July 2013: …Your King County Queens

Greetings and hallucinations my brothers and sisters-

The month is July and in the United States of America we know what that means – it is the month of revolution! It is the month we celebrate telling English poofters to shove off and leave our continent alone. Viva!

To celebrate this eventful period we are releasing not one but two albums this month. First up, is the King County
Queens. They are a band that features 3 guys named Scott and one Not-Scott. I dig ‘em. They are love-rock. No wait – they are Amerigaze. That’s right! They were featured on our last year’s X-mas special and I said to Howie, let’s just keep an eye on these lads – they might turn out to be sumthin. They are part of the current Seattle old dude rock scene – guys (mostly) who just want to rock and don’t really care too much where the chips land. After we agreed to release this excellent record we needed a cover. I considered all the obvious choices and thought they should name the album “Dow”. I sent them this cover.

It was rejected. (For those of you who aren’t from King County – where Seattle is – West Seattle-ite & Sparks fan Dow Constantine is our County Executive – that’s him pasted on the Queen of England.) Better taste prevailed and a far superior cover was created by Marsh. Their album is available July 16 from fine stores, GMR and other swell online sources. If you buy it direct from GMR, you get two bonus download tracks. Pretty sweet. We just shot a video for Krautrock and will be sending that your way pretty shortly. These guys play around town pretty regular, usually at places you can purchase adult beverages. You should go see ‘em. THEY ARE PLAYING Saturday, July 20th, 2013, 9 pm. — at Skylark West Seattle for their CD release party. You should also “like” the Facebook page. Oh yeah – the real cover is at the top of the page.

td

July 2013

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Ladies & Gentlemen, Your King County Queens (GM1018)

1 Words I Can See
2 Krautrock!
3 Kids on the Farm
4 Kelp Whip
5 The Best, The Blessed and The Rest
6 Road Flower Blossom
7 Top Crow
8 Es Solamente
9 You Get The Fear
10 Rinse, Spin, Spin!
11 The Divine Invasion
12 A Tide of String

The band:

Scott Vanderpool – Drums, Vocals
Scott Sutherland – Vocals, Guitar
Marsh “Scott” Gooch – Bass, Vocals
Scott Muhlbeier – Guitar (includes wah-wah)

Credits:

Produced by King County Queens
Executive Producer Tom Dyer
Recorded @ Earwig Studio Seattle WA by Don Farwell February 2013
Mixed by Don Farwell, Scott Sutherland & Scott Muhlbeier March 2013
Mastered by Tom Dyer @ Green Monkey, Easter Sunday 2013
All songs by Scott/Scott/Scott/Marsh © Yap Music B.V. (BMI)
Design: Al Forno, Tom Dyer
Photos: Jeremy Wahlen (shot at Slim’s)

King County Queens facebook
Contact: kingcountyqueens@gmail.com

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The Official KCQ interview:

td – How was the band formed – how did you meet?

SM – Sutherland and I know each other from the early 90’s when we worked at a company that made “Foreground music”.  If I recall, back in June of 2011 Sutherland attended a farewell show at The Sunset Tavern for the band Osaka Explosion that I was playing guitar in at the time. We briefly chatted about giving a go at writing some tunes together and before I knew it, the next day we were in his basement. We hadn’t ever wrote/played together before and it seemed to instantly gel. I think we sketched out the skeleton to 15 or so songs in the course of that summer.

A couple months later we had talked about taking this a bit further and Sutherland had mentioned he knew of a bass player (Marsh). Shortly thereafter I got to meet Vanderpool at a show in West Seattle, that’s when Sutherland and I confronted Vanderpool about drumming and, boom, The King County Queens was formed.

SS – In 2010 or so, my old band Paul Lynde Fan Club (Scott S) played a show with Osaka Explosion (Scott M).  When two Scotts meet it’s quite a thrill.  Actually, I worked with Scott M for a number of years at an elevator music distributor.  We both like psychedelic guitar so we started writing and recording in my home studio.  A little bit later in the year we ran into Scott V outside a show at the Skylark Cafe.  When three Scotts meet it’s just short of ecstatic.  Scott V. and I played in a band back in the 80’s (Chemistry Set) when we were young and drunk.  We tried to get another Scott but couldn’t pass up roping in Marshall.  Marsh and I had been planning a band that only does covers about cars.

SV – I have a basement jam space all set up. People come over periodically and start playing. These guys never left. I knew SS from Chemistry Set, and Marsh from KCMU. They brought SM along, one of the best psychedelic players ever. They may still be there, I’m not home right now.

MG – We’ve never met.

td – What music do you like?

SM – I love the 60’s garage psych stuff, Jefferson Airplane has been a fav of mine over the years and lately I’ve been checking out some of the live Airplane recordings up on YouTube (amazing stuff!). The early 90’s Shoegaze stuff, bands like Slowdive, Storm in Heaven era The Verve are also favs. Psych stuff like Spaceman3 and The Black Angels also frequent my musical playback devices. The heavy stuff like early 70’s like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple are excellent as well.

SS – Personally, I like anything that’s got some originality and spirit.  Right now, I’m listening to a lot of Jefferson Airplane from 1965 and 1966.  There’s a lot of good live stuff floating around the Internets.  Groups from 1964 to 1966 really get my brain buzzing.  Pretty Things, Byrds, Love, Kinks… you know, and The Move.  I like everything they did.

SV – I always go back to Duke Ellington on this, he once said “There’s only two kinds of music, good music and bad music”. I generally try to listen to good music, or music that I make myself. I have a day job in corporate rock radio, and god knows I get enough bad music there. If I were to nail Leslie Moonves’ head to the table and play what I want, there’d be a hell of a lot more Swervedriver and Guided by Voices and The Wipers because these goddamned kids today don’t know anything. Get off my lawn!

MG – Good music.

td – What other bands do you guys play in?

SM – I also play guitar in a dream pop/shoegazey outfit called Half Light.

SS – Right now I’m in KCQ. A couple bands I played in have been doing some gigs recently just for fun – Model Rockets and Llama. I also contribute a lot to a group called Donovan’s Brain, which is a trippy collective of musicians that includes Deniz Tek from Radio Birdman and Matt Piucci from Rain Parade.

SV – The Green Pajamas, The Young (not quite so much anymore) Pioneers, The Slim Poles, and Down With People. Some of these are more active than others.

MG – I don’t–these guys keep me on my toes enough.

td – What do you have in your pedal set up?

SM – I need to have an intervention ‘cause I’m a pedal junkie and have been for the last 13 years since I discovered the Shoegaze music genre. I’m using an Ibanez TS9, Chandler Tube Driver and SubDecay Fuzzbox for the gain, a Sudecay Echobox and Boss DD7 for delay, a HBE phaser, a n Ibanez flanger and for that extra psych kick when needed a Boss reverb.

SS – I don’t go crazy with the pedals. It’s bad enough I have to sing all the damn songs! I use a compressor and a tube screamer. I bought the tube screamer in 1984 with the money I made working the graveyard shift at the Denny’s in Fife, WA.  Good times.

SV – The usual KCQ set up is a DW 5000 and a Tama hi-hat, but I have another kit I use sometimes that is all Pearl.

MG – Rose, tulip and daisy petals.

td – How critical is wah-wah?

SS – I can’t use wah-wah without making funny shapes with my mouth so I don’t!  You’ll have to ask Scott M.

SM – I pay homage to it when the gods demand it.

SV – To the drums? Not very, but I’ve always liked them. Both Scotts have them, Ron Nine from DWP uses his constantly, Jeff Kelly from the PJ’s almost never, and my wife Laura hates them, which is probably why….

MG – It’s one of the best songs on All Things Must Pass

 

td –  Will you have female back up singers on your next record?

SM – Hmm

SS – Only if we change musical direction and adopt an Elvis in Vegas act with horns and a Charlie Hodge-type lackey that brings us our water and scarves.

SV – My wife Laura, also in the PJ’s would love to sing with us, but she hates wah-wah pedals.

MG – If they show up.

td – What’s the deal with the Kelp song?

SM – I think Sutherland penned the lyrics while walking on a beach and checking out dead sea creatures. You’ll have to ask him for elaboration.

SS – Oh man, we don’t have time to delve deeply into that! I’m fascinated with decay and transformation. All the things in that song I encountered on a beach in Washington State after a nasty storm. I left out the large sea lion carcass. I have pictures if you want to see ’em.

SV – It’s Kelp WHIP goddammit. These wash up on the beaches of the North Pacific, and you can play with them for free. I know, unbelievable! You’d think some self-important jackhole like M*tt R*mn*y would corner the market, or manipulate the way the government controls them so one large corporation would make it all better, but you can just pick them up off the beach and whip away. For now. Once M*tt hears this song, all bets are off.

MG – It’s about Brad Kelp, former lead singer of Boston. He used to have this home made whip…

td – Who’s the new bass player?

SM – Mr. Dave Swafford.  He used to play in Best Kissers in The World.

SS – Our new bass player is Dave Swafford. He used to play in Best Kissers in the World. Dave and I live about 5 minutes from each other in West Seattle. We like power pop quite a bit. So much so that we put together a Plimsouls cover band. I boogie over to his house with Vander on Sundays and we tear through those tunes. When Marsh told us he was going to Hollywood, Dave was the natural choice to replace him.

SV – Dave Swafford is not only an awesome singing bass player, he’s the Italian contingent of the League of Nations motorcycle club.

MG – New bass player? What?

td – If Scott was killed in a horrible nine car pile-up tomorrow, who would you replace him with?

SM – Kill Scott?  Which one?  All 3 of us?  That’s over half the band.

SS – It will take more than nine cars to kill Scott. We’re similar to the Borg from Star Trek, Next Generation.  There are too many of us. It was a popular name 50 years or so ago apparently.

MG – We would replace each Scott with a Marsh

td – You guys are all married. Does that put a chill on the ladies when you’re struttin’ on stage?

SM – I’m actually engaged, but, I’m quite happy, plus I’m too old for such tom foolery anyways. I play because I love to play guitar, make records and play out live. Bonus if people actually like it.

SS – At our age, it’s all Rock and Roll. We’re too old for the Sex and Drugs. The kind of girls who grope guys in bands will either get you hooked on heroin or show up at your doorstep expecting to move in with you after the tour. Bad Ju-Ju!!

MG – Our ladies don’t tend to get together much as it is.

td – What was the most emotionally moving gig you have done and what happened?

SM – Colourbox back around June ’95.  It was the first time in my life where I played in front of more than 10 of my friends.  The place was almost filled to capacity and we sold a bunch of cassettes that night (anyone remember cassettes?), I was so fucking nervous.  I can’t remember for the life of me who we played with but I had one hell of a hangover the next day.

SS – Playing El Sol in Madrid with the Model Rockets in the late 90’s was hands down the best live show experience of my life. 1,000 spanish fans singing every song. I got teary.

MG – Too personal.

td – Anything else interesting/amusing?

SM – My pony bit me on the leg once when I was a kid on the farm.

SS – Yes, Scott Vanderpool makes one helluva BBQ hamburger.  Well, it’s interesting to ME.

MG – I have an enormous…. pet rock.

td – Who was more popular, the Beatles or Jesus?

SM – I know Jesus! We went to school together in my younger days.

SS – Jesus has got some serious staying power.  His little movement has been around for over a couple millennia.   The Beatles have only been around for fifty years.  When the fabs get their own Vatican, then we can revisit that question!

MG – Ché Stadium.