Imagine the closest possible musical equivalent to caffeine and the music of the Poster Children might well come to mind. This veteran foursome from Champaign, Illinois, create energetic, melodic pop that blends gauzy layers of guitar drone, chunky rhythms, hummable melodies and a sense of DIY know-how that gives listeners the same side effects of their morning cup of coffee, without the bitter aftertaste.
At the center of the band is Rose Marshack, a whirling dervish of creative energy who can both create spirallingly melodic bass lines and write witty, insightful tour diaries that redefine the genre. After coming back from an extensive French tour with the Poster Kids' basement-rock alter ego Salaryman, Rose sat down at her computer to answer some questions spirited her way via email.
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How would you describe your music (either Salaryman or PosterKids, or both) to someone who has no frame of reference in indie/"alt"/whatever music (like my mom)?
We are quite loud, have a lot of music in odd time signatures, our lyrics are socio-political and usually critiques about people who are living their lives incorrectly, or rants about how to change your outlook on life. We are very approachable to our fans; we never try to distance ourselves from anyone, and we encourage our fans to make their
own music, or their own art, and to live their lives in such a way that they are happy. We have received email from people who we've corresponded with over the years; people whom we've inspired to go back
to college, to get computer science degrees; we have sort of a focus on education and knowledge, so when our fans actually pick that message up, they usually write back to us and thank us. It makes us very happy.
What's with Champaign/Urbana? (Forgive the fairly defensive phrasing. I'm being fairly nebulous here so answer in any way you see fit. How long have you been in the area? Why is it a good place for musicians to live, or why do you like living and making music there?)
Champaign/Urbana is a cheap place to live with a very good engineering college; University of Illinois. This results in there being almost no culture here; no good art movies, no really great cultural events, so basically everyone's bored and broke with no reason to work. This inspires Art. Since there's nothing around to see or hear, people create their own art and music. Other towns like Madison, WI have very few good bands because Madison itself is such a great town with such great people, there's no angst or boredom, and way too much to do.
I have heard stories of people moving to the coast to get "famous" or signed - to me, it's much better to stay in a small place and make a lot of noise; I think it's a lot easier to get attention in a rural town in the middle of a cornfield than it is to try to get attention when you are in one of a thousand bands in a huge city full of jaded industry
people who have already "seen it all." This is why I love Champaign. I'm sitting here in the middle of a cornfield. What better to inspire one to act?
One thing I'm curious about is what your relationship is to "the scene" is. You guys have been around a bit longer than most of the new crop of emo bands (I'm guessing), and your music seems to be a bit more groove-oriented and melodic (read: "easier to dance or sing along to") than the other bands from there. How has it been watching the scene develop?
It's interesting to see the scene change over the years. Before we started out, all the bands in town were emulating the jangly-pop sound of REM (back in the late 80's) and then crop of bands around us were all inspired by Husker Du, The Replacements, and Soul Asylum. We were always kind of the outcasts in each 'generation,' - we were more inspired by punk - at least in ethics - than the other bands were, which made life more interesting for us. We were always on the edge, never totally popular, but hopefully always inspiring. The new kids now are playing Emo, and to me, it seems a lot like a kindler, gentler Punk rock.
Gosh, I haven't really answered your question. Let's try again. When we first started out, the scene was very cutthroat. None of the bands really supported each other. We felt like that was really silly; I mean,
what exactly are you competing for? We had this joke called "The Golden Nugget" - whenever we'd meet a really competitive band, we'd say they were Striving for The Golden Nugget. (A corrolary to the joke is that a
Golden Nugget could bear a resemblance to a piece of feces). But the Golden Nugget never really existed; it was just a joke and it was funny to see bands being mean to each other to obtain this Nugget. When we
started out, we made it our goal to help other bands and to only be supportive of others; when we'd go out on tour, we'd tell others of our great scene in Champaign, and it only ever helped all of us. It never
hurts to be supportive of your neighbors.
So yeah, it's been great watching the scene develop, because at least the bands we know who maybe we've inspired, have always been kind to each other.
What made you want to start touring so early into the band's life? Was it hard to go into areas where (the band's first album) _Flower pLower_ hadn't been distributed and develop an audience from scratch?
Our goal was always to TOUR! That was the one thing we looked forward to - it was seeing all these bands in the late 80s that made us want to make our own band and go on our own tour, doing it ourselves. It was
just amazing to us that the Meat Puppets could drive 3000 miles all the way from Tucson up here to Champaign and be playing shows for us. We wanted to do that.
Was it hard to go into areas where _Flower Plower_ hadn't been distributed? No, not really, because that's what you did back then. You went to a town and 20-50 people might show up at your show, and you'd be
amazed and ecstatic that there were people there who'd come to see you,
that you'd driven hours to play a show so far away from home and there
were people to see you. Then you'd come back the next month and do it
again, and more people would show up.
Was it weird being the only girl in your touring entourage in the early days?
Nah, I've always been the only girl. It never even occurred to me. I
learned early on from my parents that girls were equal to boys, and so
there was no difference. I could do whatever I wanted to do; there were
no barriers set up for me in my mind.
How long have you been keeping the tour diaries? What made you want to start keeping them in the first place? Since your tour diaries are now online and availible to a fairly wide audience, do you feel you need to censor or edit them for public consumption?
I am not sure when I started keeping tour diaries, but there are some from before we even had a web page. I suppose I am always driven by the need to teach people and to let them
know the truth about things, so the tour diaries come out of that need.
The question about the censoring really gets me - it's a great question.
My answer is, there are very few things I keep to myself, in any
situation, because for some reason, I figure if I tell the truth about
myself, nothing can hurt me. Mostly, I feel that if I am an honest,
kind, compassionate and rational person, anything I say won't hurt me.
The hardest part about the tour diaries is trying to find a good way to
explain my thoughts so people understand them and don't take offense.
Oddly, I find that the most "racy" reports - like the one about the show
with The Urge in Columbia MO - are the ones that people like to read the
most. But when something like that comes up, I just present the issue
exactly as it happened, and if the band who fucked with me gets
offended, it's their own fault for acting that way! So much for censorship.
In the future on the web, I am going to write a tell-all tale of what
exactly happened to us when we were on Warner Bros Records, along with the budgets. I know that Steve Albini has already done something like this, but he wasn't speaking from personal experience. I will be.
On the spine for _RTFM_ , you're billed as "Poster Children International". What made you decide to put that on the spine of that record?
There was too much space to just write "Poster Children" so I added
"International" on it. Seriously. We are slaves to design in that way;
if the design doesn't look good, we'll change the title. I always tell
people when they're thinking of names for their band, to make sure the
band name has the fewest amount of letters in it as possible; just so it
will always fit in large letters on posters and t-shirts.
But also, we had just gone on a long European tour, so we felt
"International" at that point, anyway.
Where do most of your fans come from, and how do they hear about you?
A lot of our fans are computer geeks. I don't know where they come from.
I'm just honored to have them as fans. I guess mostly it's word of mouth
- I get lots and lots of email from people saying that their friend has
been begging them for years to come see us, and that they always thought
they'd hate us, but when they finally watched and listened, "WOW, You
guys are great! I'm so sorry I didn't get into you sooner!"
The best fan was the one who was just a fan of the tour reports and had never seen or heard our music. I liked that a lot!
Why are music aficionados in France and England so into (the Poster Kids' "basement rock" alter ego) Salaryman?
It's mostly the people in France - I don't know. I think all of us love
France as well - the attitude matches mine exactly - those people think
way too much about things, and so do I. And they take particular joy in
The Meal, as do I.
Are they as into your creative output as Poster Children?
I think the people in France will be when they get a chance to hear us.
It's always been great for us in France, for some reason. Somehow they
can tell we love them.
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To hear the music of the Poster Children and learn more about their exhaustive and inspiring work ethic, or to just read Rose's tour diaries, point your web browser to posterchildren dot com. If you want to hear Salaryman, the basement-rock quartet that's taking Europe by storm, go to salaryman dot org.
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Note: I originally submitted this article to run in Bust magazine's travel and international feminism issue. Sadly, the interview never ran...but I liked it too much to let it languish on my hard drive.
