Utter Trash--Black Cabbage

Dada DJs

An interview with Black Cabbage

By Bob Ignizio

Black Cabbage: DJ Homefry K (left) and DJ Master LS (right)

How do you describe the band Black Cabbage? Both DJ Master LS and DJ Homefry K play bass guitar and provide vocals, and plans are afoot to incorporate other instruments in the near future (though probably not other musicians). The band is noisy and avant garde, yet still rooted in some strange sort of pop sensibility. Their lyrics are infused with a strange sense of humor, but, as DJ Master LS says, "Anyone calling us a novelty act is looking to get their nostrils enlarged." I guess the only way to really understand what Black Cabbage is all about is to go straight to the source, which is what I did in this interview with the Lakewood, Ohio based duo.

Utter Trash: The standard issue question: How/when did the band get together. Who's "lead" bass, and who's rhythm bass?

DJ Master LS: The band was sort of conceptualized for a long time before it was actually put into practice, but we finally got down to business sometime in 2003. We were already living together, so the band was pretty much an outgrowth of our standard insane outlook on things in general, our sheer boredom with the local music scene, and the need to express just exactly how much everything totally sucks and makes absolutely no sense anymore. I think as far as who is lead and rhythm bass goes, I think it depends on what song in particular you're talking about. I think for the most part I, DJ Master LS, play the rhythm bass, and DJ Homefry K plays lead/noise bass. However, as part of our forthcoming Cohegency Committment Phase II, Homefry will be expanding her weaponry to include Farfisa and drums, and possibly some guitar, so the Black Cabbage 'sound' will definitely be expanding along with that.
DJ Homefry K: Well, DJ Master LS and I have lived together for about two years, and in January of 2003 we were at My Generation record store, and he saw some Black Sabbath CDs, and for some inexplicable reason, he said, "Oh, Black Cabbage". So that's probably technically when we became a band. But I didn't really start learning how to play bass until that May. Then we didn't play our first show until that November.

UT: I know Black Cabbage has a sense of humor, but that doesn't necessarily mean you don't take your music seriously. Do you see what you do as "avant garde"/experimental, or is it really more about the humor?
DJ Master LS: When people ask me what the main influence of Black Cabbage is, the first thing I usually say is Dadaism. Some people just can't relate to absurdity in art and think that we are actually some kind of 'novelty' act or something, but to me, that would put us in the same boat as Frank Zappa or Weird Al Yankovic. The *last* thing we are is a novelty act, though. Yes, many of our songs are funny, but we are also the kind of people who walk through the art museum laughing our heads off at the paintings, and you know that that kind of disturbs most people.

UT: Is the lack of a drummer an artistic choice, or were you just unable to find one?
DJ Master LS: Both really. Being misanthropic anti-socialites, it's really difficult for us to find *anyone* we get along with well enough to have a band practice with, let alone finding someone we can tolerate who can also play drums, plus it would just add too much normalcy to our sound. People always want to try to push bands closer to normalcy, and that is always a mistake, I think. Everyone has some kind of idea that every band needs one drummer, one bass player, one or two guitars, maybe a keyboard or horn, and a singer. That's why there are so many completely ignorable generic-sounding bands that have no kind of identity at all. As mentioned earlier, however, DJ Homefry K is going to start doing some drumming on some of our songs, so we'll see what develops with that.
DJ Homefry K: We really would like a drummer, but we can't find one who is any good and isn't already in three different bands, and we don't have practice space for drums either. Though there might be drums at our July 23rd show at Pat's.

UT: You had quite the array of merchandise at Cassette Fest Fest. What's been your biggest mover so far? Do you think you'll one day be able to achieve the merchandising heights of KISS and have Black Cabbage coffins and credit cards?
DJ Homefry K: Cassette Fest Fest was the first time we had all that stuff. The folks at WCSB told the bands that we could sell merchandise, and we got this weird idea to go to thrift stores and buy crap and write Black Cabbage on it. We didn't sell any of it, but we gave _ (that's his name, "Underscore") from WCSB the Black Cabbacus, because he was our first fan and we love him. I think one night we sold three CDs and made $15, which is more than we made at the door that night. I hope someday I can be a huge, annoying, misogynistic jerk with idiotic opinions like Gene Simmons is, but still get interviewed on NPR.

UT: I would imagine Black Cabbage is the sort of band that people either love or loathe, with there being almost no possibility of someone saying, "eh, they're ok." What are some of the most interesting comments you've heard people make about your band?
DJ Master LS: People have been known to categorize us as 'new no-wave', which is probably as close to a real genre as is likely to hold us, though we've tried to distract categorizers by offering up our own genres such as 'rust-punk-funk.' Actually I haven't heard that many interesting comments about us that we haven't made ourselves! I am still quite pleased, however, as well as surprised and perplexed (though really I shouldn't be) that we got such high marks on our Cassette Fest entry - both of the show hosts gave us 10s, and each of the listeners who called in even gave us 9s, so there are obviously people out there hungry for our brand of cohegency.
DJ Homefry K: Well, we really only get exposed to the "love" side, no one has ever gone out of their way to hate us (expect the management of a certain bar which will remain nameless). It seems like we don't have a lot of fans who we didn't already know or who we haven't become friends with through playing out or playing together. We have a little mutual fan club with Dead Peasant Insurance and Thursday Club, which is why we play together so much. I can't remember anything interesting anyone has ever said to us, but I think it's interesting that no one has ever said we sound like any other band!

UT: If I'm not mistaken, you're involved in a zine of your own. Tell me a little about that.
DJ Homefry K: I do a zine called "Rust n Brique", which is mostly about industrial decay -- full of pictures of abandoned buildings and the like, though since it's also a "personal" zine I complain about my life sometimes. I recently did my first band interview with Steve Dracula, which is in the current issue, and I also did a "special" on the "Cleveland No-Fi Underground", which is the scene we pretend exists with us and our friends' bands. Oh, and I also do a couple different comics in the zine too. I think about 25 people pick up copies and about 5 of them read it. DJ Master LS has a zine that he hasn't put out yet.

UT: For a band that's just starting out, I've noticed you have a fair number of gigs already lined up. Other than Cassette Fest, I've seen you listed for shows at Pat's, The Rockwood, The Grog Shop, and I think the Beachland. What's your secret? Do you have something on all these club owners, or is it just impossible for them to ignore the musical force that is Black Cabbage?
DJ Master LS: I think we're just brazen enough to think that we actually deserve to play as much as we want and so we've been lucky enough to actually get to the point of playing out pretty regularly pretty quickly. We're also trying to foster our own little scene here with some other bands we're good friends with, namely Dead Peasant Insurance and Thursday Club, and I think that kind of force is difficult to withstand. Now we just need to work on actually getting people to *attend* our shows instead of just *saying* they will..

UT: You have a shit load of MP3s available for free download at your site. This seems like a ploy to get innocent people hooked on the Cabbage early on, so that when the inevitable full length CD comes out, they can't resist purchasing it. What are you, some kind of sick, depraved monsters?
DJ Master LS: Well yeah, what did you think?
DJ Homefry K: Well, we're sick, depraved monsters, but it doesn't have much to do with the free mp3's. Mostly we're still so flattered that anyone would even want to listen to our stupid band that we're not going to make them give us money to do it. I think we gave away at least six times more copies of our CD ‘Neo Proto Post Wave Rock Core’ than we sold. Getting some money would be nice, though, because basses and CD-R's don't pay for themselves.

UT: Anything else I didn't ask about that you want to add?
DJ Master LS:
10a. Leo & Taurus
10b. none of your business
10c. yes!
10d. We both play Peavey Patriot Custom basses from the mid-80s, when Peavey made some of the finest bass equipment known to man, which fortunately is still quite a little-known secret, so don't tell anyone.
10e. Neither of us are native Clevelanders, which is why we actually like it here so much - Master LS is from Toledo, Ohio, and Homefry K is from Tacoma, Washington, which explains a lot of other things.
10f. Cary Grant.

DJ Homefry K: Parma fucking rules. We should have really called ourselves "The Parmaniacs". Also, we need a practice space, because I think our upstairs neighbor might kill us.