If you don’t know the name Mike Law, you really should. He fronted the amazing, but truly underrated Eulcid. Now Law mans the helm for the equally great, but remarkably different New Idea Society. Mike was kind enough to answer some questions for SAL.
Just reading a little bit about how Eulcid started, I had no idea the first incarnation was you, Travis from Piebald and Kurt from Converge. Was Eulcid your first band?
Playing in a band with Kurt and Travis was fun but EULCID really began with the other guys. Kurt and I have a very secret band now but we haven’t released anything yet.
No EULCID was my second real band. I was in a band in High School called Splintered. We put out a demo, a full length and an EP. I would be horrified if any of these terrible recordings saw the light of day again. The songs were not so bad but the recordings… we had no idea what we were doing. We self released everything so it never left New England but that was when everyone still bought CDs so we sold a few thousand.
What were the beginnings of your musicianship like and some of your early influences?
My first musical memory is watching the Beatles movie where Paul dies and the next scene is the song “Here Comes the Sun”. It was a rerun on television. I remember being very startled by this, even frightened. The juxtaposition of that movie was really psychedelic and a bit to much for me to understand. My mom probably shouldn’t have let me watch that. I did not come from a family particularly interested in music, but I do have vivid memories of my Dad listening to The Cars and my Mom listening to everything from early 80s popular radio to The Beatles and Johnny Cash. Because of my Mom and Grandpa I listened to a lot of “good” country as well. My Mom and I would sing along to the radio in the car. Bands like the Pixies and They Might Be Giants were being played on college radio when I was about 10 so I was tilting my radio trying to get the static out to hear them. We also had the only major market radio station in the U.S. in Boston that was playing bands like New Order and the Smiths when I was younger.
That first Eulcid record still gives me chills. For me, it was a sound I had never really heard before. How do you look back on it now?
I think it was quite different. I guess that is why it has endured. It was a very difficult album to make because of all the changes and different sounds. It has been so fondly remembered that I am happy about all the work I put into it but looking back on it gives me chills for different reasons. I had this very specific concept that I wanted the album to embody. I wanted it to be full of dichotomy, frantic and flowing, choppy with groove, melodic and dissident, political and personal. I wanted it to have false climaxes and most importantly I wanted the entire album juxtaposed as a cut up in the last song “Double Point/Double Switch” where a portion of the idea of each song on the album was represented in it. I think all those things were accomplished and I guess that is why The Wind Blew All the Fires Out seems to endure. I have read some bands that I really love cite it as an influence which is so heartening.
The second/last Eulcid record was so different stylistically from song to song. Were your songwriting and tastes just moving in a different direction organically or was it a conscience movement on your part?
I was conscious it was different than The Wind Blew All the Fires Out. I wanted Hope: And Songs To Sing to be a Modern folk record without a single chord played on the guitar. To me the community that formed around us and a few other Boston bands felt like Modern Folk music. Kind of like if Woody Guthrie had distortion and was dissident in his playing. That is why the first song “The Peoples Grocery Company” starts out so dissident on guitar but melodic with the vocals, as it was one of the first written for the album. However… I quickly realized that this was a bad idea and just focused on writing what I considered to be good songs. The only song that I hear out of place on the album is “(I Heard It) On the Radio”. This song should have been a New Idea Society song. I wrote it for NIS. That is why NIS plays it these days. I wrote it after EULCID stopped playing, that band never even played it live. At the time I just thought that song made it a better album which it probably did but… it does contribute to some of the albums diversity in both a good and bad way I guess.
What inspired you to start such an overall different project in New Idea Society?
It just happened. I always wrote songs like this. I just finally started to think about releasing them. Steve really encouraged me. He would tell me the songs were great and get me excited to record them beyond cassette four track.
New Idea Soceity was originally you and Stephen Brodsky from Cave In. When did it become your own project?
Yeah Steve is pretty much my best friend as is Santos who was in NIS for awhile a bit later. When they were in the band it was a huge comfort to have two of my close friends. I am not really sure when it became my own thing. I guess as EULCID stopped playing I diverted my focus to NIS and gradually Steve stepped aside since he lives in Boston and I in NYC.
So, talk about the infamous tour accident in Germany and your recuperation.
Ha. I have answered this one a million times. Our driver was driving way to fast on the autobahn. Traffic stopped, he didn’t, he caused a five car pile-up = I broke some bones, our roadie was bleeding from his head and had to get stitches, whip lash abounded… We had to cancel some sold out shows and sadly not play any shows for 7 months!
You guys have been recording, right? What’s the new stuff sounding like?
Well I suppose I should warn everyone about this. When you have a broken shoulder and can’t play guitar you start to really focus on things you can play with one arm, synthesizer is a good guess/warning depending on your perspective.
What’s up next for you and/or New Idea Society?
A new single which is really two songs so it is a double should come out sometime in June or July and we hope to record a new album sometime in August. It will sound absolutely nothing like the last album or the double. I am the most excited about this album as I have been since The Wind Blew All The Fires Out. We finally have a solid line-up that can nail it I think.
Any chance we ever see Mike Law fronting a chaotic rock band again?
Yes, I don’t know, maybe.
on Jun 26th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Nice work.