SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST MARTINEZ INTERVIEW

Josh Martinez is a Portland, Ore.-based MC, singer and songwriter who also serves as head of indie label Camobear Records. While Martinez resides in the United States, the SXSW veteran is also a Canadian national and will bring two ensemble acts to the 2010 festival in addition to his lengthy solo catalog. Martinez fronts the rock band Pissed Off Wild and forms underground pop tandem the Chicharones, with Sleep of Oldominion.

I watched the “Underground Pop” video with you and Moka Only. Your dad is a journalist. Is Hunter S. Thompson an inspiration for your work?

Absolutely. One of the best things about Hunter S. Thompson is the idea that he created a mythology of his own character, the Gonzo journalist. I think it’s inspiring to a lot of journalists in and of itself just because it’s such a fascinating read. It’s fascinating because it’s about myth building. It’s not really about the truth. I use him as a model for Josh Martinez. I’m not sure if you know that, but my name is Matthew Kimber. Josh Martinez is an invention, and it was a long time ago. It was designed to create a character of myself that was a part of me, but that was bigger than me and allowed me to separate the music and the myth from the human behind it.

Are you going to be mixing the Chicarones’ comedy with some of the straightforward stuff at SXSW?

Very much so. We use a lot of comedy, but it’s used in a very serious sense. We take songwriting very seriously and we take the idea of subversive messaging really seriously — the idea that underneath the humor, melodies, joking and back-and-forthness of it is a positive, serious message. I take it back to Hunter S. Thompson. I think that with my own solo stuff, and then into the Chicharones, it very much uses that same idea. I don’t want to preach to people. I think you can provide insight that’s palpable to people so that they’re like, “Oh. That’s something I thought, or would have thought if I has put those words together in that fashion.” It’s able to relate to people and not overwhelm them with a message. I’ve always used humor to engage in my regular life.

What are your musical influences?

I draw pretty heavily from theBEACH BOYS. Before the Beach Boys I was a huge doo-wop fan and late ’50s rock, surf rock, Dick Dale guitars. I was basically a fan of any group that started with “the,” like the El Dorados, the Cadillacs. I got really big into roots, rockers reggae stuff, even just the rocksteady stuff. Harmony groups like the Gladiators, the Mighty Diamonds and the Ethiopians. Anything basically that had melody in it attracted me more.

Comedy is a pretty strong influence. Stand-up comics are the best they’ve been in years as far as being edgy and interesting and relevant. I borrow from everything.

You mentioned growing up as a driving force in the current sound of your music. How is 2010 Josh Martinez different from 2002 Josh Martinez?

More than anything, there’s a refined nature to the struggle. In 2002, Josh Martinez was really excited about everything and was down to leap in wherever, get every opportunity and throw his energy in every direction. As you grow up, you get tired of… I could stop there. You get tired. You don’t have the energy to pursue every piece of interest so recklessly. You refine yourself. You refine your taste. You refine your boundaries as to what you are willing to do. As time goes by, if you say “no” to things, people come back with more reasons to for you to say “yes” later on. Once you establish yourself as a voice, as someone people want to listen to, you have this ability to make better decisions.

Why did you choose the independent route?

Some people will dispute this. I’m not by any means a control freak. In fact, I’m probably more trusting than most indie artists are. I didn’t start this as an ideological thing. But, Def Jam wasn’t knocking on my basement. You can do two things. You can sit and wait and believe the hype that comes into your head when you start to impact people in a small way. I never was delusional that my music was going to be accepted on a larger level. I became independent because I thought I didn’t really fit with anyone else.

How many times have you been to SXSW?

This is my 11th time. I’ve been going since 2000.

Do you think SXSW is a good venue for hip-hop?

It’s definitely changed. I know it’s a rock festival, but over the course of time, they’ve kind of slowly opened up to hip-hop. Definitely with the success of the Rhymesayers and Def Jux showcases they’ve seen that there’s a need for them to be more present with it. It’s still overwhelmingly a rock festival, and the venues overwhelmingly prefer rock to hip-hop, such that my good friend Matt Sonzala who runs the hip-hop booking for SXSW is constantly thwarted in venues he’s that trying to throw things at because the venues don’t want hip-hop. They don’t necessarily know why. They just don’t want it. There’s still that stigma to it.

Which Josh Martinez projects will be playing at SXSW?

All three manifestations of the young man formally known as Josh Martinez. The Thursday night showcase is gonna be with the Pissed Off Wild. The Friday night showcase will be The Chicharones. Sunday we do a boat cruise around Lake Travis. That will be Josh Martinez and The Chicharones. I’ve got all the bases covered as far as that goes.

How did The Chicharones and Pissed Off Wild bands form?

The Chicharones formed at SXSW the very first time we were there. We were both there for the first time in 2000. A guy named Sole from anticon had been interested in putting out both of our projects. He told us about each other. Sleep [of Oldominion] was in Portland at the time, I was living in Vancouver. It’s about a 6-hour drive from each other. We basically hit it off immediately. Sleep had booked me to play at his local club. I did the same.  We started working in the idea that Sleep and Josh Martinez Are the Chicharones, which created three acts for the price of one.

Pissed Off Wild started in Vancouver. I was living there and saw that people were getting bored of hip-hop karaoke. The idea of having a live band to me was the possibility of creating a more longer-term sound. The sounds we were getting out of it were definitely outside of my comfort zone. It’s definitely rock. It’s definitely punk. It’s definitely surf. There’s some real heavy music that goes to it. It’s some of the most accessible stuff for people outside of hip-hop. There are some raps in it, but it’s more singing than it is anything else.

How did you come up with the band names?

A long time ago I was doing some “modeling.” I had some long dreadlocks at the time. I had an “ethnic” look. The Josh Martinez was my Russian/Jewish model name. My girlfriend at the time thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Before that, my rap name was Maxwell, which was my granddad’s name. I hated rap names. I thought that was dumb too. When Maxwell was on the cover of Rolling Stone in 2001 I had to change my name.

Pissed Off Wild came from a girlfriend at the time her and her two sisters. When their father spent an hour and a half waiting for one of his three teenage girls to come out of the bathroom, he would say, “I’m getting pissed off wild!” Also, because “Pissed Off Wild” as an acronym is P.O.W. We also like the punching nature of it. Our logo is a fist punching a skull.

Chicharones is based on the delicious New Mexican snack of the same name, fried pork skins with chili. Since me and Sleep always considered ourselves greasy and straight-to-the-heart, we kinda felt like that was a good, solid name to work with.

What’s your biggest vice?

My biggest vice is probably an overcapacity for being awesome. It just drains me on a day to day basis, being able to keep up with awesome. I work through it though. I try to keep an even keel.

What’s in your SXSW festival survival kit as an 11-year veteran?

A toothbrush in your pocket because you never know where you’re gonna sleep. So you definitely want to make sure you’re going to have some clean teeth. And earplugs because you never know where you’re going to sleep. And condoms, because you never know where you’re going to sleep. [laughter]

Who was your first celebrity crush?

I’m a huge Alyssa Milano fan. That just goes back to “Who’s The Boss?”

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

I really like Lady Gaga. I think that’s a terrible think to admit to yourself. I also like Il Divo, those four Italian guys who sing opera music. They look like greasy Italians, but they’ve got nice turtlenecks. I’ve got a think for European dance pop like Robbie Williams, Lady Gaga, even Kylie Minogue I can fuck with. You can have it in the background and do some serious involuntary fist-pumping.

THE MAKING OF A MARTINEZ#3: ORIGINS OF THE PUERTO RICAN JEW

His rap career—like most things involving my brother—began as a result of a girl.

While staying at the top of Middle Bay—the  same residence where I would chat with acidheads about my lovelorn life while having a panic attack—my brother was falling in love.

Not with the girl. He was fucking sick of the girl.

After six months of passion-fuelled hatred he broke up with his girlfriend. Only they both lived in residence and avoiding her was near impossible. Especially when she made friends with people in his Bay and would sit at the bottom of the stairs leading to his room like some sort of guard troll.

Thus began a regular diet of death stares and awkward moments.

His frustration grew with her unreasonable demands of his time, patience and concern. Her insanity grew in sync. He began to wonder if she would try to poison his food. And inspiration struck.

You can smell the pit stained stink of a boy’s residence as you move up the stairs. The smell of marijuana is covered by incense. Underneath is the smell of stale beer that drenches the sticky floors. The walls are shaking. Step through the door and music is being made.

My brother has gigantic white boy dreads made of coarse Hasidic hair he inherited from our Jewish ancestors. His baggy jeans threaten to trip him.  The room is filled with smoke and Noah is working the controls. My brother is yelling out words he reads from a page.

In the beginning recording studios were two Ghetto blasters, one playing the beat at full blast, the other attached to a microphone recording the yelling they called verses.

Such were the humble origins of Halifax rap gods Josh Martinez and Kunga 219. Only at this point they were Matthew Kimber and Noah Hasprey. And his first song—recorded via Ghetto blaster in his dorm room—was about a crazy bitch that wouldn’t leave him alone.

Matt’s interest had first been turned to hip-hop in high school. At the time he liked acid, beat poetry and causing an incredible amount of trouble. He couldn’t see himself participating much in the rap he listened to.

One of his constant compatriots in such mischief was a Buddhist boozehound named Noah Hasprey, with a penchant for marijuana, mixtapes and meditation.  He was also obsessed with rap and freestyled at any opportunity.

Noah’s mixtapes circulated and at the end there was always freestyle from Noah. He was the crew’s musical archivist and created highly individualized mixtapes based on what he knew members of his crew needed to hear.

It would take a crazy girl to make my brother to take the leap from fan to musician. At the time Halifax was ruled by hip hop purists Buck 65 and Jorun, who believed rap music needed to be made with a set of defined rules even if they didn’t make that music.

Rap was about punch lines and the best way of expressing your dopeness. Perform with a DJ. Singing was for sissies.  Poetry for weiners.  Matthew never liked being told what to do.

People liked his song on Noah’s album and encouraged him to pursue it.

These were good days for Matthew.

Disliking rap names he called himself Maxwell, after our maternal grandfather.

In the time of five on five acid versus shroom basketball games, performances at all night raves, boozed out freestyle sessions in dorm rooms where his friends would try to outdo each other, each looking to come up with the funniest rhyme, the most ridiculous simile, my brother blossomed.

Somehow a new type of hip-hop was emerging from the most unlikely of places. Halifax, Nova Scotia was setting the stage to change the hip-hop world forever. As of yet my brother was relatively unknown living in the shadow of the Sebutones(Buck 65 and Sixtoo), the remains of Hip Hop Club Groove and Universal Soul.

And then he met a madman from Truro, Nova Scotia who would change everything.

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The first time I remember hearing about DJ Moves, aka Brian Higgins, it involved a come-on line he developed.

He would yell at a passing female, “Stop doing that.”

The girl was supposed to stop and ask what she should stop doing.

He would respond, “Being so beautiful.”

Cue smile; make out session and DJ spins some of his best getting jiggy jams.

Only he has a 160 proof whiskey voice and the girls wouldn’t ask what they needed to stop doing. Instead frightened they would walk faster and wonder what it was they should stop doing and consider how they could stop doing it to avoid being yelled at again.

Despite his gravelly tones and brutal bluntness Moves is the most loved man in Canada hip-hop.

According to my brother, Moves is the best and most prolific producer of hip-hop music that Canada has ever seen. He is also a boozehound, chain smoker and over all disgusting man that will tell you what’s fucked up about you to your face and then buys you ten drinks.

Born in Truro he made music with rap group Hip Club Groove and would one day produce the break out “Steal My Sunshine” for creepy supergroup Len.

His studio was a shitty apartment he shared with his girlfriend at the time. Discarded bottles of OE litter the floor. During recording sessions he would chain smoke cigarettes, forearm pressed with head level against the wall, left hand tapping away the beats and record.  When he removed his forearm it would like he had been spray painted around from the yellowing of the smoke coating his wall.

Brian hasn’t said anything in a while. He looks extremely pissed and seems to have run out of smokes.

A very ambitious project is being attempted.

After three weeks of furious research and intensive writing sessions Matt has come up with a grandiose opus concerning the Holocaust. Which is not exactly typical hip- hop fare.

Inspired by the films of Quentin Tarantino, the two are attempting something that has never been done in hip-hop. “Deny” traces an army captain as he struggles through the horrors of the Holocaust, cutting and back and forth in time creating a continuous story that lasts 9 and a half minutes. Matt knew that there would need to be intense change ups in the instrumental to make it work.

Moves accepted his challenge and began work. Taking samples from German orchestras of shame and sadness created after the war in apology for the horrible crimes committed he made a complex  tapestry. Making four instrumentals and weaving them together was much more complicated than it would be today.

They recorded on four tracks.

A cassette has 4 tracks. The right and the left going one direction, and two going on the other and the other side is the whole thing backwards. Put the scratches on another track, then you have to cut and paste this beat together, cutting it all together to get it onto a grid in a row.  You’d almost have to splice the reels to get four beats onto one tape. Somehow the puzzle has come together. A spliff has been smoked and the two have listened to their project.

Matthew doesn’t quite know what to say. Moves isn’t saying anything and that strikes Matthew as a bad sign.

“Smoke?” he says.

“Out.”

“You like it?”

“Yes.”

Silence returns.

The next day he receives a phone call from Moves.

Blown away by the power of what they had created Moves showed the song to local hip hop star Buck 65. Buck instantly declared that Matthew was his favorite rapper in the city.

What began as a drunken joke was starting to get serious.

In a few days five songs have been completed.

An album is ready.

Moves and Matthew go to a teachers supply store and buy up all their 30-minute cassette tapes.  Three songs on one side and 1 song on the other as well as the 9 minute magnum opus “Deny”..

There is only a speed dubber to place the master on one reel and then fast forward record onto the other.

50 tapes are made and the next twelve years of my brother’s life began to take shape.

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In the depths of King’s College is the Wardroom.

To this day it still serves the cheapest beer in town. Once a year—until dollar drinks were outlawed due to a gigantic brawl at a local whorehouse “The Dome”—they hold the Wardroom’s birthday party. At this event drinks begin at fifty cents and go up by a quarter every half hour.

Yesterday was the release party for my brother’s first album “Maximum Well Being” and the bar manager was a fan of local hip-hop. Yesterday the drink special was forty ouncers of Bull Mac served in a paper bag.  Academics and assholes alike drank from the paper bag and saluted my brother’s efforts as his dreads dangled in the wind.

However it is the next night that Matthew remembers most.

He is playing a rave his friends are throwing called Family Circus. It takes place at a carnival grounds with the ride still in place.

It is the first night Matthew has ever done E and he can’t stop talking. Which is usually a problem for Matthew anyway.

The lights are so bright and the evening is so much more than he ever expected it to be. His eyes have become heating missiles directed at his girlfriend’s beautiful body.

“That is a huge fucking ride. You know that’s where they used to race pigs?” says my brother.

His girlfriend nods and kisses him on the cheek.

He finds he really enjoys being kissed on the cheek and asks her to do it again. She does.

He can’t stop smiling. In a couple minutes he will perform for the second time that week.

But for now it is time to go on a ride and have a drink out of his flask. She holds his hand and he doesn’t want to let go.

The  ferrish wheel reaches the top and stops for a moment.

He can see the city lights and thinks about how much has changed in such a short time.

Tomorrow he goes to Thailand and leaves the city behind.  Why now?

The city is alive in a way that it has never been before. DJ’s are coming from all around the world. It seems like the Sebutones might become famous. People know his name and he feels like he is onto something.

He holds the hand of his girlfriend and knows that he is in love with her.  That may be the E talking.

He can feel his pulse jumping up and down doing cartwheels inside his skin. He is going to see Asia and Australia and find that world he can only seem to touch through his music. He feels so alive yet knows he hasn’t lived at all.

“Can you see that?” he asks her.

She doesn’t know how to reply.

“It’s the world,” he says. “It’s right there.”

Amidst the circus lights, he says goodbye to the best friends of his life.  Goodbye to the Halifax of his childhood, basketball games Acid vs. Shroom, Café Ola, the Khyber, the Marquee and the girls he constantly fell in love with.

The next day he boards the flight to Vancouver, and from there another plane to LA and one last flight to Australia.

Little does he know that his tape will begin to circulate and the dreams of those nights will become his life.

At 20 years old, he would fly away from everything he has ever known to find himself.

The rest of his life will be filled with similar planes, taking him away from the people he cares about to try to chase that high.  Every time he feels that he fits the necessity of his life will take him away.  For now let’s leave him on that ride, with the bright lights of a city that loves him and a world he is about to know.

With the world, right there.

From The Josh himself –

So in the past, i may have disparaged the Olympics (mostly drunk, when with friends) for the well documented socio-political effects it has on the host communities . I lived in sydney australia in 1998 right before the olympics and vancouver from 2000-07, and you can watch a city literally change around you. It heaves up towers of new condos, and jobs and money and opportunity. And fraud and boredom and vigilante commercialism. Cranes miles to the sky, careening out of control to construct more towers and push around the down trodden who undoubtedly will get in the way of a lovely time for visitors and so forth and the inconvenience of skyrocketing rents and eventual massive municipal, provincial and national debt, the likes Montreal is still paying off for its celebration in 1976. but i most defintely digress. Cause I. Love. To. Party.

And now that its finally here, and i have been invited to play it, i rejoice not in the politics of it all, but in the actual spirit of massive human interaction and the ecstatic drama of human competition. Anyone who knows me well, knows i loves me some Sports. The human drama is my thing. But Mostly. I. Like. To. Party!

So when i was asked ii had any philosophical objections to playing the olympics, i smiled slyly to myself, before punching my girlfriend in the dick, to affirm, that yes, i undoubtedly would love to play at the Olympics…I’m most very greatful for the opportunity.

So here it is, the lead story, in its developing form…

I, Young Martinez, single man, will be playing Feb 17 at the base of Whistler mountain, at precisely 9pm (or imprecisely, i don’t really know how on time the olympics are but my guess is pretty spot on). My bass player and vocalist ‘All-You-Can-Eat’ Pete Schmitt will be with us as well and we are being joined by the incredibly nice Pemberton powerhouse DJ Rich-A…

The Josh Martinez Experiences will be opening for perenial Canadian wonderhosers, Barenaked Ladies, who will entreat the world audience to some of their Toddler Diddies. On another front, in a BIZARRE bit of beef i’m going to start, i will be performing at the Olympics with Steven Page, the cocaine-addled former lead singer who will take the stage as my hypeman. And you can be sure, he will be HYPE!

And there are more gigs in the works…I will check back in…