That has been a very good aspect to it. Acoustic Guitar Michael Gira. Michael Gira: ‘That was a really good show. guitar com. The words do not come easily to me anymore. I guess I’m not a good enough musician to interpret my surroundings or anything for that matter. The sound was pretty forceful and a lot of our career was spent in an antipathy with the audience. Electric Bass Guitars Acoustic Bass Guitars. ‘, Michael Gira: ‘(Laughs) In my own gravelly way, that guy had a trained, beautiful voice and I have anything but. It’s not like I want to sound like those people. Michael Gira: ‘People, friends of mine, who are classically trained suggested some of the record was classical in a way. It’s not that Swans make particularly brutal music these days. The Beatles were a whole cultural, economic and musical phenomenon and also a convergence of technology at the time that was the psychedelic era. It was a very difficult place in those days. It’s about wrangling with the mess you make in the studio until it finally takes on some sort of shape and then moving on to the next thing. He’s very gifted at classical song writing and I’m not like that. You are actually becoming popular! Michael Gira: ‘Sometimes but usually I fiddle around on the acoustic guitar and find chords or shapes I like the sound of and start playing them and then a rhythm occurs and then, hopefully, by the grace of god, words will find their way into my brain..’. From left to right: Christoph Hahn on lap steel, Michael Gira on guitar, Thor Harris on percussion, Chris Pravdica on bass guitar, and Norman Westberg on guitar. Michael Gira: ‘I had a 900 square foot storefront which I built myself. Some of them I have concepts for and I know how they are going to develop with the input of my friends in the band. I mentioned in an interview the great band leaders like Nina Simone, Fela Kuti or James Brown or Howling Wolf- those are all band leaders and their music didn’t just happen. Michael has a really bad cold and the interview is interjected by heavy duty hacking but he is unfailingly polite and eloquent as he answers the questions we put to him. Format: Blu-ray 5 Best Online Guitar Lessons Websites in 2020, The Top 11 Overdrive Pedals - 2020 Edition, Follow artists like Michael Gira and get inspired by their gear. Michael Gira: ‘The length of the show is not a goal actually. Who knows, maybe I will have a heart attack and die onstage!’, LTW: ‘Do you have to mentally prepare to get into that intense space?’, Michael Gira: ‘No, it just happens. Electric Bass Guitar Bill Rieflin. What kind of Guitars does Michael Gira use? LTW: These experiences look pretty draining to play. It’s nice when it’s hot but that was beyond the pale. When things veer off and it’s inappropriate I correct it. We used to use tape loops then but not with a rhythm. Vocal M S. Rhythm Guitar M S. Solo Guitar M S. Drums M S. View all instruments. S itting outside a west London pub in a wide-brimmed hat, scarf and well-cut jacket, 60-year-old Swans singer and bandleader Michael Gira resembles an … I’m pretty self critical and I try not to repeat the same kind of things. I mentioned a few before like Nina Simone or Howling Wolf- John Cale might be another one at a certain time, he has done some awful work in his life as well but also some magnificent work too. I’m always at the merch table and I always say hello to people after the gigs. It just seems to be unavoidable. Michael Gira: ‘We don’t really jam, although once in a while we will sort of jam. LTW: A lot of bands become variations of themselves but do you feel detached from your earlier work? Last year The Swans released The Seer; an amazing, sprawling work that created a musical world that completely enveloped you in its power and imagination. Samples Michael Gira, Bill Rieflin & Jarboe. Electric Guitar Michael Gira. When Swans started to expand the sound I started to think about formative experiences and where I wanted the music to go. Run time: 101 minutes I got to New York where I could make something, for lack of a better word, happen. LTW: What is the creative process? It is so beautiful. It’s not like sitting in the studio and kind of artificially trying to inject nuances- it happens just through playing.’. In the case of a song it could be like Song For A Warrior, that’s a little poem, a little lullaby for my daughter. I think lyrically, though, it’s phenomenal. LTW: Was the My Father album about mortality? If the music elevates people then it’s succeeded. I showed cowardice here. LTW: Did your music reflect the environment you were in at the time and have the changes in your music reflect the changes in your environment? We have to find our own avenue, our own way, our own groove.’, Michael Gira: ‘I don’t like calling it the drone. Sounds Jarboe. There was lots of violence and hardship and, in a way, that was a productive element because it weeded out the weaklings. I shape sound is what I do. Some people are trying to react against the sound, some people- like me- find it very meditative and relaxing in strange way. Search. Michael Gira: ‘Well yeah, I’m a producer for lack of a better word. Michael Gira: ‘At best I completely forget who and where and what I am. As well as having exceptionally talented pop song writers, if not such great lyricists as far as I’m concerned, but they had that ability to make a world in just few minutes was pretty unparalleled.’. LTW: Do you recognise this if you ever listen to early Swans records? I do what I do and I’m happy that certain people like it.’. And that cassette would be in a tape player that be amplified through a SVT rig with an extra cabinet creating this huge sound. I don’t see how I did what I did even though I was that person! In a 30 year music writing career, John was the first to write about bands such as Stone Roses and Nirvana and has several best selling music books to his name. It this confluence of jazz, experimental, and psychedelic music and it was a great experience. By the way, did you hear Bob Dylan’s new album, Tempest.’. I’m looking for an opportunity to use a children’s choir. Michael Gira: ‘New York was an incredibly different place then to what it is now. Will it be a continuation of the directions suggested by The Seer? LTW: Your role is to give them the space to create but within parameters? Michael Gira asks me as I describe my first time listening to "Screenshot", the opening cut on the newest Swans LP, ... the notes played by the bass or the chords played by the guitar. LTW: Was the punk thing for you a reprise of the energy of ideas of the sixties thing? Michael Gira: ‘I have other skills if I needed them tomorrow. The power music could have in the culture was much more profound then than it is now. LTW: The Seer struck me as being almost psychedelic but not in the paisley shirt sense of the word. It’s a living thing. I think in the last couple of weeks which I’ve had off I’ve managed to gather enough basic songs together for a new album and we are already playing the new songs in our set. It’s part of being with a good band. I love the sound of children’s voices and need a really good children’s choir but I’m not sure which church or school would consent to me using this! more, Here you can see Michael Gira during his solo tour playing a Guild acoustic g... more. It was Louder Than War’s album of the year and the gigs they played in the autumn were so intense that it was hard to listen to any other music for a week afterwards. At the highest points live that’s what the music does, it creates this environment where the audience can levitate for one moment and that’s the most gratifying thing for me.’. I’m always stuck like a Doe in the headlights grappling with the moment and I just do my best with what talents I was left with and I don’t worry about the bigger issues.’. For me music has this potential to completely consume you, particularly in music that is so physical and it completely enables you to be acutely aware of the moment to lose yourself completely in it.’, LTW: It’s interesting the reactions people have to your music. I suppose, as you notice with the record, nothing stays the same, things are always growing and changing within the chord and that interests me- the possibilities that are there in a single note, that kind of aspect which makes it more than a drone. Michael Gira: ‘I don’t listen to early Swans records.’. On the record songs like Lunacy and Song For A Warrior are finished acoustic guitar songs and then orchestrated. That’s a good point. Quickly infamous for their punishing, brutal and repetitive onslaughts of sound, extreme volume levels, and the self-abusing, abject shouts and growls of Gira’s sloganeering vocals, Swans gradually transformed over 15 years, ultimately venturing into harsh mechanical proto-industrial rock, to sprawling It’s not a series of versions of songs from the record. LTW: So in the older era your imagination was not affected by the brutal New York of the time? Michael Gira: ‘I don’t know. We have a path that we want to follow but we find new things every night. During the Soundtracks for the Blind and Swans are Dead era, Gira can be seen with a Gibson Lucille(which has since become his main guitar for the Swans reunion) and a Gibson Les Paul. I was on my knees and someone poured water on my head because I was so hot.’, Michael Gira: ‘I’m good at surviving. Not Dead Yet Even though SWANS did undergo several dramatic changes not only in the constellation of musicians, Gira decided to drop the name in the early 2000s to distance himself from the noisy style associated with the band. It’s what we wanted to do with just sound and rhythm. Michael Gira: ‘I don’t know about thematic things. You have toured a lot since the My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky album, did that have a profound affect on the music that went onto The Seer. Michael Gira: ‘Sorry, I don’t like the use of the word ‘noise’. The city was in decay and decline. Michael Gira: ‘Usually. Michael Kelly Guitars is an American guitar, bass and mandolin company, who imports quality instruments manufactured to their specifications. LTW: They did. More Versions. Director: Tony Richardson It’s not like I’m this fucking composer like I was saying. It doesn’t do anything for me emotionally or egotistically. Obviously I was a little older than everyone else at those punk shows but the whole musical kind of cataclysm that happened in the sixties to the early seventies was pretty phenomenal.’. I’m not like that. In a way I’m I like film director. I’m in my own little place in life. LTW: As you get older do you get more self critical? Michael Gira: ‘Yeah that’s true, maybe that’s why I’m interested in these people. But usually it’s afterwards. You have to keep your personal self out of it and try to come up with, I’m not sure what the word is I’m looking for… Phrases just point exactly what the music might suggest to the listener themselves. New Releases. What kind of Effects Pedals does Michael Gira use? When they first emerged in the early 1980s, Michael Gira’s group Swans made music of overwhelming power. I guess it’s true in the sense that a lot of the methods and styles and usage of sound that have occurred in my chequered past- ranging from the thudding rhythm to the soaring crescendos and the sonic landscape came from there. LTW: Do you write the words after the music? Gira can be seen playing a Westbury Track II Bass in this photo. When I get off tour I feel like I could run up a mountain and I probably could! That’s how that started- it was a little love letter from her dad. Michael Gira: ‘I don’t know about clever but tremendous…’. Do you jam the songs? T here are not many acoustic church shows at which audience members involuntarily flinch at the first strum, but dedicated fans of Michael Gira and … I was right there and I was taking LSD and listening to it. It’s pretty banal. QRD "I hate my guitar." It’s romantic and suffused with a kind of morality and the meaning of death. I saw Pink Floyd perform what became the material of the Ummagumma album and it was great.’. I’m have not got any illusions about that. In fact there are moments of just about everything in there and the album and the attendant live shows were stunning trips. Swans performing live in Warsaw in December 2010. Backing Vocals Jarboe & Michael Gira. Some people hold their hands in the air and surf on the volume. Orange Thunderverb 200-Watt Tube Guitar Amp Head. We are trying to make something happen in the moment and it just happens that that moment is growing exponentially.’. It’s what you think about when you decide you want to be an artist, you look at your guides or heroes and you want to be as all consumed with the world as they were and that was what he was and it was pretty awesome to see.’, LTW: You are also a big fan of the The Beatles…, Michael Gira: ‘That’s a whole different thing. Release Date June 9, 1995. Michael Gira : ‘I don’t want to sound like a white boy trying to be funky. In the early years our relationship with our audience was anything but sympathetic, our music was aggressive but not in the sense of trying to attack someone. The main thing with early Swans was that I was just stripping down the essential elements of what we consider to be rock music really. We will see. it should have lasted 10 minutes at least, instead of the 3 1/2 minutes it is now. You had to be really, pretty brutal to get any kind of thing going and any pretention to being relentless. when has it ever been? Keyboards Bill Rieflin & Jarboe. It’s certainly not because we are fashionable! Sometimes there’s a very specific subject matter and a general theme to a song but not to a record. I don’t think that way. That’s why I don’t consider the Seer album finished. Michael Gira: ‘Sure, ultimately that’s what it is and on many levels it’s about being an entertainer. The endless grooves will be there. It’s really very emotional music for sure and there is really hardly any melody. Acoustic Guitar Michael Gira. I was getting rid of everything else and pushing what you then found to an extreme. I just followed my path. Michael Gira: ‘That’s like, no offence, but that’s what a critic thinks. Michael Gira: ‘If you want to stay interested in your own work and be compelling to other people you have to move on. he’s 70 something. LTW: Do those early records feel like a different era now? As a kid I wouldn’t say I was a fan but the Doors were part of my whole inner psyche. It doesn’t mean anything beyond that. It was a lot different to what it is now. LTW: I’m interested in the word groove, Swans have a certain groove but not in the traditional sense of that word. LTW: Any hints where the music is going? Michael Gira founded the seminal NYC band Swans in 1982. Roles performed: vocals, producer, acoustic guitar, design, writer. Other songs like The Seer developed live over the year after starting out as a groove before it developed into what it became.’. Michael Gira's gear and equipment including the Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus and Orange Thunderverb 200-Watt Tube Guitar Amp Head. We grapple with death and life with the songs that change with every show and hope to find the perfect nuances and ways to build them. If that means I can make some money and keep working that’s the main thing. LTW: You are also a fan of early Pink Floyd as well and not so much the Syd period. LTW: The Seer is an immense piece of work that you can get lost in, were you conscious of the jump from the previous ‘My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky’ which already hinted at this enormity but didn’t go to the enveloping extremes of the The Seer. I work by instinct with sound. I have listened to the first three Doors albums so many times that I could recite them in my mind. I’m trying to make a world where the listener can fall into it and lose themselves. Michael Gira: ‘Incredibly. It’s not so much about different musical styles but to create nuance and different atmospheres. The official Orange site states that Gira uses a Thunderverb 200. more, On the official Orange site, it is stated that Gira uses a PPC412. But I’m the guy who is the band leader you know. What kind of Bass Guitars does Michael Gira use? LTW : Is it a case of the more you know getting in the way? The material is growing in such a way that it feels like you can’t stop right there. Maybe the internet helped a lot with people understanding what we were trying to and getting the information out there and telling people the experience that we can be and people like that and come to it understanding. LTW: Are the length of the shows important? We chat to the founder and frontman of the cult experimental rock band Swans, Michael Gira, about the records that shaped him Michael Gira: I listened to The Doors’ first album when I was 13. LTW: Is it fair to say that The Seer was the culmination of all your years in music and all that have you learned? LTW: Is the current Swans a much more band orientated way of working? What kind of Microphones does Michael Gira use? In 1982, after a frustrating few months auditioning potential members, Michael Gira and Jonathan Kane recruited Sue Hanel: “the most ferocious noise guitarist in the city” (Jonathan Kane). Get the gear to sound like Michael Gira and get their tone. Every once in a while a vague one might creep in but it was mainly sound and rhythm with the sound generated mainly by bass drums and guitars. Engineering Michael Gira & Bill Rieflin. LTW: You’re 58 now and in some ways, a child of the sixties, does the idea of the sixties remain in your work? LTW: Is your life very different now than it was when you lived in New York? I really respect great entertainers like Nina Simone, James Brown even Frank Sinatra, who was a great entertainer. Michael Gira: ‘It’s a band. LTW: Does the music just come into your head? Tabs Articles Forums Wiki + Publish tab Pro. Now I really enjoy having people seeming to come for the experience that we can provide. Michael Gira says: "I think the intro to this song should have been longer. We’re not, in any way, trying to replicate what’s on the album. Everything has been reluctantly learned over the last 30 years as a producer or musician.’. Although it is the same person writing, so it’s inevitable ultimately.’. The band is very important to the sound at this point. I don’t jamming like a rock band riffing. I was too young for the hippies and too old for the punks (laughs). One of them went down like a sack of potatoes. Auf Discogs können Sie sich ansehen, wer an All Media von White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity / Love Of Life mitgewirkt hat, Rezensionen und Titellisten lesen und auf dem Marktplatz nach der Veröffentlichung suchen. If you have paid any attention to QRD you know who Michael Gira is. They would get together jamming but someone has to focus things and it’s not just the excellence of the players.’. We start playing and I guess I conduct in a way but I absolutely want the band’s own input and imagination. But that doesn’t say I don’t respect great players, it’s just that sometimes they can be trapped in their own canon. LTW: Do you find it frustrating that music is now generally more background and do you react against that. It’s about playing a lot live and letting the music grow on its own. That came through rehearsing and being properly severe about the choices that were being made.’, Michael Gira: ‘That’s a big subject for me. It didn’t last long. Michael Gira– vocals, electric and acoustic guitar, production Christoph Hahn –lap steel guitars, electric guitar, vocals Thor Harris– drums, percussion, vibes and bells, wind instruments, handmade viola, vocals Michael Gira: ‘Yeah but I try to respect the person that made it. Teenage Jesus, the Contortions, Suicide and all that stuff to me was an indication to get the fuck there to New York from LA where I was living . Michael Gira laughs about the drastic changes of musical style ‘it is probably surprising the change from the beginning to now. Vocals Michael Gira. LTW: You mentioned before the physicality of the music and that was very noticeable at the Manchester gig. Michael Gira: ‘Sometimes but usually I fiddle around on the acoustic guitar and find chords or shapes I like the sound of and start playing them and then a rhythm occurs and then, hopefully, by the grace of god, words will find their way into my brain..’ This includes data values and the controlled vocabularies that house them. There are moments when things can get quite heavy but there are also moments of beauty and of a brooding psychedelic folkiness. Every night it’s altered and changing and that’s a good thing. I was a pretty intense individual but you have change with time- if you don’t you are just dead.’. Michael Gira: ‘Yeah, you have done a lot and inevitably you are going to start repeating yourself. Michael Gira: ‘Yeah, I was born at that time. Not to be too grandiose by any means but I’m at looking at creating piece of cinema and all the kinds of variation that implies. LTW : When I look back in retrospect an influence on me is Glenn Branca because he refused to compromise and was really going for the peak experience through the sound. LTW: So success is more of a practical reward for you? I have a kind of instinct where I want things to go and I try and shape it with whoever I’m working with. LTW: Did that open up possibilities to the imagination? LTW: Would it be fair to say that the more gentle sounding songs started off written on the acoustic guitar? We would bring them in and out of the sound playing on a cassette with the sound that was like a roar- raawww! But when I’ve been back for a month I’m sick as a dog and looking forward to getting back into my exercise regime which is just stretching before the gig but the show is my exercise because it’s so intense.’, LTW: Do you feel the energy come out of you on stage? Your melting with sweat…, Michael Gira: ‘It depends in how successful we are in getting the venue to turn of the air conditioning! I don’t know fucking anything about music! Electrics. Right in front of me. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2010 CD release of My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky on Discogs. It can be quite a cleansing experience in that way (laughs). It’s thirty years ago now. I have a terrible memory. I thought I was going to lose it. LTW: Yes I did, sounded great. more, The official Orange site states that Gira uses an Orange OD120. King Lucille. It was just its own sonic world you know. I guess I’m lazy minded. There have been so many years of stupid hard work that it is good to see something back. LTW: In Manchester the show was about three hours but it felt like twenty minutes! The Stan Laurels – There Is No Light Without Dark –... Psychedelic Porn Crumpets: Mr Prism – Single Review. Michael Gira: ‘I was at a Pink Floyd show in 1969. So I can’t say anything about being a composer. - M.Gira. Michael Gira admits that his young daughter “can’t stand” his music, claiming “as soon as I play guitar she comes up and puts her hands on the strings and gets me to stop.” Although his work as Swans is more readily greeted with awe than aversion; a visceral response isunderstandable. What kind of Gear & Equipment does Michael Gira use? I rediscovered that music that had started me thinking and about making an experience happen rather being a song or something. I didn’t think of them as American blues. Sign up Log in. Angels of Light were an American folk band that was formed circa 1998 by singer-songwriter and musician It’s about how temporal we are ultimately. With the band back on tour in the spring and the stirrings of a new album on its way we got in touch with Swans ringleader, Michael Gira to find out where its going and where this amazing music comes from. The Linked Data Service provides access to commonly found standards and vocabularies promulgated by the Library of Congress. Some of the threads on the last record will be moving to the fore on the new one. LTW: Is it deliberate to have the variation of styles on The Seer There is quite an extreme difference to the songs. LTW: Did you ever feel what you doing part of was part of late period No Wave? It came at a time in America when there was a great deal of turmoil, a turmoil which I wish still existed today, in that there was mass rioting and protests in the streets. It makes you cry. I grew up in southern California and I guess I was 13 when their first album came out in ‘67. we are going to create a moment of ecstasy…’ That would be preposterous but that is sort of the goal you have. I just follow the music and the music itself is the message, you know. Michael Gira: ‘Personally, I’m a little disappointed in his voice but what can I say? I guess the music is tailored or whatever for my voice and my voice just happens to fit in with what I write whether it’s whimsical or wistful or a sorrowful tune- I’m not so hot at that. Michael Gira: ‘(Laughs) I’m grateful for that. top 10 punk covers that were better than the originals – part 2, Peter Hook And The Light: Mexico City – live stream, Watch this: Pop singer bshp releases acoustic version of Never Mind. My job as an entertainer is to occupy the music.’. How tiring is it to actually perform that music? LTW: There is also an air of classical music in your stuff, the way it moves through to different moods and places with highs and lows. He was kind of the cliché of the mad genius and the kind of way he worked was just truly, profoundly inspirational. At the gig in Manchester people were feinting, surfing the noise, resisting the volume are, like me, finding the album and especially the live gigs almost meditative…, Michael Gira: ‘Yeah sure, that when music is at its highest. ‘, LTW: On the album I can hear threads of the sixties in songs, Sometimes a bit of the feel of the Doors…, Michael Gira: ‘I have no idea. It was a shabby space when I moved in but I did a lot of construction on it. It is whatever it is at the time. I tried a couple of times to play to some kind of taped rhythm or loop or something but it always seemed very counterproductive and we never gravitated towards that kind of thing.’. It’s sound- noise, to me, implies an annoying fly in your ear sound. And then do you take on the role of the conductor? I gravitated towards punk when it happened. Michael Gira is known for using a Guild antique burst electro acoustic guitar, and a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus Guitar Amplifier during his solo concerts. It’s not like I’m going to start making electro dance music next though! more. I think it’s incredible. Michael Gira: A lot of them start with me in my office on my acoustic guitar and then are built up. more. Find Michael Gira credit information on AllMusic AllMusic. You know it also has this over arching , sweeping poetic vision of life. Acoustics; Basses. Michael Gira: ‘I had no notion at the time that I would be a musician. You have entered an incorrect email address! The legendary musical outfit Swans—a revolving cast of inspired players centered around Michael Gira—has resurfaced with a new album, Leaving Meaning, and an upcoming 2020 tour. LTW: Swans are getting bigger. Michael Gira and co. will embark on a North American trek in support of the 2019 album this spring. The songs could be pretty finished or I have mapped out a whole song. Michael Gira: ‘I don’t react against thing or look at bigger issues. It’s not like I try to translate where I am into music. This is the only way I know how to work. more, Gira uses this acoustic guitar during solo shows and hiw solo projects more, He uses several Guild guitars from the 90's in his solo concerts. That’s just the passage of time. If you listen to his piece by Henrik Gorecki symphony 2 but not 3, it’s all consuming and just incredible but you could listen to the Stooges Funhouse and you would have the same feeling.’. LTW: The Stooges were far more complex and clever than they let on. A very different time for me’. Michael Gira: ‘The No Wave thing was before us and Sonic Youth, both of us moved to the city at the same time but it had pretty much died out when we got there. Cast: Jessica Lange, Tommy Lee Jones, Powers Boothe Some of the songs start as notes on an acoustic guitar and start with rhythm and a rudimentary vocal. Michael Gira: ‘Usually some official from the club comes over and says get the fuck off the stage (laughs).’. 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