Exclusive Interview

Justin St. Vincent from Xtreme Music interviewed Moe! Staiano on July 23, 2004 San Francisco (CA), 12 Galaxies.

Xtreme Music: I’m here at 12 Galaxies, San Francisco with Moe! Staiano of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Moe!Kestra! As part of tonight’s interview, we’re gonna be talking about his micro-label Dephine Knormal Musik and his work with both those bands Moe!Kestra! and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. But let’s first start off with Vacuum Tree Head, what can you tell us about that style of music compared to the other projects you’ve worked on?

Moe! Staiano: Vacuum Tree Head is a band from San Jose that’s been a collective since the early 90’s. I joined around 1996, and it’s kinda like Sabbath meets Stravinsky meets B-52’s type music meets Secret Chiefs 3. It’s this really quirky type of music, very composed but very short songs. Nothing much over three minutes, short songs that go one into the other. I used to do band percussion in that, and then now I’ve pretty much been doing the drum set which I miss doing for the past year now.

Xtreme Music: Who would you say have been your main influences, and how have they shaped your musical direction?

Moe! Staiano: My influences of drumming have been Einstruzende Neubauten… definitely with the found sound stuff. But they also experimented with other forms of percussion and other objects. I guess I kinda grew from there in terms of experimenting. I used to go to a place in Berkeley from 1995 on, a place called Beanbenders, I got exposed to the more jazz world and I went from there to where you-know it’s more than just oil barrels… I was discovering new sounds and what you can do on prepared drums and stuff like that… going full out and banging on stuff.

Xtreme Music: Certainly from the past century, one of the main pioneers of home-made instrumentalism is Harry Parch. Was he a huge influence on your particular work?

Moe! Staiano: I not sure of an influence, but definitely a source of inspiration and admiration as well. Someone that just started from scratch and just being, I guess, a hobo person. I don’t know what his story is, but starting to make all these instruments and all these little micro-tones with bamboo sticks, cloud-chamber bowls and all the different stuff he makes is really fantastic!

Xtreme Music: To talk about the Moe!Kestra! performance that we’re looking forward to tonight at 12 Galaxies, what can you tells us about what’s involved in the composition and actually conducting that particular piece?

Moe! Staiano: That was a piece that was pretty much three years in the making, even though it’s relatively short, being an average of about thirty minutes or so, depending on how long you can stretch out the drone parts. I’ve always had a thing for sirens and when I first performed it in an abbreviated and incomplete form, it was in Sacramento and it was just with sirens, guitars and wine glasses. Then we just added all the other stuff, like strings because I’ve wanted to make some other scores, this is the seventh one that I’ve done. I’ve had a hard time for the past few years because the work that pours outta me is kinda slow, and I’m trying to think for the next one. This one with all the strings, the percussion and all the other stuff with the u-bolts has brought itself together in the course of a few years. Generally, you can form any kind of piece and you can choose what kind of instrumentation you want and how you present it, and what the form is. That’s how this piece came about.

Xtreme Music: Moe!Kestra! is a fantastic collective of Bay Area improvisors. What’s it been like working with particular musicians, for example, William Winant, David Slusser and the other members that are in Moe!Kestra! tonight?

Moe! Staiano: I think it’s fantastic working with them, basically whenever they are available and can play. It’s nice having them but anyone that is a great musician is always welcome, and more importantly, having people enjoy playing the music is also important in these. They seem to be very supportive of this, which you-know is a great thing! To have support is always helpful.

Xtreme Music: How would you compare Moe!Kestra!’s work with say, John Zorn’s
work in Cobra and the other game-pieces like Xu-Feng?

Moe! Staiano: Well, Cobra is faster and I’m trying to work on doing more fast stuff on my own. I guess I compare myself more to Lawrence Butch Morris and his conducted improvisations. I’ve formed my own style with a glossary of hand cues. In the beginning when I did the first piece, I would have a section where I would hold signs of different music sheets, and hold that up and then bring it down where I would point to musicians. I stopped doing that because it resembled too much of projects like Cobra. So I stopped using that in the piece because I wanted to have my own voice with what I was doing. That’s when I started picking up different musical terms and glossary, which I can incorporate them and make these different signals to other musicians, conduct and cue them in to overlap… and have my own voice for conducting improvisation.

Xtreme Music: You’ll also be performing with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum tonight. I understand you have a new release coming out on Trey Spruance’s Web Of Mimicry label. Could you tell us about that recent recording?

Moe! Staiano: It’s definitely better than the first one!.. It’s a very fantastic record, the production and stuff. I heard it last week and I was like “Oh my God! This is a fantastic recording!”. I was very pleased and very honoured to be on a recording like this that is just so awesome! It’s just great!

Xtreme Music: What innovative production techniques do you incorporate into
recording Sleepytime Gorilla Museum?

Moe! Staiano: Sleepytime has worked as a collective, incorporating music from jamming and improvising, finding good sounds that we like there, taking sections of that from a song… When we’ve warmed up with improvisations and jams, I’ve always wanted to record it because that’s a lot of stuff that always past… We’ve never done that unfortunately. I’ve frowned upon that, we’ve never recorded everything and reviewed it. There has been times where it’s been really great!

Xtreme Music: Is there a release date for that new record from Sleepytime?

Moe! Staiano: I guess October of this year, it’s been another year in waiting.

Xtreme Music: I wanted to ask you what has been the best experience, or most enjoyable experience in your music career to date? Favourite performance or favourite highlight of what you’ve been producing.

Moe! Staiano: I’ve been really pleased with doing this Piece No. 7! It’s really very defined and a very well written piece. It’s kinda matured from all my previous pieces that I’ve done, and I’d really like to try and do more of this. I’m really happy about doing this compostion piece and I’ve kinda wondered what the next one is gonna be.

Xtreme Music: How have your live performances been going and what has the crowd
reaction been like with Moe!Kestra! and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum?

Moe! Staiano: Moe!Kestra! is always challenging, but people have always seemed to like it and enjoy it. When your doing conducting for improvisation, you’ve gotta keep a momentum going and not have a section where it’s going to loose the audience’s interest. I always get kinda self concious when I see people leaving and I wonder what I’m doing wrong. I’m always wanting to improve, always wanting to do better.

Xtreme Music: Could you tell us a little about your micro-label Dephine Knormal Musik?

Moe! Staiano: It’s a label that’s very small and could use more help, people and money. If I had better distribution and stuff. It’s hard to do a label by yourself, but I keep doing releases. The next one is a 7″ release with The Ex from Holland, Cheer-Accident, Voodoo Muzak. Sleepytime’s also doing a cover of a This Heat song called “S.P.Q.R.” and we’ll be releasing that probably by September.

Xtreme Music: Fantastic! For my final question I’d like to ask, what future music are you going to be working on over the next few months?

Moe! Staiano: More Moe!Kestra! music and I’m forming another new band called No Logo! that will have two drummers, two guitars, bass, vocals and trumpet. More like the stylings of Diagram Brothers, The Ex, Dog Face Tremor, Miss Jonestown and Jackdog Crowbar… the kinda music I’m really into, and have that as a serious project as well.

Xtreme Music: Good, it’s been wonderful to meet you Moe! Thank You.