Tag Archives: Caspar Babypants

Arts & Entertainment, Music

President of the USA Chris Ballew Wears Caspar Babypants (Part Two)

[Caspar Babypants, AKA Chris Ballew of the Presidents of the United States of America, plays a free in-store set at Easy Street Records in West Seattle, tomorrow at 6:30pm. For more Caspar fun, check out part one of Clint’s interview here.]

Kids can be exhausting. Do they ever get to you? 

No, because they’re other people’s kids. The only thing that stresses me out even slightly, and it’s a pleasurable stressed out, is at live shows when things get weird and chaotic and they’re all over me. I stress out that some piece of equipment is going to fall over on somebody. I put down tape lines for safety, but when shows get a little crazy, I worry about little kids getting hurt. But their energy doesn’t stress me out at all. I depend on their energy for my own happiness.

What about all the DIY? Writing, recording, producing, booking…

It can be a little intense. This morning, I really, really wanted to get in the studio but couldn’t because a retail store did not receive a package of CDs. I had to spend time doing label-y stuff that I didn’t want to do. I have to constantly change my hat. [Doing different voices] Okay, I’m a label guy. Now I’m creative. Now I’m studio maintenance.

How is I Found You! different from your previous albums?

I would say it’s not different at all. I’m actually kind of enjoying being free of that whole reinvention thing. I never did understand that. If you have a sound that you love and a vocabulary that you love, there’s no reason to do anything different. The songs are different, the subjects are different. Maybe some albums have a little more energy, or there are more traditional songs, but it’s really minimal. It’s more transmissions from the same planet. I love the planet I’m on, so I’m not gonna get on a rocket and leave anytime soon.

How do you bring in the likes of Rachel Flotard, Stone Gossard, and Steve Turner?

I usually call people. Steve just came out of a Facebook chat about something else. I said we should do a song together and he didn’t waste any time. He immediately sent me iPhone movies of him playing riffs on his 12-string. I used one of them and we’re off and running [on “Too Dirty To Love”].

I’m working on a song with John Roderick from the Long Winters for the next album. I’m also really trying to get Peter Buck from R.E.M. because I have four or five songs that I cannot finish and I think his aesthetic would really help.

I was going to ask who’s on your wish list.

I want to have Kim Thayil from Soundgarden in, because he played on the Presidents’ debut album and it would be a nice full circle. Then I’d have a grungie from every band—Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Nirvana. [Laughs] I really like involving non-kid musicians on my albums. Weird Al [Yankovic] is on one, Krist Novoselic is on one. Stone Gossard has been an incredible fan from the beginning. He really got it. If you watch the Pearl Jam Twenty movie, [in the scene] when he’s walking around his house, you can see a Caspar album on his CD player. I was like, “Wait a minute!” I would love to get Eddie Vedder and his ukulele chops on an album. And the ultimate one is Ringo Starr.

I read that you’d done the Beatles’ “Blackbird” on piano.

I ended up recording it on an early ’80s Casio keyboard. It’s basically a calculator that makes sounds. It sounds almost like a robot “Blackbird.” [Laughs] I thought I was going to do a Beatles cover record at one point. I did “Little Child,” “All You Need Is Love,” “Cry Baby Cry,” “Good Night,” “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” “Only a Northern Song,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” and “Within Without You.” “Blackbird” and “Little Child” came out really good, so I might put them on the next record. I wanted to do some of the songs about expansive love, because that’s what I think children experience every day. They’re enlightened. And slowly, over time, they lose it and become regular people. That’s one of the reasons I love hanging out with kids.

So, finally, an Easy Street show. 

Yeah, I’ll be playing songs from the new album [tomorrow] at 6:30 p.m. It’s my first official in-store as Caspar Babypants. [Owner] Matt [Vaughan] has been a great supporter of my stuff. I get a mural every time I have a release, and I drive by it every day, so there’s a sense of pride. It reinforces my love of West Seattle and the feeling of finding my home here.

And then you’re playing Benaroya in May?

Yeah, two shows on May 4—not Benaroya, but Nordstrom Hall. At Benaroya, people are so far away. It’ll be more intimate and a better vibe. I’m going to have a 36-piece orchestra [backing]. The idea is that I’ll do my songs that have classical elements. I was steeped in classical music in studying piano, and my mom took me to the symphony when I was a kid. So I incorporate classical elements a lot.

Do you miss rocking out at all?

I still rock out. [The Presidents] have yearly Showbox shows on President’s Day weekend. We’re going to Australia in March, the northeast in April. I get my travel and touring ya-yas out that way.

How could you expand your kid-world empire? Web? TV?

I’m working on a TV show. I figured that’s a way my thing can go out. But I don’t want to be on the show. I will voice a character. It could be a really cool way to get Kate’s aesthetic out there.  She’s going to do all the character design and art. It’s gonna be two-dimensional, me in a paper world interviewing worms and bugs and trees. I’m going to record myself talking to kids, saying “What are you afraid of? What are you excited about?” And the audio will be the kids’ voices through that stuff. That will lead to a song on the topic.

Where do you see Caspar Babypants in five years? 

I will have already finished my 10-CD box set. [Laughs] I’ll probably be on album 12.

Still doing it all yourself?

I think so. I really like this whole thing being part of my life, and not being my life.  I don’t like the idea of having success taking over and eliminating all the joyful times that created the songs that created the success in the first place. I really want to be able to live in Seattle, go around with my wife, eat food, be with my kids, see the seasons change. I like the Pete Seeger model, where you take care of your own backyard. I’m taking care of Washington State, and I’m really happy to do that. I don’t need a lot of money to live. I just need to buy food and pay my bills.

 

Arts & Entertainment, Music

President of the USA Chris Ballew Wears Caspar Babypants (Part One)

Like innocent childhood wonder, inspiration is typically fleeting, sometimes fading before we’ve reaped its benefits. Unless you’re The Presidents of the United States of America’s Chris Ballew, whose abundance of both has given the rock star a parallel career as locally beloved “kindiependent” artist Caspar Babypants.

This month, Ballew will have self-released six full-length Babypants albums since 2009—all while doing his own production, PR, booking, and sales. And the creative fountain of youth he’s tapped shows no signs of drying. He has a seventh album planned for September 2013, and as he recently told me, “literally hundreds of songs waiting in the wings.”

Clearly, Ballew’s kid’s-eye view of the world has struck a chord. Children dig his music because it’s simple, has danceable rhythm, and its subject matter—birds, bugs, babies, everyday inanimate objects—mirrors their own budding fascinations. Parents love it for the joy it brings their kids and the happy family sing-alongs it almost literally demands. (This dad’s favorite song? “Bad Blue Jay.” There’s magic in it, and in many others.) His tunes are infectious, but not cloying or pandering—the downfall of a lot of kid’s music.

Bonus for Gen X parents: Ballew usually has one or more of his local contemporaries guest on his records. Krist Novoselic (Nirvana), Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam), Rachel Flotard (Visqueen), and others have contributed to his work. Mudhoney guitarist Steve Turner’s signature rawness can be heard on the latest album, I Found You!, out December 18.

All this explains why Ballew’s alter ego might play a packed Seattle library and a crowded Vashon elementary school gym on any given day. Why he’s got gigs—including an in-store at West Seattle’s Easy Street Records Tuesday—booked through next May. And why he’s developing a TV show. Demand is high. Wondering how the father of two can possibly keep up, I called Ballew to ask. Not surprisingly, he was “working on some music” when he picked up.

How are you maintaining such a prolific pace?

I’m inspired. I’m having my mid-life Picasso phase. It’s something I’ve always dreamed about, having this clarity of vision. I know what I’m doing, what I want it to sound like, who I’m singing for, and I know the music has a purpose. It’s about helping families reduce stress and stay together. Smoothing out the bumps for young parents. I hate the idea of any of [my songs] not seeing the light of day. I’m just trying to get them all out.

Do you write with your kids around, or in peace and quiet?

My kids aren’t around—they’re 15 and 12, so they’re beyond this music. But I have a notebook of a lot of songs that I’m interested in finishing. I might take it to the park, or sit in the backyard, or go to a coffee shop. Lately what I’ve been doing is really staring at a song. I might spend two hours at a coffee shop staring at one song and get deep into what it’s about, what the core is, and decide if the lyrics I have are serving that core or not.

Has your creative process changed since the first album?

It’s pretty similar, really. It’s a combination of old songs I’m rewriting, new songs that come out of my head, and new songs Kate, my wife, will [trigger]—she’s my Ringo Starr. He’d walk into a room and say, “It’s a hard day’s night,” and it was a song. Or “Tomorrow never comes,” and it was a song. She’ll walk through and say something amazing and I’ll turn it into a song. And then there’s also me tapping into old songs of mine that were thematically totally not kid’s music—I’m stripping the lyrics out and reinventing them. Those approaches were around when I started out, and they’re still around.

Chris Ballew, in full-on Caspar Babypants mode. (photo by Brian Kasnyik)

Your wife does the album artwork too, right?

The real seed of all of this is her artwork. With the Presidents, I kept thinking, This is great, I’m successful, but this is not my voice. Something is missing or wrong. Turns out there was irony and innuendo that I was not comfortable with. I got rid of that, realized I wanted to make innocent music, but didn’t know who I wanted to do it for or why. And then I saw Kate’s art and said, “That’s it. I want to make music that sounds like that looks.” I realized it was kid’s music. Kate is integral to that. Having her do the album covers is a no-brainer. Her art and my music are completely interlocked. It’s a great thing to be able to have that creative relationship with my wife. It’s a dream come true.

Are you fascinated by birds and bugs and bears? Or is that all kids’ stuff?

Oh, that’s me. The Presidents have that—little animals and bugs, surreal situations. Spiders riding dune buggies. It has that layer of innuendo and irony in it, and I just started to get rid of that. It still has this glowing core, I just got rid of the coolness. [Laughs] I’m childlike, so I connect with kids, but I never sit down and say, “What would a kid like to hear?” I start with making myself smile and my brain kind of lighting up. A vision or an image or wordplay, and then I just enjoy it in the same way a child would, pushing around words. And as I’m pleasing myself, I’m also pleasing parents. I’ve started toying around with rebranding myself as the world’s first “parent’s musician.” [Laughs] I’ve never actually sold a CD to a child.

[In Part Two of Clint’s interview posting tomorrow, Chris/Caspar discusses covering the Beatles, playing for children, and the Seattle rock all-stars who’ve appeared on his Caspar Babypants recordings. Stay tuned.]

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Visual Arts

West Seattle Summerfest is the Best Little Music Festival of the Season

Cabaret madmen The Bad Things will play in the sunshine at Summerfest Saturday. (Photo: Tony Kay)

The West Seattle Summerfest  (taking over West Seattle’s Junction this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) has been kicking it every July for 29 years, and it’s easily one of the best free festivals in these parts.

This season, the ‘Fest showcases an embarassment of  riches, event-wise. There’ll be a Sustainability and Garden Expo; an Art Dive, put on by the Twilight Artist Collective; HackCycle, a bike-frame re-jiggering project overseen by industrial arts madmen HazardFactory; a spiffy Super Fun Kids Area; and scores of wares being proffered by scores of local vendors.

But the big draw for a lot of folks in town (and this most emphatically includes me) is West Seattle Summerfest’s line-up of musical acts. Every year, the ‘Fest’s music programming gets better and better; and Summerfest 2011, in particular, boasts several astonishingly good Northwest bands and musicians. It’s like walking into one of this ‘burg’s best live venues on an extra-rich bill–only Summerfest offers free admission.  Here’s a rundown of the must-see acts hitting Summerfest this weekend:

Friday, July 8

Whalebones (4:30-5:15 p.m.): Whalebones sound, to these ears at least, like the Northwest’s equivalent of the Black Angels. Like the Angels, they work the lysergic side of the street with a greasy, swaggering batch of tunes that pick up the mind-tripping torch passed from Satanic Majesties’ era Stones to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. This could be the weekend’s best sonic accompaniment to baking in the sun–in more ways than one.

Thee Sgt Major III (5:45-6:30 p.m.), Cali Giraffes (7-7:45pm), The Fastbacks (8-8:45 p.m.): Call it Fastbacks Friday. TSMIII, Fastback guitarist Kurt Bloch’s current power-pop outfit, deliver a great, toothy sugar buzz, topped by Leslie Beattie’s Debbie Harry drone-snarl and an all-star rhythm section comprised of bassist Jim Sangster and drummer Mike Musberger. And based on the one song I’ve heard, fellow ‘Back Kim Warnick’s new group Cali Giraffes will likewise deliver loud-and-fast tartness with the fizzy sweet. Best of all, The Fastbacks re-form for the first time in nine years to continue the party. Who’da thunk that an important branch of Seattle music history could also make you gyrate like a top?

Caspar Babypants (6:30-7:15 p.m.): The Presidents of the United States of America pretty much wrote and played great, funny, weird songs with kid-like exuberance anyway; so it should be no surprise that Presidents singer/guitarist Chris Ballew’s kiddie-song incarnation of Caspar Babypants consists of great, funny, weird songs brimming with kid-like exuberance. Shed your jaded hipster goggles and dance along with the small fry.

Michael Jaworski of Virgin Islands also moonlights as one of The Cops. Photo by Tony Kay.

The Cops (9-10 p.m.): Michael Jaworski takes time from one of Seattle’s best art-punk bands (Virgin Islands) to abuse his six-string and declaim for a formal re-union of one of Seattle’s other best art-punk bands. The Cops shred live, and they’re working on a new record. God, life is good.

Saturday, July 9

The Bad Things (1:15-2 p.m.): If the Pogues could hold their liquor better; shared tequila, German brews, and Scotch ales with Tom Waits; and jammed with a mariachi band; they’d sound kind of like the Bad Things. This awesome kitchen-sink cabaret ensemble comes fresh from the den of debauchery that was the Columbia City Theater’s One-Year Anniversary show (go here for details) to bring mordant humor, alcohol-sodden moping, and killer musicianship to the ‘Fest music stage.

Curtains for You (7:30-8:15 p.m.): Seattle’s best pure-pop band are genetically incapable of playing a bad live show; so go see ’em for free before they become massive stars, already.

The Bend (8:45-9:30 p.m.): They may be from Seattle, but they wear their UK alt-rock influences (U2, Doves, Elbow, pre-OK Computer Radiohead) on their sleeves. Fortunately, The Bend tread that path really, really well; with chiming guitars, throaty vocals, and songs strong enough to stand confidently beside their idols.

The Staxx Brothers (10-10:45 p.m.): With their fusion of garage-rock, soul, and snarky wit, the Staxx Brothers would make a mean pairing with the Electric Six.

Sunday, July 10

Gunn and the Damage Done (3:45-4:30 p.m.): Springsteen/Mellencamp-style heartland rock isn’t a favorite genre of mine, but Tommy “Gunn” McMullin and company know how to do it right. McMullin possesses a great raspy growl of a rock voice that sounds like The Boss possessed by B.J. Thomas, and his backup band The Damage Done play with snap and polish.

The Fuzz (5-5:45 p.m.): Clumsy, shambling garage rock with sprinkles of ripsaw punk; and vocals so awkward they sound like they were recorded by a passing vagrant? I’m there. Bet it’ll sound great live.