In Part One of our Interview (here >>) Geoge Pringle went on at great length about the George Pringle project, art and movies and the underlying fabric of George Peppard and so much more... In part two Paul trues to get back to the music.
Paul Hawkins: You havent mentioned any obvious music related icons or heroes, and they have all been quite highbrow..............
I really think that film makers, photographers and authors influence me far more than music itself. I think I try and apply all these influences to my music. Like, I have all these old influences and fascinations and they're totally at odds with the modern world and what I grew up with. I think the resulting sounds of what I'm making are like...It's like all those influences are the instrument and I'm putting them through this giant Nintendo filter can or something. I think I am really doing music because I want to convey the kind of way your head is writing your own film score and the mundane can become filmic.
I know what you mean, in my head movies I usually find as the music get louder the picture gets blurrier though
Like when you're listening to your ipod and you're upset on a bus or something and you start crying and you're listening to a song and it fits with how you feel. I feel a bit like I've been trying to create soundtracks to the grey moments of my life where there hasn't been a song. It's pretty self-involved but then most art is really. I guess on some levels I am quite influenced by Sofia Coppola's films but then again she is very similar to her dad. Her films totally build atmospheres and they're less centred on dialogue. Then I realised that actually the films bored me somewhat, I just loved the photography in them all and the soundtracks always fit so well with the images. That's probably because shoegazey music goes with any image and it doesn't mean that Kevin Shields (who did the soundtracks except for The Virgin Suicides, which was Air) was a genius because My Bloody Valentine can be pretty turgid but I certainly think he has a great ability with soundtrack music. Stuff that's fairly substance-less...
There may be many who would disagree with you George. I dont think shoegazey music goes with any image at all. Neither do I agree with what you say about Kevin Shields and him not able to work with stuff that`s got substance. What else did you learn about Coppola`s daughter?
Well, I found out who her director of photography was on her films and his name is Lance Accord and he's a perfect genius but his approach is very derivative of people like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. That's how I discovered those photographers. They're really great. Sometimes I think that I miss the faces. Like, your Goldins and Arbbuses always give you the faces and the eyes but I like the fact that these people mere principally shooting objects and these objects or spaces were casting moods and took on personalities all of their own. I think I relate to that as a photographic concept because when I was in Oxford there was nothing exciting to photograph or even write about. So, I'd to go out and take photos of cats sitting on doorsteps or my shoes or a pigeon sitting on my window pane or the mess I'd created in my room. Really dull stuff. I used to just take hundreds of photos of public transport too because I was in a long distance relationship and I spent a lot of time on trains and buses, which I guess turned into an obsession with water and light on glass. Like, when it rains and you home in on raindrops on glass and all the colours inside them and they become Kaleidoscopic. Then I realised I was probably taking all these pictures of glass because it reminds me of that Fellini film Roma, where there are people stuck in a traffic jam outside Rome and the camera goes into these rain drops reflecting all the traffic lights and then moves out of them and focuses on the faces of people in cars and then moves on to more drops. It was really powerful. That film is really great, it's dull at points but I think it's so subversive. You should see the scene with the roller skating priests. So I guess that brings me to Fellini where I'll stop. Nico was in La Dolce Vita and I adore The Velvet Underground so that makes sense too. La Dolce Vita changed my life. Fellini really takes you out of yourself. It's another world, it's the same way that photographers can do that that I really love.
Thanks for sharing all that George. Now, what is your feeling about the state of politics here in the UK?
It's a bit messy.
Could you elaborate? For example, what about the Iraq war?
Pssh. Well, it was ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I think the main reason it seems so bad is because of The Gulf War and Bush senior and all that. I think it's all based on greed and oil. But also, I think Americans never really got the colonising out of their systems. We think we're so great in the UK but we did some dreadful things to other countries in the past, it was just so long ago, we forget.
Well, not all of us..........
America weren't quite satisfied with just murdering the Indians so they need to swing their weight about somewhere else because they're a "new country". I think that the problem is that Bush is such an idiot. I know that's an obvious thing to say but it really should be restated. He's an idiot with some really nasty far-right advisers. I think we forget how stupid the man is. I hope Gordon Brown'll sort some stuff out but...I doubt that, to a degree. Although, Brown has this kind of authoritarian air that I trust a bit more than Blair.
I think until we as voters feel we can actually have concrete potential for change and some, I dont know, validity in our votes beyond the 2 party/1 political themed system, I think its all a fucking scam bankrolled by the global gamblers on the Dow Seng......................
It's a real mess. I mean, I wish we were doing something more constructive in Iraq, like helping rebuild stuff, relationships too. I wish there weren't such dubious motives behind our being there. I mean, aaaargh, I don't want to talk about it because I'm really quite thick politically, my family are all really clever, my brother's a journalist and he knows a lot about this kind of thing. I should really be taking notes next time my family are having a political discussion but sometimes I switch off because I always put my foot in it and say something and then I'm wrong so I just sit there feeling stupid when I know I'm not stupid but I just have ADHD a lot of the time and I can't read the papers all the time because I just look at the pictures and read the culture section and when I'm watching the news I'm always online or playing around on photoshop or GarageBand or something.
Easy now.....I feel your pain......you'll end up with having to chant 12 Hail Mary's and 39 Our Father's!
John Snow just feels like an old friend that won't shut up in the corner. I'm immune to his voice. I like the news though, I find it comforting.
Really?
I watch it daily. I'm really worried that our news networks in the UK are going to become as sensationalist as Fox News in the states. I heard it might happen soon. I'd really fucking hate that. I think it's going to happen though. It's an inevitable...
Describe your last year for me as a recipe for the main course of a Lithuanian wedding reception?
Goulash with beef.
Tell me about your inspirations in the art/performance world...............
Margot Fontaine.
What else chops your kindling?
Marmite. Camel lights. Tetris.
And what does 2008 hold for you?
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Many thanks to George Pringle and Sam at Freeman PR. George`s single, Carte Postale, is available for free download from Drowned In Sound. there will be further releases in early `08.
