Leslie Singer - “The Dialog of Analog” Interview

Are you originally from Washington, DC? When did you first begin to fall in love with music? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up? Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up?

I was born in Washington, DC and grew up very nearby in Alexandria, VA. Close to the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Temple. I was a good student but I would hang out with the juvenile delinquents. They were more of the nonconformists which I related to well. When I was 11 I really fell for pop music. AM radio and a friend who had two older sisters. We would listen to their records: Joni Mitchell, Elton John and Rod Stewart. I really got into Elton John big time when I was 11.  From there I moved onto the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Velvet Underground and then circa 14 I found out about punk and new wave. On the first date of their only US tour, the Sex Pistols were booked to play the Alexandria Roller Rink. This would’ve been January 1978. I was wracking my brains trying to figure out how I was going to sneak out of the house and get down there. I didn’t even have a learner’s driver permit. One of the great DC bands, The Razz, was going to open for them, but as we all know now, due to the visa issues, the opening dates of the tour got cancelled and the rest is, as Dick Clark used to say, “rock ‘n’ roll history”. From punk I got into No Wave: Captain Beefheart, Half Japanese and The Residents. There were some great college radio stations in the area which helped spread the word of all the latest great stuff. I have two sisters. One of them is 11 years younger than me so when grunge came out, she and I would go to shows together. When I was about 12, or 13 I got my first electric guitar and formed a little band with one of my friends and my other sister called the HuFemmes.

Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your first show and what ultimately inspired you to pursue a life in music and art? We all know what was going on specifically in Washington in the 80s, but I’m curious to know your personal experience of those days.

Lyda Lunch was a big early influence as well as the other gals in No Wave, Lucy Hamilton (China/Donna Berg), Barbara Ess, Nancy Arlen, and Ikue Mori. But just before I found out about No Wave, I went to my first concert. Elvis Costello at the Warner Theatre in DC. His first album just came out. The Warner Theatre was a great place to see shows. I saw one of the greatest concerts ever in 1978 with The Runaways and The Ramones. Also saw the Talking Heads there on their Remain in Light tour.  That show was the loudest one I have ever been to! I always enjoyed drawing and art class. By the time I got to high school, I was reading a lot of art books and really getting into Dada and Surrealism. Punk and No Wave seemed to be informed by these movements as well. The period that I was on the DC scene was 1978–1982. I got to see the first hardcore shows as well as performance arts shows like Laurie Anderson’s first show in DC. “O, Superman” had just become a hit of sorts. There were also great shows with DC bands like The Slickee Boys, the Urban Verbs and the Chumps. As soon as I got my learner’s driver permit (age 16/17), I was going to the 9:30 Club regularly. This was when it was at its original location at 9:30 F Street. Bands/performers like DNA, the Lounge Lizards, Rhys Chatham and Suicide would come down from NYC and play there.

Tell me about meeting your bandmates in Psychodrama and what led to you guys forming the band. From ‘81 to ‘83 you helped to create the group’s first album “300 Days of Sodom (The Vomit of Psychodrama)” in ‘82. Tell me about writing and recording that album, which the band self-released and what the overall process and approach to the material was. I’d love to know some background to tracks such as “Nervana”, “June 1968”, “Viva Vietnam Dada” and “Splotch of Blood”.

I first met Brett Kerby of Psychodrama in 1980. I placed an ad in the Unicorn Times, DC’s version of the Village Voice. I was looking for a band to join. I got one response from a guy in a group called “From Far Away Beauty”. They were really into Throbbing Gristle. Brett had been in a DC prog rock group, Bazilisk. He was really into David Bowie, noise and hardcore. We did a few gigs here and there like at DC Space and so forth and then split up. I graduated from high school in the spring of 1981 and hung around Virginia for awhile trying to figure out my next move in life. During that time Brett and I along with Rob Lippert formed Pyschodrama. We recorded “300 Days of Sodom” directly onto cassette at Brett’s old falling down farmhouse in Chantilly, Virginia. I think that we were initially trying to record demos to get shows like at the 9:30 Club, etc.  Basically, all those songs were recorded live to tape—no overdubs. By 1982, cassette culture was taking off so we decided to release the tracks on cassette. We got a bit of press and distribution for that cassette, but were really having a hard time finding a place to play out. During the summer of 1982, we did one open mic gig at CBGB’s, but that was about it. As a result, Brett and I decided to move to San Francisco.

We thought that scene would be more open to what we were doing. Brett moved back to Virginia after about 3 weeks in SF and I stayed on and released more cassettes under the monikers of Girls on Fire, Girls Who Hate Their Mothers, Sadistic Gossip and Mary Davis Kills Mary Davis Kills. I was also starting to make super 8 films and videos which I have had exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the US and Europe. My ‘80’s videos are in the collection of the Pacific Film Archive/UC Berkeley Museum. For more info on all of these activities and songs check out: http://www.haltapes.com/girls-on-fire.html. Hal McGee of HalTapes and a founder of the Electronic Cottage group and projects, reached out to me in the summer of 2018 and we got into all of in it great detail. A selection of my ‘80’s videos are posted here: https://vimeo.com/halmcgee. This was the period when I was really into MTV videos and Karen Finley. Getting back to Pyschodrama, “Nervana” was one of Brett’s songs. He was a bit like Antonin Artaud. Really into madness, death and cheap wine. I was really into doing short songs about other artists like Andy Warhol, Hannah Hoch and Kurt Schwitters. As I recall “Splotch of Blood” was a combination of the madness and the art—painting with one’s own blood.

You are a very prolific artist and have continued to create music over the decades with projects such as Your Mom Too and more recently, Rolling Steins. What is most important to you when creating music and art? What keeps you inspired, driven and determined year after year?

I’m inspired by the joy and madness of life. My artwork goes through cycles. From 1980 – 1986, I was doing music and involved with cassette culture. This overlapped with my time in Super 8 film and then video. I worked in VHS and then Pixelvision. I was involved with video until about 2003. I took a break from my practice until about 2018 when Hal McGee got in touch and I got involved with the Electronic Cottage group. I brought back Girls on Fire. For more info on what I’ve been doing lately as Girls on Fire visit: https://haltapescompilations.bandcamp.com. I also did a fun collab disc with Gerardo Colin of OTCRAH Records: https://archive.org/details/@otcrah_records. In 2018, I also added to my artistic practice, polaroids. I had been messing around with polaroid cameras a bit in the early ‘00’s, but when Polaroid went out of business there went that. Back then I did a lot of self-portraiture—very influenced by Brigid Berlin, Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol. With the return of polaroid in 2018, I’ve been shooting steady for the past 5 years, or so. Street photography and urban landscapes—and a few self-portraits. The joy and madness of NYC!

What have you got in the works for 2024 as we close out yet another year on this humble marble? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

I’ve been doing one-of-a-kind cassettes, mail art and polaroids for other artist friends in the Electronic Cottage community and beyond. I’m on Facebook, but I still believe in the dialog of the analog.