Legendary Pink Dots……Live in Enger 1998 and an (account of an) interview with Edward Ka-spel and the Silverman!

Interview by W.Kabsch

On the 6th of February in 1998 there was a concert of the Legendary Pink Dots in Enger (in the Forum). The Forum is a little club; inside it’s better than it looks like from outside. Admittance was 9 p.m. and there were around 100 people. We (my friend Thorsten and I) had the opportunity to talk with Edward Ka-Spel, the singer and keyboarder, before the show. After the show we also talked with the keyboarder and soundmonster (this word is a compliment!) Philip Knight aka The Silverman. Both were very friendly and patient. Unfortunately our small recorder didn’t work, so we can not write down it all word-by-word now, but we hope that doesn’t matter…

The interviews:

Before the show and after the dots finished eating we sat with Edward in a small and dark adjoining room. Ryan (aka Twilight Circus) was also there but sleeping… First we asked Edward how he came to the music. He told us that he always liked music, especially the German Krautrock-bands like Can or Faust. The Dots simply started making music without learning to play any instrument. None of them is a perfect instrumentalist, but that doesn’t matter. It is not necessary. Music is just a way for expressing their own moods and feelings. Edward compared making music with painting. The Dots try to paint acoustically, that’s why the different albums sound so different.

We came to the theme apocalypse, ’cause this seems to be an important topic for him. He doesn’t mean this whole thing in the sense of the bible. The world is always in a process of change, but this process is going faster and faster. He includes political changes like the dissolution of the USSR. This would confirm his conception of the apocalypse as not being “the end” but real changes in the human society. His apocalypse has nothing to do with the bible; he didn’t write it.

To come back to musical themes we asked him about the intention of re-releasing lots of old tape-releases. He told us that the main reason for “Stained Glass Soma Fountain”, “Under Triple Moons” or the upcoming “Chemical Playschool 3&4” is to keep this stuff safe. He likes these old songs, he thinks they are the best they’ve ever made and they shouldn’t get lost. But they try to re-release only the really good songs and they try to avoid double releases of the same song. With the CDs “Chemical Playschool 3&4” and “Basilisk” they’ll finish this topic. They plan to use the CD-Rs instead of tapes for some releases. After publishing the CD-Rs “Ancient daze”, “Live 85-88” and “Live 89” they will not burn other live shows or old tapes on CD-R, but new material. A five-day session is already recorded (it arose similar to the well known “Four days” where Philip and Edward needed four days for an hour of music for a friend, because of the great demand they decided later to release it official). There is also an experimental album by Edward waiting to be burned on CD-R.

Then we went to PIAS: Since The Dots moved from PIAS to Soleilmoon the purchase of CDs in Europe is difficult and expensive. Edward knows this problem and regrets it (and he mentioned that buying the CDs at the show is cheaper for the fans and better for the dots). But PIAS has offered them a “really good” contract which they unfortunately have signed. They got more money for the actual releases, but no more money for the back-catalogue. This quarrel lead to the change to Soleilmoon and PIAS stopped making any advertisement. The numbers of sold (old) records decreased and decreased, especially “Shadow weaver” and “Malachai”, which got a thick layer of dust while standing in the shelves. Also the audiences at the shows in Europe became smaller. With the change to Soleilmoon and the US-tours they can compensate this loss. That leads to the question if The Dots will move from Holland to the USA forever. Edward agreed that they think about it. He’d like to live there for personal reasons, the people in America are more open-minded. There’s the prejudice that Holland is the most tolerant country in Europe, maybe in the whole world. But that’s not true. Although Holland is proud of this image, it *is* just an image. Many people are offending and mobbing each other, even The Dots are suffering, especially Edward himself is very sensitive in this relation. In the 80s The Dots were kind of famous in Holland, “in the 80s they were good, but in the 90s – who cares”.

At most one show each year in Holland is worthwhile for them now, then they often play in Nijmegen. That’s another reason for living in the USA: There are 500 up to 1300 people at the shows, in Europe there are sometimes less than 100. Only in Poland and the Czechian Republic they can play in great halls. Another comparison between USA and Germany is the number of sold “Hallway of the Gods”. In the USA more than 5000 were sold, in Germany 360. They really think about not touring through Europe, ’cause they (each of them) get only 25-50 DM (that’s 15-30 US$) for a show. They get 1500 DM from the club and have to pay bed, catering, gas and a few coins is all what’s left. But they don’t want to disappoint us European fans.

We wanted to know something about the technical things and the relation between technic and acoustic music. The Dots are no guitar-rockband, they are no synthie-popband, but they are also nothing between this contrasts.

The relation between acoustic and electronic instruments (or between natural and artificial) is somewhere around fifty-fifty, but the majority depends on the mood. Phil told us that the album “From Here You’ll Watch the World Go By” (from 1995) is more guitar- oriented (that’s the influence of the former member Martijn) while “Hallway of the Gods” is more electronic. Phil also told us that he almost never uses the MIDI-technology. On stage he earlier felt like a bird in a cage, not able to improvise. He now uses MIDI only during the recording-sessions, on stage he does not. But that doesn’t mean you can hear no samples live 😉

We tried to find out something about the new album. Edward told us that it also will be a concept-album – with “also” he meant that “Hallway of the Gods” already was a concept-album, but with a very strange concept. Phil told us that it will be more up-tempo and quite different from “Hallway of the Gods”. It will be available in May or June (they’ll finish recording in March and then it has to be manufactured and delivered).

We spoke about and CZ and the net – Edward likes the possibility to communicate with people all over the world and he likes the fact, that people are talking to each other free of prejudice. He reads the discussions on CZ, but he rarely writes to the list, ’cause he doesn’t want to be impolite as being “Big Brother”. They dropped the plans to make an own homepage, cause nobody of them is familiar with that stuff and they would have to spend to much time for it.

At the end we came to Pink Floyd (we are both fans of Pink Floyd) and wanted to know his meaning about “The Wall”. He normally listens to the older albums, but he thinks this is a milestone of rockmusic. He likes the lyrics and the combination with the music. He also likes Radiohead and Spiritualized – their last album also is a milestone.

The whole conversation was in a cosy atmosphere and Edward invited us to speak with him in Hamburg again. That’s a typical and great thing with the Dots: They like and search the nearness to their fans. We will follow his invitation in Hamburg.

The show: At first Ryan aka Twilight Circus Dub Sound System entered the stage. If you know what dub is, you know what kind of music he played. His music is very percussive and full of strange electronic sounds. And he wore a shirt with his motto: FREAK. He is a positive mad guy, always smiling and running around between drums, bass and keyboards. During the last song he made a booming advertisement for his CDs. Twilight Circus is not comparable with The Dots but very FUNNY.

Twenty minutes later the complete dots entered the stage. They opened with “Spike” (from “Hallway of the Gods”). A good rhythmical beginning. Then they played “Just a Lifetime”. Niels was absolutely brilliant, he’s the optical highlight on stage (although he’s not worse acoustically). We payed special attention to his outfit: A coloured patchwork-pyjama and his typical red kind of cap. Third song was the 12-minute-piece “Andromeda Suite”. This is, contrary to the studio-version, a highlight in every show. After the first intense part they (all!) played a longer part of the quiet middle of the song before they blew the noisy clouds away with the powerful ending. “On High” was for calming down a little and to spare the ears. Then came “Love in a Plain Brown Envelope”, the oldest song they’ve played (from 1984), but this version was the best we ever saw with Edward singing more manic and mechanic than human, with Ryan driving the drums, with the guitarist (I don’t think that it was Atwyn or Martijn) strumming his solo and with Niels spitting out his lungs. “Destined to Repeat” and “Harvest Babies” were again songs from “Hallway of the Gods”, the first was the only real ballad in the set, but they celebrated it. Then came a version of “Saucers” (we’d like to call it “Version Apocalypse”:-). Most of it was improvised, after the thunderstormy sounds at the beginning they developed an intense version, not comparable with the two studio- versions. Then they played a strange new song with waltz-rhythms full of samples from older songs, we recognized “In Muenchen steht ein Hofbraeuhaus”, a popular Bavarian song. After this Ryan pulled his cap upon his face and they played “A Velvet Resurrection”, for two or three minutes, Ryan played drums without seeing what he hits. This version was also a very powerful one, but that wasn’t the top: The next song “Hellsville” was played in a furious version, never heard before. It was powerful, speedy and full of samples from older dots-songs, especially from “Window on the world”.  We were frightnened The Dots would damage their instruments. Their last regular song was the classical live-thing “City of Needles”. The groovy rhythm was supported by Ryan’s drums and they all jammed like hell… Just before the PA exploded they jumped off the stage and left while a high squeaking loop came out of the speakers.

A new song (introduced as “Zoo”) was their first encore. It was an up-tempo song with dub influences, but like any other song we heard the bell and grabbed – oops: quite different from all other, but quite dottish. We are curious about their new album! The second and last encore was “Citadel”. Niels wore glasses with spots at the frame, went to us and blew everybody directly in the face. Edward also jumped off the stage and cried “Come to Daddy” to everybody who didn’t escape. But then this very powerful and rough show was over and we have to wait for Hamburg…

For the better part of the past two decades, Edward Ka-Spel and the Legendary PinkDots have been infamous for their massive and diverse output. With over 40 releases notincluding side projects, even frontman and lead visionary Ka-Spel admits that he’s even lost count of everything that the Dots have done. It’s not too bad coming from a band who has had more than three dozen different members, some of which have lasted less than a month with the Dots. I managed to catch up with a somewhat tired Ka-Spel while he was on a rare rest day in Detroit.

PSF: How is the tour going?

EK-S: Pretty well so far. We had a decent show last night with a decent sized crowd. Montreal was my favorite so far. We did this three hour thing. We had a crowd that really liked it there. It’s very worthwhile when it all works out.

PSF: Do you prefer playing in America more than back in Holland?

EK-S: Much more actually — there’s more excitement about the band. America is quite a fascinating culture to us Europeans, which is always in the case of the grass being greener on the other side, as they say. We’ve slummed around Europe for many, many years and America, I think it’s our sixth tour, still retains its fascination.

PSF: I heard you have trouble getting a visa a few years ago because of a lack of artistic merit. What was the case with that?

EK-S: It’s more involved than that. Back in 1990, there were a lot of problems with unions. The record company we had at the time, Wax Trax, wasn’t a member of the artist union over here. Of course we weren’t members of the artist union over here because we’re not Americans. And that was basically what it was all about. There was quite a lot of press about it at the time which mainly did the trick because the next year we had no trouble whatsoever getting our visas. Now it’s history.

It was a bit strange because we actually toured America the year before. We had artistic merit in 1989, but we didn’t have any in 1990. It was very peculiar.

PSF: Your cover of Neu!’s “Super” on the Homage to Neu tribute album was probably the most innovative on the album. How did that track come about?

EK-S: We decided quite a while back that we didn’t want anything to do with these tribute albums. We’re just not interested in that. Cleopatra Records said they were doing a tribute to Neu!, and Neu! was a bit close to our hearts. They’re a wonderful band from the ’70’s who, in some ways, changed music. And I think most of us have got all the albums and had played them a lot. And then, we thought ‘Maybe we should be more flexible on our policy here,’ since Neu was very special to us.

PSF: How did you approach doing the cover?

EK-S: The challenge there was, how do you match the original? I don’t think anything can match the original. What we did was play with great enthusiasm. I think it’s a nice listen and I don’t think Neu! would be too upset by what we did. At least I hope not.

PSF: Do you listen to a lot of German rock?

EK-S: Oh, quite a lot. It was the first music I ever got into, bands like Can. I think Can are finally getting the recognition they deserve. Everybody name drops Can these days. That’s fair enough. They are that influential. They were that good. I’m damn sure 20 years from now, there’ll still be bands that still name-drop Can. They’re monumental.

PSF: Do you think the Pink Dots have influenced any bands?

EK-S: We seem to be. We’ve heard from a lot of different bands — mostly slightly known ones — that we apparently influenced. (laughs) I don’t know what to say about it — it’s quite a compliment. We’re not the only band in the universe. I think it’s great there’s other bands that like to take elements of what we do and incorporate it in their own music, and that’s great.

PSF: How do you guys manage to be so damn prolific. You yourself have put out at least 40 albums including side projects, how do you manage to keep up with all of that?

EK-S: It’s a full time mission in a way. We’re always busy with it. We’re busy almost every day of the year with something to do with the Pink Dots or related to the Pink Dots. It’s what keeps us alive. We put all of these albums together, put all of these tours together and make a living from it. It’s a perpetual motion, I think. Plus, I personally still love it after all these years. What else would I do now?

PSF: So you have found a way to make a living being a musician then?

EK-S: It’s not easy to make a living, you can’t really look too far ahead. If things go well, or go moderately well, it’ll pay the bills and it’ll pay the rent and not leave too much opportunity for luxuries or anything like that.

I live in a very tiny, little house and have a car that cost $200 which breaks down. (laughs) It’s kind of at that level really. Technically, poverty is always around the corner, but we always manage to fend it off just by working like hell. And it suits me. There’s a lot worse ways to make a living.

PSF: Do you find that you still have the same drive you did when you started making music?

E-KS: Yeah, it’s pretty intense. Whether its the same kind of drive is not certain, but the passion and the will and the relentless kind of obsession doesn’t go away. It’s that I have to do it.

PSF: What do you do in particular to keep it going?

E-KS: You got something inside, something that I would not know how to explain why it’s there or what the nature of it is. It just is there, the need to create and explore.

PSF: Have you found it hard to translate what you do in the studio into the live performance?

EK-S: It tends to be very different.

PSF: How so?

EK-S: It’s rather like the difference between a Polaroid photo and a three-dimensional animation. Live takes what’s in the studio and expands it and expands it massively. Some tracks like the ones on Nemesis Online mutate while we’re on the road. Sometimes, it mutates it to such a degree, it’s almost hard to recognize by the end of the tour. It’s a little bit like what happened with the accompanying CD to Nemesis Online, the Pre-Millennial Single. On it, there are three pieces we recorded back in the beginning of the ’90s and as we played them live more and more, they began to mutate completely out of the boundaries of what we set them when we recorded them. So we decided it was time to re-record them. One track had even changed its lyrics completely.

I really enjoy having these open songs where the lyrics just change from night to night, depending on what mood I’m in. It sets me free from the chains of my own words. It sets an intense challenge for me and that challenge always has to be there. To go on stage, press buttons and play like the CD would negate the reason for playing live. It has to be more than that, it has to expand essentially every time you play. I’m not saying we achieve that. You know, there are lesser shows, there are better shows, but the intent is to go further every night.

PSF: When you make albums, do you have a certain vision or concept you go into it with?

EK-S: It tends to form itself during the creation of the album. It certainly starts that way, we start off with some live informal jams and improvisations. Different members will have different ideas to build upon as well. Anybody can write and if it feels like the right thing, it will be worked upon and developed.

PSF: What was the idea behind Nemesis Online? It seems rather dark.

EK-S: It reflects the time we live in — a pretty strange time. I always have this slightly uneasy feeling that we’re right on the verge of some kind of global collapse. I’m not talking about the end of the world or anything like that, but there’s a lot of signs there that maybe hint the whole structure of the world as we know it is going to change.

This millennium bug is a fascinating one for me. What could happen if the fear grows about what happens with the computers on the first of January 2000? If the fear grows, you’re going to have a scenario where massive masses of people just taking all their money out of the banks and things like that. Then that collapse will surely happen next year. Then we will have a different world but everything is still going to be there. We will have to deal with it and look at it in a new way and maybe the growth or decay from this because such a scenario will mean an excess will be something the past.

PSF: How do you see yourself living in this new world?

EK-S: I don’t know. I’ll have to find out if and when it occurs. I like to think I’m prepared for it. I certainly spend a lot of time thinking about it, but when you wake up and face the reality of it, that’s the real test.

PSF: Magic appears to play an important role in your music. Why is that?

E-KS: Magic is part of the world we live in. It has always been. I’m a great believer in the reality of infinity — infinite time, infinite dimension, infinite number of possibilities. Magic is the center for all of this. Magic is neutral, it depends on how you choose to use it. You can use it for the wrong reasons, or for the right ones. I’m not a practicer, I’m a respecter.

PSF: Do all your albums build on a progression?

EK-S: We put it in perspective. Everything that is released, even the unrelated projects are part of this unwinding tapestry. It’s hard for me to say whether it’s a progression or whether itself or something else. It’s just part of that tapestry. We’re actually already busy with the next album now. Songs are now being written out of the air. One song we’ve been playing live has just come together, a couple of weeks ago we weren’t intending to write a song, but it just happened. We’re already looking forward.

PSF: What do you think of the current music scene?

E-KS: There’s a lot of bands and artists around today that I think are wonderful. It’s a great time for music. It really goes from one end of the spectrum to the other in popularity. Bands like Radiohead are wonderful. They’re like The Beatles of the ’90’s, lots of emotion and lots care in sound and in the way they play. That excites me because I thought pop music had died a few years ago and suddenly I realized, ‘Oh, no. It’s just resting.’ I like a lot of the experimenters like Tricky. There’s quite a lot of individualists creeping back. Trend breaking, if anything. It’s a healthy thing for the end of ’90’s, categories are just bursting out with change.

PSF: How do you see yourselves fitting into the scene?

E-KS: I think we are psychedelic in the purest sense, in that we expand. Psychedelic music indeed is to expand. It’s not to be nostalgic. We’re not a nostalgic band harkening for the ’60’s. We hardly know the ’60s. We just know what we’ve heard.

PSF: What have the crowds been like at your shows?

EK-S: We’ve been getting a lot of young people at the shows.

PSF: Why do you suppose that?

EK-S: I suppose it’s just the nature of things. New fans come along — it’s strange to encounter people into the band who often weren’t born when the band began. And there’s a lot of them. It’s healthy for us. But why? I don’t know. The Pink Dots is a word of mouth thing. There’s not much help by radio stations or lots of press, but there’s a very strong word of mouth and a very strong presence on the Internet. There’s many web sites devoted to the Pink Dots.

PSF: Where on the tour are you looking forward to playing at?

E-KS: San Francisco should be exciting, but rather frightening as well. We’re playing the Fillmore there. It’s a very famous place and there’s a great deal of anticipation about that show. But with bigger anticipation, and a larger audience there more nerve wracking it can be. In many ways, we can enjoy shows like Upstairs at Nick’s [in Philadelphia]. Our New York show will be a high-pressure show, there’s quite an anticipation about it this time and the crowd seems to get larger every time we go back. The more it happens, it makes me a little uneasy.

PSF: With all that anticipation, do you get stage fright?

E-KS: Yes, I deal with it in an odd way. I overcompensate sometimes. I get a bit overly direct with the audience. In a way, I think it is very much connected to stage fright.

Rewind about 8 years or so. It’s 1989. You’re a 19 yr-old goth who has only recently been told that’s what you are. The shoe fits: you wear the same uniform of black, love the same dark music, sleep until 4 p.m. and never go outside without black eyeliner and whiteface. Until recently, you thought you were the only one who’d ever heard of Bauhaus or the Sisters of Mercy.

Still, despite this new moniker of “Gothic” that you’ve been given, you just can’t seem to shake your illicit appreciation for such sounds as (shhhhh) Pink Floyd. Sometimes the dark and beautiful music just seems to lack, well, a certain quirkiness that you can’t shake the yearning for no matter how hard you try.

So here you are, this 19 year old “goth,” and you’re riding in the passenger seat of a friend’s car. He’s driving you down this huge big city boulevard and you’re looking around at all the paper garbage and all the human garbage littering the street and you’re thinking how, despite the fact you’ve just apparently found your”niche” in society, you still can’t shake this uncanny feeling of detachment, of exile.  It doesn’t make you particularly sad, but it does make you… thoughtful.

Then your friend does this incredible thing which turns out to be completely cathartic for you. He plays this bootleg live tape which was sent to him by a friend in Europe. You hear this voice speaking quietly yet firmly, barely reaching above the din of crowd noise. You can just make out a few words here and there, something about a “terminal kaleidoscope” and how things seem to change and yet remain fundamentally the same. And you think, or more accurately, realize, that the words you’re hearing are, well, true.

Then the song starts – this soft, lilting, melodic kind of magic happens and you’re completely mezmerized. You hear the voice, telling you, quite truthfully that,”Fifteen storeys high, the black curtains drawn, and the sun is just a brat that spits then goes away.” You find yourself nodding, smiling, nodding, smiling, all very very slowly, thinking, “Yes, the more it changes, the more it stays the same,” again again and again.

You’ve just experienced my first introduction to the Legendary Pink Dots.  Now, some 8 years and a whole lot of LPs and CDs later, that magic is repeated with every new release, every blessed tour, and indeed, every time I play one of those older albums which first captured me. During that time, the LPDs have countless times inspired me, terrified me, saddened me, entranced me, made me laugh and cry, helped me sleep and stay awake, and seen me through a kaleidoscope of emotional variations of love, anger, hate, pain, fear, lonliness, happiness, and ecstasy. What’s more, they hold a prominent position on the soundtrack of my dreams.

Now that the Internet has connected hundreds of people with similar experiences via the LPD appreciation list known as “Cloud-Zero,” I hear stories like this one almost every week. Indeed, the reason I’m giving in to the self-indulgent desire to share this experience with you is precisely because this kind of thing is still happening. Somewhere a young and innocent deviant is today experiencing complete catharsis because an enlightened individual is playing them a bootleg copy of “Destined to Repeat” from this year’s show. I admit, a small part of me is hoping that you might be the next.

For their fans, the Legendary Pink Dots represent an essential combination of the other-worldly romance for which we yearn, and the sensitivity of the human being within which we are so deeply rooted.

-Nisus

Interview with Edward Ka-Spel

AsYlem: The LPDs have been recording for 17 years now?

Edward KaSpel: Yeah, I mean we started recording straightaway really. 17 years is how long the band has physically existed from the time the first note was struck.

AY: During that time, your music has evolved incredibly – You dropped the drum machine quite a few years back, dropping a lot of the 80s electronic sound, then you dropped the violin and gained the horns, went through kind of an acoustic thing for the past couple years and now it seems to be back more toward the electronic again.

EKS: Yeah, that’s quite a conscious decision. We just wanted to expand it. It’s very purposeful, this last album. We spent a long time on it. We wanted something that in a way encapsulated what the band is really about. To be honest, I thought it was slipping a little bit back into something from the 70s or something like that, which I didn’t really go for so much. But I liked From Here You’ll Watch The World Go By, I thought it was the best of the style that we were developing then, but ultimately we needed a big change.

AY: You’re in this constant state of evolution. Do you have any idea what the next step will be?

EKS: We’re going to expand what we’re doing on Hallway and Chemical Playschool 10 because they’re both in the same kind of vein. Chemical Playschool 10 gives a few pointers to where it’s going to go next ‘cos there’s some tracks that are even after Hallway of the Gods on that. Yeah, just some more colours.

AY: Is the movement toward more electronics again purely intentional or was that an effect of Martijn leaving the band?

EKS: No, it wasn’t really because of Martijn leaving the band. It was always going to go that way. It was a bit of a long talk between me and Phil – Why aren’t there tracks like Green Gang anymore? And we’ve really gotta pull it in another direction. Myself and Phil actually began this album together alone in the studio. Then Ryan came back from his tour with Download and he got into the whole way the album was going as well and came up with the music for Lucifer Landed and a few tracks, actually All Sides. Edwin joined the band and his style of guitar is actually very different to Martijn’s.

AY: I noticed that the set seems very intentional and focused in aparticular direction.

EKS: It’s very intentional. Yes, it’s like the premillenium set. That was the idea behind it. There’s a bit of a theme running through the whole thing. These are the years leading up to 2000 and what it all means and finding the right parts to sort of paint this picture.

AY: How does the Sirius story fit in? Where did that come from?

EKS: It was a true story. It’s just a story that really shocked me. This couple in Toronto, they sent their son into the garden shed while they committed suicide with a whole bunch of other people in this Solar Lodge cult. And it happened I think about 6 months ago. And it just really shocked me. It’s very close to when that thing happened in San Diego. These are absolutely pre-millenium actions – apparently similar things happened before the year 1000. It has to happen, because that’s what happens when sort of all the numbers change.

AY: Do you think the Terminal Kaleidoscope is going faster?

EKS: Yeah. Absolutely.

AY: What’s going to happen?

EKS: I can’t say. I don’t know. I know as much as anybody else really.

AY: What do you think, though? What is your vision of the future?

EKS: Well, I don’t believe in the end of the world or something that simple. I think there will be a general raising of consciousness. I think maybe we will our angel wings. I think it will be drastic, it will not be subtle.

AY: When?

EKS: Soon.

AY: Yeah, things are getting scary. Are they scary in Holland right now?

EKS: Oh, absolutely yeah. Holland is a very strange country. Incredibly tolerant country, sometimes too tolerant. I’d say even more so than any city in America, even here. In Amsterdam everything goes very very far, right to the limit.

AY: Has that changed a lot over the last few years?

EKS: It’s accelerating. Like everything accelerates.

AY: What made you decide to move to Holland?

EKS: I had a Dutch girlfriend at the time and that was reason enough. I also was sick of England. I’m not now actually.

AY: Really? Are you sick of Holland?

EKS: I’m not sick of Holland. I miss England here and there. I wouldn’t live there again. I’m too rooted in Holland at the moment. If I moved anywhere, I’d probably move to America.

AY: What city in America?

EKS: I don’t know. Northern California. Somewhere remote.

AY: You would miss the city after a while, though.

EKS: Yeah, probably. I need a shot of the city once in a while. I live in a very small place. I’m not even in the city of Nijmegen anymore, I’m in very tiny village.

AY: Tell us about the tour. How has it been going?

EKS: Really gone up for us incredibly this tour. There are some places where we got 100 people last time and we got 4 or 500 people this time. And it’s been consistent, totally consistent. The biggest crowd for us so far was, believe it or not, in Dallas. Why Dallas? We never did well in Dallas before. A lot of travellers this tour as well. They tend to do it in blocks. People would follow us right down the east coast and they actually gathered more and more people as we went on. Then we did a Texas block and people followed us around Texas. There’s one girl who did the Texas block and has come to Tempe, San Diego and here. There seems to be a rallying for the Denver shows as well.

AY: You’re playing a lot of much older material. Is it kind of cathartic for you to go back to songs like Love in a Plain Brown Envelope?

EKS: Yeah, and it’s also nice to reinterpret these songs. It’s something we hadn’t done in America before and a lot of people were asking and we said, well it fits in with what we want to do at the moment, so it’s absolutely the time to do it.

AY: I heard there was a flasher at one show?

EKS: Oh yeah! She didn’t flash to me.

AY: What was that about?

EKS: I have no idea. I didn’t see it.

AY: Was it Ryan that got the excitement on that one?

EKS: I think it was Neils, actually.

AY: (To Neils) So tell us about the flasher?

Neils: Flasher? What’s that? (Edward demonstrates the act of breastbaring) Oh, Ryan had it! There was one girl in Milwaukee – She climbed on the bar and showed her tits to the band. Then later he signed them.

EKS: We tend to get more girl fans than boy fans. A really interesting development.

AY: Is that fairly new? I think it was pretty much 50/50 before wasn’t it?

EKS: It was 50/50, but now it’s swinging towards 60/40.

AY: I wonder if that has anything to do with the way the music is changing.

EKS: I like it. They’re usually much more sensitive audiences and you feel that. I actually thrive on that.

AY: A lot of your audience is also the gothic scene.

EKS: Quite a few, but there is a mix. There are quite a few space cadets as well coming along.

AY: Besides the flasher, do you have any good stories from this tour?

EKS: There was a tour of strange venues before this tour. We played in a circus tent in Germany with a temperature around 40 degrees. We played a destroyed in Poland which had never been built up since the second world war and the wind was blowing through the cracks in the walls. That was a great show. It was really like a sermon almost. And there was a medieval dungeon in Poland.

AY: Which one was your favorite?

EKS: The church.

AY: Have you ever written anything besides lyrics?

EKS: Short stories. They probably will, some of them, come out. Some ofthem already have surfaced as press releases. I’ve never really tried a novel. I haven’t had the time yet. I’ve got to learn to pace myself better. Too much happens to soon.

AY: Speaking of pacing yourself – you guys seem to never slow down. It’s like you go straight from recording an album, to touring Europe, to touring America and straight into recording an album again. That must be horrendous on your health, not to mention your personal life.

EKS🙁Laughs) Oh, it can be. Yeah, that’s true. It goes up and down. Both.

AY: When do you take breaks?

EKS: Um.. we do. Uh… Yeah, there was a break. There just hasn’t been one for a while. After the last U.S. tour there was a break.

AY: Are you going to be taking a break after this tour?

EKS: Absolutely. My girlfriend is having a baby. I’ve got to have abreak.

AY: Wow. When is the baby due?

EKS: October.

AY: And she got a new cat didn’t she?

EKS: Yeah… hey, how did you know that?

AY: Cloud-Zero. It’s amazing how fast news travels. I think they knew about the new cat before you did actually. Are you hoping for a girl or a boy? (baby,that is, not cat)

EKS: No, I don’t mind.

AY: Congratulations.

EKS: Thanks.

AY: During the last tour you did a show in Mexico. What kind of an audience did you get?

EKS: It was the biggest crowd in our history. 2,500 people turned up and they knew the music.

AY: Were they from Mexico?

EKS: They were from Mexico, yeah. We couldn’t believe it.

AY: One of the reasons you wanted to play there was because you’d never been, right?

EKS: Yeah, it was a big adventure. I loved it. Great people. They treated us amazingly well. They put us up in a 5 star hotel for a week. I’d never even seen a 5 star hotel before.

AY: What did you do while you were there?

EKS: Went to see the pyramids. That was just amazing. Visited thevillage of Tzepatzelan. Looked around Mexico city a bit. Drank lots of margaritas.

AY: What was your impression of the pyramids?

EKS: The pyramids didn’t blow me away so much, but Tepazelan did. You have to walk up a mountain to this old, I think Mayan, temple at the top. It was one ofthe most stunning places I’ve ever been to. Absolutely peaceful. At the pyramids there were too many tourists. It was like when I saw the Acropolis in Greece. I had pictures of it in my head and it could never live up to what it was in my head. Too many people.

AY: I have some significance questions for you because people are always looking for significance in everything you guys do. The changes in your appearance onstage. The first one, of course, is the lines on your face. We notice you don’t do that anymore.

EKS: Yeah, that was a conscious decision.

AY: What was the significance of that?

EKS: They were a mask. I came to this idea that I couldn’t go on stage without them and that was the time to get rid of them. And in a strange way it became even more intense after I got rid of them. I felt more vulnerable.

AY: The other one is the robe.

EKS: The robe? I still wear it. I’ll probably wear it tonight.

AY: Oh. People were noticing a lot during the tour that you were wearing the shirt and the jeans like you were last night (at the San Diego show).

EKS: The sack, yeah.

AY: What’s the shirt?

EKS: Oh, it’s my favorite sack.

AY: The necklaces. Is there any special significance?

EKS: Oh! Lots. (holding big silver pentagram) This one I was given inCharlotte. (silver world necklace) This is from Ninka. The crystal is from Ninka.(multicolored lego resembling piece of plastic) Calyxx found this in the street.

AY: What’s he like?

EKS: Great looking little boy. Very blond, big blue eyes. Speaks two languages very fluently and a bit of a third. I get to see quite a lot of him.

AY: Is he going to be a musician?

EKS: He started playing the drums a bit and trying to sing.

AY: What is Elke doing?

EKS: Elke is trying to set up her own art studios, very busy with computer art. She’s still designing all the covers.

AY: So it looks like Calyxx is gravitating more toward the music?

EKS: Yeah.

AY: He’s taking after his father a lot as far as profession is concerned?

EKS: I think so. Well, I think he’s got a bit of both of us really. It’s quite a creative environment that he’s living in, whether he’s in Holland or in Germany.

AY: Back to the significance questions. This is another Premonition question – I know you get a lot of those – It seems like the Premonition song numbers always ascend, but there are gaps between them. Why are the particular numbers chosen?

EKS: It’s purely some numbers I like more than others. I’ve always had great suspicion about the number 7. I finally called it Premonition 7 just thinking, oh this is ridiculous, but as soon as I did it bad things happened in my life. I have more affinity with the number 13 actually. 7s are bad for me – I’d been with Elke for 7 years when we split. My childhood was spent in a house number 17. I had a lot of bad times in that house and was relieved to get away from it. So, I avoid it and multiples of it.

AY: What was your childhood like?

EKS: I grew up in basically London’s answer to Detroit. It’s dominatedby a car factory. A lot of people work there. There wasn’t anything really to do. It’s quite a violent place. Not a place you’d ever want to go to really.

AY: Did you run into violence?

EKS: Oh, a lot, yeah. At schools. You know, there were bad schools.

AY: Was it like it is today where they’re bringing guns to school?

EKS: Not guns, knives. There were quite a few knives floating around. Even like at the age of 6 there were kids fighting with knives in the playground. I just tried to keep out of the way and not always successfully.

AY: Do you have any battle scars from that.

EKS: Well, yeah, one. My tooth was knocked out. I got hit. It was just the place.

AY: How is your relationship with your parents?

EKS: Oh, my mum’s great. I don’t know my father at all. He left when I was a year old. Yeah, I mean she doesn’t really understand what I’m doing but she sort of stands behind it despite it all.

AY: So you sort of had her support dealing with growing up in a bad area?

EKS: Yeah, she was always there. She’s great.

AY: I would imagine that you get a little bit scared having a child, and now that you’re going to have two. Do you ever get scared about the environment that they’re going to be in in school?

EKS: Absolutely. Especially Calyxx because he’s living in Berlin. Parts of it are really really heavy.

AY: Did you have a lot of friends growing up or were you pretty much an outcast in school?

EKS: I was a total outcast in school actually.

AY: How has having a child affected your life?

EKS: Imagine having all this love that you didn’t know you had. Incredible. Absolutely worthwhile. When Elke left a couple years ago, you know, you can’t imagine how far down you can go, and it was a lot because of that little guy.

AY: Was there a lot of fear of what the relationship was going to be like, how you were going to be able to maintain the father/son relationship?

EKS: Yeah, but Elke’s very very keen for me to stay a part of his life. It kind of worked out.

AY: I imagine you guys don’t have to have day jobs anymore?

EKS: No, not for years.

AY: When you did, though, what did you do?

EKS: I did a whole bunch of things. I worked for a newspaper for awhile. That was gross. I hated it. I got into it because I thought, “Oh, writing!” you know. And I just was completely at odds with the whole rationale behind being a journalist. You know, there’s a lot of talk about the paparazzi, that paparazzi sort of mentality runs right through the biggest to the smallest newspaper. Everything is a story. There is no sympathy. There is no care. It is just a story for selling. I want nothing to do with that.

AY: Since you mention paparazzi, any thoughts on the whole Princess Di thing?

EKS: I was never a fan of Princess Di at any time, but I thought it was one of the most tragic things that I’ve heard. Someone gets hounded to death.

AY: When you did have day jobs, it must have been very difficult to keep your creative juices flowing and to be able to maintain the energy.

EKS: It became… I mean, I quit the day job, I suppose, about 1984. It was not very long after the Pink Dots began. It was just impossible. It meant very hard times. I not only quit the day job, but I moved straight to Holland and I’d saved up enough money to keep me going for about 4 months. Then it got really hard for a while. I was living on about the equivalent of $3000 a year.

AY: How did you do it?

EKS: I ate every other day. I had to then. Every other day it would besomething really small.

AY: What contemporary bands do you like? We talked a little bit about this last time as far as Current 93 and things like that, but what are the more mainstream bands?

EKS: Oh, there’s a lot at the moment. Spiritualized I really like. A band I always thought I hated that absolutely blew me away with their new album is Primal Scream. I think it’s great. Nice to have that, you know, you’ve sort of made up your mind about this band, you’re standing in a shop, there’s an album playing and, “Wow, what is this?” You walk over to the counter, you know, “What is this?” And they say, “Primal Scream.” Ah, but I hate Primal Scream. I’ll buy it! Um… I like Tricky. I think Tricky’s great.

AY: How has your spirituality changed over the past few years?

EKS: I think I’ve learned to be a bit more tolerant of religions. I used to be so anti-religion and made very grand statements about it all. Personally, I think that people should be allowed to follow what they want to and not be judged for it, and not be judged by me for it.

AY: You seem to have a bit of spirituality yourself, your own form ofspirituality, is that true?

EKS: Sure. I can’t sign up for any established religion. But I’m certainly not an atheist and I’m certainly not even an agnostic.

AY: Do you believe in God?

EKS: Yeah. But it depends how you define God.

AY: Do you believe in the Christian ideal of the masculine God?

EKS: No. I often play tricks with that. I don’t believe in the sex of God at all, but you know, I always make God a She anyway.

AY: There seems to be a lot of Indian religious symbolism in your music. Like the Island of Jewels is an Indian religious symbol. Is that incidental?

EKS: It’s incidental. A lot of things happened that way. There’s other things that have happened, some of them recently. I didn’t know that Terence McKenna, for instance, basically is getting quite famous with a theory that absolutely seems to be the same as the Terminal Kaleidoscope. So someone was telling me. Because he said, “Have you read Terence McKenna? He says this…” Yeah, but it’s just the Terminal Kaleidoscope. So it’s really surprising. But that’s the time we live in too. I don’t think Terence McKenna listened to the Pink Dots and said, “Yes! Right!” You know, he’s come to that himself absolutely.

AY: Premonition 23. Is 23 significant by it’s age old significance for that?

EKS: No. I was born on the 23rd.

AY: Oh? When’s your birthday?

EKS: January 23rd.

AY: What do you look forward to in life? What makes you happy?

EKS: Every day that comes.

AY: What hobbies do you have?

EKS: I don’t really have any hobbies, because it seems to be fulfilled in what I create. I’ve also become so… I don’t know… I’m not so into possessions anymore. I find them less and less attractive.

AY: Did you used to be?

EKS: I used to be really proud of my record collection and stuff like that. But it’s not important anymore. I like good music and I like to have it around but,you know, I could never be anal retentive about it. There’s nothing that I really want. Nothing material.

AY: What immaterial thing do you want?

EKS: Happiness.

AY: Do you have happiness? (interviewer does not realize that she’s beginning to sound like a shrink…)

EKS: It goes up and down, but mostly.

AY: But you don’t feel that you’ve attained contentment or whatever it is that you’re needing to accomplish with your life?

EKS: Not yet.

AY: What needs to happen to make the world a better place?

EKS: People being a bit more aware on a holistic level. Rather than looking at their own and their own sort of like, small place, just sort of looking across the world, across the universe, in fact, not just the world, thinking not one-dimensionally, but multi-dimensionally.

AY: Do you think that’s going to happen?

EKS: Yeah.

AY: Is that part of the Terminal Kaleidoscope?

EKS: Yeah. That’s the drastic change. Because I think all the answers are absolutely there.

AY: Anything else you would like to say?

EKS: I also don’t believe that romance is dead. In some ways, that is the feeling you often get these days and I don’t believe it. I just think it’s sleeping a little.

Spoken collapse of conversational Ka-Spel: Interview in Seventh Street Entry, MN

After seventeen years of psychedelic madness and awe-inspiring beauty, The Legendary Pink Dots’ creative energy shows no signs of withering. Based out of Holland where they operate their own label Terminal Kaleidoscope, they sport perhaps the most intense world wide musical cult following. I traveled from the Yukon Territories (where I was slaving away my summer) to Minneapolis to indulge in their performance on August 11th at the 7th St. Entry. Minneapolis was their first stop on their North American tour in support of their latest release “Hallway of the Gods” with Twilight Circus, Ryan Moore’s (bassist/percussionist of TLPD) zany dub project, and the Silverman, the nocturnal navigator of TLPD sweeping somberly through icy caverns. Prior to the performance we (myself) engaged in an interview with the poet/prophet Edward Ka-Spel.

I have read three interviews with him and made a conscious effort to avoid questions to which answers have already been provided. Despite diving from a G. Love and the Special Sauce sound check into the TLPD one, most of the tape was still decipherable. This was an evening of idol slaughter at the embrace of the human presence of these artists. Thrown into sudden catatonia at the shock of contact. The repression of physical reality from years of trancing in my own room and the meeting of the inducers whom I could not comprehend as being human spawned an anxious surreality.

Q: So Edward Ka-Spel, this is the ice breaking question. What do you think of cats?

EK: I love cats. I have two at home Billie and Koska (And we found out that two days prior, his new love Inca had just got another cat in which Edward obviously hadn’t seen)

CUT IN: this Interview began rather abruptly with a confining tape recorder and an overbearing sound check. Most questions died before Edward Ka-Spel even got a chance to answer them. The wee segment of the interview that did
inspire answers were mere harmless statements obviously just killing the time. Good chance that the questions we asked were banal/lazy and self gratifying, but seeing it was the first stop on the tour and the fact that the Legendary Pink Dots tonight were performing with half of what normally they perform with (equipment wise that is) and not to mention the lack of the recorded material that was supposed to be on sale at the show, “Way to go UPS” the written interview with Edward Ka-Spel will be conducted via terrestrial haphazardness intentionally equated.

ONE DAY, a name before the lobster pink nail polish which was so efficacious to April the piano player and Edward and Patrick, referred to what seem important at the time. And it stuck. THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS.

The Legendary Pink Dots sound was awe inspired by early up to The Wall PINK FLOYD, especially the British accent of Syd Barrett which to whom Ka-Spel has often been considered to resemble “…but it goes deeper than that…” and so “it’s a coincidence…et cetra…it might go back to that…” also the fantasy of American novelist Harlan Ellison “..goes deeper than that…” brought life to Ka-Spel but seeing he’s on the road a lot and is prolific with recording material for LPD, his solo work and appearing “its David’s way of saying hello” with tintinnabulation on certain current 93 recordings. “David is a long friendship.” and on nights with David “it’s usually a lot of joking, drinking German wine and just enjoying each others  company” also Steve Stapleton dedicated His soliloquy to Lilith to Edward, ex wife Elke, and their son Calyxx.

Question: So when you go to see the hermit Stapleton and family, do Calyxx(4 years) and Stapleton’s daughter Lilith (seven years) play together?”

No they have hardly met, we stay up late past there bed times so it’s not very good we bring them along”

What was your first memory of musical exposure?

“the thing that really hit me the most was hearing See Emily Play on the juke box.”

With a snail mail correspondence with Cevin Cey of the now defunct Skinny Puppy Ka-Spel traveled to mildewy Vancouver to record THE TEAR GARDEN, a new project which to this date hasn’t toured Canada. “Cey collected all the cassettes and wrote to us”. Cassettes were the only way until the stint with Play It Again Sam (something that was mentioned later with accentual spite) that LPD were released and now with Soleilmoon “really working hard on us, and they are doing a good job, and we really need it” early material by the pink dots is being re-released for those that were unable to collect dots tapes like Cey to hear the mesmeric claustrophobic psychedelic of their first few tapes. Which included the first few songs ever written through dreams by Ka-Spel like Defeated “the defeated kept coming back in the dream, the rest of the lyrics came afterwards”

So the prophet QA-spell (a pseudonym used by Edward: one of the many) are you very religious?

“Not in any orthodox way, but then again I don’t believe that everything is a coincidence” going on “I am certainly no atheist. I just believe in taking a very holistic view of the universe. I tend to feel quite small.”

Its a small wonder about the relevance of the word depicting a color in the title of their name compared with one of the inspirers.

Did you tour Europe before taking on north America to promote your new LPG album ‘Hallway of the Gods’? ”

A small tour of Europe. Did you know Inca got one more cat today…

What relevance does the title of the new album have?

It was the obvious title”

Please expound we don’t understand {” thanks UPS!”}

“Reminds me of a hallway contracting with god laughing at me behind the walls.” now the violin plays oddly”
making a noise, using a violin I find a cord that’s pleasing I stick with it.” its time to go Edward…Edward…Edward. it go time…”he’s a nice guy”

Are you connected with The Residents? ESKIMO CHINA DOLL?

LOL “I will always love The Residents” (which residents?) “they are a very important band to me”

As you can see Edward Ka-Spel, Matthew Stephan. and I (s. Arden hill) had a dysfunctional opera of interlocutional methodology, resulting in a extraterrestrial recording. We probed into areas of Ka-Spel life, extracting seminal events, which could/should remain blank.

The time when the Legendary Pink Dots were playing in some European city, which the crowd believed in paying homage through silence. Elke, Edward’s ex wife, brought their son Calyxx to the show. During one pause for breath between incantations when the breathing could be heard without amplification, Calyxx bellowed out…”hi dad!” Edward response was so human that the erecting awe from the crowd dismantled the cute humility of the words “hi
son” from Ka-Spel. The modest rotation of Edward’s head while explaining this to us, esoterically answered any question we ever wondered about Ka-Spel relation to life, art and distinction. “sing while you may”…”may
you sing awhile”
ahill@autobahn.mb.ca

S. Arden Hill
‘SElf INDuceD deMENtia’
CKUW, UovW, CAN
MUSIC FOR DISEMBOWeLMENT
‘THEpavement’-A&E editor
ahill@autobahn.mb.ca

Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots
Conducted by Michael Lund and Kim Alexander
at The Lounge Ax, Chicago, Illinois
August, 1997

Kim and I drove down to the Lounge Ax — located on Lincoln Ave in the middle of Chicago’s Yuppie-sports bar-hell district, across the street from the old Biograph, where in a different age, Dillinger was gunned down. We had not purchased tickets in advance, and had scheduled no interview with the Pink Dots. We found ourselves parked in Kim’s van — a block or two from the club — eating an improvised lunch at about three in the afternoon, when suddenly a rather large mobile home stopped in front of Lounge Ax, and began inching it’s way into a none too large parking spot. We quickly swallowed the last bites of our meal, locked up the van, and hurried down the street, concluding, (correctly as it turned out), that the mobile-home harbored the Legendary Pink Dots.

Nils Hornblower and Phil Silverman [sic] disappeared through the entrance of the club with their instruments as we walked up to them. Kim introduced herself to the tour manager — Paul, a young guy from Montreal with reddish dreadlocks and a friendly way about him. Kim and I had not prepared an interview, and neither of us had a tape-recorder with us, but we asked Paul anyway if it would be possible to interview Edward Ka-Spel, and his answer: “It shouldn’t be a problem”.

We entered the cramped space of the Lounge Ax, and watched as the roadies and band members rapidly unloaded the Pink Dots equipment. Everyone was busy and paid us very little attention, as we leaned ourselves against the bar in anticipation of Edward’s entrance to the club. The waiting was short — like a Holy Man drifting in from some desert — Edward almost seemed to levitate ever so slowly through the door and down the walkway. He wore an outfit reminiscent of the late 60s, had short black hair, and his eyes looked at us from behind dark sunglasses. “Hello” he said in his soft and unmistakable voice, and as if nothing in the whole world concerned him, he stopped and conversed with us. Upon our request for an interview, he immediately consented, and when we told him that we had to run home and get a tape-recorder first, he generously offered us to use his own — it would “be better to do the interview right away”, he said as a number of other people were scheduled to come and talk with him.

Still in need of a tape, I ran more than walked down to the nearest Tower Records and purchased one, hurried back to the club, and shortly found myself and Kim sitting on either side of Edward in one of the faded old couches located opposite the bar in the Lounge Ax. Kim thanked Edward for taking the time to talk with us, and from there we started our chat.

[after some discussion about who we are and why the interview… ]

Kim: Are you computer literate?

Edward: I am not so computer literate… ..just on a very basic level.

Kim: Any access [to internet]?

Edward: We don’t have access to the Internet… not yet. We’re thinking of getting on there… someone just gave us a computer, and…

Michael: You’re a big letter-writer, right? I know people who have received hand-written letters from you…

Edward: Yeaah… I’m a bit slow… but…

Michael: They are beautiful letters… little works of art in themselves… But anyway, since some of the people on Last Sigh may not have heard Legendary Pink Dots music… could you describe, what you are trying to achieve in your music… I know you can’t really label it, because it is really unique and spans very wide… but, if you could give us a brief description of what youare trying to do…

Edward: I suppose in a way we are trying to create our own little universe… you know, something that is constantly expanding, and sort of like will one day… sort of like will draw a full circle, but when that day is, I have no idea…We’ve been going for sometime now… Uhmmm… you know, it sounds a bit grand…(chuckles)… but, maybe the most colorful psychedelic music ever made is what we’re trying [to create] — I don’t say we’ve succeeded — but we’re trying.

Michael: So, does that have any influence on the sort of instrumentation you use, because your CD’s vary incredibly in sound and texture from oneto the other…

Edward: That’s true…

Michael: … although I admit that I have by no means heard all of your releases.

Edward: No… that’s very true… Um… you know, often our CD’s are dictated by the mood within the band at the time… now, we’ve just released a new CD, The Hallway Of The Gods , which is almost the antithesis of the CD before it, which has… you know, this one has quite a very large sound… lots of, you know, sort of like effects, and very peculiar sounds going on in there… its unpredictable which way we turn… we are already busy with ideas for the CD following this, ’cause it’s always the case that once you’ve made something, it quickly becomes old… because, of course, you finish recording it two months ago… and the band just moves on constantly… it’s something that never stays still.

Michael: We’ve often wondered–my friends and I– do you live in the studio?

Edward: [Laughs]… No, no… I’ve got a private life, you know…girlfriend… Ahem… [Chuckles].

Michael: You’re still in Amsterdam, right?

Edward: I’m in Nijmegen… in South Holland, Southeast Holland.

Michael: I read that you are of English origin…

Edward: I’m of English origin, yeah… two of us are…

Michael: What precipitated the move to Holland?

Edward: At the time it was a Dutch girlfriend, who had a big influence on me moving, [smiles]… Uhmmm… It was also the case that at that time, people didn’t pay any attention much to Pink Dots in England and we decided…Ehh… you know, to sort of like go to the country that appreciated us the most at the time… Ironically, it’s changed now, England does quite well for us… and Holland is a disaster, [laughs]… but, Ahhh… .you know, it’s just the way it goes, you tend to go down in one country and go up in another… at the moment it’s America and Poland… we found that we are Pop Stars in Poland… very strange, [laughs]

Michael: Hmmm… So, would you say that Holland has influenced the sound of your music?

Edward: Not really… Holland is quite a neutral sort of country…

Michael: You would have been creating the same music, had you stayed in England?

Edward: I think so, Yeah…

Michael: What kind of influences do you have?

Edward: … it’s hard to talk about, you know,… I mean I think everything you like… probably filters its way in there somehow, I mean… most music, really, myself and Phil listen to, a lot, was actually… [laughs]…Krautrock…  bands like Can and Faust… Ummm, and that’s what kind of started the desire to make music… but, you know, we didn’t really attempt it until…the experiments of Throbbing Gristle in the late 70s… because, what they were doing, they were showing that you didn’t need a high degree of technical skill to actually create something that was very special… and, we had no technical skill in the beginning of the 80s, you know… we just really wanted to create…

Michael: So… you had no musical training before starting Pinkdots, at all?

Edward: NO… no… no… someone taught me what an A was on the keyboard, you know… and, it went from there…

Michael: I was thinking… some of the Pink Dots material, I have heard, has to my ear a strong literary influence… are you a big reader?

Edward: I don’t get the time really… Ummm, I mean, there are a lot of authors, I really enjoy…

Michael: Could you tell me some of them?

Edward: Hermann Hesse is a favourite of mine… Keith Roberts…which is something so deeply English in a way, right… Ummm, Robert [Silbert ?]… many Sci-fi writers, I suppose…

Michael: How about film… have you ever done music for film?..is that an area you would like to get into?

Edward: I’d enjoy it… we haven’t actually, specifically made anything for film that has ever been released… Ummm, our music has been used for  acouple of movies, but we were not told about it, we just found out about it afterwards, watching the TV.

Michael: That’s sad…

Edward: [chuckles]

Michael: Because I think your music is extremely visual… that is what I really like about it…

Edward: I mean, it’s a shame… I mean… we did have ideas of, like, trying to make, you know, sort of like videos… not clips… but something that really related to what we do… but, we were on Play It Again Sam Records, and they never… haven’t spent a cent on us… so it just never worked out, really.

Michael: Would you ever be interested in doing something, if someone was willing to dedicate their time and effort, and do it on a semi-amateur basis?

Edward: We’d love to… really… our problem is money… we have no money, really… we’re just too poor, [laughs]…

Michael: Yeah, money is always difficult in the creative fields…but, I believe in your attitude… I mean, just doing it. I am sure you couldn’t imagine anything except music…

Edward: Nooo… No, it’s been going too long now… we wouldn’t know anything else, really.

Michael: Would it be indecent to ask your age?

Edward: Yes… [laughs]…

Michael: I remember two years ago, when I saw Pink Dots at the Dome Room [Chicago]… you had some grey hairs?

Edward: And indeed it’s black now isn’t it? [laughs]

Michael: I have a question relating to a song you played at the Dome Room. You had some lines in there saying something like: “It’s a long way to Andromeda,but I know I’ll meet you there someday.”

Edward: Ohhhh… it’s: “Sure we’ll marry in the Spring.”

Michael: I’ve been trying to find that. What CD is that from?

Edward: Chemical Playschool #8 & #9.

Michael: Ok… I’ll get that. You understand, imported CD’s are extremely expensive here, so…

Edward: Really? How much do they cost?

Michael: You know… they can run as high as $25.

Edward: Oh, that’s crazy!

Michael: So, I’ve been lucky — and I know that this doesn’t benefit you at all — but I have found a few of your things used, which, of course, makes me very happy.

Edward: Ohhh… I mean, why not? People hearing the music is what counts… we’ve got a great record company in America now [Soleilmoon Recordings], and we really like them.

Michael: The new things are not so expensive… but the older releases…

Edward: I know, it’s to do with the fact… I mean, they should have been released in America… Uhmmm… You know, they were not or they were around for a while, and then they disappeared. Now we are trying to get them all out in America. I don’t know how that will go ’cause… unfortunately, again we have to deal with Play It Again Sam, which, actually, was a terrible record company for us… we found out a bit late…

Michael: It’s always tough with the bigger labels.

Edward: Yeah… I prefer the smaller ones by far.

Michael: I live at one — SkinGraft — all their music is released independently of larger labels, and in very limited quantities… their bands play here at Lounge Ax from time to time, actually — a lot of experimental noise music; they have a number of Japanese and local Chicago bands on their label…

Edward: Yeah, there’s a lot of good stuff from Japan, yeah.

Michael: Zeni Geva has released on SkinGraft in the past…

Edward: Yeah… yeah…

Michael: Melt Banana… Space Streakings.

[Kim offers Edward an Everlasting Gobstopper… ]

Edward: Oh please…

[A couple of Gobstoppers trickle out of the box into Edward’s hand]

Kim: Help yourself. Pick a color. They change colors…[laughs]…

Michael: Ehhh…

Kim: I just wondered if you have ever had these? They are WillyWonka’s.

Edward: Ehhh… No, no, this is a new one, [laughs]…

Kim: They are jawbreakers, but the middle collapses… kinda… maybe like the universe… I don’t know… [laughs]… Who knows?…

Michael: That’s very profound…

[laughs all around]

Michael: If you had to recommend one or two CDs from your catalog that you would say someone should start with, if they didn’t know your music already, and they wanted to check out The Legendary Pink Dots…

Edward: To start with… well there’s a good Best Of… it’s agood introduction to the band… personal favourites, though …kinda hard…

Michael: Four Days? If you could find it?

Edward: It wouldn’t be Four Days.  I like Four Days, butit’s very, very much a home-made CD that we had a lot of fun making…

Michael: It’s beautiful… I found that one used… I was very lucky…

Edward: You’re very lucky to find it used, Yeah… It’s gone at the moment… maybe we’ll repress it one of these days… you know… it’s technically gone.

Michael: Yeah… it says in the liner notes…

Edward: That’s not strictly true… the liner notes… we ended up repressing… there’s 2300.

Michael: There are a lot of Skinny Puppy fans on LastSigh and we should ask you something about Tear Garden… What is the future of the Tear Garden project?

Edward: Tear Garden’s future has already begun,…[chuckles]… when Cevin came over to Europe just a few weeks ago, in fact… and we had a just one day session… and it was some of the greatest stuff we ever did… very electronic again this time… quite hard music that we produced from this session, but weare very excited about it… in some ways, I think it was the best session, we’ve had forsome years… Cevin took the tapes back with him to Vancouver, and we’ll see, where it goes from there… but you could say a new Tear Garden started from there.

Michael: Is there any chance, Tear Garden might tour in the future?

Edward: I mean, if it was possible to tour in an RV or something like that, sure we’d do it… and, Cevin really likes to tour, and I’d like to do it,and, you know, why not, we are all friends, and, I’m sure it can work out one of these days, but, we just couldn’t do it the way… that Skinny Puppy always did it…that is a bit out of our league.

Michael: Are you working with any other musicians on side projects…or considering anything like that?

Edward: I’ve been invited to a couple of projects, which would be interesting… trip-hop actually, but, I’d like to put my own mark on it some way…ummm… I don’t know, just thinking about that, you know… I’d want some say in what happens.

Michael: Oh, definitely…

Edward: (chuckles)… uhm…

Michael: I’m always interested in knowing about the work process when you compose music. Who contributes what?… at what point do the lyrics enter into the music, or, is it a matter of writing sound tracks for the lyrics sometimes?

Edward: It works both ways, sometimes there are lyrics there first…sometimes there are lyrics written for the piece… If we take Hallway Of The Gods… the new album… as an example… it began with Phil having a lot of musical ideas… I had a lot of musical ideas… Ryan had a lot of musical ideas… and some things we also improvised… and, uhm… there’s always too much material with the Pink Dots, that’s why there are so many releases, there’s so much materialal the time.

Michael: And always a high level of quality, as far as I can tell…

Edward: We’re very happy at the moment, because we like the new album… and we just today got the Chemical Playschool Vol. 10, which we’ve all been waiting for… we’re selling it on the tour, and later in the year, it goes in the stores, but for the tour, it’s only on sale at the shows, and I’m so totally proud of this CD, and I’m hoping it’s gonna really surprise people this one…

Michael: How long are you on tour, when are you heading back to Europe?

Edward: In about six weeks time from now… it’s a thirty show tour… we just heard that the last show now is gonna be two shows in Denver, which is very exciting for us… we are gonna do something special… there’ll be a solo show from myself, and then a different Pink Dots set from the night before… Denver is usually a good city for us, but, you know, we are gonna make it very special with this occasion… I think…

Michael: One thing thing I thought was very special, when I saw you last time, was the story you did as an encore… and, I couldn’t help wondering how much of that was impromptu?

Edward: It was all improvised…

Michael: It was all improvised???

Edward: Yeah… it changed every night…

Michael: That was amazing… it was like 20 minutes long…

Edward: I think it was 20 minutes, (laughs)… No, it was a bit of a challenge, really… making the ends of the circle meet… uhm, a couple of years ago I wanted to experiment with improvised lyrics… where I got the freedom to improvise words, and take it somewhere at that time… you know… it’s not only a great challenge, but it’s absolutely satisfying…

Michael: I’m sure… it was great… and, I remember Nil’s Hornblower going off into the audience and playing his saxophone…

Edward: Yup, he still does that now… (laughs)

Michael: Will he do that tonight, you think?

Edward: (chuckles)… He… it depends… (laughs)… I think it’s gonna be hard tonight… there’s gonna be so many people…

Michael: Maybe he can get up on the bar…

Edward: (laughs)… I think he’ll need a crane…

Michael: Yeah… It will be very packed in here… One more thing…the slide show you had for your last show was very powerful, and I was wondering to what extent that was done by yourselves, and, how it was synchronized to the music?

Edward: Was that in Copenhagen?

Michael: No, this was at the Dome Room here in Chicago … there was the image of a galaxy, and the silhouette of a man falling…

Edward: It wasn’t our slideshow… it must have belonged to the DomeRoom…

Michael: Really!?

Edward: Yup…

Michael: ‘Cause it was just amazing how it would fit the music attimes… like “Andromeda Suite”… it had that silhouette of the man falling superimposed on the image of the galaxy…

Edward: Ohhh… that’s great… No, it’s something we’d love to do one of these days, to take our own lights production with us, but… we are not quite well off enough yet…

Michael: I’d love to work with you on that some day… or, have you compose music for a film of mine, if I ever have the chance… who knows…

Edward: We’d be interested, that’s for sure… we can always supply music, that’s never a problem…

Michael: That would be wonderful… I spoke briefly with Michael Giraof Swans about an idea I had–because his music has a lot of autobiographical elements, and he is very interested in the idea of documenting moments in time through his music — so, I thought it would be great to do a documentary in that vein, where it would be aimed at preserving a moment in time — which would be Gira’s setting out on his own solo career, he just disbanded Swans, you know…

Edward: Ohhhh, I know… it’s kind of a shame…

Michael: He’s a very genuine and kind person, if you ever have a chance to meet him…

Edward: I’d like to meet Michael one of these days… I always liked his music…

Michael: But I thought maybe something like that could be done, if you were to take one of the new Hi-8 cameras that are out — that are really of high enough quality that you could shoot footage — and then go into computer editing lab and create something on a very small scale that would still be good enough to present to an audience…

Edward: That would be great, you know…Best is to keep in touch…and, you know — as I said, we can always provide music… and, you know, for me it’s another thing that we haven’t really tried successfully… the only video we made was…(laughs)… a disaster… (laughs)…

Michael: Really… which song was that for?

Edward: [Siren]… uhm… it was really well meant… it was a friend of ours — worked for the Austrian TV — and, it cost virtually nothing to do… shot in a day, and things like that… but, the editing of the video just… I don’t know… just didn’t work… not for me anyway…

Michael: It’s always hard… you gotta understand… for someone else to set images to your music… I think if anything, it should be a documentary type thing, or something where someone supplied you with images, and you composed the music…that would be better…

Edward: Yeah… there wasn’t enough fantasy in that video somehow, and there was too much of your cheap horror tricks…

Michael: Ah, that’s too bad…

Edward: Which I think is a shame… but, there again, it had to be made in a day, and we just kinda went along with the idea of the storyboard and…maybe we shouldn’t have done that…

Michael: I don’t really like videos much to be honest… not many of them are very good… . not many of them are very imaginative… .

Edward: No… that’s very true…

Michael: I think there’s a lot more interesting things that could be done… I have done a little bit with with SkinGraft — the record label I told you about– it’s fun… fun stuff…

Edward: There was a Tear Garden video, actually… just a video clip — “Sheila Like The Rodeo” — which I thought was very good…

Michael: I’d like to see that… that’s a good song, I can see how that could translate into a nice video…

Edward: Yeah… that was very good…

Michael: My favourite is probably still the first one, though… I really like that album very much…

Edward: Tired Eyes Slowly Burning… I mean… it’s still got my favourite Tear Garden track on it…

Michael: Which is that?

Edward: Ehh… “You and Me and Rainbows”…

Michael: Oh, really, that’s the one where Ogre comes in and does a cameo…

Edward: Yeah… Yeah…

Michael: Yeah… that’s a fantastic song, an it is probably the most Legendary Pink Dots sounding track on the album…

Edward: Yeah… that’s true…

Michael: That’s how I got introduced to Pink Dots, too… I really liked your vocals on that album… And, I thought your accent was Dutch...

Edward: Oh… no… no… [laughs]… that’s London…

Michael: Your voice has a very distinct flavour that isn’t like a lot of other English musicians… I just thought you were Dutch…

Edward: [laughs]

Michael: So how many years is it anyway?… fifteen, twenty years…

Edward: What… for the Pink Dots?… seventeen, uh…although, that’s right from striking the first note… the first CD was at the end of’82… we’ve not been around as long as some bands… Einsturzende Neubauten have been around actually five years longer than us… but, yeah, it’s been a while…

Michael: I still see you as a part of that wave, though… withThrobbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, which are great favourites of mine…

Edward: In a way… the friends we made were groups like… NurseWith Wound… Current 93…

Michael: No kidding!

Edward: And… they are close friends still…

Michael: Their music is so different and exciting…

Edward: I love Nurse With Wound… they really are the best… [laughs]

Michael: I’d like to hear more of their music… I’ve only heard fiveor six of their releases… it’s just amazing music…

Edward: You know… there’s a lot of good things around actually…it’s a good time for music… .there’s a ton of bands out there…

Michael: Another favourite, you might like too–Tuxedomoon.

Edward: Yeah… yeah… And again old friends…

Michael: Oh, really…

Edward: Yeah…

Michael: I heard that the one guy is now leader of the Mexican ballet, or something like that…

Edward: Steven?… he is living in Mexico now… Yeah… and we met him two years ago… we went down his way…

Michael: Oh, yeah…

Edward: And… we actually played with him… one very private show… yeah, I’ve known Steven quite a few years…

Michael: I wish they’d still be doing music…

Edward: Yeah… but, Steven’s new band is really good…

Michael: What is the name of it?

Edward: Ninerain…

Michael: Ok… I’ll check that out.

Edward: And it really reminds me a lot of the old Tuxedomoon,actually… Yeah, they were a very special band, actually… Tuxedomoon…

Michael: Someone just gave me a tape yesterday, actually… with some hard to find tracks by Tuxedomoon, and, as a matter of fact, his music is going to be released by Subrosa… he is a local artist doing synth-based music, and he is going to Austria in a couple weeks to play a gig at some festival with one of his bands… he’s just starting out… but, anyway, he likes Tuxedomoon a lot too…

Edward: Which band is it? Do you know?

Michael: He’s got one called: Lilith, and the other is called:Orbitronik…

Edward: Oh… I don’t know…

Michael: I guess Subrosa is waiting to release some of his music right now, and World Domination is going to release another of his CD’s…

Edward: Oh… that’s good… that’s good…

Michael: He’s getting out there… I think he’ll make it, he’s got alot of enthusiasm… all he wants to do is make music… he might not make a lot of money, though, but that is secondary…

Edward: yeah… it’s not about making a lot of money, it’s just about being able to do what you do, and not to have to… [laughs]… tremble when the rent is due to be paid… [laughs]… you know.

[The soundcheck begins in the background, partially drowning our conversation]

Michael: That’s pretty much it, I guess… Thanks very much Edward…

Edward: Oh… it was a pleasure Michael…

Michael: It was great meeting you… good luck with the show.

Kim: Thanks so much for coming on tour to Chicago, the USA.

Edward: Thank you… Ohh… I better give you your tape…[Click]

Later in the evening, before the show started, Michael and I were fortunate to go upstairs to the dressing room wherethe Pink Dots were getting ready for the show. We chatted with them for another hour about their tour, their lives, their children and families and life in Holland. I found the entire entourage to have a wonderfully hospitable air about them, friendly and quite personable. Silverman told me how the Legendary Pink Dots decided their name… a whimsical story indeed. Perhaps I will amend this interview with the story in the near future… but for now, that’s “quite all”.

Kim Alexander/Editor ©

Edward Ka-Spel, the enigmatic spiritual lyricist/vocalist behind such moving electronic artists as The Tear Garden and The Legendary Pink Dots, and anequally illustrious solo career, has been weaving webs of magick and glory since 1980; and his work is continually, without fail, transcendnt. An unhindered challenge tosheltered minds full of wretchedly delusional mundanity, Ka-Spel’s music is like a beaconof divine light beckoning to the truth-seeking soul.

Today, particularly in the States, our shattered culture is so transplanted that we have no spiritual basis through which we can find the fortitude to resist the mindless distractions of mass consumerism and consumption. Religion, the structuring of group belief, rituals and mythology could perhaps provide the base which contemporary society lacks in abundance. Unfortunately for many, the dogma of religions are, and have always been, incredibly oppressive.

Much of Ka-Spel’s work expresses this fear of religion’s intrinsic oppression, but also a measurable sadness at our communal disbelief. Certain songs, like “Pennies from Heaven” from Legendary Pink Dots’ The Maria Dimension album, are unquestionable attacks on religious structures. Yet, most prominent in the ethereal and spacey vocalist’s compositions is an ongoing personal odyssey: a search for salvation, a search for self, and perhaps a search for the world.

It has been written that you believe in a personal spirituality. What are your attitudes towards religion, as a collected body of mythology, philosophy and ritual which can be shared by a group of like-minded people?

I suppose my view of religion is changing with time. I used to find the institution laughable, indeed a way of boxing up spirituality – more roles for a world in chains.  While I don’t subscribe to any religion, I think I’ve learned to have more respect for people (who do). There are deep-thinking Catholics, Muslims, even Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Let people be, as long as they harm no one… All religions interest me. Basic truisms run through all of them; it’s only the dogma that bothers me.

Do you have any personal gods? If so, would you care to share them?
Personal gods? The angel that’s just beyond the corner of my nearly blind left eye, she is always there, no matter what the situation. I don’t even know her name. It could be Miriam. She has a gentle laugh and protects me from the Black Dog.

Is creating music for you a ritualistic experience? What other personal rituals might you participate in?

Music is a ritualistic experience. A Legendary Pink Dots show is an amber mass. Music transcends language; it’s the code of naked emotion. It can reveal the colour of your soul. And still, I haven’t gotten close yet… I have personal rituals. Stretching my arms before addressing the mass, feeling the energy stream through my body. A coffee and cigarette at breakfast somehow makes the world a better place, too.

Do you believe in objective mystical experiences, such as magick, visions and/or meaningful coincidence? Can you share any particularly beautiful or interesting experiences you have had?

My life has been riddled with various unexplained incidences, occasional premonitions.  Wonderful ones and some unpleasant frightening ones, too. (Like) the Black Dog. I have no option than to believe in magick. It’s real. I’ve been a witness, but I don’t practice it and never will. These forces are not puppets controlled by human hand. They play with us; they have the possibility of driving us insane. I value my sanity.

Have you ever been directly affected by these mystical experiences in your creative process?

My most powerful experience in creation was when I used to listen to the radio (news) throughout the night. I figured that the latest news report (that I heard before falling asleep) would shape my waking dream. Once it did, I dreamt about an air crash. There wasa bridge, an icy river; a guy saying, “Well, it just dropped out of the sky.” Naturally, I checked the first news broadcast once I had woken up, and there was no mention of the crash. My first serious premonition, and I wrote the song “What’s Next?” on the Tramstadt I cassette. The crash happened one month later… in Washington, D.C. of allplaces.

In the creation of your music, what is the role of Doubt? Of Ego? Oh Hope?

It’s all there. Sometimes that ego stops me from enjoying some pieces later on, sometimes the doubts are confirmed. But I remain the eternal optimist.

Your music is replete with the search for transcendence, while only occasionally do you express overt political ideas. What do you feel is the relationship between political and social issues and art and spirituality?

Politics and art are related because we live now, and it’s impossible not to be affectedby decisions of the “powers that be.” I’d exile the lot of the bastards given half the chance. (But) I’ve always had the secretive desire to be a dictator, but I’d probably fuck it up like the rest of them. The world is lucky that I make music instead.

What responsibilities do you allow yourself to be affected by in the creation of your work? To what degree do you feel confined by these responsibilities, and to what extent do they inspire you?

There are responsibilities I suppose, especially when some people hang on every word. I’m just not so very responsible when it comes to writing and creating. (But then) it would be less than honest to dilute what comes out, (to) throw in a sweetener.

In what ways do you make use of commerce and other structures of power in creating your music, and how do you feel about these things?
All of the Dots have to live from the music we create, so the commercial aspect is there. We just pay no heed to it when making the music.

What is your feeling about the rapid rate of technological advancement at present? Do you believe that a full recognition of our ritual experience is necessary to cope with the madness of our technology?

Technology is fine as long as it is stretched. However, I can’t relate to computers at all. (They’re) great typewriters (with) brilliant possibilities, but how the hell do they work? Our music is its own world for the listener to accept or reject. It exists by its own rules. I don’t believe that technology equals madness. I believe people should perform their own rituals, or not perform them, as the choose. What I create is for me, and if others like it, then that’s great.

-interview by Michael Estabrook