Clock Hands Strangle hail from the semi-moist, manatee ridden state of Florida. The same state that has given us such horrendous acts such as Limp Bizkit, Creed, and 'N Sync. All jokes aside, it is fascinating that such a well versed, literate bunch of indie folk/roots rockers would spring up from a state that has devalued it's grade school education system in hopes of retaining it's larger population of retirees and tourists.Download Desert Music (Live) MP3!
In June, Clock Hands Strangle released their latest album Distaccati. In an interview with Groupee.com, primary songwriter Todd Portnowitz explains his writing process for the album as such, "...most of the lyrics on Distaccati came about as a reaction to reading a slew of modern literature, writers like T.S. Eliot, who said that an artist must 'destroy his personality' to create anything substantial. I understand the notion—it’s the same for a scientist, who must completely remove his subjective self from the experiment in order to reduce the amount of bias in the results; but I only agree with it in part. Writing this album was a way to wrestle with that question - how much of yourself should be in art? How much should be pure, removed observation?" Even the word Distaccati itself means 'detached' in Italian.
We caught up with these thoughtful gentlemen via in the internet and persuaded them to answer a few of our highly suspect questions....
Viva: What's the most embarrassing band you loved as a kid?
Todd: Ace of Base. Had the CD and tape. What you gonna tell your dad, it’s like a wheel of fortune.
Brian: Stryper.
Nick: Probably DC Talk.
Cristian: Coolio.
Adam: Skankin’ Pickle.
Viva: Who smells the worst in van after a show?
Todd: Nick. And as a side note, I still stand by my wager that I could go five days on the road without a shower and still smell sweet.
Brian: A tie between Cristian after two days or Nick's beef jerky.
Nick: I think it's between Adam and Cristian. One always smells worse than the other.
Cristian: Me.
Adam: Nick.
Viva: More frightening clock: Doomsday or Biological?
Todd: Biological, but I was always more afraid of the whole atomic time vs. earth time (time measured by an accurate cesium clock vs. time measured by the earth’s rotation). I remember reading an article about how in the 70s they had to add two “leap seconds” in order to make the two clocks agree, so that our satellites would be coordinated, and GPS systems would continue to function. I believe there was even an entire week lost in Great Britain at some point way back in the day, from trying to coordinate atomic time and earth time. People were protesting in the streets, fighting for their week back.
Brian: I don't have a menstrual cycle ... So doomsday.
Nick: Biological. You should see Nick Sr.
Cristian: Doomsday.
Adam: Neither. I welcome male pattern baldness, the returning of Christ, and my ascension into the kingdom of heaven.
Viva: What's the funniest thing that has happened to you on the road?
Todd: I think we were in Champaign-Urbana, and someone’s girlfriend straightened my hair. We put on a little mascara and went and took fake emo pictures out by these abandoned railroad tracks, pretending to look like we’d just listened to The Used for three hours and were all suffering from metaphorical “wounds to the heart.” Some of the pictures are still circulating online. I’m not sure anyone ever got the joke, so there’s probably people out there who think we’re really that lame . . . I guess I don’t blame them.
Brian: Nick getting punched repeatedly after fooling around with this dude’s girlfriend in Tulsa, OK.
Nick: Hard to choose, but I would say the time we were in D.C., staying at a hotel with Brian's family, and his Mom walked in on Todd just as he was going to pee in the kitchen sink . . .
Cristian: We stayed with this girl who thought we were going to steal her cat (apparently it had happened three times), she also warned us to “keep the volume down” if there was going to be any sex (it was only the five of us staying there) . . . she was strange, to put it mildly. Later in the night Nick and Todd went upstairs to her room to ask for pillows and both came back downstairs with these traumatized faces. For a little while they wouldn’t say what happened, and just sat there blank-faced. The suspense, waiting to hear what sort of whacked out shit they’d seen, was the funniest thing ever.
Adam: Almost dying on an icy highway, driving from Toronto to Chicago.
Viva: What's the last concert you attended?
Todd: Silver Jews w/ Monotonix
Brian: mewithoutyou in Tampa
Nick: Was at the mewithoutyou show with Brian and Cris.
Cristian: mewithoutyou
Adam: Radiohead
Viva: Who's in heavy rotation on your iPod?
Todd: Eric Dolphy – Out to Lunch, and The Complete Prestige Recordings.
Brian: The new Clem Snide album and the new Joan of Arc.
Nick: I don't have an ipod.
Cristian: Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
Adam: Phantom Buffalo.
Viva: What was the worst fight over nothing that you got into with each other after being road weary and exhausted?
Todd: Nick and I had a long and bitter argument over the difference between a “bite” and a “taste.” In New York, Nick purchased this giant, amazing-looking burrito, and I asked for a “bite” so that I could “taste” it. He assumed that my asking for a “bite,” implied that I was hungry, but too cheap pay for a burrito. Really I just wanted a “taste,” so I could see how tasty the burrito was. The “bite,” in my belief, was just a necessary evil for exploring the “taste.” Twenty minutes later the burrito was gone and I never got a taste. Or a bite. This argument continues. I mean, we’d go to different bars and all order different beers, and occasionally we’d “sip” each other’s beers in order to “taste” them, so that our next decision would be more informed. What’s the difference between a beer and a burrito? I support tasting in all forms, wholeheartedly, and affirm with great conviction that neither hunger, nor greed, nor thriftiness, play a role in the tasting process. “To expand the pallet is to expand the mind,” as William Howard Taft once said. I wanted that burrito…
Brian: Either Cristian’s bad driving or Todd’s horrible navigating.
Nick: We don't fight really, just know how to push each others buttons. Although there were a few pretty good fights when a couple of us brought our girlfriends with us on tour.
Cristian: Whether or not to eat at Cracker Barrel at the end of our last tour.
Adam: I got absurdly angry with Brian and Nick in St. Paul, MN because they started trying to help pack up my drums immediately following a show. I have my methods.
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