Photo Credit: Amy MillsJust recently, esteemed Noisey scribe Hank Shteamer delved deep into the terroristic drum machine-bludgeon and strangely catchy avant-metal world of Brooklyn’s Psalm Zero, particularly guitarist/shouter Andrew Hock’s jazz/metal lineage. Turns out, not only do Hock and his PZ cohort Charlie Looker sear faces with their singularly-minded maelstrom of a debut, The Drain (Profound Lore), but now the duo have padded their résumés as show bookers.After being prodded by Brooklyn scene czar Todd P and Diamond Terrifier/Zs mastermind Sam Hillmer—the brain-trust behind Ridgewood, Queens' vital DIY venue Trans Pecos—Hock and Looker melded their damaged aesthetics and blackened leanings and cooked up a monthly series they call Chaos Bodies.On the heels of the latest installment in the series coming this Saturday, April 26 featuring Mick Barr’s mangled one-man-show, Ocrilim, synth-splatterers Child Abuse, icky noise-mongers Couch Slut and genius composer David Buddin’s Nebadon, we decided to stalk Looker on email to get the dirt on Chaos Bodies.Noisey: How was the idea hatched to curate shows together?
Charlie Looker: Todd Patrick and Sam Hillmer, the guys who run Trans Pecos, asked me if I wanted to book a monthly night there. Sam and I go back over ten years, from playing in Zs together back in the day, and I’ve known Todd for almost as long. I was excited about the idea, but it seemed like it would be lonely and stressful to book the night on my own. So I asked Andrew if he wanted to book it with me as a kind of extension of what we’re doing with Psalm Zero. We’re obviously into so much of the same music and have a lot of the same friends, plus we also each know people who the other one doesn’t know, especially out of town bands. It seemed like combining forces would amount to more than the sum of its parts.Which one of you thought of calling the series “Chaos Bodies” and what was behind naming it that?
“Chaos Body” is the name of a Psalm Zero song, the third song on our album—usually the last in our live set. We were both thinking about using one of our song titles for the series title, and I can’t remember which one of us suggested that one, but we don’t have that many songs to choose from anyway. The song “Chaos Body” is about hedonism, self-destructive impulses, and the primal human drive toward chaos and even death. But that doesn’t represent some underlying concept for our series. The general vibe at these shows has been pretty sober and contemplative, so far at least. I could imagine the Couch Slut show getting more chaotic. We’ll see.Thus far, you’ve booked disparate acts, ranging from Kayo Dot, Lussuria, Jeremiah Cymerman, Oneirogen, Epistasis, and New Firmament for the first two series to the upcoming show with Ocrilim, Child Abuse, Couch Slut and Nebadon. What’s your process on choosing the bands for each bill? How closely do you work together in booking the shows?
We tend to decide on bills together, in a quick three-minute conversation. It’s not some involved process. We don’t tend to disagree on who should play. This series is really just about booking who we’re seriously into musically and who we’re friends with. We’re not trying to reach out to people whose music we’re lukewarm about, or who we don’t really know, trying to wrangle them onto a bill just to broaden the series’ audience or whatever. We just book who’s obvious to us and deep to us.Honestly, I feel like the use of the word “curator” for booking shows is kind of overblown. “Curation”, like in a museum, means assembling works and actually writing about them, drawing the whole thing together in some original way that makes a meaningful point within some academic art-historical discourse or something. We’re just booking gigs. If we were talking about the Psalm Zero writing process, then we could talk for hours about the deep issues involved. Booking this series isn’t that heavy. The shows are deep just because the bands are deep, and we run with deep people.
We met around eight years ago I think, back when I was playing in Zs and Andrew was coming to the shows. We kept in touch over the years as I was doing Extra Life and he was beginning Castevet. I became a big Castevet fan and then when I was breaking up Extra Life and considering my next move, I contacted Andrew about collaborating. So we’ve only gotten to know each other really well over the past two years, but we’ve known each other socially and respected each other’s musical work for far longer.How did the series ultimately wind up at Trans Pecos? And what is it about Trans Pecos that makes having Chaos Bodies work there?
As I said before, the series was born from the initial invitation from Todd and Sam. Andrew and I didn’t say, “Let’s start booking shows somewhere.” I suppose I could imagine doing Chaos Bodies somewhere else, but Trans Pecos is pretty ideal. The way the venue works is there isn’t one in-house booker. There are just several people, or several little groups, who book monthly or bi-monthly nights. That gives it a special feeling. The idea behind the venue is that it’s mostly for experimental music. It’s not a classical music high-art kind of place, but it’s not a raw DIY rock venue either. So that’s pretty in-line with where Andrew and I are at. What’s also cool is, Trans Pecos doesn’t need to have a show every single night of the week because they have income from renting some of the rooms as commercial and office spaces. So that means there isn’t pressure to pack hundreds of people in there for every show. Turnouts have actually been great so far and we’re happy about that, but it’s nice to know that we could book some even more obscure acts and not be nervously counting heads.Brad Cohan is a raw DIY rocker. He doesn't have Twitter. That's how much of a raw DIY rocker he is.
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Charlie Looker: Todd Patrick and Sam Hillmer, the guys who run Trans Pecos, asked me if I wanted to book a monthly night there. Sam and I go back over ten years, from playing in Zs together back in the day, and I’ve known Todd for almost as long. I was excited about the idea, but it seemed like it would be lonely and stressful to book the night on my own. So I asked Andrew if he wanted to book it with me as a kind of extension of what we’re doing with Psalm Zero. We’re obviously into so much of the same music and have a lot of the same friends, plus we also each know people who the other one doesn’t know, especially out of town bands. It seemed like combining forces would amount to more than the sum of its parts.Which one of you thought of calling the series “Chaos Bodies” and what was behind naming it that?
“Chaos Body” is the name of a Psalm Zero song, the third song on our album—usually the last in our live set. We were both thinking about using one of our song titles for the series title, and I can’t remember which one of us suggested that one, but we don’t have that many songs to choose from anyway. The song “Chaos Body” is about hedonism, self-destructive impulses, and the primal human drive toward chaos and even death. But that doesn’t represent some underlying concept for our series. The general vibe at these shows has been pretty sober and contemplative, so far at least. I could imagine the Couch Slut show getting more chaotic. We’ll see.
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We tend to decide on bills together, in a quick three-minute conversation. It’s not some involved process. We don’t tend to disagree on who should play. This series is really just about booking who we’re seriously into musically and who we’re friends with. We’re not trying to reach out to people whose music we’re lukewarm about, or who we don’t really know, trying to wrangle them onto a bill just to broaden the series’ audience or whatever. We just book who’s obvious to us and deep to us.Honestly, I feel like the use of the word “curator” for booking shows is kind of overblown. “Curation”, like in a museum, means assembling works and actually writing about them, drawing the whole thing together in some original way that makes a meaningful point within some academic art-historical discourse or something. We’re just booking gigs. If we were talking about the Psalm Zero writing process, then we could talk for hours about the deep issues involved. Booking this series isn’t that heavy. The shows are deep just because the bands are deep, and we run with deep people.
Your band Psalm Zero has seemingly come out of nowhere and now you are booking shows together. How the hell did you guys meet?
We met around eight years ago I think, back when I was playing in Zs and Andrew was coming to the shows. We kept in touch over the years as I was doing Extra Life and he was beginning Castevet. I became a big Castevet fan and then when I was breaking up Extra Life and considering my next move, I contacted Andrew about collaborating. So we’ve only gotten to know each other really well over the past two years, but we’ve known each other socially and respected each other’s musical work for far longer.How did the series ultimately wind up at Trans Pecos? And what is it about Trans Pecos that makes having Chaos Bodies work there?
As I said before, the series was born from the initial invitation from Todd and Sam. Andrew and I didn’t say, “Let’s start booking shows somewhere.” I suppose I could imagine doing Chaos Bodies somewhere else, but Trans Pecos is pretty ideal. The way the venue works is there isn’t one in-house booker. There are just several people, or several little groups, who book monthly or bi-monthly nights. That gives it a special feeling. The idea behind the venue is that it’s mostly for experimental music. It’s not a classical music high-art kind of place, but it’s not a raw DIY rock venue either. So that’s pretty in-line with where Andrew and I are at. What’s also cool is, Trans Pecos doesn’t need to have a show every single night of the week because they have income from renting some of the rooms as commercial and office spaces. So that means there isn’t pressure to pack hundreds of people in there for every show. Turnouts have actually been great so far and we’re happy about that, but it’s nice to know that we could book some even more obscure acts and not be nervously counting heads.Brad Cohan is a raw DIY rocker. He doesn't have Twitter. That's how much of a raw DIY rocker he is.