Thanks so much to Robb Monn for the interview! Razor 18 was a superb shoegaze band from Washington DC. They were active in the early/mid 90s which was a great time for DC bands. As you’ll read they were contemporaries to Velocity Girl, The Ropers and more. Must have been a terrific time for an indiepop fan in DC.

The band released one 7″ during their time, the “High Intensity Noise” on Popfactory Records in 1994 (Robb tells me he hates the art for this record)

I had written about the band previously on the blog after finding their recordings on Soundcloud. Now I get to learn more details about this great band! Enjoy!

++ Hi Robb! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?

I’m doing well! It is a sunny, windows-open kind of day here in Pasadena and that’s keeping my chin up.

Music is a big part of my daily life, but more of a private thing now… a practice. I play piano every day, and I spend a good bit of time building processes and effects that I use to make music. I mostly just play solo improvised pieces that make a lot of use of tape loops, looper pedals, and things like that.

And for the past year I’ve been making music with some folks from my hometown when I visit. Also all improvised, like ecstatic jazz.

++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen to at home while growing up?

My first musical memories are from when I was really young. Two or three. My parents had a very good stereo and my favorite records were Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” and The Beatles “Sgt Peppers”. I can remember laying with my head near the speaker on our green rug with my eyes closed and just traveling into the space in the music. I took crazy amounts of medication during that time to prevent asthma attacks and I feel that my love for the psychedelic kind of music, music that was about certain sounds in based in that.

I played violin from age 8-10 through my school. And then I dropped it for alto sax at 10 years old, which I still play often. At first I had lessons through my elementary school, and then school band, and in high school jazz band. I was serious about sax and took private lessons and worked really hard at it. I wanted to go to school for jazz performance.

I was born in 1973 in a small town (pop 6000) in the middle of rural PA. So the music around me me was top 40 and country. We didn’t have cable or MTV, so it was a total music desert—it might be really hard to understand for people that didn’t live through it, but there was no way to know that there was any other music. There was a “classic rock” station from Baltimore called WGRX that sometimes we could hear in the car a few towns over. I convinced my dad to wire up an antenna on our roof for FM radio so that I could get it. There I fell in love with Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The White Album, and Pink Floyd. My uncle in Pittsburg would also let me tape his records when I visited and he gave me King Crimson, and, most importantly Jean Michelle Jarre’s “Oxygen” and “Equinoxe” and Vangelis’s “Spiral” on tapes, which I am still obsessed with. Then when I was maybe 13 I found another radio station called WHFS which was an “alternative rock” station and I was off to the races. REM, U2, The Replacements, Squeeze, The Smiths, and most importantly The Cure came to my ears.

I figured out that a newsstand a few towns over had SPIN magazine, and then when I was 16 I called the radio station at a college in Washington DC, which was 2 hours away, to ask where the good record store was. I started making covert trips to Vinyl In in Silver Spring, Maryland after school in my Honda and spending every penny that I had there.

An eclectic mix tape from my senior year of High School would have The Cure, Something of My Bloody Valentine’s Isnt Anything, something from Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, The Smiths, Throwing Muses, The Pixies, some Vangelis.

++ Had you been in other bands before Razor18?

I was in a really good high school jazz band that played gigs, and then in college I was in a pro-level jazz ensemble. I played with Junction for a little while, which then became The Delta 72.

++ What about the other band members? Are there any songs recorded? 

Bill was in a band called Soft Pleasing Light and there is a split 7″ (I think) with them and Eggs, which was a popular DC band in the early 90s. Sarah had written and played her own songs for years and years. Ivan and our first drummer Greg were in a college cover band that played a bunch of gigs.

++ Where were you from originally?

I am from Waynesboro, PA. Sarah was from Washington DC, Ivan was from Croatia, Bill grew up in Boston, and the drummers: Greg:Indiana, Ben: Philadelphia, John: Louisville KY, and Tim Arlington, VA.

++ How was DC at the time of Razor18?

It was maybe the best possible music city and time that I can imagine. DC had been in decline as a city for a decade when I moved there in 1992. As in the population was going down every year… a very late stage white flight. Rent was cheap for apartments and for commercial places, so there were a lot of bookstores, cafes, record stores, and venues. I’d been going to the 930 since high school… the old one that was maybe big enough for 150 people, and that place was amazing. Before alt/indie really broke that’s where you’d see the touring bands like Ride, Lush, My Bloody Valentine, PJ Harvey, Throwing Muses, The Pixies… in a tiny little room. There was also the 15 minute club, DC Space, punk shows at St Stephen’s church basement. DC was full of people trying to make things work for themselves, lots of group houses with a shared mission, or a label, lots of band houses with a practice space in the basement. Fugazi was there, Bad Brains, lots of hardcore shows and history, which I loved. And when I get there there were some other things happening. The Lilys were in DC at the time, making singles, Teen Beat was releasing really good stuff. Unrest Imperial FFRR had just come out and was playing everywhere.

++ Were there any bands that you liked?

I loved Velocity Girl — before they signed with subpop they were doing something really radical. Archie Moore’s guitar sound was so enormous you could lose yourself. I loved the Lilys a lot, they played really fantastic shows… Archie was in that band, too. I have always been deeply committed to Fugazi since the first song I ever heard… their sound and their politics are incredible. Unrest was a huge band in DC at the time. Going to see the good local music was a religious thing for me… the idea that something wonderful was happening, that people were making something new, it was a real inspiration.

++ Were there any good record stores?

My girlfriend worked at Tower on George Washington University’s campus where I went to school. She was the indie buyer and they had really amazing records there. GO! Compact disks in Arlington was even better, and I went there every week to spend my paycheck. And Vinyl Ink had the deepest catalogue and their clerks weren’t snooty. You could go in there and tell them what you liked and they would load you up with things you didn’t know about.

++ Were there any other good bands in your area?

So many! There were too many great bands from DC to keep track of. So many good 7″ releases and we would get together and tape from each other’s collection.

++ How was the band put together? How was the recruiting process?

Ben put an ad in the city paper for a drummer and guitarist. Ivan and Greg answered. They had moved from Indiana and wanted to start a band. They were metalheads that had found Ride and The Pale Saints, and Lush and wanted to make music like that.

Ben was living in an insane house near American University with 13 other guys, including my best friend Matt from my hometown. Matt told me they were looking for a female lead singer and they played “the kind of music you like” and so I went up with my girlfriend Sarah to sit in. They hired her that day but didn’t want me. I convinced them a few weeks later.

++ Was there any lineup changes?

We had a lot of drummers. Greg moved away, and then we asked a high school friend Ben Azzara (capitol city dusters, junction, delta 72). Then John Weiss from Rodan drummed with us for a year or so, then Tim Soller through the end.

++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?

Ivan was a bit of a genius with songs. He wrote most of the chord progressions, then Sarah would write the words and melody, and Bill and I would figure out our parts. I always liked to write guitar parts for songs that were already written — I feel like I would make the *sound* of the song, that this was my part.

We practiced in the basement of the house near American U, then in Arlington in a group house, then in my house in Mount Pleasant. We practiced for 3-4 hours, 1-2 times a week.

++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?

We were having trouble agreeing on anything. Ben got obsessed with called the band Seizure 17 after a friend of his that had just had 17 literal seizures because of a brain injury. Ben was much more into very heavy and extreme music and was always trying to steer us that way. No one else liked it. I said “how about razor 18 instead of seizure 17?” and it stuck.

++ So I found a bunch of recordings of yours on Soundcloud. From what I understand they come from different recording sessions. How many were they?

We had three sessions. One at American University’s recording studio, one at Evil Genius — both of those with Rob Christensen from Eggs. Then we did one at my house with an ADAT setup and minimal equipment. Recording was really, really expensive for us. We were all broke and it cost a minimum of $250 a song to get a good recording, and then $500 to put out 7″s.

++ And these were recorded at the American University and Evil Genius Studios, most of them recorded by Rob Christensen. Can you tell me a little bit about each of these studios and how was working with Rob?

Rob didn’t like our band. We didn’t like his band. I felt like he was a total snob, to be honest. I saw him on the street maybe 15 years ago and we chatted for a while. He works at a really good public radio station in NYC now and seemed like a really nice guy. But back then it was oil and water. He was a good engineer, though — he was able to capture the guitar sounds to a much higher standard than it seemed like other studios were able to, which was important for us.

Studios then were pretty basic affairs. Rob was recording Labradford at American at he same time we were there. American had an EMS SYNTHI synth there and we used that on the P Street Beach track we recorded which was really fun… those were all over the early Stereolab tracks and we were obsessed with those.

++ Were these demo tapes sent to radio stations? Were they used for promotion by the press? Sold them at gigs? What did you do with them?

We cut a 7″ called P Street Beach with Queen Bee on the b-side. We planned two more and we wanted to do a regional tour. We were on a label called Popfactory run by a good friend of mine Josh Banks that had a few other bands on it. Josh sent the tapes out which is how we got played on John Peel.

++ You mentioned you had some 7″s in the works. What happened?

I graduated from college, Sarah and I broke up, Ivan had to finish a thesis and got really, really into Surf music. Then Bill graduated and started applying to PhD programs… it had run its course.

I mean. There had a been a lot of bands that had taken that next step around us for years. It didn’t seem like it was working out for most of them. Everyone doing shitty jobs and saving for short tours a few times a year and trying to recoup recording and pressing costs at merch tables. And the music changed around us. We were a really, really loud and energetic shoegaze band. I think the group that resembled our approach on stage the most was Adorable. We jumped around and made a racket and the sound was the thing. Music shifted in the scene to twee, to indie, to low-fi, to “cool.” We were not cool.

++ Those 7″s were already recorded? Did you already have the songs decided for them? What about a label to put them out?

Yeah — #2 was going to be Wake and Carrying Hostile and #3 was going to be La llorona and Temple. We recorded all the tracks for them.

++ I suppose that must have been frustrating, but did you ever think of posthumously releasing your songs?

No. I loved playing in that band — maybe more than any other band I’ve been in, and we were really good, especially at the end, but I didn’t look back. And when I got into self publishing I did put them out on my soundcloud.

++ My favourite song of yours is “P Street Beach”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?

I love that song. It was our first song. It is a tribute to Stereolab, whom we had recently seen in an in-store performance. Ivan starts that song with a direct lift of the Stereolab song “The Light that Will Cease to Fail” and then I clobber it with my best version of “French Disco” over top. Sarah’s vocals are a not so buried reference either with her “do do do” chorus. WIth our normal lack of restraint we blew out the chorus of it with big distorted MBV-style sounds.

Sarah and I lived and went to school in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood in DC just south of Dupont Circle. Dupont, along with the West Village in NYC and the Casto in San Francisco were ground zero for gay liberation in the US and Dupont was still a very wonderful out-out gay enclave in the 90s. P st is in Dupont and where it meets Rock Creek there is a grassy park that goes down into the water… called P st beach. It was a very popular hookup spot for men and I think Sarah came up with the idea for the song after I got propositioned while we were walking by it one night.

++ If you were to choose your favorite Razor18 song, which one would that be and why?

I like La llorona. I love the words, the story of it — about a vengeful ghost who cries out at night over her dead children. I love how Sarah inhabited that personae singing it. I think the guitars on that song are really, really powerful and love the sound. It was my favorite song to play.

++ What about gigs? Did you play many?

We played the 930 a couple of times, the Black Cat a couple of times, the 15 minutes club, Artslab, we played at a local TV station but I never saw the show, we played some acoustic sets… maybe 10 shows?

++ And what were the best gigs that you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?

Our first Black Cat show was the best. I think that we opened for the Ropers. The place was packed. The Black Cat had just opened and everyone loved the venue. The 930 was great, but it was small, it was in downtown, and it smelled really, really bad. The Black Cat was a literal breath of fresh air. The stage was higher and the sound was perfect. I think we outdid ourselves that night, we dressed to the nines, and we closed with a 15 minute version of P Street Beach. That gig was better than anything else we ever played, people were blown away. The band was kind of done after that, to be honest.

++ And were there any bad ones?

Really bad!  We played a battle of the bands at a college after only a couple of rehearsals and it was terrible. We got 0 votes.

++ So I counted 8 original songs on Soundcloud. When you played live, did you use to play these 8? Or did you have more in your repertoire? Perhaps some covers?

We played all of these and we played a cover of It’s All Too Much by the Beatles. We had a few covers that we rehearsed but now I can’t remember any of them!

++ And as you mentioned, you played important clubs in the DC scene. Also shared gigs with some important bands from the time. Why do you think you didn’t get the same attention like I don’t know, The Ropers?

We were more popular than the Ropers in DC when we opened for them… I think that is ok to say. I guess we were not as committed and didn’t play as much. We were all in school at the time… and we all got good grades! I know that I was working full time, going to school full time, and playing in razor18. A lot of the people in bands we played with at the clubs had dropped out of school and had made the band the primary focus. We never did that. I don’t think we ever considered it. I didn’t want to get signed to Sub Pop– I figured it would ruin the band and ruin my life… and you know what? I know some folks that went that route and that is exactly what happened.

++ When and why did Razor18 stop making music? Were any of you involved in any other projects afterwards?

1996 sometime is when Ivan quit to focus all his energy on his surf band, The Space Cossacks. We had been fighting some before that.

I never played music with any of those folks again. I started a psychedelic jazz trio called The Julia Galaxy that played a lot of shows through 1999 in DC, and then I started an electro acoustic trio in NYC called Noumena, then another group called Ohler.

Bill played in a band called The Jealous Type for a while. Sarah married the drummer Ben Azzara and is now Sarah Azzara and she has done a few solo records that are very good.

++ Was there any interest from the radio? TV? You mentioned Peel played you?

We were on a public broadcast show in DC once and Peel played us twice. I think that is it!

++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?

We got a review in Maximum Rock and Roll — they liked it. The DC city paper reviewed us a couple of times and called us “the loudest band in DC.”

++ What about fanzines?

Not that I know of. Just your blog!

++ Looking back in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?

That Black Cat show I mentioned for sure. I just loved playing our songs and that performance was the highlight. I’ve never felt so comfortable and powerful as a performer before or since.

++ Aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?

I like photography and making prints, I’m a pretty serious film buff and love to go see films at reparatory film houses.

++ I’ve been to DC just a couple of times but I’d still love to ask a local. What do you  suggest checking out in your town, like what are the sights one shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?

1. Pakistani food in Arlington, VA (just over the bridge) — look the least fancy place you can
2. Vegetarian Ethiopian in Adams Morgan (18th street north of U in DC)
3. The East Wing of the National Gallery
4. The Rothko room at the Phillips Collection
5. Go down to Rock Creek near Dupont — past P St Beach — it is very pretty

++ Anything else you’d like to add?

Nope! This was a lot of fun. Thanks for the interest in the music. It inspired me to listen to it all again and it is a very pleasant memory.

I hope you’re well and have a fine day.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
Razor 18 – P Street Beach (American University version)