The Obelisk Questionnaire: Morgan Y. Evans of Walking Bombs
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: Morgan Y. Evans of Walking Bombs
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I am a musician and a writer, so in many ways I have to be a listener first. There was or maybe still is the great hip-hop project called Listener who I opened for once in Rosendale, NY, when I was the hype person for my departed rapper friend Bobby Delicious. I always loved that name, Listener. Johnny Cash called his own voice “The Gift” and you have to be able to tap into a place where that can flow. Part of that is absorbing and then channeling and listening to what is both around you and within.
I was encouraged by my family to be creative. As a kid I grew up without electricity for a number of years, so I read hundreds of books in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains. I loved the Bard class in Dungeons and Dragons. I always wanted to be a writer but also ended up a musician as a result. Joined my first band Melancholy in 1993, a grunge and alt-rock hybrid and never looked back. I also played trombone. I stopped for a long time when I was a junkie but then Doc from Bad Brains encouraged me to start again and I slowly have used it on all of my albums in the last half decade here and there. I think it was really tied to self-esteem because I first played it before I went down such an addict’s path as a teen so I felt like I didn’t deserve to play it again.
Now I have two collaborative albums coming out digitally next year for my project Walking Bombs as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist and it is my own 30th year as an active musician in the world wide music scene. The albums were both recorded with my brilliant friend Ash Umhey and members of Shadow Witch, Geezer, Globelamp, Gridfailure, Chrome Cranks, Taraka, Talon, Failure, Septa, 5 R V L N 5 and more. One Sabbathy song with Steve from Geezer on it was in a crazy lightning storm when he tracked drums and it was insanely epic. I have no label support or money but yolo, yo. Fuck it.
How I came to do this all boils down also to the great people along the way who helped rather than hindered. I wanna say RIP to my old friend Owen Swenson. He just passed away so I wanna talk about Owen, a great man. A wild old punk hippy sound sculptor, now chasing his chickens to the great beyond. He had a mystical studio in the mountains outside of Woodstock called The Turning Mill. It is legendary and is in the Swans documentary. All our bands practiced there for years in the late 90’s-early 00’s. There is a crazy drip painting of Jim Morrison on the wall and many fliers of bands like Dripping Goss and 3 and Conehead Buddha. Owen’s lady growing up was our GED teacher to all the fuck up drop outs from my school Onteora. I always remember her and my ex Polly and our pal Kris Bernard tripping balls in her GED class and I could not do any math and she was like ,”you are having a hard time today, huh?” Hahaha.
Anyway, Owen a long time ago in classic CGBG’s day was in the band Elda and the Stilletos. He always had cool stories about like Paul Stanley. He was always so supportive to us all. I just was driving up La Paz in California (where I just moved) blasting “Riders On The Storm” for Owen. Damn, I am sad. He once called my noisier music a “psychic crevice”, the best compliment ever. One of my fondest memories is playing “12 Oz. Epilogue” by Clutch at a Burton snowboard party in Hunter, NY so wasted with my old band Fuse opening for Orange 9mm and our friends Spin Cycle Lava. I dropped out of college to play this fucking show, hahaha. Ryan Matthew Cohn was actually in the band at the time too. Owen played like dervish fiddle to the cover and there were stippers. Epic times.
Describe your first musical memory.
On a much more wholesome note…my mom would would play acoustic folk songs to my sister Cambria and me in our old farmhouse with kerosene lamps. She also sang for developmentally disabled children at a Children’s Resource Center. Also, my father was a drummer and played with a back up band for The Del-Vikings at one point before I was born (among other adventures). His drums were always around and he would play lots of jazz records. Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, Odetta, etc.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
So many. I don’t know how to narrow them down to one. I mean you have the awe of being a fan and having your cherry popped by a joint and Axis: Bold as Love for the first time. Setting up real DIY shows as a kid in Woodstock, NY and packing them out with my band Melancholy and old school bands like Shabutie, Pitchfork Milita, 3, Vein Feed, SpinCycleLava, Jerk Magnet and a huge variety of styles coming together to make our own alternative regional subculture and space in the early 90’s in Upstate, NY. Everything from Mearth to Perfect Thyroid to Drill Head (this short lived band with Julie who was most recently in Dopethrone).
The thrill of finishing making albums with people you love, as a musician. Like, I listen back to a song “Eyes Forward” on the second Walking Bombs album that has Nate from Spirit Adrift playing guitar atmosphere on it that sounds like the fuckin’ Edge from U2 I pinch myself with gratitude for moments like that. Interviewing some of my favorite bands since 2007 constantly for so many outlets. Like, I got to ask Dave Lombardo about Slayer stuff! Kid me would shit a diaper. Adult me wants to shit a diaper. Seeing a band live after waiting your whole life, like I recently finally saw grunge legends L7. Or I can say I opened for Bad Brains.
One of the best musical memories to recently happen to me was being on the title track to Gridfailure and Megalophobe’s ‘Harbinger Winds’ avant-noise release. I played trombone on a track alongside members of Titan to Tachyons, Vastum, jazz and pop trumpet legend Mac Gollehon and more. To be accepted within a circle of real music heads like that validates all the shitty times as a starving artist. Even just seeing awesome people in the current scene operating from the heart like Escuela Grind, Kris from King Woman, Geezer, Bestial Mouths, Thotcrime, Stormland, Caïna or Dreamwell rekindles my faith in so much.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I think when you see a lot of people throw you out like dishwater who you supported for years when it becomes popular to kiss someone else’s ass who is way more wealthy in an infinitely bigger band in the scene and and angry at you, instead of a more nuanced zoom out view…that certainly is a test of faith. Whoever gets the most press really does get to define dominant narratives in public consciousness. Sad but true. I dealt with a lot of gatekeeping over the years from very influential people in a not so big scene behind the public’s view. It absolutely rattled my sense of community and trust and broke my heart, though I have tried many times to always fight to uphold a community spirit in the scene and in whatever I do as well as heal bridges with people who I have had conflict with (especially since substance issues and compound trauma has usually been involved between everyone). A lot of that ironed out with maturity from most of the people involved and I am thankful for anyone I have patched things with and love them and thank God for healing with people in this world when possible.
At the end of the day, you still have to carry on regardless of other people’s avoidance issues, one sided blame games or focus shifting revisionism. Mindfulness is so important so you also don’t spiral and make things worse by choosing to be a total asshole. Humility and always trying to do better your own self is important as well as making amends. Never believe your own shit doesn’t need working on or Kali will eventually 100% decapitate you and the ego death is no joke. I have a great many painful regrets I endeavor not to repeat every day. My grandpa was a United Church of Christ minister, so thankfully I have the positive lessons from that to also believe in forgiveness and a strive for growth.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Poverty, hahaha. In all seriousness though, always strive. Painkiller is still so ahead of the game and the ‘Guts Of A Virgin’ record came out how long ago, for example? Like 1991! Chart your own course. At the end of the day nothing is as valuable as knowing you really tried to challenge yourself even if everyone slept on it.
How do you define success?
Not only by money. That is for sure. This is something I struggle with, though. Context matters. Internet troll culture is toxic. I loved diy Fugazi culture growing up. Both zoomers and a lot of adults will all tell you you are a flop now if you can’t buy a house with record sales and it is back to capitalism stan worship. It is scary trying to still do art when you are older and struggling.
My partner is the psych folk singer Globelamp and she used to be in the shitty buzz band Foxygen who drove themselves into the ground being psychos and ripping off ELO if fronted by a sewer brained narcissistic trust fund brat. Like, he had a sub label called Fascist records and thought that was cool and edgy, a total twat. Globelamp/Lizzie had darvo done on her at one point in her musical life, teeth knocked out and was treated like total garbage immediately following the death of her best friend. Friends who knew what was up chose silence as they were bought off by label deals from her abusers label, even. Like, bands a lot of people know. Let’s say a very influential label conglomerate and flying monkeys and super lazy press outlets have really fucked her over. She has been doxxed. I was targeted by trolls at one point for supporting her and they lied online and said she abused me and mocked me for being non binary. People will pave over a lot of shit to protect money or the facade of integrity that really isn’t there. I am proud of Lizzie/Globelamp that she hasn’t given up despite this and continues to make DIY art and music. She just did a dope Pink Floyd cover with Chris Cheveyo from Rose Windows, for example. She also researched her heritage that she didn’t know on her dad’s side and connected to her Puerto Rican ancestry in a nourishing way. That to me is success. Not letting hateful discouraging shit keep you down and picking yourself back up. I am very proud of her for that. She even lost two organs recently in a freak health scare and still is full of a drive to create music and art despite such personal suffering. We just try to laugh and drive around and listen to dumb shit like Smash Mouth and try to stay positive, hahaha.
I had a newspaper column in Kingston, NY for a long time that meant the world to me. To be able to use a platform to give press to someone who maybe never got it before on a local level and promote their activism or craft was awesome. Or to help plug a show when creatives who I love and respect like Hether Fortune or The Bobby Lees or Exhumed were playing around The Hudson Valley was very rad. Success to me is also knowing and learning from when I could have used my platforms more responsibly. I ran the now kaput Metalriot.com for a long time and had a lot of wins but also was a hot mess at times.
Being non-binary on the trans spectrum and an addict in recovery, every day visible and every day sober to me is a win. Being able to say I am organically friends with someone like Tad Doyle means more to me than any gold record, car, status bullshit.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The dead bodies of multiple friends lying in caskets from hard narcotic overdoses or booze related incidents. The gentrification of Kingston, NY leading to a lot of snobbery in a once fertile DIY punk scene. Warner Bros. fucking Henry Cavill out of a proper Man of Steel sequel. The queerphobia of the shitty Twitter of the chode from Chimaira being glossed over by multiple metal outlets because of some dumb reunion.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I am kind of constipated right now from dehydration, so I will let you all fill in the blanks.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To converse with our inner and outer Universe. Of course, cold capitalism also can hammer the raw matter of creativity into compromised shapes. In Star Wars you have Grand Admiral Thrawn literally studying the art of different cultures to learn how to best manipulate and conquer them. It can seem like the music industry is similar when ideas from the punk subculture get regurgitated into soda commercials. One of my ex girlfriends makes amazing sculptures or practical art out of found fallen vines from the forest around her home. The art that is for only yourself or that even stays in a sketch book to me is just as valid as that which is consumed by a lot of people. I had a lyric once in a short lived band with Zac from Dead Unicorn called Acid Arrow,…”If a tree falls will the kids still dance?” It represents the idea that even in a scene with mostly fairweather people or an audience of one, it still matters to do what you believe in and value.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Finishing re-binging The Sarah Connor Chronicles and getting my A1C back to a good range. Thanks.
https://walkingbombs.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/walkingbombs
https://www.facebook.com/walkingbombsmusic
https://walkingbombs.threadless.com
