INTERVIEW WITH BIG BLOCK 454

[KlingKlangBedlam]

Heyo folks, you may be all familiar with Colin, aka Big Block 454, a regular member here. But many have not heard his music, which deserves to be heard. RAnging from Zappa type experiments to freestyle jazz to krautrock and everything in between, this is a very unpredictable centrafuge of sound that keeps you guessing jsut what they will do next and what teh next block of sound holds in store.
And here is the exclusive interview with him done via forum, done for the first time anywhere in this medium! So dry off the snow of your wet socks, and kick back to the smooth mellow sounds of one Big Block 454 (hehe)!

(1). So how did you get the name Big Block 454? Sounds kinda like a term for a prison cell or a Brititsh mafia name!

[BigBlock454]

Well, it's an American name, actually!

It's the Chevrolet motor that was in cars like the Corvette Stingray in the early 1970s.  454 cubic inches - that's about 7.5 litres for us Europeans.

I just liked the idea of something that was rather ridiculous; huge, overpowered, ecologically-unsound, monstrously powerful  -  and yet available over-the-counter to anyone who cared to specify it in their car.   And I liked the sound of the name  -  which we say as Big Block four-five-four, by the way.

At the time I started the band, I was heavily into American cars (which aren't easily available in England  -  there was never mass importation of them, and they're all left-hand-drive).  I used to have a '78 Thunderbird, which features in some of our photos  -  and no, before anyone asks, it didn't have a Big Block 454.

[BigBlock454]

Was that your only question?  

[KlingKlangBedlam]

What the hell is that monstrocity crushing Big Ben?!?!!? Tony Blair may tell you it's an Iraqui-made nuclear monster, but it's really........more questions for Big Block (or so Hans Blix says)! haha

(2). Do you feel that BB454 has fit that description of ridiculous; huge, overpowered, ecologically-unsound, monstrously powerful  -  and yet available over-the-counter? And how so or not so?

(3). What are some of your primary influences? And what was it like to hear those bands?

(4).  Why the title "That's a Nice Hat"?

[BigBlock454]

Do you feel that BB454 has fit that description of ridiculous; huge, overpowered, ecologically-unsound, monstrously powerful  -  and yet available over-the-counter? And how so or not so?

I think we do fit that description...  We don't fit into the standard notion of a band; we create recordings using a lot of strange instruments and a mixture of strange styles, some of the recordings only use one or two members of the band playing everything, we can't reproduce those songs live. when we play live we sound quite different to recordings, nothing we do is entirely serious  -  a record label's nightmare.

However, I love what we do, and our live sound can be very powerful and out-of-control at times.  Ecologically-unsound?  Nothing we do is entirely straight  -  if we play an ambient piece, we will never manage to sustain the mood for ever  -  someone will let rip with some atonal saxophone or shouting through a didjeridoo...

What are some of your primary influences? And what was it like to hear those bands?

Faust  
My favourite Krautrock band.  I first heard "The Faust Tapes" when I was at school, it was like nothing else I'd ever heard.  The editing is astonishing; drastic cuts between styles  -  someone singing gently in French and playing acoustic guitar will suddenly cut to electronic noise and then to heavy rock riffing and then to talking, all in the space of a couple of minutes.  Very unsettling.  The editing becomes the most important part of the music.

We have tried to recreate this editing in some of our music, for instance on our first album "I Changed My Dentist... I Changed Him Into a Horse", all the tracks were run together in a disturbing way.

King Crimson
I have always admired Robert Fripp's work  -  King Crimson was the first band I ever saw live.  I like the earlier stuff, from "Court of The Crimson King" through "Islands", on to the Wetton/Bruford line-up that made "Larks' Tongues in Aspic", "Starless & Bible Black" and "Red".

Brian Eno
A major influence, from his work with Roxy Music to his production work with other bands, but particularly his first four solo albums, the "song" ones (before he got into ambient).  I constantly reference those albums for ideas, and also use his Oblique Strategies cards when writing and recording music.

The Residents
"The Commercial Album" is my favourite  -  40 songs, all 1 minute long.
Creepy little nursery rhymes, very odd and avant-garde and yet still with strong melodies and a pop sensibility  -  that's something I like, be weird but still make a memorable "song".

early Pink Floyd
I like the Syd Barrett-era stuff, Syd's solo albums, and also the first few post-Syd albums such as "Saucerful of Secrets".

Frank Zappa
Like Faust, it's the editing and the way his pieces are put together that interests me about Zappa.  Albums like "We're Only In It For The Money" were built up from thousands of pieces of tape spliced together  -  the band never played for more than about 30 seconds at a time.  The music is constructed from edits  -  and it's wonderful stuff.

Other bands I would classify as influences include Can, Captain Beefheart, Soft Machine, Gong, Henry Cow, the Velvet Underground, The Bonzo Dog Band, Sonic Youth and Parliament/Funkadelic.

The above are my influences  -  the rest of the band are influenced by avant-grade, classical, jazz, punk and prog-rock.  (That covers everything, doesn't it?)

Live, I play fretless bass.  On recordings, I also play synthesisers, guitars, saxophone and any old junk I can lay my hands on.  Players I'm influenced by include :

Bass :  Percy Jones (Eno/Brand X), John Wetton (King Crimson), Bootsy Collins (Funkadelic), Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine), Lothar Meid (Amon Duul II), Holger Czukay (Can).
Guitar : Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Jimi Hendrix, Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention), Fred Frith (Henry Cow), Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd), Steve Hillage (Gong).
Saxophone : Eric Dolphy, Captain Beefheart, Evan Parker
Synthesiser : Brian Eno, basically anyone who uses a synth without a keyboard (such as the guys in Gong and Hawkwind). Synths became boring as soon as someone attached a keyboard and started playing pseudo-classical crap on them.

Also, we're influenced by film-makers (David Lynch...), art (dadaists like Kurt Schwitters), comedy (Spike Milligan, Monty Python), mathematicians (the Fibonacci Series)...

Why the title "That's a Nice Hat"?
I like random, dada-esque associations.  Meaningless things which aquire "meaning" by their very position and use.  "That's a Nice Hat" is meaningless, bland, and yet surreal, especially in its juxtaposition with the cover art (a photo of a French art-deco signal cabin, which is not really a nice hat at all  -  but has a slight resemblance to a face if you use your imagination or are on drugs!).  "That's a Nice Hat" is a similar sort of phrase to the artist Magritte's title "This is not a pipe"  -  the surrealist painting of a pipe.

The Beatles must have written their lyrics last, after the chords and the vocal melody, as they often sang nonsense words whilst the compositional process was in action.  "Yesterday" was originally entitled "Ham and Eggs".  Anyway, there was a Lennon song that had a working title of "That's a Nice Hat"  -  I can't remember which one.

 

[KlingKlangBedlam]

Well,King Crimson and The Residents are still together and touring. How would you feel if you got the chance to tour with them? Or even,say David Bowie or Can?

Now, about the song "I Name This Child Acker Bilk". Does this one also hold that same Dadaist aura, and does the Dadaism part hold to the Dadaist belief that everything all is well,um, bullshit and untruthful? Or could the title also be seen in DAai's light: taking the absurd and meaningless, and making it meaningful through art? The CD to me seems more along the lines of Andre Breton or Joan Miro than anything Dada, which is a compliment by the way.  

[BigBlock454]

Touring with King Crimson would be a nightmare  -  Robert Fripp might ask us technical questions !

The Residents would be interesting  -  we prefer to put on multi-media events rather than mere concerts, and The Residents are experts at this.

I saw Can singer Damo Suzuki playing at a local venue last year, and the music wasn't a million miles away from Big Block 454  -  perhaps we could fit in there.

Now, about the song "I Name This Child Acker Bilk". Does this one also hold that same Dadaist aura

Acker Bilk was an English trad jazz clarinet player, who performed on TV light entertainment programmes.  For some reason, I was suddenly struck by how strange his name was, and the title of the song leapt out at me.

The last part of the song features the phrase "I want a knife to butter my bun"  -  something my father once shouted in his sleep.

In nonsense is strength.

the Dadaist belief that everything all is well,um, bullshit and untruthful

"Dada - A western Europe artistic and literary movement  that sought the discovery of authentic reality through the abolition of traditional culture and aesthetic forms."

I suppose we're looking at the absolute freedom to use and abuse any style of music or art or film; to not be tied to any genre; to do things that make us laugh (a prerequisite of all our pieces) and then put them into a context which might not make the listener laugh.

taking the absurd and meaningless, and making it meaningful through art

Very good.   The lyrics are a case in point; I use a lot of random generation techniques to create lyrics.  Given that the basic word-pool is thus meaningless (or it becomes so, once taken out of context), it is up to the listener to impose his "meaning" on the lyrics  -  which is good, it exercises the brain.

Not all our source material is absurd and meaningless; a lot of it may have a good deal of meaning to us, but not to other people.  This begins to sound like Zappa's in-jokes and conceptual continuity  -  repeat nonsense enough times and people begin to associate with it.

The CD to me seems more along the lines of Andre Breton or Joan Miro than anything Dada

Joan Miró  -  were his paintings primitive and childlike, the work of a simple mind, or were they extremely complex?  Using this in reference to our music is a great compliment!

I'm not a big Miró fan, by the way.  I like Max Ernst  -  the decalomania paintings.

"The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd."
Andre Breton, Second Manifesto of Surrealism
 

[KlingKlangBedlam]

Same could be said for Pollock, where the feeling put into it outdoes the outcome. Or even Duchamp!

We are familiar with you from the forum, yet what are the other band members like? And what are they into?

[BigBlock454]

Now Pollock and Duchamp I actually like a lot...  I saw a lot of their work in MOMA in New York a few years ago.

Other band members ?



Alex  -  guitar, vocals.  Graphics designer, interested in avant-garde music, prog rock, punk, general weird stuff.  Recently took part in the TV Quiz Show "Which Swarthy Dago Stole My Eggs ?"



Pete  -  guitar, vocals.  Likes jazz, rock, art, surreal humour.  His favourite band is "Oleg and the Dancing Hats", who are a cross between Miles Davis and The Grumbleweeds.



Mark  -  keyboards, vocals.  Likes classical (Vaughan Williams, Carl Orff), Pink Floyd.  Here, he is seen playing an invisible concertina in an failed attempt to summon Beelzebub.



Robert  -  he's the drummer...  What sticks does he use?  Who cares...?



Colin  -  and here's a picture of me, glaring at my fretless bass in an attempt to keep it in tune.

[BigBlock454]

Also, we have an association with film-maker Les Howarth.

He has used our music on various of his projects, including his on-going H.P.Lovecraft-inspired film "Fistula !"

We played at a multi-media event in a church in Salford last year, where our performance featured a film by Les and the band performing live along with it.

[BigBlock454]

I'll let you know what Big Block 454 is up to at the moment.

A while ago, we recorded two albums of film music.  These have never been officially released.  We will be releasing them soon, once the artwork has been finalised.  The albums are "Strange Ululations" (a set of songs) and "Fistula !" (a set of incidental and ambient music).

We are busy recording music for a new album.  We have developed a new way of working.  We improvise on acoustic instruments and percussion, which is recorded straight onto multi-track.  Then we choose the most stimulating sections, and arrange them into a backing track.  We then add the electric instruments and vocals and construct a song.  It's working very well, there's a strong "life" to the pieces, and a sense of real air being moved.

We are rehearsing for some upcoming gigs, including a possible avant-garde festival.

We are also working on some short films, which will feature our music.  Imagine Eraserhead meets Monty Python in 2 minutes...  We're hoping to release a set of these films as mpeg1 files;  we should be able to get about 45 minutes of film onto a CD-R.

A lot of the films will not feature dialog, but won't be "music videos" in the normal sense of the word.  Short films tied in to pieces of music, but not just promos.  We have finished two so far, and are working on some others.

It would be nice to feature some of these films on the Internet; possibly on mp4.com or a similar site.

Hopefully, we'll get involved in some more multi-media events, like the Salford Centric one we did last year.  Much more interesting than a standard "gig".

[KlingKlangBedlam]

What artistic aspects would you like to add to your stage shows? Anything like adding painted surrealist backdrops, or perhaps even TVs or movie screens with some interesting tidbits on there?

How do you think BB454 would mix with the current state of British pop music such as Coldplay (turns head to puke) and Robbie Williams? Or even in the current state of American music? I think we could use a cerebral assault like BB454 in either place!

[BigBlock454]

What artistic aspects would you like to add to your stage shows? Anything like adding painted surrealist backdrops, or perhaps even TVs or movie screens with some interesting tidbits on there?

We played at the Salford Arts Collective "Salford Centric" event last year  -  it was in an amazing old church in the centre of Salford.  6 bands played; each had made a film and composed an accompanying piece of music.

There was a large film screen on the stage (actually the steps leading up to the altar) and two smaller screens flanking it.  The bands played in front of the screens.

The main screen showed the film, whilst the smaller screens showed slide show images from laptops.  We played the music live in sync with the film.

The whole show worked amazingly well (we had been a bit dubious beforehand), there was a large, bohemian audience and everyone had a great time.

In the past, we've performed at art gallery openings.  We played at one event which was a combined fashion show and dance production with music and lights.  The dancers wore clothes produced by two designers.  Some of the clothes were made out of rubber, and some were made out of wood...  It was a good show, despite some of the dancers looking like trees !

I'd like to do some avant-garde events, using all sorts of noise-making devices and sculptures, with accompanying films, lights and so on.

So, yes, we like multi-media events.  Films, dancers, art, whatever...  Collaborating with non-musicians is very interesting  -  they bring different ideas.

How do you think BB454 would mix with the current state of British pop music such as Coldplay and Robbie Williams? Or even in the current state of American music?

I can't show any interest in current music, be it British or American.  It just all seems so uninteresting, conservative, unimaginative  -  I suspect that so much corporate money is involved nowadays, no-one wants to take any risks at all.

So many bands seem to sound the same; so many videos seem to look the same (even though they have obviously had a vast amount of money spent on them).  I want music to move on, to develop  -  these people just seem to want to rehash previous ideas in a bland, easy-to-digest way.  Nothing too complicated or hard-to-understand  -  ear and eye candy.

Is this a dumbing-down of the audience, or is this what modern music-lovers (possibly the wrong term) really want?  Do they know no better?

One band I've found interesting in the last few years is Radiohead  -  at least they had the courage to go experimental with "Kid A" after having a major hit album with "Ok Computer".  Quite a bit of King Crimson influences in their guitar playing, by the way...
 

[KlingKlangBedlam]

Yeah it's rather sad for a country that has been the breadbasket of all sorts of musical forms, from Brit-pop to industrial to gothic and onwards. Even death metal and metal altogether can be traced to Britain.
I read of a concert once that Tangerine Dream did in that very same church with Salvador Dali and a fish tank. Anywho back to the questions d'joir:

You mentioned having once worked with Martin Hannet, the legendary Manchester producer. Did this work ever get completed and released? Or perhaps laying in DAT tape form somewhere?

Also what are all the instruments you can play? Any training involved or was it all self taught?

Do you play more according to structure or impulsively?

[BigBlock454]

Many years ago, I played synths and sax in a Manchester band called Night Visitors.  We bought a house/recording studio called Graveyard Studios, where Martin Hannett had worked.  A Certain Ratio had recorded their album "The Graveyard and the Ballroom" there.

Anyway, we got into a dubious situation with a video/record company, who wanted us to record a song for them.  They said they had got Martin Hannett to produce it, and they would be paying him for it.

Hannett was a strange man...  He turned up at the studio, but said he was unable to enter the building because of the "bad vibes" and would talk to us in the pub instead.  After he had drunk a lot there, he then demanded to go back to the studio and jam all afternoon (the bad vibes having presumably dissipated by then).

After drinking a bottle of our brandy and stealing my copy of The Illuminatus, he said he'd love to produce us and started giving us some strict rules  -  such as the fact that he would put an oscilloscope on the bass drum to check the drummer was keeping exact time...

Anyway, the record company then tried to get him to work on points rather than real money, so he pulled out of the project (and the company folded before the song was released anyway...).

What Hannett did do was lend us the 8-track and mixer that had previously been at Graveyard.  We hired some percussion and an echo unit from the band Sad Cafe, and recorded the song ourselves.

See the film "24 Hour Party People" for quite a good representation of what the late Martin Hannett was like.

Live, I play fretless bass.  In the studio, I play whatever I feel is needed for the piece I'm working on.  I play guitar, keyboards, synths, samplers, saxophone, didjeridoo, and lots of odd instruments, home-made bits and pieces, scrap metal and so on.

The only lessons I've ever had were on the clarinet.  I found out I could get free lessons when I was at University.  I wanted to learn the saxophone, but that was too "rude" for the music department, so I learnt clarinet instead and transferred my "skills" to the sax (which is quite a similar instrument).  I then chose to play the sax like Captain Beefheart or Evan Parker, so I didn't really need technique at all !