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Music > Features > Dirty Projectors Like Tiny Bacteria Running Around: An Interview with the Dirty Projectors[15 June 2009] By Mehan Jayasuriya![]() You guys have been involved in some pretty interesting collaborations recently, most notably with David Byrne and Björk. What was it like working with such well renowned songwriters? Well, both Björk and David Byrne obviously have very distinctive, established styles of writing and performing. How do you approach working with someone like that in such a way that your own voice doesn’t get drowned out? That song was so easy to write that we just ended up doing another one, totally spur of the moment. That one ended up becoming “Knotty Pine”. He gave me some lyrics that he wrote back in ‘75 or ‘76 that never became a Talking Heads song and something about the meter of those words just suggested that kind of music to me. And how did that differ from the nature of your collaboration with Björk? With the Bitte Orca stuff, we were trying to make it as good as it could possibly be. We took our time—we spent about a year writing and recording those songs. It was pretty painstaking. So for the stuff with Björk, I wanted to get into the opposite spirit. We wrote all those songs in a week, rehearsed for five days and then just performed them. With both of those collaborations, we were just so surprised to be a part of them. We learned so much from both of them. It was pretty incredible. Any chance that that suite of songs that you wrote with Björk will ever be performed again? Or recorded? Any other collaborations on the horizon? It sounds like you’re pretty open to the idea of doing more collaborative work in the future, at least. Do you have a dream collaborator you’d like to work with? Like, if you could collaborate with anyone living or dead? Well, you mentioned T-Pain earlier. Would you be open to working with him, if the opportunity presented itself? I’m not sure I want to imagine what that would sound like. It would probably have some numbers in the title and at least a few “Z"s. I think it’s Thr33 Ringz. ![]() Photo by Mehan Jayasuriya Is there any chance you guys will do another project like Rise Above, where you rework someone else’s songs? I take it you listened to a lot of Black Flag growing up. Okay, final question. What’s on the horizon for Dirty Projectors? Anything in the works aside from endless touring? Anything you feel like talking about? Or would you rather keep your cards close to your vest? ![]() Photo by Mehan Jayasuriya Related ArticlesDirty Projectors - “When the World Comes to an End” (Live on Jimmy Fallon) (video)By Tyler Gould29.Sep.09 Dirty Projectors - “Cannibal Resource” (Live on David Letterman) (video)By PopMatters Staff01.Sep.09
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Comments
“To witness the Dirty Projectors live is to stand at the center of a pop maelstrom.”
I laughed out loud at this.
I saw them live a couple weeks ago.
To watch the Dirty Projectors live is more accurately to stand in the middle of a club where half the audience bails for the patio after hearing two songs.
To watch two rows of interested people at the front who still wait around 10 seconds after a song is over before applauding (politely).
To watch the rest of the audience fold their arms through everything except Stillness is the Move, which aside from Knotty Pine, is their only great song, and the only song that comes off as well live as it does on record.
To watch Dave Longstreth struggle to hit over 50% of the notes he’s supposed to hit as he insists on playing as if he’s Yngwie on the higher strings. If their live set was Guitar Hero, he’d fail every song.
Seriously, Dirty Projectors may have been the worst live show I’d ever seen, and as common as I’ve discovered this view to be, I still find critics who insist otherwise despite all evidence to the contrary, including youtube clips. Maybe they have had good shows, even great shows, I sure hope so, but what I saw myself was one hell of a pathetic display from one of the biggest hyped bands at this moment.
Comment by Paco — June 15, 2009 @ 6:33 am