quinnterview
this week in rock:
oct. 13: the green line played first show at velvet underground. rad.
oct. 14: battle of the bands @ the cambie: bash brothers were rad. blood was shed. tycoons were rad. wilson pascoe got more votes.
so, oct. 21: battle of the bands final: johnny good, unlabelled, old phoebe and wilson pascoe FIGHT! and sing songs. come see.
and, it's all great to stay at home, but don't do ALONE! how about another voice? I had a nice discussion with quinn stacey about his band, the green line, and a little bit about other bands too.
stay at home says:
so, the green line had its first show on friday. how do you feel it went?
quinn says:
honestly, at first, I thought that it wasn't what it could have been. but then people starting talking to me about it, and the response was relatively positive.
stay at home says:
that's good, I'm glad you feel good about it. first shows rarely are all they could be, but I know you put it off a little while and put a lot into making it special.
quinn says:
i definitely used the best possible people around to help make the band what it was, everyone's contribution was amazing. there wasn't really any point, except for once, where i had to worry where a particular song was going.
stay at home says:
how long has this incarnation of the band existed? you started off your first eps just by yourself and keep adding members and changing the band's sound a little, sometimes a lot.
quinn says:
this incarnation, including blake has been around for maybe four or five practices. . .
stay at home says:
because you were playing at his house?
quinn says:
well, we hadn't been practicing at his place, we just recorded an album there. blake's coming into the band came directly from his playing on the Golden Wedding sessions. the green line as a Being has been around since february or so.
stay at home says:
so the Golden Wedding is the album you've completed but not released yet--how is it different from the other full length, You May Run So Far From Home?
quinn says:
well, they both have the same spirit in that they are completely improvised with only brief instructions to the musicians beforehand. lyrics and melodies are completely improvised on both albums. but the golden wedding took place in a very, very drunk 4 hour middle-of-the-night session that i recorded and then culled down.
You May Run.... uses 10 out of 11 recorded songs with only one outtake. the "genre", stupid word, is perhaps different on the two albums but the spirit is the same. one is just drunker than the other. You May Run... also has the band's first use of jazz session players and the first use of female voices.
stay at home says:
I like the joyful sound of what I've heard so far.
quinn says:
yeah, that album is really optimistic, we were all in very high spirits. the people that helped us out: Alyson, Natalie and Erin hadn't ever recorded with me; maybe hadn't recorded ever, so they were really excited by the whole thing. they are probably going to join us onstage for our next show.
stay at home says:
is changing lineups and sounds to be an integral part of the band's identity and/or do you have an overall manifesto or vision of what you want the band to sound like that you're working towards pinning down?
quinn says:
i guess the manifesto is just to make music that I would listen to for fun, like for my own enjoyment. i listen to our music all the time, because I enjoy the songs. there is so much great music out there, you only have so many waking hours to listen. and I try to make music that cracks my own listening lineup. that is how it passes the test. and i go to any means to create that music, using other musicians or whatever.
stay at home says:
yeah, people seem to think listening to your own music is egotistical or something, but you should be stimulated yourself by what you do right? if not why waste everyone else's time.
quinn says:
yes, i just try to make music that i like, that's the whole thing
stay at home says:
I want to bring up something you said at the party after the show that I have been thinking a little about.
quinn says:
uh oh. hopefully it was intelligent.
stay at home says:
you differentiated the green line from bands like the bash brothers and old phoebe saying that we are personality based bands. don't worry, I'm not taking offense, it is an interesting point.
quinn says:
this is what people have told me about you guys, is what i based that on.
stay at home says:
oh, what do you mean? I thought it was a personal observation.
quinn says:
david told me when he first saw you something like "i don't know if i like the music first or i like the people." it is a personal observation.
stay at home says:
you said that enjoyment of our music is more based on knowing us, which I disagree with--if you like me from listening to my music or seeing me play you are responding to the music and/or performance.
and I think personality is a very important aspect of art. I have begun to think of artists and works of art on similar terms that I think of friends--there's so many different levels of connection and chemistry and appreciation, it's never just how GOOD or skilled or nice somebody or something is. and bands like us, two-pieces that are more instrumentally bare, and less skill-based (speaking for myself there, not calling anyone else unskilled) rely more heavily on personality (which for me is very important and the reason I use the kinds of arrangements I do), but back to you. . . . do you think you are NOT personality based? in what ways does a band like the green line differ on that level?
quinn says:
well, our music touches on so much. live, like the other night, i would say less so personality - it's more like a collective, and people connect to the greatest degree with vocals, which were (that show at least) pretty low. some EP's i've done are very much personality-based. songs where it's my voice and not much else.
stay at home says:
yeah, some of those are my favourites, like Why Not Congratulate Yourself Sometimes.
quinn says:
yeah. the best music ever has some of the best people behind and getting some kind of relationship with these people is what connects music to people. i'm sort of working on another full-length that is going to have a lot of my singing on it.
stay at home says:
great!
quinn says:
but i find it really difficult to sing, i don't really enjoy it.
stay at home says:
as I thought about what you had said I realized that I do really connect with the songs that you sing, and I mentioned I was disappointed that you didn't do any singing on friday.
quinn says:
it's less difficult for sean to bring himself to sing.
stay at home says:
it's not that I don't like sean and dave's vocals--I especially love when dave goes ah ha ha ha in This Is A Story About Diamonds--but maybe the personality of the songs comes out in a purer form when you sing. or maybe my ex-boyfriend is right and I just like music best when the singer can't sing.
quinn says:
thanks. i definitely have one of those voices. like Daniel Johnston or Wayne Coyne or Lou Reed. not to compare myself to them. maybe more like Danny. the other two are pretty natural singers. plus i've only been singing for maybe just under a year. although I did sing in my first ever band, The Carters.
stay at home says:
I'm just kidding, I could go on for days explaining why bob dylan and neil young and jack white and conor oberst and kurt cobain are way better singers than, say, oh I don't even want to name somebody lame that has a "good voice."
quinn says:
Paul McCartney?
stay at home says:
yes, good example.
quinn says:
there's a reason people connected with Lennon moreso.
stay at home says:
fuck yeah.
quinn says:
I went to the Lennon memorial in New York and people were crying.
stay at home says:
Plastic Ono Band is one of my favourite albums.
quinn says:
Mother DESTROYS me.
but Lennon is a fabulous singer, he's got like a 3 octave range
stay at home says:
yeah, he is good. nobody says he can't sing, do they?
quinn says:
no, but he's a little more to the left than Paul.
stay at home says:
yes, and people don't get what he saw in yoko ono and everybody hates her singing, but that's a whole different thing to talk about.
quinn says:
he probably shouldn't have been even brought up in this context.
stay at home says:
ha ha
quinn says:
but yeah. "Mother" is better than anything he did with the Beatles. is that blasphemy? that's just the kind of music I go for.
stay at home says:
I'm not going to disagree, but it is bolder than I would go. but, like I said, I like that album better than any of the beatles albums.
quinn says:
I can't say that. I like George's All Things Must Pass better than any beatles album, but maybe that is in part because of the Phil Spector factor. who is one of my Production-heros.
stay at home says:
it's kind of in the indie rock genre before that existed as a genre (Plastic Ono Band).
quinn says:
yes, those two albums. kind of get near that area.
stay at home says:
I'll check that one out then.
quinn says:
You've never heard it?
stay at home says:
no.
quinn says:
My Lord.
Be Right Back, I'm going to put it on. . . . i took out one of my cd's from the player. if that lends any cred to what i was saying.
stay at home says:
lots of cred. I am listening to The Green Lion ep.
quinn says:
ha. it's silly. i wanted to be Spacemen 3 at that time. as shown by the Stooges cover.
i kind of wanted to get onstage and sing for the tycoons last night.
stay at home says:
you did! me too! were you writing lyrics in your head?
quinn says:
yes. Lou Reed-esque.
stay at home says:
me too, I wrote one down afterwards.
quinn says:
Jamie doesn't like Lou Reed, did you know that?
stay at home says:
well, I'll have a discussion with her. she didn't used to like bob DYLan.
quinn says:
Berlin. have you heard Berlin? by Reed?
stay at home says:
I think I have, but I'm not familiar with it.
quinn says:
he wanted to kill himself, and made an album about it. and it IS. that and the production is amazing.
stay at home says:
I get sick of him sometimes, my ex-boyfriend neill burned me a whole bunch of lou reed albums at one time, too much at once I think.
quinn says:
forget his solo albums. all of them. except Berlin. he needed the Velvets to keep him from becoming a total moron.
stay at home says:
ok, yeah, I have a pretty good selection of velvet underground and he is clearly magical.
quinn says:
they are my favourite band.
stay at home says:
I could hear it even before I heard the velvet underground covers.
quinn says:
maybe if i sing more it'll be more obvious even.
stay at home says:
oh, I was going to say, tanner said maybe the tycoons should have different people come up and sing or recite poetry with them.
quinn says:
yeah.
stay at home says:
and I was just thinking about the web of interactions between bands in our little growing scene.
quinn says:
i thought about that last night too. green line, bash bros, old, tycoons all have a direct connection to Pheasant Alley. this year coming up is going to be really something for me, recording-wise. I'm getting a real place and real pro gear.
stay at home says:
I like how you started out recording, and handing out cds to people and progressed into a full performing band.
quinn says:
i have very set goals. it all progresses.
stay at home says:
a lot of people were and are really excited about your band, partly of course because your music is rad and interesting, but also I think because that build up is exciting.
quinn says:
yeah, it was all thought out by me beforehand. because I live to "create" (music, writing whatever) and I kind of saw how a band comes to be in this town. it kind of lined up well in terms of the band that i was getting to be friends with the sort of other music people at the same time I was starting a band.
stay at home says:
yes, I think it's rather serendipitous.
quinn says:
i didn't have any friends for two years. i didn't hang out with sean for two years.
stay at home says:
most of my best friends now say similar things, and it was the same for me, not that I didn't have ANY friends, but that we didn't have many close connections and didn't feel like we had much of a place here, and then things have just gradually come together that now we have such a big group of amazing people doing cool things and getting excited about what each other are doing and building on all that collective enthusiasm.
quinn says:
yeah
stay at home says:
it’s kind of opening up the playing field to a whole lot of new types of opportunities.
quinn says:
exactly.
oct. 13: the green line played first show at velvet underground. rad.
oct. 14: battle of the bands @ the cambie: bash brothers were rad. blood was shed. tycoons were rad. wilson pascoe got more votes.
so, oct. 21: battle of the bands final: johnny good, unlabelled, old phoebe and wilson pascoe FIGHT! and sing songs. come see.
and, it's all great to stay at home, but don't do ALONE! how about another voice? I had a nice discussion with quinn stacey about his band, the green line, and a little bit about other bands too.
stay at home says:
so, the green line had its first show on friday. how do you feel it went?
quinn says:
honestly, at first, I thought that it wasn't what it could have been. but then people starting talking to me about it, and the response was relatively positive.
stay at home says:
that's good, I'm glad you feel good about it. first shows rarely are all they could be, but I know you put it off a little while and put a lot into making it special.
quinn says:
i definitely used the best possible people around to help make the band what it was, everyone's contribution was amazing. there wasn't really any point, except for once, where i had to worry where a particular song was going.
stay at home says:
how long has this incarnation of the band existed? you started off your first eps just by yourself and keep adding members and changing the band's sound a little, sometimes a lot.
quinn says:
this incarnation, including blake has been around for maybe four or five practices. . .
stay at home says:
because you were playing at his house?
quinn says:
well, we hadn't been practicing at his place, we just recorded an album there. blake's coming into the band came directly from his playing on the Golden Wedding sessions. the green line as a Being has been around since february or so.
stay at home says:
so the Golden Wedding is the album you've completed but not released yet--how is it different from the other full length, You May Run So Far From Home?
quinn says:
well, they both have the same spirit in that they are completely improvised with only brief instructions to the musicians beforehand. lyrics and melodies are completely improvised on both albums. but the golden wedding took place in a very, very drunk 4 hour middle-of-the-night session that i recorded and then culled down.
You May Run.... uses 10 out of 11 recorded songs with only one outtake. the "genre", stupid word, is perhaps different on the two albums but the spirit is the same. one is just drunker than the other. You May Run... also has the band's first use of jazz session players and the first use of female voices.
stay at home says:
I like the joyful sound of what I've heard so far.
quinn says:
yeah, that album is really optimistic, we were all in very high spirits. the people that helped us out: Alyson, Natalie and Erin hadn't ever recorded with me; maybe hadn't recorded ever, so they were really excited by the whole thing. they are probably going to join us onstage for our next show.
stay at home says:
is changing lineups and sounds to be an integral part of the band's identity and/or do you have an overall manifesto or vision of what you want the band to sound like that you're working towards pinning down?
quinn says:
i guess the manifesto is just to make music that I would listen to for fun, like for my own enjoyment. i listen to our music all the time, because I enjoy the songs. there is so much great music out there, you only have so many waking hours to listen. and I try to make music that cracks my own listening lineup. that is how it passes the test. and i go to any means to create that music, using other musicians or whatever.
stay at home says:
yeah, people seem to think listening to your own music is egotistical or something, but you should be stimulated yourself by what you do right? if not why waste everyone else's time.
quinn says:
yes, i just try to make music that i like, that's the whole thing
stay at home says:
I want to bring up something you said at the party after the show that I have been thinking a little about.
quinn says:
uh oh. hopefully it was intelligent.
stay at home says:
you differentiated the green line from bands like the bash brothers and old phoebe saying that we are personality based bands. don't worry, I'm not taking offense, it is an interesting point.
quinn says:
this is what people have told me about you guys, is what i based that on.
stay at home says:
oh, what do you mean? I thought it was a personal observation.
quinn says:
david told me when he first saw you something like "i don't know if i like the music first or i like the people." it is a personal observation.
stay at home says:
you said that enjoyment of our music is more based on knowing us, which I disagree with--if you like me from listening to my music or seeing me play you are responding to the music and/or performance.
and I think personality is a very important aspect of art. I have begun to think of artists and works of art on similar terms that I think of friends--there's so many different levels of connection and chemistry and appreciation, it's never just how GOOD or skilled or nice somebody or something is. and bands like us, two-pieces that are more instrumentally bare, and less skill-based (speaking for myself there, not calling anyone else unskilled) rely more heavily on personality (which for me is very important and the reason I use the kinds of arrangements I do), but back to you. . . . do you think you are NOT personality based? in what ways does a band like the green line differ on that level?
quinn says:
well, our music touches on so much. live, like the other night, i would say less so personality - it's more like a collective, and people connect to the greatest degree with vocals, which were (that show at least) pretty low. some EP's i've done are very much personality-based. songs where it's my voice and not much else.
stay at home says:
yeah, some of those are my favourites, like Why Not Congratulate Yourself Sometimes.
quinn says:
yeah. the best music ever has some of the best people behind and getting some kind of relationship with these people is what connects music to people. i'm sort of working on another full-length that is going to have a lot of my singing on it.
stay at home says:
great!
quinn says:
but i find it really difficult to sing, i don't really enjoy it.
stay at home says:
as I thought about what you had said I realized that I do really connect with the songs that you sing, and I mentioned I was disappointed that you didn't do any singing on friday.
quinn says:
it's less difficult for sean to bring himself to sing.
stay at home says:
it's not that I don't like sean and dave's vocals--I especially love when dave goes ah ha ha ha in This Is A Story About Diamonds--but maybe the personality of the songs comes out in a purer form when you sing. or maybe my ex-boyfriend is right and I just like music best when the singer can't sing.
quinn says:
thanks. i definitely have one of those voices. like Daniel Johnston or Wayne Coyne or Lou Reed. not to compare myself to them. maybe more like Danny. the other two are pretty natural singers. plus i've only been singing for maybe just under a year. although I did sing in my first ever band, The Carters.
stay at home says:
I'm just kidding, I could go on for days explaining why bob dylan and neil young and jack white and conor oberst and kurt cobain are way better singers than, say, oh I don't even want to name somebody lame that has a "good voice."
quinn says:
Paul McCartney?
stay at home says:
yes, good example.
quinn says:
there's a reason people connected with Lennon moreso.
stay at home says:
fuck yeah.
quinn says:
I went to the Lennon memorial in New York and people were crying.
stay at home says:
Plastic Ono Band is one of my favourite albums.
quinn says:
Mother DESTROYS me.
but Lennon is a fabulous singer, he's got like a 3 octave range
stay at home says:
yeah, he is good. nobody says he can't sing, do they?
quinn says:
no, but he's a little more to the left than Paul.
stay at home says:
yes, and people don't get what he saw in yoko ono and everybody hates her singing, but that's a whole different thing to talk about.
quinn says:
he probably shouldn't have been even brought up in this context.
stay at home says:
ha ha
quinn says:
but yeah. "Mother" is better than anything he did with the Beatles. is that blasphemy? that's just the kind of music I go for.
stay at home says:
I'm not going to disagree, but it is bolder than I would go. but, like I said, I like that album better than any of the beatles albums.
quinn says:
I can't say that. I like George's All Things Must Pass better than any beatles album, but maybe that is in part because of the Phil Spector factor. who is one of my Production-heros.
stay at home says:
it's kind of in the indie rock genre before that existed as a genre (Plastic Ono Band).
quinn says:
yes, those two albums. kind of get near that area.
stay at home says:
I'll check that one out then.
quinn says:
You've never heard it?
stay at home says:
no.
quinn says:
My Lord.
Be Right Back, I'm going to put it on. . . . i took out one of my cd's from the player. if that lends any cred to what i was saying.
stay at home says:
lots of cred. I am listening to The Green Lion ep.
quinn says:
ha. it's silly. i wanted to be Spacemen 3 at that time. as shown by the Stooges cover.
i kind of wanted to get onstage and sing for the tycoons last night.
stay at home says:
you did! me too! were you writing lyrics in your head?
quinn says:
yes. Lou Reed-esque.
stay at home says:
me too, I wrote one down afterwards.
quinn says:
Jamie doesn't like Lou Reed, did you know that?
stay at home says:
well, I'll have a discussion with her. she didn't used to like bob DYLan.
quinn says:
Berlin. have you heard Berlin? by Reed?
stay at home says:
I think I have, but I'm not familiar with it.
quinn says:
he wanted to kill himself, and made an album about it. and it IS. that and the production is amazing.
stay at home says:
I get sick of him sometimes, my ex-boyfriend neill burned me a whole bunch of lou reed albums at one time, too much at once I think.
quinn says:
forget his solo albums. all of them. except Berlin. he needed the Velvets to keep him from becoming a total moron.
stay at home says:
ok, yeah, I have a pretty good selection of velvet underground and he is clearly magical.
quinn says:
they are my favourite band.
stay at home says:
I could hear it even before I heard the velvet underground covers.
quinn says:
maybe if i sing more it'll be more obvious even.
stay at home says:
oh, I was going to say, tanner said maybe the tycoons should have different people come up and sing or recite poetry with them.
quinn says:
yeah.
stay at home says:
and I was just thinking about the web of interactions between bands in our little growing scene.
quinn says:
i thought about that last night too. green line, bash bros, old, tycoons all have a direct connection to Pheasant Alley. this year coming up is going to be really something for me, recording-wise. I'm getting a real place and real pro gear.
stay at home says:
I like how you started out recording, and handing out cds to people and progressed into a full performing band.
quinn says:
i have very set goals. it all progresses.
stay at home says:
a lot of people were and are really excited about your band, partly of course because your music is rad and interesting, but also I think because that build up is exciting.
quinn says:
yeah, it was all thought out by me beforehand. because I live to "create" (music, writing whatever) and I kind of saw how a band comes to be in this town. it kind of lined up well in terms of the band that i was getting to be friends with the sort of other music people at the same time I was starting a band.
stay at home says:
yes, I think it's rather serendipitous.
quinn says:
i didn't have any friends for two years. i didn't hang out with sean for two years.
stay at home says:
most of my best friends now say similar things, and it was the same for me, not that I didn't have ANY friends, but that we didn't have many close connections and didn't feel like we had much of a place here, and then things have just gradually come together that now we have such a big group of amazing people doing cool things and getting excited about what each other are doing and building on all that collective enthusiasm.
quinn says:
yeah
stay at home says:
it’s kind of opening up the playing field to a whole lot of new types of opportunities.
quinn says:
exactly.
posted by Erin OK at 11:44 AM
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