Sunday, August 03, 2008
Quick, A+E, Music, Q&A

Making noise with Judi Chicago

“Space disco” duo Judi Chicago prepares to take off 

Not to be confused with the celebrated feminist artist and author Judy Chicago, Ben Coleman and Travis Thatcher of the Atlanta-based psycho-electronic duo Judi Chicago seem well on their way to starting their own cultural movement. Armed with a reputation for anything-goes live shows and a new album that scrambles house, techno and dance music staples with absurdist lyrics, the opinionated pair sat down with The Sunday Paper to discuss their music and the challenges of the Atlanta scene. --Larissa Erin Greer 

Q How did you first come together?

Coleman: I moved here when I got engaged. My wife was the GM at WREK radio, and Travis was the program director. And she was like, “You should hang out with this guy so you don’t lose your mind.” So we got together and made some weird noises. We were pretty far out into left field at that time. I was looking into doing stuff with circuit bent instruments [short-circuiting electronic devices to create sounds], and Travis was taking a technological music course.

Thatcher: I did a bunch of laptop stuff, which we both recognized that we wanted to get away from when we started to do this.

How would you describe your sound?

Thatcher: Space Disco. We’re just as home playing with a cosmic funk band as we are playing with a DJ. There’s something a bit more jarring about what we’re doing right now, so we don’t necessarily get lumped into the DJ scene.

What do you think about the resurgence of the 8-bit indie-electronic music scene, influenced by old computer-game sounds?

Thatcher: It’s kind of like taking a scene that’s been established, and been around forever that wasn’t cool, and then just rebranding it.

Coleman: I did Game Boy music for a year and a half, and what I see coming out of that now is redundant. It’s been done and it’s been done better. Basically it’s just a bunch of Vice Magazine “haircuts” doing the same old screechy crap you can hear from any sh**ty hardcore band, but they’re doing it with Game Boys so everyone drops their trousers and goes, “Whoo! It’s different!”

What’s it like playing shows in Atlanta?

Thatcher: It’s very hard. Atlanta’s a really clique-y place. It’s like, if you’re not friends with the band, you don’t come out. It’s really hard to break into that next plateau where people you don’t know start showing up.

Coleman: We played endlessly in order to get to the point where now, I run into people and I tell them what band I’m in and they’re like, “I’ve heard of you.” They may not have seen us, but at least they’ve heard of us. Really, this place needs more venues. There are just no community spaces here. We’re trying to work out, how the hell do you get a slot at Variety Playhouse? A lot of bands play there because there aren’t enough venues of that size. Except maybe somewhere like Vinyl, but that’s more a Buckhead battle of the bands venue.

Thatcher: It’s very much more a Buckhead scene up there, and it just illustrates the fact that there’s a completely different world of musicians in this city who have never spoken to the other half. It’s so bizarre that there’s just this huge rift and nobody knows each other.

Coleman: Tell you what: I’d rather be on the side that we’re on. We play with some sh**ty bloody bands, but they’re a lot more interesting than anything else that’s going on in town. SP