This month (Jan. 2008), Venice Gas House Trolley was profiled in Madison Magazine as having one of the most diverse and unique sounds in Madison, WI. The article can be viewed at: http://www.madisonmagazine.com/article.php?section_id=918&xstate=view_story&story_id=235701

Here is the complete text of the interview:

How and where did Venice Gas House Trolley originate? Explain your Madison connection.

Venice Gas House Trolley is a three-piece band mixing spoken word poetry and music. Vocals and poems by Adam Gregory Pergament [I'm writing these answers], double bass played by Tim Peeters, and percussion and other implements employed by Benny Seger. We play composed pieces as well as improvise. The project started in late summer of 2006 when Tim approached me and said that he would like to work with a poet. The name itself is in honor of the Venice West (Southern California) Beat Poetry scene that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s on Venice Beach near LA. The Gas House itself was the place where ecstatic poets would gather to read and freak out, sometimes accompanied by musicians. We've used that vibe as a benchmark with which to move both forward and backward in time. While some of the poetry rings very ancient, some rings beat and some rings transmodern, in all we do, we ring Now.

Our Madison connection is based upon the many years we have collectively been involved in life, music and poetry here. I started performing in the Madison open mic scene 6 years ago and hosted them for 3 full years at different venues in town. I also led spoken word and music workshops at The Madison Center For Creative And Cultural Arts for 2 years before it closed. I am the "Poet-In-Residence" at King Club. Tim has been making music in town for a while and won a Madison Area Music Award in 2004. Benny has been living on the East Side of town, gardening, and keeping a rhythm of hope alive since the turn of the century.

What genre would you label yourself?

Venice Gas House Trolley is impossible to label. We start with spoken word poetry and add music that touches on jazz, groove, folk, country, blues, psychedelic, and jam. We are at the same time theatrical. Some have called it "spoken beat freak" but we think we will always be a genre that hasn't yet been invented. When we take the stage we want to communicate a love of words and sounds and the ecstatic possibilities of artistic community. The nexus of flowpoetry (the term I use to reference my work) is a spoken word form that places a priority on sound and that can exist as improvised music. The word flowpoetry also acts as an imperative because we believe that the world needs more poets and that all poets have a responsibility to speak out loud.

Who are your musical influences?

Our musical influences run from The Grateful Dead to The Art Ensemble of Chicago to Radiohead to Shivkumar Sharma to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys to Son House to Pink Floyd to Sun Ra and on and on.

How long have you been performing?

Venice Gas House Trolley played its first show in October of 2006. We have gone on to headline shows in Minnesota, Chicago, St. Louis and many points in between.

What do you like about performing in Madison?

Madison is a very welcoming environment for art and music that cannot be neatly labeled. There are many great performance spaces and attentive and engaged audiences. From the point of view of interest and availability of public performance poetry and spoken word, we believe Madison is becoming a center in the US for one of the fastest growing national movements in entertainment and education.

What keeps you in the area?

We love the friends and family we have here and the changes of season. There is no place more beautiful, bright and open-minded in the Midwest than Madison is, and no place that we would rather call home.


What is your favorite Madison-area venue?

We dig performing regularly at King Club and also very much enjoy playing at The High Noon Saloon. We've also performed at The UW- Memorial Union Theater and The Rathskeller. If The Union Terrace and the Overture were open to experimental spoken word and music by Madison area poets, we would love to play those places as well.

What do the members of VGHT do when not performing?

I teach English as a Foreign Language, Tim works for M&I Bank, and Benny is the Agency and Garden Technician for the Community Action Coalition for South Central Wisconsin.

What is VGHT working on in the future?

We continue to write new poems and songs and, through touring, to open space for spoken word and performance poetry where it has previously been shunned. We just released our debut studio CD and have that available on our website at www.flowpoetry.com.

Do you have any upcoming performance or CD releases dates? Particularly, is there anything on the calendar for January or early spring '08?

January will find us on the road as well as playing in town. Keep your ear to the ground and you will hear us coming. Please check out www.flowpoetry.com and http://www.myspace.com/flowpoetry
for show schedules and new news.