Posted in Questionnaire on September 14th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Julia Gaeta of Dreamwheel
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Playing music feels like an inevitable path, but one that didn’t become clear to me until around 21 years old. My parents are both professional classical musicians and I spent much of my early life in the musical world surrounded by virtuosos. I tried various instruments that never held my interest. But something hit me while I was in college with the guitar. I started skipping university classes to stay home and play. Since those early days of covering stuff on guitar in my bedroom, I’ve ventured into songwriting, playing live, etc.
Describe your first musical memory.
My mom had a big ’90s wooden entertainment console in our living room when I was growing up. There was a TV, stereo system with 2 giant black speakers on the sides, and drawers full of cassettes and CDs. I remember picking out Holst’s The Planets – specifically the version recorded by the Berliner Philharmonic and conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
I sat with my back against the speakers so I could feel the bass, and closed my eyes. I was totally transfixed by “Mars”. I would go back there and play it over and over again and just become enveloped in a feeling, like I was floating in the complete blackness of space. I think this shaped my love of 5/4 time signature specifically, as well as variation in textures and dynamics in music. “Jupiter” is another great one – it’s got an absolutely heart-wrenching melody towards the middle.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Seeing my dad play clarinet with Metallica in-the-round for S&M2. I’m not sure anything I ever do with music will bring the same level of unbridled joy I felt from that one, since Metallica is the band that got me into heavy music. I laughed and cried and screamed and all that. After the gig, my dad and I were out at a random pizza joint and some Metallica fans came up to him and were freaking out. He ate it up – he’s totally not used to that. It was hilarious.
Wow, I’m talking about my parents a lot, aren’t I? I guess there’s a reason for that. They’re mostly responsible for this path I’m on, whether they like it or not!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Every time I’ve made it through a tidal wave of self-doubt or crippling anxiety. You are not your brain…
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I feel that the second I get caught up in outcomes or final destinations, things start to feel less authentic. So I don’t really think about this too often.
How do you define success?
As a musician? I don’t think I have a single definition – it depends on the day. It could be creating something that stands the test of time in my own head, or creating something that pushes me into more authentic expression – like when I started solo music. It could be having an awesome musical collaborator like I do in Dreamwheel or getting to know incredible people through the act of creating. It could be someone telling me they resonated strongly with a song, getting my music played to more ears or being invited to play somewhere new. It could be having access to a clean bathroom backstage.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I love big bustling metropolises, and over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to call several of them my home. But recently, especially since the pandemic, big cities in both the US and Europe seem to be more and more challenging places to live for not just artists but people in general. Homelessness, drugs, rising prices, lack of affordable housing, etc. It’s a tough pill to swallow for those affected.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Plenty of stuff. Something gnarly and anonymous. A film score. More weird guitar-based stuff. My first full-length solo record.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
If I knew, I probably wouldn’t feel compelled to create anything.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Posted in Questionnaire on September 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Evan Linger of Dreamwheel and Skeletonwitch
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I never really liked anything the way I like and gravitate towards music. Growing up, everything felt like static. Not horribly terrible but also not stimulating or exciting to any degree. It was all going through the motions to fit in like everyone else; get up, go to school (later work), play sports or have a typical hobby, watch TV, spend time with people I called friends and repeat. Even at a young age this all felt like being in some kind of tedious purgatory, especially growing up in the homogenous American Midwest. I was, even at a young age, full of complex feeling and emotions that had no place in the static and dull world that surrounded me. Luckily for me, my mother is a music fan and has great taste. I began to realise that, although I could not physically escape my grey and monotone surroundings, there is a bigger and more vibrant world out there. A world that fit me or at least had room for complex emotions and thoughts. I think this is true for so many people. When we have or create music, as a fan or artist, the world doesn’t seem so dull and depressing and grey. One can give some meaning and color to an otherwise chaotic an tragic world with music. At the very least we can express or feel something deep and rich we would not normally get to feel with the power of music. I essentially came to do what I do out of necessity.
Describe your first musical memory.
It is all a mix of not physical memories but rather a switched being turned on at some point. If I had to take a guess it would be riding in the car with my mother and her knowing the words to 60s and 70s rock songs and telling me all about the song and the artists. Later thumbing through piles of LPs and listening to certain songs over and over just to catch a certain feeling again.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I have been very lucky to not just be a listener, which would have been fine enough for me, but to have put music out in the world that may have also given a handful of people the same feelings I get when listening to music. This is the best for me. On a stage or on a record, it doesn’t matter.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I believe nothing is fixed or permanent. If you have firm beliefs eventually you are going to get very disappointed. Everyone is living their own reality and having their own experience and you have to be flexible or at least cognisant of that. You have to be open to everyone’s perspective even of its polarising to yours. It is a daily exercise for me to recognise this and I still struggle with it.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
The whole exercise itself of progressing as an artist isn’t a means to an end or leading to some final goal. The effort to progress is the end game. Art isn’t a science with defined parameters. If you pick up an instrument or put on a new record or go to a museum that effort itself is what’s important. Our willingness to create or absorb art leads us to want to create and absorb more. Art and creativity lead to more art and creativity.
How do you define success?
This is a very personal. There is commercial, monetary and personal success. Music can exist in one or all of these spaces. For me, it is being satisfied with the effort I put in to create the music. This always feels like a big success. If I can listen back to a record I played on and know, even with its flaws, I did the best I could in that time then I feel like it was a successful undertaking.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I have had some good and bad experiences in the music world. All of them helped me get where I am now and I try and find some gold even in the shit ones.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I am on a constant quest to make songs and music that pushes emotions deeper and farther. I think a good artist always thinks he/she still has to create no matter how far they have come. I cannot imagine one day saying ‘’I did it all and it was all great and I have nothing more to say’’.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To move people to a place they otherwise couldn’t be moved without art.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Just spending time with good people that I have in my life.
To my ears, Spirit Caravan is the blues, plain and simple. Like the best of the classic blues, it could be, but didn’t always have to be dark or depressing or aggressive in order to be heavy or to convey a sense of weight. It’s been a couple years at this point, so if you don’t remember, you’re certainly forgiven, but I used to run a regular weekly feature around here called Wino Wednesday. I quite literally did 200 of them. And yes, Spirit Caravan‘s 1999 Dreamwheel EP (on MeteorCity) was discussed as part of that series, but as we move toward Springtime, it’s hard for me not to go back to this band and this short release in particular, precisely because it’s that combination of hopeful and heavy that’s so rare, not only in the canon of Scott “Wino” Weinrich, but in the wider sphere of heavy as a whole. And where there is happy heavy, it’s almost never done so well or to such a degree of each as it felt natural for Spirit Caravan to represent. They hit the balance just right.
And yeah, I could have closed out the week (and probably will at some point close out a week) with Spirit Caravan‘s landmark 1999 debut, Jug Fulla Sun (discussed here), or that record’s 2001 follow-up, Elusive Truth, or even their 2003 swansong compilation The Last Embrace, but Dreamwheel has a special feel about it. I won’t take anything away from Jug Fulla Sun, and if we’re picking favorite Spirit Caravan records, that’s my pick, but for the fact that Dreamwheel clocks in at under 20 minutes long, has five easy-rolling tracks, and asks nothing more of its audience than a bit of nod, I just feel like it’s the sonic equivalent of an unexpected compliment. Right? Like someone coming up to you and saying something nice out of the blue. “Oh, here’s Dreamwheel,” and instantly your day is better. I don’t know a lot of releases, full-length, EP, or otherwise, that can pull that off in the kind of lasting way that Dreamwheel does, beginning with the six-minute opening title-track’s examination of spirituality, bouncing groove, aliens or who knows what else is going on in there. I won’t profess to, but it rounds out with the line, “You’ve got to dream and keep on rollin’,” and as rock and roll sentiments go, that’s a tough one to beat. As happens with a lot of short releases (and albums, for that matter), Dreamwheel becomes in large part defined by its titular cut. Not only is “Dreamwheel” the longest inclusion (plus opener equals immediate points), but the tone it sets plays into the following “Burnin’ In,” the cymbal-abrasion-into-guitar-led-scorch of “Re-Alignment / Higher Power,” and into the closing pair of “Sun Stoned” and “C, Yourself” as well.
Through it all, Wino, bassist/backing vocalist Dave Sherman (who’d shortly move on to his first release with Earthride) and drummer Gary Isom showed with no small thanks to the Chris Kozlowski recording job their utter mastery of that righteous, potent brew that was their own and that has never been anyone else’s, even among other “Wino bands,” whether that’s The Obsessed, The Hidden Hand, Wino (actually, the shortlived Wino band came closest), Premonition 13 or whoever. All at the same time, it’s a sound that’s classic in its construction and influence, modern in its presentation, natural in tone, laid back, heavy, consuming but accessible, at once of Maryland doom tradition and working in defiance of it. That scene — and please don’t take this as a slight against Maryland doom, which if you read this site, ever, you know I hold dear — has never produced another band like Spirit Caravan, and Spirit Caravan only made one Dreamwheel EP.
It’s a moment in time that never came again. As they moved on to Elusive Truth in 2001, their sound took on a doomier feel, and in 2002, Spirit Caravan would call it a day as Sherman went on to focus on Earthride, Wino joined Place of Skulls for a time and launched The Hidden Hand, whose debut, Divine Propaganda, arrived in 2003, and Isom floated between a host of acts, among them Nitroseed, Valkyrie, Unorthodox and Pentagram. Of course the band got back together, first with the original lineup, and then not, in 2014 and played live shows and started to work on new material, but would disintegrate again as that reunion transitioned into one for The Obsessed, whose new LP, Sacred, is out next week on Relapse Records with a recording lineup of Wino, Sherman and drummer Brian Costantino, who had replaced Isom in Spirit Caravan‘s final to-date incarnation.
Got all that? Bottom line is Dreamwheel, while short, is a record of which it’s worth basking in every minute. There is no moment on it that does not satisfy or does not enrich the listener, and I hope that as you make your way through it, you have the experience I referred to above, and you come out of it feeling better than you did going in. Think of it as my way of saying something nice.
Even if you don’t get there, as always, I hope you enjoy.
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I took today off work. One doesn’t want to oversell it by calling it the best decision I’ve ever made, but it certainly is glorious. Don’t get me wrong, most days, I don’t hate my job. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. But as I roll steadily into middle age — I’m 36 in October — I realize more and more that office life, working for someone else, corporate or small company, isn’t what I want to be doing with my days.
As a kid, I watched my father sweat and travel and stress for a series of jobs he hated because he felt like it was what he needed to do to support his family. He wanted to die. Literally. For years. Part of that is chemical, as I know from my own experience, but as I sit in my kitchen on this morning off and watch the sun come up across my backyard, I know that while on some levels he was right — my family wouldn’t have gotten by in the same way on my mom’s public school teacher’s salary — there’s another kind of value at play as well, and that’s the value of making your existence bearable. Because when you’re miserable like that, it bleeds into everyone around you. I know this.
So yeah, I don’t want to work anymore. Not in an office. Not full-time. It might take me years to make something else happen, but that change is something I need to do to make my life what I want it to be, because I’ll tell you, right now I have the greatest job I’ve ever had and probably the greatest job I’ll ever have and there are still plenty of days in the week where I wake up dreading going to it. The commute, the air, the loud people, the commute back. All of it. It’s just not where I want to be. I don’t even feel like a person some days. I counted minutes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday to get to this morning.
And I know we need money even though we’re broke no matter how much we bring in, but I also feel like I owe it to The Patient Mrs. not to be so god damn wretched all the time. That’s where my head is at.
Appreciating the day, then, and trying to make it as weekend-y as possible. I’ve got my huge YOB shirt on (I call it “my weekend YOB shirt,” and rest assured, I’ll be wearing it until Monday) and my lined pajamas and my warm socks (those I’ll change), and I’m listening to the new Siena Root for the first time and sipping my coffee. The dog’s in her bed in the corner and life is good and restorative, and moments like this are what it’s about. In a while The Patient Mrs. will come downstairs and have breakfast and I’ll make another pot and put some protein powder in one of the cups, and we’ll talk about the day to come. It’s going to be a good one. I can feel it already.
We’re heading into April; deeper into 2017. I hope you’re doing well.
Thanks if you got to check out any of the Quarterly Review this week. That means a lot to me, and I appreciate it when people can put eyes to things like that. I know 50 reviews is a lot to keep up with — believe me — but if you found something you dig, that’s awesome.
Next week is slammed as well as of now. Here’s what’s on tap, subject to change as always:
Mon.: Closet Disco Queen review/EP stream and Elder Druid video.
Tue.: Lord Loud review/premiere, Greenbeard video premiere.
Wed.: Ides of Gemini Six Dumb Questions, The Obsessed review, maybe Cultura Tres video.
Thu.: Arc of Ascent review/track premiere, Beastwars video (NZ day!)
Fri.: Electric Moon review, other stuff.
Truth be told, I’ve got reviews and premieres planned through the better part of April already. I know what I’ll be doing every day between now and Roadburn, and there’s some stuff locked in already for May and more to come, so yeah. Plenty going on. Things are getting full earlier, which is validating in a way, but as I finish one Quarterly Review I’ve already started to think about the next, and there are times where it’s overwhelming. Mostly Tuesdays, oddly. Tuesday’s always my roughest day.
A note about The Obelisk Radio: We’ve been running on the backup server for the last several weeks since the hard drive crashed. I bought a new drive — it’s 4TB, so eventually there will be even more space to work with — and Slevin is in the process of switching everything over, but it’s taking a really long time because the old busted drive apparently has a shit-ton of bad data. Turns out maybe running it 24 hours a day/seven days a week took a toll in some way? Crazy, I know. In any case, it’s still going to be a while. I have another round of radio adds slated for April 10 and I’m not sure if we’ll be back on the full playlist by then, but it’s a work in progress and if you listen regularly, I appreciate your patience with it.
Alright. Can’t imagine I haven’t gone on long enough. If you’re still reading this, thanks.
I hope you have or have had a wonderful day, depending I suppose on your time zone, and that you enjoy a great and safe weekend. See you back here on Monday for more, and in the meantime please check out the forum, the (backup) radio stream, and the new The Obelisk page on Thee Facebooks.
If you’re so inclined, you can go back through the annals of Wino Wednesday and find plenty of Spirit Caravan clips, but their 1999 Dreamwheel EP has never been featured in full. With just five posts left in what’s apparently a series of 200, there’s still some time to correct that and you’ll have to pardon me, but I’m going to take advantage.
Dreamwheel was issued in 1999 as the follow-up to the same year’s full-length debut, the gonna-be-if-it-isn’t-already classic Jug Fulla Sun. No easy feat to be the next release after that record, but Spirit Caravan — then the trio of Wino on guitar/vocals, Dave Sherman on bass and Gary Isom on drums — did themselves a favor in issuing an EP to shift the conversation before moving on to their second and final long-player, 2001’s Elusive Truth. To go with its six-minute opening title-track, the under-20-minute EP, with its strange cover art and songs like “Sun Stoned” and “C, Yourself,” was the first association between Wino and the label MeteorCity, which would continue through the next several years with Spirit Caravan‘s The Last Embrace compilation and the first two albums by The Hidden Hand before that band went on to work with Southern Lord.
Very interested to find out where Spirit Caravan reunion goes in the next several months and beyond. They played the Maryland Doom Fest in June with Ed Gulli (ex-The Obsessed) on drums in place of Henry Vasquez, whose tenure with Saint Vitus continues, but whether or not that’s a permanent change, I don’t know. And further, whether or not they’ll work on new studio material is the real question, if Wino and Sherman will keep going as Spirit Caravan — and one hopes they will — it seems inevitable at some point, but I wonder when or if we might start to hear new songs played live, recording rumors, etc.
We’ll see how it plays out, but until then, here’s Dreamwheel for Wino Wednesday number 196. I hope you enjoy:
