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Has Mario Rubalcaba ever been in a less-than-killer band? John Reis? Ian Svenonious? James Canty? No way, not even sub-par despite surveying a variety of collaborators, genres, and styles. Add to the list of rad musicians in a ton of impeachable bands Sandra Vu. I dug Midnight Movies, love Dum Dum Girls, and am a massive supporter of her psychedelic goth solo gig, SISU. I’m dying to hear her new material live and extra stoked that she and her crew are touring with Alex Hungtai a.k.a. Mr. Dirty Beaches. Dude. That is a rad lineup and I hope this brief Q&A inspires some of you to check it out. MW: I still haven’t heard the new Blood Tears LP! How does it compare to the Light Eyes EP in terms of recording or even just the sound in general? SV: We need to get you the LP! We had no budget for the EP, so the main technical difference is that Lars Stalfors didn’t mix it and Ryan Wood wasn’t as involved in making it. He was just too busy so I pretty much made it on my own. There are also no live drums on the EP, which was a limitation of not having enough to make it sound good enough. The EP is just about as lo-fi as I’m willing to go. Other than these technical things, the songs themselves are relatable but different. Blood Tears is more immediate to me, the songs on the whole are tend to be structurally more simple. I worked on the bass guitar more on the EP, and two of the main songs “Light Eyes” and “Two Thousand Hands” are meatier–longer, denser. The songs on both LP and EP were written in the same time period, but the EP was completed after. It came about in the long waiting period of trying to plan the LP release. MW: During the Dum Dums’ downtime, SISU plays a lot! How has the band been evolving? SV: We play any opportunity we get! I’m really proud of how the band has evolved. SISU is essentially a studio project, but it’s been really fun to take it further in the live show. Since I switched from playing bass to guitar live, it’s opened up a whole new world. Playing bass for me is more rigid, you’ve got to play it 100 percent correct and on, or else the bottom will drop out. On guitar, I get to wiggle around a little more which is really fun. I add parts that aren’t on the recordings; sometimes I wing it a little. On the other hand, it’s a pretty challenging job for my bandmates, who have been thankfully open to adapting to so many different configurations. We can play shows as a 2-, 3-, 4-, or 5-piece band, with different members on both coasts. It’s insane! Tito can now switch between stand-up drums, second guitar, and bass guitar. We had Jules pick up the guitar when we do...
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The last time Alex Zhang Hungtai came through L.A., he was on tour opening for Dum Dum Girls but didn’t get to play because their gig was a fancy hotel event. Nonetheless, I grabbed that chance to meet him. He’s a longtime Giant Robot reader, mutual follower of filmmakers Jon Moritsugu and Wong Kar-Wai, and a new friend of mine. Alex’s taste in cinema is actually pertinent to any discussion about his music since I think both aesthetics come through in his lo-fi but fully conceptualized work. On the current Dirty Beaches tour, which just went down the West Coast as is heading across the U.S., he’s headlining for the first time. I arrived just as Neverever was ending. I’ve seen the post-girl group band open for other shows and I’m a fan. Then, as the second band was going on, I realized that I neglected to put my SD card back into my camera after downloading its contents. Sorry, Bell Gardens. Your first and last songs sounded lovely but I had to run home. What I saw of the set did provide an interesting contrast to the headliner, though. Bell Gardens uses at least six members including strings and horns to make a pristine pop sound. After they broke down their mountain of equipment, Dirty Beaches set up only a vintage amp, some pedals, and a guitar on a floor to weave together a fuzzy concoction that clouds ears and melts hearts. Not even a mic stand, since Alex either holds his vintage stick while he strums or puts it in his back pocket. The set was short and solid, and the bulk of it was his noisier work. Fans of his prettier songs had to wait through more abstract pieces to get them. While the washed-out sounds of Suicide and cool of Elvis are usually cited as touchstones, the live set also recalled Chip and Tony Kinman’s Blackbird (early ’90s, post-Rank and File and waaay after the Dils) project with the mix of mechanical beats, avant guitar work, and emphasis on vocals that lies somewhere between crooning and Krautrock. What could be a cold combination turns out to be raw, direct, and very human. Alex’s onstage persona is like an un-undead Lux Interior or Guitarwolf off speed, although when he humbly asked couples to slow dance to “True Blue” traces of Hawaiian Pidgin emerged… After the show, we went to Good Shine Chinese Food in Monterey Park for some late-night Taiwanese dishes since Alex expects to eat nothing but sandwiches between the coasts. I had the pleasure of meeting his friend and filmmaker Zoe Kirk-Gushowaty as well. Dirty Beaches wrote a score for her documentary Practical E.S.P., which investigates “the boundaries of verbal communication through equine facilitated therapy.” Between her work and Alex’s experiences and opinions on new music all over Beijing, Taipei, Singapore, and everywhere else–not to mention our favorite movies–we had a lot to talk about between bites. I have no double Alex will kick ass...
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