An interview with Dan Carney from Model Village

Hello and I hope the sun is shining where you are. Where actually are you today? 

 I (Dan) am hiding from some miserable rain in one of the less well-loved districts of Cambridge. As I type the other members of the group are spread from Catford in South London all the way up to March in North Cambridgeshire. We cover quite a wide geographical base, but require that all contributors live East of 0º.  

Is there a general feeling of satisfaction now the first album is completed or are you already working on that “difficult” second?   

The recording of all of the tunes that ended up on 'A Solution To Everything' was finished ages and ages ago, so there's more of a sense of satisfaction in the thing coming out at all. We've already recorded some stuff for a second album, and it seems to be easier than doing the first one so far. Is it that we have no time for rock music conventions, or is the difficulty of a second album more of a myth than a cliché? 

How did you decide who was going to take the lead vocals on each song? 

Sometimes these things just work themselves out. Ian wrote most of the words for this record, and many of them had a particular personal resonance which really required him to sing as they're about his life – 'Next Xmas' concerns the early stages of his relationship with his wife, for instance. The rest of the time someone might put a marker down, making demands on who sings lead. For at least one tune I'm pretty sure we had to take it in turns singing the lead to figure who did it the most justice 

Photo by Chris Boland / www.distantcloud.co.uk

Was there any Neil Young influence on ‘Dog Watches’?  

As for Dog Watches, I can neither confirm nor deny that we were pretending to be Crazy Horse whilst recording.  

Any plans for a vinyl release of the album? 

Though I love vinyl, it seemed pretty impractical for this album, so CD it is. Maybe if it turns out to be a bona fide hit we could justify repressing on LP – can you make that happen for us?

I guess that we could, in future, try and work with a guy I know in Colchester who runs Dead Air Recordings. The label specialises in music on obsolete formats and he's already put out things on 8-track cartridge, wax cylinder and U-matic VHS tape, so maybe we should bug him about doing a musical film on Laserdisc.

Do you have live dates or festivals planned this year following the release of the record?

Model Village are not a hard-touring outfit for a variety of reasons, mostly regarding bearings.  However, we've managed to sort out 6 gigs over May and June in Cambridge, London, Northampton and Ramsgate. We were due to play at Sonisphere, but that's off now.

What is your advice to new bands out there - record label or do it yourself when it comes to getting your music heard, and does that also mean giving your music away for free these days?

Sages of indie-rock that we are, we say, It depends. If someone else wants to put your music out then that's great, saves you a lot of bother. If not, don't be disheartened, just do it yourself. Anyone who sets out with the aim of 'getting signed' is a grade A schmuck. Hearing about bands moving to London from some small town to 'make it' and get signed depresses the hell out of me.

As for giving music away free, I don't think it's an original observation to say that this is now the model for independent music. Even fairly established groups on big indie labels have to offer a free download of a song to push their album.

From our position in the Lower mesosphere of pop music it sometimes makes more sense from both a financial and an awareness-raising point of view to offer something for nothing.

Pressing records costs money, and if you can't sell them you've lost out; at least with giving away a free download you've broken even on the production cost. Anyway, Mike Watt says that the record is the flyer for the gig – which we can extrapolate to 'the free download is the flyer for the gig' - and he's a man who tends to give far better advice than I ever could. Best play some gigs though.

I have just returned from Morocco where I heard some amazing free improvised music around the squares of Marrakech. Is there any place that you would like to visit for musical collaboration?

Some of us have a bit of a bit of a thing for Ethiopia and its music – Kev lived there for a year, and I went to visit my mum when she was there for two – but we've been beaten to it by Dutch punk group The Ex, who did some excellent collaborating with Getatchew Mekurya.  

What are you feelings about Social networking as a means to musical recognition? Your website seems to be listed as a tumblr. site. Why did you use tumblr.?

We are some of the worst people to ask about social networking. I can't say that ModelVillage have a full-blown cross-platform strategy, nor that we are stubborn refuseniks with a great line about why we have no truck with this kind of thing. It's probably brilliant for bands in their late teens/early 20s as that is the world of them and their peers. It's a tool, but we are no artisans in this respect. Boringly, we used tumblr because none of us could adequately make a 'proper' website. 

Photo by Chris Boland / www.distantcloud.co.uk