This past Thursday Brooklyn’s Dinowalrus performed at Vassar with Mirror Mirror and Au. After the show, I got the chance to catch a few words with guitarist/singer Pete Feigenbaum about independent radio, remixes, and Poughkeepsie. Check it:
AGD: When is the first official Dinowalrus release coming out?
PF: There’s a 7″ with “Electro-car Gas Guitar” and “Cage Those Pythons,” our shorter electro-rock songs, coming out soon. We just have to mix it and Josh from BIG A little a is going to master it. Ian from Titus Andronicus is going to help screenprint the cover which I designed, it’s going to be purple ink on a natural background. I think mostly because we had extra purple ink. We also have a split 7″ with this Melbourne band Bachelor of Arts coming out on EXO. I don’t know if it will be released in the U.S. but I don’t care- Australia is definitely up there with Detroit, Tokyo, etc., all places where awesome bands are spawned.
AGD: Has independent radio benefited Dinowalrus at all?
PF: East Village Radio has played some of our stuff, and I recorded some live tunes there. WFMU also gives us some air play. That’s pretty much it.
AGD: Weren’t you involved with college radio?
PF: Yeah I was a music director at Yale’s station (WYBC), but I was pretty delinquent. At first I was really excited about all the free CDs, but then I got overwhelmed by all the bands that are out there. I kind of fell off my duties, I feel bad about it now, being on the other side.
AGD: What do you think of Poughkeepsie?
PF: Hell of a town. I’m surprised there’s decent Mexican food to be had. It’s a little more down and out than I thought, I pictured a more idyllic or New England-y town.
AGD: I saw that Dinowalrus remix of “Black Star” by Yngwie Malmsteen floating around the blogosphere- I didn’t know you guys did remixes
PF: We are totally a remixing band when you look at our recording process. I did the Yngwie remix while working on the final mixing for this new song of ours, “Haze on the Mobius Strip.” It was a long and arduous process of mixing due to the long song structure. It’s not boom-chic-a-whatever, every minute (of seven total) there’s a different sonic structure, and it became very painstaking. So, I got distracted and decided to veer off and experiment. I’ve also been into the 8bit dance thing that’s been happening lately–and my ultimate goal is to combine those fast digital arpeggios with live guitar shredding. It’s a tangible, interwoven thing. I do a lot of experimenting with beats on the computer. I’ll start by recording beats from a drum machine into the computer as a sound file, then send them to three different tracks so one will be like bass in your face, one with be reverrbbbb and the other will have osme insanely weird modulation effect. I definitely listen to a lot of dub-step, so I make bass tracks that have sort of a disco beat, with big booty bass hits interwoven, and spacey delay-treated bongo grooves on top. I’ve been really inspired by the Health remixes album, especially the Pictureplane remix.
AGD: I’m sure you get asked this all the time, but why did you choose Dinowalrus?
PF: I don’t know. The first rule of Dinowalrus is that there’s no imagery of dinos or walruses.
AGD: Fair enough. Ever wish you were called something else?
PF: Kyle does, he thinks Dinowalrus is kind of goofy. Sometimes, I agree; sometimes I don’t! I think we’d rather convey themes that are playful and ridiculous than overly foreboding. Nothing’s worse than a band name spilling over with contrived existential angst. That was so trendy in the 90s!
AGD: Any parting words?
PF: I’m unemployed, give me a job.
You can listen to Dinowalrus on their myspace: www.myspace.com/dinowalru
Ariel has a new music show called “Bells & Whistles” on Tuesdays from 3-5pm
