Guest DJ 🪩 Sean McVerry

Fingerless gloves and dance flats recommended 👯‍♀️

Hello. Today we bring you a marvelous treat that we believe will improve your life. How much? Between 2 and 25% — for some of you, whose listening habits have become rote, whose digital downloads are decrepit, and yet who once thrilled to the discovery of unfamiliar music, the improvement could be as high as 100%.

For our second Artist Listening Log: D.J. Doghouse, we’ve tapped our friend Sean McVerry. Sean is a Brooklyn-based musician/composer/performer/bon vivant best known to readers of the Slow Descent as our touring companion last fall on the Lobes U.S. run. If you caught one of those shows, you know that he’s a magic man: the voice of an angel, the hands of an angel who’s good at piano and guitar, and the interstitial banter of a demon. He currently practices his chiaroscuro arts as both Sean McVerry Solo Band Project and (the band) TELECOMS, and is a formidable producer (we happen to know that he’s engaged even now in helping to bring WAS-beloved Aaron Pfenning’s next crop of songs to the people). Sean is also one of the most prolific and skilled songwriters we’ve encountered — more about that in the interview below — and, thank goodness for you, a hell of a DJ. The playlist he has created for S.D.I.R. will delight and inspire.

🚦TIME-SENSITIVE DATA🚦 The Sean McVerry One-Guy-and-His-Band Solo Amalgam is playing this Thursday at Sleepwalk in Brooklyn — if you’re in the area we can’t recommend his show highly enough. We’ll be there, and Keith Carne will be on stage hitting drums throughout the performance, presumably in a manner somehow timed to accentuate and augment what the other musicians are doing. Not to be missed.

Sean shares a drink with Franklin, the venue dog at Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City, UT, where we played late last year.

or compile the playlist yourself using your pappy’s vinyl collection… 

Main Character Syndrome

or “When I’m a Little Bit High On the 2 Train”
a playlist by Sean McVerry

It’s a Blue World, The Four Freshmen
Some Sunsick Day, Morgan Delt
Paris 1919, John Cale
My Sweet Lord, The Belmonts
The W.A.N.D., The Flaming Lips
Ice Cream, Battles, Matias Aguayo
L’Éléphant, Henry Texier
El Raton, Fania All Stars
When I Was Done Dying, Dan Deacon
So Long, Marianne, Leonard Cohen
Sorry You’re Sick, Ted Hawkins
Brain, The Action
Gorilla, Little Simz
Waters of March, John Roseboro, Mei Semones
SAY GOODBYE, Hiroshi Sato
Hang On To Your Ego (Mono), The Beach Boys

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Chris and Sean discuss the playlist, songwriting, and developing multiple personalities in music…

CHRIS: Sean, readers of this space are very familiar with the Song Challenge group that Keith and I have participated in for a number of years now (my research for this interview failed to unearth the number). In the last 6-8 months you’ve gone from rare guest star at the Chall to member of the Core Crüe, often hosting the evening get togethers at your studio space in Fort Green (Brooklyn), and it has been a real pleasure to get a dose of raw, unpolished McVerry work every week. One compliment I would pay you is that your musical tool kit is pretty serious — it's large in size, and the implements are of a very high quality. As a writer, you are capable of many things, and indeed you have an admirable resistance to settling into any kind of comfort zone. I cherish the insights that this playlist seems to offer into your taste, and I want to dive into them, but first let me ask whether there are any genres of music that you simply do not have an ear for. Any sounds that you find to be basically garbage? Modes you would not waste your time dabbling in? Or am I working with a fundamentally flawed premise, here — are all styles, for Sean McVerry, potential vessels of authentic expression and instigators of pleasure?

SEAN: Well first off, I appreciate the kind words about the ol’ challenge tunes. The Chall has sincerely become the highlight of my weeks and it’s definitely switched my brain into a mode I haven’t really felt in a while! I’ll try to meander around an answer that attempts to hit all your very-well-worded questions here. In regards to a comfort zone (and my attempts to avoid that particular zone) I think when I’m drafting out ideas my personal objective is first and foremost not to bore myself. While I obviously do love a traditional pop format and often approach ideas from that angle, the music that tends to catch my attention lately has usually been outside of that tradition. I also think working on music on my laptop on a grid  (something else I’ve been trying to avoid for experiments’ sake) can propel you into these squared-off, perfectly-quantized, at-worst sterile ideas. Now, don’t get me wrong — I’ll hook up a drum machine and a synth to an arpeggiator and start having a goddamn ball —  but as of late I’ve wanted to explore stuff that sort of feels more in the room, if that makes sense(??). I’ve kind of been on this journey of determining what exactly it is that I “sound” like and am now realizing that maybe my catalog when this is all said and done will just be a weird little walk folks can join in on. I’ve already rambled past the point, but regarding Musical Garbage (MG) — when I’m in my most lucid state I’d like to believe there is good stuff in anything, or I can learn something from any piece of music (sort of especially if I viscerally reject it). However—  I think pop music has always had this cyclical nature of Artist A who is transgressive/inventive who crosses over into the mainstream followed by Artists B,C,D and E following suit with a budget version months later. Now, because of the speed of things, those surface-level imitators are able to release their versions a week after the original comes out. It’s created this ecosystem of brain-rot acts who are just flooding the marketplace, spitting out CliffsNotes versions of something that maybe wasn’t all that nuanced to begin with. I don’t find much value in exploring or spending time on that kind of music. Oh, also all-white-collegiate-funk bands — may they too vanish from this planet forever.

CHRIS: Yes, I love the idea that “visceral rejection” is the sound your personal metal detector makes when you’re combing the beaches of modern music for hidden treasure. It wouldn’t be crazy to suggest that the more quickly you enjoy a new piece of music, the more likely it is that you’re already comfortable with it and required very little time to process it — meaning it doesn’t have much to teach you. Of course, listening only to music that could teach us something would become exhausting and lead to hatred of music before too long. But I think you’re correct that the worst music is the stuff that not only doesn’t present a challenge but also presents no delightful surprises and no insight into the artist themself, because it didn’t really come out of them, it’s CliffsNotes, as you say, a copy (of a copy of a copy, oftentimes) — a competent musician following the instructions laid out for them by an original musician. 

That said, you can’t sweepingly condemn path-following in music, because there are just so many examples of artists feeding a famous precursor into their Inspiration Orifices and pooping amazing results out their Art Holes. The White Stripes, The Strokes, Amy Winehouse — it’s no mystery what got shoved into those Inspo Orifices (just wanted to type that again). I guess the issue is, along the slimy, pleated interior of the tube that connects an artist’s I.O. and their Art Hole, there is sometimes embedded a prism, and sometimes not. With a prism, you can ingest tarnished old coppers and shit out gleaming ingots. No prism, and you’ve made musical CliffsNotes. I hope I didn’t lose readers with that highly technical and medically accurate description of songwriting. 

I also love the idea of your career as a sort of rambling stroll that your listeners join you on. Thinking of the route charted on a map, and trying to make sure that in the end you’re looking at a continuous line, no matter how squiggly, rather than a bunch of disconnected segments — that’s probably a good guiding principal for musical exploration. Speaking of McVerry’s Rambling Stroll, there’s a predilection on your playlist for a certain type of vocal — The Four Freshmen, The Belmonts, The Beach Boys, even the end of that Battles song — that makes me wonder if you were ever in a Doo Wop crew. Perhaps Barbershop? If I had to guess I’d say it happened right around junior year of high school. 

Oh, and I have a great topic of conversation for the next Song Challenge get-together: Keith Murray was in an all-white-collegiate-funk band. (They were called “Nauddy Me” 🙌.)

SEAN: Buddy, I could talk about Inspo Orifices and Art Holes all the live-long day, but I trust the readership is caught up on the various medical journals responsible for this terminology.

RE: the whole rambling stroll of it all: I have a friend Denitia, who’s this amazing country artist/songwriter in Nashville. When she was in New York and we were working together more she was making pretty different (but also incredibly cool) music. We would have conversations about being a solo artist and having to exist simultaneously as a regular(ish) person and a brand, and the sort of psychological damage that imparts on someone. Multiple times I considered going under a pseudonym, wiping my old catalog, and various other perhaps fear-based impulses as I tried to navigate the next project. She always offered a different perspective: that people may enjoy seeing the evolution of the art and artist. She’s got infectious confidence and reminds me to share and commune with my other artist pals.

Remind me to punch myself in the face for invoking Kurt Vonnegut, but he also has a quote I go back to once in a while (that I will simultaneously butcher and paraphrase) that’s generally like “No matter what you write about, it inherently will be about you.” I think it means it’s hard to not impart aspects of ourselves into our work. I might be pulling at strings, but I try to make it applicable to music production. I’d like to think that even if songs are presented differently over time, you could listen to something and be able to hear me in it.

Now let’s get down to brass tacks and talk shop (barber). While I was never in any sort of vocal group like that, I did the whole church choir, school choir, humiliating acapella group in college (called “Choral Pleasure”), and all that good stuff. Bands and artists that utilize a lot of vocal harmonies always have these signature sounds I’ve been fascinated with — CSNY, Beach Boys, Queen, Animal Collective, Van Halen (saved the best for last). I like throwing just an onslaught of vocal tracks into my songs to give the illusion I’m making this stuff in a big studio with a bunch of people, and not in my apartment by myself, in a caffeine-induced state of psychosis.

—> going to need to do a deep dive on this Murray funk band. Reminds me of this clip I saw of Oscar Issac in a Ska band. 

CHRIS: I think Denitia is right! Although the temptation is surely great to swap out one’s “THESE GUYS AGAIN?” rep for the “hot young thang” appraisal new acts receive in the press. Okay, okay, most new acts never actually get appraised in the press. Still, it’s frustrating to feel like people have decided they know what you’re capable of. As Kurt Vonnegut also said, and I’m heavily paraphrasing here, “Fuck you, no more books! I wanna fly helicopters!”  

I think you’re doing the right thing, sticking it out with “Sean McVerry.” But you do play both sides of the street a little bit: you have a separate and swelling catalog with your band TELECOMS. How do you decide when a song you write goes to that act rather than Solo Sean? And do you operate creatively under any other guises? Oh! And have you ever gotten deep enough into considering an identity reboot that you fantasized specific details? Full-body leather Very Shawn? Sequins and eyeshadow Dick Saturn? Black doc martens and long scraggly hair Buddy Corpse?

I’m on a plane right now, and while the wifi is surprisingly robust, it won’t load the Oscar Isaac ska video. Dare I hope that he’s scatting??? My second choice would be playing a horn with two other guys, and they're dancing in synchrony. 

SEAN: The whole TELECOMS thing has been this evolving process in a way. At the beginning of the project, it was intended to be a silo where I could stick a certain brand of song I tend to return to now and again. Especially during the pandemic, I noticed a pattern of my taste/writing habits where every tenth song would just be an attempt at some 70’s purist-type thing both in writing and production. Obviously, I have an affinity for that music, and while the TELECOMS thing started to bounce around in my head I found a bunch of current-day bands making that kind of music, which sort of emboldened me and could give this stuff context. The whole thing sort of went from “Let’s make a lo-fi tape of this stuff” to being a far more involved type of thing production-wise. I do think as we go forward you may see a return to that original idea, in addition to this project being more of a collaboration playground. Today I just keep a separate folder on my computer / a separate notebook for anything that comes into my head that feels more TELECOMS than solo me. I like the idea of sticking to constraints for a project like that and might experiment with tightening those constraints on the next record.

One idea I want to employ to further differentiate the two projects is the heightening of a sort of fictionalized world the band exists in. Actually, in the music video for Ramon (which nearly no human being on this earth watched), you can see us soft-experimenting with using alias names at the end of the video (though none hold a candle to Buddy Corpse). I believe Zeno went with Brad Djelo (a play on his former project Bad Cello) — that name is my current fav.

In college, a small army of my pals started this band/collective known as Tape Club, which made a series of direct-to-cassette records using an ever-evolving cast of fictionalized characters. I have had this idea of just taking my alias from that project and using it for TELECOMS. Apart from the weird fun of writing a fictional backstory (and there is a LENGTHY one), I think it’s a fun creative exercise to try to write in character or just find a tool to separate your identity from the music. That kind of separation makes me excited to work on the project because I’m not concerned at the outset with pedestrian issues of streaming data and merch orders — I’m trying to wrap my head around how the French Chemist-Turned-Bassist Brad Djelo ever crossed paths with the Northern Maine Whaler-Turned-AM-Radio-Host-Drummer John Dane (Myself). People will just have to wait for the Zine to come out to find out. 

Some important Sean links…

TELECOMS’ latest video, feat. an Evil Aerobics Guru

Sean’s show in Brooklyn this Thursday

The time Sean was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and wrote a song in an hour

Sean’s socials, website, and stuff like that

Later this week: track 3 from TV en Français is revealed, gloriously, in demo form.

Until then, stay righteous.

- CK Spoiler