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Gothamist Band Interview: Goes Cube
By
Jen Carlson
Published Jul 11, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Jul 11, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Goes Cube are rock. Their enthusiastic hard and fast interpretation of the genre has been compared to Nirvana, leading New York's rock scene into a much more hopeful future. Their live show will make your brain shake, your body move and your soul scream. Lucky for us, their set translates well in the studio, and they just finished recording their new release, Beckon The Dagger God.
Come check them out tonight at our Movable Hype show. There will be screaming, bring ear plugs.
Listen: 27.mp3
Goes Cube is David Obuchowski, Matthew Frey, Kenny Appell
Let's get this out of the way, where did your band name originate?
D: Goes Cube means go die. Matt and I got into this weird thing awhile ago where we would write abusive e-mails to each other by translating English into German and then back to English via the Babelfish online translator. He told me to “Go die” and it ended up coming out as “Goes Cube.” He then sent me an e-mail about a minute later saying “that has to be our next band name.”
What is your first conscious memory of living in New York?
D: Matt helping me unload my stuff, and me immediately asking where and when band practice was.
M: Getting here with just a suitcase, going out getting drunk and playing pinball at 9C the night I arrived and then waking up on my friends couch every day for the next 5 weeks.
K: Waking up on Dave's deflated air mattress in my empty apartment with a bad hangover...
What is your favorite/least favorite memory involving New York?
D: One of my least favorite memories involved an unceremonious break up that occurred hours before Goes Cube’s first show at the Mercury Lounge (a place I’d been looking forward to playing for years). One of my favorite memories was the night of our first show with Kenny Appell back in January, 2006. It was a true turning point.
M: Least favorite is how it somehow seems to suck away every dollar I have.
K: Favorite: Hanging with Dave and Matt at Bar the night they asked me to join Goes Cube Least Favorite: The day I got a parking ticket outside of Flood Studios
What is your favorite place to drink in NYC, and what's the best night to go out?
D: It’s a toss-up between Mini-Bar and Lido Bar both in Carroll Gardens. I’d drink there any night (and have many times). We have a tradition where we rehearse on Tuesdays then go to Lido and play in the Buck Hunter tournament. The winner gets a $25 bar tab, which is a good deal considering they have $2 Tecates. Oh, and Kenny wins every week. So, we drink at a steep discount every Tuesday. But our friend Tom Hutten, who mastered our recordings, works at Mini Bar and he knows how to pour a drink and play some damn good music.
M: All my favorite local bars include Minibar, Bar, and Lido. Best night = Tuesday night Buck Hunter club at Lido.
K: Either Minibar with Tom Hutten pouring drinks or Lido Bar with Nick in charge... Best night is Tuesdays at Lido for Buck Hunter Tournament.
What is your favorite/least favorite thing about playing shows in New York? Is there a difference between shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn?
D: First of all, yeah, there’s a major difference between Manhattan and Brooklyn: When you play somewhere in Brooklyn, people are there to see that show specifically. Whereas, in Manhattan, some places get a fair amount of people just coming to check out the club and whoever’s playing. So on one hand the crowds might be bigger in Manhattan, but the crowds can be a little more enthusiastic in Brooklyn. As cliché as it might sound one of my favorite things is that there’s simply a natural energy here.
But the tough thing is that there are so many clubs and so many shows going on any given night. In other cities there’s usually only about one show that might be going that people are really going to be excited about seeing. So it’s easier to generate a bigger and enthusiastic crowd. New York City is a really hard place to be a new band in. In the first year that we played live, we felt like we played for the same five people. That can be really discouraging to newer bands, and I think that’s a big reason why so many new bands break up.
M: Favorite thing is just the fact that we're playing a show. Least favorite is that sometimes the show is at 2 in the morning on a Monday night and the venue gets sassy at you for not having a good draw.
It seems the shows we play in Brooklyn tend to have a more cohesive bill than the shows in Manhattan sometimes do.
K: Favorite: Hanging out with my bandmates at the venue during and afterwards. Least Favorite: Driving/taxiing all the shit back to our place while drunk
Do you think your New York connection shows in your music? If so, how?
D: Yes but not literally. I guess what I mean is that we don’t have a New York “sound” at all. But the tension and energy and frustration and crescendos – all that stuff – that comes from living in New York City. I am very creatively driven by my location. I’ve lived in Austin and Chicago. Personally, I love those cities, but they simply don’t compare when it comes to inspiration.
M: Honestly, I don't think so. I don't believe we have location specific music.
K: Not sure our sound places us from New York or anywhere else in particular. Unless there's a place called "Punishingville"
Now its time for some fill-in-the-blank action
"You know you've made it when…."
D: you can actually buy a place in this city.
M: You get sponsored by Sparks.
K: No Idea... never really "made it" before
"It'll be time to pack up the gear for good when…."
D: I hate it. I don’t expect that to be anytime soon...or distant.
M: I’ve blown out my ears and can’t hear what I’m playing anymore.
K: I die... I'll always want to play music in some shape or form while on this earth
"I'll never forget the first time I…."
D: learned that Goes Cube had been written up in the press.
M: Was rocking out to AC/DC too hard in the car and stopped paying attention to the road and hit a curb and blew the tire. It was about 5 days ago.
K: Masturbated.
"I'll never forget the first time [insert another band member's name here]…."
D: Kenny played his first show with us. (We used to use a drum machine.)
M: I saw Kenny play Buck Hunter.
K: Dave smiled after we jammed our first Goes Cube song together in a rehearsal... Matt bellowed out his infamous laugh
Let's have some fun with word association. Give me your immediate feelings on the following (if you've got no discernable feelings, make something up that won't embarrass you in the morning)
Yankees
D: Don Mattingly. #23. Best player ever. Best team ever. And I don’t care what Kenny or Matt think.
M: Go White Sox.
K: Overpayed dynasty
Mets
D: A grounder through the legs during the World Series.
M: Are awesome.
K: gritty underdogs
World Cup
D: Beer.
M: Italy is good at taking dives.
K: greatest event in world sports
Britney
D: Stop naming your babies this.
M: Trailer park.
K: Ick!!!
Pitchfork
D: Their review of Audioslave’s first record was hysterical.
M: Indie rock snobbery set to the tune of reviews that are way to wordy to ever read an entire one.
K: Shape of my penis
Blogs
D: An excellent way to spend a workday.
K: Flattering but most of the time falling on deaf ears
Gentrification
D: Living in it.
M: Well, since I live in a gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn it's somewhat hypocritical to criticize.
K: Brooklyn. (Am I part of the problem?? I'm fucking poor!)
A few quickies on the music tip
Who would be in your ultimate music supergroup, your all-star Olympic team of rock?
M: Vinnie Paul. It would be just me screaming and Vinnie Paul playing drums.
D: I have to admit: Matt and Vinnie Paul would be pretty fantastic.
What was the first/last album you bought on the day it was released?
D: I don’t remember the first one, I do remember the last one: The “Five Dollar Bob’s Mock Cooter Stew” EP from Mudhoney. I was 14 years old.
M: Crap, I can't remember. I tend to go buy music on the weekends, thus not technically on the day of release.
K: Never done it. Gotta borrow it first to make sure I like it
And finally...If Josh Schwartz, creator of the OC, asked your band to perform on his tv show (as Modest Mouse, the Killers and the Walkmen recently have) would you?
D: Goes Cube live at the Bait Shop. Wow.
M: Isn't that why everyone starts a band these days?
What came first, the music or the misery?
D: Probably the misery.
M: The musicery.
K: I have no idea what that means.
Tagged
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Goes Cube
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Movable Hype
Music
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nirvana
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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