| Musicians have different reasons for seeking NYC and the big cities, usually fame or fortune. What drew you to NYC and away from Providence, RI?
i think that i really, desperately needed someplace new. it actually could have been anyplace, but new york seemed to offer the best forum in the world for my chief
interests: music, film, and sound. i went to school in providence, and after it ended i felt that i really had to get away, for professional and personal reasons. i haven't always been the tower of emotional calm and composedness ( is that a word?) you see before you, and wiping the slate clean really helped me to get started with my life again. and i am happy to report that new york city is a wonderful, wonderful place for me. i've been writing a ton of new material, playing a lot of shows,
meeting millions of amazing people in the village acoustic scene sometimes called Antifolk, and falling madly in love on many levels. i am productive, happy, excited and even exciting.
specific to music i have one thing to say: contrary to popular assumption, it seems to be easier to get people to listen in new york than in a smaller place like providence. some people in providence
don't start to hear you until you've been there for, say, 15 years. it's a big commitment for little return. don't get me wrong, i love providence and i love a lot of people there, but there is so much room for something new in new york, a new voice, a new face. all you need is a little talent and persistence. i love it here.
What is your opinion of the analog v. digital debate? What is your approach to recording?
recording - ok. so you know the album i made on my own. with one exception (read on), it was recorded to DAT (digital audio tape) and mixed in ProTools. i had access to the equipment at the time. actually in my opinion it's harder to find good analog recording stuff nowadays than good digital stuff. it's kind of scary that good old tape is getting phased out of our lives, bvt i have a lot to say in favor of the digital revolution. it's quite comparable to the pros and
cons of film vs. video: one is more beautiful, the other is more convenient. plain and simple. people can argue as much as they want but the conflict comes down to that; we sacrifice organism for precision. i think there is a way to bring them together, but to pick one? digital. so versatile, such a liquid format. and DAT is quite low noise -- i mean a lot of that stuff was recorded in my apartment, but no-one would necessarily know that. now they do. oh well. You cite "Cling" on
www.mp3.com/casey as a short film you created. Tell us more about it.
cling is a short film i made which revolves around a classified phone dating service and examines people who use it and interact through it. it's not a documentary, it's a script i wrote, casted, shot, edited, and finished. it's basically a film about neurotic bisexual twenty-somethings chasing each
other around and asking for attention and arguing. the other byline is they have pets, and treat their pets like people. the title comes from a discussion between two of the characters concerning which of their cats is more "clingy". it's a weird film. i say that from a completely impartial standpoint -- it's strange and impressionistic and sometimes coded. but it's also kind of funny, there are some good jokes.
anyhow, yes, the electronic music/sampling/synthesis thing is a new
branch for me. i got excited about it and created some stuff in a pretty short amount of time; i mean the learning curve was extreme. cling, for people who haven't heard it, is made mostly of phone samples -- beeps, clatters, dial tone. it was a formal way to address the large theme of phone communication in the film it was made for. i think it's cool to turn a song kind of into a "found object" type of thing. as a visual artist i appreciated the difference between my songwriter
instincts and my conceptual creative impulses, and i think that's what i'm messing around with there. here's the link: http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/1503/1503667.html One of the tracks on the CD (you and me and ex) , Aeolus, has a particular sound to it, a bit electronic. How did you capture that sound? you're
right, aeolus was a very different recording process than the other tracks on ex. i have an old cassette recorder, the rectangle with a speaker and a handle kind, which i've had since i was very small, and i use it to test songs, listen to myself, try and iron out kinks. well, the version of aeolus on the album was recorded on this thing. i busted up the track in ProTools, EQ'd the hell out of it, used separate tracks and forms of reverb and split the bass into a separate track to manipulate
it individually. i also mixed this song live, which is why the bass may seem to weave in and out. i also basically cut out frequencies above 3 or 4k, so it sounds a bit like being underwater. i would call that an experiment, the result of a whimsical mind and a lack of resources. good old lofi.
Here it is, 2003. Another year older and wiser. Sum up your 2002 experiences for us.
Hmm. Well, this year, like last year, I made a CD. Ten songs, some new and some resurrected. Actually, it’s a pretty great document and analog for the past year for me, since it was one so packed full of new prospects, but also of looking back to musical beginnings. I think one major thing that happened for me musically this
year was the discovery that songs I made many moons ago are still fresh and actually have new meaning. I feel privileged as a songwriter to have this kind of reference or device to ‘look up’ my past and bring it to bear on the present.
But otherwise? Well, I played a lot of gigs. I played on west coast and also in Nashville (!), and had the great experience of meeting up with this
amazing Antifolk community I’m now in, and participating in the NYAF festival. Also I went back to my Cambridge, MA stomping grounds for a showcase at Passim--a big deal for me, since it’s one of the oldest and coolest folk venues in New England. I’m getting more comfortable with the situation of being an artist in New York, and just someone who lives here in general. That’s something I never thought I would/could be years ago. I think the experience of being here has really opened me up as a person and sharpened me as a musician. So I’m grateful.
Through you I had the great pleasure of greeting Jenn Lindsay. How did you first link up with her? What sort of impact does she leave on you in terms of your creativity?
Yeah, I’m glad you met Jenn! It’s always a pleasure for me to turn people on to her music. Aha, and how did we meet? A popular question. I first met Jenn at that
venerable venue, the Sidewalk Cafe. We were both just starting
to hang around at the Monday night Antihootenanny, which is the main event for people in the Antifolk scene to rub elbows and play music and have an excuse to stay out till three on a Monday night. I heard Jenn play a couple of times and then we started talking, and walking, and getting cocoa, and things like that. We found that we have many things not in common, like a love for Oingo Boingo (ok, ok, I think they’re all right) and obscure musicals, and a propensity to cycle across the country when we get bored (I prefer planes.) What we do have in common is a love for songwriting, and Jenn’s music is a constant and always-evolving inspiration to me. She’s certainly one of the best things that happened to me over the past year, and I am very grateful for her as well.
Any highlights from the recording and production of your latest CD, ‘Bad Spell, Good Spell’?
Definitely the biggest highlights had to do with the people I got to work with -- my brother Matt Holford, who is the driving keyboard force behind the band Darediablo added all kinds of new expansive dimensions to the songs, and the aforementioned Jenn Lindsay was good enough to sing on two tracks, and she sounds just awfully good.
But in anecdotal highlights, here’s a good story: Me and Scott Mann, who engineered and produced the album with me, were
trying to figure out a way to add to ‘Climb the Walls’ (opening cut) and we were just stumped on it for a while. One day we tried to bring Matt in to play Rhodes, but after a few passes he decided it wasn’t doing enough for the song. So instead, Matt and Scott started bouncing around the room and picking up a strange assortment of stuff to make noise with, and we came up with a big cardboard box and a spiral-bound notebook, a shaker and a triangle, and one last instrument Scott wanted to use earlier on the album called a ‘Waterphone’, which makes about the creepiest noise you can imagine. We put all that stuff together to make what I think is a really great and surprising rhythm track on the song, but I couldn’t have done it without them.
I also have to note, in the percussion vein, that I never could have added a lot of the other drumming and whatnot without Jenn, who invested in a junior drum kit for my birthday. I brought in the snare and crash from that kit one weekend at Bus Driver (Scott’s studio) and we went to work. So I would like to publicly, or virtually, thank Jenn for that. Thanks!
Whom do you look forward to hearing and performing with in 2003?
Umm.
Is this a
wishlist? Hmm. Well, as always, I look forward to hearing new music around here that at this point I can’t even conceive of right now. But I also look forward to hearing what all of my friends and musical acquaintances do this year: Jenn, Danny Kelly, Darediablo, Diane Cluck, Dave Deporis, Knot Pinebox, Toby Goodshank, Dave O’Neal, Robin Aigner, Erin Mckeown, Julian Velard, Eric Lippe, Chris Maher, Yoko Kikuchi. Many of these folks I can also look forward to playing shows with, if all is well. A bunch of us are going to make a break for the scholastic wilderness and play more schools this year too. So lock up your daughters! Ha ha ha.
Casey adds these words in closing:
“Folks can now buy “Bad Spell, Good Spell” online at CD Baby Go there to listen to tracks from the album, read more about it, and maybe write a review if you got it already!”
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