July Artist of the Month - Ezra Thobaben
By Matthew Toledo - 7/9/2002
Ezra Thobaben of Poppycock seems normal enough when he's not wearing a cat-eye contact in his left eye. There was this one time, I was talking to him on the street and it took me five minutes to realize that his left eye was a cat's eye. When I finally did realize it, I totally freaked out. That is just one example of the sometimes subtle, yet always present, bizzareness of Ezra. Normal clothes, normal conversation... all the time wearing a freaky cat eye contact lens.
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As far as creativity goes, Ezra is on a level far above most in this town. It doesn't matter if he's making videos for public access television, settling on which semi-porographic artwork to use for his next CD cover, or writing music, Ezra always tries to bring something new to the table. His 3 piece musical project, Poppycock, is yet another example of the twisted crap his unique mind spits up.
How many bands do you know of have a drummer who sings and plays a cocktail kit while standing? There aren't many. Fan's of the Violent Femmes should know exactly what a cocktail kit is. For those of you who don't know, it is a stripped down drum set consisting of only a snare, floor tom, high hat and a cymbal or two.
There may be a few toms missing from Ezra's kit--pun intended--but there is nothing missing from the sound. His band is an exercise in minimalist punk blended with Las Vegas style lounge music. Ezra likes to add delay to his voice to give it that extra "Elvis" flare. Add an exceptional guitarist (Mike Grau) and solid bassist (John Stevens) to the mix and you end up with a fun band that grabs your attention with the unusual set up and keeps your attention with great music and otherworldly humor. If that isn't enough, there is also the occasional costume change and Ozzy Osbourne cover tune.
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Poppycock has been around for 4 years now. Ezra wrote some of the songs when he was 17 and some of his influences include other non-normal bands like They Might Be Giants, Mr. Bungle, Ween, and Gwar. I first heard a recording of the band on a self produced CD. The production was rough, and a couple of the songs were, eh, well... crap. 2 years pass by and the band refuses to die. Dateline 2002, it's Friday, open stage at the Front Room, and guess who's on stage? Why, it none other than Ezra and his band, Poppycock. I settle in for a bumpy ride but am pleasantly surprised by the quantum leaps of improvement the band has made since I heard them last. I'm so intrigued that immediately make plans to see them play with the Cactus Pears at the Union.
I made sure to bring my camera to the Union show so that you all could see the strangeness in action. Ezra isn't a bad singer or drummer. He does sound quite a bit like Elvis or the lead singer from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The fact that he has a lot of muscles on a body that contains less that 1% fat undoubtedly adds to his on-stage charisma.
His music deals primarily with sex, Satan, and revenge--but in a funny way. His lyrics may be considered obscene by some, however much worse has been said on South Park, so in reality, it's only mildly obscene. His songs do contain the occasional play on the band's name and there are the infrequent, yet noticeable nods to group sex, exploding girlfriends, zombies and vomit. Still, there is also a lot of wit.
For example, here are some lyrics from the Poppycock tune, "Slowly Growing Mad."
One day I woke to find the world a little bit more twisted than it was before. Then I thought to myself, "maybe I don't have the best mental health"
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I had the chance to ask Ezra a few questions about his art, his life, and his shoe size.
AMN: How long have you been living in Athens?
Ezra: Too long
AMN: Are your parents artists?
Ezra: My dad's a cable guy and my mother owns the Second Hand Rose, sometimes she paints furniture.
AMN: What CD is in your CD player right now?
Ezra: Nirvana-unplugged in New York
AMN: How did you find the folks in your band?
Ezra: I met Mike (the guitarist) a year ago through the AMN. John (the bass player) works up at public access starting this year, and I didn't know him before that.
AMN: How did you get the band together?
Ezra: I just wrote this big story of how the band got together, for you to read, but the fucking computer crashed and I'm not writing all that again, so I'll just tell you that it involved someone catching themselves on fire a bunch, me meeting this guy and writing songs and stuff like that. These Internet interviews kind of suck. I mean they're OK, I guess. I mean Y'know, I can understand, since they're going to be on a computer screen anyway, but live interviews are more interactive and you have less time to think of a good answer. What I mean to point out is that I can say anything I want to,and it looks like you just ask me the next question on the list.
AMN: When is your next CD coming out?
Ezra: It will be out very soon, you fucking fuck face. I can talk any kind of shit that I want about you or anybody that you like and it'll still look like you're still interested in me enough to still ask me questions about the band that I'm in.
AMN: Well, dork-bag, seems you've found the inherit weakness of e-mail interviews... NOT! You forget that I can edit anything you say! Muahahhaha. By the way, for those of you reading, we were just joking. Back to the interview... speaking of naked pictures of you mom, what sort of videos to you make at the Public Access center?
Ezra: I have a live TV show every Wednesday night at 10:00 PM, called Mystery Tea. All the videos are on that show, not to mention artwork by Jimmy Kisor. I just made a music video for us up there. We're currently filming another episode of a series called "The Magical Underground" It's this underground world of magical things. Things like a cowboy that you can only see in the mirror who tortures you with stories about beans. I wig that a magic pirate wears, that fucks you up when you huff it. A giant gnome who acts as a bartender. A red beast with a big dick. A ninja with a special hat. Birdmen who all suffer from amnesia. In this new one, I play the part of an adventurer, who carries a sword, named Donavan Hubblecut. Donavan's the guy, Hubblecut's the sword.
AMN: How old are you again?
Ezra: 22
AMN: Just checking. How did you get the idea to use a cocktail kit? Did you listen to Violent Femmes a lot? I ask because they use one too.
Ezra: I used to listen to the violent Femmes a lot, but I do it because it's a lot easier to sing when you stand up.
AMN: Is there a poppycock website
Ezra: No. I'm waiting for somebody to make me one, at the same time I'm wasting time I could be using to learn how to make one.
AMN: So many lyrics about sex! What are some of the influences for your music?
Ezra: One of the first bands I really got into was Gwar. They fuck everything. Males reach their sexual peak at 17 years of age. I was about that old when I wrote some of those songs. There won't be so much of that on the next album. I wouldn't say that lyrics come directly from musical influence.
