With Tripwires fantastic debut album, Spacehopper, out today in the U.K. and hitting North American store shelves June 18th, we are ecstatic to have the U.K. psych-rock band on A.T.W.N.
10 Questions with...Tripwires
What was it like, being from the small town of Reading in England, recording your debut album in Brooklyn?
Recording in Brooklyn was great for us. We wrote the album in the comfort of our homes, but recorded it in an alien environment. Sometimes it’s easy to get too comfortable recording demos in your own practice space. I would definitely say going to a crazy new place influences the way you approach things. When recording this album we wanted to make a little world, stepping out of a place that you are used to into a new environment certainly helps this process.
What are some of the lyrical influences that show up throughout your debut album Spacehopper?
There’s a lot of snapshots of youth, growing up, songs built from little experiences. In terms of themes, loss and the feeling of being lost appear quite a bit.
I can’t say any particular book has ever had a direct influence on our songwriting. It’s nice to appreciate a different way of expressing emotion though. I wouldn’t say lyrically we are much of a ‘story telling’ band, perhaps a little more self-conversationalist.
Star Wars or Star Trek?
Neither. Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ everytime!!
What was it like working with Nicolas Vernhes, who has produced albums for Animal Collective, Bjork and Dirty Projectors?
It was pleasure to work with Nicolas. He has recorded some amazing stuff with Deerhunter and Animal Collective previously, and the opportunity to work with him was something we couldn’t pass on. All of his stuff has great texture to it, and like us, he is a sucker for adding weird noises over the top of quite nicely constructed pop songs.
What are the reading habits for the band like on the road? I’m currently reading ‘The wind-up bird chronicle’ by Murakami.
When we were away earlier this week, I had it in the van and it started getting read by two others. You could say that book currently has 3 bookmarks in it.
Is there an author/musician you would love to see at one of your gigs?
Neil Young and Thurston Moore. Hand in hand, that really would be something.
Is there a band that played the Reading Festival that really inspired everyone?
I guess the Nirvana performance in ’92 still gets talked about today. We hadn’t even started school then, so didn’t see it. The DVD looks quite something though!
***
Thanks to Tripwires for taking the time to stop by ATWN this week. Tripwires debut album, Spacehopper, can be ordered through Frenchkiss Records, or iTunes. If you would like to connect with the band, check them out on Twitter and Soundcloud.
As a treat, the band is offering up a free download of their atmospheric track, ‘Catherine, I feel sick’ from their debut album which you can buy from the links above.
When I was assigned March 11 for my next contribution to All The Write Notes, I couldn't imagine writing anything that didn't acknowledge the sad fact that my mother died four years ago today. I worked for weeks, and started many drafts, only to realize I couldn't write anything new.
My mother's name was Susan and I think you would have loved her because, well, so many loved her. She was a creative soul with a soft spot for outcasts, treating everyone who came into her home like they were her own family. When she passed away, it was like dozens of people lost their mom, too.
Mom's influence on me musically is immense: From afternoons sprawled on the living room rug listening to opera records, to sitting next to her at the piano singing showtunes, to discovering she knew how to adjust the bass on her car stereo the moment she heard a Sly & The Family Stone song; the way I've learned to love and appreciate music is largely thanks to her.
When I wrote the piece below last year, I couldn't help but think about how funny it was that it was a musician that Mom hated—and whom didn't like at the time—who helped me through her long illness and eventual passing.
***
"I am of the theory that all of our transcendental connections, anything we’re drawn to, be it a person, a song, a painting on the wall – they’re magnetic. The art is the alloy, so to speak. And our souls are equipped with whatever properties are required to attract that alloy. I’m no scientist so I don’t really know what the hell these properties are, but my point is we’re drawn to stuff we've already got a connection to. Part of the thing is already inside of us.”
Mom was too tired to brush her teeth, and red Jell-O was all she wanted anymore. She slept with her mouth slightly agape, her teeth pink, her face white, her fingers blue.
In a Tijuana hospital, nobody spoke English well. I got her M&Ms from the corner store once, but she was frightened when I wasn't there. I changed her bedpan, and then her diapers. The nurses and I salved her bedsores, turning her, trying not to hurt her broken hip.
Ella tiene dolor en la cadera.
It, too, was dissolved, like her ribs, her breast, her lung. She cried at night, she shit herself. I held her hand when they poked and prodded. I smoothed her hair and she smiled sometimes. She had big, brown eyes like a calf. Like a Black-Eyed Susan.
Por que los dedos azul?
I rode in the ambulance with her. Federalis in full SWAT gear patrolled the streets in pickup trucks. I signed forms, I reminded the EMTs in high school Spanish to be gentle, that her hip was broken. I promised I’d be there when she got out from radiation. There were piles of hair around her bed, but she never went bald. She asked me if she was going to die.
Tengo miedo.
Whispering, too weak to speak, so tired. She slept at night, but I didn't. I watched movies, I used music. I was delirious from isolation, from tending a frightened child who happened to be my mother. And I had to be strong.
***
Many years before all this, my best friend got the first re-writable CD-ROM drive of anyone I knew. It took me all morning to rip and compile the first CD mixtape I ever made. It took the rest of the day to burn it.
Even though I didn't like him, my day-long labor included one Neil Young song. It was like… I had to.
Two years later, my brother and I drove six hours to St. Louis to see CSN&Y. I was happy that Neil played that one song. I felt like I’d seen something important, even though I still didn't like him. Stupid whiny voice, shitty guitar playing.
***
A decade later in a hospital room, I was despairing and I was alone with my thoughts. I wasn't sure how much longer I could take it. One day I noticed that nothing that I used to love made me happy anymore.
Nobody quite knew what to say. So I corresponded with a friend of mine, an Iraq combat vet, who understood the depths of isolation and weariness and futility and the unfair demands to muster strength and comfort in an impossible situation. He said I was the only civilian he could talk to.
When Mom went to bed, the TV was on all night. It was comforting for her. I couldn't sleep anymore anyhow; there were always sheets and diapers and a body to be cleaned. The nurses were gone.
One night, she wanted the TV off. It was too dark, and so I gathered in my laptop. I don’t remember how I found it, or why I was looking for his music, but I watched this video of Neil Young—who I didn't like, who had a stupid whiny voice and played shitty guitar—over and over:
It made me happy.
***
I suppose there was a latent connection that was always inside of me, a Neil-shaped hole in my heart. And I suppose it just took the right switch to turn it on, to make me love more than one song, to magnetize the rest of me to his music. I couldn't tell you why it happened, and I don’t think I’m supposed to anyhow; it would sound stupid and weird.
But it was just what I needed when I needed it.
***
When Mom died, she returned to the ocean, her ashes became foam. She loved the water. My two best friends were going to dress as Captain & Tenille for her funeral because my mother would have loved that, too. She was so funny. There will never be a headstone, because that’s how she wanted it. She promised to haunt me, and she does in a way.
When I breathe the salt air, I am with her. I am half of her anyhow, maybe more. And now Neil Young is part of it all, somehow, in a non-creepy way. It’s hard to explain.
When I was in high school, I had a teacher who delighted in showing Predator to his students on Valentine’s Day. His broader meaning was clear: Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday worthy of ridicule. His deeper meaning wasn't clear to me as a teenager, but it's crystal clear to me as an adult: Predator is a metaphor for what "grown-up love" will do to you, if a little over-the-top.
Puppy love gets all the pop songs and all the ennui, but it’s grown-up love that devastates you. One of the things nobody tells you about adulthood, until you find yourself mired in it, is how complicated and insane and ill-timed grown-up love can be. Why? Because the stakes are so much higher. Love has always been a gamble, but now you're standing at the roulette wheel with way too much riding on red.
But what really makes grown-up love so different than the very real, very heartbreaking stuff of youth? Laugh all you want, but Nicolas Cage as Ronny Cammareri in Moonstruck gives the best description of the difference that I've ever heard:
Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice—it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit! Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!
Naturally, this speech works splendidly in the movie; Loretta and Ronny wind up together in a hilarious finish. That’s Hollywood, where grown-up love works out for the best. In real life, of course, love gets increasingly complicated the older you get. And nobody tells you that!
On this Valentine's Day, I’d like to explore some songs that deal with the ups and downs of grown-up love; songs that are beyond simple broken hearts and he-said-she-said emo posturing. These are the songs of people who were a little bit destroyed by grown-up love. They may have moved on by now, but the record remains.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Pardon My Heart—Neil Young
They say the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. That seems to be what “Pardon My Heart” is all about. Sometimes, there’s no big breakup. Sometimes, things just change. Sometimes, things get comfortable. You don’t realize the spark is gone until you try to get it back. And many times, it doesn't come back. With grown-up love, you bring it all on yourself.
Ventura—Lucinda Williams
Grown-up love can leave you aggrieved in ways that young love does not. Sometimes you can’t cry about it. You drive around in your car, listening to music, wishing you could just walk into the ocean. “Ventura” could be about death or the end of a relationship; it’s so far from being on-the-nose that the distinction between the two is blurred, as it often is in real life.
Love Reign O’er Me—The Who
I was friends with someone who told me that Quadrophenia helped him get through his 30s. I never understood what he was on about until I reached my 30s. After all, the album is the story of a mod teenager trying to find his way. But the resilience of youth is strikingly absent. The landscape is so bleak and the prospects are so hazy that “Love Reign O’er Me” fits within an adult’s experience perfectly. Sometimes there’s nothing to do except stand out in the rain and scream and hope it brings you relief somehow.
Somebody That I Used to Know—Gotye
Say what you will about the most ubiquitous song of the past year (second only to “Call Me Maybe” or “Gangnam Style”), but Wally De Backer wrote a refreshingly unique earworm about the boring, humiliating, ridiculous ugliness of a grown-up breakup. There’s no big fight, no dramatic exit, no obsessive pleading; just a collection of personal belongings and the changing of phone numbers. It’s so anti-climactic it hurts.
The Actor—The Moody Blues
Infatuation doesn't end when you grow up, and the desire to escape grows more intense the older you get and the more tied into life you become. “The Actor” describes a woman who becomes besotted with an actor she sees on television. This kind of separation from reality is something that we, as adults, experience more as the years go on and our lives solidify. Things seem more unattainable than ever before, including love, especially if we haven’t found it yet.
Can You Get to That—Funkadelic
Writing checks for love that your heart can’t cash. This is another grown-up break-up song, but one that acknowledges the price of our indiscretions. As we enter into ever more serious relationships, the increasing (potential) consequences to our actions can become the reason why we shrink from responsibility. Sometimes being honest in a relationship is the toughest thing you can do, but it’s a big way grown-up love is different from puppy love. Grown-up love sometimes requires us to be mature when we don’t want to be, when it doesn't seem fair, and when doesn't feel good. Can you get to that?
Enchanting Ghost—Sufjan Stevens
It’s hard to know if Sufjan is writing with religious or romantic overtones, so I’ll keep with the theme of this post and extrapolate the latter meaning from this song: Sometimes we want to know why someone wanted to be with us in the first place. Grown-ups like to over-think like that. Other times, we can’t bear to disrupt the few fond memories we may have of the person we once gave all our love to. That “enchanting ghost” that keeps us from feeling like we've been fooled, that we've wasted years of our lives—years that are suddenly more precious than we could have ever imagined in our younger days. The end result is that sometimes we stay with the wrong person because who they were, and who we want them to be, mean more to us than who they really are.
Teenagers: You've been warned!
What are your favorite “Grown-Up Love Songs”? Let us know in the comments!
What was it like, being from the small town of Reading in England, recording your debut album in Brooklyn?
I’m currently reading ‘The wind-up bird chronicle’ by Murakami. 
Is there an author/musician you would love to see at one of your gigs?
