Pickwick

January 19, 2011
Live From the Basement: Pickwick


This recording with Pickwick that happened one Sunday afternoon in early December is the first in our 2011 video sessions. This first new series hopes to capture each band in their own practice spot, be it a basement, garage or abandoned warehouse, giving us a sense of how they operate and interact in a comfortable space, providing context to help us understand where the music is actually coming from. Pickwick and our Doe Bay Session videographer Tyler Kalberg had actually already been planning this particular event for some time, and in the process of coinciding with our idea, it became an opportunity to kick off our efforts with a bang, with one of our new favorite bands and with the guy behind the camera who we’re proud to have as part of Sound on the Sound.

Much of the cultural conversation around a band these days is generally focused on how each individual is special in their own contribution. Secondary is how the entire band works together to make something even more special. Pickwick is focused firmly in the second kind of thinking when supporting the momentum of Galen Disston’s fearless croon, and it’s this that ultimately produces a convincing modern take on soul that’s cohesive and fun. Injecting exuberance and the element of audience participation into songs that can be as vocally complicated as any Bill Withers tune and as musically pop as any Quincy Jones hook, if you can resist this band’s pull on your feet you might need to get your rhythm checked.

The filming of this first session was actually my first opportunity to properly take measure of this band, a group that I’d been glued to two songs from that were available only on bandcamp as a part of the first of their series of vinyl 45s titled Myths Vol. 1. I’d met the band randomly at a few venues around town and had their name dropped to me by people I trust, but was still admittedly in the dark about them. Over the course of a few hours, the effort of many takes on six different songs, and a fistful of PBRs, my time in the basement with the band and their effusive comrades confirmed my hopes: that Pickwick’s first 7? was not a one-off special or even their best songs. Despite tearing through take after take of the same song when they had probably delivered it great on the first effort and having never heard any of it live before, I was still happy listening to those songs over and over and over again. Aside from any discussion about aesthetic, it’s that very idea that’s the crux of what defines “good” pop for a person is it not? In truth, the band that can do that is the band that we’re all in search of. Right?

Pickwick recorded Myths Vol. 3 just this last weekend at Kory Kruckenbergs studio, and will be back on stage March 25th at the Tractor Tavern with BOAT and Concours D’Elegance. Until then please enjoy our first video session of 2011, Live from Pickwick’s basement. - www.soundonthesound.com

When Pickwick vocalist Galen Disston is on the microphone, he's a spark away from flame. Onstage, just like fire, you never know which way he'll go. Will he be engulfed? Or will he aim the flamethrower's nozzle your way? At any given moment, the band's vintage soul and rock 'n' roll elements can set him off screaming like a hungry wolf. His voice contains equal parts Dan Auerbach, Charles Bradley, Freddie Mercury, and Buddy Holly.

As of late, Pickwick have been writing and recording the follow-up to their 2013 release, Can't Talk Medicine. For this interview, Disston took me for a ride in the band's van—a 2003 Ford Super Duty—after he finished up cleaning gutters and windows at his day job.

Let's give you a trucker CB handle, since we're driving. What do you want to be called? I'm Rubber Ducky.

I'll be Glove Tan. I wear gloves in the sun, therefore Glove Tan. It's work related. Don't look at my pale hand. I just bought a watch to divert people's attention from this firmly established hint at my place in the serving class. It's a Timex, and it's loud. Sometimes you want to put it under a pillow, or in a shoe box to give yourself a break from the ticking and tocking.

Your vocals get unhinged. You scream like an animal. Is that your inner Jaguar Fire God? Where does it come from?

I think we all have pockets of latent anger we're trying to get out. My counselor's been trying to help me metabolize my anger. I'm not into working out or anything. I don't box at a gym [laughs], so this is my way for that energy to come out. It's what I respond to when I go see a live band. When someone is willing to go there. Like the Future Islands guy. He's willing to go there, and I'm game. Me going to that place, or taking it that far, or writing music that draws the unknown out of me has always been part of the mission. It keeps things exciting. You get that rush, the scary moment of adrenaline. To push it to that point where you don't quite know what's going to happen. Hopefully the audience feels it, and that's the point of connection. Where you're both a little terrified, and there's risk on both sides.

Your song "Brother Roland," the words are "A baby is to be loved/I'll watch your baby/I could use the money." What's happening there? Whose baby?

I'm talking about babysitting, dog. Have you ever heard of Mingering Mike? This guy from the 1960s had an entire fictional soul career in his mind. He painted and made 40 or 50 fake records, which ended up in a thrift store somewhere. Finally, people were like, "Who IS this guy?" He'd refused to go to Vietnam, and he couldn't get a job. So he babysat to make money. All of Can't Talk Medicine is stories about other people. I myself made some money babysitting. I hated it as a job. Although I was pretty good at getting kids to go to bed when it was bedtime. I'd shame them into sleep. "You think you're going to add any more value to this universe by being awake for another 15 minutes?"

So Can't Talk Medicine was stories—has your writing method changed for the new songs?

Yes. I'm trying to write from a more autobiographical place. It's slightly uncomfortable. It's my wife and me lying in bed looking up at a glass light fixture that's cracked in this house we rent, talking about how we're stressed about money. That's where a song will start. I love Bob Dylan as a lyricist. He has this amazing distance when he's writing. It's like he's sitting above himself at a typewriter. There's some difficulty being a musician and getting older and staying creative, while making a living. Our music has evolved a bit too. We're not compensating anymore. We were doing the sonic equivalent of an oversize truck before. That truck that's jacked up and has monster wheels for no reason. Now we're writing the songs that actually come out of us. When we write, there's a humanist, utilitarian groove to it, I think, where it feels good.

How did your song "Lady Luck" happen with Sharon Van Etten? Every hair on my body stands on end when I hear it. So pretty and ghostly. What does every hair on your body do when you play it?

The ghosts tell all my hairs to renew my Coast to Coast Insider subscription. Sharon is so great. We got to know her brother from Montreal, and he sent her our way.

What's the new album going to be like? Get us up to date.

We finished touring for Can't Talk Medicine. We did a tour supporting Black Joe Lewis. After that, we had written a bunch of songs, trying to work out all the things we hated about ourselves as a band and to differentiate ourselves. I think we tried too hard to be as masculine as possible. Then we kind of softened over the course of the year. We have a lot of songs recorded, but we're still tinkering away at them. Not sure exactly when it will be released. We did a session at the end of 2014 at Soundhouse in Ballard. Mostly we record at home. Our multi-instrumentalist, Kory Kruckenberg, is a producer/engineer, so he's got some tricks. He worked on J Tillman's records before he was Father John Misty. He did the first Maldives record, and he did Damien Jurado's Caught in the Trees. Sometimes it's nice to record in a studio, but that costs money.

You're playing the KEXP John in the Morning at Night show. What comes to mind when you think about Mr. John Richards?

John has been incredible for our band. He and KEXP are big reasons why we've been able to play to as many people as we have. My favorite John Richards moment happened before I met him. I think I was driving to Renton, where I worked, listening to his show, and he started talking about how childbirth smells. He said, "No one ever tells you that the room stinks." John Richards speaks a lot of truths. Then, when my firstborn was being born, John's words rang in my ear. But what ended up smelling worse for us didn't have anything to do with the blood or placenta or baby goop. The worse smell was one of the aids' breath [laughs]. This woman helping the midwife had the worst halitosis in the world, much worse than the birth. Pickwick might be naming the new album Placenta Halitosis Glove Tan, as a matter of fact. recommended - The Stranger