Interview: G. Stuart Dahlquist

You a fist pumper? You need this hombre’s music. The five fingers have no choice but to ball and pound through air. Over and over again. Bass does that to people. It’s a big, deep sound and Stuart makes it sound bigger and deeper than anyone else. Burning Witch, SunnO))) and now Asva. Building on bass. Founding fundament and erecting a tower of sustain. It wouldn’t sound so phallic if it weren’t.

Left Hand Path: My first question—why the four-string motherfucker? What about it attracted you?

G. Stuart Dahlquist: Best question ever put to me... Listen my tequila blanco friend: I started playing bass because of jealousy. There was this kid that could do it; I didn't much like him (although I do now) and figured whatever he could do I could do a little better. There was this acoustic guitar amp, a 6x12" cabinet. It had distortion. You couldn't sound bad if you tried on that thing. It hooked me pretty fast. In like 15 minutes the possibilities both showed themselves and seemed endless. It stuck with me pretty good. That fellow I'd mentioned never stopped either and is a really good player as well. I broke his nose in a fistfight and to this day regret it.

Jealousy?

Jealous really wasn't the right choice of word. More a bit of one-upmanship that I guess teens deal with every now and again. I was young, might have still been getting my $0.50 a week allowance. I was definitely doing a lot of skateboarding, and not even close to my first piece of ass.

Your approach is stark, though. Sometimes it sounds like tonal drums. Just two or three of them. Electric tympani. And then you play it like a six string. Morricone color, etc. Has this always been your approach, and when did you understand the potency of volume, the need to ‘bring in the howitzer,’ as you often say?

Volume was the thing that really got me almost immediately. The first real band I was in, playing cover tunes in the basement (Judas Priest, Rainbow, UFO...), had these two guitar players who had half stacks and my brother Adam, who played drums (and still does), has always been a really heavy hitter so I had to respond in kind. I'd sit in that basement alone and make tons of noise really getting off on the immensity of sound the bass could make. It was so much thicker than a guitar and the notes could sustain forever, it entranced me straight away. Then King Crimson released Discipline and Tony Levin stunned me, his sound could be so abrasive and so beautiful at the same time. I stuck with Tony for a lot of years...

Then somebody made me listen to Weather Report and Jaco—whoever that person was—helped lead me down a path that took years to get away from. Jaco, Jeff Berlin, Stanley Clark, Haslip... I wanted to be like those cats! I practiced and practiced, bought books showing chord fingerings, scales, and harmonics. Listened to the records and learned it all... I can still make it through “Teen Town!” It took years to figure out that I could never really play like that and feel effective as a part of a band. Playing rock and trying to pull off playing as many notes as possible just didn't work; I love rock music and wanted to play bass guitar but also have a more personally defined role, a voice. My brother Michael introduced me to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Flea; that’s when things started to click.

All this practicing over the years had left me with everything but timing and funk was where timing played a huge roll. Flea had the slapping, popping exercise really nailed down and he'd simply repeat these little quick phrases over and over. It struck me as a really driving approach, so I learned all that music and started listening closely to true Funk.

James Brown, Larry Graham, Bootsy Collins, Vernon White... these guys lay it down with just a few notes and are so fucking heavy sounding because of timing, playing in the pocket. Unless you’re listening to ZZ Top, pocket playing at that point was hard to find in rock music. I guess I took the approach Tony Levin would have taken if he played for JB; the sound came together at this point and I just fine tuned, listening for moments when feedback could be effective as opposed to playing another note in the middle of a bass line, where to lay out, where bending or vibrato might be effective. Playing became very physical and the louder I played the more the bass became an extension of my physical self. It just became so much fun to have control of this massive sound, this beast.

The music I've written has been based around the physicality of that bass tone and the sense of what I can do with the tools I've developed over the years... this is sometimes not such a good thing because it has built within it limits as to whom I can play with. Taken out of context, the sound I get is completely inappropriate and my playing absolutely sucks, but given the right surroundings it can work pretty well.

Getting to this place has really been an exercise of trial and error, of recognizing that mistakes frequently lead to something better and utilizing them, playing off of them. Practicing those mistakes till you get them down and your ears and brain make sense of it. It’s a mad approach, but one that’s led to some pretty good music...

Let's get this fucking over with: Burning Witch. Sunn O))). That's some serious musical pedigree. Have your past accomplishments been limiting in a way? It seems that you can't release a fart without a 'FORMER MEMBER OF BURNING WITCH/SUNNO)))' sticker affixed to it.

It doesn't hurt to have a strong affiliation with either of those bands. For B.R.A.D., Burning Witch was a real ear-opener for sure and helped put him on his path toward the drummer he is today. Burning Witch's music was written as a band - Stephen or I would compose a riff, bring it to rehearsal, and the four of us (Jamie Sykes prior to B.R.A.D.) would put things together from there. Sunn was much different in that Greg, Stephen, or I would have an entire track written before we went into the studio. The ones I wrote were 'Dylan Carlson' and 'Richard'... then we'd knock them out live in the studio, no rehearsal at all. I'm proud of having had major roles in both those bands and both bands helped me see how Asva could be vastly different but still reflect those early 'Doom' efforts.

Do you write all the comps for Asva? What's your writing process like? Do you work from the bass outwards? Is it more of a, 'here's the music, folks; learn your parts,' or is the song worked out 'democratically?'

That’s a tricky question because, although I do write all the music for Asva—the main riffs, the melodies, the basic arrangements, and send those ideas off to the other fellows—my skills are so limited on anything but the bass guitar that by the time we've gotten in the studio the tracks have achieved a much higher degree of refinement. Randall Dunn is extraordinarily good at laying sound over sound and generally thinks, as all the fellows do, of the music in a much larger framework than I. I like my demos—they tend to sound darker and less structured. The organ and guitar will have only one or two layers as opposed to a dozen or more so things are much more stripped down. Trey [Spruance], Milky, B.R.A.D., and Troy [Swanson] are all really good at their individual crafts and Randall can untie the knots of all of it. We have a very good group of people who've got a wealth of experience and talent behind their ideas. Mix down is for the most part Randall, Mell Dettmer, myself and B.R.A.D. listening to the tracks to see just what is there, finding what’s essential for the track to have primarily, emotional strength and secondly, sheer electric power. My demos are just the beginning... I'm rarely even in the studio while the others are tracking.

As far as writing in my own studio I like to start off on the Hammond organ. This is kind of weird because the keyboard is my weakest instrument (I have tape on the keys so I can find the right notes), but the organ sounds so neat and you can really fuck around with voicing—just messing around on it can open up a lot of ideas regarding the other instruments and vocal stuff as well. Bass is generally the last thing I'll lay down unless I've got a vocal idea and then, since I can't sing, I dig through my CD's until I find something that approximates what I'm hearing and lay it right on top of whatever I've written.

I can understand the affinity for the organ. Your melodic bass lines on What You Don't Know Is Frontier find a pretty interchangeable translation on the Hammond. It's weird, but it sounds just as heavy to me.

In a lot of cases I double the bass parts with the Hammond foot pedals just to fatten the demos up, then when Asva gets into the studio I usually triple track the bass part and then that gets doubled with either foot pedals or some kind of synth bass. We just did a new recording with Edgy59 called 'Termagant' which will be coming out on the next Southern release and Randall and I doubled the bass part using an old Korg bass synth and man it is fucking cool!

I know you've talked about recording a solo organ work sometime in the future; how close is this to becoming reality?

Not very! I've been working on ideas that could work as a stand-alone piece for a Hammond but also translate really well for Asva's music, so the solo thing keeps getting shelved. A friend of mine, William, runs a small label called 'Enteruption' and released the Asva self-titled EP. At one point he implied that he'd release an organ recording if I wanted to put it together. Whether or not he would still do it, I don't know; I also don't know if it'd end up being any good... like I mentioned earlier, the keyboard is sometimes beyond my grasp, a series of lucky mistakes.

You listen to a ton of different stuff. I still laugh about the Earth, Wind & Fire line you dropped in that interview with some twink... (And you've missed some stuff, too [Ives, Part!]) I think it's important to know how to listen to certain sorts of music. How do you listen to music? How do you choose what to listen to? What appeals to you?

I've missed tons of stuff... the Ives you sent along is really mind blowing! It's not often that I listen carefully on a daily basis unless there’s something there that might somehow be helpful to my own music. If I spend a lot of time listening closely even my favorites can become tedious; I do the same thing reading. William Gass noted two types of readers—the analytical, deep reader who really 'gets' what he's reading and the type who reads for the pleasure of reading, for the words, but takes little in of the very nature of the book. I fall into the latter category with regard to reading or listening to music: pure pleasure and little in the way of analysis. This doesn't mean that the emotional aspect or some subtle movement is lost on me. Far from it. It just means that, generally speaking, I'm not focusing on the music. I'm focusing on other things going on around me while music plays along.

As far as what gets played the set list is pretty straight forward; Neil Young, Charlie Rich, Radiohead, The Fall, Guided By Voices, Fred Lane... these types get a great deal of airtime around here. George Clinton’s stuff, a smattering of old Metal, Judas Priest, UFO, Mahogany Rush can get in there as well, Black Metal rarely. Now if I really want to really listen, there’s Silkworm, Penderecki, Miles Davis, Hildegard, Orff, my own music sometimes. The stuff that emotionally charges me—it’s not every day that I can listen to the music that is really important to me; it pulls something from me, it requires something of me and giving that every day is just too much. I avoid the music that pulls that hard on me. But when the mood hits, I really do listen.

I actually hear a lot of Radiohead in the final mix of What You Don't Know Is Frontier. The swirling electronics, the juxtaposition of "organic" and "inorganic" sound. The melodic layering. It's almost like Kid A with a gigantic set of balls.

I hear that as well... I had asked Toby Driver to sing on WYDKIF originally and his voice can have a sort of Thom York whiny aspect to it. I really liked what he did, but getting the other fellows as excited about it as I was just wasn't happening. Toby is really versatile, he pulled off some ultra aggressive stuff as well but we were shot down. The singing by Holly Johnson worked out very well for all of us... in my opinion the track she sings on, 'A Game In Hell, Hard Work In Heaven,' is the strongest on the record if a person was actually interested in listening one track at a time.

Yeah, man, no shit on the aggressive angle. Those vocal demos that you sent me... I coulda sworn that was Edgy59 at first. Really brutal stuff.

What is it about Radiohead that attracts you to their music?

Radiohead is rare in that they can pull off absolutely anything and yet its impossible to pigeon hole them... no cliché to be found anywhere in their music. Every album is totally different from the previous, but it always sounds like Radiohead whether Thom is singing or its just instrumental. In this aspect I hope Asva can be as distinctive.

Have you heard Greenwood's soundtrack for There Will Be Blood? It's fucking nuts. Have you ever considered film scoring?

Haven't heard it, but it’s now on my list... he kills me! I have thought about scoring and have scored an animated short by Richard Hamilton-Forbes called Innocence And Loss—The Family. I think it was pretty successful. A full-length motion picture would be something else altogether but it'd be fun to try. I'm forever amazed Asva's music hasn't been placed in anything yet... I've got someone helping us to that end though. We'll see.

By the way, I think ‘A Game in Hell, Hard Work in Heaven’ is the record’s strongest track. And in no small part due to Holly's vocal. Who the hell is she and how did you decide to record the vocal and slap it into ‘A Game in Hell…?’

Jessika had gotten too busy to work with us. She had recommended another woman, but hadn't spoken with her for some time and had no idea how to contact her because this woman had been traveling in Indonesia for the past year or so. Then I went on quite a long search for a vocalist, actually went nationwide with no real luck (besides Toby). I had to have vocals!

A year or so went by... I'd started playing billiards in league pool playing for a bar team some 50 miles south of where I lived at the time and fell in with an older guy called Dennis. Dennis loved music and drank nearly as much as I did, so we had a good deal to talk about. I play in another band, Magnaaflux, that has a miserable time getting shows and they wanted to tour so I asked the bar owner if we could set up and play for drinks. He said yes, so I invited Dennis to show up. He did, with his daughter in tow. After we got done playing, I sat with the two of them chatting. Holly had been traveling and just a few days prior had finally came home. She asked:

'So, you’re from Seattle?'

'I am.'

'I went to school there a few years ago.'

'Really? University of Washington?'

'No, Cornish. I studied voice.'

'Uh... do you know Jessika Kinney?'

'She's my best friend!'

Turns out Dennis's daughter, Holly, was the woman Jessika had recommended take her place more than a year prior! Fucking small world. Tiny, actually.

Holly and I worked on ‘A Game in Hell….’ for about three months before we finally hit on the Jatanese vocals that you hear now. The track, when I wrote it, was meant to have an Eastern flavor incorporating Gamelan tones, etc. We accomplished a kind of bastardized version of Gamelan using straight, clean bass and vibes.

Holly was warming up one afternoon singing these little folk songs. I thought they were really beautiful and felt they would work. She felt a little weird about using them—the songs are very important to the people who utilize them in daily life, like a prayer might be for someone. I had some ideas for holding notes, which is way off the traditional style—the songs are very staccato. But it works very well.

Explain your connections and/or opinions on the following people, places and things:

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Born and raised there, surrounded by some of the greatest artists of the past century. They were friends of my Father, Paul. Guy Anderson, Ken Callahan, Morris Graves, Wes Weir... I even got to meet Mark Tobey as a little kid. Guy and Wes were my favorites and seemed to be around a bit more. I enjoyed those two immensely and am lucky enough to have a good deal of work by both.
I grew up in a pretty rural area, hiking through woods, fishing, camping, getting rain-soaked. We're moving back in about two weeks so I'm very exited.

CARL ORFF

Oooooo... Carl Orff. I first heard Carmina Burana while driving a taxi in Seattle, the first movement 'O Fortuna'. It totally blew my mind and years later the track 'Fortune' from Futurist's Against The Ocean evolved from that piece of music. I'm going to put it on right now! Jesus. To this day, this is one of the real musical pleasures of my life.

JAMES BROWN

My buddy and band mate in Magnaaflux and the long extinct Hungry Crocodiles, Mike Henderson, introduced me to JB in about 1988. He wanted to cover 'Lickin Stick' and that was my first real taste of true funk bass playing—finding a groove and sticking it. We ended up playing shit loads of JB, it all felt so good! None of the Man’s ‘Man’s World’ stuff; only the driving, chest pounding funk... I still really like listening to the JB's especially when I've got a few Bourbons in me.

HORSE RACING

I'm best in the track bar and have lost every wager... Bukowski could teach me a thing or two, but I tend to focus on the bottle instead of the board. I like going to the track though: the smells, the crowd. The tracks tend to be cleaner than they were before, the smell of urine and peanuts not so obvious. I like filth and it’s getting harder and harder to find as the old ways are replaced with the new. Look for me at the track and I'm either in the bar or the crapper.

THE PANTY DROPPER

Booze. I'd gone to an estate sale with my wife, a hot little red head. At the time I was collecting old porno magazines and forgotten bottles of DDT, the insecticide. The old guy had his grand daughter on his knee but I asked him anyway; 'Got any old porno magazines?' He leaned over and whispered 'Come back tonight.’ I did.

He let me in his front door which opened into a living room absolutely packed with stuff, he was a first class hoarder, just a narrow trail led to a cot that was set up in the kitchen, otherwise just stacks and stacks of mostly junk right up to the ceiling. He had pulled out a box or porn but he had only started buying it since his wife had died, early 80s or so. Nothing that great but I picked a few out anyway (good to know that jacking off remains an option even when your an old guy). We chatted a bit about ladies, and he says 'I saw that little gal you were with today... I've got something for you. Follow me.'

He led me down a stairway I hadn't been able to see. His home was built on a steep hillside and had four stories, two of which were basically under ground. We went down, down this cluttered, dimly lit staircase to a room. He fumbled trying to find the light pull—it was pitch black—got it on and parked down there was this beautiful Diamond-T pickup truck of about 1935 vintage. Holy shit, I thought he was going to give that sucker to me because of Angie's hot ass! Well, no he wasn't. He reached behind the truck and pulled out this ancient bottle of hooch he'd made maybe 20 years prior. He blew off the label and said, 'I call this the Panty Dropper.' I got the idea.

I used to drink a whole lot by myself... I had a bar in my house with a stereo that could blow windows out. I'd sit at that bar and drink, listening to old records until passing out. I did this nightly. One night I ran out of booze, not a fucking drop in the house but for that old bottle of Panty Dropper. I took it off the shelf and held it to the light—large, black, sheets of sediment floated in a deep brownish burgundy liquid. I got a glass and poured. It looked like rotting poison. I took a hit and found the taste rivaled the best ports I'd ever had. I drank about half the bottle that night and finished it off the next day. One of the best bottles of hooch I've ever had the pleasure of drinking.

WHISKEY

I prefer Bourbon. Wild Turkey if I'm going to get drunk fast, Maker’s Mark if I'm in it for the long haul. Bourbon has been a mixed blessing for me. Some of the wildest times I ever had were spent being completely out of my head drunk on the stuff but then again every time I've been thrown in jail I've been drinking Wild Turkey and causing problems. I'm a happy drunk, but for some reason the fuse gets a bit short in certain circumstances and some grand, stupid idea makes its way through the fog. Drunken clarity is just great unless you’re behind the wheel driving to that after hours party with the top down and six of your buddies piled in throwing beer bottles at mail boxes... I'm lucky to have survived it.

Although I still drink the Turkey, it’s at home and the grand ideas are worked out in the bedroom... unless we have fireworks. I love setting off fireworks when I'm bombed.
Vodka and decent red wine is my current drink of choice. Starting at 4 p.m. daily.

RAYMOND CARVER

I like Raymond Carver a good deal, but haven't read him in a number of years. The Where I'm Calling From collection of stories is very powerful and depressing. He has this way of taking the upper middle class, the good life so to speak, and creating these awful situations that are brought on by self-induced, and frequently internal conflicts. Jealousy, mistrust; perceived and real adultery... everybody loses. Where Water Comes Together With Other Water has been on my list for years but still sits idle on the shelf waiting.

TROUT FISHING

Something I've loved since a tyke but haven't had the time to do in quite a few years... I'm looking forward to fishing a few good streams in Eastern Washington late this summer with Angie’s father. Looking forward as well to you and I catching a time when we can get out for a bit of fishing ourselves.

WILLIAM GASS

Metaphor... No author has given me as much reading pleasure and managed to confuse me as much as Gass! I've been a reader of him for many years now. My introduction came byway of a copy of Omensetter's Luck, given to me around 1991 by an apartment manager who had a similar passion for reading—fiction in particular. This book stunned me... I'd never read anything so dedicated to its characters’ thought process or anything that showed as clearly how involved an author could be within his relationship towards his (fictional) characters.

Gass loves some and hates others, distrusts and worships, but pulls it off in a way that allowed me to feel I was making up my own opinions of them. It was totally new to me, writing like he does. To my mind, the only other person I've read who pulls anything off on a similar level is Malcolm Lowry with regards to Geoffrey Firmin, the drunken consol in Under The Volcano (this book is recommended by Gass in a collection of essays entitled Fiction and the Figures of Life ,so I dove in). The difference (among others of course) being that Gass's characters are entirely fictional— Lowry's Firmin is only partially so and it’s arguable that Under The Volcano comes close to being autobiographical in nature especially if one picks up [Lowry’s bio] Pursued By Furies.

I think the closest Gass comes to Lowry's Firmin is in The Tunnel. William Kohler is this completely self absorbed, brilliant lunatic, nothing like Gass as a man but his (Kohlers) position at University, his wife and family, are similar to Gass's in his own life. He took some 30 years of work to complete The Tunnel and I'm sure it’s the most complex novel I'll ever read. Twice.

[Stewart Voegtlin]

type: articles    keywords: interview, ambient, lhp014, panty dropper,   

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