Thursday in Exclaim! May 2011

I very rarely enjoy reading Exclaim! For a nationwide monthly, the content is very brief and thin.

This month however they seemed to featuring all the right people, I felt absolutely satisfied when I reached the final page of the May 2011 Exclaim!

I found the questionnaire with Geoff Rickly to be most entertaining. There's something really exciting about reading an article or an interview of your favourite artists. It's especially exciting when you learn something new about them, it's as if you know them personally. Your being drawn closer. Maybe that's why I enjoyed looking at the celebrities at Coachella shots, how voyeuristic.

This article shows just how diverse Geoff Rickly is - loving bands from Iron and Wine to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Rickly's not your average punk.

Make sure you read the online version, it's much more extended than the one in print. They've definitely even cut out some bits of his words in the print edition so scour out the online version!!

Some exerts that really got me:

What has been your most memorable or inspirational gig and why?


"The Flaming Lips at Coachella...They were so alive, and so fun. They didn't stress me out at all. They just gave me this really warm lovely feeling. It was kind of life-changing, for me. I'm used to bands that are a little lighter than us being occasionally very boring live. And just to see something that I didn't expect at all, something so exciting and fun and making the crowd part of it, that was great. That was really inspirational for me." 


What have been your career highs and lows?


"A low for me would probably be when Efrim [Menuck] from Godspeed You! Black Emperor started a fight with us for no reason. I've never met him. I guess he thought we were somehow ripping his band off, which was disappointing for me because I've always loved them, so that was pretty low for me. I still love the band! I don't care that he hates us. It definitely stung at the time. Like, man! You don't want one of your heroes you've never met telling everyone how much of an idiot you are. It was a few years ago on a Thee Silver Mount Zion tour. From stage every night he would say "This shitty emo band called Thursday stole from us and we're stealing it back," or something along those lines. I had to look up the song and see what he was talking about. They were the same lyrics, but I totally stole that from like a South American poet! Maybe you stole it from the same person that I did! [Laughs] I sent him an email being like 
"Hey, I think you might be wrong!" But he never wrote back. I still haven't met him but I saw Godspeed on this last tour, and they were fantastic. As always."



Who would be your ideal dinner guest, living or dead, and what would you serve them?


"...And dead, I think it would have to be David Foster Wallace, because I always loved his books. I met him very briefly at a signing once and got him to sign my copy ofInfinite Jest. He just seemed really kind, and he didn't seem like a bore. He didn't seem like he was just interested in literature at all. He thought TV writing was just as good as Faulkner. I guess I'd probably have to serve him lobster, because he wrote that insane essay about lobster season."


What song would you like to have played at your funeral?

"That's dark. I like it. There's a song by Iron and Wine called the "Trapeze Swinger," and it doesn't have a chorus or anything, it just tells this long beautiful story. I just really love that song, and every time I hear it makes me cry a little bit. And I'm a sap like that, so I'd probably want it played up."