Citified

I met Chris Jackson in 2002 at (of all places) a comic book convention. We had a mutual friend and, as a courtesy to said friend, I purchased a copy of Citified’s self-titled debut. Eight years later I’ve been following Citified religiously, running my mouth off about their music to anyone who will listen. You, dear reader, are now on the receiving end of my obsession. But trust me on this one; Citified are worth your time.

Citified have released a handful of discs all of which marry the intense soundscapes of My Bloody Valentine with the accessibility and instant recognition of R.E.M. at their most beautiful — which is to say, all of Citified’s releases are recommended, if not required, for fans of pop shoegaze. Whatever that is. Jackson recently spoke to me candidly about the future of Citified, his proximity to buzz bands in North Carolina, and the beautiful struggle of keeping a band fresh, relevant, and noticeable in a disposable era.

SSv: You were good enough to send me some demos you are working on.

Chris Jackson: Yeah, we’re working right now on recording some demos . And at live shows we keep fine tuning them to see what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been spending a lot of nights just trying to turn out as many songs as I can to have a collective group to pick from, so once I give them to the band they can tell me what they want to work on and what they don’t want to work on.

SSv: You just released the Absence EP — are you working towards another EP or a full-length?

Chris: I’d like for this one to be a full-length — but when I say full-length I’m thinking 8 to 10 songs. I don’t want it to be too long. Especially these days it seems like everything is…the shorter the better. I guess that’s why we’ve always done EPs in the past. I don’t know if we’ve done a proper full length though. Maybe The Meeting After the Meeting is the closest to one, but that was short as well, only 35 minutes. The goal now is to pick 8 to 10 songs for the next release. But Eskimo Kiss Records, our label, is getting ready to close up shop as you may know.

SSv: Right. You mentioned that to me before. Are you out shopping for another label or do you want to self-release?

Chris: I’d like to shop the demos to another label or just send them to key people and get some feedback. May 31st is the 10-Year Anniversary show for Eskimo Kiss Records and that’s in Wilmington. Every year they have something called WE Fest, and this year it’s kind of a going-away party for the label. Kim Ware started Eskimo Kiss records in Wilmington but she carried it to Atlanta. At this point I think she’s ready to take on some new things. I guess the label has just run its course.

SSv: So it’s not an instance of the label not having money, she’s just ready for something different?

Chris: Right. I think she’s just got some other things in mind, some other goals. Kim’s been great to us and there have been a lot of great bands on that label. The last thing she just put out was a Tracy Shedd release and she was on Teenbeat Records. And that’s the last release the label will put out, other than a best-of 10-Year anniversary disc that’s being pressed right now. And that will have a new Citified song on it, “Expect Delays.” I think it’s a two-disc set.

SSv: Well, I guess that’s a little comforting to me that the label didn’t go broke, per se.

Chris: Yeah, well I don’ think it was a big money-making thing to begin with, not for any of us involved. [Laughs] But it definitely picked up some notoriety over the years, especially the band North Elementary, out of Chapel Hill. I don’t know if you’re very familiar with a lot of these North Carolina-based bands.

SSv: Hmmm…maybe. But I’m not even that familiar with South Carolina bands. [Laughs] Well, do you find that the state is receptive to new music or Citified, in general?

Chris: We’re close to the Raleigh-Durahm/Chapel Hill triangle being in Greensboro and we’re close to Merge Records and Yep Roc; they’re right next door so new bands pop up all the time. It’s a lot of energy and new bands. There’s a band called Free Electric State that, already, they’ve opened for Polvo in Baltimore and Retribution Gospel Choir. And Free Electric State used to be in a band called Gerty which was on Eskimo Kiss.

Here in Greensboro there are so many bands playing on any given weekend that it’s hard to pick where to go and what to do. And that’s a good thing, but where we’re located we’re kind of in a hot spot of new indie bands popping up all the time.

SSv: And there are some bands that pop up and get an instant buzz factor, too. Do you feel sometimes, like, “Man, we’ve been working so hard and this band shows up overnight and now they’re opening for The Strokes…”

Chris: Right, well you kind of nailed it on the head. Around here it’s a lot of who you know. But the easy part is to become a fresh new band and gain a lot of momentum and a lot of energy because no one has seen you. As opposed to… well, the hard part. We’ve been at this for a while now and it’s easy to be the buzz. Even Citified as some point got the “big” shows for a while, and then, like anything, it dies down, and then picks back up.

The hard part, however… It’s like a relationship. After the honeymoon has gone away, how do you keep it going? That’s what I agonize over, what I think about: how to keep things fresh. And being in demo mode, recording the songs, you just have to look to the next release and hope that it reaches a new group of people who haven’t heard us before.

SSv: Do you worry you won’t reclaim that initial fervor of being a new band? For example, you guys actually get some great critical acclaim: Aquarium Drunkard has picked up on the band. For people who know their music and music history, I think you guys are a great band to watch. But that doesn’t translate to commercial appeal. Would you trade it all to get that commercial appeal or do you like where you are?

Chris: Well, of course the commercial appeal would be nice. Everyone’s goal is to make a living playing music and doing what we love. I’m more concerned with creating a foundation; a core group of fans and not necessarily overnight success. And I think we’ve slowly done that. Over the past month or two, I don’t know why, but we’ve been getting a lot of mentions from Canadian people. [Laughs] Which is weird, but great, too.

We’ll go play shows out of town and, it’s fun to play in Greensboro and our friends are very supportive, but what really matters to me is going to Atlanta or DC and then people who don’t even know us come up and express interest after the show. Playing in front of strangers who genuinely express interest, that’s what means the most to me. Does that make any sense? [Laughs]

SSv: It does. It’s like your own idea of commercial success; when you win someone over who might not have heard of Citified. And I get that, because it must be exciting for all bands, too. Personally, that’s what happened with me in regards to Citified. And I think people who find a band that they really like and believe in, they become fans for life. So, it’s great to hear you say that you’re interested in creating a core group of fans, but how difficult is that to achieve?

Chris: Well, maybe you can tell me. [Laughs] How do you take it to another level? What do you do? That’s always the question. I can’t see myself not writing music. That’s what I find joy in. And looking forward to putting out a release… I’d rather do that everyday than try to book shows and play here or there. It’s fun and exciting, but my love is coming up with these songs, recording them, and then getting them out.

The way R.E.M.’s Murmur affected me or Red House Painters or Cocteau Twins, my hope is that someone out there will feel the same way about the music we create. That’s my main goal. It’s not about money. It’s certainly great to cover your costs, especially in this day but… I don’t know. It’s not happening. [Laughs] If we go out of town, we cover costs. We’ll make enough for gas, food, and maybe a hotel room. But it kind of just turns into a guy-trip. [Laughs] But I just want to keep putting out music and hope that it will affect someone the same way music affected me.

SSv: Have you thought about just putting out recorded material and not touring, or is that not an option?

Chris: Well, it is fun to go out and play shows once in a while. But, as of May 31, our bass player, Frank Kane, is retiring, he’s leaving. So there’s going to be a lull in shows and maybe that’s a good thing. We’re booked through the end of May, but that’s it for a period of time.

SSv: Sorry to hear that about Frank.

Chris: Yeah, me too. He’s been with me from the start but with Frank leaving and Eskimo Kiss Records shutting down, you kind of wonder, ‘Is it worth it? Should we keep doing this?’ You know? But if I didn’t do this I would just sit around and watch TV all day. [Laughs] The only way I’ll be happy is keep writing music and somehow get it out there.

But, those two things — Frank leaving and Kim stopping Eskimo Kiss Records — do make me second guess what I’m doing. But at that the same time, I’m not gonna stop. Maybe in a way this will make me work harder.

SSv: That’s a positive attitude to have…

Chris: Yeah. I hope. [Laughs] But then there are days when you wonder, ‘What’s the point?’ Because you see these new bands popping up with buzz and it is frustrating. But then six months or a year later half of them have disappeared. The hard part is always keeping it going and figuring out what we can do differently.

SSv: There’s a quote from Flannery O ‘Connor for situations like this. Basically she says, and I’m paraphrasing, I don’t think enough writers are being stifled at the beginning. You know, that the bad stuff isn’t being cut off from the get-go.

Chris: Meaning that it’s good to be stifled? It spurs creativity?

SSv: Yes, that, too. I was thinking that there are some bands that need to be stifled from the beginning. They need a hard dose of reality because a lot of them enter into this notion of playing in a band and think, “I’ll go tour and set the world on fire with this crappy 5-song EP I recorded with Garage Band…” And, this is gonna sound cynical, but I’d really rather them not waste my time. I wish some bands would give it more careful thought and realize how much of a chore, how much of job being in a band really is.

Chris: Well, it’s fun at first! It’s beautiful at first. And that’s what these bands are going through at the very beginning. I keep bringing up the comparison of being in a relationship, but it’s true; everything is great in the beginning. When the problems start happening then you have to figure out how to work through them — only it’s like being a relationship with four people. It’s a lot of give and take.

The first Citified release was me, a drum machine, a keyboard, and a guitar and I had all creative control. Then I put a band together and it was fun. But the next go-round you have yourself and three other guys. And you want everyone to express themselves and to be creative…and it’s just a lot of give and take. In some ways it gets harder, but there are a lot of great moments, as well.

SSv: I can see where it’s alluring. But I think about bands that have been together for decades — like 30 years. I was listening to a later U2 record the other day and thought, ‘You know, we can bag on U2 all we want, but the fact is these guys have been going strong for decades and everything they put out still sounds remotely fresh and inventive.’ Personally, after a while, I think we should just stop rating or criticizing bands — like R.E.M. Because they are trying to make it fresh and reinvent themselves like you said. And criticizing that is, to me, like saying, ‘Eh, I don’t want my music to mature.’

Chris: Yeah, and it goes both ways — like when a band becomes hugely popular and people feel like they’ve lost this secret that they discovered.

SSv: And that was really just the long route for me to say that, to me, you guys sound like if Murmur-era R.E.M. was being produced today. Like Citified picked up right where Murmur left off, just in a different timeframe and mindset. You’ve got a lot of Peter Buck’s playing style.

Chris: Thanks, I definitely take that as a compliment. [Laughs] It’s funny because we’re doing a cover show coming up in May where people in bands around Greensboro have a fundraiser show. I put one together for R.E.M. and I’m gonna be Michael Stipe, so no guitar playing. But I am thinking about shaving my head. [Laughs]

SSv: Maybe put on some mascara…

Chris: I’m working on that part. [Laughs] It’s gonna be early R.E.M. stuff — which is kind of a lifelong dream to me. Just on a random R.E.M. side note… [Laughs]

SSv: Last question: Citified is a very sonic, aural band. Where did you pick up that reverb, delay, Bigsby-tremolo, sound?

Chris: A lot of it came from our other guitarist Diego Diaz, especially on the last EP. He brought in a lot of washing effects…I love delay and reverb but he’s kind of taken it to another level with an E-bow. Recently he picked up an electric toothbrush and would hold that to the strings, getting sounds that you wouldn’t normally get from an electric guitar. And I love a good three-minute pop song, too. Like Yo La Tengo mixed with Lush or My Bloody Valentine.

But I need to give Diego credit for a lot of the soundscapes that have been created recently. The whole band, really — Frank [Kane, bassist], Diego and Eric [Ussery, drummer]. They’re all just amazing players and great people. And Kim with Eskimo Kiss Records, too. I’ve been lucky to have so many talented people be affiliated with Citified. Very fortunate. And it’s an uncertain time for us, for Citified; it’s scary but also exciting.

SSv: All the things that make music worthwhile.

Chris: Right. Exactly.