Published: April 18, 2008 11:01 PM EST
By: Isaac Davis Jr., MBA (Juniorscave.com)
Alan McCabe of HeadFlap
Alan McCabe of HeadFlap took the time from his busy schedule to allow Junior’s Cave to interview him about the band. I was thrilled to learn more about this group whom I feel is one of the bests on the market today. I hope you enjoy this spotlight as much as I enjoyed working on it.
Isaac: I read in your bio that you guys started as a quartet at Ursinus College in August of 1992. Describe that first initial meeting that you had with each other:
Alan: That first line up was me, Matt Hicks, Chris Wirtalla and Jim “Moses” Crowder. Matt was my roommate, Chris was introduced to us by friends, and Moses was a guy who EVEYBODY on campus knew. Plus he lived the floor below us and would often stop by with his guitar. Often this was a welcome distraction -- but his insistence on playing while we were trying to watch TV could be annoying.
That was my sophomore year. That year we did much dreaming and planning to start a band. The next year, on the first night of orientation, we had our first practice ever, in my new dorm room, which was in a house called Sprankle, in a quiet corner of campus. The infirmary was a floor below. We started playing and within 4 songs a townie phoned in a noise complaint to the cops, who shut us down. The officer was very cool about it. He took down our names as if he were writing liner notes.
Getting shut down did not stop us that night. We moved our minimal gear down to Ritter Center, a blackbox theater space, and continued to rock. Ritter was one of 3 main locations where we typically practiced for the next 2 years.
Isaac: Your first CD is entitled "Cheese on Wheat" and released by a small local label in 1995. Describe the whole process of making that first album and what did you learned from that experience?
Alan: I really like this question and the way you phrased it. I believe I am a process-oriented person, meaning that I enjoy the act of creating at least as much as, and sometimes more than, the end result. Every endeavor should be learned from no matter how experienced you get as you age. Yeah. So, since that was the first time out, there were lots of things to learn.
I remember we had a lot of ideas about every aspect and sometimes the ideas could not co-exist. Sonic issues / production choices for instance. Drummer Chris and I loved this album Tool of the Man by Poster Children, in part for how powerful and pristine the drums sounded and how loud in the mix they were. But also I loved the wall of guitar sound the Pixies got on Trompe le Monde and that Frank Black continued with on his first 2 solo records. Well I think we realized pretty quickly that you can’t have both be the focal point. So maybe this got me thinking more about realistic sonic expectations, and that if you’re just hoping to recapture a number of cool things you’ve heard on other people’s records, but your mind cannot imagine what they will sound like together, chances are that combining them all really is not going to work; certainly not on a beginner’s budget.
Just as we were starting to record, Hicks disappeared, and Paul Chell played the parts, and Moses and I played the rest. Also, Creep mastermind Arik Victor was turning us… well me mostly, onto all kinds of more serious gear. So the results of these sudden changes were good and bad. Paul is a less aggressive player; Arik was making the studio’s more rockin’ heads and cabinets available to us. Our demos had sounded like XTC; the CD has shades of Sabbath -- no matter how vehemently I denied this back then. I learned some lessons about how far I should go in allowing those around me to change how I imagine the band should sound. I am happy to say I did not conclude that I alone am always right and will never let anyone contribute. On the contrary, I still value the collaborative approach. Every now and then, there might be occasional song elements that I insist on doing my way.
Isaac: At this moment, what aspect of making music excites you the most right now?
Alan: Although I am very very excited about playing live again after an eight year hiatus, it’s the initial stages of songwriting that continues to excite me most. Internet promotion these past few weeks has suddenly become way more interesting to me, too.
Isaac: If you could name just one thing from personal experience or observation, what aspect of making music gets you the most discouraged?
Alan: It’s discouraging that overly computerized production of mainstream music has brainwashed young listeners into being less tolerant of experimentalization, individualistic or non-formulaic approaches. At the same time, similar to what happened to “alternative” music a generation earlier; the term “experimental” is now used to describe a genre with very specific expectations. So there you have 2 perfectly good English words that the music industry and society have taken and are now used to mean exactly the opposite of what they used to mean. It is discouraging -- or at the very least, inconvenient because what if I want to try something I have not heard another band tried? I would call that “experimental“, but someone -- on garage band, let’s say -- gives me a poor review because they expected it to sound like those other bands who are placed in the GENRE Experimental. Eventually we’re gonna run out of words that mean “different from that which is typical.”
Massive unstoppable societal trends like that are all that discourage/piss me off anymore. Personal issues with band mates/ letting logistics ruin my day/ I really think those types of issues are things of the past. There are always a million other tasks to channel my energy towards. I’m too devoted to the calling to consider stopping.
Isaac: Your influences range from Ppixies, Pavement, and Nirvana. How these artists’ music helped did shaped the way your band performs today?
Alan: Aside from the Nevermind album, these 3 bands rocked with a great deal of noise in the guitar sound, there was not a gross amount of sterility and polish. Bass lines were especially noticeable, eq’d and composed in such a way that they do not just fill out the bottom in unison with the guitar rhythms, like the Van Halen approach. We have a lot of lyrical weirdness like Pavement. Of these 3 influences, I’d say we lean way more towards Pavement and Pixies in temperament, we never get as dark as Nirvana but I think you can find some nods to their legacy here and there.
Isaac: Some of your songs seem to have a sense of humor to them. Is this something that you purposely written when you were compiling your lyrics?
Alan: Humor is a coping method and a defense mechanism in addition to a tool used to entertain people. In our song “Laughing Lessons,” a longtime comedian’s years of telling jokes culminates to the point one night that he collapses onstage and doctors discover he has no insides. They have disappeared. People crack jokes at minor traffic accidents nervously to test how seriously hurt the victims are, then celebratorally once it’s affirmed that everyone survived. At massive disasters, folks don’t crack jokes. It’s true; some of our songs have wordplay, dry humor, apparent nonsense and outright jokes. But some don’t.
Isaac: Since your time together as a band, what's the most unusual place you've ever played a show or made a recording? How did the qualities of that place affect the show/recording?
Alan: In 1997ish, the second line up played a parade -- not marching -- in Reading, Pa. Kind of surreal. I forget what it was in celebration of. Military folks were there. I felt compelled to introduce as “a band from West Chester with a funny name,” and I could just FEEL my band mates rolling their eyes in disgust over this stupid, apologetic choice of words. I think we rocked, though. It was a really short set after a very long drive. I played in my songs, sitting on a bass amp. It with me on it fell off the riser at the end.
Isaac: In what ways does the place where you live (or places where you have lived), affect the music you create, or your taste in music; you are from Pennsylvania?
Alan: Yes, southeastern Pa, the Philadelphia area; aka the Delaware Valley. I still greatly feel the repercussions of having listened mainly to WIOQ 102 all throughout the mid to late 70s. I guess even into the 80s. Adult contemo.. That station introduced my late brother and me to ELO, who blew my mind and fascinate me to this day. Other similar acts like Chiliwac, Roxie Music, Badfinger and Alan Parsons Projects show up in my songs. But in my formative years I had no awareness or interest in local music -- encountering all that came much later. All I was aware of and all that seemed logical for a musician to emulate was what I heard on the radio and then in ‘85 when we got cable, saw on MTV. The only thing that I knew that came out of Philly was Hall and Oates, and though I bought their huge lps, they were not a band my brother and I ever sang along to while banging on toy instruments.
Years later, once the band formed in college, I think it was only Hicks who had an awareness of a musical community from his region. He knew a bit about the folk scene in and around Erie, Pa -- way diagonally across the opposite corner of our large state. It was our shared familiarity with certain nationally and internationally known classic and indie/alternative rock acts that we built our sound on.
So once we got to know more and more of the local bands, who I think in general, were building their sounds on local influences, this broader -based pool of artists we were emulating might have been part of what impressed those who could get past the name. Being in the Philly scene -- and I really make a distinction between this West Philly scene we work within, as opposed to the suburban scene we were on the fringes for a time -- has made me deeply appreciate the importance of a tight knit regional support group, and the quality of the work that can come out of such a scene. Being able to glimpse into communities like these on the internet is phenomenal. I just wish I had more brains, pairs of ears, and time on earth to listen to it all.
Isaac: When was the last time you wrote a song? What can you tell us about it?
Alan: I have dozens of lyric fragments saved here on my new vista. All of them are in that kind of raunchier they might be giants thing I got into on stone cold blue. I promise I will take the time to record them in a less cheesy, rhythmically cluttered fashion, as I have been criticized for doing, whether these songs end up as one-man projects or with Moses, Zach and Kit.
The one I have finished so far, about a month ago, is called “Croakythroat” which refers to that “sexy” morning voice that is overused lately in all music genres as a way to seduce impressionable music fans into thinking the singer wants to hump them.
Isaac: As you create more music, do you find yourself getting more or less interested in seeking out and listening to new music made by other people...and why do you think that is?
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Alan: Yes, I still seek out indie artists on the web. In fact, more than ever, I enjoy young undiscovered acts way better than the young artist releases by the majors. Artists out there who decide not to pursue a huge record deal are just more experimental, interesting, exciting, all the things that make music more fun. I do love capitalism. I have no problem with artists seeking to earn money; I am trying to do that. But the majors never find the artists, emo, who have found a good balance between real originality and accessibility. I rely on many sites and a few methods to seek out stuff I’ll like. And my friends recommend stuff to me. My current favorite that I learned about that way is Against Me! For all I know they might be signed to a major by now. But they sure sound indie, and they are awesome.
Isaac: Lately, what musical periods or styles do you find yourself most drawn to as a listener (excluding Pixies, Pavement, Nirvana, and Firehouse)?
Alan: Wait, before I answer that. The cheese metal thing known as Firehouse was never an influence or anything any of us ever listened to. We were very obsessed with Firehose, the amazing alt/punk/prog/folk/bar band that bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley formed with Ed Crawford after D. Boon’s death caused the Minutemen to fold. Check out the DVD, “We Jam Econo”.
I am mostly listening to late 60s thru 1975 prog rock, jazz rock and jazz. I am especially obsessed with David Allen and his primary bands, Soft Machine and Gong.
I do still listen to the music that inspired my music, as I hear it, I remember what I took from it and applied to mine. I hope I start to find any new music where that band took an idea from us… as long as it isn’t blatant plagiarism. Then we got problems.
Isaac: Name a band or musician, past or present, who you flat-out LOVE and think more people should be listening to. What's one of your all-time favorite recordings by this band/musician?
Alan: Firehose-- “Chemical Wire”.
Isaac: What's the saddest song you've ever heard?
Alan: As a kid, ELO’s “Shangri-La” off the New World Record album used to choke me up pretty bad. The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” seemed like a nice bouncy ditty to me back then but I musta heard it again in college because around that time I realized how devastating the lyrics are. Thus, the term ADULT contempo.
My brother wrote a song called “Right the Right” in which, if I remember it right, the chorus was “I tried to right the right / but it all came out so wrong / there’s nothing I can do / To make it up to you.”
