SUNDAY SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH, POSTED OUT ON THE CORNER OF FRONT
AND THOMPSON IN PHILLY, LEANING UP AGAINST EXTERIOR WALLS, ENCASED WITHIN WAS
KUNG FU NECKTIE-JOCELYN AND I
WAITED WITH THREE OTHER PEOPLE FOR THE DOORS TO OPEN. All the
while, I’m thinking –“No, this can’t be,
am I really gonna see The Strange Boys play in a place with only 5 people?”
Well, no, not quite, the crowd showed up later, but still, no more than 50
folks. This was my chance to redeem
myself. The Strange Boys had come to town more than a couple times without me
being there. I started listening to this band about four years ago. It was one
of those amazing Youtube moments when you find the gold, feel its magic and
rush into a sonic sea of excitement. In
fact, the first moments of me listening to The Strange Boys are so vivid in my
head that I even remember what video it was and the name of the song. It was
the one with them performing Probation
Blues at The Smell in LA. I even remember that Ema from Ema and The Ghosts
is the one who posted the video and that I would have never-EVER listened to
The Strange Boys had I not been introduced to Ema’s cover of After Hours by The
Velvet Underground and seen Probation Blues in the related videos column on the
right. I was hooked like hook is to phonics.
It’s odd to meet someone who you have only heard in songs, seen
in pictures or watched in videos. In your head, you go: “You’re real???, OF
COURSE YOU’RE REAL! Why wouldn’t you be real?”…you have to kind of mentally
slap yourself, or pinch yourself, depending on the degree of the impact. In
this case, I think it was a definite slap. I wasn’t expecting to meet Ryan
Sambol (singer, guitarist, sometimes plays harmonica) but Kung Fu Necktie was
unexpectedly and wonderfully small. It’s
easy to bump into the band folks. During
Those Darlins’(the other band, along with Gentleman Jesse and His Men, on the
roster) set, Jocelyn asked Ryan if we could talk to him for the Hook and Line.
Anyway, Ryan noticed our lack of paper/recording devices and he
stopped us for a second as we were about to start asking questions. He said, “Wait,
so she’s [Jocelyn] writing and you’re [Me] talking?” We were like, “ummm - yeah.” Then he said that he had a
tape player in the van and that he also had a tape that we could have if we had
the means of playing it. Sweet! So we went around the corner (meanwhile – you
can hear the music blasting inside the venue –Those Darlins were playing a
cover of The Velvet Underground’s Lonesome
Cowboy Bill)and he fetched the tape player out of the van, laid it on top
of a concrete post thing-a-ma-bobber , pressed play, and we talked for maybe 6
minutes. After that, we went back inside and I bought their latest LP, Be Brave. It was pretty cool.- Photos by Keba Robinson, Interview by Jocelyn and Keba
ON SHOWS
Jocelyn: Do you
like big venues or smaller ones?
Ryan: I prefer – I guess I prefer smaller ones. I
want everyone to be able to get in- but smaller ones can have a better
atmosphere.
Keba: What was
the first show you ever went to?
R: Red Hot Chili Peppers-Californication tour.
K:Really?
They’re awesome!
R:Yeah, that was my first. It was a huge place.
BESIDES MUSIC
K:What inspires
you?
R:Everything, you know? Like, mostly people-
conversations and things like that.
K:What’s the
last book you read?
R:The Unknown Masterpiece by Balzac - Honoré
de Balzac. It’s pretty cool…It’s two short stories about two different artists.
One is a painter, the other is a musician. And they’re both kind of insane with
genius I guess. But their works that they consider to be their greatest
achievements can’t really be received correctly or understood by the people
around them. So it kind of makes them go crazy. I just got it actually in New
York. It’s shorter than I expected it. I mean, I knew how big it was – but it
could have been a lot longer - which is, I guess a testament to how good it is.
K:Do you write
besides music?
R:Yeah, occasionally - mostly just poetry stuff. But
there’s so much of it that doesn’t get used for the band.
K:Do you do
anything else aside from music? Like any other creative things?
R: I like to paint. That’s
about it. I would say I almost enjoy that more than playing music, but I’m not
nearly as practiced at it.
K:Do you paint
on the road?
R:Not really - sometimes Jenna [saxophone player]
draws pictures-sometimes I draw pictures - but it’s very rare. I don’t know we
should probably…..we need some water colors, I wouldn’t want to break out the
oils.
Jocelyn: Do you
prefer water colors or oil or…
R:I like everything really, I like pastels though…
J:You can blend….
R: Yeah, I like that, It looks like paint but you don’t need a
brush.
ON STARTING TO
PLAY GUITAR
K:Did you
always want to be a musician?
R:I used to want to be a baseball player- you know,
the normal stuff.
K:How did you
start playing guitar?
R:My little brother got the first guitar in the
house. Philip and I, the base player, we’re brothers. And then Philip’s friend brought over a guitar- a
really cool- nice fender- and it was really cool – then everyone started
playing from there.
K:What was the
first song you learned?
R:Probably Come As You Are.
K: Oh, that was
the first song I learned on bass!
R: Nice. Yeah, my mom came to a show on our last
tour. She saw a show in London. And we gave her a ride back to her hotel and
she was telling everybody about how she used to go insane because Philip used
to play that song over and over again and she would only know the first thirty
seconds.
