We have been away for quite a while, so we thought it was time that we catch up.
Over the years, people have written to us at Substrata, and asked questions. Honestly, we weren't very good about updating the website, and even worse about responding to your emails. We have compiled some of your questions, and asked Jean-Paul Saari to respond to them.
Substrata is a record company, a music publisher, and of course, this website. The poem is Petrarch, and it was a message to everyone that I have known through the years.
It was started many years ago as a vehicle for my music. In 1995 we wanted to start a studio, and I came up with the name after reading The Empire of the Steppes/ a History of Central Asia. There’s a line in the book that reads, “…with its more or less Cimmerian substratum….“ At the time, we lived down the hall from each other in downtown Oakland. Living in Oakland, you get to hear a lot of rap – whether you like it or not. I wasn’t crazy about the culture built around it(rap), but I did want to integrate a really low bass drum into my music. This is where the sub came from – it was the foundation for everything. I began recording my music, one or two really small local acts in Oakland, and by 2001, we opened for business in a two thousand square foot facility that I did much of the design and construction on. In 2003 I assumed sole ownership of Substrata, and it has evolved from there.
Where is Substrata located?
Wherever I’m working – California, Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Japan.
Where is Substrata Studio?
Substrata Studio was located at 530 East 8th Street in Oakland, from January of 2001 to July of 2003. Before that, it was located at 1425 Harrison Street, in Oakland --- that’s where Pantheon was recorded and produced. Right now, I record at home, and do anything that needs major work at a large facility.
Who is Fox-Glove Bell and what is your role?
Fox-Glove Bell was Andrew Bronstein, Erika Larsson, and myself. This was the lineup from December of 1996 until May of 2003, when we disbanded.
Prior to that membership, the group included Sieu Inac on lead vocals, Erika Larsson on rhythm guitar, and Steve Verzello on drums. Steve and I played off-and-on together from 1988 until 2000. Other members included Mark Iannucci graciously sitting in on bass, Steve Miller on rhythm guitar, a bass player named Arne, and a guy named Jeffrey on drums for about a month or so.
I was the leader, and pretty much the creative center of the group; the songwriter; the producer; and the lead guitarist. I also played keyboards, drums, bass...whatever the music called for.
Where did the name Fox-Glove Bell come from?
Erika Larsson went out to the library and came back with pages and pages of names. They were all really bad, and I crossed every one of them out, except for one. I loved it – fox-glove bell. It came from a Keats poem, Ode To Solitude – “startles the bee from the fox-glove bell…” I always thought that I was the fox (wily), Andrew was the glove (guarded), and Erika was the bell (singing; the belle). Funny.
When is the next Fox-Glove Bell album coming out?
Never! (Laughing) I have one release in the works – of course a posthumous one – that will blow people away. I think people will really enjoy this one – it’s really subtle and quiet. I have a lot of production work to do on it, and I haven’t set a timeline yet. I did some work on it last November, and I was really pleased with what was there. I think the others forgot about it. This is something else….When we broke up, it was partly because of the tension of working on another album for two and a half years. That particular album will be released, but maybe not as a Fox-Glove Bell record. It’s really me playing with various drummers, with Andrew playing bass on some tracks. I’m looking for a vocalist, and I’ll finish it then. I also have an idea to do a double record set, remixing Pantheon, incorporating some earlier material, the last song we were working on together, and the material previously mentioned. I haven’t decided yet, but there will be more.
What is your best memory of Fox-Glove Bell?
Laughing. It was hard though – I was always the maestro, and trying to get something done, quite often at the expense of others' feelings. We had some really funny, warm moments, though. For the first couple years, they were both wonderful. I always liked being around them both. I think we hit a peak at the Martini Lounge show…we played really well.
What is your worst?
Fighting. I guess all the driving and fighting, and the flaky drummers. We were a stadium-quality band by 1999, and the drummers were absolute flakes -- they ruined it. Ultimately, I really loved them, and I really wanted to go on…by May of 2003 everything had reached a climax, and E absolutely hated AB at that point --- she couldn’t bear to be around him. I had enough of whatever it was too, and she stepped up and said, “I’ll play bass….” I was heartbroken about AB, but thought we could go on. When events collided that summer, we closed the studio, and I lost everything – everything. My wife and I were starving, and there wasn’t even a call to say, “Can I take you guys to lunch?” or anything. When you carry someone for so many years, this type of behavior is unexpected. During this time I was fortunate to communicate with and work with fantastic people -- John Neff, who was working with David Lynch at the time, George Petersen of Mix Magazine was so gracious, and Nina at Fantasy...an angel. Stephen Hart and Guy Lento at Fantasy as well. My wife gets the prize though -- she was my rock, my harbor....
What do people who listen to Fox-Glove Bell not know about you?
There’s a romantic center to the album (Pantheon). I think people were drawn to that – the influence that Rousseau had upon my thinking and writing...what people never knew was how ugly I was becoming – how unromantic. A lot of that music had been written when I was in a different place and time. By the time I made the album, I was pretty dark, and getting darker – I’m working on a piece about this…so more later....Quite often people are surprised by my austerity...this is a Finnish thing.
A funny thing is when I went Hawaiian – you can hear this on Love In A Seaside Town – I was listening to all this Hawaiian music, and there you have it – funny slide guitar.
After we played a bunch of shows during the first half of 1999, I wanted to hit the road again, and record a live album. It was supposed to be some strong live tracks off of Pantheon, and live versions of some tracks from the next album. It was going to be orange and yellow….big and swirly. About a month after our last show in San Francisco, our drummer quit. We wanted him to quit, so rather than fire him, we just waited for it to happen. Unfortunately, once you lose the momentum, no one wants to play drums for you. There was this endless antagonism at that point in history – kind of random forces working against us. All we wanted to do was play music, and we kept running into roadblocks – lots of negative dot-commers and x-ers and echo-boomers. It was so weird, and really so exhausting to fight this negative energy. Maybe that was the point.
I read on CD Baby that you broke up – would you ever consider getting back together?
Not really – it would take a lot -- everyone has moved on.
What is “aa”?
Long way around it -- aa is a project that I began working on during the spring of 2003. At the time, we owned this fantastic studio (S2), and I was attempting passionately to get Fox-Glove Bell going again. At the time, everything we were doing was getting bigger and bigger and more eccentric – for example, I was producing the bass guitar with a massive low end. We were even trying to get him a 12-string bass. I was using a sustainer guitar that could just play on forever. I had two tube amps set up in stereo, with a big solid-state amp in the middle. I would run everything through my effects chain, and on through a loop that ran out through the solid-state amp. I was using the sustainer, effects, all kinds of harmonics, feedback, and looping. That was the technical side of how aa evolved.
Emotionally things were very rough – E and I were fighting a lot, and she was incredibly frustrated with AB. On top of all of this, I was newly married, with all of the adjustments that marriage brings to your relationships with your friends. So emotionally aa was a spontaneous explosion of organic emotion, painted electronically. When I recorded this material I got big chills. I would go down to S2 late at night, and get a little spooked out recording there all alone
The name aa came from me having to spell my last name for people over and over. "S-A-A-R-I." It still drives me nuts. Similarly, the music itself is a piece or part of the the whole of what I do.
I recorded three or four songs that spring, and one later, after the studio closed, in our apartment in Oakland. In 2004, I mixed the four tracks at Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios (Thank you Nina). I worked on the big SSL and the Trident at Fantasy, using 24-track reel-to-reel tape and digital tape. This selection is the first aa album – the white one. Working on the fourth track, I got wrapped up again in recording to tape, and I recorded the tracks for the second record in Oakland and Wisconsin. Oddly enough, I didn’t record anything at our place in San Francisco. I don’t know why, because atmosphere in western San Francisco should have moved me to create, but it has really evolved in other places….maybe San Francisco is too distracting. Our neighbors were pretty awful too….
Why is aa so hard to find, and how to I buy it?
That's a funny thing...I have intentionally undermarketed the release. Long before the first record was finished -- long before I mixed it down at Fantasy -- I had the idea to market this differently. When we put Pantheon out with Fox-Glove Bell, it was a lot of work -- hanging posters all over San Francisco -- dangerous stuff, like hanging our rear ends into speeding San Francisco traffic to illegally post posters; passing out flyers and cassettes; endless calls to promoters, distributors, and booking agents. It was exciting, but at the same time it was hell. We were really burned by Orchard and the fall of Valley Media, and the idea of getting out there and going through all of that again -- needless to say with a release like aa, which is pretty esoteric. No cover -- it you want to look at it that way -- or snow -- no overstatement. It's a puzzle -- a riddle -- all you have to do is figure out what the titles are about, open yourself completely to the music, and you're there...it will get you. The first record is so deliberate....If you want to buy a disc, send me an email, otherwise the downloads will be available for sale on this site soon.
What inspires your music, and how do you write it?
Travel and going home. People and their situations. Trees. I live around a lot of trees. Lots of things though -- my ears hear lots of special things -- the ride cymbal on Baby Come Back; the bass on Baby You're a Rich man; Please Please Me by the Beatles -- what a song! I spent last night in the house on the lake and it was snowing two feet deep, and I had no heat, other than the fireplace -- 14 degrees -- that's inspiring (laughing).
As far as writing style and method, there's no big secret. A song like Pantheon is fairly typical of my style: Writing the chord structure first, then the words, and the bells and whistles follow. aa, as I said before was completely organic -- it was all written to tape.
What projects are you currently working on?
I’m working on a variety of things – I was in a really fun combo called the Muffintops for a while this year, but it sort of fell apart. I will probably continue working with the sax player – he’s great. I’m looking for a vocalist for the album that I mentioned above. I need to work some more on the second aa album. It’s nearly completed, but I feel like it’s wanting something. Demos. I’m also working on a band that AB would’ve flipped over --- it’s kind of a shame.
|
