Category Archives: Interviews

Interview : William Tyler

1 Reply

Late last year, we reviewed William Tyler’s excellent Tompkins Square debut Behold The Spirit. I recently caught up with William to talk about the making of the record, how he got into guitar, and his upcoming tour with Michael Chapman.

W&W : Talk a little about how you got started in guitar… how long have you been playing, what got you started, and your early influences.

Well I had the benefit/burden of growing up in Nashville, both around a lot of older musicians and a musical family. My father is a country songwriter and he was drawn to Nashville in the mid seventies, back when country singers bragged about smoking pot and reading books, as opposed to now when it’s all about trucks and patriotism.

I started playing guitar when I was a teenager, in spurts at first because I was more interested in drums and piano. I was also somewhat of a late bloomer when it came to rock music; I didn’t start buying rock records until I was fourteen or fifteen. Early stuff that influenced me was REM and Peter Buck, especially all the cross picking he did, the country style stuff in Rockpile and Dave Edmunds, and then stuff like the Sex Pistols and Ramones. I think Physical Graffiti was the first record I heard where I wanted to pick out an open tuning. Continue reading →

Interview : Chris Weisman “Nonmusical Patterns”

1 Reply

A little while back, I received a very interesting package from my friend Patrick Borezo, an artist, musician and show promoter from Western Massachusetts.  It contained a small, beautiful paperback book called Nonmusical Patterns and their Musical Uses, written by Chris Weisman, a guitarist who has recorded extensively for Greg Davis’ Autumn Records, and is also a member of Happy Birthday (Sub Pop Records).  Patrick and his wife Amy printed and assembled the books, and are releasing it on their own Radical Readout Press.

It’s an interesting idea, to be sure… a collection of non-conventional scale patterns, chosen on their visual rather than their musical merits. I conducted the following email interview with Chris, to find out more about the project.

W&W : What inspired you to write the book?

In 2003, I started noticing more visual stuff happening on the fretboard, mostly when I was playing changes, playing over standards. Me and my buddy Bryan Bergeron-Killough (also a guitarist) used to have these long sessions every night when we both lived in Portland, Maine. I started getting interested in “scales” that would work visually (like the pattern is complete and strictly in the visual realm of dots on a grid, you don’t need to know anything about music at all to see them) but also be musically somewhat conservative in terms of pitch collections; the pitches in Nonmusical Patterns are the same as in conventional scales (or close) but due to this visual compass that’s also being respected, there are leaps all over the place. And the 2 octaves that fit roughly in a guitar position are different, usually when you play a scale it’s the same notes in every octave (and the scales don’t really look like anything). All this stuff is in the introduction. I started the book in the spring of ’05 and finished it 2 years later. Continue reading →

Interview : Goran Ivanovic

1 Reply

by David Leicht

I was fortunate to catch up recently with Goran Ivanovic, of the brilliant Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo. We touched on a number of topics, including their exciting, eponymous album, which I would strongly recommend to any fan of contemporary guitar music.

W&W: When and how did you guys meet?

It was about five or six years ago in Chicago. We both used to play at the Hothouse, which was a world music place, one of the first in the city. Their booking agent decided to do a show with both of our groups.¹ We’d sort of heard of one another, through the newspaper, but had never actually met or heard each other’s music. We met up after the show and, after that, began to hang out, spending time as buddies, playing pool and ping-pong. Eventually, we started arranging and composing music together, then playing shows, and booked our first tour in Colorado and Arizona. The response was fantastic. We recorded our debut CD and the response was overwhelming. We decided to take it on the road full-time, give our bands a little break. I think we’ve been on the road now for three or four months straight.

W&W: Given the way your collaboration evolved, was it natural to present the new work as guitar duets, rather than forming a group?

Yes, absolutely. Sometimes people ask “why not add a bass player or drummer?” We have those groups already, what would be the point? I think Chopin once said, “the only thing that’s more beautiful than solo guitar is two guitars.” (laughter) We like playing around with the limitations of the instrument. Continue reading →

Interview : Guitar Maker Laurent Brondel

1 Reply

by Buck Curran

Like a lot of relationships these days, Laurent Brondel and I began talking through the internet, and our first conversations were about guitar making. We initially agreed to meet at an open mic that my wife Shanti and I were hosting in Lewiston in 2006, and have been friends ever since. Laurent is an amazing musician, master craftsman, and supremely talented guitar maker. His instruments are gorgeous and inspirational, and his aesthetic and sound are uniquely his own.  It was a pleasure to officially interview him for Work & Worry.

W&W : You are originally from France. Where did you grow up and in brief, what is your musical background?

I grew up in Paris and spent a lot of time with my grandparents in rural Picardie, 100 miles east of Paris.  Nobody played or listened to music in my family, but when I was around 5 or 6, I insisted to get Beethoven 5th symphony, don’t ask me why. My Godmother bought me the 6th, the Pastorale, maybe the store was out of the 5th, who knows? I had to wait a year to get an old tube record player from the ’60s, the ones with the speaker in the cover. My father’s Godmother gave it to me. So the Godmothers were really active and involved in my family. Continue reading →

Interview : Catching Up With Denis Turbide

Leave a reply

W&W : It’s been about a year since your first interview on Work & Worry.  What have you been up to since then? How’s life treating you?

Life’s been really busy, Ray.  I wish I could say I’ve been busy making more music, but a full time job and young children aren’t always conducive to a musician’s lifestyle!  I just need to find a better balance. That being said, I am trying to move the music thing along.

I reconnected with Alana Mark, an old friend from high school.  Facebook is amazing sometimes!  We’re writing songs together, which is new to me.  I’ve always been a singer, but lyrics have always escaped me.  We’ve started recording together, and have a couple of videos on Youtube. We still have a lot of work to do.  We’ve both been really busy this summer, so I’m looking forward to getting together with her in the near future.

There is a CD compilation, by the members of the Acoustic Guitar Forum, that came out last fall.  There’s another one coming out in August.  I wrote a new tune, which I recorded and released just a few weeks ago, called “Squish”.   I have a friend using my music in his Youtube videos to promote his T-shirt company.  Another music library has offered to add my music to their roster for use in TV and movies.   Youtube is still going strong, and a couple of guitarists out there have decided they like my music enough to cover it in their own videos, which is nice and still a bit surprising to me.  I guess I have been kind of busy. Continue reading →