Japandroids

Welcome to the latest edition of Pitchfork's Guest List. Each week, we ask one of our favorite artists to fill us in on what they've been up to lately: which tracks they can't stop spinning, what books they can't put down, and what new bands they've caught on tour. This week it's Brian King of Japandroids, still convalescing from an illness, giving him lots of time to catch up on new music, check out some local festivals, and remember why he doesn't get too attached to his instruments.

Favorite New Songs of the Past Year

White Denim: Workout Holiday

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

The War on Drugs: Wagonwheel Blues

Kurt Vile: "Freeway"

Morrissey: "Something Is Squeezing My Skull"

Mogwai: "Devil Rides"

Blackout Beach: Skin of Evil

In the last two months, I've had so much free time to listen to music while I've been recovering, more free time than I've had in recent memory. I've just been listening to album after album, start to finish. I'm still listening to some of my favorite hold-overs from 2008 that I was absolutely crazy about and kind of never ever stopped listening to. Records by White Denim and Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

The War on Drugs record [Wagonwheel Blues]-- in fact everything related to Kurt Vile and that whole family was a pretty impressive discovery for me. I sort of wore out that War on Drugs record start to finish every day for so long, and now I've moved on to Kurt Vile solo stuff, just trying to get any more of that sound that I possibly can. If anyone's not familiar with Kurt Vile, I would definitely listen to the song "Freeway" from Constant Hitmaker. I think it's the first song on the record, and you'll fall in love with it from there. It's impossible not to like.

I love that first song from Morrissey's new record, Years of Refusal, called "Something  Is Squeezing My Skull". Morrissey obviously has such incredible lyrics to begin with, [but] that song is such an awesome way to start the record and it has this great line in it that goes, [sings] "I know by now you think I should've straightened myself out/ Thank you, drop dead." As soon as I heard it, I was like, "Dammit! That's so good I wish I wrote that!"

There's a handful of guys, [Morrissey] in particular and Nick Cave, who I mentioned before, when you listen to their newest records and you realize how old they are and how many records that they've made, you're just sort of like, "Goddamn, how am I going to be possibly doing this that long and making records that good?" It's really inspirational actually.

I really like that song called "Devil Rides" by Mogwai [that] features Roky Erickson on vocals. It's just kind of slow and spooky. I like Roky Erickson and Mogwai separately, but there was just something about them doing it together-- I listened to that song countless times.

I finally had a chance to sit down and listen to a ton of local music, too. Not necessarily people I even know, just music that's come out of this part of the world that I never was able to listen to with any sort of regularity before. The old Atlas Strategic record, and the new Frog Eyes record, as well as the new Blackout Beach record, Skin of Evil. I love Carey Mercer's vocals, his lyrics, his style of delivery. Everything about the way he is a singer is so unique and epic; it's so crazy that we come from the same place, and I'm really in awe of the way he does that and want to be like that someday.

Favorite Older Music at the Moment

Bob Dylan: Basement Tapes

Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding

The Chameleons: "Swamp Thing"

The Gun Club: "For the Love of Ivy"

Psychedelic Furs: "Heartbreak Beat"

David Bowie: At the Beeb: The Best of the BBC Sessions

Right after my accident, someone gave me the Basement Tapes and John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan and was explaining to me how these were the records that he wrote when he was recovering from his motorcycle accident. I listened to those records quite a bit, especially in the last month or so, just to share some sort of mutual, I don't know, feeling of recovery with Bob [laughs].

"Swamp Thing" by the Chameleons, from their third album, which is called Strange Times. I've sort of had intense romances with both Script of the Bridge and What Does Anything Mean? Basically, which are their first and second records. Now I'm sort of courting Strange Times. You know when you exhaust records and just dig and dig and need more of that sound? They're kind of classic 80s records, but not in an ironic way, kind of in all the right ways-- guitars drenched in delay and chorus, and drums drenched in reverb. Bands rarely make records that sound like that anymore.

Just yesterday I was thinking that Geoff Barrow from Portishead, who made the new Horrors record, was probably making the Horrors listen to a lot of Chameleons in the studio. When I listen to that new Horrors record, I immediately think, "Wow, this sounds like a Chamelons record." "Swamp Thing" is the first on Side B of the album. On the record I have, when you turn the record over it is actually labeled "Side A+" instead of "Side B," so that pretty much sums up the Chameleons right there. If you've never listened to Strange Times, you should make sure you get the CD with the bonus tracks on it, because it comes with an awesome cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows", and the record I bought didn't actually have that bonus stuff, so I had to procure it by other means, about which I have no comment.

It's funny, Dave and I have been prepping some new covers to play on our upcoming tour. So I've been listening to a ton of songs we're thinking about covering. Off the top of my head: "For the Love of Ivy" by the Gun Club, which unfortunately has the odd feature of using the n-word in the lyrics. I struggle with doing a cover of it, not knowing whether to preserve the artistic integrity of the song or whether I just want to change it, because I really don't want to get in front of a bunch of kids and scream out the n-word even though I love the song. Sort of a predicament there.

"Sex and Dying in High Society" by X, "Rhythm of Cruelty" by Magazine, "Big City" by Spaceman 3, "Cut You Up" by Peter Murphy, "Waterpark" by Royal Trux. I was listening a ton to "Heartbreak Beat" by the Psychedelic Furs, which is funny because when I was younger I got All of This and Nothing, which is the best-of compilation by the Psychedelic Furs, and I had read when I got it that "Heartbreak Beat" was the song that the band disliked the most out of all their songs; they felt pressured into making it a certain way and they didn't like the way it came out. So when I listened to the record, I always skipped over that song; I never listened to it. I always felt that by skipping over that one I was kind of honoring what the band really wanted: I was more of a true fan. So for years I'd listen to this record start to finish and always skip over "Heartbreak Beat", and I had never heard it. I guess I was listening to it in iTunes or something, and this song came on and I'm like, "What the hell is this?" I could tell it was Psychedelic Furs and I'd never heard it, and I realized it was "Heartbreak Beat" and I was like, "Holy shit! This song is actually pretty awesome." I didn't realize why they would hate it.

Then just the usual stuff for me, a ton of Replacements, a ton of Public Enemy, a ton of Motörhead [laughs], the usual. I got this double CD, Bowie At the Beeb, the best of his BBC sessions from 68 to 72, something like that. I just got that, and I've been listening to that like crazy. I got a bootleg of all the Peel sessions that the Brian Jonestown Massacre did, and those are so good. I've listened to that a ton.

Pitchfork: You really have been listening to a lot of music.

You know what, all I've been doing all day is sitting around-- that's part of my recovery. I haven't been able to do very much physically and so there were weeks where I was basically supposed to lie in bed and let [my] body heal. When I was in the hospital I'm just lying in bed 24/7 and I just like listening to music. It was wonderful actually. I don't recommend doing it in the way I had to do it, but I totally recommend a musical holiday where you take a week off and lay around and listen to records. It's a great opportunity to go back and discover a bunch of records that you've never heard before.

Favorite New Band

The War on Drugs

White Denim

I don't know if they count as new, but I only discovered them last year so they're kind of new to me. I would definitely say the War on Drugs and White Denim are two bands that I discovered recently that I just have listened to constantly since I discovered them. I know White Denim have a new record coming out soon, so I'm just counting down the days till that's out. I really love both those bands.

Artist I'd Most Like to Collaborate With

Lemmy

Anton Newcombe

I was actually thinking to myself, "Would I really want to collaborate with someone I hold in such high regard?" It's the same as having the opportunity to meet someone you hold in high regard-- do you really want to? For example, in the fall I went to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and I saw him just kind of hanging out beside the tour bus on my way to the venue, and he's just by himself and I thought, "Oh my god, it's Nick Cave. He's right there. This is my one chance to go talk to him," and I didn't do it because I was too afraid that either he would turn out to be some sort of asshole, or I would blow it and embarrass myself and he would think I'm just some punk kid. I couldn't think of how I would approach this and have it come off in a positive way. I have too much at stake to risk something tarnishing the music that I love so much, so I decided to waltz by and I don't regret it.

But I thought about that, so I was also thinking, well, could I possibly collaborate with Nick? Like, if he just walked in the studio and I was standing there, I would just feel like such an idiot. I wouldn't even know what to say. And it's funny, because I read this interview with him about when he collaborated with Johnny Cash. It was kind of funny hearing about how he was nervous and kind of embarrassed and really, like, scared about how he was going to perform with someone he held in such high regard, and so I think it's sort of the same way. But if I had to pick, I would say Lemmy [from Motörhead], or maybe Anton Newcombe [from the Brian Jonestown Massacre], because it should be someone who is a bit crazy and, you know, Lemmy, Anton Newcombe, those kind of people just seem like-- I don't know what's going to happen when I collaborate [with] them, but it seems like it's going to get pretty crazy and pretty wild. It kind of sounds like a rock'n'roll fantasy camp for me.

Favorite Song Ever

Guns N' Roses: Every song from 1986 to 1993

My guess is that no one you ask this question to ever really answers with, like, "This is my favorite song ever." So, I'm just going to go ahead and say every single song recorded by Guns N' Roses between 1986 and 1993. Because I could never pick one, and it doesn't matter if I live to be 100 years old, that collection of songs from 86 to 93 has had more influence on my life than any other group of songs, and I could never pretend that it didn't. I could say something really cool or obscure, but I would just be lying to myself and to you.

Last Great Concert I Saw

Constantines

Tuesday night, Dave and I were in Seattle and we'd had a really long day, and I'd finally got home and it was 10 p.m., or something like that, and I get home and turn on my computer and a friend of mine has emailed me and says, "Ladyhawk and Lightning Dust are playing a show tonight, and it's being advertised with super-special guests, and I've heard a rumor that the super-special guests are going to be Constantines." And I was like [groans]. And it was at this really small, kind of obscure space in east Vancouver that doesn't usually host shows, and I'm thinking in my head what it's going to be like to see Constantines in there, but I'm so tired, and we had a long day on the drive up. So I'm like, "Fuuuuuck." Crawl out of bed, get dressed, call Dave, "Dave, secret Constantines show." So, we meet up and, sure enough, on Tuesday night, Lightning Dust played, then Ladyhawk played a set and then, sure enough, the Constantines played a full, unannounced show at this little space. Constantines can totally annihilate any venue they play in, but to see them just setting up on the floor? And playing with people just kind of standing around them in this little space was-- it was really special. Both Dave and I were both captivated the whole time. It was really awesome. So that stands out.

Music Waste Festival

This last weekend in Vancouver there was a really, really cool independent music festival called Music Waste, and every night you have four or five venues and four or five bands at each venue, and you buy one pass and for all five days you can get into any show, and all the venues are sort of in the same neighborhood. It's kind of like a showcase for local music coming out of east Vancouver. I bought a pass to this festival and kind of ran around, going to three or four venues in one night, checking out all these different bands that I've never heard of and I've never seen play before, so that was really awesome, because Vancouver does not have a lot of those kind of events. We're just not one of those cities, so when something like that happens, it's really, really good for the city. And I had a great time, just as a music fan, seeing all these local bands that I'd never seen before. And no industry bullshit, no corporate bullshit, just a bunch of kids from east Van who love music putting this thing together.

Last Great Film I Saw

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

I would say the last great movie I saw was called The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, and I think it came out in about 1965, it's black and white, and it's a Cold War spy film. Starring Richard Burton. It's kind of like the anti-James-Bond-style spy film. It totally took me by surprise. I rented it without knowing anything about it, and it really kind of blew me away. I believe it was quite a famous book in the 60s that got made into a movie a few years after the book came out.

Last Great Book I Read

Walter Laqueur: The Israel-Arab Reader

Alan Moorehead: The Russian Revolution

Isaac Asimov: The Universe: From Flat Earth to Quasar

I'm reading good books constantly, actually. Sort of a hangover from my days at university. When I was going to school, I was in a double-major program, so I didn't take any elective classes the entire time, so I basically took nothing outside the faculty of science. So as soon as I finished school, I had this burning desire to catch up on all these academic topics that seemed like everyone I knew knew about, but I didn't. I kind of felt-- not insecure, but kind of like I missed out on something, whether it be art or politics or history.

Pitchfork: All those humanities you missed.

Exactly. I love reading, and I've just been trying to catch up on all those sorts of things. Earlier this year I read The Israel-Arab Reader by Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, which was kind of challenging to read from a total understanding point of view. It's kind of like reading a textbook. Really challenging to grasp everything that's been going on in the history of that subject, but I tried. I read The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, which is sort of your intro to the Russian Revolution for people like me who never took history in school.

And I'm just about finished reading The Universe by Isaac Asimov. It's kind of a history of man's achievement in astronomy from, essentially, the Greeks all the way up until the present and kind of traces how we have understood the world and the universe around us. And it's done in a way where you don't have to be technical to read it or enjoy it or get anything out of it. It's a really, really great book, though. I took a lot of astronomy in university, but it was really technical, and this was probably the best way I've ever found to just read something and get a fundamental understanding of certain concepts. I'm going to finish that in the next day or so, and after that I'm going to read, I think, a book called The Geography of War and Peace by Colin Flint. Essentially it's a book on the geopolitical landscape of the world in recent times, and how certain areas of the world are very peaceful and free of conflict and other regions of the world there's kind of a shitstorm constantly.

Favorite Piece of Musical Equipment

That's an easy answer for me: None. I have learned the lesson the hard way what happens when you revere or love a piece of musical equipment too much: it gets stolen from you by some junkies in Calgary, and it broke my heart. I've treated all the music gear that I've owned pretty rough and pretty harsh. It just gets bashed around and beaten to shit and I've learned, if something breaks or something gets stolen, to just get something else. As long as it looks cool, it doesn't matter. So, I have no particular reverence for any of the stuff I own. If it looks cool and it can make a lot of loud noise, then I'm going to use it. So it's been a long time since I've revered anything like that. Like I said, learned the lesson the hard way. I could say something, just if your readers are going to be disappointed that I didn't mention something in particular.

Pitchfork: It sounds like you have something you want to mention...

Well, I didn't own a guitar the entire time I went to school, preceding the band. When I finished school and Dave and I started the band, I needed a guitar, so I actually bought a guitar-- it's funny, actually, I bought a guitar off my little brother and then he used the money to buy a new guitar. And, when Dave needed a drum set, he also bought a drum set off my little brother, so my little brother could upgrade his drum set, too. It's kind of funny, I never really thought about how my little brother, sort of like....

Pitchfork: Now we see who is really behind this band.

Yeah. [laughs] I guess all my brother's old junk equipment is how Dave and I managed to start the band. But I had that guitar, which was really special to me because it was my little brother's, and it was the first guitar that I had bought on my own in the later half of my life, and both our first two EPs were made with it and all the first shows we played with it, all the way from the first practice until last year. And I even used to have a photo taped to it, of my grandpa and me fishing. And it was kind of a personal, family guitar to me. It was just a shitty Mexican Telecaster, but it was very sentimental.

And we played Calgary about a year ago, and someone smashed the window on our truck and ran off with my guitar. And I was really upset about it. I was pissy the whole next day, and we had to play Edmonton the next day and I had to borrow a guitar that wasn't my baby and I was really pissy about that, too. I had the whole crowd in Edmonton cheer, "Fuck Calgary," which they really, really liked doing. They actually wanted to do it more, even after I told them it was enough. [laughs] That was possibly the angriest show I've ever played, the most aggressive I've ever been, performing live. Having this borrowed guitar and missing my baby, who is somewhere in a pawn shop in Calgary. And, anyways, after that, I decided that it was best not to get too attached to things like that. So now all my gear is pretty much interchangeable and gets thrashed around a lot, and I don't tend to care too much.

Favorite Record Shop

Dandelion Records, Vancouver

My favorite record shop right now would probably be Dandelion Records, in Vancouver. It's a small, kind of new, boutique record store that specializes in rare or original pressings of obscure rock'n'roll, punk, new wave, that sort of thing. It's one of those places where they don't waste any space with filler, because it's a pretty small store. So when you walk in, you just want everything they have. It's just like, "Give me one of everything!" You just start flipping through and it's like, "Need it, need it, need it, got it but need it." Just one of those kind of stores. And I can't ever go there and not find ten things that I want to buy.

Pitchfork: Sounds dangerous.

Yeah, it is really dangerous. And I'm trying to think of what the last thing I bought from there was. Last thing I bought from there was an original "Tupelo" 12" single, by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, which is one of my favorite Nick Cave songs.

First Record I Bought For Myself

Tom Cochrane & Red Rider: Tom Cochrane & Red Rider

When I was young, I actually had an impressive cassette collection, years before I was able to purchase records for myself. I would accumulate them via my parental units. You know, birthdays, Christmases, A+ report cards, any excuse there was to reward me would often be with a cassette. And I had this kind of badass leather cassette case that would hold, like, 40 cassettes. So I would pack around with a suitcase wherever I went. I had it separated into two sides, one side would be the loud, heavy side, and I would have my Guns N' Roses cassettes, Metallica, AC/DC, Led Zepplin, Queen, Aerosmith, that kind of stuff. And on the other side would be the more soft, tender side of my cassette case where I would have the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, Chuck Berry, David Bowie. Music that I had learned from my parents. So, I remember being very young and packing around with that thing everywhere.

I'm trying to think of the first cassette I ever would have had. I think it was probably Tom Cochrane & Red Rider, their self-titled record, and it would have come out in 86. I would have been-- well, I was born in 82, so I would have been really young when I had that. But I listened to that cassette to death. That was even pre-Guns N' Roses. And you have to go back pretty far, with me, to get pre-Guns N' Roses.

Favorite City to Play In

Vancouver

Vancouver, always. Because no matter where or when we play in Vancouver, I always get to sleep in my own bed that night. And you can't put a price on that.

My Dream Merch Table

LiveDisc

Do you remember in 2004, when Pixies reunited to do that warm-up tour, pre-Coachella? Well, I went and saw them on that tour-- They played in Victoria, where I lived at the time, and they were doing this thing that was advertised as "Pixie Discs." And basically they were selling copies of the show that you saw that night, at the show, when it was over. Before the show you would pay, get a ticket, watch the show, then after the show was over you would get in a line, give them your ticket, and they would give you a double CD with artwork-- it was like a real CD and everything-- of the show that you saw that night. I always thought that was really, really cool. I never understood why more bands didn't do that. I guess it's kind of expensive to have someone come [record] your show, but I know that they were doing that for that whole tour. I don't know if they did it after they played Coachella.

But I have this bootleg, Pixies live, April 2004, in Victoria. And I listen to that CD like crazy. Especially when they were reuniting and it was really exciting. If you had worn out the other Pixies records, like I had at that point, it was a super high quality, awesome bootleg of a show that you were actually at. I can see how it wouldn't work for all bands, but I really liked it and I thought it was really awesome. I would like to be able to do that, someday. When we get good enough [laughs]. When we get good enough where every show would be worth bootlegging, then I would like to do that. I don't think we've ever played a show, thus far, where there hasn't been some sort of incident, or-- something has gone a little bit crazy or wild. I don't want people spending money to have to relive our glorious fuck-ups. But I'm assuming after we get pretty good at touring, after a while, we should get pretty consistently awesome [laughs]. One would hope.

One Popular Band I Think Should Fall Into Obscurity

Guns N' Roses

That's an easy answer: Guns N' Roses. And there should be no explanation necessary. In fact, if you would have asked me that question in, like, 94 or 95, I would have said the same thing. It was a good run-- it was more than a good run, it was a great run. It was a run of biblical proportions between 86 and 93, but it should have been cut off, permanently, in 94. No explanation necessary.

One Obscure Band I Think Should Be More Popular

The Sadies

I'm going to say the Sadies. Do they count as obscure? I mean, they're Canadian, and any Canadian band that's not Arcade Fire or Feist is pretty obscure to people outside of Canada, I think. When I discovered them, it was like, "Holy fucking shit. I cannot believe that this band has existed for this long and I have not known about them." And I had their newest record, New Seasons, and wore it out and started tracing back through all their records. Their whole discography is flawless. If you like that style of music, and you like one Sadies song, you're going to like all of them. They're just an incredible band. There are only a handful of bands that I've seen live that I think could fuck with the Sadies. They will just blow you off stage and then sleep with your sister. They are just unbelievable. There's an incredible live album, a double album, recorded in Toronto, and I think Steve Albini actually was the engineer on the live recordings. He was there recording them that night, and just... game over. Everyone should be listening to the Sadies.

Strangest Display of Affection You've Received From a Fan

I'm going to say having a beer bottle thrown at my face, at the Cobalt.

Pitchfork: That was a display of affection?

That was in February. Yeah. I mean, that's just how the kids show the love in Vancouver. Sometimes they'll hug you, sometimes they tell you your set was awesome, sometimes they will buy merchandise. But in Vancouver, they have their own special way to show love, and that's by throwing beer bottles directly at your face while you're playing.

Best Purchase of the Past Year

Music Waste pass

The best thing I bought recently was that Music Waste pass. I spent 15 bucks for the festival pass and I probably saw, at least, 10 bands over the course of a few nights and had a total blast. And I can't remember the last time I was so satisfied with a 15-dollar purchase.

Favorite Venue

The Cobalt, Vancouver

My favorite venue to play at, or to see a show at, at least in Vancouver, is the Cobalt. Hands down. It is possibly the best music venue in the world. It is everything a proper rock'n'roll venue should be. It is really fucking loud, it's dirty, it's rowdy and wild and every time you go there it has an every-man-for-himself kind of attitude. The last time we played there was actually when the bottle was thrown at my face. And I went and saw Bison, who are a young Vancouver metal band, I saw them play there last year, and I was a half-second away from being at the bottom of an east-Van metal-bro mosh pit dog pile. And it reminds me, I should buy life insurance. [laughs]

I never, ever go there to see a show or play a show and come out disappointed. In fact, I look forward to every time I get to play there, because they let you play as loud as you want and people can be as rowdy as they want, and there's often this standard crowd of punks and metal guys and people who are really into black metal and hardcore, and it's just an awesome place to play. And it's funny, because they cater to punk and hardcore metal music, but, for some reason, they let our band play there. So, often, we show up and start setting up and, compared to the other bands that usually play there, we're considerably smaller and more tame and less offensive, so it can get rowdy.

It's the only place where we get people who will boo us or scream things at us or throw shit at us, and I really like that. I really like how aggressive the crowd can get there, and the tension that can build between you and these crusty punks who want to see some band that sounds like the Sex Pistols or the Ramones or the Clash or something. Or some metalheads that want to see you thrash really hard. And you have some kind of insult-generating thing, back and forth at each other. That's another thing that I love about that place. In Vancouver, it will definitely weed out your more casual music fans, because they won't come. "Oh, Japandroids are playing at the Cobalt," and it's like, [whining] "Eh, I think I'll see them next time they play." You know? Like, there are a lot of people that just won't come see us there, and that means the people who do come to see us there...

Pitchfork: They're the real fans.

That's right. Hands down. I'm sure every city has their equivalent of the Cobalt. But in Vancouver, that's what it is. I hope I'm playing shows there until I die. I don't ever see not wanting to play there.

My Favorite TV Show

"Frontline"

I won't lie to you-- I haven't actually watched TV with any consistency since I was in high school. I just haven't had a TV since I was younger. So I'm grossly out of touch with all the good TV. Thankfully, I'm out of touch with the bad TV. But I'm actually really out of touch with all the good TV that's happened in the last five, 10 years. My friends will talk about these things all the time, and they'll make these inside jokes and I will have no idea what they're talking about. Which is ridiculous, because I always said to myself, when I had some vacation time, or when I was sick for a week, I would just go rent all these DVDs and just lie in bed and catch up. But I just spent six weeks in bed recovering from surgery and didn't really watch anything.

The one show that I do watch consistently, every week, is "Frontline". There's a new one coming up on the garbage of technology, like, old computers and stereos, and where that garbage ends up. And it often ends up in the third world, just in these massive heaps of poisonous computer trash. So I know that's a new one coming up. But the thing I love about "Frontline" is I can just watch it at my leisure.

My Favorite Radio Show

"The Worldwide Ride"

"Morning Becomes Eclectic"

"Little Steven's Underground Garage"

I haven't been much of a radio listener in the past two years, because whenever I listen to music, I love listening to albums. When I was younger, I was religiously dedicated to a radio show out of Vancouver called "The Worldwide Ride", which was a hip-hop radio show back in the 90s. I lived on Vancouver Island, a small island off the west coast of Canada, so there weren't many radio stations that you could get when you lived there. We would get Vancouver radio stations, and this particular radio station came along just as I discovered hip-hop music, early in high school. The trouble was [the show] was only on at, like, midnight on Monday nights.

So I'm 12, 13 and wouldn't be able to stay up and actually listen to it. So I would go to bed and, when it would come on, I would sneak myself out of bed, and I used to record it off the radio on to cassette. I would listen to that cassette over and over and over. And almost my entire knowledge and introduction to hip-hop came from that one radio show. I probably taped that radio show for about two years straight. And, because I was a bit of a technological wizard in those days, I would edit out the commercials on the cassette. I would stop recording when the commercial would come on and hit record as soon as it started. So you would get just these flawless cassette hip-hop mixes of mid-90s hip-hop. I was religiously devoted to that for a long time.

When I was working, I used to listen to "Morning Becomes Eclectic" on KCRW. I used to listen to it on the Internet every day. I used to listen to "Little Steven's Underground Garage" sometimes, too, at work. Everyone [at work] would have to agree on what to listen to, so those were sort of the coolest thing that everyone would agree on.

My Favorite Video Game

"Tetris"

I won't lie to you again, I don't really like video games at all. And I don't really know anything about them. The only video game I ever truly liked was "Tetris". And I will never ever, ever, ever, ever get bored of playing "Tetris". I once spent an entire nine-hour flight, over the Atlantic, playing "Tetris" from runway to runway. Just irritating everybody else on the plane. I am confident that I could achieve a Twin Galaxies record score on "Tetris" sometime in my lifetime. Technological advances in video games don't interest me in the slightest. Video games hit their peak, in my opinion, with "Tetris". How could you ever get bored of playing it?

My Ringtone

You know what, I actually don't have a mobile phone. I'm the last of my kind.