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100 Musicians Answer the Same 10 Questions

Part Fifty: Andrew Peterson of the Kallikak Family

instigated by dave heaton

The Kallikak Family is a mystery, intentionally so. Their intriguing album on Tell-All Records, May 23rd 2007, combines field recordings with experimental folk music within a concept album about an important future date in Andrew Peterson's life, or something like that. Peterson is the genius behind the Kaillikak Family, the one to thank for their musical headtrips. Check out the album's blog for more confusion and intrigue.

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

Live music and performance, with actual people and things to hit, though not in a "the computer isn't an instrument" way, just in a "remember how we used to jam so hard together?" kind of way. I right now wish computers were as collaborative as they ought to be.

What aspect of making music gets you the most discouraged?

The lack of collaboration that seems to be a symptom of new technologies, which isolate artists from each other while at the same time espousing a new rhetoric of togetherness.

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

Yarn Lazer (www.yarnlazer.com) has recently released a Kallikak Family CD-ROM ("RITCHEY") with enhanced content including exclusive software patches, writing, videos, Genesis tabs and an episode of Twin Peaks. The ROM was designed by myself and M. Ritchey of MANTA(r), formerly The Badger King.

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 played a show at Badlands National Park in 2002, which led to a subsequent show at a house in Mitchell, South Dakota, where some high school kids were having an illegal "kegger" party. An old lady applauded us at the National Park, presumably enjoying in earnest our spontaneous, one chord, one note ode to the Badlands, entitled "Badlands (Good Times)." We met the high school kids at a gas station, and they demanded that we play music at their awesome party, because "nothing cool ever happens in Mitchell." Eventually, these same young men called us a "fag band" and threw us out of their party, after twenty straight minutes of "Badlands (Good Times)" did not move them to the degree that it had our previous old lady fan. This all actually happened, and it was great because it felt like being in high school again, only without the humiliation.

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?

Chicago is a loud place, and it has given me an appreciation for ambient textures. When riding on the train or bus listening to music, less complexity really is better, because there are so many other sounds to fill out what you're listening to. Coming originally from a quiet city in Idaho, this new loud place was a shock to me.

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

I wrote a song called "PURITY MUSIC/PURITY SOUND" about the sound a computer makes, that will be released on a compilation put out by Barge Records some time this year.

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 am not very interested in seeking out new music, but I don't think it is because I make music. I have a lot of friends that are doing really genuinely amazing things, both musically and in the "plastic arts." So I don't feel compelled to experience other arts when there is so much good art happening all around me. I guess I am also not that interested in making new friends, and these two things are probably interrelated, and together related to getting older generally.

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 am genuinely drawn to my friends' musics, and I strangely have little or no nostalgia for their "earlier periods" of music making. The things that they are making right now are the best things they have made. I guess it helps to know the people making the music, and hear it always in the context of their greater musical journey. I would say it is music like mine, but different from mine, as they are people like me, but different from me.

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?

Adam Forkner has recently released several hours worth of music recorded as WHITE RAINBOW, on States Rights Records and Marriage Records. Yarn Lazer also just released the album Blood Is Clean by VALET, which is Honey Owens making really beautiful music with cool riffs on guitar and vocals. The VALET album is probably my favorite that has been released in recent years.

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

The saddest song I have ever heard is the re-imagined version(s) of the Tin Pan Alley/Frank Sinatra song, "The Song Is You," from the movie "The Saddest Music in the World." This may seem like an ironic or flippant answer, because of the title of the movie in which the song appears, but honestly the re-imagining(s) of that song in that movie is/(are) pretty amazingly tragic and also comic, which is the best kind of sadness. To quote Chester Kent: "Sadness is just happiness turned on its ass." So true, Chester Kent. So true.

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


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