Member Interviews: Interview Thread (soundtrack, tickets, electronic, blues, dance)

[TheBig3]

My interview with Janszoon (to be brushed up when it isn't quarter past 2 in the morning)

me: What brought you to Musicbanter?
Sent at 12:17 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: That's a good question. I'm not really sure. Honestly I think at the very beginning I had plans to be one of those jackasses who tries to use the site to promote his own music but I abandoned that pretty quickly.

me: And now look at you, a bold blue mod.

jove.janszoon: Haha

me: What would you say made you want to use it as more than a dumping ground for your own gain?
Sent at 12:21 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: Probably the fact that I needed an outlet to chat about music. I had only been in Philly for a year when I signed up and all the people I liked to talk about music with be back in Chicago.
Sent at 12:22 PM on Wednesday

me: And was it a general vibe or can you pin point something where you said "hey many this isn't just a jackass farm talking about the top 5 on Casey Casum's top 100"
Sent at 12:23 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: It's weird, when I first started posting I felt like I encountered a bunch of people who didn't really do it for me but I also ended up talking to Ethan, which was enjoyable. I didn't stick around though. I only posted very sporadically my whole first year on MB, it wasn't until sometime in 2008 that I really got sucked into it.

me: So you first impression was that it was a jackass farm...good to know.
You mention "back in Chicago"
Was there a style or genre you discussed with these people back in the Windy City or was it as eclectic as it is here.
here, of course, being MB
Sent at 12:28 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: It was pretty eclectic. The friends I talked about music with back there were mostly my bandmates and all of us had/have pretty varied tastes. We all have a love for semi-electronic music though.

me: Is that the kind of music you played?
Sent at 12:31 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: Yep. It was very kitchen-sink kind of music. None of us had a set instrument that we played so we'd just pick up whatever we felt like and go. A lot of times we'd also be incorporating different kinds of sampled and sequenced loops into the mix or passing files back and forth by email between practices.
Sent at 12:34 PM on Wednesday

me: So you were the Spoonman Soundgarden sang about?
Do you have a memory from that time, or a song you might say was especially meaningful?
Sent at 12:35 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: Hmmm...I'm trying to think of what I was listening to at the time. I know we were all pretty into Grandaddy and the Flaming Lips and I think that informed our music to an extent. Sumday and Yoshmi were relatively new albums at the time and are definitely two albums that bring be back to those days when I listen to them.
Sent at 12:40 PM on Wednesday

me: How did you get mixed up in an operation like this? I'm going to guess you didn't grow up wanting to do a down-home version of Blue Man Group.
Sent at 12:41 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: It just kind of evolved. At first it was just me and one friend of mine hanging out listening to and playing music in his livingroom. Then it was three people. Then it was four. It was a pretty casual thing.
Sent at 12:45 PM on Wednesday

me: Let me take it back a little here, what were some of your first experiences with music? As a maybe a Baby Zoon?
Sent at 12:50 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: Ah, well, let's see... my dad's a musician and huge music buff so I grew up around a lot of it. Mostly 50s rock n roll and 60s country and folk. And then I got a lot of stuff from my older brother. When I was really little it was stuff like Pink Floyd and Rush but by the time I got to late elementary school and junior high it was stuff like Love & Rockets, REM, Jane's Addiction, Ministry, The Cure, Bob Mould, The Pixies, etc.
Sent at 12:55 PM on Wednesday

me: So you were that kid!
Sent at 12:58 PM on Wednesday

me: It strikes me as odd that those acts would be what you cut your teeth on, I've always seen you as someone who has at least one foot in the electronic grave, so to speak. You're fairly high profile in many a rap thread, and beyond this you have a thread, something to the effect of "50 albums to hear before your dead.", which has haunted my nightmares with that "nooo don't leave me loop." Was there a point you made the shift from 80's alt-rock to where you find yourself now?
Sent at 1:00 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: I think I always liked music with an electronic element, it's just it manifested itself differently in the past, like that big fat synth at the beginning of Rush's "Subdivisions" for example. Plus I loved a lot of the new wave type stuff that was on MTV when I was a kid. "She's Blinded Me with Science" is still to this day one of my favorite 80s pop songs. They of course by the time I was 13 or 14 I was getting into NIN and Ministry which lead me to all the great electro-industrial stuff Wax Trax! Records was putting out that the time.
Sent at 1:05 PM on Wednesday

me: What records have come out recently that you would say might be in that same caliber; that might be something you're still into 15 years from now?
Sent at 1:07 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: That's tough to say, I feel like my interest in different bands has become more transitory as I've grown older. Some semi-recent artists off the top of my head that I can image might stick with me though are Dalek, Liars, Man Man, Electric Wizard, Ufomammut, Burial, Mr. Lif and High on Fire
Sent at 1:16 PM on Wednesday

me: Why "transitory"? (if that's a word)
Sent at 1:18 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: I think transitory is a word, isn't it? Maybe that's the Captain Morgan talking. Anyway, I just mean that I don't get as obsessed with single bands as I did when I was younger. I guess I've just reached some kind of realization that with the vast amount of music out there I feel like I'm missing out if I focus too much on one thing.
Sent at 1:21 PM on Wednesday

me: It could be a word, I was guessing you mean transient but lord knows. I'm no one to talk about effective communication. So given this statement you've just made, how does this factor into the art of album listening? Do you still listen to whole albums, do you only try a few singles? Is time a huge factor when determining a bands worth?
Sent at 1:23 PM on Wednesday

jove.janszoon: I'm definitely still much more of an album person than a singles person. It's just that I feel that I spend less time with albums than I used to. When I was younger I'd have every word memorized, now I don't focus on one album long enough to do that.
Sent at 1:26 PM on Wednesday

me: is that a direct result of a growing musical hunger, do you think? Or is it just old age and increased responsibility?
Sent at 1:27 PM on Wednesday