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Finding Ida
by Paula J. Smith |
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Love
lost, a bonding moment in a kitchen, regret following an argument.
These are the snapshots of time spent listening to Ida. Like their
last album, "Ten Small Paces," Ida blends spacey soundscapes, reverberating
guitars, acoustic finger picking, and layered vocals upward toward
some truly haunting and graceful crescendos. In "Will You Find Me,"
the fourth full length album from the New York four piece, Ida harnesses
their acoustic sensibility and stir in effortless guitar noises,
vibrating wine glasses, low electric organs, and thudding slow tempo
beats for a unique and lovely listening experience.
The following interview with Karla Schickele, Ida's bass player
and one of its three songwriters, was a chance to explore the process
that the band employs in writing and performing. It was also an
enlightening talk with a woman working in the music business and
leaving her mark with impassioned performances, crafted recordings,
and emotive songs. |
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WOMANROCK:
How do you think your audiences are generally getting to hear you?
Are you heard on college radio or is it more word of mouth?
KARLA:
We get the impression that there's a lot of word of mouth going
on. I know that there is college radio happening, and occasionally
we'll hear a friend in another city say " Hey, I turned on the radio
and I heard your song," which is nice ... it's like you sent a postcard
to someone and you didn't even know you sent it. We hear a lot about
it at shows from people who say "Oh, a friend of mine put a song
of yours on a mixed tape and I loved that song, so I came out tonight
and I'd like to get a record." It seems to be the kind of music
that people want to share. That seems to be a lot of the way that
people hear about Ida.
WOMANROCK:
Do you know, are you guys out there on Napster or any other music
file sharing?
KARLA:
So we hear.
WOMANROCK:
What do you think about all of it?
KARLA:
I am a little bit in awe of the impact of this technology on music.
I think it's great that it's undermining the control that record
companies have over people's access to music and over artists' ability
to get their music to people. That is exciting to me. However, the
aspect of it that threatens to undermine a musician's ability to
be able to make a living certainly is disconcerting. I was talking
about it with a friend today, Jenny Toomy, who's doing a lot of
work on this issue. She just started a group called The Coalition
For the Future of Music. We were talking about how looking back
and trying to find another technological revolution that had such
an impact and we went all the way back to the printing press. It
just completely revolutionizes the way that people have access to
a medium. Someone came out to the show in LA and said "Hey I just
downloaded a song of yours the other day and I thought it was really
cool so I came out," and he bought a record. It's definitely helped
spread the word.
WOMANROCK:
You talked about the scope of Ida, and you guys have obviously taken
a more indie route in terms of the marketing and distributing for
your music, do you think you could ever be on a major label?
KARLA:
Well, we were. We signed with Capital Records when it became clear
that Simple Machines was going to be winding down, that Jenny and
Chris wanted to be doing other things.
WOMANROCK:
Tell me a bit about that experience ... and the switch over.
KARLA:
Well what happened was Dan and Liz had been working very closely
with Simple Machines from the start of the band, way before I was
in it, and had just gotten incredible support from Jenny and Kristen.
As the years went on Jenny and Kristen decided that they wanted
to move on to other projects in their lives so it became time for
a change. In that process one of the things that got explored was:
what's this whole major label thing? So records were sent out, phone
calls were made, and Capital expressed interest in signing the band.
We negotiated and signed and made two albums worth of material on
their tab.
WOMANROCK:
Nice! (Laughing)
KARLA:
Very nice! (Laughing) Nice microphones, and (we) worked with some
amazing people and some great studios. It was a long process that
turned into some music that I feel really good about, but it definitely
was a process that took it's toll on the band, and there was just
a lot going on in our personal lives at that point. Label-wise what
ended up happening was that by the time we finished making the music,
the president of the company Gary Girsh had been fired and a lot
of people had left the company-basically everyone who had ever heard
of the band. It became clear that it was not going to be a friendly
place for us to be working. So we managed to get out of the contract
and escape with our masters.
WOMANROCK:
Wow, not bad! Congratulations.
KARLA:
Thank you.
WOMANROCK:
I was wondering if you could tell me about your approach to songwriting.
In terms of the band, do you have a process that you go through,
or is it more that individuals will write songs and bring them to
everyone, or how does that work with you guys?
KARLA:
Well, I years ago got used to writing songs alone in my room and
that's pretty much how I work, and Dan and Liz have a more collaborative
approach in their songwriting. Once the song, the basic structure
of a song exists, it becomes a very collaborative process of bringing
in the song, playing it in it's bare form, and then we all work
together in crafting an arrangement and a lot of parts get added
and a lot of ideas get thrown around.
WOMANROCK:
What instruments do you use to write with? Bass being your primary
instrument in Ida ... I mean do you write on bass ever? I noticed
you played piano and organ on the record ...
KARLA:
I used to write mainly on guitar. When I'm alone in my room I pretend
that I can play guitar. (Laughing) Guitar has a lot of notes.
WOMANROCK:
I think everyone pretends that they can play the guitar! (Laughing)
KARLA:
I don't like to play the guitar in front of other humans.
WOMANROCK:
Neither do I and I'm a guitar player! (Laughing)
KARLA:
It's helpful for writing. About two years ago I was house sitting
for my folks and they have a really nice piano, so I started writing
on piano and that's been kind of a revelation for me. I'd always
been intimidated by the piano because I thought, you know, eighty-eight
keys - that's just way too many variables, I can't handle it. (Laughing)
And then someone pointed out to me that a piano is, clinically speaking,
a percussion instrument. I realized that it's just a big drum and
all you have to do is hit on it. And once I realized that it really
freed me up and I love the piano.
WOMANROCK:
How long have you played bass?
KARLA:
I got my first bass when I went away to school and I got another
kid at school to give me some lessons and he taught me how to do
scales, and he taught me how to play Jimmy Jazz, that song on that
London Calling Clash record, and a Rickie Lee Jones song, and I
spent a month practicing and then I haven't really practiced since
then.
WOMANROCK:
(Laughing) Are there any records of late that have been really turning
you on?
KARLA:
Hmmm, good question, I've been hearing a lot of older music. Miggy
and I, he and I have opened a record store here in Brooklyn. It's
all used records and great old stuff.
WOMANROCK:
What's the store called?
KARLA:
It's called Big Deal Art Records Junk.
WOMANROCK:
Have you found any resistance or weirdness in the music business
that you felt was due to your being a woman?
KARLA:
In the circles that we tend to run in musically and socially and
all that mixed together there is such amazing precedence for women
making awesome music, and because of that a lot of listeners I think
take women seriously as musicians. I think that if we had stayed
longer in the world of the majors, just based on what I've read
about other people's experiences, we might have run into some of
the stereotypes and limitations that try and confine women to certain
ways of playing music and certain ways of presenting themselves.
In thinking about it now, I think that I've felt accepted and taken
seriously as a musician in the different ways that we've played.
Karla and Ida will be touring throughout North America this fall
and are planning their first European tour in the near future.
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Visit their site at www.idamusic.com. |
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_________________________________
Paula J. Smith is a freelance writer in Austin, TX. She plays guitar
and sings in a four woman band called 1/5th Griffith. She can be
reached at: paulaj@texas.net |
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