BARDO POND

Interview by Mike Trouchon
Oppropbrium #23

Fall 1995, Bardo Pond went back into the studio to record their third and, to my ears, finest album, Amanita. Seeing as how Bardo Pond's name still regularly turns up when spinning my rolodex, the Opprobrium board of trustees suggested I give the band a ring and inquire about their spring gardening activities. The following conversation took place well after the chrysanthemums were put to bed and they were very well-poised to discuss their latest horticultural tips.

Isobel Sollenberger -- vocals, flute
Michael Gibbons -- guitar
John Gibbons -- guitar
Joe Culver -- drums
Clint Takeda -- bass

I'm interested in hearing about your trip to the Midwest last summer with Chavez.

Isobel -- We played 8 shows in 10 days. It was fucking crazy.
Joe -- But we did have one day off -- in Chicago.
Michael -- It was a lot of work, but we had fun; we had a really nice van.
Clint -- It was more like a space shuttle, complete with cloaking device.

Were you generally well received?

Isobel -- Yeah, in a couple of places... there were actually people.
Michael -- Champaign, IL, was great, even though not many people know who we were. I'm not sure they even knew who Chavez was.
John -- In Chicago, on the first show of the tour, this guy came to see us play at the Lounge Ax. After the show we talked a bit, and he said that he'd be coming to see us again in Champaign in a few days. He said he'd be bringing "The Killer" with him. So the guy shows up with The Killer and a couple of his friends.
Michael -- Yeah, so he shows up with his girlfriend and some other woman and they give us the one-hitter, this beautiful one-hitter pipe, The Killer. It's this pipe that this guy's girlfriend had made. We still have it, it's great one-hitter. This woman had learned to make these pipers from her best friend, who we found out had recently died in a car accident.
Clint -- this guy's girlfriend had really learned the art of the one-hitter...
Michael -- From the dead chick. Man, she made some great one-hitters.
All And we have one
Michael -- We met some great people on the road. Columbus was good; the crowd was a little weird.
Clint -- Yeah, Columbus was a little weird. Chavez told us that we'd be playing for a lot of alcoholics, so we should play our "rock set." So we rocked our hardest, well, as hard as Bardo can rock, and we had a good show.
Michael -- The party afterwards was great.
John -- Great party... all I know was I woke up on the lawn at seven o'clock the next morning and no one was around - except for like 20 beer bottle and me.

How was life in a van for 10 days?

Joe - Cozy.
Isobel -- Cozy and stinky.
Clint -- Tight but smooth.
John -- That's it, tight and smooth.
Michael -- Chavez had a real nice van.
Joe -- With video games and a driver.
Michael -- Actually they had a cooler van than we did.
Isobel -- With better drugs.
Joe -- There was some rotation between the two bands.
Isobel -- Yeah, I spent most of my time in the Chavez van. The Bardo van was real quiet.

You've actually been playing live more consistently the last year or so. Have you found your live shows conducive to developing and fine-tuning your music?

Isobel -- For me, playing a live show is completely different from playing in our basement private space because no two live shows are ever the same.
Michael -- Playing live gives me a sense of what goes over well with people and what doesn't. The crowd's vibe to certain things certainly helps to develop our music.

When did you go into the studio to begin recording your new double album, Amanita?

Isobel -- October 1995.
Joe -- For one month.
John -- One month? No, it was more like two weeks.
Joe/Isobel -- well it felt like a month.
Michael -- there was about seven days spent recording and the rest of the time was spent mixing.

When I took a listen to the tapes for the new record I heard a noticeable improvement in recording and production quality. Did you go into a better studio this time around?

Michael -- We went into Studio Red in Philadelphia and they have a bunch of nice equipment - good tape machine, good acoustics, good beer and weed tables to relax at.
Joe - We had a better, more knowledgeable technician this time. Jason.
Michael -- We were also fortunate to have this money to pay for a better sound.
Isobel -- And we really practiced those songs a lot before going in to record.

I also noticed a fuller arrangement on the songs. Is that something you've been working towards?

Michael -- Well, the ability to add multiple tracks almost instantly really helped to give us a better sound.
John -- Also, this was the first time in a real studio with Clint on bass, so that added another dimension.
Michael -- We did a fair amount of experimentation in the studio this time, right?
Clint -- Yeah, but we also ended up using a good number of the rough mixes as the actual tracks appearing on the album.

Have there been any developments in the recent past that you've felt have acted to advance the band from one stage to another?

Michael -- You means besides Clint jumping on board, or that really good pot we got a while back?
Isobel -- Buying an 8-track deck to replace our old 4-track.
Michael -- Buying some more recording equipment... signing to Matador.
Clint -- Signing to Matador equaling new equipment.
Joe -- I'd say having a bass player in the band has been one of the biggest developments.

Now that you've worked with a variety of record labels, ranging in profile from low (Compulsiv) to moderate (Drunken Fish) to high (Matador), have you had noticeably different experiences with each of them?

Michael -- They're all a real joy to work with and they've all been much different experiences, completely different.
Joe -- Yeah, I can't ever see (Matador co-head) Gerard Cosloy sleeping on our couch.
John -- The difference with Drunken Fish was (label head) Darren Mock's involvement and input with teh whole project; we really miss that part. It hasn't been like that with the other two labels.
Michael -- Darren is still involved with the band; he's almost like a sixth member. The only thing that really keeps him from being a bigger part of the band is the big chunk of land that separates us. Bufo alvarius was definitely influenced by Darren. We'd send him tapes and he'd give us feedback. He has a really good ear.

For those not familiar with your last recording, Big Laughing Jym, when and where was that material recorded?

Isobel -- It was recorded with Art Difuria in '93 and '94 at the same session that produced the Bufo alvarius album, except the song "Dispersion," which was recorded in our basement right here on Howard St.

What's the status of the album you recorded with master fly fisherman and amiable Christchurch roustabout, Roy Montgomery?

Michael -- We're working on mixing the tapes for the Mushroom Gravy Highway sessions as we speak. We need to lay down a few more tracks on those tapes...you see, there was some damage done - some water got into the boat while we were recording the sessions with Roy.

You performed live with Roy a few times last year. How was that experience?

Isobel -- Great.
Michael -- He's a roustabout -- you can dress him up, but...well, you know what I'm saying.
Isobel -- When he played with us I felt there was like this invisible blanket wrapped around our music -- it was so nice.
Michael -- We had never had anybody play with us before like that...
Clint -- It just clicked immediately.

Is the song on Amanita entitled 'R.M.' some sort of paean to Roy?

John -- That song started out as a tune we originally played with Roy on the Mushroom Gravy Highway sessions. 'R.M.' contains a mutated version of a rhythm I made up when we were all playing together. It's a rhythm that makes me think of Roy every time I play it.

A month or so back you sent me a video with a bunch of live Bardo Pond footage as well as a track by Prarie Dog Flesh. What's the story behind this latter band?

Clint -- PDF is just us making music when we don't want to be Bardo Pond.
Joe -- It's more of a basement thing.
Michael -- Prarie Dog Flesh is strickly improv. The band is similar to what Bardo was like before Joe and Isobel joined, the "no drums" Bardo.

Is there any particular vibe expressed in the music of Prarie Dog Flesh that you can't assert through Bardo Pond?

Michael -- No, I don't think that there's anything we do in PDF that we can't do in Bardo Pond. Although, PDF does tend to be noisier, harsher, rawer. Prarie Dog Flesh is a more primal version of Bardo that we've preserved from the early days.
Clint -- PDF also doesn't have to include everyone; it can just be a duo or trio sometimes.
Michael -- It's the lizard brain of Bardo Pond.

Have PDF ever performed live?

Michael -- Yeah, we have performed a couple of low-key shows in Philadelphia.

Any plans to release PDF material someday?

Michael -- Yeah, we're probably going to be on a compilation out on Econo Gold records here in Pennsylvania. The comp will also feature tracks by Pelt, Gospel Midgets and a few others.

Are there any other musical side projects going on amongst you?

Joe -- I play guitar and sing in a band called Wicked Finger.
Michael -- John and I have this new third we just started wit John on drums and me on guitar. It's called the Beaten Pathetics.

Has the increased activity of Bardo Pond during the past two years left any of you time to pursue your interests in art?

John -- Just a little bit. Basically, only working on the covers for our records.
Isobel -- I do art every once in a while. In fact, I can't do Bardo Pond in a free sprint without making pictures from time to time.
Clint -- I've been doing a little bit, trying to keep myself busy. I'm putting out money to buy a studio thinking that I might do something; of course, I might not. I figure it's best to just keep on making art. It keeps me sane.
Michael -- I'm not doing much right now, but all of us are very much plugged into the art scene. We work at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and most of our friends are artists; we really don't hang around too many musicians. We live in this building that's comprised entirely of art studios. Clint's the person who's really doing something serious at the moment.

Do you think that there might come a time when music takes a back burner to painting or some other form of artistic expression?

Michael -- Not for me.
Clint -- I've gone back and forth a bit, but I think when I was going to grad school for art I was definitely more into music.
Isobel -- I don't think either one has to take the back burner to the other. Ideally I want to doing both.

Once Amanita is released, are there plans for any type of national or overseas tours?

Joe -- Sure, why not.. we really, really want to go to New Zealand. We can go fishing with Roy and get in a little suntan action.
John -- Yeah, we'd like to get a chance to play with Roy again and maybe see The Dead C., seeing as how we were in the Midwest when they played New York, Hoboken and Philly. It was tragic we didn't get to see them.

Michael -- As Clint has said, for us the mystique of The Dead C. remained intact. We still don't know any of their secrets.

Do you have any other recordings coming out in the near future?

Michael -- We have a cut coming out on a Ptolemic Terrascope compilation and a side-long track on Drunken Fish's Harmony Of the Spheres box set.

Can we look forward to more releases named after hallucinogenic fungi?

Michael -- No doubt... some of our best friends are hallucinogenic fungi.

DISCOGRAPHY

'Die Easy'7' (Compulsiv)
'Trip fuck' 7" (Drunken Fish)
'Dragonfly (lying on the floor)' 7" (Compulsiv)
Bufo alvarius LP (Drunken Fish)
Bufo alvarius, Amen 29:15 CD (Drunken Fish)
'New Drunks' on split 7" with Bear (Ché)
Big Laughing Jym LP (Compulsiv)
Amanita dbl - LP (Drunken Fish/Matador)
'Let Ypourself' on Harmony Of The Spheres dbl - LP box set (Drunken Fish)

BARDO POND, 1801 North Howard St., Philadelhpia, PA 19122, USA

-- OPPROBRIUM (P.O BOX 3913, Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND)