There are a million haircut bands out there, on local scene’s everywhere I’m sure everyone knows exactly who they are as well, the bands that three years ago sounded like Franz Ferdinand last year sounded like the Arctic Monkeys. This year they’ll be chucking about glow sticks at a ‘rave’ no doubt.
There are a million haircut bands out there, on local scene’s everywhere I’m sure everyone knows exactly who they are as well, the bands that three years ago sounded like Franz Ferdinand last year sounded like the Arctic Monkeys. This year they’ll be chucking about glow sticks at a ‘rave’ no doubt.
Incendiary interview iDresden
Not so long ago we got a tip from a very well respected journalist who told us that if we hadn’t already checked out iDresden then we might as well pack in doing this bloody magazine. So we took umbrage and checked them out. As you do… And we were so enamoured by their intelligence, spirit and sheer wilfulness that we had to investigate further. Hence this interview with Cal from the band. Here, in his own words, are iDresden.
IN: Your myspace states… "Hello, we are iDresden, we came together a few months ago to make odd music inspired by just about everything." Do tell what bits of everything really interests you iDresden…
C: The bits they don’t want you to see! To be honest it’s a throwaway comment written at 4am in the morning, bathed in the warm brain frying glow of my monitor screen. I can’t stand most band biogs including ours. That sort of backslapping self promotion is all a bit embarrassing really. We have the Roy Keane of band biogs; short, effective and offensive to everyone else.
Pretty much every song I write degenerates into a paranoid rant about how either the mainstream media are systemically destroying the nation by lowering the standards daily resulting in our societies disintegration or how the new world order corporation owners who really run the world are soon going to end it. Most people haven’t a fucking clue what I’m going on about.
IN: And why odd? Do you feel yourselves to be oddballs?
C: Well we haven’t exactly been welcomed with opened arms by the Manchester ‘scene’ types. Being years younger than everyone else doesn’t really help, but I’d hate for us to ever use that as an excuse for not achieving something. Of course we lack the haircuts and correct trousers as well.
There’s three types of bands in Manchester at the moment, the trendy Libertines copyists, the hilarious ‘Madchester’ types (Bez was at one of our gigs the other day, he didn’t dance though) and a small group of really different ‘outcast’ bands that don’t sound like each other at all. Bands in the last group are generally somewhat ‘odd’ but then whose to judge eh? Certainly not anyone from the first two groups. I love the idea of humanity having a collective unconscious but frankly if I have to share it with the Pete Doherty fan club I’d rather keep to myself.
IN: Obviously something annoys you, and "they always say" that you are better defined by the things you’re not… so what annoys?
C: I’m so bored of being lied to. Everything lies these days; most people lie to themselves constantly just to get through the day I imagine. I know I would if I had to work in some sterile office from 9-5. So from that base it’s pretty much impossible to achieve any sort of wide reaching change isn’t it, if it takes most of my energy just to get through the day then upsetting the social hierarchy or whatever just isn’t going to happen. Very few people have ever had the stage or ability to really open your eyes, for me when I first heard Bill Hicks it really was life changing in the sense that what he was saying totally changed the way I thought about things.
I: "While 99% of those around us toil with careerist agendas and tiresome posturing we will be making music and playing some gigs. Hurrah for us." Indeed! Do you feel that music’s that bad at the moment? What constitutes tiresome posturing?
C: One thing I’d love to see happen would be the widening of peoples intake of music. I’d say nine out of ten kids our age get all their music from the NME and maybe the odd internet forum which is a massive shame as there’s some amazing stuff out there that just isn’t going to be seen in the NME. We’re playing a show soon with AnteAter which is Tom from Forward, Russia’s sideshow; utterly astonishing electronica – totally mad but brilliant. If he wasn’t Tom from Forward, Russia he’d be playing to five people in a basement. Forever. I am hopeful though, as there’s never been a better time for DIY bands, nights or labels. There are a million haircut bands out there, on local scene’s everywhere I’m sure everyone knows exactly who they are as well, the bands that three years ago sounded like Franz Ferdinand last year sounded like the Arctic Monkeys. This year they’ll be chucking about glow sticks at a ‘rave’ no doubt.
IN: And what, given your disgust with all the muso arse licking, constitute ideas above your station? Surely you’re not going to dig a pit and sulk in it?
C: Well we try, we try. We do our own club night you know, chipping away, trying to get attention to these neglected bands out there. It’s disheartening how at even a local level that careerist attitude seems to exist, I’m sure every promoter and reviewer out there aspire to be the next Seymour Stein or write for the fucking NME. There are so few people who have any time for pushing non conformist bands; it feels like you’re at a Klan rally trying to promote gay pride. As we said, oddballs and outcasts. It’s ironic that that’s now become the trendy image, being some sort of plastic rebel in a Topshop sponsored leather jacket. Frankly some days my bed is just too welcoming and the ongoing fashion show outside too tiresome. I can’t see us ever jacking it all in though to answer your question.
IN: Now this Louis XVI fixation. Do you feel he’s had a bad press? He was a bit thick in running off to the Austrians wasn’t he? Talking of the French monarchy, I always had a soft spot for Catherine de Medici…
C: Old Louis the Last, bless him; the whole Revolution is just a cracking section of history really and as it seems like were creeping towards living under feudalism again it’s strangely relevant. All signs suggest that he was a bit of a dufus so I’ve always had a soft spot for him due to all the vitriol, history being written by the winners and all. I wish we could still charge people with counter-revolution though, what fun we’d have listening to our current puppet masters talk their way out of that one. And how many people did Catherine de Medici have assassinated? A good few if I remember rightly, she’s probably a feminist icon in France now.
IN: I bet she is!
Check this lot out as they certainly have something going on.
Words: Richard Foster.
Band; www.myspace.com/idresden
Club night; www.myspace.com/intotheblackpromotions