Showing posts with label Interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Interview. Show all posts

Thursday, August 21, 2014

New Veil of Thorns Interview with Robex Lundgren

P. Emerson Williams - Veil of Thorns
It was cool to sit down with the amazingly prolific Robex Lungren to answer some questions about Veil of Thorns. We went all the way back to the beginning and touch on navigating the shark-infested waters of the music business as an independent band.
What made you call the band "Veil of Thorns"? It came from a line of thought about the nature of space-time in gnostic cosmology, the Demiurge, Jaldaboath and Maya (illusion, or delusion - Sanskrit माया) in Vedic literature. Socialization and quirks of language can make for illusory views of reality and being and tearing aside the illusion can cause pain. Hence the Veil and the Thorns.

How was the band formed? It was back in Boston in the early -90's. I was jamming with a powerful and inventive drummer who had graduated from Berklee School of Music. People would come and go and we would have some of the most intense jam sessions with no thought of genre or aesthetic. After some time Catherine Chenoweth stepped in to play bass and something clicked. Her playing was really solid and hard hitting. Just the thing to drive the momentum and groove as I was freed to experiment with what sounds my guitar could be capable of producing. We decided to form a band and brought in Ruddy Bitch and Jarrett Laitinen to complete the first lineup.

Read the interview over on Robex Lundgren's blog.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Shamanistic Madness - Veil Of Thorns Interview


VEIL OF THORNS - SHAMANISTIC MADNESS

Over the last two years P. Emerson Williams has been extremely busy. His art work has been seen on the front cover of SLEEPCHAMBER'S return to action release "Socery, Spellls, and Serpent Charms", as well as the Zewizz tribute releases "That's Romance" (both part 1 and 2). He is heavily involved with Foolish People.org (with the current "The Abattoir Pages" production as well as the production "Cirxus" from earlier this year). Not to mention various other cover art project, book cover projects, creating musick with various bands, AS well as writing musick for his own projects -Veil Of Thorns, Choronzon, and Kkoagulaa - and that's just the tip of the iceburg.

October see's the release of two new CD's by Williams project Veil Of Thorns on Inner-X-Musick. Impossible to categorize, Veil Of Thorns began as a Goth band in the early 90's club scene in Boston but steadily moved toward a more eclectic sound. Not afraid to use any influence - you will hear styling's of goth, hip hop, industrial, classical, and just about the whole kitchen sink.

TOS: I imagine you are thrilled to be part of historic Inner-X-Musick. You were part of the Boston scene. You have been booked by John Zewizz for shows... It must in some ways seem like a natural progression.
VOT: Being part of Inner-X-Musick is more than I could have hoped for. I can't imagine a better fit. With most labels, the challenge for me is to rein ideas in to palatable song forms, but with Inner-X, the challenge is to live up to the long history of innovation, experimentation and forward thinking of the label and John Zewizz. This is a much more exciting and fruitful kind of challenge than the former kind which I look forward to taking on.

TOS: Veil Of Thorns (part 1 I shall call it) 1991 to 1994 saw you work with a few different collaborators before settling upon Chris McClain. Good memories?

VOT: Some amazing times were had, for sure. the first lineup started with just me and a jazz drummer (Sean Savoie) but by the time it was filled out with a bass player (Catherine Chenoweth) and second guitarist, (the late, great Jarrett Laitinen) that drummer was off to a new adventure in Japan. If he had stayed, the first demo may have sounded more like Cognitive Dissonance than what we ended up with for our first two demos.

At that time, Catherine booked all our gigs, which with her many biker friends brought us to biker bars as well as the first shows at TT the Bears in Cambridge and the late lamented Channel. The recordings from that time are definitely primitive, but I'm still proud of them. I would like to see less slickness in underground music than there is in general right now outside Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Chris McClain came in, bringing a new focus and maturity to proceedings.

TOS: Everything stopped in 1994. Then nothing till 2002 - 03 really, with "Birthed". Why the hiatus? What inspired the return?
VOT: Well, we were gigging a lot more in the period between -94 and -98, which ended up cutting into the writing and recording. If I had been more forward thinking, I would have had these shows recorded in audio and video. Many of the gigs included guest players and extensive improvisation.

We were slated to release our debut CD through Misanthropy Records by the end of this period, but was not to happen as Tiziana, head of Misanthropy decided to close the label. What ended up as "Cafe Flesh" and "The Dead God Sessions" were demos done for the label for this album. There are more than a hundred hours of material not included in those releases I have on DAT tape, some of which that may see the light of day at some point.

In 1997 I signed with Nocturnal Art Productions and released the first Choronzon album in 1998. This brought much more attention than Veil of Thorns ever got, and I focused on that for a bit. I recorded the Choronzon albums "Lilith", "Era Vulgaris" and "Larvae" in 1989/1999, and dropped out of all normal society for a few years following.

Basically I went into the woods and was deep in the grip of the Gwyllt. By the time I re-emerged, I was psychically stripped down to nearly nothing. There's a world of difference between the work prior to and following this time. My methods continue to evolve from what I established with "Birthed" to this day.


TOS: If I am not mistaken "Salon Apocolypse" and "Necrofuturist" were recorded during the same time. Was the intention to make two CD's? Was the correlation between the two releases always intended?
VOT: Both albums grew out of the process of working on "The Abattoir Pages" as part of FoolishPeople. The intention was to finish "Salon Apocalypse", as the concept I had been working with for this release was in the same realm that John Harrigan tapped into for "Abattoir Pages". Through countless sleepless nights and days of madness, "Necrofuturist" wrote itself as a further expansion of the studies and current we were working with. I would not have chosen to take on so much in such a short period of time, but I really had no choice in the matter.

"Salon Apocalypse", "Necrofuturist" and "Abattoir Pages" are inextricably linked, through current and source materials, all preparing the ground for "Pleasure", for which all this work is a mere prologue.

TOS: Both releases are giant steps in a direction one would not have suspected after "Cognitive Dissonance". In fact, as I go through your catalog - this is close to the shift that occurred with the 2003's "Birthed". Does this represent a shift in your personal life, or your musical interests, or both.
VOT: This represents a huge shift in everything I touch. I can't say that I know what will result, nor what I'll be when I emerge from the other side. We are all in the process of experiencing aspects of this process. We'll be living in a new reality, (or rather, we'll have reality tunnels exploded), by the end of this.

TOS: I suspect that this release is steeped in chaos magick. I could be wrong, as I listen to them - I am reminded of Burroughs and Gysin early experiments. Was this the process you used with the lyrics? With the musick?
VOT: Well, there's quite a bit of old school Western magick with more than a little shamanistic madness and gnosis. Also Goetic methods overlaid with, yes, Burroughs/Gysin experiments to break down language patterns. The musick was carved out of what started with dense layers upon layers of sound. The musick is still dense, but given pulse and negative space like a sculpture.

TOS: Who are the performers on the new releases?
VOT: On guitar I had contributions from the amazing Aidan McGoran. "Salon Apocalypse" was very loose and amorphous until he got his hands on the material. James Curcio was only on a couple tracks on this one, but his contribution to percussion and electronic manipulations was invaluable. My colleagues in FoolishPeople, John Harrigan and Lucy Allin provided the mythological framework these albums inhabit, as well as some source material which is present throughout. Pandora brings her contribution from a parallel universe. Too much analysis of that aspect would be unwise.

TOS: Will there be a live version of Veil Of Thorns?
VOT: I would love that, but it's hard to say. Member and collaborators are all over the world and busy with a lot of other things. If it does happen, it'll not be a regular rock'n'roll show methinks...

Friday, July 24, 2009

The GSpot: Solipsistic Nation

Joseph Matheny interviews “another Joe”, AKA Bazooka Joe, from Solipsistic Nation and formerly of the smallWorld. They talk about music, podcasting and get into a weird Joe to Joe cross interview feedback loop.

Also, another episode of In Your Ear, this week reviewing “Variant Frequencies” a podcast of (mostly) short fiction in the horror/subgenre sci-fi vein. From Puske: I pay special attention to the podcast novel which they debuted - “The Failed Cities Monologues” http://www.podiobooks.com/title/the-failed-cities-monologues/) - link is to the podiobooks version.

Read the rest of this entry »

Veil of Thorns had the pleasure of playing live on Bazooka Joe's show on WMFO in Massachusetts way back in the dark ages. I'll include those here:


Veil of Thorns first radio appearance one dark Saturday night on Tufts college free-form radio. The second guitarist was Jarrett Laitinen, who I recently learned died of a heroin overdose in 2004. In his final year he lost his father and stepmother in fucked up circumstances. I wish I had recordings that could give a good example of what an otherworldly amazing guitarist Jarrett was. He was the second guitarist on the first two Veil of Thorns demos from 1991 and 1992 respectively.

This is the original lineup:

P. Emerson Williams - Vocals, guitar
Jarrett Laitinen - Guitar
Catherine Chenoweth - Bass
Ruddy Bitch - Drums

Sourced from a reference tape recorded at the station. Some glitches and noise were minimized to the extent possible.


Whole ItemFormatSize
VeilOfThorns-LiveWmfo1991_64kb.m3u64Kbps M3UStream
VeilOfThorns-LiveWmfo1991_64kb_mp3.zip64Kbps MP3 ZIP15.4M
VeilOfThorns-LiveWmfo1991_vbr.m3uVBR M3UStream
VeilOfThorns-LiveWmfo1991_vbr_mp3.zipVBR ZIP77.0M
Audio FilesVBR MP3Ogg Vorbis64Kbps MP3
Veil of Thorns - Live WMFO 1991- 1 Obsession-Possession20.9M7.7M4.2M
Veil of Thorns - Live WMFO 1991- 2 Tear the Cities Down16.4M6.2M3.3M
Veil of Thorns - Live WMFO 1991- 3 Utopia15.1M5.7M3.0M
Veil of Thorns - Live WMFO 1991- 4 Study In Decay16.5M6.3M3.3M
Veil of Thorns - Live WMFO 1991- 5 Youll Never Know8.1M3.0M1.6M


Veil of Thorns radio appearance a stormy night, Halloween, 1992 on Tufts college free-form radio. On second guitar we borrowed Dave, (can't remember his last name), the guitarist from Chuck.

This is the lineup:

P. Emerson Williams - Vocals, guitar
Dave (From the excellent Boston funk rock band Chuck) - Guitar
Catherine Chenoweth - Bass
Ruddy Bitch - Drums




VeilOfThorns-LiveHalloweenWmfo1992_64kb.m3u64Kbps M3UStream
VeilOfThorns-LiveHalloweenWmfo1992_64kb_mp3.zip64Kbps MP3 ZIP23.2M
VeilOfThorns-LiveHalloweenWmfo1992_vbr.m3uVBR M3UStream
VeilOfThorns-LiveHalloweenWmfo1992_vbr_mp3.zipVBR ZIP116.1M
Audio FilesVBR MP3Ogg Vorbis64Kbps MP3
Veil of Thorns - Live Halloween WMFO - 1 Obsession17.0M6.1M3.4M
Veil of Thorns - Live Halloween WMFO - 2 Possession4.9M1.9M981.6K
Veil of Thorns - Live Halloween WMFO - 3 Utopia15.9M6.0M3.2M
Veil of Thorns - Live Halloween WMFO - 4 Void15.8M5.7M3.2M
Veil of Thorns - Live Halloween WMFO - 5 Nothing Is Real19.3M7.6M3.9M
Veil of Thorns - Live Halloween WMFO - 6 Sanctify (Drowning)24.1M8.7M4.8M
Veil of Thorns - Live Halloween WMFO - 7 Souls In Flight19.1M6.7M3.8M

Friday, May 15, 2009

The GSpot: User’s Manual for the Human Experience- CIRXUS

The GSpot: User’s Manual for the Human Experience- CIRXUS

Joseph Matheny talks to Michael Dean about his newest book, A USER’S MANUAL FOR THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. Also in this show: Sleepchamber and and excerpt from the Foolishpeople production of CIRXUS.

Show dedicated to my dearly departed friend: Dave Szulborski

Information: In the SLEEPCHAMBER bit, John Zewizz and co. gives updates on the band, shares tracks from the forthcoming album “Stolen Sleep”, and thanks the fans and collaborators who have supported the return of SLEEPCHAMBER.

Exerpt from Cirxus, a FoolishPeople production written and directed by John Harrigan. This psycho-audio sequence is produced and performed by P. Emerson Williams and directed by John Harrigan. A promenade performance will run from 25th May - 13th June 2009 in Arcola Theatre’s new industrial space, Studio K in London.

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