At The Show: 2 Shows In NYC W/ Cola
Cola graced New York City w/ not one but two exquisite shows in July. We were there to capture the magic.
Q: This is a good primer. If you could be living at any point in history, as a musician, when would it be?
Evan: I would want to be a court musician. Right now I'm gonna say, in maybe fifth century Persia, just because I just finished a book where there was a musician who was beloved by the king and was treated quite well. So maybe that would be my style. I mean, I could live in that era and maybe not be good enough. And then I would live a life of poverty and innovation, and torture. But I'll take my chances.
Ben: I have two answers. Maybe a peaceful period in the Eastern Roman Empire. Byzantium, in Constantinople, where I've risen in the ranks because a lot of musicians were sort of like low class individuals who historically would not be in a good position in society. Like just be traveling around hawking their wares, so to speak. But during a time of peace in the court, similar to what Evan was saying, I think it would be good you could live a long life.
Or alternatively, I'm born in like 1910. It may be like a beach town in Catalonia. Dad teaches me guitar from ten until, let's say, I guess, 14. And then I just sacrificed myself fighting for the communists in the Spanish Civil War.
Tim: Just gonna say 1970s because this was… Let's think about it. Let's do it. You have, labels giving unlimited budgets for people to make the absolute weirdest shit. You've got John Cale making Church of Anthrax, what a time to be alive And I, you know, would be so lucky someone would roll out the red carpet for me and let me bang one piano note for 25 minutes and put it out on Columbia.
Q: You mentioned reading stuff on tour. Let's name drop. What are you guys reading?
Evan: I just finished a book, literally. I just finished a book like, ten minutes ago in the park, The Shahnama, which is like the Persian Book of Kings. It's an epic from the early 11th century part of the story of all of the Persian kings from, you know, the beginning of their history. There were a lot of most ruthless, meaning the best. There were so many kings in this book. It was just a waterfall of kings.
Ben: Sadly, I basically can't read on tour. I brought one book with me, a physical book, but it's the New Penguin Guide to Russian because Evan and I are going to Brighton Beach. Tomorrow. And I had this goal that I was going to spend three weeks after Australian tour getting as good at Russian as possible because everyone speaks Russian. And then surprise him when we got to Brighton Beach. But then we went on tour and I just couldn't not tell him and like flex my Russian and now I've completely lost all motivation to do it the day before. Brighton Beach
Tim: It's hard to keep secrets on tour. I'm reading this book. Ice. By Anna Kavan, I think it peaked everybody's interest in the van when we started talking about it. And Ben looked at the Wikipedia page and informed me that it's an example of slipstream fiction. But it's really early, like a lot of, modern sci-fi writers love this book. It's from the late 60s, like 67, and it's very compelling, kind of a post-apocalyptic sort of dreamscape. But also, she was a super interesting figure, like she was addicted to heroin and lived in a bunch of different countries. So there's kind of this like, drug psychosis. There's a lens of looking at the book in that way. It's just really compelling. And it's kind of a kind of white knuckle pace to it, which is good for the band.
