Ruined

How a local bassist preps for a one-off gig with a Japanese prog experimentalist.

by Shaun Brady

Ruins mastermind Yoshida Tatsuya is filling his vacant-again bassist chair with a series of stateside temps on his "Ruins Alone: Bassist Wanted" tour. It remains to be seen whether this is a one-off jaunt or an "Experimental Prog Idol" that will provide Yoshida with a permanent partner for his mind-bendingly intricate aural oddities. Powerlunch bassist/composer Evan Lipson is bracing for the arduous task despite a total lack of rehearsal time or fluency in Yoshida's invented language. ("I can barely pronounce most of the fucking song titles!")

City Paper: Are you approaching this as an audition?
Evan Lipson: In Yoshida's words, "this is not formal audition but for pleasure." If you think about Ruins as a microcosmic orchestra and compare this to a traditional audition, instead of the bass player paying money directly out of his/her own pocket to schlepp their instrument to some distant city/country to audition for a completely unapologetic and hypercritical jury panel riding your ass about every note/sound that comes out of your instrument and/or asshole — intentional or not — Yoshida is basically bringing the entire orchestra/music director/conductor/composer unit directly into your own town and feeling you out in front of a live audience!

CP: How are you preparing?
EL: Once I decided which tunes to do, or at least ruled out the ones that were completely impossible for me to play, I began transcribing/memorizing the material off the records. It's been a heavy experience getting inside this music, seeing how beautifully it's constructed, and revealing how Yoshida's dedicated working method, writing for such limited instrumentation and consistently brutal style, has evolved in a linear way over the years. Yoshida is one of the singularly great composers of our time and, amazingly, he's always getting better.

CP: What kind of exercise regimen has Yoshida put you on?
EL: I've been regimented to a steady diet of granite, diatomite, quartz, limestone for calcium, and various other kinds of igneous rock and gravel. At first, I thought it might really fuck with my digestive system, but actually my body has tolerated it pretty well. Most importantly: Dude, my chops are now like totally fucking insane!

CP: Are you concerned that you'll be left an emotional wreck, curled up in a corner babbling incoherently about underground prog?
EL: Oddly enough, I recall this exact scenario occurring in my life several years ago, when an ex-girlfriend decided to call it off, so I guess I am not too concerned about lightning striking twice. It seems way more rad to be an ex-Ruin than merely an ex-dick!

Ruins plays Sun., July 17, 8:30 p.m., $5, the Avant Gentlemen's Lodge, 4028 Filbert St., www.tonewplanet.com/agl.html.