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London and NYC Club and Concert Listings The Unusual Suspect: Earl Zinger Interviewer: Marcos Moret Earl Zinger (real name Rob Gallagher, formerly front-man of Galliano) has just released his second album, Speaker Stack Commandments. We caught up to talk about don beats, Spike Lee, and the 38 bus. Tell us about where you live and how that affects how you go about putting together your music. I suppose it does. I live on Allan Road which is inbetween Dalston and Stoke Newington along the hinterland that is Kingsland Road. How does that affect my music? I dunno, I suppose I just go around collecting things – from whatever I find under benches to...whether they’re words or phrases. There are quite a lot of Jamaican sounds on Speaker Stack Commandments, perhaps even more so than the first one. How does that come into play? Well, it’s like Charlie Dark says within one of his spoken word pieces about “Africa is the soul but the context is Jamaica”…it’s a small little Caribbean island with such a huge legacy of music that has swept over everything. It’s interesting, on the back of the bus, when schools empty out - there’s all the teenage girls on the back of the bus (which is always a terrifying experience, especially if you’re the only male on there) but you can’t tell who’s Turkish, Greek, English, white, black…they all speak exactly the same. It’s interesting - language and where it goes. Because so much Jamaican stuff is Dickensian language. Something like ‘vex’. Dickens would write ‘vex’, and now it comes back again in kinda street Jamaican - it gets twisted again in a London way. When you were making this album, where were you getting your inspiration, your energy from? I don’t do it consciously, but I think I like having influences come in and then contextualizing them totally differently. Like even the Earl Zinger thing was like I love the idea of Kaizer Soze. That whole ‘master criminal behind everything, no-one knows what he looks like’. I don’t really have an agenda. It’s just some things seem to make total sense at the time. Like, "oh yeah, I should definitely do a rockers version of Song 2". Like, “why?”. I’m not exactly sure why, it’s just seems like a good idea. But I guess that’s the little bit of creativity you’re not meant to understand. How you feeling about London – the music scene – at the moment? You feeling it? Yeah, I think there’s loads going on now. I mean it’s a weird time for the music industry, but for those of us doing independent labels and all the rest of it, I think you can steer your boat through the little gaps that they’ve left…then you can make a living. At the moment it’s great being creative. I just can’t seem to earn any money out of it…I haven’t quite learnt that trick yet. Playing live is the thing that’s least complicated. You play, people pay to watch you pay, you pay the musicians, and you take what’s left. So I usually get fifty quid. [laughter]. Literally. You appeared at The Big Chill this year. How did that go? That was a good laugh. Suddenly the dance tent which was opposite emptied and there were about two thousand, three thousand people in there. So it was a tremendous gig, man. And that was a good good laugh. What was the set up? There’s three musicians: Palmskin (of Palmskin Productions), Shawn Lee and Ski (Ryuichi Iota). Tried to keep it really tight, because I quite like a weird little edgy sound. So there was a drum, a bass, a load of delays and things and keys. And the musicians kinda swapped around at different times and pick different things up. I like that - it makes it a little edgy and all over the place and we can play a weird, dark waltz, kind of like Who Killed Saturday Night and from there go into Escape From Ibiza, or whatever. And it can all get mixed together - live, it can always work. What do you think of NYC? I love New York, man. London and New York are the two cities. It’s like New York isn’t America and London isn’t England. Boston and San Francisco are great also. What do you like doing when you’re in New York? Walking. I’ve done more walking in New York than in any other city I think. And I can manage to get myself totally lost even though it’s a grid system. But yeah, I love walking. I’ve been there millions of times but I do still feel like I’m in a film. I’m still moderately surprised that as I walk through TriBeCa De Niro doesn’t call me in for a coffee somewhere. Or I’m walking down like Marathon Man in the park and Dustin Hoffman isn’t passing me on the track. Or Woody Allen not sat there... Or Spike Lee. I’m still trying to send music to Spike Lee [laughs]. Demus met him and gave him the last Two Banks Of Four album so I’m still waiting for him to phone for a 2 Banks Of 4 soundtrack to something. But yeah it’s wicked man. Love walking over the bridge into Brooklyn. Tell us a little bit about Phrased and Confused, the spoken word tour you did recently with Patrick Neate and Charlie Dark. Yeah it was good man, we did about five or six gigs around the place. Patrick was coming from a sort of author’s perspective. Charlie was in a sort of one foot in both camps - music and poetry. I’d never done a workshop before. I’ve always looked upon writing as something I did, and never thought why or defined how. It’s just…you wait for lightening to strike and then you just do it. And hopefully the lightening strikes more than a few times a week. But they do it differently in that there’s the whole process of writing and techniques of how to do it and then writing a novel and the rhythm of the words. It was very interesting, that was. And they’re both wicked poets aswell. What else are you working on at the moment? I’m trying to do a screenplay at the moment. It all takes part in Terminal 1 in Heathrow and it’s just the different people, their planes have been delayed, and it’s the 2000 World Cup and the whole of the English team are all black. It’s basically another identity thing I guess. It’s the different conversations that follow around that. That’s the basis of it, but I’ve gotta go back and cross it all out, as you inevitably do. What kind of stuff are you feeling at the moment musically? Everything. I picked up yesterday some little dancehall riddim called Dancehall Rock, which I’m gonna use. I got a load of stuff over from Japan because Demus has just come back. DJ Mitsu. Edan. Just got sent all the Pete Rock stuff and the !K7 stuff. Sa-Ra. Pick a few songs off the album and tell us what they’re about. Okay…Only The Ridiculous Survive is about a don beat. It’s slaying any MCs who try to ride the beat. Nasty gangsta beat. It keeps shooting all the beats around the place. And then ten grimy MCs come to try and ride it. And they have it on the floor but then it breaks free and then there’s one that’s just about on it and then it shoots him and then the last bit is me saying “Go and get the duct tape Fredo”. We’re gonna kidnap it, duct tape it’s mouth, put in the boot, stab it, have dinner at your Mum’s and then head upstate and bury it. Only the ridiculous survive. Who Killed Saturday Night is a weird little burlesque-y waltz that was recorded opposite the British Museum in Fishman’s weird subterranean-no-windows-what-time-is-it-how-long-have-you-been-there-no-one-ever-knows studios. The 38 Bus Man. Yeah, only bad love and buses go on and on! What are your plans for the future? Well on Red Egyptian Jazz we’re doing a new Two Banks Of Four album. And then there’s also a Valerie Etienne album that Gilles is going to produce - hopefully that should be before the end of the year. And then there’s on Red Egyptian there’s another Secret Waltz Club release. And loads of writing. Trying to get a spoken word book out also. ‘Nuff things to keep me busy...but I have to rob a bank aswell [laughter]. Anyone who’s got a good way to be creative and make money I’m willing to listen! RELATED LINKS: Review of Speaker Stack Commandments Listen to tracks on !K7 the website Review of 2002 concert at London's Cargo Review of Two Banks Of Four's Three Street Worlds album Buy Earl Zinger's Speaker Stack Commandments at Amazon UK (CD / Vinyl)  | US (CD) Buy Earl Zinger's Put Your Phazers on Stun Throw Your Health Food Skyward at Amazon UK (CD / Vinyl)  | US (CD) PUBLISHED: 3 October 2004 More Features EMAIL UPDATES! Do you want to receive Know The Ledge update emails? Click here to sign up!	::: RELATED LINKS Review of Speaker Stack Commandments Listen to tracks on !K7 the website Review of 2002 concert at London's Cargo Review of Two Banks Of Four's Three Street Worlds album More Features