UNITED MUTATION - Psycho Cannonball (Interview to Jay Fox)
por Michi
Hardcore-punk’s always got a reputation for being home to a bunch of like-minded preacher lookalike’s, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s always been whatever you’ve wanted it to be and, among the bulk of sectarians, there’s always been a proper chunk of inadaptate weirdos doing their own thing their own way. Some of those have fell into that perseverance of youth that some people understand to be the nerve that keeps us going among the rubbish of stuggling commonness of daily life. Jay Fox, our interviewee from Northern Virginia..’s United Mutation is one of those enthusiasts, and played in a band that was as removed from the hardcore cliches most comonly projected as you could think. Noone would’ve said at first glance that psychedelia and hardcore could go hand in hand, but they did. That was what United Mutation played, an hyperspeed radiation of west coast psych guitar flashes sending your barely working braincells into the ether like a cannonball. This sound is so good that I can’t believe more bands have fell into that appreciation for both the fury of hardcore and the flight of psych, only Void or Die Kreuzen come to mind into this realm, which makes it even stranger to be uncommon, since those bands were amazing on their own right. ....
Their records are fairly hard to find, and occasionally expensive. Let’s hope that Dischord’s reissue of the classic “Fugitive Family” as a downloadable release; and DSI records reissue on Cd of both “fugitive family” and the amazing “rainbow person” make United Mutation less a rarity and more a household name of outsider hardcore.....
For a scene based on believers of a true cult, here comes one of these bands whose belief was to no cult. To blast, they had their way, and no other way can mean more to you than your own.....
....
Screw the preachers, forget all guilt, tonight motherfucker’s be trippin! ....
....
....
I begin the interview with the usual introcuctory questions about the beginnings of the band. ....
My brother John, and our friend Noel and I started writing songs in 1980, we had all three been listening to underground radio, and had been collecting punk records since around 1978 or so. it seemed like the right thing to do, as we were heading into the Reagan age and had a very low opinion of the government at the time. The bulk of our songs were written with a socio-political base. Whether falling into the 'hate Reagan' camp, or just the 'we're mad as hell' camp, we were political by default. This is in the DC suburbs and we were exposed to the Political machine daily at home as well as at school. ....
Our first band was called 'Dark Self Image'(DSI) we started out playing in a kind of garage punk way, as we really didnt know how to play for real. Most of the DSI songs ended up being the first UM setlist/demo's. ....
We met Mike Brown in the summer of 1981, and started jamming with him on drums, and a second guitarist Bob Otte. Our set was a mix of originals and covers of bands like Hawkwind,Joy Division, etc... Bob quit, as did Mike for the winter, we started jamming with Mike Salkind who had been in the Aborted, another local band. We did our first show as Dark Self Image in ..Northern Virginia.. in December of 1981, and as United Mutation in Halloween ’82.....
....
As far as i know, some of you guys were in the pre harDCore days already. How was the transition in the punk scene from the slickee boys days to the “revolution summer”?. We’d like to read a different story from the much “romanticised” and bland one represented in “dance of days”, to name an example. ....
....
My brother John and I started listening to DC music/punk as early as 1978, this was due to the WGTB radio station that was operating from ....Georgetown.. ..University..... GTB played lots of punk and local music, we also were lucky to have found record stores that carried these local releases. By 1979 we were Don Zientara fans, and would buy anything that came from his studio. Slickees, Nurses, No Joe,etc. As a pre Hardcore band, we modelled ourselves off the No Joe/Mark Hoback theme, kind of oddball garage punk we had lead guitar on our songs, this was due to our interest in the 1960's psychedelic music of Mothers, Elevators, San Francisco Scene bands etc.. As well as the :30 over DC bands (30 over DC it’s a compilation of kickass new wave bands from DC. Editor’s Note). We were influenced by the sounds of bands like Half Japanese due to their weirdness and noise, just like being influenced by Teen Idles for the same reason, it was kind of like, if they can do this so can we. ....
As far as being on the scene we were in the suburbs so we had the discs, and went o shows when we could. The first Slickee shows I saw were outside on the ....Washington.. ..Monument.... grounds. As well as Root Boy Slim and others. In general those bands still have a soft spot in my heart, more then some of the later hardcore bands. Thought I still listen to lots of old DC music. And am really glad the Slickee Boys have started re-releasing their old vinyl on cd, as well as Henry Rollins putting out :30 over DC (http://henryrollins.shop.musictoday.com/Product.aspx?cp=14511_14539&pc=1HCD08 ). That one disc is the strongest example of the real DC punk scene. Kind of like Bouncing Babies and Flex Your Head showcased the various time shots of the DC HC scene. ....
....
How did you acquaintance other bands at the time, were you big on fanzines?....
....
We always read the small press local ones, Truly Needy was the one we used to get, and of course Maximum Rock’n Roll was big with us, as well as Flipside, though the LA scene was so different from the DC.....
....
....
It seems that, at that point in hardcore-punk’s history, there wasn’t a circuit built for bands to play, plus lots of those kids were actually underage, therefore couldn’t get into clubs, even less play in them. It’s always looked like neighbourhood procedence was very important when it came to who you shared bill and, I guess, it determined also your evolution as a band.....
....
The first bands we played with were PBI(which had Steve Hansgen – later bassist of Minor Threat) and Media Disease. These were the vanguard bands of NOVA (..Northern Virginia..) punk at this time. It was really just Scream, UM, Media Disease and PBI for the first 2 years of the decade. It was all about neighborhood, and local scene connections. DC HC was happening across the river in the city, but we were suburb kids, we didnt go into DC to hang out in bars, and you couldnt get gigs or even go into bars in ....Virginia.... underaged, so we didnt really get involved too quickly with that whole scene. We started going to shows pretty much full on in 1981-82 and then continuously after that. As far as gigs we played pretty much in NOVA with the above mentioned bands for the first couple of years.....
....
Did you made any national tours or coast tours. How was touring back then?....
....
We only played the east coast. UM had issues with things like that, personality issues, travel issues, job issues…so we did only regional touring. It was always fun, but stressful, so it was easier to stay around the DC area.....
....
....
I wonder how did fit the psychedelic influence in a scene whose musical ambition was more based on simplicity and visceral expression than in the sonics of the 60’s.....
....
As for the psychedelic influences... Thats due to our interest in odd music whether its punk, rock, old, new etc my brother John, and all the various members of UM had and have a unique interest in various styles and genres of music. The kind of psychedelic we were delving into was mostly due to us wanting to be weird, and freakish. The people who were our peers mostly didnt understand or like what we did musically, but that made it even more appealing to us. ....
....
In the “alive & kicking” we see one of the most telling covers of the era , with two young punks shooting dope. It’s an image that feels far from abroad, it seems a distant portrait that’s no more. Nowadays drug usage (pot, e’s, coke) among kids is even more widespread than it might have been in eras most commongly attached to drug abuse, but somehow i think today’s young punks don’t face the lifestyle depicted there. Was hard-drug consumption among punks something that strong, how this side of life depicted in the cover of the record coexisted with straight edge?....
....
We did mess around with softer drugs, like pot, but never got into harder stuff. It was mainly due to us wanting to keep the original punk ethic of think/do for your self. Isn’t that the basic root cause of punk to establish a name for yourself without being forced into boxes of conformity?
In DC most bands were influenced by each other or by the scene politics, not by what they themselves may or may not have been feeling. This did change around the time of the Revolution Summer bands though. As far as drugs overall in the DC Scene I dont think that SE or Bent Edge really ran the scene. I drank at shows, others didnt no big deal. It did get ugly after a while, and this again led to the Revolution Summer theme that happened in the mid 1980's. UM had nothing to do with Revolution Summer, we did gigs that summer with various bands(Beefeater, Scream,Lunchmeat, Marginal Man) but we had no ties to any of that stuff going on. We were never too interested in fitting in, again this goes back to the original punk ethic that drew us into it. Be yourself. ....
As far as todays kids/fans being involved in drugs, I cant really say. Here in ....Denver...., I have seen no hard evidence of any drug use other then Pot (which is very popular). I dont really think its much of a change from the days when I was young.....
....
....
In a sense, some people’s always tended to put some past trends of youth culture in boxes as closed as their own minds are. As in separating the sxe guys from non-sxe, the garage crowd from the punk crowd, etc. Your aesthetic seems pretty much one that couldn’t have been more removed from the “in” crowds appeal; did you ever felt excluded?....
....
We never felt that there was any animosity towards us as a non straight edge band, most people were really just into the music and the scene vibe, more than trying to segregate the factions, maybe this was due to the black/white nature of DC as a city, when you see segregation as a part of daily life, maybe you dont want to do the same thing in your own internal scene? We were outsiders on the inside, and luckily for us, were well received by the whole scene not just a segment. Of course it did get more separate after the more metal scene crowd started influencing the hardcore scene. ....
....
Where are the tunes recorded in the classic “rainbow person” sessions that didn’t made it into the Ep? I algo would like you to update us on the reissue plans for UM, since your records are pretty hard to get.....
....
In the Rainbow Person session we did something like 13 or 15 songs. Released 5 plus “sensations fix” which was from that session. All of it is unreleased and unmixed. Raw files at this point. We do have plans of putting the whole UM catalog on Cd in the future, but just don’t have the money to fix all the outtakes that are not finished (which most of them are). We have one track from the Fugitive Family session, the Rainbow Person, a later session with Steve Kirkland that was just found (wich is KILLER!!!) and a whole session recorded as bullhead wich we did with Geoff Turner from Gray Matter producing. Plus sorts of live stuff. And a track from a 2003 session that was recorded at Mike’s studio.....
I am planning on releasing the RP 45 as a CD with some live stuff on it, but have pushed it backto do a solo Cd “shit from an old notebook” instead. This has the 2003 session song “Submarine” on it, as well as one track from the Bullhead session on it. Plus about 15 other unreleased tracks from various bands I’ve been playing in.....
....
did you really tried to get Calvin Schenkel (cover artist for lots of Zappa Records, and Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica”) do you a cover? what's the story with him?. who did the cover for the 'freaks out' Lp? ....
JohnFox and I ran into Cal Schenkel at a Record Convention, talked to him about the whole UM concept, and our love of his art/Zappa etc.. We sent him a record later, and had dialogue with him about doing a cover, and if I remember corectly, his price was in the thousands and we just didnt have that kind of money. We would have had him do Freaks Out if we had had the money. For sure. Freaks Out was done by Rick 'Spine' Mountfort. He also did the back cover for Rainbow Person, and Uruku another DSI band, I'm assuming he is still doing art in DC. ....
....
how were the last days of the band?? some of you guys went to do other projects together with a different name? I read one of your members went to No Trend, another band of weirdos!! ....
The band never really broke up, we could start the whole thing up again tomorrow if needed. Its just that I live in ....Colorado...., and they live in DC, Mike lives way out in the country, John lives with my mom... Etc... Mike Salkind our original drummer joined NOTREND after he left UM, he was on their first records. He lives here in ....Colorado.... I get together a couple of times a year and play with him. And see him at shows occasionally.
how went the reunion shows??? it must been a difference between those and the 80's shows! ....
..Reunion.. shows were fun, we did 2 with the Suspects, Kent Stax band. They were hip with the Skin Kids, and we were like these old guys. If I rember correctly we did one show where we opened for them, and one where they opened for us. I do remember we played the whole Fugitive family ep at least at one of them. I have a copy of one of the shows, and we did do at least one Hawkwind song as well.
What can you tell me musically about bullhead? ....
Bullhead was UM people really not too removed from the source. We basically did Bullhead to remove ourselves from the drunk punk DC scene that was happeing at the shows we were playing, it was more druggy sounding stuff, not stoner rock, more Butthole Surfer like.
any comments on the now? how you like playing now, what motivates
you, any really contemporary bands that impressed you???
As far as now... I still love LOVE punk rock, music, people, the scene.
....Denver.... has a great small punk scene with lots of clubs, and lots
of gigs. Its been really exciting to come into a new scene and be able
to move forward with relative ease. While living in DC and growing up
in DCHardcore I felt the same way. Though in the course of time DC has
changed music scenewise. I still like going back and seeing old friends,
and connections. Love the Dischord people, and still am a part of the
DC scene by default. ....
Contemporary bands I still like, I still really like the Foo Fighters, Dave is a great guy, and his band, and songs get better all the time.. The Evens are great. Not Fugazi but I have liked both Evens cds' from first play. Sonic Youth are still tops for me, and Thurston's new cd is excellent. Mike Watt is still my hero, he has been blowing my mind since first listen in 1981. Minutemen still and will always be timeless. ....
....
another field i would like you to talk about...that i somehow forgot in this last email is Fragments of The Divine, it really intrigues me as a really interesting progression from your work in UM, and how it fits your nowadays life!.... ....
Fragments of Divine was originally a project based one time piece that ended up as a summer concert series spread over a 3 yr time frame. We did concept pieces. Like colors, elements, improv poetry type stuff. It was basically a vehicle to do music with film and dance, as both Scott and Ed date dancers.....
....
This interview has been edited from conversations with Jay Fox held through the internet during the last year. He’s been as nice as easy to approach as you could ask for, so I’m very very thankful for that. Not only because of that, my band is covering the great tune “Fugitive Family”.....
....
I met UM’s weirdness 3 years ago, through the ever-great posts of Pleasure Forever’s Dave Clifford in the Medication’s blog. His were, by far, the best posts including GISM, the crucifucks or Caspar Brotzmann. Here you have his original post: http://buddyhead.typepad.com/medication/2005/04/united_mutation.html....
....
Since then, it seems that some recognition has been paid to the band, and some internet action has referred to them. I put below what I consider to be the most interesting.....
....
Their myspace:....
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=130893693....
....
Deep Fried Bonanza. With discography, interview, bio.....
http://www.deadmetaphor.com/features/unitedmutation/index.htm....
....
Another Interview with Jay, and an overall cool blog. Includes some cool trivia, and a periodic discography.....
http://youbreedlikerats.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-interview-with-jay-from-united.html....
....
Fugitive Family Ep. You listen, you deep fry.: http://www.kbdrecords.com/2006/05/18/united-mutation-fugitive-family-ep-7/....
....
United Mutation live, back then. Ouyea!!! Bad sound quality, but pure guitar meltdown. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_XWetJ7skk&feature=related....
....
Here you can see some mutant and horrific cover art by Rick “spine” who made the mind melting “Freaks Out” Cover.....
http://rickspinemountfort.com/albumcovers.htm....
.. ..