Chris Schlarb : Twilight & Ghost Stories & An Interview with Parker Paul

Chris Schlarb brought in over forty collaborating musicians, over a five-year period, to help him create his latest album, Twilight & Ghost Stories. Sufjan Stevens on piano, Ray Raposa on guitar, Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), John Ringhofer (Half-Handed Cloud), Liz Janes, Parker Paul and many more lending vocal help. Rafter Roberts mastered it all. Basically, the vast majority of the Asthmatic Kitty family seemed to share a piece of themselves to create this record. The record itself has been described as a "modern composition featuring a disparate cross-section of musicians from the avant-garde, independent folk, jazz and electronic communities".

Schlarb is the owner and founder of Sounds Are Active, a Long Beach,
California-based record label specializing in jazz, experimental,
electronic and other progressive musics. He's known for producing hip-hop tracks, teaching music workshops and co-founding the free music collective Create (!). He has also released solo electric guitar music under the name Xn. Twilight & Ghost Stories, released under the Unusual Animals imprint of Asthmatic Kitty last month, marks his first release under his given name.

Began in a time of desperation and triggered by a rainstorm, the album is a collage of piano, saxaphone, djembe and other jazz sounds, cars passing, crashing cymbals, horns and more. It builds and recedes. It crashes and then melts away. The recorded sounds of rain are constant throughout.

Chris Schlarb - VI
Chris Schlarb - III

Schlarb will be interviewing many of the contributors to his album in the upcoming future. He's started today, here on MOKB, with Parker Paul, an artist with two releases on the Jagjaguwar label who has also lended time and energy to these bands : American Pringles, Ben Arthur, Chess King, Curious Digit (two albums on Jagjaguwar), Draw The Kitten, The Fledglings, The Florists, Garden Weasels (featuring Caitlin Carey) Glass Babies, Hogwaller Ramblers, Honey You Made Too Much Cake, Jolly Rancher, Look and Feel of Hand Tooled Leather, Moviola, Orchestraville, Peach Pit, Royal Trux and Songs:Ohia.

Schlarb says, "Having long adored his amazing piano/vocal album Lemon-Lime Room Parker Paul was one of the first people I contacted. Paul is a master of off kilter juxtaposition and his seedy central Ohio stories prove unequivocally that he is a national treasure."

Parker Paul - Milk Is Milk

Six Interview Questions For Parker Paul by Chris Schlarb:

Chris Schlarb : Do you think art has any responsibilities? To the artist? To the audience?

Parker Paul : Each artist presents a vibe, a message, or a world view implicitly or explicitly. Can terrible stuff be cathartic and helpful? I don't know. A friend of mine played Doom all night, and driving home in the morning, was suspicious of the birds in the trees. Bleakness feels hokey and incomplete to me currently, where once it didn't. Right now I feel like Dora the Explorer, Mavis Staples, and Vince Guarldi present better options for me than The Smiths, the NFL, or Nine Inch Nails.

Chris Schlarb : If you could occupy any profession or passion right now, regardless of economics, what would you do?

Parker Paul : I would walk my dog in the woods with mental health consumers. I would land a MacArthur Fellowship Genius Grant so we could buy some extra dogs, and really good all weather picnic equipment.

Chris Schlarb : Is depression (or paranoia) a prerequisite for great writing?

Parker Paul : I was going to say that I'll let you know when I write something great, but that seems depressed and paranoid. I have long been in two fields, social work and music that are chock full of lunacy and melancholy. But don't discount craft and hard work. Blah, blah, blah. I am avoiding answering your question. (Don't take it personally, although this question has sent me into paroxysms of grief filled doubt). I guess I really don't want to be depressed or paranoid. (who does?) But I do want to be a great writer. (Who doesn't?)

Chris Schlarb : When we played together in Columbus I saw a fake book in your bag and sheet music propped up on your keyboard. As someone who has played in a number of settings (rock, jazz, pop) I wonder if you have any thoughts on the apparent death of the session musician?

Parker Paul : When did the session musician die? I meant to call him last month (joke!). Would you own up to listening to records recorded by session musicians, such as Celine Dion. High School Musical II or Taylor Swift? Did Blues, then Rock and Roll, then punk, kill the use ofstrings and horns, or did the economics of Rock and Roll (smaller bands, smaller payrolls) encourage labels to fade out using session musicians? The orthodoxy has become that leaner and meaner is more authentic. (Honky Tonk beats countrypolitan, guitar beats saxophone, belters beat crooners). Have to admit that I enjoy the antiseptic competence of Lawrence Welk on PBS. Maybe the "soft rock" ideals of music being less intrusive, less personal psychodrama, and more communal in a corporate Protestant worship sense is not attractive to people who need to get their ya yas and their superegos in a steel cage death match. And there is no place for bassoons or glockenspiel in a steel cage death match.

Chris Schlarb : Your lyrics have both a redemptive humanity and discriptive absurdity at work in them. Is this a concious juxtaposition or do you subscribe to the notion that "Dadaists make the best Christians?"

Parker Paul : You know, Chris, Da Da means a male parent. I can only write a song to the point where I have said what I want to say and also don't really understand what I am saying. I took two writing classes in school, and remember three main rules: Show, don't tell, and write what you know, but if you don't surprise yourself, you won't surprise anyone else. And a corollary: use lots of nouns. Dadaism intersected nicely with my own version of Christianity and the 80's punk ideas of opting out of materialism/military industrial complex. But the older I get, the more I think that Jesus paints with a pretty wide palette, and is there for the people who want to stitch the pages of their journals into a robot costume for the Doo Dah Parade, or join a mega church and have a frappacino before singing along to the power point.

Chris Schlarb : Not long after I bought a copy of Lemon-Lime Room I got in touch with you about Twilight & Ghost Stories. What did you think about contributing then and what do you think now?

Parker Paul : One of the songs that got people going on my album was the raw howler We miss our lady. Reading about your rough times, I assume that song was what part of what you were responding to. I am very sorry for your difficult experiences, but am heartened that I could be a positive during that. (I also want to publicly apologize for having you sit in that bar for hours before our show instead of driving a mile or two up the street to my house) As far as Twilight and Ghost Stories, the breadth of talent that contributed is a testimony to your charm and the good will you generate. And your energy and drive are inspiring (as I turn this interview many weeks after you sent it to me) I am honored to be a part of it. Honestly, next time I might do a piano part, and not a spoken word. But the album is great. Thanks!

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