Sears: The only thing I can say is that we're very physical. If I had sum us up, it's like we're bringing physicality back to the table because that's not what's happening right now. We do chamber music concerts that are physical, and we do these shows that are physical.
Min: I like the notion that we are doing live performance that requires you to be there. I'm just tired of recorded media. I'm not saying that it doesn't have its place or it isn't an art form or anything, but the only reason that you get your fat ass off the couch and go to a show is to see something that can't be replicated on another type of media.
Gregory A. Perez
Seattle School's Korby Sears, left, and Mike Min.
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Sears: I know that we're taking up real estate in people's heads, and that thrills me more than anything else.
Min: And it's good that it's kind of like falling memories, maybe that have nothing to do with anything, they don't necessarily yield any knowledge—
Sears: This is just the starter kit for something that grows in the head five years later. Not saying this isn't interesting, it actually is very interesting. You know, I just found the original e-mail that Mike sent that led to all of this. We had a show to do and our original idea was rejected and it was like, what are we going to do? So Mike sent this huge e-mail of all this shit, it just rambles forever, and in the middle of it there's like two sentences about two people with guitars and we call it Iron Composers. Then we interview someone for five minutes, and whoever wins has to drink a six-pack of beer and if they don't vomit, they keep it, and if they do, the other guy wins. Then it goes on and I was like, whoa, this little thing in the middle, this is kind of funny.
SW: But of course it's a little more complicated than that now—it's like a goddamned zoo.
Sears: Mike is the minimalist and I am the maximalist. It's not really good or bad, though Mike's [method] is a lot cheaper, a lot easier to do. My tendency is always, "We'll get a horse and we'll get 15 people all wearing green and blah blah blah," to just throw everything together. I was actually thinking about this the other day, too. All the bands that I liked as a kid were always huge, like Oingo Boingo and the Specials and Fishbone, they all had seven or nine people in them, and they were the maximalist mass-ethos kids. But as much work as it is and as expensive as it is, I think that's kind of what makes it interesting. There were two productions at Annex in the '90s that I loved: The Yellow Kid and Cat-Like Tread. Cat-Like Tread had a chicken and two dogs in it. And when you went in there, it was like a whole world onstage, it was overwhelming, and I think really since, like, the NEA fallout the whole tendency has been toward art minimalism or solo shows or one-man shows. That's why we stand out. What other maximalist thing is out there? I mean, we're kind of it.
Min: It's a pain in the ass!
Sears: Yeah, it's hard. It's a lot of money, it's a lot of time, it's a lot of logistics, it's killing us, but you know, the day of the show is great. The day of the show you have a blast. And then it's over with, and you get the broom out, and you're sweeping up the clits, and you're sweeping up the confetti. Were you there in January for Clitstorm?
SW: I missed that—what was it?
Sears: It was a big Emergency Broadcast System thing. It was a full 60 seconds. I threw these bags of pink packaging peanuts while Mike had a leaf blower. Pink packaging peanuts just rained on people while you heard the sound of a hurricane and a women's orgasm. And it just shut off after 60 seconds, and you know what? People loved it. Women loved it. And actually our set manager, Shawn Connaway, had a great quote: "I think any woman is just happy that a man knows what a clit is." It is an educational thing. Seattle School knows what a clit is.
lcassidy@seattleweekly.com
Seattle School presents Iron Composer featuring Wayne Kramer and Jello Biafra at EMP Sky Church at 8 p.m. Fri., June 17. $8 members/$10.
