do not understand why or how they came to be. My experiences have taught me that women have much more power than we are all led to believe in ALL cultures.
What are the societies leading the way for women’s emancipation?
The Minangkebaeu people of Sumatra are a Matrilinear culture. The children descend from their mother instead of their father. They are Muslims although their version of Islam is somewhat different. The women control property and money and make major decisions. Its completely unique and assimilated with their pre-Islamic system of thought. They are a very resourceful and clever people. The legend of their independence from outside control is a fascinating one. They were to battle the mighty Javanese to decide who would control the land of their people and they convinced the Javanese to settle the dispute by having a Buffalo fight instead of sacraficing their people against one another. The Javanese sent their fiercist, mighty Bull to battle against the Minang's best. The Minang sent a little baby calf to do battle with this Mighty Javanese Buffalo. Except they separated the calf from its mother and didn't feed the calf for days and they fastened sharp razors around its mouth so that when the calf charged the Bull, it thought the Bull was its mother and when the calf tried to suckle for milk, it gored the Bull to death with the sharp razors and the calf was victorious! Minangkebaeu literally means "Victory Buffalo". The Javanese honored the outcome and left them alone.
Can you anyway relate men/women relationships in different islands?
The cultures of Indonesia vary widely. Islam (all over), Christian (Sumatra/Flores/Timor), Hindu (Bali) and Animism (all islands) are all present and the differences in every aspect of culture can be immense between them. It’s a subject that requires much more time to get into than I am willing to attempt at the moment.
Where does Sublime Frequencies stand in the world music market?
SF is not attempting to work within the established borders of the current "world music" market. Because of the record industry's limited world music knowledge and over-simplification and trivialization of world music due to this lack of vision and knowledge, SF has the luxury of creating its own market. We are not driven by market mentality. We are driven by our passion for the experiences this music and these cultures provide for us. Money and Social acceptance has never inspired us.
Do you encounter any copyright issues?
None at all.
Some of the Sublime Frequencies releases are from other people. Do you give 100% responsability in what they are going to put on the cd?
This entirely depends on who is producing the material and what the content is. I try to give freedom for an artist to express themselves with their own production with as little involvement in the project for me as I can get away with as I'm so busy with other things. So far it has worked out well as the contributors to the label are all friends/associates and I know they are capable of producing the finest work out there.
Radio Phnom Penh, Folk and sounds of Sumatra Volume 2, Radio Sumatra the Indonesian FM Experience, Harmika Yab-Yum folk sounds from Nepal and Molam: Thai Country groove from Isan are your latest releases. The art work is so beautiful and colorful. Do you press them on vinyl and is there any chance of seeing a photography exhibition?
I suppose that is possible and there has been NO vinyl yet. We would like to do it and we may start doing so.
There is a lot of exotism. Indonesia, Middle East, Northern Africa. Will there ever be an "American dream" one? Regardless of current politics, don't you think others have a reciprocal fascination and would love to experience Field recordings from Freedom land?
Maybe we could do a "DJ's of the west coast" sometime?
How about a world collection?
Not at the moment, but I wouldn't rule it out.
It is with great pleasure I've listened to those new releases. I was enlightened with happiness, melancholia and many memories. In front of me came all my childhood filled with bals champetres, snail hunting, local villagers dancing, women and children singing a capella and men telling stories. I could see myself again almost lost in Fez's Medina and nauseating at the smell of Tapei night market. Sublime indeed. There are at this moment 18 cds and 4 dvds available on
Sublime Frequencies.
Now that you are at home, what smell, color, taste, sound and image do you have in you about your most recent trip in Indonesia?
The people....the Durian markets....Gado Gado for dinner.......clove cigarette smoke in every building........Dangdut music blasting from every conceivable sound source.....anything....and everything!
Well, if you like food, sounds and smells, make sure you come and enjoy my delicious Cassoulet!
I’ll be there in April.
Ab.
