southern records

Bob - Is this a fake live album?

Ian - fake? In what sense?

B - Well, In that it wasn't recorded live and you dubbed the applause on.

I - No, its absolutely live, if it wasn't live then maybe you could hear the bass or maybe it would sound a little less the fractured imprint of spontaneity, it's pretty much an honest account, but it's also an anachronistic account because we've moved on.

H - So why release an anachronistic live album?

I - Well when we decided to release it, it wasn't anachronistic, but we're all about the live experienece. We're all about a sort of confessional format.

H - Bringing your sound to the masses.

I - No, not necessarily, what I mean by confessional, is it's the real thing, I guess the the live record format was a popular thing in the 60's because of the insane contractual obligations that always had to be met, but they were popularised by Sam Cooke and the soul records. James Brown's "Live at the Apollo" is what broke him to a wider audience than his original circuit. It was because it captured the rawness of something the people felt was so full of riffing spontaneity, it was unrehearsed and not full of tricks. And I think that tradition as continued with the MC5 record, the same idea is in mind, so that's some tradition we're working within. And also you don't see a lot of live records any more.

B - Well, if you do they're by Mariah Carey. What is your faith and this confessional format, what idea of faith are you trying to perpetuate?

I - Well, that's a good question, because you know there is no denomination that's really expounded on the record, but I guess we're sort of the 12 tribes of Israel. Dispossesed, disowned, everything we had has been taken and comodified, so basically what we're trying to do is start a new denomination. The faith that we're speaking about is the idea of something that can't be co-opted. Initially the reason that, well, when Make Up first started we disliked the context that we're forced to imprison our ideas in, the art form, punk rock or something. It's misused and we just wanted to control our own context entirely. So in the beginning we'd only play our own club, "The Famous Monsters", in Washington DC and sometimes in New York, but the problem with that is ungainly. So we decided that the only way is to bring our Church onto the road and to create that space wherever we go. It's all about defining the space that you're in, as opposed to letting it define you. "Cold Rice" is our own club.

H - So what is apocalyptic about this faith and the creation of a new denomination, the destuction of the old ones?

I - Apocalyptic in that it sees things as needing comeuppance, I don't know, what does apocalypse mean to you?

H - Utter destruction.

I - Yeah well, destuction of the status quo I suppose.

H - So you've been talking a lot about Gospel Music, you haven't become a gospel band, so are you talking about adhering to the feelings, emotions and general atmosphere of places where Gospel music is sung?

I - Well, when I say that we want to create our own context for existing, that means we have to create our own artform. Artforms are often created within a synthesis of two different artforms. In this case one is Gospel music and the other's "yeh-yeh" music, which is sort of 60's/70's French popular music, and at the same time to transcend them both. Basically we're not talking political platforms here, we're looking for transcendant feeling. Our band's based on the idea that something can happen that's really big and can transform people's lives. Something more.

H - You're looking for that semi-religious experience.

I - I don't know, we're not really looking for a semi-religious experience, more like when you say you're looking for that experience, you know when Dionysians first started their whole thing, that they got into a dancing frenzy, to get to a half-conscious state, but you can breathe into a paper bag for that. When we're talking about Gospel, we're talking about the forms of gospel music, like the sermons, the moralistic preaching, the dogmas. We also love the communicative form.

H - Do you talk about your past?

I - Well, not really.

H - But you haven't had a year zero, you know Nation of Ulysses, Cupid Car Club, Make Up.

I - Well I suppose that would be useful.

H - Because, well the Nation of Ulysses was about destruction and the Make Up seem to be about rebuilding, but in the middle was the Cupid Car Club which was even more about destuction.

I - Well, it was basically, the Cupid Car Club coincided with the complete comodification of everything the Nation of Ulysses had been involved with, we left it behind and the Make Up is a kind of rennaisance, a rebirth, but I don't really want to talk about our vision of the past or our positions in terms of the past. Because anything that we do, and the only worthiness that we have is whether you like us. It's all whether it's powerful to you, that's why I feel uncomfortable attempting to disseminate some sort of of dogma. Basically the Nation of Ulysses we had an idea of a underground political party, with secret languages and alter egos, all these things. But all these things have been co-opted. We look at Gospel music and we see something that's remained essentially pure for like 100 years. We realise that our retreat into the church is something that no-one can fuck with... So that's where we're at. But we're not interested in being clever, especially in terms of all this, we only exist on our own. It's no longer us as co-conspirators, the underground we represent, the idea of us and them, because we realised that everyone has a price. We're just on our own and whoever wants to follow us or wants to be with us. It's a dangerous thing, I'm sorry I'm giving a crappy interview, because I feel weird, I think there's all this expectation...here let me turn it off for you so we can speak...(TURNS TAPE OFF)

(LATER)B - So what are you gonna do next, because obviously there's only going to be one album of the Make Up like this, and maybe it doesn't exist already.

I - I don't know, something more bare, more skeletal. I just feel we're shaving it all down to the purest level. Our aspiration is to have a common sermon which never ends.

B - A continual discourse?

I - Yeah, A continual discourse, where the audience is involved and I'm involved and the band is involved and there's just a constant flux of ideas being presented and thrown up. A whole different idea from what exists now. We're just not interested in gigs, that's what I mean by the whole script. The Nation of Ulysses played insanely loud music, and the whole idea was that it would destroy, it was very facistic, it needed a script, because otherwise how much is really going to be intimated by people jumping around, lyrics that you can't hear. But the thing is, this band don't need a script, it's actually really honest, but as far as faith and stuff...ohh, we should do this interview again.

(they did... see February 98

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