For the past 20 years, Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss have made passionate, raucous music in Quasi. In the beginning, their partnership was marital as well as musical, but it continued past their divorce and concurrent with their work in other bands: Coomes in Heatmiser with Elliott Smith when Quasi began, and later as a guest with Built To Spill; Weiss as a member of Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks and Wild Flag. Mole City (Kill Rock Stars) is a culmination of Quasi’s many strengths: its oversaturated and distorted sound, its singsong and shouted melodies, its controlled abandon. Coomes will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Quasi feature.
Coomes: I’m not talking about sitting alone messing around on the internet, or talking/texting on the phone, or even involved in some solitary task that takes up all your attention. I’m talking about just spending time with your own mind. Technology has made it so easy to avoid this, but it’s the essential first step to a million-and-one processes. In a culture of constant distraction you have to make a conscious effort to extract yourself from the noise, clear all the shit away for a while and just be by yourself. It’s like the whole culture is on cocaine—chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter —about what? You gotta take a little stand against it once in a while. Maybe just shut down the screen right now.
