Neuralgia Survey

Neuralgia Survey
this issue's subject: the members of the band Odor of Pears

Diana

item 1. What are your current projects?
Right now we're putting a show together to play at Shattered here in Columbia on 2/13 and at Davey's Uptown in KC with Babylon HoR on 2/20. We're also about halfway done writing the songs for our second album. We'll start recording in March, probably.

item 2. What has influenced you the most?
Negative tendencies I acquired in childhood, and my lifelong struggle to rid myself of them.

item 3. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?
I think I had the greatest sense of strangeness when I was digging in the dirt as a small child and came across a shiny white organism unlike anything I had ever seen before. It gave me a real feeling of awe. But I soon found out the creature was "just a grub."

item 4. Any favorite horror movies? Why that movie(s)?
"The Shining" for the perfect way it builds. "Rosemary's Baby" for its brilliant feminist allegory. "Fire Walk With Me" for its extremely creepy and disturbing atmosphere.

item 5. What is the strangest thing you have ever done?
My strangest real-life act was trying to become a real estate agent.

item 6. Why, if at all, do you feel drawn to the more unusual side of life?
I don't feel drawn to it so much as stuck with it. I've been "eccentric" all my life, and it's not always fun.

item 7. Any favorite serial killers? Why that one?
Jeffrey Dahmer. Because supposedly he murdered out of love. He killed his lovers so they couldn't abandon him and then made an altar out of their bones in his reeking apartment. It's a fascinating combination of sentimentality and ghoulishness.

item 8. What artist, musician, or writers inspire you?
I went through a Jim Morrison phase in the seventies and a Gary Numan phase in the eighties. Our electronic instrumentation and extravagent stage shows were both originally inspired by Numan, although our stuff is completely different from his.
Nowadays I get a lot of inspiration from Joe and Russell.
Other miscellaneous influences: Flaubert, Van Gogh and Beethoven (the people and the art), Notes from Underground, Spengler, the Columbia goth scene, Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, Susie Bright, Gabrielle Roth, Northrup Frye's "Theory of Modes," Noam Chomsky, and Barbara Walker.

item 9. Would you say that life is somewhat absurd?
Sure.

item 10. Do you have any questions you'd like to ask?
How did you come to start Neuralgia?
me: It was an idea spawned by the boy that i was dating at the time who was interested in starting a magazine that was actually interesting on our campus since there seems to be a lack of really strong ideas both here and throughout the midwest. I laid most of the ground work and when we went seperate ways, I decided to continue onward. It's a place for those who are generally ignored or lionized by the mass of society. That's why I am interested in anything underground, not simply gothic.
Do you think Odor of Pears is a "gothic" band (whatever that means to you)? Why or why not?
me: Gee, I don't know. I guess the sound has alot of emotion and darker tendencies so I would say yes.

EXTRA BONUS QUESTIONS

A)your live shows seem to be very important. how much planning goes into them?
We take a couple of months to prepare a show. That typically includes developing a couple of new numbers from scratch and revamping a few older pieces. We prepare a set list with a detailed chart of the staging effects, and divide up the cues among band members and volunteers. Then we rehearse every night for a week before the show.

B) how important is the total effect of odor of pears(music, visuals, etc.) and why or why not?
It's essential to what we do live. It charms the senses and allows us to communicate on many levels.. But no amount of theatrical glitz can substitute for a strong musical idea. It's the other way around: the drama will only be as powerful as the musical push behind it. We take our music at least as seriously as our theatrics when performing, and when we record,of course, the music is everything.

C) Does the theater of the absurd mean anything to you? What exactly?
It's an outgrowth of existentialism, isn't it? Ionesco et al?

D) where did you get the name for the band?
The phrase "odor of pears" came to me when I was writing the words to that song (it was one of our first). It suggests that value lies in immediate sensory experience. It also suggests that value is fleeting and intangible and easily overlooked.

Joe K.>>