Complete Q&A for Other Music documentary Blu-ray
Rob-Hatch Miller sent me some questions about Other Music to be included in an oral history of the store in the booklet for the blu-ray release of the documentary he made about it with Puloma Basu. It’s out now (available here) with some edited quotes from me in the booklet--but here’s the whole exchange:
What’s your most vivid memory of Other Music?
Probably the times I played there. I think Loren Connors and I were actually the first people to play an in-store at Other Music--which was later released on our CD Two Nights. I also remember playing there with Run On, and with Lee Ranaldo and the Dust--that's almost a 20-year span right there. Title TK also did a performance at Other where the three of us just walked around and shopped while talking into our mics, and the audience watched--that was pretty special. One of the employees said to me afterwards that he heard customers having conversations like ours in the store all the time, but never as a performance, so I think that was a brain-twister for the people working there as well.
One other in-store I remember going to, as an audience member, was Alan Silva and William Parker. They played some music but they also talked for quite a while, and one thing Alan Silva said really struck me-- "You know, I could never play a tune." Meaning, after all his years as an improvisor and composer, he could now never play a jazz standard or something like that, even though he was more than capable of doing so. That's something I totally admire.
Of course I also worked at Tonic from 2000 to 2007 and I was always bringing tickets over to the store, as Other Music was the only place you could buy advance tickets for concerts there besides our box office--so I had a lot of dealings there on that level too.
What’s an album or two you associate with Other Music?
I remember buying two albums there that Other Music was way ahead of the curve on: OM got a box of sealed copies of Arthur Russell's World of Echo in, certainly before it got reissued, and before he was generally rediscovered (I had actually bought his Another Thought CD used at Other Music a while before that), and Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister--the store was really touting that album, again before anyone had any idea who there were.
What do you think made Other Music special?
Besides the obvious cliche of it being a kind of community center, a role that no other record store in NY really plays anymore, I liked the names they gave to the different sections, rather than the usual genre classifications like rock, jazz, etc--"In," meaning regular indie rock, "Out" meaning avant garde, "Then" meaning reissues, "La Decadanse" meaning dance music, et. al. Those were really hip!
Anything else you want to share about Other Music or records and record stores generally?
I've spent way too much time and money in record stores over the years, and Other Music was no exception, hahaha!
