Moby & The Blue Man Group

15 Minutes with Moby

By Flavia Salazar

Moby has gained a great amount of attention in the past year. Following Play, which earned him many awards, he is now back with 18, his latest release and his festival, Area 2. His approach towards his art makes Moby one of the most extraordinary musicians of our generation. We recently had a chance to sit down with him and discuss his new album and the soon-to-be-in-Colorado Area 2 Festival.

What brought you to start this Festival?

Well, I had spent most of the '90s going to Europe and European festivals. In the '90s I had done Lollapalooza and I had always been really appreciative that there were these eclectic, multimusic festivals. A few years ago I looked around and realized the only traveling music festivals that were good were one-dimensional like Ozzfest and the Warped Tour. Ozzfest is a heavy metal tour and the Warped tour is a punk rock tour. As much as I like heavy metal and punk rock, I thought there is a lot to be said for a multi-faceted and eclectic music festival. I generally looked at the mainstream music culture in the United States and I was kind of dismayed at how homogenous it had become. If you care to look at mainstream music culture in the USA it's like there only four kinds--there's country/modern, rock/hip hop and pop--ok, so there's five kinds of music. It seemed to me, when I'd go to friend's houses, I'd look through their record collections, and I saw that most of the people I knew had really diverse, interesting, eclectic tastes in music. When I put the Area 2 festival together I wanted to put something together that actually reflected the way most smart people listen to music, also maybe to some extent sort of draw attention to the fact that music doesn't have to be so homogenous and one-dimensional.

How do you select the lineup for your tour?

I basically sit down with a piece of paper and I write down some of my favorite musicians, performers and DJs and what have you, and then we go shopping and see who's available and who's interested in doing the festival. To some extent, putting a tour together is like baking a cake, because you can't have too much of one thing. You want to have different genres represented, but without too much of a preponderance of a genre.

Do you feel the Festival has a concept behind it?

I'd say the concept behind Area 2 Festival is eclecticism and integrity. Performers who are really good at what they do and who, to some extent, represent their genre. Last year we had Outkast, this year we have Busta Rhymes--both of them are hip-hop artists, but both of them transcend to some extent because of their integrity and the quality of what they do. They do transcend the conventional notion of a hip-hop artist.

What one social issue would you resolve?

I'd probably resolve our continuing reliance on petroleum oil. I think that it's unconscionable that there are so many viable alternative sources of energy and we're still so reliant on oil, because it's corrupting our foreign policy. It's destroying our environment. Oil's such a destructive element in our world. Unfortunately, we have oil men running our country. Our President and Vice President used to work for oil companies, so obviously there isn't going to be any shift away from oil in the near future, which is a great shame. Especially when you look at all the current foreign policy strife that's going on, really it all comes down to oil. Not to be too reductionist but if you want to talk about why Sept. 11 happened, it happened because we're reliant on oil.

Do you see yourself turning to acting, like many other musicians have done?

For the most part it seems when musicians try to act it's disastrous. There's this long tradition of musicians trying to act. Sometimes musicians can act well. Like Bon Jovi isn't such a bad actor, Marky Mark's not such a bad actor, but there are a lot of times when musicians attempt to act and it's just disastrous. So I can't see that I'm going to enter the world of thespianism any time soon.

Mac or PC?

I've never used a PC. The first computer I had ever gotten was a Mac and I've been pretty loyal.

Who is your favorite author and why?

That's hard. I'd probably say Walker Percy. He's a Southern Gothic writer from Louisiana. I love a lot of Southern Gothic writers, I love Tennessee Williams and Flannery O. Connor, William Faulkner and Carson McCullers. I could go on and on. Walker Percy, I don't think he's the best writer that's ever lived--he's not Flaubert or Dostyevsky, he's just personally my favorite. I love to read his books, it's kind of like a slightly brighter, Southern Kurt Vonnegut, with a more apocalyptic world view.

What types of music do you like to listen to at home?

When I'm home I listen to a lot of classical music and I listen to a lot of old punk rock, contemporary hip-hop, R& B and a lot of eclectic Indie music like Mercury Rev, Clinic and the Boards of Canada. Stuff like that.

Are there any other side projects you may be involved with in the future?

I have all sorts of other little things going on. I just opened a restaurant in New York called Teany, a little vegetarian restaurant that sells a lot of tea. I have my own show on MTV called "Seņor Moby's House of Music," where I play different videos and what have you. Between that and making my own records ands touring and running the Area 2 festival, my plate is pretty full.

Photos by Danny Glinch

Blue Man Group:
Masters of Disguise

By Flavia Salazar

Many know them by their long-running, over-the-top Unique Theatrical Productions, others by the Dell commercial and other television appearances. The Blue Man Group was formed by three long-time friends, Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink, in 1987. The Trio got their first break during a series called 'Happenings' which stemmed from salon-style meetings in New York that later were developed into an award-winning show that opened off-Broadway in 1991.

The Blue Man Group's Unique Theatrical Productions group has opened the doors for many others to explore this style. The success of the New York shows led them to expand their performances to Boston ('95), Chicago ('97) and in March of 2000, Las Vegas, which is now a 350-person production that includes 30 additional blue men and 50 musicians. In 1997, The Blue Man Group took their act into a recording studio that resulted in their first CD, Audio. Currently the Blue Man Group is touring with Moby's Area 2 Festival, which will make a stop at the Pepsi Center in Denver August 10, 2002. We had a chance to ask Stanton what to expect, what the deal is with Dave Matthews and why they chose blue.

Have you received any feedback from fans regarding your performances at the Area 2 Festival?

Well, I think when people hear that there are lyrics involved, there's a little cognitive dissonance because the Blue Man is a silent character. Our music has been instrumental up to this point. I don't know if they can picture that right away, so people are curious and excited at the same time. For us it doesn't seem unusual at all, it's a change, in a way. There are some themes that have been with us from the very beginning, where the work has always been abstract. I don't know if it's always apparent that when we use lyrics, it's a chance to be more explicit with a lot of the themes we are dealing with. We've always been interested in the cultural mask for one thing, the fact that we enshroud our lives to put on a face that hides from people what you are really like, in a way, a mask you create to get through. It's kind of asking the questions about "What is a Tribe?" "What is the individual?" And "What is the nature of being an individual in a crowd?" The lyrics are kind of a chance to have some of those themes be more explicit. I think maybe on the tour to come we will have more theatrical conventions.

When would this Blue Man tour start?

It's a little up in the air, but we hope it will start next spring.

Is that when the new album will be out?

Yeah, we are hoping to have a February or March release. These things are always subject to a lot of conditions that can change at the last minute, but that's the plan right now.

Why the color blue?

That's the best question and it's also one there's not really an answer for. It seemed like, in the beginning, I don't know how to put it--except for it being intuitive. It was like, let's have this character that's bald and blue, but there was no real reason for it. It just felt like the right thing to do. After the fact we could think of all kinds of reasons why it was a good choice. The color blue evokes things like sky and water. It evokes good things where a lot of other colors have a lot of baggage associated with them, like red man is the devil or the Martian and green man is the plant kingdom. Also some other colors seem much clownier than this deep rich blue. Maybe 'blue is an intuitive color' is the best answer. There's something else, too, that we didn't initially know about. We keep hearing about indigenous tribes around the world that paint themselves blue. There are groups from Ireland, Scotland and down to South America, Africa and Australia. So it felt that maybe there's something we are tapping into, even though we don't have any deep intellectual answer for it. It's not like there was any kind of symbolism or allegory for it. It seemed like it would be a good character, he's obviously not human, but he's not a Martian or alien. He's from within humanity, not from somewhere else.

Do you currently have any plans for side projects?

We have a couple ideas for other things. I don't know if we'll ever get around to them. So far we've been busy doing Blue Man. We have enough ideas on the table from that for a long time. I guess the real answer is no for now, but we never plan too far into the future.

The Blue Man Group has recently appeared briefly in the new Dave Matthews Band video for the song "Everyday." Can we expect more of these appearances in the future?

We'd love to. We had received offers to be in people's videos earlier on, but we never wanted to do that because we wanted people to start to get to know the Blue Man first and know what we actually do. Now that people are actually beginning to get to know us, that we are a creative entity on our own. The Dave Matthews Band thing came up because he's kind of a fan of ours. He's been to the show at least two or three times. He actually came to the show on his first date with the woman that is now his wife. One of the songs we have written, Dave Matthews recorded the vocals for. It's really awesome. It's not typical of the music he's usually done, so I think it was a stretching out for him. I can't wait for people to hear it.