3 of the four citizen/drummers of Foot Village sent us these answers to our questions in this next installment of our q and also a series.

q: What is the last song you (really) heard?

CITIZEN ROWAN: My Bathroom is a Private Kind of Place by American Standards (wfmu link, follow it). It’s a wonderful song about a woman who can only be herself in the privacy of the bathroom. Ridiculously captivating.

CITIZEN LEE: Miley: Party in the USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CITIZEN KINSMAN: Bragging Party (mp3) by The Amps … although if people want to see just how silly my listening taste is, I am a last.fm addict.

q: What is your favorite food?

CITIZEN ROWAN: Cheeses, all of them.

CITIZEN LEE: Anything with the a pre-chewed consistency: Bean and Cheese burritos being number 1!

CITIZEN KINSMAN: A tuna melt, but it has to be perfect. I haven’t had
a perfect one since the 90s.

q: What is your favorite band to see live?

CITIZEN ROWAN: A++ (Grace’s other band) or Captain Ahab

CITIZEN LEE (aka Grace): Realicide and Captain Ahab for sure.

CITIZEN KINSMAN: Captain Ahab. Solid but still unpredictable. I also prefer my live music hyperactive and my home listening mellow.

q: What is your favorite venue in NYC (if applicable)?

CITIZEN LEE: Hmmm, only been to two and one i can remember the name: Death by Audio. I guess it’s favorite by default! Is it not cool to reference CBGBs? (ed. note: too soon).

CITIZEN KINSMAN: Death by Audio. The audience made me feel all metro.

q: OK, President Obama appoints you as the first Secretary of Culture, to whom do you give your first grant?

CITIZEN ROWAN: Jim Smith, so he can buy the building that houses The Smell from the owner that will surely sell it to some greedy developer in the next few years.

CITIZEN LEE: This is a really tough question. There are so many people doing amazing things, it’s hard to say just one group/person has priority over another. I think instead of one grant, I would create a collaborative made up of really rad and super smart people. Then I would create a list of priority actions like: environment (including environmental justice), social reform, urban planning, arts, FOOD!, and maybe a Crazy Idea category that could include stuff like wacky fringe science and space travel. And then I would build a totally earth friendly ship and once month outta the year, this collaborative would sail around the world and come up with really amazing solutions to some of our problems…maybe even silly things like whats going on the next stamp. By the time we docked at home, we would have all these great to-do lists, totally shovel ready. Of course, there would live webcams all over the ship so the world can witness the process.

CITIZEN KINSMAN: Myself, I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years! Besides, I got to behave like a real politician or I might lose my job!

q: Anything we should know about your latest project (whatever that might be)?

CITIZEN ROWAN: I have a weekly radio show in Los Angeles that specializes in underground experimental music and surreal treasures from past eras and far-away lands. Archives found at: http://www.kxlu.com/blogs/voiceofreason.htm

CITIZEN LEE: I am going to make lounge pillows with all my leftover fabrics. MMM, and I am starting a new band with Kristy of Lil’ Pocketknife and K.I.T., and Margo of I.E. That’s going to rule so hard!

CITIZEN KINSMAN: We’re still doing tons of Foot Village stuff (and getting kinda soul inspired lately), but I’ve also been making super mellow drone music inspired by the cold tech-capitalist 80s…. that’s under the name Back To The Future The Ride and my first release is free online. BTW, Citizen Lee should call her new band THE BEACH GIRLS.

This week the focus of our attention has been on dreamy bands, cosmic sounds and pictures depicting a particular feeling. Well today I’d like to start with a video. A video so awesome, so intense and so captivating that I feel totally vindicated by my choice.

Described by their label (Upset The Rhythm) as a ‘drum-n-shout assembly’, this Los Angeles based band are just incredible. As you can probably tell by the video above, and their awesome genre tag, this band are mainly focused around a drum kit – or two. It’s pretty primal stuff. I don’t really want to get into the whole ‘this takes us back to our primitive past’ type discussions but there must be something in it to a certain degree. Every time I hear them I just feel energised by the whole situation.

They’re a hard band to really describe in terms of reference points. I certainly can’t think of any other band quite like them. I think what really makes them stand out is the spirit they have and the atmosphere they create, which seems to be contagious in a live environment. Sort of like what Dan Deacon or Lucky Dragons have mastered, except it’s not electronic – it’s just an in-your-face wave of attack and pounding rhythm.

We just played the mindblowing NHY/Smell 12 Year Anniversary fest. One of the best audiences we’ve ever gotten to play for. Thank you so much, you guys rules!

Below are excerpts from some press on the fest, please follow the links to see the full articles:

from LA RECORD:
“Saturday night’s show at The Smell felt real.
Foot Village didn’t so much play their tens of drums as lovingly, joyfully, expertly abuse them. The sole unit of amplification was a megaphone that functioned more as a cute, occasionally remembered accessory to their jugular-swelling screaming than any kind of appreciable sound enhancement; sort of like how the long-haired guy’s shirt was more like a mildly useful sweat rag rather than actual clothing. They made you not care about the nosebleed you might get from being accidentally head-butted by one of the twenty people thrashing around you in a brutal tribal ceremony from a post-apocalyptic world in which a ring of drums with an electric constellation woven through them wrote our new communal history and taught us about our lost one.”

from LA WEEKLY:
“One drummer can make a lot of noise, but not as much as four feral witch doctors beating their drum kits. If you’ve ever crawled inside a trash can during a hailstorm, you know how a Foot Village performance feels. The intensity aims to unite rather than destroy, but they scream a lot, occasionally using a megaphone to mark territory and elicit more wailing from the human sweat lodge surrounding the musicians in a corner. The oscillating drum patterns suggest complete chaos — every man (and woman) for himself! — but the rhythms unite almost telepathically and improvisation plays little part in the brutal beat barrage. Beauty persists in their post-apocalyptic drum circle.”

Some more press on the NHY/SMELL 12 Year Anniv Fest:
LA TIMES by David Cotner
LA WEEKLY (on night one) by Wendy Gilmartin

A free online comp of bands that Foot Village played with while in EU. Includes 2 live versions of unreleased Foot Village tracks.

http://deathbombarc.com/releases/dba107.htm

1. Foot Village “Lovers With Iraqis (Live @ CCA)”
2. Divorce “Early Christianity”
3. BITCHES “Vampire”
4. Silk Flowers “Chance Of Showers”
5. Ultimate Thrush “Complex Cats”
6. Shift-Static “Father’s Footsteps I”
7. King Alexander “Tall Tales”
8. Joy Of Sex “Weather Controller (Live @ The Thunderbolt)”
9. Hyper Black Bass “Contona”
10. Coupe Coup “Monojupette”
11. Simple Appareil “Worth The Trip”
12. Sausage Party “Up Fuckery (live)”
13. Blue Sabbath Black Fiji “Swimming To Florida”
14. Foot Village “Totally Tween (Live @ CCA)”

FOOT VILLAGE AT BARDEN’S BOUDOIR, DALSTON, LONDON
words by Polly Rappaport

The stage looks like gridlocked traffic at rush hour, only with drum kits instead of cars, and no sooner do the members of Foot Village gather (three big guys of varying hairiness and a gorgeous, petite woman in a frilly skirt) the audience are requested, via megaphone, to gather round the four inward-facing kits while the band take their places. Those of us who can’t fit on stage find chairs and tables to stand on to see into the centre of the crowd. There is an almost imperceptible nod and suddenly all four have begun a rolling, perfectly synchronised rhythm that disperses and re-forms with precise fluidity (not a beat is improvised). The aforementioned tiny woman, one Grace Lee, belts out feral screams, like savage war-cries, into the megaphone, passing it to the other members for call-and-repeat rants, all the while keeping to their visceral beats, tighter than the skins they are so systematically pulverising. Ms Lee shrieks into the megaphone and falls back into the wall of bodies behind her, being lifted and passed around as she barks wild phrases that her band mates repeat in varying sequences, like their drumming. The atmosphere in the room is intense and electrified; everyone seemingly hypnotised by the tribal percussion patterns and thrilled by the band’s urgent shouts. “The second we start this song, everyone scream as crazy as possible, that’s the perfect effect for this song,” instructs a Foot Villager through the megaphone, “Or sit down.” A challenge. No one sits down, everyone in Barden’s screams, crazy as they can and it is the perfect effect for the night that culminates in one Villager breaking the pattern and overturning his kit, the other drums clattering into chaos and silence but for the whooping and stomping and cries for more.

Photography by OWEN RICHARDS