John McEntire and Doug McCombs
Setting New 'Standards'
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And while 1998’s TNT brought the band to new levels in terms of visibility, its tedious creation process -- which saw bits and pieces of material continually remixed on digital recording equipment -- marked a clear shift from the more organic origins of 1994’s self-titled debut.
Since then, you’d have been hardpressed to keep up with the Tortoise boys without a scorecard. John McEntire scored the film “Reach The Rock,” rebuilt his Soma recording studio, and played on or produced material by everyone Stereolab to Brazilian icon Tom Ze, who Tortoise backed for a series of live shows in 1999. Doug McCombs found time to release two albums under the Brokeback moniker, while Dan Bitney, Jeff Parker, and John Herndon cranked out three albums with their free-jazz outfit Isotope 217.
It’s each member’s distinctive touch that gives the brand new Standards its grounding. Without totally abandoning the cut-and-paste methodology, Standards refocuses Tortoise on the fundamental elements that make its music so appealing: grooves, beats, rhythms, textures, and a forward-looking frame of reference. The songs are shorter and punchier, and the musicianship is consistently amazing.
Confirming its tastemaker’s status, Tortoise has been asked to “curate” this April’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in the U.K. Although indie favorites such as Yo La Tengo, McEntire’s other band the Sea & Cake, and Calexico will be on hand, the true crown jewel is a reunion by New York rock legends Television, who have not been active since 1992.
McEntire and McCombs recently took time to chat with NATN Associate Editor Jonathan Cohen about the new album, what they’ve been up to since the last go-around, and what lies ahead.
HOW IT CAME TOGETHER
NATN: First of all, what’s with the yelping noises in “Seneca?” I had it on over speakers in my apartment and it scared the shit out of me. I went to the window to see if someone was getting beaten up!
John McEntire: [Laughs hard] Those are people yelping. They’re location recordings too, so there’s a lot of ambience to them. One was recorded in a little overpass, so there’s this natural kind of reverberation. I guess that was Doug’s idea. But it seemed to make sense, totally.
Doug McCombs: They are people [laughs]. You know, depending on which part you’re talking about, they’re either heavily manipulated, or at some points, they exist in their natural state. It’s just people hollering. There’s a recording of a fighter jet that’s on the album elsewhere.
NATN: When did the band begin the process of writing material for Standards?
DM: Um, well, I guess about a year and a half ago. We had been finished with our touring for TNT for a little while, and we also had decided that we’d try and set up some rehearsals, so we could play together a little bit before we started recording. That’s slightly unusual for us.
JM: It was pretty low-key. We’d get together a couple times a week and just play and see what happened. I think out of that we probably came up with like three or four tracks that ended up on the record.
DM:So, we played a few times a week and that’s how we came up with some of the material. Then we just sort of waited for all of our schedules to come together. The actual process of making the record was not quite as long this time. TNT took a long time because we took our time and felt our way through the material. This was much more condensed. It was a couple weeks at a time over the course of four months or so.
NATN: Do you guys ever revisit material that may have been unfinished from previous writing or recording sessions?
JM: We do that a lot actually. When we were working on TNT, at certain points, we’d say, “let’s just do some ‘jam sessions,’” or whatever. And we’d throw up an 8-track, and people would go in in various combinations and just kind of do stuff on the fly. From time to time, we go back and go through those little ideas that never necessarily get developed. Usually there’s a reason why they don’t. But occasionally we find something that’s an interesting starting point.
DM: It’s true. There’s a lot of stuff floating around that for whatever reason we didn’t finish or couldn’t think of how to finish.
JM:Actually “Eden 2,” and its companion, “Eden 1,” those were based on things we did around TNT. At that point, we already had more than enough material, but we were just trying to keep the ideas going. “Firefly,” I think it is, the kind of quieter one, that was based on something that we did last summer that we just had a rehearsal tape of. It actually segues into, with the dogs barking, the actual rehearsal tape. We decided we’d do a studio version of it as well.
NATN: Tortoise did some low-key live dates during the writing sessions. Was it beneficial to be able to try out some new songs in this setting?
DM: We didn’t do this before TNT. It was definitely a positive kind of thing. We did it specifically to see if it would push songs in any one direction. Here’s the thing: usually after Tortoise makes an album, we have to learn the songs before we go on tour, because we don’t actually “know” how to play them until we run back through them. And after we do know them and play them a couple of times, new ideas always occur, and the versions we play live become different.
JM: It was nice to come back to the studio with these shows under our belts, and be able to give the songs new treatments, rather than the totally constructed, one-person-playing-at-a-time-type thing.
DM: We wanted to see if any startling ideas came to us that we could incorporate in the recorded versions. In a few instances it was a revelation. With “Blackjack” we came up with some good ideas in terms of arrangement and other parts. I know with “Eden” part 1 and 2, we weren’t quite sure what to do with the material. That, for instance, helped us make the decision to split the track up and separate the two halves. Basically what that is is a simple, static rhythm track that we really liked the feel and the groove of. The concept was that each of us would write a melody for it. Beyond that, we weren’t sure. We were playing it live that way, but we thought it was a little boring. So we split it up. When it’s shorter and two short halves, it’s more interesting.
HOW IT SOUNDS
NATN: Standards sounds so much more immediate than TNT. Did you guys want to move it away from the labor-intensive, TNT style of studio writing?
DM: That’s fairly accurate. There’s still some of that process there. I don’t think it would be possible for us to get rid of that completely, because it’s pretty integral to the way we write songs. But, we had made a decision to, first of all, come into the recording sessions with a little more concrete material, with the idea that we wouldn’t spend forever on it, and make quicker decisions. So, yeah, I mean, we did to a certain degree abandon the idea of continuously reworking stuff. We tried to get takes of the songs that were more immediate. I guess the way to put it would be to not overthink everything.
JM: Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely more “band in the studio” than TNT. But there’s still quite a lot of.. it’s by no means a straight band recording.
NATN: At the same time, the references to past Tortoise material are not obscured.
JM: I think it’s nice now, that we’ve had however many years of doing it, we can think about ways that we have done things that have or haven’t been successful, and try a different approach based on that. In the case of doing something specific, like, “let’s give this a "Tin Cans & Twine" type of feel,” we never think about it that way. But, I’m happy with the way everything has developed. It’s good, like you said, that there’s obvious references to the history, but it’s also changing at a nice pace.
NATN: It also sounds to me that there are points on this album that reveal a little more of the members’ individual personalities. For example, “Eros” sounds akin to Isotope 217.
JM: I think that’s kind of true. But it’s also sort of inevitable. We all actually contribute pretty equally to the writing. So in that sense, you’re going to hear things you could maybe reference from someplace else. But that’s what I really like about the band. Everybody has their own distinctive way of presenting ideas, and the way that those ideas are distinctive in and of themselves. And then the way that gets amalgamated is really cool. Everybody is so open to trying different things.
NATN: Can you talk about the reasons why there will be no remixes for Standards?
JM: I think it’s sort of time to give that a rest. It’s not to say we won’t ever do it again, but I just don’t want it to be a given, you know, “record,” “remixes.” I think we’ll just let this one go [laughs].
DM: Well, over the years that’s become more of a part of the recording process also. We’ve gotten better and quicker at it. But it seems less important than it did in the past to have these alternate versions of the songs. I don’t think the new material is any less.. the kinds of songs we have now are just as open to that kind of treatment, but they seem to be better realizations of what we had in mind.
LIVE IN CONCERT
NATN: What are your thoughts on the difficulty in reproducing some of these new songs live? Will something like “Eros” be too hard?
DM: Yeah. We don’t usually feel any pressure at all to recreate the album versions. Some of them will be easy to interpret live in almost the same way as the record, but other things are much harder. I have no doubt we’ll attempt to have some version of that tune. The main thing is that we’re really averse to using equipment that would make us have to adhere to a certain structure or form, or play along with pre-sequenced music. We steer away from that. “Eros” would be a track we’d have to do that with.
JM: Well, I know we can’t do “Eros.” But I don’t think that’s a big deal. Or maybe we could do some totally different version of it.
NATN: What dictates which older songs are played live?
JM: There’s a few things from the first album that we just got sick of. We still do “Tin Cans & Twine.” I think people get sick of it at points, but it’s a good live song. It’s one of my favorite songs from that era.
DM: There are various factors that come into play. To a certain degree, there are certain songs that I think a Tortoise audience would expect to hear, which is sometimes a burden. I mean, you know, after awhile, there’s some stuff I know guys in the band get sick of, and other things we could play a million times and not get sick of. I personally am always up for trying any of our old stuff, just to see how it flies. We try to have a balance of what doesn’t make us sick and what we think people definitely want to hear, and what we can play.
NATN: How about “Glass Museum?” [from 1996’s Millions Now Living Will Never Die]
JM: We can play “Glass Museum,” but it’s different without [ex-member] Dave [Pajo]. I think we have tried it a couple of times.
DM: We went through it a couple of times in rehearsal, and it’s a case of Dave [Pajo]’s guitar part being very idiosyncratic, and also very integral to the song. So in most instances we’re not precious about that kind of stuff at all - we’d just figure out a different way to do it, or have a part that mimics a certain part. But for whatever reason, it doesn’t ever seem to gel without Dave. Jeff isn’t really comfortable playing the guitar part. It’s a great song. I really love playing it.
WHAT COMES NEXT
NATN: I understand the band has opted to change its distribution in all of Europe, from City Slang to Warp. Why?
JM: Um, well, I guess what really happened was that we knew some people that were either working for or had contact with Warp. It just started as a discussion, with us saying, “hey, we’re fans of your label, we love everything that you do,” and them saying, “we like your band,” which shocked us. We didn’t see that coming. It just kind of grew from there. We’d never had any problems with City Slang. I think they did a great job for us all the way through. It just kind of felt like it was time to do something else. It had been six or seven years, for some of us, longer. They did Eleventh Dream Day records with Doug. We had a long, good relationship with them. But it just felt like, why not get out and try something different? It was a difficult decision to make, definitely. But we’re all happy with where everything is at, and that City Slang are speaking with us still [laughs].
NATN: Do you listen to a lot of electronic music?
JM: Not so much really. There are certain things that I really really like. All the Warp artists, basically. I think when electronica got to the point that it was just okay to imitate Autechre, it got uninteresting really quickly.
NATN: How in the world did you guys convince Television to reform for the All Tomorrow's Parties festival?
DM: That right there kind of eclipses the whole thing for me. Half the time I can’t even remember who else was on our list. I don’t want to jinx it, because it’s really exciting to me.
NATN: Was there some confusion as to whether [Television guitarist] Richard Lloyd would be a part of it?
DM: Well, our invitation.. nothing against Richard Lloyd at all, but our invitation was to Television or Tom Verlaine. I mean, next to Marquee Moon, I think one of my favorite albums by one of those guys is the instrumental album Tom Verlaine put out with Fred Smith and Billy Ficca.
NATN: What other role do you guys have in the festival?
DM: Basically we just made a wishlist. We help make some of the decisions, but all of the organizing is up to them. You know, sometimes there’s definitely some give and take involved. Sometimes the promoters suggest someone who is advisable to have, and that’s fine. It’s not all us. But it’s really cool and exciting to be involved. Just to be able to be asked to do that is awesome.
TOURING WITH TOM
NATN: What were the most enjoyable aspects of your tour backing Tom Ze in North and South America?
JM: It was the first time for us in South America. It was great. We only did the dates in Brazil with him. We’d play our set, and then he’d come up and we’d do five or six songs with him. It was amazing. He’s like a messiah down there. It was crazy. Our first show was at this weird festival, like an electronic music festival. We went on and people were kind of confused, but polite, and as soon as he came up, it was like all of the sudden 300 more people pushed forward, completely captivated. We didn’t do any writing because we didn’t have much time. It was hard enough to learn all of the music and get it together.
DM: The shows out of the States were really great. Tom can win over any audience. He's so gregarious and he's a good showman. When we played in Sao Paulo, his home audience, he was just on his own turf and was really awesome. Those people just love him to death. When we played with him in Brazil, I kind of felt guilty in a way. There were definitely people interested in Tortoise, but I felt like they were waiting for us to finish so Tom could come on. It might have been good to do separate sets, to let people enjoy an undiluted Tom Ze set. Another factor was we didn't have any time at all to rehearse. Zero rehearsal time. We were lucky we remembered the songs that we did.
NATN: Do you see similarities in certain elements of your music as compared to his?
DM: I definitely picked up on the similarities of the cut-and-paste idea, and how to incorporate non-musical sounds and stuff into songs. He's been doing that for a long time. That's one of his main ideas. I think it was something a lot of tropicalisis picked up from modern classical music when they were first exposed to it in the '60s. It’s something we've always been interested in too. Maybe he heard that in our music and that's why he agreed to do this with us. He might have felt we'd be sympathetic to it.
JM: I love his stuff. It was such a treat to be able to do that. I know he’s working on a record right now. I think it’s for Luaka Bop. They have a weird relationship, Tom and [Luaka Bop label head/former Talking Heads frontman] David Byrne. Tom really really likes David. But I think that the way the label deals with him is, um.. they have different viewpoints on lots of things. And with the language barrier and everything, they have to work a lot harder than usual to make things happen. But I hope they do his record. He actually just got a deal with a really good label down in Brazil, kind of the best indie label. For lack of a better comparison it’s something like Matador - big, well-financed, and lots of respect from everybody. I think he felt like he was getting his just desserts after all these years, by getting on a label that will basically do anything to make him happy.
ON THE SIDE
NATN: Doug, what can you tell us about Brokeback’s new album?
DM: Oh, well, let’s see. What can I say about it. It’s a series of collaborations. Um, I guess one of the most important things is that it’s the first time where my partner Noel Kupersmith was a full collaborator in it. So that was kind of an important thing. As far back as before the first LP, I knew I wanted to collaborate with Noel. But I also had the idea of the first LP ready. I just told him to bear with me and then we’d work on new stuff together. So he and I played some stuff with Joey Burns and John Convertino in Tuscon, that was about a year and a half ago. Joey was trying to generate new Calexico material, and he was kind enough to let me use this one track I really liked.
It started out as a collaborative EP. There’s two tracks with Joey and John, and one with Mary Hansen covering a Roy Orbison song. The third track, and the one that took the longest to put together, was this idea for a really, really long piece where I’d collaborate on some improvs with a few different people, and edit it together into one long. So I went to New York and did some low-key playing with Alan Licht, Tim Foljahn, and James McNew. Over the course of the next year, Noel and I listened to all that stuff, and edited it together in a way that seemed to make sense. Then Noel added some drum and bass parts over it. It was successful. It was an experiment that may not have been good, but we were actually really excited about the outcome.
NATN: John, what is some of the more recent stuff you’ve produced/engineered?
JM: It’s all been good. I’ve been super lucky to work with all the people that I have. We started a Stereolab record right before we left on the fall Sea & Cake tour, and we’ll pick it up when we get back. I did an EP with Rebecca Gates, and a couple of small things. We started a Chicago Underground Quartet record. But a lot of this year was doing Tortoise and the Sea & Cake. Oh, one thing that I did recently that was really great was.. do you know this guy named Phil Ranelin? He ran Tribe Records in Detroit in the early ‘70s. The stuff is really varied stylistically, but I kind of equate it with AACM stuff, just in terms of their profile and activities. It wasn’t just a label, it was a community organization. Some of that had been reissued in bits and pieces on Soul Jazz, but Hefty bought the rights to it, so we went back and got the original multi-track masters and remixed everything. That stuff turned out great. I’m really, really happy with it. It’ll be out in May. They did two separate LPs. I think there will be remixes for that stuff, too.
THE ALUMNI
NATN: What is [former Tortoise member] Bundy K. Brown up to these days?
JM: He’s an ambulance driver now. He did do a new Pullman record that should be out this spring. It’s different than the last one; they’ve got a drummer on some of the tracks and they were using electric instruments as well. He’s good. He seems even-keel. He’s actually changed his name back to his original name, which is Ken.
NATN: I must say that the Directions In Music album remains one of my true favorites.
JM: Yeah, it’s totally great. I think ultimately that’s the way he wants to do things. When he’s got an idea and the ambition, he’ll just do it. He doesn’t want it to be anything even approaching full time. That was the problem he had with us. It was turning into kind of a job for him, and he didn’t like that. Which is totally fine. But I think that’s why his stuff is good, because he can really focus on it when he wants to.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"