We love this new project from Poland.  The tagline is the “new season in art//,” and we agree wholeheartedly that ‘fashion’ is ready for a new season.  Particularly interesting to us is that neither of the Krzeszowska sisters describe themselves as photographers.  Marta is a graphic designer—she makes the images; and Amelia makes the clothes.  It’s really stirring, beautiful work, and we can’t wait to see where they take it.  Support them and support us by sharing their links, their style, and their enthusiasm.

Yes, every year after another South By passes, Austin seems to enter this perhaps not-so-strange period where we just don’t talk much about it for a while. Come winter ’14, it’ll be back on our minds, tongues, and, Zod help us, Facebook notifications. But perhaps out of an unspoken, universal cathartic need, Austinites, whatever their opinions of the fest, just tend to just shut the fuck up about SXSW during the summer.

Frankly, I think this is both a little good, and yet a little bit bad as well.

Good, because dealing with every Austinite’s personal opinion of SX is getting a little bit crazier each year. Social media blows the everlovingshit up before and during the fest, with ATX citizens throwing out everything from endless parades of not-really-in-focus Instagram shots depicting, well, shots beers and bands, to furious impassioned tirades littered with phrases like “FUCK ALL TOURISTS GO HOME NOW,” to people obviously trying their damnedest to talk about something, anything other than the impossible to avoid, absolutely everywhere festival that’s descended on the 512 area code. Hell, I even know some people who left town specifically to avoid it, and it’s hard to even have a conversation during the week without becoming very aware of someone’s opinion on the fest.

What’s obvious, though is that we all do South By different. And that’s why I think it’s a bit of a bad thing that we’re so quick to act like it didn’t happen. Yes, I think we could certainly use a break from it, and no, I don’t really want to hear about why it’s the greatest thing everOMG!!1! or that it’s spawn of the pus-scabbed taint of Lucifer’s diseased pet rat for a while, but what I do think we should be doing is wondering why this thing divides us so easily.

In that regard, I thought that, maybe, what might be a little useful, or interesting if nothing else, is to get some insight on the hated, loved, whatevered beast that SXSW has become from the folks that are deepest involved in it- the musical acts that play it. If anyone’s getting the full, non-stop overdose of SXSW, it’s those bands and musicians that are schleppin’ their shit around tryin’ to do their thing and maybe make a buck or two during the shitstorm of mid March Austin. Both those out of town acts and those that make this place their home the other 50ish weeks of the year (Seriously, how long is SX now? Seems like we might as well just rename March “South By Month”…) are, I think, the ones what come face to face with this insanity in the biggest, fullest way, and thus they probably all have some pretty extensive thoughts on South By.

So, with that goal, and the hopes that a little bit of useful perspective might be gained, Vesper and I reached out to the fine folks at Requiem Media to ask a few of their acts what they thought about the 2013 incarnation of what has to be one of the most divisively famous and famously divisive parties anywhere in the world.

Requiem was kind enough to get back at us with the answers from three excellent acts, all of which spent their South Bys doin’ the damn thing and bein’ as involved as one can probably hope to be without transferring your soul into the 6th Street pavement for a week. Here’s what Mozart’s Sister (Montreal- bio, music), Daniel from Moon King (Toronto- bio, music) and Xander Harris (Austin- bio, music) had to say.

(A quick note- we weren’t actually sure which acts we’d get in contact with, so please excuse some of the questions to Xander being a bit odd to ask an Austinite.)

 (Pretty sure) that’s Mozart’s Sister

Q. Who are you, and what do you do (to give our readers a bit of background)?

[Mozart’s Sister] I am Mozart’s Sister. I make music.

[Moon King] I’m Daniel, I play & write in a band called Moon King from Toronto, Canada

[Xander Harris] I would describe my music as dark electronic. I always have a hard time coming up with terms for my music that would best describe it to people. Other people have called what I do minimal grave wave and some have called me horror disco. All of that is fine by me. During the day, I’m an IT nerd for the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

  This is definitely Moon King

Q. What all did you get up to during SX, professionally? How’d that go?

[Mozart’s Sister] SX was really fun on a non-professional level, on a life level. Professionally, it can be nutso and confusing cause the whole city is completely saturated in sound and look and vibe and style and participating in the cacophony sometimes feels wrong. I’ve been to SXSW many times and this time my goal was to relax, get a tan and feel happy! It worked.

[Moon King] we had 6 shows I think? which is a good amount, I guess it works out to like one a day, which leaves some room for tacos and swimming

[Xander Harris] Professionally speaking, I was happy to play the official showcase and I thought that the show went pretty well. I didn’t really get a chance to talk to very many people or see very many shows, I was busy playing around town.

Q. Was this your first SXSW and/or trip to Austin, or have you been before?

[Mozart’s Sister] It was my 4th or 5th. I can’t remember.

[Moon King] I’ve actually been the last 5 years in a row, all playing with different bands, but this is the first one for Moon King.

[Xander Harris] I’ve lived in Austin for a long time so this wasn’t my first time at the SXSW rodeo.

Mozart’s Sister again

Q. What was your honest impression of this year’s festival overall? Sexiest, sweatiest party on earth? Hateful corporate fuckfest? What you expected, or something different?

[Mozart’s Sister] It’s really fun, just a total insano-fest. Yeah corporate and mind-boggling cause at times the music seems to be secondary to everything else, or rather the musicians are all dirt poor and the industry all have nice hotels n stuff. It’s AMERICA MAN! I like it for what it is, good, bad, rich, poor, just weird.

[Moon King] I had a great time, good to see so many friends at once, from all over the world. That’s definitely the most important part for me, I don’t really mind the corporate shit, it’s just kind of in the background. I try and spend as much time on the east side of the highway as possible, it’s so beautiful over there.

[Xander Harris] My honest impression is this: mixed. My advice for bands is try to have a good time when you play but I would make the recommendation that artists perform on the unofficial side of things. The reason I say that is that SXSW decided not to pay foreign artists with a cash option, they only offered wristbands as a form of payment for their entrance into the festival. I found that rather offensive and I honestly have never been comfortable with corporate powers blackmailing creatives into free labor based on theoretical outcomes. What I expected was a conference that would focus on all aspects of work for artists and in my opinion that should include getting paid for your work. Instead, I walked away with mixed emotions concerning what SXSW has become and felt like I had compromised my integrity by not speaking up more.. It’s not just musicians who are expected to work for free either: it’s photographers, graphic designers, videographers, etc., and that should be completely unacceptable. To me, SXSW is a good way to catch up with people that you respect and love that live out of town or out of the US. As far as participation goes, I think it’s a matter of how much shit you’re willing to put up with. It’s a gamble: sometimes you have a great experience, other times you have to deal with sound people who have no idea where you’re coming from musically and someone in hot pink shorts pissing on your shoes.

Q. What about the city itself? How do we compare to where you’re from?

[Mozart’s Sister] Austin is a nice place with good food and lots of cool plant life. I love the plants! cacti and succulents and bright desert flowers. MTL is cold, so cold. Snows for 6 months in the year, tropical for the other 6 months. I prefer Austin for weather. Are we talking about the weather?

[Moon King] I’ve been wanting to move here since the first time I visited! I want so badly to wake up and have a cactus or a palm tree outside my window, I love the south and Austin in particular.

[Xander Harris] I am originally from Midland, TX. If you have any idea where Midland is, or how that city is, Austin is amazing.

 From a Xander Harris production

Q. What else did you do during the festival, besides playing music? See any shows? Hook up with anyone? Eat a million tacos and end up in venue bathrooms the whole time (it happens)?

[Mozart’s Sister] saw some shows. no hook ups…. well kinda but I wouldn’t count it. I made some new friends. Ate some crappy stuff most definitely. But it was all free so…

[Moon King] I didn’t see a ton of bands really, but I did get to eat some really good food (and some really bad food), I saw that Death Grips show which was pretty mind-blowing

[Xander Harris] I attended the Switched On/Moog event at Elysium to check out SSLEEPERHOLD, S U R V I V E, and Kontravoid and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I am thankfully married so I didn’t have to sit and have a conversation condemning myself for drunken poor make-out judgements. I mostly hung out with artists I knew visiting and had a really amazing time getting to know them and form friendships. We were thankfully spared from any sort of Taco poisoning during the festivities.

Q. Best part of the SXSW experience? Worst? Goddamn craziest part (if any)?

[Mozart’s Sister] Best was playing our final show, it was very satisfying. Worst was my friend getting hit in the head with a keyboard stand by an angry musician we shared a bill with. That was dark.

[Moon King] I missed the German Breakfast last year that was the best thing I ate all week, amazing sausage and soups, like a proper meal for once! but yeah we were a little too busy that day so had to miss it. I played a bunch of shows that gave me free shoes, so now I have like six pairs of shoes for the first time which is pretty sick. I found ten bucks on 6th street at 4am on the saturday night, when everything is just apocalyptic and empty. I got some kinda crazy allergic thing to some crawfish. I got sunburned. I got tanned. I saw Narduar & Ron Sexsmith randomly within two minutes of eachother (that’s a canadian thing). I rode in a hot air balloon.

[Xander Harris] The best part of my experience with SXSW was getting to bond with people that I work with and other artists as well as other people in the industry that I respect. The worst part of the festival is the way people behave. It seems that there is a faction of people that attend SXSW under the pretense of completely losing their shit. I’ve resigned myself to no parking for the bands and bad sound, that’s just a given at this point. The craziest part was the amount of pedestrians I saw struck by cars. People should pay more attention.

Q. What would you change about the festival? Would you want it in your town?

[Mozart’s Sister] I like the festivals we have in our town already. Pop Montreal is like SXSW only so much more relaxed and cool and weird. No corporate anything and awesome shows. I also like SXSW the way it is. I don’t know if I’ll play it again tho.

[Moon King] well we actually sorttttt of do – NXNE happens in Toronto every year. it’s also really fun, doesn’t take over the city in the same way, but it’s a similar thing where bands can play a ton of shows and get sunburned and stuff. June is a nice time in Toronto, I’m really looking forward to it this year.

[Xander Harris] I would close the music portion of SXSW as it is now, move it out to some field out by the airport, and make it a three day fest like ACL or Lollapalooza. The current model has run it’s course, in my opinion.

Xander Himself

Q. Plan on comin’ back to the ATX any time soon?

[Mozart’s Sister] I’d love to come back to Austin. There are some really cute people there! I’d love a ATX lover. that would be so chill. I like playing Austin too. Every show I’ve played there is good (the ones outside of SX especially)

[Moon King] yes we’ll be back this month! May 30, Red 7!

[Xander Harris] Yep, tomorrow when I wake up for work!

—Trevor Talley

Thanks so much to Requiem Media, Mozart’s Sister, Moon King and Xander Harris for the excellent responses.

He invited me to the le after party. And by the time I was half way down the block I couldn’t remember why I refused.

There was a freezing snow falling that crunched under my boots. I was replaying the moment after the kiss. We both blinked dumbly, smiling. It’s always a strange moment to manage. Flirt further and I’ll give the impression I’m edging for the full package. Pack up and leave without small talk leaves us both feeling sterile. Instead, I babbled awkwardly about exploring the authenticity of sexual chemistry between audience and musician. In one of those decelerated cinemagraphic moments, I locked eyes with him. My mouth slowed and slacked. I wet my lips. “At least, I felt the chemistry was sexual, I don’t know about you…”

I knew pretty much what to expect from the interview with Majical Cloudz’s Devon Welsh. I’d read about him, exchanged a few emails, gleaned he would be reserved, soft spoken. I’d need to move slowly and ask directly. We sat in the back corner of the bar behind a fern. He had a cadence that swooped, swerved, and stopped short. I happily abandoned my notes to follow his tangential storytelling.

But onstage he was a different man.  Unlike the introverted persona I met behind the house plant, Devon looked straight into the stage lights. It was confrontational. He held the microphone with a loose grip. The shadows drew stark lines across his brow, curving around the bowl of his naked scalp. His deep set eyes have the slightest asymmetry, making his regard both intense and unnerving. His stage show has a ritual: He always dresses in a white shirt and black jeans. There are no props or projections. Sometimes he kicks off his shoes, or throws himself flat on the stage. He moved his body in thrusting movements, bending and clutching his waist. He had this lean runner’s body that I hadn’t noticed earlier under his bulky leather jacket. A vein ran the length of his bicep to index finger, bulging starkly as he clenched and released his fist. He had total control of the stage, pacing around with a simmering energy. In the interview he’d recounted his adventures as an improv comedian, a high school football player, a theatre actor. Whereas the cautious Devon talking softly at the bar seemed like none of those things, this powerful tenor was defiantly all of those things – as well as deeply, stirringly sexy. It was a sexual intensity that spilled out of his honesty. It was a vulnerability that wasn’t characterized by fragility, but total abandon. A bold defenselessness. He stopped and straightened, fixing his gaze on us. Matt’s last notes skittered and faded on the Korg. “Thank you,” he said with a curt nod.

At the bar, Devon had been sitting with his back to the window. Melting snow pearled on the glass behind him. The fern cast weird Enchanted Forest shadows across our faces as cars passed. Headlights illuminated him in profile as he looked off intensely, searching for the lost end of his winding story. He took me through his transcendental education in Montessori classrooms: “It’s all these sensitive, fragile children running around the playground playing imaginative role playing games. Then I went to public school and the games were handball and getting in fights at recess. I didn’t understand the whole social hierarchy at first.”

Then, his misty memories of playing in the woods of a California religious commune:

“My very first memories are in California. They’ve just stayed in this magical, mystical world, because I didn’t go back until I was 17. They’ve been turned around so many times in my head, I don’t know if they’re real anymore.”

And life lessons from his godmother, a lesbian minister working in rural Ontario: “She sees the church as something totally living and breathing, as something that flows according to the way peoples’ lives change rather than keeping them bound to something that’s no longer relevant.” I learned that his father was an actor, which drove him into the wings as a highschooler: “The last thing I wanted to do was try to live up to that.” (Google told me that his father was indeed Ken Welsh, best known as the villain in the 80s drama Twin Peaks). The dialogue seemed to unfold so naturally between us. The bar noise made us lean in close, allowing a cozy intimacy in our shadowy corner. His account of coming to terms with his passion for performance was especially stirring to me. I confided to him my love of spoken word poetry, but my inability to perform without affectation.

You just have to be so vulnerable…it’s so scary.

“There’s a lot of power in vulnerability. You can’t be afraid of it.”

But don’t you need some kind of trust first – in order to offer that up to an audience?

“Yeah, trust. But more trust in yourself. If someone out there doesn’t understand, all that matters is that you’re being honest with yourself, and you’re not holding back. You just have to commit, that’s crucial.”

There was so much more I wanted to know about him – why the reticence if he valued vulnerability? Was the off-stage shyness just a defense mechanism? And was this onstage persona all fabrication – just well-oiled theatre bravado?

But I had already asked too many questions. The interview ended abruptly. He needed to go prep for the set. The first act had already started, evident from the bass trembling the leaves of the house plant. I stumbled over my thank yous, thinking: I didn’t get to talk sex with him at all. I needed to tell him my ulterior motives! But he got up quickly and I lost my nerve.

Watching him pace the stage, I sucked the foam out of the bottom of my pint glass. The Belmont’s dance floor lights circled slowly through the crowd, spotlighting random audience members’ open-mouthed expressions in beams of red or blue. Devon was crooning “Turns Turns Turns.”  Making up storylines in my head, I remembered he told ChartAttack once, “Sometimes the audience is this massive anonymous crowd, but sometimes I’m playing the whole set to someone I know is there.” He was so intoxicating to watch; I felt the audience pulled closer and closer to the stage.

“I was just talking to someone about spoken word, so I’m going to do this one a cappella,” he paused. “Because I’ve never done it, and it’s pretty scary.”

I was still thinking about his lips as I crunched through the snow. Would I have gotten another kiss had I attended le after? Where do I draw the line when my attraction passes from journalistic interest to sincere compatibility? When do I put down the Frencher shtick and allow myself room to be vulnerable in return? How do I know where the attraction really comes from: do I want the person or the persona? But what’s more – does it fucking matter?

Next time, Devon, I won’t ask so many questions.

+

Majical Cloudz plays tonight at the Mohawk in Austin  ($18).

Also,

See Pappa Welsh play the leading role in Majical Cloudz’ newest video “Childhood End” below, and read Devon’s explanation here.

Photos courtesy of Edwina Hay, Sarah O’Driscoll, Rebecca Smeyne, and Arbutus Records.

THE NUTMEG STATE

for six years
i was a lawyer.

now i’ve left new york
and can confirm that

outside the city
there are trees

and outside the trees
there are birds

who unlike brooklynites
don’t give a damn

that i have fifty silk ties
i can’t throw away

and a danteist friend
who no longer speaks to me.

what i mean is
after this friend

had to bury her mom
in a connecticut grave

she started to dream that
every nestling in every aerie

of every tern, flicker
lark and thrush

had turned
to dust.

—Joshua MacLeod

Bras, Panties and Romper by AMPERE LINGERIE

Ampere Lingerie was co-founded by Jiabei Chen, a Harvard Law graduate and former law firm associate.  Ampere makes beautiful clothes, which they were kind enough to lend us for this editorial.  Thank you, Jiabei, for the clothes and inspiration.

Purple Trench Dress and Cream/Blue Blouse by IN GOD WE TRUST

In God We Trust was founded by designer Shana Tabor in 2005.  Initially, a one-store operation out of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, today In God We Trust has four stores, including locations in SoHo and the Lower East Side.

Sheer Vintage Lingerie Pant from 9TH STREET HABERDASHERY

Pleated Collar Blouse by KAL RIEMAN

All Jewelery by ISSY SALOMON

Hair:  Clay Nielsen
Styling:  Morgan Leykam and Lara Glassman
Makeup:  Jennifer Membreno
Photography:  Colby Blount
Art Direction:  Lalique Martinez and Joshua MacLeod

MY WAR
 

is every whisper—

an echo—          and every echo

an empty room

where words move like helium

and the helium is tangible, brittle

and empty as the sound

of an axe striking dry wood

and the wood splintering out

in the night after the ice storm

where the forest was once veiled in white

and in the morning

the ice grown wet and heavy

and everywhere, water-logged branches

 were leaning towards the dirt.

—Richard Alden

“Gardenhead”
Model: Trinity Reign
Photography: Ana Mercedes
Styling: Charm School Vintage

BEFORE

-0:30:  Trying to find the skip ad button.  Sigh.  Ignore. Ignore.  Volkswagen something.

0:00:  Okay, HD.  Mini-expand.

0:10:  Slo-mo.  Always with the effin slo-mo.  I mean, I love it, don’t get me wrong.  But…

0:15:  What. the. shit?

0:17: That dude is gay and badly burned.

0:27:  Nope just gay.

0:30:  Perhaps we have taken the leotard too far.

0:32:  Dayumn, chew that gum.

0:41: Sparkly purple doc mrtns.

0:43: Uh oh.

0:50:  Slo mo hipster makeout.

Sploosh.

1:02:  Dude is smoking through his neck.  Beetlejuice?  Terrifying.

1:05: VERY reminscent of the “TOXIC” goo that britney uses to date rape that dude

1:08:  Not loving the forced emotion from Lizzy.  Weird makeup or bad acting but not both pls pls.

1:12:  Oh snap.  I LOVE THIS PINK GOO THING WE’VE GOT GOING ON.

1:17:  DOUBLE SNAP.  Those dudes totally want to bang!!!  True story a semi-stodgy finance guy I know once ran into Colin Farrell outside a club.  Colin Farrell grabbed his face and made some nasty fightin words.  Finance guy says, “I wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight me or fuck me.”  Dudes are weird.

1:21:  Lots o goo

1:27:  Whoa whoa whoaaa.  Nightmare on Berry street.  But I think I love it.

1:32:  Hm.  Max Hedroom + Skeletor = Another gay fantasy?

1:50:  Love this cinematic sequence

2:04:  Oh, I get it.  “Inner workings.”  Word.

2:14:  Cheetah girl.  Some matthew barney shit.  Cool.

2:21:  Double-eye mermaid DO NOT LIKE

2:36:  “Diamond in the sky” ???

2:50:  Is the band directing these videos?  No attribution on youtube page.

3:19:  boobs.

3:25:  Lots of creepy eyes.

3:29:  Hand withdraws.  Dream over.  Definitely like this damn thing.

AFTER

-0:30:  Here goes.  Oh, no ad this time.

0:21:

Pausing this thing is killing my buzz, screw it.  Lizzy (MS) has really pretty eyes, though.  Silver+cobalt.

Hipster makeout, still hot.  Eyebrows.  How are eyebrows sexy?

Something very beautiful is happening.  The video is about colors.  And the color-grading is wonderfully 80s video tone.  This is the future of production value:  both more and less honest.  The gum-chewing girl looks like she is bleeding pink pastel.  Of course this is all seminal too.  I remember my film professor grossing me out talking about the wallpaper in Barton Fink, when Barton pulls his hand back and it is covered in a warm translucent glaze.  Why are liquids always seminal?  Hm, I’ve been reading too much Jezebel.

Super stoned now.  Difficult to focus.  Hungry.  Read a blurb in the New York Times magazine where someone used marijuana butter on cookies and then brought them to work (a restaurant).  The cook staff couldn’t remember how to…whatever…poach their salmon?  I guess that’s worth putting in the new york times?

So these are all sexual fantasies.  But not much happens to Blue Girl, our interlocutor.  She ends up sitting next to her bandmate.  They pretty clearly aren’t screwing though.  Is that the point, maybe?  But then, she’s wearing this glamour-girl-face leotard.  Well, that’s the trick about making music videos.  You have to deal with the reality of the singing.  Do you have a series of characters who are also the ‘narrator’ or do you have one ‘narrator’ and a series of characters.  And you have to deal with the physical presence of the rest of the band too.

Oh, I see.  Pink and blue.  Boy and girl.  And these swap, invert from scene to scene.  Even the two random girlfriends wig shopping are dressed pink and blue.  Of course MS MR is also miss mister…boy girl…cute, clever, very nice.  Pleasant.  A nice oyster.

Yes, so she is painted blue and he is painted pink.  OK.  Cool.  Word.  I’m into it.  I like that this is visually organized.  I was listening to some interview with Mike White and he said that he liked this weird buddhist stuff he was reading because the teaching was to take in (inhale) the complex vague disordered mess of the world put out (exhale) a tidy calm sense of peace and sanity.  He said that’s maybe what art is:  taking the screwed up world and making something sensible out of it.  Critics will say that’s whitewashing reality or whatever.  But maybe that’s the reality of art:  to smooth; soothe.  More sophisticated critics will point to fluxus and john cage and duchamp and shit like that.  Well maybe that’s the whole point?  Perhaps the Dadaists couldn’t take it anymore.  There was no point in pursuing sanity.  They needed abstraction.

Lots of kind of love on display.  Gay, straight…interspecies???  (Monster + girl/boy.)  Intergenre maybe?

This video was executed with some serious fucking bravura.  The shots are right and sensitive and intense.  The baseball bat pressing against MR’s head.  The mannequins.

Ah, Pink jump ropes.

—Erin Amir

It was that time of night when I had to cock block the lead singer.

Ana swayed gracelessly on her high-heeled boots. Her eyelashes rustled her bangs. “You guys were so great,” she was saying to Growlers’ vocalist Brooks Neilson. Her body weight lurched forward. Brooks and I both took a step back.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said.

I lifted my pen and paper. He gave me a slight nod.

Ana didn’t notice. “So do you wanna smoke a joint?”

He gave her a mustachio’d half smile. “Nah, my throat’s fucked from the set,” he said apologetically.

She shrugged. “Ok, well, alright…” she pouted her red lipstick.

“Have a good night, Ana,” Brooks said, advancing backstage. She stumbled away. I was impressed he’d retained her name.

Brooks pulled his beanie sideways over one ear and slumped into a metal folding chair. He didn’t seem too heartbroken. Brian Taylor, the drummer, lifted heavy eyelids as I sat down across from them. He was cradling a wine glass. He smiled at me, revealing burgundy inner lips.

The band performed two hours late. Driving in from L.A., they were held up at the Canadian border. “They found a bag of dried-up wrinkly-old, stinkly-old weed,” Brooks said, unconcerned. The border patrol searched everyone in the van, he recounted. “And then they let us go.”

“We got away with trafficking,” Brian snorted into his wine glass.

How’d you get out of that one?

“Just charm. Respect. Honesty.” Brooks said evenly.

“Classic, ‘It’s not mine!’” Brian laughed.

Sitting back stage were two other men: some guy with a gauged nose piercing and a giant bearded man in a hockey jersey. Wolfman, I learned, was named “Montreal Dave” – a nickname he gave himself. As they continued drunkenly interrupting the interview, I realized they weren’t with the band at all. I never found out who they were.

“I took Brooks to get his first poutine,” Montreal Dave said too loudly.

Dave recounted: “I go into the van, I wrestle him to the ground and I tell him: ‘Potatoes, gravy, cheese.’”

Brooks smiled weakly. He lit a cigarette inside the small room, ashing under a table, “He did. He wrestled me, then took me to eat poutine. I ate all of my plate and the rest of his plate.”

I learned Brian didn’t eat poutine that night; he was getting laid.

Brian missed out on poutine?

“Another girl I was having sex with brought some to me,” he dismissed.

That’s a good lay.

“She’s great,” he said with sincerity.

“I think they fell in love.”

“I wouldn’t go that far…”

“Poutine sounds like pootie tang.”

Bringing girls to the tour van is over, though, they told me. They’ve got girlfriends now. I heaved a sigh. There’s no one single in the band? I tried to sound objective, pen poised over my notes. Yeah, Scott’s single.

“You stay away from him,” Brooks pointed his cigarette at me.

“Hands off!” Brian said.

Turns out the single bandmate was Bird Hands McGee, the androgynous bass player who could easily double as a Tressemé model.

I mustered a coy smile and raised my palms, “Alright…fine.”

How is it touring with girlfriends? They exchanged sideways glances. “It takes self discipline,” Brian said.

Montreal Dave interrupted to talk about his kids. We looked around at each other, not knowing how to relate. I tried another question, which Dave bulldozed.

“I’m listening to you,” Brian cooed.

“Thanks,” I mouthed at him, allowing Dave to finish complaining about his wife.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to find these eccentric characters backstage. Growlers fans, the band themselves admit, are really fucking weird. During the show, the cocktail of urban chic and stoner grunge struck a strange harmony. On one side, two Brooklyn transplants with chignons and thick bangs climbed on stage. Undulating in their backless dresses, they waved their arms in caldron-stirring movements. On the other side of the room, kids in dreads and patchwork clothing bobbed with their eyes closed. As the set wore on, we stripped off layers, swaying with sweaters clenched between our thighs or heaping them in piles on the monitors.

“My mother says I smoke too much, I drink too much.” Brooks put on a high pitched nag, “‘Your fans care about you! You need to take care of yourself!’”

He rustled his messy curls. I had only a precarious hold of his attention. He picked up a pair of drum sticks and threaded them through his fingers.

Does the smoking and drinking help the songwriting?

“Everyone writes in the band. Sometimes we get fucked up, but it doesn’t make it better. Just different. It’s the same difference as writing a song in the morning or at night,” he said.

Brook’s faint curiosity with me could tip easily to disinterest at any moment. I felt a cringe of self-loathing: having to work for his attention made him that much more desirable. I already have a thing for dirty musicians. Both he and Brian had more than enough neck beard to fit the bill. As if the smoker’s rasp and bristly mustache wasn’t enough, Brooks had a giant toothy smile. One front tooth was slightly shorter than the other.

I asked whether they’re boob or ass men.

“I wrestle with that one,” Brian said. “I think being a boob guy is a lot more superficial than being an ass guy. A lot of girls work on their ass. You can’t work out and make your boobs awesome.”

Brooks replied that he’s found a girl with both, so he doesn’t have to choose. Yawn. Obligatory girlfriend comment. He was dexterous with these defense mechanisms.

Tits and ass are routine body parts the band is asked to autograph. But that’s only the beginning. The band’s weird fans have asked them to sign some pretty ridiculous stuff. iPhone screens. Random family photos. Vaginas.

How do you sign a vagina?

“Well…you don’t sign it.”

Tour manager Taylor broke in. I had met him earlier at the merch table. He seemed chill, maybe even high. Now, he was ready to leave. He leaned his torso through the doorframe and said something impatient. Both Brian and Brooks waved him away.

“No really, I feel bad for the bad titty girls,” Brooks said, bringing the conversation back with a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. I pegged him as a boob man.

But what makes a bad pair?

All the men in the room sounded off:

“Wrinkly.” “Pancake-y. “Long-ass nipples.” “Hairy nipples.” “Third nipples.”

Who’s seen a third nipple?

“I’ve seen four or five nipples…” Brian said. “On a guy.”

That guy…it’s you, isn’t it?

“Yes.” Brian cocked an eyebrow. He had really great eyebrows. I pursed my lips at him skeptically.

“Do you have a third nipple?” someone asked me.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Brian said.

Taylor broke in again.

“Dude, just give us a minute,” Brian answered, his eyes fixed on me. Brooks, however, got up brushing cigarette ash off his pants. We climbed up the stairs to the stage. Brian gave me a lingering hug. Looking down at me he slurred, “Beautiful. Really beautiful.” He was surprisingly tall. He nestled me into his armpit. I looked up into his mustache. The merlot on his breath convinced me I could steal a kiss despite the GF shtick. I imagined her perfect tits. Was it his wine stained teeth, or my respect for her that restrained me? Perhaps my dirty musician attraction has its limits.

“This interview was…um…fun,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Montreal Dave pulled me in next. It was a bear hug au sens propre: “Your hair smells good.”

Nose gauge guy told me I had “crazy eyes.”

Montreal Dave bellowed, “Growler eyes!”

Mohamed added, “Growler means ‘pussy’ in New Zealand.”

Time to tap out.

Thanks Growlers?

+

More Growlers here.

Photos by Mohamed Hamad.

conveyance

what I thought were snakes
moving through the granite
turned out to be broken
strings of silver beads.
then I milled around in the miracle
of ash and light.
this is what happens when
you build temples to
the rainwater where
innocent gods grew
pregnant with daughters.
they gave a name
*
to the violence that
exchanged your ribs
with ribbons of smoke,
just like a rolled stone that
dissolved into a breath
of cloud (and your storm
come north). the candles
have extinguished themselves
with their own wax.
thunderclaps rattle
broken beads to sleep.

+

Poem by Richard Alden