Hip-Hop meets avant-theater : Lo-Fi Cadillac

You can't quite hear the irony in the vocals, but it's there. You can't feel the urgency behind the melding of hip-hop and electro-beats, but it's present. In fact, with Lo-Fi Cadillac, you can only hear the future of music.

Based somewhere between hip-hop, turntablism, electro-beats and avant theatre, Lo-Fi Cadillac is an anomaly of sounds, ideas, beliefs and contradictions. On one hand the production is super tight, but has elements of soundbites existing in a lo-fi world. On the other hand, the vocals are so stream-of-consciousness off the wall that it figures the two would find refuge together.

But it all makes sense. Lo-Fi Cadillac is the brainchild of a pair of twins who go by the monikers "Dirty" and "Worm." One does the vocals and lyrics — Dirty — and the other handles the production and soundscape creation — Worm.

But from all sources, the two barely get along enough to make a song, let alone an album. That's why they're still working on it. But they took some time out of their collective busy for an interview.

At The Mike: How would you guys describe the sound of Lo-Fi Cadillac?

Dirty: Have you ever dropped a boombox into a garbage disposal? I haven't, just wondering. If you did, you might pull out our new CD. It's important to pull out.

Worm: Obviously, you won't print that last statement. Seriously, it's a culmination of a combined 44 years of music study that is pretty much thrown out of the window. Almost all we have learned and studied has been forgotten and replaced with two musicians who try their hardest to 'not know what they're doing'. If you want genre: think of it as 'Umbrella-Electro-Urban'.

ATM: Twins are very similar in their beliefs, ideas, etc., but you both seem like polar opposites. With that in mind, how did you ever decide it would be a good idea to work together?

Dirty: Before Worm graduated with a degree in computer science and before he toured with a jazz group he was all right. My advice is, forget school and world travel is for elitists. Or, at least it turns you into one. I needed his computer to record, so it kind of snowballed; we just started stealing each other's ideas off of the hard drive.

Worm: I'm not an elitist. There are just more important things in this world than the downward spiraling music business. Being in the digital world just provides an easier outlet to make this stuff. Since I was young I have been making music; I just don't think it has much of a future in terms of paying the bills. He needed my computer, so in my spare time I did my part.

Dirty: Once you start thinking that way, you are free to make what is in your heart.

Worm: Exactly.

Dirty: That's the first thing we've agreed on in 10 years.

ATM: How did you get involved in music in the first place?

Dirty: When I was in grade school I heard the Bay City Rollers. I'd sing those songs in school and the chicks would dig it. I was hooked. I was the Gene Simmons of the second grade, minus the sex and the coffin business.

Worm: I took piano, guitar and drum lessons. As a goof I would play Dirty's turntables (he is quite the turntablist. If you know who he really is, you know). For this project, Dirty decided to only play some instruments and create the vocals. No turntables for him.

ATM: Tell me about the recording of this record?

Dirty: I smoked a lot.

Worm: Um, I ate well-balanced meals and took vitamins. When it came time to do my parts I tried my hardest to forget what I know in terms of music and just be free. I recorded and manipulated the sounds with software that cost less than $100, on purpose.

Dirty: We are Lo-Fi. Oh yeah, I drank cheap beer until the runs got the better of me. Then I switched to scotch.

ATM: What's the future of Lo-Fi Cadillac look like?

Dirty: Honestly, the album is gonna be a freebie.

Worm: We'll do more, though — maybe.

Dirty: I probably won't work with him again.

Worm: Why?

Dirty: Even though this is a good album, I still think you are a jerk and waiting another 10 years until we do this again is fine with me.

Worm: There you have it.

ATM: How'd you come up with Lo-Fi Cadillac? How about the monikers, Worm and Dirty?

Dirty: My father-in-law has a caddy from, like, 1982. I drove it one day and the sun-bleached leather and the worse-than-AM-sounding-radio that I had my MP3 playing bumping Aesop Rock to give me the idea. Aesop's stuff is already gritty, but put it in that beast and it's straight outta Sanford and Son. In fact, on our Myspace are some lyrics by a certain hip-hop artist whose name rhymes with flay-flop smok. That's right, def jux, have our Myspace taken down. I mean, we aren't selling it and you can't download it ... it's just an interpretation, chill mokie lokie.

Worm: I call him 'Dirty' because he's always wearing that stupid hat that says 'dirtball' on it. Come on, you go to work like that?

Dirty: I am a DJ, you ass. There are no ties to wear to a dank club. I call him Worm because he's a bookworm and acts like it.

ATM: Name your influences.

Dirty: If Wayne Newton spawned Howard Stern, you'd have one ugly kid. Thank you.

Worm: Huh?

Dirty: Musically? None these days. I dig the Bee Gees from long ago. My kids influence me, as well as an emcee who I work with. He goes by the moniker "Ego HimSelf." Badass.

Worm: My main influence is not musical, either. I love to watch the history channel and read skilluminati.com.

ATM: Any plans to take it on the road anytime soon?

Dirty and Worm: Nope.