Pretty sure the zine this was for did not see the light of day.
Some of the answers are no longer relevant.
From what I’ve read, it was pretty clear
The Endless Blockade had come to an end long before it actually came to an end.
What brought about such a definite end?
Well the
definitive end was Edgar moving to Bermuda, but the life of Blockade had run
out a while before that. I could feel my own interest in what Blockade was
growing into become more and more intense whilst at the same time other
people’s interest was waning.
I think it’s
safe to say that Carroll has no interest in being any kind of a vocalist and
live focal point anymore and some of later our shows were became increasingly
hostile because of this. The last era of the band was fun, but it was slowly
becoming some awful pantomime thing where people who’d seen us before were
wondering who would be the first person to get an elbow to the head and at a
few shows me and Bloomer would have to keep an eye on who was about to kick the
shit out of our singer as he plowed his way through anyone trying to mosh or
have some kind of a good time.
The real
reason we split is because the genuine misanthropists in the band had
absolutely no cause to be playing to people that wanted to see us.
From the fact Column of Heaven use the same
logo/font type as The Endless Blockade, I would guess that you want to link the
two bands and would want people to view Column Of Heaven as the continuation of
The Endless Blockade?
It’s a
continuation in the sense that I’m still exploring the ideas I was interested
in throughout Blockade, but I think they manifest in a number different ways.
This is partly because Column of Heaven is 50% people that weren’t in Blockade
and come with their own take on things.
I don't really
see as much power violence in Column of Heaven; I think it has more in common
with grindcore.
Both the COH releases start with “To those
who came before, to those that will come after…” in different forms. Will this
be COH’s version of The Endless Blockade title track?
No, definitely
not, both pieces are sections of banishing rituals and I felt both releases
needed them, future ones probably won’t.
After the
Mission (the start of Mission from God) was performed on the roof of my house
in the most intense lightning storm I’d seen in years. I finished it and had to
get inside because it was getting dangerous being out there. The sounds that
start and end the record is the storm I was standing in.
Altars (the
opener to Ecstatically Embracing all that we Habitually Suppress), is part
banishing ritual and part acknowledgement that we're just one point on a line
that began years before we were playing music and will continue for years after
we stop. It's a public declaration of our limitations as individual actors in a
larger scene that transcends our own selfish interests in participating.
You’re someone who’s been involved in
Punk/Hardcore for a decent amount of time, and in two continents, and I would
imagine you’ve witnessed some pretty obvious changes in those times. Do you
think things have changed for better or worse, or are just different altogether
now?
Honestly I
think the biggest changes are that now there’s always a bunch of people gazing
into the abyss of their iPhones at every show now, and by the time the second
band of the night is three songs in I’m usually feeling like I want to go home
and have a lie down.
There’s always
been really amazing, life changing bands and people out there; only an idiot
who shouldn’t be here would deny that even today that’s the case. And similarly
there’s always been dick heads, shit people, terrible ethics, and generally
lethargy and moronism present in varying levels in the scene. The trick is to
minimise the negative sides impact on your enjoyment as much as possible.
Sort of continuing on from that, since
leaving the UK have you kept tabs on the scene over here? What do you think of
it today?
I’ve kept very
minimal tabs on what’s going on, only really following what my friends are
doing and as they’re now mostly middle aged men there’s not too much activity
there.
I don’t think
it’s really very important what some doddering old fart like me thinks about
what the kids are up to these days to be honest. Following that route just
turns you into a massive wanker– see Stephen Blush – convinced that the world
ended after 1986 and everything that’s happened since then has just been a
series of ephemeral events with no significant meaning.
One of the
great strengths of punk and hardcore will always be in the temporary – and occasionally
semi-permanently like the 1 in 12 – taking of space. Hardcore is an eminently
social youth culture and the creation of temporary, yet distinct and meaningful
social spaces is something hardcore has always done very well and will no doubt
continue to do well at, regardless of old timers deciding things just aren’t
the same as back in the day.
Powerviolence is a ridiculous term and
incredibly hard to define due to the massive variation in the sounds of the
original PV bands, but it seems in the past few years become more and more just
used for any hardcore with fast parts. What do you think of the way the term is
used today?
I’ve pretty
much stopped caring altogether at this point as the debate’s been going on for
about 15 years now as to what power violence does or doesn’t mean and what’s
allowed inside its borders. The phrase has always been an incredibly
territorial one and the arguments are less about how power violence is defined
and more about who is the genuine article initiated into the true inner
mysteries of power violence. At this point in my life none of this shit
interests me or inspires me in anyway.
I think power
violence these days pretty much only means a band that plays fast and then
plays slow. Tempo is probably the least vital thing to base a band on, let
alone an entire genre, so I pretty much glaze over at the kind of talk that
attempts to define the audio aesthetics of power violence.
Worst is that
there appears to be a significant amount of bands that describe themselves as
fastcore now, which just seems like some free-floating mush of nothingness,
unattached to any deeper musical tradition (even less so than power violence).
You’ve said you only release things on tape
as it’s quick and cheap. Do you think some “dead” formats, such as tape, are
glorified now?
We need some
context here, 10 people glorifying something is still only 10 people.
We live in the
Greater Area of Toronto along with some 6,000,000 other people and would be
very hard pressed to sell more than 2,000 copies of a release in any format
globally, or play to more than 150 people these days. This scene is of totally
marginal interest to the world.
I suspect that
behind your question you’re actually asking me if I think people have “honest”
motivations in releasing tapes.
Column Of Heaven uses a lot of symbolism,
which all has a lot of meaning and relevance around it. Do you ever worry that
it will be cast off and misunderstood in a time when a lot of symbols are used,
re-used and misused by hardcore bands?
We live in a
world of symbols, and some musical genres are just ways of representing the
world using a slightly more obscure vocabulary of symbols than the ones in
general circulation.
Hardcore and
punk have always been about symbols, from the logos of CRASS, Conflict, Bastard
Noise, Void, Fucked Up and more. Hardcore and punk have very specific dress
codes; even in rejecting those codes people are still generally recognisable as
belonging to one of the many faces of our culture. If you're immersed in the
scene and its language you can spot others and decode at least a part of them
based on how they present themselves. There's often a difference between
someone wearing CRASS and Bastard Noise badges and someone wearing CRASS and
Exploited badges, and this can be read by the smart observer (though this is
obviously over simplified and not foolproof).
I'm not
talking about some kind of notion of essentialised character traits (e.g., all
black people are great dancers, all white people are shit at basket ball, all
English people are professional complainers), but of minute differences in
approach to a culture that we voluntarily belong to, and how we, as insiders in
that culture, place greater meaning on the symbols we utilise than outsiders
do.
My grandma
can't tell the difference between Avenged Sevenfold and Brainbombs for example,
let alone the difference between a spiked, black denim clad kid in an Amebix
shirt and a kid in a leather jacket with Mutiilation painted on the back.
One of the
ways people make themselves stand out in our tiny little music world is to use
symbols previously untouched by others in the scene and claim them as their
own. It’s hard to really own a symbol (particularly if you appropriated it from
somewhere else in the first place) and before long others will use them in
their own aesthetics as well. Who is or is not the authentic article is a game
perpetually being played out in all subcultures; from current accusations of
hipsters, to older accusations of sell outs or posers.
The debate on
symbols is just another aspect of this back and forth over who is “real” (i.e.,
whose motivations are pure) and who is somehow a clueless interloper. Sometimes
these discussions have merit, frequently they don't, but they always, without
fail, look idiotic and frivolous to outsiders.
And if you reappropriate
symbols that are not necessarily yours to use, you have to be prepared for
outsiders to ask exactly what the hell you're playing at using their symbols in
your silly little music game.
Column Of Heaven is a band that doesn’t
perform live very much, but you recently embarked on a string of three shows,
how were they, particularly the collaboration with The Rita (if that happened
in the end)? Also, is it a conscious decision to only play live rarely or is it
more a case of real life getting in the way?
The Rita is
always amazing and we were ecstatic that he performed with us in Vancouver.
Regarding the
lack of live outings, I don't have the energy, money, time or inclination to
play a lot of shows, and ultimately, the kind of music we play just isn't all
that popular and I'd rather we picked our shows, than play with every crummy
positive hardcore band that comes through town simply because we're asked to
fill the bill.
Having said
all that we managed to play six shows in the
first 12 months we decided to play live (which was originally not a
goal), and managed a short tour of the West coast of the US in our second year,
which isn’t that bad.
Column Of Heaven has a lot of religious
reference, the band name itself, the name of the LP and so on. Is there a
religious theme running through COH, or are these titles referring to something
in a different way, in fitting with the theological noncognitivism discussed in
The Endless Blockade?
The only real
religious aspects to the band are my own personal interests coming to the fore
here and there. I will invoke theological noncognitivism – which simply means
that the word “god” is meaningless – here and proclaim that I don’t believe in
a transcendent god, lest anyone think I’m some religious type hiding in a
Hatred Surge shirt.
The band name
is a reference to the Axis Mundi, and ties into my personal philosophy and
approach to music and the culture surrounding music; that it should be
something you use to both centre yourself, and also use to access new ways of
thinking.
The name of
the record, Mission from God, comes from serial killer, pathological liar,
sexual sadist, and all round reprehensible human being Peter Sutcliffe and
doesn’t really have much to do with religion.
The new album is based around Peter
Sutcliffe. You recently put a fairly comprehensive piece about the motivation
for choosing this subject matter online, which is of course a very sensitive
matter. From how clear you were that this wasn’t another grind/noise release
glorifying sexual violence/serial killers, it is pretty obvious you didn’t want
to do that. How worried were you that this release would be misinterpreted or
cause unwanted offence?
We haven’t
been particularly worried about this release causing offense. The fact of the
matter is that we’re using a backdrop of genuine pain and misery from recent
history to launch our own high falutin’ concept album, thus an accusation of
exploitation would not necessarily be without merit I have to say.
Someone could
convincingly make the case that as Sutcliffe brought real suffering into the
world writing a grindcore record about him is a ridiculous and crass
proposition.
Glorification
was not our intention and Sutcliffe is only really the backdrop for a wider
look at some of the awful stuff out there in the world and how our social and
physical environments are intrinsically linked and shape our experiences of the
world.
Continuing on the theme of the new record,
in the online article it is mentioned that it is a catharsis for those who had
grown up in the shadow of Sutcliffe. What made you choose now to write this
album, do you feel the subject matter is particular relevant to the current
climate or was it more that it was something that had been with you since
childhood, and this catharsis couldn’t wait?
The reference
to catharsis was Kristiansen’s, personally I don’t really believe that there’s
anything valid in catharsis; you empty yourself, you fill yourself up again.
Big deal. See the lyrics to Binge/ Purge from Ecstatically Embracing...
On a personal
level I think a modified version (modified because I’d make a terrible Christian) of the concept of
kenosis is a more helpful way of understanding this idea of emptying yourself
of strife in order to reach a better state.
The nauseating
waves of misanthropy and disgust I have experienced in my life come from somewhere and have been present for as
long as I can remember. When I was younger I internalised the feelings too
much, when I was a little older I probably externalised them too often
sometimes; neither are particularly healthy ways of being in the world.
Anyway, I
shoulder a small part of this busted outlook on the physical and larger social
spaces I inhabited as a child. I say a small part, because even if my early
world did not have the spectres of Brady, Hindley, Sutcliffe, Fairley, Bell, or
Nilsen I’m sure I’d still be exactly the same person I am today.
How long did the record take to write? It
seems like a very carefully considered record, and can’t imagine it was rushed
together.
The writing
was pretty quick, but we get together fairly infrequently so it took time to
get everyone up to speed. Recording took a while as I did the whole thing
myself and I'm not particularly skilled in that area; this is not a slick
grindcore record.
The
consideration that you hear is probably that I’ve spent years thinking about
this record, and how I was going to deal with the subject and experience of
death and misery that I was made aware of (like so many of us are) as a child.
The next release is going to be a split
with Radioactive Vomit, what can we expect from that? Is there any set theme
for that record?
Our material
for that split is two fairly straight forward songs in about five minutes. The
record is about the Roman emperor Heliogabalus.
The Holy
Things 7" due out on Iron Lung records at the same time has a theme that
is a take on devil worship; that the negative sides of our selves are always
present and occasionally need to be acknowledged, personified (as devils), and
let out and indulged in controlled situations before being shoved back deep
inside so they don’t eat us alive from within.
I know besides COH you are involved with
other projects, such as Death Agonies, what non-COH plans do you have for the
near future?
List is completely out of date and Death Agonies is no longer a going concern.
I think the
Death Agonies/ Sete Star Sept LP will be the final release from that project,
time to move on.
This is as
full a list as I can think of that all members of Column of Heaven are
currently involved in:
• Abyss
• Godstopper
• Urine Cop
• Ilmestys (?)
• Pick Your Side
• Vince Lombardi Experience
• Coloniser
• Black Iron Prison (?)
• Slow Light (?)
There are some
one offs here and there that aren't worth mentioning.
I deliberately
wanted this band to be people I'm close with, but who had other musical outlets
so they wouldn't be frustrated by Column of Heaven’s lack of activity or my
autocratic approach to being in a band.
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