Rockers Galore #3

"Shipwrecked, I Was One Sappy Rouse"

Appreciating Missincinatti as they pass along fables of the sea: A discussion with Jessica Catron

The hit song of the summer of 2010 for me is about a crocodile. A five-hundred mile long crocodile. I'm not sure how old the song is myself. I doubt anyone does, but it was one of the songs collected by John and Alan Lomax in the 1920s and it falls into the terrific folk category of a “liar” – an extraordinarily tall tale set to music. Layered with whimsy and theatricality, a nine-minute rendition of the story appears on Missincinatti’s debut self-released album Remove Not the Ancient Landmarks. Their recording is like opening a very specially wrapped gift. There is ambient noise, nature sounds, zippy guitar playing, whistling and perhaps most strikingly, a majestic moment near the climax where the fate of the croc is accompanied to deep cello and crashing cymbals drawing the listener with grave seriousness into what is essentially a practical joke.

This is the power of music at its most charming: the creation of a moment of fun that is not merely entertaining, but one you want to share with others. Missincinatti defines themselves as a "storytelling band" and all of their stories, largely cumulated from old texts, start out, end up or take place entirely on water. You can call them sea shanties but they’re all very different because they’re taking different voyages: the cussing and complaining of soldiers on a destroyer, an ode to being drunk, the confessions of Captain Kidd, and the meeting of a ghost and the cad of a sea captain who deflowered her into suicide ("The coroner's quest was hard with me because I've acted fraily, and Parson Biggs won't bury me though I'm a dead Miss Bailey.") Where all of these songs are at risk to be played forever in that Burl Ives way: a banjo and a hearty robust hardy-har of a delivery, these recordings are filled with experiment and cleverness – mind-blowing samples, multi-dimensional guitar riffs, beautiful cello and percussion work. Miss Bailey gets to plead her case with a groovy guitar line and the soft rocking of the sea represented by drum brushed. The most accomplished song on the album is a song about shipwreck and betrayal called “Red Iron Ore” marked by the harmony vocals of Jessica Catron and Jeremy Drake and the gorgeous soundscapes they create.

Jessica, the cellist and main vocalist, played cello and sang on my favorite album of 2009, Evangelista’s Prince of Truth where she took over for Carla Bozulich as the lead vocalist in the closing track, the ghostly On the Captain’s Side. She has also performed on tour with Spiritualized, has been a member of Moira Smiley’s VOCO and Rebekah Jordan’s band Dreaming Ferns. The guitarist and sampling wizard, Jeremy is related to Jessica by marriage. He is also the guitarist for the amazing Eleni Mandell and the Living Sisters. Corey Fogel, the invaluable percussionist of the group, was a member of the Mae Shi and has worked with artists ranging from Mark Dresser to the Mountain Goats.

Jessica recently answered some questions for me via e-mail. These answers were reviewed and approved by Jeremy so they are the official words of the wedded two-thirds of Missincinatti: 

AK: I've heard you say "you must make the sound you wish to hear in the world" How did you decide you wanted to hear Missincinatti?

JC: Not sure if this tidbit is relevant/interesting, but Missincinatti first appeared as a duo for an experimental music show at REDCAT (the basement space in the Walt Disney Concert Hall) in ...uh, 2004 or so?? It consisted of Jeremy and I improvising with very, very small sounds on our instruments which were highly, highly amplified. It was an experiment we wanted to try out, so we did. That is the music we fell in love to. (Blush)

A year or so later, I received a grant to arrange a couple sea songs I really liked. The first was "The Ballad of Captain Kidd," which I made for a singing string quartet. I also arranged "Destroyer Life" for the same quartet... that recording is floating around somewhere. This is what started the whole sea faring and storytelling adventure. Then came "Wonderful Crocodile". That song was the first one Jeremy and I created together. Our first show was at Pehrspace in LA and we only had the one song. Then “Red Iron Ore” happened. I think we did three or four shows as a duo with those two songs... which made a decent starter set, considering they're each almost nine minutes long. Missincinatti - in our current his & her & his sailor outfits - was officially formed after I re-arranged "Destroyer Life" for the trio and suddenly, we had three songs.

How did Corey come in to the group?

He was courted and he accepted.

What's the Missincinatti process? First, how do you choose the songs from all of the sea songs in the world?

Hmmm. So many good sea songs. All the songs I've mentioned above came from the [John and Alan] Lomax book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, given to me by David Kendall on my birthday. Though just before receiving this amazing gift, I discovered "The Ballad of Captain Kidd" because of being in another group called VOCO. We had made an arrangement together of an old shape note hymn called "Wondrous Love."... Well, I was pretty much in love with this song so I started to research it and discovered that before it was a hymn, it was a pirate song. Awesome. Then when David gave me the Lomax book, it had the full 20-or-so verses to the pirate song and that's when I decided I had to make my own arrangement (with a mere 11 verses). What's the process? With the exception of "Red Iron Ore," which Jeremy chose, I usually find the song and make the first arrangement and then we all take it from there. Corey took the reins by creating an amazing 59-second solo that precedes "Captain Kidd," made by editing together single plucked piano string sounds. ["Cptn Kidd R.E.M."] It's lovely and haunting.

Have you heard other recordings of the songs such as Warren Fahey's very, very different version of Wonderful Crocodile? Are there any songs that you hadn't heard performed in any way?

I just looked this up! So now the only one I haven't heard some kind of version of is Miss Bailey. But before making our own versions of the songs, I had only previously heard the two shanties – "A Hundred Years Ago" and "So Early in the Morning." The other songs have since been sent to me by friends or I've sought them out. There's a great version of an elementary school choir doing Red Iron Ore that I found on You Tube and posted on our myspace page.

One night, Jeremy and I were doing a duo show at {open}, a fantastic bookstore in Long Beach, CA. We performed “Red Iron Ore” and after the show, Aaron Ximm, with whom we were sharing the show approached us afterward with his iPod in-hand. He had us listen to a recording from about 30-40 years ago of his uncle singing that song. He told us he had never heard any other version of it and was excited to share that with us. Folk music is so great that way!  

I love how these old stories just get passed on through generations and generations, maybe have a verse added here-or-there along the way... The story might be modified to fit the present... but then there it goes... It's really a beautiful web that connects us to our ancestors.

The first song I had heard you perform was “Red Iron Ore” and the song is more serious in tone than most of the rest of the recordings. Was that the first song you chose to perform?

It was the second song we did [along with “Wonderful Crocodile” as noted above]. If you look up the original lyrics, you'll see we changed some things about the song to make it more into a shipwreck song than just a song about mining. Jeremy found an old weather report and a list of ships that have sunk in the Great Lakes and recorded his computer reading only A-D, in chronological order with the sinking date, and Corey does some magical things with his cymbals over all this. It's so dark, I love what this song turned into.

Without giving away all your secrets, can you talk about some of the sampling? Does a sample ever inspire a choice of song?

Jeremy is the master sound designer. I think all the samples came after choosing the song. The wave sounds you hear on the first track was the very first recording I made with my Edirol recorder. I was up in Drake’s Bay, north of San Francisco, and I made that recording for Jeremy because his last name is Drake. We also made some recordings together on one of our trips to Big Sur. But for the most of the rest of the album, Jeremy has taken field recordings/samples/found sounds/computer-generated voices and has made amazing sound collages, like the noise-piece leading into “Red Iron Ore”... try listening to that one with headphones on. Mmmm.

How difficult or easy is it finding gigs? Have you had a particularly favorite show?

Getting gigs hasn't been hard, we have a lot of good musician friends and cohorts. We haven't really played outside of LA (with the exception of the one duo show we did at the Cake Shop in NYC years ago). We play mostly in gallery spaces or little venues like Echo Curio, Pehrspace, The Smell. The best show, for me personally, is the one we did at the Pasadena Public Library. As a kid, I used to go to the Rapid City Public Library and, several times, I heard this folky lady with a lot of suede tassels, long braids, and a guitar sing "Puff The Magic Dragon" to all the kids who were dumped off there by their parents. I would watch her perform and think to myself, "She has the best job ever." So, this was sort of a dream-come-true for me. Jeremy and I have been talking about trying to do a public library-only tour. Speaking of tours, we do our first tour at the end of this month! No libraries, but rather we are sailing the U.S.S. Missincinatti into the depths of Middle America. Our first show is in Laramie, WY.

Have you ever performed these songs somewhere seemingly completely incongruous to the material?

Honestly, I feel like we've been in a couple places where I think (or we talk about it before a show) – like “oh man, what are we doing here??” We played a rock club once and we just went for it... and we got a whole bunch of love back from all these 21-year-old Hollywood rocker dudes after the show! It was surprising, but I also think they were just into the raw nature of the performance and they were probably hearing something so different from what they were used to or expecting. I don't know....but it was ok. You never know, I guess!

What song is the most fun to play?

I personally am enjoying our version of the Jimmy Dean song, “Big Bad John.” [Which does not appear on the record.] The desire to cover this song came from being at my grandfathers funeral years ago for which he had made only two song requests...”Big Bad John” (his name was John) and “Tiny Bubbles.” This is a great song.

You're selling your album on your own through a Bandcamp site and iTunes. Do you think this was an easier way to go than to pitch the project to a label?

I have no idea. It took too long to make the album... over a year... because we were all doing different music projects and it seemed like at least one of us was always on tour or something. By the time it was finished, all I wanted to do was get it out into the world. It was fastest to go DIY. It felt like a huge accomplishment to finally have finished it!

You're touring the Southwest soon. Did you book and plan the tour on your own? If so, what are the pitfalls and the benefits?

Pitfalls: hmm, don't know yet. It took a bit of time and energy to work all the scheduling and routing out, but overall I thought it was a really fun process. I've done some light booking for other music projects I've been a part of, but this was the first tour I booked entirely on my own. Benefit: It's especially fun when people don't hate you after you send them samples of your music and/or they actually INVITE you to come play.

How hard is it to travel with a cello?

That's like asking Angelyne what it's like to not wear high heels. I think there are seriously about 2 trips I've done in the past 10 years without my cello. The only thing that sucks is flying cuz it can be expensive.

After you play sea songs in the desert, will you ever decide to play shows near or in water? Like on a party boat?

We have plans to do a tour of New England in May 2011. There is an invitation to perform in a Maritime Museum up in Maine. Does that count? I think that counts.

Can any of you actually sail???

I got in a horrible sailboat accident once in the San Francisco Bay. We ran into the old pier out in the middle of the bay and pretty much destroyed the boat. I wasn't steering, I think I curled up into the smallest ball I've ever been in, like a woodlouse in the bottom of the boat.

Where do you see the project heading?

To Wyoming.

And in fact, Missincinatti will be in Laramie on August 31 and September 1 to open a tour that will bring them to South Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and back to California. To make sure you don’t miss them check out the tour dates at http://www.myspace.com/missincinatti and missincinatti.com. Remove Not the Ancient Landmarks can be downloaded at missincinatti.bandcamp.com and at iTunes. If you want a physical copy of the CD, they’re available at the shows.

- Anthony Kaboom

Anthony Kaboom is not sea-worthy. He may not know all the pirate songs, but he knows what he likes. He can be contacted at sadzoo@gmail.com.