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day of the week...
They are all pretty much the same to me. When you are a full time
musician, you only tend to think day and night, not Monday to Friday,
although admittedly I have always had a fondness for Tuesday.
When I wake up in the morning the first thing
I do is...
Drink 3 cups of tea with milk and one sugar, put on some music,
figure out what I’m doing that day (and consider the possibility
of skipping everything and just starting on making dinner).
It annoys me when...
Style wins over substance, and, there is no milk for my tea first
thing in the morning. Hell of thing that.
I don’t wear...
Armour plating, or anything that may make me resemble a futuristic
humanoid or robot. I don’t want to live in the future.
Creativity is allowing yourself to...
Follow your instincts.
A band that guided me is...
The Necks. In my opinion, one of Australia’s greatest. They’re
fiercely uncompromising, and always provided me with the evidence
that you can be and find room for your voice in the world, no matter
what type of music you make.
In my rider I would like...
Miso soup, letters from loved ones, a kitten, the latest issue of
‘Tan’ magazine, but I guess one can’t be too demanding
these days, don’t want to upset the balance of things.
I get scared when...
People have tattoos on their necks or when Nan has a spell and falls
down the stairs.
When I leave here, I am going to...
Post four postcards to Australia listen to John Carpenter on LP,
have a vodka, stare, stare, have a Japanese meal and feel wholesome.
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PIVOT
ANNOUNCE DEBUT VIDEO
'IN THE BLOOD'
DIRECTED BY ALEX SMITH
A SHARK PUPPET EXTRAVANGZA:
BLOOD! GORE! MORE BLOOD! SHARK! PUPPETS!
Debut EP 'In the Blood' out May
19th
myspace.com/pivotpivot
Notes on the making of 'In The Blood' by
director Alex Smith
I've always liked the idea of making a shark attack film. There
was one film in particular that inspired me "L'Ultimo Squalo",
which is an Italian rip-off of Jaws. The story is the same as Jaws,
but in the spirit of Italian exploitation cinema, everything's amped
up, there's three times as much gore. I've always been interested
in Sharks- I went shark cage diving in South Africa, which was amazing.
I was shooting a documentary about Depeche Mode in Sao Paolo and
I got caught in a sudden rain storm. I went into the nearest café
to wait it out. I had nothing to read, and I had a rush of blood
to the head - if I was to make a shark film, what would happen?
How would it be different to the others? So I thought I'd write
a fantasy shark movie. I wrote some key scenes, imagined how I'd
shoot it, and then forgot about it. Then I got asked by Pivot to
make a video for "In The Blood", and the bass line, the
title, and the general mood of the song spoke Shark to me.
My cousin Ralph showed me a film about the sculptor Alexander Calder,
"Le Cirque de Calder". Calder shows us puppets of circus
performers, about four inches tall, lion tamers, trapeze artists,
knife throwers - all made out of wire, cork and scraps of material.
Calder is seen the whole time, nudging the puppets along with his
hands - there are no strings or rods attached - just Calder's hands.
What I took from it, was that seeing the puppeteer didn't matter
at all, and that you can read emotions into a piece of cork with
a couple of eyes drawn onto it.
I met up with my sculptor friend Astrid to discuss making this,
and we spent a lot of time talking about materials. We knew we weren't
going to try and make something realistic, but there needed to be
something in the materials that people could connect with. Astrid
insisted on real broken glass for the shark's teeth, because broken
glass is scary regardless. Real human glass eyes from WWII were
used for the mannequins eyes, old messed up human hair wigs and
elastoplasts for their hands all helped give the puppets a human
quality.
I wanted to shoot the video in my back yard. It's been filling up
with rubbish for over a year, and I liked the idea of just stretching
a plastic sheet over the whole lot to "clean it up", almost
like suppressing something in the back of your mind, like the "if
you can't see it, you don't have to deal with it" mentality.
Astrid and I talked a lot about how much you can get away with,
along with whether seeing the puppeteers would spoil the illusion,
and we looked to Calder's film to reassure ourselves.
I got friends to help out with the puppeteering, it was a steep
learning curve for some. My flatmate would turn up drunk late at
night, we'd still be shooting, and I'd rope him into dressing up
in the overalls, goggles and gloves to do some shark wrangling.
My sister helped out with the blood (we needed a lot) she became
obsessed with getting it right, sometimes refusing to let us use
it until she'd got the consistency and colour perfect. We tried
to make some ourselves when she was unavailable, but we just couldn't
figure out her secret recipe.
It was all shot on my dad's digital camera, over 7000 stills got
used in the final version. Technically, it is animation, it's Pixelation
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation). It was the best way to
create some of the effects, and it creates a world different look
to real-time, which fit the music.
Scenes of attack and blood splashing were shot with a flash - we
all had to stand around frozen in position waiting for the flash
to re-charge in-between shots. That was probably the most laborious
part of the shoot.
It took around five days to shoot, all in my flat and backyard.
The flat was turned upside down, there was blood everywhere, nobody
slept much and I fell down the stairs and fractured my shoulder.
But it was worth it!
The first Australian band to sign to Warp & quite possibly the
first band
formed onstage at The Sydney Opera House.
Having already released
the critically acclaimed 2005 album Make Me Love You
as a 5 piece, by 2006 Pivot were in tatters. Broken by creative
differences the 5 gradually became 2, with Laurence and
Richard Pike all that remained of the Pivot of yore.
When Laurence
Pike, was invited to perform an off-the-cuff piece at the Sydney
Opera House with fellow musicians Dave Miller
and Phil Slater (as part of the This Is Not Art Festival,
little did he know that his Pivot worries would be resolved quite
spontaneously. With a last minute cancellation from trumpeter Phil,
Richard Pike was drafted in to save the day. Meeting
each other in this live setting for the very first time, the chemistry
between Laurence, Richard and
Dave was undeniable. A new Pivot was born.
In 2006 the
newly energised three-piece began the cathartic process of recording.
It wasn't easy, with Dave living in London and the Pikes based in
Australia but no strangers to modernity, the band utilized telegrams,
pagers, telex and other hi-tech-mod-con wizardry to beat the odds.
The fruits of their labour can be heard on new EP In The
Blood out May 19th, backed by Didn't
I Furious from their forthcoming album, and remixes by
Rustie and Clark.
Equally influenced by
Synthesizer luminaries Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre,
Warp label-mates Autechre and the post-punk new
wave of Talking Heads, the three-piece have already
showcased their furious live talent on their home
turf with the likes of Battles, Four Tet and Deerhoof.
London is privileged to host their FIRST EVER Northern Hemisphere
shows this April.
Pivot live dates
APRIL
24 London, UK - Bar Academy, Islington
25 London, UK - Bardens Boudoir/Tape This
MAY
06 Leeds, UK - The Brudenell Social Club (w/Gravenhurst)
07 London, UK - ICA (w/Gravenhurst)
08 Manchester, UK - Ruby Lounge (w/Gravenhurst)
11 Oxford, UK - Jericho (w/Gravenhurst)
12 Bristol, UK - The Fleece (w/Gravenhurst)* *
15 London, Uk - Stag and Dagger Festival (Dj Set)
17 Brighton, UK - The Great Escape Festival
22 London, UK - Dot To Dot Festival
24 Bristol, UK - Dot To Dot Festival
25 Nottingham, UK - Dot To Dot Festival
PIVOT ARE:
RICHARD PIKE
Brother of Laurence, Richard was Ewan McGregor's stand-in in Star
Wars. No, I am not making this up. He previously played with Flanger.
www.myspace.com/richardpike
DAVE MILLER
Hailing from Perth but based in London, Dave makes off kilter techno
and has played in venues worldwide, from toilets to bombshelters.
Dave is also in a band with Laurence called Roam The Hello Clouds.
www.myspace.com/davemillermusic
LAURENCE PIKE
Brother of Richard and drummer of the band. Laurence has also played
for Prefuse 73, Triosk, Savath Y Savalas and is in a band with Dave
called Roam The Clouds.
www.myspace.com/laurenzpike
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