100 Musicians Answer the Same 10 Questions

Part Thirty: Colin Clary

instigated by dave heaton

With every passing moment, Colin Clary is amassing what seems to be an enormous collection of amazing pop songs, songs that are endearing and catchy and come straight from his heart. He's played and recorded his songs with The Smittens (most recently on the fantastic A Little Revolution), with Colin Clary and the Magogs (check out Her Life of Crime), under his own name (2005 's Sweater Weather or Not... is superb), with Let's Whisper, and no doubt in many other guises. And any recording he appears on is sure to be marked by his exuberance and remarkable ease with the craft of song-writing. To hear songs or catch up on information, check out MySpace pages for The Smittens and Colin Clary and the Magogs, plus the websites for labels like North of January, Dangerfive and Asaurus.

**************************

What aspect of making music excites you the most right now?

The feeling of making up a song is tops - hands down. I think my two favorite aspects are the moment of inspiration - generally the most immediately exciting part - and the end result when multiple ideas come together. I like the feeling of having a new idea and I like to listen to completed projects. When a new song pops into my head, well, it's like a total rush - and it becomes addicting to a point - I tend to bounce around for a few hours all fired up about where the idea will take me. In the moment of collaboration, I love to be surprised by an unexpected idea from someone else that compliments an idea I had (or vice versa). Dana Kaplan is an expert at this - coming up with a counter melody or harmony that elevates the whole song to a higher level of sweet. I'm looking forward to a few upcoming releases, so I am pretty anxious and excited to finish the albums so that people can hear something new!

What aspect of making music gets you the most discouraged?

In group situations I get most discouraged during the scheduling process - trying to juggle everyone's different schedules to find the time to do the work that needs to be done. When I'm on my own, sometimes I wish I had better technical skills to execute the ideas in my head. When you have an idea for a group there's a tricky balance between hoping that your collaborators will do the parts you want them to and having to be ready to give up the idea in your head in favor of giving everyone a chance to have their own ideas on a given song be given equal weight. Not everyone always serves the song in the same way - sometimes folks can't play what you wish they'd play or they come up with ideas for parts that don't go with your general plan for the song. I tend to try to avoid conflict, so I sometimes get frustrated when I find myself giving up too much of what I wish a song would sound like in favor of interpersonal harmony. Sometimes I just take notes on what I'd intended so that I can revisit songs that didn't turn out the way I wanted them to on my own later.

What are you up to right now, music-wise? (Current or upcoming recordings, tours, extravaganzas, experiments, top-secret projects, etc).

The Smittens have about a month of recording left until we can call our 3rd album done. We don't have a title yet, but it's even better than our last record, which was better than our first, so I think the kids will dig it. We have a few songs coming out on comps via Happy Happy Birthday to Me, My Honey, North of January, and 307 Knox, and we're participating in HHBTM's next 7" singles series, and we are gonna be in an environmentally conscious feature film called The Green Movie that is due out sometime over the course of the next year.

Colin Clary and The Magogs are in the middle of work on our second album, though we may end up with an album and an e.p. by the time we're done - so far we are in the early stages, but we're making even more of a collaborative effort and incorporating some of the things we've learned working as a live 6-piece unit to make this next one super rad. Some of the songs we're approaching in a modular style - building on skills we developed when we did our cover of "Good Vibrations" last year and each band member is bringing more ideas to the table. A few of the songs are gonna be rockers and the rest are harmonically adventurous heart-jerkers! I expect some of the arrangements will have more of a Bacharach or Mancini influence (Jay and Steve have some dynamite string arrangements in mind, and I think we're gonna get a guest trumpet player, too!), though I am pushing for a little Flowers-era Stones feel on a couple things. We'll see how that turns out come fall!

I'm almost done my next full-length for Asaurus and hope to get that done in the next month or so - my job threw me an extreme curveball yesterday, so I suddenly have a bit more time for home-recording this summer than I'd anticipated. Given the feelings I've got rushing around inside, I expect to have songs bursting out all over once I get my room cleaned and my mic set up this weekend. Other than that I have a number of things coming out on comps through Asaurus, Perun the Thunderer, Sanitary, Lorelai, Stalker, and Popgun. Almost an equal mix of tapes and CD's, and a few on-line things.

Let's Whisper (my duo project with Dana Kaplan) has been on hold for the last few months - we're trying to get the Smittens album done and do a bunch of work on the Magogs album before we pick up with where we've left off on this - we have about two albums worth of songs in various stages of the recording process and are hoping to finish one album before year's end - Jason Routhier and Steve Williams of the Magogs may lend a hand on this as well, so we don't want to rush it or cut corners - or pile up too many releases at the same time. We'll sort out that stuff once we finish the more pressing projects - currently we have a song coming out on the Asaurus Depeche Mode tribute comp ("Somebody") and a whole lot of work ahead of us.

As far as touring goes, I'm playing a few solo shows and all my groups are buckled down recording til summer's end. The Smittens hit the road on August 2nd and we will be playing popfests in Toledo and Athens and later on Popfest New England and CMJ and a bunch of shows between here and there. The Magogs are gonna do some shows once we finish some recording and are looking forward to returning to our third Popfest! New England. Depending on when each album comes out, I expect some more shows will be set up in support of those releases. In the winter the Smittens have our sights set on the west coast and hope to see some of our long-distance friends then! And I do have one other super top secret rock project! But I can't tell you about it until later...

What's the most unusual place you've ever played a show or made a recording? How did the qualities of that place affect the show/recording?

I don't know if any place is unusual for a show - let's whisper played a large banquet, I played on a roof top twice! I did record a song in my van once - I have tons of minidisc recordings of songs I record when I travel, so whether it's a hotel room in Vegas or Portugal, they each have their own character. If the windows are open and there's traffic or birds or a storm, that can have an effect, though to be honest, most often it's the mood of the place or the mood I'm in that has the biggest impact. It does make a difference in terms of where you set up the microphone, though. I've recorded in kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and living rooms - and played shows in bedrooms and parks and kitchens and on front lawns even - nothing seems that unusual to me anymore.

In what ways does the place where you live (or places where you have lived), affect the music you create, or your taste in music?

Well, sometimes as a writing exercise I write songs with a particular person or place in mind - and the people and places in Burlington are particularly inspiring. In general Burlington has a rich artistic community and there are tons and tons of bands and kids doing music in all directions - it's a massively creative and supportive environment, though there are fewer clubs and other places to play now then there were a few years ago. Vermonters are independents and kind-hearted and hard-working lovers of the land. It's less of a consumer culture and way more crafty and home-grown. I love it here. Sometimes I sing soundtracks to the scenery as I walk along.

When was the last time you wrote a song? What can you tell us about it?

Hmm. It's been about two weeks or so since I last finished a song - I'm supposed to write a new song for my Smittens band mate David Zacharis tonight that I can play for him at his surprise birthday party on Friday. I'm not sure what it's going to be about because I've been toying with a song idea about a crazy vaudeville/cabaret show I saw in Burlington last night that starts with the line -"the night I heard Syd Barrett died/ I was at a vaudeville show" which might morph into the David song just because I was also thinking about him and because he's a huge TVPs fan and I could tie it in with the whole "I know where Syd Barrett lives" kind of idea, as that's a song he digs. The last song I completed was called "you don't have to prove" - and it's gonna be on my new Asaurus album - which sort of grew out of a conversation with my girlfriend but also kinda incorporates some bigger ideas on a different level. One fun thing I like to do is to declare that certain activities count as "work" - things like watching episodes of Alias, or even listening to records - and this gets more and more silly depending on the claims I'm making. Anyhow, we had a debate about how I could claim watching Alias as work if I ended up using any idea from it in a song which then would go on an album which would then be sold, etc - in the end proving my point that I could somehow be getting paid to watch Alias and that it was indeed part of my work! I'm gonna count answering these questions as "work," too, even though this is also fun for me. The song has a part that goes:

"you don't have to prove anything to me
I believe in you almost totally
even when they had me and I couldn't escape and then they tortured me
I didn't say a thing."

It's a straight-up acoustic recording that I made as soon as I was done composing the song. I considered doing a more orchestrated version, but as I already have a number of more fleshed-out songs on the album I think I'm gonna let this one go on as-is, just to keep it real for the hardcore acoustic lo-fi rockers.

As you create more music, do you find yourself getting more or less interested in seeking out and listening to new music made by other people...and why do you think that is?

I definitely find myself on a bit of a delay in terms of new music - just because I can't really afford to buy as much new music as I used to and I don't download stuff because I don't have an internet connection at home (and I'm not a borrow and burner, either). The last two new records I got were given to me - I got James Kochalka Superstar's new album from my friend Jason and I got an album from my friend Justin Vancour in the mail yesterday.

I do think that sometimes I am just in my own little world of songs. I'm probably my own biggest fan - I tend to go back through the albums I've recorded because songs are for me kind of what photos are for folks who take lots of pictures - I have associations with the day I wrote it, the experience of recording it, and even come to find new ways to interpret the words depending on whatever mood or situation or point of view I'm taking on any given day. It's how I keep track of things in my life and the world. My roommate Jason has an awesome record collection, so I pull out random things all the time - generally older stuff - Mancini or the Misfits or weird percussion or surf records - I do a bit of close listening to pick apart arrangements and to learn ways of putting songs and instruments together that may be different from what I already know how to do.

I have a handful of artists that I follow as a fan - like the Mountain Goats, or Belle and Sebastian, or Ted Leo, or Morrissey, for example - and whose records I buy each time they come out and for a lot of other things I make lists of what I want to get when I get the chance. I read a lot of music magazines and like to keep up with what is coming out - who does which song, what albums are called, etc. And I listen to the radio in my van and alternate between WRUV (our local college freeform station), and an oldies station, and NPR and the top 40 station and the "alternative" station - sometimes I even listen to songs I don't like that seem to be popular to try to figure out what I like or don't understand about spoonfed popular culture. There are so many things I find fascinating about how various artists have approached the idea of making their art for the masses (the Beach Boys or Beatles, for example) and have struggled with deadlines and personal issues in that context and how other folks tend to make their art in their communities or even in isolation.

Because I juggle 4 bands and also make records for myself or my friends on the side I tend to have to listen to my own record in progress a lot to make creative decisions or even to decide what songs to play on a given night - I have to play a marathon Colin show next week so I've been making lists of songs to re-learn that kids wanna hear or challenging songs I haven't played in a while to compliment the new songs I do that nobody really gets to hear unless they come to a show. So yeah, I try to listen to an even mix of older well-crafted pop, lo-fi classics, and new stuff as well as rotating through my own record collection with various albums that I listen to on CD at work during my day job. And then I rely on touring to come in contact with other bands and friends and see new music live. Plus I participate in a few online communities based around independent music by my peers and also music by folks I am a huge fan of.

Sometimes if I read about someone who seems to be on the same wavelength as I am I try to check them out a bit quicker to see if they are doing something that sounds like what I'm doing - generally I try to make my records sound like Colin Clary records and I try to make it so my records don't sound the same as each other (or other people's) either by changing my approach from time to time or trying to always expand what I do in different directions.

I like to explore the catalogs of folks who are or were super prolific or who have many albums just to follow a storyline from front to back and to see how all the songs progress or sometimes relate to each other, too.

Lately what musical periods or styles do you find yourself most drawn to as a listener? (Old or new music? Music like yours or different from yours?)

I like to pick apart older songs from the 50's and 60's to really pay attention to vocal interplay. The Beach Boys and The Beatles always come up, though I've been on a break from both for a week or so now. Yesterday I was listening to Thee Mighty Caesars and Lois and the day before I was listening to Led Zeppelin and Seam, and the day before that it was the Ramones, and electronic and Tullycraft. On the way to Smittens practice sometimes I listen to the top 40 top 5 of that day's requests, but I can't stand certain songs and I'm often baffled by what commercial radio attempts to foist on the public. My other standbys are classic shoegazer bands and small bands on Cd-r labels. I don't really go by period or style, though. I seek out songs to break my heart or make me cry or to plain blow my mind. I also tend to rotate though all the various Mountain Goats records - the 3 Beads of Sweat 3-disc compilation is very popular in my headphones.

Name a band or musician, past or present, who you flat-out LOVE and think more people should be listening to. What's one of your all-time favorite recordings by this band/musician?

Um, Jonathan Richman - The Berzerkley Years is a swell starting point! The Boo Radleys - Everything's Alright Forever or Giant Steps. Missy Bly - Clean Bee or her Self-titled e.p. (Missy is a friend of mine and a local legend - all her songs are totally super good and I really want to hear her next album the most!) Chisel - 8 a.m. All Day or Set You Free.

What's the saddest song you've ever heard?

Wow. My roommate will give me a hard time if I don't go with "Til I die," by the Beach Boys, though my old standby was Big Star's "holocaust." Different songs make can make me cry for different reasons. Is that evasive enough? there are a number of Elliott Smith songs and Trembling Blue Stars songs that give me that heart pain. All Smiths songs make me smile, though. Morrissey tends to be comforting.

Photo above courtesy of Brad Searles.

To check out the rest of the Q&As, click here.