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Drew Krewer: How and where did your band form?

Cody Critcheloe: It has formed in so many places––it’s really hard to say. I started SSION when I was sixteen in Kentucky as a straight-up punk band in the vein of Pussy Galore and Suckdog. Then I went to art school, and it became somewhat “artistic” (I incorporated videos and costumes into the live set). After I graduated college, I wanted it to be a “real” band again so it got all punk in a Hole-meets-Stooges kind of way, except that we sort of sucked. Then I got really into pop, and we made a pop record (Fools Gold) and then a movie to accompany it (BOY). I’m working on a new record now, and it’s pop––but in Soft Cell/Pet Shop Boys kind of way. I’m excited about the new show… I’m thinking lots of white light and bras.

D: Your shows and videos are very performative… using technology, dancers, sets, and outrageously fabulous outfits. What is the importance of performance to SSION?

C: It really depends on the record I want to make and what I think is appropriate for the music. Sometimes I don’t feel like wearing costumes or make-up, so I don’t. When the music calls for a big show, I do the best that I can with what I’ve got. It all just depends… ultimately, performance is important, and I love the visual side of making music, but I’m not completely opposed to standing alone on stage with an acoustic guitar and long fingernails.

D: Does performance take an equal or more important role than the music, or… more generally, how are those two elements (music and performance) related?

C: Music is always first. I let the songs decide what kind of visual they need. But when I’m presenting the music I think the visual can be just as important.

D: What does SSION think about gender? Is that reflected in your art?

C: It’s hard to say. I feel like a dude. A gay dude. Sometimes I really hate dudes, and sometimes I like them. I do think girls are smarter and more poetic. I just get along better with chicks, and I’m sort of jealous of them, although I really don’t wanna be a chick. I just admire them socially and I think they usually do more interesting things or are allowed to do more interesting things in a more mainstream way. I still like guys and have guy friends, you know…

(Song starts around 1:30 mark.)

D: If you were a type of tasty candy, what would you be and why?

C: I don’t like candy that much. Sometimes I’m into Twizzlers and Sour Patch Kids. But they really don’t taste like anything. I guess I would be an ice cold Pepsi.

D: Why the Pepsi commercial?

C: Because it’s the sweetest soft drink! And they’ve always had the best pop stars advertising their drink. We had some time while we were shooting the video for “Clown,” so it seemed like a fun thing to do… and I really love Pepsi–I was drinking in-between takes.

D: Your work seems lively and carefree, but it also looks like it took a great deal of work. So, how much of your success comes from “having fun” and how much comes from “hard work”?

C: I think it’s mostly hard work. I don’t have a lot of fun making the videos because I want them to be really good. I want them to be quick, funny, smart, and attractive. That’s hard to pull off… and it’s all being made by my friends on a shoestring budget…

D: How have your screenings of BOY been going? Any upcoming projects or ideas that are floating around?

C: They have been great. At this point, we’ve only screened it in Kansas City, Chicago, and LA. We’ll be doing a screening at Peres Projects in Berlin on June 26th. I think people are into it? It’s hard for me to tell.

I’ve been working on a new record and a new show and we just finished shooting a video for Peaches.

D: What would your dream home be like if you allowed your imagination to run wild?

C: That’s a hard question… I never really think about having a home–I just think about being rich. I always assume that when I become rich, I’ll never have time to appreciate a home because I’d be too busy. I’ll probably be able to give a better answer when I’m old and more concerned with that stuff. I guess I’d just want it to be really “nice.” Have a fully stocked fridge, a pool and a staff… I would really like to have a decked-out Honda Accord… several of them, actually.

D: I’ve noticed your appearance on the kid’s show Whoop-dee-doo. If you were commissioned to do a kid’s show, with an infinite supply of resources, what would the show be like?

C: Something similar to Pee Wee’s Playhouse, but with more blood and guts and food. I’m not really into kid show stuff. I wish there were still things like Top of the Pops and American Bandstand happening. When I was a kid, it was my dream to play one of those shows…

D: Finally, in the spirit of the digital museum, what are some online treasures you’d like to share with the world and why?

C: 1) WISEBLOOD, “STUMBO”
Just really feeling this song right now. I think Thirlwell is a genius and SO SEXY!

2) LYDIA LUNCH INTERVIEW
All hail the queen!

3) BILLY JOEL, “UPTOWN GIRL”
An amazing pop song and an amazing video… I aspire to make a song this good and a video this good. Wish me luck!

4) ROISIN MURPHY “MOMMA’S PLACE”
I like to pretend this song is about Lady Gaga. This should be a drag queen anthem.

Here’s Jennifer Sharpe’s NPR piece that describes the history of these videos and the machines on which they were played:

Sharpe’s “The Rise and Fall of the Scopitone Jukebox”

And here’s my first Scopitone of the Week, the first Scopitone I ever saw:

“Where Did All The Good Times Go?” by Dick and Dee Dee

Video by Cody Critcheloe and Drew Bolton of SSION.

Kelsey Street Press, 2009

Bhanu Kapil is the author of The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, Incubation: a space for monsters, and––most recently–– Humanimal, a project for future children. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Bombay Gin, Chain, Denver Quarterly, Mandorla, and Trickhouse. She currently teaches at Naropa University and in the low-residency MFA in writing at Goddard College.

: :: ::: ::

Drew Krewer: You are only allowed to “utter” one sentence about poetry in this entire interview. Tell us that sentence.

Bhanu Kapil: Poetry is for the “the mingling of centuries and jungles” (Glissant.)

D: List things you find inspiring that are “unpoetic.”

B: Listening to my friend Sara’s stories of hitchhiking in Ireland until she reached the sea. That casual arrival, and missing the last bus back. This makes me think of a bus-ride I once took from Ajanta to Ellora; how I made the bus stop, and got off. I hiked through the jungle to reach the cliff above the cave where a granite Buddha throbbed lightly in a millennial trance; on the way, I came to a small waterfall, a tiny pool, and – - to summarize, swam. I opened my body to the possibility of cobras. Why not? Bus-rides are technically unpoetic, but, interrupted, they make you: you.

D: If you had the chance to permanently change Disney World into an amusement park world of your own, what would the park be like, and what would be its name?

B: Well, obviously, Snow White et al would be out, to be replaced with Hanuman, Shiva, Lord Ram, Durga and so on. There would be a Shiva ride that involved sliding down the side of a polystyrene Mount Kailash, holding on to the middle prong of a trident: your legs poking through. It’s name would be AYODHYA. Krishna’s gopis would distribute garlands of marigolds to every visitor, and there would be a golden lotus to meditate in. Obviously, we’d have to bring in the cash so there would also be re-invented hot dog stands selling samosas and chai. No, I’ve changed my mind. Nobody would have to pay. There would be a row of boxes for small donations to charities of many kinds.

D: Are there any childhood fascinations/fantasies that have remained with you into adulthood?

B: To hit myself with a book so hard I was no longer me. Also, I longed to live in Paris, and write on a balcony and drink milky coffee in my pajamas.

D: Do you own a television, and if so, what do you watch on it?

B: A television but without the digital encoder. I watch British TV when under duress, most recently a DVD called Posh Nosh starring Richard. E. Grant, the star of Withnail and I, whose autobiography I own.

D: What does “atmosphere” mean to you, and what is its importance in your life?

B: I read your question and immediately see the balcony of a temple in Mussoorie, in the Himalayas, where I stayed with my uncle for a few days when I was twenty. I was traveling with him from temple to temple, training or witnessing, really, the ancestral practice in my family of “healing with light and color.” My uncle would give a dharma talk, give healings, then the temple would put us up for the night, or as long as we could stay. I remember sitting on the balcony looking down at the mist in the valley below, the sun rising through the clouds, which turned rose and gold in turns — perhaps twenty variations of these colors — wrapped in a quilt, drinking chai from a little glass, and — from this time on, I never lost hope, no matter what happened to me or to others. I was recalibrated by atmosphere to the light in my own body, and lately, as I engage questions of aggression and community, what I do is go to the river near my house in Colorado, with my dog, and sit until the river comes out of itself and into me. It is the same thing. It is SHAKTI, which comes to us through the earth, its ethers and its bodies of water.

D: If you were handed loads of money and were forced to buy yourself an “item of extreme luxury,” what would you purchase and why?

B: I would buy England. I cannot tell you why. It is obvious.

D: Beyond the obvious, such as stress, exhaustion, minor persistent distractions, etc., etc., what can really stifle your creativity?

B: Even a year ago, I would have said: aggression. But, lately, even difficult things, even the things that break my heart, feel exactly “what is.” And as a writer I want to taste life on this planet, cross-cultural life, and violence will always be a part of that. Am no longer scared. I write every day like the dog that I am.

D: Finally, in the spirit of the digital museum, what are some online treasures you’d like to share with the world and why?

B: 1) Frances Farmer Is My Sister, Kate Zambreno’s blog.

Here’s a little taste, that doubles as an explanation:

“and lo and behind right on my desk! is Reines’ translation of The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal (subtitled “days and nights of an anarchist whore”) and I love, I love anarchist whores, I imagine myself an anarchist whore, and sometimes when I go about in my black knee boots and red beret I could be an anarchist whore, a recovered anarchist whore, I am not a recovered anarchist I am a recovered whore, but she was an anarchist whore, like Julia in 1984.”

2) INTERVIEW with Elizabeth Grosz by Robert Ausch, Randal Doane and Laura Perez: through CUNY. For more information about the “border between the living and non-living.” I want to write a dead book, because this is prebiotic. It’s the place where something stirs. At the same time when I show my work to friends, they suggest: “more details.” Or: “It’s a bit flat.” I am learning to retrain the automata of lyric events in my work, and this interview helps. It helps me with the part of species/sentence transformation that depends upon imperceptible events held in an early field. Writing books that deflect reading, that don’t attract it as a sexual relation (between the reader and the writer) is, perhaps, disgusting, boring and stupid. I want that stupid.

3) POETICS of HEALING: SFSU/Poetry Center series:

Upcoming lecture/panel/performances by Alphonso Lingis. Is this media? It is a set of directions on how to get there, and what to do when you arrive. I bought my tickets today. More notes towards the body and what the body could be.

Exhibition Skate at 2010 US Nationals to “Poker Face”:

And a great interview on preparing for Vancouver. When asked about the articles that are debating if he is good for the image of male figure skating, when asked specifically if he was “good for the sport,” he replies, “I don’t care if I’m good for the sport. I’m good for me; I’m doing what I love…. I am good for the sport, I suppose….”

To find out more about when Weir and others skate, you can refer to the TV listings on NBC Olympics.

Thanks, Maureen.