Album by album
Ripley Johnson
Three aliases; one long, strange trip…
MANY artists have side projects, but few lead three great bands simultaneously, as Ripley Johnson has with Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo and Rose City Band. Recently he’s been concentrating on the latter, his psychedelic motorik-choogle project, who have just released their third album Earth Trip.
“Rose City Band is where I can follow only my own ideas,” Johnson explains on a call from ‘The Shed’, his garden studio in Portland, Oregon. “I’m definitely someone who wakes up in the morning with a song in their head. Because I can be obsessive and prolific when it comes to wanting to produce a lot of stuff, it’s nice to have an outlet that’s my own thing.”
During our trip through some of his catalogue’s highlights, Johnson recalls his gradual journey from San Francisco to Portland and how he’s evolved from fuzz-drenched guitars and smelly carpets to crystalline synths, cosmic country and the inspiration of the natural world.
“It’s cool because I’m an older person and there’s still growth. I still feel like I’m figuring everything out, especially when it comes to making sounds and recording and working with other people.”
TOM
PINNOCK
Lunar tunes: with partner Sanae Yamada in Moon Duo, 2017
JOHN JEFFREY
WOODEN SHJIPS
WOODEN SHJIPS
HOLY MOUNTAIN, 2007
The drone-rock quartet’s garagey debut, recorded in San Francisco’s Soma district
JOHNSON: It’s been a journey from this record, for sure. This was the first LP I’d ever done with any band, so it was a new process for me. John Whitson from the Holy Mountain label contacted me after hearing our early releases and said, “Let’s do a record.” So I had to come up with the songs and we bought a tape machine and mixing desk so we could record in our rehearsal studio. The bass player, Dusty, works in sound recording and he bought the tape machine on Craigslist from someone who was trying to get rid of her son’s gear because it was taking up too much space in the house!
Dusty knew what he was doing, but I had no idea –a lot of it was recorded in the ‘wrong’ way, but that adds a certain charm. I had this ridiculously loud Fender Quad Reverb amp. I wanted to get a super-oversaturated fuzz sound, but instead of using compressors and preamps and knowing what I was doing I was like, “I’m just gonna turn my amp up all the way!” Our rehearsal studio was a dark, dingy, very dead room, with no separation. There were lots of beer spills and lots of cigarette smoke, the carpet everywhere was really stinky. This was in Soma, before it became condo city – back then it was one of those areas that had a lot of warehouse spaces and a lot of nightclubs, because people didn’t live there. There’s been a big exodus from San Francisco since then, for sure. I still have friends there, but a lot of musicians and artists left as it became harder to work a part-time or flexible job and still be able to pay the rent.