Submitted photo
Monday, May 5, 2008
In three years, Justin Roelofs has recorded two albums and set foot on stage exactly once, guesting with Ratatat in San Francisco. So, for fans of his music, his show this week in Lawrence is not to be missed. It will feature: an exhibition of paintings, a DJ set, guest stars from around the country, and that rarest of natural phenomena—a live performance by White Flight.
Roelofs has been on the road for the better part of four years—Hawaii, Mexico, Central and South America—living close to the bone, studying the Maya and their calendar, and working on his voice. "Sound," says Roelofs, "is a healing force."
He's come a long way from his Anniversary days, the band Roelofs formed after high school and which went on to make a splash in the global post-pop pond around the turn of the century. His 2006 solo debut, the eponymous "White Flight," has been called everything from "genius" to "crazy"—a beat-heavy, sample-rich fever dream of deep jungles, starships, ancient mysteries, and love—always love.
"White Ark," Roelofs' second solo offering, is nearly in the can, and features beats by Mike Stroud and Evan Mast of Ratatat. Roelofs recorded most of "White Ark" during a nine-day marathon alone in a cabin in the Adirondacks.
Street Level met up with Roelofs to talk about fresh beats, the vagabonding life, and using brain electrodes to find your joy.
- Download MP3 for this episode (right-click and save)
- Subscribe to Street Level in iTunes
No-fi highlights from the podcast
lawrence.com: You're actually playing a show this week?
On May 10, at The Jackpot, we'll just be White Flight playing White Ark.
When I was making this record, I had just come from living totally vagrant, camping, traveling lifestyle, without permanent access to music or music equipment or recording music or electricity for a lot of the time in Guatemala. I just got back from six months without electricity again.
Is it fresher to work with a limited palette?
Always, right? It seems that in our culture, and where we have evolved, we have so much emphasis on the outer reality and all the material things. The more you strip that down in your own life, it can really help you have more clarity.
You think when your body's pure, your work is pure?
Some people I think could just be eating hamburgers all day long and it wouldn't be affecting their creative output in any way. It's just part of my path to experiment, monitor and observe, to alter and manipulate the diet. Part of the exploration of consciousness. One of the quickest ways to change your consciousness is by changing your diet.
You lived in a Maya pyramid complex in Mexico. How did you live there?
White Flight
- When: Saturday, May 10, 2008, 8 p.m.
- Where: The Jackpot Music Hall, 943 Mass., Lawrence
- Cost: $7 - $8
- Age limit: 18+
It was a really special, special situation, where this horse caravan, this group that rides on horseback and lives off fire, has that sort of lifestyle. They started in Costa Rica, made their way up into southern Mexico. The sort of pseudo-leader of this group is fearless in the sense that he'll go straight into a town in Central America or Mexico or wherever they're at, and he'll go straight for the president or the mayor or the governor, the head honcho in charge, he explains, 'We're on this caravan, we're all about sustainable living and the environment. We plant trees, we put on shows.' And he ends up making buddies 'cause he's super-charismatic. In Palanque, for instance, he made friends with the wealthiest man in town, whose family for hundreds of years has owned land right around the pyramids, in the pyramid complex.
That's federally protected, isn't it?
It is, it is. That's why there was some friction, 'cause for the first time there were all these young people with horses playing drums all night, camping in the pyramid complex. And the guards weren't so happy about this, but this man owns the land and his family has for hundreds of years, and I mean, he's got all the money, so he's in charge ...
So he owns the land that's adjacent to the federally protected area...
Well, it's officially in the federally protected area, though I was actually not on the lawn with the pyramids. We were actually camped below. If you follow the main Maya water hole, their perfect swimming that they had looks too good to be true, but you can't actually swim in that, 'cause that's like in the ... I mean, there are so many guards around it. But if you follow the water down, and it's just the most beautiful waterfalls and little pools all the way down, and we were like five minutes from the top.
Submitted photo
Justin Roelofs
What are you getting from being by the pyramids? What is it?
You know, they're, in Palanque, it was a very powerful catalyst and awakening for psychic awareness ...
Explain that.
Well, for instance, before I even got to Palanque I started to have some dreams where I literally dreamed exactly what was going to happen, people I was going to meet there in Mexico. I was even given the name of a person I met, and saw him in a dream. And that was before I even got there. So then, once I got there, it became quite ridiculous in the sense that, I would dream anyone who would come to the gathering before they even got there. At first I was in disbelief, then it started to the point where I would call it out. Where it's like, "Oh, there's going to be a girl, who has curly hair who plays guitar with a nose like this, and she's bound to show, and she would show up. And the thing was, I wasn't the only one doing that. There were many at the camp who were having very similar experiences."
Film: "Hip Hop, Beyond Beats and Rhymes" :: A riveting examination of manhood, sexism, and homophobia in hip-hop culture. Director Byron Hurt conceived the documentary as a "loving critique" of a number of disturbing trends in the world of rap ... More info
- The Police / Elvis Costello and the Imposters
- Black Hollies / The Spook Lights
- She Wants Revenge / The Virgins / Be Your Own Pet / Switches
Comments
lawrence.com does not necessarily agree with comments posted below - responsibility lies with the relevant user alone. Read our full policy
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by softersink (anonymous) on May 5, 2008 at 10:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Justin's first three answers are peppered with the word 'like.' Was this a decision on the editor's behalf to leave this filler word in, or are you trying to stay true to your interviewee's voice? I'm not sure, but I'm a little irked by it.
Jackie
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by oaas (anonymous) on May 6, 2008 at 9:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
harness that sri yantra power, justin!
dude is on some next level shit for sure...
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by heterohilfiger (anonymous) on May 6, 2008 at 6:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
milk believe
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by duplenty (anonymous) on May 7, 2008 at 8:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Holy Shit! A heterohilfiger spotting! And here I thought I was at St. Jerome's....
What's a river boner?
3 of 3 people found this comment useful.
Posted by scary_manilow (anonymous) on May 9, 2008 at 9:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What is it about this guy that screams "DOUCHEBAG" to me?
1 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by duplenty (anonymous) on May 9, 2008 at 4:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I love anonymous shit talking.
It rules.
0 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by All_Seeing_Eye (anonymous) on May 9, 2008 at 5:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hey Manilow: it's obviously your own breath you are smelling. Remember...those things are supposed to go BETWEEN YOUR LEGS!!!
2 of 2 people found this comment useful.
Posted by amscoking (anonymous) on May 9, 2008 at 6:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
probably the fact that he is a douchebag is the thing that screams DOUCHEBAG to you.
2 of 2 people found this comment useful.
Posted by scary_manilow (anonymous) on May 9, 2008 at 11:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ah, that must be it.
2 of 2 people found this comment useful.
Posted by theinvisiblehand (anonymous) on May 10, 2008 at 3:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sorry, I'm not impressed by someone befriending a wealthy Guate land-owner (most of whom were involved in the indigenous slaughter of the 80's) and gained access to land Guatemalan's can't have access too.
Many would want perspectives and insights of average folks while in the 3rd world. Not the one whose "got all the money."
lawrence.com....can I have a front page spot when I come back for a visit? Ill get super faded before the interview and just ramble drunkly and with poor grammar about something cosmic and 'cool'...maybe string theory.
get a job roelofs
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by oaas (anonymous) on May 10, 2008 at 6:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
hey, cmon now, jesus said he would come back
didn't he?
1 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by joehill (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 12:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm not sure what I find to be most ridiculous:
a) the fact that a suburban kid from Johnson County thinks he is actually absorbing Mayan culture by hanging out with a bunch of other white, privileged hippies at Palenque, one of Mexico's most touristy ruins. If he was truly exploring other cultures, he would have left the white hippie drum circle outside of the tourist attraction (Palenque) to spend six months in an actual Mayan community or at a set of ruins that isn't saturated with US tourists. He should have saved himself the ticket to Mexico and camped outside Worlds of Fun. He would have absorbed just as much culture there (if actually absorbing culture, rather than merely fronting an image, is his true goal).
b) that someone who claims to be so interested in Mayan culture would be willing to buddy up with the town's richest landowner, whose family has undoubtedly massacred and exploited countless Mayan people. The richest landowner in Palenque did not acquire his land through cooperation with the indigenous in the region. It was taken. Mayans have traditionally owned land communally. Any single family in the region that has owned the land for hundreds of years acquired it through murder and exploitation. I wonder how many indigenous people were slaughtered on the land where Roelofs and the (suburbanite-turned-shaman) horse caravan camped. It appears to me that Roelof's "exploration of consciousness" doesn't involve the exploration of social or political consciousness. Roelofs, stop taking salvia long enough to read a book or talk to a true local. Please.
c. that people (albeit few) actually take Roelofs seriously. Newsflash: Roelofs is not deep, spiritual, or enigmatic. He is a suburban kid who smoked a little too much pot. Although he tries to market himself as a worldly musician, he is not. The only culture he has absorbed is that of white, hippie drum circle participant. Roelofs is to music as Vanilla Ice is to rap. Sure, it's funny, but it ain't real. Please, Roelofs, stop spending so much effort on building your image and spend more time actually working with the communities you purport to know.
d. that i just spend the past fifteen minutes writing this comment.
1 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by White_Flight (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 3:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I can't help but comment...this is hilarious. I feel no need to defend myself, but i do hope to encourage you last two people who posted to open your minds and your hearts and realize how good it feels to emerge from the darkness. you are making assumptions based on a few paragraphs of electronic type and a few minutes of sound bytes...do you honestly think this gives a REAL picture of who I AM or my experiences in this body on this planet??
i lived in palenque over 2 years ago on indigenous land with the same indigenous people that have farmed the land for hundreds of years. it was as anti-tourist as an experience as you can possibly get. the "wealthy land owner" has had this land in his family for hundreds of years, and within the land that is owned by mario, there are many many families that fall under this umbrella that have lived there and farmed the land around the pyramids for as long as they can possibly remember. you are making assumptions about a bunch of mexican families of mayan ancestry that live in one room dilapidated shacks, and you are calling them murderers. the wealth has only showed up in the last decade, and this is because of the cattle farming industry, which many of the families have been forced into because of a million reasons i won't go into here. but it is very important to comprehend that wealthy is a relative word my friends...........
after i lived in Palenque (which is DEFINATELY in mexico, which the first person must not realize...) i moved south to highland Guatemala, now having lived 1 YEAR there. it is here in Guatemala that the traditional mayan culture is most in tact, though of course much has changed in the last few hundred years, and especially in the last 20. but there are still thousands of folks wearing their traditional clothing, planting ancient corn and gathering wood for their homes every day, most of them living as close to the earth as a human can in this rapidly changing time. I lived in the homes of mayans in this time, i lived on the land and i have Mayan Grandmothers, women who barely speak a word of spanish whom recognize me as part of their family. i have studied the dialect. I have little mayan brothers and sisters who might be tickled by my white skin and blond hair, but regardless, consider me part of their quickly evolving culture and we have shared so much good food and so many good laughs. i would do anything to help these people and they would do anything to help me...and that's exactly what we were doing!
1 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by White_Flight (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 3:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
(continued)
I have been initiated into mayan spiritual tradition by some of the most respected spiritual leaders in the entire Mayan nest of Elders. i have participated in countless ancient ceremonies to honor and connect with our MOTHER EARTH and FATHER SKY. i have tended fire after fire, making innumerable offerings to my ancestors, for i have many roots in the land of the Maya. i might be in a white body that was born in a modern suburban culture THIS time around, but like each one of us, that is because i have a very particular mission to fulfill in this time, some very particular lessons to be learned............but i have memories and images that far extend beyond this "suburban kid" body. for the truth is this: "I" AM NOT MY BODY!!
i have connected intimately with so many indigenous families at this point it is just hilarious to read these assumptions about my time in the south. the truth is YOU HAVE NO IDEA what i have experienced, and you obviously have no idea what is going on down there.
There is so much i can say here but it would only be a waste of energy, because if anyone was truly to speak with me in person, to know me on a more intimate level beyond a lawrence.com podcast, they would know and feel the truth of where i am coming from. But i do want to say one last thing:
You folks who think you are socially or politically aware because of your limited understanding of the RECENT history of the injustice in Guatemala...i believe you are totally missing the deeper point. Sure these Mayan have been slaughtered by the military, innocent family after family being wiped out so a small handful of humans could reap large amounts of material profit and power. But these same Mayans slaughtered the people in the land before them. Just like in Peru. The Incas were literally destroyed by the Spanish. But as my Incan family has reminded me, the magnificent Inca culture was guilty of the same crime. For this culture was built on the shoulders of the Tiwanaku, whom the Incas nearly totally obliterated except for the few that were able to escape and fled to the highlands of Columbia.
Yes, the violence has become much more sophisticated now. We can kill many more humans in a very short amount of time. But humans have been killing humans, raiding their land and wiping out whole cultures since the beginning of this last epoch of 5000 years.
1 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by White_Flight (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 3:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
(continued)
The key here is understanding that it is actually a fundamental glitch and lack of awareness in our human conciousness that is behind all of this violence. Sure, you might not be taking a machete to the throat of an innocent human being wearing a hand-woven dress, but essentially you are doing the same thing by HATING someone you have never met. Sitting on your computer, using your valuable time to criticize another human being is the type of neanderthal behavior that eventually you must MATURE BEYOND.
You are creating war and violence each time you separate yourself from the other, making judgements and failing to recognize that we are of all one body. We are just like tiny blood cells running through the body of our MOTHER EARTH. And the blood running through my veins is the same as yours and the same as my Mayan ancestors. WE ARE NOT SEPARATE, WE ARE ONE. And to hate or judge another is to hate yourself.
Thank God we are finally evolving out of this sort of behavior at a species wide level. And this is something that all my mayan elders agree upon. But still there are many who are trying to hold on to their old way of being, folks who are in need of much healing and reintegration. So you spend your time spreading poison instead of love, feeding the fuel of misunderstanding, which nearly always leads to violence and war. For violence is beyond just hand to hand combat, there are so many subtle planes one can be trapped in, living a life of war in one's own mind.
I love both of you of who posted above. No joke! And until you learn to love yourself AND love someone like George Bush, you are just going to perpetuate the war on GREAT SPIRIT. Please, let's do our best to get out of our minds and into our hearts where it is so clear that we are all of ONE RELATION, ONE HEART.
Thanks for reading.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by trailer (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 4:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Justin,
Remember your audience. Remember you became a public persona and put yourself and your experience out there for random people's commentary. Remember that the people reading lawrence.com are not supportive for the most part.
I greatly appreciate the unique perspective your records take. I'm glad they found me. But how can you not have an awareness of the eccentricity of the things you are saying? People are going to have negative things to say when you go from being in a marginally talented local band to pseudo-shaman of the Midwest. It is no different than an overzealous Christian rock band that doesn't shut up about being born again and the messages that God gave them. No one has a right to judge you, but when you embrace a rock star cliche there will be a backlash.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by Hog_Bowel (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 10:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
to the east
to the west
to the south
to the north
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor...
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by sarmar (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 11:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
INFINITE LOVE TO YOU! Thank you, Justin, keep on living, and loving, and making art and music. You are a light. May the 'haters' find peace in their hearts.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by theinvisiblehand (anonymous) on May 11, 2008 at 11:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
case in point. you are self-centered and always looking to get some 15 mins in the sun.
back to my point, get a job and start producing positive change for the world...not just yourself.
you assume i have textbook knowledge of the area which is untrue, so i can see through your b.s.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by duplenty (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 9:41 a.m. (Suggest removal)
" you are self-centered and always looking to get some 15 mins in the sun."
I was under the impression that this was the first show Justin has done in Lawrence (or anywhere) in five years.
How does that jibe with your statement?
What, exactly, have you folks done to earn the right to criticize someone for following their heart?
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by SMN (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 10:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Hey Invisible Hand,
What are you doing to make things better? Does "producing positive change for the world" consist of talking shit on a message board? Oh, and since you're such a stickler for grammar, I probably don't need to point out that "drunkly" is not a word, at least not one recognized by the fine folks at Webster's.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by scary_manilow (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 10:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't care what he does with his heart-- I just think the music sucks, the hype is unwarranted, and the listeners are easily duped. Anyone who finds this sort of thing "challenging" or "progressive" hasn't paid much attention to music in the past, I don't know, fifty years or so.
On a side note, I truly love how the only way any of today's suburban, upper-middle-class, indie-hippie snobophiles can appreciate an indigenous culture is when it's filtered through the experiences of a privileged white male. You guys are so fucking enlightened it hurts.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by duplenty (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 11:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Hey, scary - great. You don't like his music, no worries. But guess what: opinion are like...well, you know. Lotsa people might think *your* music sucks, but they have the common courtesy not to use a somewhat anonymous blog to talk that shit.
BTW - I pay attention to music, even make some of it. Justin's music isn't run-of-the-mill pop schlock - there's some shit going on there. I would expect a musician, even one who doesn't like the music, to appreciate that.
Also, on your side note - how do you know what anyone does to "appreciate an indigenous culture"? What the fuck are you, Indie-anna Jones?
Get over yourself, friend. Instead of shit talking on someone who has endeavored to do something (that impacts you not at all), what don't you go make some music, so you can do a show that gets hyped and well attended?
That way, some douchebag can get on line and call you a fraud.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by scary_manilow (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 12:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I make music. I play well-attended gigs. People call me a fraud all of the time. It rolls right off of me-- I don't have audacity to play myself up as some sort of guru, ala Mr. Whitey Flighty. None of that is relevant to my gripe, however-- I'm just here to protest the group-proclaimed "brilliance" of this guy who is obviously taking a colossal piss. It's a joke, a sham, and you're all buying into it. Just because he talks a big line about the higher self doesn't make him any greater than you or I. He's just another rich white dude co-opting an opressed culture to give himself some bullshit "worldly" cred. Pardon me if I find that aggravating-- I just mistakenly thought that most people around here were smart enough to see through that charade. Guess I was wrong.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by smerdyakov (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 12:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I can see the JoCo hippie thing pretty clearly (he doesn't seem to try to hide it) and I find a lot of his drug-addled "philosophy" sophomoric. But there's no denying the music—KEXP likes it enough to rock it. I'm no musicologist but it hardly seems derivative—I'd be curious what you're hearing in there. There's nothing new under the sun, especially in a post-Ween world, but this feels as original as anything I've heard in quite a while.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by jeromefaulkley (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 1:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
go chiefs!
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by duplenty (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 1:31 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"I don't have audacity to play myself up as some sort of guru, ala Mr. Whitey Flighty."
You do, however, seem to have the audacity to sit in judgement of others, which pretty well makes *you* the douchebag.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by scary_manilow (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 1:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Just callin' 'em as I see 'em. Ain't that what these glorious internets are all about?
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by scary_manilow (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 1:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
And KEXP is hardly what I'd call a yardstick of quality-- they seem to rock a lot of My Morning Jacket, too. Ugh.
But there's no accounting for taste, I guess. I like a lot of music that sucks, too... But the difference here is, I'm willing to ADMIT that it sucks. AT least in the eyes of the typical White FLight fan.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by duplenty (anonymous) on May 12, 2008 at 1:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Damn. Sigh. Here's the thing, scary. I really, really like your music. I thinks it's great.
But to see a local musician piss all over another local musician because you somehow think you're "more real" or "more sincere" in your rockin' & rollin', that's pretty fucking sad.
By the way, how can you possibly assail WF over questions of authenticity or originality?
Have you ever heard the Cramps?
Post a comment
(Requires free lawrence.com registration.)