BLANCHES’ TRAVELING MEDICINE SHOWby Tina Whelski
Blanche’s spooky, old country, American roots sounds on their latest CD, If We Can’t Trust The Doctors (V2) seem to wind around the mountains and settle at the bottom of your psyche. You may draw some Carter Family parallels for the band’s penchant in finding release and happiness in typically melancholy-seeming songs, but the brew is their own. Blanche’s scarred, darkly humorous lyrics demonstrated a twisted and compelling approach to storytelling at their Emos show at South By Southwest in Texas with pedal steel guitar, banjo, and Autoharp haunting the room. The vocal interplay between husband and wife Dan and Tracee Mae Miller was as mesmerizing live as was the band’s depression-era wardrobe and theatrics. What makes this band most peculiar, besides the fact that you feel you’re watching a traveling medicine show, is that all members play their secondary instruments. This is most fascinating when you realize several Blanche players are highly accomplished musicians on their primaries. Most recently good friend Jack White called on players Feeny, Little Jack Lawrence and Dan for contributions to Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose album. (In fact Tracee and Dan actually shared a band with White called Two-Star Tabernacle from 1997-1999).
Tracie Mae Miller talks to WomanRock about the band’s musical remedies for the forlorn and grief-stricken.
WOMANROCK: Finally seeing Blanche live was really exciting for me. You were much more theatrical than I expected. I know you’re a visual artist as well as a musician. Is the band’s look your doing?
MILLER: Well that’s the funny thing because everyone as you can tell from Feeny’s suit, to my dress, it’s all along the same lines, but everyone’s own interpretation. So I guess it’s one of those weird things where we all came together with similar tastes, but distinctly different too. I kind of came up with my look and I don’t know if that gave everyone else the freedom or the go ahead to do what they want to do, but I have a lot of fun with it.
WOMANROCK: I talked to you before about the interplay between you and your husband Dan as you answer each others’ vocals. Do you plan any of that drama before you hit the stage or just go with the music?
MILLER: It’s just go with it. Each night we play it’s completely different and I think for that night, well, it’s always a little high-pressure at SXSW cause you don’t get a sound check and you kind of get thrown up there, but that night was really interesting because I was really nervous, but there was such a good feeling on stage.
WOMANROCK: You’ve talked in the past about a sense for “nostalgia” and that Blanche has found a way to be true to your time, but keep your “attic intact.”
MILLER: I think the nostalgia part of the band comes from within. It’s not necessarily thought out. For Dan and I it’s a part of life. I’ve always been that way. It’s one of those things where the first record I put on my record player was Hank Williams and I started collecting antiques when I was a teenager. I think it’s so important to keep a hold of the past and keep that spirit alive. For me I guess it really is a way of life. It’s not like we think, “Okay, we’ll just get a bunch of old crap and put it on.” Even the house we live in, it’s almost like a museum, but then of course we have to have the coffee pot and the cell phones and the computer, so it’s not a complete gimmick of having to live completely in the past.
WOMANROCK: You’re all obviously big fans of old mountain and country music and I’m curious because I know you and Dan have been together a long time, did you both come into your relationship appreciating that music or did you influence one another? What do you listen to now?
MILLER: It’s funny because when we first met we thought, “God, that’s really strange that we have the same interest in that old country music.” …I get stuck in the past though as far as music goes. I have a hard time seeking out newer stuff, which is easier now being in a band because you get exposed. But the similarities were there. As far as what we listen to now, I’m pretty bad. I mean I can listen to a Ralph Stanley CD every day all day long and kind of wear it out and Dan buys more of a variety of music.
WOMANROCK: I’m trying to imagine those first conversations between you too. What were some of the bands you had in common where you were like, “No way, you listen to them too?”
MILLER: Well, it was Hank Willliams of course and Carter Family, but also Nick Cave. I love Nick Cave. The first time I saw Dan was the early 90’s. I went to see a Nick Cave concert in downtown Detroit, the first time I had taken my parents’ car and drove downtown. I forced a friend to go with me. We got there early and went in the front and Dan’s band Goober & The Peas was opening for Nick Cave. That was the first time I actually saw Dan and then I didn’t really meet him until maybe a year later. But it was pretty funny that he was opening up for one of my favorite performers.
WOMANROCK: A lot of If We Can’t Trust The Doctors is about trust and uncertainty. Can you talk about the life influences that helped shape the CD?
MILLER: A lot of that CD does revolve around superstition and trust because Dan and I both had somewhat of the same upbringing and experiences when it came to sicknesses in the family and hospitals and we both spent a lot of time as young adults in hospitals and both experienced death at young ages. Dan being the songwriter, I think he was really able to get some of that stuff out. It’s really difficult when you grow up with that to have an outlet. In the two previous bands he had, being Goober and the Peas and Two-Star Tabernacle, I don’t think he really got to dig into those subjects. This album really gave him a chance to exercise those thoughts and demons and get them into the open. It’s funny because a lot of those issues he had, I had the same ones.
WOMANROCK: Very much a cathartic experience.
MILLER: Yeah exactly. I guess it’s been eye-opening as well because you can harbor all those feelings and I think we were talking about superstition last time, where you actually become superstitious of your superstition. So if you don’t start having a sense of humor about it or acknowledging it, it can just grow and grow and grow and you can become cynical. It can just change your life in a really bad way. I think that the album gets it all out there. You realize that life goes on and you have to find hope and beautiful things that go along with the bad things in life. I think that’s really what the album’s about.
WOMANROCK: I know you just came into bass playing not that long ago, but I didn’t expect to see you hike up your dress and jump behind the drums at Emos. When did you learn to play?
MILLER: I don’t know how to play drums! I just really love that jungle beat and it’s so much fun. The first time I got behind drums to play that, because Lisa usually played that part, but when we first started playing it she was more timid, and I’m kind of the more aggressive one so they put me behind the drums for that and just let me go. I don’t think I could be a drummer. I don’t know how I could do a whole set because I like to hit hard.
WOMANROCK: I know. I hit really hard when I play too and when you come out with a little too much enthusiasm, the energy can wane very quickly!
MILLER: I love hitting hard, but it’s hard work, so I don’t know about my career as a drummer, but for that one song it feels really good, especially if I’ve had a really difficult show. I can really hit the drums and get rid of that frustrated feeling of, “Oh, fuck” and get that out and end the show on a better feeling.
WOMANROCK: Blanche was essentially born in your living room. Everybody, as we just talked about in your case, just sort of jumped in on whatever instrument made sense that day. Can you talk about everyone opting to pick secondary or even brand new instruments?
MILLER: We have some great musicians in the band like Dave Feeny. He’s been in tons of bands, but he had never played pedal steel and Dan thought, for this band we really need a pedal steel player. Well Feeny’s hanging around. Let’s put him there. And Lisa’s played guitar, but had never drummed and he’s like, “Here you hit the drums, see what you can do.” Our first banjo player, Patch, never played any instruments. It was one of those things like truly, buy a banjo and don’t even learn. Maybe take a few lessons, but learn mostly on your on…We got Little Jack who’s an incredible musician as well but had never played banjo.
WOMANROCK: It’s a good think Dan really played guitar or you could have had a train wreck.
MILLER: Well the interesting thing is that Dan didn’t have that much experience playing guitar cause in Goober & The Peas he was the singer. So he had that struggle of being an entertainer, singing and playing guitar. For me, I had the struggle of somewhat knowing how to play bass, but I never took lessons and I guess I’m self taught which is probably pretty obvious. Then the singing, I honestly had never sung before. I didn’t even know how to sing Happy Birthday to tell you the truth.
WOMANROCK: Those sessions were either so much fun or, well you tell me?
MILLER: Sometimes after a bad show I used to have these fits. I’d be in tears as I’m walking off the stage cause the singing was so stressful and I was talking to someone from the label we have in England and he’s like, “Oh you really have gotten much better” and this and that and he’s seen the tears before. I told him, “The funny thing is I used to cry at practice.” I used to really be in tears in the basement practicing because it was so difficult for me to do. I really am so shy and singing is so personal and it’s got to be the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
WOMANROCK: I’m with you on that, but we couldn’t tell. While you were in Texas did you get to see some other bands?
MILLER: For me whenever I’m at a giant music festival I don’t see any bands. For our showcase I saw The Kills and The Raveonettes, and The Lashes. So we had a good night at Emos. The only other band I saw was Buck 65, which I really enjoyed. It was really inspiring. But everyone else in the band had their little schedules and they took off and stumbled back in at 3 a.m. For me, one of the last nights we were there I just ended up in a normal bar having drinks. It’s like a little vacation.
Origially posted on WomanRock.com April '05.
Blanche "Do You Trust Me" Video.
Blanche’s spooky, old country, American roots sounds on their latest CD, If We Can’t Trust The Doctors (V2) seem to wind around the mountains and settle at the bottom of your psyche. You may draw some Carter Family parallels for the band’s penchant in finding release and happiness in typically melancholy-seeming songs, but the brew is their own. Blanche’s scarred, darkly humorous lyrics demonstrated a twisted and compelling approach to storytelling at their Emos show at South By Southwest in Texas with pedal steel guitar, banjo, and Autoharp haunting the room. The vocal interplay between husband and wife Dan and Tracee Mae Miller was as mesmerizing live as was the band’s depression-era wardrobe and theatrics. What makes this band most peculiar, besides the fact that you feel you’re watching a traveling medicine show, is that all members play their secondary instruments. This is most fascinating when you realize several Blanche players are highly accomplished musicians on their primaries. Most recently good friend Jack White called on players Feeny, Little Jack Lawrence and Dan for contributions to Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose album. (In fact Tracee and Dan actually shared a band with White called Two-Star Tabernacle from 1997-1999).
Tracie Mae Miller talks to WomanRock about the band’s musical remedies for the forlorn and grief-stricken.
WOMANROCK: Finally seeing Blanche live was really exciting for me. You were much more theatrical than I expected. I know you’re a visual artist as well as a musician. Is the band’s look your doing?
MILLER: Well that’s the funny thing because everyone as you can tell from Feeny’s suit, to my dress, it’s all along the same lines, but everyone’s own interpretation. So I guess it’s one of those weird things where we all came together with similar tastes, but distinctly different too. I kind of came up with my look and I don’t know if that gave everyone else the freedom or the go ahead to do what they want to do, but I have a lot of fun with it.
WOMANROCK: I talked to you before about the interplay between you and your husband Dan as you answer each others’ vocals. Do you plan any of that drama before you hit the stage or just go with the music?
MILLER: It’s just go with it. Each night we play it’s completely different and I think for that night, well, it’s always a little high-pressure at SXSW cause you don’t get a sound check and you kind of get thrown up there, but that night was really interesting because I was really nervous, but there was such a good feeling on stage.
WOMANROCK: You’ve talked in the past about a sense for “nostalgia” and that Blanche has found a way to be true to your time, but keep your “attic intact.”
MILLER: I think the nostalgia part of the band comes from within. It’s not necessarily thought out. For Dan and I it’s a part of life. I’ve always been that way. It’s one of those things where the first record I put on my record player was Hank Williams and I started collecting antiques when I was a teenager. I think it’s so important to keep a hold of the past and keep that spirit alive. For me I guess it really is a way of life. It’s not like we think, “Okay, we’ll just get a bunch of old crap and put it on.” Even the house we live in, it’s almost like a museum, but then of course we have to have the coffee pot and the cell phones and the computer, so it’s not a complete gimmick of having to live completely in the past.
WOMANROCK: You’re all obviously big fans of old mountain and country music and I’m curious because I know you and Dan have been together a long time, did you both come into your relationship appreciating that music or did you influence one another? What do you listen to now?
MILLER: It’s funny because when we first met we thought, “God, that’s really strange that we have the same interest in that old country music.” …I get stuck in the past though as far as music goes. I have a hard time seeking out newer stuff, which is easier now being in a band because you get exposed. But the similarities were there. As far as what we listen to now, I’m pretty bad. I mean I can listen to a Ralph Stanley CD every day all day long and kind of wear it out and Dan buys more of a variety of music.
WOMANROCK: I’m trying to imagine those first conversations between you too. What were some of the bands you had in common where you were like, “No way, you listen to them too?”
MILLER: Well, it was Hank Willliams of course and Carter Family, but also Nick Cave. I love Nick Cave. The first time I saw Dan was the early 90’s. I went to see a Nick Cave concert in downtown Detroit, the first time I had taken my parents’ car and drove downtown. I forced a friend to go with me. We got there early and went in the front and Dan’s band Goober & The Peas was opening for Nick Cave. That was the first time I actually saw Dan and then I didn’t really meet him until maybe a year later. But it was pretty funny that he was opening up for one of my favorite performers.
WOMANROCK: A lot of If We Can’t Trust The Doctors is about trust and uncertainty. Can you talk about the life influences that helped shape the CD?
MILLER: A lot of that CD does revolve around superstition and trust because Dan and I both had somewhat of the same upbringing and experiences when it came to sicknesses in the family and hospitals and we both spent a lot of time as young adults in hospitals and both experienced death at young ages. Dan being the songwriter, I think he was really able to get some of that stuff out. It’s really difficult when you grow up with that to have an outlet. In the two previous bands he had, being Goober and the Peas and Two-Star Tabernacle, I don’t think he really got to dig into those subjects. This album really gave him a chance to exercise those thoughts and demons and get them into the open. It’s funny because a lot of those issues he had, I had the same ones.
WOMANROCK: Very much a cathartic experience.
MILLER: Yeah exactly. I guess it’s been eye-opening as well because you can harbor all those feelings and I think we were talking about superstition last time, where you actually become superstitious of your superstition. So if you don’t start having a sense of humor about it or acknowledging it, it can just grow and grow and grow and you can become cynical. It can just change your life in a really bad way. I think that the album gets it all out there. You realize that life goes on and you have to find hope and beautiful things that go along with the bad things in life. I think that’s really what the album’s about.
WOMANROCK: I know you just came into bass playing not that long ago, but I didn’t expect to see you hike up your dress and jump behind the drums at Emos. When did you learn to play?
MILLER: I don’t know how to play drums! I just really love that jungle beat and it’s so much fun. The first time I got behind drums to play that, because Lisa usually played that part, but when we first started playing it she was more timid, and I’m kind of the more aggressive one so they put me behind the drums for that and just let me go. I don’t think I could be a drummer. I don’t know how I could do a whole set because I like to hit hard.
WOMANROCK: I know. I hit really hard when I play too and when you come out with a little too much enthusiasm, the energy can wane very quickly!
MILLER: I love hitting hard, but it’s hard work, so I don’t know about my career as a drummer, but for that one song it feels really good, especially if I’ve had a really difficult show. I can really hit the drums and get rid of that frustrated feeling of, “Oh, fuck” and get that out and end the show on a better feeling.
WOMANROCK: Blanche was essentially born in your living room. Everybody, as we just talked about in your case, just sort of jumped in on whatever instrument made sense that day. Can you talk about everyone opting to pick secondary or even brand new instruments?
MILLER: We have some great musicians in the band like Dave Feeny. He’s been in tons of bands, but he had never played pedal steel and Dan thought, for this band we really need a pedal steel player. Well Feeny’s hanging around. Let’s put him there. And Lisa’s played guitar, but had never drummed and he’s like, “Here you hit the drums, see what you can do.” Our first banjo player, Patch, never played any instruments. It was one of those things like truly, buy a banjo and don’t even learn. Maybe take a few lessons, but learn mostly on your on…We got Little Jack who’s an incredible musician as well but had never played banjo.
WOMANROCK: It’s a good think Dan really played guitar or you could have had a train wreck.
MILLER: Well the interesting thing is that Dan didn’t have that much experience playing guitar cause in Goober & The Peas he was the singer. So he had that struggle of being an entertainer, singing and playing guitar. For me, I had the struggle of somewhat knowing how to play bass, but I never took lessons and I guess I’m self taught which is probably pretty obvious. Then the singing, I honestly had never sung before. I didn’t even know how to sing Happy Birthday to tell you the truth.
WOMANROCK: Those sessions were either so much fun or, well you tell me?
MILLER: Sometimes after a bad show I used to have these fits. I’d be in tears as I’m walking off the stage cause the singing was so stressful and I was talking to someone from the label we have in England and he’s like, “Oh you really have gotten much better” and this and that and he’s seen the tears before. I told him, “The funny thing is I used to cry at practice.” I used to really be in tears in the basement practicing because it was so difficult for me to do. I really am so shy and singing is so personal and it’s got to be the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
WOMANROCK: I’m with you on that, but we couldn’t tell. While you were in Texas did you get to see some other bands?
MILLER: For me whenever I’m at a giant music festival I don’t see any bands. For our showcase I saw The Kills and The Raveonettes, and The Lashes. So we had a good night at Emos. The only other band I saw was Buck 65, which I really enjoyed. It was really inspiring. But everyone else in the band had their little schedules and they took off and stumbled back in at 3 a.m. For me, one of the last nights we were there I just ended up in a normal bar having drinks. It’s like a little vacation.
Origially posted on WomanRock.com April '05.
Blanche "Do You Trust Me" Video.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment