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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Yanni Papadopoulos of Stinking Lizaveta & Wail

Posted in Questionnaire on January 26th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Yanni Papadopoulos of Stinking Lizaveta & Wail

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: Yanni Papadopoulos of Stinking Lizaveta & Wail

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I am a Rock guitarist. It’s taken me a lifetime to come to terms with that identity. I had no intention of ending up with this dubious title, but it is accurate. Although I dabble in other idioms such as jazz, funk, and classical, rock is what I am most comfortable in, and what I can pass on to others. I am also a rock musician, with a recording and touring career. Stinking Lizaveta is the name of my band.

Describe your first musical memory.

When I was a child I was in love with my mother’s old 45s. She had some Elvis singles that just sounded otherworldly. The music inspired me to write a tune that went “Damn it, wham it, I just can’t stand it. Damn it, wham it and sweet roses”. I think I was five.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

The most epic musical experience I have had with Stinking Lizaveta was playing at Check Point Charlie’s in New Orleans on Halloween. We played our set once, then the bar owner told us to do it again. Maybe we even did it a third time, then saw the sun rise. This gig continued annually for many years until Katrina broke the chain.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

When I first started a band, I naively thought that if we played shows and put out records, our reputation would grow steadily over the years. I thought of the scene as a meritocracy, where good musicianship and creativity would inevitably be rewarded.

Sometimes I think I was terribly wrong, but sometimes I think I might have been right.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

The artist has the perilous task of filling the void they perceive in their community. This gives them the odious task of being the bad conscious of their scene.

How do you define success?

I like the idea of success being the opportunity to practice your art on your own terms.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Sexism.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

A rock opera of Blade Runner.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Art puts Humanity on display. It is that thing that makes us more than animals, more than dirt.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I really enjoy watching The Avatar animated series over and over again with my two daughters.

https://www.facebook.com/Stinking-Lizaveta-175571942466657/
http://www.stinkinglizaveta.com/
https://stinkinglizaveta.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/WAIL.philly
https://wail2.bandcamp.com/

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Stinking Lizaveta, Journey to the Underworld (2017)

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Wail Premiere “Symmetry” Video; Debut Album Out Now

Posted in Bootleg Theater on October 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

wail

Philly four-piece Wail released their self-titled debut (review here) on Translation Loss in July. Hot summer nights ensued, peppered with their instrumentalist jazz-funk-whathaveyou sound that was jammy and exploratory but spoke just the same of a master plan at work, even if said plan was to get in the studio and figure it all out later. That may well be what they did. Their first video, for “Astronomy” (premiered here) — and yes, I reused the picture; I think they only have one so far — seemed to show that in action, as it was the band making their way through the song, playing it live and recording the finished version as it happened. An admirable execution of ethic toward capturing a live sound by — wait for it — capturing a live sound.

The clip premiering below for “Symmetry” takes a different approach.

I’ll spare you the seasonal spiel (or maybe I won’t, but it’s a different spiel). I’m not a Halloween guy. Truth told, I’ve never really been one for fun. I’m the kind of person, you might say, who’ll readily spend 12-plus years of his life sitting in front of a keyboard writing about bands rather than engage in what most would consider regular human interaction. Dressing up? Spiders and skulls? Are they on a black t-shirt with a band logo? No? Then keep ’em. The holiday I care about most is my wife’s birthday, followed by my anniversary. Nonetheless, it’s October now and as regards Halloween, ’tis the season. Even for us miserable-shit, lazy-eyed blogger types.

Not big on horror movies either, but you know what? Evil Dead — the whole trilogy — frickin’ rules. And somebody put work into this clip setting the rhythm of the cuts to the song and taking footage from Sam Raimi’s 1981 original Evil Dead movie and constructing a genuine music video from it. I especially like the winding record player timed to the little guitar noodles throughout, and the way the Deadite trying to get up from the basement is set to the most intense part of the track. It actually works really well. And man, Bruce Campbell looks like a baby. He was 23 when that movie was made; I just looked it up. Wow.

So anyhow, if you’re into Halloween or you’re not, I hereby give you and me both permission to enjoy this video for what it is. Maybe when it’s over you stream the whole album.

Have fun. It’ll be okay:

Wail, “Symmetry” video premiere

The new video “Symmetry” by Philadelphia band WAIL.

Featuring Calvin Weston on drums, Pete Wilder and Yanni Papadopoulos on guitar, Alexi Papadopoulos on bass.

Order link: https://orcd.co/wail

Yanni Papadopoulos: guitar
Alexi Papadopoulos: bass
Pete Wilder: guitar
Grant Calvin Weston: drums

Wail, Wail (2021)

Wail on Facebook

Wail on Bandcamp

Translation Loss Records on Facebook

Translation Loss Records on Instagram

Translation Loss Records website

Translation Loss Records webstore

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Wail Premiere “Astronomy” Video; Debut Album Out Now

Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 9th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

wail

Philadelphia’s Wail are a put-up-or-shut-up kind of band, so here they are putting up. The sans-vocals four-piece released their self-titled debut (review here) in July through Translation Loss, and they now invite the audience to watch and listen as they make part of it. The video for “Astronomy” below is, by all accounts, as it happened at Red Planet Studio.

You get to see drummer Calvin Weston nailing it alongside bassist Alexi Papadopoulos and guitarists Yanni Papadopoulos and Pete Wilder, who leads the jam, and you get to see that jam come together in one of those rare moments bands talk about where everything just clicks. I interview people all the time about songwriting — it’s my favorite thing to talk about in interviews, if you couldn’t tell — and it doesn’t happen all the time or even particularly often, but every now and then someone will tell you about a magic moment where everything comes together and a song is finished being written more or less at the exact time it’s done being played through once.

Now, given the instrumentalist, improvisational nature of Wail, it’s a somewhat different case for “Astronomy,” but still, what comes through in the clip is chemistry and a union of purpose whose results speak for themselves in the song itself. There’s a reason I hosted the album stream before it came out and why I’m hosting the video premiere now. It’s because I think it’s worth your time. That’s about as straightforward as I can say it.

Hey, here’s talented people doing cool shit together. Plus some shots of space. There.

I hope you have a great day. Sincerely.

Enjoy:

Wail, “Astronomy” official video premiere

Wail on “Astronomy”:

This video is Wail live in Red Planet Studio recording our album. We were lucky to have two cameras on when we recorded the song Astronomy. We were happy with the performances and didn’t need any fixing or overdubbing. What you see is a band jamming on a groove, in other words, improvising. If the mood is right, this can capture some fantastic results, music produced by listening and reacting. Pete Wilder (guitarist – red Ibanez) wrote the groove, then took the footage and led us on a trip through the Cosmos.

The new video “Astronomy” by Philadelphia band WAIL.

Featuring Calvin Weston on drums, Pete Wilder and Yanni Papadopoulos on guitar, Alexi Papadopoulos on bass.

Order link: https://orcd.co/wail

Yanni Papadopoulos: guitar
Alexi Papadopoulos: bass
Pete Wilder: guitar
Grant Calvin Weston: drums

Wail, Wail (2021)

Wail on Facebook

Wail on Bandcamp

Translation Loss Records on Facebook

Translation Loss Records on Instagram

Translation Loss Records website

Translation Loss Records webstore

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Wail Premiere Self-Titled Debut in Full: Out This Week on Translation Loss

Posted in audiObelisk on July 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan

wail

Philadelphia instrumentalist four-piece Wail release their self-titled debut July 23 on Translation Loss Records, and across its 10 tracks they jam out like the Philly All-Stars they are by any other name. Featuring Yanni Papadopoulos and Alexi Papadopoulos of Stinking Lizaveta on guitar and bass, EDO‘s Pete Wilder also on guitar and drummer Grant Calvin Weston, who’s worked with James “Blood” Ulmer, Billy Martin and hosts of others in varying jazz, funk and fusion contexts in addition to performing solo, they don’t skimp on pedigree, but the hour-long Wail is of course about more than the stuff they’ve done before. The bounce and surging lead guitar of “Family Man” and the jangly underpinning of swing in preceding opener “He Knows What it Is,” building to a fullness of tone and then pulling back to make room for the next solo, the jab-throwing rhythm of “Symmetry” and the way its burgeoning psychedelic feel give over to the nine-minute stretch of “Astronomy”a and the ensuing languid hypnocraft in the first half there — rest assured, they grow freakier as they go — all of these elements come together early on the record to establish a sonic personality with the confidence to go where it wants and follow improvisational whims, but also to build a conversation between the players involved and dive into the chemistry there. Just so happens there’s plenty of that to go around.

If you’re the type to sit and analyze — there’s no wrong way to listen — you’ll find the quality of play here humbling. Dig into the snare work and intertwining guitars and bass of “One World” after “Astronomy” and the rock-jazz affect of the whole is certainly more than the sum of its parts, but that doesn’t mean the parts aren’t still damn impressive. In this way, Wail‘s Wail engages dually, and is cerebral as well as expressive, maybe born of the players’ desire to work together, though in the modern recording climate and era of the ‘pandemic project,’ I should note I have no idea how much time they’ve actually all spent in the same room. If you told me the record was all done live, written and improvised in the studio and recorded over one weekend, I’d believe you. If you told meWail Wail they passed files back and forth for eight months in 2020 and built the songs up one at a time that way, I’d believe you too. I’m very trusting, but I’m easily hurt; don’t take advantage. The point is that however it was made, the vibe here is real, natural and fluid. Obviously, if someone’s going to put a song called “Philly Strut” on a record, they damn well better bring it, and Wail do, funk-tioning as a unit with just an edge of the unhinged to remind you there’s still a chance you’ll get your ass kicked if you hang out long enough in town trying to meet Gritty.

Maybe I’m a sucker for psych-jazz — maybe I also breathe oxygen — but as “Oceans of Mercury” answers back to “Astronomy” in the-only-other-song-about-space fashion, its guitar noodling with due exploratory sense, mellow but not inactive, the breadth and scope that Wail covers becomes that much clearer. It’s fitting that so much of the album is about what the band can bring to light working together — you can hear it throughout the entire span, even in the more atmospheric moments, and they offer no pretense otherwise — but there’s forward potential in that too, and it’s when they stretch out in that kind of flowing movement that it comes forward. “Expert’s Reprise” is brighter somehow but revisits the jangle strum of “Family Man” earlier on and it becomes the bed-jam for an extended shreddy solo that consumes much of its second half, receding temporarily before breaking out again, leading to the trippy “Pyramids” in the penultimate spot, which puts guitar-as-synth (or just synth) and other effects to use over a sweet bassline that holds the whole thing together.

That leaves only closer “Abbath is Drunk Again,” which at 6:54 is a strut unto itself in terms of the band reaffirming what’s worked so well for them all along — a looser feel than some of what’s come before it, but still keeping to a structure not unlike “Expert’s Reprise” where everybody’s going along cool and then wham comes a dizzying guitar solo over top. They end cold, clicking off a pedal, and offer a quick couple seconds to process before the end. Not too shabby. Especially considering Wail as a debut release, the level they’re executing at is emblematic of the experience they bring. Even in its most unscripted moments, the very happening isn’t happenstance. It ain’t a coincidence they kill it. One imagines them swimming around each other in Philly’s talent pool and finally creating a swirl enough to get together and, well, wail for a while. And so they do.

I could go on — it might be fun — but inevitably if I did I’d end up using the word “skronk” somewhere and nobody needs that shit. You’ll find the premiere of the whole shebang on the player below, followed by a killer by-the-numbers quote from Yanni Papadopoulos the pre-save link for the album, courtesy of Translation Loss.

Enjoy:

Yanni Papadopoulos on Wail:

1. Wail is working man’s music. If you’re outside painting houses for a living, baking in the sun while biting flies feast on your flesh, you know that some upbeat swinging jams are what will get you to cleanup time.

2. My lead guitar tracks on this record are all first takes with no edits or punches. I’m proud of that and I think it gives the record an off-the-cuff feel.

3. I’m heavily influenced by Wino and Greg Ginn, but also by Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Hazel. I’ve seen tons of heavy shows in my life, but one of the heaviest was Funkadelic. I was part of the sound crew for a big outdoor show in 94′. We unloaded six Marshall full stacks to the stage and two SVT cabs. Then Funkadelic came out and played Cosmic Slop. Sonic Youth, who had gone on just before them, seemed like a Tonka toy by comparison.

4. Wail just wants to be the funk band at your stoner rock fest.

5. Progressive rock influences are important to me, so it’s a pleasure for me and my brother to work with veterans like Calvin Weston and Pete Wilder who have been prog heads for decades.

pre-save link: https://orcd.co/wail

Yanni Papadopoulos: guitar
Alexi Papadopoulos: bass
Pete Wilder: guitar
Grant Calvin Weston: drums

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Translation Loss Records on Instagram

Translation Loss Records website

Translation Loss Records webstore

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