Alien Lovestock are: Charles Gasper aka Tommee Cadesco: bass guitar and backing vocals Anton Kozikowsky aka Buckee Wallace: lead vocals, rhythm guitar and megaphone Paulo Baldi aka Rudee Danks: percussion Eric McFadden aka Dickee Slicks: lead guitar and vocals

It’s just after 6 PM on a rainy Tuesday night when the four members of Alien Lovestock show up at the Radio-V studios in San Francisco. Masquerading as civilians, the group as a whole don’t really give off any clues to the fact that they are a well-polished funk/rock/new edge/down-and-dirty quartet. Looks, however, can be deceiving.

Before I knew what was happening, the four band members were caught in a whirlwind of speech, playing off of each other’s jokes, witticism and shrewd remarks. At some point during the interview it occurred to me that interviewing Alien Lovestock was kind of like watching one of their shows–it was never clear which direction these artfully sarcastic and unpredictably professional musicians were going.

And so, I spent the better part of an hour asking but mostly listening while Anton, Eric, Paulo and Charles told me about how they found their name, what inspires them to play like they do and how earth might look from very far off in the galaxy.

The following are a selection of excerpts. Enjoy!!!

JS: You guys started in New Mexico, in Albuquerque…. Why don’t you just, real quickly, introduce who you are?

EM: We call Anton ‘Kozikowsky’ only because that is his given name. And then Paulo Baldi, we named him ‘Paula Baldi.’ And then, the one known as Charles Gasper on the bass, [AK: He’s still at large.] we built him from nothing, really.

AK: It’s hard to recognize at first, but of course once you get to know him.... And Eric McFadden is simply atrocious; other than the fact that he plays guitar.

EM: Right, I'm always in this state of euphoric agony, a state of blissful suffering. [Laughs] It’s very inspiring to me to be in a constant state of such. I’m also in a constant state of emotional contradiction.

AK: He blames himself for the world’s problems is what I think we boiled it down to.

JS: Right, well here’s the question I want to know: first of all where did the name come from?

AK: You had to ask that wouldn’t you?

EM: We found it, on the side of the freeway underneath this petrified rock, which was….

AK: It was in a gunnysack painted silver and nobody wanted to open it. Paulo was the one who was brave enough.

EM: Which was interesting because we didn’t even know Paulo at the time. We had never met.

JS: Where was it that you found the gunnysack?

EM: It was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but we were on Route 66, but it wasn’t actually. We weren’t physically there; we were ‘en route’ to 66. Right in the middle of an existing place and one that used to be there. So we weren't really anywhere in particular as it were.

AK: It wasn’t a desert nor was it an ocean.

EM: Then what happened is that me and Anton started writing these strange little ditties together.

AK: We started writing these ‘Midwestern farm songs.’

EM: Since we had never been to the Midwest or to a farm for that matter.

AK: We felt that it was apropos!

EM: Yeah we took a different approach.

PB: Desert farm songs.

EM: We were in the Southwest writing Midwestern farm songs in the city

JS: What’s the deal with the ‘lovestock’ in Alien Lovestock?

CG: In a sense I think we are all lovestock. We all just love each other and like to keep stock with who we’re in love with and on everybody on our planet.

EM: It’s funny you mention that because ‘stock’ well some people might assume that it’s spelled s-t-a-l-k. Which it of course it’s not. It’s spelt s-t-o-c-k. We want to make that clear. Because basically we came here with certain spare parts from...our original habitat, which is a little ways from here, you could say.

PB: You can’t really get there by bus.

EM: [Asking the group.] How many ziconions did it take for us to get here?

AK: Minus 43.

PB: If you count the leap year.

JS: Well, we're counting it.

PB/CG/AK: Let’s count it, let’s count it.

EM: We all made a deal with each other when we decided to come to this planet as a single entity known as Alien Lovestock. We would do a ‘molecule exchange.’ We are on a ‘molecule exchange’ program.

AK: It’s not really a breeding experiment. I mean a lot of people think we’re part of some sort of primordial kind of…

EM: [Cutting him off.] It’s more a fabricated parts [thing] used in the experimentation of love vessels….

AK: … love vessels in close proximity–there’s some friction involved. No one really touches anyone else, in the early stages.

PB: Now we touch all the time.

EM: Too much! It’s getting ridiculous.

AK: It’s overwhelming

EM: I think it would be better if we touched with our minds like we used to.

PB: It’s much more enjoyable.

JS: In theory, you touch with your music.

AK/PB/CG: Yeah, yeah! That's right we can touch everyone with our music.

EM: Why didn’t we think of that 17 millenniums ago?

JS: How do you categorize yourselves?

AK: That’s always difficult.

JS: What music are you playing? I mean your group was in the Southwest writing Midwest farm ballads?

EM: The music of our being, I would say. The music that comes out of us. Which is formulated from all of the music we’ve felt and heard and experienced.

AK: And recorded; we play other people’s music.

JS: Do you do any covers?

AK: Well, anything we hear we play it back note for note.

PB: And it comes out a completely different song.

JS: That’s the key.

EM: Well, keep in mind that 27% of what Anton says is inaccurate–and you don’t ever know which 27% that is.

CG: On a good day its 17%.

EM: But when we took the elements of the rock ’n’ roll, which is a wonderful music indigenous to this planet, which we’ve discovered really makes us shake that ‘groove thing.’ And then the funk elements which gets the booty shakin'.

PB: Yes, the budis maximus.

AK: We recently walked into a club, I think it was in Canada somewhere.

EM: Singapore or Canada–I get those two places mixed up.

AK: And on the marquis we were represented as ‘funk’; a funk project. And some people because of our association with certain other groups…

EM: Like the George Clinton Parliament Funkadelic factor for instance…

AK: They would consider or jump to the conclusion that we are a funk project. Which…is a compliment because we love funk. But, it’s not accurate. We’re not quite there.

EM: There are elements of funk in our music.

CG: We’re an ‘unk’ project.

RM: You could put ‘runk’ in front of that; ‘spunk.’

CG: We have elements [in our music] of every planet we visited.

EM: The funk is–well you know. [Plays a few chords on his guitar] Is that funk?

PB: That could be funk.

EM: It could be, it could be.

PB: It kind of sounds like the ‘James Brown funk.’

AK: But you know, instead of funk we call it ‘riding the pony.’

JS: So how do you ‘ride the pony’ with exactly what you just did? How would you make it Alien Lovestock-like?

EM: First you take those funky James Brown chords and because they are a half step apart, that lends itself to this sort of [plays a variation of the funk chords which now sound like flamenco] an exotic sound. Then you put a little bit of distortion on the guitars and rock it out a little. [The other band members join in and start to ‘beatbox’ and clap their hands in rhythm].

PB: Now Anton will spew out some bullshit lyrics.

EM: Some jargon, stream-of-consciousness mumbo-jumbo [continues to play].

AK: Carry me to the bowling alley.

PB: See? You see what I mean, he just comes up with this shit- he’s amazing.

EM: I got a pocket full of biology and I’m dancing for the cosmic sheep.

AK: And it goes on like that.

PB: On and on and on.

CG: Yada yada yada.

PB: Ad nauseum.

JS: What about this: that we at Radio-V are actually transmodern music and culture–that’s the line that we would use ‘transmodern.’

EM: Transmodern.

JS: Taking things one step further. I guess that it is a synthesis, a collage…

PB: Well everything today is modern.

JS: Yeah. But some things are transmodern though.

PB: But everything now is ‘modern’ because that is where we are now, in modern times. Even a band that is ‘retro-active’ or acting retro–they’re still modern.

EM: Because everything is modern, it's the modern trend this ‘retro’ thing. And they’re playing it now within the context of modern production or a modern sort of interpretation with retro sounds and retro things…

AK: Postmodern art/arternadelic.

EM: Yeah, postmodern retro arternadelic; that’s kind of what we are.

JS: Postmodern retro arternadelic.

AK/PB/EM: That’s us, that’s Alien Lovestock.

AK: We would like to always remind everyone not to forget to bring in the new flesh. It just seems the right thing to do.

EM: We wanted to sort of lend ourselves as examples to society by being the first to bring in the new flesh.

PB: ‘Cause we re-generate our flesh weekly, so we’re constantly looking for lovestock.

EM: This is not the same skin I had on last week. You may say ‘hey that’s Eric McFadden wearing his own skin again.’ But I could be wearing anyone’s skin. There are times when I’m out in Charles’s skin.

JS: Sometimes.

EM: Sometimes, just to know how it feels baby, [in a whisper] just to know how it feels…. I want to get in your skin, man, let me climb in your skin.

PB: But no matter how many layers of skin you have, people only see the one on the outside.

AK: As I mentioned earlier we are inaccurate. We are 95% inaccurate.

JS: 95% inaccurate, striving to be better.

AK: Well we fail better every time, [laughs] we figure that if we fail in utter failure.

EM: Then that is a success, 'cause you can only go up from there. We strive to fail and then as a result we end up excelling.

PB: Never have four people in the same room seen what the bottom really is.

JS: Like you four.

AK: Right, like us four. It’s a form of euphoria.

EM: And we kind of have to ultimately remain dissatisfied in order to excel and create. Because this state of dissatisfaction is an active state of emotions, where as satisfaction is non-active because you're satisfied. So satisfaction ultimately leads you nowhere.

AK: Satisfaction–it leads you to be distraught.

PB: Not to be confused with ‘getting satisfied.’

JS: Different than being satisfied?

EM: Right. We’re in a process of getting satisfied since in order to get satisfied you need to be dissatisfied.

AK: Right. That’s what we’re best at. The worse you feel the better your gonna feel.

JS: Yeah, there’s only one direction you can go really.

AK: [Along with the other band members]: yeah it’s just a little easier. It takes less time, it’s quicker, more painful, it’s degrading, it’s embarrassing, it’s humiliating.

JS: What albums are on your machines at home?

CG: Bluebeard from San Francisco and Jamalski from New York.

PB: Right now, let me see…I just checked out a Modest Mouse CD.

JW: Who are Modest Mouse?

PB: Good question. I’ve never heard of them–I just heard them today. I think they’re from Chicago or New York or something like that. But it’s a pretty well-produced CD, kind of mellow. But you could pretty much any other day find something hard and heavy like Metallic or Tool. Or something really jazzy like Miles Davis or Coltrane and everything in between.

AK: I’ve got a bad habit–I spent 80 dollars on CDs and new music the night before last. I discovered Jeff Buckley's [Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk]. I’ve got everything from Louis Armstrong to Ravi Shankar and…I love The Coup from Oakland. I saw them live the other night at Slim's.

JS: What kind of music would you call that?

AK: It’s hip-hop. Some of the best hip-hop in the country is coming out of Oakland right now. And so I’m really spending a lot of time kind of absorbing that. I listen to Hieroglyphics and a lot of other good local stuff.

JS: What about you Eric?

EM: Well I was kind of doing the ol’ DJ thing, playing a song or two off of various albums last night. I played some James Hall from New Orleans. And Duke Ellington; I’ve been into that jazz series lately. David S. Ware, this crazy jazz saxophonist who is out of his mind. Then I put on some old Queen–"Sheer Heart Attack" and then some old Funkadelic–"One Nation Under A Groove" and then this new P.J. Harvey CD which I’m into.

JS: So what about the idea of global parties–making the cross between trance music and [other music forms]?

EM: I certainly see no harm in that. That’s in the way of bonding and uniting people, which always seemed like a good idea. We’ll be the band. I’m there, I’m there.

JS: Have you done any kind of music where you used MIDI instrumentation or any of the other uses of digital?

EM: We’ve all experimented with that stuff.

JS: Together in the group?

AK: Not as much as a group. We stay pretty organic. Paolo is a very well established and well-rounded table player. Some people are going towards technology but we’re kinda going away from there.

PB: We're kind of going backwards as far as where everybody else, who is going digital. We’re playing acoustic guitars and percussion and congas and using tube amplifiers. You know–rock 'n' roll.

JS: I saw the other night [at their show] that you had a megaphone.

PB: Yeah a good ol' megaphone.

EM: I like the idea of only having to be reliant on your ability to play music. You have your instrument and you have your hands. And if you can make things happen with that then I think you’ve really got it going on. I love having the option to be able to experiment with all of these other devices and the uses they give me but…

PB: When it all comes down to it, it’s more fucking shit to carry, and I carry enough.

JS: And more to buy.

EM: Right. I like to throw my amp up on-stage, plug in the fuckin' guitar and go at it.

AK: I went to the Bottom Of The Hill the other night, and there was a guy standing up on stage wearing sweats and a laptop and he's pressing these buttons and everybody’s standing around–he’s playing this real loud music.

EM: What the fuck you doin’ on stage? That’s boring!

AK: And it was very powerful music; I really was interested to see what it was like 'cause I’ve heard music like that but I found the crowd response, or lack thereof, to be everybody was standing around hypnotized.

PB: Because there was no performance.

EM: [Almost in an angry tone] the idea of being on stage is to perform.

AK: It was different. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily bad but it was just different in a way that didn’t compel me to ever want to see that again… [laughs]. I feel that there is a place for that but it was surprising to see just some guy up there who was wearing an old sweatshirt pressing some buttons.

JS: You might have seen an off night of a bad DJ at an off moment.

AK: No–I would have loved to see a DJ but he wasn’t. He was just running a laptop.

JS: A DJ should give you a performance.

AK: Kruder and Dorfmeister are one of my favorites.

EM: That’s a different ball of goo. I mean I just don’t see a guy standing around with a laptop and sweats–I mean ah, how much can you do?

PB: You can’t slap on the shift key like you used to. I mean if his keypad was like the size of a piano and he was stamping on it with his feet then I could see.

JS: You want a show actually.

AK: Showmanship is what compels me; I like to see people interact, people who like each other who enjoy being together.

EM: The action/reaction.

AK: That intrigues me. I like to think that maybe these people have coffee together or maybe they tickle each other once in a while.

Visit www.ericmcfadden.com to see pictures of the guys enjoying company on stage. Alien Lovestock's albums Planet Of The Fish and We Are Prepared To Offer You are available from www.nmxrecords.com