Tell me about: Ian Svenonius

not sure if ian and michelle were/are a couple but i always just assumed it.

also, apparently meltdown has a cd out on the archigramophone label.

Metamatics have a discography CD on Troubleman Unlimited that is amazing (and contains their songs from the split 7" they did with The Make Up, on Svenonius' Black Gemini label). Metamatics drummer Malcolm McDuffie was also in Crom Tech. The singer, Chuck Bettis, now does experimental electronic noise stuff as Trance & the Arcade.
Gabe Andruzzi now plays in the Rapture.
Anyways, yeah, Metamatics were awesome. I only got to see them once -- opening for Fugazi at Fort Reno (Summer '93 I think), but it was an amazing show.

As you can tell, I am super into all this DC stuff...

sherm, i think it shut down about 4 years ago for shows. i dont know if seth and the revolving cast of characters still live there anymore. one of the housemates didnt want live music and there was always the fear of being shut down by the cops due to zoning issues.

man, i really miss that place.

Never saw Happy Flowers, but a few years ago they played some reunion shows as an opener for Yo La Tengo. Apparently the one whose stage name is Mr. Anus has a doctorate in something and is doing professional stuff at a think tank. (Wonder what his resume looks like.)

mr. horribly-charred-infant runs the official happy flowers website. "Dr. Anus" hahaha

one of my roommates is an art transporter/installer and he says he sees the guy pretty frequently at openings and such. always flanked by two attractive girls and looking and smirking at him like "you know who i am, guy who's into punk rock. yeah, this is what i've got going on."

Not rushing to the defence of IS but I always feel like this kind of thing says less about the guy who can supposedly transmit convoluted sentences with his facial expressions and more about the guy who thinks he's interpreting them

well, i know my roommate pretty well and he's a smart dude and i trust his takes on things and he and i both still dig Ian Svenonious and his bands. it's just an image to laugh about.

but yeah, the dude is known to go to openings with a girl on each arm. come on.

the svenonius book 'the psychic soviet' is totally hilarious.

i really enjoy his interviews on the vice tv. he's a funny guy!

lol @ his new band's song "600,00 Bands": http://www.myspace.com/feltletters

"fifty thousand sound like Can/ fifty thousand sound like Manfred Mann"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zz74pBb4ZA

I love all the songs on the Felt Letters MySpace page but I sort of doubt they'll ever put anything out besides that one 7" (which would be a real shame): http://www.myspace.com/feltletters

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2011/02/25/ian-svenonius-on-the-bruise-cruise-maybe-this-is-the-first-step-of-indie-rock-going-vegas/

He's emceeing the Bruise Cruise--garage and indie bands on a Carnival cruise ship

The Black Lips, Surfer Blood, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, The Strange Boys, Turbo Fruits—and Vivien Girls

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2011/02/25/im-on-a-boat/

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40532/bruise-cruise/

That crazy guy

saw adds for this and was suspicious but lol Ian cracks me up:

"You think of disco and electro-funk and funk music as being obsessed with space travel. Garage rock—they talk, maybe, about cars, but never boats. In gospel music they talk about the train. Psychedelic bands talk about planes. I’d say garage rock is usually very land-based."

Chain and the Gang!!! this is great

I didn't like the record as much as Weird War, but C&tG were so great live. I wish I could remember this one bit he did about waste in the air. the birds are flying around up there in the sky and there's so much waste. think of all of that real estate up there, just being wasted. those birds aren't doing anything with it. haha, I don't know, anyway it cracked me up.

Kinda love Chain and the Gang TBH. I love everything Ian does and I don't care if you don't

I dig this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZU1ppG2Hj4

one of my roommates is an art transporter/installer and he says he sees the guy pretty frequently at openings and such. always flanked by two attractive girls and looking and smirking at him like "you know who i am, guy who's into punk rock. yeah, this is what i've got going on."

This is pretty much why I like him

Chain and the Gang album is great, one of my favorite things from last year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1qu0skW4F0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULx01IhtlsI&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLAA4DA8EE338ED155

Chain and the Gang live are not so good nor is his other current band Felt Letters. I may be in the minority with such beliefs though. I find his stage presence these days annoying and his vocals less than impressive. Sacrilege I know.

I see from pals on facebook that the Makeup just did a not-publicized reunion gig at tiny little Comet Ping Pong in DC tonight. Kid Congo(DC resident and former member of Gun Club, Bad Seeds, & Cramps) was doing garage oldies with Fugazi's Brendan Canty on drums. I was watching the Orioles beat the Nationals in baseball. Oh well.

ha, i almost went up there just for kid congo! welp

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2012/05/21/photos-the-make-up-and-kid-congo-powers-comet-ping-pong/

For some reason this dude "clicked" for me recently in a way that he never did previously. NOU and The Make Up were kind of in the ether when I was in college, and I liked a couple Make Up songs but was mostly never that into them.

Comet is really near where my folks live, wish I had been there. (Unless there's another Comet?)

Just the one Comet. He once kinda clicked for me but Chain & the Gang and Felt Letters, his current groups did not interest me at all when I saw them.

i stand by my bitchy opening one-two up there

his book last year -- 'supernatural strategies for making a rock 'n' roll group' -- is the best use of seance since 'the changing light at sandover'

ah thx fro reminding me been meaning to read that

looks good, think I will order

do yourself a favor

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/43510/rock-n-roll-a-manifesto-in-his-new-book-ian/

excerpt, I think

dan osborn's cover design is perfect

that excerpt is fantastic, and also a great explanation of one of the things that I think is so hard and so elusive and also just crazy about being a successful musician or artist -- you almost have to have this incredible discipline, really, about maintaining a persona/lifestyle apperance/attitude/style.

"You think of disco and electro-funk and funk music as being obsessed with space travel. Garage rock—they talk, maybe, about cars, but never boats. In gospel music they talk about the train. Psychedelic bands talk about planes. I’d say garage rock is usually very land-based."

This is so awesome.

the whole book is awesome. cannot recommend it highly enough

well, I ordered it, even paid the extra $4 to get it straight from akashic (sort of demonstrates the market power of amazon that they can undercut even the publisher's direct sales).

finally getting around to this, it is quite awesome

the book I mean

"because music is not for everyone. most people, in fact, shouldn't listen to it"

I love this:

To determine a group’s identity, one must first determine what the group is trying to achieve.

Is it the desire to be a) “famous,” or perhaps b) sexually popular? Is it c) to write some good songs in the style of another particular group? Or perhaps is it d) to advance a particular ideological system?

If the intention is a), then we urge you to find another avenue. Fame in a group is fleeting and even when it is attained—which is fairly uncommon—it is subject to the vagaries and whims of an ignoramus public. The group member or singing star is a clown, occasional comic relief for his or her listener, but more often entirely ignored or the subject of ridicule. The fame begotten is so momentary as to be almost like a hallucination, and there is typically little money associated with it. There are much more solid ways to find notoriety, the most reliable being a political career.

Politics don’t require talent, intelligence, or good looks. In the beginning, you won’t even need to own a suit. Just announce some “provocative” (creationist, bigoted, or otherwise reactionary) vitriol into a microphone, and you’ll attract financial backers who will arrange television appearances, fundraising events, and bespoke finery. Your notoriety will be more long-lasting and more pervasive than any fame you could achieve in music. Truly, someone like Donald Rumsfeld, a mediocre government functionary with no discernible talent, intelligence, or charm, is a greater international celebrity than rocker Mick Jagger, who has reached the apex of his craft. Rumsfeld, despite being a has-been, is known in every corner of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa for his insanity and arrogance, while Jagger is admired by a mere couple hundred million music enthusiasts, huddled mostly in the first world.

If b), to be an amorist, is your goal, give up the group as a means to carnal buccaneering. The best thing for you is to pursue a job in advertising, medicine, or the field of “law.” These professions are celebrated by televised propaganda (in programs such as Law & Order, Grey’s Anatomy, and Mad Men), and will provide you with the financial incentives—in the form of real estate, luxury cotton sheets, and perceived stability—required to seduce your prey in the capitalist society.

If your goal is c), to write songs in the manner of another group, this might not be necessary. The group that seems to beg homage or emulation may have disintegrated, but their legacy is probably with us, either on cassette or record—or in video form.