keith fullerton whitman (aka hrvatski). Album sur DisKono, Tonschacht (album à venir sur Planet µu)

JadeWeb : What is your first musical memory ?
Keith Fullerton : Listening to 'eine kleine nachtmusik' on sunday mornings (strangely enough). also 'water music'. I also noticed that the wind had a pitch, and played music at different times of day. blitter (my brother brian) and i wrote some music on the commodore vic20.

Which artist or song has "affected" your childhood ?
I grew up near Newark, had great access to underground rap music (when it was still called rap music). i didn't know any of the artists, just the songs. i was really into this one song, i can't remember the name of it. the first lines were 'first came dope... and then came smoke... then good herb... was the word. then l-s-d... then black beau-ty... then came sesss.... and buddha bless.... BUT ALL YOU GIRLS AND GUYS... WE GOT A NEW GET-HIGH... COME ON NOW... CRACK it UP (crack, crack it up)... WE GOT TO PUT IT IN THE POCKET (put, put it in the pock-et...) etc...'. my brother craig and i ran an imaginary radio station called WHIT-FM, we have a mixtape of us rapping over it, word for word. it was my first favorite song. that and those weird al yankovic polka medleys where they squeezed every radio hit into a 4 minute track, usually around 30-40 bits per song. i didn't care much for the music, just liked the idea of a song that changed every 10 seconds... we had this lp called 'funny bones' when we were very young, it had sort of novelty records on it like 'the witchdoctor', 'monster mash', etc... i was well into that stuff.

Did you think of working in music ? What did you really want to become later ?
I never thought of working in music until six months before i started music college. even when i was there i didn't really want to be a musician for a living. i wanted to be an ornithologist. or an ichthyologist. an animal scientist of some sort. or maybe a conservationist. i was obsessed with birds and insects as a child. and dinosaurs. i wanted to be a fireman as well.

Are there any disturbing or nice sounds that have "affected"  your childhood ?
Sounds of trains on a rainy night (the water helps the sound travel long distances). the sound of the swamp-marsh in my childhood backyard. many different kinds of birds native to northern new jersey. sounds at holidays, how they affect your emotions. the sounds of a fire in a fireplace. the rhythm of multiple children (my two brothers and i) running up and down stairs.

Did your parents give you a musical education ?
A little bit here and there. my mother played guitar. i'm mostly self taught. my parents were very encouraging though. more than was called for. i thank them for it.

Can you tell us about a musical memory of your childhood (a concert, a show..) ?
There was an assembly when i was in school. i had a biology lab and remember being very angry that i couldn't get out of it to see the assembly. anyways, friends told me about it. three guys with synthesizers and computers on stage, they played for a bit and then walked off, the music kept going. it was a demo of what you could do with midi. i started using the midi lab in my high school very shortly after that. i also remember seeing a rock band at a grade school dance that were godawful. that was when i learned that rock (or any music at that) can be very very bad if your goal is merely to qualify.

entretien © Julien Jaffré 2002