It is 1989 and I am walking up the stairs of famed Liverpool record shop Probe. As I enter the shop, I also walk into a swirling, storming noise. I try not to let this distract me from my mission of looking for the latest Cure single.
This noise however does not let go and instead works its way into my head.
For those of you who do not know, Probe was (justly) famous for being rude to customers who wanted to buy records that weren’t deemed cool or, in this case, for not being cool enough to know what was being played. I once saw a customer verbally chased out of the shop by Pete Burns for trying to buy a Rush album.
I don’t care, I have to know who is responsible for the music that I am hearing. Thankfully, the guy behind the counter is one of the less surly of the bunch and hands me the record sleeve. It is Positraction by Live Skull, a new band to me. I say I’ll buy it and the album is taken off the shop’s record player and handed to me, clearly the only copy they have in the shop.
I take my prized possession home, slap it on my record player where it stays for an unreasonable amount of time. I know little about Live Skull, but I manage to track down the rest of their back catalogue of four studio albums and one live recording.
I still knew very little about the band though, a common enough thing in those pre-Google days. The situation remained like that until word reached me that the band’s Thalia Zedek was still making music in E, along with Ernie Kim and Jason Sanford and they were releasing a new album, Living Waters, their fifth, and heading out on tour.
E managed to find time in their tour schedule to subject themselves to one of our 13 Questions features. Read on to find out more about Tuvan throat singing, electric shocks and shouting at Donald Trump.
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Sun 13: Where are you and what are you doing?
Jason Sanford: “We’re on the road right now. I’m sitting in the passenger seat and Thalia is driving. We’re driving across Southern France. We played at Bonberenea in the Basque country last evening. And now we’re headed to Marseille. We’re playing tomorrow in Geneva.”
Thalia Zedek : “I am in Marseilles, staying with some friends on the way to our show in Geneva tonight. We drove here yesterday from Bilbao!”
Ernie Kim: “In a hotel in Geneva, de-jetlagging. I’m 5 shows late for the tour (something came up, thank you to Dave Bryson for filling in!), flew in today.”
S13: When did you last make yourself do something you didn’t want to?
TZ: “Today, waking up early to do some tour accounting!”
EK: “I am currently making myself stay awake to adjust to Central European Time, against my body’s wishes. It’s only 19h??? oof.”
JS: “This is a question about how you think about things. I don’t necessarily want to lift my amplifier. But I do want to play a rock show. If I think about it, just as lifting an amplifier, I don’t want to do it. But if I think about it as part of playing a rock show, then I do want to do it. So, the answer is, all the time, yet never.”
S13: When did you last get into an argument?
JS: “The night before last ,Talia and I were bickering at the merch table about the best way to fold t-shirts. We worked it out.”
TZ: “I got in an argument with my bandmate Jason at our merch table the other night over the best way to fold and store our band T-shirts. He was right!”
EK: “I can’t remember an actual argument, but I have made up ones all the time in my head with imaginary versions of people I know. I’m working on it.”
S13: What is your earliest memory?
EK: “Getting an electric shock from plugging in the TV when I was… 3? The outlet was behind the TV table, and I was trying to plug it in by feel. I must have been touching the prongs and ZAP! 120 volts 60 Hertz!”
TZ: “Trying to climb out of my crib as a baby!
JS: “I remember I was sitting in the back seat of the car, my parents were in the front seat. The car was an older and used. The gear shift came out of the steering column. My dad handed it to me in the back seat, I looked at it, confused, wondering, didn’t he need this to drive? After a little while. My mother turned around and said ‘Jason, it’s time to give Daddy back the gear shift, he needs to change gears now!’”
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S13: What is the last album you listened to?
TZ: “Jim White and Marisa Anderson’s new album, Swallowtail.”
JS: “I recently did a big road trip and my vehicle, which is from 2004, has a CD player. So, before I left home, I grabbed a bunch of old CDs. I think the album that I listened to most recently to was Yenisei Punk by Yat Kha. It’s a kind of Tuvan throat singing, traditional punk hybrid album from 1995. Good record.”
EK: “Sigur Ros’ (), several times on the transatlantic flight. It is very good music for escaping your surroundings.”
S13: When did you last consider using social media?
JS: “Quitting social media would be like quitting lifting amplifiers. I like to play Rock shows and so I need to lift amplifiers and do some social media. I don’t really use it for very much outside of band stuff.”
TZ: “I consider it a useful tool for promoting my concerts and new releases, so I guess I don’t consider using it, though I do take breaks!”
EK: “Couple weeks ago reading Facebook posts about US and world politics, feeling anger and despair. But social does help me stay connected with friends and their pets and kids, so I keep it for that.”
E, Somerville MA, December 2023 (Ben Stas/Noise Floor)S13: What’s the best night out you’ve ever had?
EK: “2 June 2007.”
TZ: “Last night in Marseille with our friend’s Iwalani and Arnaud was pretty great. Sitting on the rocks and watching the sun set on the ocean while drinking wine followed by a wonderful meal.”
JS: “That’s a hard question. But I recall when E opened for Shellac a few years ago. I was so into it that I jumped off a six foot tall speaker cabinet down into the audience in the middle of a guitar solo. I really hurt my foot and had to walk with a cane for a couple of weeks afterwards, but it was totally worth it.”
S13: Vinyl, CD, MP3 or Streaming?
TZ: “Vinyl.”
JS: “Radio.”
EK: “MP3, for the convenience of having it with you as long as you have your Zune, I mean iPod, I mean Sansa, I mean Pono, I mean phone. Streaming music you didn’t pay for can take a long walk off a short pier.”
S13: What is your favourite view?
TZ: “Sitting outside at the Aquabar in Provincetown, Massachusetts, looking at the boats in the harbor…Pretty much any view involving water!”
JS: “I live in Boulder now, and we have great views of the Flatiron Mountains, at the front range of the Rockies. It’s really quite dramatic. You can be in any lousy strip mall parking lot, anywhere in Boulder, and you look up and there they are. I think it has improved by posture. Because I’m always looking up and noticing the mountains now.”
EK: “My wife and cat asleep in bed when I get up early. Too sappy? Okay, fine the view from Corn Hill Beach in Truro, Massachusetts, looking up the beach toward Provincetown, in the mid afternoon on a late summer day (see the Edward Hopper painting “Corn Hill” for reference).”
S13: When did you last shout at the TV?
TZ: “Any time I see Donald Trump, so I try to avoid watching television.”
JS: “I don’t own a TV. We have a projector and we watch DVDs sometimes but I don’t watch TV. I listen to the radio for news or podcasts. I don’t recall shouting at a TV ever.”
EK: “Video clips of conservative politicians, then I remember I can just click away.”
S13: What was the first gig you went to?
TZ: “I think it might have been The Kinks, on their “Father Christmas” tour!”
JS: “I don’t really remember. In high school, we used to go to punk rock shows and sometimes little jazz clubs as well. I think the first time I slam danced was at a Slaughter Shack concert.”
EK: “The Cure at Giants Stadium in 1989, with Love and Rockets, The Pixies and Shelleyan Orphan opening. My big sister and her friend Trisha blasted Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss me on the drive there and back. More important gig was less than a year later, punk show at a high school cafeteria.”
S13: Is there anything else you’d like to say?
JS: “Just that I really love touring. It’s so amazing to get to be back in Europe again, to get to see different places, to meet new people and to see old friends and to experience different cultures and try new food. And to get to share our music with people. This tour will be the first time for me performing in Poland, so I am excited about that. But also excited to return to France and Italy and Belgium and Spain and Switzerland, and especially the Czech Republic. I really love touring.”
Living Waters is out now via Silver Rocket. Purchase from Bandcamp.
Purchase tour tickets here.
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