Roots Rock

Digging Into the Past With Experimental Four-Piece Long Legged Woman

originally published November 14, 2007

When American Erutrevo disbanded in late 2005, three of its members decided to take a break from the "band thing" for a while. So they listened to lots of very strange and very old records and played their instruments alone in their rooms. Two of the dudes - Gabe Vodicka (guitar, vocals) and Justin Flowers (drums, sampler, vocals) - resumed jamming together a few months later, and Long Legged Woman was born.

In the fall of 2006, the duo self-released 1, an EP full of sleaze-rock riffs that dissipated into oceanic, Boredoms-like drones. The two have stayed busy ever since, performing frequently, snagging a Flagpole Athens Music Award in the Best Experimental Artist category, putting out two more discs - Delay 2007 and Newtown Nights - on their own, and issuing another pair of albums for Thor's Rubber Hammer Productions, a DC-based label run by former Athenian Lars Gotrich. This past summer, two more musicians - Alex Cargile (guitar, vocals; formerly of Gasmasks and Matchsticks) and Jeff Rahuba (bass, guitar, electronics, vocals) - joined the group. The fellas promise to deliver one album of subdued, spectral "pop" songs and another containing churning, acid-fried guitar jousts by year's end.

Taking cues from Wire, Flagpole sat down with Vodicka, Flowers and Rahuba and played for them songs that might shed some light on Long Legged Woman's aesthetic.

Better People's "Death and Grieving…"

Gabe Vodicka

It's Doug [Patterson]!

Justin Flowers

This is one of my favorite Doug songs.

Flagpole

You guys toured together.

Jeff Rahuba

It was awesome.

Justin Flowers

We went up to Minneapolis, across to Olympia, then to L.A., then back across the Midwest… It was the first time I'd ever been further west than the Mississippi.

Flagpole

How were the crowds?

Justin Flowers

There were anywhere from zero to 200 people…

Gabe Vodicka

We had shows were there were tons of people watching it and digging us, and some where no one was digging us at all.

Flagpole

When do you plan to do it again?

Gabe Vodicka

As soon as possible!

Justin Flowers

The next time we do it, we might not come back!

Gabe Vodicka

We're doing an East Coast tour with Dark Meat, and we're planning another big one for the spring.

Can's "Yoo Doo Right"

Gabe Vodicka

Oh man, I know who it is, but I can't remember what album it's from!

Flagpole

It's "Yoo Doo Right" off Monster Movie.

Justin Flowers

When we went to New York on a trip a few years ago, we talked to some people about [Can vocalist] Malcolm Mooney, and they said he lives in New York and is an elementary school teacher! Can you imagine being in the fourth grade and having Malcolm Mooney for a teacher?

Flagpole

Your album Delay 2007 - that title is a Can reference. What has Can meant to you?

Justin Flowers

They were definitely an opening to a lot of other stuff.

Gabe Vodicka

They were definitely one of the first weirder bands that we all started listening to.

Flagpole

Does Can have any bearing directly on Long Legged Woman?

Justin Flowers

They're definitely a big influence, because they're like a fucking culmination of it all. I mean, who doesn't go [imitates motorik krautrock drumbeat]? They're mind-expanding, situation-defying…

Flagpole

If I were to guess how you guys record, I'd say that you use Can's method of recording "live" to tape and editing it down. Is that how it works?

Gabe Vodicka

For the early albums. Newtown Nights was kind of weird, kind of like George Martin… one of us would lay down a track, and then we'd lay down as many layers as we needed.

Justin Flowers

I think it's good to record the initial tracks - the guitar, the bass, the drums - live, because there's something about the feeling of that raw sound.

Flagpole

Judging from the references you make in your liner notes, you're greatly influenced by older music. Is there any newer stuff that influences you?

Jeff Rahuba

The only things lately that I've taken to heart have been rap, like "Gangsta Grillz." And all that new black metal, like Sunn O))).

Gabe Vodicka

I think we all listen to a lot of new rap. It's funny to say that it influences our band, but it does.

Justin Flowers

It's gritty.

Jeff Rahuba

And it's repetitive.

John Coltrane's "Vigil"

Jeff Rahuba

Is this the drum solo from "Rat Salad" by Black Sabbath?

[saxophone comes in]

Justin Flowers

Coltrane. And is that Elvin Jones?

Flagpole

Yup. It's "Vigil," the only duet they ever recorded. All of you guys are into free-form jazz - when did you get into it?

Gabe Vodicka

My dad listened to a lot of jazz, and he would play weirder stuff… after a while my mom would get pissed off!

Jeff Rahuba

I was really into Sonic Youth, and when I heard Thurston Moore talking about Derek Bailey, I picked up some Derek Bailey. At first I hated it, but then I got really into Albert Ayler. Just the trio of sax, double-bass and drums - he could get so far out with that.

Flagpole

How long did it take for that music to creep into the music you were making?

Justin Flowers

When we first started Long Legged Woman, we had been listening to a lot of Alice Coltrane and a Rahsaan Roland Kirk [album] called Prepare Thyself to Deal with a Miracle. We just decided, hey, let's play, and I recorded it on a crappy boombox… and we were like, "Damn, this is good!"

Flagpole

But you didn't sound like Roland Kirk…

Justin Flowers

Just the aesthetics and the general feeling and movement are the things I get from jazz.

Gabe Vodicka

And the live-ness.

Jonathan Kane's "I Looked at the Sun"

Justin Flowers

Who is this?

Flagpole

It's Jonathan Kane from Swans. It reminds me of your first EP - he takes a riff and rides it out until it becomes a drone. But you seemed to have abandoned the riff…

Gabe Vodicka

Oh, we're definitely going back to Riffville, though we have stayed away from there for a while.

Flagpole

What took you away from it?

Justin Flowers

It was a whole prodigal son thing!

Jeff Rahuba

At the beginning of the tour, we would jam out more, but by the end, I would play like three notes. I was playing the drum machine, and I'd put it on the drum setting, and just do the same thing over and over. Everything kind of crystallized at the end. Every night, all this crazy stuff turned into one sound.

Fugazi's "Bed for Scraping"

Justin Flowers

Minor Threat was better! Minor Threat was just so much more "live"…

Flagpole

Erutrevo had a lot of angular guitar tricks going on.

Gabe Vodicka

I think those angular guitars were more like Talking Heads rather than Fugazi. I had a lot of fun in that band.

Justin Flowers

I didn't get to play drums like I wanted. Or I didn't know what I wanted to do. That was the first band I'd ever been in.

Mark Stewart & The Maffia's "Learning to Cope with Cowardice"

Jeff Rahuba

It sounds like a mix between Cabaret Voltaire and the Notorious B.I.G.

Flagpole

You're a lot closer than you think. This is Mark Stewart & The Maffia. Mark Stewart was in The Pop Group, and he used the Sugar Hill house band for his backing musicians. I bring this song up because he uses noise and dissonance to signify dissent and what capitalism does to his brain. What, if anything, does the noise in Long Legged Woman's music do?

Justin Flowers

[gesturing around the room] Look at where we live… It's just a middle finger to anything that gets in the way of how I want to live. Anything that's against freedom - which sounds like the stupidest fucking thing to say.

Gabe Vodicka

It's catharsis for sure.

Justin Flowers

It's that, and it's directed against all of the things that keep us down.

Flagpole

What's keeping you down?

Justin Flowers

The idea of money, not being able to pay the rent. I understand you have to pay for things or whatever, but not being able to make music all the time sucks.

Gabe Vodicka

I think about the Apocalypse a lot. So many things around us could contribute to the end of the world at any time.

Phillip Buchan

WHO: Long Legged Woman, Hibernation, Mouser, Smokedog
WHERE: Caledonia Lounge
WHEN: Friday, November 16
HOW MUCH: $5