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: The colonization of Mars is a pretty big project, and it’s interesting to be watching the early stages unfold. It’s probably the most interesting project on the table at the moment. I think we (when I say “we,” I mean the people of Earth) should put a little more effort into it; work together on something rad for a change, instead of ripping each other off and blowing each other away. (I’m not using the term in its positive sense here.) The thing about it is, this is an achievable goal right now, technologically speaking. It’s just a matter of motivation. The main reason we lack motivation is because we are too busy ripping each other off and blowing each other away, and a lot of people don’t want to divert resources away from these activities. And yet, it is happening anyway. I just would like to see us step it up considerably. The Case For Mars by Robert Zubrin is a pretty good intro to the practical issues of Mars colonization.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3yVKAADQ6M
