Necking

Necking is mostly Nick and Dong but can include up to four other ball-busting musicians and/or percussionists.  Hailing from Oakland, Necking now rocks Brooklyn like a hurricane.



Chief Magazine:  First and foremost, why don’t you give me a run down of the members of the band? Nearly every time I've seen you guys play it’s a different line up. How many core members are there and how many people just kind of step up if they're in town?

Nick: Dong and I have been the core members for the last year and Josh Graver has just joined as a regular. He's done three shows now. Jason Baker was core 'till he moved to Europe last year. Anup Pradhan comes up from Baltimore to play a bunch. Other than these folks, we get guests pretty often. Matt Mottel, Lilly Nguyen, Sean Neil, Andres Marino...

That’s awesome, I love it when a good band just grabs their talented friends and throws them on stage too. That’s just fun, smart shit.

Dong: Yeah.

Nick: Dong is still pretty ill. We have a lot of talented friends. So we're working on a full length album that way. Having lots of guests. Crazy jazz kids, electronic, powerful post-production kids, amazing improvisers, babes, bros, ninjas, turtles, combinations of these things.

Where did you grow up and what kind of shit were you into then? What did you listen to, what kind of shit were you into over all? What kind of kids were you?

Nick: Dong and I are both from San Diego; we went to high school together. We both surfed a lot. Our first non-MTV music was stuff from surf videos. We both still love NOFX and pennywise. Then we got into Jesus Lizard and local hardcore. We developed our drumming together and were heavily influenced by Clikatat Ikatowi. Mario rules. And we love DEVO. We grew up in San Diego at a good time for music. 3 mile pilot and Clikatat, Thingy, etc. Josh is from Texas. I don't know anything about him. He’s an enigma. A gay enigma.

Dong: I didn't know he's from Texas.

Nick: See? Enigma.

So how did he end up joining up? A friend of a friend kind of deal?

Nick: Yeah, because we're working on the album collaboratively we asked him to do a track and it rules. He’s a 'close' friend of dong and is a very good friend Rafie. Josh and I bonded over noise music stuff. Then the tracks he did ruled, so we asked him to try playing with us and it has just gotten more fun and raderly.

I was just listening to "Foam of the Sea" by the way, that’s a great track.
 
Nick: "Foam of the Sea," I will say something about that. That is a friend of mine from school named Jessica Pavone on viola. She’s amazing. She plays in Anthony Braxton's sextet. Jessica and I started hanging out after that recording and have more things coming up. She and I both recorded a little thing with David Grubbs this summer. He’s a professor at our school. I’ve been a fan of his since I was 16.

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Dong: Me too.

By the way, I used to live with Rafie, that guy is the sweetest fucking kid. Just nice all day long and then he snaps you with some really dry humor. That shit used to kill me.

Nick: Yeah that's right. Rafie rules. Put him all over this mag. Rafie Tiffany.

(Laughs) He's gonna love this. So how much of your music is written and how much is it you all playing off each other? I always wondered, because it seemed that sometimes you guys hit the super intense points the same way in random shows with different members playing, and I can never tell if it's something that just happens naturally or if its really well orchestrated.

Nick: It's all ink. (Silence.) No, none of it is. Dong and I really understand each other 'cause we've been best buds for so long and have a similar drumming style and we played in Oma Yang together for six years, but I played guitar in that. We don't really practice 'cause we don't have time nor can we afford a practice space. It’s hard to get away with two drum sets booming in your house

I can imagine.

Nick: That was part of the goal of the recording process. To make a bank of ideas to draw from for shows. Ao it's kinda backwards. We tried to record three-minute chunks, like pop songs. And we hardly ever did multiple takes. Just tried to push through ideas and let them develop naturally, but quickly.

That’s great, it's totally reversed, but it makes so much sense in a strange way. Gives you a point of departure without really strapping you guys down to a routine.

Nick: Yeah, now those ideas develop more live. Playing and reading about improv so much, like Derek Bailey's writing, we've come to think of recording as a very different process from playing live. And they should function off each other without being the same. Each informs the other. We like to keep things loose live, 'cause that's when new ideas are really exciting. And you can't really know where they come from if it just happens. This isn't stupid and entertaining yet. Let's be stupid.

(Laughs.) Trust me, this'll get stupid soon enough. Shit.  Now I got hit with pressure to shoot you a stupid question.

Nick: That's right!

Any good fucked-up stories from you guys playing live? Any crazy shit happen when you get everyone riled up?

Nick: We're wimps, when danger rears its ugly head we bravely turn our tail and flee. Oh, and apparently we quote Monty Python. Last night was Dong's birthday and he was too sick to play. Then when Josh and I showed up to play without him there were dry leaves on the floor and Josh was super allergic. We're wimps. I've given myself a few black eyes though. I think we're pretty positive. We don't get in confrontations. How boring. Necking hasn't really toured yet either. We hope to soon. Dong and I toured quite a bit in Oma Yang and loved the shit out of it. Brooklyn’s scene is pretty positive. I think it 's where the 'underground' music is these days. Help each other out.

Yeah I think that was the strangest part of it for me, I grew up in south Florida and all the fast, crazy music there is pretty much death metal and a bunch of dudes smoking Meth and beating each other blind. Then I got up here and the music is better, faster, louder, more fucked up, more amazing, sometimes even harder, and it’s really positive. It’s pretty amazing. People give a shit about their community of friends and just try to get everyone good.

Nick: We often get people from the audience to play drums too. I tried to stick a mic up Bean from Battleship's butt, but it didn't make any sound. So I tried his crotch. He liked that better.
 
Did the crotch make any better music?

Nick: All of Bean did at that point

Well that’s good to hear. What's your favorite kind of show to play?

Do you like it when people are climbing up and hanging off the rafters and you basically turn the whole place into a 100-man riot in a room built for 60? I've seen you do it a couple of times and it’s pretty insane. At the Mckibbins lofts you guys played a show, mind you the whole night was a blur, but people were jumping off that ledge full onto people, face first.

Nick: Yeah dude. That's the best. Bodies everywhere. Necking is kinda 'all about' getting as physically exhausted as possible, and the more people that do that the better.

Part of the idea behind the band is the physicality of sound. Like drums and voice as the bassist of instruments and some of the most satisfying because of the physical exertion.

That’s great, that totally comes across during a performance. You guys are working yourselves to death up there; really looking like you might pass the hell out in the middle of a song.

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Nick: Oh yeah. One time we played at Mckibbin, at my house, and the super came and shut the power off while we were playing. Then Dong says "We don't need power to play" and I be all "Oh, yeah." So we kept playing and got everyone to jump up and down and do a chant like they used to do at base ball games when we were kids. The super didn't like that. He kept saying, "Why are you doing this to me?" That was fun.

And we were just talking about this thing we did in Oakland before I left called the Oakland Noise Experiment, ONE. A buddy Mac Hillenbrand had this place called the French Fry Factory and he and I with a drunken improv band I had called Drunken Style got all these people and all this gear. There were five or six drum sets set up all over in pieces and stuff, about 100 kazoos and other amps and guitars and mics and stuff. It basically became about 50 people making noise non-stop for an hour and a half. It so fun and such a mess. I think that'd be a hard thing to pull off in New York, but it'd be well worth a shot. Yeah, not just band people playing, all the audience and everyone. No stage. There’s great pics of six people around an mutated drum kit, just banging away.

That’s amazing. Another thing you guys kill me with is when you just curl yourselves into these condensed balls of muscle and scream into the mic until you're totally purple in the face. The first time I saw that I thought one of you was going to have an aneurysm and drop dead on the spot. It was fucking amazing.

Nick: Rad. Thanks dude. Sometimes it's really satisfying to say nothing but just make a lot of sound. I believe in that. We like the act of making sound. That’s the most enjoyable part of music and that's what we love most about it. Part of my view of art in general comes from a love of the mystery of it. I prefer not to understand art completely, particularly stuff I’m a part of. I think there's stuff inside us that is hard to explain or even access consciously to try and explain. I ramble...

Ramble all the hell you want, it makes sense. Oh, something I meant to ask earlier: When and how did you end up forming Necking to begin with?

Nick: Oh, it was initially me solo. The first show was in Oakland before I moved to New York. That was the introduction of the Bell Suit, which I’ve only used in Necking once since then. It’s what gives me the black eyes.

Then I played one more solo show at my friend’s house two weeks after moving to New York. I did a song that was dedicated to the eminent birth of my friend Andy's baby. It was everyone in the audience giving stupid advice to an infant. The chorus was "You gotta be true to yourself" and then I went around and got everyone to give advice. Then it turned out the baby was born right around that time. Actually during the show. It was rad. I wish it was recorded.

Then Jason Baker moved to New York and he and I played together for a long time. It was really fun and rowdy. We’d punch each other. And Anup was around New York more then to make things super spazzy destructive.

Then Jason moved to Europe with his girlfriend, now they're married! It was great to get Dong involved. He was in grad school at Columbia and was busy all the time, but he'd make time to play shows. And since we have the history we do, it was easy and comfortable to keep moving.

Shit man, you've gotta tell me more about the bell suit. How does that give you black eyes?

Nick: It’s a jump suit with ropes of these beautiful bells attached. Most of the bells, the really pretty ones, were given to me by my buddy Randy Lee Sutherland in Oakland. We used to play in Vholtz together and when he moved from Oakland across to San Francisco he gave me all this great shit. And I made a suit out of 'em. It’s really heavy and the ropes whip me in the face. It’s one of my favorite things to play in terms of physical exhaustion and the satisfaction that comes from moving and making a ton of sound. Yeah. But it's hard to wear while drumming, so it's a trade off. I don't get to play drums as much as I’d like so I do it whenever I can.

Dong: I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Too sick.

(Dong leaves)
 
Nick: Poor guy.

Shit, I hope he feels better. (Pause.) Well, what’s the most people that Necking ever had performing on stage at once?

Nick: I think six. That was for La Superette last winter. We played a children's set. So the most people we ever had was the quietest we ever played. That was fun and kinda silly. La Superette is rad. Another band I’m in is playing the upcoming one. We are Gunung Sari. It’s with a buddy of mine from school, Stanley Ruiz, who builds electronic instruments from scratch. He’s rad. There's so many rad people in the world.

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Wait, it was for kids?

Nick: No, the set was with toy instruments and stuff. I don't know who decided to call it a children's set.

(Laughs) That’s too damn funny, I totally had imagined that you guys were playing it to show kids how fun music could be if you just go ahead and do it. And you had to play softly or the kid’s heads would explode.

Nick: Dude, kids can handle it. Last night there was an infant who was playing the drums before we started. Then he tried to bang the drum while I was playing and his dad had to grab him before his hands got smashed without me noticing.

What else are you up to these days?

Nick: I play in Necking, Gunung Sari, and Jazzhandzz. Also sometimes in Big A Little A. I have a kind of art show deal-y at AdHoc art space in February, curated by Lisa Baldini. Wham City is doing something for that too, so I’m stoked. I’ve gathered some awesome improvisers and we will be conducted by a computer in an open-improvisation with interactive video projection. It’s called Orbis Tertius after a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Wham City is the shit. Baltimore rules. Everything those folks are doing is amazing. It’s such a positive atmosphere. When we played there everyone was dancing before any bands started playing. Then a girl kissed me during our set. That made me happy.

Damn, nice girls in Baltimore.

Nick: It’s weird I feel a lot better about plugging other people. Nice girls in Baltimore for example.

Well then, you might like this question: who you listening to now? Who do you respect that doesn’t get enough attention? Who is just consistently great?

Nick: Dan Deacon is a fucking genius. I love Sun City Girls cuz of their crazy spirit and the work they do in exposing other stuff. Their nutty theatrics along with their amazing talent. They know what it's all about man. Shit. 'Cause of school and the pursuit of playing improv music, I’ve been digging into Derek Bailey and Anthony Braxton and Pauline Oliveros more. Nerdy crap that works better than weed.

Yeah we interviewed Dan in our first issue actually, big fans of his on this side of the table. I'm happy to continually hype that guy through other interviews.

Nick: He's the dude of the times man. "Drinking out of cups" is soooooo goddamn funny.
 
Now tell me all about what you're working on now. Tell me who's involved, tell me all about it.

Nick: We've got a split 7" with Battleship coming out soon. They rule too. They’re buddies of ours from Oakland where Dong and I both lived before moving to NewYork. A friend of ours Matt Hart has made awesome art for it. He also did the design for the Necking shirts/pins and a bunch of other bands. He’s rad. Find him on Myspace as Thisposterwillselfdestruct. And he put us in touch with The Arm in Brooklyn, which is a gallery and printing press. Dan, who runs it, rules. He’s gonna take care of the printing and packaging.

And we're working on a full length but it seems to be taking a while. It’s become this gigantic collaboration, as I mentioned, with a ton of our friends as guests: Jessica Pavone, BLKLN, Randy Lee Sutherland, Sam Hilmer from Zs, Matt Mottel from Talibam, David Moss and Andres Marino from Jazzhandzz, Mindy Abovitz of More Teeth, people from Battleship, Aa, tons of amazing folks.

That sounds incredible.

Nick: Dong and I recorded the drums then get people to contribute tracks. Then we add more voice, electronics, percussion, etc. and edit it all into songs. It’s a process for sure. We need to find someone to help put it out, which I don't really know how to go about doing. I’m not looking forward to that search.

As a final question; tell me a quick story about a time that you thought you were going to be killed or a time that you pulled of some shit you'd love at least one more person to know about. It's random I know, but we we're all fuck ups at one point or another and everyone's got this story.

(Josh, another member of the band, mentioned earlier walks in.)

Nick: Oh Josh, hey man. You take this one.

Josh: (Thinks for a second.) OK… When I was two or three, my parents took me over to their friends place for dinner. They told me to go play out in the back yard with onyx, who was this huge black Labrador, before dinner was ready. When dinner was ready, my dad came out to get me. He saw that I had my little index finger knuckle deep in onyx's eye socket (like on the outside mid eyeball area) and the dog apparently just knew to sit there perfectly still, or he would be sans one eyeball. He came over and pulled my hand out slowly and I ran up into the house for meatloaf.

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Downloads

Foam of the Sea.mp3
Fat Skeleton.mp3
Horns Painted Red.mp3
Legs Dangling Down.mp3
blueveins.mp3
Gain Rainy.mp3

Website

www.myspace.com/necking

Photos

Ed Zipco

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