Gargoyle Humor Magazine: Culture Archives

It's Wednesday in Hawaii!!

By Will on June 24, 2010 6:02 AM | No Comments

Hey kids!

I hope you're summer's going well.

What? Not enough Garg posts?

Well, I mean, that's kind of greedy. You've had a steady flow of them for a while... but more??

Okay, okay. You win. This very Hawaiian Wednesday marks the dawn of a new day. Not just beacause it's dawn here in Michigan (on Thursday, in the Hawaiian future!!) but beacause it is a small part of a renewed commitment to YOU our blog readers...reader.

SO CHECK IT OUT!

Also, check out this breakdancing caterpillar!

//[file not found]//

Maybe later.

St. Vincent Interview Transcript

By Gargoyle on March 31, 2010 9:00 AM | No Comments

By Simin Manole and Michael Mejia

SM: I guess the first thing to mention is we've never interviewed anyone before.

MM: Not one (laughing)

AC: Oh you haven't?

SM: No, this is our first interview.

AC: Oh!

MM: This is a pretty good way of starting an interview.

AC: Because I assumed, with the "Interview [Issue]," that you interviewed these people.

MM: Well, not us. People we work with have interviewed whoever, and just kind of, you know, if you see an opportunity, go for it.

SM: So I guess I would like to start off by asking, do you remember your first interview?

AC: My first interview? Yeah, I think it was with a blog pretty early on, like 2005, 2006. I remember one of the questions they asked was like "do you like vikings or ninjas better."

SM: That's definitely from the internet.

AC: Yeah, I was like you definitely work for a blog, don't you? I think my answer, well my answer might have been vikings at the time, but now it's definitely ninjas.

Continue reading St. Vincent Interview Transcript.

Absofacto Interview Transcript

By Gargoyle on March 31, 2010 9:00 AM | No Comments

By Cathy Fisher

Jonathan Visger has been a fixture of Ann Arbor's music landscape (like the mighty elm) for years as the lead singer and songwriter for Mason Proper. Recently, he's been releasing a steady stream of solo work under the alias Absofacto, under a pay-whatever-you-want system. His music straddles the line between pop listenability and indie/experimental/ electronic/noisy eclecticism.

We talked in the back of Café Ambrosia, directly beneath a speaker which was playing what seemed to be a best-of collection of Jimi Hendrix guitar solos. This lent the conversation an epic tone that may not come through in this write-up. So instead of imagining it happening in Ambrosia, imagine it happened while we were doing sick tricks on dirt bikes. Really. In fact, that's how I remember it.

C: I'm not gonna do the bad questions that other people suggested to me.

J: [laughs] What were the bad questions, just out of curiosity?

C: "Do you have any nicknames?"

J: Yeah, that's a bad question.

Continue reading Absofacto Interview Transcript.

Dick Valentine Interview Transcript

By Gargoyle on February 3, 2010 2:54 PM | No Comments

By Joe Sipka

Electric Six are without a doubt one of my favorite bands. They have a pretty eclectic mix of sounds, and have been described as garage rock mixed with rhythm and blues and disco, and their lyrics are always amazing. I don't know of any other current bands that can sing about escaping from Ohio or Domino Farms and still be taken seriously. After trying to get an interview through normal agent-related channels I used a sort of six degrees of separation connection to them, involving the friend of a boyfriend of a coworker, who has or had some kind of working relationship with the band. In any case, after the trials of setting up the interview and fighting with our office telephone David and I sat down to have a chat with Dick Valentine, the frontman and songwriter of the band.

JS: How do you write so much music so quickly? It feels like you were just touring for "Flashy."

DV: Um, you know we put out an album then we tour, we see things, we talk to people, we have conversations, and that leads to more music.

JS: Out of everything you've put out do you have a favorite track, or any top favorites? I mean, obviously Gay Bar is pretty popular.

DV: Yeah man, I don't know, every now and then I think about that and I'd say right now my favorite song is Transatlantic flight, I was thinking about what a great song that was, but it could change tomorrow.

Continue reading Dick Valentine Interview Transcript.

The OK Go Interview Transcript

By Gargoyle on January 26, 2010 12:02 AM | 1 Comment

What follows is a very nearly complete transcript of our ultra-meaty, ultra-entertaining interview with Damian Kulash, lead singer of OK Go, conducted by Sam Nash, Zack Beauvais, and Adrian Choy. The band's new album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, is in stores now.

We are greeted by Damian and Andy testing their new, Fenton-made amplifiers. After they are done, Damian asks if we want to go grab a cup of coffee.

On the way to Espresso Royale to "support the locals..."

D: For whom is this interview being conducted?

S: For the Gargoyle Magazine.

D: Is that associated with the college?

All: Yes.

A: We're a humor/culture sort-of-thing going on.

D: Got it. Are you a take on The Onion?

All: No...

Z: Well, there's...see, we just had our hundredth anniversary, like, we were originally supposed to be like the New Yorker and all that. It's kind of an outdated style, but we've kept with it...tried to...The paper that's like The Onion is a lot more popular.

D: Ah, really? Fuckers. Whoever that is, I will beat them down. I will beat them the fuck down.

Z: No, you should. We played them in football and they're assholes.

D: Dicks. Dickwad dickholes.

Continue reading The OK Go Interview Transcript.

Something This Way Comes

By Will on January 24, 2010 3:34 PM | No Comments

HEY! YOU! There's a new Gargoyle issue coming out, THIS WEEK!!!

What, are you serious?

YES, YOU! We are serious!

Well, why should I read this newest compilation of all things arty, ridiculous, and inappropriate?

WELL, we have an interview with OK GO! Lead singer/guitarist Damian Kulash, for starters.

Wowzers! That's impressive. What are the chances I'll also find interviews with Electric Six front man Dick Valentine, Hellboy illustrator Guy Davis, and John Hodgman?

FAIR TO EXCELLENT.

Well I'm sold. One last question: why would I read Gargoyle Humor Magazine instead of, say, the "Every Three Weekly?"

GOOD QUESTION, let's ask a celebrity. Hey Damian Kulash, what do YOU think about the E3W?

THERE YOU HAVE IT. New garg issue this week! Coming to an Ann Arbor business or newsrack near you! If that's not good enough, subscribe here: http://gargmag.com/store.html

Stuart's Cereal Reviews

By Peter on June 10, 2009 1:31 PM | 5 Comments

It's time for the Gargoyle Online Article section's tri-monthly update. This time we have two passionate and wildly dissenting cereal reviews by Stuart Vandenbrink that I should have uploaded two months ago when I received them. Oh, well. Perhaps I was drunk. Click on the article-title-link-thing to read them. Now.

Continue reading Stuart's Cereal Reviews.

Mason Proper and You

By Cathy on January 19, 2009 11:07 PM | 1 Comment

The new issue of the Garg includes an account of our bowling adventures with popular Ann Arbor-based band, Mason Proper. Here's a little tidbit of the article to whet your palate and a brief video summary of the event.

I stepped into Jon's Ford Taurus, vastly under-prepared for an interview. Jon informed me that he had spent most of the day answering questions in telephone interviews by various papers around the state. The interviews were to publicize a number of concerts they had planned around the state before going on tour. All of them asked him the same exact questions: "How did you get your name?" and "What genre would you classify your music as?" None of them knew anything about the band.

I quickly threw out half of my prepared questions and asked Jon about my favorite song, "Friendship." It starts with the line: "I froze my hands, broke my fingers off, gave them to my friends as a gift 'cause a rift has formed between us. I froze my hands, broke my fingers off, gave them to my friends as a gift but two of them were misinterpreted." I asked him if the lyrics in the song were true. Jon smiled, held up his hands and waved his fingers. He lowered his head and I thought I heard him mumble, "I wish I had gone through with it." I immediately regretted the question. He lifted his head and explained that the lyrics and the music had been written independent of one another. "One day, the band started playing the music and I jumped in and it fit."

Before arriving at the bowling alley, Jon told me a story about moving a piano with four very large men. One of the very large men, who had an infected lung, had recently been in a road rage-related fight with a much smaller man. The short driver got out of his car and punched the very large man in his infected lung. This angered the large man, causing him to knock the short guy out cold.

Jon added that he was especially bad at moving pianos, though he had moved many of them, "My job is to make sure it doesn't tip. There is no reason for me to even help." He delivered that statement with a surprising pain, as he sighed. I compared his piano moving exploits with my own pool table-moving stories, trying to cheer him up, but the man was blue through and through.

We all arrived at the alley and found out to our dismay that it was a league night and completely packed. We reconnoitered, made a few quick calls, and decided to pick up Matt Thomson and proceed to Bel-Mark Lanes on Jackson Road. The adventure's plot thickened.

When we arrived at Matt's house I was slightly disappointed to find that Mason Proper did not, in fact, live in a grass-carpeted apartment à la the Beatles in Help. Jon and Matt discussed a few points of band business, though it sounded suspiciously like it was spoken in code.

"The falcon has finished its gig, the shipment will arrive at the drums sometime next Tuesday. Tell Pancho there is a cash bar in the club." Quickly changing the subject, Jon pointed out to me that Matt had bowled competitively in high school.

We got turned around a few times on the ride before arriving at the second alley. Noting the various men in black trench coats riding in the cars around us and Jon's erratic driving, I began to get an eerie sense that we were being followed. At 7:39 pm, Matt saw a shooting star out the car window. Jon was convinced it was a helicopter.

Read more in the new issue of the Garg, on a rack near you Wednesday.

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