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Joey Bauer
164 Plays6 years ago
Great chat this episode with Joey Bauer!
JOEY BAUER is a musician under the alias Theo B. Veeus (can be found on Bandcamp). His albums are great journeys. I highly, highly recommend you travel these roads.
Bauer also manages the great ***Darkside Cinema*** in Corvallis, Oregon. Listen in to hear about the intertwining of sound and image. This discussion really got me thinking about language and how we, as humans, speak and hear.
Bauer is married and has two youngsters.
The importance of film and music in his life really comes through as we discuss the psychological aspects of creating art as well as whether something can come from nothing.
Thanks for supporting "Something (rather than nothing)"!!!
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Guest
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Vellante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Hometown and Early Influences
00:00:15
Speaker
Yeah, there's no main questions that pop to mind. The only main question is, I noticed you have an accent. I'm curious where you are from.
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, just outside. OK. Yeah. Gotcha. OK. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, uh, yeah. So actually birthplace of the industrial revolution first, uh, like, um, uh, mill that was put on the river and used the, you know, the moving water for energy for the mill and basically the whole textile industries of the Northeast kind of just built off of that.
00:00:55
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, so old city, old industrial city and actually used to have the company, uh, Hasbro, the toy manufacturer there. Um, there's just corporate or, you know, offices there, but, uh, yeah, yeah. So, uh, yeah. Well, um, all right. So let's, let's, uh, let's get into
Childhood Interests and Family Life
00:01:16
Speaker
it. Um, first, first, first big question is, uh, what were you like as, as, as a young child, what type of things were you, were you interested in?
00:01:25
Speaker
So as a young child, um, my main passions actually lied in sports. I was, I was very much into the three major ones, football, baseball, and basketball when I was young. And I played some little league here and there. And, uh, aside from sports, um, hanging out with the neighborhood kids, I, we had a pretty large VHS collection in my house. So.
00:01:55
Speaker
Like I said, I was kind of raised in front of a TV with movies specifically. And it just kind of took my imagination. And I didn't quite dive into wanting to make films until a little later. But as a child, you know, going out into the woods with the friends and pretending we're Rambo or, you know, whatever.
00:02:22
Speaker
Reciting lines from movies that we probably shouldn't have watched at the age that we watched them Not many ten-year-olds probably watch Die Hard when they're homesick from from school Yeah, maybe maybe more should the message Yeah, and no that kind of shaped my personality my friends kind of regarded me as as Comedic at times and
00:02:53
Speaker
Um, yeah, I, I grew up with, uh, an older sister. She's two years older than me. And, uh, we, we kind of hung out here and there, but it was mostly just me with the neighborhood kids, uh, grew up in a small town, Thalomath, Oregon, about 4,000 people. Um, and it's growing a little bit now, but yeah, I, uh, I was fairly outgoing and, uh, had a good, good upbringing. Mom and dad, high school, sweethearts.
00:03:23
Speaker
So they raised us well and yeah, I had a good childhood. That's really, really great to hear. So the role of film, I can share a couple of things with you that I share similarly. My dad is a huge film buff and watched tons and tons and tons of films.
00:03:49
Speaker
And it was really funny because prior to, you know, being able to look things up on Google, on your phone, I'd call him in, I'd be like, dad, dad, who the heck is, who's this actor? And really obscure, obscure film, obscure actor. And he'd say who it is, and then he'd cross-reference about five or six films that he was in. Sure, yeah, yeah. And so I was like, I grew up around that encyclopedic knowledge and know like, you know, how film can be just really important, something to have around as a,
00:04:18
Speaker
I think a lot of times as a bit of an escape.
Music and Cinema Journey
00:04:23
Speaker
So one of the things that you do as well as your manager of an independent cinema, dark side cinema in your palace, but you also do music and I know some of the themes with your music
00:04:46
Speaker
kind of hover around You know themes of film Sure, you know kind of like a movie soundscape. I guess I would say absolutely Yeah, and so I'm you know, I see the those things kind of moving back and forth between each other but tell us about your your your process of creating of creating music and in where it comes from because
00:05:14
Speaker
From some of your descriptions, it sounds like you're kind of capturing things or you're capturing sounds and are letting things arise. Is that the case? Is that how you go about it? That's kind of the case now. It didn't start out that way. I didn't get into music until after high school. I graduated in 2005 and it was around that time that I
00:05:41
Speaker
Well, I'll backtrack a little bit. I had a good friend who took drum lessons and I would go sit in on his drum lessons and I've always gravitated towards rhythm when I listen to music. Lyrics fall by the wayside, but I'm always listening to the drums. There was no musical talent in my family, so I didn't think I had it in me. But then when I graduated high school,
00:06:09
Speaker
I, my friend had a drum kit and it was in his garage and he was very musical at the time and he still is. And, uh, we just kind of sat down and I started play and it sounded terrible, obviously. Cause as you know, there's a few musical savants out there that can just play tune immediately. But most of us, you know, it, it, it sounds like a hot garbage for, for a little while. Um, so I, yeah, so I started playing the drums and then I joined.
00:06:37
Speaker
a couple of bands and I was playing their music. I wasn't doing anything of my own at the time. Until about, let's see, probably four years ago, I started to branch off from those bands and I started exploring different sounds that I admired or that I was curious about, and then I started to play around
00:07:06
Speaker
Specifically within the drum set, I started to play around with creating different ways to play it that I found interesting. I started to follow a lot of free-form avant-garde jazz musicians. The way that they approach music was very fascinating to me, just on the fly in a way, just in the moment, whatever you're feeling at the time you play that and
00:07:34
Speaker
And, uh, you just kind of let it go and, and, and go with it. So I started to do that with the drums specifically. And it wasn't until a couple of years ago, I started to get into synthesizers. Um, and I've been exploring that, uh, those possibilities, which are endless. It's just enormous. All the, all the things that you can create within a synthesizer.
00:08:00
Speaker
And I've been pairing the two drums and synthesizers, but yeah, mostly the process for me is I just, you know, if I have a feeling, I'll play to that feeling and see where it takes me. I really liked that description and I like how you described that at the end, that really brought it in for me. And I heard some of that in your songs.
00:08:25
Speaker
We're, we're, we're talking with Joey Bauer on, uh, something rather than nothing podcast. And, um, what we're going to do, uh, Joey's play a track, um, of, uh, 12, 12 ribs and don't want to play it. And it's off, uh, teleport, teleporanographic hypnosis conspiracy. And it's by your alter ego. Uh, the obvious that would be correct. Yes. The Obvious. Absolutely. All righty.
00:08:53
Speaker
There we go, we're gonna play 12 ribs.
00:11:02
Speaker
I really like that track, Joey. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. That album actually is if we if we want to talk about that for a little bit, that was quite that was that was a fun album to do. Yeah. Tell us about that. Why was it? Tell us. Well, the approach to it was was different. And I had a couple of my friends help me with just a few songs I had.
00:11:27
Speaker
My friend Charlie, who I was in a band with, he did some bass for a couple tracks. And my other friend, Kellen, who I am currently doing music with, he did a few things as well. But for that album, what I did is I went into the recording studio, because the band that I was in at the time, we have a practice space that also doubles as a recording studio. And so we had my drums mic'd up 24-7.
00:11:55
Speaker
So I could just go in whenever I wanted to and turn on the computer and record. And so what I did is I just played all the tracks. That is the first thing that came to my mind. I didn't have a plan. I would just go in, push record and then start playing the drums. And then from there I would take what I did and then I would listen to it a couple of times and then build on that and see what I wanted to layer over it.
00:12:25
Speaker
With that track in particular, I had this idea after I did the drums of just kind of like a weird jazz piece. And I'm not trained in keyboards either, but I just kind of did whatever with that. So yeah, recorded the drums first and then just layered things on top of it. And going back to film with that track, there's a piano bit
00:12:54
Speaker
where it kind of goes da-dun, da-dun. One of my musical heroes is Ennio Morricone, and he did the score for the film, The Untouchables, and their theme song for that. It has this kind of driving, this driving sound, and then it has this specific like da-dun, da-dun, da-dun, da-da-da-dun, da-dun-dun. So I was trying to emulate certain things from that film in that track as well, which I thought was a lot of fun.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, I when I was listening to the track itself The one thing that it's come up to my mind twice last couple times I've listened to it is that it seems to me like It holds together and I want to keep listen listening to this conversation, but it's almost like three people Trying to each get attention and talk at a party like there's voices. Yes
00:13:47
Speaker
It's like, listen to me. And I know there's like the piano, uh, barging in, but it's like, listen to me. And I keep hearing that throughout the track. And I thought it was just so entertaining in that way. And, uh, feeling kind of like a movie scene a little bit too. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. No, that was, that was a great, that was a fun album to do. I did that in the summertime, 2017, I believe. Um, and then from there it just progressed. I, I, uh,
00:14:13
Speaker
That was, I opened the barge with that, with that
Creative Motivations and Community Involvement
00:14:16
Speaker
album. Yeah. So, so talking about that, I mean, you, you're, you know, you, you're, you're, you're busy. You got a young, young family. There's a lot of different things to do. And then there's this part of you that, you know, you want to create. So, you know, what compels you to create something? What, what, what, what drives you to, to, you know, take your time and, and create, you know, a music and images.
00:14:43
Speaker
I think it stems from, once I discovered I had musical capability, it started to grow inside me that there were feelings and emotions that I wanted to get out and a way for me to do that was through music. At first, I wanted to be a filmmaker and I found that that was quite time-consuming and expensive.
00:15:13
Speaker
being a musician is also time consuming and expensive, but you can do things on your own. Whereas with the film, you have to assemble a crew and, you know, there's schedules, but with music, I mean, I could be, I could be home by myself and plug in a keyboard and just kind of let loose or play the bongos. So it, I wanted to create because of things
00:15:39
Speaker
inside me that I wanted to release in a specific way, and that was through music. Do you feel those things you could only express through music? Absolutely. I also like to write, and there's certain things I can express through my writing, but mostly the greatest expression for me is musically.
00:16:11
Speaker
That's that's that's really great. I I talked on a previous show about my, you know, when I started painting, which was transformative as far as my approach in my exploration further and into art. But for the really the first time, it was like a transition from trying to write or speak. And then I'm like, I don't even know what I'm doing with this paint. I don't know what I'm doing with the canvas, but I'm doing something and
00:16:39
Speaker
It's a different type of language and it was like kind of just walking along and being like, okay, I need this language to get around. Which is why, of course, I asked the question about the music because I have a connection to songs in that way. But I always love to delve into the mind of the music creator and how you arrive at that point. And it sounds like the accessibility to creating really, really helps you. So now,
00:17:08
Speaker
So you're an artist, you're creating these songs and I believe they're works of art. But for you, when you're creating something, are you looking to create a work of art? If so, what is art? What are you creating? Sure. I would agree that I am
00:17:37
Speaker
trying to succeed in creating art. In Corvallis, there's a great community for artists. There's a fantastic noise scene where people just do harsh noise or ambient noise or whatever, and it's very expressive. But yeah, what I try to create is I want to put it out there for people.
00:18:06
Speaker
And I don't necessarily want a reaction from them, but I just want them to know that I put it out there for them and they can do what they want with it. I've never really wanted to create anything to get something from it other than a release, an emotional release or, you know, catharsis, whatnot. So yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
So what about, and that's really helpful to understand, beginning with your process, but what you're looking to do with it is highly personal, but you're also putting that out there.
00:18:54
Speaker
And before we move on to film, could you just mention specifically about, you know, the names of your albums and Bandcamp? Maybe you're, you know, some of the stuff you have on the Bandcamp app and site. Sure. Yeah. So I think the first one telepornographic hypnosis conspiracy, I lifted that from a sci-fi book. It might have been Logan's run. I can't remember specifically, but
00:19:21
Speaker
A lot of things stem from my admiration of sci-fi. I believe the second or third album on there, it's just seven dots. There's no name to it. But that one I created after my wife's grandpa had passed away. And there's a lot of emotions kind of bubbling up from that. And I wanted to create an album giving my
00:19:52
Speaker
uh, respects to, to loved ones. And the album cover of that one, um, I particularly enjoy because my son Henry, I think he was about two and a half or three at the time, he cut up a bunch of pieces of paper and he assembled them on the floor in our bedroom. And it kind of, to me, it looked like someone running a person running. And I, so I took a picture of that and used it as the album cover. And in fact, on, on that album too, he,
00:20:21
Speaker
he played some keyboard. Yeah, he just kind of like started messing around on it and I added that in. I think it might have been the first minute and a half of the fourth track on that album. And then the other ones, they stem from me wanting to create music to, like I said, I wanted to be a filmmaker before. And so a lot of the music that I do,
00:20:49
Speaker
for my solo stuff comes from the music that I would put in a film that I'm creating in my own mind. Very atmospheric soundscape kind of stuff. Yeah, so it all stems from cinema and just from wanting to release a meditation in a way.
00:21:14
Speaker
of emotions and stuff. And within film, you work and manage dark side cinemas.
Managing an Independent Cinema
00:21:26
Speaker
I was wondering, I wanted to ask you specifically, what's the
00:21:33
Speaker
What's the status? What's the vibe around a smaller film house nowadays and what you're able to bring in and a lot of changes in the industry? Is it enjoyable? Is there a lot of pressure? I mean, what's it like? I would say there's a lot of pressure and it's incredibly enjoyable. The community in Corvallis, they're very receptive to what we do and what we bring in. We have a couple of multiplexes in town.
00:22:03
Speaker
And of course they're going to play the superhero films and those things. And every once in a while they'll get an indie film, but mostly that's for us and it's catered to our demographic, which is a lot of, the highest demographic for us is age range of 40 to 65. And we're, I mean, we've transitioned into digital
00:22:29
Speaker
We're not running 35 millimeter anymore like we used to. I think all that ended in about 2011 or 12. They stopped printing 35 millimeter prints and everything now is on hard drives and the little art houses we had to upgrade to, uh, to survive. We had to pay some big dollars to get the new equipment in and the community in Corvallis, they came out first and they helped in a big way with some fundraisers.
00:22:58
Speaker
But we don't survive on ticket sales or concession sales. It's what my boss says. We're in it for the hearts and minds. We're winning the hearts and minds from the programming that we have. We do a lot of documentaries and foreign films, things that people don't see regularly and then they can have a great conversation afterwards about what they just saw and seeing a different perspective of the world.
00:23:28
Speaker
So it's a passion. It's a passion project. Absolutely. Yeah. It's really the only job I've had. I love it because I've gotten to know a lot of folks that come in all the time. We're constantly evolving as well to try to stay relevant. So we've got certain programming that we do on Tuesdays where we'd
00:23:58
Speaker
We do bad sci-fi films, and people can heckle the screen, or we do an old film noir that people really enjoy. And then one that's a common program for us is the last Tuesday of every month we have a silent film with live music. And the house band for that, their name is Sonic Chromatic, and it's just two guys, one on an organ or a baby grand piano, and then the other guy's doing percussion, and they do their own improvised score to an old silent film.
00:24:28
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. I got to go to the next one. I don't know what's on my calendar. I got to go to the next one of those. That sounds great. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, you know, we're doing that kind of stuff. We're holding film festivals. We we partner with a film festival that does a queer film festival. Currently, we're doing a Jewish film festival. We've done other international film festivals. So, you know, we're
00:24:57
Speaker
We're getting people in that are curious about what the world has to offer as far as cinema goes. So it's a fun job. Oh, and thanks for doing that. I mean, I've always tried to hunt down those places and a lot of times out of necessity for the films that
00:25:18
Speaker
you know, that I've wanted to see.
Impactful Films and Influences
00:25:21
Speaker
And so what was the best, what was the best film you've seen within the last, you know, say six months? Oh, six months. Well, specifically at the dark side, I would say it wasn't six months ago. I'm cheating a little bit. It was, I think last year you were never really here with Joaquin Phoenix, where he plays the
00:25:47
Speaker
the veteran who rescues young girls from sex trafficking in New York, I believe. And it's directed by Lynn Ramsey. It's phenomenal. It's directed by Lynn Ramsey. She's done four films. That was her fourth film. I think it's a masterpiece. It's one of the films that I would
00:26:12
Speaker
like to make that fits that category for me. And every every step of the way, it was just perfect. Not a missed note in the whole thing. In fact, once it was done, it's a heavy film. But once it was done, I wanted to watch it again just because I couldn't I couldn't articulate how I felt about it quite yet. And I know when a film hits me like that, it's like, oh, boy, I got to sit on this one for a while because that that was something else. So.
00:26:39
Speaker
I would say that one. I know that feeling. That's a good tip on that one. And related to it, as far as how did the music interact with the film, did you pick up a lot on that? Yeah. So the score was done by Johnny Greenwood, who is a member of Radiohead. And he's been doing film scores for Paul Thomas Anderson lately. In fact, his score for the film Phantom Thread is phenomenal, which is also a great film. Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
It's not overwhelming and it kind of goes subterranean in parts where you don't really notice it's there, but it holds everything together in the moment. Yeah, it's non-intrusive. It just works really well with the film. And I think Johnny Greenwood, he does a pretty good job of that. Yeah, I know he had done some of that work and you see some really amazing
00:27:38
Speaker
I think I've seen some offshoots from bands that I really enjoyed and I'm going to film scores and I find them just to be phenomenal and just great terrain to go into. But even Nick Cave and I think one of the collaborators with Portishead, I think I was maybe Jeff Arrow. Yeah, he does some incredible stuff. I definitely
00:28:03
Speaker
heard in the work that you had done, it sounds like something creating that kind of world with sound. Absolutely. That was really cool to inhabit. And of course with Greenwood, right? So I'd imagine yourself being into, you know, kind of great music and or great bands to enjoy in those guys. Yeah, no, in fact, Jeff Barrow, he's in a group called Beak. And I recently saw them, I think it was six months ago or so. And they rarely come to the US and
00:28:33
Speaker
when they were coming up to Portland. My friend Kellen and I, we had to go because that's a big inspiration for us, Portishead and Beak specifically, but yeah, he's great. There's a few tangents I'm going to have to follow after the program here.
00:28:50
Speaker
Most definitely. So we got a couple more things. I mean, one of the things that we talked about in this is for me to kind of get into your head a bit and talk about the creative process and why you create things.
Philosophy of Creation
00:29:07
Speaker
And the show itself as a whole asked the question, why is there something rather than nothing? Applied to art a lot of times, but you know,
00:29:20
Speaker
One of the things I heard in your songs and in the music was kind of like this landscape where it seems that things were there and then things and sounds appeared out of that. So it really prompted that question in my head, you know, for you and you can answer it with reference to the piece. But why is there something rather than nothing? Well,
00:29:51
Speaker
There has to be, in my mind, I think there has to be something because if there isn't, then you fall into nothing. And when you fall into nothing, you become stagnant creatively or just in general. So you have to put something out there.
00:30:20
Speaker
And a lot of times something comes from nothing. You could be in a very dark place, or in the case of a writer's block, you're stuck. There's nothing there. But then you find something wiggles its way in, and then you have something to grab onto. And so you start to make something from nothing. But I believe there always
00:30:48
Speaker
has to be something because that is the driving force for specifically me creatively. I have to find something to move forward. Inspiration is something for me. And lots of things inspire me, specifically cinema that inspires me to create music and interactions with my friends.
00:31:16
Speaker
inspires me to create my family that they inspire me to create. And that's all that's all something. So yeah, you have to have you have to have something because like I said, if you don't have it, then things just become nothing. It's kind of like the never ending story. I think the biggest villain in that film is the nothing. Aha. And he might have stumbled upon it. Yeah, you don't you don't want to go there.
00:31:46
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:31:51
Speaker
I really enjoyed your description and on the podcast itself, we're going to continue to explore those processes, but also to keep interrogating that question. But I heard a lot of what you had to describe was about moving forward in life and casting forward energy.
00:32:13
Speaker
You know, mining a bit, you know, psychologically down into where you think, you know, there's nothing but pulling something out. I want to thank you, Joey, Joey Bauer for being on something rather than nothing. And yeah, thank you. It's been a pleasure chatting with you and really appreciate, you know, the art that you're creating and
00:32:40
Speaker
keep on doing it because I think when a lot of people hear, you know, what you have to do within the sounds that you create, I think they're going to enjoy exploring those pieces of art you create. And just wanted to thank you again, Joey. Well, thank you, Ken. I appreciate it. Have a great evening.
00:33:10
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing.