SW: Yes, it's another organ record. It's a Brooklyn band who are part of the whole axis around Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. The whole thing is designed to sound and look exactly like a late-'60s record, the engineering and everything. They played at the last Bumbershoot.
Martine: I bet they'd be a fun band to see live.
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Horvitz: It sounds great. It's interesting, though, that the thing that's not like James Brown is, it's got like a bit of the New Orleans thing and the Memphis thing, but it's got a bit of the twangy thing in it, you know, in the guitar.
SW: Rather than the hard chanking sound?
Horvitz: Yeah. Something the two of us share a lot, I really like that intersection of?you know, that famous story where Aretha went to Muscle Shoals and thought she would be recording with an all-black band, and it was an all-white band. It's this kind of intersection, 'cause these guys played country music, too. You hear that in the Meters, that they hear country music.
SW: With Zony Mash, you were doing a version of Meters-style funk.
Horvitz: Why would I bother . . . no, I would [say] the worst thing about Zony Mash is that the Meters ever came up. The point about the Meters was just an indication [that] I was gonna write my music for that instrument, because I had never put a band together around the organ. Originally, I was sitting there and I had two minutes to do a press release, and I thought, "OK, cool." We covered a Meters tune a few times, but attempting to play like the Meters is a real dangerous thing to do.
that dog.: "Minneapolis" (1997) from Retreat From the Sun (DGC)
Horvitz: Is this Sleater-Kinney?
SW: No.
Martine: I don't think I've ever heard that voice?I really like it.
SW: It's that dog. Petra Haden was in the band, and Tucker worked on her duo record with Bill Frisell last year.
Martine: Which was a great experience, watching her work. She'll just kind of lay on the couch until it's her turn, and then she'll ask if you have 10 tracks and she'll go in there in about three minutes with the string section and do her parts. I haven't listened too much at all to this band. The vocals are right up front, which is a little unusual. She's not the singer in here, is she?
SW: No, that's Anna Waronker. They were on Geffen, and I think one reason the vocals are way up front was because they were sort of trying to get on the radio.
Martine: I just realized my good friend?that loves that dog.?is from Minneapolis, too. We've got to start writing songs about every major metropolitan area. Mylab perform at the Triple Door at 7:30 p.m. Mon., Feb. 15. $20.
mmatos@seattleweekly.com
