Agit Reader: Mark Eitzel - Restless Stranger

Agit Reader: Mark Eitzel - Restless Stranger

By Elizabeth Murphy

What is your relationship with pop culture? 

ME: I don’t want to be mean-spirited, but most of it seems like it is machines. I don’t mind machines—I love electronic music quite a bit—but the whole notion of moving to the machine kind of worries me a bit. Like “Call Me Maybe,” I don’t hate Katy Perry, but I guess I do. 

There is definitely something to be said for mass art dulling the upper faculties, and Katy Perry is a great example of that, although I always find myself rooting to hear a really great pop song on the radio. When that happens it is fantastic. 

ME: I do too. The thing is, I am old. So when I hear something like Lil Wayne’s “Baby Bump” or... What’s that called? “Lovely Lumps?”
“Lady Lumps.” 

ME: “Lady Lumps,” that’s right. I listen to that and think that music is really beautiful, really well made. But then I listen to what he is saying, he is just spitting out noise because to actually say something would be not cool. I am from such a different generation. Just say something! C’mon, try it. They don’t and there is nothing to say, because they can only handle the noise. So it is not my thing. It just seems like cruelty. Our whole American culture is a celebration of liars and how well they lie. Our politicians are not at war with gangsters. In a way, that is our whole culture now. Everyone’s a “bitch” or not. I hate it. It is so dumb. So that is my relationship with pop culture. I have never particularly liked it. I don’t think something is good just because it is successful. I mean, Hitler was successful.

Magnet Magazine: Q&A With Times New Viking's Elizabeth Murphy

Back when Times New Viking released what would end up being their final album, Dancer Equired! in 2011, Elizabeth Murphy was interviewed by Magnet Magazine to discuss the record. Here's a bit of that:

Dancer Equired sounds a lot cleaner, production-value wise, than the previous Times New Viking recordings. It’s less lo-fi sounding. Why did you make that decision?
We finally thought to record in a proper studio and see if we couldn’t allow for the songs to be seen as we see them, without the guise of “lo-fi” even an option as a talking point. We went to an old studio that was a stone’s throw from where we all lived in Columbus called Musicol and had Adam Smith of CD-R engineer the recording. It was the exact change of pace we needed, process and output-wise. Dancer Equired was recorded in about a week, and we all showed up for it in full. Much like the fact that we would now allow for a studio and engineer, as long as it was in Columbus and an old friend, the album title was resurrected from the bottom of our giant cardboard box of original ideas, all captured by way of analogue workmanship: cut, paste, highlight, Xerox. First seen on the insert of that We Were High, We Were Not High CD-R as the deliberate “attendance required,” the statement had re-arranged itself in it’s paper burial, six years later claiming absurdity as our fourth member, not the audience. Like my friend Adam Elliott says, “In the midst of nuclear war, the poems will recite themselves.” 

How do you guys write songs?
As far as our songwriting process goes, we are lucky that it still follows this analogue way of thinking, as well as the democracy we posited as our first rule. And for the record, we would have more to say about being a band rooted in analog than any question leading us to absolve lo-fi.

Know Yer Band: Times New Viking

Band: Times New Viking

Members
Elizabeth Murphy - Keyboards, Vocals
Jared Phillips - Guitar, Vocals
Adam Elliott - Drums

Releases
2004 - We Were High We Were Not High album (300%)
2005 - Busy Making Love & War 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2005 - Dig Yourself album (Siltbreeze)
2005 - We Got Rocket single (300%)
2006 - Present The Paisley Reich album (Siltbreeze)
2006 - Imagine Dead John Lennon single (300%)
2006 - Split w/Psychedelic Horseshit 7" EP (300%)
2006 - Little Amps single (300%)
2007 - My Head 7" single (Matador)
2008 - Stay Awake 7" EP (Matador)
2008 - Rip It Off album (Matador)
2008 - Shred Yr Face Tour split 7" single (Shred Yr Face)
2009 - Born Again Revisited album (Matador)
2009 - Split w/Axemen 7" single (300%/Sleek Bott)
2009 - Move To California 7" single (Matador)
2010 - No Room To Live 7" single (Times New Viking)
2010 - No Time No Hope 7" single (Oslo Grammofon)
2011 - Dancer Equired! album (Merge Records)
2012 - Over & Over 7" single (Siltbreeze)

614 Magazine: The Ultimate Columbus Mixtape

Back in 2014, Kevin Elliott of 614 Magazine spoke with a bunch of Columbus musicians such as Pat Dull, Paul Nini of Log and Elizabeth Murphy of Times New Viking to put together a mixtape that covers the last few decades of Columbus music. Here's a sample:

“Refried Dreams” – Cheater Slicks (1999) 

One of best things about living in this town is having the opportunity to go see one of the best punk bands on this or any other planet play in a bar about the size of your living room twice a month.  They’ve put out almost a dozen stellar records since defecting to Columbus from Boston in the mid-90’s, but if I had to pick a track to include on the next Voyager launch, it’d be the title track from 1999’s Refried Dreams.  I’ve broken my glasses twice whilst losing my shit during live performances of this song. 

— BJ Holesapple (member of Necropolis and Vile Gash as well as founder of Columbus Discount Records)