A.Cave #5 — VICTORY OVER TIME

Part Two of a talk with Jim McHugh [The P.I.T. - Sunwatchers - Eugene Chadbourne - Arthur Doyle - Dark Meat]

Check out Part One here.

Why did you leave the groovy, sleepy bohemian burg of Athens, Georgia?

It was just time. Athens got smaller by the week after a certain point. I was fucking fried from Dark Meat. I was in debt financially. Dark Meat would do these cross-country tours and play like fucking Fort Wayne. Here's a funny story: I would do shit research about wherever we're going to play, to try to find out some kind of shit on my flip phone. For some reason, well, not “for some reason,” because it's funny, I decided to refer to Fort Wayne as the birthplace of the Wayans family and that it was named after their great-grandfather and that Damon and Keenan-Ivory and Kim and Marlon were all still around. So that's all I talked about between songs that night at this fucking show in some fucking terrible bar. The band was dying laughing, cuz I didn't tell them I was gonna do that and everyone was calling it “Fort Wayans.” After the show, a bunch of racist crust punks were like—They're not fucking from here, and tried to fight me about it. 

Like you never watched In Living Color?

Or White Chicks?

Fort Wayne should be so fucking lucky. So Dark Meat breaks up. Is this when you moved to New York? 

I moved to New York in 2009. I was playing with this band Nymph. Me, Jason and Jeff all joined Nymph. Jason played drums in Dark Meat, and Jeff was also in Dark Meat. I loved Nymph. We would always play with Nymph when we were on tour. They were gonna record a new record and they needed a new rhythm section. So I played bass and Jason played drums and then it evolved from there. I ended up playing guitar on that record that came out on Northern Spy. 

That's when we started playing with Arthur Doyle. Nymph expanded, and what would become Sunwatchers, was Arthur's band. We learned his songs, but playing with Arthur was dealing with Arthur. We played at The Stone, we played at the old Issue Project Room.

How old is he at this point? 

He was 68-69. It was right before he died [in 2014]. I remember having arguments with Matty, cuz Matty's guitar sound was really loud and abrasive. I mean, I've been accused of that too. But Arthur had an oxygen tank, he's older. I was like—Yo, let's play out of the small amp. Before we play with this guy, let's figure out what we're gonna do. A lot of wheel-spinning that turned out to be unnecessary. The first time I met Arthur, we go down to our subterranean practice room on South 11th. 

The same one Golden Error used to practice at.

I was on my knees setting up my pedals. Arthur is putting his horn together, sitting in the chair about four or five feet away. He gets his horn put together with his oxygen tank next to him. Then he blows a note, basically pointed at the crown of my head, and it’s the loudest, most fucked-up sound. It moved me backwards like three feet. I was like—Oh, never mind. We don't have to worry about volume. 

Wow. 

It was impressive in the most fundamental way, like fucking hell. It gave me whiplash, the acoustic sound. It made me think about that story about Albert Ayler, where he had to put a sock in his horn or he would crack the ceiling where he was practicing. 

I never heard that one. Is that where the phrase comes from?

We played two shows with Arthur and did several rehearsals. It was like a classic Arthur thing where you'd be like, after the show—What was that second to last piece we did? He'd be like—Oh, that’s “My Funny Valentine.” Like—Oh, OK. 

Tell me about the album you made as His Quiet Screamers.

The record came out on Amish Records. The first show we did at Issue Project Room was a perfect failure storm, technological failure storm. They recorded everything to Pro Tools off the board. The laptop crashed, was recovered and then stolen. We had an iPhone recording of it and I was like—That can't be the only thing that we have. That can't be the only document. So we booked another show about a year later at the Stone and recorded it. We did a whole other set, but then that recording had some problems. Producing that record took a lot of effort. The mix itself was like a jazz concept because you just get the levels, get the EQ and have it be whatever it is, you know. But there were gaps in the recording where the program would stop for a second. There was somebody making a documentary about Arthur at that point, so we took the camera audio and spliced it in. It took forever to produce. The album came out in 2016, after Arthur was dead. The bonus download with the LP is the iPhone recording. I feel like that's kind of an instructive example though because we were like, due to this frustrating failure, let's just do it again. And it ended up being a profound experience because playing with Arthur was profound musically and otherwise.

Would he talk to you guys at all, or was it just like—Let’s play.

He would talk some. But another instructive example was you'd be like—Arthur, what key is this? He’d be like—Ain't no key, it's free. Then you freak out, but then you’d be like—Oh, it's in fucking B flat and then you'd play it at the show, the same piece, but it would be in a different key. But still just as committed, it wasn't like an accident. You basically had to hold on tight and just listen.

And this turned into Sunwatchers?

Yeah. Sunwatchers started, we were doing Arthur Doyle material. I was playing the Thai instrument called a phin. I joined Drunken Foreigner Band which was like a band that made the music of Northern Thailand in a loud style. I got that instrument in time to join this band that was already existing. There's this band of friends and acquaintances that already make this music. I'm gonna join because I got this instrument I need to learn. That's the kind of thing that would never happen in Athens. Certainly not in Greensboro. 

What was the line-up when Sunwatchers started?

We were largely nebulous. At first, it was on purpose. It would be whatever—droning, some songs, Henry Flynt music. Henry Flynt from Greensboro, North Carolina. He'd be another example of a fucking hardass committed leftist from Greensboro. Awesome musician, obviously. The bass player at that point was Dave Harrington. He's a great guy. He was playing upright bass and other shit. He's been around, he's cool. He's been around a different realm of music. A little less rock. Brandon Lopez would play with us. Then Peter Kerlin joined the band. I think we played with his octet and he joined. Again, support and encouragement. I sent it to Dwyer. “Here’s my new band.” He's like—I'm putting this out. Classic Dwyer. 

We were like, fucking awesome, you know, that's our first record on Castle Face. So that gave us the support and aggrandizement and encouragement. Now we're a fucking band and we're going to tour a lot and do what we can. We played with Brigid Dawson from Oh Sees. We were her band. 

Dwyer’s got yer back.

Man, I love him. He's got the highest money-to-mouth quotient of almost anybody I've ever known in underground music. Generally, if he says he's gonna do something, he does it, and he's incredibly supportive of the people that he loves and the people he believes in and incredibly honest. I mean, he even likes being honest. 

Sunwatchers were really used to working together, obviously. Doing shit, organizing, being on the road. We just started touring. Then we signed to Trouble In Mind. They're great. My experience is deeply predisposed to hating record label scum, not only my experience with Vice, but just like what are middlemen managers. I love Trouble In Mind, they're like a family business in the classic sense. Our most recent record is our fifth studio record and the fourth for Trouble In Mind. I never thought I would have a record label I'm associated with put out four records. So I’ve gotta give a lot of props to them.

Sunwatchers also made a double album with your old friend Doc Chadbourne.

Me and him also did a duo record for PPM. The double LP was the first time we played together and is classic Eugene—Minutemen songs. Here's the thing: in my mind, Eugene could have, and maybe should have been, the Ed fROMOHIO figure. This is Eugene's story, maybe he should tell it. But I know it because Watt does vocals on the record that Sunwatchers did with Eugene. And the connection was because they've been knowing each other and playing with each other since the mid-’80s. On one of his records that's on Placebo, the JFA label to bring it around again. Because he played with Sun City Girls. It's crazy, the connections. I found this JFA CD when I was 14 and ended up playing with Eugene who had a record on the same label. But that’s not coincidence, because that shit's in North Carolina for a reason. But I doubt the JFA CD fell out of Eugene's car, because I don't know why he'd have been in Reidsville. Eugene played the “The Price of Paradise” as a folk song on one of his live Placebo LPs [1987’s Kill Eugene], which is why our record opens with that. So Watt heard that cover back then [in 1987]. So he asked Eugene to play this festival in San Pedro and said we'll play with you. So—classic Eugene—he showed up the day of and walked backstage with his guitar and was like—What are we doing? And they were like—Well, you're playing solo. He was like—I thought we were playing. This is their first idea of improvised music on the spot which they do quite a bit now, Hurley and Watt. But they're like—We can't do that. Eugene told me that Watt was like—Without practicing, that's like jerking off. And Eugene goes—Or it's like sex with someone you love. In my mind, that's like an alternate reality where they keep doing that with Eugene. We put out the double LP with Eugene on Amish, all songs by Minutemen, Henry Flynt and Doug Sahm. 

Do you wanna talk about the band ending? 

Yeah, I mean, this is our last record. We haven't really mentioned it, because our new record came out and we weren't touring on it. It's personal stuff, and also, because when you've been playing with people for almost 20 years, it's bound to happen. Because I have to be dedicated to P.I.T., I really don't have time. It takes commitment from anybody I'm collaborating with. They're gonna have to be amenable to working around my temporal needs because I really have one day a week to practice, for example. And so I get it, those guys are doing other shit. They can't really do that. Frustrating. Sad. 

You’ve got more hoops in the fire, I assume.

I have a solo thing that I'm finishing. Home-recorded crazy shit and also country music and fingerstyle guitar songs I wrote. I'm mostly excited about the album art which is done by the great radical Puerto Rican woodcut artist John Vasquez Mejias, who also did the P.I.T. logo. He's a public high school teacher in the South Bronx. The best-selling thing at P.I.T. is his graphic novel The Puerto Rican War which is the history of the revolution in Puerto Rico and independence movement in the 1950s, told completely in woodcut. The amount of work it took to make it is incredible and it's also an insanely beautiful thing. The P.I.T. is in a Puerto Rican neighborhood. My neighbors were in the Young Lords, it's amazing.

How long has the P.I.T. been in existence now?

It opened on February 2nd, 2022. My feeling about it being on Groundhog Day is it’s my oldest brother's birthday. But also the whole thing about Groundhog Day, that fucking stupid ass movie, being repetition. This is the thing about shattering that repetition. Certainly, for me, it shattered repetition, because I had to remake my whole life around it. Starting an anarchist community space funded mostly by sales of books and records takes a lot of effort. 

Tell me how you secured the space.

I lived next door on Hewes and S. 4th for 14 years. It was our laundromat. The elderly Chinese couple that owned it retired from running the laundromat and it sat empty for five years. Across the street is this Hasidic school, so it's zoned; it can never be a bar which is all any asshole wants to fucking open. It's actually two spaces, next to it is the garage space. It's an incredibly manageable rent for how big it is. We have a collectivized approach to rent because we sublease the garage to a mutual aid organization called Come Forever. There's the radical archiving group called XFR Collective that pays rent and works in the P.I.T. It's anomalous because of the zoning because of the area. Our block association is pretty much a radical cadre.  

What is the block association? Do they approve? 

They approve businesses. So they're gonna be supportive of a radical space moving in. When somebody tried to open a bar in the space, they needed petitions and it wasn't gonna happen. We also throw the block party together, which is awesome. P.I.T. books the DJs and the live music. We deal with very specific community stuff on our block. But they already knew me. We had meetings for the block association in P.I.T. It's a natural engagement, organic engagement. But it's an anomalous thing because I knew the landlords. I knew the space was empty. 2020 happened. Sunwatchers had a new record come out. We had five tours canceled. I needed to find a new way to engage with the community, using art, music and political action to benefit people's lives materially. Finding the space was part of that, finding a way to engage using open space that's ideologically forward. 

So the idea came before the space.

They came at the same time. What could I do here? You know what I mean? So it's been a lot but like figuring out how to do this, my learning curve is straight up and down, because it's like, I've never done anything like this.

And you're doing it in New York City, which is making things that much harder. 

At this point, we've done nonprofit music lessons that are intrinsically organized. The books-to-prisoners program we've done out of the back, supply drive for migrants, tyco classes for kids, yoga classes, art shows, movies, all of it, which is intrinsically organized, meaning we hold space for the community to come and do this stuff. We also manifest our own ideology there by doing that as anarchists, as decentralized. We had to become established in this way, people knew we were there and trusted us and started doing it and it took a while, but now it's going well in this way. Obviously we do weird shows and stuff there too—punk, free jazz, but also Dominican music.

I'm just wondering about the gamut of the reactions from the neighborhood. Are people curious? Suspicious? Pleasantly surprised? It’s part of the landscape now.

It's organic. Honestly one of the biggest votes of confidence was when the fucking hardass Dominican and Puerto Rican women of my block who run the organizations…there's no neighborhood more radical than a neighborhood full of working class people of color because they've had to be radical to survive. Greensboro taught me that and it's reinforced here. You think it's gonna be shocking or some shit, it's an anarchist community space. They're like—Right the fuck on. We don't need another fucking honky ass bar here. I knew I was carrying this coming in, like a fucking weird ass looking white dude in New York. All the hallmarks of a gentrifier opening something that has records and subcultural stuff. Unfortunately, but rightfully, it's associated with highly negative things at this point in New York for those people, so overcoming that organically and truthfully was a thing that I was really proud of, which meant that we were reaching people in the community. Their kids were coming in to read books and listen to our radical listening library and get music lessons. We were helping with the block party, they trusted us. One of the things I was most proud of was at the most recent block party like Frankie Tamburo from WKCR’s The Mambo Machine. We got him to DJ. Yo, my block was psyched. 

Our neighbor Ray is 85 and he was in the Young Lords. He comes in, it makes my week. He comes in and tells stories about the neighborhood, and listens to salsa records. We got a shitload of salsa records. The women took the mic and they were like—We want to thank P.I.T. for all the support through the years. I felt super proud. I was like—Yeah, this is engagement, this is where it's at. You know what I mean? This isn't merely totemic, like we're here. We're not only not doing harm, we're actually helping. 

We recently got our 501c3, which means it's a nonprofit. We have to figure out a way to integrate. It's complicated and incredibly boring. But that's part of my learning curve and I have fucking amazing support. 

What is this gonna allow you to do? 

Make money and be less stressed out about getting money from not just sales, from commerce. We believe in all the shit that we have for sale there, but selling shit is our least favorite thing that we do. Does that make sense? Because we're there to educate, facilitate classes, that's what we were there for. We believe in all the shit there, but it is like the worst part, it's the devil's handshake. Having the c3, we can apply for grants, which is also another devil's handshake, but it's pick your poison, I guess. We can have donors et cetera. So we'll get out of survival mode, which is like—Can we sell enough to make rent, and the strategy mode which we've already been able to do to—What do we want to do here? What do we want to facilitate here? This will allow us to say Yes, more fervently. Because we don't have to worry about selling shit to pay rent. 

[ed. note: The P.I.T. has great records. This hobbyist has found stupendous platters by Jellyroll Rockheads, Henry Fiat’s Open Sore and King Tubby, among others]

Any other musical shenanigans you been getting up to?

Me and Meredith McHugh from Smoke Bellow are putting together a duo. I've been making a record with Otis Houston Jr. He's been performing on the 122nd street entrance ramp to the FDR since the ‘90s. He's a performance artist and musician and a fucking awesome guy. Really shrewd, smart, amazing artist. Basically, we’re making the most urbane fucking country blues record you've ever heard. I have a project I want to get rolling again with Matt Mottel, Tcheser Holmes and Aquiles Navarro; it’s called Eye High.

cruisin’ for a bruisin’

So was the final Sunwatchers show the WFMU Cruise? 

No, there was a festival upstate. Wishful thinking that it was that FMU Cruise. 

To find out more information about P.I.T. and the organizations it’s involved with:

https://www.propertyistheft.org/comrades-collaborators

Right on, Jim P.I.T.