Greg segal has been making experimental guitar based music for over 20 years, both via a large assortment of bands, and through countless solo recordings. I recently got the chance to send him an interview via email. heres what followed:
(warning for those with ADD; its fucking huge!)
RI: You've done alot of work in both the improvisational and structured song
formats. Is one method of composition more natural than another?
GS: At first I'd be tempted to say improvisation is more natural than
traditional composing, because when you're composing a song or a piece,
you're improvising your way through changes in your head or on paper and
then picking the best ones and arranging them. So the whole basis of
creative thought starts out with improvisation. But then there's a little
bit of "which came first, the chicken or the egg" to it as well- what you
think of to improvise with will be influenced by your knowledge of
structure. And it's natural in a free improvising state to be gravitating,
consciously or not, towards some kind of structure, even if it's very
abstract. Structure is natural. I mean, think of how many naturally
occurring patterns there are, nature is full of them, from obvious things
like snowflakes all the way down to DNA and atomic structure. You get down
to that level and you see that everything is a kind of binary alternation
between solid and empty, one and zero. There are constant variations on the
basic patterns but they're still just that, basic and essential. So I'd say
it's a case of two not entirely pure polar tendencies creating a whole. It's
a perfect illustration of the yin-yang principle in action. Both of them are
influenced by each other and feed each other, despite apparently pulling in
different directions. It's just that in one case, the free element dominates
and in another situation the composed element does. But the creative process
in both situations always includes both elements, even if one's only present
to a small degree. I don't think you can get away from it. Which personally
is fine, I can't say I've actually ever felt a need to, in fact just the
opposite. That mix has always seemed vital to me. Maybe that's just my
practical side keeping me from wanting to isolate elements that, when you
think about it, are actually inseperable. When I get uncomfortable is when
one too strongly or rigidly predominates, when you start to lose that mix.
It's natural for a project or a situation to lean by varying degrees towards
one or the other, that's fine, but if things get slammed completely in one
direction and stuck there...I'm not gonna be happy with that for long. You
really do need both. Or at least I do.
RI: Could you explain some of the pro's/ con's of each method?
GS: Sure, I can give you my take on that. For a start though, let me clarify
some terms- improv is improv, composition is composition, but if you look
closely it's not that simple, because improv is actually spontaneous
composition. You're still composing but you're doing it on the spot. But for
the sake of discussion, we'll just keep the two terms seperate for now.
Improv doesn't box you in, you can react in the moment. That terrifies some
people but I enjoy it. There's a lot of the unconscious in it. I think art
originates from there and gets altered by all your conscious overlays and
constructs afterwards. So if you can connect with that and are adept at
turning the raw material into something pretty much immediately, as it comes
to the surface, you can end up with something very rich and satisfying
without it being too predictable. You can surprise yourself, the other
players can surprise you, and sometimes everyone can be surprised when the
dynamic of the situation takes over and it seems like the music is playing
the musicians. You hear people refer to those instances as magic because
they really seem that way, they're the high point of this kind of work.
Something amazing happens that no one could have consciously planned. I've
been lucky enough to have that happen many times, and maybe that's only
because I've done so much improvising. Relatively speaking, moments like
that are still not commonplace. Even so, it's a good way to work. Very
challenging though.
With composed music, I like the fact that I can take the time to get things
how I want them. I can be a lot more sure that what people are going to hear
is what I want them to hear. You don't have that luxury with improv, if you
trip over yourself everyone gets to hear it. Let's say with a recorded
improvisation, if the majority of it really works but there are a couple of
real dud moments and you're not going to edit- then you have a choice to
make, and that's not always easy. Or sometimes in the moment, you don't have
a great idea of where something should go and the piece meanders, and then
listening back to the tape or thinking back on it, you know just what you
should have done. Generally speaking, that's not going to be a problem with
composed music. It's nice to be able to work on things for weeks or months
or however long until you feel you've made a complete statement. You can
arrange everything just the way you think it should be. That can be very
satisfying. It's not surprising that so many musicians feel they can do
their best work that way.
There can be a down side to that though, because if you get into too
controlled or controlling a head state, you run a strong risk of falling
back on old ideas, repeating yourself too much, getting into a formula which
then becomes a rut. And you either fall victim to pre-existing musical
cliches or expectations, or you make your own and get trapped in them. But
that can easily happen in improvisation too, you just fall back into a
comfort zone. So actually one of the things you want to aim for when you're
improvising is to be as fully open as you can to what else is happening, so
that you are reacting to things as they occur. That usually involves
reacting to things that don't necessarily fit what you would have done, so
you have to adapt on the spot, which makes you do new things and learn,
rather than just pulling stuff out of the bag o' licks. With composed music,
you have to avoid ruts by always keeping your mind open to new ideas, and in
fact by consciously seeking out new sources of inspiration.
I actually prefer to keep things open when I'm recording a composed piece, I
almost always allow myself to do things on the spur of the moment. Sometimes
just little things, like changing a note, or varying the inflection. Or I'll
plan just sections of the composition and have a basic idea of what I want
to do in the other sections. If I plan everything out note for note, the
music runs a good chance of either sounding stiff or boring me and I can't
deal with either of those. I prefer what I'm doing to feel fresh and on the
edge. That's a problem with totally composed stuff, where not even the fills
are supposed to change- playing it live, after a while it can get very
boring. You have to be able to slip into a completely different headspace in
order for that experience to be palatable. At least I do. I sort of have to
revel in the challenge of being absolutely consistent. It's difficult for me
to enjoy that for very long. I've talked to other musicians about this and
for many of them it seems to be just the reverse, they're really
uncomfortable with the music going anyplace uncertain, they have to know
what's coming next. I actually seem to feel better when nobody really knows
what's coming next.
And I don't know whether to consider this a pro or a con, but there's a big
difference in how much recorded material you produce. When you're
improvising, it's possible to come up with a lot of material in a pretty
short space of time. Whereas with composition...some people are quick, but
even then it's unlikely you'd turn out an album from a day's worth of work.
With a very good day of improv though, that's possible. But of course it
would probably end up sounding like an album of good improvs, you're not
likely to mistake it for a collection of tight composed songs. We tried to
challenge that in Paper Bag by keeping the pieces short and having a lot of
rules about how we did things. I think the results were often very good, and
it was more difficult for people to spot that it was improvised than it is
with Jugalbandi, for example, because we do these long pieces, we usually
don't put any time restrictions on ourselves except to end things when it
feels right. So there's exceptions to just about anything. Of course, I like
the whole sound and feel of good improvised music, so...I'm not looking to
hide it, to me it's just one more way of doing things. It's like which is
best, sculpture or oil painting? I don't think one is superior. They're ways
to make visual art and they have different qualities, so you're going to
approach them and experience them with somewhat different sets of criteria.
It's the same with music. You're not going to listen to a jazz album and say
"this is shitty rock music", unless you're a complete tool. Of course most
of my career has involved things that cross borders and aren't that easily
identified. So what I hope people do is just listen and maybe it'll hit 'em.
It might help to have a wide frame of reference, but then again, I didn't
know anything about classical or jazz or Indian music when I first got into
them except that I liked how they sounded. That's got to be the bottom line
anyway.
RI: Most of your music is guitar based, and as an experimental guitarist
myself, I have to say that you get some really weird, incredible sounds out
of the instrument that definitely have me scratching my chin. Are there any
special techniques you use for getting some of those sounds? Could you list
some of the pedals you use? Do you use any computer effects/ plugins?
GS: No plug-ins, at least not on any of the things you've heard. I've only
just recently started to use the computer for recording. I have found
plug-ins useful for certain things, but I'm still in love with my stomp
boxes, I don't think I'll ever stop using them. To me, they're instruments
too.
As far as my setup, it's still basically the same as what was listed on the
inside of the Jugalbandi 2000 CDs. Here's the list; anyone who's not a
gearhead can skip this part, I guess!
Guitars: various (6&12 string acoustic and electric, fretless).
Amp: depends on the recording, but the majority of my solo stuff was
recorded direct.
Pedalboard (in signal chain order): Boss CS-2 Compression Sustainer; Boss
OC-2 Octaver; Digitech Whammy pedal; DOD Supra distortion; Electro-Harmonix
Small Clone Chorus; Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Phase Shifter; DOD FX70
Stereo Flanger; Cry Baby Wah; Ernie Ball volume pedal; Boss DD-2 digital
delay; Line6 DL4 delay modeler; Electro-Harmonix 16-second digital delay.
Korg AX30G multi-effects unit (sometimes at the front of the signal chain-
mostly for distortion settings- or at the end, mostly for reverb).
Plus: custom fitted holder for E-bow and glass slide.
In addition to using those, I'll do things like play unconventional parts of
the guitar, or play the conventional parts in unconventional ways, like
sticking things between the strings. To me, the electric guitar can be
approached both like an acoustic guitar, where you're just focusing on
playing notes and scales and chords, and also as an electronic instrument,
where you're not just playing the strings, you're also playing the
electronics, everything that the pickup hears, everything that can be
altered to come out the other end. There are parts on "The Fourth Of The
Three" where I'm playing the amplified pick-guard by dropping things on it.
There are recordings with Paper Bag and Jugalbandi and on some of my solo
stuff where I've put a metal bass pick between the lower three strings,
which gives you a sound something like a deep bell, and at the same time I'm
playing the top three strings with a slide, usually above the neck. I guess
what I'd suggest is, don't take anything for granted. Every little sound you
make can be musical if you can hear it that way and use it that way. So
check out every possible noise you can make with the guitar itself.
And then with effects, learn them the way you would an instrument. Know what
every knob does, alone and in combination with different settings on the
other controls. Learn to get as many possible sounds as you can from each
effect, keeping first in mind the ones you think you'll find most useful.
You can't always tell what a knob is going to do, sometimes you'll be very
surprised, especially if you push it to extremes. I remember once, a bass
player my brother was working with called me, very frustrated, because he'd
bought a fuzz box but wasn't getting the sound he wanted. He kept telling me
he wanted it fuzzier sounding than he was getting, and from his description
he had everything set correctly but it wasn't happening. I thought maybe
he'd bought a dud unit but I told him to wait until I could get by there
before he returned it. When I heard it, the distortion knob was up full, it
sounded very fuzzy to me, and I told him he wasn't going to be able to get
any unit to go much further than that. Just to be sure, I asked him to give
me some examples from other people's recordings that were something like the
sound he wanted. Once he named a few, I immediately knew what was wrong. He
actually needed to pull the distortion knob way back- he needed less fuzz,
not more. All the sustain was taking the punch and twang out of his sound.
Once we reset it, he got exactly what he wanted. The moral being, experiment
with your settings, because what you think a knob should do, and what it
actually does, can be very different.
Once you've got your individual effects down, then work with signal chain
order, because that makes a huge difference. Get your starting point fixed
clearly in your head and then start adding things, bearing in mind what each
new effect can do with what precedes it. I personally like to have booster
units like compression and fuzz up front, because those are not so much
filters as they are fundamental changes in the sound, for example a fuzz
guitar as a starting point is like a different instrument, it has its own
rules, requires its own techique, and really has a kind of pure sound all
its own. Then you put your filters, things like chorus and flanger and
phase, after. I could never understand why anyone would put a distortion box
after a flanger, for instance- then you're boosting and distorting the
flange sound, which will be louder than the note! You want that shifting air
type sound clear. At least, that's my opinion. The only way to arrive at
what you want though is just by sitting down and experimenting with the
placement and combinations and figuring out what you like and what setup
will be most useful. You can always take note of special setups you'd like
to use and repatch things when you need to. But if you're building a board,
you want to go with the setup you think you'll use the most. It may take you
a while to get the order the way you want it but it'll really be worth it.
Another thing that's really important is tone. When you consider that most
electronic organs change many of their sounds by changing their tone, you
can start to get an idea why you shouldn't ignore the tone settings, either
on your guitar or your effects. Personally though, when I play through an
amp I usually like to set it up and leave it alone. I like an accurate,
crisp, clean tone and I use the guitar controls and effects pedals for
everything else. Tone is vital, and actually, the more effects you use the
more you have to be aware of it. I've known guys who just disappeared live,
it's just a wash of white noise, because they're not paying attention to
setting up a tone that'll cut through. Flangers and phase shifters are
killers live, you've really gotta be careful. For recording, it's not nearly
as bad, but you still want to watch it. You usually don't want to pick tone
settings that compete too much with the other instruments, you want to find
a sonic hole and slip into it. But aside from cutting through or fitting
into the sound, tone changes can give you a lot of different sounds. Try
playing through a delay with the treble on the guitar up full, and then pull
it all the way down. It'll seem too muddy at first, but play around with it,
and you may find that what you've actually got there is a different voice.
It may only be appropriate to use at certain times, but at those times it'll
really work. What you then have to do is develop a stock of things like
that, and a sense of when you should use them. I think tone shifts can be
very expressive, and in conjunction with effects, significantly increase the
number of sounds you can get.
The main thing never to forget with effects, or whatever unconventional
sounds you're adding, is that bottom line, you are making music. If you want
to use things that are normally thought of as noise, great. But whatever you
're doing, think of it in musical terms, choose your sounds and your noises
as if you were orchestrating, because basically, you are. You're just
working with a much wider spectrum of possibilities than 12 notes, or the
sound of any conventional instrument.
RI: Could you give a little history on the first band you were in, Paper
Bag? You guys had your own type of signalling methods and devoloped a type
of performance "language", right? Could you explain some of the
signals/methods involved there?
GS: Paper Bag got started in '83. We wanted to take out improvised music
live, and also to push it into places we hadn't heard it taken before. So we
developed things like body and hand signals, and we agreed on some basic
concepts to follow. For example, we tried to keep our pieces short, because
we felt that was definitely something we hadn't seen done before, and also
because we thought it would help to keep the audience's attention. We tried
to make a piece totally different from what came before it, again to
increase the variety and keep the audience's attention. We also tried bring
in as many influences and types of music as we could, and to mix them in
ways we hadn't heard done before. So that way we had a mix of styles not
just from piece to piece but within pieces too. As far as the hand and body
signals, they helped us do structure on the fly. There were signals for
dynamic shifts, for solos, for changing key or time signatures, for changing
mood, for bringing musicians in or out, and for ending pieces. Only one
person at a time used these, and that person was considered the piece's
conductor. The selection of who got to conduct was done by going in what we
called a rotation- we'd start with one person, and then go clockwise (or
counterclockwise, depending on a coin flip or if one of us remembered which
direction we'd gone last gig or rehearsal). And that worked whether we set
up in a circle or not, it had to since obviously we couldn't do that live
too easily. So if we were set up in a line onstage and I was on the end and
it was my turn to start the set, after I was done it would either go to the
guy next to me or to the guy on the far side of the stage, depending on the
direction. This way, everybody got a chance to conduct. When you went once
around, that was called a full rotation. Pretty often we'd manage two full
rotations a gig, so you figure that's a minimum of 8 pieces in a 40 minute
set, which is not what you'd normally expect from an improvisational band.
But that's a huge part of what we were all about- completely trouncing
anyone's expectations of what to expect from an improvisational show.
When we rehearsed, instead of songs we practiced working with different
ideas, new instruments, and exercising our abilities with the signals. It
was much more like a sports team practice than a typical band rehearsal. We
used to call rehearsal "the lab" because it was the place to experiment with
things before taking them out live, sort of our method of R & D, research
and development. We incorporated spoken word into it at times, usually a
couple of times a set at least. The poems we improvised to weren't
themselves improvised until in a much later version of the band when we got
poet Dave McIntire in. Before that, they would just be written pieces that
the author hadn't shared with the rest of the band. He'd give a few short
words of direction to the band before the piece started- something actually
common on most pieces, not just the ones with poetry- and then would conduct
while performing the poem.
Now, L.A. at this time was a wretched place to make experimental music, it
was during the 80s metal scene. We were pretty hardnosed about it though and
took just about every gig we could score. We gigged as often as a straight
rock band, and we tried to promote ourselves like one too. We were even
image conscious to the extent that we had band colors- black and red- and
the whole band dressed in those colors for gigs. You wouldn't believe some
of the bills we were on- about as mismatched and awful as you can imagine.
And yet we did well enough to keep going. Or maybe we were just too stubborn
to quit.
We sold independent cassettes through magazines and at gigs, and eventually
decided we should put out some vinyl- CDs weren't really an issue or even an
option yet. We went with an indie company to get pressed. Unfortunately the
company was bogus and we got burned, along with about a half dozen other
bands. This could have killed Paper Bag, because we had no money to start
over again. But we decided to stick it out anyway and kept gigging, and
shortly after that we got signed to SST.
RI: Could you describe the relationship with SST? There were some problems
there, right?
GS: SST was good for us at that time. They gave us a boost we desperately
needed, they increased our clout with the press and also our fan base, both
at home and internationally. However there were what we might call cash flow
problems, and they stopped paying us shortly after the first album came out.
We did four with them- three on vinyl and one on CD. Our gig schedule also
increased drastically. We normally rehearsed a minimum of twice a week, but
it got to the point where we gigged so often we didn't need to rehearse.
This kept us so busy we didn't get as concerned as we might have about the
money situation. Finally, when the fourth album came out and received
absolutely no distribution or promotion in the states, we figured it was
time to go. The band continued for a while, but by then we'd been at it for
six years and were really burned out. There have been a number of
reincarnations over the years, and there was a new band called Bag Theory
that featured a couple of the original members (but not me, I was out of
L.A. for quite a while by then). We're all still in touch and actually
there's going to be a CD of previously unreleased stuff coming out very
soon. There's about 400 hours of tape of us. We've just recently got to work
getting things ready for release. I expect we'll be putting out a lot of CDs
in the next few years. The music may not be new, but you know how it is- if
you haven't heard it, it's new to you! And almost nobody's heard this stuff.
I think the one that's coming out now, "Airwave Rituals", is easily as good
as any of the SST releases. The material is from '86, before we were got
signed. I'm very happy with it, and glad people will finally get to hear it.
RI: You've been playing guitar for over 20 years. What is it that drew you
to
the instrument originally? You started out on drums, right?
GS: I think early this month it was 24 years. Technically yes, I did start
out on drums, but I was drawn to the guitar first. What's funny is, I
originally had no intention of being a musician at all, I wanted to be a
filmmaker, and in fact had spent most of my childhood and teen years
learning as much as I could about that. It stuck, you know, I still do a lot
of thinking in cinematic terms. My older brother was a musician, I figured
one in the family was enough, and besides, I didn't feel comfortable with
the thought of playing music in front of people. But when I was fourteen, I
had this very powerful dream. There's no point in going into specifics about
it, it's all symbolism and very abstract, and probably wouldn't make sense
to anyone else. It was in several sections, but there were a few common
threads running through, and one of them was that each scene seemed to take
place near to an actual area of land that was a couple of miles from where I
lived. So I started going down there. Meanwhile, the repercussions of this
extremely potent dream were still shaking up all sorts of other areas of my
life, and for a while it seemed like there was no focus, no calming things
down. And after about a year and a half of this, I was visiting that stretch
of land and I found a battered and gutted cheap electric guitar in the mud.
Well it used to be electric- there were no pickups or electronics left in
it. The headstock was cracked and at the time I didn't know enough about
guitars to know I wouldn't have been able to fix it. But when I picked this
thing up, suddenly this swirling chaos in my head just kind of stopped all
at once and I had this total sense of correctness. There was a sense that
this was the answer to the questions the dream had brought up. Even though
it was a very strong and definite sense, I still wasn't really able to make
myself believe it at that time, because I couldn't imagine that I could ever
have any talent for the guitar. And I really had no support to pursue it, in
fact the one chance I did have was shot down very quickly. I kept the body
of the guitar for a long time, but eventually threw out everything but the
fingerboard, which I'd pried off the neck. I still have it, it's hanging up
on the wall in my studio. Anyway, a few months after I found the guitar, I
had another odd and powerful experience, this time involving drums. It was a
dream again, but one of those waking ones where you're half awake but can't
move- and I got what seemed to be a message that drums were something I
absolutely had to pursue. For some reason there was less resistance to this,
and I did end up getting into drums first. I took it very seriously, I tried
to get up to a pro level as quickly as possible. About another year or so
after that I finally ended up getting a guitar. I only intended to play
enough on it to get my musical ideas across, because by then I was writing
songs in my head, and I wanted to get them across to other musicians. But
eventually I was convinced by a number of really successful jams with people
that I could actually cut it as a guitarist. Not long after that, Paper Bag
was formed and that kind of cemented me as a guitarist. Learning drums first
actually gave me a nice solid rhythmic base to start from, I think it made
learning guitar easier because I wasn't a beginner when it came to keeping a
rhythm. And by then I was already playing in a lot of weird time signatures.
RI: Your solo material spans a very large range of different musical
territory, and the bands you're in are pretty different as well. Do you
consciously seek out different musical directions, or do the changes happen
naturally?
GS: A little of both, I think. To begin with, I really enjoy listening to a
wide range of music, so it's kind of natural for me to want to create that
way too. Like today I listened to a Rascals greatest hits CD and a couple of
early Tangerine Dream CDs. That combination might puzzle some people but to
me it's all just good music. As far as bands, I most often played in
situations that had a specific direction and a limited set of parameters,
and I did that mostly because they were available to participate in and
seemed interesting. None of them were perfect situations for me because of
that, I guess. But they were fun and I learned a lot from each one. I always
tried to do whatever the music called for, whatever I thought would work
best. I use that approach with the solo stuff, on an album by album basis.
Like from the 2004 releases, "The Eye That Shines In Darkness" and "Planet
Of Garbage" are both very strongly experimental albums, and the idea for
those was to do a kind of landscape painting or mood depiction in the
listener's head. And yet they're very different from each other. In each
case, I had a particular sound and approach and mood in mind, and I wanted
each album to be good for its genre, and with any luck, good regardless of
genre. For the more rock-oriented stuff, I aimed to make good rock-oriented
albums. And of course there's a lot of mixing that up- more abstract things
with more conventional things. I like variety within albums too, not just
from one album to the next. But I try to make sure the pieces fit the whole,
or they can be variations on central concepts or melodies in different
styles. But with complete albums or projects, you just sort of reset the
goalposts every time, so you have to envision each one as a seperate entity,
with a seperate personality and feel. Think about movie directors, they have
to tailor their approach to the film according to the subject matter and how
they want to present that, and it's not that unusual for a director to do a
number of different types of movies. Of course as to what makes me want to
do a specific type of thing in the first place...I don't always know. It's
really different every time. Maybe it'll just be something that resonates
with me, or intrigues me, or moves in on my imagination and settles down
staring at me until I do something about it. Sometimes a piece of art or a
book will get me going. Other times I'll just get something in my head that
I really want to hear, and it doesn't exist yet so it's up to me to make it.
That actually happens quite a lot. I'll go through phases though. I haven't
felt the urge to record anything with lyrics in a long time. That may change
and if it does, great, but I'm not going to make an issue of it, if it
happens it happens. Creative leanings or impulses sometimes come and go.
I've always enjoyed electronic and experimental music but in the last couple
of years I've felt an urge to really focus on it again as part of what I do,
so that's really come out in the recent stuff. Equipment can influence you
to try certain directions too, you get a new instrument and think, what's an
interesting direction to take this in? Or an interesting context to put it
in?
Here's a story for you. I was in a record store in I think it was the early
90s and I was really enjoying what they had on, it kept changing styles and
was good throughout. I listened for about 15 minutes while I browsed and
then I just had to find out what this was so I could buy it. At first the
clerk thought he knew what I was talking about, but as I continued to spout
praise over the amazing variety of this band, he set me straight- they'd
just got in one of the early CD changers, and we'd actually been hearing 5
different bands. He seemed a little put off by my enthusiasm, I think it
confused him. And I said, well that explains it. Meaning, that figures. I
was let down but not really surprised that nobody had actually put out a
recent album that diverse, it was too good to be true.
I guess the bottom line for me on this is that I really enjoy variety and
don't feel like letting that go just because some people can't handle it.
Some people can handle it, in fact they enjoy it, and it's been nice to hear
them say so over the last few years. Thank you Internet.
RI: Even in your more structured work, there seems to always be at least a
bit
of experimentation there. How important do you think experimentation is to
music?
Do you view it as a neccessary trait for musical evolution?
GS: Oh yeah, absolutely. The experimental musicians and composers aren't
just the R & D for music on the boundaries, making new definitions for
music- which is clearly evolution- but they're also R & D for pop music, a
lot of things eventually surface into the mainstream that way. Kraftwerk had
their sound a long time before they recorded with Donna Summer and
inadvertantly started the whole disco/techno marriage. Musicians pioneering
fuzz guitar use went through a fair amount of crap before that sound ended
up in commercials and soundtracks. I don't know where I'd rank
experimentation in terms of importance, except to say that it's one of the
basic necessities of any art form, obviously that includes music. To
experiment means to take a chance in order to explore new territory, and
when you lose that, on a personal level you've lost your edge and your
opportunity to grow. And on a cultural level, you've got a stagnant art
form, just for starters. On a more subtle or individual level,
experimentation is essential for learning, to finding your voice or
developing style, things like that. And, not to harp on this too much, but
again, going into experimental mode can set you up much better to access
your unconscious, from which you can haul all sorts of inspiration to the
surface. And then there's how art influences people's ideas, how it
influences life and society. Experimentation and openness seem just as
essential there too. Rigidity and conformity really are valuable in doses
but they can't be allowed to take over to the point where you exclude taking
chances and trying new things. Rigidity is a death trait. That may mean
different things to different people but to me it's a call to an open mind.
You don't take chances, you don't grow, you're pretty much finished, it's
that simple. As far as experimentation always being a part of my work- yeah,
I'd say that's the case. I'm glad you can hear that, because some people
miss it in my more conventional stuff. I guess that's just the way I hear
things. Or maybe it's the way I like to hear things. I'll put it this way,
I'd much rather listen to something eccentrically bad than something
predictable and mediocre, because the bad will be more interesting. Of
course if it's good and interesting, well that's even better. So when I make
music, I'm going to try to make it interesting and I'm going to take
chances, even with something which compositionally may seem pretty normal.
The production and performances won't be. They'll have some edges to them.
And the overall variety of the material might seem a bit weird. I'd rather
run the risk of being bad and weird than bland and mediocre. As far as how
that statement effects my credibility- all I can say is, if I personally
think something's bad, I won't release it. That doesn't mean everyone's
going to agree with my assessment, but..what can you do. I do my best.
RI: You've sited a lot of 70's musicians as big influences, are there any
newer groups/ artists that you find inspiring?
GS: I'm afraid I'm seriously ignorant when it comes to most new music. I
don't listen to the radio much and my CD buying is limited. I've really
spent most of the last 25 years or so concentrating on making my own music-
and as you know, there's been a lot of it- so it's been difficult for me to
keep up. A lot of the inspiration I've had recently from other musicians has
actually come from people I've done whole albums with, guys like Bret Hart
and Eric Wallack. Neither of them are really newer artists either, although
Eric only started releasing stuff in the last few years, despite being
active since the 80s. I tend to talk about the 60s and 70s artists because
they were formative influences, and I haven't exhausted that yet, not even
close. But this isn't to say I couldn't find other, newer artists inspiring.
That could easily happen, if I ever manage to hear enough of what's out
there. I'm sure there are plenty of good things that I just haven't heard
yet. To be honest though, what I've heard on the radio hasn't reinforced
that. But I'm aware just how limited those channels are, and I know better
than to think that represents anything other than what it is. I consider the
source. So I know that for the most part, the people who make the ironclad
playlists don't really give a rat's ass about music or art or the
development of culture. Underground radio's a different story, whether it's
broadcast or Internet, and whenever I manage to tune in to something like
that, I almost always hear something I like. The problem for me is finding
time to tune in, which more often than not just isn't available.
RI: Were you influenced at all by any jazz musicians? The approach to a lot
of your music seems to come from a very jazz point of view. Especially the
Jugalbandi stuff, it just has more of a heavy jam type vibe.
GS: The jazz influence is definitely there, but I got it sort of secondhand,
initially. The earliest source would have to be live Cream, and then
everybody else they influenced, which was just about everybody doing any
kind of improvisation in the rock field. The instrumentation and the level
of volume and distortion was clearly rock, but for the majority of time they
were onstage, that was a jazz format in a rock context. If you look at their
structures live, they had the head, which was the shorter pop version that
was on the studio album, then the jam, which could go on for a while, then
back to the head. A lot of the psych bands were influenced by jazz, as were
a lot of hard rock musicians and prog bands. That's all the stuff I heard
first- what you might call rock fusion, where rock is the basis. Jimi
Hendrix. Chicago- forget the later stuff, the first couple albums are good.
If and Colosseum- the British fusion bands were great. Then there were all
the early King Crimson records that incorporated those aspects, plus you had
killer sax playing from Ian Macdonald and Mel Collins. And the '73-'74 era
Crimson was probably my biggest influence to improvise, with Hawkwind and
early Pink Floyd right behind. So it's like I'm a generation down- you could
say I was influenced by players who were influenced by jazz. But then in my
teens I also started getting into jazz fusion, Mahavishnu Orchestra mostly,
but also early Weather Report and Return To Forever. I'd say there's
actually a lot less improvising going on there, except for maybe Weather
Report. Eventually I got into what's considered more purely jazz. Although,
you can also figure I was exposed to a fair amount of big band jazz as a kid
through old movies, there were things like Gene Krupa playing "Drum Boogie"
in "Ball Of Fire", every time that came on I was just glued to the screen.
It's mainly been since I've been playing that I've really delved in
farthest, at least as a listener, and at first more than anything it was so
I could get an ear for it, a feel for it. Hyam Sosnow (the other half of
Jugalbandi) studied jazz when he was first learning and it still shows
strongly in his playing. He has an interesting story about a discussion in
class one day where the instructor asked the students what they thought the
defining factor in jazz was. Most people said saxes or brass, but he said
no, that's not it. They couldn't get it and finally he said "what defines
jazz is improvisation". Most people would probably not accept that
definition as is- the playing style has to be more stereotypical for them to
get it (the "I know jazz when I hear it" sort of thing). But if we did
accept that, then you could say I've been playing a form of jazz since the
beginning. I was drawn to it. I'm comfortable improvising. And I don't
honestly know if that in itself is due to any actual musical influence, or
if it's just due more to how my head works.
RI: Could you talk a little bit about the Chrissy Barr collaboration
project? I
realy dig that "intext" cd a lot. A lot of really nice found sounds and
ambient textures on display there. Any plans on doing any similar
collaborations in the near future?
GS: Thanks, I'm glad you like it. "intext" was originally going to be a solo
project. For years I'd wanted to do an album featuring things like pieces
done entirely with household objects, or field recordings treated and mixed
in with instruments. I'd dabbled with both before, there are some fun early
pieces from '76 and '82, but I never did anything really full length, and I
could hear in my head how it would work. At first I had just asked Chrissy
to help me keep the source tape interesting by getting a pair of extra hands
in there rattling things around. It's a pretty weird concept for most
people, and I expected that she might not be into it, or freeze up and not
really get what to do and I'd have to sort of nudge her along. That's what I
would have expected out of almost anyone, honestly. But to my surprise she
not only got what I was trying to do, but very quickly she was just
overflowing with ideas, all of them good. At that point it was clear to me
that this was going to be a collaboration. She added so much to that album.
We plotted out some basic performance ideas for the source tape, and then
improvised our way through them. Then I took them into the studio and did
the electronic treatments, added a couple tracks to fill things in here and
there, and added the recorder on "Exterior". The electronic treatments were
basically live performances of the source tape going through my pedalboard
and then being manipulated.
There are plans for Chrissy and I to do another album, although at this
point it's hard to say how much it'll sound like "intext", which is kind of
unique among things I've been involved with. I'm so happy with the end
result of that first album that we might take the second one in a somewhat
different direction rather than try to do something too similar and have it
fail. I think it'll just be a matter of where the inspiration takes us. You
can bet it will have a strong experimental streak though. We've started
making notes for new pieces, we have some ideas for cover art. Hopefully
that'll be happening in the next year or so. I won't have any trouble
tracking her down to do the sessions, we're married now. I know where she
lives!
RI: Thanks a lot for doing this interview. Is there anything else you'd like to say (anything goes)?
GS: You're welcome, my pleasure. What else to say? I guess just to invite
everyone to stop by my site,
http://www.gregsegal.com , check it out, get some free
downloads. If you want to buy CDs but have questions about what you'd be
getting, email me from the site and ask, I'll be happy to answer. And check
out the Jugalbandi and Paper Bag sites too,
http://www.jugalbandi-music.com and
http://www.paperbagtheory.com . If you email me, make sure the subject heading is
something related to me or the site, like that you read this interview or
want to know about a certain album, because I get a flood of spam daily and
if it's an address I don't know and just says something like "Hi" in the
heading, it'll almost certainly get deleted.
