chickfactor: what is a pipas?

lupe: pipas are the shells on sunflower seeds. what I wanted to think about was when you go to a movie or a public event for example in spain, you find big patches on the ground of sunflower seed shells its kind of gross but I love it at the same time. then later on I found out it's the same word for frog, pipas, in latin, and at the same time when we were starting to play we had this frog who all of a sudden appeared one day in our door and didn't leave. and we had just moved to the house like a week before. he didn't leave. I had all these photos of him just standing still and we tried to tease him and nothing, and then it died and we found it completely shriveled up in the door in the front.

mark: how do you tease a frog?

lupe: just going like that to see if it would jump and react, nothing. at night it would go in this little drain pole and cover itself up with leaves we would check and it was stiil there.

mark: we have a shrine to the frog on the back of the front door.

lupe: have you seen the shrine?

cf: no.

lupe: the next time you come over. its the cutest thing.

cf: is there a music scene in new cross gate [neighborhood of south london where mark and lupe reside]?

lupe: mis en scene? yeah.

cf: music scene. tell us about the culture of new cross gate. tell us about the girl gang.

lupe: oh my god what are they called? new cross angels. no, new cross fairies.

mark: fairies, yeah.

lupe: they live next door to us and they're this gang of women who wear spiky stiletto heels and have made these beautiful translucent and pearlescent wings that they wear and they were really outrageous outfits and they go around in the tube on scooters. and they're nasty and they curse. that's all I know, they wear bobbie socks too, the something fairies.

mark: the art-school fairies.

lupe: you haven't seen them? you have seen them.

mark: I think the fairies are dying out.

lupe: this is just a little gossip but we know that a few of them live next door to us because they have wild parties and they open their windows and they kind of hang out of them with their wings and stuff.

cf: do they go to the local haberdashery school?

lupe: she knows everything,

cf: has pipes been influenced by the greenwich folk scene?

lupe: I think we're a reaction to it. I think we're sort of saying, goodbye folk. I mean, we love it, but basically... we couldn't do it as good.

cf: do you think the london music press should wake up to the greenwich folk scene?

lupe: it's about time.

cf: or it should wake up to the - what genre is pipas? electronova?

lupe: he doesn't want to be pigeonholed.

mark: PIGEON-holed,

lupe: you know that's his nickname, right? did you know? the pigeon?

cf: the pigeon and the moth. that's the name of the pub you need to open in new cross gate, the moth and pigeon.

mark: lupe and her friends came up with this nickname for me, the pidge...

lupe: 'cause he laughs like a pigeon: hoohoohoohoohoo!!

mark: I would walk by the room they were in and they'd yell "hey pidge! hey pidge!" and I thought they were caIling me "bitch" and it was really offensive,

lupe: so it stuck. hoohoohoohoohoo! what was the question?

cf: I was asking for a genre but you don't want to be pigeonholed.

lupe: I would like to think that eventually we'd be bossa nova because that's what we wanna be.

mark: not bossa nova, strictly. I wanna be gal costa, and that's tough for me to be.

cf: can you sing in portuguese?

lupe: we want to, I've been trying to come up with some lyrics.

cf: will you cover "baby"?

lupe: [singl "baby, baby. we wanted to cover ... we shouldn't divulge this. we think that we have these superstar neighbors, the high llamas, and this whole year one of my projects has been to look into everybody's window as I walk up and down the hill and 1've studied everybody's house. and there's some people who look like they're into '60s tropicalia kind of stuff and it's got to be them.

cf: it's funny because they want to be gal costa too. do you think there's something in the water in new cross gate that makes people want that? and will you be getting afros?

mark: I wanted an afro when I was 7 but not now.

lupe: I think I can definitely get an afro but I have to have patience and I get reall impatient and right now it's getting big but...

mark: I wanted an afro but now there is at least one person in london with a big red afro so it's been done. I can't have one.

lupe: this friend of ours has had a big red afro for three years now.

cf: a white dude?

lupe: a white dude with an afro. It looks like one of those boffo down things with the rainbow but it's orange, but we love it.

cf: why do the kings of convenience always thank you in their liner notes?

mark: she writes all their songs.

lupe: well, one of the things that was really weird to me at their last show was that they thanked me [from the stage and I was listening to one of the songs and it seemed kind of familiar, and after the show I was taIking with erland and he said "thank you, we really need to thank you again and he was very businesslike in this thanking. I go "what are you taIking about?" and he said "you know, that one song, the lyrics are taken from this letter that you wrote, or these emails and things" he said "yeah, it would be great if you could get some royalty credits," how could that enter someone's mind? I guess it's something nice and flattering to do but it's really strange because it's stealing essentially without telling someone.

cf: great artists steal. do you feel betrayed or violated?

lupe: no, I felt what bad memory I have, I can't even remember these things. I felt that someone else had written it. I feel bad having told you that.

cf: you don't want me to print it?

lupe: basically I was flattered.

mark: I was inspired the other day-you inspire people to wriite songs. the other day in the park.

cf: what's the best park in london?

lupe: it's a close call: greenwich and...

mark: I like the fact that we have a park at the end of our street at the top of the hill and you can see the world from there,

lupe: telegraph hill.

mark: to have our own park is pretty special.

cf: what's the best pub in london?

lupe: I think it's the lamb.

mark: I don't have a favorite pub. I don't go to pubs to hang out in pubs, particularly.

lupe: I don't either.

cf: I've seen you both at the betsey trotwood.

mark: the NFT bar.

lupe: of course! how could I miss it? they take credit cards for small amounts, the soup, it's better than my mother's cooking, it's like being at a family dinner: you get your food, you go sit, then you watch a movie, it's pure comfort.

mark: you've gone to see a film, then after the film you hang out and have a drink and talk...

cf: ... with other pretentious film snobs? I know what bands mark was in before, there were three that I know of (ciaobella [bella vista - correction], nik-nip, the moonlings) .. were there others?

mark: well, yeah, but nothing as noteworthy as the three you know about. I was in a synthesizer pop band in 1985 with my friend dave in high school with a terrible name. it was a synthesizer pop band but we also liked level 42 so the name ended up being kingsway or something. terrible.

cf: and lupe, the band you were drumming for in college was called...

lupe: oh yeah, it was a band called hong-an tran, which is the name of my friend. I was in a band with my friend jason. we were trying to be like small factory. it was local, we were in pennsyivania, he was very ambitious and we basically grew apart. because he was a perfectionist and when we would record and he wanted my voice to sound high; he said I sounded like nico. I couldn't take that. I know I sing out of tune, so capitalize on that, we played a couple of gigs and they were great. they ended up really noisy

mark: didn't I actually play a show with hong-an tran?

lupe: oh my god! I'm just remembering!

mark: before we even knew each other, we played a show at swarthmore, and I was in one of the three bands

cf: was that your first band?

lupe: I was in a band with my brother that was undergoing constant metamorphosis mostly it was a joke band, but we made a lot of noise. you can't put it in the thing, but it was when I was into diamanda galás

cf: of course we have to print that. so you were a goth?

lupe: no, well, I was but it was more like bauhaus arty goth, than sisters of mercy, disturbing in that goth way.

cf: what's a plumas bouncer [mark and lupe's website is plumasbouncer.com]?

mark: when we moved to new cross gate, we were adopted by a neighborhood cat who would walk into our flat. It was warm outside and he'd come waltzing in.

lupe: with a big stomach. mark: eyes like plates. it turns out the cat's name is bouncer.

lupe: and plumas means feathers, urn, for me basically it's family slang for farts. we wanted a name that would make me laugh every time I said it. I wanted something really kicky. hoo hoo hoo hoo hool I just laugh because it's farts bouncer,

mark: it sounds like a law firm. to me it sounds like an anonymous company.

cf: mark, what's coming out on your label [long lost cousin]?

mark: well, I had the honour of putting out a pines seven-inch. wow is all I can say. and the only other thing is us [pipas's brand- new chunnel autumnal mini-lp].

cf: lupe, what's coming out on your label [little ah]?

lupe: there's going to be a split seven-inch hopefully in about a month. one side is by the black george, who's a local artist, and the other side is the latter day. they're all part of the plumas bouncer collective, but they're out in ithaca. right now they're on hiatus because one of them is in jail in thailand for evading military service.

cf: he's a rapper?

lupe: he raps

cf: I hear you two have an obsession with jam.

mark: who have you been talking to?

cf: I dig up dirt where I can find it mister.

lupe: jam is only half of the equation, if you know what I'm saying.

cf: what kind of jam,the funky-noodly type or marmalade?

mark: jam merely icing on the cake.

lupe: you know what the cake is, right? you know what the true obsession is underlying everything that we're about?

mark: the bread revolution.

lupe: it's the yeast thing, as far as jam, I definitely go for marmalade. it's sweet but it's bitter. dark oxford orange marmalade.

mark: I like that ginger jam.

cf: what about the musical jam obsession? tom ze?

lupe: paul weller? the thousand oaks' hippie reprise? the thousand oaks is this thing that will and travis and us are in; we used to go to the studio and rehearse a lot and it just kind of dissipated because they're busy and they have girlfriends. don't put that in.

cf: in chickfactor we print it when you say "don't put that in." what was your first concert?

lupe: sting.

mark: something like howard jones.

cf: "something like howard jones?"

mark: okay, it probably was howard jones at the hammersmith odeon.

cf: what is your recording studio called?

lupe: the electric lodge. the marmalade lodge,

mark: the ginger jam.

cf: who have you recorded at your studio?

mark: the pines, pipas, black george.

cf: are you a self-taught man?

mark: I learned to push buttons myself.

cf: would you quit your day job to run a studio full time?

mark: no.

lupe: would you quit your day job at all?

mark: no. I don't want to do anything full time, full time is bad time.

cf: what's in your fridge?

lupe: pesto made out of olives and tomato and a lot of oil. it's really really oily.

mark: we have two fridges.

lupe: we have a drinks fridge. we have a lot of coffee, soya spread, big tub of it.

cf: why do you live in london?

mark: because people don't pull their blinds here and you can look in their windows when you walk around.

cf: wagamama?

lupe: definitely.

mark: I had to move back here to see what it was like to live here. to see if I wanted to spend the rest of my life, but I'll probably go back to america.

cf: did you want to be a rock star as a child?

mark: nope.

lupe: yes, at first I did, then I changed my mind. I had a rod stewart obsession for a while and I was play acting his songs at friends' bars. it was bad to encourage that. i would sing them without even knowing english. I was was more of an exhibitionist then than I am now.

mark: more? wow. I was more of an exhibitionist was young. I used to sing my own songs in the toilet. my parents would record them secretly.

cf: who is your favorite director?

mark: I have a lot of pictures from robert bresson films. i saw a really good bella tarr film last week.

lupe: I'm trying to think of films I liked ten years ago because right now it all sounds pretentious, names that kind of mean something, like it I say godard or fassbinder ... oh oh yes! rudolph valentino films. I was completely in love. I don't know, I like polanski, but I don't want...that's a little bit disturbing. chantal ackerman is probably my favorite because that's my favorite film, in general I like more documentary stuff.

mark: london is a good place to see films

cf: you guys run with a film- intensive crowd.

lupe: I need to run with a construction crowd.

cf: what's the most annoying thing about london?

mark: not enough bagel shops. it's increased my ization of krispy kreme because there are none here.

cf: you'rea very food-oriented band.

lupe: we like to live, you know. we like to live good. you know how much food there is in our house. it's the river divide, we like north and south london, but south london will never be like north london and that's a great thing but it's a bad thing in other ways. people don't come down there. greenwich is foreign and exotic. i hate that because for a long time I wanted to live in south london, and especially the area between greenwich and waterloo area, there was such an appeal. going to dulwich was such a fantastic adventure.

mark: I walked from islington to new cross gate on christmas day, there were no trains. the north london part of the walk was great, but as soon as you get to south london away from the river it's not so nice.

cf: who is your favorite artist?

lupe: rembrandt.

mark: cornelia parker.

cf: thanks, pipas! CF