(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

 

Lawrence Peryer: I lived in Carroll Gardens for about ten years at the beginning of this century. Spent a lot of time in Gowanus, raised my oldest son. We were Gowanus Dredgers—we would canoe in the canal.

Martin Bisi: Wow.

Lawrence: I'm not sure it was the most responsible thing to do as a parent, but we loved it. What's the news out of Gowanus these days?

I know you're an important voice in terms of advocating for the lifeblood of that community, and I'm curious what the state of things is right now.

Martin: Well, it's been a long trajectory. With the activist group that I'm in, Voice of Gowanus, and then also me just as a single voice. In the beginning it was raising awareness about what was being displaced, and a lot of the rezoning of Gowanus, shifting it away from industrial into fully residential. It's just fair game that people be aware of what's being displaced.

Especially since there was a lot of concern about the arts. The average resident in this area of Carroll Gardens, Park Slope in Brooklyn would say yes to preserving the arts, that the arts are very important to our community for us to have, and they want the arts to be present. So everything's shifted.

It's kind of become over-institutionalized. That's the way I think of it. The city plows all their resources into institutions that are actually pretty inaccessible. That's not very helpful. The city doesn't really grasp what it actually means for the arts. And also, oddly enough, music doesn't seem to be included in what they mean when they say the arts.

It's very strange. There's a group, Arts Gowanus. They conceded to me, yeah, we didn't think about music. The reality is also that we've come to last and worst, really, in terms of the environment—some of the plots of land that are last on the list for redevelopment. And it's where the poorest people will go.

The lowest incomes, the senior housing, and lots of units, like 900 residential units. And these are on the most contaminated sites in Gowanus. All of Gowanus really is contaminated, but to different degrees, and the reason I can say it pretty safely is that now we know how much groundwater has been moving things around. That's actually being discovered and investigated even as we speak. Even as they build, they're still discovering block by block.

And it's all kinds of industries, so it's different kinds of contamination. The latest thing we're aware of now is TCE, which seems like it comes just from dry cleaners, but that's neurodegenerative, and ounce per ounce, part per million, much more toxic than some of the carcinogenic stuff we were talking about before.

Now we're finally at the worst spot. They're still not redeveloped because they haven't even started, because it's so contaminated and there's a lot of controversy. So we're in that fight and it's the last thing, really, because in a way the battle has been lost. I guess that's like Sisyphus. I do enjoy the fight and feel it needs to be done.

And I have a healthy attitude, because I've realized that in a lot of cases there's a really long arc. So maybe it raises awareness about where our world is going—it's going to be very urbanized. There's a lot of money corruption too, because it's mixed interests.

There's political interests, there's developers, there's capital, there's profit. So it's very mixed. And there's a sense of, well, we need more housing. So it's a very difficult topic, and whatever is done needs to be done carefully. Of course I'm accused of wanting to slow up the process, but voices need to be heard and things should be deliberate and done as best as possible.

Lawrence: Your comment is really interesting, the institutional bias around it—if it's not some big organization, the grassroots organizations aren't necessarily taken into account. It feels like it's the same playbook every generation. You could go back to SoHo, you could go back to downtown, you could go back to Dumbo.

We have these neighborhoods that were once affordable to artists. The artists made it desirable, and then the money came in and the artists couldn't be there anymore. That rinse-repeat cycle is so important to the city, and we're kind of running out of places for it to happen.

Martin: Yeah. It just keeps going through that playbook.

For instance, a lot of the subsidized artist spaces—there's not enough of them, and there's gatekeepers. We're really in this gatekeeper zone. I'm not even sure that I could get into the building. Luckily I preceded the current ownership, and I preceded the gentrification era.

Because I'm in the same building I moved into in 1979, by miracle and dumb luck. I'm in the middle of the block, isolated from the street, so I can get away with sonic murder. The portion I'm in is like a separate building that's surrounded by air, so I can really get away with stuff.

In a little way, I'm a part of the art washing, in a sense. The building gets sweetheart deals from the city and all that. I'm not sure I could even get through the application process to get into my own building now, and certainly not have enough room and latitude to make music the way I am.

And I can see how they're subdividing my building with smaller and smaller and smaller artist spaces, like little cubicles. They're shoving it all in. That's really disturbing, this sort of gatekeeper situation. We know how toxic that was just from record labels. So when you can't even get a space, it all has to be developer friendly.

So that's the thing. It's got to look good on paper. Say if I wanted to do something overtly political, really—let's say the mayor, something like that—it wouldn't fly. There's a lot to be said about this loss of autonomy. That's a word that's been coming up a lot, urban autonomy.

I think when the economy was in the eighties or whatever, autonomy was possible. It almost took the system being on its knees for it to be something where artists could flourish. Just look at New York City in the early eighties, late seventies. It was considered a cultural capital of the world, of the western world.

You can't really say that now. Maybe it shouldn't be said now anyway, but at the time a lot came out of it, and a lot of that New York City is still banking on. I know people that immigrated to New York City based on the music scene. That's a big part of the branding of New York City. It's still a world where people think of Andy Warhol and punk, and think of postmodernism and stuff that came out of SoHo, Fluxus or whatever it was, and the beat poets.

This is part of this legacy, and it's funny that it's not really well managed. I'm not even sure a municipality can manage it very well. That's why we need a certain amount of autonomy. The thing that's come up lately is when I realized that some of these institutions—there's a place near me, Powerhouse Arts, where my group would sometimes do screenings or community meet and greets, and they were always like, we want to support the community.

We don't take sides. You're here, you're the voice. Shouldn't matter. Now we can't get in there for a year. Then it actually brought me back to the importance of bars. I might not want to always play in a bar. That might not be my first choice, but they're super important. Even if you look at it historically, across the world—in France, and then in the British Isles, the pub. Cabaret Voltaire, right?

In Zurich, that was a bar, basically. What's kind of funny is that the place over here near me, in what I guess they call Greenwood Heights now—they keep changing the names of the neighborhood.

Lawrence: If that's not a realtor's name, I don't know what is. (laughter)

Martin: Yeah, and it's actually not on the heights at all.

It's right near the water. You'll see notable names—Yo La Tengo played there, an unannounced show. There was a band with Sonic Youth members that played there because they didn't want the hassle and the big thing of a main venue. They wanted to do something that's maybe more of a side project, or presenting new material, and they want it to be low key.

So it's a bar. And those people played in that specific bar, called Mama Tried, also to support the bar. They would agree with me, they think that it's important. A bar near me, Lowlands—you think, oh, the jazz night. And it's like a little corner. It's pretty notable jazz players, for exactly the same reason.

They just want to play to the community as long as they're treated fairly, and they are. They'll be, you know, people that played with Ornette Coleman or something like that, for a Tuesday night in a bar.

Lawrence: Yeah.

Martin: Pass the bucket.

Lawrence: I like that little room.

Martin: Oh, you know Lowlands.

Lawrence: Yeah.

I've been out there to see Kevin Sun, a saxophone player who I've talked to here. He's a great saxophonist and a great composer. Really interesting young guy. I was back visiting home and he was playing one Monday or Tuesday night, and I was like, I'm going to Lowlands, I've heard enough about it. And it was a great experience.

Martin: Oh, so that's exactly what I was just talking about. Okay, cool.

Lawrence: Yeah, it was great. I'm going to assume a little bit that going out to Gowanus back in the day for you was a bit driven by necessity and space and cost and things of that nature. When did you start to be community minded, and was that always a part of who you were, or is that more evolved as your community has been under siege?

Martin: Thinking more specifically about community, and even talking about community, or even using terms like community outreach and that it's about community—all that kind of stuff developed in terms of being very intentional on my part. Because I grew up in New York City in the sixties, I remember it.

Bill Laswell was really the first that drew me into music, and that was starting in 1978. Before that I used to go to the West Village and go to the Yippie—the Abbie Hoffman zone, the Yippie clubhouse. So I was aware of radicalism and I was quite drawn to it. My favorite anarchist at the time was the Pieman, who was a Yippie.

He would go for a pie in the face of local politicians doing press conferences. Now of course that would be domestic terrorism. I used to love that guy, Pieman. That was a draw, of course, to what was going on in Tompkins Square Park, which extended into my time in Gowanus. There were the squats.

I used to love the squats, like ABC No Rio. And then there was C-Squat, which is still there on Avenue C. That hosted a lot of punk and hardcore shows at the time. So some of the hardcore bands that I would see that would come from Long Island, that would be the spot.

Until it became under siege.

I didn't quite understand why it was special. I think I was just drawn to the energy. I'm naturally not one for being ruled. How much ruling we need is a separate conversation, but I've never liked it. So people having autonomy, doing things on their own, was very attractive.

And it's interesting, because I was aware back then people would say, in Copenhagen there's Christiania. It's hard to imagine, because an extension of the squats in the Lower East Side were the gardens. These were abandoned lots that people would make into community gardens, and there were a lot of events, pretty great stuff.

People would say, there's Christiania in Copenhagen, and it's like a whole piece of land, a whole peninsula or something. I was aware that just in terms of size, the squats in Europe were much bigger. All the squats I just mentioned were small buildings. In Europe, there would be entire industrial complexes, similar in a way to the building I moved into, which is the old American Can Factory.

So it's kind of funny. I was never a squatter here, we always paid rent. There were squatters in the building that came and went. But I think because I paid rent, I was serious, and I invested in the building. Soon enough, after about a year and a half of being in the building, of shifting from maybe just having rehearsals with bands I knew—

Actually, oh, maybe we can record something. And then, oh, someone met Brian Eno and Brian Eno's interested. But I was always aware of the value of doing your own thing. Then it just came into sharper relief when things started becoming less affordable, because everyone had access. People all over town were doing stuff in Harlem.

There was the ballroom scene, which is documented in that film Paris Is Burning, and then there was of course hip hop in the South Bronx. Everyone had the autonomy to do stuff, so that was a wonderful thing to behold, with the benefit of great public transportation. That was a big thing.

Lawrence: Yeah.

Do you ever worry about your own health from living there, or from being down there so much?

Martin: Well, I've actually transitioned into that. I'm old enough that I've started worrying a little less, and I know this is bad. I used to be much more obsessed about my health when I was younger. I used to be like, chronic diseases lurking around every corner, and just more concerned about that.

My parents died when I was young. My mom died when I was twelve and my dad died when I was seventeen. So I was quite aware of mortality. And it's funny, I think part of it's just a bunch of privilege. I've got to say, I've lived a really good life and I'd like to keep going, but it's a little different.

When you're very young, you feel like I haven't even got to explore my ideas and to flourish. I haven't had a chance to experience the world and experience people and participate. Now I feel I've done those things. Not to sound terribly privileged, but it's made me a little less concerned about it. If I don't last that much longer, I'm still happy with my life.

As far as Gowanus, since I'm literally in the same space, I feel if it hasn't gotten me yet, it hasn't. Also, we test our building. Our building has been tested for indoor air, for all this toxic stuff, and they also test into the foundation of the building, sub-slab testing. So the building is tested.

We also know what the industry was, specifically for this building, and it wasn't an industry that created toxic stuff that we could be concerned with. But we are surrounded with such properties. So there's groundwater monitoring wells all around on the sidewalk. Those are important, because I try to raise awareness about groundwater.

It's amazing, this whole other world that's just papered over. We're a couple of yards away from big-time nature. It's tidal and it's rising, and that's how they keep tabs on the toxicity, and Gowanus is—maybe twice a year they test the groundwater in the sidewalk. So that's public.

Our eyes are on it, for sure.

Lawrence: Yeah, that's one of the beautiful things about Gowanus. When you go over there, it's wild, the way nature reclaims when something's left alone. The ground might be dirty, might be contaminated, but the nature is there. I find it such an intriguing place. It's really bizarre how the city meets the wild that way.

Martin: Yeah, and it gives you a sense that whatever we're doing on top of this is kind of ephemeral. It might not really last more than thirty more years. Just generally with New York City, what's happening to Gowanus is they're actually talking destination. So it's tourism. It's baffling.

Lawrence: I mean, you never would've guessed it about Dumbo, right? Thirty years ago you would've said there's going to be art galleries and rich people in Dumbo?

Martin: Yeah, of course. But at least if you look at the waterfront of Dumbo, at least you could say that, because there's Brooklyn Bridge Park with fantastic views.

Lawrence: Right, there's that.

Martin: And it's very dramatic. At least that's something. Gowanus, the Gowanus Canal—it's hard to put in that category of public space designed for tourism, really the tourism industry and all that comes with it. So for instance, there'll be bars or breweries and all that.

A lot of that stuff would be seasonal. That's why I'm not so enthusiastic about what they're calling the business improvement district. It's kind of hard to be against, because how can you be against business improvement? But the reality is it's not good for music and it's not good for music spaces, and it's not for us, and it's seasonal.

It's like the rezoning kind of continues in different facets, and it's not done. There are corners of Gowanus where you can still do autonomous stuff, where you can still play on the street even, and you can do installations in public space. Because a lot of the stuff that's going to ring the Gowanus Canal is not actually public space.

That's why I was saying that about gatekeepers. You can't just show up with a PA. You can do that on some of the street ends, and we have done that. Some street ends that are still industrial, or where they're still building these sewage retention tanks—that's still kind of feral.

So you can get away with setting up a PA and playing on the street or something like that around those places. It's kind of interesting, finding this sort of community. We've had a lot of displacement, so I'm really sad for some of the movements of these different genres, whether it's punk or jazz or whatever.

I think there was always a benefit of being near each other. So I'm not thrilled that people have moved to the Catskills, but on the other hand I have a show coming up in the Catskills in a couple of months, because it's now important to play there. If I want to reach the community, I'm going to have to rent the car and travel for three hours.

That's Brooklyn North at this point. We're pulling through, maybe not as powerfully as I think we should. I think a lot of this is genres. I'm not so into this post-genre thing. I recorded this band I'm super happy with called Genre Is Death, and here I am saying I like genres. But I think genres are akin to social movements.

They have their own looks, they have their own uniforms, if you will. They have their own values, they have their own language. Once you share in some of these burgeoning subgenres, once you share spaces with people, you can talk about certain things, the value of this or that, and you're on the same wavelength.

So I'm kind of into these things.

Lawrence: When I think about your body of work, when I think about the era of New York—you mentioned Laswell—you guys all strike me as, if I had to pick a genre, punk inspired. It's like taking the punk ethos into every other genre. If somebody said to me, describe the New York scene of the late seventies, early eighties.

What music scene was that? I couldn't really nail a genre. It was this group of people who came from art schools or the streets and everything in between, and all those influences together. You guys seem to represent post-genre.

Martin: Yeah. Well, thanks for that. But it's funny, because I did notice that a lot.

One thing that's kind of interesting is me personally as a recording engineer. If you were to think of my bio—I think once the digital era came around, there was more of an idea of having a proper bio on a website or somewhere. But for a while I actually thought of these things as different lanes.

And I didn't think that people would be very interested in the other lane, except musicians. So I was always aware that there was—and I actually thought that was really great. I love this place called Max Fish. Maybe you even remember it. It was on Ludlow Street on the Lower—

Lawrence: Lower East Side.

Martin: The Lower East Side, exactly. One thing that was crazy about that bar is that it was very brightly lit, and I always thought that was very interesting and unusual. For a bar, you think it's going to be dimly lit so everyone can hide from each other. And it was like walking into a high school cafeteria.

So you could see everyone that was there. It was all like this big table, so people had to sit communally. I used to think it was amazing how what mattered more at that particular bar was caring about music, whether it was musicians themselves or music advocates, as I sometimes call them, writers and stuff like that.

So it was a little bit like the Algonquin Round Table. I was always aware that there had to be some interconnectivity. So that's a given, for sure. But it did seem like when you organize a show, you really got to go with goth night, or it's going to be a metal show, or this has to be an overriding theme.

I'm really surprised there are people in my zone that don't like metal. I even know people who surprisingly say I don't like jazz. And then there's of course the narcissism of small differences. So I've been in this situation with mods in the Strokes era. I could be a little embarrassed about being kind of goth or something, and they would be like, oh, the goths.

The goths. And I've literally been in a bar where goth is not cool. I was in a bar with some friends that were kind of gothy. They were from Boston, Dresden Dolls kind of fans. And then some mods walk in and they go, oh god, mods. And in the seventies I used to be embarrassed. I used to literally not tell anyone that I was into prog, because that was just anathema to punk.

And even hardcore, which is supposed to be kind of—

Lawrence: Like Johnny Rotten with his I Hate Pink Floyd shirt. (laughter)

Martin: Yeah. And then I actually went to see Pink Floyd at Madison Square Garden. I remember the time I was hanging out with Hilly, the owner of CBGB. There was a restaurant nearby they used to like going to. It was kind of easy to grab a bite with them.

And on the way back there was this venue called Great Gildersleeves, which was busy. The best way I could put it at the time was that it was bands that were hoping they would be arena bands. So it was a lot of poofy hair. Poofy hair and spandex used to also cross genres.

There were punks at Max's Kansas City in spandex and stuff, New York Dolls kind of looks. CBGB was a little rough around the edges in terms of looks. So I remember with Hilly, I was like, oh, should we, like a guilty pleasure, go take a look in Great Gildersleeves at these arena-type bands that want to be like Yes or something.

And that was like a secret. I wasn't about to walk into the scene and go, hey, where'd you come from? I wasn't about to say that I came from there. But also I'm a recording engineer. I always felt like as a recording engineer, I really took full form. I always thought that it had to do a little bit with not being very specific to one of these things.

Lawrence: That's awesome.

Martin: That's why I looked so strange in the early eighties. Everyone talked about how I looked like a Native American, and I had a headband, and I used to have Elegua beads, and I took to an Argentinian gaucho belt. Anything but to actually look too specific. And then also in terms of going out, I used to like messing around.

I went to a goth kind of thing. I used to like throwing in a little mod. Or if I was going into a mod thing—yeah, okay, hey, I'm a little goth. So it's a weird mix. It's like a paradox, really. You need these things to be separate lanes. Nothing happens, nothing fertilizes, unless you get some cross fertilization.

It's funny, like dance music, club music and hip hop. I was kind of involved in both. I thought that they were a bit anathema, weirdly enough, even though they'd be played in the same spaces. I would do a lot of sessions, and there was a lot of hip hop sessions, and there would be people invited who would do programming or play a synthesizer or stuff like that. And there would be club music, or someone would be coming in, same thing.

And only one time—I thought it was a little odd, I was like, oh wow, there's this person that was in on this club session and here they are in a hip hop thing from the South Bronx. I thought, wow, weird. But it was kind of interesting. I remember there was an article that came out that a friend of mine made in Tape Op magazine.

And in that magazine he said, take a look at how this person's credits cross genre. And suddenly I felt like—not to be too careerist—but my whole thing jumped up a little peg, because it was important, and I didn't actually appreciate it being important, and I didn't understand that others would think it was important.

I thought it was just a little open secret amongst people in the East Village and Gowanus and SoHo. Yeah, I also do jazz sessions, recorded a couple of jazz records, and also, oh yeah, some hardcore comes in, but that doesn't really resemble no wave. I don't really talk about it, but it's also like an open secret thing.

But that's not something that felt like it was worth trumpeting. It took someone else trumpeting it—hey, take a look at this. Do you realize you people were doing hardcore, and that he also recorded "Rockit"? Herbie Hancock's "Rockit." I never thought that would be of interest. I just didn't see how that all connected. And it was, I guess, nice. Maybe we slowly were moving collectively toward more of a post-genre thing, where actually it took someone writing an article—hey, it's actually important that one person was involved in a bunch of different things.

Even if you look at documentaries, it'll usually be, you know, no wave, Lydia Lunch. Do we talk about how Lydia Lunch also likes jazz?

Lawrence: Yeah. It's easier to root the narrative when you take out some of those nuances or complexities. It's so much easier to just say this is this and this is that, and they're different things, and so we're going to talk about this.

I think it's something that musicians don't realize about fans, and that fans don't often realize about their favorite musicians, which is that both of those camps are music lovers and knowledgeable about music, and it doesn't stop and end for most people at just one section of the record store.

Maybe that's how you got in, maybe that was your gateway. But if you're nerds, like I'm going to assume we both are, you look at the credits and you say, oh, Martin was on—what else did he do? He was on that record. Now I've got to check out every record he was on. And then you just follow people in their journeys.

To me, that's been one of the most exciting things about being a music fan, and quite honestly about stumbling across the downtown scene. When I was younger, I didn't come into most of it until the late eighties, early nineties, so it was already feeling historical. But a lot of the crew that you worked with—

You could pick any one of those people and be exposed to a whole fascinating universe of music, and draw all these different connections. And then every once in a while there would be a connection that would reach out into the mainstream, and these massive hits, and you'd be like, holy shit, "Rockit."

What? That makes no sense. And then it would be something that was bubbling under, and not a lot of people knew about, and it was just like, that was the special thing. Only you knew. And it's one of the real joys of being a music head. It's just endless.

Martin: Yeah, I agree with you, and I've evolved or whatever, but I try to also remind people about the value.

Metal was much more about excess, and hardcore needed simplicity, to be more about energy. Metal had more excess. And then also it started becoming less democratic, because it started becoming more about a skillset. It was difficult. And then there was prog metal, and then you have a lot of people with music degrees playing metal.

The whole idea with hardcore was, it's supposed to be a little more democratic. Hip hop and hardcore were ones that really came out of a reservoir of disaffected youth culture in a way that the other genres didn't. The others were people coming to New York and supporting the arts or whatever, and these other ones were like underclass.

You had hardcore, which was underclass, Long Island working class. Same with the South Bronx. That gave them their power. It's interesting how, like Sonic Youth—there's a name. Sonic Youth is a nod to hardcore, right? You have Reagan Youth and Youth of Today and Cult of Youth.

Lawrence: It's a very punk name.

Martin: Right. So it was a nod specifically to hardcore. And I think a lot of people felt that, even John Zorn. There was Spy vs. Spy, which is the Ornette cover record, and in the back it says something like, along with the Tokyo, London, New York hardcore triangle. I might have a city wrong in there, but something like that.

Him doing Ornette covers with an upright bass, but somehow feeling some affinity to hardcore music. And the same thing with hip hop. That's why Sonic Youth came to me. I think maybe they knew a little more and figured, well, I also worked with experimental music, and they probably knew a little bit more about me. But that's what they told people, we're going to court a hip hop producer. Even the record I worked on, which was not here, was Helmet's Betty.

The reason I got asked to work on that was because the guitar recording was botched, because they got a hip hop producer, went to a recording studio that never recorded any rock music or guitars, and Helmet insisted that their record was about rhythm, that it wasn't about making a rock record. Of course they're always referencing Coltrane and stuff like that. So the recording was totally botched, at least for one of the two players.

Not Page, but the other person. So I had to rerecord all of that person's guitars. I'm in the studio, and then the assistant says, wow, it's so great to finally have some rock in here. And I'm like, well, that's why the guitar recording was botched. So everyone trying to carve out this niche and self-define, it's a weird mess.

And I'm sorry to be part of that mess. But like I said, I was sort of anti-metal, pro-hardcore in that zone. Now I've had to come around to understand that the hybrid between metal and hardcore happened a long, long time ago. It's sort of one umbrella with two little branches. These genres emerge from a pride for identity in these small communities, sometimes from underclass people. They wanted to stake out their thing.

That was the thing with hardcore and hip hop—they tried not to be that influenced. They really were doing their own thing. It took years for hip hop to blend with other genres. It started very purist. Actually, what was fascinating about hip hop to me was how informed and educated a lot of those people were about other genres.

Specifically jazz. DST, who did the scratching, the turntablist on "Rockit," was a jazz drummer. You could talk to him about soul and jazz. Does any of that stuff sound like jazz? Nope. But he was aware. He was part of an African American history.

Lawrence: I want to ask you some questions about the new record. This seems to be a reflection of your concerns about art and politics and democracy and the state of all of the above. There's a lot of elements of the record I'm curious about. One is the vocal delivery. There seem to be some really specific choices, whether it's speaking style, almost ranting—the lyrics seem to dictate a need to rant.

I guess there's no other way to say it. There's an energy here, the lyrics and the delivery. Can you talk a little bit about the lyrical content of the record, your specific collaborators, and then maybe we could talk about some of the choices of the delivery?

Martin: Yeah. About half the record, the lyrics were written by Nora Almeida.

She's a local Gowanus urban activist and performance artist, but we did a lot of street political theater. For instance, an interesting thing we did was Cafe Rezone, where we took a table out next to the Gowanus Canal where people would be passing by, and we'd have a few people play-acting as rich, aloof diners.

Then we'd have menus. I'd be the toxic waiter serving up, and I'm not very good with words. It actually took someone in our group to write out the menu, which was quite brilliant, of toxic entrées and toxic desserts. Of course, black mayo, this or that.

Three-eyed fish, Westchester speculator stew, all this kind of stuff, and then try to slip in some education about the municipal processes that were happening around us with land use. That was the essence of our collaboration. I didn't really realize that she was a poet, but then she had some of the views from her window, and there was an image of a woman unpacking in a kitchen, right?

A U-Haul. There was a U-Haul storage, and Nora could see this from her window. She goes, oh, I call her my U-Haul girl. So this sort of ironic twist of finding this beauty of this statement on something that's just like a storage building. And I said, oh, that almost sounds like it could be a song.

And then she says, well, from my window, I wrote a song about the CubeSmart. CubeSmart being a big, massive building with cubicles for all the new residents of gentrified Gowanus. And she goes, I have this thing called "CubeSmart Sunset," because that particular CubeSmart really overlooks the canal.

It's like this monolith. She gave me that poem, so I moved some of the words around, I repeated some words, and then I was like, wow, this is great. I was experiencing some writer's block. I was like, this is fantastic. It's my view also. It's like two blocks from me to see the view. And then there was stuff in there talking about the toxicity, the canal, and like the new buildings rise, like toxic people.

So even the buildings themselves are part of the toxicity of Gowanus. There's a lot to unpack there. A lot of it became political, because she was thinking of me, she was writing for me, and then she and I were having these endless conversations about anarchism and about bureaucracy. So all this stuff, she really brought it into this poetry.

And so there's one thing in "Solace for Dollars," which was like the beautiful anarchist something or other, and then bureaucrats are traitors. And then there was some innocuous stuff that was just fantastic, where a simple phrase sometimes makes a song. A slow drumbeat is a heartbeat.

That was in one of her things. "CubeSmart Sunset," that's her title, she wrote the whole thing. Some of the other songs, I just had a title but no words. So for instance, on the one that became "Dancing on the Power Lines," the title was "Sparrow Dive." And then interestingly enough, there's this person that was sort of part of my New York City–based band, Joan Hacker.

And I thought she was going to do synth, because she's a synth player, and instead she gave me back a bunch of singing, and some of it was really nice and I liked her voice on it. So, "Dancing on the Power Lines." And then my initial title was "Sparrow Dive." So Nora rolled with that—but one sparrow, one hawk, a gentle bird and a predatory bird.

And then put them on power lines. And that was a double entendre of our lives dancing on the power lines. And at that point I was sort of coming to terms with the idea of celebration, because I had never really made very celebratory music—fun and dancing as defiance, kind of sticking it in their face. So that song, I was like, okay: "Dancing on the Power Lines." A slow drumbeat is a heartbeat.

So that was the whole thing. Also "Solace for Dollars"—there was that song.

Lawrence: Mm-hmm.

Martin: That was my title, but then she rolled with the title. So in a way, except for "CubeSmart Sunset," she rolled on the titles, like "Off the Cliff." It's interesting how, for stuff that people think of as very prosaic, which is political concerns, right?

In fact, even municipal concerns, flooding, sewage retention tanks—there could be art in that. It's kind of amazing, really. In some of her lyrics or little bits that have anger, just one line: fuck them all.

But there was one thing that was in "Solace for Dollars" that was like a rant that puts me back in my bedroom, surrounded by the failed state, and there being migrants under my window trying to cross the river or something crazy.

That one I just did. I was like, I'm going to do one take, even if I run out of breath, and ramp it up to a frenzy and to anger. But it was interesting how there had to be anger dwelling there. That's a super important emotion to me, because I think that's the most taboo emotion of all, and that's the only place it can really be socially acceptable to put it.

Like even there, I think I say fuck them all. I'm telling the bureaucrats, like, fuck them all. But try doing that at a public hearing.

They're going to be calling security, and they're going to have a bunch of bruisers there with guns sort of hovering near you.

Lawrence: Disappearing you. (laughter)

Martin: So it's taboo. And I've been in public meetings where I've realized that there were emotions expressed that people could really take advantage of. Like if they loved something that was against the Whole Foods, people would be coming in advocating, saying they loved Whole Foods. And I was like, wow, I hate Whole Foods, but that hatred is taboo, or I'm angry, it's taboo, so I'm at a disadvantage.

Because I can't find any way to express that anger that's socially acceptable. I'm not very angry emotionally. I don't have an anger management issue. It's an intellectual anger, but I do think it's something to express. I do care about expressing the emotions tied to the intellectual concept that brings us the anger.

On some of it, specifically on "Dancing on the Power Lines," I sound kind of cranky. I sound like, ah, dancing on that power line, you know. That's kind of on purpose. I didn't want to be too sweet, not too angry, not just talking. I felt like it should have personality, not something that's too concerned with being in tune.

I took on a cranky persona, but it's still me. Imagine me without having had my coffee and maybe DJing. I kind of felt like a cranky DJ that doesn't have a great voice.

Lawrence: That's so funny.

Martin: I really love voice, in terms of recording voice. That puts me a little bit at odds with the John Zorn world, where he was kind of into instrumental music.

And it's funny, because I think it's instruments that drew me to music. It's not so much voice. Voice is a part of it. And I also like some of it—like Frank Zappa, I liked some of his humor and stuff, but it was really about the players. I like Terry Bozzio on drums, and I like Jimi Hendrix.

So it's about the instruments, really. In the end, I've actually surprised myself how much I really enjoy working with voice. So for instance, vocal comping, where you pick pieces from different takes of vocalists—love that process. I love thinking about voice. So even with myself, that's why inevitably on this record there is the occasional thing that might sound like a hook.

There are some harmonies, because I like that zone, so I slip them in where I can. The one thing I did with Iggy Pop was a record that was produced by Bill Laswell. Because Laswell, once he became too big for his britches, once he became too big for Gowanus, he would still occasionally come back to the studio, because he's almost an alchemist.

He liked to get some of the dirt, get some of the grit, hoping some toxicity would just sort of sprinkle onto the recording. So he would record something with me. There was the Ramones, and then the Iggy Pop record Instinct. So I recorded, I guess, like all the vocals, a lot of comping.

He had no patience for it, so he would sing a song three times and would actually name the takes different things. He would point to the track sheet, and I'd write it down. I go, okay, I'm writing out "Juve." That was a word that he wanted, Juve as in juvenile. And then that was kind of more crooner, and that was some other characterization.

So he would do like three or four takes, then he goes, okay, have fun. So we would have to figure out, do we start juvenile, or do we build to juvenile, or was juvenile just for the choruses, is crooner just for the bridge? Stuff like that. Anyway, so that's why there's generally a lot of vocal work, I guess, on Dancing on the Power Lines, on the album.

Lawrence: I was curious about remote recording and bringing in people's work from different geographies, especially as an engineer. It implies to me that you're giving up some control, because you can't control the environment as precisely. Maybe you could dictate some settings or something. What are you giving up by choosing those people, even when there might be other musicians nearby where you could control the whole process? What's going on there with the use of specific people, and do you perceive it as a trade-off, having to let people record remotely?

Martin: Yeah, it's definitely a trade-off. I generally don't like it. I would much rather say on my new record that everyone was here recording. Thankfully the drummer was, and that's the launchpad for the record. He was coming to New York. He was like, it'd be nice to record in a month. So I'd like, hurry up and get together some guitar loops.

That's what I thought would be the best approach, rather than us playing—you could just play the guitar loops. So I created them, still all done here. He was here, present. The lyrics with Nora involved knowing each other and meeting in a bar and talking about stuff, and then her coming here and helping me rearrange things.

So Diego Ferri on the record, he did his stuff in Berlin. Even though, as much as I say I don't like recording remotely—I think people sometimes organize entire projects over remote work. That's a bridge I don't want to cross. I think that's too much, and I don't want to do that. I'm still a little guilty of it. Sometimes there's relationships, like the bass player that knows the drummer, so maybe they should do it, even if it's going to be remote, rather than get someone here who doesn't know the drummer.

Same with remote mixing, which I don't like doing, but occasionally I do it, and I learn also what I don't like about it. With remote mixing, I find both parties settle. That's what I don't like. So for instance, there's a point where people are trying to explain something to me and I get kind of in the ballpark and they'll settle.

They go, okay, I think we're good. And then the same happens the other way around. It seems logical—if I'm going to send a mix to people, I'm going to want to send them something that they'll like, that it's more likely that they'll like. That's kind of settling. Because what really should happen is I take a second and I say, look, I've got an idea.

Maybe I'll do some crazy panning, or pan something, or just a vocal effect. It's worth me exploring this, and even if I think it's got a small chance, even if I think they're likely not going to like it, it's still worth trying, especially if it's not going to take long. With remote mixing, especially when people are in different time zones—

It's crazy. There's no way to do that. And some of the new technology that people have, of being able to share a screen and all this stuff—I still don't think that really cuts it. I think there's the sort of settling thing.

Lawrence: Mm.

Martin: And also, if people share the same screen, they have to have the same program.

None of that works. Sometimes I do enjoy mixing stuff that was recorded somewhere else, but it's never as good, and it's always a matter of trying to get into the other engineer's head—why things are the way they are and why they think it was okay, because in some ways it's not the way I would've done it.

It's all very difficult. I try to make a rule generally that I don't record out-of-town artists, and it's a little sad sometimes. Sometimes it's even someone that used to live in New York. But the process is going to be rushed. I do like working on the whole project, so I do like working front to end.

I think it turns out better. It does not save time, really, for people to do a lot of stuff at home. They think it might save time, and it's not as good, and I'm not as connected to it. When people are doing something here in front of me, even though there's not a lot of deliberation, I get it. There's another way of communicating that happens.

And I also think about building community. A lot of these institutions that get money here in New York City, a lot of it goes to international artists. Okay, to some extent maybe that's necessary, but in getting public monies, you should support local Brooklyn artists. There was a thing up here in Prospect Park called Celebrate Brooklyn.

I looked at the website, it was mostly international artists. Okay, I guess people in Brooklyn want to see those artists and it's being funded, but ultimately I hope there's some openers. I hope support slots for Brooklyn artists, so at least they're getting something out of it. So I think also for that reason, I have the largesse of this all-arts building that I'm in, in Gowanus, that I should support.

And so I'm more interested—and it's just the reality of the way my brain works—I'm more interested in what someone is doing down the street. That's why I'm kind of New York centric, I think, even in my knowledge. People say, how do you not know this band? I'm like, well, I don't know where they're from.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm not that familiar. But ask me about New York and I'm very familiar, because I have a responsibility in a way to know about what people are doing three blocks away. I just have to. I have no choice. I have to be aware if it's worthy of support, and generally it kind of is. I have a low bar for that.

It doesn't need to be the most amazing frigging thing. People put a lot of effort into it and they put themselves into it.

Lawrence: Yeah.

Martin: I'm going to support it. Just basic stuff.

Lawrence: Yeah. It's funny when you said Celebrate Brooklyn, because I remember years ago thinking, is it we're celebrating Brooklyn, or is it a command?

Celebrate Brooklyn, and we're going to bring in bands from around the world so Brooklyn can celebrate. Or are we going to bring in Brooklyn bands so we could celebrate Brooklyn? It seems like you're answering that question for me. It's a command to Brooklyn to celebrate.

Martin: Yeah, I've got to say, I went to Powerhouse Arts and they were calling it Powerhouse International. Pussy Riot played a few months ago. There was an opener, a large Brooklyn band that didn't really sound like Pussy Riot, and it was a little more jazzy. I thought they were fantastic, and they were all Brooklyn artists. It didn't even cross my mind that it was a little odd that there's an international artist here that's funded by New York, by grants, by New York State, New York City.

That didn't even cross my mind, because there was an opener, and I thought, good for them. And then I went to see another international artist like two weeks later, and I'm not going to mention them. There was a touring artist and they had someone that was also not from New York, and it rubbed me a little bit the wrong way.

I guess people have to have their package tours. But it rubbed me a little the wrong way that there was literally nothing for any Brooklyn artists or New York City artists.

Lawrence: Yeah.

Martin: It didn't cross my mind in a situation where there was local support. It crossed my mind where there was no local support. There was nothing for us, actually, the community that was around me, because it was actually a popular show.

So I'm looking around, it's like, oh, there's nothing for us.

I went to see this Glenn Branca Symphony No. 13 with the hundred guitars in Lincoln Center. That's definitely funded. I think even Mamdani, our mayor, said something about it, see what we can do. And I was like, okay, this is really amazing.

And there were so many people from bands I hadn't recorded, I hadn't even talked to. People were like, you remember me? We recorded at your place in 1987. I'm like, oh yeah. Like endless. Like dozens, dozens, like a hundred guitars. So many people crossed through BC Studio that there were some people who were, of course, actually from the Glenn Branca era. A lot of people actually filtered through my studio.

And that was kind of nice. It occurred to me a little later. I was like, oh wow, nice to have been there and to have been accessible to a lot of people. I'm embarrassed at all the people I've forgotten. It's crazy. I think the bands and artists that I am compelled to speak about more, I remember, and I remember the sessions more, but all kinds of stuff is gone.

So my apologies to the universe for not remembering everything. (laughter)

Lawrence: You're forgiven, I think. I don't speak for the universe, but I speak for this little sliver. Martin, thank you so much, man. Thank you for making time. Thank you for all the music. Thanks for reconnecting me with Brooklyn. It's great to talk to you.

Martin: Great to talk to you, Lawrence. Awesome. Thanks for giving me the platform to communicate with all your listeners.