Gyrate Revisited

Pylon's Michael Lachowski Talks Simplicity, Bringing A Classic Album Back To Life And Sealing The Deal With DFA

originally published October 17, 2007

If Michael Lachowski asks if you would like cream or sugar in your coffee, say yes. The bass player for Athens' longest running and universally lauded post-punk icon Pylon brews the deepest and blackest cup of ink this side of espresso. But it's good. This kind of liquid dynamite helps to recall the minute details of Pylon's long history; stretching from the late '70s up to this week's re-release of the group's impeccable first album, Gyrate. The unassuming line-up of Lachowski (bass), Vanessa Briscoe-Hay (vocals), Randy Bewley (guitar) and Curtis Crowe (drums) was most active between 1979 and 1983, but the songs on Gyrate have continued to find new audiences, long beyond's the group's demise and many brief reunions.

The album has persevered through decades of pop culture ebb and flow and is still heralded by record collectors as an obscure - though essential - artifact from Athens' early musical heyday. Gyrate has never been released on CD until now, and under the auspices of New York dance punk stronghold DFA Records, the album, under the name Gyrate Plus, is on the receiving end of an expanded makeover that will reintroduce the band to a new generation of listeners. Not only does the record sound better, it includes Pylon's debut "Cool"/ "Dub" 7-inch, as well as a very early and never-released demo cut titled "Functionality." The release also contains liner notes written by R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, B-52's frontman Fred Schneider and Gang Of Four drummer Hugo Burnham.

Lachowski's tone is dry, but the excitement in his voice is unmistakable when he talks about his first encounter with DFA, and acknowledging that it is the perfect label to carry Pylon's past into the future with Gyrate Plus.

Flagpole

Do you still play music?

Michael Lachowski

No, I am probably the only one in Pylon who never took to musicianship. It used to be part of the shtick with Pylon in the early days, to say that we weren't musicians and that we didn't know how to play our instruments. I have only really played my bass at Pylon practice or recording session, or at Pylon shows. I have never played it on my own or with other people. Literally. But both Vanessa and Randy have found new projects to work on recently. They're both in a new band, called FFFM.

Flagpole

You're drawn more toward visual arts?

Michael Lachowski

Yeah. My interest in Pylon has more of an art bias to it in the sense that the concept or the context of it was always more interesting to me than actually playing.

Flagpole

I've never thought of Pylon's songs as open-ended. They feel very strict, which may be the result of your coming from an art background. Most musicians who come from an art background have a keen grasp on how the end product will be received.

Michael Lachowski

"Cool" was the first song we released. Our T-shirt design is going to be a red shirt with the word "Cool" written in white and that's it. No other references, other than the font. There is a certain pleasure that I get out of knowing that something so minimal is legitimately recognizable as a Pylon statement. When I wrote the words for "Cool," I wrote them on graph paper. All of the words are four-letter words. I showed it to Fred Schneider, who has a completely different sensibility, and he said it's too structured, too rigid.

Flagpole

Simple is powerful.

Michael Lachowski

The problem with simple is that it is hard to pull off. The reality, from doing commercial graphic design work, is that it is hard to get people to leave out 85 percent of the information. The feel-good stuff. The way I described it recently to someone is like we're moving in a covered wagon. We're pioneers and moving west, so we better bring everything that can possibly fit! The problem is the wagon will never make it. If you view a piece of communication as a vehicle and you overload it, it dies. Your statement is stronger if it says less.

Flagpole

Meaning, if you spell everything out, people won't read it.

Michael Lachowski

Right! If you say less, people will extrapolate more from their own biases or estimations. It allows them to engage more than they would otherwise.

Flagpole

How did the b-side "Dub" come about?

Michael Lachowski

"Dub" came about from a time when we played in New York. We opened for Gang of Four and it was a notable enough gig that it attracted some critics. Glen O'Brien wrote about it for Interview. His review said "it sounds like these kids eat dub for breakfast." So we had to ask a friend of ours, "What is dub?" So we ended up writing this song, and Vanessa just started yelling out, "We eat dub for breakfast!"

Flagpole

How did you hook up with DFA?

Michael Lachowski

In January, I got an email from DFA that said you probably don't know who we are, but we hear you're thinking about reissuing some of your older material and we would love to be the label to do that, we are thinking of reissuing of some important bands and everyone in the DFA universe wrote your name down on that list of important bands.

I was already a big fan. I went to the rest of Pylon to tell them about it and none of them knew who DFA was. I was nervous that it was going to be hard to convey the importance of this kind of potential collaboration between our past and them being precisely the right people to bring it to the future. I met with DFA in March and it was an amazing love fest between DFA and Pylon. It came to the point of absurdity. [DFA recording artist] Juan Maclean was in town doing some stuff. I got to meet him and everyone else and we came back into the office and this guy [from DFA] came in for a three o'clock meeting.

He was acting weird and they finally brought him over. He was there to consult with them about a music project and he was a humongous Pylon fan. He pulled up his sleeve and he had this Mr. Horsepower tattoo on his forearm, the woodpecker that's on our "Beep" and "Altitude" single. I said, "Wow, you have the same Mr. Horsepower that we have on one of our records" and he said, "Dude, this came off of your record, that's the best fucking single of all time!"

Flagpole

Pylon was considering releasing a comprehensive collection of everything. Will that still happen?

Michael Lachowski

We came to realize that if we try to go down that road, it'll never happen. The amount of leg work and detail management will just bog us down. So then we came up with the idea to just look at the first album. Gyrate has never been available as a CD. A lot of the tracks were on Hits, but that was roundly criticized by everybody for the poor mastering job. Earnest and well-wishing people would say, "I love your band, but Hits is so flawed." So we got the message that Hits was far from perfect. Then people started asking about us again more recently because they couldn't find the records. We just said be patient, we're working on Gyrate.

Flagpole

And the remastering job is thorough but subtle.

Michael Lachowski

Yeah, the remastering was already done before we got together with DFA. It is 100-percent attributable to cooperation with Danny Beard [from DB Records], and the amazing man hours and dedication from Jeff Caulder. He went back to the master tapes, which had been spliced-up to make Hits. Somebody had taken the tape from "Cool" and "Dub," Gyrate and Chomp, cut them together and made a big reel to make Hits and left it in that condition.

There are some people who critique this record in the same way Gang of Four critiqued their first album. How it had just never been recorded to their liking. There was a time when we thought we don't hate our album, but it doesn't capture us the way we think of ourselves.

Flagpole

Gang of Four re-recorded its first album, and it's a disaster. Were you worried about overdoing it with Gyrate?

Michael Lachowski

We really didn't want to go down that road. When we first started talking with DFA, their concern was, "What are you thinking about doing with this record?" I told them that we have already remastered it and want to put it out track-for-track as it was, but better… And maybe add some new stuff at the end.

Flagpole

Where does the song "Functionality" come from?

Michael Lachowski

We didn't want to make this the definitive collection, but as long as we're reintroducing Pylon, is there anything we can throw on the disc that is pertinent and just kind of an extra? We had one demo tape that was just such an oddity. When we recorded, Vanessa was in the hallway of our studio. Randy, Curtis and I were in the other room, and we recorded four or five songs. That's the only demo we ever made. That's where this song comes from. We were going to include two tacks from the tape that have never been released elsewhere. But the tone of one of them came on too strong. The song was called "Information." Someone had the insight that it was ruining the end of the record, so pulling it off and just using "Functionality" is really strong.

We tried to play it recently, but can't capture it. There is a make-it-up-as-you-go feel to the recording. Vanessa couldn't hear what we were doing and she lost all track of her cues at some point, and I think she just quit singing. Curtis and I are just doing some incredibly repetitive things, but the guitar explorations that are going on are hypnotic. It doesn't sound that good, but it is really cool to just hear the song.

Chad Radford