Carla Bozulich came to mainstream attention through her work with the 1990s alt country precursor wonder-group The Geraldine Fibbers. However, even before those days Bozulich was well known in the noise and industrial music scene for her radically inventive work. Suffice to say, she has been around and done a lot.
Carla was nice enough to fill out our SlideRule questionaire and relate some great, thoughtful anecdotes . . .
SLIDERULE: What’s the music scene like in your town?
Carla Bozulich: Well, I guess if I lived in a city, it would be Los Angeles. I actually just travel all the time and have [done so] for most of the last 5 years. I do know and love some things about LA. The Smell is the oldest of the best places and started with characters like Rod Poole, Clickitat Ikatowi and That Dog and Los Cincos, Polar Goldie Cats, The Uphill Gardners and the such. Scarnella, my duo with Nels Cline, played the 2nd show at the (old) Smell in I believe 1997 or ‘98. The Smell has gotten to be so legendary because the scene there isn’t self-serving. Everyone pulls together to make it work and people don’t give each other shit for being cool or uncool or just starting out on their instruments. There’s a couple of great, small, improv and weirdo scenes in LA for people not right in the thick of it, but people find each other and it’s all the better because you have to really want it. One [of those scenes is] the older-school dudes [whom are] mostly influenced by free jazz and abstract sound and then some fractures and splinters of people who are into playing with whatever they find, [and doing so] wherever we can find each other. That’s not as easy as it seems in LA. Some bend circuits, some pervert or play beautiful classical stuff or mash up old punk records with gay tango or christian propaganda. There’s this place called the Machine Project that has shows and classes from everything from arc welding to max msp to sewing. There’s always tacos around.
SR: Favorite “on tour” food?
CB: Tacos
SR: What do you listen to when you’re driving?
CB: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Dead Science, Airplane Exhaust
SR: Craziest show? What happened?
CB: Oh lord, the truth is long and ugly, but I’ll tell it. I was in Ethyl Meatplow. This was a really, really, really long time ago. Half my life ago, and that’s long. We were on tour in Minneapolis, playing at the club where they filmed Purple Rain, except in the smaller room–7th Street Entry. The band opening for us was called Pachinko. I think the headliners were like, Helmet or The Cows, some good Am Rep band, God who was that? I know we loved them. Ethyl Meatplow formed during a time when the old punk rock had died and then, before Nirvana and all of them, there were only ex-punkers growing long hair and bleaching it or perming it and cowboy boots and make up and big sex-thruster guitars with Marshals and some kind of glam meats metal—-but not the good metal—-I mean, I know people probably love Guns And Roses now, but pity us who had to be there for that scene’s inception. It was awful to have all the clubs fill up with bad versions of bands that already sucked. In LA it was particularly disgusting, testosterone and pouty girls with boostiers and stilettos and so homophobic and misogynistic, everyone pouting all over each other. Oh Jesus, it was a mess. Meatplow was intentionally formed with no guitars and outward sicko sexual orientation, definite gender issues, mommy complexes, disco humping, gay drum machines, just to piss them off. The thing was, we found quickly there were people out there all over the USA that were waiting for us to come around. This was before Pansy Division, Team Dresh, Bikini Kill or Hole and we were the craziest thing besides the Mentors the queer kids had ever danced naked to or made out with on stage or whatever. The gayest thing you could get your hands on was Boy George and such—–and he was fun to look at and had a nice soft voice but none of those new wavers had any edge to them. Gay or straight or changing your mind right at the show—–it was just fun. We just had a blast fucking people up in a good way and life on the road was awesome, especially when we found an audience or person that didn’t want to have fun with us.
That night at the 7th Street Entry, these guys from Pachinko had been giving us attitude. We were on tour with the headliner and Pachinko wanted to play in the middle. In fact, the audience in general didn’t seem like they were gonna be the most anxious to do gay disco sex beats with us. Anyway, the show started and very soon after the other singer, Wee Wee, was out in the audience making goo goo “mama? mama?!” sounds (typical) and rubbing up on anyone he thought might not like it while me and Biff started a song. Wee Wee is a big, scary, bald dude with wild eyes and jail tattoos who screamed like an infant on laughing gas and crack when he wanted to and he wanted to. He sidled up to one of the hulking dudes in Pachinko. The guy didn’t know what to do with his manhood so he put out a cigarette on Wee Wee’s forehead and punched him in the face. Me and Biff stopped playing because we knew what Wee Wee was capable of. You could kind of hear everyone go, “uh oh.” Wee Wee didn’t punch him. He took off all his clothes and stood in the middle of the floor, which had cleared to the fringes of the room, and just started screaming like a stuck pig. The guy split. The lights were coating Wee Wee in a sickening hue. He was pouring sweat all over his body, face up to the lights screaming with blood dripping down his face—totally in his element. Me and Biff looked at each other and started playing hell-acious noise with our samplers (we had already heard Merzbow). This crescendo was the one most perfect 120 seconds of my musical life. When the club cut the power to the stage all you could hear was the 3 of us screaming and Biff’s drums slamming away. Bliss.
SR: Favorite side dish w/ any meal?
CB: Spinach sauteed with garlic and maybe some lemon on there.
SR: Least liked member of the band?
CB: Tara. she’s always putting bong water in my cereal.
SR: Finish this sentence: The Simpsons stopped being funny after . . .
CB: After the one where Flanders puts a cig out on Homer’s forehead and all hell breaks loose?
SR: Grossest place you’ve slept or eaten?
CB: Waking up discovering the spot of floor I slept on in some one’s house in Philly was situated so my mouth basically grazed the catbox.
SR: If your van broke down in [name a town] you’d stay because . . . ?
CB: I like Brussels. It’s pretty. The cafes are laid back. The people are super nice. The underground music scene is really interesting and diverse and filled with people making things and helping each other. LA is still great for 1000 reasons—–it’s a great place to fight for your right to search and search until you find one of a hundred tiny, fertile little scenes that are making things by hand and with love.
