STACK #146 Dec 2016

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Can you tell us a little about your very first impressions of George Xylouris? Was it a warm opening or did you not yet have mutual friends? We met through mutual friends in Melbourne in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s. George couldn’t speak a word of English, nor me Greek, but the thing I remember is it was very warm nonetheless. I still can’t speak Greek but George is super articulate in English now. Soon after I met him I went to see him play in Lonsdale Street, and then with his band Xylouris Ensemble. I think

yet? I’d imagine it is very demanding! We have been playing it since the album came out. The first few times felt great, and then it lost its shape and we dropped it for a few shows. Recently we found a way to do it again. On the record is an overdub that George plays on the lyra that adds a lot to it at a particular moment; we found an exciting way to do something there that serves a similar purpose. Is George reciting the actual Erotokritos in the track of the same name? Can you tell us its story? Erotokritos is an epic poem form the 14th century written in Crete. It has 10,000 rhyming couplets. On Black Peak we cover 10 couplets – we do the beginning scene. It says (to paraphrase): The circle of the times, they are going up and down and as they change and never be stable and they always go to the bad and the good, and the weapons fire and the love and the friendship, all this puts me in the situation today to remember and say all this, what they brought, listen to me then, and keep this words to tell to the others. I’m going to tell you a story that happened in Athens, there where was the river of knowledge, there a love happened, and that love wrote it in the heart and never diminished.

at the Mount Buller ATP, I amended the kit a lot to make the sound drier, and I think it worked well for that situation but I made a conscious decision to keep the kit as I know it for Xylouris White. I listened to Cretan music for 20 years before Xylouris White started, without analysing it, but that put a lot of the structures, accents and melodies in me. I do deliberately, and no doubt unconsciously, learn about the accents and structures of traditional Crete music. I am playing by feel, yes.

“I listened to Cretan music for 20 years before Xylouris White started... that put a lot of the structures, accents and melodies in me”

In Hey, Musicians you could be playing a snare with the rattle off or maybe it is a different drum altogether... did you play the standard kit items in uncommon ways, or am I just hearing them differently? Yeah, I use the snare off a lot in Xylouris White. Hey, Musicians has a lot of snare with the rattles (AKA snare) off. This recording is of the first time we played this song in a studio in Iceland. There’s a lot you can do within the structure of the regular drum kit. I enjoy the formal boundaries of the kit. Snare off fits more in the traditional palette of sound, but snare on is powerful; it’s a good choice to have.

I remember him coming to see Venom P. Stinger at The Tote. When Dirty Three started we invited him to play with us, at first at Vergonas on Brunswick Street – the first of a number of performances with Dirty Three over the years. The album has a distinctive Greek feel to it but it doesn’t sound like you’ve amended your kit set-up in any way, hardware-wise. Did you deliberately learn anything about the way traditional Greek music uses accents or song structure, or were you playing by feel? I haven’t amended the classic drum kit in any way. When I played with George, accompanying his father Psarandonis

( Black Peak is out now via Caroline)

Have you played Hey, Musicians live

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