He sits down on a couch lining the manila wall of a backstage room in the Knitting Factory; a room not so far in appearance from a ‘90s guest bedroom of a Floridian condo. The space is decorated with glass sliding doors, a loveseat backed by a horizontally hung vanity mirror, a side table topped with a modest pastel living room lamp, and a mini-fridge packed to the brim with Corona. I begin to set up my equipment atop the cerveza-laden cooler: tripod holds the camcorder which harbors the connection to the microphone that will process audible data in and around the surroundings. The Strange Boys start their headlining set, which begins to bleed through the surrounding drywall. Tim Presley, leader and creator of San Francisco-based band White Fence, looks at me queerly and asks, “Are you going to be able to hear me?”
He sits down on a couch lining the manila wall of a backstage room in the Knitting Factory; a room not so far in appearance from a ‘90s guest bedroom of a Floridian condo. The space is decorated with glass sliding doors, a loveseat backed by a horizontally hung vanity mirror, a side table topped with a modest pastel living room lamp, and a mini-fridge packed to the brim with Corona. I begin to set up my equipment atop the cerveza-laden cooler: tripod holds the camcorder which harbors the connection to the microphone that will process audible data in and around the surroundings. The Strange Boys start their headlining set, which begins to bleed through the surrounding drywall. Tim Presley, leader and creator of San Francisco-based band White Fence, looks at me queerly and asks, “Are you going to be able to hear me?”
Once you have an artist sitting, cigarette suspended between the index and middle fingers, it’s probably not the best idea to start brain-storming about the possibility of conversation anywhere else in an already unfamiliar venue. So, whether I know the microphone would register usable audio or not, I assure Presley that, due to the type of microphone in use—cardioid as opposed to omnidirectional—there will be no problem with the recording of his responses. Even if I’m partially right on that one, it’s mere coincidence.
Opening questions are usually addressed in a succinct and benign way, especially when you start researching your subject just hours before. That is, unless you have a lead. A week prior to White Fence’s performance at the Northside Festival, I ran into one of Presley’s friends following a show at Glasslands. She urged me to inquire about his feelings on the ‘80s cinematic heart-jerker Mask, telling me that its effects on both of them are a recent and ongoing source of conversation. Well, considering that that is fucking gold, I went with it, opening with an off-the-cuff story about cleaning my house to White Fence’s latest album, Is Growing Faith, while Cher and Eric Stoltz, in the role of dysplasia sufferer Roy L. “Rocky” Dennis, took me away from chores and into surreality.
Smoke drifting upward as he sits in a deceptively demure outfit of dark khakis and oxford blue shirt, Presley settles in for the half-hour exchange, torso hunched over his left wrist, which is supported by his bent knee. Before my opening “story,” he gazes slyly at me, as if he can’t wait to exit the room and return to his peers. During my ruse, though, a smirk forms; he chuckles. Presley’s ready to talk, especially about Mask.
“I haven’t seen Mask in about ten years, maybe. But it touched me,” admits Presley. “I can’t even talk about it. It’s such a sweet, nice movie.”
Shaking his head with a grin, Presley runs down a synopsis of the flick. “It’s full of bikers, deformities, Chers, and a carnival mirror where he [“Rocky” Dennis] looks in the mirror, and he looks normal. I think we can all relate to that,” says Presley.
Despite his San Francisco-in-the-fall look, Presley is no stranger to the weird or warped variety of rock music, considering his contributions to both The Fall’s Reformation Post TLC and The Strange Boys’ Be Brave, as well as his involvement in Darker My Love. The latter group comes off as heavier, cleaner, and more democratic than White Fence, Presley’s recent lo-fi recording affair. Assuming the name of his latest project comes from the Mexican-American gang that hails from his former home of Los Angeles, Presley’s probably more in tune with outsiders than with people fighting gridlock on I-405.
With bands like Thee Oh Sees, Sunny and the Sunsets, Sic Alps, and The Fresh and Onlys coming out of the burgeoning rock scene in San Francisco, it’s easy to lump White Fence in as a lush, summery “psychedelic rock” or “garage-psych” band. But, like describing the aforementioned groups as such, it’s a generalization Presley is not too comfortable with. As The Strange Boys’ “Woe Is You and Me,” from their album …And Girls Club, pounds the adjacent door, Presley addresses the modern San Francisco take on the rock n’ roll sound. “It’s not like retro or anything. It’s just timeless fucking music that people like. The whole retro thing is cool, but you have to understand–rock n’ roll, country, and punk have all been borrowed. It’s all gone through the gamut and there are just new incarnations of it. If you want to start an avant-garde band, then go fucking do that and that’s cool. But, if you like rock n’ roll, then just put your own spin on it and you’ll be free.”
NORTHSIDE White Fence///Sticky Fruitman Has Faith///Knitting Factory, BK 180611 FESTIVAL from Show Me Deals, Show Me Deals on Vimeo.
Since beginning White Fence in 2009, he’s written and recorded two albums, White Fence and Is Growing Faith, which have seen praise both in the blog world and from his contemporaries. In an Altered Zones post about White Fence’s song “The Pool,” contributor Nathan Smith writes, “White Fence seized our temporal lobes with an incredibly psychedelic self-titled debut, and he did it again this year with his LP Is Growing Faith.” Meanwhile, in an interview back in March, noteworthy San-Francisco based musician Ty Segall expressed that “Tim is insane. I really think that those two records are going to be classics over the years.” Where Segall is concerned, it seems that White Fence has not only an instant-classic sound, but also some influential power—compare the song “Be Right Too,” off White Fence, to the hooky chorus on Segall’s track “I Can’t Feel It,” off his latest album, Goodbye Bread.
The latest White Fence effort, on Woodsist Records, dropped last January, channeling the humidity and carefree attitude that most associate with life in the heat. Presley displays a good sense of humor when I ask, “Was there any thought behind releasing the album in the winter as opposed to the summer?” responding, “I think the good thing about being a band that no one really fucking knows about is that for some people maybe [Is Growing Faith] did come out in the summer.”
As a solitary, bedroom venture, Presley says White Fence “was a way for me to do what I like about music. Write and record it.” The solitary aspect was paramount in the development of his distinctive and unique mod-psych mesh, which has no qualms drifting into hardcore punk territory. “There’s the occasional cat that comes by and sits on my lap, but that’s it. No one else is really involved [with White Fence albums] because part of me is almost embarrassed. Then again, if you have a bunch of people helping you, that can be good. But I’ve done that, you see? I want to do it so every moment on there is exactly how I see it and want to do it. It’s kind of therapeutic in that way, so I don’t have to rely on anybody, and at the end of the day I’m happy with every fucking second of the song.”
What’s produced on White Fence’s albums is due in part to recording equipment, mostly a four-track that he calls his “plastic buddy.” He tells me that recording for White Fence is “a mix between a four-track and a hand held recorder, and some computer stuff. It’s 2011 so I’m not afraid of the computer at all. I need the computer because sometimes I steal drums and I’ve got to chop ‘em up.” Although Is Growing Faith finds sonic space above the prevalent tape hiss of his first release, he states the process for both efforts is “absolutely no different, other than doing it in two different rooms: my old apartment and my new apartment. [Production involved] the same setup, recording-wise.” He asks me for a “regular,” non-menthol cigarette, hoists himself back over his knee and continues, “I smoke a lot, so I’d have to say it influences me a lot. Cigarettes are like God’s gift to the world. I used to smoke in my [former] apartment, [in my new apartment] I don’t. So, that might have been why the second record is more clean sounding.”
NORTHSIDE White Fence///Lillian (Won’t You Play Drums?)///Knitting Factory, BK 180611 FESTIVAL from Show Me Deals, Show Me Deals on Vimeo.
The other key to White Fence’s sound is Presley’s confidence and perfectionism. When writing a tune, he never considers the audience’s response, trusting only his own sense of good and bad. “If I think, ‘Oh, I need to make a song that people can dance to,’ then it will always come off bad. I have to first please myself. And if people like it, cool. If they don’t, that’s fine, because I like it. I can’t be concerned with that because it makes for bad, bad music.” So, it’s no wonder that Presley considers his albums to be “both good.” “The first record is kind of a perfect story. It’s just a good record. I know that sounds cocky.” Despite his assertions, Presley’s meticulous recording style results in rare post-production listens. “I never listen to [my music] once it’s put out on record. But getting to that point, recording it, I listen to it over and over to make sure it’s good and make sure I don’t have to change anything. Which I guess is a weird way of mixing. Same with the recording; for maybe a month or two, I just keep listening to it. Which is a horrible way to do it, but that’s just the way it went down.”
Presley works with three distinct backing bands from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Just an hour earlier, Presley and his company of San Franciscans took the Knitting Factory stage to grind out renditions of hip-twisting arm rousers from both albums, including “Mr. Adams,” “Baxter Corner,” “Sticky Fruitman Has Faith,” and “Lillian (Won’t You Play Drums).” White Fence plays rarely, generally either in California or New York—sorry Lincoln, Nebraska—so it makes sense that his San Francisco troupe “can’t fly down for a hundred dollar gig” in Los Angeles. Presley mentions that tonight, the San Francisco band was actually “playing in front of the New York band.”
Not too long ago, he had doubts about taking this project live. He cites the “itch” as reason enough to activate a White Fence touring schedule. “But I still didn’t want to do it. My brother [Sean of Nodzzz] lives with Moe [drummer for the San Francisco version of White Fence], and they were jamming the songs. And [Sean] said they sounded really cool. I think some show was booked with all Make a Mess [Records] bands in San Francisco—Brilliant Colors and Grass Widow played. I went to rehearse, and they already had the songs [down]. It felt cool, and not that far off from what I like to hear. And we did it.”
Regardless of the cool feeling at the inaugural White Fence performance, or during any of their performances, for that matter, Presley divulges, “I hate playing live…sometimes. I’ve never been in a band, besides The Fall, that drew a lot of people. And that’s great when you draw people, because you can really get into it. If there’s not that many people there, then it’s all in vain and I just feel stupid. The only exception is a basement show, or a house show, where everyone’s just kind of having fun and swinging from the rafters, and you can kind of get crazy with them. If I’m going to play live I want it to be a full circle energy thing with you in the crowd. So playing a stage while people are just watching, whether they like it or not, it doesn’t matter. I just can’t feel it, and I feel naked, like my penis is out. And I can’t get to my penis because I’m playing guitar, and it’s just out.”
Currently, Tim is focusing on White Fence, saying that Darker My Love “is on pause.” “I think right now [White Fence] is what I’m doing. I love [Darker My Love]. They’re like fucking brothers to me and they’re shit-hot musicians. We’re kind of doing our [own] thing[s] right now, so who’s to say what will ever happen?” he tells me, wrapping up the interview to catch the remainder of The Strange Boys. We both pull Canadian whisky from a flask, take a Corona for the show, and leave the room.
After talking to Tim Presley, I will certainly describe bands and musicians I’m into as “shit-hot.” After a recent tour through the Southwest, South, and East–including a gig at the Rock N’ Roll Hotel in Washington, DC–it may be a little while before you get to catch Presley in action… or his figurative penis.
