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Secret Chiefs 3


Cyprian's apprentice

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novi, fenomenalni projekat trey spruance-a (ex mr. bungle. faith no more, faxed head), trenutno moj omiljeni bend. fantasticna kombinacija surf rock-a, bliskoistocne tradicionalne muzike, death-grind ekscesa, epskih orkestracija, arapskog misticizma, neo-platonicarske filozofije i pitagorejskih teorija o muzici. ortak ih je skoro gledao u londonu i kaze da je koncert bio...prosto neverovatan. pouzdano znam da pocetkom sledece godine dolaze ponovo u evropu i da su izrazili veliku zelju da dodju u srbiju. i nije u pitanju klasicna zapadnjacka radoznalost, razlozi su daleko dublji i plemenitiji...:)

 

evo par linkova :

 

exodus (official video)

 

renunciation ( live at recovery)

 

 

 

myspace strana

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pouzdano znam da pocetkom sledece godine dolaze ponovo u evropu i da su izrazili veliku zelju da dodju u srbiju. i nije u pitanju klasicna zapadnjacka radoznalost, razlozi su daleko dublji i plemenitiji...

:)

 

Plemeniti i dubljiji? Deder se malo izjasni, dolaze zbog gibe i rakije, ne? :mhihi::pivopije:

 

Book of horizons predivan album, ako zaista vrnu definitivno bi ga pazario na oridjinalu.

 

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+10-20 Mr.Bungle fanova koji i dalje verno prate sta rade clanovi iz doticnog benda.

Hm, mozda ako bi upali u kombinaciju sa jos nekim poznatijim bendom iz slicne muzicke branse, onda bi i nesto bilo, jerbo kada se setim onomad kada je bio Billy Gould sa Harmful bilo je samo 5-10 ljudi na koncertu...

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  • 3 weeks later...

For a small bunch of fans, Trey Spruance needs no introduction. He is the insanely talented guitarist of Secret Chiefs 3 and Mr. Bungle, and other bizarre bands such as Faxed Head, Three Doctors and... yes, he played in a Faith No More album. After seeking him for two years, on september 08 we both were able to do an email interview. In this first part, Spruance is going to talk about his chilhood in Eureka, the first show of Mr. Bungle, his obscure death metal background with the band Scourge, his underground projects in the beginning of the nineties and his friendship with Gregg Turkington and John Zorn.

 

My questions are in bold; his answers are in thin.

 

 

Rivers: How did music positively influenced your childhood in California? Are the American homes so full of music as they seem to be? Does any relative of you played any musical instrument?

 

hahahahahaaaaa! ahem... sorry.

I grew up in a very rural place in the middle of nowhere, a very "backward" place (Eureka). My dad played a little bit of trombone in his youth, but never really played it while I was growing up. But the great thing about my dad is that he seems to be one of the last people in America with a really strong 'classical' education, and a great literacy (at least appreciation) of classical music of all kinds. So while I was being forcibly culturally indoctrinated with AC/DC and bullshit like Foreigner, at home my dad was playing Stravinsky and Poulenc records. My solution for awhile was to listen to Devo (whom I still love) with the three friends I'd made among the pool of rednecks. After awhile I couldn't take it, and was very thankful when Slayer came along and rescued me from any temptation to further depression in the bleak nothingness of 'rock & roll'. Around that time (1984/85), after being exposed to Rite of Spring and Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani, plus Bartok and Shostakovich by my dad, I guess you could say I "changed sides" on the whole "parents vs. your friends music" wars, and joined my dad's team. I stopped caring at all what was considered "good" music among any of my contemporaries, unless they were into extreme death metal, or were deeply immersed in classical music... I was lucky to have some really REALLY good music teachers during this time. Finally I moved to San Francisco in 1990 & was able to explore the more conducive musical environment that people think of when they think of California.

 

 

Rivers: I also grew up in a small town. I remember me and my friends were always bored, so we played in lots of hardcore punk bands. Do you believe is there any relationship between music and boredom, or between boredom and delinquency, or even between boredom and extreme genres of music as death metal or hardcore punk? Why was Bungle connected to jumping freight trains?

 

You've hit the nail-on-the-head, for sure! Yeah, I guess freight train jumping was almost like some rite, or monastic tonsure for our tiny clan. We were so alienated... but we weren't going to sit around and drink and numb ourselves or whatever. We were going to EXPLODE. When the train horn rang out, we would often drop whatever it was we were doing and race down to the tracks to try and get on... sometimes it'd be racing through town and we'd chase it and jump on at the last second. Other times we'd wait for hours and hours for it... the train sort of set the tone for us; though it had an irregular schedule, it was sort of like our own unpredictable call toprayer: we had to obey it. For no reason, mind you... we just knew we had to jump the train and riding ANYWHERE & then try to find a way to get back home. That was our 'rite'. And we were faithful to it. Now that I think about it, doing this as a tiny insular group of musical "extremists" was after all similar to what we were doing as a band. I don't know which was the more prominent part of our "ethos" at that point: music or the train. Honestly, probably the train. You make a good point.

 

 

Rivers: What can you tell us about the formation of your first band, Scourge. Was there a particular reason why you decided to resurrect this band during 1990? There were other metal bands in the area of Eureka in that time? Have you have any other new from the drummer Jed Watts since then? Did you know he is now in a death metal band called Machete?

 

Yeah, I heard about that!!!! Scourge was one of maybe two death metal bands --- but we weren't a death metal band. Listening to those demos, they are more like a premonition of Neurosis or something, but way sicker. I was extremely dark during that time. It was kind of a mix between a Nietzche-inspired bloodlust, environmental terrorist ethos, and a very extreme brand of misanthropy that black metal is only just now getting around to tapping in to. It was villainy, there was no 'moral' content. An embodiment of the "boogey-man" in the area I was living. I was only too happy to become their "devil"... it was sick, and I was, frankly, completely out of my mind. Luckily I had some good friends to collaborate on that with, so I can blame some of the problems on them.... :)

 

 

Rivers: What do you remember from the first Mr. Bungle show at Eureka's High School Talent Show in 1985? Besides the jokey covers of Run-D.M.C., Village Brothers, Monkees, and Motley Crue, you played some instrumental stuff that Mark Prindle described as "Metal Polkas". What can you tell us about these old songs?

 

Those are Camper Van Beethoven covers from their first album "Telephone Free Landslide Victory". We learned them the day before that gig. We MAY have played one original. "Evil Satan" perhaps. Or "Hypocrites". But no Death Metal.

 

 

Rivers: I have noticed a big evolution from the second Mr. Bungle demo ("Bowel Of Chiley") to the third one ("God Dammit, I Love America!"). Even in Patton' vocals... When the third demo was recorded, was Patton in Faith No More? Do you think his work with the band of Gould, Bordin, Bottum and MArtin affected to his vocal abilities, making him sounding much better in "OU818" 1989 demo?

 

He joined FNM well after the recoding of "Goddamnit I love America". In fact, I think we recorded OU818 right around the time he was working on the FNM album. He definitely hadn't toured with them yet. I think Patton's voice just matured along the way. If you ask me, he became a great vocalist much AFTER the Mr. B self-titled and "Goddamnit I love America". --- a growth initiated by getting used to being around a lot of great musicians (from improvising in Zorn's Cobra etc), and listening to a lot more good music than we ever could do in Eureka. This is a maturity he brought not just as a vocalist but also as a more confident and well-rounded musician to the recordings of Angel Dust, as well as Disco Volante.

 

Of course, as far as Mr. Bungle goes, we had all grown along similar lines, and after getting away with so much chaos on tour in 1992, with a new well-grounded musical confidence going in MANY directions, all this did was make the band even more musically adventurous (forcing us to also take the mantle of studio production to service our ridiculously elaborate vision).

 

 

Rivers: So, how do you decide to move to San Francisco? Could you tell us how you met Gregg Turkington and start to work with him? From 1990 to 1995 (more or less), your main focus seemed to be Bungle, but you worked on a bunch of projects and underground bands like Faxed Head, Pop-O-Pies, Crafty Ladies, Mol Triffid (as a producer), The Three Doctors Band, Los Parasitos... How would you evaluate this period of time and work?

 

I met Gregg I guess in 1990? I think the first time I met him he came over to Mike's and my house in SF... I didn't really talk to him much. But my girlfriend at the time (who is too smart for her own good) was really good friends with him and insisted on bringing me together with some of her friends in Caroliner Rainbow and Gregg & see what would happen. A few "Great Phone Calls" were made, and then our discovery of the band Faxed Head from Coalinga, California led us to patronize their efforts at overcoming disability to make some good, old time death metal with cracked electronics. This was still 1990 or 91. Later I met Neil Hamburger through Gregg, and set up microphones for him & recorded him in some faraway and unlikely nightclubs. Yes, playing with Joe Pop-o-Pie was another indoctrination into fearlessness, preparing me for the later irruption of the 3 Doctors Band. During all this time I was was furiously learning everything I could about hi-fi / lo-fi audio gear and techniques --- so I was able to collaborate with a lot of really brilliant conceptualists and extremists of a sort in San Francisco in the early '90s --- I guess sort of the last gasp for the extreme "post post punk" post-Flipper underground there. The place was just filled with mysterious talent, and was just very alive. I learned so much; trying to keep up with it all and translate things on a 'technical' level without killing the spirit led to what became a renaissance period for my development as a low-grade, high-concept "recording engineer". Absolutely. But more importantly, I was introduced to and was lucky enough to forge some good friendships with people I greatly admire.

 

 

Rivers: Can you explain us about that rare Mr. Bungle 7" called "Mi Stoke Il Cigaretto". Where does it come from?

 

It comes from that era. :)

 

 

Rivers: In the early nineties you worked with Zorn in Cobra and Xu Feng, the "Elegy" album and even in the infamous Weird Little Boy. Was there a particular reason why you have limited your collaborations with John Zorn after that? How was working with him again for the "Xaphan: Book of Angels Volume 9" album?

 

It was marvellous. Zorn is one of my favorite people on earth. A truly generous heart, and his very rare spark of insight, inspiration, and social magnetism accords well with his brilliant economy of dizzying compositional depth. One of the world's great problem solvers, I can tell you. But yeah, for a long time there I had an itch that needed scratching: I have my own idea about how the process of music should go --- what kind of care should go into it. I just needed time to develop that away from any influence, not just Zorn's. Thus my various "disappearances". And I'm glad I did. Zorn's method is very different than mine, and I can say frankly his is really a lot smarter than my own approach, which is comparatively stupidly cumbersome and laborious. But I needed to develop that method nonetheless. Since Zorn is so broad-minded and accommodating, it turns out to be very complimentary situation when we do manage to have some interaction. I consider myself very fortunate to have a friendship with one of the very few visionary beacons living today.

 

Interview by David Von Rivers.

 

 

 

End of part one. In part two, Spruance will talk about the recording of "Disco Volante", reveal some obscurities about the song "Merry Go Bye Bye", announce a Faxed Head release, share some reflections about faith No More and talk about the eventual writting of an article about the recording of the album "California".

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  • 3 weeks later...

In the first part of this interview, Trey Spruance told us about his first steps as the guitarist and composer of Mr. Bungle and Scourge. After that in 1990, Spruance relocated to San Francisco, where he continued involved with Mr. Bungle, but also formed part of various nonsensical and instructive projects with Gregg Turkington and John Zorn.

 

Bungleheads, ¡this second part is 4 U! Trey Spruance will elaborate about the recording of "Disco Volante", and you will know some strange facts about "Merry Go Bye Bye". Also you could read what Trey thinks on his brief residence in Faith No More, and above all, see what he thinks about Mr. Bungle' end.

 

My questions are in bold; his answers are in thin.

 

Para leer la entrevista en español, por favor haz click AQUÍ.

 

What can you tell us about the period of rehearsals, demos and recording of 'Disco Volante'? Does your departure from Faith No More affected the recording process of that record, or you get along well?

 

Nah, that part was fine. Mike didn't even want me to be in Faith No More in the first place, so there was no problem there. The rehearsals were more like "arrangement sessions". Usually two of us working together on arrangement in one room, while two or three screwed around and went nuts in the other. We developed the idea of "snakes", essentially through-compositions with recurring sequences --- pretty much like we had always done, but by then becoming quite exact. We started concentrating on "transitional" material that we used to get between parts we KNEW had to be there in a certain sequence; and then these transitions would end up recurring etc. There was very little "instrumental rehearsal" --- there never was in Mr. Bungle. The band was compositionally-oriented from the ground up, and our instruments as well as all the technical problems that needed to be overcome, were all servicing the goal of the composition. Only rarely did we "hash out parts" --- almost never was there "woodshedding". We only really learned songs AFTER they were recorded, and then too, it was usually about "how do we get this keyboard to trigger that midi channel and then switch halfway through" etc, and then trying to make it all fit together. A very "non-attatched to personal talent" band. It was really great that way. I've definitely never seen anything like it, before, during or since.

 

 

Mr. Bungle en 2000.

 

 

For years, I have been fascinated by the song "Merry Go Bye Bye", even more when I found that the noise section in the middle of the song was featured in the "Stereo Test Record Vol. 1" CD released in 1995 by Indiscreet Records, under the title 'Millers Higher Life'. What can you tell us about this track and it's introduction on "Disco Volante"? Has anyone ask you this question before?

 

Well, I guess my own psychic irruptions in that period speak most loudly in that song. I'd made that section as an electro-acoustic composition on very primitive equipment, in a flurry of psychic distress in around 1993. You could say I was contending with some psychisms... perhaps some demonisms I had opened myself up to by seeking to pry the universe open by force. So that piece became haunted with that for me, and I put it away. Later on, having gotten a little perspective, I was kind of in the middle of writing a song about that period in 1993, when I was asked to contribute a piece for that comp. I pulled, that electroacoustic composition out & mixed it. A few days later, still only having a vague idea of the "ironic" song I was writing, and still having no lyrics, I was laying in the bathtub and all the lyrics for it came to me at once, written in a blaze of five minutes. It was then that I knew that the song must be torn open and that haunted piece must irrupt into it...

 

I actually quite regret the Faustian audacity of all that (I even put a lot of the arrangement together in editing as a "surprise" for the rest of the band to find out about). The worst thing is that one of my friends did a stage dive while we played that song at our concert on the turn of the millennium and hit his head hard. And knowing nothing of the song's genesis and meaning, he basically went schizo on it for a long time, wandering around San Francisco telling people all the mysterious shit that was wrapped up in those lyrics, and asking me every time I saw him what all the different meanings were as if his life depended on the answers... here I was being haunted by that shit again seven years later, but worse was that someone ELSE now had the problem. I couldn't pretend like there was nothing to it, but worse was the feeling that I had infected him with something that was gripping his soul with that song. Man, you gotta be really careful... I have been anything but careful, of course.

 

 

Merry Go Bye Bye, en directo el 31 de diciembre de 1999.

 

 

At the end of October 1995, you toured Japan with the band Faxed Head. Could yopu share some anecdote of this gigs?

 

Actually, I'm going to let the NEW FAXED HEAD LIVE DVD from Osaka 1995 tell that story! It comes out in early September!!!

 

 

How did you come to the decision of placing a Secret Chiefs 3 vinyl together with the first 'Disco Volante' vinyl pressings? The first Secret Chiefs record is constructed with some basic tracks recorded during the "Disco Volante" sessions. I remember you were explaining in 1995 the basis were going to be on the third Bungle album... How do you decided to use them in your new project then?

 

what? No, I don't think that's accurate at all. We've always kept a pretty big wall between the two projects. All the really weird stuff on the First SC3 album is mostly improvisation (which we never did in Mr. Bungle), and the composed stuff is pretty drastically different than Mr. Bungle. (Killing of Kings, White As They Come, Resurrection Day Soundtrack etc --- really not very "bunglish"). Maybe as far as recording process I was saying we would use some of the recording/production techniques I'd developed in SC3 on the 3rd Mr. Bungle album. And that's definitely true. I've equally used recording/production techniques I learned in Mr. Bungle in SC3. But there's never even been a temptation of trading material between the bands --- they were, are, and always will be completely different ideas.

 

 

Perhaps you could share some reflections from your short period in Faith No More? Have you talked with Billy Gould or any other of the guys since then?

 

Yeah! I've seen Billy a couple of times. Puffy came to a Secret Chiefs 3 gig last year --- man, it was so great to see him! I didn't realize how much I'd missed him until I saw him again.

 

Respecting their fragile situation in the 90's, I waited until way after the fact to talk a little shit about how it all went down (what happened that led up to me leaving, and how some of them reacted to my departure) because it was in fact an incredibly lame situation. Of course, I really sucked at human interaction at that time, so it's just as much my own incapacities as anyone else's that led to my discontent. (they were quite tolerant of my quirks, frankly). Overall my time spent with those guys was a really REALLY good experience for me, especially getting to pick Andy Wallace's brain for production tips for over a month. Also learning how fucked up band dynamics can get; it permanently impressed upon me that you really DON'T want to be in a situation with that many people making money off of you. I really hated the "culture" surrounding that band like vultures. I was a long time FNM fan from back in 1985 (I liked them a lot more than Mike did! ask him, he'll tell you!), and I felt like those poor guys had gotten into a fucked up situation on the one hand trying to keep Mike happy (he wasn't, and was being really difficult for them by that point), and on the other hand, trying to deliver a "marketable" record to a FICKLE, DISINTERESTED RECORD COMPANY who had blown THEIR chance at having a seriously huge smash with Angel Dust --- and was still blaming that mistake on the band (who were, sadly, going along with the label's erroneus assessment & taking it upon themselves to try and second-guess the "market"). SUCKED. Everyone was tattered by the whole situation. Jim was gone. Roddy, who I love, was kind of pushed out of the writing process (and he's the guy with all the pop-sensibility, so go figure). I think we did alright trying to inject an uninspired record with life, but it was a dismal, unhealthy, cynical environment. The shady situation with me doing everything with no contractual agreement didn't help my own outlook. Once I figured out how things were actually working (and were not going to change), I saw the recording through and quit pretty much the week we got home so they'd have a chance to get a new guitar player. I think it was just insecurity about "why would anyone quit?" that led them make me out to be a lazy rich kid heir to the DuPont fortune (ha!) in the press... but I've enjoyed the air of aristocratic mystique in the meantime.

 

Anyway, I think Faith No More was a pretty special band. I just listened to the first album the other day, and it actually made my eyes well up with tears a couple of times hearing how fucking awesome it still is. Seeing them in '86 in our crappy little town was life-changing.

 

 

Faxed Head. Música fea.

 

 

What can you tell us about the Noddingturd Fan project you maintained in 1995?

 

Very little, other than that it probably hurt a lot of people.

 

 

How are you developing your essay regarding the "last big analogical recoding" that was California, and when do you think we'll have the opportunity to read about the intricate and innovative production techniques involved in producing Mr. Bungle's last album?

 

Oh boy...

You know, I'd happily do that as a section of some kind of collaborative Mr. Bungle book. I think doing stuff like that on your own after a band has finished would be in bad taste. But it's definitely a story that needs to be told. Someday...?

 

 

The Bungle members are you all now involved in your own projects and bands. Have you listened to Fantomas, Trevor Dunn' Trio Convulsant, Umlaut, theHEAD or Merle Morris. Have you listened to some of their stuff? If so, what is your opinion? Anyway, the Mr. Bungle split was a sad issue for fans. Do you feel like all of you had done the best for ending that mutual project in the best possible way? Do you think it will be possible for you to work again (in other projects) with any of these guys?

 

SC3 toured Australia last year with Danny on drums/percussion and Bar on and flute/percussion/keyboard (it was awesome!); and Bar's band Umlaut opened up for us. I like Fantomas, especially the darker, more violent stuff. I don't know anything about the HEAD or Merle Morris. I know that Trevor is a genius bass player, and that anything he is involved in creatively is going to be amazing...

 

No, it wasn't a good ending. But it never is. At least no one died from drugs or stole each other's wives or girlfriends! In some ways that might be preferable to the pettiness of what ended up being the final schism... but the important thing is that we all agreed not to pretend & just keep making music under agonizingly bullshit conditions where the music itself would collapse into mediocrity. That's a sort of "high road" that I'm proud to say we are all unanimous on. Mr. Bungle is a band that insists on pedigree over life itself --- if it means death for the band, so be it. Death before dishonor! One of the many reasons I respect all of the other former band members a great deal is the keeping of this unanimous, unspoken, military-style pact for pedigree; it continues vigilantly even after band death.

 

Trey Spruance, September 2008

Interview by David Von Rivers

 

 

 

End of part two. In part three, Spruance will talk about Mimicry Records!, Secret Chiefs 3!, Metallica!, Apokatastasis!, Asva!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

evropska turneja u junu/ julu, datumi potvrdjeni za sad :

 

26 June, 2009 - Festival LES 4 ECLUSES - Dunkirk, France

27 June, 2009 - Scheld'apen - Antwerp, Belgium

28 June, 2009 - Festival MUSIQUES VOLANTES - Metz, France

4 July, 2009 - Festival FURIA SOUND @ Base des loisirs - Pontoise, France

5 July, 2009 - L Usine - Geneva, Switzerland

6 July, 2009 - Bad Bonn - Düdingen, Switzerland

10 July, 2009 - Festival NORTH SEA JAZZ - MASADA @ Ahoy - Rotterdam, The Netherlands

 

bas bi mogli da ulete na exit, samo ne znam ko bi ih pozvao...

 

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због тога га треба додатно поштовати, реално, мени да организатор то приреди не знам како бих реаговао. вероватно бих изводио обраде нирване у спокен поетри маниру, ако бих изашао на бину уопште...

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tvrtko iz tigrove masti me pitao malopre da li ima nekog ko bi u srbiji organizovao secret chiefs 3, posto planiraju sledece godine na prolece da naprave turneju po balkanu, a ja nisam imao pojma sta da mu kazem. btw, za sad zagreb je izgleda siguran. doduse, cini mi se da je i za ovu godinu bila prica da su trebali da sviraju u zagrebu i po okolnim zemljama, ali sudeci po datumima za evropsku turneju, nista.

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  • 2 months later...

SC3_Bcn_20090701.jpg

 

Centre Artesà Tradicionarius, Vila de Gràcia (Barcelona), Spain
2009-07-01

Line up:

Timb Harris- violin.
Jai Young Kim- keyboards.
Trey Spruance- guitars & electronics.
Shazad Ismaily- electric bass.
Ches Smith- Drums & percussion.

Guest: Fred Frith- Guitar

Sound Quality: A+



Part 1
------
101-Book T,Waves of Blood
102-Book T, Broken Glass Hearse
103-Castles of Sand
104-Book T, Exodus
105-Personnae Halloween


Part 2 (With Fred Frith)
------
201-Asron
202-Shoel
203-Sheburiel
204-Bezriel
205-Kemuel

Part 3
------
301-Vajra
302-Dolorous Stroke
303-Ship of Fools (Stone of Exile)
304-Zulfikar
305-Renunciation

Encore
------
306-Encore-Hurqalya

Total Timing: 1 h. 22 m. 37 s.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?inynjlvniym
http://www.mediafire.com/?ntmzmmjv2rd

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