Pete Nolan of the Magik Markers

10/01/06

Pete Nolan of the Magik Markers answers this week’s QUESTIONS OF DOOM about his band Magik Markers, a band so brutal on their Velvet Underground trip for the new millennium, that their new album ‘I Trust My Guitar’ is a trip through the American Scream. Pete discusses the album, the set-up of the band, the patronage of Thurston Moore, the tour with Sonic Youth and exactly why the Magik Markers are beating the shit out of each other on the cover of their album.

Tell me something about yourself that I would find personally shocking

I forgot to brush my teeth last night.

What are the secret origins of your band Magik Markers?

The Markers are like a buncha basement creeps ... a retrogressive home psych outside art jam ... laid to waste and ruin for about thirty years but when you turn the black lights on the colours still shine. The grande is ressurrected from the ashes like a goddamn phoenix ... back to the ballroom ... and a guitar cuts the air like liquid metal ... from a wall of twelves. HIAWATHA. HIAWATHA. Where have yr magik moccasins gone too? Only shit ... totally forward brains starting from where we shoulda left off ... and taking ... totally forward brains ... starting from where we shoulda left off ... and taking it further ... a stitch in time ... time space craft and home made goods.

How would you describe your album to little green man?

I’d take him out for some pie a la mode… set him on my knee and feel totally creeped out as he looked at me… and touched my cheek with his feelers… like those mannequinns from my childhood nightmares that came to life and tried to feed me coffee… but now thinking back I kinda dig it… and I’d just roll the weird.... I don’t think he’d really need me to explain it to him… but I’d try… and man… that’s the scene I’m striving to be at .... motherfucker’s be checkin us out through the window… but I don’t care… fuck em anyway…

How is the tour with Sonic Youth going?

Those guys are weird dude… they’re real nice.. but super fancy you know? Made me wanna get all fashionable… I’m thinkin bout painting myself gold… I don’t think I woulda even thought of it if I hadn’t been rolling with those weird ass fancy fuckers for so long… crime don’t pay… but degenerate art does…

You’ve done alot of work by DIYing it in the underground - what was the CDR manifesto behind this?

Hey man… tapes are cool… but it takes a long ass time to make em… they sound good and dirty though… CDr’s aren’t cool… wait a minute.. they’re easy as shit to make… any one can do it… and make a ton of em real quick… and everybody can hear that shit… that’s kinda cool… fuck man.. wait a minute.. that’s the way to go… I don’t even have a computer… but I gotta burner… I can craft some shit and burn as many or as little as I want ... give em to friends.. sell em at shows… shit… now the distros are hasseling me for 40 and 50 at a time… gotta move it to the big fucking A ... where I can take it to the Empire State building… they’ll burn a hundred at a time for me at good old RL ... overnight motherfucker...now all I gotta worry about is the packs… some poly sleeves.. and a afternoon onna kitchen floor with my primate screen print… I got 300 cd’s for you man… I don’t care bout messing with some label… somebody else getting their claws in your art… trynna “promote” your ass… fuck that… If people wanna hear it they’ll seek me out and I’ll hook em up… Most people ‘ll probably bern it off soulseek anyhow… what do I care… the music’s free dude…

Your new album ‘I Trust My Guitar’ is errr… another example of acid-insanity of the American underground. I listened to your album twenty times in a row and was convinced that you were trying to drive me insane. Why?

Alot of people are trying to convince me that Magik Markers are the new Velvet Underground. Why do you think they think that way?<.b>

I don’t know man… we’re standing on some tall shoulders dude.. and the view is good… what do I care what they think? Nuh uh… I just know what it feels like… it feels alright… thanks NYC .... thanks electricity… thanks air from the speaker that shakes my pants…

You have enjoyed the patronage of elder rockstatesman Thurston Moore. Do you ever think ‘Thurston, I know you enjoy the album but could you please stop stalking me?’

Oh dude… he doesn’t even like that record… I hadda kinda push to get it out… that guy totally rules though… makes everything easy and confusingly hard all at once… More of an energy.../ vibe than a person… go for it ... I don’t care.. Anyone can dig us that wants to… We been fortunate enough to be dug by many bad ass motherfuckers and I count him as one…

Your tours are with very diverse people ... from White Magik to Double Leopards. Do you think that ‘freak-out noise’ and ‘folk’ are comparable in the live format?

Chris Freeman of fusetron called my first lp with the Priceless Red Skeleton ‘folk noise’... I didn’t quite know what that meant… but I kinda liked it… I was playing electrified turntable… guitar swarms.. too.... don’t know how it fits in the folk format.. other than being home made… up from the grass… and that makes some sense to me… as far as marketing schemes.. go… the new weirds is being quickly over run by some commercial junk… so .. what the fuck ... hard to label it… i don’t really know where America stands right now as far as real home made sound goes… I’ll have a better idea maybe after this US tour I hope…

The album cover is very striking ... you are striking a member of you band whilst another looks on in the background and the background looks like an old MGM movie set for a Faulkner adaptation. And as the cover unfolds, we see the two other members of the band kick your arse. What were the thoughts behind the album cover?

Orriginal idea was Elisa’s… have us throwing down on a field… sixties hair love in reverse… Jason Wambsgans added the real sinister staged touch… glad your picking up on the Faulkner… We’re heading for a great American something or other… Epic in scale… can’t really see where it’s gonna end or really what part of the ride we’re on right now… but that’s exactly where we were at right then… we left that hillside covered in blood and dogshit… stormed into a dinner party and demanded to watch Cocksucker Blues…

Inside there is a book of poems dedicated to the Magik Markers with poems by Byron Coley and Thurston Moore ... what are your feelings about the poems inside?

I’m personally particularly flattered by the BC jam… that dude wrote the words that carved some new imaginary routes in my brain when I was a teenage Michigan shrimp try to look tough… and I picked up the copy of FE with a psychedelic painting by Chris Knox on the cover… and read the words of imaginary zones of huz and wuh… know I’m sailing those seas… uncharted doom trips… fucking amazing adventure… thanks dude..

Is there a structure to the noise within each Magik Markers song?

Maybe....

You have two female members within your band. When I talked to Vibracathedral I asked ‘Do you think the present-day noise scene embodies a male stereotype?’ and it was interesting the replies from both the male and female members of the band ... what do you think of where Magik Markers are placed within this dichtomy?

I don’t know… it seems like we must be pushing some female style jams pretty much… I think there’s probably a different flow to our jams.. I don’t know if I could place us in a scene exactly… I’ve jammed drums with Vibracathedral… I think there’s a strong male vibe to that band.. but there’s definitely a strong ghosty female energy that’s looming and creeping… Our female ness is way more up front I suppose… but I’m pushing a heavy male zone from the back ... a male battery onna female… feedback trip… who knows man… it’s hard to extrapolate on this nonsense… what’ s yr sign?

When I listen to your album ‘I Trust My Guitar’ ... I wonder if you really do trust your guitar? Do you? DO YOU???

As long as it’s making a sound… I can’t think of anything I’d rather zone into.. rather outa large cab… or offa slaba wax… the fuzz and tone rules… straight to the center of the mind…

Your live shows are intensely chaotic ... what is the language of the Magik Markers on stage?

Offensive...defensive… attack ..decay.. get to that point see what comes… definite temptation to zoology.. we probably succumb… what can I say? People say sometimes it’s dripping with sex.. maybe something like that.. i guess I could see why… same zone… different format… fuck yeah…

People divide music up into so many catergories: No-wave, post-rock, post-Sonic-Youth, post-post-post-rock ... when I listen to ‘I Trust My Guitar’ I just hear rock’n’roll. Do you feel like a rock’n’roll band?

Yeah

What’s been on your stereo?/b>

The Byrds… Pentangle.. Royal Trux… Street Hassle.. American Stars and Bars… Magik Markers

To read more about the Markers please click here.

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