The Tris McCall Report

Your Friends And Neighbors,February 27, 2003

The Swimmies are the world's foremost Japanese Queen cover band. No, seriously, that's what their website says! Oh, that Carla Parisi -- always wising off, deflecting, making up stories, dodging close inspection. But then it would take a woman with a runaway imagination to front an act as elusive as the Swimmies, Bloomingdale New Jersey's mad scientists, busy fusing indiepop with lounge music, jazz, and analog synthesizer meltdown noises. After playing a run of truly astonishing gigs throughout the NYC metro area over the past few years, the trio is finally recording their debut full-length CD. Expectations among locals, weirdos and intellectuals -- and particularly local weirdo intellectuals -- could not be higher.

The Swimmies' self-effacing stance only partially obscures their musical sophistication. Carla Parisi, Mike Weintraub, and Eric Peters play indiepop with the intuitive logic of jazz musicians, alternating between moments of free, chaotic dazzlement and tightly-crafted and highly theorized passages. Weintraub and Peters form one of the most sophisticated rhythm sections in the state, but it's Parisi's aggressive, fluid, and elastic approach to her Moog synthesizer and her guitar that truly marks the Swimmies as indiepop groundbreakers. Swimmies demos and recordings are available to those who dig around for them; luckily for all of us, their debut album Star Search Modulation will be available soon on Plantlife Records.

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Tris McCall: Carla, you take such an intuitive approach to the Moog that some have surmised that you just found it in the attic one day and proceeded to play it. I think you're probably more trained, or at least experienced, than that. What's your synth history? How long have you had this one, and did you play any other synthesizers previously?

Carla Parisi (synth, guitar, vocals): I wanted to make all those great Stereolab space noises, so I picked up the Micromoog five years ago. It's the only analog synth I have. For what it’s worth, I now own Macy Gray’s red Farfisa, but I need to take a blow torch to it. As for "training", early on my mother began transforming my sister and me into Van Parisi. At 8 years-old I started using a Casiotone on top of a church organ for drum beats and played the wackiest versions ever of “Wind Beneath My Wings” and “She’s a Maniac.” I had bass pedals like Geddy Lee. Around the holidays my family would nag until I agreed to play for them, and when I hit the first note they would talk incessantly and ignore me. My organ teacher and I recorded a tape of those tunes and I gave them out as presents. I should dig them out of the archives. I bet they’re genius. But anyway, that’s my keyboard history. I’m a total intuitive player. The whole band is, really. None of us have set parts for our songs and I know that sounds totally lazy, but why set limits? Sure, sometimes my parts are a complete trainwreck, but other times they come out better than I originally intended. Mistakes and all, spontaneity keeps the band fun and human.

TM: Michael, what the Swimmies rhythm section plays is often very close to jazz. Do you consider yourself a jazz player? Do you consider the Swimmies something of a jazz act?

Mike Weintraub (Bass): Sure, why not? What we could be is the "new fusion". In the Seventies, it was considered a good thing to mix influences. In the Eighties, it was suddenly taboo. In the Nineties, we saw the re-emergence of "lounge music". The same people who liked that also seemed to like the whole indie rock thing. So, voila! Les Swimmies.... I feel like I'm on Inside The Actor's Studio.

TM: Give me a short history of the project. Where are you guys from, how do you know each other? When did the group form, and what (honestly, now) was your ambition for it? Have you fulfilled that ambition?

Eric Peters (Drums): Ambition?

CP: Ok, I’ll try to make this relatively painless. I'm from Bloomingdale, NJ. Weird NJ did an article on the town saying we had the "Most Weirdos Per Square Mile." I actually know "The Walker" and "Lump Man." In college, I placed an ad in the Aquarian for a bass player and two people called it -- one asked for oral favors and the other was Michael. Ernie Intorrella grew up with Michael in Fair Lawn, so he offered to play drums with us. We were psyched. We love Ernie, EJ Beats, whatever. When he left to tour with Plug Spark Sanjay (then later, the Rosario Focus), I called up Eric, one of my favorite drummers and people on the planet. He's a drum teacher in the city, so we were hoping to snag one of his students, but totally lucked out when he wanted to join. When I gave him a CD of our songs he transcribed the drum parts on staff paper and it was all laid out neatly on a music stand. It freaked us out. Eric is class all the way. Oh, he came to NYC by way of Binghamton, NY.

EP: I wanted to play music in a place where we're not all sharing the same bass player.

CP: As for my amibition, ever since I picked up an instrument it's always been to create something with a genuine heartbeat.

TM: Carla, your lyrics frequently express a sense of impending danger that hovers over tranquil -- sometimes childlike -- scenes. What's that big truck that seems to be coming around the bend for the narrators of your songs?

CP: You're pretty right on. It's a bizarre childhood memory, so I'll try to make sense of it. When I was 6 I got my first album, "Stay Hungry" by Twisted Sister. The 5th grade Safety Patrol on my school bus would play it incessantly on our route home. I loved it so much, I convinced the parents to buy it for me. That was very cool of them, considering Dee Snyder was eating a fleshy cow bone on the album cover. For hours on end, I would ride around the basement on my Big Wheels like a mental patient, listening to that record on my Fisher Price cassette player. The "Big Truck" in the song probably means "daydreaming" or something. I think.

TM: Tell me a little bit about the upcoming full-length record. When will it be out, and what will it sound like? Is it an attempt to capture the experience of seeing the Swimmies live, or is it more studio-crafted?

EP: It will be a combination of both with very little engineering expertise.

CP: We’re treating it like an art project, with 5 or 6 songs thrown in for good measure. Eric just bought a 1" tape machine, so now we're officially "self contained" and able to work at our own pace. The album will be out sooner rather than later and will have the same spirit as the live show. We have a drawer full of cassette tapes from past rehearsals, lots of improv stuff that we'd like to include. Right now, we’re in the middle of re-listening and logging tapes, writing, just being ourselves. Michael likes to point that we’re probably the only band that doesn’t play our own songs at rehearsal. Once the first record is out we'll hit a momentum and release enough EP's to complete fill our closets and the trunk of my car. But seriously, we're in the middle of starting Plantlife Records. At the moment, it's more of a collective than a label, but soon I'll have more time to help get it off the ground. Our first release is an instrumental jazz record, Two Trees by bassist Paul Engle. Paul wrote an amazing collection of "jazz lullabies" for his little daughter. It's way out-there and the musicanship is incredible. Paul, our Eric, and Dena Derose grew up together in Binghamton and toured the country together for years, so this is their big reunion album. Dena is a fantastic keyboard player/vocalist well known in the jazz world. The three of them can play a jazz/fusion version of the Dark Side Of The Moon album. Anyway, the second release will be Los Swimmies.

TM: One of the most remarkable things about the Swimmies EP I've got is that none of the atonal or off-kilter synth was mixed down or edited out. Do you think of yourselves as a courageous act? Do you consciously suppress the urge to edit or clean up what you do? What's the significance of the aggressive moog for you?

CP: The Moog parts were just me being me at that particular time. The tape started rolling and that's the way the knobs fell.

EP: That stuff was left in? We thought someone else would take care of it. It’s a sad commentary on our times that being ourselves and having fun should be considered courageous.

TM: I can't help noticing you've got a much more expansive chord vocabulary than other indie groups. I know you dig Motley Crue -- what else do you listen to? Where are those great guitar chords coming from?

CP: Wow, thanks for noticing. I'm a firm believer in taking lessons and I'm completely not self-taught. The chords I use are colorful substitutions for I, IV, V, ii, vi, whatever. I just add major 7ths, 9ths, minor 6ths, and anything else to the triads. It's "instant lounge" and more pleasant sounding to me. Oh, I'm sure I sound like an ass right now, but it's all good. I have a music degree from William Paterson where I studied classical guitar -- not like that adds any legitimacy to what I play, but I'm proud it. If I'm looking for new chord ideas I'll transcribe songs by Mancini, Burt Bacharach, Antonio Carlos Jobim. If you’re going to borrow, do it from the greats. I know Eric takes drum parts from Tony Williams and Michael plays the occasional Rudy Sarzo pentatonic riff. I listen to a ton of different music. There's a lot of history I need to catch up on. Some of the most beautiful music ever was recorded by Astrud Gilberto, Stan Getz, Walter Wanderly, Jobim....the bossa nova cats. Other things that always seem to find their way back to my CD player are Ella Fitzgerald, Mingus, Chet Atkins, Miles, Thelonious Monk, Dolly Parton, Bacharach, Billie Holiday, Iron Maiden, Johnny Cash, lots of Bach, Chopin, and the Velvet Underground. More recently, the Flaming Lips, Belle & Sebastian, and Radiohead. It all depends on my mood, the time of the day, where I'm driving to. Oh, the Motley Crue thing? I'll always hold a special place in my heart for the metal. It's my way of fighting adulthood

TM: Do you consider yourselves part of a Jersey scene? If so, can you assess that scene, and your place in it, for me? Do you, as many intellectual/experimental Jersey bands do, feel more comfortable in NYC than in your home state?

CP: We're glad to be part of the Jersey scene and always have a blast when we play in town. It could be so much worse. Instead of sharing the stage with the Rosario Focus, Particle Zoo, and Val Emmich it could easily be Dogvoices, Good Girls Don't, and the Jimmy Buffett cover band that plays at the Junkyard every Tuesday at 10pm. Not like I've ever seen them or anything.

EP: We feel most comfortable playing in our own studio by ourselves, but anyplace with our friends, good strangers and beer is nice.

TM: Do you feel you've encountered any prejudices because you're a female-fronted act?

CP: No, not at all. Everyone I've met along the way has been really sweet. No one's ever screamed "show me your tits!" Sometimes my amp even gets carried for me. Last summer I saw Dolly Parton and was impressed by the way she manhandled the crowd. For obvious reasons there was a lot of hooting and hollering and she was all like, "Honey, meet me in the back of the bus after the show!" I took notes.

EP: We're actually male fronted act but we set up sideways. Mike’s just quieter than most lead singers.

TM: Carla, in performance you're famous for clapping and cheering for yourself after songs. ("Yay!") Be straight with me -- is it meant to be ironic? Is it a deflection? Or is it a sincere expression of how you feel?

CP: It's a total deflection. I like to cover up the possible sound of crickets, the visions of tumbleweed flying across the stage. I'll clap when the bass shorts out and my theremin tips over. I giggle when my voice cracks. If I keep the set lighthearted and show there's an underlying sense of humor, the unexpected can happen and it will still be somewhat graceful.

TM: Assess this statement, by a veteran scenester speaking in praise of the Swimmies: "With Spiraling, you have a band who says, 'we have chops, and you should care'. With the Swimmies, you have a band that says 'We don't have chops, and we don't care -- and if you care, what's wrong with you?" I thought that was funny and pithy, but the more I think about it, the more off-point and inaccurate it seems, because of course you do have chops, and quite a lot, they're just not what you're busy indicating up there.

EP: We do the best we can with the time we have. Whether it’s John Coltrane or The Shaggs, it’s never about the chops. You know the deal, it’s not the vehicle, it’s the destination.

Tell me my website is too small for parties.