One of the other bands that I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk with at CMJ, is the New York City based band The Mood. The Mood consists of Marco Argino on lead vocals and guitar, his cousin Corinne Callen on vocals and keys, Kenton Langsthroth on guitar, Chris Bunatta on drums and Brian Karp on bass.

The Mood’s sound is sunny straight ahead rock with elements of 80’s new wave and 60’s Brit pop mixed in. I chatted with the band over sushi at a sushi joint near Kenny’s Castaways in Manhattan, where The Mood played their set for the CMJ Music Marathon. We chatted about many things including what brought Marco Argino, guitarist Kenton Langsthroth and keyboard player Corinne Callen to New York City from Ft. Lauderdale Florida to how the band came together.

You guys are originally from Florida.

MA: Three of us are from Florida

What is the music scene like in Florida?

MA: When I was originally in it…. it was more like a real punk rock scene in South Florida.

CC: It was metal and punk.

MA: In Corinne’s area it was more metal and in my area it was punk. I was in punk and pop punk bands. When I knew the band that I was in was at its end, I knew I wanted to put together a project that’s like what we’re doing now with the two guitars and all that. And I was trying to get the guys that I knew from down there to move up here to New York and they ended up fizzling out, so I moved to New York on my own booking some acoustic gigs and meeting the promoters and getting my foot in the door. That was in 2004 and I just played everywhere you can play and then it was like okay I can’t do this anymore I need a real band! The first person that I contacted to be an official Mood member was my cousin Corinne; we did acoustic gigs together….

CC: We did sing songwriter shows.

MA: We played all with all these different artists in the Columbia University area.

CC: We both went to college in the same town as well and Marco had his fans in Tallahassee and I had mine there too, but we didn’t meet up till we both got to New York.

MA: I was always looking for a singer, a good harmony voice and I was always looking for this guy who can sing harmonies. Then I realized it was right under my nose the entire time…Corinne! My cousin has this amazing voice and she can play all of these instruments. And working with family is really easy and it works out. So we started playing together and we had these various drummers and bass players and I was like humm…second guitar who are we gonna get now? And I ran into Kenton at a birthday party and I spoke to him joining the band but he didn’t remember us talking about it because he was so drunk. I had to remind him the next day, we had that connection of being friends and recording buddies back in Florida and I knew what he could do and he, Corinne and I started playing together.

We went through some various line up changes with the rhythm section, our old drummer introduced us to Brian Karp our current bass player and he was the best bass player hands down so it was a no brainer for us to choose Brian as our bass player. The next person to join our band was our current drummer Chris who got in right before we made our record at Electric Ladyland studios. After that the band was solidified and we had done a bunch of gigs.

In your own words can you describe the sound of The Mood?

KL: I don’t want to say that it’s pop or it’s this or that, for me it’s either music that makes you think or it’s music that uplifts and makes you dance. I don’t want to say that it’s two parts that, two parts this with a little splash of this on top….

BK: It defiantly has its influences 50’s, 60’s….

MA: 60’s British invasion bands, some 80’s..

BK: Yeah 80’s post punk electro pop.

MA: Overall I would say it’s a rock and roll sound and that kind of covers it all. Some people will tell us we’re power pop that keeps coming up a lot. It’s melodic, it’s rock and roll!

I just read that you guys did some shows in England, did you play any special shows while you were over there?

MA: We got asked to play the In The City music festival, which is Manchester’s version of CMJ. I thought to myself if I’m gonna get the band to go over there I should make it worth the band’s while and so besides doing the In The City we played some other non festival shows in the UK. We did a show at the legendary 100 Club, where everyone from The Who to Metallica to the Sex Pistols and Zeppelin played….

CC: Famous people still show up there!

MA: When I went to the 100 Club for the first time I saw the Hives play there. And the next time I was there we were fucking rocking the place! So it was a really amazing experience to play there! We started in London, then we went to Stockwell, then we went down to Brighton and we played an amazing
room were everyone was up dancing. There was all the crazy energy in Brighton…

CC: The people in Brighton show their love of music a lot more.

BK: They come out to have a good time and hear bands..

KL: We had a really great time in Brighton!

MA: We ended the regular bit of the tour in Brighton. Our final show was at the In The City Festival in Manchester and it was a really nice show! It was an intense experience but it was a great experience!

You guys were talking about the differences in the crowds…you were saying the crowds in London are a lot like the crowds in New York, a little more reserved a little more cynical….

BK: It’s not so much being cynical, when you live in a big city like New York or London you get to see the best of everything. You can go out any night and see a famous band that you’ve heard of, so naturally when you go out and see a young band that no has heard of you want them to show you the goods. So it’s not so much about being cynical as it is, I live in a big city where I can see world class music any night…so be good!

CC: I say it’s a little bit more challenging as an artist or a performer to give them a good show, which keeps everyone on their toes. So in another words I wouldn’t trade living in New York City for anything in the world right now!

MA: We all worked really hard to get to this point!

CC: I’m not saying anything negative about London but in the same way it probably feels like that too…it keeps you on your toes and makes you a good performer!

MA: Honestly all five of us earn it on stage every night! We go out there and we put on a show, we’re not sitting there making faces. Our songs are catchy and we put on a rock and roll show! We go out there and engage with the crowd…

BK: It’s a high energy show!

What’s the songwriting process that goes into each song by the Mood?

BK: Marco stairs at the sky till it hits him..(everyone laughs)

MA: (laughing) Exactly!

KL: I feel like the songs on our EP “Get In” are songs that Marco had crafted over a long period of time. It’s a singular process but we all leave our mark on the songs.

MA: With those songs it was a bit of a darker time then. Cause, everyone had just moved to New York and gone through break ups and struggles to get to New York. Even going through the weather change, going from that sunny Florida weather to the New York weather affected the songwriting process! Then we started thinking outside the box, wither it’s physcadelic with the lyrics or it’s a little more story telling, everyone grew on “Synaesthesia” our latest album and left their own mark on each of the songs.

CC: We produced “Synaesthesia” and in that respect it made everyone’s participation that much more prevalent.

What does the future hold for the Mood?

MA: We’re already talking about doing another record. We own our own record label called Out Right Rock and we put out our own records. And so we’re looking for a nice independent record label that sees our vision, basically we’re looking for a home.

To hear the Mood’s music, get tour dates, other news and to order your copy of “Synaesthesia” you can go to the Mood’s myspace site:

www.myspace.com/marcoargiro

- Amy Grimm

Just like the constellation that bears his name, Orion Simprini is a shining star on the New York music scene. The charismatic Simprini is the front man for the new wave band that shares his unique name: The Orion Experience. I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk to Orion at the White Rabbit, a funky and laid-back lounge on Houston Street right in the heart of the good old Lower East Side. While film clips of people like Madonna and Bill Clinton played on the clean white walls, we talked about where the Orion Experience fits into the NY music scene, the meaning of “indie cred”, and how playing on stage can be orgasmic.

How would you describe the sound of The Orion Experience?

High energy, dancey pop rock. It incorporates a lot of influences from stuff that you may have heard before – people have compared us to the B-52′s and also the New Pornographers. I also feel like there is a little ABBA in there, but I think there is something completely new about it as well. So, there are a lot of retro elements but overall it is a fresh and modern sound that has been unexplored as of late.

What you mean when you say “unexplored”?

I think that we’re very different from a lot of other New York bands. When you come and see The Orion Experience it’s a high energy party atmosphere that just doesn’t seem to be in vogue right now in New York or in indie music so much.

Yeah, right now it seems to be about being depressed and jaded and looking down at your shoes.

(laughs) We don’t play mandolin…..

How do you see the Orion Experience fitting into the New York music scene?

To me New York is like a big black landscape and the Orion Experience is this rainbow in the corner. I think we fit in quite nicely. This city is so drawn to night life and people really like to party here, and the Orion Experience offers a soundtrack to a Saturday night in New York.

I was lucky enough to see one of the Orion Experience shows at the Annex on the Lower East Side, and I have to say it was a really good time. It was a nice change of pace from that “trust fund, ivy league graduate, jaded and depressed indie rock”, that seems to be coming out of Brooklyn and the Lower East Side in abundance these days.

Yeah, we totally try to put out as much energy as we can…but it’s hard for me to say what it looks like from the other side. But I know when I see an audience’s reaction, I feel like they are giving back that same positive energy.

I felt like I was back in the 80′s, but it was very smart.

Back in the 80′s – that’s a great thing! It’s like if you saw a Culture Club show back in the day. While it’s not the exact same thing as an Orion Experience show, it has those elements and it knows what it is and it’s there to make you smile and have a good time. I feel like the perfect Orion Experience show would be when you go there, you dance your ass off, you see a really cute person and you go make out in the bathroom somewhere. Then you laugh the whole way home.

I got that vibe that I was at the Pyramid circa 1985 watching a really cool band…but yet it was very now and modern.

Right! When I sit down to write a song, I’m always trying to write something that I would want to hear at a rock show. And just from my earliest days, stuff like Culture Club, Duran Duran and Michael Jackson – those are the kinds of things that really started me down the musical path and I try to emulate that.

Besides being smart and fun, the Orion Experience seems to have a sexual element as well.

Well for me there is a feeling of excitement and energy in my brain when I’m on stage that is closely related to sexual energy.

Would you call is orgasmic, then?

Definitely, it really is! It’s funny because the French have a saying, “la petite morte”, for an orgasm, which means “the little death”. For me it’s strange, it’s like I blackout when I get on stage. I remember getting up there, and I remember a few things on stage. But when I get off, I don’t remember much about the show because I’m in such a heightened sense of awareness that I don’t really remember that much and it’s sort of like that “little death.”

How much of your songwriting is influenced by sex?

Eighty percent of my songs are about frustration or longing for someone. Those are the kind of things that I really need to express. When I really love someone or am obsessed with someone and they aren’t giving me what I need back…I have to write about it.

Isn’t that what half of rock and roll is? Many of the greatest rock love songs of all time were created in that vein.

Absolutely – and it’s also really great to write songs about someone who has a cool name…

Like Orion?

Right (laughs). I love songs that have people’s names in them.

I’ve noticed that you guys play a lot not only in NYC but also LA. We’ve talked before about the differences between the NYC and the LA scenes, and the differences between the audiences. You’ve said you find NY audiences to be a little smarter and LA audiences to be a little more outrageous.

I would say that in LA they are much more prone to really like you right off the bat, whereas with NY audiences you really have to win them over. They aren’t so quick to be like “oh that was great”! In New York you get some real genuine feed back. The LA audiences that we’ve had have been really great though, and they are very receptive to New York bands.

How would you see the Orion Experience fitting in outside of LA and New York? In other words, fitting into the mainstream?

I don’t think there has ever been a more mainstream band then the Orion Experience. With the right kind of exposure we’d be Z-100′s (well known NY top 40 radio station) biggest band. I think it is smarter than stuff like Fall Out Boy, but it’s just stupid enough for everyone to get it. I feel like if the stars align we’d be as mainstream as they come!

But still retain that indie cred?

I really don’t care about indie cred. I’ve been playing in rock bands since before I could get into bars, so I’ve paid my dues and then some. It doesn’t matter to me if people think I don’t have it, I would rather reach as many people as I can than have only ten people who know us but have “indie cred” (laughs). Take a guy like Jack White from the White Stripes. He is a great example of someone who took indie music and brought it into the mainstream. Everyone likes the White Stripes – and I’ve heard him say in interviews, “I want to make a career out of music and I don’t want stay obscure forever.”

I heard that you are you guys are going into the studio soon.

Yes we are recording four new songs which could become our second album. I’m very excited!

Besides going into the studio soon, what else is on the horizon for the Orion Experience?

I hope this is the year that we reach the masses. One of the things we’re trying to do is some touring on a larger scale. We are going to go to the UK, which is going to be great. We’re going to try and get a much bigger online presence and in blogs such as yours. This is the year that we really need to find our audience, and I think this is the year that it’s going to happen. We’re always looking for ways to circumnavigate the music industry, and besides press and concerts we’re trying to get our music on television shows. I think this is the year we’re going to hit that next level of exposure, although I’m not sure how that is going to happen. Right now what we’re focused on is continuing to put out music and becoming the biggest band that we can be in New York City. Beyond that, making a name and reputation that people such as yourself are picking up on is an encouraging sign.

To find out when the Orion Experience will be in your town or to hear their music check out their myspace page;

www.myspace.com/theorionexperience

Or you can go to their website at: www.theorionexperience.com

- Amy Grimm

Her tale is a fascinating one complete with surviving a major hurricane and moving to New York, Montreal and Providence in the aftermath of the storm.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Alexandra via email and our girl talk included a chat about guitars and changing the world with more fucking and less fighting among other things.

You have an interesting story to tell. You lived in New Orleans and were evacuated when Katrina hit, you then came to New York then you lived in Canada and now your in Providence RI. How has this experience of influenced your songwriting process?

How hasn’t it, is the real answer. I think everything about my life is different since Katrina, and some of those differences are great improvements, I must say. I write about New Orleans a lot because in every place I’ve lived since then, I’m always homesick for it. Moving all the time – I think I’ve moved fourteen times in the last three years – plus touring means that I haven’t ever really been anyplace long enough to make deep connections, which is not to dismiss the amazing people I’ve met along the way. But nowadays I spend most of my time with my guitar and my dog and books, and the more I practice, the deeper I can fall into songs when I sing them. The more I play, the more I experiment – and the happier I get while playing.

Besides the whole experience with Katrina, what other factors play a part in your songwriting process?

If I’m not around big trees, I don’t write as many songs. For me songs come in stillness. If there’s too much commotion around me, I can’t focus in and hear them. I’m still always amazed that a songs come through me. I go through mega-productive periods and long fallow periods, and during the dry spells, I always panic and think “they’re never coming back, I’m never going to have another song come out of me.” And then, so far, touch wood, they come back, and I’m ecstatic and nothing can ever bother me again because I have just written this glorious song that I love! And so on, and so on.

With your experience with Katrina and being evacuated is songwriting and playing live a cathartic thing for you?

Oh yes yes yes yes yes. It was rough to come to New York two weeks after Katrina, cause New York’s great but it’s not the ideal place to come for healing, but it saved my life to do it, because I started right away playing a lot, all the time, and I could just….go. Let go. Start letting go and keep on doing it, because there’s much much more to let go of; I can feel it. And someday I will let go of it all.

In your own words can you describe your sound?

No. I really can’t. I am ashamed that I can’t, but I can’t. I always try to do this, and fail, and die inside a little. Um. I write about the world as seen by a girl who grew up on three thousand acres, with ponies and cattle and green things everywhere; and who is hopelessly romantic; and who has lived in cities for a long time now but is always dreaming of open space and open sky. And that’s all very pretty but it doesn’t describe the music. I just don’t know. I grew up loving Loretta Lynn and Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris. My music doesn’t sound like them but they’re in it, somewhere. I can’t go on – I am hopeless at this, Amy!

Total gear head question… what type of guitar do you play?

I have two – a blond Guild acoustic that I got just before Katrina. It was the only guitar I evacuated with, and I played it full-time and fell in love with it like I’ve never loved a guitar. I’m only its third owner and the previous two were women also, which is unusual.

I also have a green Gretsch anniversary edition that was picked out for me by a semi-romance that went down in flames but not before he took me to a guitar store in the Village, pointed at the guitar and said “That’s your guitar.” I plugged it in and tried it and I knew he was right, so I owe him forever, really.

Last question, how is Miss Alexandra Scott going to change the world with her music?

By promoting the slogan “More Fucking, Less Fighting.”

And by casting a spell and making the musical equivalent of a Victorian opium den: a place where people can just dream off into their own spaces, together and separately all at once.

Alexandra will be playing the Rockwood Music Hall in New York City on Wednesday September 24th at 7pm. The Rockwood Music Hall is located at 184 Allen Street off of Houston Street in the heart of the good old LES of New York, there is no cover and it’s 21 and over to get in.

To hear Alexandra’s music and to get future tour dates and other news check out her myspace page:

www.myspace.com/hearalex

- Amy Grimm

Jesse Malin has been a part of the New York alt-rock music scene for just about twenty years, beginning as a teenager with the hardcore band Heart Attack. In the 90′s, he gained widespread notoriety as front man for the glam-punk band D Generation. These days he has a fresh new sound and has just released his third solo album “Glitter in the Gutter” with contributions from Bruce Springsteen, Jakob Dylan, Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), and of course his good friend Ryan Adams.

While supporting the new album, I had the pleasure of chatting with Jesse at Niagara, the East Village bar where he is a part owner. We sat in a cozy corner of the bar and spent an hour and a half discussing everything from the new album to New York City, including what his hopes are for the future and why he was wearing a back and neck brace.

The first question I’m going to ask, and I’m sure you’re sick of answering this question, relates to your collaboration with Bruce Springsteen on your new song “Broken Radio.” How did that come about, and what was it like to work with Bruce?

Well, when I made “The Fine Art of Self Destruction” I met Bruce at the Stone Pony, of all places, and he told me he really liked the cover that I had done of “Hungry Heart”. He hadn’t heard my solo record, but had read good things about it. Then I got a phone call from my manager saying “Bruce is gonna call you up at home, and he loves your record and he wants to talk to you about it”, and I was like “you’re joking!”

So he called, and we talked about the record for about an hour. He asked me to do some shows with him down in Asbury, which was holiday benefit shows for the local children’s community. I asked “what Christmas songs are we gonna play?” and he said “we’re gonna play your songs with my band, and I’m gonna play my songs”, and I was like “WHAT!?”

That went on for about three or four days, and it was just an amazing experience. The guy is so passionate; he learned all these songs of mine. It was pretty wild having him as my sideman…as my Keith Richards! So, we stayed in touch over the years as I made the second record…and I would see him if he played or had rehearsals, and he’d call once in a while or I’d bump into him at his gigs and he always asked “what are you listening to lately?”

Then I went to see him on the Pete Seeger Sessions tour in Massachusetts and he invited me to his rehearsals. I told him that the show was amazing, and that I was finally starting my next record, and he said “if something comes up, I would love to be part of it.” I went out to LA and did the record and I kept thinking about the right song…there was a song that I had written about my mom who had passed away when I was in my teens. She was one of those people who wanted to be a singer, but ended up becoming a waitress and a divorced parent. But if a song came on the radio, she was a hairbrush singer…singing in the house and in her car. I started to think about people, and about how music and radio could provide three or four minutes of liberation. And now it has changed and become this corporate-fucking-robot-jack-me-off kind of…un-radical thing.

I sent Bruce the lyrics in a letter and said “see what you think”…and then I’m in LA having a very LA moment, with the cell phone and the rental car, and he called and said he dug it. I went out to Jersey when I got my first chance to go back to the “right coast”, the east, and I went to the studio at his house. We had a great afternoon, and he’s just very giving and passionate. He’s a real team player and very humble. Suddenly, here is a song I wrote in my little crappy Lower East Side apartment, with the guy who sang “Thunder Road” that my dad used to listen to! Then we made a video…and it’s another song on the record but a very special moment.

You also collaborate with a lot of people on the album besides Bruce, Jakob Dylan being one and Ryan Adams being another. I know you and Ryan Adams are good friends — is this the first time you’ve ever collaborated with him on anything?

Ryan produced the first record, and he’s kinda done something on every record of mine since. You never know what he’s going to show up with. He always brings something different, and it’s always radically different…but it’s always super creative and wonderful. He’s a great guy. He’s a super force and I’m lucky to have that.

With Jakob, I was living in LA and was very lonely there, and I had just recently met him. I was living in a motel, and he invited me over to his house for a cookout on the fourth of July. I always liked his voice and it just kinda came naturally. That’s the freedom of being a solo artist, is that you can have different people show up and not offend the band.

You talk about being out in LA and getting back to the “right coast”. You’re so associated with the New York music scene, how does New York City inspire you?

I think you walk out your door and you get inspiration, because of one, walking places, and two, the mix of different cultures and the energy of all the different kinds of people. Now it has kind of become a city for the rich, and maybe there are less New Yorkers and less neighborhoods…but we’ve still got that thing.

There is an energy and a force of creativity. The sound, the light changing, the smell of the garbage, the look of the women, the people, the book stores, Central Park, Chinatown, the trains rattling along, the bike messengers… there is a pulse and a rhythm. To me, music in general is very cosmopolitan – and New York just has it. I like urban stuff. I’m going away and getting breaks from it more often, but it’s a great place to leave and come back to. I love people’s interpretations of New York on film, like the way Woody Allen does it in his films or in the way that people like the Rolling Stones and the Clash lamented it. Or the Pogues in “Fairy Tale of New York”, or Sinatra… there is so much of it in different time periods. You can watch channel thirteen (NY’s public television channel- ag) and see that, as it goes under the gentrification of it, it’s still New York!

What was your inspiration for this new album?

I had made a lot of records that were “break up” records. My first record was my first solo record, so I was my own shrink and exploring my demons and my childhood and this and that. The second record was written on the road, and it was made at the time when we were going to war with Iraq. I was learning more about being international and seeing how people viewed my country. Feeling like a New Yorker my whole life, I never fully thought I was an American. Then I realized how New York had become like the rest of America. But around the world, people really had this weird heavy attitude towards us because of the war and because of our imperialistic superpower piggish-ness.

I thought of a different look…also, being at an age where you’re away from home and living out of a suitcase and your friends your age are having kids and settling down…I was still feeling like a boy and a man.

I think rock and roll does that to you.

Yeah, well it keeps the youth in you in a lot of ways. So, by the third record I wanted to write something that wasn’t a “crying in your beer, heart on your sleeve” record, though that is always going to be an element of what I do. I wanted a record that was a record of hope and defiance and about surviving – a positive record. I started to think about a lot of the music I listened to growing up like Bob Marley. The Clash, The Ramones and even John Lennon were like “it’s gonna be alright”.

But also after five or six years of the orange alert and global warming, Katrina, gas prices, record stores closing, Iraq and Bush, and I felt that people shouldn’t have mindless disco fun and forget about the world, but try to be present and not fearing. To be able to go out in the present. To me, that is the good thing about rock and roll and going to shows. You can rent it, or you can watch it on YouTube, but to be in there…there is a ritual with strangers, to be in a pit with a lot of people sharing this. I’m not a religious person, but going to shows and sharing that feeling with people – that is my church. And I wanted to make a record that was representative of being in the moment and finding the things you need to get by, and enjoying life like it’s your last moment. Whatever you are, if you’re a carpenter, rock and roller, school teacher, or fucking drug dealer…whatever your passion is, to really be passionate about it and feel that.

I noticed you’re wearing a back and neck brace… please explain that!?

It’s my first interview with this question! (laughs) Ummm…you know, we toured a lot this year, we did…I don’t know, a bazillion gigs. We were just in the UK and Europe in May and when I got home I noticed that I had a little bite mark on the back of my neck. I didn’t know what it was when I scratched it. I take vitamins, I do pushups, I wasn’t worried about it. It wasn’t like I was in Africa, I was in Paris and Germany. I didn’t think much of it, and went out on the road about a week later and I started to have shoulder blade and neck pain. I thought I did something like talked on the cell phone the wrong way. Things went on, and before I knew it after doing TV appearances in California and in the South I started to get bad neck pains, bad shoulder pains, and I took some Advil thinking it was the tour bus. Then it got worse and I went to the emergency room and kept getting misdiagnosed. For about three or four weeks it got worse and worse and I wasn’t sleeping, and the pills they gave me weren’t working. I’ve never taken anything but vitamin C and suddenly I’m on vicodin and percocet and I’m not even sleeping. I had to cancel after Minneapolis. I was doing three weeks on fire because it was nerve endings, and it felt like someone was holding a big lighter to me.

I finally got back to New York and had an MRI and this doctor said “he’s got an abscess on the upper spine and shoulders, and an infection – get him to the emergency room!”

I think I’ve got a lot of malpractice suits to take care of (laughs). I ended up spending eight days in St. Vincent’s Hospital. They found out the name of the infection and I’m on antibiotics to kick it out. Because I was out there so long playing it kinda messed up my neck a bit and I have to lay off playing for a while. I had to cancel a slew of shows that I was excited about, but everything is going to be rescheduled and I’ll be back out in October. I miss it but I’m trying to make lemonade out of this time – I’m writing for another record. But we’re gonna work “Glitter in the Gutter” for a while. I feel like we’re just ramping up with it.

Last question! What is your hope for the future?

Ummm…that we can save the planet before it’s too late, so my grandkids and great grandkids and all of ours can get to enjoy Earth. Continue to make lots of records and be healthy and tour all over the world and make lots of money so I can have the freedom to buy good food and find alternative ways to do stuff. And to live outside of society and still be able to come in to try and subvert things when I can.

For more info such as tour dates and tv appearances and to hear some tracks off of “Glitter in the Gutter” check out:

www.jessemalin.com

And here is the official website of Niagara:

www.niagarabar.com

- Amy Grimm

I would like to thank Dave McGurgan and the nice folks at phillyBurbs.com for this swell little interview they did with me: UsedWigs.com: The phillyBurbs Interview.

You can learn important things like:

Q: Name the thing you’d like to see happen the least in Philadelphia?

A: Tidal wave or a John Mayer concert.

And much more!

Whether portraying a completely stoned Batman and Robin battling Cat Woman (not the sexy villainess, just a disgusting bag lady with too many cats), roller blading in Central Park or narrating European porn with bad accents, Tim and Eric slyly and slowly suck you into to their surreal world of dead-pan silliness and budget-conscious video hijinx.

Before you know it, you’re completely immersed in the scene and merrily drinking their faux-corporate Kool-Aid and chanting along with the boys when they say, “timanderic.com. because you deserve it!”

Where did you two meet?

Tim: We met in the dorms at Temple University. Eric leaned a big garbage can on my door, knocked and took off. I opened and I got a nice helping of pizza boxes, soda cans, and bong water at my feet. After that we were close friends.

Eric: We created our first couple of bands that year: TGIF, Devil’s Eyeland, and The Tim Heidecker Masterpiece. Then got yelled at by our Communications Professor that day for cracking each other up at those names. I remember feeling like such a tool after a huge lecture hall of film dorks stared us down during our reprimand. I was literally crying when Tim handed me a piece of paper with “TGIF” scribbled on it. I knew he was the one.

Tim: We were out of control in Film School. Temple took itself pretty seriously, and we tore into that. In our senior film thesis class we did a video presentation about how there are lobsters in films and how VHS is superior to film. We were kind of jerks.

Since you went to school in Philadelphia, please kiss up to our Philly readers and tell us something wonderful about the City of Brotherly Love.

Eric: Temple University is a great place to meet artsy girls and drink 40′s. Philly is a great place have a band and make movies. It’s just real cheap and easy here. Lorenzo’s and the pretzel place are cool as well.

Please describe your working relationship.

Tim: Well, we live in different towns, so collaborating usually means marathon weekend sessions. We do most of our writing over the phone and, more importantly over Instant Messenger. It’s my favorite form of communication.

Eric: My office at home is basically the TIMANDERIC.COM production studio. I rent it out to ourselves for pretty cheap. We write our bits during working hours, shoot it on the weekends, or whenever we can get our crew together, and edit on Sunday after Mass.

Tim: After Mass and lunch with our Pastor.

Special effects are a big part of your new DVD. Who handles this task and please describe your unique style?

“In our senior film thesis class we did a video presentation about how there are lobsters in films and how VHS is superior to film. We were kind of jerks. “

Eric: The only way we get anything done is with the help of our talented friends. Everything from the web hosting to DVD encoding is done by our pals who hook us up. We owe a lot to everyone who has slaved away for free to produce this stuff. (About the editing/effects) A couple years ago I bought “Editing for Dummies” and the rest is history! We strive to use the dumbest and most obvious effects and filters in our work. If there isn’t a star wipe in a scene, it was probably because we ran out of hard drive space.

Tim: Eric slaves over the editing. He’s taught himself the ropes and it’s going to be really strange if we ever get the chance to work with a real editor. Most of our best jokes come through in the editing. Just sitting in front of the computer going crazy and trying to make each other pee.

Music and dancing also play a major role in your movies. Starship’s “We Built This City” featured in “Gator Man Attacks” was very inspired. Please describe the process of scoring your films.

Eric: Tim has written the majority of our theme songs and short jingles for our sketches. They’re brief but unbelievably catchy. I’ll hear a song like London Beat’s “I’ve been thinking about you” and my head will be swimming with thoughts of Tim and unicorns and parrots.

Tim: There are soooo many funny songs in the world. We’re trying to keep a file of all of them and bring them out for the perfect occasion. We’re trying to be more responsible now though, and are working with a great guy (James Botha) who’s able to score music that sounds just like the music that makes us laugh.

Word on the street has it that you have been working with Bob Odenkirk, seems like a great fit. Please dish on the details. (We could really use an exclusive.)

Eric: Bob is our Godfather. He has helped us in so many ways it’s insane. Everything from holding our hands (gently) through the industry madness, to co-creating a bunch of new material and themes for our inventory.

Tim: Yea, we’re incredibly lucky to have his guidance.

Based on your fluency of new technology business terms, did either of you work at a dot.com or similar type of “hyped” business?

Tim: I’ve done a lot of temping in my time. I also worked for a Knitting Factory start-up venture which was a huge website for Jazz!! That lasted about three months.

Eric: I started temping at “Manpower” during the summer months of college. It taught me a tremendous amount about office jargon. It was beautiful. I remember being excited to go to work just to hear other people’s conversations about monthly revenue reports.

Please give our readers some of these techy and managerial biz terms that they can throw into conversation to impress their friends.

“The rest of the day is made up of trying to agree on if the puking scene should come before or after the humping scene.”

Tim: A great way to spice up a sentence is with “Ultimately” and “In terms of” example: “Tom, in terms of those servers, we could have them running by tomorrow, but ultimately, we might want to wait a few days on that.” Others include:

• “Stop Gap Measures”
• A problem or an assignment is called a “Bear”
• Goals and Deliverables
• Plan-o-Gram (I have no idea what this is, but it gets thrown around a lot. Some kind of marketing tool, I think.)

On an unrelated topic, we are starting to call beards DM’s, as in Dennis Millers. There are sub classifications to be noted though as in: a very dark bushy beard that extends up the cheek could be called a Fisher Stevens DM or a Robin Williams DM if you prefer.

Eric: Another Tim and Eric original. “Tom, like I said at last week’s sales meeting, you’re just going to have to use your “BJ” on that issue” (best judgment)

If you made a Lifetime (the channel) movie, what important topic would you tackle and what actresses would you like to be your co-stars?

Tim: I’d like to do a documentary about women’s pooping habits. Aside from an occasional matchstick floating in the toilet, there is very little evidence that women poop.

Eric: I’d like to shoot a raunchy prostitution flick starring Patricia Arquette, Parker Posey, Tori Spelling, and Lucy Liu. I would be the john that they all fall in love with and fight over. In the end we become a huge happy family. The sex scenes would be very, very graphic and sensual. And I would not use a body double. Lucy Liu and Tori Spelling die early in the film though. My catch phrase throughout the movie is “Is that the best you can do?”

What can we expect at one of your live shows?

Tim: A lot of technical problems

Eric: Singing, dancing, short films, overhead projector skits, drinking, being nervous, and tons of fart jokes.

What is a typical day at timanderic.com headquarters?

Tim: Right now, headquarters is a little houseboat we are leasing. Most days are spent on the phone with the customer service center at Toshiba haggling over the fine points of our warranty for our fax machine. It hasn’t delivered a proper fax in months.

Eric: The first couple hours start with solving enormous technical problems with our computers, audio sampling rates, and still image sizes. Once that is out of the way, we break for lunch. The rest of the day is made up of trying to agree on if the puking scene should come before or after the humping scene.

What famous duo (alive or dead, real or fictitious) would you compare yourselves to?

1. Crystal/Williams
2. DeNiro/Crystal
3. Bridges/Bridges

Comedy shows featuring musical acts (Tinkle, Stella) are all the rage. What band(s) would you like to perform with live on stage?

Tim: That’s a really great question and I have a lot of thoughts on it, but I’d hate to get anyone’s hopes up.

Eric: Bands are so 2001.

Tim, you’re an NYC guy. What’s the strangest thing you have witnessed on the streets of the Big Apple?

Tim: Umm, have you ever been to Tad’s Steaks?

Favorite websites?

Eric: stileproject.com, raverporn.net, neednewbody.com, megaglobal.com and davemoylan.com

Tim: www.whatslovegottodowithit.com and www.michaeldouglas.com (Make it a Michael night!!)

What was the last thing you bought online?

Eric: Sonic Youth “confusion is sex” T shirt

Tim: I bought a CD’s worth of music over the apple music store. It actually worked!

Please name the coolest actor/actress you have met or worked with.

Tim: I was in a play with this guy who was the double for the twin on “One Life to Live” or one of those shows. You’d only see the back of him when he was talking to his twin brother. He was also a background actor on Saturday Night Live during the Dana Carvey years. I always see him when I’m watching the reruns.

Eric: Tim Heidecker. He was incredibly passionate. Not to mention his great beard.

When was your last good cry? Describe.

Eric: When the Field Day Festival informed us that they weren’t going to show our 50 minutes of new “rock festival” videos. We worked our asses off, and got dumped. Just like in High School.

Tim: Just read “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer about people climbing Mount Everest and dying. I got a little lumpy.

Lastly, what is the future of comedy?

Tim: A “thumbs up” monkey, jokes about meatballs and diarrhea. Quiet, quiet comedy. No more assholes, no more politics. No more jokes and no more laughing. Combining comedy with dance will probably be the next big step.

Want more T&E? timanderic.com is waiting for you.