the AU was told a story when they heard Dr. Dog are releasing another album this February. But this was a story of an unusual nature so we wanted the story behind the story. We got in touch with Scott “Taxi” McMicken from Dr. Dog to talk about it.
“In the waning days of our previous millennium, an envelope arrived at the Dr. Dog Bungalow. Initially misplaced among credit card solicitations and clothing catalogs, it had no postage and smelled of a fusty funk, as if it had once been wet. The return address said simply “Phrases from the Psychedelic Swamp.”
Inside was a cassette tape. “Play me,” it said, and “Play Me,” didn’t mean simply, “Listen to Me,” but literally, “Play Me!” It was a call to action, urging Dr. Dog to record a great pop album…”
Why was the album never released back in 2001?
It was always the simplest answer, it was an inside job. It was something that, at the time of making it, was a very significant experience for us. But [it was] very much a self indulgent project. Even at the time of making it, it was a kind of tangent from the regular stuff we were doing. It was more for ourselves. On top of that, we figured we’d not release it until we fulfilled the second portion of the concept, which is what we just finished.
In a nutshell, part of the concept of the album is that we didn’t make it. It was given to us by this guy and along with giving us the tape, he was giving us the instructions to take that tape and translate it into a modern pop music so the message can spread to the masses. Even when that thing was done, it was built in with Round 2, which was to take that garbled, crazy incoherent mess and use it as as the raw material for a modern pop album. We were always waiting on the opportunity to do that as well before bringing it to light.
Where did the story of Phrases and the mission he gave unto Dr. Dog to complete come from?
It just came out of a charmed period of time. Looking back, we didn’t go into the project with a strong vision. It just started to spill out. One night we were messing around. Back in those days, at which point the band was just me and Toby and one other guy Doug, who’s not in the band now. We were doing an experiment in my room, which was in a basement at that time, that was flooded. It was kind of a disaster down there.
We set up the track in this basement and said, “Okay – we’re all going to sit here together in this same tiny fucked up little room and write a song at the same time. Then see what happens.” Three songs came out of that little experiment. Somehow they had this weird, thematic consistency to them that by the end of that night, we had dubbed Psychedelic Swamp. That got the ball rolling and then it had this inertia to it.
The more we would feed it, the more it seemed to feed back and build this language around it as we went. It took on this really large scope feeling for us and it was mirroring our reality in all these really cool ways. While it’s a really janky, lo-fi incoherent kind of presentation, the universe we were occupying creatively within it was the thing that really felt strong and compelling. That’s what stood the test of time all these years later.
Why was the room flooded?
It was an old house and a lot of rain [was] going on. There were 11 of us living in this two bedroom house, so we were all squirreled away in whatever corner we could find. I got relegated to the basement, which had its merits. It had a little more privacy in the house than anyone else had, but you were subject to the flooding aspect.
Do you sometimes feel you’re nostalgic for a lost generation of music and lifestyle?
Honestly, it doesn’t feel like a whole lot has changed creatively and the sort of freedom represented by those times. If anything, I’m just so happy with the way we’ve grown and expanded upon. The seeds were being planted in those days. Were still harvesting the same fruit. Now I think we have the opportunity to expand. There’s very little nostalgia.
It felt more like a continuation, which is one of the most interesting things that have gone down with this. How closely tied we still are to those days, even everything on the surface is so completely different, in terms of the band that we are and the way we operate. It’s so natural and easy to snap back into that general spirit that lead to that initial tape. It’s been a really positive full circle affirming, warming, bonding thing for us.
What was the catalyst that made you say, “Alright, we’re going to finish the mission. We’re going to finish Phrases’ request”?
Some synchronicity involved there. We had begun talking about it a couple years ago. We realised we’ve been talking about doing this for so long, at some point you just have to commit and make a plan to do it. So the conversation had begun and at the same time, [there was] this experimental theatre group in Philadelphia called The Pig Iron, everyone in the band were fans of them following their work for years. They reached out to us and said they had been solicited for this grant; the nature of the grant was for them to collaborate with a non-traditional entity for a theatre group and they thought, “Let’s collaborate with a band.”
They asked us if we’d be interested and we were so psyched. They applied for the grant and it worked! We got the grant and started having creative meetings to figure out what could go down, at which point, we said they were sitting on this swamp album and it would very much suit the Pig Iron aesthetic already. There’s just a whole heap of playfulness and opportunity in it.
It was more just an impressionistic, loose thing that seems conducive to working on further with new minds. They immediately took to it and we were off and running, and we realised it’d be foolish of us not to do the album side of things now, so that really helped us. That became the catalyst for sure, to really buckle down and make this our next record. It was all nicely timed with them, so we did that this summer. We finished the play and performed it at the end of this summer. It was nice to be steeped in the whole swamp world.
There’s always talk around how Raccoon was originally the band name, and Dr. Dog was the fictional part of the Phrases odyssey, but then became the official name. Why was the name Raccoon lost or why’d that one get thrown in the bin?
Raccoon was a bit of a different band. There were shared members, but there was sort of a different approach. Raccoon was like this irreverent Pavement-inspired band. We wanted to have a band where we all played different instruments than we should be playing. We all chose instruments we were the least good at. Whatever songs we wrote we didn’t feel all that psyched about, we would make Raccoon songs and just bash them out.
Beer fueled versions of dudes just not playing that well. It was a cathartic thing done for fun, but there was always separation between the two. Eventually, there came a point for Toby and I where Dr. Dog had been the focus of our primary energies for so long and realised we knew so many people and were playing in five different bands. It was all fun, but we had a talk one night and realised we needed to jump ship on all that and throw all of our energy into the thing we cared most about. So we quit all those bands.
It was great, actually. Just that gesture alone seemed to really do something, because within a year’s time, we had our first real solid live lineup for Dr. Dog and we were starting touring and things were really starting to happen. I think intuitively, we sensed that we were spreading ourselves a little thin. So that’s a little bit of why Raccoon wound up getting shelved.
What instrument did you play?
In Raccoon I played drums a lot, which was the first time I’d played drums and Toby played guitar, when he’s typically bass. Weirdly, we ended up playing a lot of shows; we didn’t really intend to have it be something that caught on locally, but we ended up just playing several times a week. It it was like, “Hey, this is kind of a joke. It’s getting out of hand.”
There’s some good stuff and we definitely had fun, but that whole notion is something I’ve come to think more about in years since, mostly out of looking back on that experience and what a profound effect it had on us by just focusing our energies on one project. I notice these days it’s so ubiquitous in bands having so many side bands. A part of me does get bummed out that I really love a band and I love what they’re doing, then the next you know, every member has a different band.
I think, “Wait, if all these talented people could just focus their energy towards one thing rather than just if a new idea comes up, it has to be reshaped and renamed and repackaged.” I think through my own experience and my observations of modern music, what I value is that focus. I think it’s good for a band and their identity as well to feel if there are new ideas that they’re all welcome.
To have an identity built into your band that can enable you to change and grow and try different things without feeling the need to have a whole other band. For instance, if there are multiple song writers, the band should be a home for everyone’s songwriting, not just focused on one person’s vision. That’s something I observed had a real positive effect on Dr. Dog.
That focus gave you 17 years with Dr. Dog and nine albums. Did you expect Dr. Dog to come this far?
We never really had any tangible expectation about what kind of audience we’d have or what would be working, logistically. But looking back, this whole thing is sort of rooted in mine and Toby’s relationship that goes back so far and never wavered. We never had a blueprint or anything.
It’s the ultimate bromance.
Yeah, it is the ultimate bromance. ‘Til death do us part.
And quickly, because we are wrapping up unfortunately. Coffee or beer?
Oh coffee, definitely. These days I can’t get enough. We got so much work to do that I’ve been slamming the caffeinated beverages. I think almost to a fault; there’s a point where you have too much coffee that you get more and more tired. I’ve crossed the line where it gets unhealthy.
Swampland or beach house?
Swampland definitely. We’re in the swamp world right now.
The Psychedelic Swamp is out February 5th.
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