Old School Music

dealing with punk rock, speed/thrash and other music styles of the 80ies and beyond, a webpage connected to Red, Black & Green

Friday, November 22, 2013

Chalk Circle part 3

I'm grateful my parents didn't push me to play keyboards, since that was the other acceptable instrument for girls to play in the '70s besides acoustic guitar. But on the other hand, I love piano and have always regretted that I never learned how to play it properly. At some point my parents bought a piano and I taught myself how to play some notes and chords, but I couldn't figure out how to coordinate the lelt and right hand very easily. Same with drumming. I sort of picked it up on my own, but have difficulty coordinating my hands and legs. I can play bass pretty well since it's so similar to guitar. As for publishing fanzines, that's a long story, almost as long as my story about playing guitar! But I'll keep it short and simply say that I've always loved writing, I started reading music magazines in elementary school, and I felt inspired to start a fanzine after reading zines like Sniffin' Glue and Slash. My first zine was If This Goes On, with Colin Sears. Then I started Interrobang?! in 1989 and only release issues when I feel really inspired (which means very infrequently). The last issue was a book titled "Interrobang?! Anthology on Music and Family" and it had writings and interviews on that theme. I interviewed Ian MacKaye and also my mother. Cynthia Connolly (with whom I co-authored Banned in DC) also interviewed her mother. Some of the other people I included were Kevin Mattson (who was in the early DC punk band Hate From Ignorance), Jean Smith (from Mecca Normal), and Alan Licht. The writings include creative non-fiction and poetry. As I like the song, could you tell me what "Scrambled" deals with? How was the song conceived ( music, and lyrics)? And what does "Easy Escape" talk about? "Scrambled" was initially a song written by Mary titled "Manic Depression". I added some lyrics to it and we changed the title to "Scrambled" to evoke a scrambled brain more so than emotional fluctuations. The song deals with the dynamics of a relationship where one person's sense of self and moods are dictated by the other person, and how that has a confusing effect on the mind. Mary wrote "Easy Escapes" and it's about finding your own answers to difficult situations, in life and in love. There are a lot of things we experience that sometimes leave us with more questions than answers. Things aren't often easy to figure out. "No one has the easy answer, but is there an answer?" Plans for the future.... Chalk Circle decided not to do any reunion shows, for a variety of reasons. The Chalk Circle retrospective release, which was a split with Post Present Medium and Mississippi Records, came out in early 2011, so I put Coterie Exchange on hold while finishing that up. I compiled all the audio and designed a color booklet that had liner notes by Don Fleming (he's been in a lot of great bands, including the Velvet Monkeys, Half Japanese, Gumball, and To Live and Shave in L.A. and is also a great producer). Don and I worked on a song together last year and that may come out sometime. I also recorded with Julia Holter. I've been working on new Coterie Exchange material for a while and hope to release something in the near future, but I'm not sure what form I want it to take yet.

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