I'm gonna say what nobody else has the guts to say: Aspie Lispen was talentless. "How could you?" is the sort of response I expect from this. But really, think about it. Aspie never pushed himself in any direction other than twee, was horrible at singing, wasn't especially talented at any instrument, and was just overall a terrible musician. Why Cameron Clarke is so obsessed with this mans work is beyond me, but I'll tell you something else: Buncen Bern and Ricky Martini were the real brains behind Tall Building. Sure, the songs Aspie wrote for the albums are catchy, but which ones will we REALLY remember in ten, twenty years? CD Players, Escape, Scurvy, Alien Abduction, Bunny Rabbits. Can you even remember the melody to My Cat Ran Away? I'm serious, try to hum it. I'll bet you can't. That's because there was nothing original or interesting about it.
Cameron Clarke recently posted an article about his trip to the Lispen household. He mentioned trying to get ahold of Ricky Martini and Buncen Bern, but he never did. Do you think there's a possibility that he didn't want to hear what these men had to say about the whole matter? I do. Cameron Clarke is completely obsessed. It's not even about the music anymore, he's built a false image of how Lispen was inside his mind and he will ignore anybody who points this out. Gertrude Lispen was obviously a lonely old woman, willing to take advantage of Clarkes' obsession for a nice fucking. Yes, Clarke only told half of the story. Actually you couldn't even say that, it was too fucked up. He made no attempt to interview the other living members of Tall Building, so you know what?
I will.
Included with the physical copies of For the Love of God Please Listen to This Album (handmade by Bern himself) is a booklet containing images of Buncen Bern in a Chester Cheetah costume, some paintings made by his college girlfriend, a lock of his hair, and some contact information. I sent him an email, asking him to meet up with me for an interview. He liked the idea. We met at the bluebird cafe on one cloudy day to discuss matters Tall Building and post-Tall Building.
CMFCG: First, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview.
BB: It's my fantasy.
CMFCG: Let's talk about For the Love of God. After faking your own death, did you immediately start work on this one?
BB: No, I was too depressed to create for a while there. Feeling my musical career was over right then and there, I actually considered real death a few times. I got so down I visited old Gertrude
Lispen one night, knowing she would fuck anybody.
CMFCG: Did you fuck?
BB: Yes. Anyways, about a month or so after I faked my death I got myself together and began making trips to the studio. I was still really hooked on drugs though, so I didn't get much done at first. I sobered up a little and began writing my best songs to date. Oh the Memories Pt. 2 is sort of about the pain I went through while overcoming my drug addiction.
CMFCG: Really?
BB: Well it was written while I was getting off them.
CMFCG: I see. Are all the songs on the album autobiographical?
BB: Yes, my great grand-pappy Ronald D. Bern marched out of the hospital he was staying in to promote gay awareness. A giant crowd formed and people marched with him and for that whole year, you could do whatever you wanted sexually. Then everybody returned to normal life and became homophobes again.
CMFCG: How come I've never read about this anywhere?
BB: I don't know.
CMFCG: What do you have to say about the death of Aspie Lispen?
BB: I was only friends with him so I could be around his hot, hot mother.
And that's all we have for now. You needed to hear the truth behind it all, and I'm glad you did. Check out Buncen Berns new album here: http://buncenbern.bandcamp.com/album/for-the-love-of-god-listen-to-this-album
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
TALL BUILDING SCANDAL REVEALED! + LOST ASPIE ALBUM
Hello! I know I haven't posted anything here in a while, and there's a good ass reason- you see, recently I made the trip to WA to track down Ricky Martini and ask him what he thought of Aspie Lispen's final album, Goodbye, My Friends!, and its new-found status as classic album and masterpiece of modern indie folk. But instead of an interview, what I got was a look at the darkest side of the indie universe (or "indieverse") there is.
I arrived at the airport and was immediately greeted by Aspie's mother, Gertrude Lispen. She knew I was a dedicated fan of her son's and offered to let me stay in the now-empty room that was once occupied by my hero, Aspie. I graciously accepted, and went with her to her car.
On the drive to the Lispen house we talked about many things; how she felt about Buncen Bern and Ricky Martini, the two ex-friend and bandmates who left Aspie to die in that graveyard, what life has been like since her son's death, and the events leading up to his mental breakdown and eventual suicide.
According to Gertrude, after a Tall Building show at a local coffee shop, a couple musicians- Twee-Pain, Lenn909n and Adam Green, introduced themselves to the band. They offered to "expand (their) minds" with various drugs to help their music. Buncen and Ricky, bored of simple indie folk, accepted, leaving Aspie and Birdie (who were very strictly anti-drug) alone and angry.
The three strange musicians had wormed their way into the band by the time they went into the studio to record Bermuda Adventure, angering Aspie and Birdie. Their songwriting was being slowly squeezed out and creative input ignored. The band would frequently sneak out of the studio to smoke drugs while Aspie would stay in alone, writing songs he hoped would impress his friends, but they would just laugh and tell him that his indie folk was too 2010- that he should be looking towards the future instead. He grew depressed. The depression only deepened with the sudden death of his best friend and bandmate, Birdie McSun. He quit the sessions and spent the rest of the time leading up to Birdy's funeral hiding in his room. After the funeral he starting living in the graveyard, and the rest is, well, indie history.
There was a long pause after she finished telling me all this. Fighting back tears, she turned on the radio to a news station. "Hearing about other people's sons dying in the war makes me feel a little better about it" she told me, as we listened to just that. After that, a shocking news report came in that Buncen Bern was not dead, and that he had, in fact, faked his own death in an attempt at gaining publicity for his album, Wrapped Up In Himself. And as if this weren't despicable enough, he announced that he was releasing ANOTHER new album, called For the Love of God Listen to This Album. Shameless publicity stunts aside, I wondered why Ricky Martini was in jail then, if he hadn't really killed Buncen. But that was a question for another day. I was tired and needed rest.
We arrived at the Lispen house late at night. I spent a considerable amount of time exploring Aspie's room and the treasures that were found all around it. I was getting ready to sleep when Gertrude entered the room, completely nude, and got into the bed with me. We made sweet love right there and then. I'm sure she was drawn to me because I am a charming big-shot music blogger/musician, but I have to admit, I only did it to feel closer to Aspie- and lying there, in his bed, inside the very vagina he came out of, I had never felt closer to a person.
Buncen was nowhere to be found for an interview, but the next day (after cooking me a terrible breakfast that was nothing more than a clusterfuck of burnt bacon and undercooked eggs) Gertrude took me to the prison where Ricky Martini was being held. I wanted to get to the bottom of this whole thing even more than I wanted to rub Aspie's posthumous success in their faces. I was taken to Ricky's cell, but it was mysteriously empty. The guard shrugged and escorted me back, but on our way, one of the inmates yelled to me "YO DAT RICKY DUDE WASN'T EVEN ACTUALLY BEIN HELD, DAWG. HE WAS PAYIN THE WARDEN TO LET HIM STAY HERE OR SOME SHIT, YA KNOW WHAT I'M SAYIN?" The guards quickly ushered me out without letting me interview the man, but I know what I heard.
Back at the Lispen house I started going through Aspie's things some more. Under his bed I found a laptop. It was password protected. I asked Gertrude about it and she told me I could have it if I wanted- she had tried cracking the password many times before, but to no avail. Using my knowledge of Aspie, I cracked the code on my first try. I typed in "iluvbikes" and watched as I was logged in. What I found on that hard drive made me happier than I had ever been in my entire life (and I'm not talking about the 10 gigs of furry + Asian porn). I found a folder called "new," which contained an entire album's worth of never-before-heard Aspie Lispen songs! The songs were bare- just guitar/piano and vocals, but they were there. I had found my new purpose. I immediately booked a flight back home.
I don't know or like what's going on with Ricky and Buncen, and I do intend to get to the bottom of it, but until then, I have taken it upon myself to overdub these songs and finish this masterpiece of an album! When I am done I will put it up on the internet, for all to hear for free!
Here is the "demo" of one of the songs, as I found it. I'm going to start the overdub process as soon as possible! Wish me luck!
I arrived at the airport and was immediately greeted by Aspie's mother, Gertrude Lispen. She knew I was a dedicated fan of her son's and offered to let me stay in the now-empty room that was once occupied by my hero, Aspie. I graciously accepted, and went with her to her car.
On the drive to the Lispen house we talked about many things; how she felt about Buncen Bern and Ricky Martini, the two ex-friend and bandmates who left Aspie to die in that graveyard, what life has been like since her son's death, and the events leading up to his mental breakdown and eventual suicide.
According to Gertrude, after a Tall Building show at a local coffee shop, a couple musicians- Twee-Pain, Lenn909n and Adam Green, introduced themselves to the band. They offered to "expand (their) minds" with various drugs to help their music. Buncen and Ricky, bored of simple indie folk, accepted, leaving Aspie and Birdie (who were very strictly anti-drug) alone and angry.
The three strange musicians had wormed their way into the band by the time they went into the studio to record Bermuda Adventure, angering Aspie and Birdie. Their songwriting was being slowly squeezed out and creative input ignored. The band would frequently sneak out of the studio to smoke drugs while Aspie would stay in alone, writing songs he hoped would impress his friends, but they would just laugh and tell him that his indie folk was too 2010- that he should be looking towards the future instead. He grew depressed. The depression only deepened with the sudden death of his best friend and bandmate, Birdie McSun. He quit the sessions and spent the rest of the time leading up to Birdy's funeral hiding in his room. After the funeral he starting living in the graveyard, and the rest is, well, indie history.
There was a long pause after she finished telling me all this. Fighting back tears, she turned on the radio to a news station. "Hearing about other people's sons dying in the war makes me feel a little better about it" she told me, as we listened to just that. After that, a shocking news report came in that Buncen Bern was not dead, and that he had, in fact, faked his own death in an attempt at gaining publicity for his album, Wrapped Up In Himself. And as if this weren't despicable enough, he announced that he was releasing ANOTHER new album, called For the Love of God Listen to This Album. Shameless publicity stunts aside, I wondered why Ricky Martini was in jail then, if he hadn't really killed Buncen. But that was a question for another day. I was tired and needed rest.
We arrived at the Lispen house late at night. I spent a considerable amount of time exploring Aspie's room and the treasures that were found all around it. I was getting ready to sleep when Gertrude entered the room, completely nude, and got into the bed with me. We made sweet love right there and then. I'm sure she was drawn to me because I am a charming big-shot music blogger/musician, but I have to admit, I only did it to feel closer to Aspie- and lying there, in his bed, inside the very vagina he came out of, I had never felt closer to a person.
Buncen was nowhere to be found for an interview, but the next day (after cooking me a terrible breakfast that was nothing more than a clusterfuck of burnt bacon and undercooked eggs) Gertrude took me to the prison where Ricky Martini was being held. I wanted to get to the bottom of this whole thing even more than I wanted to rub Aspie's posthumous success in their faces. I was taken to Ricky's cell, but it was mysteriously empty. The guard shrugged and escorted me back, but on our way, one of the inmates yelled to me "YO DAT RICKY DUDE WASN'T EVEN ACTUALLY BEIN HELD, DAWG. HE WAS PAYIN THE WARDEN TO LET HIM STAY HERE OR SOME SHIT, YA KNOW WHAT I'M SAYIN?" The guards quickly ushered me out without letting me interview the man, but I know what I heard.
Back at the Lispen house I started going through Aspie's things some more. Under his bed I found a laptop. It was password protected. I asked Gertrude about it and she told me I could have it if I wanted- she had tried cracking the password many times before, but to no avail. Using my knowledge of Aspie, I cracked the code on my first try. I typed in "iluvbikes" and watched as I was logged in. What I found on that hard drive made me happier than I had ever been in my entire life (and I'm not talking about the 10 gigs of furry + Asian porn). I found a folder called "new," which contained an entire album's worth of never-before-heard Aspie Lispen songs! The songs were bare- just guitar/piano and vocals, but they were there. I had found my new purpose. I immediately booked a flight back home.
I don't know or like what's going on with Ricky and Buncen, and I do intend to get to the bottom of it, but until then, I have taken it upon myself to overdub these songs and finish this masterpiece of an album! When I am done I will put it up on the internet, for all to hear for free!
Here is the "demo" of one of the songs, as I found it. I'm going to start the overdub process as soon as possible! Wish me luck!
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