food hell food hell food keel

GIB CURRY / STICKDOG INTERVIEW FALL 2001
By Ian C Stewart

S T I C K DOG B E H I N D THE M U S I C
What up hose. Ian here. I became obsessed with Stickdog as a late-teen in 1989 or so, when I found their album "Human" at Used Kids for two bucks or something insane like that. It immediately became a touchstone for me, a symbol of what could be accomplished by approaching music creatively, aggressively and in a forward-thinking manner while maintaining an extreme edge. The songs were often atonal, the rhythms sounding like broken machinery, the vocals were often screamed and moaned and shouted and the few lines that were sung sounded creepy as hell.

Listening to "Human" now, it's Captain Beefheart multiplied by early Swans. Any band that makes old Sonic Youth sound like the Carpenters is still worth checking out. There's still no band that sounds anything like Stickdog, and it's to their credit that their music has endured and remained identifiably their own. At least I think so. You can start lining up the names of other bands that you can add together to sort of approximate what Stickdog sounded like, but the only way to accurately portray the music is to just listen to them.

The internet isn't much help on the subject of Stickdog either unless you're looking to buy a used copy of the album "human," in which case there are at least 34 sites right now that can accomodate your order.

Even All Music Guide, which is where I turn when I want facts on obscure bands has just a photo and the exceedingly misleading genre heading of "alternative pop/rock."

While derking around on MP3.com one day in summer 2001 I typed in "Stickdog" out of curiosity. Up came a link for a band called Puzzle Factory. Listed in the lineup was Gib Curry. Hey wait, wasn't he in Stickdog? Holy shit!

So before we even start, thanks Gib for answering these stupid-ass fanboy questions, and for all of the archival materials - holy crap!

WHEN DID YOU PLAYING DRUMS?
Gib: I got a summer job when I was 14 and saved up the money to buy a drum set. It was a crappy set, but I had never played the drums before so what the hell did I know? I joined a punk band within two months and that's where I learned how to play.

WHO WERE EARLY MUSICAL INFLUENCES?
Gib: Joy Division, Sex Pistols, Swans, Laibach, Sonic Youth, Die Kruezen, Dead Kennedys, Einsturzende Neubauten and Savage Republic to name a few.

WERE YOU IN ANY BANDS BEFORE STICKDOG?
Gib: I was in a Punk band called The Pestilents. Chris and Paul were in a band called Audio Files.

WHO DID WHAT IN STICKDOG?
Gib: Paul Reller: bass, guitar, vocals, sax and metal percussion. Chris Clougherty: guitar, bass and vocals. Gib Curry: drums, vocals and metal percussion. Christine Schultz was in the band from 1986-87: violin and vocals. Kevin Barnard was in that band for the last couple of years 1987-89: guitar, bass and percussion.

WHEN AND WHERE WAS THE BAND FORMED?
Gib: The band was formed in Iowa City, it think it was in 1985.

HOW DID IT COME TOGETHER?
Gib: When the band first formed it was just Paul Reller and Chris Clougherty and a drum machine named Fred. I think that Paul Neff from Stiff Legged Sheep played with Paul and Chris very briefly. I was asked to join the band about nine months after that.

WERE THERE ANY BANDS STICKDOG SOUGHT TO EMULATE?
Gib: Emulate? No. Influenced? Yes! (see above)

WHAT WERE THE IDEALS OF THE BAND IN THE BEGINNING?
Gib: To create something new and unique.

WERE THERE ANY CONFLICTS WITHIN THE BAND?
Gib: ahhhh, yes.

WHAT WERE EARLY GIGS LIKE?
Gib: There were some very cool shows! We had a great underground music scene in Iowa City. We put on our own shows, and IC was right off of Interstate 80 and was known as a great place to play when on tour. We played with a whole bunch of great bands in some great settings like Sonic Youth, Savage Republic, Scratch Acid, Killdozer, Live Skull and Soul Asylum.

ARE THERE ANY EARLY RECORDINGS STILL IN EXISTENCE?
Gib: Yes, I have some on cassette tape, live shows and practice tapes.

DID STICKDOG EVER PLAY ANY COVER SONGS!? (HA)
Gib: Yeah, some good ones. "I Dreamed I Dreamed" by Sonic Youth, "Exercise One" by Joy Division, "Louie Louie" at our last show in Iowa City, "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath. And there was one more but I can't remember whose song it was or what band it was by. The song ended with the lyrics "My eyes are grey."

HOW DID THE FIRST STICKDOG ALBUM COME ABOUT?
Gib: We begged, borrowed and stole enough money to record with. A friend told us about this great studio in Chicago, so we went there. What a fiasco! The studio sucked! We left with some basic tracks, but that was about it. The guys from Killdozer told us about this great engineer and great studio in Madison, Wisconsin - boy where they right! So we went and recorded with Butch Vig at Smart Studios. We finished recording the rest of the tracks at Smart Studios, and had Butch mix a couple of songs from the Chicago recording session.

WHAT WERE THE RECORDING SESSIONS LIKE?
The recording sessions were short and long at the same time. We recorded both albums in one weekend and mixed them the next weekend, very long days! I think we spent 12-14 hour days, then crashed on the studio floor. It was fun.

WHO RELEASED IT?
Gib: Our first LP (self titled) was released on a local cooperative label out of IC called smudged records. Our second LP was released on Alternative Tentacles Records out of San Francisco.

DID YOU TOUR TO PROMOTE IT?
Gib: Yes, we toured briefly in 86 then one long tour in 88, with a hand full of shorter west coast tours from 87-89.

HOW/WHEN/WHY DID THE JELLO BIAFRA CONNECTION COME ABOUT?
Gib: We were looking for a label to release our second album "Human." Paul was corresponding with various labels. Subpop was showing interest but we had just moved to SF and they said we would have to relocate to Seattle. In the meantime Paul had talk with Jello Biafra on the phone. He seemed interested, he had been keeping track of some of the Iowa City bands and liked what was coming out of there. So Paul and I met with Biafra at a Coffee shop in SF. We had a great conversation and he invited us to be on Alternative Tentacles.

DID BEING ON ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES HELP OR HARM THE BAND?
Gib: At first it helped immensely. We would not have gotten as much national recognition and attention without the label. Later on they just didn't seem to support us. Or they lost interest in us, I don't know. I often wondered about Subpop, and how things would have been with them.

WERE THERE ANY DRAWBACKS TO BEING ON AT?
Gib: I think we all felt they could have pushed Stickdog more. There were varying degrees of dissatisfaction with the label among the band members - some members felt very dissatisfied.

WHY DID ONLY ONE ALBUM COME OUT ON AT?
Gib: They said they didn't have the money in the budget and our sales weren't strong enough. That's why we felt like they had not pushed and marketed us enough. We could have sold more records if they had. We certainly sold more on Alternative Tentacles London than we did in the US and I think it was because they pushed us more.

WHEN/WHY DID THE BAND RELOCATE TO SAN FRANCISCO?
Gib: We moved in 1987. Why? I think the name of an early Iowa City compilation sums it up: "You Can't Get There From Here." Iowa City was great, but it was very hard to get any national attention.

When we moved to San Francisco, Paul asked Kevin to join the band. Kevin played in a band with Chris and Paul a few years before. So by the time "Human" was released, Kevin had been in the band for 6 months or so. He helped us with the cover design. He was an active member of the band by this point, so we included his photo on the "Human" insert even though he didn't perform on it.

WAS STICKDOG PART OF ANY SCENES IN SF AT THAT POINT?
Gib: Kind of, there was kind of an AT scene. When other AT bands that came to town the local AT bands always played with them, that was pretty fun.

BANDS DID STICKDOG PLAY SHOWS WITH?
In our Iowa City days we played with Sonic Youth, Savage Republic, Scratch Acid, Killdozer, Live Skull and Soul Asylum for the bigger names. There was a ton of great local bands like Stiff Legged Sheep, Iowa Beef Experience, Soviet Dissonance, The Less Than Adequate Band, Suburban Death Trip, House of Large Sizes. I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting. In our San Francisco days we played with the Melvins, No Means No, Victim's Family, Thinking Fellers, Screaming Trees, Beatnigs and Mudhoney. The Thinking Fellers were GREAT, we were good friends with them, they were one of my favorite SF bands. They were Iowa transplants as well.

WHAT WERE AUDIENCE REACTIONS LIKE?
It was ALWAYS a mixed reaction, a lot of people didn't know what to make of us the first time they experienced Stickdog. We did have a very loyal following. It took a while to build up a following when we first moved to San Francisco, even with Alternative Tentacles helping. By the time the band broke up we had a large following there.

BUTCH VIG: HOW WAS HE TO WORK WITH?
Gib: The guy was amazing, he was a very nice guy and of course, a great engineer and producer.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO RECORD HUMAN?
Gib: Both records were done the same way, one weekend to record, and then back another weekend to mix. Not much sleep, we drank a lot of coffee.

HOW WAS THE MATERIAL WRITTEN? WERE THE SONGS WRITTEN BEFOREHAND?
Gib: Yes, they were always written beforehand. The songs may sound freeform sometimes, but they are not. Everything was planned out to the tiniest detail. We would even practice the songs with the same instrumentation, and in the same order in which we planned to record them. We would chart out the songs and play the parts individually. The process was methodical and painstaking.

WHO WROTE WHAT?
Gib: Most songs were written as collaboration. Usually one of us would come up with concept or a part and the rest of the band would work with it. Sometimes one person would have most of the parts written when they would introduce the song to the band. Paul was notorious for having a grand vision for a song - he would go in to this passionate, lengthy and elaborate description of how the song would work often without giving us any of the parts! Then we would have a go at trying to recreate his vision. A good example of this is the song "Nuclear Winter."

WAS IT A CONSCIOUS EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE BAND TO "DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT" OR DID IT JUST HAPPEN THAT WAY?
Gib: A conscious effort, although it sometimes came naturally

WERE THERE PLANS FOR A FOLLOW-UP ALBUM TO "HUMAN"?
Gib: We did record another albums' worth of material just before we broke up. There was some great music from that session. And there was some material that I'm still not sure about. Were there any bigger plans? I don't think there were other than to keep pushing the envelope.

WAS THERE A TOUR FOR "HUMAN"?
Gib: Yes, we toured to the east coast and back in about 4 weeks, then a west coast tour from LA all the way to Canada - Vancouver for a couple of shows.

WHEN DID STICKDOG BREAK UP?
Gib:1989

WERE THERE ANY POST-STICKDOG BANDS?
Gib: I was in a couple of bands: Atrocity and Puzzle Factory. I don't think Chris has done anything else since. Paul has been in one great band that I know, Babel.

WHAT UP WITH PUZZLE FACTORY?
Gib: We broke up about a year ago. It was a pretty cool band. Members of the band were from other bands such as Glorious Din, Shooting Gallery and the Swinging Teens. If you see one of our CDs, buy it, it's good!

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE MP3 FORMAT?
Gib: I think is great! Hey, if Neil Young likes it and Metallica hates it, it must be great!

ARE YOU STILL INTERESTED IN MUSIC? WHAT DO Y'ALL LISTEN TO FOR ENJOYMENT THESE DAYS?
Gib: I have to admit, I have been listening to a lot of Radiohead.