I got the pleasure, recently, of talking with local musician Vincent Do, who is slowly rising up in the local south bay music scene.Far more matured than his peers, let alone elders, and very intelligent, Vincent Crafts delicate and granite hard melodies, creating not just fantastic acoustic music, but sonic poetry. We talk about his current work, future goals, and time travel all together.
B-Sides:So explain a little about how you started music? was it the basic scenario of starting young, or did music hit you in a different way?
Vincent: It hit me freshman year of high school I just really enjoyed listening to it all the time,
until I felt the desire to play along to the stuff I was listening to, and it just went on from there
B-Sides: So what did the desire spring from? was it out of curiosity, or reach for fame?
Vincent: Curiosity if I could reach fame (laughs)
B:Now lets talk a little bit more about your music as a passion. Where did you start playing music publicly , and where has it brought you now?
V:I always wanted to play publicly, but it wasn't until early 2007 that I played for a real crowd. I entered my school's talent show to get some experience and to give it what I had, and the praise I got for my performance, and the 1st place award really got me to thinking that I should play for audiences more. It's brought me to writing songs and playing music for enjoyment and in preparation for my shows and recording releases, which are few and far between
B:So are you playing mostly locally then?
V:For the most part. I have a 45 min set at barefoot on June 27, but other than that, I’ve only been doing charity stuff every now and then for the past 6 months. I’m so bad at promoting, I swear.
B:That brings me to another question. I noticed that you gave away a lot of your music for free from your myspace. A lot of bands are doing that now. What was the idea behind doing that?
V: I just wanted people to be able to listen to my music where ever they liked. A few friends/fans have told me that they've let their friends listen to my music on their ipod to positive responses. So the benefit of that outweighed the loss of profits. I’ve made about 80 bucks off donations from selling about 35 demo CDs anyhow, and its all in house production, so its not too bad
B:Thats actually pretty exciting. So you do all your recordings at home?
V: Yup
B:So what have you been listening to lately?
V:Feist .Her new album. The reminder. She is amazing, and I feel that her guitar playing is underrated.
B:I agree
V:And for the most part, I’m just trying to catch up on newer releases. I was already a fan of Feist before the reminder came out, but I just never got around to listening to it till now.
B: So, what is your take on this whole "indie" craze thats been so talked about and represented in the press? Its also kind of been tying into the whole "hipster" idea too.
V:I think people just like to label things. I mean a hipster used to be a cool title to have
. Well, more so than now I suppose, but as its elitism grew and more people seemed to conform to it (whether intentionally or not), it just started to lose its appeal and I guess "indie" is going that way too at the same time. Everything seems to be indie now, it's unclear whether indie is
represented in the sound or recording quality or record label size. I mean when indie can be slapped on Mogwai AND belle and Sebastian, it gets me confused; essentially it's become an umbrella term.
But all of that may have been neither here nor there and as for the indie craze, it is what it is I suppose. I don't really think about it when I play/listen/write music. Whatever people like, people like
B:What are some of the visions of Vincent Do? How would you like direct yourself in the future?
V:Well, I’ve been really distracted for the past 6 months, but I just graduated from high school and I'm really going to set goals and get stuff done this summer, like release an EP. A full one
where each track is fully thought out and produced, like with my song ”Retreat”, and play more show. Just get my name out there.
B: I was going to say, that track was well produced.
V:Thanks. I did it with Audacity too. I spent something like 20 hours just EQ’ing things, and double tracking this and that. Completely trivial, but it made enough difference. That’s pretty much all I have to say about my music goals.
B: So, to be cheesy for a second and "delve into your mind", what have your thoughts been mainly concerned with lately?
V:I’ve been listening to Jeff Buckley "Live at Sin-E" for weeks on end. For a time I was really into 12 monkeys. The sc-ifi in it was really well thought out, like the character started to doubt the reality of his time traveling, and the events that took place are realized to be part of a loop.
B: So, to wrap this up...any last words or comments?
V:I hope a large portion of what I just said will be edited out
