Andy Sells
Drummer and beat manipulator for FCS North.
Performing Sun Sept 2,
BumberClub, 8:45-9:45 pm.
What is FCS North up to right now?
"We're working on a new single in our home studios. It's all electronic. We're all working on beats and sequences and stuff."
You're not drumming?
"I sample my drums. I cut up beats from everywhere--I'll take a shitty sample, and then I'll mix in other snares I like."
Is your follow-up LP more samples/electronic, or more like the debut?
"It's similar. We're still doing all the same things, but we're doing more. I use my electronic drums more, so there's more of an electro feel to it."
How would you describe your band's sound to people who've never heard it?
"It's a lot of things. 'Fusion' is kind of a cheesy word, but in my opinion, it's a fusion of all the best shit out there."
What's the most annoying label you've ever heard to describe your band?
"Either post-rock or electronica."
Who are you most excited to see at Bumbershoot?
"I think Mos Def is playing. I like [his] last record."
What about David Lee Roth?!
"Oh my god, Diamond Dave... he's the shit. I can't wait to see him. I want to see some splits!"
BIO BOX:
MC Karim
of the Boom Bap Project
The BBP performs as part of "Hip-Hop 101" on Fri Aug 31, Real Mainstage, 6:00-10:45 pm.
What are you going to teach people at "Hip-Hop 101"?
"The fundamentals. We bring it back to basics. As Seattle's lone representative that night, we're gonna show people how Seattle hiphop is, and that we are not to be taken lightly."
Do you mean to say that the Bumbershoot crowd won't know the basics of hiphop, or that hiphop itself has forgotten its fundamentals?
"What I mean is that [mainstream] hiphop has strayed away from what it used to stand for. Material things [currently] rule hiphop: cars, women, jewelry.... With the lineup assembled [for "Hip-Hop 101"], the audience can witness groups that still stick to the standard laid down in the '80s by pioneers like Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C., and Doug E. Fresh--hype stage shows."
What did you think of last year's MC and DJ Battles of Bumbershoot?
"Last year's DJ battle was off the hook. It was well organized, prizes were dope, and our DJ was the runner-up. The MC battle was not very well organized, but turned out to be dope. Bishop I, from my crew Oldominion, won the MC battle last year, and he's the favorite to take it this year."
What could David Lee Roth learn from "Hip-Hop 101"?
"How to add a little slack to his pants."
BIO BOX:
Jake Stratton
Singer for science-fiction metal
band Blöödhag.
Performing Fri Aug 31, BumberClub, 7:30-8:15 pm.
How long have you been pelting people with science-fiction books at your shows?
"Since the beginning of Blöödhag, about five years ago. It's part of our overall campaign to bring rock literacy to America. Or maybe I should say literacy through rock. Anyway, we go to thrift shops and used bookstores to get them. It's our gift to the masses. You know, it's our thing. We're too chicken to breathe fire."
What's up with the Blöödhag documentary?
"It was filmed by our friend Brad, who followed us around the Timberland Washington Library. We played at a bunch of libraries for kids. Brad definitely captured the weirdness of it all. None of the kids clapped at any of our shows until the very end of our sets. Then they lined up for our autographs. It was awesome.
The documentary is doing pretty well, too. It's been at a variety of festivals like South by Southwest, and it won first place at the San Francisco Underground Documentary Film Festival."
Why do you think David Lee Roth is the best frontman ever?
"Oh, excellent. Because he can't shut up! Dave's got LSD: Lead Singers' Disease. He just can't stop yelping. And he does that spinning high-kick. I love that shit. I tell you what, though, if he doesn't play any songs from his solo record Crazy from the Heat at Bumbershoot, I'm going to be pissed."
BIO BOX:
Karen Light
Co-owner, with her husband Marcus Piña, of Garde
Rail Gallery (4860 Rainier Ave S, 721-0107).
Light and Piña are the curators of Across
the Miles: Discovering Folk Art in America.
What is it that draws people to folk art?
"Southern work seems very exotic to people who don't live there. It is a really different cultural thing. So people are fascinated that we go down to these really rural places, get the art, meet the artists. And we explain about these artists and what they do, and where their motivation comes from, and that it doesn't have anything to do with the art world--it really appeals to people."
What drives the artists to make work?
"The work comes from such a different place. They have to do it. Sometimes it's more of an obsessive thing. A couple of artists do what's almost like automatic writing. There's Zeebeede Armstrong, who lived in a small town in Georgia; he lived to be 98, I think. He was totally obsessed with the end of the Earth, and when time was going to stop. So he'd make these clocks, over and over again, and call them doomsday clocks.... Then there's the urge to do it because it's a divine thing, and you find that a lot in the South. That's what we call visionary art--it's the hand of God that creates it. There are artists who realize after doing it for themselves that people enjoy and appreciate the art so much, that they can't not do it. Jimmy Lee Sidduth is one of those. He's 91, and still does about four paintings a day."
Do you think David Lee Roth would like folk art?
"He'd love it! It has a kitsch factor he'd be into. He's gotta love Tom D.'s Beauty Queens--they're voluptuous, right out of a David Lee Roth video."
