I'm 24, I'm an improvising guitarist still trying to figure out my sound. I have been involved with music since I was young, started playing piano at age 7 but was always drawn to the guitar for some reason. I really got into jazz in highschool and eventually sought out more purely improvised forms in my late teens. I have spent the last four or so years really applying myself to the guitar, learning as much theory and harmony as I can and practicing. I have had months where I would practive 8 - 10 hours a day, just getting up early, shedding, go to work, come home and shed. I was really driven to exhaust the possibilities of tonality by some of the younger master players in Minneapolis, where I grew up. Adam Linz, Mike Lewis and J.T. Bates of the group Fat Kid Wednesdays were my biggest inspiration. They showed me that you can play something absolutely insane and free, and lead into something very structured, melodic.
Right now I'm trying to achive a balance in my improvisations with the pure sound, noise element, and the shimmering, liquid melodic elements that I am naturally drawn to. I studied briefly with Anthony Cox, who is one of the most amazing bassists I've ever heard. He has a real strength in his playing, a kind of precision and focus and raw honesty that I am in awe of. He played with Elvin Jones, Joe Lovano, Evan Parker, John Scofield, a million other great musicians, and he helped me to really go for it and accept what comes out, to tap into my own inner strength and confidence.
I'm living in Lincoln, NE right now, my wife is in graduate school there so I am just concentrating on the more internal aspects of growth, practicing and writing, listening to really weird shit. Being on tour is great, to get out of the region and open some kids' ears in odd venues.
I'll have my first solo release out soon, if anyone wants to contact me, my email address is soundconstellations@hotmail.com I will write back.
Luke Polipnick 10/28/05
Here's a follow-up interview conducted via e-mail Jan. 2006:
[MH] Do you still work at a record store?
[LP]-Yeah, I manage a great little independent record store in Lincoln called Spindle Records. It's a wonderful job, low pay it's but very stress-free and helping my record collection to grow at an alarming rate.
[MH] Your taste in music runs the gamut. Please share with us some of the bands and musicians that inspire you.
[LP]-wow, there are so many, I guess to narrow it down to the biggies for me - Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Ornette, Miles, Bill Frisell, Stravinsky, Bjork, Anthony Braxton, Fat Kid Wednesdays and Happy Apple from Minneapolis, John Zorn, Wilco, Keith Jarret, John Lee Hooker, Fred Frith, lots of newer electronic artists like Autechre, Christopher Willets and Taylor Deupree, Tom Waits, Stereolab, Prince, Peter Brotzmann, Tortoise, Daniel Lanois, a zillion others
[MH] What would be your Top 10 players?
[LP]-Guitar Players? I guess in no particular order - the aforementioned titan Bill Frisell is my fav.. Ben Monder is absolutely incredible, he's probably doing more to push the instrument than anyone I know of right now. I love Jim Hall, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Ribot, James Blood Ulmer, Derek Bailey, John Abercrombie, Sonny Sharrock, Alex Cline, Vernon Reid, Kurt Rosenwinkle, Ralph Towner, Keith Rowe for tabletop guitar, Elliot Sharpe, Fred Frith, John Fahey, Henry Kaiser, so many others. Minneapolitan Dean Granros is the most criminally overlooked guitarist in the world, he's totally invented his own unique vocabulary on the instrument.
[MH] What would be your Top 10 records?
[LP]-another tough question. I guess if you count collections of music-
1. Ornette Coleman: Beauty is a rare thing box set- complete Atlantic recordings. This is a must-have, all of the essential early Ornette, minus his Riverside albums.
2. Paul Motian Trio: It Should Have Happened A Long Time Ago - ECM. Absolutely gorgeous melodic improv between Frisell, Motian, and Joe Lovano.
3. Autechre: everything you can find. My fav. electronic for tasty beats and dsp that shakes the booty and stimulates the mind.
4. Oval: Process - The closest thing I have found to "free" electronic. Mind-bending.
5. John Coltrane: Complete "Classic Quintet Recordings on Impulse!! - My main man, traces his transition from modal master to free heavyweight.
6. Iannis Xenakis: Chamber Music 1955-1990. This is my most recent obsession. He was an Architect and Mathematician before destroying modern composition with his totally unique language.
7. Ben Monder: Excavation. His most compositionally adventurous album. Combines 20th Century compositional procedures with modern jazz and staggering guitar technique. For people who think the guitar is dead.
8. Tom Waits: Nighthawks at the Diner (live) - He's so smooth, sounds kind of shitfaced and is just rappin' freestyle through a large part of it. Genius songs, killin' band.
9. Bjork: Vespertine - Achingly beautiful melodies, genius programming from Matmos, Guy Sigsworth and others. Modern Classic.
10. Anthony Braxton: For Trio - This is the best example of free improv within rigorously structured compositions that I have heard. With Henry Threadgill and Joseph Jarman, two more heroes of mine.
11. Miles Davis: Bitches Brew - I had to include this because it is very important to me. I first heard it when I was 12 or 13, and it spooked me out, y'know? It's so dark and mysterious, and you can hear the process of the musicians searching for something that they never really find, that's what I love about it. I know it's all super-edited by Teo Macero, but you still hear that process of the music unfolding as those guys discover new grooves and layers. One of my all time fav's.
[MH] What would be your Top 10 shows/concerts?
[LP] I used to go the Clown Lounge in the basement of the Turf Club in St. Paul every Monday night for like, 3 years, and there was always something spectacular to experience there. It was a great "street" education, I was exposed to so much different styles on new music there, free jazz to minimal improv to live instrument electronic. Every Monday was my new favorite show.
[MH] You mentioned that you liked to shift from something totally insane to more structured composition. I guess this can go both ways? Meaning that you would start off structured and stretch out to the fringe of freeform improv.
Who do you think pulls this off really well?
[LP] Some of the guys I mentioned before, Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Ben Monder, Zorn, Swiss born composer/pianist Michael Wintsch is amazing, Gene Coleman from Chicago, Anthony Cox is sick, he can play anything, go anywhere at anytime.
[MH] What are your plans for solo releases?
[LP] I'm in the studio on and off for the next month, I plan to have a collection of solo guitar compositions and improvisations finished by this March. I will shop it around, but Bryan Day from Public Eyesore has shown an interest in releasing my stuff. I'm also going to record some "Interstellar Space" style duets with a phenomenal drummer named Chris Coleman in April, we'll see if that is something we want to shop around.
[MH] Some think the sterility of the digital age has made modern music soulless and mechanical.
Your thoughts?
[LP] -That's retarded. I love the sound of analogue tape, but it just boils down to archival formats. If something is recorded well, with good mics and pre's in a nice room, and is mastered well, it falls on the musicians to make something honest and living.
[MH] You mentioned you're listening to some really weird shit? Give us your top choices in that genre.
[LP] - I'm really getting into the Japanese hardcore scene, bands like Danmush, Melt-Banana. There's a duo from Massachusetts called Nperign that I really like, it's extremely sparse, spacious free-prov. Xenakis' string quartets and piano compositions will rearrange your brain. Alan Silva's Lunar Space Orchestra for free jazz group blowout, the Black Dice for apocalyptic noise.
[MH] You mentioned an upcoming tour - > any details on that?
[LP] I'm looking to head out later this spring for a midwest/near south quickie, but I've been really lazy with setting anything up. I want to have a cd ready for sale before I go. I'll probably hit my home town of Minneapolis, Chicago, Bloomington, Nashville, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City.
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