PLAASTIK NEWS (2005)

Current News / 2004 News / 2003 News [Older news is archived at Dave Hall's page.]

12-16-05:

"Ballad of a Lost Cause" did not come from a recording session for an upcoming album as Capitol reported, Jeff Jooce has told me today. In fact there is nothing new to report on that front. There is not even a projected release date for the next album, though I'm told a couple of songs are being slowly developed for it.
"Ballad" entered the charts at #22 thanks to massive promotion but, as predicted, has now disappeared from the top 40.
Fans are generally displeased with RECENT ACTIVITY. Dave Hall sums it up: "PROJECTION CONSISTENCY and MEAT were good Plaastik records for new fans as a way in to the group, and they had several nice bonuses for fans. It's unlikely that anyone would make such a claim about this CD, which contains some solid music but mostly documents material from one fair album, two mediocre ones, and two terrible ones. The stuff thrown in for fans is of dubious merit. 'Ballad' is the most MOR song Plaastik has ever done (the tendency toward an MOR sound being my biggest problem with CHILD, and an ominous one). The new mix of 'Scarlett' is nothing more than a curio. And the supposed 'new version' of 'My Joke Is Lost,' a good song that got drowned in Tina's overproduction, is just an edit. Some fans who don't buy the singles may like having the alternate 7" versions of six of the songs, but the other compilations actually brought something completely new and previously unavailable to make buying this stuff twice less painful. The only thing worthwhile here is the new band version of 'Ex,' which is bittersweet because the 'rock' version now goes uncollected. And did I mention how shoddy the package itself is? I'll stop now."
I agree with Dave, for the record. It's nice to have the 7" versions all in one place... but one of them is missing! And that bugs me. I don't understand the point of this new "Ex" at all, which is just a "cleanup" of sorts, an acoustic version that's more polished than the demo. Jeff told me it was "to represent LOVE more accurately on the album." Whatever.
The release of RECENT ACTIVITY has brought a growing sect in the Plaastik cult to the spotlight: those who absolutely loved FUN and SCIENCE and feel betrayed by Plaastik's jump to, as Dave said, the middle of the road. I'd be interested if any of these people have something to add to the generally snarky SCIENCE pages Dave and I currently have up on the site.

12-6-05:

RECENT ACTIVITY is out today.

11-29-05:

As for the "Ballad" single, fans are apprehensive about the number of "jokey" covers we've had recently, but anything as far as I'm concerned is an improvement on "On the Telly." And we were spoiled by the incredible LOVE singles, so let's give it a rest. The single is actually a better deal than the album, at least if you normally collect the singles and therefore don't need the mixes on the LP (the new ones are not really rash enough to be worth the purchase alone).

11-28-05:

It's amazing how fast the glow from Plaastik's massive hits earlier in the year has faded. RECENT ACTIVITY is being covered with gritted-teeth disdain in the media. Reviews: 3.5 stars from Rolling Stone, a 4/10 from Spin, and otherwise semi-negative across the board. I have a feeling almost no one cares about this release, so if it's a cash-in on "Rose," perhaps the only hit single in history to hurt an album rather than help it, it isn't going to work.

11-20-05:

Here is the... ornate artwork for Plaastik's new compilation, RECENT ACTIVITY: SINGLES COLLECTION III (1997-2005). It's hard to believe it's been eight years since "To Know Him is To Love Him." So many things seemed different then... with this band and with everything else.
The b-sides on the single for "Ballad of a Lost Cause" -- to be released on the 29th -- are two more novelty covers, of the Spice Girls' "2 Become 1" (a Science tour fixture) [3:42] and an appropriate medley of "What Is Love" (by Howard Jones) and "Where's the Love" (Hanson) [6:10]. Don't ask me.

11-14-05:

One of the strangest years in Plaastik's history is about to come to a close, with an entirely unexpected detour into mainstream success cut short very rapidly. Personally my interest in the band is actually rekindled, despite the lack of a tour, if only because the wonderful LOVE singles easily redeemed that album for me. Each of the singles was packed enough (with good stuff, even) to be albums on their own, and that's the kind of genuine care I'd like to see more of. Still, the band's popularity appears to be waning. If we take "Rose" and "My One and Only" as flukes, we're left with the continuation of the downward spiral of the last few years: the audience Plaastik had in the mid-'90s and before has almost completely left, except the ones who visit this website. I doubt anything they can do at this point will change that unless they enjoy a second life as popsters, but I doubt that.
"Ballad of a Lost Cause" is being given mostly a thumbs-down, though hardly an aggressive one. The general charge is just that it's boring, while hardly offensive. I think it might be appropriately called "Plaastik-lite" and I don't get the impression that a lot of effort went into it, which calls into question how much longer they intend to put up with Capitol, who rumor has it are in large part to blame for the massive confusion of the last year and a half with LOVE and CHILD and the tour. The word is that Plaastik can't tune their guitars without a Capitol rep showing up to question it, but that's largely hearsay, and not, I emphasize, from anyone in the band.

11-12-05:

I am not a liar! "Ballad of a Lost Cause" really is playing on radio stations around the country... just barely. It is not drumming up much enthusiasm, from what we can tell. There is a video, VH1 Classic played it tonight, and it's lame... just a collage of the other Capitol Plaastik videos. Not a second of new footage. Hope the single gets a bit more thrust when the CD comes out.
"Ex" stalled in the charts at #30 before promptly disappearing. It did not bring LOVE you back onto the Billboard 100.

10-25-05:

The third and last of the excellent LOVE CD singles is in stores today. This may be the best of the three: I have been listening all morning and it's wonderful. We already know how good the full-band single version of the song is, and it's joined by eight more previously unreleased recordings. The second track is a montage of demo tapes of "Ex" over several months, culminating in a complete take on the song rather similar to the one on the album but slower. Other extracts from the LOVE tape included here are a stunning demo of "My Field" that (in my view) should have gone on the LP (I like it more than anything actually on LOVE). Also here is a fine, intoxicatingly sad version of Talking Heads' angry "The Big Country" sung by Nick and Janet in turn and a complete take on "Wait Until Darkness" slightly more "finished"-sounding than the LOVE version. Also, those (myself included) who enjoyed the meet-'em-halfway rendition of "I Thought" on the "Rose" single (it was an alternate LOVE demo but with band overdubs, an approach they perhaps should have taken on the longform) will likely enjoy even more the similar recordings here, of "Someday" and "Hearts." I think "Hearts" may be the album version with overdubs but the liner notes say differently.
Of course, what most of us will flip over is the inclusion of two new "full band" takes on LOVE songs in addition to "Ex." This time out we get a forlorn "For You" with slide guitar and piano, and a screaming, wild take on "It's Stupid." Both top the LOVE versions easily. Some have expressed concern about the fact that the singles have not provided band takes on "I Thought" and "Golden," among a few others, but Jay has told me these may in fact appear on the next Plaastik album, on a forthcoming (hypothetical, at the moment) boxed set, or on an eventual "deluxe edition" of LOVE. He says they were too good to release as b-sides, which must be saying a lot, because the b-sides on these singles have been magnificent. I must give major props to Plaastik for doing such a fine job with a project they had major doubts about.
This marks the end of the tumultuous CHILD/LOVE period, a full year after the strangeness began. It was the best of times, blah blah. In keeping with the release of "Ex," I have completed the LOVE discography page. Enjoy!
Finally, a bit more on RECENT ACTIVITY. The exact release date has now been finalized: It's out December 6th. And Capitol press indicates that it will include a couple of new materials not previously reported: "My Joke Is Lost" is, in their words, "a new take on an underappreciated song" (how much more vague can they get?) and "Ex" comes to us "revamped," apparently because the record company doesn't want to compete with the still-extremely-current single for "Ex."

10-20-05:

Plaastik and Capitol camps both report that, in a bit of a shortsighted scheduling move given how close it is to "Ex," a single will be released from RECENT ACTIVITY: "Ballad of a Lost Cause." It will start playing on the radio in early November and will show up in stores late that month. I don't have the exact date yet (they are really cutting this one down to the wire, apparently a sign of desperation after LOVE failed to go platinum despite a top-ten hit), but I'm guessing the 22nd or the 29th.
The big news today is that we have the full tracklist for RECENT ACTIVITY, the retrospective of Plaastik's Capitol material picking up right where MEAT left off in 1997. Here she goes:
1. To Know Him Is to Love Him [from What's Your Bedtime soundtrack & Pinwheel Blood Box collection, 1997] (2:58)
2. Final Hour [from Super Fun Goldfish Toys, 1997] (6:51)
3. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville [non-LP single & R.E.M. tribute album, 1998] (4:47)
4. We Were [single version] (orig from Cartoons, 1998) (4:00)
5. Rental [Cartoons, 1998] (3:56)
6. I Thought I Loved You (Once Upon a Time) [Cartoons, 1998] (4:12)
7. But Why? (You Had Your Fun) [Fun, 2001] (8:18)
8. Zap [Science, 2001] (4:50)
9. My Joke Is Lost [Fun, 2001] (5:20 [probably an error; see below])
10. Cut [single version] (orig from Science, 2001) (3:44)
11. Conspiracy [single edit] (orig from Fun, 2001) (4:12)
12. In Our Sun [single version] (orig from Science, 2001) (3:30)
13. Walking Distance [Child, 2004] (4:26)
14. Ow [single version] (orig from Child, 2004) (3:52)
15. Scarlett [new mix/previously unreleased] (orig from Child, 2004) (3:55)
16. Rose [single version] (orig from Love, 2004) (4:08)
17. My One and Only [Love, 2004] (3:49)
18. Ex [Love, 2004] (see below) (4:13)
19. The Ballad of a Lost Cause [previously unreleased, 2005] (4:52)
Good things about this set: It is nice to have stuff like "Rockville" and the various 7" mixes on an album finally. The bad: Aside from "Ballad of a Lost Cayse," there is NO new material on this compilation unless you count the "new mix" of "Scarlett," which I'm told is extremely marginal and of no consequence (per Jeff Jooce), it's just Tina's slightly different original mix of the take reconstructed because no one could locate her old tape. This leads me to wonder what the hell they spent so much time in the studio for, but oh well.
It appears that, despite fan theories, all of the FUN tracks will be presented unedited. God knows why.
RA isn't generating a lot of excitement, but there may be some news on the new album front, and fans are excited about the prospects. Jooce posted on a fan forum saying that the band may finally be opening up their studio process to scrutiny, doing webcasts and other events once the progress of the record hits its stride. More news on that as we get there, but Jooce said they already know the first single: "LowRYDE." He says "Laboratory" is likely to make the cut as well. Sounds great!

10-16-05:

"Ex" is on the radio now and is a superb band version modeled on the live takes from last year. Unanimous thumbs up, because it really is a great song. The video leaves a bit more to be desired; a grinning band plays in straightforward miming mode, and gradually their faces are replaced by big smiley-face masks. Maybe it's time for Nick to stop directing the videos... Just a thought.

9-28-05:

The compilation has been delayed -- slightly -- until December, presumably to give the last single from LOVE a bit more time to breathe, though to my knowledge no singles are to be released from the new collection. We also have a title, and a very... honest one. The disc is called RECENT ACTIVITY: SINGLES COLLECTION III. At least people will know what they're getting, I guess.

9-19-05:

The peculiar nature of LOVE has really taken its toll on the potential exhibited by the singles. As reported here previously, the record has not really gained much from its pair of huge hits. It did show up for a few weeks in the top twenty on the albums chart, reaching as high as #17 (it entered at #5 on release last year on the basis of the Plaastik name alone), but Rolling Stone in a customary skeptical report about the band's newfound popularity has discovered that just about everyone has chosen to buy the singles instead of the full album, thanks to negative word of mouth on the latter as well as a new sticker affixed to the second pressing proclaiming the record a "collection of previously unreleased demos." On the other hand, the singles are a major success, selling more strongly (by far) than any Plaastik CD single since "Rockville," which did well on a similar platform: the song was only otherwise available on a various-artists compilation with mostly obscure performers, and with which fans got the chance to preview tracks from CARTOONS, leading even those who normally skipped the singles to investigate. I think the singles this time out were a big success both because the songs were so popular on radio, thereby attracting casual listeners, and because the fans came out in droves for the discs, bulging as they were with b-sides. Because of all this, I don't think it would be right for Plaastik or Capitol to consider the LOVE project a failure... just perhaps a misfire, since it could easily have been a hugely successful album if properly recorded. To the band's credit (and the label's; recent info has led me to believe the state of LOVE has more to do with Capitol than with Plaastik) I've been getting lots of e-mails from people who bought LOVE because of "My One and Only" (which, unlike "Rose," may have helped the LP a little) and adored it and have accordingly either discovered or rediscovered Plaastik.
Whatever the case, the bottom line remains: CHILD, with not one single as popular as "Rose" or "My One and Only," was recently certified double-platinum, the first Plaastik album to reach that certification since the enormously popular ON SUCH A NIGHT. LOVE, on the other hand, only went gold, and that was immediately before "Rose" made the top ten (!), so the sales are a sticky issue. But who knows? ON SUCH A NIGHT today is considered more quaint than anything; along with HERD POLITICS, it's the weakest catalog seller of Plaastik's pre-Capitol blockbusters (I say that to exclude SODAS IN HELL and OLIVES & SUCH). Meanwhile, the band's first five albums remain stunningly beloved. This week, Universal sent in for a recertification of DINOSAUR DISTRIBUTION FIENDS, which has now gone triple platinum. This is incredible, since in 1987 DDF was looked upon as a flop. And one of Capitol's biggest-selling catalog items is the former cutout-bin staple SUPER FUN GOLDFISH TOYS. Maybe LOVE will ultimately have such a shelf life? You never know. Certainly the testament of new fans who've bought it is enlightening. Perhaps in a few years one of them will be maintaining this site.

9-10-05:

We have the tracklist for "Ex"! To reiterate, the release date for this third single from LOVE is October 25th. Tracks:
1. Ex [full band single version] (4:09)
2. Ex [alternate LOVE demo] (5:57)
3. For You [full band version] (3:17)
4. My Field [LOVE demo] (5:43)
5. Someday [alternate LOVE demo w/ overdubs] (5:18)
6. The Big Country [Talking Heads cover from LOVE tape] (6:04)
7. Wait Until Darkness [alternate LOVE demo] (2:20)
8. It's Stupid [full band version] (3:27)
9. Hearts [alternate demo #2 w/ band overdubs] (3:48)
The two earlier singles from LOVE, so monstrously and unexpectedly popular, are plummetting rapidly down the charts; it seems the lack of a proper album to promote them has taken its toll. Certainly LOVE has not reaped any benefit, barely rising in the charts for more than a week when two of its songs hit Top 20 status. A real shame, and kind of a waste.

8-30-05:

Very late on this one, because just about everyone else already posted it, but here is the artwork for "Ex":
The tracklist is NOT FINALIZED. Whatever you've heard to the contrary isn't true.

8-19-05:

Capitol emails me with interesting info, expected and otherwise. Release date for "Ex" is October 25th. And just a few weeks later, the label is releasing a new singles compilation. I asked why they weren't waiting until the end of Plaastik's contract (they owe two more albums, with a stipulation that singles collections don't count, unless they are completely dormant for two years because the contract automatically expires in 2007 unless renewed, which I'm assuming they won't). The rep told me they wanted to take the opportunity to use the band's recent hits to introduce people to their other Capitol recordings. Sounds reasonable enough, and it has been eight years since the last Plaastik greatest-hits CD, but... off the top of my head it doesn't seem like it's going to be a terribly exciting set. Or am I nuts? Back in May Tina said that she and the band wanted to do one last project together, a full-on retrospective of the full story "so far," but I guess that's been put on the backburner, as I can't imagine this new disc is the result of that ambition, nor that both can coexist in the next year.
"My One and Only" finally dropped out of the top twenty this week but still lingers on at #33.

8-8-05:

An unusual and welcome gesture comes to me this morning, an e-mail from the lovely Janet Kieran. She asked that I not post the exact text due to label mongering, but she says the band is progressing nicely on material for their next record and that she hopes to release it late in 2006. They are also setting aside some time to get ready for a possible tour in the spring, but nothing is final, and the tour may not happen until September or October. She told me Nick is very busy getting fragments of songs ready to present to the band and that they are going back to composing as a group. Finally she mentioned that the major goal of the sessions was an "imminent project" that she couldn't explain but that "is not very exciting." Gotta love her.
"My One and Only" continues to amaze, dropping just a few notches to #15. Janet told me it was a total shock to everyone that "Rose" was a hit but that they were absolutely floored about "My One and Only" and had done "plenty of celebrating." Congraulations, guys!

8-1-05:

Well, one word and one word only can describe the strangeness of the last couple of weeks: "Huge." "My One and Only" is certifiably and very shockingly huge. The unadorned demo, included verbatim on LOVE, has struck a chord, and it's not even Valentine's Day! Unfortunately, like "Rose," this hasn't budged LOVE much on sales, though it's probably helping a bit more than the last single since it is actually a recording from the album. LOVE has climbed up slightly but not nearly as much as a hit of this caliber ordinarily would. "My One and Only" entered the charts at #17 and this week is up to #11. If not for "Rose," this would be Plaastik's biggest hit in seven years. The single apparently is selling just as many copies as "Rose," and Capitol is having trouble keeping the title in stock. A big success, but there has to be some bitter irony being felt by the band and label. A single is supposed to promote an album; instead, these singles seem to be promoting only themselves. (And yet I can't imagine that they ever really believed LOVE would make them millionaires...)
For the moment, my informant tells me that Plaastik's sessions for new material are over. The majority of it is reserved for the next proper album sessions; the band will resume tinkering around in late autumn.

7-20-05:

Kevin Keys has been kind enough to report to me on some of the songs being dredged up at the current sessions, and I am pleased to say not only that "Laboratory" is one of them, but that they were inspired to revisit "Laboratory" because of our interview! Very exciting. Other songs in the running that we've heard of are "LowRYDE" (deliberately held off the LOVE singles) and -- oddly enough -- "Words I Remember." Unfamiliar titles Kev mentions: "I Can't Swim," a "hardcore metal" song called "Thy Payment Is Overdue," plus two Kevin names as "outstanding," "Squandered Messiah" and "One Breath to Life." Some of these, he says, are not even finished yet, and none of them are completely recorded at the moment, but all were written by the entire band except Mitch, who opted out of these sessions to help Tina out on her Crisis tour, with lyrics by Nick. "Back to the grind," as Kevin cheerfully puts it.
Odd as it is that "My One and Only" is presented in demo form on the radio, the CD single is being touted as a must-have, and I agree wholeheartedly with the verdict. We do at least get a band version of the song as one of the b-sides, and Plaastik also comes together for a great loud take on "You Can See" and an interesting new acoustic version of "My One and Only," which I personally would prefer as the radio track. My favorite track on the disc is definitely the new "Golden," a bright remix of the album instrumental with the lyrics Nick wrote over a year after the song was recorded.
There is also new stuff from the demo tape: a pair of John Lennon covers in a cute medley, a take of "For You" later than the one on the album, and the earliest demo in existence of "Walking Distance"! Just about all the b-sides are worth your time, so pick the single up when you can!

7-15-05:

Fans report hearing "My One and Only" much more than expected on the radio, while a couple of channels have been running the vid, a nice montage of Janet and Nick's home movies. The single is out Tuesday.
I hear from Capitol that the current studio sessions are "extremely productive," which may mean a new album sooner rather than later. I'm assuming "sooner" means 2006.

6-25-05:

Only six months have passed since LOVE was released, but Nick Parker and Plaastik are already working on songs for their next album! Due to the success of "Rose," this story has been reported to numerous media outlets and sounds suspiciously to me like corporate drivel, so take it with a grain of salt, but I do know that they're writing; I'm just skeptical of how serious they are at this point about working on the next LP.

6-19-05:

They probably just about had to announce this given what's happened with "Rose" (still in the top ten!), but Plaastik has issued a press release with a great deal of boring stuff we already know about LOVE and the announcement that Plaastik will tour in 2006!

6-5-05:

Some people have asked about the status of Jerry Mull's membership in Plaastik. It would appear that while he still isn't really a full-fledged band member, he has joined the band in the studio to fill the gap left by Mitchell Blank's temporary absence (Blank is working with Crisis). As far as anyone knows, he will continue to play with them on the next tour.

6-3-05:

The band is a big deal all over again. On that note, Jeff Jooce sends the following e-mail: "Needless to say, we're overwhelmed at the moment and it's inspired us a lot on our current work. We only wish we could have gotten the chance to tour, and we hate to say 'we told you so' to Capitol, but we knew something big would happen this year. It's a shame to leave all that energy for live shows untapped, but we're trying to pour it into doing the best new songs we've ever done, something that will make the new fans really happy when they get released, as well as all the old and semi-old ones."

5-26-05:

"My One and Only" is out July 19th. Here's the art:
And the tracklist:
1. My One and Only [album version] (3:49)
2. My One and Only [full band version] (4:10)
3. My One and Only [alternate demo] (3:58)
4. Golden [remix with lyrics] (2:51)
5. Imagine/No. 9 Dream/Stand by Me [John Lennon & Ben E. King covers from demo tape] (8:37)
6. For You [alternate demo] (3:05)
7. Walking Distance [demo] (5:44)
8. You Can See [full band version] (3:32)
9. My One and Only [full band, acoustic] (3:44)
"Rose" is absolutely huge, still; it stayed at #5 for three weeks straight and is currently down to #7. Forget chart position, this is the biggest hit Plaastik has had in a decade. ("To Know Him Is to Love Him" dropped out of the chart much faster despite becoming a #1.) Unfortunately, the success of the single has not -- perhaps inevitably -- helped LOVE much, if at all; LOVE has barely budged. The energy from the interest in "Rose" has been poured into purchases of the single, their biggest seller in that medium since "Rockville," which only sold that well because of the CARTOONS preview b-sides; I expect "Rose" will top it soon enough. The question is whether Capitol is as happy with sales of the single as they would be of the album...

5-5-05:

CHILD has gone gold, with further certification pending.
"Rose" appears to be a major hit... unbelievably major, in fact; it has hit the big time with the public. On the Billboard Hot 100 it has risen to #5! This is the highest a Plaastik single has charted since 1997, and of course, it's big news, with Capitol obviously hoping for a resurgence in sales of LOVE and Plaastik surely planning to harness this completely unexpected energy with a tour or new album project. Looks like all of us were wrong to write off this band as being yesterday's news. Now let's see what they do with the power.
Tina's new album with Crisis, POLKAS SCOTTISCHES & WALTZES, was announced for the fall but Tina has since retracted it for extensive reworking, so expect it in the fourth quarter or early 2006.
The former webmaster of this page, Dave Hall, recently found himself back in cahoots with the Plaastik gang when he agreed to sit down with Christina Singleton for an interview I was regrettably unable to attend. Here is the transcript, graciously provided by Dave.

HALL: You spent around fifteen years with Plaastik. Do you look back on that time fondly?
SINGLETON: Yes, I do. Plaastik was a very creatively fulfilling experience for almost that entire time. I think I ultimately will only be a blip on their radar in terms of what my time with the band meant -- obviously I never quite integrated myself with their working methods and such -- but I'm proud of what the band was for me and what I was for the band.
HALL: Does Plaastik influence you strongly in your work with your new band?
SINGLETON: No, except in terms of what Mitch provides. That's not an insult to them, it's simply a comment on what I was dying to do in those last few years, create music on my own terms with my own methods. So as far as the way we worked as a band, if anything I've tried to run in the opposite direction. And in terms of our "sound" as a band, since I don't think we ever had a signature sound that's impossible to really say.
HALL: Crisis sounds like a fusion of the variety of styles you worked with in Plaastik. Is this the kind of music you were pushing Plaastik to make in the later years?
SINGLETON: Not really. Plaastik was Plaastik and Crisis was Crisis, and what I thought would work for one would not necessarily work for the other. I know what you're getting at, and the answer is yes, I have used a lot of my ideas originally intended for my Plaastik records in the Crisis stuff, but of course Crisis began as an experiment and slowly became less so, and now of course it's my primary medium. It no longer has to coexist.
HALL: What do you feel to be the signature moment of the time you spent in Plaastik?
SINGLETON: The sessions that produced FORTUNATE SMILES will always be a time I remember with great delight. It's depressing that the memory is tainted by the way Epic handled the release. And I will never forget the Diplomacy tour. Those were the greatest months of my life, and also the real time of solidarity within the band. As you know, I was along on the two prior tours as well and both were chaotic, sometimes unpleasant. The Diplomacy tour was such a wonderful moment. I feel that if Nick were not so afraid of going on the road, so many of our later problems could have been avoided. If we had toured after GADABOUT, that would have been amazing. A tour could have saved FORTUNATE SMILES. And goddammit, if only we had been able to go out and play shows after ON SUCH A NIGHT, Plaastik could still be as big today as they were then. Hell, I might still be in the band.
HALL: Talking of solidarity, Janet told me privately once that the band seemed all too frequently to slip into three separate camps. Was that still true at the time of your departure?
SINGLETON: Yeah, Jeff and Jay and Kevin and Janet all stick together and would try to keep peace between Nick and me, and since Mitch was a personal friend he'd always stay on my end. But it was very much the two prima donnas and the ever-patient band members who just wanted peace in the valley.
HALL: Of the songs and albums you made with Plaastik, what are you most proud of?
SINGLETON: I think that of the songs I wrote, "Blank Page" makes me the most proud today for the simple reason that Plaastik still plays it, and Crisis plays it! But putting that aside, as far as my own songs go I think either "Pool" or "I Don't Know" takes the cake, I really don't know how I wrote those songs. And I'm also really in love to this day with "Debbie Called," just because of the chance to collaborate with Nick when he was firing on all cylinders at such a creative peak.
HALL: Was the breakoff amicable? Do you still talk to the other members of Plaastik?
SINGLETON: It wasn't amicable at first. It was very heated. But we've made our peace. We pretty much had to, contractually. The band is a business. But I couldn't be involved in the production end anymore. I still talk to Mitch, of course, and I hear from the others from time to time. I rarely talk to Nick, which unfortunately means I don't hear much from Janet.
HALL: How heavily were you involved in the last two Plaastik albums?
SINGLETON: As far as what got released, not very. Most of the work I did got scrapped, though as you probably know I did come back to add a vocal.
HALL: What are your feelings about CHILD and LOVE?
SINGLETON: They are not the records I would produce. But I respect what the band is doing just so long as I don't have to be a passenger. It was becoming very difficult for me to agree with the collective decisions, and that meant it was time to leave. "My One and Only" is a lovely song. "My Field" is a lovely song.
HALL: Many fans have been complaining about the lack of a Plaastik tour and praising the recent Crisis performances. Do you think you may expand the scope of your tour?
SINGLETON: Oh, sure. We'll probably wait until after the album is released, but once that's ready we'll probably do lots of things.
HALL: The first Crisis album was not well received among Plaastik's fans, with many now seeing it as a forerunner to FUN and SCIENCE, but the subsequen singles and EPs as well as the new album are being touted as excellent. Do you feel the early material was misunderstood?
SINGLETON: Of course! But I can't make it understood, it just has to unfurl with time.
HALL: For that matter, how do you feel about FUN and SCIENCE today? Are you offended by the reaction of the fanbase to that material?
SINGLETON: Equally misunderstood, but I see the fans' point. What people miss is that at the time, we were floundering and something had to be done. We literally could not issue another record like CARTOONS or we would be finished.
HALL: Does it bother you to be primary associated with Plaastik?
SINGLETON: Not a bit. But that may not always be the case. Who knows?
HALL: Will Crisis ever perform any of your songs that were not recorded? "Punkers" or the original "Look (Time)"?
SINGLETON: "Punkers" is more Janet than me, and I don't care to revisit "Look (Time)". I don't really like playing old songs. I'm really into the future, you know?
Thanks again to Dave and Tina.

4-29-05:

With the aborted tour and no announcement or explanation forthcoming from Plaastik or Capitol, many fans are engaging in an interesting thread of discussion about the future of Plaastik, and indeed whether there is one. An excerpt from forum member Regina Conick:
We wait, and wait, and what we get is always somehow off-balance ever since the last label change. I don't know what happened or why it happened. But what makes it painful is that they once in a while do something incredibly wonderful, like the last show in L.A., "Walking Distance," the "Rose" single, the rarities show on the Science tour... and when that happens, you realize they are still capable, they just can't seem to go anywhere with it. I don't blame them myself. I just think it's sad that it seems more and more like we've reached the end of the road.
Which brings us to the big question. Whither tour? "Dunno" was the only reply I got when I asked Kevin Keys last week. Take from that what you will.

4-26-05:

"Rose" is in stores today, and what a single it is! This is a most exceptional package, the best maxi-single the band has released in a very long time and one of their best ever. Not a single previously released track to be found, either! The disc opens with the "full band" edition of "Rose" and also presents fleshed-out band takes on "Wait Until Darkness" and "No," both of which are excellent. For LOVE fans, there's plenty of stuff from the demo tape also, including alternate versions of "Rose" and "Hearts" as well as the earliest known runthrough of "Cut" (pretty good, actually!). The highlight of the CD has to be either the incredibly charming, funny take on "Hamlet" from the LOVE sessions, which in itself gets closer to achieving the supposed goal of that album than anything actually on it, or the judiciously overdubbed demo of "I Thought," giving evidence that a little more work could have made LOVE a masterpiece. Nevertheless, the single is brilliant; a few people are having trouble finding it due to bare breasts on the cover. Keep looking, gang. It's worth it.

4-20-05:

Some odds and ends regarding "Rose," which really is making its presence known on radio and TV, getting quite a bit of airplay. Fans are overjoyed about the new recording, generating just as much enthusiasm as "Walking Distance" did. The video is a popular one with MTV2 at the moment. It features the band hanging upside in a meat factory with their instruments. A bit generic, but it is a pretty slick video and makes them look rather stylish.

4-10-05:

Current interviews with the band to, uh, re-promote LOVE are giving off little to no information about their current plans aside from vague noise about a new album on the horizon. They don't seem to have retained their laid-back posture from when I interviewed them; instead, Nick is as testy at all times now as he was in the few tense moments of my interview. Janet and Kevin are doing most of the talking, while semi-insiders suggest to me that Jeff is staying in the background either because he's feuding with Nick over some trivial issue or because he isn't getting along with Jerry Mull. I doubt either of those theories are true, but there may be some truth in the one saying that the band members are concerned about the possibility that they may be on the verge of losing another member, Mitchell Blank, who depending on who does the interview is either considering retirement or a full-time job with Crisis.
No performances or other goodies to look out for on the current press junket, just talk, talk, talk, and none of it anything we don't already know. Right now the official story is that LOVE is a "template for future recordings," usually followed by some spaced-out Nick comment about how "the future is now." This just strikes me as desperate.
Back on Earth, Kevin was kind enough to email me with the information that the LOVE singles were the main focus of the mysterious sessions booked late last year. The rerecordings do not stem from a botched attempt to re-record LOVE with the single exception of "Ex," which was indeed laid down during such a detour. A few of the full band tracks come from rehearsals concurrent with the brief promotional tour in October; aside from that, they were recorded especially for the singles, making this in a sense an even cooler mini-project.

3-30-05:

After the band adamantly stuck to their guns about releasing no singles from LOVE (some time after they famously caved in on OLIVES & SUCH and FUN), the announcement has come today that there will indeed be three singles from the record now that the spinoffs from CHILD have run their course. But the good news is that the singles are loaded with new bonus content that promises to make even the most skeptical among us happy. The three singles will be "Rose" (in a rerecorded band version, out April 26), "My One and Only" (original demo, out in July), and "Ex" (rerecorded withfull band, out in October). Exhibit A: The artwork for "Rose":
Big improvement from LOVE, in my opinion. Exhibit B: the tracklist.
1) Rose [full band single version] (4:36)
2) Rose [alternate demo #1] (6:08)
3) Wait Until Darkness [full band version] (3:54)
4) I Thought [alternate demo w/ overdubs] (3:11)
5) Hamlet [from LOVE tape] (4:27)
6) Hearts [alternate demo #1] (3:17)
7) Cut [demo] (3:28)
8) No [full band version] (4:34)
9) Rose [alternate demo #2] (2:58)
Yes, nine tracks. And my Capitol source tells me that all three singles will be like this, sold at discount prices, and with the single exception of "My One and Only" will contain no previously released tracks. We deserve a gift like this, and it's a welcome one. Can't wait to see the tracklists for the two other singles! I'm told there will be a great mixture of studio recordings and demos.
Capitol also says that the previously rumored compilation will spawn a new single in late November. More on that presumably in a few weeks.

3-18-05:

The second of Plaastik's two nights in Los Angeles was a vast improvement in every way. They pulled themselves together for a great great show. Not as good as the one I saw in NYC in October -- that was the night of a lifetime -- but a great one anyway. No medley, no covers, but solid from beginning to end. I'll get to the details in a moment.
The CHILD page on the discography is now completed. Additions are still welcome and expected. This resulted also in an overhaul of the live-only section and a few revisions to reflect the recent live shows. For the sake of the discography I've dubbed the promo tour (including the unusual TV appearances) the "Child Junket".
LOVE has dropped off the charts, the subject of an overly excited writeup in Rolling Stone that drew upon this event to talk about the downfall of not just Plaastik but the music industry.
"Scarlett" was a minor score for Plaastik, hitting #22, higher than any Plaastik single since the novelty hit "I Thought I Loved You (Once Upon a Time)," yet it hasn't really attracted a lot of attention and most of its airplay has come from generic adult contemporary stations. CHILD received only a minor bump from the single's tiny success. CHILD is the third Plaastik album in a row to fail to place a single in the top 20.
Now for the concert! Plaastik was back in chatty, friendly form this time out. The audience was rather small, sadly, but the band seemed to enjoy the intimacy. They switched instruments around a lot and varied arrangements considerably. The choices for song selection were also quite interesting. What I especially liked was that they did exactly what I wished last time they would do: They took the Information tour approach to ending the show with a slow retreat of band members until Nick was alone, though unusually enough they began the show in much the same way (usually the Information shows didn't attempt any symmetry; either the band came out all at once and slowly drifed apart, Nick came on alone and the band fleshed out during one song or over several songs and simply got louder and louder) and combined this with the Diplomacy juggling of acoustic and electric sets.
The first few songs were all acoustic. It was a treat to hear "Streetlight" played by Nick on his own. He was joined by Janet for a beautiful "My One and Only," then an even more beautiful "Walking Distance" with just the two of them and Kevin on drums. Jeff and Jay came out and the five members did a weird a cappella thing to introduce "LowRYDE," which was propulsive and thrilling. But the roof flew off when Mitch and Jerry came out and the entire band played a loud electric "Hearts."
The regular portion of the set featured some unusual selections. "Blank Page" remains a strange choice for a revival. "Tired" worked rather well, "I Thought I Loved You" was WONDERFUL -- what a missed opportunity this song was! -- and "Gave It All to You" and "Lust" featured very sensual vocals from Janet. I disliked the arrangements of "Scarlett" (weird funk variation) and "Oil and Water" (Science tour-style version with excessive synth), even though the fact that "Oil and Water" was played was in itself a huge happening (last time I said the band had not played it since 1987, though in a conversation after the show Kevin swore to me it was on several Diplomacy setlists).
The audience didn't go nuts until the encores, which were very entertaining. "This Is Not Here" was played in acoustic form for the first time in over a decade (the experimentation with an alternate arrangement on the Diplomacy tour was not well received, though it is now remembered fondly), "Rose" works extremely well in a theater setting, and a stellar acoutsic rendering of "The Beauty" in its first remotely respectable live version to date. (How shitty it is that the band has never given the songs from ON SUCH A NIGHT a proper live reading.
The second encore was electric and wild, another old trick (Nick varied evenly between ending the shows alone on acoustic and electric guitars). "Ex" was a firecracker, "Thumbtack" was insane (with Janet again showing astonishing virtuosity), "Ow" was a bizarre but wonderful arrangement of Nick on electric guitar and Mitch on jungle-rhythm percussion, and the show closed with an engagingly angry Nick solo take on "Wait Until Darkness." A superb evening, IMO.

And When the Seconds Feel Like Years (Nick alone)
Streetlight (Nick alone)
My One and Only (Nick & Janet)
Walking Distance (Nick + Janet + Kevin)
LowRYDE (Nick + Janet + Kevin + Jeff + Jay)
Hearts (full band + Jerry)
Lost
The Rooms
Blank Page
Hurt Me
Tired
I Thought I Loved You (Once Upon a Time)
Scarlett
Gave It All to You
Oil and Water
We Were
My Field
Lust
-- (acoustic encore)
This Is Not Here
Rose
The Beauty
-- (electric encore)
Ex (full band)
Thumbtack (Nick + Janet + Mitch + Kevin)
Ow (Nick + Mitch alone)
Wait Until Darkness (Nick alone)

3-17-05:

We got our wish with the first of the two L.A. shows last night at Yusk Auditorium. I was there and they did play more than just the CHILD/LOVE material. Unfortunately, the show was still hugely disappointing until the encore. One interesting thing: Nick did the Information tour routine where he came out alone on the first song on acoustic and was slowly joined by the others. They sadly didn't do the old trick from the same tour, when the last few songs would see the band members leave one by one until the final song would be Nick alone, sometimes acoustic and sometimes electric. That was a real treat. But not tonight! I've never seen the band so labored and uninterested. I really have no idea what's happening to them.

Setlist:
In Effect
Walking Distance
Scarlett
Me
Blank Page (very unusual to hear this now)
This Is Not Here
Little
Rose
Awkward State
Cloud
Tired
Chill Bumps
Lost
Southern Eye
Hurt Me
The Rooms
Gave It All to You
Holding Back the Years
Idol
Hearts
--
My Field
Wisdom
Ow
--
Oil and Water
The Blowoff System
Although the setlist was more interesting, the performance itself was a clone of what Dave described last week, except that other members sang and Nick played rhythm guitar while Jay was second keyboardist. (Jay did play the harmonica on a couple of tunes, and that was a highlight.) Nick and Janet are not interacting at all. I haven't seen them so cold toward one another in ages, but it really comes through in the performance; they seem like different people from the ones I interviewed. The others all look stressed; Jerry Mull has not assimilated very well at all, and I frankly wasn't clear on what exactly he was doing during the show. The songs from CHILD seemed stunted in a live setting this time, at least one as large as the Yusk, and the older inclusions -- "This Is Not Here" included -- seemed desperate and forced, as did the lone cover, the Simply Red track on the single. As Dave said about the last show, the LOVE songs were the only ones that really stood out, which is a bitch since they are represnted so poorly on record.
First performance of "Oil and Water" since 1987. Why? Who knows?
Things picked up in the encore. "My Field" and "Wisdom" were weak, but "Ow" really kicked live, with Mitch and Nick handling the vocals together. Very, very wild and enjoyable. The band got far wilder in the second encore. "Oil and Water" was faster and more furious than I've ever heard it, and they destroyed "Blowoff System," which got a lot of cheers. Bright finish to a dull concert.
I've probably worn out my welcome with the Plaastik gang lately with all my complaining, but what can I do? I won't pack up like a certain Dave we know.
Final note: Capitol and several music sites are making noises about an upcoming Plaastik compilation. No idea what that's about.

3-10-05:

Here is the full report on Plaastik's latest stunt, a truly odd show at the Bowery last night. Thanks to my friend Dave Hall for the info.

There was no opening act for this show. The band had a very public soundcheck with the audience already filling up; they played mostly covers then. They seemed comfortable with the small-scale tour, something they've never done before, as you know. I was near the front so I asked Jeff about it (Nick ignored me). He said they liked it so much they may do a bunch of small tours instead of one big one from now on, and that he was really upset that the planned promo tour had to be cancelled. I asked why that had happened but he would only offer the standard "scheduling conflict" answer.

The lights went down and Plaastik came out around 9:30. Nick had no instrument. Janet was at the left with her electric guitar and several others clearly visible behind her at the ready. She had so much equipment she almost dominated the stage. Jay came out with his axe, a harmonica attached to it! Kevin for some reason showed up with just a snare drum, which he beat on for the full show like Moe Tucker. No idea where his standard equipment was. Jeff was playing bass. Mitchell came in with his usual bizarre assortment of instruments; the only strange thing was that he had a pair of cymbals, and on several tracks all he did was bang on the cymbals (no tambourine tonight), which was deafening. Jerry Mull was buried at the back of the stage with a wall of keyboards that looked identical to Tina's on the SCIENCE tour. The band did not really switch roles for the whole night. Mitch did hit his electric piano for "Ow," but that was it. Nick never did play guitar or bass or anything, and there were no acoustic songs.

The sound was awful, and it wasn't just the venue, it was the band's really awkward mixture. Nothing seemed balanced or right, and the crowd was not interested in experimentation at all. You could feel a lot of frustration on the stage, especially when people clapped after Jeff broke a string.

Strangest of all was the setlist, maybe the most straightforward I've seen them do: They just played the album, and the encore was songs from LOVE. As you know, they haven't skipped "This Is Not Here" except for the rarities show since it was released. This was all-around weird. The only person who really came off well was Janet. She stood apart from everyone else and concentrated very heavily and did a great job, though she barely even looked at the crowd. Nick didn't cut up with the audience or anything, but he did sing ALL the songs, including the ones led by others on the album. (Janet wasn't even miked.) It was almost like a SCIENCE tour show, just quieter. Here's the setlist:

Make (completely deafening, atonal, with everyone banging on stuff; the audience was really annoyed by this)
Walking Distance (does NOT work with full-band electric)
Tired (first-ever live performance; pretty lame)
Scarlett (Nick can't sing this all that well IMO)
Me (harominica solo, which I enjoyed)
Look (Time) (this came off really well, actually)
Lost (harmonica solo!)
The Rooms (a real travesty, trying to turn this into RAWK)
My Friend
Little (harmonica solo!)
Boy + Girl? (Nick SCREAMED on this, even more than on "Make")
My Field (harmonica solo!)
Ow (Nick and Mitch duet, sort of; Mitch really got in to this)
Did She Know What I Felt? (just Nick and Janet)
--
I Thought
Rose
Ex
--
Gave It All to You
Hearts

All of the LOVE songs were excellent, easily the highlight of the show. But I dunno, it feels almost like they just don't care lately.

Here's hoping the L.A. shows have a slightly more creative setlist than the album running order.
Meanwhile, something big appears to be happening with "Scarlett." It is getting lots of play and has entered the top forty! This is atypically good for the third release from a Plaastik album, so stay tuned.

3-5-05:

Spoke too soon! Several fans spotted a "Scarlett" video on VH1 late at night. I investigated, and sure enough, it's airing quite regularly. The look and feel are similar to the clip for "Walking Distance." The new video is excellent, with footage of someone strumming a guitar and singing on a beautiful old bridge. What's most surprising is that that someone is Christina Singleton. I've emailed the band to ask them how they managed this, and with so little fanfare! No other band members appear in the video. This is a big pick-me-up after recent events, however minor.
The reaction to the "Scarlett" b-sides is lukewarm. "This Is Promise You" is well-received, though many wonder why they bothered, while several people (myself included) are more wont to ask that question of "Holding Back the Years," to which the band added absolutely nothing (Janet sings lead).
Don't forget, Plaastik in New York on Wednesday night! I can't make it but I'm expecting a full report from a friend which I will gladly post here.

3-1-05:

The "Scarlett" single is in stores today! Several fans report hearing it quite a bit on the radio, at least in certain parts of the States. Capitol has told me absolutely nothing about a video, so I assume there isn't one, making it the first Plaastik single since "Nachos" to lack one.
There are still tickets available for Plaastik's show at the Bowery on the 9th! Get them at your favorite ticket resource NOW!

2-16-05:

Here's the artwork for "Scarlett":
And the tracklist...
1) Scarlett [album version]
2) Holding Back the Years
3) This I Promise You
Yes, Capitol tells me that those are covers of Simply Red and 'N Sync (!), respectively, recorded during the CHILD sessions and the last sessions with Tina, respectively. Sounds like one for the vault.

2-5-05:

On a happier front, the third single from CHILD has been announced: It's "Scarlett," a fine choice. The single will be released March 1st. Difficult to say when it will hit radio, because Capitol does not seem to plan much marketing for this one. Be on the lookout.

1-31-05:

Sales of LOVE are... OK, about what I assume they expected for such an odd duck of an album. In its third week it was down to #67, and it held its own quite well in the fourth (#79) but as of now, in week six, is barely hanging on to Top 200 status with a position of #184.

1-16-05:

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, continued! Plaastik on the songs of CHILD and LOVE.
CHILD
1. Make (Parker)
PARKER: "Make" was probably the most spontaneous thing on the record.
KIERAN: The day after Tina left, we were still pretty emotional and even though the general rule was that we were avoiding really loud material, we decided to fuck off and do a rock song and let it go off the rails.
JOOCE: And this really was, like, within twenty-four hours of the announcement about her leaving.
PARKER: I had done a demo of this earlier in the winter [of 2002] and I just made up some lyrics while we all fucked around on it. I assumed it'd be a b-side, but it turned out differently, I guess.
JOOCE: An 11th hour addition. We just wanted to make the whole thing less comfortable.
[It's a very confrontational way to open an album.]
PARKER: Yeah, we... [laughs]... we tend to go for that.

2. Walking Distance (Kieran/Parker)
KIERAN: "Walking Distance" is one of the best songs we've done in a while, I think. And it was unusual in that it was written in a very contained fashion, in a way even more so than Nick's songs from SUCH A NIGHT because quite literally, we worked it out and did a demo on the tape that has now become LOVE, and then we did the record with almost no augmentation at all. At any other point we would have fucked with it, but at every stage of this one we knew exactly what we wanted. It came from an older one called "Speech Says" that never really worked.
PARKER: It probably doesn't need to be said that this song is about the band. And Tina took it kind of personally, I think, because she knew the detour was in large part a product of her ambitions.
[I have to ask if the press talk was true about this being the catalyst for the sound of the entire record.]
PARKER: It absolutely was. And very literally, because when we realized how little we wanted to change here we decided we would be producing the record ourselves for sure.
[Wasn't there talk for a while about Tina producing the album?]
JOOCE: There was, but that was earlier.
KIERAN: "Walking Distance" wasn't written until around the time things were getting near the end with Tina.
[It's nice to hear a duet between Janet and Nick again.]
PARKER: Thank you. It was nice to record it.

3. Tired (Blank/Jooce/Keys/Kieran/Parker/Ray)
[The first thing people noticed about "Tired" was that it's surprisingly similar to "Oil and Water." When was this song written? Because there's been speculation that it's older than you've let on.]
RAY: Well, it is one of the few songs on the record that dates from back when things were still fairly routine. The six of us were writing and Tina was off writing somewhere. This would have been right after the sessions started, fall of 2002 or thereabouts. And of course we had to call everything off shortly after that for the label, then because Tina wanted an overhaul, then because Tina left, but this song survived and was written in a very conventional way.
JOOCE: We jammed it out as we used to. It had actually been a while since we had gone back to standard procedure -- early in the sessions for SCIENCE I guess, before that really took shape, but beyond that, my god, the last album we really wrote that way was HERD. So I felt really optimitic like, wow, we're back to normal again.
KIERAN: Part of the process on "Tired" was stripping down. We actually -- and this, to my knowledge, is the only time we've done this -- did a retake of the song after we sequenced the record to make it cohere a little more. In the first sessions, where I think it was the second song we finished writing (and the last, I should add), it was kind of a rock song. Tina kept playing with the tracks and ended up doing this mix with just bass and keyboards, and only the low end on the keyboards. It was very weird, but it sounded cool. We wanted something a little warmer, so after she left we did a new version that was mellower but still had kind of a full instrumental force behind it. When we decided it would fall between "Walking Distance" and "Scarlett," we listened again and actually went back to what Tina had done and decided to play with the tracks. The effect is completely different, but the idea is the same. We took various parts away until we got what we wanted, which is this incredibly warm kind of Byrds-y track with a mandolin that's exclusive to the second version.
PARKER: Terrible feedback I've gotten so far on the lyrics, by the way, but it's too late to do anything about that now.

4. Scarlett (Kieran/Parker/Singleton)
PARKER: "Scarlett" has a bit of history. It was Tina's very last song for Plaastik, but she wasn't finished with it and really had no interest in finishing it, so she gave us her blessing. She had some unfinished tracks for various parts of it but the bridge was completely empty and there were next to no usable lyrics. I wrote the words and Janet finished the music.
KEYS: It's a ballad but we got the idea to amp up the drum sound and it gave it this exotic flavor. It's the first waltz we've done in about ten years, I think.
KIERAN: Several reviews have gone around saying that I sing on the track, which they assume because they know Tina left and they know we finished the track. But early in the summer Tina was kind enough to come around and record a vocal for the track. We wanted to make it clear that it's still very much her song. And we fucking love it, by the way. I'm lucky enough to get to sing it live. Nick's good at singing it as well.

5. Me (Blank/Jooce/Keys/Kieran/Parker/Ray)
[I was surprised to see a full band credit on "Me." It sounds like just Janet and an electric guitar.]
JOOCE: She is, in fact, the only person on the recording, but the song was written as a full band effort. It was the first song officially written for CHILD back in October of 2002.
PARKER: This is the kind of thing I love, when we have this idea collectively and we all participate in making it work, then it turns into something that sounds so simple and effortless. The words are Janet's. We're working on taking a stab at it live with the old arrangement, but I really love what we did with it for the record.
KIERAN: It's kind of scary, which is interesting because the original song wasn't written that way at all. But we were going through a dark period, I guess. The re-recording was after we got back together late last year when the dust had settled from Tina leaving.

6. Look (Time) (Singleton)
PARKER: You could write a goddamn book about it. This and "The Rooms" were what almost broke the band up. They both are from back around 2000. Tina was determined that these two songs would be the centerpiece of our big epic followup to SCIENCE. "The Rooms" was my favorite song, my baby, and it had gradually conformed increasingly to the style she wanted when we took it on the road. I was dying to release it, as you probably know, and it just didn't work with the SCIENCE stuff, and I wasn't going to bury it on a b-side. So if nothing else, I knew I had to play it. And it turns into this abysmal glam rock thing. Meanwhile, "Look (Time)" is the SCIENCE song that's just so bizarre we manage to veto it. And it too ended up being symptomatic of the problem within the band because between the fall of 2002 when we started on CHILD and the spring of 2003 when Tina left, it becomes more and more a reflective, emotional pop song in the "Walking Distance" style. She fought it. She mixed it for weeks and weeks and it got worse and worse. Finally we put our foot down and insisted that this would be the final mix, the very first rough track that was put down, and on that note she walked out.
[Who rewrote the lyrics? This track was considered a complete failure at the live shows and yet people have been rather pleased with the studio version. And a big part of that has been the change in lyrical tone. Many are wondering what happened there and why Tina still gets solitary credit, because if she was determined to make it weirder I can't see how --]
PARKER: They weren't actually rewritten. Those are the original lyrics. Tina came in with this song in 2000 when we got back together and she was rewriting it all through the early days of working on SCIENCE. There was a guide vocal she'd done on her demo. And that's what's on the album. We took her guide vocal and played the mix we liked behind it. The words aren't great, but they're an improvement.
KIERAN: It's not like we totally betrayed Tina's desires for the song. She did agree to let us put it on the album. And it's still an ambient track, which is what she wanted very badly and which the demo was not. It's just... it's ambient but it's not trance, you know? It fits. There's a... this word is so overused, but there's a warmth.
[It reminds me a little of something from SALT or OLIVES.]
KIERAN: Yeah, that works.

7. Lost (Kieran/Singleton)
KIERAN: Tina liked to spend a hell of a lot of time tweaking her songs, so this is what she was working on during her free time in most of the sessions. She was really keen on having the two of us sing it together and I helped her with the lyrics, which I was glad to do because she gave me the lyrics to "Lust" years and years ago.
[I didn't know that she was responsible for those. Were there other lyrics?]
KIERAN: Yeah, I wrote them originally. And they were really terrible sexpot stuff that we decided wouldn't be very plesant on the album that all the kids would be buying. If we were doing it today we'd probably keep the words as they were. [laughs]
BLANK: "Lust" and "Lost." That's a strange coincidence.
KIERAN: Anyway, I begged her to make it an acoustic song, and she agreed, I think because for whatever reason, the prominence of the voices were very important to her. Four of us got together and played acoustics as hard as we could and we sang. It was sexy. Totally live band performance, by the way, and no overdubs. The only song completely in the can by the time Tina left, I think.
PARKER: We didn't know it was in the can at the time, though. We didn't know it was good enough to release until we went back and listened.
KIERAN: Right. But I think it was still probably our last wonderful experience as a band with Tina involved.
[How close to the end were you?]
KIERAN: [regretful smile] About three hours.
[Really.]
KIERAN: Sad but true.

8. The Rooms (Blank/Jooce/Keys/Kieran/Parker/Ray)
[Like "Look (Time)," this is a dramatic departure from the live performance version.]
PARKER: We never took this on seriously for CHILD until after Tina left. I knew it would be on the album, but I thought I would need to save it for last because I was sure there would be fights. Tina was too enamored with the conceptual ideas the song provided to let it speak for itself, I think. There is a bit of her on it, vocally, by the way, near the end. That's her wailing back there.
KIERAN: "Look (Time)" and this both ended up being very paranoid, propulsive, and yet, as you said, more in the manner of SALT than our more recent stuff. I really enjoy this track.
PARKER: I'm glad to have reclaimed it.

9. My Friend (Blank/Jooce/Keys/Kieran/Parker/Ray/Singleton)
JOOCE: The oldest songs on the record are "The Rooms," "Look (Time)," and this. I can't really say for certain how old "Look (Time)" is because Tina came to us with it when we started on SCIENCE. But "My Friend" was the first thing we wrote for that, really. Nick had fragments of "The Rooms" already, but this was the real deal, I think, the oldest song on CHILD. PARKER: It really started out as Jay's song, and he sings lead on the first few recordings. He let us all play with it and wanted Janet and me to sing, so in return we let him sing "Lost" live.
KIERAN: As far as oldest, it's definitely "Look (Time)" because her demo of that is dated November 1999. Followed by "My Friend," which is a nice song. It ended up being very "produced," I suppose, which I know hasn't gone over very well.
RAY: The recording we used is fairly recent, we were still working on this as of about a year ago. Tina worked on it with us early on, so it's actually a full-fledged collaboration.

10. Little (Kieran)
[Some find "Little" to be rather creepy, others just think it's sweet.]
KIERAN: Well, it's a blatant sex song. I wouldn't have it any other way. This is actually mine completely, I wrote it early last year alone in our practice space.
["Best New Thing" was the last time a contribution wholly your own made the album, right?]
KIERAN: Not just that, it might be the last song I wrote myself! We were all very pleased with the brass on "Little." I think it's a great track and I was really glad everyone else liked it enough to put it on the record. With "Best New Thing" I was shooting for a hit, with this I wanted a b-side at best. So I was happy. And am.

11. Boy + Girl? (Blank/Jooce/Keys/Kieran/Parker/Ray)
JOOCE: During rehearsals for touring we like to write a couple of new songs to play with on the road. SCIENCE we had this and "Ow" both in that category.
[There's been lots of anger about the studio version kind of removing some of the energy this had live.]
PARKER: I've heard that, and I think it stems from the song being the most conventional midtempo rocker we've done in ages. We had a take with a little bit of a swing, and now it's slower, but it's still very bass-driven. I think in a few years people will change their minds about this one.
[Any chance of ever hearing another version of the track?]
PARKER: No. [long pause] Just kidding, I have no idea.

12. My Field (Kieran/Parker)
KIERAN: This one's on the LOVE tape. Out of all those songs it's the one we did the most work on, probably. We wrote it a few months before we started on the album. I think there were about half a dozen songs on the LOVE tape we presented to the band at that point. This was the clear favorite.
PARKER: "My Field" prompted another major Tina argument, and she kind of won this one. I favored a much more restrained production, but she brought strings in and we actually messed with them very little after she left. I like the track now, though I think I'd like to put our version out as a b-side. I asked the others if they'd mind if we put "My Field" on LOVE, but they didn't like the idea much. So I guess it's in the can.

13. Ow (Blank/Jooce/Keys/Kieran/Parker/Ray)
BLANK: I wanted something to sing on the tour. We wrote the song in five minutes. Nick came in with lyrics a few days later. I was really surprised he was so enthusiastic about it.
PARKER: Later, looking back, I realized the lyrics sort of fit in with what we were doing on CHILD. So one of the first things we did after Tina left was rearrange this song. It had been kind of a joke, but we decided to rock out on it.
[Fans were distraught about the original, much as they were with "Look (Time)," but they've warmed to the studio track.]
JOOCE: That's the kind of thinking we have to do, in a business sense. I mean, we had to sit down and say, okay, take away the people who will remember this from the tour when it was essentially a different kind of song. What potential do we have with this? And it was surprising, I think, how much we could claim. That's why it's ended up being the second single. This is a really fun song. I think we could probably come up with a hundred different versions, which is another reason it sucked to have everything so "scheduled" and proper and consistent on the tour.

14. Did She Know What I Felt? (Parker)
[This is set to the tune of "Baa Baa Black Sheep." How spontaneous was this?]
PARKER: It wasn't at all. It's an old track, actually. I did it for CARTOONS and we dug it out when we wanted something kind of creepy and ethereal to end this. But you'll notice it's very typical of CARTOONS stuff, kind of half-assed or whatnot. On CARTOONS it was going to be a lot more straightforward. The idea was the same, but there wasn't the distortion, it wasn't as... uh... disturbing.
RAY: We didn't remember it, so we were rather pleased to find something so oddly perfect without having to dream up some new idea, given that it was clear none of the other songs would work as album closers.
[A few fans, incidentally, have complained that the sequencing on CHILD seems haphazard, that "Make" doesn't belong at the front and "Ow" shouldn't be so close to the end. How many changes did the running order go through?]
JOOCE: About a hundred. They always do. We always put some old order on the inner sleeve, that's not just random junk in there. The first and last tracks were always the same, though, because both were kind of designed to be what they were. "Ow" moved around a lot, I'm sure.

LOVE:
[Let's talk about the other album. Did the entire band agree on not rerecording the songs?]
KIERAN: No. As a matter of fact, I still wouldn't be against rerecording them.
JOOCE: I'm for rerecording them as long as the originals are also out there. The others, I think, all favored LOVE as it stands now.
RAY: I wanted it to be longer myself. A double CD, maybe.

[And how does everyone feel about the decision to credit it as a Plaastik release?]
PARKER: That, I believe, was a unanimous decision.
KEYS: The only person who wouldn't have agreed to that is no longer in the band.

1. It's Stupid (Kieran/Parker)
[Reportedly, this contains the only overdub on the album. I suspect it's the vocals, because a version was circulating several months ago that was instrumental and in fact the album was widely said to open and close with instrumental tracks.]
PARKER: That's correct. The words were written during rehearsals for the promotional tour that kind of ended up not happening and then were added at the eleventh hour to the LOVE track.
["It's Stupid" is even longer than "Make," clocking in at over twenty minutes, which makes it easily the longest track ever to open a Plaastik record. How do you justify this?]
PARKER: I was in favor of including the entire long jam that produced these two songs, but someone insisted we couldn't have a forty-minute track, so this is actually more conservative than I wanted it to be. I know the songs are kind of a dirge, but I think they're interesting.

2. My One and Only (Kieran/Parker)
JOOCE: This is one of the songs that got us really excited when Janet and Nick first started recording their demos. They presented it to us ages ago, in SCIENCE rehearsals. It's a bit longer when we play it live. This is the very first time the song was ever played, so I think it has a freshness that's really appealing, and yet I'd love to have a more complete take on record. Maybe we'll put one on a b-side or something.

3. Wait Until Darkness (Kieran/Parker)
[Lyrically, this and several other songs on LOVE sound like breakup anthems, which is interesting since they're written by a married couple. What's your take on this?]
PARKER: Not to be an asshole, but I'm not interested in discussing my personal life, the meaning of the songs on LOVE, or how the two relate, thank you.
[This song is very similar to a Beach Boys track called --]
PARKER: Yeah, I've already answered this question for a hundred people. Next?

4. I Thought (Kieran/Parker)
[The full-band version of this has been praised universally, but Jeff told me recently you're not happy with it. The lyrics are not finished in the demo, and I am wondering if they'll be recorded in full at any point.]
KIERAN: There's no real way to explain it, some of those songs work with a band arrangement and some don't. As for the lyrics, we worried about it for a while then we started to feel that it didn't matter nearly as much as the music being really enveloping and sweet. That's the main thing the song loses live, the sweetness.

5. Someday (Kieran/Parker)
[This is a rather chilling melody. Once again, though, it kind of breaks down.]
PARKER: Well, what can we say? It's an album of demos, that's going to happen. I guess sometime we might redo some of these, but maybe better yet we'll do another live album and the complete songs will be out there that way.

6. You Can See (Kieran/Parker)
KIERAN: I love the stops and starts on this song and I love the way Nick attacks it. There's no way any full band arrangement could top that.
[Some people have said that what they enjoy about LOVE is that the intimacy is really added to by the raw spontaneity. Did you have any idea when recording these tapes that they'd someday be out for the public to hear?]
PARKER: No. I'd have brushed my hair otherwise. Actually, we talked about the idea during the second sessions because they came at a time when we weren't sure there would be a Plaastik in a year's time.

7. World = Round (Kieran/Parker)
PARKER: Just me and the piano. I think three songs besides the jam have the piano, this and "My One and Only" and "Ex." This was completely improvised but Janet gave it the title.

8. Hearts (Kieran/Parker)
KIERAN: This is a bit more of an old-style Plaastik song, or it would be if we recorded it as a band. It's probably my favorite on the album.
JOOCE: We're really hoping to play this one live next chance we get.
PARKER: The lyrics to this are mine, I think on the same kick as "Boy + Girl."
BLANK: I played this for Tina and she really liked it.
PARKER: Wow, really?
BLANK: Yeah.
PARKER: Did she say anything else about that album?
BLANK: I didn't play her much else. [laughter] I was afraid.

9. Gave It All to You (Kieran/Parker)
PARKER: Like Janet said, this is the part of the record that feels most like a Plaastik album to me. This one and the two it sits between are all classic us, in my opinion, and this is one I think will do really well on stage ultimately.
[The song is extremely short.]
PARKER: There's more to it than what you hear on LOVE. We could have expanded it but we preferred not to compromise anything if we could avoid it.
KIERAN: I like the singing I did on this track, and the ending when it breaks down with just Nick.

10. Rose (Kieran/Parker)
JOOCE: We could make a single out of this one. We may even really do it, eventually.
KEYS: When the tape was first played for me and this rolled around, I remember wishing we had worked on this stuff instead of FUN and SCIENCE all those months. Suddenly all that felt so wasteful!

11. Ex (Kieran/Parker)
[What an angry song! A very different flavor from the wistful love songs on ON SUCH A NIGHT and all that. Any particular reason?]
PARKER: I think it's about the angst within a relationship more than the angst after it's over, especially a certain rollercoaster kind of relationship where you're never sure what the next day holds.
JOOCE: This is rock & roll. It's jarring to hear a song like this acoustically in a way.
KIERAN: Not only that, but with piano...
PARKER: The piano grooves, though! I was really proud of that.

12. For You (Kieran/Parker)
PARKER: You remember what we were talking about earlier, about the feeling that the band was being taken over. This was a direct reaction. The words at the time were intended sarcastically, but by the time I recorded them I was trying to sell them as sincere. I think it worked.
JOOCE: I remember we weren't positive this was going to make the CD...
RAY: Until the very end, yeah.
KIERAN: The others took it out of my hands and Nick's and decided what would stay. Which was healthy. I'm not sure this was the decision I would have made, it's more a b-side in my opinion.

13. Golden (Kieran/Parker)
KIERAN: Completely improvised.
JOOCE: Very pretty song. Glad we left that one alone.

14. No (Kieran/Parker)
PARKER: This one isn't finished but I liked the performance so I insisted that it get released.
[Will the song itself ever become finished?]
PARKER: I doubt it. [laughter]

15. You and Me (Is It Childish to Have These Thoughts?) (Kieran/Parker)
KIERAN: This is a two-person onslaught. I find it very sexy and reassuring. Some people will skip it, but that's why it's at the end of the record.
[What made you, in that case, put "It's Stupid" and "Make" at the start of each record?]
PARKER: We find those easier to deal with. I guess some would disagree.

...

The band also talked to me a bit about a few of the b-sides for the CHILD singles; keep in mind that the b-sides for the third single remained to be chosen at this point, and that they may even not have been recorded yet at the time.
Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey/Don't Call Me Whitey, Nigger (Sly & the Family Stone cover)
JOOCE: It's a rehearsal. We'd kicked this one around a lot and wanted to relax a little while we were recording CHILD. This song was the victim.

Get Down with This (Kieran/Parker)
PARKER: Of course it's been around forever, but Tina and I wanted to record it for SCIENCE. It didn't make that record, but here it is now. I don't know why we didn't put it out with those singles. There are so many variations on this song, but I think the studio version -- finally, a studio version -- is pretty solid.

Sex (Blank/Jooce/Keys/Kieran/Parker/Ray/Singleton)
JOOCE: This was brand new stuff for the tour. It evolved during soundchecks over several months and finally we ended the tour with it. A symbolic gesture, as is the placement of it on a b-side. Tina dominates this one. The recording is from the sessions with her, but it was even then considered probably not LP material.
On the Telly (Blank)
BLANK: I can't talk about inspiration. These things just happen. [laughter]

Many thanks again to the band for talking with me.

1-15-05:

Jeff Jooce has emailed me at last, but he did not explain the reasons for the change in touring plans and simply wished to inform me that the band is working at the moment on readying material for a new greatest-hits compilation which will cover the period from 1997 to now. The label intends to hold off on the release of the collection until after the singles from CHILD and LOVE run their course, so do not expect it until late this year. Jeff did not explain why a compilation is being prepared now, with another record still due in the Capitol contract; there is simply not enough material for a two-disc set (the band has only issued 14 singles since their last best-of), nor did he provide any word on studio progress. Stay tuned.
I will post the rest of my recent interview with Plaastik, including their song-by-song comments, tomorrow night.

1-4-05:

This news has not broken anywhere else yet; it's exclusively from Capitol to me to you. I'm afraid it is not good and in fact is a pretty crushing blow for everybody, particularly those who have already been disappointed by LOVE. The promotional tour that was to happen in March has been cancelled, or at least, knocked down to a virtual non-entity consisting of three dates, two in Los Angeles and one (again) in New York City. Before you crowd my forum with cries of "how could they do this?" and "why is this happening?" let me stress: I. DON'T. KNOW. Not yet, anyway. The band has said nothing to us or anyone else on the subject at this point; the only people outside of the band who actually know why are probably at the Capitol tower. So please don't ask. The New York show is, again, at the Bowery Ballroom on March 9th; the L.A. shows are at the new Yusk Auditorium and -- the one bright spot in the announcement -- a small theater called the Reichstag on Ventura. The L.A. Shows will be on March 16th and 17th, respectively. Capitol sends the band's heartfelt apologies for the sudden change. I will let everyone know as soon as information comes to me on why this happened. Happy new year.

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