BloodLust! Interview Series: #13 Vertonen

Blake Edwards (Vertonen, ssseepage, Burrow, Series Founders, Crippled Insectual, ex-Animal Law)

1. What have you been listening to lately?

Eric Lunde, Laibach, Ice Cube, Crawling with Tarts, and a handful of the stellar Creel Pone label releases.

2. Have you been to any interesting concerts recently?

Jason Zeh at enemy Jan 16; I’ll never miss a chance to witness Jason manipulate the tapes live. I also checked out Rick Potts Jan 24 at Lampo, and it was great to see him and the new(ish) Lampo space.

3. Can you name a favorite film, or two (or a television program), from the last few months?

Well, now that “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains” is out on DVD, I recently watched that with audio commentary by Diane Lane and Laura Dern...

4. Have you read a good book lately?

Recent and current:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Mindfuckers (edited by David Felton)
I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me by Trevor Paglen
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
John Duncan (errant bodies press)

5. Have you attended any recent art shows worth mentioning?

I saw “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul” at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in mid-January; the ancient sun dials and glassware were standouts, as was the “optical illusion” fish pond...

6. Do you have any current obsessions of note?

Offshoot religious groups of the 60s and 70s, Etruscan mythology, and physical cosmology.

7. Please tell me what recordings, projects (any medium), etc., you are working on right now, if anything.

--three vastly different full-length Vertonen recordings in various stages (ranging from 75% to 95% completed) that I’ve been editing, letting sit, then coming back to
--a Startless (Jason Zeh and I) recording that’s coming along
and (as you know, I suspect)
--practice is pummeling along nicely with the as-yet unnamed “heavy” band you and I are in with Dylan Posa, Kenny Rasmussen, and Greg Ratajczak.

8. What do you hope to accomplish this year?

Securing a full-time teaching gig would be cool (although the adjuncting is working out well), releasing some vinyl and CDs on C.I.P., getting one or two Vertonen releases out on other labels, a short tour of either the Midatlantic/Southeast or West Coast, and start performing and recording with the aforementioned project you and I are involved in.

9. Is there anything else that you would like to mention, announce, or hype?

There are three Vertonen split LPs that, powers be with us, should see the light of day by summer; one is with 16 Bitch Pile Up (on WWDIS), one is with Mykel Boyd (on Somnimage), and one is with Torturing Nurse (on rococo records). I also have an 18 minute track on a series called “audio roadkill” (on Instagon Foundation) that should be coming out in the next months, and a collaboration with PCRV, “deep time” that the power silence label aims to release maybe in February.