June is ANTIGRAVITY anniversary month, so to help celebrate we’re blogging some more classic AG pieces. This one is our first ever cover story, an interview with Glorybee from June 2004. Glorybee was the perfect choice for our first cover, as they were well-known around New Orleans and certainly visually interesting. A side note is that they were my first choice to be the musical headliner for the first Alternative Media Expo (in June ‘03) but had an out-of-town show on that day. The first year or so of AG isn’t available in .pdf format, as I lost the computer they were stored on in Katrina (and stupidly hadn’t uploaded them to our website), so we’re having notable pieces like this re-transcribed. Which is nice because they can also be re-edited—keep it a secret, but I don’t think I knew as much as I think I did when this whole thing started.
Anyway, where the magic began…
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Glorybee is a trio of musicians based in New Orleans and own a sound best described as “rap/electronic/sonic death on helium.” Their live show is a unique spectacle, one where the unthinkable not only can happen but usually does. Be careful if you see one of them, even on the street, as their soldering banter can easily suck you in, after which you’re stuck like a fly in the proverbial web of Glorybee. Featuring three main members (Nasty Burga’ Kang [Bass/vocals/percussion], Lord Hoffa [vocals/keyboards], and Masta Boink [keyboards/programming/drums]), Glorybee is one of the truly unique bands in New Orleans, relying not on horns and someone else’s name to carry them, but on their own ideas and techniques. Their new CD, GYB: The First Power, is set to hit the streets June 1st, with the GYB CD release parties on June 25th at Dragon’s Den and June 26th at Chelsea’s in Baton Rouge.
ANTIGRAVITY: What’s everyone’s responsibility to the band?
Lord Hoffa: That’s a hard one. I think we started out with certain job conformities: MKB as the brains of the operation, Nancy as the total stream-of-consciousness with some serious bass lines to back it (and also the brains of the operation), and me with the words and the legions of people living within me. Now that we share all those things, I noticed Nancy’s lyric-writing has, in some ways, eclipsed my own superb diatribes. MBK has been calling for metal. And sometimes, I play guitar.
AG: What is the significance of having identities specifically for the band?
Hoffa: I simply wanted an emcee name. I didn’t think it would grow into a different person. The name itself is derived from Jimmy Hoffa, “the people’s leader.” But the Lord in the front comes from a musical influence at the time, Three Six Mafia. One of their MCs, Lord Infamous, sort of intimidated me at the time, so I took his title. I later found out that there’s a few lords in hip-hopLord Infamous, Lord Finesse, Christ… and then Hoffa.
Nasty Burga’Kang: Burga’Kang comes from my love of Burger King food. Master Boink (MBK) is my best friend and that is what I call him, “My Best Kind” of friend (MBK).
AG: What makes GYB: The First Power different from your previous albums?
Hoffa: The artwork, the lyrics, the girls. All that. I think we just wanted a really good album, and thought more about the whole instead of the individual. Maybe next, the individual will come first.
Burga’Kang: GYB: The First Power has a barcode. The new album features Chanti, our miniature cat. Contrary to popular belief, she is not the cat on the song “Kitty Cat Beads,” the hit song on WTUL and KLSU. However, it is really Chanti on the song “As The Circles Underneath My Eyes Grow Darker.” The new album has tons of guest musicians, like New Orleans’ own Lebanese rapper, Ballzack, guitarists Rib Eye Ry and J. Lo Viere. In addition to Hoffa and me, several guest vocalists lend a spicy flavor to the album. These include Diamond D, Stu Dog, Bernisha and Peanut Head. Adding to MBK’s drums and beats is Marky D. He stars quite a bit and fills out the rhythm section.
AG: What about your day jobs?
Hoffa: I work at a clothing and costume shop. Nancy works in a lab, and also dabbles in the occult. Or is that MBK? No, I’m sorry, MBK works with the ears.
Burga’Kang: MBK is a stellar audiologist. He can diagnose auditory processing disorders with the best. Also he deals with earwax issues.
When not being the girl in Glorybee, I am a pathologist at a local hospital. I get to look at people’s colons and other juicy surgical specimens, paint them with pretty ink, cut them open, and talk into a microphone, describing what the tumor looks like, etc. Sometimes I do autopsies or bone marrow biopsies. I am really good at minimizing the discomfort of having a big needle in the pelvic bone. It is fun. I can demonstrate the procedure on a potato. If I ever want to change professions, I should already be qualified to be a butcher or a body piercer.
AG: Is there one thing everyone should know about you but doesn’t?
Hoffa: Am I telling them this now? OK. My cousin and I were playing at Miller’s Lake when an opossum came out of the long grass and scared the living daylights out of usor me, at least. My older cousin’s first reaction is to grab a huge stone and pummel the beast in the head. He just sticks it twice, though, before it actually does the trick. This dude had Herculean strength and agility even at the time, at the age of 9. He still does. He’s a farmer now. I got baptized in opossum blood and look at me now.
Burga’Kang: I grew up on a farm and had a cow named Cowie. But we ate him up. He was a tough old meal. My family opened up his heart and learned the anatomy. Also my fifth grade teacher pronounced the word “chlorophyll” (green stuff in plants) as CHLOROPHYLL ll, as if the two “L”s were II, like Rocky II. No one believes me.
AG: What is the reception to your live show in other cities? How is it different from New Orleans?
Hoffa: The proven theory so far is that it is much easier to please foreign audiences. I mean, look what we go through here, as a people. It requires so much work to actually get through to people here because of the madness of everyday life. New Orleanians see great spectacles just walking down the street and the threshold for an entertaining show is very high. They want the supernatural, so we deliver. It is a great school to prepare for the road. Everywhere else we go in America… I’ll sum it up in one word: “cakewalk”! But don’t ever let that deceive you, because you have to keep chomping at the bit, because who knows?
Burga’Kang: I love to play out of town. It makes you feel out of place and insane and then you get used to it. A new sound person every night and a new crowd. We are friends with bands that tour all the time and sometimes meet them in their city or meet somewhere in between. Some places you cannot smoke in the bar or cannot bring a drink out of the designated alcohol cubicle. I also like having a laid back show, where there is some anonymity and I can read. Last tour I read a book about Jon Benet Ramsey and a book about Lizzie Borden.
AG: What are the advantages of gigging in New Orleans?
Hoffa: I’ve heard from the streets that some go-getters think me nuts. Insane. Totally not true. Just because I write some things, or say some things, or mess with people…
Burga’Kang: New Orleans is a great place to perform and to live and make music. So many people are making things and finding success locally and abroad. We have made many friends through out shows. When we got the new CD, we made the rounds, dropping off CDs to all that have helped us. And at EVERY single stop, we were given something in return. It wasn’t plastic garbage. J.Lo. gave us a poster of his photographs, Michael Welch gave us his novel, The Donkey Show. Josh Simmons gave us an original art poster, and Ballzack handed us a CD of his new work to check out. Tons of people fight the urge to stagnate in this sultry city. It is easy to slow down without the frantic momentum of, say, New York or Chicago. People who do their projects and make fun things happen in this city have an especially super fun quality.
AG: What are some of the problems you’ve run into with being based in New Orleans?
Hoffa: Okay. For one, the rest of the country doesn’t take New Orleans seriously. Thinks us all white-boy funk, jazz, and Lower Garden District hipsters. When the fact is we really have some good groups. I think the time is coming for New Orleans to break on a national level.
AG: Which artists influence you the most?
Hoffa: Oh, are we ready for this? First off, God. Jesus. Okay, here we go: Hank Williams, Sr., Stevie, The Beatles, The Kinks, Megadeth, Kanye West, Led Zeppelin (or really, Bonzo’s drumming), The Dells, Chaka Khan, Biggie, Ministry, and the list foes on forever. I used to be really prejudiced to styles of music when I was younger, but I quickly found that my ears would have none of that. Now I just don’t have enough money to buy all the music I need. I even like that “I Want You Back” song by that group that Robbie Williams was in… what is wrong with me?
AG: What’s the craziest promotion you’ve used for a show or album?
Hoffa: Koontamata, the Dancing Thai Chef, cooks free vegetarian Thai noodles on stage. He costumes himself as a great big happy worker bee. If you pay attention, he does interpretive dancing and acts out the lyrics to many songs. Not only is he a great chef, but he also helped produce The First Power. He has a keen ear and works hours on the smallest detail. Koontamata also works in surveillance. When you hear on TV or radio “BEEP, attention, this is an alert,” Koontamata is responsible for THAT!
Masta Boink: We had a prepubescent girl that looked just like Phil Collins, including her sweaty forehead. She would stand outside the venue and wave a Glorybee sign. She also had a dog that had a striking resemblance to Phil Collins. But they died at out last show at El Matador. They are the reason Glorybee is still together. Now we are searching for a new muse/promoter. Applicants must look a lot like Phil Collins or Rod Stewart in order to apply. You can apply online at heavenlyhive.com.
AG: What’s the wildest experience you’ve had on the road?
Hoffa: When we were in Athens the power went out and Boink and I got up on stage with imitation Chinese porcelain masks, and started waving like we were presidential candidates. Another times, we played at my family reunion in Ville Platte, Louisiana during the Smoked Meat Festival. That alone is insane, if you knew my family. I’m not gonna cry, though.
Burga’Kang: Pensacola, Florida at an all ages show. We were dressed up like scary babies. We had out carnival game “Maw Maw’s Lucky Ducks” all set up. Koontamata, was sizzling. And we were playing and singing out of one bass amp. That’s three vocal mics, keyboards, bass, and electrodrums. It was fun. Afterwards we were surrounded by sweaty 11-to-15-year-old boys who told me, “You me be 19!”
Masta Boink: Glorybee just got back from a Midwest tour where we made a pact of no fast food. However, out roadie insisted on eating at the Golden Arches. So we conceded, and we would hear these crunching and joyous eating sounds. However, every time, 15 minutes later, he moans. He was getting McRaped. Every day we heard his gastrointestinal system get McRaped, but he must like that kind of thing. It was sad.
AG: What equipment do you use?
Burga’Kang: I like the Electroharmonix bass synthesizer, Gallien-Krueger stuff, Gretsch short stock bass guitar, and a glockenspiel from my junior high school marching band, the WAR Pups Marching Band. I built a vocal torture chamber to give the recorded vocals a special sound. It was made out of tartan cloth, particleboard, duct tape, and construction paper (I am not kidding) with a pink blanket as a lid to keep in more head. It was a stinky sweat box. MBK forced us in there for take after take, singing in a sweaty box with headphones on and in the semidarkness. We taped the lyrics to the wall and wrote curses and poems. That is why the vocals sound so great. You have to get the album and study it and think about me in that sound booth in my underthings, sweating and crying. Hoffa also was in his underpants at times. Those screams are real.
Hoffa: I use a microphone and God’s touch on my lungs. Beat that.
Masta Boink: Our live shows are a lot different from the albums. What makes the recordings sound special is some neat equipment like MOTM synthesizer modules, a Trident preamplifier, a 1950s David Bogan public announcement amplified (for all the over-driven sounds on the record), and a monstrous ten-channel all tube AITec Lansing mixing board. Other unique things on the album are a circuit bend Casio SK-1, lots of plastic, clay and metal flutes, and most specially, the homemade Heavenly Hive Happy Birthday keyboard.
AG: So everyone knows, what albums have you already released and where can they be found?
Burga’Kang: Our first is called 11 Fun Songs. It features a pop-up 1968 Oldsmobile 442. We are all inside it. Out second, Domain of the Snakes has an incredible spinning wheel. I was the paper engineer, and I am retired from that profession, so the incredible spinning wheel is a limited edition feature of this CD. You better go get it. It tells the tale of a submarine journey and a road trip into the Domain of the Snakes, a scary place also known as Ville Platte, Louisiana. Both of these can be found at Amazon and CD Baby, and off our website. Locally, you can get them at Tower Records and Rocks Off. We also have a very limited edition mini CD with a two-sided comic book. The artist is Josh Simmons, who also has his own comic book, Happy, and the famous All About Fucking series. He also has a mustache. So Josh Simmons collectors better get this one. The comic book tells two tales, one of a girl with C.R.F.B. (Cutaneous Reaction to Flea Bites), and another story of the most terribly ugliest girl in the world who becomes beautiful with the help of a lot of make up. This mini CD is available at our shows only.
Interview by Leo McGovern
This interview originally appeared in ANTIGRAVITY Vol.1 Issue 1 (June 2004).
