10/29/2013

Introducing: Jackie Trash

After hearing and reviewing their recently released debut ep, wow so sad, I decided to learn a little more about Jackie Trash, the Canadian lo-fi duo consisting of Linus Taylor and Sam Wells. Read the interview below.

·     Jackie Trash is a nearly perfect name for a lo-fi band. How did you think of it?

Linus: I just made it up out of nowhere. It’s fun sounding. If Jackie Trash was a person I’d imagine she’d be a trashy no wave princess. Also if I get tired of the name I can just change it to Jackie sad or Jackie crash or Jackie fast or whatever and it’ll be pretty much the same.

·    Where did you record your debut EP "wow so sad"?

Linus: Pretty much all of it was recorded in my room except for maybe some drums and guitar on sleepy cat. The fidelity on every song is a bit different because other than idiot they were all recorded with different tape recorders. I have two 4 tracks and a bunch little handheld cassette recorders and boomboxes.  We did honey ghost live to one of the little ones.


·    What bands directly influenced your sound? Any non-lo fi bands?

Linus: It changes a lot, usually because I am directly influenced by whatever I am listening to when I’m writing, which is something I have no control over it. This summer when wow so sad was written I was really in love with the first and last Beat Happening albums Of Montreal (the early demos and Cherry Peel) and the first Softies EP. I was also listening to the new TWIABP album and starry cat a bit. Mat Cothran and Salem have had a big influence on the way I write keyboard based songs. Frankie Cosmos’ why am I underwater was probably what I was listening to most though at the time, she’s a wonderful songwriter and everything she writes sounds effortless.

·    Why did you decide to put Sopranos samples in a couple songs?

Linus: I was pretty obsessed with that show when I found the sample for idiot. Finding good vocal samples invariably puts me in a good mood. I don’t know I just think a good vocal sample can set the mood for a song or contrast in a way that is funny or beautiful. I bought a reel to reel tape recorder and it was full of these 50 year old recordings of teenage girls covering pop songs interspersed with the droning voice of a bored housewife. Listening to that was pretty strange and beautiful. Now though I pretty much just look for samples that are funny and tongue in cheek, a really boring melodramatic vocal sample can ruin a song for me.

·    
What's pop music like in Canada?

Linus: There isn’t much of scene of a pop scene around where we live except for some bands that we love really dearly like woolworm and open relationship. The first Destroyer album is also a total classic plus Drake and Blank Banshee have put out great albums pretty recently.

Sam: Definitely not as much of it as in the states, but we’ve got some great artists woolworm from Vancouver is a really killer pop emo sort of band, Chad Vangaalan is an awesome experimental singer songwriter, and Mac Demarco although a little corny writes some beautiful pop ballads

Are you going to put out a tape?

Linus: Yeah we are going to do really small of run of hand dubbed wow so sad tapes which will be really beautiful and unique and all a little different. If those sell out we will probably put up some beautiful transparent orange cassettes for sale. However, we still need to figure out shipping costs etc… so that’s all still in progress…

·    What was your first brush with lo-fi music?

Linus: When I was in sixth grade I bought a Tascam 4 track so I could record little personal songs. My only instrumentation was a couple toy keyboards I bought from Value Village and I would hole up in my room and record tracks like that. I was recording all my drums from MTV music generator on PS1 and doing all my vocals on a karaoke mic. Sadly, the input jack broke pretty quickly. It’s pretty funny to think I was doing pretty much the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone thing in sixth grade (albeit pretty terribly). The first lo fi music I ever listened to was Teenage Jesus and the Jerks though which I still love to this day.

Sam: Uh, my first brush with a really lo-fi aesthetic would probably have to be woods early works back when they were still called woods family creeps, as well as some local bands like weed, and open relationship, but I’ve been into hardcore for a long time and that’s all pretty lo-fi


How many tapes do you own? Which are your favorites?

Linus: I only have three right now The Blue Album by Weezer, Philosophy of the World by The Shaggs and Poochy by Open Relationship. My dc snuff tape is in the mail.

Sam: How many tapes do you own? Which are your favorites? I have maybe 30 or 40 tapes I have a lot of favorites I guess my weed – gun control cassette is the one I listen to the most, but I also love my Nine Inch Nails stuff and I have like 10 or 15 local or semi local crust bands tapes that are pretty rad.

If you got the chance to record any of your four songs in a studio which would it be?

Linus: I wouldn’t re record any of them in a studio but I would add cello, violin and female vocals to idiot (if that was possible). I would also probably turn the coda in sleepy cat into a half tempo sluggish jam like Pill Friends does on Rituals or Sonic Youth does on Schizophrenia.

·    Are you planning on recording any new stuff this year?

Linus: Yeah wow so sad is made up of a bunch of tracks that don’t really fit on the full length we are working on but my friends convinced me were too good to throw away. The only exception being idiot which I just recorded on a whim in one night. Hopefully we can put something out this year but it’s hard because i’m really busy and 99% of my gear is broken so it’s hard to get over to Sam’s house to record.