My sister, Ian, and I at Sasquatch music festival.
"Do you guys want a beer or something?" Ian Williams asks us. This he does right before starting a video interview by a local paper. The DV interview largely consists of the band praising television and recreational persription drug use over Seattle sight seeing. My sister and I stand backstage out of the way, leering at the camera guy's uncompromsing 80's haircut.
"You have to leave before you can come back and make it big," says Ian. Battles played in New York at Pianos and Northsix (what is now the Music Hall at Williamsburg, newly owned by the Bowery Ballroom/Mercury Lounge people), but they really picked up critical buzz after touring Japan on the dollar of a Japanese club promoter.
"Do you guys want a beer or something?" Ian Williams asks us. This he does right before starting a video interview by a local paper. The DV interview largely consists of the band praising television and recreational persription drug use over Seattle sight seeing. My sister and I stand backstage out of the way, leering at the camera guy's uncompromsing 80's haircut.
Try to imagine one of the most hyped, yet still completly rad, progressive-rock musicians in the world offering you free beer. And then, imagine not being in the least bit nervous or even excited. This is what being related to Ian Williams is like.
I guess we are distant cousins. Perhaps he is my uncle? Regardless, he is related by marriage to my dad's paternal cousin, who went - or at least tried to go - to Woodstock and was stopped on the highway by the national guard. On the other hand, it woulden't be cool to be related to Ian unless, well, Ian was cool. The knowledge of our relationship came last winter just as Battles was begining to get recoginition in the states, after being one of those bands that is "big in Japan." We started emailing and eventually ended up outside of Neumos in Seattle, chatting about family matters.
As we sipped out beers backstage at Bumbershoot last week, Ian waxed poetic on rock and roll fame.
"You have to leave before you can come back and make it big," says Ian. Battles played in New York at Pianos and Northsix (what is now the Music Hall at Williamsburg, newly owned by the Bowery Ballroom/Mercury Lounge people), but they really picked up critical buzz after touring Japan on the dollar of a Japanese club promoter.
We talked for a while about remixes. I was curious about his process, but he was pretty dismissive and seemed to regard them as a largly promotional tool. I coulden't really argue. He did mention a remix he did (using the alias I Will) of a band from the UK who he said reminded him of Beat Happening. I said "proto grunge" and he agreed. I assume the band he was trying to remember was London's Television Personalies. Pretty fucking dope sounds. They remind me of the super-young (I originally knew them as freshmen in high school) Seattle punk band Seahouse.
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