Shred Yr Face 3

As tour names go, Shed Yr Face 3 is as inappropriate as advertising white spirits as a health shake. So fear not as there is a distinct lack of both skate boards and ear bleeding, finger tapped guitars on Shed Yr Face 3. Instead, expect a rich autumnal lilt of choice bands.  From mid November Espers, Woods and The Cave Singers will be taking their collective spinning top of beautifully befuddled folk and experimental sounds across country. Dazed digital caught up with two of them to talk about confused conversations with David Gedge and keeping your wits as we break through the Space-Time Continuum. Honestly.

Espers
Dazed Digital: Who are the band?
Espers: The band are Meg, Greg, Brooke, Helena, and for this tour Norman Fetter on bass and John Heron on drums.  Although, Otto Hauser played drums on Espers III.

DD: Are you all fellow Brooklynites?
Brooke: Yes, well Greg and I met in Brooklyn around 2001. I had heard his record "Fire in the Arms of the Sun" and liked it. I wanted to meet Greg because he had written an extensive catalog of album reviews on European folk and progressive music. I went to see Greg perform at the Brooklyn Brewery, but missed his set. I invited him out later that night to see my friend Kevin Barker ,one of my favorite guitarists, and eventual Espers collaborator  play a show. By the end of the evening we made a plan for Greg to come to Philadelphia and play a show at my loft space. Meg and I were already playing music together at that point.
Meg: I met Helena when she first arrived in Philadelphia. We talked about how it would be great to play music together someday but it took about 4 years to happen. I met Brooke through filling in the role of female vox/keys in the band Clock Strikes Thirteen. Ben Kim always made fun of me for being so folky. Once he learned that Brooke was looking to play with folk musicians, he made an introduction at a show. We were opening up for Saturnalia.

DD: Ah the infamous Mr Gedge…
Meg: Yeah. I was really excited to get a chance to meet David Gedge, but he only asked me why I looked so miserable when I played. I thought that I was having fun, however. I met Greg at Brooke's salon shows. I met Otto in Greg's mom's kitchen. He had his arm in a sling, but managed to play some drums anyway later on that night at the now closed Bullwinkle's Tavern in Rochester, NY.
    
DD: Tell me about Esperhaus.
Greg: Esperhaus was the name of the studio where "Espers I" was recorded. Brooke lived there. I lived there for a time as well. When I relocated to north east Philadelphia the studio changed to Hexham Head. Now that I've moved again it has a new name: Harmonyville.
Meg: Esperhous also had very thin, creaky wooden floors. A howling dog above and a electronica DJ below. Everyone had to be very still when recording, but in a way that was fun -- not tedious.
Brooke: This was a loft apartment where I lived, in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia. I hosted lots of shows there... Six Organs, Charalambides, MV/EE, Devendra Banhart, P.G. Six, Jack Rose, Bardo Pond, and many more.

DD: So what now. What’s the plan for the tour?
Espers : Simple.  Don't loose our wits.

Woods
Dazed Digital: Are you fans of the forest. Is that perhaps where you all met?
Woods: We found each other in the wilds of the city. Brooklyn foams and percolates and the primordial stew for a sound or mindset can crystallize like a lightning strike. The mindset for a certain sound can be shared instinctively between people; it floats down city streets like a cloud. The city is the strangest kind of woods there is, we've known each other for years, and one can't jam this much for this long and not sniff each other out.
 
DD: Who’s currently cooking up this primordial stew?
Woods: The band is Jeremy Earl - main songwriter and discerning label impresario, his razor sharp instincts cut the bullshit out of most "rock and roll situations". Massive guitar shreds, high spooky pipes.
Jarvis Taveniere -  drummer/guitarist/recording engineer and level headed beacon of calm. Even handed backbone rhythm. He records to analogue tape at Rear House, Brooklyn.
Kevin Morby - Bass backbone and the Midwest/youthful vibes. He’s a great storyteller with smooth skin.
Lucas Crane - Live Tape Effects and aural landscape Xfactor. Ghost vocals. He sets the vibe with found sound and dirty tape bending. The keeper of "dark magic".
 
DD: Well dark magic always needs a keeper. Did you hear about the tour from some conjured spell?
Woods: Remembered when the tour was shredding face with No Age, the name was familiar. Isn’t the answer to this question always “the internet”?
 
DD: What now for the Woods. And please don’t say de-forestation?
Woods: All the normal stuff. Total Freedom. Immortality. Music literally breaks the classic barriers around Time, Space and Mind. The plan is to make great albums, play awesome shows, and "leave earth".
 
Woods can be seen orbiting the country, along with Espers and the Cave Singers from November 9th