10. Need New BodyNeed New Body
It’s funny a lot of this list is stuff from when I was a teenager. It’s all stuff that helped me work out where I was going. Need New Body’s just an awesome band from Philly. Chris Powell, drums, and Jamey Robinson playing keys, those are the two guys I’ve gotten to know from this band and done a little playing with here and there. Again a friend took me to a gig at the Knitting Factory when I was like 17, and it was so different. They were all really good at their instruments, but it was still weird and one guy played the bicycle for a while, and the front man was playing the banjo. It kind of reminded me of The Muppet Show or something. It’s got that quality of being funny, but with these moments of sweetness. Chris Powell’s one of my favourite drummers too – he’s in Man Man now, and he does this project on his own called Spaceship Aloha which is really great.
It was just this world, and you could tell these guys had just invented a world for themselves. Definitely very influenced by Sun Ra and it definitely seemed like every guy in the band was nuts in a way. But there was something very authentic about it, and a lot of camaraderie on stage: eight to ten guys in the band all playing and singing together. I’d never seen anything like that, and it made a big impression on me.
That really kooky and fun quality is present in a lot of your choices.
For me, music is all about the heart. I love a lot of music that’s very serious, but I just think that this music is what does it for me! I saw Pharoah Sanders in New York recently, and it just devastated me. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
