Interview with Jon ‘Vomit’ Worthley (The Strange Walls)
http://www.strangewalls.spyw.com
http://www.myspace.com/strangewalls/
Nattsol: First of all, tell me, how and when you began to play the music. And how did you come to the music that you do now?
Jon: Guess I started learning to play at around Ten years old, I had a teacher who was having me play classic rock on guitar but I wasn’t serious about music until around thirteen or fourteen when I was introduced to early punk and indie music through college radio.
After that I didn’t really care about anything else and I still don’t.
Nattsol: Tell me about the SW foundation. Was it your first project?
By the way, tell me the meaning of the band’s name.
Jon: I started the band with some childhood friends, I don’t know if that’s the name we used but I consider it all Strange Walls.
A couple things that helped alot with the foundation were hearing the soundtrack for the film Liquid Sky, and Second Edition by Public Image LTD. Before that it hadn’t occurred to me that electronics could be played badly… that a synthesizer could mess up and go off-beat, or how beautiful that could sound. That’s when I started recording with cheap electronics. I didn’t hook up with Dandrogynous and Danya until later when I moved to New York City, Those guys had similar backgrounds and early inspirations.
What you liked in your teens will usually effect your playing for the rest of your life.
The band name came partly from a fetish I had for strange architecture, I was reading HP Love Craft, and also I was writing a lot about hallucinations and visions I was having while staring at the bedroom wall.
Nattsol: As I know, you also take a part in other projects, such as Post-Abortion-Stress, ElectraJet (did I miss something?). Tell me about it.
Jon: It’s nice to stay busy with different projects, there’s never enough.
I played guitar for a glam punk band called Split Me Wide Open (now defunct) for a long time. Post Abortion Stress is a very experimental/ Space music project lead by my friend Pepper. Playing with them is fun & a bit of a challenge because it’s the only time I get to improvise with music, besides when recording soundtracks.
Occasionally I play some minimal Violin with the rock band Electrajet.
I tried and failed taking over on guitar for Danyas death rock band Valiant to Vile & theres an electro pop project in the works with my friend Fearfull Christopher called Push Business.
People call me to sit in with their solo projects sometime & Ill just grab a random instrument and run to the bar where they’re playing..
Strange Walls is my handicapped child & it’s the only one I actually write music for.
Nattsol: The next one is about your discography. Tell me about SW studio records.
Jon: We’ve always recorded and packaged our Cds ourselves.
There must be a over a hundred little demos recorded by now, alot of those are just masters sitting on shelves getting dusty now..
Alot of times we’ll just make a humble CD stack of our latest work and send it out to anyone we think would be interested, then move on to the next concept.
I don’t know if were still waiting or hoping to be picked up by a record label.
Nattsol: So you said that after recording a CD you move on to other concept.
Could you call me some of SW concepts, which in your opinion you managed to express the best way you could?
Jon: Starting with a concept; something will always come from it, whether the product works with the original concept or not.
Once I spent a year in Isolation (terrible teens!) & began writing down all my dreams and recording them as songs, and at that point I had the time and the solace to let me record over two Cds worth. That became a concept album called Disappear-Reappear.
After I became convinced that an unintentional murder mystery was unfolding in the random lyrics, either from outside influences visiting me in my dreams, or at least from an incredible subconscious influence. I decided that no one would ever have the patience to appreciate all this, combined with the fact that the very personal sounding songs from a bad part of my life began making me deeply cringe instead of giving me the deep chills they originally did, had me decide to just take a few of the (near) listenable tracks and present them under the name ‘Dreams of dead pets’.
Now there are three or four of those songs we still try to do, and although the lyrics are nonsense out of context, I like to think they kept some mystery and intensity from where I was when they were written.
In my first sessions with Dandrogynous he had the Idea to record an album called ‘Grimmshow’ where every song would be about characters in a different Brothers Grimm story. A lot of those came out pretty good, ‘The robber bridegroom’ never left our live rotation.
A little later Danya & I’s concept to drink and only listen to Irish music for awhile was interesting because we’re not Irish. Unfortunately for me, the best ones that Danya wrote ended up being used for his other project.
I love writing soundtracks. That’s a good example of having to work with someone else’s concept, I just love doing that.
At the moment were composing a song for a site called The Method Learned where all different types of artists interpret the writings of the poet from Detroit Gregory James Wyrick: www.myspace.com/themethodlearned
Nattsol: You mentioned your soundtracks. Tell me more about it.
Jon: I started out doing sound for my own films which just served as something to present to other directors to show them we were able.
A couple of the first were film adaptations of HP Lovecraft stories. Lovecraft is easy because he describes otherworldly music that his characters are hearing with such genius in his writing.
In NYC I did alot of work with a director I don’t want to promote.
While looking for film makers to work with here I ended up doing some sculpture for film, and zombie prosthetics for one called Dead Roses.
The last ones I’ve done have been for two off-off Broadway plays based on the Edgar Allan Poe stories The system of Dr. Tarr and Proffessir Fether and The Facts in the case of M. Valdemar, both directed by Candace Burridge and starring Dandrogynous.
http://www.myspace.com/systemofdrtarr
Nattsol: Now I’d like to ask you about traditional folk part of your songs.
Jon: Well that comes from my dad, I never lived with him but I’d spend a little time with him each summer & my brother and I would kind of roadie and do merchandice for his folk duo when they toured New England.. The SW still sometimes butchers a traditional Celtic song I grew up hearing from his performances called Blackleg Miner.
Recently he (my father) had a sex change and (now I say she) continues to do music. Her legal name is Cathy Worthley.
http://www.cathyworthley.com/
I think she was the first (over a decade ago)) to play me Shane McGowan & The Pogues. She definitely introduced me to loads of Celtic music & Celtic /fusion like Steeleye Span, Christey Moore, etс…
Those clever pentatonic melodys in Celt’ folk I’ll always love and want to emulate or rip off.
Cathy recently did an interview on the radio and mentioned me, so Im happy to grab a chance to mention her back.
Nattsol: Tell me about SW Live shows. What is the project on stage? What does it express?
Jon: Our shows used to be a little rougher when we would just have the music recorded on DAT and sing along.
Now that we’re all playing our instruments live there’s less room to fuck around. I haven’t cut myself on stage for a long time, or had to set Dan on fire for falling asleep during a song.
I won’t show up at the venue drunk anymore. Now I wait until we arrive at the venue to drink. We used to have a performer/ glass eater on a bed of nails but we couldn’t keep audience members from laying down on it which cheapened the effect.
Nattsol: And now about your public. What kind of people usually visit your shows? And how does public depend on performances?
Jon: We usually draw a small crowd of individualist artist types & true freaks.
We rarely see alot of sneering Victorian types, maybe we make bad posing music. We don’t see alot of true nerds either (though both would be welcome).
One thing we see alot of are the backs of the heads of people leaving.
Nattsol: Tell me about your show on the’ Deprogramming Hour’.
Jon: Deprogramming hour is a Manhattan cable tv show that I co-host. It’s a mainly political show where viewers call in.
The time we played was a special show because it was Halloween
http://www.myspace.com/deprogramminghour
Nattsol: Thanks, Jon. Now I’d like you to say a few more words, anything you think is necessary.
Jon: Thanks Nat. I love to read your zine.
When you fall keep your mouth closed so you don’t break your teeth.
Questions: Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy
“Grave Jibes Fanzine”
