MONTEANDTANA

Industrial Records recording artists and independent filmmakers Monte Cazazza and Tana Emmolo dress and live a cloak and dagger life. Subversion is the password and black humor the keynote. They prompt our aural and visual senses with ideas Burroughs merely dropped onto the printed page. Witness their recent film "SXXX80", or their new E.P. Something for No One, or Monte's first heart-warming single, "For Mom on Mother's Day." This high-tech duo is currently hiding out in the 21st century in their subterranean Oakland studio where small black boxes blip and bleep a comforting loop of electronic noises. Interview by Annex and John Gullak

ANOTHER ROOM: You two seem to be cult figures in England, but are relatively unknown in the Bay Area. Yet you live in Oakland. How come?

MONTE: Well, this is where the money ran out.

AR: What are some of the latest projects you've worked on together?

M: Tana worked on my record.

TANA: Monte worked on my film.

M: Thanks a lot.

T: We should say we worked together on our movie and on our record. We collaborate a lot. Even when we do individual projects we like to get each other's opinion. We collaborate a lot with Jim Jcoy[?jh] too.

AR: Didn't you work on Widow's and Orphans magazine with him?

M: yeah, but we only worked on the last issue in '78.

AR: The first record on Industrial, "To Mom on Mother's Day" and "The Candy Man," was that a Cazazza-Emmolo collaboration?

M: No, I didn't even know her then.

T: We knew each other then. We just weren't living together or working together yet.

AR: Unh-hunh.

M: No, I didn't even know her then.

T: We knew each other then. We just weren't living together or working together yet.

AR: When and where did you record that record.

M: In '77 at Industrial Record's Death Factory. It came out in '79.

AR: Where is the Death Factory?

T: In London on Martello Street.

M: It's in a really good place. Next to a park that is a cemetery where they buried all the plague victims. That's why it's called the Death Factory. It's under street level so all around you are these bodies buried.

T: The name was especially appropriate when we were there recording the last record. It was in the dead of winter, almost always raining. To get there you have to walk down steps and over planks. It's just a cement cave that is so cold it's hard to even think. And we had the Swedish flu...

AR: When did you last go to England?

T: February '80. We were there for two months.

AR: You went there to do your record. Did you play any live shows?

M: Yeah, we played three shows, but we didn't know we were going to until a couple of days before we got there.

T: Gen and Cosey of Throbbing Gristle (see record review page, ed.) were kind of coy about that. But it was smart of them. We might have gotten apprehensive about performing live since we had never done that together before.

AR: Where did you play?

T: It's some kind of a tradition when a band goes to England and plays in London first. Usually they'll play at the F-Club in Leeds. so that's where we did our first show.

AR: What was the F-Club like?

M: It's a basement club. the ceiling is right next to your head.

T: There's a disco on the floor above it.

M: We played with T.G. and Clock D.V.A. They're a good band. That was my favorite show.

AR: Where was the second performance?

T: In London at the Scala Cinema. It was an all night show that later became quite famous. In London the tube stops at 12 AM so there isn't much of an after-hours there. This show went on until about 6 AM. That in itself is really unusual for London.

M: We got these old William Burroughs' films to show "Towers of Fire" and "Yes Hello". We also showed a Hermann Nitsch movie and a Kenneth Anger film.

T: T.G. played and also Leather Nun from Sweden. they have a record "Slow Death" out on the Industrial label.

AR: Did many people go to that show?

T: The place was packed.

AR: What kind of people went to your shows over there?

M: Well, they weren't expecting entertainment, they knew enough not to expect that. Actually, they were real quiet and polite.

T: The rowdiest crowd was our last show at a private boys' school in Oundle. They were crazed, screaming, and throwing things.

AR: Were they enjoying what you were doing?

M: Yeah, it was great. We had a good attitude about it and tried to incite them as much as we could.

T: The show caused quite a disturbance in the end. We played in the main teaching hall. Those buildings are so old and so beautiful. It was like playing in a giant cathedral. Monte played the synth on the table the head master teaches from. It's an old, wonderfully carved oak table with a huge oak carved chair behind it. So for these kids to be seeing all this going on they could never again listen to the head master in the same way.

AR: Did T.G. play that show also?

T: Yes. Gen was really into his performance that night. He got crazed, almost possessed. His eyes kept rolling back into his head. He swan dove into the audience and they carried him away.

AR: What kind of instruments did you play for those shows?

M: Processed guitar, synthesizer, vocals, processed vocals and tapes for the rest of the band, with Chris Carter of T.G. doing the engineering and mixing.

T: Gen played bass with us at the Scala show.

AR: Was your performance material similar in sound to the records?

M: Some of it was. We changed each show a lot. I get bored really quick and can't keep doing the same things over and over.

T: We tried to do songs about where we were. In Leeds we did a Leeds' ripper song. In Oundle it was Mother's Day so we did a remake of "To Mom On Mother's Day." When we did the Scala show, it was during the period we were recording, so we did some stuff from the record.

AR: Your record (E.P. Something for No One on Industrial), has made its way to the top ten of some of the New Wave charts. Do you consider yourselves New Wave?

M: No, the New Wave is just a term used to diffuse punk rock. We relate less to rock and more to electronic music. I don't think it's New Wave.

AR: In another interview, you said you don't even consider what you do to be music.

T: I see it as little individual statements or stories more than music.

M: It's just a record. "Distress" isn't necessarily music. It's tapes I happened to make about something that happened at the gun range while I was there. "Mary Bell" is like a nursery rhyme. "Mary Bell, Mary Bell, Child of Hell, Child of Hell, One half wicked. One half good. Small strong fingers, Go round his tiny neck." "First and Last" is like some....electronics////

T: An electronic mistake.

M: It was a good mistake. "Kick That Habit: is the only thing on the record that might really be considered music.

T: It's really danceable. It's my favorite cut.

AR: Does the record have mass appeal?

M: I hope not! That's not why we make records.

AR: Why do you make records, it it's not for mass appeal?

M: The reason why I make records is...SPITE! I don't know, why does anyone make records? It's something to do. It's like we're doing a weird version of the news or something.

T: Anything we do is pretty much influenced by what is going on in our lives at that time. There's no way I could predict what we'll be doing for a record next year or if there'll be another record.

AR: The words to "Kick the Habit" is a poem by Bryon Gyson.

T: It's a phrase put through a computer and rearranged every possible way.

M: He was the original person to develop that cut up technique. He did it in '62 and at that time was hanging around Burroughs. Burroughs used the technique in all of his books.

AR: What made you decide to use it for the record?

T: I think it had something to do with Monte's fascination with computers.

M: Also I like Gyson's and Burroughs' work a lot. While we were doing the record, I was reading a book they wrote together, The Third Mind, and I decided I'd like to do something by Gyson to see how it would turn out.

AR: What's the story behind "Mary Bell"?

M: It's a record for little kids.

T: Mary Bell strangled two of her little boy playmates in England when she was ten years old. She said, "I only killed so that I may return."

M: Her trial was insane. She kept lying. It got to the point where everyone was so confused no one knew what was going on. It's a lot like that movie "Bad Seed."

AR: Since we're on the subject of movies, how is your film "SXXX 80" being received?

T: Well, we seem to be getting more comments about the movie than we are for the record.

AR: It was reviewed by the S.F. Chronicle and the Progress.

M: But they didn't talk about the film as much as they did that it was shown on public school property.

AR: What school?

T: At Cabrillo Elementary school in the amphitheater that we rented.

M: It was in June. Mark Pauline ran his machines and we showed our movie, which has some sexually explicit scenes.

AR: Hence the controversy.

T: It is anti-sex, though.

M: It's an educational film.

T: It's about venereal disease.

M: We'd like to show it to kids in health classes.

T: It's how I used to fantasize what health class films should be like.

M: There are going to be two more films to go with the first one.

T: It'll be a trilogy, but all the films will be different from each other.

AR: What are your current projects?

T: Individually I'm working on my shoe review and Monte's doing the new movie.

AR: What about live performances? When are you going to do some shows here in the Bay Area?

M: That's a good question..