automatic laugh to do lounge music. Most of us have a certain love/hate relationship with Muzak, especially with a certain type of light Latin beat. For awhile there was a certain amount of smugness with bands In Portland calling themselves Latin bands, getting mileage out of playing Salsa rhythms. Somehow rhythms that were ‘square’ or ‘white’ were less real or valid. Consequently, it struck us as a great parody to do a Latin band and then focus on the real cheesy, very Inauthentic types of Latin music...a lot closer to Desi Arnaz than to the Wallers. The French guy just sort of evolved. Did you know that at one time I was going to be D’Anse Combeau? CSQ: But don't you think a lot of D’Anse Combeau's personal charisma has to do with Baldwin’s androgynous quality? Newton: Yeah, and he’s thin, too. CSQ: Are you attracted to D’Anse Combeau? Newton: Yes, very attracted. But he’d have to get his personal hygiene together before we started living together. CSQ: How do you choose your tunes? Newton: That’s the hardest part. We have to use a lot of intuition. A lot of people suggest tunes to us that D’Anse Combeau might do. I think that comes from people hearing cheesy tunes and wanting to fight back at them. ‘Revenge’ might be a little strong, but you hear these songs on the radio, and you say, ‘god, that’s a horrible song!’ I think people delight in the fact that once they hear D’Anse Combeau do a tune, that tune will never be the same for them again! Some songs are naturals for us. Some are the opposite of naturals, so we just force them to do what we want them to do. Either way It works great. The real straight ahead joke Is basically ‘lncongrulty’...two or three things together at one time that aren’t related. CSQ: Is that your thing or is that Baldwin's? Newton: It’s definitely my favorite thing. Incongruity Is a great way to point up that some of our songs or Images are definitely on the sappy side. When you’re forced to listen to a folk singer whine and dawdle his way through ‘Sunshine on my Shoulders,’ and then you put that tune In black light and you play the notes of the melody on the ribs of a skeleton...! mean... anybody’s got to like that! CSQ: It’s been said that satire is essentially reactionary in the sense that it ‘reacts’ rather than proposing its own agenda. Newton: You mean that It feeds off the work of others? CSQ: It makes use of the weak... uh... Newton: Good Freudian slip. Right. We’ll never run out of material. CSQ: Yes, well, anyway, there is a tradition of satire that has arisen \A/e don’t use foul " language, we don’t advocate kinky sex in our show, or drug consumption either. As a matter of fact, D’Anse Combeau specifically advocates peace and love. I think that in any ■good D 'Anse Combeau show the audience should be made to feel uncomfortable and a- shamed . They shouldn’t be let off the hook.... historically when a culture is no longer in its purest form, when it is going into decay...the Greek, the Roman, or most obviously, German cabaret, as the holocaust was raging, and now we have YOU! Satire pushes things into decay, like a decaying chord.... Newton: Do you think we’re signaling the end? Actually, I think our band Is a reaction against a certain type of decadence. I¥e definitely react against anything punk or new wave. We don’t use foul language, we don’t advocate kinky sex In our show, or drug consumption, either. As a matter of fact, D’Anse Combeau specifically advocates peace and love. CSQ: But as a joke. Newton: Joke or not, It’s still the above-ground advocacy of the band. IVe don’t rely on sexual Innuendo, political humor, or even a hip underground attitude. CSQ: But punk is also a reaction to decay in some ways! Newton: The point Is, I’m wildly against the attitude of a lot of punk and new wave—anger at the world. I’m not angry at the world, and I think being angry at the world Is a useless, selfdestructive attitude. If you’re going to be self-destructive, you should put it to some use. CSQ: D’Anse Combeau himself comes across as a parody of the just-past era...a strange flower child. Newton: That’s almost a definition of him! He’s a shallow observer of the American people. He takes everything at face value and jumbles It up. CSQ: And it’s like a kaleidoscope which passes very rapidly from one shape to the next.... Newton: The speed Is a value. Here’s what we are: we’re bizarre and dada, we’re not left wing, we’re not punk, we don’t like chaos on stage, and we don’t abhor Las Yegas. CSQ: It’s a kind of performance art. Is there nothing sacred? Newton: Well, religion. CSQ: Why? Because it’s sacred? Newton: (laughter) Yeah, it probably has to do with my background. My father was a minister. But the point Is that I kind of see coming upon D’Anse Combeau concepts as mining for gold. We’re like the sculptor who chips away everything except what Is right. And I don’t see a lot of gold In religious jokes or sex jokes. CSQ: What else is sacred? Newton: IVe were going to do one show which required pouring a bottle of champagne Into a goldfish bowl, onto live goldfish. We decided not to do lt...destroylng a life form. CSQ: Why isn't Richie Havens singing ‘Freedom' sacred? Newton: Well, there’s no life form being destroyed there. If some guy’s making dough off a song, If he recorded It or performed It and got paid, then that song’s fair game. CSQ: Is that your standard? Whether somebody earned money off it? Newton: Yeah, especially If the song Is some sort of an advocacy of the opposite of that. Mac Davis made a fortune off ‘In the Ghetto.’ CSQ: What about an artist’s sincere feelings of responsibility to sing or write about what they care about? Newton: One time a girl came up after our show of Protest Songs to a Light Latin Beat and said, “Why do you want to destroy ‘Abraham, Martin, and John’? I think It’s a beautiful song.” And D’Anse Combeau said, “Yes, we think It’s beautiful, too. That’s why we do it." He was selling autographed pictures of himself at the time. My argument Is not with people who want freedom or with people who lament the murder of national flgures....we as a band are not talking about those subjects. We’re talking about the picture that people have of those subjects because of the distortions of the media. CSQ: You seem to have a lot of personal.... Newton: Rage? CSQ: No, disappointment...with the '60s, '70s era. Like the idea of doing your parody of Woodstock. Newton: Poopy self-righteousness transcends an era. CSQ: Woodstock was not self- righteous. Newton: What? What’s this you say? We are ‘stardust’...we are ‘golden.’ CSQ: Woodstock itself was fairly spontaneous which is part of why it was exciting. Nobody exactly laid out an agenda and had everybody come and sign up. It wasn’t a self- righteous event. After the fact, the media.... Newton: What’s this? Wasn’t everybody running around saying “we’ve got the answer!" Didn’t they all assert that they had found the correct way to live? CSQ: No. Not at the beginning. It was the media. The event itself was quite anarchic. Newton: Okay, we agree. It’s the image of the event. Perhaps unfortunately for hlstory...what most people find Interesting Is not what really happened at an 44 Clinton St. Quarterly
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz