ST 37

SLT: SL Telles, bass, vox, synths, tapes

DC = Dave Cameron, drums

JC- Joel Crutcher, guitars

MS- Mark Stone, guitars ( he was curiously silent all night...)

Talking with the musicians from the US I've noticed
that they know very less about European music. Judging
from your music and the critics of it, it is possible
to say that you are like musical erudits. Do you really
know and love kraut-rock (Can, Amon Duul, etc.)?

SLT: Yes. Certainly. I love Krautrock. We all do. Mark just bought the

live Guru Guru Essen 1970 . Fantastic. I am a huge Ash Ra Tempel and Neu! fan. We all like Amon Duul, Can, Faust, Cluster, Popol Vuh, I dig Klaus Schulze, Gila, Kraftwerk...you name it. Furthermore, we like all kinds of European music, from Magma to Vagtazo Hallot Kemek to the Magic Carpathians to the Spacious Mind, the Heads, the Names, Minny Pops and Bevis Frond...the list is endless.

Being established for 16 years, there were many different
musical influences on you, weren't they? Tell us about
musical genesis of ST 37 since 1987.

SLT: Oh dear. Our first idea when we started in 1987 was to fuse the manic avant punk energy of Chrome with the droning space magnificence of Hawkwind. Then we got sidetracked in a somewhat unfortunate attempt at harmonies, but we basically have kept true to this vision since 87 and the cycles of fashion have come and gone many times...right now we re kinda hip again, in two years we probably won t be. We don t care.

Have you met Butthole Surfers? If you have, what do
you think about them?

SLT:Yes. They are wonderful. We are good buddies with King Coffey and his podner Craig Stewart, who runs Emperor Jones, and they are two of the kindest, most wonderful people we know, and we are on friendly terms with the rest of the band.

Texas punk rock is associated with something crazy,
energetic but also absolutely pure and sincere for
most of the people. I don't know wether you know about
this association... What's your opinion if it is true?
Can we say that "Texas punk" is the certain statement
as for example "California punk", "Washington HC" & etc.?

SLT: Heavens, yes. Texas has had its own scene of peyote induced weirdness since the Elevators, the Moving Sidewalks, the Zakary Thaks, the Golden Dawn and many others in the 60 s all the way through the 70 s punk movement with the Huns, the Re*Cords, AK 47, etc. to the 80 s hardcore weirdass psych revival like Scratch Acid and the Buttholes and others, to the current variety, so amply resented by bands like us, Charalambides, Winslow, the Primordial Undermind, Crevice, Seven Percent Solution, Linus Pauling, Dunlavy, Rusted Shut, the list goes on and on

Are you a political band? If you are then tell us
about your political views.

DC: Basically we are not a political band, but we do agree that Rick Perry (governor of Texas - ed.) is a rat bastard, Also, Carole Keeton Rylander Melonscent Strayhorn (Texas state financial comptroller - ed.) is absolutely retarded. They have handed Texas to corporate interests and things are corrupt, here on the local level. Inflate the picture to the national level and you see globalization at work.

What's your opinion about the modern politics of the
USA?

DC: Modern politics in the USA are an oxymoron. It s basically a crumbling system that s collapsing onto itself because of a lack of modern thinking.

JC: The government is looking up its own ass unwarily, overly self-aware. It makes for a good time for art to thrive, cause most regular folks have fuel to burn from all the angst of the nuttiness all around us.

Change the topic... tell us about "blue circle".

SLT: (blue circle) is a mail order company started by me and Carlton Crutcher, the original ST 37 vocalist and later synthesizer player. We have a catalog that is now up to issue 7, of a variety of underground Texas cassettes, CDs and vinyl from mostly us and bands from our scene of kindred spirits. You can get a free catalog form (blue circle) PO Box 4962, Austin TX 78765 USA, or order from our discography page on the web at www.ST37.com.

Do you ignore major labels on purpose or not? May
be you weren't invited on them and that is the reason?

SLT: Major labels have contacted us in the past....Mercury, one other...I ll go ahead and send them some stuff, we never hear back...fuck em...I guess it s a bit much for them....

When I read the article about your bio (ST 37), I've
noticed your attitude to "limited editions" releases.
Why do you do this?

SLT: We are rather prolific, and our labels don t seem to be able to keep up with us. So we record for a bunch of different labels, projects, comps, etc. constantly. Finally we started putting out limited CDRs, to go with the limited cassettes we have always done...it seemed a natural progression.

Tell something about Pip Proud.

SLT: Pip is a legendary Australian musician who began his career in the 60s with the beautiful album Adrenaline and Richard on Australian Polydor , did another LP and the took about 30 years off to raise his kids. He started releasing records again in the 90 s, and they are brilliant, up to and including his latest glory, a magnificent record with Tom Carter of Charalambides called Catch a Cherub . We collaborated by mail with him on three tracks on Oncer and A Yellow Flower , and then we recorded and released our own version of Sweet Thought last year on our last album Down on Us .

JC: yeah...yeah...I got to drive/ride across the country in a car with Pip (on the way to the Terrastock 5 festival in Boston, where we d hoped to play live with Pip, but the debilitating stroke he suffered last year prevented that - ed.). What a sweetheart. Familiar with every hardship availabel, Stroke, blind, kids taken away...law, poverty, Australia and still beautiful and gentle. On the drive we would share horrific and magical tales...his response was always yeah...yeah...

You know, the frase said by Jello Biafra "The
bizarre side of Austin is still alive - first the Butthole
Surfers, then Scratch Acid, and now Tulum" sounds very
attractive! But!!! In Russia many people knows B.S., a
little about S.A. and almost nothing about Tulum. Can you
tell anything about this band.

JC: Jello was just blowing smoke up our asses. Of course, we re very grateful that Jello was flattering us, but Tulum was just an intro/screwed up punk band that was a lot of fun.

SLT: Tulum was a precursor to ST 37 (it was Joel and Carlton s band, and John Foxworth, the original ST 37 drummer, was in it) that put out an excellent cassette only release called Voluptuous Astral Freeze . You should hear it - I ll send you a copy.

Your album "Down On Us" reminded me the solo-album of
Paul Leary "The History of Dog". What do you think about that?
What music are you interested in this time and are there
any musical authorities (Steve Albini? Jello Biafra? King
Coffey?...)

DC: Woof!

SLT: That s a great record. I have it and I like it a lot. A nice compliment, to be sure, especially as Paul s production skills are now earning him big dollars from his work with Sublime, Meat Puppets, et al. Apollo One especially from that record is a big hit with me. Music that I like lately: Kinski. Oh my God, these guys are great. They were my favorite band at both the South by Southwest music festival last year, and at Terrastock 5 in Boston this year, even beating out Acid Mother s Temple (who I also like a lot) at both events. Kinski s bass player Lucy is a teacher like me so we get to hang out and gripe about teaching! I ve also been listening to a lot of great music from Houston - our pals the Linus Pauling Quartet, Rusted Shut, Swarm of Angels, Dunlavy, the Last Bastions, and recent Houston - Austin transplants (and fellow Mike Gunn splinter band along with Linus) Charalambides. Musical authorities...hmmm...Albini is I think more of a production authority, though he is a good writer, too - his essay on major labels from the Baffler magazine is brilliant. Jello came and saw us a couple years ago at SXSW - he still likes us, he s a real sweetheart of a guy...I can t understand all the enmity between him and the ex-Kennedys...I also can t believe anyone would wanna beat him up (if you hadn t heard, he was brutally attacked in San Francisco a while back). King Coffey is a very good friend of ours and comes to almost all of our shows. He is Craig Stewart of Emperor Jones partner and is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Yes, he is something of a musical authority - he and Craig are up on all the great new music- and I even got him to spin a few records at my house party a few months back! Wow! I felt so privileged! He was playing a bunch of obscure soul records - he s way ahead of us!

Tell us about the future releases of yours in the 2003?

SLT: Well, Insect Hospital should hopefully, finally come out on Black Widow - it was supposed to be our 2001 release!! Now they have put a cut ( Cold Night for Alligators - a Roky Erickson cover) on a promo sampler CD they did ( Masters of Black Widow ) so they ll have to put it out now! It has a catalog number now, BWR 064, so I suppose it will happen. We just finished tracking for a split LP with the excellent San Antonio synth band Crevice for Fleece Records in Houston, and we also did a piece inspired by Kenneth Anger s Invocation of my Demon Brother (Mick Jagger on synth - woo-hoo!) that should see the light of day in 03. I also just finished remixing and remastering our 1989 cassette only release from space w/love for CDR, so that will be out as soon as I finish transferring the artwork.

Well, at last can you tell anything to Real Art readers
(I'm sure that most of them will learn about ST 37 from this
interview and the review on it)?

SLT: Thanks for the interest in our music, guys. Our biggest dream is to come to Europe someday and play - that s a lot closer to you than we are now! My family background is Russian and I would love to come there, too. I d like to think that we are making Real Art ourselves, so I certainly like the title of your magazine!

Contact: PO Box 4962, Austin TX 78765 USA, or www.ST37.com

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