Distort X Eddy Current Suppression Ring II
Another walk down memory lane, from the Distort Archives, on their RUSH TO RELAX LP
This interview with Mikey from Eddy Current Suppression Ring is from Distort #37 (2009), published today to celebrate their brand new single. You can read about and listen to the new record in my post from earlier today here.
From the original intro:
Rush To Relax came together with a fluidity that was a privilege to witness. A curse to convey in print. What a band. The UV Race played two of the launch shows, one in Tasmania, and one in Melbourne in front of the biggest audience we’d played to. E.C.S.R. played in front of thousands, thousands of exhilarated people, a seamless set. These were two of my favourite shows. Playing with E.C.S.R. meant playing to an unpredictable audience.
The photo on the cover of the record is the subject of my enquiry here. I have pointed this one out to a few people who have not noticed that the band name was actually on a sign being pulled by a plane, and I wonder how many more have not looked at the photo with the same kind of incredulity that I did when it was first presented to me. Despite my close proximity to ground zero, I am still constantly amazed at details like this that will ensure this band retains the same power they had when we first saw them kicking out Pagans covers in nightclubs for young, hip types. The power to amaze. An exceedingly rare quality.
I asked Mikey a couple of questions about the photo, because he expressed a couple of times the sentiment that it was a very, very important moment for the band.
If ECSR had any kind of consistency in the aesthetic, it would be that there was absolutely NO consistency between singles, but the first two LPs had a mutually abstract quality. Could you talk a little about the covers of the first couple of LPs?
Could be a little be of laziness but mainly I just wanted our records to say nothing about us. I didn't want any kind of image to be present when people first heard the records. Certain artwork and press shots always seem to formulate an idea you have of bands whether you want it to or not and with our band, at that stage especially, I wanted our actions and people's reactions to be as untainted as possible
Opting for a posed band photo for the Rush To Relax is an interesting decision - most band photos I've seen were pretty spontaneous. The dressing gowns are an obvious nod to the record title, but the masks?
I think we just wanted it to be creepy. The idea evolved from the ‘Rush to Relax’ film clip idea which was meant to be kind of a bummer spin on the ‘Which Way To Go’ filmclip. I imagined like a vacation version of those early Devo Super 8 clips like Secret Agent Man. Kinda eerie and depressing. So the masks are probably half stolen from Devo. The second reason would have been to allow ourselves a cover shot but not succumb fully to the band photo thing
Could you first explain a little about the significance of the setting for the photo - when we spoke about it you mentioned you used to watch planes fly overhead advertising for Peters Icecream at the beach?
Yeah man remember sitting down Frankston beach as a real youngster and seeing those kind of advertisements go by and they seemed so magical to me. It just seemed so out of reach of possibility at the time, like seeing the Goodyear blimp or something. Being in this band has allowed me to live out some boyhood dreams. It has been a real privilege, nice to have one of those dreams so well captured.
You confided in me that this day was a highlight of your illustrious career. Could you talk a little about how it felt watching the plane flying in?
Oh man. It was crazy. It flew in from the Mornington Peninsula so it took a while. Danny got a text from a buddy down that way about 15 minutes before saying 'nice plane dudes'. We hadn’t told anyone. He saw it flying while he was driving his car.
About 10 minutes later someone yelled out “there it is!”, and sure enough, it appeared in the distance getting closer and closer and as soon as we could read it we were all jumping up and down. We had a friend of Brendan's with a CB communicating with the Pilot and he did about 10 loops for us for the photo continually getting lower and lower for us. He got in trouble by the controllers at Avalon for flying below limits but he was cool. A renegade pilot! Then he just flew away. I paid him by check in the mail so I never got to meet him.
We talked about getting the sign but they reuse the letters for more signs.
Often when I show people the record, they don't notice the sign is attached to the plane and is not digitally imposed. Have you had to explain it to anyone?
Sometimes. I try never to.
If people miss out or think it is a Photoshop job, it does nothing to diminish the satisfaction I felt from doing it.