Speed pollution and sideways evolution

>> Money Mark isn't quite done with that old keyboard yet

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

At the risk of sounding like a neo-Luddite, I find it frustrating when perfectly usable technology, which has not yet been squeezed for every last drop of its possibilities, is rotated out of circulation and into non-biodegradable landfill before people are done with it.

The resurgence of vinyl is one major example. While the music industry cynically tried to render the format extinct, so as to sell you the Pink Floyd discography all over again, hip hop heads, indie brats and shut-in audiophiles instigated a groundswell that kept wax on the racks.

Here's another one--remember the PXL-2000 from Fisher-Price? You know, the Pixelvision camera that recorded video on crappy audio cassettes? Intended as a one-shot novelty item for kids, it saw a sudden flare of popularity with budgetronic guerrilla videographers about 10 minutes after F-P stamped it "discontinued."

If anyone's an authority on this stuff, it's Money Mark. Meaning Mark Ramos-Nishita, former rogue carpenter and Beastie Boy keyboardist, today the man behind the boss new album Change Is Coming and proud owner of no less than 75 vintage, pre-digital keyboards.

He's got a few semi-extinct oddities to add to the list of things we're not done with yet. Behold, the Optigan! From Mattel! "A very crude invention," he muses over the phone from his home in L.A., "and very beautiful. Basically, it's got an acetate, it's round and it has these lines on it. It looks like a record. It's got a photo-sensing thing, and as the acetate is spinning, the photo-sensing thing is getting those squiggly lines and interpreting them as sound. It's a very crude thing and it's easy to understand."

Somewhat more familiar is the D6 Clavinet. "It's a keyboard, but it's got strings and pickup like a guitar, it was invented to replace the guitar. Stevie Wonder used it on 'Superstition.' It never blossomed into being a featured instrument, though. It has pickups on it--when I turn up my amp, it'll feed back. Very cool, but I don't think anyone has ever made a piece where the Clavinet is feeding back. It's just because its time had stopped then."

Sideways moves

"There's been a lot of inventions that have never made it," the Money man continues, "because people thought that they weren't cost-effective or something. Not just in music but in every field. Ever heard of the Dale car? Back in the '70s, during that first supposed energy crunch, this man invented this three-wheel car that could get 85 miles to the gallon. GM just bought it from him. Like, here's a million bucks, now go shut up. They didn't want anyone to know about it. Things like that happen all the time."

Corporate conspiracy is one thing, plain clumsiness and shortsighted greed is another, and perhaps more common in these days of superfluous downloads and upgrades. "It's this idea of speed pollution. Things have gone so fast that an invention can't always blossom into its full potential. Now, people have gone back to take over a certain time and figure out what the full potential of this object or that thing is.

"I think that's the theme of what I do--if time had stopped at that moment, everything would have had to evolve sideways. We would have had to grow sideways and other ways, instead of constantly lunging forward, to try to get to the next--what? What? It's an empty move, just moving forward, for what reason? All it's done is made poor countries poorer and us, the first world, stupider. And less compassionate to the rest of the world."

Here's a bit of sideways evolution: Change Is Coming boasts something that neither the scrapbooky Mark's Keyboard Repair or its follow-up Push the Button, Money Mark's previous two albums, featured. Horns! Glorious horns! Care of Los Lobos and Ozomatli, no less. "I really do love the brass-sounding thing, it's just that there weren't a whole lot of people around with which to create a group of tight horns before. It's rare in music now that horns are tight--I think it coincides with the supposed advancements of technology. The speed pollution, you know, it made those instruments obsolete, out of people's minds. And electronicky sounds--there's absolutely no way that I'm gonna use a digital-sounding horns. I'm kinda upset at some music that even dares to do that. There are economic factors, maybe, but I would not compromise the horn section at all."

Emperor's new groove

Another sideways move for MM is his signing up with Emperor Norton, the L.A.-based indie label that houses Fantastic Plastic Machine, Arling & Cameron and Ladytron. So much for Grand Royal. "With all those mergers that happened, I was getting bought and sold too many times, and handed over to people who don't even know my work. I don't expect everyone to, but these people didn't know anything about me, other than that I was the keyboard player for the Beastie Boys. It's like I had to go through a long divorce, hire a lawyer and get out of my contract. Now I'm able to do whatever I want. It's a complete turnaround."

Getting a bit surreal, he adds, "I talked to the songs, I asked the songs and they're all happy with where they're at."

Where they'll be at live is a whole other bag. Not only is Money Mark touring with a horn section, he'll also have Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori, Beck's buddy Smokey Hormel and local luminary Kid Koala in tow. And Buffalo Daughter's Sugar warming up the decks, too. But be forewarned, a Money Mark show tends to be an unusual experience. It's showmanship all right, but in the goofy, confounding Andy Kaufman tradition--chalk it up to his years spent studying acting and working with theatre troupes.

"Where reality begins and ends, you're not sure of. I'm not even sure. Nothing is an aberration. There are no embarrassing moments and no dead time. You might think there is, but there isn't. If you're not watching, you're gonna miss something, and then just think, 'What the fuck is this guy doing?' and walk out. Fine for you if you would do that, but when you're in the audience, my whole thing is, everyone's participating.

"I'm not there to make you think, but if you do, great. If you want to be entertained, maybe you can get some of that too. I'm there to think, I'm there to feel what's going on in the room. We're in different places every night, and I have to make the room my friend. That's what I'm struggling with--it's a struggle, and it's almost uncomfortable to watch sometimes. I think. That's my perception, and what some people have commented. But whatever it is that's going on, for me, it's intense. And the band is all there too, understanding the dynamics of being on a stage. They're not gonna pick their asses, or if they do, we work it out ahead of time. When there's a secret signal, we're all gonna pick our asses at the same time. Or something, I don't know! We're gonna have fun with it."

Come to Daddy

Of course, beyond the brass and the wax are the brass tacks of a Money Mark gig: the keyboards. God bless him for giving all those orphaned noisemakers a loving home. But where does he find them? Actually, they find him.

"I'm a magnet for it, so it comes to me. I think they come to me, those machines, because they know, because they have more soul than newer machines. Maybe it's because only one person built it, while those newer machines were a conglomerate of all these corporations and thousands, maybe 10,000 minds, adding up to this one thing that I think doesn't even know what it itself is."

For those of us not blessed with such a magnetic personality, Mark suggests church basements, school sales, border crossings, small-town pawnshops and even E-bay as great caches of keyboard kool--as long as it's analog.

"The circuits that were used, all the parts, were much better. All the machines were made with different parts, bought from people in different parts of the world. The parts weren't all the same. Now they have a generic sound. It's not the same as having the original thing. How can I explain it? Everyone relates to cars. Nowadays, all the new cars, I can't even see a difference between them. Sell your SUV right now--they're destroying the planet and killing people. It's bad. Older cars had more style. Style was more related to a technique of life. Having a technique of life is important--I mean that like, sustainable life.

"Reuse a bag--why take a new bag when you can use an old one? I can't remember when I last bought clothes. And it's thrift-store clothes anyway. Why would you want to buy new clothes? They're overpriced and you're gonna end up being a billboard for the worst companies in the world. I'm down with Adbusters, man, I'm down with all that. All the best stuff is already there. Everything's just being rehashed. Digital things are just trying to copy analog things. It's just the ones and zeroes, and they're never going to get it right, because the analog things just have more personality. They're temperamental, they're more like people. They're unique, one of a kind."

At Cabaret on Thursday, Sept. 13, 8pm, $15