my favorite.

So on August 3rd, Mike from my favorite called me up at work and announced that he would be in Chelsea later on and asked if that would be a good time for the interview. Oui! I left work, with plans to come back, and went to what I thought was the place where I was supposed to meet up with Mike. The bald man served me up a gin and tonic and I peered out the window but had a feeling one of us had the address mixed up. After I finished my drink I called to check my answering machine but my mother answered and said, "Oh Mike just called blah blah" and gave me his cell phone number. While I was on the phone with him, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Are you Elizabeth?" I was! This was Mike's brother Joseph. I waved to Mike on his cell phone and hung up. Mike and I noticed we were both wearing Ben Sherman shirts, and the three of us walked to 9th avenue where we enjoyed crepes and salad at Le Gamin and Michael answered allllll the questions you've been waiting so eagerly for.

Me: So, I'm taping over this Syd Barrett tape because I couldn't find a blank tapeokay, best show story/ amusing tour anecdote.
Mike: Okay, from our recent west coast tour? The best show I guess, it's hard to choose., In Pomona, which was like a suburb an 1.5 hour south of LA so I had no idea what to expect and we went to like a picnic during the day and it seemed like it was really the middle of nowhere and the show was at this place called the Glass House which looked like sort of a community built art centerso I really wasn't sure how it would go and the show started at 6:30 so having said that there was an amazing amount of kids there and not the same sort of NYC/ San Francisco hipsters- which I enjoy, but it was good to get kids that lived in the middle of nowhere and that seemed to really not have much else going on out there and were excited to see bands come and had a lot to say and people had a lot of questions for me. So that was interesting because you don't get to play enough for sort of just non-scenester kids all the time. And that was fun but San Francisco was probably the best show because we got to meet Jen Silver who put out our first 7" like 5 years ago and a lot of people from Go Sailor who I hadn't seen for years and the Aisler's Set and a bunch of people I had seen and played with or knew and to get them all together on their own turf and to play a show for them was fun so...San Francisco was the most fun, but Pomona was the most interesting. And let's see, a weird tour anecdote?

Me: Yeah

Mike: Umwell we needed to get gas around Mt. Shasta which I guess is halfway between San Francisco and Seattle and there was no attendant at the gas station, it was completely dark in these weird mountains and we were able to use our credit card and the only other thing that was there besides the gas pump and the credit card thing was a clear coke bottle full of piss that had just been sorta left out there for us. So that was a little welcome to Mt Shasta! Sort of a "We're not in San Francisco anymore." So we took a photo of it and christened it our official mascot, but we left it there.

Me: That's fabulous. So what's the deal with the new EP and what label is it on?

Mike: It's gonna be out on Double Agent again, who put out our record, We're doing three of them, about 4-5 months apart. So we're already halfway through the second one and all three of them deal with the mythology of Joan of Arc as it relates to people in modern times and different sort of complexes between being a martyr or being a hero or being a recluse or being a fraud or being a saint and all sorts of things I can kind of relate to, my friends and I. kind of looking back on our life and the choices we made when we separated ourselves from people and whether it was really from inspiration or a delusion of some kind. So it was kind of a questioning process and the songs deal with that from a lot of different points of view but it's hard to listen to them and overtly say, "Oh that's a Joan of Arc reference" It's veryabstractbut that was sorta what was going through my head.

Me: Yeah. How'd you come up with that concept?

Mike: Well, I had just been doing a bunch of reading about her just for fun and the trial I found the most fascinating because for so many people she was so inspiring and so beyond reproach but during the trial she was really just painted as a fraud and someone so narcissitic and self-obsessed and I thought well when you reflect upon yourself as an artist you can either be some sort of a hero or really just a person concerned with your own thoughts and your own ideas to the point of it being unhealthy. I always wanted to doing something a little more conceptual but without doing something ridiculous like an opera..but it's more like...Picasso's blue period where you're really doing the same sort of meditation over and over again as opposed to building this big conceptual thing so I'm really doing the same process over and over again and hopefully it won't get boring by the 5th song..but there will be 12 of them. So the first one comes out in October, we had a bunch, we sold them on the west coast but Peter wanted to hold it back until CMJ so it'll come out in October and then hopefully in the spring and then again next fall, and they'll be compiled on a another record, remixes and photos and stuff like that.

Me: Who would you be interested in having do remixes for you?

Mike: Stephin Merritt has done some interesting remixes of Flair and he's someone I have some connections to, I don't know if he would do it or not.

Me: Not Fatboy Slim for you?

Mike: My brother could do a good remix and uhI don't know...I'm not having Moby do a remix that's for sure. I mean I used to be more into dance music like 2 or 3 years ago but I've really been out of it. Peter always gets remixes done himself..i think Flowchart did one so he's the one who's probably going to be soliciting. Smooth Operator from Europe.

Me: Sientific American
Mike: I've heard good things-
Me: That guy does good remixes
Mike: I don't really desire any remixes to be done but Peter is in love with remixes so they're going to be done against my will.
Me: What's Peter like?
Mike: Um..he's very mellow. He spends a lot of time with his cat doing like freelance web design from his room
Me: Yeah, his stuff's quite nice.
Mike: I mean, I think he should get out, but he's a very sweet, sensitive, intelligent young man. He's a great guy. He has high aspirations. Sometimes my Marxist beliefs clash with his desire to marketsometimes they work well together.
Me: Well all that serious stuff lends itself nicely to this next question, If you were a crack dealing pimp what would your name be and would you wear a fur coat?
Mike: Um..i would definitely not wear an actual animal fur coat...not that I don't have a leather belt on now but I don't think I could go all the way to wearing a fur coat. Let's see a nameMonsiuer Slick?
Me: Say you're walking through Stonybrook and you see a decapitated head, no body, just the head with a $100 bill in its mouth, do you take the money?
Mike: No. I don't completely believe in karma but that would probably be enough...I believe in it enough not to do that I think
Me: What like the head needs the MONEY?! It's you or someone else guy!
Mike: You know at that point you're going to end up on some Swedish bloopers show.
Me: ha ha ha!!!
Me (reprise): Are there any commercials on TV right now that you either think are really cool or absolutely despise?
Mike: For some reason Bad Andy is making me laugh, that Domino's pizza muppet thing?
Me: Oh he's really cute!
Mike: I don't really want to admit that. But I guess Bad Andy is relatively amusing. I mean all the Volkswagen commerciials make me gag in a way with their fireflies and their deep feelings and-
Me: Apples in Stereo?
Mike: Just the Jetta and you're young and you're making good money and you're very slightly angsty and you've got a Jetta. It makes me want to hurl. But I will hopefully be experiencing that shortly.
Me: What do you think is the best way to die
Mike: In your sleep of natural causes, feeling relatively satisfied with your 85 years of life. I mean I could say in a drunken sex stupor but that's not how I really feel so I'm not gonna say thatI think that's what YOU believe though. That's the vibe I'm getting, that that is what YOU would have answered-
Me: Ohhhhhhh yeah.
Mike: Some Athensyou know crack orgy
Me: Hookers and blow! That's all Athens is about!! No, that's probably the antithesis of what Athens is about.
Mike: Yeah I went to some barbeque where a family of 12 little girls kept feeding me pork over and over and over again. That's my Athens' memory.
Me: DO you have any phobias/philias?
Mike: I used to be scared of spiders till I got to an apartment where there were bugs WORSE than spiders, and now I really love the spiders. More spiders, less water bugs.
Other phobias...I don't knowI guess getting older hit me hard for about a year where I couldn't rationalize that I wasn't like in highschool anymore and I was 26 but that past so now I'm feeling relatively okayhow bout you?

Me: I have this weird thing, I'm not really scared of heights per se, but when I go out for my little smoke breaks at Icon-Nicholson they have this great roof so I'll lean over it a bit, it comes up above my waist and there's this amazing view. I don't want to kill myself or anything but I feel the need to jump off, it really freaks me out. I don't want to die I just want to jump off the building.

Mike: Yeah, sometimes when I would be working in the sculpture building there'd be a like a band saw. I would just stare at the band saw
Me: Yeah! Anything that's sort of like temptingly horrible?
Mike: For a while I had a phobia that everyone was having fun but me
Me: I think that is my permanent state. There is always something going on in another city, or you think it's cool to be older or cooler if you're a kidalways missing out.
Mike: Yeah it never seems to be cool to be whatever you are , wherever you are. But I'm trying to get over that. I'm trying to do more the zen, in the moment thing and the less daydreaming misery thing.

Me: I'm just trying to like tell people I'm really cool and hoping they believe it. Because think about it, people get duped into a lot of stupid thingslike Landmark Forum! And if people can buy that crock, then they can believe that I'm really popular!
Mike: I mean, I believed it! I'm here, I've never seen the zine, you may not even have one!
Me: I don't!
Mike: You're doing a fine job, I'm believing you're cool without any scrutiny.
Me: Excellent. So um...where do you shop?
Mike: For records there's actually a very good indie store on Long Island, in Port Jefferson called Music Den where I used to work when I was much younger. When I'm in New York, Etherea's a pretty good store and I know the guy that co-owns that or something

Me: Rich?
Mike: Yeah Rich and I think they do a good job and people complain sometimes that its expensive.
Me: No dude! They're way cheaper than Other Music.
Mike: I know, that's how I feel. I mean, Other Music is okay but you have to sort of meditate before you go in
Me: I won't go in there without a walkman because I feel like someone is going to talk to me. I always feel very watched in there.
Mike: Right. Clothes wise, like for Ben Shermans and stuff, 99X is good. People there are really nice...when they don't have to be. Those guys are great. TG-170 is very good for girls, I can't shop there but I like to go there with girls when they're shopping. And our drummer Todd has worked for various corporate stores and whichever one he worked at I would go to and get discounts, whether it was J. Crew or French ConnectionI think now it's Club Monaco.

Me: Canadians! So...how long has my favorite been together and where did y'all meet?
Mike: Four of us we've known each other since 10th grade and that's a long time ago. We started making music in highschool but not as my favorite, even when Colin started we didn't do it as my favoriteprobably my favorite as we know it was about late '93/94 and then the single came out in '94 and so all of us knew each other in highschool except for Todd our drummer, we met him at Stonybrook while we're were going to school and had a guy Matt Kelly who we met at college and he played for a couple years. Tara Emelye Needham from Mad Planets she played on our new EP and she plays live with us sometimes, she's sort of a satellite member. But mostly it's been a good ten years of knowing each other since early days of highschool so it's unusual, definitely most people try to leave their highschool friends behind as quickly as possible.

Me: So do you guys have a dream label?
Mike: Well, I mean if you get to the point where you want to have as big a label as you can then I guess Matador does the best job of any of those major label associated labels. But not that they reallythey seem like they're pretty random as far as they put out except they put out people who SELL records but other than that, you know I think the indie scene is at a point know where different labels are doing good stuff but there's not one labelfor a long time I thought Kill Rock Stars had such a great methodology but the music wasn't very appealing to me, you know? And then being up there in the pacific northwest, it's very insular, and you don't really feel like you wanna become a part of it unless you move up there. So I'm not really sure what a dream label would befor a while I thought Minty Fresh were putting good stuff out and I think they still do.

Me: The Tahiti 80 record is pretty good.
Mike: But knowing bands on there and the behind the scenes aspect it seems like it's sometimes a struggle to get stuff and out and to get stuff done on time. I mean you may have to wait a year and a half after you finish your record because there is no money or they're slotting you here or there.

Me: Are you big in Sweden?
Mike: We are pretty big in Sweden in the microcosmic world of indiepop. Spain is another place we almost signed with Elefant records like 3 years ago but the deal was we had to sign with them as our exclusive label and only have things coming to America as imports, and I didn't think that was a good idea.