Oh absolutely. Interesting name, interesting band, boring members with mundane existences in a grey town. Heh. We're interesting in the sense that we tend to not limit our sound - we'll dabble with ideas, working on the assumption that if we keep the creative and recording processes interesting, the end result will follow. Mark also collects stamps.
Trilemma is our escape-hatch. A huge imaginery world where we cavort with cosmic dervishes, pleasure ourselves in byzantine bordellos, and, uhm, write some songs.
If Trilemma was a car it'd be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang driven by the Child Catcher. The headlights would conceal heavy machine guns (like those on the A10 Thunderbolt) and there'd be Tomahawk cruise missiles mounted on the running boards. If Trilemma was a train, it'd be Trotsky's armoured locomotive - speeding across the snowey Russian steppes, crushing the terror of the White Guard. On its roof would be mounted a special turret gun, but instead of firing bullets it'd shoot custard pies. These would be used to strafe the naughty Kronstadt anarchists.
In any case, Trilemma is very much a force for good and evil. Moreover, I am of the opinion that I have now answered question one. Next topic please.
2. U ARE FROM STOKE-ON-TRENT... IS THERE ANYMUCH GOING ON IN THE LIVE MUSIC SCENE DOWN THERE AS WE EDGE INTO 2003?
You have to bear in mind that Stoke is like an enormous disease, afflicting the heart and soul of all its inhabitants. Imagine dropsy, but in geographical form. Or scroffula. Yes - scroffula is much more accurate. Stoke is a vast case of geo-demographic scroffula. It's a massive bubo, leaking its virulent fluid into the collective consciousness of its people. Its tourist information office is situated in a mouldering Victorian sewer culvert towards the junction of the Trent Mersey and Cauldon canal. Oh, yes - and it's usually closed on Tuesday afternoons. The tourist office, that is - not the town. The latter has been closed for repairs since 1832. Stoke's always had a lot of bands - but very, very few have ever broken out into a national context. Those that have usually under-achieve chronically. For a city this size, the situation is surely bizarre - after all, most cities this big usually witness the creation of a few indie super-stars every few years or so. I can't see this changing in the future, thank God. But that doesn't mean there aren't some great bands and people with ace ideas. There are:- The Mittens, Japhy Ryder And His Band, Steve Lloyd, The Wow (who may or may not be still together), Agent Blue, The VC's, Sculpress - I'm just scratching the surface. The live scene for the smaller bands is focussed at the Talbot. Recent highlights have been Kimya Dawson, Herman Dune, Saloon, Linus, Puerto Muerto, Cribs, Real Losers and loads more. Trilemma's Blue Minnow label did a joint promotion of the Linus/Mittens gig recently. So in brief, the live scene is looking pretty healthy.
3. WHAT DO TRILEMMA ASPIRE TO?
Trilemma isn't so much a band as loose set of messy and unfinishable objectives - so although it did start out as an attempt to write and record some songs, it's now about recording other bands and people, beginning a label, promoting gigs, etc. etc. The aspirations are huge really. Even if it were limited to just the band thing, the hopes are always ridiculously high. So while we might just be sitting around of an evening trying to put some sounds to tape, we're always aiming to write and record the best song ever. Which, given the technical - and various other - limitations is a bit 'unrealistic', or so some might argue. Factor in the attempt to record others and to collect together a series of recordings in oder to subsequently launch a special label that unleashes CD samplers onto an unsuspecting intergalactic audience and suddenly we're residing in cloud cuckoo land. So yeah.
4. IT'S GREAT TO SEE YOU ARE DISTILLING THE MAGIC OF RELEASING YOUR MUSIC ON VINYL AS OPPOSED TO CD? IS THIS A LONG-TERM PLAN, AND WILL FANS OF TRILEMMA AND THEIR MUSIC HAVE TO POSSESS A RECORD PLAYER IN ORDER TO HEAR THEIR RECORDED OUTPUT?
If someone's willing to finance a vinyl release, while someone else can only be bothered with cd, we'll go with the former. Vinyl shows a level of commitment from a third party. Anyone can fire off a few cdrs, or even phone the manufacturer for a run of proper cds. But 300-500 singles or whatever, is something qualitatively different. It shows that the person isn't thinking about profit, about investment and return, or 'recouping' and so forth. To me, it means they're more into the idea of making a statement - something that's about the art of it, or that signifies pure enthusiasm. I'm probably romanticising it all. But whatever. Oh - also, the vinyl versus cd sound quality debate doesn't interest me much. I'm not sure I could pass a blindfold test, e.g. But what does mean something to me is the mark-up issue. If I go to Selectadisc or somewhere and buy LPs I have this big bag of stuff, it feels like I've actually bought something substantial, and significant. And I know that the labels won't be making as much profit. Vinyl really is quite often the same price (certainly with new releases), but the unit costs are higher. QED the profit mongering whore masters of late capitalism aren't fleecing my quite so much. Something like that. Of course, the argument gets more complicated in the context of indie labels. But anyway.
5. YOU PUT SO MUCH EFFORT INTO YOUR ARTWORK? DO YOU THINK MANY BANDS THESE DAYS TAKE MUCH PRIDE IN THE 'PACKAGES' THEY RELEASE FOR FAN CONSUMPTION?
We see the whole thing - the band and all its disparate aims and stuff - as a chance to be creative, and to express something. Consequently any opportunities within the processes of realising whatever thing we're doing at any one time are fully milked in order to yield the full quota of unnatural goodness. The aching teats of the Trilemma mother-being are tapped relentlessly and without compunction. We regularly enter the vast inner nest and raid the secret stores of vitality and nourishment. Sorry what was the question?
Yeah - bands are shit. How often do I see these standard web sites with the 4 navigators - 'gigs', 'photos', 'mp3', 'fuck-all else'. Tossers. Get with the programme dickheads. This is your chance to destroy reality, to create a parallel universe where you construct your own mind and brain. So what's the cd cover like? Oh yeah. A shit logo with a standard font and sod-all else. What's the problem. Go out, walk around, take some photos - I dunno. Where's the artiness of it all?
6. HAVE THERE EVER BEEN ANY TRILEMMA DILEMMAS?
Gosh. Digital or analogue, Foucault or Derrida, Belle and Sebastian or Slip Knot, laytex or leather, Marx or Engels. Life or death. Friends or enemies. Better yet, Friends or Will and Grace. I mention Derrida just because of his post-structualist concern with binary thought and the de-presentifying of the Other. Obviously the metaphyiscs of presence is everything here. Dialectics won't suffice, because even within a Hegelian relationship the unfolding of synthesis still seems to prioritise one element of the binary. Actually that's bollocks. The point is, the dialectic subsumes difference. Perhaps that's the point - binaries occlude otherness. Hang on - no, that's not it. Within binary relationships, always one side of the dichotomy is held in abeyance. And merely seeking to free up the subjugated Other would produce a similar situation, whereby the Other comes to dominate. The relation of power has changed, but the inversion of the relationship reinstates the form of oppression. The objective is therefore to abolish binarism somehow. And to think DIFFERENCE. Is that it? I haven't even had coffee yet. Wait.
7. And now feel free to use the infinite space below for plug-overload...
Oh - it would be better to apologise for the stupidly vast length of time it's taken us to do this interview. Sorry. Life has been a harbinger of solitude recently. Consequently I've been watching too much telly. I hope this doesn't reach you too late. Thanks for waiting - if you did, and for sending the interview in the first place. Much appreciated. Plugs? Ok - if anyone wants to send a tape I'll put some stuff on it and make a nice little jacket-come-sleeve-some-insert effort for it. Oh and an SAE - or some stamps. So I can send it back again, I mean.
The debut Trilemma 7" single is still available from us or from Kitchen Records and although our debut lp "Push What Is Collapsing" was given away to the first 100 subscribers of Robots And Electronic Brains zine we do have the masters and can make bootleg copies should any soul be interested. There've been a few releases given away with zines too, all of which is documented on the website.