Underwater Love Child
One of my favorite underground publications is TreeFrog. It's a magazine that reports on the music, art, and news that people like me(i.e. cool people) care about and which are mostly ignored by mainstream media. The writing is spectacular, the interviews are hardhitting and informative, and the photography is above and beyond that which you will find in a Time magazine or a Rolling Stone. Unfortunately they keep such a low profile that is hard to get your hands on a copy. I am lucky enough to know someone on the staff there, and have recieved every issue for the past 2 years. Recently my favorite underground publication did an interview with one of my favorite underground songwriters, folksinger Matt Davis.
TreeFrog doesn't seem to have a website that I can find, so I'm just going to transcribe the article for this post.
From the article "A Quiet Unknown" in the September 2006 issue of TreeFrog-
New York-It's 11 p.m on a warm Thursday night at The Racoon Lodge in Manhattan. There's a man in his late twenties with an acoustic guitar on a makeshift stage. His appearance can best be described as 'bookish hip', from his black square framed glasses, right down to his sky blue suede puma's. As he sings to a crowd of at most 25 people his voice teeters on the brink of bad. It doesn't help any that the bar's sound system is terrible and the acoustics in the room lack any real depth. Yet everyone here, including me and the bartender, is captivated by his performance. The lyrics are sometimes cryptic, but always intriguing. And the delivery leaves no doubt in our minds that the singer believes the song. This is Matt Davis.
For the past 6 years, indie/emo/pop/folksinger Matt Davis has been playing bars, coffeehouses, parks and streetcorners all over New York City. In all that time he has not once released any sort of recorded material, relying strictly on word of mouth and a tireless work ethic to develop a small but loyal fanbase. All that's about to change, because in January of 2007 the artist is releasing his debut album,"Underwater Love Child".
After a 40 minute set at the Racoon Lodge, I sat down at the bar with Matt and asked him a few questions about the forthcoming album over a beer.
TF: You've gone so long without ever going into a studio and laying down tracks for an album. What made you finally decide to cross that bridge?
MD: Well I've always felt that if I started making any real profit off of my stuff, the songs themselves and all future compositions would then be contaminated by the venom of the greed serpent. So I stayed away from that aspect of music, managing to get by with oddjobs and friends with livable couches. But I recently discoverd that the well of kindness I'd been drinking from for so long was not quite as deep as I'd once thought. And so here I am, driving the first nail into what will eventually be the gallows I'm hung from.
TF: Wow, that's pretty harsh. I mean, isn't there something to be said for getting your music out to a bigger audience?
MD: I don't know, I guess. But really I think everyone who can appreciate my songs are already living here in New York. Let the south have their Keith Toby's and everyone else have their Justin Tinkerlake's, my fanbase is and always will be here in New York City.
TF: Are you trying to say that there's no one outside of the Big Apple smart enough to understand your music?
MD: I never said anything about smart enough. Those are your words, not mine. Don't try and manipulate what I'm saying to make this a spicier story. What I'm saying is that my songs are written from the perspective of a person who lives here in New York, so it might be harder to relate to if you don't know what that's like.
TF: I'm not sure I follow. I just sat here and listened to you sing 10 original songs and I can't recall a single one of them having any lyrics specific to this city.
MD: You clearly aren't on the same plane as me or my music, because it's not on that obvious of a level. It's not like I'm singing about the taco stand on West 4th street. My poetry is not written in that personal of a perspective. A lot of my songs are actually written to or about our collective social conscience.
TF: I'm still not sure I understand how the rest of the country can't appreciate your music if it's not just a matter of you thinking New Yorkers are smarter than everyone else.
MD: It's getting more and more apparent that I should expect you to understand very little of what I say.
After an awkward silence, he checks his watch and says he has to go meet someone at the studio to do some mixing so that I can actually listen to some of what's been recorded (although he seems less than thrilled at this prospect now) . I tell him I can't wait to hear what he's got. We agree on a time for me to come by the studio to continue our interview, and then we go our seperate ways.
**** This post has already gotten too long, so I'm going to leave the second half of the article for another time. There are some great insights into his songwriting process and what makes him tick, but those will have to wait. For now I'm going to comb the internet looking for some of the bootleg recordings of his live stuff so I can post them on here for everyone to listen.
TreeFrog doesn't seem to have a website that I can find, so I'm just going to transcribe the article for this post.
From the article "A Quiet Unknown" in the September 2006 issue of TreeFrog-
New York-It's 11 p.m on a warm Thursday night at The Racoon Lodge in Manhattan. There's a man in his late twenties with an acoustic guitar on a makeshift stage. His appearance can best be described as 'bookish hip', from his black square framed glasses, right down to his sky blue suede puma's. As he sings to a crowd of at most 25 people his voice teeters on the brink of bad. It doesn't help any that the bar's sound system is terrible and the acoustics in the room lack any real depth. Yet everyone here, including me and the bartender, is captivated by his performance. The lyrics are sometimes cryptic, but always intriguing. And the delivery leaves no doubt in our minds that the singer believes the song. This is Matt Davis.
For the past 6 years, indie/emo/pop/folksinger Matt Davis has been playing bars, coffeehouses, parks and streetcorners all over New York City. In all that time he has not once released any sort of recorded material, relying strictly on word of mouth and a tireless work ethic to develop a small but loyal fanbase. All that's about to change, because in January of 2007 the artist is releasing his debut album,"Underwater Love Child".
After a 40 minute set at the Racoon Lodge, I sat down at the bar with Matt and asked him a few questions about the forthcoming album over a beer.
TF: You've gone so long without ever going into a studio and laying down tracks for an album. What made you finally decide to cross that bridge?
MD: Well I've always felt that if I started making any real profit off of my stuff, the songs themselves and all future compositions would then be contaminated by the venom of the greed serpent. So I stayed away from that aspect of music, managing to get by with oddjobs and friends with livable couches. But I recently discoverd that the well of kindness I'd been drinking from for so long was not quite as deep as I'd once thought. And so here I am, driving the first nail into what will eventually be the gallows I'm hung from.
TF: Wow, that's pretty harsh. I mean, isn't there something to be said for getting your music out to a bigger audience?
MD: I don't know, I guess. But really I think everyone who can appreciate my songs are already living here in New York. Let the south have their Keith Toby's and everyone else have their Justin Tinkerlake's, my fanbase is and always will be here in New York City.
TF: Are you trying to say that there's no one outside of the Big Apple smart enough to understand your music?
MD: I never said anything about smart enough. Those are your words, not mine. Don't try and manipulate what I'm saying to make this a spicier story. What I'm saying is that my songs are written from the perspective of a person who lives here in New York, so it might be harder to relate to if you don't know what that's like.
TF: I'm not sure I follow. I just sat here and listened to you sing 10 original songs and I can't recall a single one of them having any lyrics specific to this city.
MD: You clearly aren't on the same plane as me or my music, because it's not on that obvious of a level. It's not like I'm singing about the taco stand on West 4th street. My poetry is not written in that personal of a perspective. A lot of my songs are actually written to or about our collective social conscience.
TF: I'm still not sure I understand how the rest of the country can't appreciate your music if it's not just a matter of you thinking New Yorkers are smarter than everyone else.
MD: It's getting more and more apparent that I should expect you to understand very little of what I say.
After an awkward silence, he checks his watch and says he has to go meet someone at the studio to do some mixing so that I can actually listen to some of what's been recorded (although he seems less than thrilled at this prospect now) . I tell him I can't wait to hear what he's got. We agree on a time for me to come by the studio to continue our interview, and then we go our seperate ways.
**** This post has already gotten too long, so I'm going to leave the second half of the article for another time. There are some great insights into his songwriting process and what makes him tick, but those will have to wait. For now I'm going to comb the internet looking for some of the bootleg recordings of his live stuff so I can post them on here for everyone to listen.
posted by Jerkemy at 2:06 AM
5 Comments:
I know someone who heard Matt Davis play in high school, in Scarsdale. They said he was sick.
What was wrong with him? Did he have the flu? Or some sort of flesh eating bacteria? I'm sure that if he was ill he did not perform up to his full potential! I can't wait for the new album!
No, I mean the thought he could really shred. I guess he was in a grunge band back then or something.
Really? I didn't know he was into that sort of music. You wouldn't know it from the way he criticizes Pearl Jam and their lack of dedication to not getting sucked back up into the system. Also, he says distortion is an effect people use to hide how much they suck at guitar.
Or maybe YOU'RE a poser lover!
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