In Conversation with
Chris aka Same Actor
and “Hot Roddy
July 2005
A little Background:
A big hug to Bela Emerson (http://www.cellobela.com)
for her assistance with this interview.
I have known Bela for a little bit now (and interviewed
her
A little bit back for Setting Sun) and seen her play
Under a couple of different names and styles and often
have
Seen a number of interesting acts supporting her.
Chris aka. Same Actor was one of those particularly
Interesting surprises.
I had gone along to watch Bela (as part of a
tour called “Really or Totally Bored?(I forget which ?
sorry)
and before Chris, there had been a couple of good acts,
but not neccassary acts that I would want to interview for
Setting Sun (I can’t interview everybody in the world!)
And then this young man sat down near my friends and I
And started plucking a Sitar.
Yes, a Sitar
And not in the style of Ravi Shankar but
More across in the style of Bela Emerson with
Soundscapes perhaps meeting my good buddies
Chris Cole (aka. Manyfingers) and Matt Elliott
(Third Eye Foundation) in the way he would then
bring different instruments into the mix.
Really impressed, Bela introduced us afterwards
And we got talking ?I took Chris’s details and one
Of his CD’s “Figs?(which is discussed below)
And this interview came is what came from it.
A special thank you to Chris for this interview
(and thanks again to Bela for the introductions)
Cheers
Andy
For more information please go ?#060;o:p>
Setting Sun:
How's things and what are you up at
the moment?
Same Actor:
Fine thanks, I've got two whole
days off to spend on music,
so I can work on remixes for
Shitmat, Rashamon, a bhangra
project with Chevron, some new
Hot Roddy drum and bass,
a recording with a band called
El Maes in which I
Play sitar, help organise Spirit
of Gravity (www.spiritofgravity.com)
events, and practice my Same Actor "live routine"
Setting Sun:
Now although I have been aware of
your music
for a little while, mostly through
the efforts of Bela
Emerson, but as I always say -
clearly there are
people who wouldn't have heard of
you so can you
introduce yourself to us, tell us
who fired the
starting pistol etc?
Same Actor:
I suppose I fired the pistol,
encouraged by friends though, although
I'm not sure what they saw in my
initial attempts at making music! I
started to make music on the PC
when I finished an Electronic Music
degree and moved to Brighton
back in 1999. I'd been playing guitar for
ages and was getting slowly
better on the sitar, so for gigs I tried to incorporate
instruments into the
'electronic' (ie: prerecorded) stuff I enjoyed blasting
through the PA.
Back then I used the name Remote
but I changed to Hot Roddy around
2003 when I realised that there
were lots of other artists in this field
with names that included
"remote" and I didn't want to be confused with
other artists.
Then I invented Same Actor to
play beatless music more experiemental
music which was completely live
at gigs with no backings.
Setting Sun:
What are your influences and what
are you listening
to at the moment?
Same Actor:
Over the last few months....
Dark drum and bass (Evol Intent,
Resonant Evil, Calyx)
Various bhangra (I know shit!)
Fantomas
Pandit Nikhil Banerjee
Recordings I made of Bela,
Monster Bobby and Britch while we were on
Tour
Gloria Coates String Quartets
The Great Society with Grace Slick
Setting Sun:
And what stuff have you released to date so far?
Same Actor:
(Some of these were in
incredibly small quantities)
Remote "Remote" CDR
Remote "Stay Still"
CDR
Remote "Peaks Troughs and
Glitches" CDR
Remote "La Cucaracha"
CDR
V/A "A lonely Planet Guide
To The Solar System" CDR (just for one gig)
Same Actor "Extreme
Pumpkin" CDR
Hot Roddy "Hazelnut
Yog" CDR
Hot Roddy "That's My
Weakness Now" CDR
Hot Roddy "A Lively
Aprreciation of Doom" CDR
Same Actor "Figs" CDR
(just for the recent tour)
Hot Roddy "Pessimism"
mini card shaped CD (Here's My card Records UK)
Same Actor "Sharp Edges" (Bip Hop) forthcoming CD
Setting Sun:
It was good to meet you on tour
recently playing
alongside with Bela and others, so I
guess you play
gigs on a sort of regular basis?
Same Actor:
I try to accept every gig I'm
offered and I'm lucky to live in
Brighton where there are lots
cool nights and it's quite easy to lug my stuff up
to London.
Setting Sun:
How does it compare for you playing
gigs to your recordings?
Same Actor:
I suppose like most musicians I
choose the music to fit the situation,
I tend to play beaty Hot Roddy
stuff in clubs, Same Actor experientalism
In more mellow
surroundings.?It's good to make
electronic as live and
visual?as possible but if I try to to too much at once it can fall
apart, I also like to
have new songs for every gig
especially if I know some of the audience have
seen me before. I always have my
sitar at every gig, people seem to like
that!
Setting Sun:
Is their one?you prefer over the other?
Same Actor:
No there's not one that I
prefer, it just depends on each gig and each
recording. If a gig's gone
really well and I feel like I made some kind
of succesful communication with
the audience then that's an amazing
feeling, but if I make a piece
of music at home that me or my friends dig upon
repeated playing then that's
equally great. Unfortunately most of the
stuff?I do falls short of these highs!
Setting Sun:
Great also to see from your website
that you also
do remixes for example off
"Oom" who I interviewed
ages and ages ago for "Setting
Sun" under your other
name of "Hot Roddy". How
does remixing compare to do
your other stuff?
Same Actor:
Sometimes I take the (lazy)
approach of making a Hot Roddy track with
Short samples I like the most
form the original but I'm most happy when I've
Taken bigger chunks of music
(like one of the ones I did for Bela) and kind
of put it into a different
setting to make it sound like "me" which can
involve a spot of sitar thrown
in. Normally I give the remixee a few different
remixes that I've come up with
and let them choose, but I really haven't
developed a consistent appraoch to remixing
Setting Sun:
I also remember from conversation
with you with
that night you are involved with a
radio show down in
Brighton? Can you tell us a little
bit more about
this?
Same Actor:
It's the fornightly Spirit of
Gravity internet radio show at
www.totallyradio.co.uk and Lee Hume from
Rashamon presents it with?me
.
It's billed as an electronica
show. Tiy can see the playlist at
www.spiritofgravity.com/playlist.htm?,we try to play as much
unsigned music as possible as
well as the established labels, and
we have regular musician guests
telling us about and playing
their music.
One of the best shows?was we did a Adaatat/Wrong Music
special with Wrong Music's DJ
Scotch Egg,
Utabi's Harry brother and Ove
Naxx all squeezing into the studio and
Playing live sets before Shige
lead us in a sing song. We actually received
Some complementary feedback
about that one.
Setting Sun: What is your inspiration behind your name "Same
Actor" and also "Hot Roddy" out of interest?
Same Actor:
Hot Roddy (originally Hot Roddy
Ramshaw but that really was a
bit too much):well like I say I
had to change from Remote because
there were a many other
similarly named acts out there and I'd
heard of some awkward situations
for people in the same situation
which I was keen to avoid, so
Hot Roddy has far less likelihood
of being chosen my anyone else,
and it sounds daft,
which I like, I think the names
used by people in this business
(electronic/experimental/Wire
readers' music, whatever you call it)
can be a bit too serious. And it
suits the performances too
The Hot Roddy?gigs are a bit more dwon to Earth, with just
sitar ,beats
and?maybe a bit?DSPing if my
laptop decides to work.
Same Actor: Truman Show style
conspiracy theory personal paranoia
That certain people I meet are
so similar, and I never see them together the
same time (I've cut down on
smoking lately!)
Setting Sun: What's next for you? Do you have any more concerts
/ gigs planned?
Same Actor:
I'll be working on another Same
Actor album proper and hopefully the
"Sharp Edges" CD will
be out on Bip Hop soon, and there are a few gigs
on the horizon -
Sunday 31st July: Same Actor at
Slack Sabbath at the White Hart in
Stoke, Newington, London
Tuesday August 9th: Hot Roddy at
Wrong Music at the Volks in Brighton
Wednedsay
7th September: Same Actor at the
Red Rose, 129, Seven Sisters
Road, Finsbury Park , London
Setting Sun: There are a number of excellent tracks on your
recently released CDR
"Figs" but I think my favourite
tracks are the two part cycle
"Jaune" which you
described as a sort of Yellow Life
Cycle, which I
could see certainly. Could you tell
us a little bit
about these tracks?
Same Actor:
Brilliant, I'm glad you liked
some of those tracks!
That CDR "Figs"?really was only made available while I was
away on
tour, I only made about 30
copies.
A lot of the tracks were
recorded live as I practised my live set, with
various instruments going
through my cheap jittry laptop running a
Max MSP patch that I've been
"developing" for about 2 years now,
and I picked my favourite jams
from about 30 that I kept. The album
overall sounds more 'loose' than
previous efforts, but I'm happy with
that and some songs on
"Sharp Edges" are like that (one of which is
27 minutes long!)
But, "Jaune",
"Moth Like Groups" and "Shards" on "Figs" were
sequenced in Renoise, they're
not live and as such they're a lot more
detailed.
When I sequence Same Actor stuff
I really try to be really
expressive and have loads of
contrast from one bar to the next, I'm
influenced cartoon music and
"choppy" music by bands like Fantomas,
composers like John Zorn and
producers like Venetian Snares, without
beats , though, although more
what I've read about them than stuff I've
actually heard which is cool
becasue then there's less chance of
me actually plagurising!
Anyway "Jaune", is
described as yellow simply because it's all sitar
samples and I hear?the sound of the sitar as 'yellow' for some
reason! It
could be a life cycle, the first
part could describe birth and the second bit,
death. To be honest the concept
doesn't go much further than that. A lot of the
music I write has nothing else
to it at all, I just aim to make a nice noise. The
mp3s of "Jaune" are on
the music page of my site by the way.
Setting Sun:
A few slightly more light hearted
questions to
finish off with - firstly, what?would be your dream job if you were not
a rock n roll act?
Same Actor:
I've given myself a headache so
maybe something nice and peaceful like
being a monk sounds appealing.
Setting Sun:
Lastly, something slightly less
serious to finish
off with perhaps ... (Nicked from a
pal's Zine in away
"Imagine you were ship wrecked
on a desert Island and
could have (clearly second sight
here - lol) the
choice of having 5 records or cds
with you with a
stereo of course. What would be your
desert island
discs?"
Same Actor:
(I suppose you can't really
control what music comes your way
especially when you're?young but these ended up being listened to
quite a lot at different phases
of my life so if I listened to them on
a desert island they'd probabaly
bring back memories, but I'm not
sure I'd enjoy listening to any
record exhaustively in case
I started to hate it)
Mahavishnu Orchestra "The
Inner Mounting Flame"
( I know they're not everyone's
cup of tea and a lot my friends hate
it but I love Mclaughlin's
visceral Hendrix esque energy)
Yes "Tales From Topograghic
Oceans" or
"Fragile"or
"Relayer" or "The Yes Album"
or "Close To The Edge"
(I'm not embarassed about 70's
Yes being
a soundtrack to my 90's, well
it's too late now!)
Cannibal Ox "The Cold
Vein"
(my favourite album of this
bleak decade)
Shostakovich "8th String
Quartet"
Stone Roses "Turns Into
Stone" (I don't actually own this compilation
But it's got "One
Love" and "Fools Golds", my favourite 12" singles ever,
The artwork, the Bsides)
