"If it feels good, don't play it"

I briefly met Christopher E. Trull after a Yowie show in Brussels. The contrast between his attitude (very relaxed, playing with an almost constant threatening smile) and the level of craziness of what he played made quite a deep impression on me. That was already a couple of years ago. Very recently Christopher asked me why I stopped this blog and I just couldn’t believe he knew it; so I can say he made me relaunch it right now. If you don’t know Yowie, just think of Trout Mask Replica on steroids and you’ll have only a very small idea of what that band is. The kind of band words can only fail to describe. This discussion started in late June 2016.

So, Christopher, tell me about the beginning: how old where you when you started to play, and what made you want to pick up the instrument? What kind of memories do you keep from that period?

I don't really remember what age i started.  My family had lots of musical instruments around the house when i was young - my mom plays piano, my dad, sister and brother all played classical guitar at one time - i used to bang away on them all.  I used to sneak my brother's really nice 1965 Fender Jaguar out of the case and play it when he wasn't home.  I traded a friend for a Hondo 2 Precision-style bass when i was around 13 or 14.  

It was all messed up, but my brother fixed it and got new strings on it for me as a Christmas present (he probably just wanted me to stop playing his guitar!). I played bass for a few years before i actually had a guitar of my own. I still have that Hondo!

From then until today, can you identify some important steps that led you where you're now?

For the first few years that i played in bands, i was entirely self taught. I think realizing that i had gone about as far as could without help was extremely important. I started taking lessons from a guy named Frank Heyer, who was the older brother of the drummer of the band i was in at the time.  He was (and is!) a really great & unique teacher. I learned a TON from studying with him.
 

Then, years later, being in Grand Ulena with Darin Gray & Danny McClain was a transformative experience. We really forced each other to move way beyond what we would normally play to achieve a shared musical language.  We had lots of rules and sayings written on the wall of our practice room, and one of them was "If it feels good, don't play it." 

That’s amazing! So yeah: Grand Ulena. I didn’t mention it yet, but that band and now Yowie are probably the most well-known bands you are/were involved with. Something tells me you might have others projects. Am i wrong? Tell me everything!

Let's see...the first band i was in for any length of time was called Darling Little Jackhammer.  We toured the US several times, made a record with Steve Albini, and made a second record (still unreleased) before fizzling out. That band was basically a pop-punk band, but everyone in the band had extremely varied musical interests, so there were a lot of weirder elements thrown in, too. We were crazily prolific.  i think we wrote close to a hundred songs (although they rarely went past 2 minutes).
 

After that was Grand Ulena, which took up a large amount of my time, but i also managed to be in a fairly straight ahead guitar pop band called Brown Company at the same time (we only released a one-sided 12" EP, and one compilation track).
 
I made three solo albums in the mid-2000s that used to be hosted by my friend Paul's web-based label Dead Language Records.  He wanted to move on from doing DLR and i was fine with those albums going "out of print" so to speak, so they're no longer available.
 
Grand Ulena stalled around 2006, and for a while i considered myself retired from being in bands.  i still played guitar everyday, but i just didn't have the drive to start up something new.  Also, GU hadn't actually broken up, we just stopped playing together because outside influences had made it extremely difficult. i still thought things would change and it would creak back to life.  That hope evaporated in 2011 when Danny died. As awful as that was (and still is), it helped me realize that i wanted to be in a band again...so when Yowie needed a guitarist, i accepted the challenge.

I didn't even know you released solo records...! Come on: make a bandcamp or a soundcloud page. We all want to hear that!

All three albums were done really quickly and I'm not sure they stand the test of time all that well.  People occasionally ask about the third one, which was more of a true solo album - no overdubs, etc,...maybe I'll put that one up on bandcamp eventually.

Both bands feature really complex and almost epileptic music; but in a different way, at least to me! Can you say a few words about the approach? I mean…I can hardly think your complex, twisted music comes from ... jamming. No way! ;-)

That's correct: no jamming.  Those guys have zero interest in improvising at all. Ever. It took some adjustment on my part when we first started playing together.  Grand Ulena had a large improvisational element. It's a very different approach to making jagged instrumental rock music! Yowie writes material very, very slowly.  One riff at a time.  Someone will come to practice with an idea - a rhythm, a guitar part...whatever - and we all try to come up up with accompanying parts and variations.  Everything gets recorded, so we have a library of hundreds of riffs (not exaggerating). 

After amassing material for a while, we start to make vague associations between riffs (this might go with that, etc.). We begin stringing a few together into clusters. These get changed/rearranged/edited/discarded almost endlessly until a larger structure starts to emerge.  On the songs for the next album, we have been trying to make the compositions flow as seamlessly as possible. It adds an additional degree of difficulty to an already complex musical concept.

Yowie is recording our new album at the end of August. It should be released in the first half of 2017 and we hope to return for another European tour. Right now, we're in the middle of recording prep, which can be very frustrating.  I will be extremely relieved when the tracking is complete!

So besides Yowie you don't have another band or collaboration?

Nothing ongoing.  I occasionally play improvised shows - one recent highlight was a duo with the amazing pedal steel player Susan Alcorn...and I've done a small number of studio sessions - I play on two songs on the Wooden Wand record 'Farmer's Corner'...just little things here and there.  I don't have time for any actual "side projects".

I'm always frustrated to have so few informations on my favorite players practice habits. This is such an important part of one's evolution. What are yours?

I'm not nearly as disciplined in my practicing as i should be. When i was around 22, or 23 years old, i would practice for crazy amounts of time - 10 or 11 hours a day!  I didn't have much else to do! I think i still benefit from the work i put in back then, though. My technical facility has probably deteriorated a bit, because I'm not playing as much; but the muscle memory is still there.  I don't have a regimented way of splitting up practice tasks. I have a lot of warm up exercises that i usually start with.  A lot of these came from my guitar teacher i mentioned earlier.  He has his own teaching method and i still find the exercises useful.
 
What are these? Usual chromatic stuff?

Frank has a concept where there are an endless series of exercises that move in either major 3rds, or flat5s across the fretboard. He called that "the path". They start with the simplest combinations - half steps, whole steps, etc, but build in complexity (both in terms of dexterity required & harmonic content) until the exercises are really more like compositions. He was always a little touchy about his material getting into the wrong hands and i think he still hopes to publish a method book, so i should probably not leak any of his work.  I've probably said too much already!

Ok ! Please keep on.

Sometimes i will play around with soloing over changes of a jazz standard (looper pedals are pretty great for this!), but that's done more for my own amusement than because i am (or want to be) really good at jazz - i played a lot of jazz tunes when i was taking lessons and i never really felt like i got past the paint-by-numbers phase...by which, i mean that i learned which scale to play over each chord & how to incorporate the melody into my solo lines, etc...

That's very cool and i'm not surprised at all: it seems that the players i like have all that in common; they are not strictly jazz guitar players but do have a solid grasp on that bebop langage; Nels Cline comes to mind immediately.

Yes but i never felt like i was making music.  It always felt like a fill-in-the-blanks game.  I always figured it's one of those things that requires maniacal devotion to transcend just playing-the-changes.  i can certainly be maniacally devoted to certain musical endeavors, but that's just not one of them.

I also do a lot of right hand work.  In recent years, i've started using hybrid picking quite a bit, so i do a lot of ''pick and fingers' exercises.  Mostly fairly un-musical stuff - playing different note groupings on specific strings using whatever techniques i'm focusing on.

I actually lost most of my small 'pinky' finger on my right hand in an accident two years ago…

OMG  yes i remember that. On a boat. I'm glad it didn't had any serious impact on your ability to play…!

…I can do pretty much everything i could do before that happened, but it requires regular practice otherwise my hand tightens up.

To close this “practice topic”, would you have some tips or advices?

I think one of the biggest things that guitarists tend to overlook is their rhythmic feel.  It's one of the absolutely essential elements of playing (especially with others!), but guitarists tend to get distracted by speed and scales, or whatever. Work with a metronome, or a drum machine, or a real live drummer to learn to lock-in rhythmically and actually groove (when applicable). A wrong note (meaning pitch in this instance) can be recovered from pretty easily 'in the moment', but if your rhythm falls apart, you're screwed!

The other big thing for me is learning to play without physical tension. Music is difficult enough without fighting your own body to play it.

For this article I already used words like « craziness », « epileptic » etc so i won’t try to find another spectacular one to TRY to describe the music you’ve been involved with for years ; but what could you say about inspiration ? What drives you to keep on pushing things? I mean not only music.

I love movies...Tarkovsky is a huge favorite. I don't know...i often ask myself why i keep doing this and I'm not sure I know the answer. I do know that during the five years that i didn't play in a band (between Grand Ulena and Yowie) I noticed a negative impact on my well-being.  I'm certainly less grumpy when i have a creative outlet!

I do like very much this answer as I find pretty lame that “I just can’t do something else” kind of romantic answer we mostly hear here and there… Anyway: a few words on gear, tunings, stuff?

Until I joined Yowie, i always played in standard tuning. For that band, i need a little bit more low range and slack in the strings.  I settled on the tuning CGDGCD, which I actually stole from Sonic Youth (which is a bit embarrassing).

When you saw Yowie in Brussels, i was playing my Zachary D1 - it's a handmade guitar with a body made out of a re-purposed pine Ikea kitchen table. That has gone back to being my standard tuning guitar. So for the past few years, I've been using a long scale Telecaster (which was actually a very generous gift from my father-in-law!). The only pedal i use with Yowie is a volume pedal (and occasionally the channel switch for my amp). I only use the fun stuff (wacky effects pedals, etc) at home! (Christopher has a nice Instagram profile where you can see stuff like the Montreal Assembly Count to 5, etc). 

Silly but always enjoyable: give me your top ten records.

I'm going to have to narrow that down to something arbitrary...

how about...my top thirteen records from the heyday of US independent rock (1990-1995):

- Dazzling Killmen - Face of Collapse

- Trumans Water - Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox & Ass

- US Maple - Long Hair in Three Stages

- Slint - Spiderland

- Melvins - Bullhead

- Unrest - Perfect Teeth

- Sebadoh - III

- the Jesus Lizard - Liar

- Karp - Suplex

- Unwound - New Plastic Ideas

- Pitchblende - Au Jus

- Sun City Girls - Torch of the Mystics

- Brise Glace - When in Vanitas...

Nowadays I’ve been really enjoying those records:

Griot Galaxy - 'Kins' ('81) and 'Opus Krampus' ('84)

Skin Tags - 'Demo 2016' and split w/ Hardbody

Virus - Memento Collider

the Allman Brothers Band - s/t first album & the second disc of the Fillmore East album

Talk Talk - Laughing Stock

Lino Capra Vaccina - Antio Adagio

Black Host - Life In The Sugar Candle Mines

Photos credits:

The pink one was made by Adam Newsham;
The Yowie pic was shot by Mabel Suen;
The last one was taken by an unknown photographer from the Czech Republic. 

    

"I began playing very conventionally and it's evolved over many years into what it is now"

Bill Orcutt

Co-founder of the mighty Harry Pussy almost twenty years ago, Bill did a fantastic come-back last year with his solo album "A new way to pay old debts". Here's a short interview with the man himself. Take two minutes to read it then go to the Mego website and order this masterpiece.

First of all, i'd like you to tell me about your childhood: which musical souvenirs come to mind? What made you pick up an instrument?

I didn't hear much music early on. My parents didn't have a record player or any particular interest in music outside of AM radio. Later when I was about 15, I got a record player for my birthday. I hadn't asked for one, but I suppose they thought all teenagers wanted record players. I started buying records, discovered the blues and rock and decided I wanted to play the guitar...

From Harry Pussy early days to your actual solo work, your playing is quite directly recognizable. How do you perceive the construction- be it conscious or not - of your playing?In others words, did you choose to avoid or reject some dimensions of what we can call "conventional playing"?

Sure, it's intentional. I began playing very conventionally and it's evolved over many years into what it is now.

Would you want to explain why at some point you decided to remove the A and D strings?

It happened during a time when I was drumming mostly, around 1990. Started playing a 4-string guitar, wrote a set of songs around it and then formed a two-piece band (Watt) to perform them.

Derek Bailey if often quoted to describe what you do. I wouldn't say it's wrong, but it's far from being totally true. It's "easy" to feel his jazz background; but to me yours has more to do with punk. Even if we can consider Derek as a punk, in some way!

I'm not sure what the question is, but let's say I agree. In any event I love Derek Bailey.

Last year, you made one hell of a come-back with "A New Way to Pay Old Debts". How do you feel it? I mean, is it a real come-back in the sense that you haven't played for years as I read somewhere? When I hear it, I can hardly think that you let the guitar in its flightcase for such a long time...

I did go a many years without playing, but I was playing almost every day for about a year before I recorded the LP.

There's a deep blues vibe in your playing, and I wonder what's your attitude towards scales.

As a kid I used to practice scales just for the sake of playing them, but now I just think about them when I'm playing- sometimes a piece is based on a scale, sometimes its the intersection or union of multiple scales. Anyway, I think scales are useful and I like 'em.




This make me think of the cover of "A new way..."; at some points I was wondering if there was some kind of cynical relation between the title and the mirror image that come from an old record of John MacLaughlin and Carlos Santana.

I didn't have any relationship in mind between the cover art and title- I've always wanted to use the Love Devotion Surrender jacket photo somehow- its was a coincidence it got used on this record.

Why the acoustic guitar? Could you imagine doing solo shows with an electric one?

I started playing the acoustic because it sounded good and was easier to play in the apt late at night without waking anybody up. I can imagine playing the electric solo, but I think I'd want to play with a drummer so I could really take advantage of what an electric guitar can do.

What are you planning for the future?

Editions Mego is reissuing A New Way to Pay Old Debts on CD in early 2011. I'm planning on doing some recording and releasing some new vinyl around the same time.

Last one : Give me your top ten albums, please.

I don't have a top 10 per se, but off the top of my head, here's some records I like a lot:
Captain Beefheart, "Grow Fins"
Carlos Montoya, "Guitar and Flamenco"
James Blood Ulmer, "Birthright"
Roscoe Holcomb, "An Untamed Sense of Control"
Cecil Taylor, "Silent Tongues"
Chuck Berry, "The Great 28"
Conlon Nancarrow, "Studies for Player Piano" (Arch)
Harry Pussy, "You'll Never Play This Town Again"
Joseph Spence, "Living on the Hallelujah Side"
Derek Bailey, "Lot 74"

www.editionsmego.com

"I also aspire to be as skinny and weird looking as Johnny Winter, but I don't know if that will work out"

Nate Hall (U.S. Christmas)

Appalachian guitarist Nate Hall took the time to discuss with great enthusiasm about bluegrass influence, Blood Meridian and, of course, U.S. Christmas. They just released their new album "Run Thick In The Night" on Neurot Recordings and, honestly, you'd be a fool to miss it. Read this, then run buy the album. Here we go!


First of all, I'd like you to tell me when did you pick up an instrument for the first time, and what memories do you keep from that period.

I was about 15 years old, the thought occurred to me that I could play guitar for the rest of my life. I wasn't good at anything else, I was little and skinny and frustrated with my inability to do the athletic things that I was pretty much forced to do in high school. I think I got a guitar that day or the next, a cheap no-name electric from a pawn shop. But I loved it instantly and I have played ever since. I still have that guitar in my garage. It was really hard to find decent gear, and I never really had anything good until we started USX, which was about 10 years after I first started playing. I was not a good guitar player when I started, it took about 12 years before I had any real experience or confidence.

How do you perceive the influence of your environment on what you do? I mean in terms of dynamics and guitar style playing.

I initially learned guitar by watching people play gospel bluegrass, not the fast-picking technical kind, but more simple songs with open chord shapes and repetitive patterns. I have always enjoyed playing like that, and it has definitely been an influence on USX. It is funny how stuff I picked up 15 years ago stuck with me so long, especialy when I seldom hear that kind of music anymore. Of course I quickly went on to other things, started listening to more classic rock and 90s players like Billy Corgan, Cobain, etc. That old style of music, what some would call old-time gospel, was developed here in Appalachia and I am glad some elements of it are part of my sound.

When you started to play, who were the main influences? Obviously I'd say Neil Young and Hawkind, but who else?... Right now I'm thinking of Caustic Resin you mentioned in an interview. Thank you for this discovering, i'd never heard of them before.

Neil Young was a big one, I heard the song Southern Man when I was just getting started and from that point on I was obsessed with him. Honstly, Hawkwind has never been a major influence on me. I really like them, don't get me wrong. But I never heard them until about 6 years ago. It was fun to learn their songs for the Triad tribute album. Brett from Caustic Resin is one of the main influences on the USX sound. He is a great player and a good person. He has been very cool to me on several occasions. The first time I heard The Medicine is All Gone I was a changed man, it was the album I had always wanted to hear. Just complete, unrestrained orgasmic guitar playing. It is a beautiful record and I still isten to it all the time. Brett plays full-time in Built to Spill now, go see them live.

On the new album there're these acoustic tracks; I'm wondering if you would have already thought of a solo acoustic project.

I guess it is possible, and I do play some by myself or with Matt or Meg. But I don't think I would enjoy it very much if that is all I had to do, I like to play wide open with the band.

I read somewhere that you're a teacher and at the same time studying literature. Do you see a link between this and what you play?I wasn't surprised to read you speaking about Blood Meridian...

Yes, Blood Meridian was a major inspiration for ETLD, and to some degree RTITN. I put a lot of work into the words I write, RTITN can be read as poem. My original ideas came from an abstract short story that I wrote, and then I broke it down to even more abstract elements and worked it into the songs. Some of the songs sort of guided the writing, hard to explain that. But as far as a literary influence on USX, I would say that it is on a mostly subconcious level. I don't try to force anything, ideas come in their own good time and I have learned to wait. But it is clear to me that the things I read influence my thoughts and in turn my songs. I use repetition a lot in USX songs and albums, and that is also a result of my exposure to literature. Again, McCarthy is the author I read the most. I enjoy William Faulkner's writing even though much of it is over my head. His words are beautiful and have the effect of washing through my head and leaving me with a vague , fuzzy idea of what is going on. I really enjoy that feeling. I think he designed his novels that way, they seem musical to me in that sense. Stream of consciousness is a good way to tell the truth.

Here's the nerd part of the interview: gear. Guitars, tunings,...Tell me everything.

We tune to E flat, a half-step down from standard.

I have tons of guitars, at least 70 of all makes and models. But I have three Monson guitars that I use in USX. My main one is the Rapture #1 that I got from Monson last year. The body is poplar and mahogany, ebony fretboard. It is a really simple single pickup design, a volume knob and coil-splitter switch. I have a Seymour-Duncan Invader in that one and I love that pickup, it is really hot and has tons of tone. I used that guitar to record RTITN, it has a very distinct, dark sound. It is irreplaceable, my favorite guitar of all time. I also have the second Rapture he made, a custom model that I designed. It has a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge, but it is a model made in a p-90 housing to retrofit old guitars. I have a cheap p-90 in the mid position because I love the raunchy sound they make. Its body is a Walnut/cherry/bloodwood combo, and it has all cool inlays on the ebony fretboard, snakes, moons, symbols from RTITN and The Valley Path. I use that guitar for songs from ETLD because it has a good, stratty sound. I got the third a few weeks ago, it is a really pointy metal looking guitar. It is the first model of a design called Wendigo, which is the name of an Algonquin witch/monster. It has Dimarzio Evolution pickups and it does really well at high volume, I can get all kinds of crazy feedback and crunch. Brent Monson is an excellent builder and he has been doing his thing for about 10 years. He is getting more attention lately and I think he will eventually be recognized as one of the great guitar builders of all time, his instruments are amazing. Check them out, snag one while you can. YOu can see pics of my guitars on his website, I will include a link. Also check out the one he made for Scott from Neurosis, Nathan from Wolves in the Throne Room, Mike from Yob, and Will from Indian.

As for amps, I use quite a few. Marshall Mosfet 100 watt heads are some of my favorites. They are really tough, cheap, light, and compact. They are solid state, but British made and will work with any cabinet as long as it is at least 100 watts. I also use a 60s Fender Bassman 50 watt head, Marshall JCM 900 SL-X 50 watt, Fender Deluxe 40 watt combo, and a Gibson Goldtone Class A 15 watt (my main recording amp). I always run at least two amps live. I have a Voodoo Lab Amp Selector, and I can run four independently if I want to, meaning I can switch each one off or on. But I always leave them all on. I like running multiple amps because it creates a really thick sound, and If one of them blows I don't lose my signal. That has helped me out on many occasions.

My live cabinets are two Emperor 2x12s. One has the celstion speakers is came with, it is 4 ohms/100 watts. I use the Bassman with that, but the Mosfets work with it as well. The other has Eminence Texas Heat speakers, 8 ohms/300 watts. I can run kinds of amps with it. Emperor makes really high-quality stuff, and they are really good guys. They are based in Chicago, and a lot of the bands we know use them - Torche, Minsk, High on Fire just to name a few. I have a ton of other cabs - Marshall/Fender/Laney/Sovtek, but they stay at home.

As for pedals, we recently got an endorsement from Blackout Effectors. They are based near us in Asheville, NC, and they make really great stuff. I am using their Twosome pedal, which is a combo of their Musket Fuzz and Fix'd Fuzz. The Musket is the best sounding OD I have ever used. It has all the good elements of the Big Muff but none of the problems (noise, muddiness, etc.) Matt is using their Whetstone phaser and he really likes it. The Blackout guys make everything themselves, and the pedal boxes are works of art. I also use a mystery wah pedal I got from our friend/tech Robert, an Inbanez Tubescreamer, Keely modded delay and an old Ibanez delay.



Matt uses old Guild S-90s and Les Pauls though a Marshall JCM 800 and Earcandy Buzzbombs. Josh uses an old Musicman Stingray and a Gibson Ripper bass through a truckload of pedals and Mesa amps. Meg runs her violin through a sweet old 80s reissue tweed 4X10 Fender Bassman. Justin has a John Bonham reissue kit, and BJ plays a C&C custom, both with the biggest bass drums ever.

What kind of material do you play when at home? Do you pratice on a daily basis?

I always keep one of the Monson guitars on the couch at home, and I play all the time. I have some little amps scattered around, I have a couple of the litte Vox Brian May Deacy amps and they sound really good at low volumes. I also have a litte Epiphone 5 watt head and a 2x8 Earcandy custom cab they made for me. But I usually just play the electrics unplugged, they sound really good. As for material, it is usually whatever we are working on in USX, I don't really know or care to know how to play anything else.

What would you like to achieve as a guitar player?

I am totally fulfilled at this point. I will keep going as long as I can but ETLD, RTITN, and The Valley Path are the guitar albums I always wanted to make. If I never did anything else I would be satisfied. I love playing guitar. I also aspire to be as skinny and weird looking as Johnny Winter, but I don't know if that will work out. I think that is a reasonable dream.

Last one: give me your top ten, please.

Caustic Resin - The Medicine is All Gone/Trick Question/Fly Me To The Moon
Pink Floyd - Animals/The Wall/Wish You Were Here
Neil Young - Sleeps with Angels/Harvest Moon/Weld 1 and 2/Harvest/Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
Neurosis - Souls at Zero/Times of Grace/Through Silver in Blood/A Sun That Never Sets/The Eye of Every Storm/Given to the Rising
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call/No More Shall We Part
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde/Blood on the Tracks - everything else!!
Townes Van Zandt - Our Mother The Mountain - everything
Slayer - Reign in Blood/South of Heaven
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Hendrix - everything
SRV - Live at El Mocambo

Here are some links to our very supportive gear builders:

http://www.monsonguitars.com/artists/uschristmas.html

www.blackouteffectors.com

www.earcandycabs.com

www.emperorcabs.com