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q and not u were a band from washington, DC. their original lineup consisted of chris richards and harris klahr on guitars and vocals, matt borlik on bass and john davis on drums. they formed in 1998 and released their first 7", an EP entitled hot and informed in 2000 (as a split release between local labels desoto and dischord).
busy lights, busy carpet.
being that q and not u were a DC band at the beginning of the last decade, the fugazi comparsions were frequent in reviews of the EP as well as their first LP, no kill no beep beep (it probably didn't help that all of their releases were on ian mackaye's dischord records). on the surface, it's understandable. both bands traffic in dual guitar pyrotechnics (i won't use the word 'angular' to describe their guitar parts, as that's something assholes do) and some knotty, gnarled wordplay. but q and not u were a spikier beast. their beats were more polyrhythmic and fucked up, and even on their early releases, it was easy to see the band's roots in not only smart-kid post-punk but a long tradition of dance music.
'sleeping the terror code' and ' we heart our hive' live in 2001.
the album version of 'we heart our hive.' this was probably the first q and not u song i heard, sometime in 2001.
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an outtake from the no kill cover shoot.
hooray for humans.
performing 'hooray for humans' live, some time in 2000 or 2001.
fever sleeves.
'fever sleeves' and 'end the washington monument (blinks) goodnight,' live, 2001.
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live around the time of no kill no beep beep. note the text on richards' amp, a habit he would keep until the end of the band (he would also come to write on his guitars and, at their last two shows, face).
in late 2001, after tours with ted leo and the pharmacists, milemarker, engine down and others, original bass player matt borlik left the band. rather than replace him, q and not u continued on as a three piece, with richards playing bass on some songs and klahr playing baritone guitar on others, while some songs featured one or the other guitarist on synths and yet others featured no bass at all, instead relying on interlocking guitar parts and, more and more frequently, stacked vocal parts sung by all three members (though drummer john davis didn't usually contribute vocals live since he was too busy beating the shit out of every drum in front of him).
here is a version of 'washington monument' as performed by the three piece version of the group at their first show in las vegas (which i sadly was unable to attend as i was on a plane to reno at the time, despite frenzied lobbying on my part to be allowed to attend the show and then fly up the following morning [also known as one of the shitty perils of being fifteen and having to travel with family]).
in april, 2002, the band issued the on play patterns EP, consisting of one track which was to appear on their upcoming LP and one b-side.
soft pyramids.
ten thousand animal calls.
in septmber, 2002, the band released the LP different damage, which fully showcased where their sound had moved to in the intervening year without a steady bass player. the guitar tones are mostly clean, the syncopation inverts the funk-math ratio of the previous album. jarring transitions abound, like the swift change from punky rager 'everybody ruins' to the placid 'snow patterns.'
everbody ruins.
snow patterns.
when the lines go down.
o'no.
no damage nocturne.
recreation myth.
the above six songs comprise the entire second side of the LP, which stands to this day as one of my all time favorite records.
different damage was followed by even more touring, though for the most part, q and not u were headlining this time out.
'soft pyramids.' live in las vegas, 2002.
'black plastic bag.' same show.
so many animal calls.
in september 2003, the band released another EP featuring 2 tracks from yet another upcoming LP (that wouldn't see release for more than a year). this coincided with yet another tour of the US, accompanied by DC groups black eyes and french toast (featuring former nation of ulysses guitarist james canty and sometime fugazi percussionist jerry busher). somewhere around i have a video recording of all three bands playing, though my battery died before the end of q and not u's set (during o'no). unfortunately, it's on a miniDV tape, which is a very obsolete format. i had a minDV camera and all the equipment i needed to transfer everything over, but that was before my house burned down last year. sorry for the unecessary digression.
here is the EP version of 'book of flags.'
more touring. in 2004, the band decamped to new york city to record what would become their final album, power, with the members of relocated DC group super/system, formerly known as el guapo. where the last album found the group skirting minimalism, power abounds with layered synthesizer parts, piano and multi-part vocal arrangements, as well as finding the group wholeheartedly embracing their love of dance music that they'd only hinted at on previous LPs.
wonderful people.
'x-polynation' live on burn to shine, a series of live performance DVDs directed by fugazi's brendan canty in which they would go to different cities (DC, portland, chicago, etc) and record a selection of local bands performing one song each inside a house which was due to be demolished. the day after filming the performances, the crew recorded the demolition of the house (and if i remember correctly, one house was actually burned down in use as an exercise for firefighters-in-training).
passwords.
collect the diamonds.
wet work.
here is the album version of 'book of flags.'
"After seven years, hundreds of shows, thousands of miles, 46 states, four continents, three albums, only one flat-tire and countless nicknames for Shawn Brackbill, Q and Not U is disbanding. With all of your support, we feel that we've reached all of our shared goals as Q and Not U and we're ready to move on to other projects in life. We all hope to play music together again someday, but we feel that it's a beautiful and natural time to bring this band to a close."
-chris richards, announcing the impending split of the band in 2005.
after q and not u, chris richards released an album under the name RisPaulRic (a semi-abbreviation of his full name, chRIStopher PAUL RIChards) on academy fight song records (check the burma reference). in 2009, he was named pop music correspondent for the washington post.
purple blaze.
harris klahr moved to brooklyn and began making music under the moniker president, though by and large he seems to have disappered from public music making.
john davis started a group after q and not u called georgie james with fellow washington DC songwriter laura burhenn. they released a single on dischord before moving over to omaha-based saddle creek records. georgie james split in 2008 and davis shifted focus to his new solo project, title tracks.
georgie james - need yr needs.
title tracks - steady love.
ephemera, etc...
dischord.com's page on q and not u and related bands.
chris richards on twitter.
title tracks on blogspot.
a 2005 interview with pitchfork conducted shortly after the release of power.
these are a bunch of pictures i took at the last two q and not u shows ever, september 20-something-ish, 2005. sorry i don't remember the exact date, it's hard to keep track of shit that happened 9 years ago when i rarely if ever know what day of the week it is (case in point, today is wednesday, but depsite the fact i've told myself that several times throughout the day, i still think it's thursday). note the stage invasion by black eyes, which was something they decided to do the second night after a bunch of us who were up front on the first night decided to rush the stage during the encore. if i can track down the disc with the higher resolution copies of these shots, i will gladly upload them. that, however, will proably take a while.
a cover of 'don't let it bring you down,' originally by neil young. appeared on the pictured compilation. one of only three tracks that wasn't released in an alternate version on one of their three LPs, the other two being 'busy lights, busy carpet,' from the hot and informed EP, and 'ten thousand animal calls,' from on play patterns.
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p.s. Hey. ** Guest-post conjurer of note Rewritedept is back on this ... inclement, if you're in Paris, Friday morning to introduce or re-familiarize and, in any case, up your interest in a beloved band, whom I at least didn't know of before, so there is the possibility that you can join me in becoming learned, should you pay the post back with your attention span, and I hope you will. Thanks, and thanks muchly, Rwdt! ** Jonathan, Hey, bud. Coolness to see you! Sounds like you've been up to and incorporated by a lot. Nice reading there, obviously. The new Mark Fisher I did not know of 'til now. I will check appropriately. No, I didn't even know Paris was doing Record Store Day until 11 pm when the cafe here in the complex where I live was unusually filled with what generalizing, category-obsessed people insist on calling 'hipsters' by the look, whereupon I was informed that it was some kind of post-Record Store Day party. So, no, I didn't, unfortunately. ** David Ehrenstein, Is that a lyric? Every circle-centrically lyric I can think of this morning is clunk central: the Joni Mitchell thing, 'windmills of your mind', etc. There must a good one and even ones. Kirby's great. He was a pal back in the day. I miss him. ** Sypha, Hi. Oh, that Siouxie sing, there you go, there's a good 'circle' song. Cool, thanks for the tip on which Quentin S. Crisp book to hunt down first. I will. ** Kyler, Wow, thanks a lot, man. Me, mystical? More like mystifying maybe, ha ha? ** Tosh, Hi, Tosh. Thanks for that about the post, my pal. Okay, I won't fill in your blank about said gif's realness or lack thereof. I know, I'm extremely loving those daily narratives/essays of yours. Um, you mean do I feel strange on Sundays when I don't do the blog? Mm, no. For the first several years of this blog's existence, I used to do Sunday posts too until one day it dawned on me: what am I doing?! I guess that, with this blog, I feel like I can do anything I want and change it up daily however I wish within in the pretty limited confines of the blog format, so it always feels freshly like an 'anything almost goes' thing. Kind of the same with Bob and me. His inevitable early death would just seem conceptual sometimes. The most devastating, harrowing moment for me in Kirby's documentary is at the end when Bob is in the hospital, and he suddenly wakes up from a state of unconsciousness and asks Sherrie, 'Am I dying', and she says, 'Yes', and he says, 'I can't believe it.' I don't think he ever really believed it was going to happen either, and it was so easy to believe him. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, like I said, most of the people I know over here are having weird sleep issues and minor depressions and things right now that do seem weather/ allergy-related. I had a semi-splitting headache all day yesterday for no reason whatsoever that I could tell. Great that the Moodysson interview went so well. Gisele will be jealous. 'Lilya 4-ever' is her all-time favorite film. I'm excited to read your conversion with him. ** Kier, Hi, K! Oh, do go to Kongeparken and tell me all about it. I miss that place. Oh, okay, I've put a photo showing our K'nex electric ferris wheel inside Kongeparken at the bottom of the p.s. Voila. Entirely in the forest? Wow, I'll have to search my memory banks at greater length. There must be. There's that one Zelda game that takes place mostly but not exclusively in a forest: 'Twilight Princess'. I would love that proper selfie, yes, please, if a camera cooperates with you. ** Will C., Hi, Will! Really good to see you! I was just wondering where you were and how you are not two days ago, so this is sweet. Things are great with me, man, thank you. Hectic-ness aside, it sounds like greatness on your end too. You like Seattle, sure, makes sense. What is your work at the University exactly? Yeah, again, great to see you and to get to start to catch up. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thanks about the circles. You good? ** Bill, Hi, B. Oh, I find them here and there and everywhere. Via mutating search terms. Right, I think Eurovision is tonight! And my TV is broken! Is it streamed? It must be. I have a nagging, minor addiction to watching that thing. Damn, I have to sort that out. Zac and I wanted to go to Louisiana when we were in Copenhagen, but we ran out of time. Never been there, but it's considered a totally top-notch, world class contemporary art museum, so, if you're not in a BonBon Land mood, you fool, ha ha, I can only imagine that you should go. And tell us all about it. ** Toniok, Hi, T! Really great to see you! I'm really good, thanks. 'Maiden Voyage': yes, for sure, of course! Someone else here recommended 'Snowpiercer' not even a few days ago. I don't know it or of it. I'll definitely hunt it down. Thanks. I'm going to look into 'Slender' too. You good? What's going on, man? ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, bud. Gosh, thanks a bunch re: the stack. No, I haven't seen Joanna Hogg's 'Experiment'. In fact, I don't think I've heard of it before. I'll do a heavy googling number on it in a bit. It sounds incredibly delicious. Thanks for that! I had an usually quiet day, relatively speaking. Meaning I only worked on the film in an emailing capacity. So, I got to work hard on the novel, which was a boon. Otherwise, it rained a lot. Walked in that. Made a blog post. Got obsessed for a little while with this: Webdriver Torso, after reading this: 'The mysterious 11-second sequence of red and blue rectangles could easily have been lost, unexplained and unappreciated among YouTube's plethora of kittens and music videos. But 28 minutes later Webdriver uploaded an almost identical video, and another an hour after that, and another, until eight months later - apparently happy with nearly 80,000 clips - they fell silent, with 236 hours of video to their name. Almost all of the uploads follow the same pattern - 10 slides, each with a red rectangle, a blue rectangle and a computer-generated tone. The shapes change size and the notes change pitch. Each video appears to be unique, but the format stays the same.' And you? Your day? Your head? Love, me. ** Zach, Hi. Cool that the post lead you through Bob's NiN guest-starring role into his actual stuff. Yeah, I can imagine that search was treacherous. I had a friend back when who obsessively drew speakers too! He had these notebooks filled with nothing but drawings of speakers. They were genius, or I thought so. I should have made him give them to me. ** Misanthrope, I dig, re: your niece's fun level over here and why she's okay with sitting out trip #2. Oh, Shane will be in London maybe. I thought you meant in Paris. I don't think he ever gets over here, or he doesn't alert yours truly when he does. ** Rewritedept, Thanks a billion and half for the glories of today, man. I remember 'Talladega Nights'. Or the ads, or the something. My day was fine enough. Minimal details about half an inch or something north of here. Cool about the return of your friend. And recurring hugs for your loss, my friend. Will my today be sexy? Hm, you never know. Wondrous? Quite possibly. Time will tell. Love, me. ** Gary gray, Hey there, Gary! Welcome back to this ... whatever this place is. Designed, open space. LA, yum. Were you there for the little earthquake? 'The drama of living': interesting. Never done the LA to SF train, always wanted to. Sounds like you had a most momentous and I guess maybe dramatic (?), certainly colorful in many respects trip down there. They serve White Castle? Yuck. The first paragraph of your second comment was beautiful. Not to the say the others weren't, but that one stood out or something. Ugh about meth's takeover of your friends. That can't end well. Things are great and crazy busy/productive with me, thanks. I'm doing an intro/ promo/ celebratory post thing about 'Gone' here tomorrow. Good to see you! ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Yeah, the p.s. is a wholly inadequate place to discuss anything with any real thought and care, for me anyway. When I try, and I do try, it always feels like writing a postcard. Your description of what constitutes pretension makes total sense, yes. I think I agree, yes. Thank you for liking the circles! ** Keaton, Thanks. 'The horns': nice. Ha ha. Move where? Urbane, yeah, the allure there is a biggie. Coolness. You're here. Nice. Bonjour in return! ** Right. Back you go into the post-shaped proposal of time occupation by Rewritedept. Enjoy, comment, have fun. See you tomorrow.
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