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September 15, 2005
What I Should Do with My Life
The first time I ever heard of CoCoRosie was when I saw them open for Bright Eyes at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. on January 29, 2005. It isn't often you see a band that leaves you speechless, especially if you're a music critic. CoCoRosie is one of those rare artists who are so unique that there's no way to form an instant opinion about them.
The stage was dark, the only light coming from images projected on a screen behind the musicians. What were those images? Beats me. I couldn't really see them since I was on the balcony directly over the left side of the stage. I spent the first fifteen minutes squinting down and trying to figure out just what was happening. Eventually I saw that there were three people onstage – two women (who turned out to be the Casady sisters – Sierra and Bianca) and a rapper/beat box guy whose name is Spleen. No one moved much. One sister was standing (Sierra?) and the other was seated, playing an odd variety of instruments including a cluster of children's toys. Once I figured out what I was seeing, I started listening. At the end of each song there was polite applause and you could hear the audience thinking a collective, "what the fuck?" This is the point where they started to grow on me. Anyone who can make my jaw drop for a good fifteen minutes is worthy of my attention.
When the opportunity came up at Junkmedia (a music site I write for) to review CoCoRosie's new CD Noah's Ark and to interview them, I jumped at it. I wanted to know what made them tick. You can read the part that got edited out of the interview because it was too long below. You can hear the show I was at here. NPR broadcast it live. It's worth listening to all three bands (the excellent Tilly and the Wall was the third.) Conor Oberst played his brand new protest song "When the President Talks to God" that night and though you can't really tell from the recording, the audience went crazy at the end of each verse. My friend Ginger swears she saw Jenna Bush standing in the middle of the floor with her arms crossed looking unhappy during this song. To me the Bush twins look so much like generic cookie cutter sorority girls that I wouldn't recognize them if they were at my own dinner table, so we'll have to take her word for it.
Speaking of the Bush family, if you want to have a good laugh at W's expense (and who doesn't?) click here to learn the truth about all those wacky things that come out of his mouth.
How do you want people to listen to your music? Do you want them to listen closely and put on their headphones and think? What do you want people to get from your music?
I think for us, it's been nice to imagine people having their own private experiences with the music. We like the idea of people being able to hear the music and not know anything about us or where the music comes from and just have their own very personal experience. I think there are no rules or ideas that we have for our audience listening to the music. I think it does have a life of its own. I've heard some people talk about music that way. I think it does have its own course or its own destiny.
So you give birth to it and set it out into the world to have its own life?
Yeah.
Is there anybody who inspires you to make music? Any other musicians?
Not really any other musicians, no. but there are other artists who inspire us from time to time.
Visual artists?
They can be visual artists or writers or filmmakers.
Anyone you want to name?
Jean Genet was a huge muse for us with this last album.
Who is he?
He's a French writer. Born in 1910. For us his writing and maybe even more so his biography, took hold of us for a large amount of time, which is kind of rare because we have these fleeting phases again and again.
What was the last good book you read?
I don't read extensively. The last good book I read was the Secret Life of Plants. (Laughs) Do you know that book?
I do. I own it. I think it's amazing.
Yeah, it's magical.
Is there anything else you want to say or that you want people to know?
My sister Bianca has a side project. She started a label called Voodoo-Eros. The first release is a very special compilation of secret songs. It will be released the same time as our album (September 13th) so keep your eye out for that.
By artists who we were just talking about?
A bunch of them, yeah. The album is called the Enlightened Family.
Do you want to say who's on it?
Just the people we've talked about and in addition Vashti Bunyan. She's a really special artist who was friends with Nick Drake and she gave us a song that's over forty years old. Then a bunch of New York artists. A few stragglers, a few really cool friends.
A little internet sleuthing reveals the tracklisting to be:
01 Metallic Falcons - Berry Metal
02 Devendra Banhart - Houses
03 J.H.T - Why Am I Still Sucking Your Dick?
04 Sierra Casady - Of Gentle Blood
05 Nomi - You'll Never Know
06 Diane Cluck - Real Good Time
07 Spleen & Zen - Rock 'n Roll
08 Jana Hunter - Kissing Without Lips
09 Island Folk Lore - Sex With a Shark
10 Patrick Wolf - Night Train
11 Vashti Bunyan - Song of a Wishwanderer
12 Devendra Banhart - Happy Birthday
13 Diane Cluck - Nothing but God
CocoRosie will be on tour this fall in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Posted by Laura at September 15, 2005 07:36 PM