31
Knots, The Planet The, Last of the Juanitas
EJ's
2140
NE Sandy Blvd., 234-3535
10
pm Wednesday, July 5
$4
Copies of Climaxanticlimax
will be available for $4.
Joe Haege--guitar;
Joe Weinbrenner--bass; Joe Faustin-Kelly--drums.
Don't be led
astray by the Pac NW homebase; 31 Knots is a Midwestern
band. Haege and Weinbrenner are from the Chicago area, while
Faustin-Kelly hails from Milwaukee, Wisc.
Hemingway allegedly once declared that writers should always
describe the weather. Portland quantum-rockers 31 Knots
have hijacked the Old Man's booze-fueled wisdom. The band's
new CD, Climaxanticlimax, is as charged as a blazing
summer day.
Claustrophobic, heated chords give way to burning lulls,
then chaotic storms roll over the steaming landscape. With
its backbreaking complexity and choppy time-changes, this
trio often has to live with the dreaded "math-rock" brand.
They're up to some blue-ribbon musical algebra, yes, but
drama-rich vocals and the occasional caveman pummeling add
an emotional punch most show-off chord-crunchers lack. The
band ditched Olympia for Portland late in '98, and we have
cause to be grateful.
I grilled 31 Knots guitarist Joe Haege this week,
as the band prepared to unleash Climaxanticlimax.
Willamette Week: The songs on this record
have been kicking around awhile. How old are they?
Joe Haege: We recorded five songs with our old drummer
in June of '98. We just drove here from Olympia, where we
lived, to record those. Then five more a year later with
Joe, our new drummer.
Given those gaps, do you think it reflects what you're
doing now?
This is really the completion of the first leg of getting
the band's sound defined. This record is a good representation
of our extremes, our more straightforward stuff and the
songs that are just utter instrumental jaunts. Right now,
we're fine-tuning the things that are between those extremes.
By that, you mean songs with actual singing?
Songs where there's a melody held for a little bit longer.
Lately we've been taking the other songs, the long, linear
ones, and adding some repetition, putting some words on
'em, so the songs are something more than just one long
instrumental. You can't just end up there and never do anything
else.
Looking at all the classical and medieval imagery you
use for art and hearing the operatic drama in the vocals,
I don't think "math rock" works for you guys. "Abacus rock"--that's
better.
We've noticed that tendency in our art and songs to play
it up a little bit. What's always been weird about the whole
math rock thing is that, yeah, we're technical and we have
time changes and stuff, but we're also suckers for music
that's really emotional and warm. I mean, we listen to jazz
and classical, for God's sake.
Did you move to Olympia because of its fame as a rock-and-roll
paradise?
I just ended up there for school, and then Jay came out.
We stayed there for over a year, but the music scene there
wasn't very, um, conducive to us, I guess you'd say.
Olympia seems, from an outsider's perspective, really
stand-offish and cliquish.
I think that's sort of out of circumstances. There are
a lot of people who either grew up there or moved there
before it had this buzz around it, and they just like the
music that's played there. And then it became a little star
on everyone's indie rock map. So I think the people who
have been there for a long time have gone into a sort of
subtle seclusion to keep from being overwhelmed.
How did the capital of lo-fi indie pop take to 31 Knots?
There's really a particular aesthetic to the sound there.
It's maybe not as hung up on technicalities as we are. It
is a wide-open sound, and I really like a lot of the music
from there, but it's not our style. People there are generally
jaded about new bands, too. The bottom line is, it wasn't
the right time, and it wasn't the right town.
What about Portland?
This is just a friendlier music scene. There's not this
defined hype about Portland, which gives you a lot more
freedom. Of course, it depends on where you are and who
you're playing with--if a band from somewhere else that
sounded like us just showed up and ended up on a bill with
three garage-punk bands, that might not work out so well.
But in general, the people coming out to see music are very
accepting.
So now that Climaxanticlimax is finally out,
what now?
We're going on tour in July, two weeks down to San Diego
and back. We love playing here, but the great thing about
being on the West Coast is that you pretty much can tour
year-round. In theory, anyway.
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