THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Gregg Shapiro: When I interviewed you in 1998, you were anticipating a January 2000 release of a Science Park album. It took a year longer than that for the release of Disinformation. Can you briefly catch us up on what happened in your life between the release of Futurama and Disinformation?

Myke Weiskopf: I can try ( laughs ) . Well, it seems to be a recurring habit of mine to have everything go horribly wrong in my personal life just as everything is going wonderfully right in my professional life. Just after Futurama came out I hit a real rough spot personally, which is where a lot of the source material for the new record comes from. It took me at least a good solid year after the record came out, just to come out of the other side of that stuff ( laughs ) . For all the anticipation I had about hitting a stride, creatively, after Futurama was finished, I found that wasn't the case at all. There was a period of eight months, or so, where things were so bad I didn't write at all. For a long time, it was a block of some sort that I couldn't quite get around. Then, it was as if on cue, and I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but it kind of broke and I wrote most of the record in a couple weeks. I went from having absolutely nothing to having all this source material to work from. That went in tandem with some of the outside offers I had to release material, which prior to then hadn't existed either. I was in a bit of a shortfall, financially, before the record came out, as well as emotionally. Thanks to a few labels who put stuff out, on my behalf, and bore the financial end of things for me, I was able to get a 7" single out on Motorway, which is a Japanese label, last April, called "Ascension Island." Then a few compilation tracks here and there, and that got the name back out and got me in circulation.

GS: The release of the single and compilation tracks came about at a good time.

MW: That combined with a decision I had made around the time I was struggling with writer's block not to perform. Shortly after, I was in Chicago playing for Northalsted Market Days. Things went from zero to 60 again, because I got the band back together, had a few new records out, started writing. It was like this long winter of the soul had passed. Part of the delay was just dealing with that and finding the resources and wherewithal to get new stuff out. It snowballed from the time the single came out, because it sold out in a matter of months. That gave me a lot of the impetus I need to start working on new stuff. I found some financial backing and finished the record in about a month and a half.

GS: At the time of our 1998 interview, I passed a on a copy of Futurama to Jim Fouratt, and there was a subsequently a favorable review of the disc in The Advocate. Do you find that you have been receiving favorable press in both the gay and mainstream outlets, or has one been better than the other?

MW: It's a curious thing with the gay press because it's been really back and forth. I would say overall, in terms of the song writing and the way people perceive the production and the package as a whole, we've done extremely well. We've gotten good reviews in Spin and The Advocate and CMJ. You've done tons of work on our behalf, and that's been great. But there's a bit of controversy, at least locally in the Boston gay press, around the issue that flares up from time to time about whether or not we are gay enough ( laughs ) . Which is to say there were some issues raised about our use of pronouns and whether that was copping out, and what the ramifications of that were in terms of me as a "gay" songwriter.

GS: Has that been resolved since?

MW: The issue itself comes up at some point or another for every gay identifying artist. Whether by your own admittance or by other people's criticisms of you. It's a question you wrestle with. Do I need to be more specific in this regard? You decide why you're writing what you're writing, and what your intentions are. While it was never an issue for me, it became one, I think, in the context of a few other bands around here who were getting more famous and kind of disowning, what the local press perceived to be disowning their gay following or their history within the gay community. It was kind of like a witch hunt. But, it subsided. For the most part people outside the media didn't make an issue out of it. I've never had anyone who bought the record come up to me and say, "You're dodging the issue," or anything like that. Aside from that, it's been great.

GS: Now that you've explained about your song writing process for the album, I was wondering if you could say something about the geographical and historical theme to the songs on Disinformation. What would you say was the inspiration for songs such as "Ascension Island" and "U-Boats"?

MW: I've always felt that one of the central tenets of Science Park, as a concept, was the relationship between memory and geography, between geography and time, location. The music is very filmic. It tends to be more photographic than just out laying a scenario. The music certainly tries very hard to project some sort of a mood that's very definitive. It's very much a space unto itself. The lyrics are an extension of that, to some degree. With this record, I had the theme of disinformation as the title, and the lyrics by extension, look at the various ways that disinformation plays out in a historical/political/emotional context. Each of the songs, in different ways, looks at that theme through a different lens. "U-Boats," for example, which is about a radar system off the coast of Alaska is used as a metaphor for espionage. The espionage theme recurs on "Ascension Island," which is a love song between two spies. That, of course, spins out into the second half of the record which is more of an emotional side. The record divides, roughly, into the earlier half which is more political and the latter half which is more emotional.

GS: You can definitely here the change in the tone of the album, especially after "Keep Laughing." What can you tell me about that song?

MW: That song I wrote, originally, when I was 15. That's an old song. Another old favorite trick of mine is to phase through old songs on each record that I manage to pull through time and bring them back out in new ways. That was one song that I toyed with for a couple of years—the idea of reintroducing it. It was only on the first five or 10 copies of the limited edition Science Park debut album. I had decided, during the recording of the first Science Park album to pull it out and rework it. That one exists outside the theme in some ways. But you're right to say that four, five and six—"Deadlines," "Keep Laughing," and "World"—is really the transitional point. It goes from being a mostly observational record, describing a time and place in detail, with a mostly detached eye, very descriptive, through to the other side of the record where it's all very emotional and perhaps a bit less concerned with the details that the first half of the record is concerned with.

GS: I don't want to get hung up on the subject of age, but you just turned...

MW: Twenty-four.

GS: OK. So, you were 15 nine years ago, which is not that long ago. But, in a few of the songs, the subject of age comes up a couple of times. For example, in "World," you say, "Now it's time the truth was told: you're too young, and I'm too old," and in the song "From The Wires," you say "You were 19, I was 20, the oldest souls that ever lived, locked in a room, no food or money, and a heart I won't forgive." Can you say something about the references you were making to age?

MW: A lot of it ties into the kind of crises I was going through over the last two years. One of which had to do with a relationship I was in at the time, which is described in "From The Wires." Up until this point, on the personal side of my life, I've been very involved in activism for gay youth. Being on the pride committee and writing a lot of nonfiction stuff for gay youth websites and stuff like that. Doing the gay teen suicide benefit ( disc ) for Rykodisc ( which never came out ) . Up until now I've been very involved in the gay youth scene around Boston and I'm very self-identified.

I'm just getting to that age where you're starting to disconnect from being a gay youth, because 24 is the last possible age that you can self-identify and not look completely ridiculous.

GS: Because 25 is such a significant age.

MW: Eighteen to 24 is a very defined age group in our culture. I think I had a hard time, especially after graduating college, pulling myself out of that demographic or social atmosphere. So, now it's like now what? It's hard enough graduating from college and being thrust out of that given social scene and finding your own way. A lot of those songs talk about that. A last kiss off to my old habit of dating people who are younger than I am and realizing how difficult it becomes to relate to that, once you're past it. Saying, it's been a wonderful part of my life, but I have to let it go and try to make something new for myself.

GS: You recently shared a bill, in Boston, with Scott Free. I understand that you played an acoustic set.

MW: Every year in Boston I play a set around the time of my birthday. This year we did it with Scott. I always do it acoustic and I always do it at smaller venues around that time. I'm not exactly sure why it's always on my birthday, but it seems like a good time to do it, like a demarcation point each year to see where I've come with my songs. Present new stuff and dig out stuff that I haven't played in a couple of years. Taking stock of myself artistically. Acoustic gigs are the best way to do that because you can pretty much go anywhere. I don't make set lists and I don't decide in advance what's gonna be played. I just get up there and go with it. That show with Scott was probably the best one I've done. It was phenomenal. Scott is an incredibly talented songwriter himself. It was a really small crowd. It was snowing or something, but it was great. The thing that becomes tricky about doing those sets otherwise is that I feel like Science Park is safe in an electronic setting and it's consciously electronic and I've always been equally interested in production and songwriting. They very much go hand in hand. So when it comes to playing live it's tricky to find a way to do that effectively on stage. Because it's such a controlled sonic environment otherwise.

GS: Do you enjoy performing in an "unplugged" setting?

MW: The acoustic shows are easy to do and they're cheaper. Taking Science Park on the road is very expensive. It's difficult to find musicians who are willing to make next to nothing to tour with. We got back from a national tour in November ( of 2000 ) , and it's just so complicated because people jump in and they're there for some shows and then they're gone for the next. Playing with three people in D.C. and then one person in Rochester, NY and then four in Boston. It's impossible to keep track of sometimes. The solo, acoustic gigs are the easiest format, but I feel they're the furthest from being true to the spirit of Science Park. So they're fun to do but they're kind of missing the point of the band.

GS: For the solo acoustic shows, would you bill yourself as Myke Wesikopf as opposed to being billed as Science Park.

MW: I have done that, but I mostly leave that to the promoters. For the coming tour, I'm going to be out for almost three months in the springtime promoting the new record. It's very tempting to go out acoustic because it's cheap ( laughs ) . It's just me in my car and not me and my drummer in one van and my bassist in another car and the sound guy and keyboardist and whoever else we drag along. It's tempting to do that. Plus the format of the band changes all the time. I've spent the last three or four years wrestling with what format works the best in concert, both practically, in terms of getting everybody around and keeping bandmembers.

GS: There is also talk of you leaving Boston. How long have you been in Boston?

MW: Six years.

GS: Are these rumors of your relocation true?

MW: It's a distinct possibility. It's to be determined. It's not an entirely professional decision. It's wanderlust, trying to find somewhere new. I think I know where I'll wind up.

GS: Can you say where?

MW: I'm planning on moving to Madison, Wisc. I don't have the first clue as to what the music scene is like there. Lately I've just had this unconscious weird electricity in my system. It's the same feeling I get when I'm about to write something. It's very tied into my creative process. Whereas it usually comes and goes in a couple hours, it's like a window, like a radio signal that goes in and out. It's been very sustained over the past couple of months. I've been voraciously taking in information. It's almost like I'm being guided. I'm never really sure what it is I'm going to need at any given time. I've been reading a lot of Jeannette Winterson novels and listening to a lot of short-wave radio again, collecting information. It's all kind of brewing up in a strange way. To go somewhere outside of time and lock myself away and see where this is all going, because it feels like a very fertile artistic time.

GS: Is your decision firm?

MW: It's to be announced. It's not quite here yet. I want to get out of Boston for awhile and get an apartment somewhere and just lock myself away and write for a couple of months and see if I can figure out what my brain is trying to tell me ( laughs ) . I need to be doing that. ... I've not quite had a feeling like this before. My intuition tells me that Madison would be a good place to be for a while. It's all very quasi-mystical and strange sound. But I'm just pursuing a line of thought.