Black Tambourine (Interview)

Though short lived, Washington, D.C. based Black Tambourine have unexpectedly stood the test of time. They’ve lived to see the day that their influence has been quietly spread out, emulated all across the board without a mention of the staying power they’ve left for many younger acts. Their lo-fi recordings and DIY attitude has become a staple for future generations, even though they operated at a time when the prospects for self-promotion were far more limited.

Formed in 1989, Black Tambourine were comprised of Pam Berry on vocals, with music by Velocity Girl's Archie Moore and Brian Nelson, and Whorl member Mike Schulman,  also co-founder of notable indie label Slumberland. In 1999, Black Tambourine released Complete Recordings, a collection of their studio material complied from various singles printed throughout the early days of Slumberland. After more than a decade passed, it caught many by surprise when they announced that they’d be re-releasing Complete Recordings with unreleased demos and four brand new recordings with the original foursome.

Though time keeps passing and priorities have shifted, that classic spirit of Black Tambourine remains intact. I thought it was the appropriate time to discuss a few tidbits with the band about their past and present.

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There’s very scant information about Black Tambourine as a band, which is unfortunate because all that we've in our possession for twenty years are ten delightful tunes. Would you ever have thought that the acclaim would have expanded to such degree, especially when not a single full length was recorded? Not many bands have achieved such a feat.


Archie Moore: I don't think any of us in the band could've ever imagined that we'd be talking about these songs 20 years after we played them. There's little information available about Black Tambourine because the story was so short and uneventful. We rehearsed obsessively for a couple of years, played out a few times, and had one recording session.

Brian Nelson: It's flattering and bewildering that so much interest has been generated by a twenty year old band. I think that everyone involved had a certain special affection for the music we were making and I think that helps give it some longevity.

Mike Schulman: I have to say I'm pretty surprised by the longevity of our songs as well. I think there's only scant information out there because nobody really asked before!

In all honestly, I see 2002’s Black Tambourine as fan service, whereas, this new reissue is more of a celebration of sorts; expanding upon what was already a flawless reissue. What was that first spark that lead to the decision of releasing it with unreleased material?



Archie: Complete Recordings came out in 1999. Like the new anthology, it was released because people were asking Mike to reissue the stuff- back then people wanted it on CD; now they've been asking for vinyl. In essence, this anthology is meant as a deluxe version of Complete Recordings. We just felt weird about keeping that title, so we've changed that and the artwork to let people know this one is not exactly the same as before.

Brian: We'd uncovered some cassettes of old material, which led to additional digging around for demos and photos to flesh out the package.

Mike: Part of the reasoning too is that we wanted to press this on 12" vinyl this time; the 1999 compilation was on 10". Since we had the extra playing time and sleeve space, it seemed like a good idea to provide some more documentation and see if we could also add more music to more fully round out the picture of what the band was about.

Who’s idea was it to reunite, and was there any sort of skepticism from any of the band members?



Archie: Mike asked about reuniting for a live gig or two. When it became apparent to all involved that gigs were logistically impossible, I suggested recording some songs in the DC area and sending them to Pam in London for vocals. Because of the recent interest in the band, there wasn't any hesitation from any of us, though I'm sure we were all wondering if anything listenable could possibly come out of a recording session with no prior rehearsal or even hanging out involved- the studio was the first place we had seen Mike in over a year.

Brian: I don't recall any skepticism. I was mostly concerned not about only remembering parts, but remembering which instrument I played on which song! In the end it all came back pretty easily.

How did it feel to get back in the recording studio and replay the unreleased material? In terms of sound, was there a lot of tinkering and engineering involved to regress back to that time, or was it with that same bare bones approach?

Archie: What was great about the new recording session was that, because we only had one day (including rehearsal), it was very easy to capture the songs as they would've sounded in 1991. There was no opportunity to be fussy or overdo things. It was a simple matter of turning the knobs on the fuzz pedals all the way up, throwing the mics in front of everything, and hitting "record".

Brian: It was great to go in knowing the intent was to just bang these things out. At the time someone suggested having a few drinks to keep things loose. These are pretty simple songs that benefit from a simple treatment, which is all we had time to give them.

Mike: I really enjoyed the process of recording these songs; they were part of our repertoire when we were an active band and I always wish we had recorded more back then. Keeping the sound true to how they would have sounded in recorded in 1991 was pretty easy. Like the other guys said, we didn't have a lot of time to tinker and over-produce things, and I think our individual aesthetics are still quite compatible.

The DIY scene was a concept that Slumberland understood really well. Yet, many of the instruments that the modern era has given us were pretty much nonexistent in the late eighties. How do you guys relate with this new type of DIY philosophy, especially when so many young bands rely on it as a means to survive? Do you see a mirror image of Black Tambourine reflected with many of the younger bands?

Brian: I think the Internet makes it far easier for the kinds of small communities and scenes you see forming. It was much more difficult twenty years ago. College Radio stations and record stores seemed to be the best way for like minded musicians and fans to find each other. Now you just throw up a MySpace or Facebook page and you've suddenly got a scene. It's a great tool for marketing a band outside of just the immediate friends of the members.

Mike: It's definitely interesting to me just how *easy* it is now to find out about things and obtain music. Back in the late 80s it was much harder to find out what was going on, and correspondingly hard to get people to notice your band/label. So in a way the internet and the general size/connectedness of the indie community makes things easier, but I also think that there are more bands and labels out there than ever, so it is still some effort to get yourself noticed. Ultimately, the bands that are working on something unique and outside of the mainstream of indie opinion still have to make that extra effort to find their fans.



It was more than 20 years ago that Pam’s Tan became the first Black Tambourine release. Can you recount the time when that first single was made into a physical copy?

Archie: I remember it very clearly. I had paid for the record pressing, and had very complicated initial feelings about it. On the one hand, we were all excited to release our songs that way, and it was amazing to see/hear the grooves on the vinyl. But the record was very weird, and I think we were all a tiny bit self-conscious about our participation in such an odd compilation. I'd venture to say that the three songs on What Kind Of Heaven Do You Want are the songs with the biggest "what the hell is that?" factor for any of the people involved. I've since learned to love it, and when my friend Matt played it recently at an indiepop night at a local bar, it made me smile. I have to contrast that with hearing Kelly Riles from Velocity Girl play it at a house party right before it came out: I freaked out a bit, ran to the bathroom, and threw up in the sink!

Brian: It was an odd document of our competing interests in less melodic noise oriented music and more pure pop sounds. It felt really monumental at the time that we were putting out our own record. Very exciting. I didn't throw up, though.

Mike: I vividly remember being SO proud of that record. We were all truly new to being in bands and most of us had never even played instruments before, so taking this big step of making a record seemed very bold to me. When we finished stuffing the singles in sleeves, Kelly from Velocity Girl/Powderburns and I got drunk and tried to call Flying Nun boss Roger Shephard on the phone to tell him how inspirational his label was to us. We hadn't paid any attention to the time of day or day of week, and somehow we got through to *someone* in New Zealand, and they just yelled at us and hung up the phone. I reckon we deserved it.

There’s a sort of predictability when branding Black Tambourine's sound, whether it’s fuzz, reverb, 60’s throwback, and bubblegum pop. What’s the one influence you guys have present in your music that no one would expect?

Archie: Everybody (except for Pam maybe) was into Throbbing Gristle. Also, I'm not sure if we could call them influences, but during practices we used to play "Feast On My Heart" by Pylon and "Black Sun" by Loop.

Brian: As I mentioned we had a lot of interest in less melodic noise bands like the Swans, Big Black, and Throbbing Gristle as Archie mentioned. That kind of aggressive use of noise was just as informative to our music as the bubblegum melodies we wanted to bury under it.

Mike: Other big noises for us were The Birthday Party, Head of David, and Sonic Youth. In some ways I think our other bands (Velocity Girl, Whorl) were noise bands who played pop songs, but Black Tambourine came at it the other way around.


Many critics exclusively define Black Tambourine’s sound as “seminal”, but a big part that doesn’t get as much say is the bleak, heart wrenching lyricism, which in a way defines that hopeless dejection of being young. Looking back with a more perceptive point of view, is there any sort of regret in knowing that many of those contemplations actually saw the light of day?



Archie: I don't think so. The song lyrics weren't really confessional or particularly personal. They reflected our idea of what pop songs talk about, in what we considered to be a pop music vernacular.

Mike: I'm only responsible for a handful of the lyrics, but I can't say I regret any of them. They pretty accurately represented my mid-twenties’ take on things.

When the decision came to quit Black Tambourine altogether, was there a feeling of thinking that Black Tambourine had run it’s course, or was it always meant to have such a brief run?

Archie: Things just sort of fizzled out as Velocity Girl and Whorl started playing out regularly. We all loved Black Tambourine, but it really didn't seem like such a big deal to break up, since we didn't really have an audience clamoring for more gigs or records.

Mike: It would be nice to have recorded more of our songs, but as Archie said we were all really busy with other projects and we sort of ran out of time for Black Tambourine.




With two reissues in the can, could we expect a continuation of new material - say, concert footage or more demos? Or could this really be the definitive, final release?


Archie: There are no more demos forthcoming. We just discovered several videotapes of live gigs, but I seriously doubt any of the footage will be deemed releasable; our families will probably have to sit through them, though! Our second single (For Ex-Lovers Only/Throw Aggi Off the Bridge/Can't Explain) consisted of mixes that were quickly done by the band after our original mixdown DAT master was stolen from a car. We recently found a couple of cassettes that contain dubs of the original, superior mixes (done during the same session as the mixes for our first single on Slumberland). I'm interested in posting those mixes for free some time in the near future. They're not dramatically different (they're the same performances as on the single), but I think they're a bit better, so we might as well let people hear them.

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Black Tambourine's new reissue is out now on Slumberland Records. You can read our take on the re-reissue here.