This week’s East Village Boys of the Week are Luis and Joan, from Barcelona, Spain
Photographed for EVB by Ignacio Lozano
I met with my two friends Luis and Joan, spending hours laying in bed, smoking, talking about movies, boys, sex, and sharing ideas about this shoot. They are better artists than I am, and their artistic spirit and our conversation started growing on me. I began to remember some of my favorite movies like Carne Trémula by Pedro Almodóvar, The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Park and Kids by Larry Clark, and always in mind, the incredible Gus Van Sant. I dont have a story to share, I just want to show my feelings about our day. - Ignacio Lozano
The fifth chapter of Lex’s experience with his year-long self-imposed attempt at celibacy.
If you missed Chapter 4, read it here.
Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky
Observations and Realizations of a Truly Desperate Man
Everyday it gets colder. My friend, Jude, loves this weather, and he makes it his duty to remind me of this fact every time a gust of wind slices open my face.
Fair Jude says, “Look at me. I was meant for this weather. You’re dark, though. You were built for, like, Spain, or Mexico, or something.”
“Jude, I am Mexican.”
“See?”
“Sí.”
Unless I’m drunk, it’s not my habit to be forthcoming with my emotions. I’m a much better listener than I am a talker, and it’s very strange for me to want to tell people about what’s going on in my life. I think that that, more than celibacy, is why I have been writing this. Celibacy was the excuse, the pretext for a larger goal: letting people know how I feel. This might be my most radical experiment on myself. I have thrust myself to the fore. I project to thousands of strangers and a handful of friends about what is happening in a fairly private aspect of my life. Forcing myself to open was the best thing that I could have done at this point in my life.
I’m not used to challenging myself. I stick to what I’m good at, and I become comfortable in that setting. So deeply is that ingrained in me that new experiences can bring about emotional exhaustion as I contemplate the gamut of possible outcomes.
I have leapt, and in this case, I’ve landed on both feet.
I’ve already noticed the change. I interject into conversation, I allow myself to laugh if I’ve said something (intentionally) funny. I don’t feel the need to be talking to someone with the clearest exit route in my head if something goes wrong. I like this. I like the change, and I’m liking myself more.
Jude and I arrive at the restaurant, a tired, crouching “affair” that serves decent Mexican food. Jude and I are stared at in this restaurant that until five minutes ago catered mostly to Bronx locals, “cute place.”
Everything is on my mind, the snow, the cab, entire swaths of conversation, and the tiniest moments, our silent friend, guilt. I instinctively attempt at organizing the thoughts in my mind into an outline of what I want to say and when. I anticipate his response.
It occurs to me that Jude is looking at my daze, and can read everything already.
This week’s East Village Boy of the Week is Florian, from Paris
Photographed by Florent Routoulp, aka Chocolat_Poire, entitled Pull Marine
Isabelle Adjani and Serge Gainsbourg - Pull Marine
The shoot began as a project about “blue”. I wanted to create a story about blue as a feeling, and was inspired by the song by Isabelle Adjani and Serge Gainsbourg entitled “Pull Marine”, about suicide, love, swimming pools, and of course the color blue. I wanted a very intimate feeling so I’ve used the pixels from the computer screen in the photos. In the end, I produced a book with the photos and the lyrics of the song. - Florent Routoulp
Pitchfork wanted to call him, but he has no phone. Luckily, for that man with no phone who describes himself as someone not up-to-date with just about anything, his music sounds surprisingly nu. Dayve Hawk is the camera-shy man behind the wistful yet at times catchy Memory Tapes (AND behind Memory Cassette AND Weird Tapes, AND formerly from a band called Hail Social), who’s remixes and original tracks are lauded by everyone and their brother. From the dreamy, escapist stuff like ‘Asleep At the Party’ to the more danceable ‘Bicycle’ from his just-released debut album Seek Magic, Hawk’s new turn has resulted in some critically acclaimed and lovably escapist tunes, direct from a secret location in rural New Jersey.
Stef Siepel: You don’t have a phone, you don’t know how to drive, you say you are not up-to-date, don’t know much about computers, don’t know how people discover new bands: how ironic is it that you became an internet and blog sensation?
Dayve Hawk: Well, on one hand it is, but in another way I think it makes sense that this is the only way I could possibly have been discovered. It certainly wasn’t going to happen by me going to parties and meeting people!
SS: For a while no one knew who was behind your no less than three different monikers (Memory Tapes, Memory Cassette, Weird Tapes). Are great artists genderless and ambiguous or is there something else at work here?
DH: I do prefer art to be ambiguous. I know some people admire celebrity and charisma, but for me it’s like when you recognize an actor and it takes you out of the story in a movie. At this point I’m tired of my “mystery” being a talking point so I’m trying to be more open but I can’t change my basic personality.
SS: You didn’t want to do a shoot for this interview. Are you shy or nurturing your enigma?
DH: I don’t want to be an enigma… I feel genuinely uncomfortable with the performance aspects of being a musician: pictures, videos, shows. I’ve realized that you end up attracting more attention to yourself by avoiding it but I’m still trying to find a balance with what I’m comfortable with.
SS: There is this story, I don’t know if you’ve heard it, about this Black Devil album called Disco Club, which was or wasn’t by Joachim Sherylee and Junior Claristidge, and which was or wasn’t made in 1978 and “happened” to be discovered twenty years later, and it was or wasn’t a hoax by two French producers. Are these stories of ambiguity and mysteriousness what you like to see?
DH: No, that’s more like novelty PR stuff. I mean it’s fun, and I’m sure it was a cool framework to create an album in but what I like is genuine ambiguity. I don’t like a “story”, I like not being able to explain something properly… like trying to tell someone your dream.
SS: Are you going to tour Memory Tapes? Does touring appeal to you at all? You could at least cross the river and do a show in New York.
DH: I am considering it. It doesn’t appeal to me because I get incredibly nervous but would like to overcome that. Possibly after the winter.
SS: You’ve got a lot of people being positive about your work on the web though. Doesn’t that inspire confidence, or does that make the prospect of a live show even more nerve wracking?
DH: Honestly it has more to do with me feeling that performance is inherently artificial. I know some people love attention and love to connect with other people so for them it’s probably more real than making a record, but for me it’s the other way around: my emotions are tied up in the fantasy. Bringing it down to earth makes it kind of boring and I lose interest.
SS: You’ve talked about transition anxiety from the listeners when, under one name, you explore different styles. Is that a result of the reaction to your second Hail Social album?
DH: In part, and generally just how people react to other artists. I’ve always said that The Beatles or David Bowie could never exist now. People don’t have the attention span to allow artists to develop. When “listening” to music means scanning a streaming track what we’re talking about is really just stylistic recognition…. I feel like people want to know where they stand on things immediately, so they assign it some sub-sub-sub-genre that they either love or hate and file it away. That first impression then becomes like a filter that everything after goes through.
SS: You recorded two of the your EP’s songs when you were 18. Do you regret not bringing them out then? You would’ve been a true pioneer!
DH: Well I didn’t really know how to then! I’m slow on the uptake with these sorts of things so will probably always seem a bit behind the curve.
SS: You make your remixes without listening to the original song. How?! Why?
DH: Well I just look through the parts they send me, find a starting point and build from that. I do it to keep it interesting for myself and hopefully others. I’m not the guy to go to if you want a “club-ready” single.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (Weird Tapes Version)
SS: Pre-listening to the song doesn’t automatically mean it is a club-ready remix though. Do you want the song to be more your own than a collaboration? Would it pollute your own sound?
DH: Oh, I don’t mean to imply that it does… I just meant I don’t have any real goals when I do a remix. I don’t think I take it very seriously.
SS: You mentioned how labels ask you to do a remix and then reject it, knowing it’ll be on blogs anyway. Is that the labels being a bitch or is that their way of adapting to the changes in the way music is being distributed?
DH: I have no idea. I imagine it’s very hard to be a record label these days… but when you talk to most labels you spend a lot of time talking about them protecting themselves from risk. I think the point of a label should be to TAKE risks on artists they believe in. Anyone spending time making records instead of working at a paying job is taking a risk, but no one protects them. I still think artists are at the bottom of the pile. SS: I read that you’re a fan of Ziggy Stardust. Why Ziggy?
DH: I didn’t have MTV or a stereo growing up, all I had was a Fisher-Price turntable. I used to steal LPs from my friends’ parents, mostly based on covers and titles, so Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars caught my eye. When I listened to it I flipped. It was a musical epiphany moment for me. I’ve become a huge fan of all the Bowie records but Ziggy was the first I heard so just holds a special place for me.
SS: Bowie’s back catalog is huge! Which album is not as heralded as Ziggy but you feel should be?
DH: Well I really love Diamond Dogs. It’s a real patchwork kind of record… you can tell his ideas were going in a bunch of different directions: there’s stuff from the unrealized 1984 musical, the beginnings of the soul stuff he’d do next, remnants of Ziggy… and it doesn’t really work. I really like those sort of records though. I like half-baked ideas because they seem more natural sometimes.
SS: I read an interview with Morrissey way back when who said that when Ziggy Stardust came out, there was this massive outrage, and he said that people have forgotten how serious it all was. Between the make-up, the outfits, the extra-terrestrial references, the glam - how was that so sincere, and is that missing from music nowadays?
DH: I really don’t know what the difference is from then to now, or if there really even is one. It does feel like it gets harder and harder to believe in anything, and in turn harder and harder to reach out to people. I think when people create a persona now they just act. With Ziggy it seemed like an act through which the real Bowie could communicate his sort of superficial but genuine emotions: “I could fall asleep at night as a rock n’ roll star”. SS: Your musical references run deep. What are some of the people you think are due for re-emergence?
DH: I always wish The Cocteau Twins were more respected. To me they deserve the sort of worship that My Bloody Valentine or Pixies get. I’d like to see a resurgence of doo-wop but can’t imagine people could do it without irony. Irony is killing music.
SS: How is irony killing music?
DH: I just mean people are so self-aware and culturally aware that it gets to a point where everything you do is sort of ironic. I guess really the irony is a response to overwhelming cynicism. Everyone has too much information and they seem to use it defensively. You would think that artists are trying to trick listeners based on the way so many people react to a new song.
SS: Tell us about your new album Seek Magic.
DH: I wanted to make a record that was very dynamic, tracks that seemed like they had a sort of architecture to them. I also wanted it to not work as a specific type of album: it could be a “dance around your room” thing or a “fall-asleep with headphones” thing, but not completely either.
Memory Tapes - Bicycle
Memory Tapes - Green Knight
SS: Your music has a bit of an escapist, dreamy quality to it. Does that reflect you as a person? More so than Hail Social?
DH: Hail Social was like a bad relationship I should have left much earlier and that doesn’t reflect me as a person at all. Everyone who knows me and has heard what I’m doing now has reacted by saying that Memory Tapes reminds them of me in ways that Hail Social never did. I’m sure the dreamy aspect is a big part of it. I’m a space-case for sure.
SS: What sort of escapist dreams and fantasies do you harbor?
DH: I really just think about sex and music, but I’d like a farm where I could make a lot of noise and the cops wouldn’t show up. That’d be my escape
SS: For a lot of people old-school raves were their escapism. Did you ever go to any?
DH: No, there was nothing like that around here - too rural. I feel like I would have loved it though. Drugs and loud music are some of my favorite things.
Chapter 4 of Lex’s experience with his year-long self-imposed attempt at celibacy.
If you missed Chapter 3, read it here.
Portraits of Lex photographed for EVB by J. Yatrofsky
In high school I knew a girl named Eileen from Corpus Christi, Texas. We hated each other. She was an instant sensation at my school where her accent was seen as “exotic” by the students. It was there that she met and dated a local boy, a halfback on our football team and Vice President of our school’s Christian club. It was like fucked-up Danny and Sandy.
The first week of school, after invitations for the homecoming dance were sent (the theme was “A Tale as Old as Time”) there was the normal discussion of who’s going with whom, and eventually Eileen was asked.
“Oh, I don’t go to school dances.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like them, they’re just excuses to promote vanity and sexuality in youth. I’m not okay with that. I really only go to church socials.”
“What does your church say about self-righteousness?”
I was very abrasive in high school. We hated each other right then.
After high school, Eileen moved back to Texas, her boyfriend in tow. Various facebook updates showed them volunteering for pro-life causes and preaching at their school’s various Christian clubs.
This year I found out that Eileen and John got married. Correction, this year I found out that Eileen and John had to get married. Yes, apparently John couldn’t “Come On Eileen,” and knocked her up despite her high school lectures to me and others about how the Lord wants me to remain pure until marriage. I called bullshit back then. It’s nice to be right.
This presents a problem for me, though. If two Jesus freaks can’t even keep themselves off each other, how much more hope can I hold out for myself? I’m already beginning to feel the cracks forming. My standards have drastically dropped and now there’s a bet running amongst my friends as to how long I’ll last. It’s getting harder to remind myself why I’m doing this to myself. It almost seems petty and juvenile. It’s extreme, no?
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