Dream come true news of the week: Cha Cha Lounge will be celebrating the launch of shop.chachalounge.com (and Suspect zine!) with a live silkscreening party on Tuesday, Sept. 21, and for one night only you’ll be able to get L.A. RECORD pint glasses! Come by and either buy one of several custom new shirts or bring your own shirts-or hoodies or tableclothes or wedding dresses or anything!-and get them screened while-u-drink! And yes, that is the eagle from the city seal eating a street dog while hanging out on a boom box above the lizard people who live underneath the downtown library.

Download: Chicha Libre “Primavera En La Selva”

(Chicha Libre plays with Very Be Careful and Special Lord B on Fri., Apr. 23, at El Cid)

Stream: Big Freedia “Azz Everywhere”

New Orleans’s premier ‘Sissy Bounce’ rapper Big Freedia will be in L.A. tonight performing a style of dance and rap music rarely seen outside of the Deep South. For those who don’t know much about bounce, it’s a highly repetitive call-and-response style of rap originating from New Orleans block parties, and it’s been ruling the local street culture for the past fifteen years. Sissy bounce is its gender-bending counterpart and has become immensely popular in New Orleans, where people are historically more open-minded to queer and transgender acts. Calling out dance moves and getting the crowd involved is what it’s all about, and Big Freedia always delivers. Even the dance-squeamish people will shake it. This interview by John Henry.

Do you think bounce is finally getting out and getting the recognition it deserves after so many years down South?
Big Freedia: Yes—I’m very excited about that because we’ve been working so hard for so long and it’s time for the exposure. A lot of people love what we’re doing—they love our music. It’s party music. It makes you want to dance and have fun and you know, get into it! See what it’s all about.
What are you calling out during the call-and-response parts?
Big Freedia: We do repetitious things in a lot of our songs and then we do more lyrical songs where we express ourselves and say what we’re feeling, but it’s more of a chant. That’s what we represent—that’s what makes it different because we can say like ‘ring your booty’ a million times, but it’s just the way you change it and what you add to it—make the flavor and switch up and change and make it be different. The people give us inspiration for new songs and the dancers and the moves that they do, and then we make up something that we would call it. So we make the name up. That’s how it basically goes—that’s how it is. It started from the past generations when you know … if the girl would bend over, then that would be the ‘Bend Over!’ It’s very self-explanatory—like I have a little song coming out called ‘Slap the Wall,’ and basically the move in the song is they’ll be slapping the wall, slapping the floor, slapping their ass, slapping everything I tell them to slap. It’s all about what you see the people do. It inspires you to make different sounds and different names for the moves. I actually saw a female at one of my concerts and she was slapping the floor when she was dancing and I just started saying, ‘Slap the wall! Shake it like a dog! Slap the floor! Make your booty go! Slap your ass! Shake it real fast!’ and it became a hit.
Is that what makes bounce such a great participatory form of music?
Big Freedia: Yeah—that’s how we do. Most of the time it happens like that because the person is actually doing the move in front of you, and that’s what inspires you to call the move or whatever. Then it inspires you to go to the studio and make a whole song about it, you know. It’s a freestyle, you know? Most of the time I’m just going right off the top of the mind from the reaction of the crowd and that’s what I love to do. Every time for whatever I say—I’m writing about what they did and where they’re going with it.
What music in New Orleans inspired you most?
Big Freedia: Some of the bounce artists that came way before me like Miss Tee and Cheeky Black and Partners N Crime and DJ Jubilee and DJ Jimi—all the old school bounce artists are what inspired me in my era when I came about. Then Katey Red—who was the first gay bounce artist down here in New Orleans—that really inspired me to take it to another level because she was a different kind of gay person that came out.
Is New Orleans more accepting of gay rappers than the rest of the country?
Big Freedia: I’m more comfortable at home—there’s mega-love here at home. I have no problems nowhere I go, but I haven’t had any problems with going out of town either. They’ve shown me just like I was at home, but in New Orleans definitely we have broken that spell. If there is a gay rapper and they’re trying to come up, they’re not going to have any problems because we’ve broken that trend definitely.
How did you end up on tour with Galactic?
Big Freedia: They got in touch with me because they heard about how my music pops through the city and stuff—they contacted me because they wanted to do a bounce record. Then they called me back and said they really liked the song I had and it was one of the best songs. Then they called me back and said they wanted to do a tour and would I like to go on tour? We actually performed on New Year’s at Tipitina’s together and it went really well and now they’re probably going to be my official band. I’ll be the first bounce artist to have a full band to do my songs live.
Are you bringing dancers on tour with you? You had quite a few when I saw you at Voodoo Fest.
Big Freedia: I had a really good time at the Voodoo Fest—it was fun. I’m gonna bring my DJ and I’m gonna bring my dancers as well … but we don’t know just yet because we’re trying to get the budget together. Between two and four. I have an album that I’ll be bringing out there with me—The Big Freedia Queen Diva album and I’ll be bringing also Big Freedia Hits Vol.1. And be looking for the new album that will be droppin’ called The Queen Diva Returns. So I have a lot of things coming out—we’ll be bringing our bounce music all over the world and trying to get it out there.

BIG FREEDIA PLUS DJ SETS BY RUSTY LAZER, NGUZUNGUZU AND TOTAL FREEDOM ON WED., MAR. 3, AT EL CID, 4212 W. SUNSET BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 10 PM / $5 / 21+. FYFFEST.COM. VISIT BIG FREEDIA AT MYSPACE.COM/BIGFREEDIA.

Download: The Soft Pack “Answer To Yourself”

(from the self-titled LP out now on Kemado)

New issue! See you at the release party tomorrow at the Cha Cha Lounge! Find print issues here, buy back issues here and obtain a print subscription here. Please contact us if you’d like to advertise in the next one!

Inside you’ll find…

THE SOFT PACK
MAYO THOMPSON of THE RED KRAYOLA
HARLEM
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS
SAINT VITUS
PIT PER PAT
PRINCETON
ANCESTORS
BIG FREEDIA
FULGEANCE
SCOTT H. BIRAM
RAY WYLIE HUBBARD
CLOROX GIRLS
WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS
INFINITE BODY
RECLAMATION’S ‘AQUARIUM’

AND MORE!

Stream: Zackey Force Funk “The Split”

Not to get all Hallmark about it, but Zackey Force Funk is proof that music can do some good in the world. This funk maestro has been through some serious shit, and now his life mission is to get you bumping to his hybrid of electronic dance music, with a little help from his brother’s Gameboy. You haven’t heard something quite like this. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

Kutmah brought you to us via Stones Throw and Peanut Butter Wolf, but how did you find Kutmah?
Zack: After I got out of prison, I spent some time trying to change my life and eventually got back into graffiti and started making music. One day I heard a podcast where Kutmah was mixing Nancy Sinatra to Bad Brains so I went to Myspace and looked him up. I didn’t know that guy knew a bunch of people. Suddenly Peanut Butter Wolf calls me from Stones Throw asking me to do something. And I’m like, ‘Who is this Kutmah kid? He knows everybody?!’ When I met him he turned me on to Brandy Flower of the Hit + Run crew and they released this mixtape of mine and a bunch of old stuff and people liked it so I got to come out there in August and did some shows at different venues and got to finally meet everyone. I can’t believe how nice and basically unselfish they are. They hooked me up so much. They made me t-shirts, stickers, CDs. I’m like, ‘Yo, I’m just a dude from South Tucson!’ You know?
Have you been in Tucson all your life?
Zack: I used to live back East with my father. My father is from NY and my mother is Mexican from South Tucson. They divorced so we used to go back and forth between Tucson and Syracuse. That’s how come my music is all over the place. Me and my brother would always go out East and be all about Egyptian Lover and Cameo and Zapp and out there it was all Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC. Out there in ‘82-‘83. It always stuck with us. The graffiti and everything was a part of our lives. Now that I’m creating stuff, it’s just pouring out big time. Thirty years of shit just trying to come out. I’m kind of spiritual so I defInitely think things are going to change. They have to.
What’s life like in Tucson?
Zack: Hot! It’s hot. It’s got a scenester thing going on. That got me involved in going out again and playing. You can go to a small bar and everyone will dance. That’s just how it is in Tucson. People want to move. When I was in L.A. at that small little place Hyperion Tavern and doing all this uptempo stuff, everyone was into it and they were studying me, but nobody was dancing. I gotta learn the L.A. thing, as far as what scenes go where and how people react to music at different locations. I’m going to play at the Echoplex now and I’ve never been there. Hopefully there will be some dancing.
When did you start singing?
Zack: I started singing two years ago. I started when I was 32! What happened is I was making beats just to stress-relieve at the end of the day. I was putting them online and then I started talking to my brother—who is an engineer and I really respect his ear—and I was like, ‘How come you’re not bumping my instrumentals or even anyone famous’s instrumental music?’ And he was like, ‘Me and my friends, we really can’t listen to just a beat. I can’t put it in my ipod and bump it all day. It’s really cool but I gotta have words—I got to have a story.’ And that really stuck with me so I decided to try writing lyrics. I tried to rap on my first song. And he was like, ‘No, you should definitely not do that! Just sing!’ So it’s been two years in the making. It was pretty nerve-wracking the first time I sang in front of people. Every set gets better. Now we jam out—no stops for at least a half hour or so. My little brother Nathan, he and his friends do 4-bit music in their band Crime. When I perform I need people to do some engineering type stuff and background vocals and my little brother does it all. They’re geniuses—tons of style.
Is Prince an influence?
Zack: Without a doubt. The whole Minneapolis—Prince, Morris Day, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis—that’s probably my favorite stuff. The stars are lining up and funk’s making a comeback and I’m glad. It’s definitely a way of life. I think it’s here to stay. You just have to tweak it out for the kids. They want the more electronic grungier feel, and that’s where my brother comes in with the Gameboy. We’re trying to do funk on a Gameboy. I don’t think too many people on the planet are doing that. There’s a whole Gameboy 4-bit scene. This one guy Covox out in Europe covered the Kraftwerk song ‘Computer Love’ and it’s unreal. It kind of gives you insight on what you can do with 4-bit and how complex it can really get.
How long have you been doing graffiti?
Zack: I spent a lot of time in prison. And that helped me get through time. I’ve always been involved in B-Boy stuff—always wanted to be like Ramos from Beat Street. When you’re locked up, you got a lot of time on your hands to draw. When I got out the first time, I ran into a bunch of graffiti writers. It really taught me a lot about being original and coming up with my own letters, and that’s helped me with music. I never did too much illegal stuff like bombing trains. Some when I was younger. I am really just into style, breaking down letters. I got to paint with some L.A. writers last year like Revok and them. But I’m telling you—it really helped me with my music. When I sit down to compose a song, I think about it as a graffiti piece. Is it original? Is anyone else doing it? Am I biting? Is anyone biting me? I gotta do something different every time. When you paint a graffiti piece, you always want to burn your last one. That’s the ultimate goal—to do better than anything you’ve done before. My next song has to be better than the one before. No matter what. It’s always a small battle. You have to come original. You have to jam out harder to open up people’s eyes.
Why were you imprisoned?
Zack: It was all these drug charges. Here in Tucson there’s an abundance of wholesale drugs. You can get wholesale marijuana here super cheap and take it out to your cousins in Syracuse and triple your money. By the time I was 19 I was making $100,000 and you figure you do it ten times you can be a millionaire. It just didn’t work out that way. It never did. The last time I got out it was 2001, and I was very very lucky. If I lived in L.A., I would be doing life in prison. You guys have that three strikes, you’re out law. Luckily we don’t have that in Arizona. It was just insane. I really changed my life in 2001. Life started getting monotonous around 2005. I was like, ‘Something’s got to change.’ I’m not used to being a dad and just settling down. Which was cool, but I started making music and painting graffiti again to get my mind off shit, and here I am—talking to you on the phone, talking to Peanut Butter Wolf and going to L.A. I can’t fucking believe it.
Do you believe in destiny or controlling your own fate?
Zack: I believe in controlling your own fate. I think you definitely co-create. You pretty much manifest everything you do. If you say you’re sick, you’re going to get sick. If you think you’re going to get cancer, you’re going to get cancer. If you know you’re better than other people at music, you’re going to be better than other people at music. Whether you can sing or not, that’s really how I feel about it. I’ve seen it happen. Definitely some crazy things have happened to me in and out of prison. It’s opened my eyes spiritually.
Lots of time sitting and thinking?
Zack: Yeah—this last time it was my third offense. I had already done a bunch of time in prison for minor offenses. And this time U.S. Customs came in and raided me and they caught me red-handed with tons of stuff and it was a major, major case. I went back in. They told me I wasn’t going to get less than 15 years. My mom kept getting me tons of different lawyers and they’d come to jail and tell me, ‘We can’t get you less than 15, take these pleas. You’ve already done prison sentences for less offenses and if you were in California, you’d be doing life.’ But I just knew—something inside me, I just knew I wasn’t going away. Things started happening. We got one of the greatest lawyers. He heard about the case and started stepping in and got like aerial photos of my house and found out the Customs agent had lied to get search warrants and other huge cases with Russian ammunitions—anyway, it was a huge deal. They ended up giving me a plea bargain for two years. And I was in tears of joy. The day I went to sentencing, I knew something else was going to happen, and, sure enough, the judge was like, ‘You know what? I’ll give you five years IPS.’ Which is house arrest—and I had took four years for a minor offense before!—so basically, I was like, ‘Ok, wow, this is it—now you got to do something with your life.’ Back to the spiritual thing—I just knew I wasn’t going away. And ever since then I could see smaller minor miracles happening. Have you heard of Dr. Masaru Emoto? He’s done all kinds of experiments with water. And I did it with my son. You can do it. Get two glasses of water and put rice in the water. On one glass, write ‘love,’ ‘life,’ ‘happiness,’ nice things. And on the other glass write ‘hate,’ ‘kill,’ just evil things. Every day pray to the good glass with love, put all your love in it, and yell at the bad glass, talk shit to it, just be evil to it. And see what happens in two weeks. For me it took two days. I could see a difference. The good glass will be fine and the bad glass, you won’t even want to keep it in the house, it’ll be so nasty. And that kind of shows you a physical proof that your thoughts and prayers do manifest—they become physical. This has helped me and my kids. They’ve seen me prosper and change my life around. My daughter is going to school, and this music thing is starting to pop off and it really wasn’t supposed to.
What’s your life motto?
Zack: When all else fails and you don’t know what’s happening, just remember love. Put yourself in a happy place and do good to others. Sacrifice. Even die. Trust me—there’s more to life out there than what you see and you’ll thank yourself later for it, even if it’s in the afterlife. Have love and show love to everybody. I should maybe show that in my music more. My spiritual friends get kinda mad and say I should make more spiritual music. But I live in South Tucson and I been locked up half my life so it’s kind of like I let my stress out in this music. My friends in NY like hardcore music that’s all about beating people up and getting crazy. I wouldn’t want anyone to listen to my song and go beat someone up after. Sometimes to get the people you live around’s attention, you gotta be street—you got to be ghetto just to wake them up and get their attention. I would hate for someone to take my music and go do something bad with it. That’s terrible. Like these Metallica songs in the ‘80s—people killing themselves over it. That wasn’t their intent maybe when they wrote it. I just want to relieve stress. Don’t do anything evil with this.

ZACKEY FORCE FUNK WITH KUTMAH, MATTHEWDAVID AND SODAPOP ON FRI., DEC. 11, AT CALLING ALL KIDS AT HYPERION TAVERN, 1941 HYPERION AVE., SILVERLAKE. 9:30 PM / FREE / 21+. AND WITH GASLAMP KILLER, CRIME, KUTMAH, DAM-FUNK, NOBODY, ABCNT AND MORE ON SAT., DEC. 12, AT REPEAT OFFENDER: THE HIT + RUN FOUR-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE AVE., ECHO PARK. 9 PM / $10 / FREE IF WEARING HIT + RUN T-SHIRT / 21+. THEHITANDRUN.COM. VISIT ZACKEY FORCE FUNK AT MYSPACE.COM/ZAC0NE.

Silverlake Art *Craft & Vintage moves to CITIBANK (2450 Glendale Blvd. LA CA 90039) in Silverlake for the holidays.

Come by from 10am-4pm every Sunday (starting 11-15-09 and running thru 12-20-09) to check out the best of vintage, collectibles, art, and handmade crafts. Located in the heart of Silverlake at the corner of Silverlake Blvd and Glendale Blvd. Shop local this year for the holidays and support independent vendors while being a part of this fundraiser for the Silverlake Library.

Silverlake Art* Craft & Vintage has raised over $15,000 for the Micheltorena Street Elementary School and LAUSD and now will begin contributing again to the Silverlake Library.

INTERESTED IN BECOMING A VENDOR?
CALL US AT
323 467-0623

SILVERLAKEARTCRAFTVINTAGE.COM

Download: BLK JKS “Molalatladi”

(from After Robots out now on Secretly Canadian)

If one more person compares BLK JKS to Vampire Weekend, we might explode. This South African band writes pop songs, rock songs, slow tunes and fast tracks; they get proggy and they jam. There’s a great amount of variety on BLK JKS’ latest album After Robots, but the only thing the band imitates is the sound that reality transmits through their nimble fingers. Guitarist Mpumelelo Mcata breaks it down for Daiana Feuer.

Mpumelelo Mcata (guitar): I forgot my sunglasses on top of the guitar amp there in Los Angeles. It was sucky—they were a gift.
Do you lose many possessions in your travels?
Mpumelelo Mcata: Yes, it happens all the time! Sometimes your mind, sometimes your heart, sometimes your sunglasses.
When was the last time you lost your mind?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I think it was Philly. I am not sure how long ago that was. Maybe I haven’t found my mind yet. The concept of time has been warped. Meeting people, various people, and life on the road, always on the road—you lose your heart and your head. It feels pretty schizophrenic. The days go by like day after day with hardly any rest.
Is that a dream come true? Would you rather be in a studio or a stage?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I like being around sounds and making music and just around art in general outside of music. It’s cool to have these kinds of problems. I don’t have a particular preference—as long as I’m doing it, it’s alright. But in the van for so long, driving for so many hours is what it is. Being in the studio, pressed for time, is what it is. We always have these things to keep us grounded. A little bit of cramped, a little of this and that. Broken amps need fixing. We never really step back to look at what’s going on from outside and say, ‘Well, this is all well!’ The situation, though—how can I say it? I am happy to be in it.
As a musician, do you find sounds or create sounds?
Mpumelelo Mcata: Finding or creating? Receiving. Which is different from those two in some ways. It’s all out there and finding requires one to be looking and looking may be a bit difficult to do in a sincere way. Not saying it’s impossible. But it’s hard to be looking and still do honorable work. I think receiving is key and hopefully one can communicate what comes to them truthfully and be an honest voice. There’s a lot of information trapped or stored in phonics, you know? Besides what musicians put in the lyrics and also what is said in interviews. A lot of stuff is just said in between the sounds—as in between the waves. I am sure music is a form of communication.
How do four different minds or receivers create one sound together?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I think one of the first points that we’d have to—I don’t want to say understand because that’s also a conscious in the mind thing—something that we have to feel is that all is one already. Once the American comedian Bill Hicks said all matter is energy condensed to slow vibrations. There is no such thing as death. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. So! That is the basic idea. We are one already. So the individual is allowed to exist completely. We find that conflict to be interesting—experiencing ourselves subjectively. That is the point. If everybody felt this way in the world maybe the world would stop breaking up. Maybe not. Maybe this is just part of the human condition. But we need to accept all parts of ourselves. I think that’s what we do in the music, as schizophrenic as it may seem.
There sure are a lot of sounds going on in your album. A lot of directions. I was intrigued by the emotion and the musical shifts in your song ‘Lakeside.’ What’s the story behind it?
Mpumelelo Mcata: ‘Lakeside’ is basically—OK, all the songs have a bit of a backstory, but ‘Lakeside’ is basically about the taxi industry. ‘Lakeside’ and ‘Taxidermy’ follow each other on the album but ‘Lakeside’ is about this young boy-man-kid who is caught up in a taxi accident. The taxi rolls off the freeway and lands up next to a lake. In his head, he has been trying to escape the city—Johannesburg and the mundane situation that he lives in. And he is very imaginative and kind of in some ways it’s autobiographical on our part. Living in the confusion of Johannesburg. And so he imagines his taxi as a UFO and he imagines himself as having been caught up in a crash-landing situation. It’s a terrible thing that has happened. People are bleeding. He is lying outside on the grass. People are suffering. But at the same time it is a beautiful thing that his mind is doing in the song. That’s basically ‘Lakeside.’
That’s a heck of a story. Does a song that comes out of a story lyrically influence the music as well or is that worked upon separately?
Mpumelelo Mcata: With ‘Lakeside’ it was definitely the music first. We didn’t know what that song was trying to do. We were jamming and somehow it kept coming up in those different directions. So what you hear on the record in the beginning—in the rehearsal room, ‘Lakeside’ was really that Molefi, Lindani, Tshepang, and myself fighting against each other and pulling the song in different directions. Like, ‘We can’t stay here—Molefi’s gone over there so we have to follow him.’ Or, ‘We’re going to follow Tshepang and see what happens.’ That was the nature of most of our rehearsal room sessions. Coming to the center, running to and from all four corners and meeting at the end. So—sound first. Then we listen back to the take and everybody thinks about what it means to them and then we discuss it and feel it out and it comes out lyrically if it’s going to be really elaborate—if that happens. Sometimes it’s just we’ll breathe over it and that’ll be it. Like ‘Molalatladi.’ For that song, the lyrics happened immediately as the music. It’s a different purpose.
What would you like to get out of this experience that will nourish you as artists? Aside from getting to play and seeing the world?
Mpumelelo Mcata: I mean, we’re getting in touch with our faith, more in touch with our faith, which is this miracle. Us being alive, you being alive as Daiana and floating in outer space. To us it is really a miracle. People like to intellectualize or coffee table talk about bands but for us, it’s like—we’re here, we’re together. You can either like a band—you can walk into the room or walk out. People like to say this band sucks, that band sucks. I wouldn’t even say that even when I wasn’t in a band because at the end of the day, who knows what? We’re all just here. To get into different cultures and to see how people react to the sound which is created out of a South African context, us receiving signals and those signals going through our filters. Out of Johannesburg, we’re presenting them to the world, we’re going to Japan—it’s going to be super interesting. And it’s always excellent to see people’s reactions, whatever that is. To us, the fact that the conversation is even occurring in the first place is the point. I think we’ll get a lot from that. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll be like the Brazilian Girls—writing songs in many languages about different places. Our context right now is what it is. This is our introduction to the world.
What’s the last thing that made you smile?
Mpumelelo Mcata: The last thing that made me smile? I know the answer to that but let me mine my thoughts for a second. Let’s see! You know what always makes me smile? At every show the people coming up saying, ‘We like what you do.’ That’s always a pleasurable thing. That makes me smile that it touches them. It makes me smile when the media makes negative comments about our songs. It’s funny because we have the same conversation before we make the song but we go for it anyway. Or when we see something someone says and this guy has no clue whatsoever. That makes me laugh. The whole journey, enjoying the journey makes me smile. Not pining for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but enjoying the rainbow—that’s what makes a brotha smile.

AQUARIUM DRUNKARD PRESENTS BLK JKS WITH THE GROWLERS AND MACK WINSTON AND THE REFLECTIONS ON THUR., OCT. 15, AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 8:30 PM / $10-$12 / 21+/ CLUBSPACELAND.COM. BLK JKS’ AFTER ROBOTS IS OUT NOW ON SECRETLY CANADIAN. VISIT BLK JKS AT BLKJKS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/BLKJKS.

Download: Jonneine Zapata “Good Looking”

(from Cast The Demons Out available now from Jonneine Zapata)

Jonneine Zapata has a stare that makes men cower and weep. She is the closest thing to Jim Morrison in the Silverlake scene and her live show is mesmerizing. She will be holding residence at Silverlake Lounge on Mondays in October and she has just finished her first national tour (opening for Soulsavers) in support of her debut Cast The Demons Out. Zapata arrived with her own bowl of homemade macrobiotic breakfast to meet L.A. RECORD at an Echo Park coffee house. She speaks to Scott Schultz about Nick Cave, the importance of eye contact and how macrobiotics go with an Italian meal in Brooklyn.

How long have you been macrobiotic?
Jonneine Zapata: Thirteen years.
What made you shift diets? Was it teenage rebellion?
Jonneine Zapata: Exactly! All the kids are doing it! My family is Mexican and Italian and when they see me eating this, they think I need psychotherapy.
Do you put hot sauce on it?
Jonneine Zapata: That’s not exactly macrobiotics, Scott. Macrobiotics means long life. It means eat anything you like as long as you’re willing to take on the consequences—then by all means do it. If you want to eat sugar, then by all means, go ahead. If you want to go up and down with your life. Good luck—it’s your life. You want to have a headache , be dehydrated, rob the minerals out of your body, terrific. Eat all the sugar you want. Have a ball.
Where did you grow up?
Jonneine Zapata: I grew up all over the place. All over Orange County. We moved around quite a lot. I lived in Hawaii, Texas and I even lived in Kansas. I’ve traveled. I don’t remember a lot about Kansas, except the private school I went to there. That part of Kansas we were in never got back into modern times, and they would still hit kids with rulers. I’ve been singing my entire life. I just kind of came out singing. I didn’t know people sang for careers when I was listening to records. It’s the same thing as laying bricks to me. I’ve played the clubs off and on for seven years. And I mean off and on. And then I would go back to my bricklaying job.
What is your bricklaying job?
Jonneine Zapata: Odd jobs here and there, but no dependable job. What’s your bricklaying job?
Selling newspapers, but there aren’t any newspapers left to sell.
Jonneine Zapata: Even Rolling Stone got shriveled down to where it doesn’t stand out on the rack any more. It’s all advertisements. The only good thing I can say about them is that they attacked George Bush from the beginning, where a lot of papers didn’t.
You have one of the most intimidating stares of any performers that I’ve seen. I remember seeing you walk by last week when I was eating a slice of pizza, and I remember staring intently at my pizza and thinking, ‘Don’t make eye contact.’ Where does that come from? Is it a mask, or are you actually making eye contact and reading the audience?
Jonneine Zapata: It’s from my mother. But I also feel, if you’re going to pay tickets to see me, I’m there too, and I have something to seek out. So if you don’t want to be looked at or stared at, it’s probably not the right show to go to. I mean, what should I do? Stare at the ceiling? I’m trying to engage people, not separate from them. It’s not an intent to stare anybody down or intimidate them. It’s just seeing who they are. There’s a lot going on in people’s eyes. A lot of living. A lot is said right in the eyes.
You hold your stares for a long time. Do people start to look away?
Jonneine Zapata: I think you disarm people first. It’s like they’re watching a movie. Instead of them thinking about you and what your doing, they’re off of me and onto them. They’re thinking, ‘I remember when I was in high school, or I remember when I was with my mom.’ It’s like a psychological connection to their past. It’s kind of like a drug and their guard is down. They don’t even see me—they’re having an image of their own in front of them. Some people give me the OK, and they’re like ‘Yeah!’ And some people look like they are about to cry.
So your mom used to use that stare on you?
Jonneine Zapata: Oh yeah—my mom is from Brooklyn. She’s a street girl, you know. She walked the walk. But my dad, he was a rough, tough Mexican too. So it’s probably in my blood.
Are you a descendent of Emiliano Zapata?
Jonneine Zapata: No, I wish I was. I guess we all are somewhat. I admire him more than any musician.
How are you going to maintain your strict diet while you’re on the road?
Jonneine Zapata: I got a little camping gear, some hot plates, and I bring my dishes and everything. And I’ll try to coordinate it the best I can. If I have to wander off once or twice and eat a bagel, I’ll eat a bagel. I’m psyched for our first national tour. It’s a big thing to happen for a band just starting off. We had our first show last November as a band promoting this record. It’s a fairly quick but steady progress for us. I looked up the clubs on tour, and they’re all of the places I’ve ever wanted to go but haven’t been—like the Bowery in New York City and the Paradise in Boston.
Mark Lanegan and Soulsavers are a great draw. He’s been a part of so many great bands dating back to Seattle in the ’90s all the way through Soulsavers and Ghetto Twins. How did your paths cross?
Jonneine Zapata: Greg Dulli has been to some shows, and he has been spreading the word about us. Also, Jason from MySpace Records is in with the band and he sort of helped us out with this. Everybody knew somebody and it all just came together for us, but Jason had the biggest hand. We’re ready for the new record. We already have new songs. They’re arranged and semi-rehearsed. Now it’s just a matter of recording them. Now that this tour has come up, we don’t know where we fit it in exactly—I guess we’ll have to do it when we return. We’ve got the residency and we’ll probably include some of the new songs in the sets on the road, and then we’ll break them out locally during the residency. It’s kind of weird, though, because even the old songs will be new songs in the new cities.
Your music has a wide range from soft to really heavy. Did you start as a performer with the softer sound or the heavier music?
Jonneine Zapata: I started across the board. When I first started playing, I went heavy, then softer, then heavy, then softer again. You can write a song like ‘Out In The Woods’ and then two seconds later write a song like ‘Worry.’ It has an emotional passing. Even in songs like ‘Worry,’ it has softness and predatory elements that are soft and undercurrents. And then it gets a little heavier. So I’ve been all over the map. I’m not really one to settle for one thing or another, but I hope it all flows together. I write all the songs. I sometimes collaborate on the new stuff. I’ll be walking, mostly in the kitchen while cooking, and I hear little melodies, and then a feeling or emotion will come up, and then the lyrics come out. And then I say, ‘Maybe I should get a pen and paper because I have to remember what I’m saying…’ I’m like, ‘Uh-oh, piece of paper time.’ And I just get out a piece of paper and write down everything. I’ll sing it with a little melody and go, ‘Oh, that’s nice—here’s the verses and here’s the bridge. I have it written—now when can we lay this down?’
I hear an old Western influence in your song titles and themes—are you a fan of Sergio Leone films?
Jonneine Zapata: I love Westerns. Especially the old old ones like John Wayne movies.
How did you hook up with your guitarist?
Jonneine Zapata: He was in another band Sabrosa Purr, and I was thinking, ‘I’m going to blow out of this town and move into a macro-biotic community in Alaska.’ I thought I wanted to live off the land for a little bit. Literally I had three shows, and I was out. I gave my notice to my landlord, and then the other band was like, ‘You’ve got to stay here, and you will play with Jeff.’ Nobody ever asked Jeff. They just said, ‘You’re going to go here and he’ll be here, and you’ll play. You guys are going to work together and go on stage, and she’s not going anywhere.’ We clicked. And at first I didn’t see the long-term relationship that it was going to be. He had a specific style, and I had an idea of what I wanted, and I didn’t know if that was going to marry. We did some older material first, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s OK.’ Then I took another break. I think it was important to stop and get off the horse. I want to take some stuff in and fill my well. I took a long time off, and I was ready to do some more stuff. And I really liked Jeff by that point. I thought, ‘We can try this together.’ This was in ‘06, and I didn’t like anyone else at the time. So I worte a new set of material and wrote really close with Jeff to make sure we had what I wanted. We played a bunch of shows at Molly Malone’s, and we had some great duo shows together. It was fantastic, and then the record came out. A producer—Jack Douglas—had come in to see some of the shows, and he said he wanted to work with us. We went in as a duo, and then Jack got really busy, so we just recorded it ourselves.
When you first started did you have a band? Or were you a solo act?
Jonneine Zapata: I had a band for a second, but it wasn’t working. It was mostly session musicians, and they had sort of a session approach. I didn’t really like it. It didn’t sound right—it went up and down and all over the place. I figured I could go with just a guitar player, and if I couldn’t get my songs over that way, then I was probably doing the wrong thing.
Onstage, you have a maximum of energy with a minimum of motion. Are you into martial arts?
Jonneine Zapata: I think it’s a matter of really paying attention. You don’t want to push. I think people expect rock singers to jump up and down. For me it’s power in a different way. I’d like to be like H.R. of Bad Brains. That’s power at the top. Maybe I’m trapped.
How long did it take you to be comfortable enough to be so bare with your emotions onstage?
Jonneine Zapata: That hasn’t happened yet. I think that will require a lot more maturity on my part and a lot more work. This band has yet to begin to really work an audience and to understand what we’re doing on stage. And the power of what we should be doing with it. That is my goal.
Do you have a role model when it comes to your songs?
Jonneine Zapata: Nick Cave.
Jim Morrison is the person who comes to mind when I see you—even more than guy singers who try purposely to emulate him.
Jonneine Zapata: I get so much Jim Morrison from people. From the beginning to now. I think people who sing who have a good voice—even when people who sing talk, they talk with rhythms. Like comedy—timing is within you. But if you have a gift, you can always work on it and hone it. There’s nobody to grasp on from the female vocalists, so Nick Cave was really the one I focused on. I listened to a lot of Nick Cave and Jim Morrison. I really listen to mostly men. I wish I was head of the hardcore scene, but I’m not. I’m skinny and fragile—I’m never going to be that. I’m not Henry Rollins or H.R.—I’m not a big thick guy, so I’m limited to what I’ve got. So I’ve got to make the maximum of what I have. Bring it to the table and hone my craft and look up to artists who inspire me. Unfortunately, there aren’t any women who inspire me in that way.
When you were growing up in O.C., did you attend a lot of punk shows?
Jonneine Zapata: Oh gosh, my mother wouldn’t allow it. Never, never, never. I just had to stay in my room. I wish I could have. Thank god for YouTube.
Are your parents deeply religious?
Jonneine Zapata: Not anymore. It was important for them when I was growing up to have the Holy Communion. I went to parochial school, and that was very important because the older people in my family—the grandparents and the great-great-grandparents—were extremely religious. They were from Italy and Mexico. My grandmother is the kind of person who throws salt in a corner of the room and they light candles. I told my mother we had this tour coming and please wish us the best for this. She called the whole family in Brooklyn. They’re all at St. Peter’s Cathederal in Brooklyn lighting candles.
Are they going to come see you when you play the Bowery?
Jonneine Zapata: You don’t want to see my family show up at the Bowery.
Have they ever seen you perform?
Jonneine Zapata: Not the family in New York. Thank God—they’ve always known: (Brooklyn Italian impression) ‘Jonneine, she has such a byootifool voice. Dooo somthin foh da family, please.’ But I think when they see the show they’ll be, ‘Ohhhh! We didn’t know she does that!’ They’d be a little floored. It took my mom a little while to accept it too.
I see and hear a lot of religious subtext in your songs and titles.
Jonneine Zapata: I’m probably more religious that I’m willing to acknowledge. It’s just in me. Catholic school—how could it not be? Heavier than I care to admit, sure.
What are your goals for your Monday night residency at Silverlake Lounge?
Jonneine Zapata: I didn’t even know if I was supposed to have goals, but it’s kind of good that you brought the question up so I can start thinking about them. My goals are to get some goals. We’re doing the residency because we think it’s somewhat expected of us. For me I guess the goal would be to get my band in front of a live audience once a week. To get my band ready to play every night. I want to work out some new material. That’s all I ever want to do. I’d like to write some new material and get it out there immediately.
Two years from now—do you hope to be touring year round and playing every night?
Jonneine Zapata: Absolutely. That’s not a goal for two years from now. That is a goal for this time. Next summer. 2010. Period. We want to be a touring band, no question.
Do you have a name for the back-up band, or are they just ‘the boys’?
Jonneine Zapata: It’s the boys so far, but if you can think of anything tell me. I wonder what it should be. I should have something. I love Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I feel I should be careful with it, because it could get hokey. If you have any ideas, let me know, please.
What are your favorite venues in L.A.?
Jonneine Zapata: Silverlake Lounge in October! We love the Silverlake Lounge. We played there a little while ago, and there was great sound, and it’s on the level with everyone. I don’t like to be up too high.
Too hard to hold eye contact?
Jonneine Zapata: Yeah! I don’t like it. Then you have to look down, and I don’t like looking down at people. I like to be even with them. I really hope it’s going to be the Troubadour because I’ve seen some really great shows there. I saw Tweak Bird there. Oh my God! And Big Business played with them, and when I saw them live, I loved it. I really love hardcore metal. I like guy bands—metal and hard like Misfits, Danzig, Rammstein.
You opened for the Raconteurs a few years ago as a duo with Jeff—what was that like?
Jonneine Zapata: That was an interesting CD he had just put out, and he really opened a lot of doors for women and duos. If you can’t bring it as a duo, then I don’t know if you have a song. I was scared, because we were just a duo singing sad slow songs, and I thought the crowd was just going to smash us. ‘Fuck you, you girl singer!’ I thought that was what I was going to get, and I was like ‘Fuck!’ And this is in L.A.—shit, what are we going to do? And my guitarist Jeff Mendel—he brought out his little Peavey amp and took his shoes off and walked right out on stage. Set that sucker down and played everything in the most perfect time possible, and when we walked out, that crowd just said, ‘WHOOO!’ And we hadn’t even sang a note yet. And then—note one, they were INTO it. My website got so many hits, they knocked it down. I needed more bandwidth. I had no idea. It’s barely up anyway, and the people went. By the second night we came, people were singing the songs I had up on MySpace. I was looking in the pit, and they were singing ‘Lucky Girl’ with me, and I was like, ‘Whoa!’ In one night. Jack has super-great fans. And walking out there with Jeff, I was really comfortable because we had been playing a while and he killed it. It was really wonderful. It turned out to be an exceptional two-night run.
Who are your favorite local bands?
Jonneine Zapata: I’d go see Tweak Bird anytime. I love them. I don’t get out much though. Earthless. You can put them down as one of my favorite bands. I just got their new CD and I played it a few times and right away I knew—these guys rock! That’s the kind of music that I like. I mean ROCK! ROCK! ROCK! I like Dead Meadow and Mogwai.
Do you act?
Jonneine Zapata: I’ve done a little bit. I’ve dibble-dabbled. I’d like to do some more. I’d like to direct. I write shorts and things like that. I like to take one thing at a time.
Your structure is very dramatic, and you definitely convey emotion in a sincere way.
Jonneine Zapata: I’ve probably seen too much footage of Freddie Mercury. When he would grab the microphone and go ‘Wohhh!’ those big movements were just huge to me. Tina Turner—the way she used to move. She could just put her arms out and do a little bit … [suggestive motion[ A little bit of that—not much! I’d just watch her, and I would go ‘Oooh momma, I’m a-gonna get on stage and do a little bit of this!’ She would just put her leg out a little bit, and you were like, ‘God, you’re just hot!’ THAT’S show business! I want to see something. I don’t want to see a girl who’s not connected to the music and not putting on a show. Tweak Bird’s got it right. He hit those drums and he was singing and he was making faces—you know I want to see a show!
What do you think of Nick Cave’s duet of ‘Henry Lee’ with PJ Harvey?
Jonneine Zapata: I would like to see him do something with a woman who has a bigger range vocally—something that could really make him sound even far more eerier. His voice is very cunning. I don’t know how it’s recorded, but I would love to find out and study that for my own self. I think it’s very nice. PJ is not scary to me. She’s so fantastic. What a needed artist—but she does not frighten me, and he frightens me. I want to see him with someone who is frightening.
Do you ever get compared to PJ?
Jonneine Zapata: Yeah, I do. I get more comparisons to Jim Morrison than I do to her. I figure you can get compared to Jewel or you can get compared to PJ Harvey—where do you want to be?
I used to perform stand-up comedy at the coffeehouse where Jewel got discovered. She was a great coffee house singer.
Jonneine Zapata: She has a sexy quality. She’s pretty. She has an interesting voice. She can yodel.
Can you imagine seeing a Nick Cave CD on sale at Starbucks?
Jonneine Zapata: I saw Regina Spektor for sale at Whole Foods. I thought, ‘At least it’s something I would buy.’ Whatever else they’re selling I won’t. I’d love to see a Nick Cave record in here. too.
Nick Cave you want to buy as an entire CD as compared to individual digital songs. I think your CD plays best in its album format, too.
Jonneine Zapata: I always listen to Nick Cave album by album. I never mix them up. I listen to The Boatman’s Call and No More Shall We Part. I’ll never mix those songs up.
Have you performed at SXSW?
Jonneine Zapata: No, but I hope that we have an opportunity this year. I think the great steps for this year would be playing there and even if we could get 12:00 in the afternoon slot at Coachella. Terrific. We just want to play. We have to get out there. Probably the record’s coming out in September in Australia.
Maybe Nick Cave will hear it.
Jonneine Zapata: I hope so. I can try to send him a copy I guess. Have you heard The Dirty Three? It’s beautiful. Cinder is the name. That’s a beautiful record.
What cities are you most excited about visiting on your tour?
Jonneine Zapata: I’ve been everywhere, but in a very different capacity. Not traveling for music and going to sing? I can’t wait to play in front of people I don’t know and meet them. I think that will be the most inspiring thing coming my way from the tour—stepping out of the Hollywood bubble. I’ve always wanted to do that, but everything is kind of here for me, and I’ve stayed here based on that. It’s really dificult to take a five-piece band on the road, and I didn’t want to go as a duo. I think this is a really good shot for us, and it’s going to work out right.
When you reach New York City, will your family in Brooklyn make you eat a big meal with them?
Jonneine Zapata: I’ll sit there with my macro bowl while everyone at the table tells me how skinny I am. But my mom—I’ll come over to the house alone and she’ll say, ‘You’ve got no meat on you! You can’t organize anything because you don’t eat any meat!’ Then when I go up on stage and sing she goes, ‘That’s my kid! Broadway! Macrobiotic!’ I think this particular diet has made my voice stronger actually. It keeps all the ick off my chords, and that’s important to me because I want my voice to work forever. I don’t want it to be compromised in any way because if I don’t have that I have nothing.
Do you ever feed the band that stuff?
Jonneine Zapata: Oh, they love it! Well this is a morning porridge, so that’s not your cup of tea. I would never feed you this breakfast, but I would feed you a lunch or dinner and you’d love it. They go crazy for it. They’d cook it themselves if it didn’t take so much work. They’d eat like this all the time.
Do you check out other performing arts aside from music?
Jonneine Zapata: I want to see stand-up comedy. I like to go to the Groundlings Theater and I like to see things right in the moment. I want to be out of my head. You have to be very available to do that. If you’re stuck in your thing, you’re going to lose.
Stand-up comedians are right up at face level. When things go wrong, you can see the pupils dilate and the flopsweat.
Jonneine Zapata: Scary business. It’s very exciting. I love Richard Pryor. I watch him all the time, and I just cannot believe he just looks effortless. I once watched a tribute to him on DVD, and a comedian said most people go their entire lives trying to cover their flaws and Richard Pryor went his whole career trying to exploit them. I just got chills because that’s me. When you ask who influences me, I say Richard Pryor. I want to uncover. I want to say, ‘It’s OK—we’re not perfect, we’re not pretty. It’s OK if you’re not so interesting—maybe you’ve got this or that or the other. Uncover it and let it be. We’re fine. We’re fine—we’re not broken. There’s nothing to be fixed. Leave it alone.’

JONNEINE ZAPATA EVERY MONDAY IN OCTOBER AT THE SILVERLAKE LOUNGE, 2906 SUNSET BLVD., SILVER LAKE. 9 PM / FREE / 21+. FOLDSILVERLAKE.COM. JONNEINE ZAPATA’S CAST THE DEMONS OUT IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM JONNEINE ZAPATA. VISIT JONNEINE ZAPATA AT JONNEINEZAPATA.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/JONNEINEZAPATA.

Download: Telefon Tel Aviv “Helen Of Troy”

(from Immolate Yourself out now on BPitch Control)

Telefon Tel Aviv’s third full-length album Immolate Yourself was released this past January just after the death of founding member Charles Cooper. Joshua Eustis is now touring the U.S and Telefon Tel Aviv continues to live and even thrive. This interview by Britt Witt.

How do you feel when people talk during your show?
Joshua Eustis: I don’t really care—I mean, people are going to talk during your show no matter what. If they’re talking it means they’re not listening, but I don’t have much of an opinion about it. It’s funny because the beginning of our set is quiet and there’s always a handful of people going ‘Shh! Shh!’ You know—shushing the crowd.
Your music keeps me mellow and introspective. How do you feel when you actually perform?
Joshua Eustis: The live show is a little more rock than it comes off on the record—I mean, it’s still pretty stoney and mellow but the theme… The stuff that we’re playing now is almost entirely off the new record so it’s pretty dark. It’s a little bit mopey and depressing and I’m kind of a mopey guy anyway, so maybe that comes over in the live show. It’s hard to tell.
You’re a mopey guy? Is that why the new album is called Immolate Yourself?
Joshua Eustis: No, the title of the album was an inside joke between me and Charlie, honestly. It was like a black metal title. We were thinking back about all those metal bands with all those long names with complicated words or whatever. They have ridiculous song titles and the music is awesome. He had written a song without a title and it was about burning alive, basically, so I was like, ‘Ha ha, dude, you should call it Immolate Yourself—metal style!’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, okay—cool!’ He called my bluff. The record as a whole is pretty dark. It’s our darkest record yet—it’s just a reflection of our lives in a way. Very much actually.
Does playing all this dark music keep you feeling down?
Joshua Eustis: This year has been so shitty. I mean, for once for some strange reason, I’m not really depressed anymore. I’m just hopeful, you know? It’s been so bad that I’m hoping things are going to get better. I’m mellow but my attitude is pretty upbeat.
You need to be like that!
Joshua Eustis: Life’s too short to be pissed off and sad all the time.
Does playing now make you feel better—more hopeful?
Joshua Eustis: No, not the actual playing. But after the show people will come up and say, ‘Thank you for coming here—it’s been so long! We haven’t seen you play ever!’ ‘It’s been a million years—we really appreciate it and we’re glad to see you seeing this record through to the end in the form of playing it live!’ I really appreciate that—it validates the struggle.
And it validates what you’re doing, too.
Joshua Eustis: Yeah—if your music can make even one person’s life better then that’s the whole point, you know? That’s what we’re doing. Music is supposed to make people happy or help them through a difficult part of their life or make them remember something awesome or—I don’t know, any of those things! And if you’ve accomplished that for one person then you’ve succeeded.
Do you consider yourself an emotional person?
Joshua Eustis: Totally—too much.
That pours into your music?
Joshua Eustis: Of course—my heart’s on my sleeve.
You have a pretty good sense of humor.
Joshua Eustis: Humor has kinda been the whole thing. The music is so fucking serious and such a bummer that the humor in our lives is kind of necessary, you know?
I would say so—you don’t act like your music.
Joshua Eustis: Not really.
Are you working on any other projects right now?
Joshua Eustis: I’m in the middle of making a record with this group from Brooklyn called the Depreciation Guild. They’re in another band that’s really big called the Pains of Being Pure At Heart and this is another project that they’re doing. It’s really good—they’re super cool dudes and they’re awesome to work with. So I’m helping them make their record.
So is it you and them on one record?
Joshua Eustis: No, no—this is more like my day job. It’s like kind of engineering and mixing and producing other bands. They came to me like, ‘Can you produce our record?’ I said, ‘Well, I can fuckin’ try, you know?’ I feel like a dipshit if I call myself a producer. I mean, there are really only two producers in the world—one of them is Dre and the other one is Flood.
Do you read a lot?
Joshua Eustis: My favorite author right now is this guy Jesse Ball. I think he lives in Chicago or he lived in Chicago for some time—he’s this really surreal guy. His books are amazing. I couldn’t begin to describe it to you, but they’re mind-blowing. He wrote a book called The Disastrous Tale of Vera And Linus. It totally changed my life.
How so?
Joshua Eustis: It is the coolest thing I’ve ever read. I don’t know how to say it any other way—it was one of the most original things I’ve ever read. It’s creepy, surreal, metaphysical, dark, beautiful, sad… It is everything that I love all piled into one place.
Do you really wish that you had a tanpura drone following you everywhere you went?
Joshua Eustis: Yeah, that would be great. Fredo [Nogueira] got me a little shruti box for my birthday, which is a little tanpura drone box. I love it. It’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s funny because I had answered that in an interview and he didn’t know I had said that and then he ended up getting me this tanpura drone box for my birthday. It was super cosmic. It was very meta. Like this happy happy coincidence.
Why do you like the tanpura drone—to be mellow and relaxed?
Joshua Eustis: Yeah—I’m kind of a mellow dude, so it’s good. I don’t like that being all harsh all the time thing.

TELEFON TEL AVIV WITH THE RACE ON FRI., SEPT. 25, AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 8:30 PM / $8-$12 / 21+. CLUBSPACELAND.COM. TELEFON TEL AVIV’S IMMOLATE YOURSELF IS OUT NOW ON BPITCH CONTROL. VISIT TELEFON TEL AVIV AT TELEFONTELAVIV.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/TELEFONTELAVIV.