Interview: Carnival Art

Culture shock can be a funny thing. Take CARNIVAL ART, a subversive rock n' roll quartet, hailing from L.A. and according to their bassist Ed, with his regular Joe haircut, eclipsed by a baseball cap, "it's unreal being here."

So we huddled around a table in the lounge of the Columbia Hotel in Lancaster Gate, London. Singer/guitarist, Michael P. Tack, adorned with beaded necklaces, cuts a sort of bohemian maverick figure who's eager to enlighten me with the raison d'être of their particular carnival:

"When I was young, I used to go to this reoccurring carnival that happened every year during Halloween and there was this booth where you could do these spin paintings. You'd squirt paint at a spinning wheel and it just splattered everything. I used to call it Carnival Art – I have a collection of those that I did – but the name to us really means kitsch, cheap art, y'know, stuff you'd win at a carnival, like an ELVIS lamp or those little trolls."

Interesting story, but there's a little bit more to them than simply kitsch value. Their album Thrumdrone has been released in this country through the Beggars Banquet label. Loosely speaking, they're a musical kaleidoscope of garage band rock n' roll and quirky minimalism. One thing's for sure, it's not east to slot them into a convenient musical category.

"Yeah, I guess we have tons of different influences," explains Michael, "because everybody comes from so many different angles. I come from more of the DYLAN/CLASH side of things and he (gesturing to Ed) comes from..." "Hard Rock, like VAN HALEN and MOTLEY CRUE," Ed qualifies. "No, we're not easy to classify," adds Michael, giving credence to my statement.

It also transpires that early recording sessions were a tad...illegal.

"We scammed time all over LA from different studios. It was all pirated. We did it for free! When U2 would leave the studio, we'd go in and set up and record. They'd waste so much tape. Not just U2, but other bands."

So, do you think you can take your vehicle further?

"It's the best art form," replies Michael confidently, "and we've got so many ideas."

Mark Liddell
Riff Raff
October, 1991

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!