Things Not Quite Working: Failing Lights
Byron Coley talks with Mike Connelly about his solo project Failing Lights, whose self-titled CD is out now on Intransitive.
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Byron Coley: Is there a central theory behind Failing Lights?
Mike Connelly: I’ve always been doing solo stuff. With Failing Lights, I started doing things under that name around 2004. It’s just another outlet. Another piece of the puzzle.
B: Where’s the name come from?
M: I don’t remember the specific moment where I came up with the name. But I think the idea – failing lights – can apply to a lot of things. A lot of people tell me different things about how they see the name. For me, it’s just the idea of things not necessarily working. I kind of like that notion – things not working the way they’re supposed to. I think we all can relate.
B: I remember an old Failing Lights cassette that sounded like you were just screwing around with a very messed up cassette deck.
M: A lot of that stuff is done with really messed up cassette decks. But the album itself has a lot of instruments. There’s a lot of guitar. And a lot of it was recorded while Wolf Eyes was on tour last summer. So a lot of the source material was recorded then, just in motel rooms and people’s living rooms. Then I took it and messed with it. There’s actually no way anyone would ever actually hear this, but I know it’s there – if you listen real closely you can hear Olson’s sewing machine, because I was recording in the living room while he was sewing.
B: That’s your little Nurse with Wound tribute. Right now, how many different performance projects are you doing under different names?
M: Right now, the things that actually play out would be Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, Birth Refusal (which is me and Olson as a duo) and The Haunting (which is me and my wife). Those are the ones that really play live. There are lots of other things that are just for recording. Maybe once in a while, just around town, I’ll do a one-off thing under a different name. But those four are the main things that actually tour.
B: Do they all involved distinctly different concepts?
M: Yeah. There’s something conceptual that distinguishes each project. But for Birth Refusal, Olson and I always try to come up with a different idea. Like, last summer we did a tour where we didn’t bring any amps or electronics or guitars or anything like that. It was all just cardboard, junk… Olson brought a tree branch. The idea was we’d just have to take those and do a gig. We did three shows like that – no amplification, no nothing. It turned out great. So Birth Refusal a lot of times just happens in that way. We’ll decide to do something we’d never normally do in our other bands. But a lot of time it’s just instinctive. It’s hard to put a finger on what the exact difference is, but I know it’s there.
B: Documentation seems extremely important.
M: For sure.
B: Do you think that’s good?
M: I’m definitely into the idea of documentation, but I also think that not every piece of it is necessary. It’s all just glimpses into the process. Especially with Wolf Eyes ,we always have different tour tapes and CDRs and etc. A lot of times, they’re just different takes on our practices and rehearsals. I see those as interesting, and some people do want to have them all. It’s not that they’re important, in and of themselves, but it’s important that they’re there. If you get those pieces you’ll be more aware of the whole. It kind of goes back to Throbbing Gristle. I was always so fired up by the idea that every show was recorded and you could get access to them. That was very interesting to me. It’s the same with jazz, of course. To me it’s always interesting to be able to get access to the process. It’s neat to be able to hear how Coltrane got to Giant Steps. But it’s not interesting to everybody. Some people just want to have the albums, and that’s fine. Of course, I also think there are a lot of people who don’t need to be documenting themselves as much as they do.
B: Well, I think it lends a certain amount of credence to things that are at least released through a label I’ve heard of. It conveys the notion that at least someone besides the creator has heard and vetted the thing and believes there might be someone interested.
M: It’s a weird time right now. CDRs are so easy to create… it can be a great thing, but at the same time it’s hard to wade through everybody’s output. I was talking to Dom (Fernow, aka Prurient – ed.) the other day – we’re the same age, I’m 30, he’s 29 – and we’re kind of the last age group that got into noise before the internet was really the main thing. We were the last guys sending checks to RRR. I wrote a check to Aaron Dilloway for $8 when Dread came out. And that was a more difficult thing to do. It required a bit more concentrated effort. You’d get the RRR catalog and you didn’t know who anyone was. So I’d just go by names. The new generation of musicians doesn’t have the same problem. If you want to hear Black Flag, you can just download every Black Flag album. Whereas when I got into Black Flag I didn’t even know what album to order. I think the first one I got was Wasted Again. I got it and I thought – oh, this is sort of weird. But I miss that in a way, because it was so exciting. The first Bad Brains album I got was I Against I and I hated it when I got it. I was wanting something like Pay to Cum. I love it now, but at the time I didn’t know. I was just ordering from the SST catalog and that’s what I chose. But now people coming up have access to everything. The immediacy takes a certain something away from it. The information focus seems to have shifted to message boards, and people have adopted the impression that their own opinions are really important and that everyone needs them. If you go to YouTube, there’ll be ten thousand comments by various self-appointed VIPs.
B: When did you really start getting into noise?
M: For me, when I was 13 or 14 I went to Lollapalooza and I saw the Boredoms. I’d never heard of them before. They were opening and I just flipped out. I was going to see Smashing Pumpkins. That definitely set me on the path. Then there was Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers and that kind of stuff. But I’d read about Merzbow and Masonna and those kind of guys. When I got to college, I started working at the radio station immediately. The first day, I was already at the radio station. I had just come back from the record store and I’d bought that Harry Pussy single they did as Toxic Drunks. This guy was there and said, “Oh wow. If you’re into that you should check out this Merzbow CD.” He gave it to me and that was it. I pretty much fell in headfirst. That was around ’98. Next he brought me a RRR catalog and I ordered by name – Macronympha, Smell & Quim – just things I thought had amazing names. I also listened to tons of other music, but it became my focal point pretty quickly.
B: Were you doing any music before that?
M: My first band was just a straight noise band. I was never in a regular band. Never had a punk band in high school or any of that. I did take guitar lessons when I was in seventh grade, so I could kind of play a little bit. But I never really learned how to play anything. So it was immediately just weird.
B: So you did a few things before Hair Police?
M: Yeah, but nothing that was ever very well documented. But it would be with this guy Ross, who got me into noise. We played together a lot, then he just dropped out of music. So I was doing a lot of noise stuff and just weird shit around Lexington. One of out big gigs was opening for The Make Up at a huge show in Lexington and we just drove people out of the room. It was great. Lexington is a pretty small town and everybody knows each other, so they would let us do things once in a while. We would get on funny gigs like that sometimes. But Trevor and Robert are a few years younger than me. They were going to high school around Lexington and they would listen to the radio station. So we met like that. They would call up my show and we just became friends. We were all doing various other things, then one day we decided to combine forces.
B: What was the name of the project with Ross?
M: My very first band was Hexose. That was with Ross and this guy Matt Minter, who was on the very first Hair Police record, and is now in this awesome band called Wretched Worst. That literally started the weekend after he gave me the Merzbow disk. It was just like – okay, perfect, sounds good.
B: What kind of equipment did you use?
M: Same sort of stuff – guitar, junk, vocals. It was just whatever we had around. It was a total mess and everyone hated us. There were four or five people who were into it and that was it. Eventually it grew from there and I never looked back. I always just made the most fucked-up noise in town. I was never very interested in making any other kind of music.
B: So this was long after the Slint era.
M: Yeah. When I first got to school all those guys were fading out, but people were trying to hold onto it. Slint was Louisville’s last big claim to fame and they didn’t want to let it go. This was end of the Quarterstick era.
B: Hair Police came together quite organically.
M: Yeah. One day we just got together and started playing. That was it. It has always been like that. It’s a very instinctive and organic band. We have a real connection.
B: And you all kept doing lots of other projects.
M: Yeah, and I think that’s super important. Wolf Eyes is the same. It gives you other outlets. When you get back from tour you can work out all these other ideas you’ve gotten with different bands or in other projects. Then move back to your main bands. And it works in cycles. Each project has a subtle influence on everything else you do.
B: Failing Lights does live shows?
M: Yeah, I haven’t done any extensive touring. Mostly locals and one-offs, but I’m looking to possible do some more stuff later this year. It’s cool to play solo. I’m so used to playing with bands or duos that it’s really different. Playing solo is a totally different beast. I used to really hate it. Now I’m getting a bit more into it. I love the communication of playing with someone else, but I’m working on doing it more.
B: Solo electronics really puts you on the line when you do it live.
M: Totally. You’re just up there and the focus is all on you – there’s nothing to fall back on. But that’s part of the whole philosophy – if you give me a beer can and a piece of cardboard, I’ll do a set. That has to become your philosophy if tour a lot. Because everything always breaks down and you might not be able to fix it for a gig, so you need to be able to think on your feet and just go with it. I’m not one to stop and restring my guitar. And everything breaks. I’ve done Wolf Eyes sets where my guitar went out on the first song and I just grabbed a microphone and mouthed the guitar lines or whatever. And the guitars I play are always so cheap. For instance, Wolf Eyes was playing in Madrid and my guitar just fucking ate it. We’d been soldering it throughout the tour and Nate said, “Just go buy a new guitar. Fixing it is taking too long.” There was a music store right next to the venue and I ran over there with a guy who spoke Spanish. I told him to tell them I needed the cheapest guitar they had. He told them and they all started laughing. They said they’d never had anyone tell them that before. But that’s how I’ve always been.
B: Considering how you treat guitars, that’s probably a good idea.
M: Exactly. But for me and the guys I play with, that’s always been part of our thing – drop us anywhere, give us anything to play with, and we’ll do it. It’s always been my thinking — it’s the person behind the gear, not the gear itself, that’s important. So I can never make a blanket statement like – “Oh, I hate laptop.” Because I’ve seen awesome laptop and I’ve seen bullshit laptop. It’s the person behind the machine that’s important.
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Byron Coley is a writer/archivist living in western Massachusetts. He currently contributes columns to Arthur, The Wire, and Bathyscaphe, and manages the Ecstatic Yod Collective.
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Tags: Aaron Dilloway, Arthur, Bathyscape, Birth Refusal, Black Flag, Boredoms, Butthole Surfers, Byron Coley, Ecstatic Yod, Failing Lights, Hair Police, Hanson, Kentocky, Lexington, Lollapalooza, Louisville, Macronympha, Mike Connelly, Nurse With Wound, Olson, Prurient, Quarterstick, RRRecords, Slint, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, The Haunting, The Wire, Throbbing Gristle, Wolf Eyes, Wretched Worst