Computer Perfection is a new project by most of the members of Pas/Cal, who last year released what was arguably one of the best pop records of the year. In the new incarnation, Amy, Gene, Little Tommy Daniels, and Nathaniel Burgundy have blended their pop sensibilities with arrangements that run the gamut from spacey to distorted and everywhere in between. The first record, We Wish You Well On Your Way To Hell, is due out later this year on Le Grande, and this fall will see them performing throughout Detroit and the Mid-West.
The What of Whom: It’s good to hear you’re in the studio. How is the recording process going?
LTD: Album 1 done. We’re recording more material for something, maybe a CP sitcom. Things are busy all around but whenever we get the chance we record and write.
Burgundy: I’m listening to a test master of two songs right now; so excited for this stuff to be out! Also, we’re working a new EP, right?
Bem: It goes really well when Gene is not rearranging/cleaning the studio.
Gene: Whatever, I have to start with some order and then remake the mess. Later this year, our debut album will be released on Le Grand Magistery. But we’re already dipping our toes back in the pool, with what is shaping up to be an EP that is something of a side 3 to the album.
TWOW: Can you talk about the dissolution of Pas/Cal?
LTD : NaCl(s) → Na+(aq) + Cl-(aq)
Burgundy: “We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.”
Gene: What is that, the formula for turning gold into lead? I guess that says it all.
Bem: Did I ever tell you about the squirrel in my backyard?
TWOW: Other than Pas/Cal, did you play in any other bands? What were they?
LTD: Yep…
Blue Racers
Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church House Band
Childhood Fears
All Static Band
Jura (live performance in Ypsi.)
Mahogany
The Sights (live performance at a BBQ )
Charon
Mlle.
St. Januarius’s Blood
Asha Vida
Sa Sevol (live performance in Detroit )
Dearborn High Jazz, Concert, Symphonic and Marching Band
Laughing Gas
Hidden Ghost Balloon Ship
Burgundy: I had a band once called It’s A Wise Child. We played a handful of original tunes, a cover of the Jesus & Mary Chain song ‘Head On’ & a ten-minute long version of ‘Sweet Jane’ that involved a lot of noise & me playing my guitar with a toothbrush. It was kind of the template for ‘Sweetie Pie’.
Bem: My friend Melanie + I used to record ridiculous sketches on a crappy tape recorder and play them back for my sister. Does that count?
Gene: My Dad still wears thread-bare t-shirts from my first band, The Blue Stone Band. I played bass; we did one show and called it a day.
TWOW: I’ve read that in the past it was difficult to record or do shows because the band members lived so far from each other. Does Computer Perfection face the same difficulties?
LTD: Hmmmmm, I hope not. I will be moving about 284 miles from the rest of CP in about a month. That’s like a 2 hour drive in my blue Corvette, I like to speed and I smoke with cigarettes too!!!
Burgundy: Well, I’d say that, yes, reality does tend to intrude on our fun a little more than we’d like. But it feels a helluva lot easier in CP, doesn’t it guys? Of course, we all live within five minutes of one another at the moment so that has helped us thus far.
Gene: Distance was the least of our problems. NYC is only an hour from Detroit if you don’t count the 6 hours of sitting in a shitty Northwest terminal at LaGuardia getting loaded on $13 margaritas. I mean, this band doesn’t even go to Chili’s unless we have some kind of Entertainment Book type of coupon.
Bem: I think in any situation, if you are committed, you will do what it takes. That’s what Gene and I did when we lived in NYC. We made it work. We probably played more shows while we lived out of state.
TWOW: What is the songwriting process like for Computer Perfection?
LTD: Mostly Gene and Burgs start something and then I make it sweet and then Bem comes and makes it great.
Bem: Oh stop LTD, you make it great!
Gene: It seems to be different with each new song. There is no identifiable formula, but everyone contributes at some point. Domestic Amusements was first a drum track, followed by bass and then guitar. For me, vocals can be an ingredient added somewhere in the middle of songwriting. I like something to play against. Sound and beats inform the mood and lyrical content, and I get inspired by what is already laid to disc. I like to record my final guitar stuff after drums and synths/keys have been established, but not always. I’ll often record a demo acoustic guitar track to help with structure, then bury it in the mix as a percussive element.
TWOW: Do you write most songs together or do you develop them individually and then bring them to the band?
LTD: Yeah, not too much all together at the same time. We build off each other and work different shifts.
Burgundy: I really consider all the songs collaborative efforts. Each started as a demo of some sort with various degrees of flesh to each of them, usually very little. We all then slowly, one at a time, applied our magical juice to the mess. I think we’ve been very good about letting the other members develop his or her own part as he or she likes without a lot of meddling or redirection, regardless of who started the song out.
Bem: Hands across America.
Gene: Whatever the opposite of jamming is, that’s what we do. But we do it together.
TWOW: From the songs I’ve heard thus far, Computer Perfection has a similar pop sound to Pas/Cal but with more distorted guitars and…well…computers or keyboards. Can you talk about the influences for this new project?
LTD: Hold on, I just got a page here at the Nuclear plant…….
Burgundy: I hope that when all is said & done the differences will be more than that. Musically, the likes of Neu, La Dusseldorf, Brian Eno, Cluster & Pink Floyd for me. Non-musical influences include Phillip K. Dick, Federico Fellini, Henry Darger & medieval alchemical texts.
Bem: Well first of all I don’t think it sounds like Pas/Cal. Everything influences us… for me, there is no specific thing. Like maybe I’m influenced by a radio show I’ve heard. Like on WFMU, things I’ve never heard before. Or something I’ve seen at the museum. I don’t know, just day to day things. I don’t do much of the musical stuff so I guess it’s not for me to say, except that it doesn’t sound like Pas/Cal.
Gene: Yes, we are making pop music – but this is the soundtrack to a different and stranger journey. These are the sounds of adventure and discovery, sometimes intentional but mostly accidental. It’s our arms and legs and mouths doing the making, so there are familiar rhythms and voices. But it’s all jumbled… I’m singing harmonies with Bem. She’s getting weird noise out of the guitar. Burgundy is playing keys, writing the most haunted melodies. And LTD is forever the granite on which we build our ramshackle constructions. Outside of my bandmates, I don’t have any specific musical influences to point to. Maybe this though: where I used to be more Abbey Road, I’m now more Ram, All Things Must Pass and Plastic Ono Band. I like listening to AM-580 Memories and Tigers games. Lyrically… I like to read about things, watch movies, read critiques of films I’ve never seen… and internalize them. Then I forget they were never my idea to begin with and there’s a song.
TWOW: Do you have any plans to tour after the record is completed?
LTD: Nothing solid that I know off, but it would be nice to head south for the winter. And maybe a little time out west would be nice.
Burgundy: No specific plan, but I really want to. Let’s do it!
Bem: I’m not driving.
Gene: Yeah, I just have to clean and rearrange the van… get some dragon decals and Yosemite Sam mud flaps.
The Fool Is Hurt
How I Won The War
