There's a lot going on in a Red Tag Rummage Sale song. Sliding between the dark heat of cello/guitar dissonance and nearly feral rhythms punctuated by their raw vocals, they call to mind the best of post-hardcore and Midwest indie while recontextualizing it into a duo that could be one of the first "chamber-punk" groups the Queen City has ever seen. The husband-wife pairing of Lisa (Cello and vox) and Phil (guitar, vox, also of All Of Them Witches and Knife Crazy) Freedenberg have just released a full-length album, Body Maps, and have recently finished up a nationwide tour, so I figured now would be the perfect time to chat with them about their music and the city. What I got was an incredible look not only at the band, but also at their creative dynamic, which I found intensely enlightening.
First off, the standard interview spiel: when did you guys meet/start playing music together?
Lisa Freedenberg: A little over 3 years ago I met Phil at one of his other band's shows. Knife Crazy played SUNY Purchase and I saw him rocking out and we ended up hanging out all night. During this time we discussed all sorts of things including the fact that I played cello, and have since I was a little kid. We also made vague plans to hang out in the future, which turned into me visiting and shortly thereafter moving to Buffalo, and in with Phil. The funny thing is that my cello had actually moved here before I had! He came to my house and picked it up and drove it "home" in his band van at an interim visit, so when I finally arrived, my instrument was waiting for me. That fall (3 years ago now) we started writing our first songs for Body Maps. The band being just the 2 of us was so natural; all we wanted to do was sing to each other, for others.
How about generally? When did each of you start playing music?
Phil Freedenberg: I first starting playing guitar when I was about 13 or 14. So that brings me very near if not just beyond 15 years of self taught guitar playing. It was something that I just naturally gravitated towards. I remember seeing the Sears Harmony Guitar in the phone book sized mail out consumer goods catalogue that was common in my home as a kid thinking to myself that I should really be playing guitar. However it was not until my older brother bought the first $90 household guitar that I first had that idea come into fruition.
LF: My father and mother played in a band before I was born. This being said, I grew up around music and instruments since birth. I started violin lessons when I was 4 and hated them. I started up on cello in 4th grade and took to it right away. I have been fooling around with electric bass, unskilled piano/keyboards and my voice ever since.
Are there specific bands that you consider a major influence?
LF: Being in my mid-20's, I was right smack caught up in the early 90's rock/grunge scene. When music videos were still on MTV and the radio still played songs that I was interested in hearing. Bands like the smashing pumpkins and nirvana had cello players on their CD's and in their videos and this made me feel like I had made the right choice. I had picked an instrument that could go totally classical or really any other musical direction that I could think of. Other bands that have influenced me greatly are Radiohead, a band that has only become more refined and respected over the years instead of giving up and producing the same carbon copy style albums again and again, and a slew Chicago's indie bands like the Owls, Joan of arc, Make Believe, Cap'n Jazz, etc, which all share a rotating cast of creative and very human members.
PF: I feel that personally there are almost too many bands and musicians to name that have had an influence on me individually, but when it refers to influence there is no particular band that I think has served as an ideological model for how I would like to structure the bands that I have been in around. Rather it is the creative exploration of ideas within the music I love most that inspires me almost more than the music itself. I have a real love and admiration for the way that creative people, especially musicians, manifest their epistemic creative intentions into form. So it is the uniqueness of the particular musical vocabulary that a band or musician elects to utilize as the best means for conveying their expression, particular idea, vision, thought, or feeling that really appeals to me and has in the bands that I have enjoyed over the last few years or so.
I think that there is a certain minimal inescapable determinism to the music that a "band" can create in the same way that there is some present minimal inescapable determinism to our potential as human beings due to our biological determinism. For example while we are endowed with "free choice" as beings we are determined to express our choices within an arranged framework. I am free to choose, however I cannot make free choices that transcend my determined biological framework so to speak. For example I can not freely choose to live underwater without the aid of an oxygen system, I cannot freely choose to become a salmon, fly on my own accord without mechanical assistance through the skies, freely choose to become a sparrow, or functionally live in a fire for very long. In essence our choices are determined only to the extent of the tangible framework which we are bound to which prescribes the range that those choices can be performed or executed.
I make this point only to allow it to be analogous to the "band" structure in some way. It is somewhat similar in that as a musician that starts a "band" you immediately agree to participate in a determined musical framework with a finite number of potential musical combinations that you are able to resource to define your expressions. You can have a guitar, bass, drums, vocals, cello, tuba, banjo, violin, etc. interchanged in any combination in your band until you run out of potential musical resources however you can not structure your musical choices freely outside of that determined musical framework so to speak. We cannot make a band or music with non-band-non-music utilities hence our ability to create music is somewhat determined only to its own framework. Hence the true beauty of music in my opinion is when musicians can share and participate in the transcendence of certain limited yet apparent restrictions with their craft.
I say this only to pay tribute to my influences because it is in this framework that we still to this day after several centuries of organized music that we have baffling amounts of creative, unique, and original music still becoming realized in new and distinct ways. It is that that I am most influenced by. I am influenced by bands that experiment with their potential to create inspiring and refreshing ideas. I am influenced most by bands that can bafflingly expand those boundaries to make music seem infinite with the ways that one can creatively express themselves and see the world in a new and unique way because of that.
Any story behind the name Red Tag Rummage Sale?
PF: Lisa came up with the band name while we were in the car driving on Hertel Ave. to our very first show.
LF: Phil and I are hunters. We don't hunt animals. We hunt for stories, little pieces of time. We cherish the little moments and pass our time without getting too "caught up" with our surroundings, the status quo, social pressures, excessive creature comforts etc. etc. I think the name to us encompasses all of those ideas. Life is like a big rummage sale, so many possibilities, you just have to work a bit to figure and find them out.
I saw you were just signed to Time to Operate Records, could you tell me a little more about them?
PF: Time to Operate Records is a record label/ collective founded and run from Brooklyn, New York. The label has a strong independent ethic, which intends to create and support a community of people that works together to promote and support each other's ideas in a positive and encouraging way. The label also functions as a collaborative utility where it is the friendship, respect, and admiration for each other as not only musicians but also as human beings that simply provides a foundational means for bands to try to release records, tour, distribute and make music in such a way that the intention remains genuine while self-subsidizing in the means throughout the label/ community can remain mutually beneficial.
And your national tour? How did that come about?
PF: Our upcoming summer tour began in Bloomington, Indiana on July 9th and ended in Seattle, Washington on July 21st, and came about without that much back story. Lisa and I just released our first full-length album on Time to Operate records titled Body Maps so we wanted to tour the country in celebration of that record and play across the country with our friends. I have spent a great deal of time touring and it's a unique way to see, share, and experience the world. Once you do it a lot, it becomes difficult to remove from your life rather it becomes a part of your life. That is what is still so awe inspiring for me about Red Tag Rummage Sale; to have the unbelievable privilege to play music across the country with the person you love the most, your partner, still remains the most exciting thing I can imagine. Lisa and I are always learning and growing together and this will be yet another unique opportunity to expand on that idea. We are also touring with a band called Rejouissance from Brooklyn, New York that is also on Time to Operate records. The band also contains some of our dear friends so we thought we would share our time on the road together.
Phillip, your guitar playing involves a lot of finger-tapping and effects work, where did you develop your style?
PF: I guess my playing style is the consequent result of lots of trial and error, as well as the tireless exploration of what approach to composition would offer me the broadest possible potential creative range both rhythmically, as well as melodically. When it came to using the guitar as a key to countless ideas, sensations, modes, feelings, and expressions I never really acclimated to one particular orientated way to play the instrument conventionally. Even as a teenager it seemed to me now retrospectively that I was interested in finding new ways to use the instrument as a tool for translation rather than production, and if I could expose myself to unusual or nonconventional methodologies I could potentially allow for a more organic or genuine translation of my ideas which could be potentially inhibited by formatting the translation to one particular way of producing ideas or playing the guitar. I thought that if I was "taught" how to play that teaching could be more constricting for me personally than liberating or informative in that by taking the lessons of others ideas on how to musically arrange ideas and in what mode I might find the best results I could inhibit my own unique definitions by taking to one idea too early in my development as a player.
I cannot say for sure if this approach is recommended, it just depends how it works for you. This was how it happened for me. I would just spend time when I was younger having no real relative idea what I was doing with music but relentlessly "making it," if you could call it that; witling away at what sounds I could use and what sounds I did not have as much use for until I slowly developed a style or way of playing that best helped me translate my ideas into a more accurate version of how they are inside of me before I pick up that key or guitar. Finger tapping for that matter was something that I found my way into as a means to create the most unique musical language that I could. It is just the way that I am most comfortable playing at this point in my life. It is really just what I have come to know, and doing what you know is an honest way to express what you feel with the expression remaining as close to the source of the idea itself.
Can you tell us a little about your other band, All of Them Witches? Any reason you started up a second band?
PF: All of Them Witches is an instrumental band that consists of Cameron Rogers, Victor Lazar, and myself. I play guitar, Vic plays guitar, and Cameron plays the drums. The genesis of All of Them Witches was a pretty natural evolution. Vic and I had played together so well for many years in another band called Knife Crazy together and have a profoundly organic ability to somehow comfortably explore more complex and personally challenging musical ideas with one another without being overly taxing in the process when it actually comes to arranging and assembling songs. However the real epoxy behind the whole idea was our mingling with the gentleman on the drums Cameron Rodgers. Cameron is an excellent drummer who we had come to know in Buffalo from playing with his other band called A Hotel Nourishing, and was an absolutely perfect fit for the ideas we were trying to explore. Without an astounding drummer the project would still just be an intention rather than a fully realized active project. We just finished the recording of our first full length titled "Where's the Song" which we will be releasing in the fall. In essence All of Them Witches is an exploration of ideas.
As for why I started a second band? I would say I started a second band for the simple reason of exploring another body of ideas that yields a parallel yet distinct musical narrative outside of Red Tag Rummage Sale's primary theme. All OF Them Witches is like the night when it is just imperative that you watch Die Hard rather than Overboard. It is just a different book of ideas with a different cast of characters working their way through the plot with your red herrings, situational comedy, and twist endings in the mix for good measure to keep the pot at an even boil. Hopefully in the end there is delicious corn.
Now a bit about the music scene in Buffalo: Favorite place to play?
LF: We both love playing at Soundlab. The lighting, the people, the little booths. A touring band just told me that it's the only bar that you can play that feels like you're in Twin Peaks. And I can appreciate that statement. Nietzsche's & Rust Belt Books are also two very different Allentown gems. The first is perfect for a bustling bar/stage experience while the other specializes in intimate bookstore shows.
It seems like there's been a groundswell in the last few years for independent and experimental music in Buffalo, any insight as to what that might hold for the city, or at least for our arts scene?
PF: I am excited about Buffalo for the reason that unlike larger cities or communities for that matter that have countless built in lifestyle enclaves if you will in which people can participate by not really participating due to the depth of the "scene." However I feel that Buffalo is truly inspiring in that people really just make there own "scenes," not that that in particular is my favorite term, but I think that people are forced to work a little bit harder to establish their artistic cultural nook. This then propels a real vibrancy that supports an environment in which people can publicly take risks with their creative endeavors in a setting that encourages alternative, progressive, or experimental means for creation and communication that inspires others to build upon, contribute to, and participate in with a more from-the-ground-up attitude that might not be as built into the community such as in larger cities.
It is the from-the-ground-up mentality that thrives in the Buffalo arts community that inspires me. We are in this together making something we care about because we as a community of artists believe that it can truly in some way or another be to the benefit of our overall community's well being. I think the insight that this notion holds for our arts scene and a city for that matter is an optimistic future where the quality of life here relies on the fabric of the people functioning together in a utilitarian framework as a means rather than an ends to a rewarding way of life that each one of us contributes to and builds upon in our own unique way.
I've heard it said that you two are the king and queen of the current Buffalo indie music scene, any response to these rumors?
LF: if these rumors do in fact exist, they make me smile if not anything else. What can I say? I married the king!
PF: Very flattering.
Goals for the long-term?
LF: playing music for as long as we live. Maybe get an alpaca or two one day. Have some little ones and work on teaching them to be good humans.
PF: We have been anxious to go to a water park before summer's end! If you want to come along let us know!
Check em out:
Red Tag Rummage Sale
All of Them Witches
Time To Operate Records