How would you describe the ultimate artistic, political and spiritual visions and themes you seek to portray with the projekt label sound?

hmm? the vision of projekt is to release music that i enjoy to listen to! to release music that has a quality that will remain over time. there is not a UNIFIED sound, except in so far as it applies to my personal tastes.

i do not participate in an outward "gothic" subculture, because i find the stereotype to be stifling. i find that the best bands who are placed in this genre are ones who create an individual and unique art, that happens to be called gothic at the moment. i find myself annoyed by the repetition within many artists in the genre: the lack of adventurism. i am unhappy, when i see bands using the same worn gothic images and facades: the vampires and bats and skeletons and that sort of thing. EVOLVE! i would like to see it evolve away from the commonplace imagery and concepts . . . no more songs about warlocks or graveyards or dying!!! more songs about things that are actually relevant to the lives of the fans who listen to the music.

i believe that other artists' music has not played a large part in influencing the direction of my work with black tape for a blue girl. since i have no musical training, i just sort of jump into the recording process with a naive outlook; collaging together sounds and words to form progressive ideas, evolving from one album to the next . . . as i begin to see a bit more about myself and the situations that i am in. each album represents a stage in my growth. the rope was a very bitter acusatory time, which continued into mesmerized by the sirens. ashes in the brittle air was a reflection on whether i was controlling or tumbling. a chaos of desire was a cathartic disection of the aftermath of a relationship. trying to reconstruct a whole, from the fragmented pieces. maybe that is true of the first four releases: trying to reconstruct myself through intense analyzation.

the fifth cd, this lush garden within, (due around new years) is an exploration of that which is inside: the feminine spirit within. i look at this potential beauty, but then find myself horrified by the manner with which men have worked to smash down this strong life force. the destruction of beauty. it is an introspective realization, how the myth of the western god has been used to destroy the feminine. it is a continuation of the discovery of songs such as "pandora's box" or "across a thousand blades" . . . discovering the life within experience, the potential within what the church deems most evil: love. passion. sex. desire. lust. all the things that have been villified by the control of religion. sin is nothing but the church's tool to keep us from experiencing life! to keep us docile and down-trodden. so, really, it reveals that not only the feminine has been trampled, but all intelligent strives towards freedom. this destruction can be viewed quite blatantly in the way the republican christian government continues to use 'the woman' as the sign of evil, mocking a desire for equality or just recognition. blatant discrimination and villification continues daily in the minds and actions of our "leaders."

simply to provide a differing point of view. there is nothing so obvious in the lyrics or music (as what i'm saying to you at the moment). the cd is just a slice of information, to attempt to balance the propaganda that is daily pounded into our heads. a slight gasp of hope, to say "don't trust what is repeated to you." think about it! you have to go back to some very basic concepts and rethink them. in the song "the turbulence and the torment," i examine the Adam & Eve myth; to look at it in a fresh light. 'The fall of man' is a concept created to subjugate man. the reality is that through the passion of experience, we are able to experience pain and love. to truly live requires knowledge, and to say this knowledge is the root of all evil is pure stupidity! how can experience be 'evil?' how can conservatives who don't know anything about the high-wire of existence tell us that WE ARE UNPURE?

worried? if god goes around creating puppets and sheep . . . then 'He' is a rather cruel and unimaginative being!

next up is the debut from love spirals downwards, who opened the gray land no. 3 cd! lush ethereal guitar and female vocals with a slight eastern air. in the works is the debut from my other band (with padraic): Thanatos. we half-seriously call it folk-goth! it's acoustic and passionate and strong. hopefully that will be out soon; with a few appropriate 70's covers to make your heart skip a beat!

with projekt, i attempt to present bands of a beauty and intesity that goes beyond the "stereotype" of gothic music. today it is called gothic; but in fifteen years, when the stereotype collapses, the music will remain . . .

---

SAM SPEAKS

black tape for a blue girl is my medium for communication . . . it is where i explore my fears and desires, and try to document those feelings in tangible form. everything i tell you is but a rationalization of my intuitive desire. the words and music of the band spring from my feelings, and from my search for inner truth. not some easy to grasp Explanation or Revelation . . . but short steps towards deeper meaning.

it has something to do with potential. achieving what is possible. the message is subtle; a little burst of hope, in the sense that the listener might feel inspired to reach for something more. i believe in the existential idea that you are only what you make of yourself. and i try to make a lot of myself! i try to love, and i fail . . . sometimes. but i do not glorify that failure, i glorify the TRYING.

i think there are a lot of american "critics" who miss the entire point of my art. they are ADULTS . . . which is a dreaded word in my mind; because adults erroneously think they have the world figured out: find a spouse, get a job, live a useless life devoid of any true passion of life! exist . . . but do not progress. do not flame with desire and pain. well, that whole concept is useless, to me. it is stagnation and slow painful death! i am glad to reach out to people who experience my music on a deeper level . . . people much more attuned to the ideas i initially set into the work . . .

the significance of the name black tape for a blue girl is of a deeply personal nature. yet i think it is understandable, to those who experience the music. i discovered the feminine aspect of my psyche, when i moved away from all which i believed mattered to me. i discovered the side that was hurt. and lonely. and afraid. the side deeply hurt. and within this discovery emerged my birth as a caring human being . . . which coincided with the birth of black tape for a blue girl. so, the name seemed doubly appropriate, when i began this new direction within my music . . .

this cd was written at a point when i was extremely analytical of my intentions, as a person. i realized that a recently failed relationship seriously changed me . . . warping me in a negative manner! i think most people prefer deceiving themselves, rather than admitting their situation is unsatisfying; i, too, realized i had tricked myself into believing my relationship was FINE. my beliefs submerged, so i might hide from the truth. i destroyed my own concept of "faith" in order to avoid pain; which i was feeling, none-the-less. i realized that faith (in a relationship) means you relinquish your defenses, you are prepared to be destroyed by the person you love. you are honest, knowing full well that you give your lover the knife, and the power to betray your trust . . . to cut you down with words spoke in loving honesty. they are able to destroy you with your most tender secrets. you give away the tool for you own destruction; which is the honesty that propels a truthful relationship. i did not WANT to be hurt, i conditioned myself to bury honesty, in order to preserve something which already had collapsed. chaos, then, was the process of preparing myself for love, again. shedding my facades and defenses and warped-faith . . . in order to return to a truer sam. a chance to return to a truer self; or perhaps: a self less surrounded by delusion.

i don't have any musically, that i directly can point to. as the dedication within my discs indicate: my influences are the people i love and hurt myself over. robin. paula. susan. those are my influences, in the sense of where my inspiration comes from. i learn from writers rather than musicians . . . my favorite is Kafka, because i think his work embodies the problem which still plagues man: ISOLATION and LONELINESS! his is a stream of desperate hope, trying to reach out to his fellow man, in such an absurd world. some call his writing "depressing," yet i find his work very uplifting; if you learn from his character's faults. it is not something you need to mentally work at. just absorbing his work, gives your brain a reference point, of what to do differently . . . or maybe a better insight into the overriding problem.

the music is created first. i improvise it all in my studio. playing around, until something develops . . . collaging until a song emerges. it is improvisation, with myself. i have never THOUGHT UP a song, beforehand (having no knowledge of scales or notation or any of that proper stuff). i just work upon a feeling, and that is why the music is closer to the heart! i improvise within whatever framework i uncover; and that process creates a feeling, which leads me towards words which fit the song. sometimes, it is relatively straighforward. for example "one last breath" felt like a water song as the music developed. so i looked for lyrics that would relate to the feeling the music gave me. the lyrics are "collages," of a sort; words re-edited from my journal, or a letter . . . whatever writing i might have, that reflects what i am feeling.

Justice, that is my tarot card. i am quite angered by things unfair. i get very frustrated and very irritated by systems that deprive us of what we are due, or our basic equality. i struggle over what is "Right," when i feel it is not being served. i guess this is why there are so many mentions of HONESTY and FAITH in my words . . .

i see myself as a primitive . . . in the sense that i do not seek the outrageous or ornamental, or work towards the spirituality of HIGHER THINGS. i seek the truth within which is before us and within us. i seek the basic and honest; a techno-primitive, in the sense that i can fully function within the modern culture . . . though attempt to avoid the trappings of technology.

Antonin Artaud wrote a play entitled There is No More Firmament. though i have never read it (could you really expect an american publisher to translate and publish a play by someone as "useless" to the american dream?), i like the idea behind the words of the title: Heaven was a glorious fantasy, yes! but now we must face reality. now we must see that there is no realm of clouds and angels who will support us and give us rich reward for our ascetic life . . . we will only continue our isolated fall into despair . . . unless we rescue ourself in THIS LIFE. unless we fight back and grow. there is no more security blanket. there is only ourself. and if we are very fortunate . . . someone who we can truly love and live honestly with. someone who we have enough faith in, to risk revealing our deepest self.

within my art, i work towards a return to a time before barriers and defenses. a time of rich emotion and life, a time of passionate FAITH, succulent in human contact. within my love for susan, i uncover the hand which can save me from my fall, and delicately return me to the precarious tightrope of truthful and passionate existence. though i don't know much of you, perhaps you also understand this FAITH?

---

yes. it was on the rope that i expressed this first stage of growth. it was filled with anger and accusation, because it was hard to accept that it was I who had done this to myself. my pain was still directed at my surroundings: the one who i loved... who i felt was rejecting me. perhaps i was only worthy of rejection, at that point?

chaos is a lot more self-critical. it is an emotional analyzation of how i had been misleading myself, in the relationship that was partially captured on ashes in the brittle air. there is nearly four years of growth, between the two albums... this span of time gave me the perspective to see that many of my faults were MINE -- and that i could not blame them on the people who i loved/lost.

i don't think there's something in particular that i want you to notice. the music intention, rather, is to remain un-noticed by the analytical brain. i want it to seep into the subconcious, where it can mingle with dreams and desires and perhaps serve the listener to some useful end.

perhaps as a bit of an incentive. a spark of hope. you see, i do not view life negatively. i don't predict the glorious downfall and destruction of mankind, that many "goths" have taken to heart. i am very hopeful and forward looking. i get clumped into the "existential" area of thought -- which i can agree with, in so far as my reading of sarte: YOU ARE ONLY WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOURSELF. there is no fate or destiny. you make your life, and if you spend your time moping and saying how nothing can ever be accomplished, then you will find yourself proved correct. because no beautified hand of god is going to come down and find you that perfect lover, or make you a success, or happy! you must do it for yourself! this philosophy isn't APPARENT. it is not there to be noticed. i hope that it can enter your mind thru subconcious osmosis.

Well, Kafka is my favorite writer...because i like to think that his work has the same effect as mine: if if you take it to heart (rather than writing it off as deppressing), you can use it as material to "learn" from... you can see faults that you can analyze, to see if you have them as well.

no one, in the sense of saying 'ooh! that's a nice beat or sequence, let's see if i can do something like that, too.' i create music, by playing around in the studio. having all my tools (or paint) before me...and then dabbling to see what might come about. you could call it improvising. basically...whatever mood i'm in is reflected in the piece that i create at that moment. the process then entails refining. writing lyrics and suggesting places for the various other musicians to contribute. it's all relatively improvised, around a structure that is evolving. so that i never exactly have a set idea how a song will end up! Vicki might come up with some fantastic violin piece that never would have occured to me, which throws the song into a completely new direction. it keeps it interesting!

they would be among my favorites, though i don't actually agree with the comparisons to them! I really enjoy Eno's Another Green World; while my favorite on the 4AD label would be the Pieter Nooten/Michael Brook collaboration, Victorialand by the cocteau twins or Spleen and Ideal by dead can dance. i guess that those three are all within the realm of the kind of music that i create ... but i listen to a lot of other stuff, too. things that might repulse you!

that relates directly to repulsing people. I have a band with my friend pat, named thanatos (sort of gothic-folk), and we just did a DIRGE version of "that's the way (i like it)" by KC AND THE SUNSHINE BAND. it's really very nice: deep horns, a minimal bass-drum crash and these gutteral words over the top. i would also like to do "how deep is your love" by The BeeGees, because it would be such a lush song, if done properly. and it has really assinine lyrics, which i think would make for a nice ambient song... and then there's "Oh Yoko" off John Lennon's Imagine album...

oh, yes! i'm quite serious. it will probably never happen, but that song is so full of love. "Your love will turn me on," is the key line. and he's not talking about the "ooh baby, you turn me on" aspect. but the very faithful idea that her love will make him exist. her love has created a REALITY for him, that was never there before.

you're right, i'm not. john lennon's plastic ono band lp (from 1971), however, is fantastic -- in so far as being an album that is full of pain and anger. he strongly reveals his desolation, which he never did again. the beatles had broken-up. the sixties were a failure. and nixon was persecuting him from a white house that continued to send people to death in vietnam. could you imagine a dream that had failed greater then the hippies, john, and the whole peace movement? and here he was, declaring that everything he had believed in was basically NOT worth anything. all that there was of worth was his love for yoko. the world had collapsed, and his faith in love was all that kept him from going over the edge. i'm only twenty-five. so my knowledge on this is from my personal experience of his music, as well as from reading about his life. reading about other's failure is a wonderful way to learn about yourself.

my honesty. i try to reveal things that someone else might say "ooh... don't say THAT in public!". what's the point of art, unless it reveals things that might otherwise be hidden or lost? in my art, i capture the side of myself that you might never know... if you only met me in person.

i think that there are a great many 'issues' (issues of the heart and mind) within my lyrics, dealing with topics that have equal value with current events. why sing about the idiot in the whitehouse, when there will be another idiot in eight years, and nothing really will have changed? in the last temptation of christ... jesus said something about the uselessness of trying to free people's bodies if their minds are still in bondage. and i think that my work is directed towards the release of the mind... or at least the uncovering of the mind, and it's ability to progress.

---

i prefer to leave that up to the listener's imagination. i don't like it, when things are given a DEFINITE meaning. i think that your interpretation is just as valid as mine, so i leave it open-ended.

not exactly. Oscar has sung on all four of the releases from the band.

i am. the band is my avenue for release. my "art" -- in that i guide the course of the band's development. or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the course of the band is guided by my development.

from within my thoughts of the people who i care for.

unfortunately, that's not possible. but then again, it is not part of the plan. the people who are part of the band pretty much understand that this is MY art. this is where i express myself; oscar or julianna are other artists who help me communicate my thoughts. i call the band a benevolent dictatorship, because i basically have the FINAL say -- though i am always open to other suggestions. i create the basic music, by improvising (by myself) in my studio. then, eventually i work out the lyrics and melodies, and suggest places for the other musicians to insert their performances. i really get to be annoying when we are recording. because i am always asking for some little thing that is impossible for me to explain. i'll say "no, sing it less earthy and more airy..." and oscar will give me a curious sort of look and give it another shot.

about two years. i have the luxury of slowly adding and developing the music, because (as i said) i create the basis myself. so i put in pieces over time, and come back to spots to reconsider how they are working. i think this ADDS to the continuity, because instead of having to reach immediate decisions - which are necessary when a band records in a studio, over perhaps a weak - i can think things through more fully. and equally so, i scrap more songs than i actually release. so there is a mental editing process always taking place.

I have only begun working on new music, and that is still rather tentative, so i would say that it won't be for at least another year.

if anything, the band has given me a forum for that agenda. previous to black tape for a blue girl, i did a number of video art pieces. however, they never got shown anywhere (except school), so i grew frustrated with the medium. i had already been working on music...so the band seemed like a very natural way to expound upon my thoughts and feelings.

the second choice! i think the only supreme beings are ourselves, which means that we are in charge and responsible for what becomes of us. i do not buy into the attitude that all is hopeless. that there is only despair and death. i think that we must make the most of our existence. that we must try. failure is better than sitting still, hopelessly. it's better to keep getting back up and trying again. because life is about pain, and then rebirth. regeneration, which leaves us stronger. and hopefully a bit happier. or at least a bit closer to some understanding.

i was born in florida, and it rained everyday there. and the waves slowly crashed upon the shore, and sent you tumbling delicately. i think that being surrounded by water (and lightning and thunder crashes) got into my head ... and made me more attuned to the mysterious or the mesmerizing. i think that the arridness of southern california would have affected me quite differently. i still retain the ties to the past. the lyrics are influenced by the situations that i find myself in. the people who i confuse myself over, who i am tempted by and who i desire. this serves as my opportunity to examine all the demons within me -- but i attempt to create a intuitive examination. i have no real use for scientific analyzation.

a sense of connection. a feeling that perhaps they are not alone, that there are others out there who feel this same way. that there are others who feel a bit lonely. or are still searching for something more. i don't feel like i am so lonely, now that i have received communication from others of like mind.

definitely! each of the four albums are documents of the period when they were created. a momentary capturing of the confusion that surrounded me. a chaos of desire, for example, was written at a point where i was trying to come to terms with a crumbled relationship. i was trying to return to balance within myself. i was searching for who i really was, removing all the excess facades that i had built up around myself, to protect myself from the fall. from the pain that i felt with the loss of faith. my love was my faith in this other person. my belief that she would not hurt me. that she would be honest with me. that she wouldn't deceive me. and i was attempting to uncover the truer-sam, after nearly a year of deceiving myself.

"The hypocrite is me" is perhaps the most powerful piece, lyrically and musically. the name was inspired by a painting a friend did back in 1986. i felt that i was often so full of lies. so keen to deceive myself, and lead myself astray. so fearful of actually doing the things that i desired to do. it's that moment in time, when you realize "AH HA!!! this is exactly what i want to do..." and then you talk yourself out of acting. creating a million excuses as to why your idea won't work. or why you shouldn't do it. over and over again, i have tricked myself into not doing the exact thing that i wanted. and then you return to life (or perhaps the person who you wanted to tell the you love) and pretend everything is normal. i think of that as being very untruthful to yourself. it is so destructive to your faith and sense of self-worth.

Be truthful to yourself! don't deceive yourself. or try to fit yourself into a situation that isn't perfect. too often, i tried to make things work. tried to trick my own mind into believing things would work out. when, really, i knew i was just hurting myself. but, then again, it's better to be hurt than to be lonely -- i suppose? it's better to be in pain and searching for more, than to accept a boring existence.