Not unlike everyone else in the world, I have a debilitating girl crush on JD Samson. So, when I talked to Johanna Fateman, with JD, of MEN about their upcoming show in DC, plus some other random ish, things got a little steamy (read=creepy). Let’s just say, I’m not gay but my interview with MEN certainly was a bit.

BYT: Hi, is this Johanna?
MEN: Yeah, hi.

BYT: Its Abby.
MEN: Hi Abby.

BYT: How are you doing?
MEN: We’re good. We’re just stopped at a rest stop.

BYT: Oh yeah? Where are you at?
MEN: We’re driving from Portland to Boise, Idaho. So, I think… (in background: are we in Idaho, JD?) … We’re either in Oregon or Idaho.

BYT: Are you driving?
MEN: Um, yeah. I’m not personally, but yeah. We stopped because we were going to go through the mountains and we thought we might lose reception.

BYT: Oh ok. Did you just do a show in Portland?
MEN: Yeah we did. We played at Holocene.

BYT: No kidding. I actually went to school in Portland.
MEN: Oh really? Where did you go? Did you go to Reed College, or…?

BYT: Yeah, I did actually.
MEN: I went there for a year or two myself.

BYT: Yeah, I think I heard that somewhere. When were you there?
MEN: I want to say like ’93?

BYT: I left in 2005.
MEN: Yeah, I don’t think we would have crossed paths.

BYT: I just missed you, I guess. How was the show last night?
MEN: It was really fun. We always have fun in Portland. It’s a good scene there, I think. It was good; we played with Hey Willpower, and we actually played one of our new tracks that we just finished, so that was exciting.

BYT: Can you tell me a bit about what MEN is all about? What do you guys sound like?
MEN: Well, you know, really, MEN became an entity about a year ago, and we didn’t really make original music till very recently. It started out as a DJ team for us.

BYT: I saw you guys in DC almost a year and a half ago.
MEN: Oh yeah?

BYT: You guys played at one of BYT’s events at the Rock n’ Roll Hotel here in DC. (Stylistics I)
MEN: Right, that was one of our first gigs as MEN. That was maybe our third time Djing together.

BYT: I remember it being really awesome. You played that song by Sylvester, ‘Do You Wanna Funk,’ and I remember screaming, like “this is the song from Trading Places!” you know, the movie?
MEN: (laughs) Yeah, totally.

BYT: And its that scene when they’re in Billy Ray Valentine’s new mansion and the girls are dancing topless?
MEN: Yeah. Wow. I totally remember that now, but that’s not my immediate association about that song. But that’s cool that its yours.

BYT: Yeah, nobody else got it that night either.
MEN: That was actually fun. If I remember correctly, it felt like there was a good mix of people there.

BYT: I think it was sort of local designers there beforehand showing their stuff, and then music later.
MEN: Yeah.

BYT: So, now that MEN is sort of established, what are your intentions for it? Are you going to release an album now that you’ve started producing your own music?
MEN: I think so. I think that, um, what’s sort of liberating about this project is that from moment to moment, we do sort of whatever we want. Its kind of a new way for us to do something. Like its been really great for us to release demos on Myspace, or to send it out to people. That’s something we’ve never done. We have always saved everything up till its as perfect as we can get it and put it out as an album. That’s what we always did with Le Tigre, and I think that’s kind of an outdated model of how to do things. People, now if they sort of want to keep a presence and keep people interested in what they’re doing, it doesn’t really make sense to have such a huge lag time between getting new material out there. So its not exactly like we’ve been on our traditional release then touring schedule, you know. We have some more flexibility, and we hope to use that, putting things out as we make it.

BYT: What are you listening to these days?
MEN: Well, um, let’s see. Kind of everything. I think that, you know, we love a combination of new and old music. Since we’re driving, we’ve been listening to a lot of Sade and Neil Young and stuff. (laughs)

BYT: Oh yeah? You can get really good tapes at some of those truck stops.
MEN: I know. We actually really need to stop somewhere and get one of those adapters so we can play our iPods through the cd player, you know. But then we have some CDs that are like our emergency CDs. We DJ with computers, but we have emergency CDs that have like all the songs we could possibly need to put together a DJ set in case of disaster. So we’ve been listening to those CDs for a while. But its crazy because JD has them all in alphabetical order, so we’ll listen to all the A songs, then all the B songs…

BYT: Hey, when you were in Portland, did you ever go to Chopstix on Burnside?
MEN: No, when I lived in Portland, I don’t think it was there. Is that possible?

BYT: No, I think its been there for a really long time.
MEN: Ok, well then no. The answer’s no.

BYT: Oh. Well, they have really good karaoke. (its true, they do) So, have you been following the election?
MEN: We were just talking about the election actually.

BYT: What are your thoughts?
MEN: My thoughts are… gosh, I really just hope that McCain isn’t the next president. And I think that, I feel really good about both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I sort of wish this period of, you know, all this stuff could be over, and I could turn myself toward caring about the winner of the Democratic primary. I mean, I don’t really fit into like… I mean, there’s pros and cons to both of them, but I’m just excited for one of them to be President.

BYT: And for it not to be Bush.
MEN: Yeah.

BYT: I know what you mean. But I kind of feel, as a white woman, I feel kind of conflicted voting against either one, but I guess one of them has to win.
MEN: Yeah, well, my dream thing is for Hillary to get the nomination and to have Obama as her running mate.

BYT: Do you think that would be enough to win over McCain? (yawn)
MEN: I don’t know. I feel like both candidates have really spoken to certain segments of the population that normally wouldn’t feel very passionate about politics at all. But you know, I think they, in different ways, give so many people hope that they might actually feel represented by the President, that yeah. I think more people who’ve never voted before will vote in this election.

BYT: I’ve heard before, with regards to Le Tigre, that you all say you’re a feminist band. Would you say that MEN is a feminist DJ duo, or is it non-political, non-ideological?
MEN: I would say that we are a feminist DJ team, yeah. And as we morph into it, we’ll be a feminist live thing. Its sort of just like, it gets sort of integrated into everything we do, so its not like, “oh, should we make this a feminist track, or a non-feminist track?” (laughs). You know, it comes as it comes, and its sort of in our identities and priorities and ways of looking at the world, so that’s how we see what we’re doing.

BYT: What do you think the place of feminism is in music today? I mean, do you think it has a place or has it become more of a caricature? I’m just thinking of it because the Spice Girls were here in DC last night, and I saw all these young girls dressed up on the Metro on their way to the show…
MEN: Well, my whole thing is like… everything is great, like the Spice Girls are great. I think they are positive for… really little children (laughs) but its just like, we need more than the Spice Girls, you know. I’m not really answering your question though. I don’t think, I feel like feminist music… I don’t really know what that means at this moment. Like, it doesn’t feel like its time for someone to reinvent Riot Grrrl, or something. We’re just at a different time, and I think that people are going to sort of work their values into their music in different ways, and not necessarily be as literal in that way, you know.

BYT: Uh huh.
MEN: FYI, now we’re driving, so we might get cut off.

BYT: OK, yeah. I know what you mean. I consider myself a feminist, but I remember sitting through a performance of the Vagina Monologues at Reed, and I only got through like five minutes of the ‘angry vagina’ before I became emotionally ill and had to get out of there. I hate that shit, you know?
(dead silence)

BYT: Hello? (fuck. now I’ve pissed off the feminist DJ duo) Hello? (ok, no we were just cut off)

(dials again)

MEN: Hi, Abby?
BYT: Yeah, hi.
MEN: Hey, sorry about that… (garbled)
BYT: No worries. Are you there?
MEN: Yeah, can you hear me?
BYT: I can hear you.
MEN: Ok, cool.

BYT: So, um, I was just going to say, uh, I think I read in Jane magazine a while ago that you opened up a hair salon in NYC? How’s that going?
MEN: Its awesome. I actually, well, we will have been open, we’re celebrating our two year anniversary pretty soon.

BYT: Congratulations. (nice save)
MEN: Thank you. So yeah, in April it will have been two years. It’s going really well. It’s been sort of one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, for sure.

BYT: What was the idea behind that? I mean, where did that come from?
MEN: Well, I co-own Seagull with a really old, good friend of mine who’s a hair stylist. I don’t do hair or anything like that. I do just sort of the business end of things. And, the salon’s been there for many years, like over 30 years, and its been like through different people and different incarnations. We … (garbled) …
BYT: Hello?
MEN: Hello? Can you hear me?
BYT: Yeah, it just got fuzzy for a second.
MEN: Oh, yeah, well I mean he worked there under the previous owner a long time ago and then he wanted to sell it. So the owner said, ‘you guys should buy it and run it.’ And so it just sort of came about at a time when Le Tigre was going to take a long break. So I was like, ‘yeah, let’s do it.’ And I was excited to do something that was… I guess I was excited to make an investment and to launch into an endeavor that wasn’t about trying to support myself through making art. Even though I think that’s sort of the ideal scenario, I mean, for me at least, to be a working artist and for that to be my job and my career. I think it took a lot of pressure to do something creatively, and its been really nice to have this other thing going on in my life that’s more about… you know, its more grounding and stable. Its like a daily routine and…

BYT: Like a nest egg?
MEN: What’s that?

BYT: Like a nest egg, kind of? Or a seagull egg… haha? (oh jesus)
MEN: It’s a what?

BYT: (kill me. Just kill me now) Like a nest egg? Like something that…
MEN: Oh, exactly. Yeah, a little moneymaker on the side. (phew)

BYT: Where did the name Seagull come from?
MEN: The name comes from, well, its stayed the same over the years, but legend has it that its from that ‘70s best seller, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Are you familiar with it?

BYT: I think I read it in like 2nd grade maybe, but I don’t really remember.
MEN: Its sort of this you know, self-help, personal freedom story about a seagull who flies his own way.

BYT: I thought it might be from the hairdo, like from Flock of Seagulls. That’s not your specialty? (stop. seriously)
MEN: Oh god no. No, no.

BYT: So are you working on any other projects? I know in the past you’ve been involved with some zines and other things. Or is it pretty much MEN right now?
MEN: Its pretty much Seagull and MEN right now. That’s pretty much all I have time for. I mean… Its hard, I’d love to have the time to write and focus on that. I also, I think, don’t want to spread myself too thin. I sort of want to make the things I’m working on really happen and give energy to them.

BYT: I see. So are you driving with JD right now?
MEN: Yep, JD is behind the wheel.

BYT: I don’t want you guys to get in a car crash or anything, so can I ask you to ask her a question for me?
MEN: OK.

BYT: A couple years ago, a coworker got me, as part of a holiday gift exchange, JD’s 2006 “Lesbian Utopia” calendar, which we proudly displayed in our front office. I wanted to see when then next one is coming out?
MEN: (laughs) OK. (in background: JD, when will your next lesbian calendar come out?) … Hopefully 2009.

BYT: 2009? What’s the hold up?
MEN: (in background: What’s the hold up, JD?) … She says it’s a project she does every 3 years.

BYT: Can you ask her if I can have her phone number? (dear god, that came out wrong)

(dead silence)

MEN: …I think I can safely answer that. No, you can’t have JD’s phone number.

BYT: It was worth a shot. (to my heart. oh!)
MEN: But you know, when you see her at the show, you can ask her in person. It could be a good story.

BYT: Ok, well… Are you guys stoked to play your show in DC?
MEN: What?

BYT: Are you excited for your show in DC?
MEN: Oh. No.

BYT: No? Why not? (abort. abort!)
MEN: I’m kidding. Of course, DC’s awesome and we always have fun there.

BYT: Alright, it was great to talk to you. We’re all really excited to see your show.
MEN: Good. And yeah, try to get us a good crowd there so we can have a really good time.

BYT: Thanks Johanna.
MEN: Thanks Abby. Bye.

So there. Come to the show if you like MEN like I do.

MEN w/ Hey Willpower
Black Cat - Mainstage 9:00pm
Friday, March 7, 2008
$10 Advance/$12

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