Rachel Flotard & Visqueen / Kasey Anderson

Herewith, the Songwriter Conducts an Interview with Rachel Flotard of Visqueen

By Kasey Anderson

By now, you've heard any number of people fawn over Visqueen's phenomenal album, Message to Garcia. Perhaps you heard the folks over at NPR rave about the record, or maybe you read a reviewer somewhere (here?) falling all over him-or-herself to heap praise upon Rachel Flotard and company's collection of songs paying homage to her late father. If you're lucky, you caught one of Visqueen's blistering, visceral sets somewhere out there in wherever it is you are. At any rate, you're aware of just how good Rachel Flotard and her band are.


Me, I first saw Visqueen five years ago at the 3B in Bellingham, Washington. Kim Warnick, who is no longer with the band, was on bass, which delighted the hell out of me as I was a massive Fastbacks fan. But then, as now, it was Flotard's songs that caught, and kept, my attention. Rachel writes Rock ‘N' Roll songs, which to some, suggests some kind of simplicity an a certain level of immaturity. Unfortunately for those narrow-minded folks, Rachel doesn't quite fit that mold. Sure, there are celebratory tunes (and one would argue that a good portion of Garcia celebrates life, rather than lingering on death), but there's nothing simple or juvenile about them. Rachel Flotard is one of the best writers in Rock ‘N' Roll and, if you're not already aware of that, you're going to be very, very soon.


In between gushing emails from me about how much I dig her band, Rachel and I talked a bit about the Beastie Boys. Specifically, Licensed to Ill and, more specifically, "She's Crafty."

 

You performed the tune at a talent show, right? What were the other contenders and how'd you narrow it down?


In high school, my friend Janine and I had to pick a song for our freshman chorus final. We thought we were real wise guys and busted "She's Crafty" instead of some "Wind Beneath My Wings" action.


Keep in mind, this is 1986. And I almost had the Licensed To Ill plane tattooed on my face. Every 15-year-old in suburban New Jersey was singing "The New Style" and "No Sleep "Till Brooklyn." They were just skaters across the bridge from us having parties and throwing pies. For me It was as if Def Jam threw a huge pie on our entire high school. We had our moms packing our lunches AND taking away our best porno mags.

We almost did "Hold It Now, Hit It," but someone got high and lost the coach whistle. What a bunch of A-holes.  I can recite every word of that album. Today, probably.  It's hardwired. I'm glad.

 

Do you feel like there's something--or some things --specifically East Coast about that record? I hate to get all anthropological about it, and I came to that record later, via Check Yo' Head, but I can't help but feel like, on the West Coast, that first Beastie Boys record was always just background noise at frat parties and shitty clubs--people didn't really much deeper in to it than that. But, to me, it has always been more visceral than that--a lot of misdirected (or maybe properly directed) angst, and wit, and rebellion. But maybe I just have a tendency to make everything more academic than it needs to be. Am I way off?
 

Licensed To Ill, to me, is the silhouette of the tri-state area.


It's like a map of the east in my head.  But then so is Paul's Boutique. The coolest thing about those albums, in retrospect, and maybe because I was 17 or so, was that they became a language. If the person next to you lost their mind when "Shake Your Rump" came on, you were friends. That's it.


I loved the super-flyness of it. It's "Johnny Ryall"...  The Beastie's have EVERYTHING. They are masters at what they do, and their discography twenty years later feels as familiar as penciled-up kitchen wall growth chart at your parents house. For those of us at a certain age, they're a lucky Polaroid.



Why didn't the Beastie Boys get written off as sophomoric white boy rap? I don't think about License to Ill that way, but maybe that's just retrospect and knowing that Paul's Boutique was next. For you, at the time, what made them more than just a punchline?

The whole thing was different. It was a movement. Even though it was ‘86, and they had a frat following and it was a little too "Girls," and MTV date-rapey, there was something going on that was NOT sophomoric white boy rap in any way. The effing sampling alone made the whole world split open. Rock and Rap fused.

They were on tour with Public Enemy when I saw them. It was my first ever concert, I was scared shitless and had THE BEST TIME.


Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ. Their stage prop was a giant 50-foot penis that came up from the stage floor. The hardcore band Underdog opened. Effing Joey Ramone walked out at one point. I said "Who the hell is that? He's tall."  At 15 I knew this was a force. I went to see them at MSG a few years later with RUN DMC on the Together Forever tour. Even thinking about that arena while I type this gives me a contact high. It was OUT OF CONTROL amazing.

The Beastie Boys seem like such amazing people now. Fathers, Brothers. I think that record is their Freshman year, as it was mine. And they grew up. And rightly went all Tibet on their asses. I love them so much.

 

Kasey Anderson is a songwriter, singer, dog owner and bacon enthusiast from Portland, Oregon. His three albums, Dead Roses (2004), The Reckoning (2007), and Nowhere Nights (2010) have earned plenty of praise from critics (No Depression, USA Today, The Onion, and right here at BLURT) but, unfortunately, have not as yet yielded the Swedish Fish endorsement Anderson so badly desires. If you'd like to have Kasey Anderson sing, play harmonica and strum a guitar at you, you'll find him on tour all spring and summer (dates and info available at www.kaseyanderson.com).