USURPER
Malcy Duff and Ali Robertson

pre-gig shit talk 17/10/03

(Malcy's house……..the smell of bad sitar music hangs in the air….)

Malcy: (laughs)
Ali: do you want to turn that pish down? Can't hear myself think.
M: (laughs). It's making me sad..
A: where do we start?
M: well,.. why not with some of your notes?
A:ok. I just want to start with talking about the initial idea I had. I mean it's sort of changed as….
M;sorry it's just too much for me.
A: alright. Well when I first had the idea it was just kind of banter with rhian and Norman and folks and anyone I could get interested in it. Anyway, I was just thinking about japans "no-input" artists as they get called, but wheras what I'd heard at the time was predominantly electronic like sachiko m's empty sampler and otomo yoshihide's empty decks and stuff. I was wanting to attempt that with a kind of rock band set-up. The joke was that it would be a" no-input metal band."
M:hmmmm.
A: with stringless guitars and skinless drums and voiceless vocals replacing empty mixers, samplers, etc.the idea was to identify the "points of input" which was pretty complicated when it came to drums especially. I mean obviously the real "point of input" would be the people, but then charging folks to watch a drumkit would be pretty shite.
M I suppose that….
A: I mean the point of input with the guitar would be the strings … and… the vocals would be reduced to just the clicks of the throat and sound of teeth and saliva…
M: uh-huh.
A: ..but it's ended up more "disabled instrument" than "no-input" which is good aswell 'cos… ehrm…………………….you disable instruments in such a way that it makes you unable to approach them in any sort of normal fashion. Coz if we didn't take the bits away then there's always the temptation to fall back into doing something "trad", or expected. Even when I'm jamming with Giant Tank… if we try and go for a non-stop free-noise bit…. rhythm will creep in. Coz the temptation is there to do something familiar with it. Something you'd be more comfortable with. So, we disable it in such a way that you can't approach the instrument in the traditional fashion which would hopefully give rise to new ways of playing.
M: Well that's what attracts me to it, just the part about approaching it completely differently coz you do fall back on these things quite easily. Even just… pedals and stuff like that. I'm really into the acoustic part of it. No pedals at all. But then if you're using electronics in the first place, you have to ask yourself "where do you draw the line? "You could have a guitar amp and a guitar, and a lead, and that would be it, but then you could argue that that's still electronic, not completely acoustic. And then use pedals…
A: But the idea was to give it a kind of "rock band" set-up anyway, so then I was thinking as there is only two of us doing this next week… next week… fucking hell. You know there'll just be me with these bits of drum kits, and you with a guitar… but if there were enough of us we could deconstruct the entire "rock band" and have all the pedals and leads plugged in but not attached to any instruments, and even use the mics and mixing desk as instruments. I thought of maybe asking Norman if he wanted to do that. Sort of edit our set as we go along. He'd be kind of playing our set as an instrument.
M: You were talking about it kind of swelling, kind of building up…
A: Like a kind of rock dynamic?
M: Yeah
A: See, I kind of like that, coz it was the initial idea, but it was meant as a joke. Whereas now I'm just keen on making organic no input as opposed to electronic. Even though since I thought of it, I've heard Japanese artists attempting organic "no-input", but they seem to be more interested in space between noises rather that the actual sounds. Onkyo? I think that's what they call it, its quite different to what we're doing.
M: I don't really know.
A: I just can't decide. Do I want it to be strictly rock setup? Or… I think I just want to… yeah…. Disable instruments to provide more abstraction. I mean what we're going to do will probably be free improv.
M: Looks like it
A: Not like we have time to write a set
A & M (laughs)
M: but you've been playing about with your trumpet a little…
A: yeah, but I'm not going to use it cos… I mean, I was fannying about with bits of drumkit today… it's going to be pretty much acoustic. I'll need a load of mics laid around while I pull at the kit and twist bits of metal. It sounded alright..just…it's going to totally test the audiences patience and they're gonna have to have the manners to stay pretty fucking quiet. And they'll have to listen with intent 'cos if they're not concentrating then they probably won't get much from it. And if they are concentrating they may well get fuck all back from it anyway. (laughs)
M: I think they may get a lot from it. Listening to the sound inside a drum could be pretty loud. They just have to listen carefully.
A: I've also got to find a way to get the skin off that snare…..
A&M: (laughs)
A: I was playing with the drum pedal and I had the cymbal and I was trying to avoid hitting it 'cos obviously that's what you're meant to do with it. The funny thing about drums is that they remain a percussive instrument.
M: but if you approach it differently. A drum has… it's holding something. It's holding all this empty air and, I mean, there's sound in there and there's sounds coming… whether it's movement in the building or whatever. It's just a case of capturing that and that's going to be the interesting part.
A: so what are you thinking about doing with the geetar? Are you gonna use any pedals or have you been fannying about at all?
M: No I've not. I was thinking…
A: I mean I've had a go at the stringless guitar before and you get plenty noise from the pickups just from sliding anything metal on them. And sounds come out a bit whatever you do, however you knock it, the springs and…
M: I thought I might have a look at it in the next couple of days. I mean I did some music for Neil's film recently and I was using the guitar lead and the input socket and I was just kind of wanking it into the guitar. And it was like a drumbeat coming off it. Or when its half in and buzzing and…. I thought I'd muck about a little with the guitar input. The pickups were what I'd thought of first, but that's obvious. That's just going back to thinking about the strings again, so I reckon maybe I'll use the input sockets and the pegs. I thought about that after you said you'd made sounds with your trumpet…
A: ….with just the valves. Yeah. I just shove this little minidisc mic in the bell and it traps all the air in there. And… I'm not sure how it works, but when you move the keys it causes feedback. I'd like loads of these little mics, you can just drop them into things.
M: That's going to bring in the mixing of it more isn't it? You could have the mics on the various parts and then we could mic all that through the P.A… would that… yeah.
A: Uhu, yeah (says Alasdair, not really knowing what Malcolm means).
M: I think we have to say "fuck it" with regards to testing peoples patience. We have to get into this for ourselves, because its pure experimentation for us anyway. It's a wee adventure for me. Just about discovering…
A: I guess it's a genuine experiment, we've no idea of the outcome. As opposed to stuff like Autechre being called experimental with their set of pre programmed stuff on their laptops, where's the experiment in knowing the outcome?
M: Totally
A: Whereas we're completely fucking clueless
A & M: (laughs)
M: I've glad you've so much confidence in this.
A: No I have, absolutely
M: Aye
A: This is going to be pretty quiet. But I'm into making tiny little sounds seem pretty massive. It will probably be a kind of slow set and will involve a lot of playing off each other. A lot of call & response I'd imagine. These little tiny things will seem quite exciting. But then I'm keen on not having it sound too similar to any Japanese artists I've heard.
M: See this is where things differ coz I've not heard…
A: I hadn't heard half of this stuff either at the time…
M: Well this is an idea you had along time ago.
A: Been kicking it around for like two years. Longer.
M: That's the things, I've never heard any of these people.
A: That's good:
M: Exactly. So I think we're coming at this from different angles for that reason.

(Conversation continues for another ten minutes. Ali pisses and moans a lot. Seriously uninteresting stuff. )

A: Erm… portable. Yeah. I like the idea of it being of being a portable band, but that's purely from a laziness perspective. I'm just sick to death of watching Rhian pick up her little laptop when I'm fucking lugging a drum kit and these huge amps. Small stuff. Plus, I hope that with Usurper we can get gigs anywhere, without having to book out full clubs. Its not like its going to get in anyone's way, its small scale and pretty quiet.
M: I like the idea you carry it about easily as well, coz it's like wind you might get in your head or something, when you get a little whistle or something. I think it's portable for that very reason. You're magnifying something in a way, and that's good. We should carry about guitar tuning pegs, and that's our instrument for the gig. "Hello" (smiles and waves)
A: We should start carrying these instruments with us and just strap a minidisc mic to them. Just wandering about…
M: … playing a gig. I'd like to phone you tomorrow and say "I just played a gig walking down the street" (laughs)
A: cunts shouting "play some Jimi Hendrix!" in the background.
M: Or the Doors maybe.
A: Are we OK with the name Usurper?
M: Usurper, I like.
A: I think it sounds mighty.
M: What did it mean again?
A: Its kind of relevant to us because… to usurp, is to take over by force, without the right to do so. And we usurp by making other playing redundant through our new… innovative… ways. With no real ability. Without the right.
M: (laughs)
A: Which is pretty pompous and over the top, but it sounds fuckin…
M: …mental.
A: Rock. Sound like ZZ Top "Eliminator", its in the great rock tradition. Not that we're trying to be traditional. So… what the fuck am I talking about?
M: Usurper it is.
A: I'm wittering.
M: Lets have some curry.
A: Aye, alright.