WED., APRIL 29, 2009
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eMusic Q&A: Tara Jane O'Neil
by Douglas Wolk
Tara Jane O'Neil is a one-woman creative tornado — a singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, improviser and visual artist who's built up an impressive discography over the past 15 years. Since her recorded debut with Rodan in 1994, she's officially been a member of Drinking Woman, the Sonora Pine, Retsin and the King Cobra, and collaborated with everyone from Sebadoh to Michael Hurley. Over the past decade, she's also made a string of tender, meditative solo records — most recently A Ways Away, which document the songs she's been playing live on her near-constant tours in recent years. eMusic sat down with her over coffee in her home base of Portland, Oregon, to discuss the ongoing jam-with-the-audience project she calls the Ecstatic Tambourine Orchestra, as well as her love of karaoke, her loathing of grunge, and her secret country alter ego.
How many bands are you in these days? You're playing solo gigs, but also touring in Mirah's band.
At CMJ last year, I think I played an Ida set and a Castanets set and a Mirah set and a TJO set. That was fun. When I first moved to New York in '94, when I was a baby, they called me a "band whore" — I didn't even know what they were talking about. Now I'm old and I have to be careful. There's only so much energy left in our old bodies.
You moved around the country a lot for many years — do you feel settled in Portland now?
Yeah, surprisingly, I do. Although when I crossed the Mississippi, nobody knew or cared anything about the music I was into. And the reverse: I hated fuckin' grunge. And people out here love grunge! They're really into it! That was the culture.
And yet you were in Rodan, who kind of got gerrymandered into grunge.
O'Neil: That was not grunge! We hated grunge! I played in Woodstock, three years ago, with Michael Hurley and Ida, and this freaked-out older guy came up afterwards and said "I've been writing poetry during your set." I was like — "That's great, do you want to read it?" "Yes, I do, thank you, and let me read it to you." He was kind of beat-style, and he kept going back to "the grunge girl," over and over, "the grunge girl." At the end, I said "that's really nice... why am I the grunge girl?" He said "just look at you!" I was like "GOD! NO!"
You're something of a karaoke legend here in Portland — I saw you bring down the house singing "Xanadu" at the Experimental Filmmaker Karaoke Throwdown last year.
That was the biggest applause I've ever had in my life. I've played for 4000 people, and that was the most roaring, crazy thing. It was insane.
What's the story behind the Ecstatic Tambourine Orchestra?
I think it began in Greensboro, North Carolina, when I was on tour in 2006. My bandmate had to go home ill, and I had two shows left to do. I had one song I did with my foot on the tambourine, and I had a couple of extra tambourines with me that I'd brought along for whatever reason, and I think I was feeling lonely, so I passed them out to the audience — I think that's where it started. Here in Portland, for a couple of years, I'd been asked to do lots of shows, and I took the opportunity most of the time in 2005 and 2006 to do improvised jams with large ensembles. Juxtapose those two approaches, and you get a lot of people playing percussion instruments together. I just think it sounds really great. It's like gospel music or something, you know?
Getting on a plane with a bag of tambourines is really fun... but it's been an interesting cultural measurement system. In Paris, people will be sitting there, and they're enraptured by the show and very attentive, but they'll sit with a tambourine still on the floor in front of them, and they won't do anything — it blows my mind. I played in Istanbul a couple of years ago, and I'd never been to Turkey — I guess they all illegally downloaded my shit because they knew all the words and were very excited. I sent out the tambourines, and usually a jam will last for the duration of a song and maybe a few minutes after, but in Turkey it went on for 45 minutes. First I was playing the song and asking them to accompany me, and then at some point it switched and we were just jamming together, and then at some point they were leading me and I was playing with them. It's really fascinating to see how different audiences and regions react. It's kind of risky: you can think you're having a great show and people are feeling really connected, and then you throw the tambourines and they're just like — no way, not interested. Or the reverse will happen. I've been doing it for years now. Typically, I don't like to do the same thing for years, but it's so much fun.
A Ways Away has some songs you've been playing live for a while — another version of "Pearl Into Sand" was on the CD that came with your art book, Wings, Strings, Meridians, a few years back.
I'm really into the songs on this record because they have been with me for a while. "Pearl Into Sand," like several others, totally developed on stages. I've been making songs for a very long time, but I'd never done it that way. I would open sets with that song; it'd be useful to create a space for the show. There's also a song on there called "Dig In" — it's the first song on the record, and it was always the last song of the show. It's been three years since I put out my last record, and I like this one a lot, because I had disparate songs and I could shape it.
Are there songs you write that you like but that don't sound like TJO songs?
Yeah, totally! When I was making this record, I was really aware that just because a song served a purpose for me at the time doesn't mean that it has to be released. It's kind of like my drawings — there's a pile of drawings that are just drawings; they don't need to go out into the world.
There are files and files and files in the hard drive of all this instrumental stuff, which I like a lot, but I haven't figured out a venue for it. I also have a lot of Garage Band files of me playing spontaneous country songs, which I really like. I have this country music character who hasn't really done much in the world, but she exists — her name is Rhonda Paycheck. Rhonda Paycheck will one day get her chance. She's kind of a Linda Ronstadt, '70s country-rock singer, but she also does little acoustic guitar songs as a secret fetish thing that nobody knows about. And then she'll die one day, a horrible death, as all Nashville stars do, and then they'll release these, and all the hipsters will love them.
How many bands are you in these days? You're playing solo gigs, but also touring in Mirah's band.
At CMJ last year, I think I played an Ida set and a Castanets set and a Mirah set and a TJO set. That was fun. When I first moved to New York in '94, when I was a baby, they called me a "band whore" — I didn't even know what they were talking about. Now I'm old and I have to be careful. There's only so much energy left in our old bodies.
You moved around the country a lot for many years — do you feel settled in Portland now?
Yeah, surprisingly, I do. Although when I crossed the Mississippi, nobody knew or cared anything about the music I was into. And the reverse: I hated fuckin' grunge. And people out here love grunge! They're really into it! That was the culture.
And yet you were in Rodan, who kind of got gerrymandered into grunge.
O'Neil: That was not grunge! We hated grunge! I played in Woodstock, three years ago, with Michael Hurley and Ida, and this freaked-out older guy came up afterwards and said "I've been writing poetry during your set." I was like — "That's great, do you want to read it?" "Yes, I do, thank you, and let me read it to you." He was kind of beat-style, and he kept going back to "the grunge girl," over and over, "the grunge girl." At the end, I said "that's really nice... why am I the grunge girl?" He said "just look at you!" I was like "GOD! NO!"
You're something of a karaoke legend here in Portland — I saw you bring down the house singing "Xanadu" at the Experimental Filmmaker Karaoke Throwdown last year.
That was the biggest applause I've ever had in my life. I've played for 4000 people, and that was the most roaring, crazy thing. It was insane.
What's the story behind the Ecstatic Tambourine Orchestra?
I think it began in Greensboro, North Carolina, when I was on tour in 2006. My bandmate had to go home ill, and I had two shows left to do. I had one song I did with my foot on the tambourine, and I had a couple of extra tambourines with me that I'd brought along for whatever reason, and I think I was feeling lonely, so I passed them out to the audience — I think that's where it started. Here in Portland, for a couple of years, I'd been asked to do lots of shows, and I took the opportunity most of the time in 2005 and 2006 to do improvised jams with large ensembles. Juxtapose those two approaches, and you get a lot of people playing percussion instruments together. I just think it sounds really great. It's like gospel music or something, you know?
Getting on a plane with a bag of tambourines is really fun... but it's been an interesting cultural measurement system. In Paris, people will be sitting there, and they're enraptured by the show and very attentive, but they'll sit with a tambourine still on the floor in front of them, and they won't do anything — it blows my mind. I played in Istanbul a couple of years ago, and I'd never been to Turkey — I guess they all illegally downloaded my shit because they knew all the words and were very excited. I sent out the tambourines, and usually a jam will last for the duration of a song and maybe a few minutes after, but in Turkey it went on for 45 minutes. First I was playing the song and asking them to accompany me, and then at some point it switched and we were just jamming together, and then at some point they were leading me and I was playing with them. It's really fascinating to see how different audiences and regions react. It's kind of risky: you can think you're having a great show and people are feeling really connected, and then you throw the tambourines and they're just like — no way, not interested. Or the reverse will happen. I've been doing it for years now. Typically, I don't like to do the same thing for years, but it's so much fun.
A Ways Away has some songs you've been playing live for a while — another version of "Pearl Into Sand" was on the CD that came with your art book, Wings, Strings, Meridians, a few years back.
I'm really into the songs on this record because they have been with me for a while. "Pearl Into Sand," like several others, totally developed on stages. I've been making songs for a very long time, but I'd never done it that way. I would open sets with that song; it'd be useful to create a space for the show. There's also a song on there called "Dig In" — it's the first song on the record, and it was always the last song of the show. It's been three years since I put out my last record, and I like this one a lot, because I had disparate songs and I could shape it.
Are there songs you write that you like but that don't sound like TJO songs?
Yeah, totally! When I was making this record, I was really aware that just because a song served a purpose for me at the time doesn't mean that it has to be released. It's kind of like my drawings — there's a pile of drawings that are just drawings; they don't need to go out into the world.
There are files and files and files in the hard drive of all this instrumental stuff, which I like a lot, but I haven't figured out a venue for it. I also have a lot of Garage Band files of me playing spontaneous country songs, which I really like. I have this country music character who hasn't really done much in the world, but she exists — her name is Rhonda Paycheck. Rhonda Paycheck will one day get her chance. She's kind of a Linda Ronstadt, '70s country-rock singer, but she also does little acoustic guitar songs as a secret fetish thing that nobody knows about. And then she'll die one day, a horrible death, as all Nashville stars do, and then they'll release these, and all the hipsters will love them.
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