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Scott Kannberg, aka Spiral Stairs, is feeling a little worse for wear: "It was karaoke night down at the local bar," the Preston School Of Industry frontman chuckles ruefully. "I didn't partake, but... you know..."
It turns out that this unilatereal anti-karaoke policy has its roots in our own little town: "The last time I did karaoke was in Adelaide, actually, and I made such a fool of myself that I vowed never to do it again. There was me and some of the [touring mates] Gersey guys and a couple of my bandmates. I wanted to do Should I Stay Or Should I Go and the guys in the bar were controlling the karaoke machine. We kept putting our name on the list and everyone else was getting to play their song, and an hour and a half went by, more drinks, and finally we get up there and put my mouth to the mic and nothing comes out, so I just throw down the mic and pull down my pants, mooned everybody and walked out the place," he laughs uproariously. "At least, that's what they say I did - I don't remember it. So now I can never do karaoke again."
He pauses for a moment. "Although this solo tour that I've got coming up is going to be a little bit like karaoke. I'm going to try to use some backing stuff, which I'm trying to put together right now. I'm trying to make it interesting, so it's not just me solo doing a Bob Dylan."
There've been some changes in the Kannberg camp of late - for one, he's left his former base in San Francisco and moved north to Seattle, where his wife has a two year teaching fellowship. It's necessitated some changes in the PSOI lineup, reflected in their forthcoming album 'Monsoon'. It's a little more laid-back than 2001's 'All This Sounds Gas', but still has some rockin' moments. Line It Up, for example, has an almost Pixies-esque lead guitar line.
"Actually, I ripped it off," Kannberg snickers. "If you take off one of the notes, it's Rescue by Echo & The Bunnymen."
Aha. The legendary Kannberg Bunnymen obsession. Not only did he write charmingly fannish sleevenotes to the Rhino Records' Bunnymen box set some years back, he's also formed a band with the express purpose of playing their first album 'Crocodiles' from start to finish: "Kelly Stoltz did this great, amazing cover of the whole record," Kannberg explains. "I didn't realise there was another Bunnymen fan out there besides myself, and here's this weird guy from Winnipeg! I said 'we should get together and do this live!' We did it in San Franscisco a couple of times, and we did it in New York, just for fun.
"Actually, Will Sergeant [Bunnymen guitarist] came to the New York show - they'd played earlier that night and someone brought him along. Somebody tried to get him to get up on stage but he said that would be weird," he chuckles. I'm surprised he didn't stand at the stage watching Kannberg's fingers, going "Wrong! That's wrong!" "I know! That's what I was scared of!" Kannberg laughs. "Although my back was to the audience the whole time, like he used to do. It was pretty authentic. And we did have a smoke machine."
Kannberg is also rejigging some of the records from his former band Pavement. Last year he oversaw the "redux" of their debut 'Slanted & Enchanted' into a two disc set, remastered and packed with demos, bonus tracks and other goodies, and I'm delighted to hear that he's about to do the same to their second album 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain'.
I suggest that it must be weird looking back as an archivist over one's own work. "Actually, I look at it as a fan - how would I want this package to be if I was a fan of the band? My whole vision is to eventually have all the records remastered with all the b-sides and all of the songs recorded over that time period put together in the one package."
There's also hope that the new year will bring a full-band Preston tour in support of 'Moonsoon': "I just have to wait for Tom at Trifekta [their Australian record label] to sign thepiece of paper saying he's gonna bring us over!" he chuckles. I don't know though, I'm gonna be there for a month and a half - maybe people will get tired of me."
Andrew P Street
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