Wiretap: On the Phone with Adam Forkner.

First ever phone interview!
Adam Forkner, currently of White Rainbow and Purple & Green, and I chatted on the phone last week about all the important things in life: Paul Allen, and Pauly Shore, and basketball. What else could there possibly be to talk about?
Adam and I spoke before he made his way from Portland to Seattle earlier this month to perform for Cairo's EXPO fest, which was fucking AWESOME. (Props to Marius for "bringing the party" with his strobe light app.)
Thanks to Adam for coming up here, for the last-minute phone interview, and especially for the enormous, rubbery, scented...member... that you brought along from Portland.

ANYWAY.
This is what the show looked like:


"this song is like a caterpillar"










And this what we said:

What is something that makes you never want to live in seattle?

 Oh god. Where do I start. I don’t know. Starbucks! I’ll just say starbucks. Also, the EMP. Paul Allen--he seems to have really ruined downtown. Alice in Chains. They’re from Tacoma, though, I know. Man, Baby Gap. People in turtlenecks. There are no turtle necks in Portland! Unless they’re from Seattle.

This is your second Cairo festival this year. Do have any expectations are you looking forward to something in particular? 
Yeah you know, I pop in, I pop out. That’s my thing. I’m looking forward to playing in the small room. Its such a special little room. It’s always so nice there, so cozy. You can get crunk and sweaty. Im not going to wear my stupid Columbia red jacket again. Last time I wore it and Ian was wearing the same one. Not again.

What was it like running into Pauly Shore during an interview? (Was that staged?)

No man, that was not staged! A film crew followed us around LA on the Atlas Sound/White Rainbow tour in 2008, and it was our day off. We were in Chinatown, shopping and going to galleries. The film crew wanted to do an interview, and we were just sitting ducks answering music questions. Anyway, the guy filming saw Pauly Shore and was totally starstruck, and got him to come over. I looked it up later on, and there are videos of him heckling people on that same day. He had that same dumb do-rag on. I guess hes doing internet comedy now.

You have done a lot of collaborative projects. What do you like about collaborations versus solo projects? 

With collaborations you get to leave your ego aside. You get to just dedicate yourself to a musical idea without having to have ownership, like, everyone in the collaboration gets to ease off their ego a bit. Solo is all about yourself and your music. When I do solo stuff its almost like a musical diary for me. I’ve been a musician my whole life. 

What instruments do you play?

I played the trumpet from fifth grade to college, but then quickly to drum machines and the synthesizer. 

Do you have a style icon?

A style icon? Oh geez, yeah probably. FUCK! YEAH! George Clinton? FUCK! I don’t know, I don’t have any money, haha. I like hyphy and hip hop fashion, and put it into my very-poor-person/noise-guy clothes. But I’m getting old now, so I just like t-shirts. I love Uniqlo, haha. Man, I went to Uniqlo in Japan and I wore all men’s size large. Makes me feel good.

Tell me about the name “White Rainbow".

Oh, that was many years ago, like 2003. I liked that it made no sense. It negates itself. White is all the colors, and so is a rainbow.  At the time it represented the feeling of everything—the whole spectrum of light. But now I don’t fucking know. Sometimes I go by Dr. Pizza. White Rainbow just seems hella serious. And I'm not a very serious person, even though I take music seriously.

Someone that you would really like to collaborate with?

Dam Funk comes to mind, I would love to learn what he knows about synthesized funk. Dane Funk is an ambassador to the R&B funk path of synth. Much respect to that guy.

What three people would you invite to dinner?
Haha. Dinner? Like, eating and talking? Oh shit. Fuck. Dinner party! Those are fun! George Clinton. Because he would just be funny. Oh, and Larry David and JB Smooth. I feel like that would be a wonderful dinner. Lots of laughs. 



Looking for a little Christmas gift for yourself? Saunter on over to our blog to listen to Adam's special mixtape JUST FOR CAIRO! AHH!

STILL not enough?? Click here!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Liv

First Annual VIBRATIONS Free Outdoor Music Festival This Weekend!

In case you haven't heard, we at Cairo are supremely pleased to be hosting the first annual VIBRATIONS music festival this Saturday, August 20th at the amphitheater in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill (a recommended event by the Capitol Hill Seattle blog!). The local press seem to be pretty stoked on the event as well. The Seattle Times' Andrew Matson had lots of nice things to say in an article that debuted online yesterday (and runs in today's Times print edition:

"Meeting place, fashion center, idea salon, record label and showcase for music — they all come together at Cairo, small as it is...the place is starting to look like the vortex of an exciting new movement, especially since the launch last month of Cairo Records, an attempt at bottling the energy around the space."

Read Matson's entire article here.

Meantime, Seattle Weekly's Erin Thompson has documented Cairo's upward trajectory as a local nexus for the arts in another new article:

"It makes sense that Cairo's looking to extend even further beyond their established family of bands—it's the same upward trajectory by which a one-room art gallery evolved into a festival-hosting, band-promoting, album-distributing record label."

Read more of Erin's generous write-up here.

And, for the link-averse readers out there, here's a reminder of the awesome VIBRATIONS line-up:

-Seapony
-Witch Gardens
-Charles Leo Gebhardt IV
-Stephanie
-Metal Chocolates
-Flexions
-Purple & Green
-Grass Widow

+ DJs from Voodoo Reverb and Actual Pain

The fun kicks off at 2 pm Saturday. For directions to Volunteer Park, click here. We can't wait to see you there!

Announcing VIBRATIONS--Cairo's Free Outdoor Music Festival!

Cairo is pleased to announce the first annual VIBRATIONS MUSIC FESTIVAL on Saturday, August 20th. This is a FREE outdoor summer concert event to be held at the Volunteer Park amphitheater featuring eight of the coast's best artists, with between-set DJs and more. Sponsored by Whole Foods, KEXP, and the Stranger, VIBRATIONS will be the last and best concert of the summer season, with a line-up that includes some of our favorite Cairo performers as well as some awesome talent that's never graced our space before:

-Grass Widow
-Purple & Green
-Flexions
-Metal Chocolates
-Stephanie
-Witch Gardens
-Charles Leo Gebhardt IV
-Seapony

The music is set to start at 2 PM on Saturday, August 20th, and last into the night. Building on the legacy of our highly-successful EXPO series of micro-festivals, Cairo is expanding our horizons, putting together this special one-day event for fans of awesome music and arts across Seattle.

Mark your calendars. The forecast calls for good vibrations.

To RSVP to VIBRATIONS today, click here.

Video From Saturday's Purple and Green Show

Adam Forkner wonders, who was better: Teddy Riley or Terry Riley?

Purple and Green Show Review

There's already a review of last night's performance by Purple and Green (aka Adam Forkner/White Rainbow and Justin Green) online at the Seattle Weekly's "Reverb" blog.

Eric Grandy writes:

"J Green stood to his side, mic in hand, singing and doing dance moves seductive enough to move an art gallery full of stiff-limbed indie kids into hands-in-the-air revelry...
Forkner played keys, triggered the rhythm tracks, and manipulated J Green's vocals, adding delay or looping samples on the fly. At the set's peaks, he would send the songs into an almost-screaming psychedelic pitch, synths ping-ponging between speakers, noise and feedback and delay swelling ecstatically."

You can read his full review here. Last night's show was a special one--maybe the loudest ever at Cairo, with TWO PA systems on full blast and an impeccable mix by Brain Fruit's Jon Carr. We will update as/if more reviews/photos/videos come in.

Who are Purple & Green?

Saturday, February 5th, Cairo's ultra-psychedelic weekend continues (on the heels of the prior night's mind-opening High Wolf show hosted by Portable Shrines) with a stellar 4-band bill featuring locals Punishment (aka S. Funkee), Brain Fruit, U.S.F., and Portland mega-jammer Adam Forkner/White Rainbow's latest project, Purple & Green.

A collaboration between Forkner and soul singer Justin Green, Purple & Green resuscitate old-school R&B, hip-hop, and funk stylings with uncanny precision, delivering them in a typically off-kilter, consciousness-altering Forkner style. One of their tracks, "Right Here," was recently shared on Pitchfork's forkast and elsewhere on the net, and their myspace has a bevy of other solid tracks (we recommend the three-way oddity "Tell Me," which boasts the weirdest Bradford Cox cameo you'll ever hear). Have a listen, start getting psyched for Saturday's show, and don't forget to RSVP on facebook.

Purple & Green RIGHT HERE (original virtual digital 12" mix) by producedbyadam