Tuesday night, Endless Boogie played at the Mercury Lounge to celebrate the release of Focus Level, their first album in 11 years of playing. And just to be clear, we don't mean they released an album back in 1997 and now they're finally doing a follow-up, this is their first album, as in first ever, and it is awesome. It's some of the heaviest psych business we have heard in years and, depending on whether or not somebody drags circa-'68 Malcolm Mooney and Amon Duul through a timehole between now and December, will probably wind up being our favorite album of the year. The band are playing again tomorrow night at Glasslands and you would be wise not to miss it. Here is a chat we had with lead Boogie Paul Major…Hi Paul, how’s it going?
Paul Major: Going good. We did a jam-rehearsal last night and hit Max Fish afterward to celebrate the new record and try it out on the jukebox.How do you guys think it sounds?
Sounds good. We were concerned about keeping something of the edge of our sound. The few times before we tried to record ourselves versus just making tapes of practice, it was hard to keep the same energy going. We think it worked here though. A lot of it was improvised on the spot and turned into something else, so it’s still got a raw edge—not too slick.Just to have this all out on the table, what was the deal with Endless Boogie when it first started?
Initially it was just friends getting together to jam on Tuesdays. We really had no ambition of taking it any further than that for a long time. It evolved very slowly, which is our pace.So all the stuff about not playing live unless specifically asked and no recordings was more about keeping things casual than having some sort of "group rules" like Fugazi or something?
There are a few policies like that, but it’s not like some kind of set MO for the band. When we finally got to the point where we were playing for people, we decided we’ll never seek out shows. We’ll just play whatever comes to us. It’s similar to why we haven’t done a website or stuff like that.You’re basically a professional record collector and wrote about some of your biggest scores over the years for our Music Issue way back when [I know it doesn’t look like it because of the bolding, but the last six or seven words are a link to the article], how’s business these days?
Up until about 10 years ago every time I went back to Kentucky I could hit a bunch of used record stores and still find great records, but it just all vanished. All the valuable stuff has finally been catalogued by reality, you could say. Everything’s being rediscovered and reissued—people now are just more aware. Those days are gone.Do you have any big favorites in your collection?
I sort of channel things, more than I collect them. Records come and go. I hang onto things I like for a little while, and then when I’m done actively putting it on the turntable, if someone else wants it it’ll go.Are there any records you’re particularly proud of channeling into more mainstream circles?
I was ahead of the curve for private/vanity pressing records, so I ended up discovering lots of the ones that are famous now. At that point, there were a couple guys in each big city of the world and we were all in contact with each other, trading the good records from our area for the ones from theirs, sort of cross-pollinating the bins. One of the ones I found that’s big now is Fraction, who were a heavy psychedelic Christian-type band from LA. The singer sounds like he’s got a hyper-Jim Morrison sort of vibe, but he can shriek like Robert Plant as well. The lyrics are definitely Christian, but at times they get so weird and abstract it’s like they’re coming from another dimension.Another one of the ones I was responsible for injecting into the collecting scene was Peter Grudzien. He made what’s to me one of the most amazing records ever, The Unicorn. It was a private pressing from 1974 limited to 500 copies. Back before I left New York, I used to do a big wind-around hitting all the Salvation Armies and thrift shops in town to see what was there, and whenever I got back to the apartment there’d always be a couple albums I couldn’t wait to listen to, to see what it sounded like. That was a big one. I remember when I put it on I couldn’t believe something that intense could be real. Evidently he saw the Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three on a childhood trip down South with his family, then came back and started trying to make his own version of country mixed with folk and recording it at home. Then in the 1960s he started getting really innovative at his home studio—splicing in tapes of choral music and using backwards stuff. This was all mixed with really evocative lyrics—after he heard Bob Dylan-style lyrics his own went off into the Twilight Zone.Back in the day you’d be finding some fantastic new unknown album from the 60s or 70s every few weeks, but now only a couple will turn up per year. The well is going dry.If you were forced to pigeonhole yourself, would outsider-music kind of be your principal genre or area of expertise?
I prefer records by what I guess you’d call "real people," anybody that’s driven to get their music out there without concern for its sellability. Sometimes they’re actually making the record in hopes of becoming a star, but failing miserably at it for the very reasons that make it good. When I first started collecting records, these type of people would just have a guitar. Then in the next era when people could get their hands on cheap electronic keyboards, there was this shift in how these type of records sounded, but the vibes remained exactly the same.How did you guys end up making a record though?
We got invited to play All Tomorrow’s Parties in Britain. The guys that were choosing the bands that year were from the group Slint, who were from Louisville too, just a different era. That’s what motivated us to finally make a recording. We’d been talking for years about how we should make something to sell at shows and help pay for our rehearsal space. Then we decided, well if we’re going to England, we’ve got to make an album.Makes sense.
Then our friend Johann was having his 40th birthday and wanted to have some party favors, so he financed a second recording then gave half of them away at his party and the other half to us. We’ve been recording our all rehearsals ever since, so there are boxes and boxes and boxes of tapes. Marco in particular has been going through them and marked off the tracks where it’s happening—cause usually it’s not all that happening. Every so often it just really comes together and we can all feel it while we’re playing, like "Whoa, we’re there." We had a motto that came out of that, which was "When you get there, stay there." But it’s kind of superfluous, cause once you’re there it’s like impossible to pull out. It’s like it’s happening right on the spot and evolving right in the moment, no past no future and all of a sudden it’s like [pheeeewwwwwcchhrr] time collapses or something. Everything just works.So, John Lee Hooker reference aside, that would be the "Endless Boogie" you’re going for?
Yep. Although for a while we were considering just calling ourselves Canada.
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Paul Major: Going good. We did a jam-rehearsal last night and hit Max Fish afterward to celebrate the new record and try it out on the jukebox.How do you guys think it sounds?
Sounds good. We were concerned about keeping something of the edge of our sound. The few times before we tried to record ourselves versus just making tapes of practice, it was hard to keep the same energy going. We think it worked here though. A lot of it was improvised on the spot and turned into something else, so it’s still got a raw edge—not too slick.Just to have this all out on the table, what was the deal with Endless Boogie when it first started?
Initially it was just friends getting together to jam on Tuesdays. We really had no ambition of taking it any further than that for a long time. It evolved very slowly, which is our pace.So all the stuff about not playing live unless specifically asked and no recordings was more about keeping things casual than having some sort of "group rules" like Fugazi or something?
There are a few policies like that, but it’s not like some kind of set MO for the band. When we finally got to the point where we were playing for people, we decided we’ll never seek out shows. We’ll just play whatever comes to us. It’s similar to why we haven’t done a website or stuff like that.You’re basically a professional record collector and wrote about some of your biggest scores over the years for our Music Issue way back when [I know it doesn’t look like it because of the bolding, but the last six or seven words are a link to the article], how’s business these days?
Up until about 10 years ago every time I went back to Kentucky I could hit a bunch of used record stores and still find great records, but it just all vanished. All the valuable stuff has finally been catalogued by reality, you could say. Everything’s being rediscovered and reissued—people now are just more aware. Those days are gone.
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I sort of channel things, more than I collect them. Records come and go. I hang onto things I like for a little while, and then when I’m done actively putting it on the turntable, if someone else wants it it’ll go.Are there any records you’re particularly proud of channeling into more mainstream circles?
I was ahead of the curve for private/vanity pressing records, so I ended up discovering lots of the ones that are famous now. At that point, there were a couple guys in each big city of the world and we were all in contact with each other, trading the good records from our area for the ones from theirs, sort of cross-pollinating the bins. One of the ones I found that’s big now is Fraction, who were a heavy psychedelic Christian-type band from LA. The singer sounds like he’s got a hyper-Jim Morrison sort of vibe, but he can shriek like Robert Plant as well. The lyrics are definitely Christian, but at times they get so weird and abstract it’s like they’re coming from another dimension.Another one of the ones I was responsible for injecting into the collecting scene was Peter Grudzien. He made what’s to me one of the most amazing records ever, The Unicorn. It was a private pressing from 1974 limited to 500 copies. Back before I left New York, I used to do a big wind-around hitting all the Salvation Armies and thrift shops in town to see what was there, and whenever I got back to the apartment there’d always be a couple albums I couldn’t wait to listen to, to see what it sounded like. That was a big one. I remember when I put it on I couldn’t believe something that intense could be real. Evidently he saw the Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three on a childhood trip down South with his family, then came back and started trying to make his own version of country mixed with folk and recording it at home. Then in the 1960s he started getting really innovative at his home studio—splicing in tapes of choral music and using backwards stuff. This was all mixed with really evocative lyrics—after he heard Bob Dylan-style lyrics his own went off into the Twilight Zone.
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I prefer records by what I guess you’d call "real people," anybody that’s driven to get their music out there without concern for its sellability. Sometimes they’re actually making the record in hopes of becoming a star, but failing miserably at it for the very reasons that make it good. When I first started collecting records, these type of people would just have a guitar. Then in the next era when people could get their hands on cheap electronic keyboards, there was this shift in how these type of records sounded, but the vibes remained exactly the same.How did you guys end up making a record though?
We got invited to play All Tomorrow’s Parties in Britain. The guys that were choosing the bands that year were from the group Slint, who were from Louisville too, just a different era. That’s what motivated us to finally make a recording. We’d been talking for years about how we should make something to sell at shows and help pay for our rehearsal space. Then we decided, well if we’re going to England, we’ve got to make an album.Makes sense.
Then our friend Johann was having his 40th birthday and wanted to have some party favors, so he financed a second recording then gave half of them away at his party and the other half to us. We’ve been recording our all rehearsals ever since, so there are boxes and boxes and boxes of tapes. Marco in particular has been going through them and marked off the tracks where it’s happening—cause usually it’s not all that happening. Every so often it just really comes together and we can all feel it while we’re playing, like "Whoa, we’re there." We had a motto that came out of that, which was "When you get there, stay there." But it’s kind of superfluous, cause once you’re there it’s like impossible to pull out. It’s like it’s happening right on the spot and evolving right in the moment, no past no future and all of a sudden it’s like [pheeeewwwwwcchhrr] time collapses or something. Everything just works.So, John Lee Hooker reference aside, that would be the "Endless Boogie" you’re going for?
Yep. Although for a while we were considering just calling ourselves Canada.