Dieselpunk + Steampunk Culture
INTERVIEW - Jordan Block of Sepiachord
Jordan Block of Sepiachord
Music now for a past that never was.
www.sepiachord.com
While zooming along the information superhighway, I crashed into a gold mine.
You see, I was out looking for music to fill my head with, and not just any music would do. I was looking for that one artist in a million that really pushes some pathos into their words and loves every minute of it. Eventually, after a few days of searching, I found Sepiachord and I knew my search was over.
Sepiachord is a group of people that hunt down and collect the oddities in modern music. The bands and sounds captured by Sepiachord are filled with melodies, instruments, and styles developed outside the mainstream rock/contemporary scene. For every electric guitar you hear in a Sepiachord song, there might also be a bow saw, accordion, or unknown homemade instrument mixing it up a bit. As they say, it's the "music now for a past that never was."
After gorging myself on the Sepiachord archives, I thought I was back on my own. That was fun, I have a few new bookmarks, and now it's time to move on. However, the very next day they updated their LiveJournal page with another new band I had never heard of. And it kept going... If it wasn't a new band, then it was an interview with a new musician or a well-written CD review.
I was hooked.
With a the first Sepiachord CD coming out this Fall in partnership with Devil's Ruin Records, I knew it would be a perfect time to peek behind the curtain at Sepiachord to see what makes this finely oiled machine keep ticking. Working the helm that night was Jordan Block, and here's what he had to say.
Can you give us a general overview of Sepiachord? Is it a collaborative project, a business, or something more?
Sepiachord at its most basic is a genre of music. Sepiachord.com is website dedicated to exploring this genre.
The website was imagined as being akin to 80s punk zines... an effort by a small group of people with the goal not being about making money but about talking about the music we love. Our profit target was the moment when bands would make connections via sepiachord.com. That happened about three months after we started.
Those of us working on the site are best described as "enthusiasts", we love this music... we want you to love it to.
How do you describe Sepiachord to people who haven't been splashed with all of the *punk media in the recent years?
As a genre it involves musicians who take pre-modern (ie pre-rock) elements and twists them with current sounds/themes/styles to make contemporary music that is sort of a musical side-step. There is frequently a cinematic or theatrical element to the musician's style.
Is the group central to one area, or are there Sepiachord agents spread around the world hiding amongst us normal, law abiding citizens? Could a Sepiachord agent be in my neighborhood right now?
Most of the website workers reside in the Pacific Northwest. Though we have had contributions for all over the map and our Secret Operatives are currently hunting down the next "Song of the Day" as we speak.
The amount of fresh content you guys generate is staggering. I see at least one or two recommendations/articles/reviews *a day*, plus countless interviews.
How many people are flying the Sepiachord flag and what do they specialize in?
We try to keep busy.
The number of bands who've come out and said "Yes, we are Sepiachord" isn't large. But we consider that a good thing. Sepiachord may be best imagined as an umbrella (or parasol) that includes bands that manipulate elements like dark cabaret, neo-vaudeville, strange folk, surreal-circus, and so on. We don't want people to feel bound by terminology, we want the website to act as a community portal, a way for listeners to find musicians and for musicians to find each other.
Can you share any stories about an interview or event that went a lot better than expected, or turned south and left you penniless and handcuffed to a bed post? (not that that's happened to me before)
We never intended to put on shows, but we finally broke down to local artists and fans begging us to organize something and put on our first show back on February 13, 2009.
The turn out was so good I almost cried.
Interviewing is the hardest thing for me personally, I agonize over them. In the end each has gone well, I believe. But they definitely qualify as the least fun.
Nothing's left us "penniless," but I personally treat this as a hobby. I pay for things like pins, stickers and the like out of my pocket.
If you see us in person PLEASE come up and ask us for a goody.
It sounds like your agents really have their finger on the pulse. What should we be looking forward to in 2009?
Well another thing we never planned on doing was putting together a CD. Yet, with a bit of luck, The Sepiachord Companion should be ready by the mid-Fall.
We're incredibly proud that the artists included wanted to work on this little project, and the goal is to make it a reasonably priced purchase.
Again, we're not in this to make money.
What can you tell us about the new Sepiachord CD?
We are right in home stretch for working on this compilation. I just walked in the door from the final round of remastering.
We never intended to put out a CD, I think we were afraid of making certain bands "approved" sepiachord bands. But people have been asking for a CD since a month after the website opened.
We resisted the idea until bands started coming to us asking if we had ever considered putting out a compilation CD. It wasn't long before our resolve collapsed.
It wasn't long after we started talking & posting about the CD that Devil's Ruin Records expressed interest in distributing it for us.
You can keep up with The Sepiachord Companion here.
Who pulled it together and what kind of experiences did you have choosing the bands for what is essentially your first CD?
I ended up taking point on this project, I guess because I'm the most out going and organized... and I was willing to deal with all the crap that was bound to come with it.
When it came to "choosing" bands we just reached to artists that we had positive experiences with in the past. We made a list of the bands we most wanted to have on the comp and, to our chagrin, they all said yes.
That still boggles my mind!
If you're interested in keeping up with the Sepiachord scene, check them out at www.sepiachord.com and at LiveJournal.
Special thanks to Jordan for making this possible.
Music now for a past that never was.
www.sepiachord.com
While zooming along the information superhighway, I crashed into a gold mine.
You see, I was out looking for music to fill my head with, and not just any music would do. I was looking for that one artist in a million that really pushes some pathos into their words and loves every minute of it. Eventually, after a few days of searching, I found Sepiachord and I knew my search was over.
Sepiachord is a group of people that hunt down and collect the oddities in modern music. The bands and sounds captured by Sepiachord are filled with melodies, instruments, and styles developed outside the mainstream rock/contemporary scene. For every electric guitar you hear in a Sepiachord song, there might also be a bow saw, accordion, or unknown homemade instrument mixing it up a bit. As they say, it's the "music now for a past that never was."After gorging myself on the Sepiachord archives, I thought I was back on my own. That was fun, I have a few new bookmarks, and now it's time to move on. However, the very next day they updated their LiveJournal page with another new band I had never heard of. And it kept going... If it wasn't a new band, then it was an interview with a new musician or a well-written CD review.
I was hooked.
With a the first Sepiachord CD coming out this Fall in partnership with Devil's Ruin Records, I knew it would be a perfect time to peek behind the curtain at Sepiachord to see what makes this finely oiled machine keep ticking. Working the helm that night was Jordan Block, and here's what he had to say.
Can you give us a general overview of Sepiachord? Is it a collaborative project, a business, or something more?
Sepiachord at its most basic is a genre of music. Sepiachord.com is website dedicated to exploring this genre.
The website was imagined as being akin to 80s punk zines... an effort by a small group of people with the goal not being about making money but about talking about the music we love. Our profit target was the moment when bands would make connections via sepiachord.com. That happened about three months after we started.
Those of us working on the site are best described as "enthusiasts", we love this music... we want you to love it to.
How do you describe Sepiachord to people who haven't been splashed with all of the *punk media in the recent years?
As a genre it involves musicians who take pre-modern (ie pre-rock) elements and twists them with current sounds/themes/styles to make contemporary music that is sort of a musical side-step. There is frequently a cinematic or theatrical element to the musician's style.
Is the group central to one area, or are there Sepiachord agents spread around the world hiding amongst us normal, law abiding citizens? Could a Sepiachord agent be in my neighborhood right now?
Most of the website workers reside in the Pacific Northwest. Though we have had contributions for all over the map and our Secret Operatives are currently hunting down the next "Song of the Day" as we speak.
The amount of fresh content you guys generate is staggering. I see at least one or two recommendations/articles/reviews *a day*, plus countless interviews.
How many people are flying the Sepiachord flag and what do they specialize in?
We try to keep busy.
The number of bands who've come out and said "Yes, we are Sepiachord" isn't large. But we consider that a good thing. Sepiachord may be best imagined as an umbrella (or parasol) that includes bands that manipulate elements like dark cabaret, neo-vaudeville, strange folk, surreal-circus, and so on. We don't want people to feel bound by terminology, we want the website to act as a community portal, a way for listeners to find musicians and for musicians to find each other.
Can you share any stories about an interview or event that went a lot better than expected, or turned south and left you penniless and handcuffed to a bed post? (not that that's happened to me before)
We never intended to put on shows, but we finally broke down to local artists and fans begging us to organize something and put on our first show back on February 13, 2009.
The turn out was so good I almost cried.
Interviewing is the hardest thing for me personally, I agonize over them. In the end each has gone well, I believe. But they definitely qualify as the least fun.
Nothing's left us "penniless," but I personally treat this as a hobby. I pay for things like pins, stickers and the like out of my pocket.
If you see us in person PLEASE come up and ask us for a goody.
It sounds like your agents really have their finger on the pulse. What should we be looking forward to in 2009?
Well another thing we never planned on doing was putting together a CD. Yet, with a bit of luck, The Sepiachord Companion should be ready by the mid-Fall.
We're incredibly proud that the artists included wanted to work on this little project, and the goal is to make it a reasonably priced purchase.
Again, we're not in this to make money.
What can you tell us about the new Sepiachord CD?
We are right in home stretch for working on this compilation. I just walked in the door from the final round of remastering.
We never intended to put out a CD, I think we were afraid of making certain bands "approved" sepiachord bands. But people have been asking for a CD since a month after the website opened.
We resisted the idea until bands started coming to us asking if we had ever considered putting out a compilation CD. It wasn't long before our resolve collapsed.
It wasn't long after we started talking & posting about the CD that Devil's Ruin Records expressed interest in distributing it for us.
You can keep up with The Sepiachord Companion here.
Who pulled it together and what kind of experiences did you have choosing the bands for what is essentially your first CD?
I ended up taking point on this project, I guess because I'm the most out going and organized... and I was willing to deal with all the crap that was bound to come with it.
When it came to "choosing" bands we just reached to artists that we had positive experiences with in the past. We made a list of the bands we most wanted to have on the comp and, to our chagrin, they all said yes.
That still boggles my mind!
If you're interested in keeping up with the Sepiachord scene, check them out at www.sepiachord.com and at LiveJournal.
Special thanks to Jordan for making this possible.
Tags: cd, icon, interview, music, sepiachord
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