Seth and the Swan.

Financially, having left-of-center friends sucks.

I can immediately list like, five cultural hotspots that span America--we'll leave the UK tucked under for now because if I were to agree on any more immediate aero-trips my already gross credit sum would grow no-less spectacular.

So, limiting the hotspot count to nationwide; I am also fortunate enough to know about three warm bodies that have relocated to somewhere in or around these art-centric communities such as

both coasts of Cali.
Seattle.
an old DC friend now lives in Chi-town.
Boston, Massachusetts and New England's suburbia.
I know the Philly community well.
Friends in all of Bmore minus the Birchmere,
The Richmond, Virginia basement shows.
Port of Wilmington and

New York.

Financially, having connections in the creative community sucks, but creatively, your pool is a greater sum of parts for greater ideas to. . . peak.
--bear with me, I'm punching sentences into this black Macintosh, multitasking and event managing:

Basically :: great web, many travel ops, tour's on, and we've got NY bands coming here.

About a year ago I realized that non-familiar does not fly well with the local crowd unless you put yourself in the middle of the bustle and speak the fuck up.

About a week ago, I realized I probably would not have the time to live-chat with the artists coming out to play at Covers so in the midst of my event coordinator duties I emailed an impromptu survey to some of the groups / performers.

Tymon Brown of Seth and the Swan



I'm going to be a terrible editor right now and post the whole relay, but go ahead and cue up Seth and the Swan choons via
http://www.myspace.com/tymonbrown
and skim/get to know a band man that has low regard for Limp Bizkit, lot of room for Thurston and doesn't mind spinning Pere Ubu in his spare'.

What is your band name? / How did you come up with this name? --Who had the idea / story behind?
Name is Seth and the Swan. I like the name Seth and want to give it to my son whenever he decides to show himself. The swan part is just kind of silly.

Who are your members? / roles?
I (Tymon) write most of the songs, do lead vocals and handle half the guitar duties. Scott Nicholas of Her Land/My Land and Leon Farrant both play guitar, Eamon Pickard plays the bass and throws musical theory everywhere, and Will Buerger is the drummer and he's really good at it. Abby Sayre and Ali Longo handle vocal/guitar duties as well.

Where is your band from?
Westchester County, New York.

How long have you been playing together / How did the members meet/decide to collab?
I moved to New York and found Scott somehow, and we started collabing. Eventually Ali and Will joined us, we recruited Eamon, and recently Abby and Leon said they wanted to hang out and then they joined the band.

Is this your first band?
Nope. Sixth.

Describe your music.
Um... kinda like a bluegrass/americana band that decided to hang out with Thurston Moore.

More important: Lyrics or Bass lines?
Um bass lines, but only if you're trying to dance.

Influences?
Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins and the people they hang out with. Kings of Convenience. Wilco and My Morning Jacket.

Do you think it matters that people "get" your music? --Is having an apparent or immediately understood "agenda" important to you?
It is, but not really. As long as people are having fun with us when we play, and as long as we're making music that makes us and our friends happy, we're good. We do want to make music that's never been made before, but not at the cost of doing what we love, or being gimmicky.

Does your band _have_ an agenda?
To become pokemon masters

What separates you from other bands?
I think the only things that separate us from other bands are the facts that we're involved in such an active and supportive scene. Westchester really is the best place to be in a band.

Do you consider yourselves serious musicians?
Yes, but we don't take ourselves seriously. If we did we'd probably all have heart attacks.

What if your recorded music only ends up being important to or purchased by a minor audience? (small audience. . . however what if your music only ends up being important to a young audience?)
I'd honestly feel weird having only little kids listen to our music. But if we became the favorite band of like, a small but devout group of people, we'd be so appreciative. We're not looking for crazy success, like, stadium success. That tends to get weird, from what I've heard.

Does your band have a motto?
Pff no. With our powers combined we are Captain Planet

On past records, particularly your debut, your sound was unique as well as positively comparable to your influences. On this recent recording, the band seems to have, prior to the album, left its members stranded aimless in a desert where flesh and concept, unable to reach immediate sustenance, were slowly stripped, starved, and parched thorough and tandem. Martyrs, musicians, and freshly desperate, this red state ultimately polished that sometimes dull instinct to survive and subsequently revealed the root of the usually sugared-over human desire for higher mind LIKE THAT SPICE TASTE VIA THE CRACK OF WHOLE PEPPERCORN that probably led to the smashingly raw and unmarked beat of your current record. Do you think this new direction will retire some of the comparisons of your band to particular aforementioned bands?
Yes.

Is straight edge going to make a comeback?
Probably not. People like soft things.

Do you like to hang out? where?
The river. New York City. With Thurston Moore. But I've never met him so oh well.

Can we hang out sometime?
We already do that but yeah sure. bring a picnic basket.

What are you listening to lately? Fav releases for the '08 so far..
Bon Iver's "For Emma, Forever Ago," Aaron Maine and the Reilly Brothers' "The Sad Album," Buffalo Eskimo's "The Elephant in the Room," Her Land/My Land's self-titled, Ratatat's "LP3." And I just found an old Pere Ubu CD that I never heard before called "Dub Housing" and it's pretty damn sweet.

Would you play a show for only five people?
We just did last weekend, in Boston. It was sweet.

Would your band alter its set/theatrics if every one's parents were in the audience?
No. The thing is, all of our parents were a thousand times more insane when they were young then we are. They can take it.

Who would buy your records? Who do you want to buy your records?
Cute girls, strong guys, heads of state and homeless war vets.

What did you listen to in high school?
Reel Big Fish, Elliott Smith, Blink 182, Five Iron Frenzy, Smashing Pumpkins, and a lot of bullshit.

Did you have a specific crowd you hung out with?
In high school? Skaters. I spent so much goddamn money on skate stuff.

Did you ever have a Limp Bizkit phase?
No, thank god. Except for their cover of Behind Blue Eyes. It was terrible but I loved it.

Do you know what you are capable of?
Is that a challenge?

What's your favorite time period for music?
I think my favorite is right now. The last few years have been amazing, honestly. Just don't turn on the radio and you'll be fine.

Do you think vinyl is a totally necessary experience? or are audiophiles looking at this music vs. sound business all backwards.
Vinyl is pretty crucial. The modern age of convenience in music makes people lazy. Vinyl is just deliberately sexy.

If you had fans, what would they be called (i.e. Grateful dead = Deadheads, Insane Clown Posse's fans are "Juggalos")
I have no goddamn clue. They'd be called bagels.

Any band drama?
Yes. Mostly with old bands. Always stupid and unnecessary. Blah.

Pop goodness or Rock goddess?
Can't we compromise this? Rock goodness?

Can we talk about Lee "Scratch" Perry and Prince Jammy for the summer?
If you really want to.

Any awesome band stories? practice sessions, moments, revelations?
At the last Covers, we did TV on the Radio's "wolf like me". Our drummer was drunk off of his ass and when we were supposed to end the song, he got confused and started drumming more hardcore than he ever has in his life. Nobody missed a beat and we started going right back into the chorus, the lights started going on and off and everyone was going completely nuts. i turned around and looked at him and he was screaming and laughing and we all kind of picked it up to the next level. We dragged it on for another five or ten minutes. It was beautiful.




Any really awful experiences?
We played a show in 2005 at a festival, and everything that could go wrong, went wrong. The cable in my guitar started frying in the beginning of our first song, the microphones decided to completely die right in the middle, and when it came time for our lead guitarist to solo, his top three strings snapped simultaneously. Our bassist got completely confused and stopped playing. After walking around in a complete clusterfuck for about ten seconds, we all just dropped our instruments and walked off stage. Couldn't really sleep that night.

Would you ever destroy your instruments during a performance or are you more of a pause/cautious, 'but this drumkit guitar neck was time + paycheck"? If you are on one side of the destruction, what do you say about the opposite side?
I can't say that I would. We've all given our instruments unfair abuse onstage but actually breaking them is just fucking stupid. I saw Win Butler break an acoustic guitar onstage, and it just looked ridiculous. I wanted to fucking smack him.

Myspace?
http://www.myspace.com/tymonbrown. We'll have new recordings up soon.

What are your views on red meat?
It's pretty damn good. Until you go into cardiac arrest.

Who is the least attractive member of your band?
That would be Leon.

Did I just start a fight?
Only if Leon reads this.

Who will win?
I'm a lot bigger than Leon.

Facechat or Gchat?
Never used Gchat, but facechat blows. So I have no opinion on this silly silly matter.

Do you think you'll add new band members? What would be his/her role?
We'll probably add a keyboardist/

multinstrumentalist soon. I might move to DC also so you never know, could be completely new people. We'll just have to see.

What's your favorite thing on youtube?
Oh snap. It's a toss-up between Waverly Films and that video of that stupid cat trying to jump over a fence.

Where do you shop? What is the one clothing item you cannot live without?
I shop in the city and get most of my shirts from other band's merch tables. I think I couldn't live without my shoes. I kind of need them.

Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine?
Ugghhhhhhh. Sonic Youth.

The Feelies or Weezer?
Compared to weezer, fuck the feelies.

Do you still like Radiohead?
I love them. They're on par with the beatles and mozart in my mind.

Sofia Coppola?
Is a genius and I love her.

It's 3am on a Tuesday. Where are you?
Playing music with aaron and kolson, or asleep.

Borges or Valery?
lettuce

Mac or PC?
pc'

Aren't the Talking Heads boring?
you are incorrect.
David Byrne. Watch the psychokiller vid on old grey whistle test. you will agree with me.

Who would you ask to remix your songs?
Broken Social Scene or Gregg Gills.

If you could have any band or celebrity cover your material, who would it be?
Broken Social Scene, Gregg Gills, Kings of Convenience, the Go! Team, or Wilco.

Who are you trying to beat?
Aaron Maine, Shori Matsumoto, and Kolson Pickard. I love them so much that i hate them.

Who will win?
I'm bigger than them.

Do you have a favorite cover?
Kazu Watanabe's Talking Heads compilation. It's amazing.

What is your favorite instrument to use? brand? any particularly useful personal modifications / technique?
I love vintage fender guitars/basses, and I really love Jay Turser and Stagg instruments. They're European imports and they're brilliant. And soooo cheap.
A good modification to any guitar is to add locking tuners. You will never go out of tune, until the strings break.

Would you ever play an album in its entirety @ a live show? What do you think of this concept?
I think it's fucking amazing. Mission of Burma is doing that at the pitchfork music fest this year with their album Vs. It's amazing. I wish more bands did that.

Did you ever go to band camp?
I wish.

What did you do on the fourth of July?
Last year I was in Palestine on the fourth. That was a little weird. This year I was with my family.

How can readers contact you?
they can contact me through our myspace, or email me at tymbo@worldcommunity.com.

Any last words?
Turn off the radio and go see a show please and thank you.

[Look out for Seth and the Swan's upcoming record, Sunshine and Carrots.]