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Rick Tvedt, a staple in the local music scene in Madison, has written a review of our debut album over at Local Sounds Magazine. Rick is the founder of Rick’s Cafe and the Madison Area Music Awards and continues to champion the independent original music of our small city. We would like to thank Rick for his review and his efforts to give Madison music the recognition it deserves. You can read his full review here.
Keep your eyes posted to this website as we’ll have exciting news very soon.
Our very own Marc & Brad are making waves with their group The Cemetery Improvement Society. Our friends are on the brink of releasing their new album J.A.N.E this Saturday at The Frequency in Madison, WI. You can check them out tomorrow night too where we co-headline a show at the Union Terrace. Marc was recently interviewed by The Onion’s Ben Munson. Have a look!
by Ben Munson June 14, 2010
When The Cemetery Improvement Society needed authentic band photos for its upcoming concept album about a young prostitute, J.A.N.E. (“Just another neglected existence”), it surprisingly didn’t have to travel beyond the East Side of Madison. It seems the ambitious project—told through Marc Claggett and Brad Hawes’ industrial electronic guitar rock and Jessica Knox’s extensive artwork— pertains just as much to Madison as it does to everywhere else in the world. The A.V. Club recently sat down with Claggett ahead of the CD-release party Saturday at The Frequency to talk about the rigors of making a prostitute concept album and how it can be a good excuse to kick out some party jams.
The A.V. Club: Can you explain the concept?
Marc Claggett: It’s basically following this girl’s life, what I call a fictional audio documentary. It’s like a movie with no movie and each scene is a song starting at a point in her life before she gets into prostitution. The whole point is that I wanted to do something different and to have a purpose; everything else I’ve done has been basically the mood I’m in when I sit down. The whole [album] is like a downward slope. The first song is “Fever” and it’s a club-dance song, something I might not have written if I didn’t have a reason to.
AVC: It’s a serious subject that you seem to take a joking approach to on some songs.
MC: There are some songs, like “Dirty Blade,” that’s a complete early-’90s Dr. Dre song, so there’s dark humor to it. We have weird senses of humor and we like to put that in there.
AVC: Is that to defuse such a serious subject or more because it’s just fun?
MC: Because it’s fun, mainly. And because it fits what the songs about, like “Dirty Blade” is her hanging out with her new hooker friends and it’s a bunch of women telling nasty stories and shit like that.
AVC: There’s a pretty significant shift in the tone right after “Dirty Blade.”
MC: Yeah, that’s basically where things start to go downhill.
AVC: This is a pretty ambitious project, coming out a little more than a year after Lonely Dog Island, which in itself was an ambitious project.
MC: Like I said, I had parts and some songs that were pretty much written before I decided to do it, and then I worked those in. [Hawes and I] basically did all the writing within three months, then fit it all together and started recording in January.
My friend Chuck [Prasalowicz], who’s in a metal band called The Unnecessary Gunpoint Lecture, he did vocals on the song “Work.” And my friend Jeff [Goldsmith] did vocals on the song “Christmas Hill.” Scott [Cannaday], who’s also in Projection People and Revolving Doors, recorded the whole thing and produced as well as playing a little bit on a couple of tracks.
AVC: You could classify your music as electronic but it really is guitar-driven as well. How important is the guitar to each track and what advantages do you see in using the seven-string guitar?
MC: Compared to Lonely Dog Island, there was maybe two songs with guitar. Almost every song has guitar on this one and the whole album is more song-oriented, as opposed to just zoning out and forgetting about composition. The guitar obviously adds a lot of melody, and I actually loop guitar so a lot of songs have, like, four guitar parts going at once. That also fills out the fact that there’s just two of us.
I started playing seven-string about four years ago, and I just love the versatility and that you can add a low end that fills in the absence of bass.
AVC: Was Jessica Knox’s artwork planned from the beginning?
MC: It wasn’t planned from the very beginning, but as we wrote the story, I just thought it would be a really cool idea to have something visual to go along with it. The main reason is to just explain what’s happening in every song and to put the listener in Jane’s shoes.
The ideas for this were like a rough story behind each song, and the idea was to have her write from Jane’s point of view.
AVC: So you just gave her a rough sketch and let her go with it?
MC: Yeah. She wrote a lot of it before I actually gave her any of the music. We hadn’t finished writing it, but I had outlined what was happening in each song. So the rough story was done, and then I gave her that and let her fill in all the details.
AVC: So did she influence the final product?
MC: Yeah. Some parts I had music that I hadn’t done anything with and that would shape what that song was about. Other parts I had what the song was about, and I would write totally new to that. Other parts [Knox] would add stuff and it would change things.
I watched a lot of documentaries on prostitution and that’s where a lot of the samples come from. And there were parts where the samples I would find would end up writing the story, too. I would listen for stuff that stood out and sometimes a character would be created because of something from a movie or a documentary.
AVC: The album’s coming out right around the first day of summer, but most people wouldn’t consider these songs summer jams. Would you accept or refute that?
MC: [Laughs.] I’d say there’s some of both. There’s definitely dance-y, upbeat stuff and there’s the complete opposite.
Founding member Kevin McDonnell will be departing from the live line-up of The Projection People in July. Kevin will be packing his bags and moving to a strange new land full of mystery and wonder. Kevin will continue to contribute to song writing via a method called the “internets” and “downloading/uploading”. His presence and performance will be greatly missed but we all wish him the best of luck on his new journey. Currently there are no immediate plans for a replacement. Kevin will always be considered as a member of this band.
We have about 3-4 new songs that will be recorded later this month at Blast House Studios in Madison, WI. At this time it is unknown when these songs will be released. Black Jack Red Queen is doing a remix of the song “Headlights” which may be featured in the same release as the Blast House sessions.
We’ll be playing a show with Marc and Brad’s The Cemetery Improvement Society at the Memorial Union Terrace in Madison on June 16th for the AV Club’s “Area Band” Wednesdays. This appears to be Kevin’s last show with the band. Please come and say your goodbyes and buy the good man a drink.
“I’d like to summarize my review in just a few words, especially for those of you with limited attention spans. This album is amazing, and coincidentally you can check out the CD release party tonight at the Frequency.
But since it is my duty to tell you why it is amazing, let me elaborate a little on why I enjoyed it so much. This is the first album from the Projection People, but it isn’t a fragmented debut. Instead it’s a collaboration from a group of experienced and talented musicians. Cemetery Improvement Society’s Marc Claggett and the Revolving Doors’ Brad Hawes are also the founding members of Analogy Records, the record label releasing the album, and are part of the band along with Scott Cannaday, Tyler Commo, and Kevin McDonnell.
The Projection People has a bit more of a mainstream feel to it and will definitely attract a broader audience than some of the other bands on Analogy Records like Butt Funnel. But don’t pigeonhole them as a boring band with mass appeal. Mixed in with the alternative rock is elements of electronic music that not only keeps the album interesting but lends a unique aspect to each track. Sometimes I found myself unable to move past the first two songs, “Spacefast” and “Buying the Sun,” mostly because I was drawn into the passionate vocals and lush guitar work.
Truly a labor of love, recording for this album began over two years ago: first MIDI drum tracks, guitars and keyboard/pianos layered later, and finally vocals almost a year later. All of these painstaking efforts pay off, with a record that flows together so beautifully it is unbelievable to imagine that is wasn’t all recorded in a single session.” -Kat Kosiec (Dane101.com)
Many thanks to Kat Kosiec, Joshua James, and Jesse Russell at Dane101.com
We’re featured in this week’s issue of Madison’s Isthmus Newspaper in an article written by Rich Albertoni. The article includes an interview, talks about the album, and discusses tomorrow’s CD release party at The Frequency. Go grab yourself a copy!
Update: The article can now be found online here.
We are throwing a CD release party for our Rockford friends as well! The show will take place at the Kryptonite on June 11th. Stop out and celebrate with us! Head on over to the Listen section on the site to hear two brand new songs from the new record!
The long awaited full-length album from The Projection People is finally here! After 2 years in the making and huge grant from Canada, we are proud to announce this arrival. This will be a great night of local and regional musics.
KITTY RHOMBUS http://www.myspace.com/kittyrhombus
NERVOUS CIRCUITS http://www.myspace.com/nervouscircuits
RIDLEY http://www.ridleymusic.com
This will also be one of the last, if not THE last show from The Projection People in this form. Come say hello and goodbye.
Welcome to the brand new website! Our gnomes worked very hard to get this up and running and they hope you all like it. More content to come in the following weeks so keep checking back.
The Projection People full-length can now be purchased online. The hard copy can by found over at CDBABY and the digital version can be found on iTunes and GogoYoko. We recommend using GogoYoko because 100% of the money goes to us. Help support local music and buy our album today!
