We hadn't heard from Genders in a while, and then bam! Out of nowhere they have a huge party releasing something called 13 Moons. What? Hadn't they broken up? We talked to them about this madness...
Vice: I thought you broke up! Like times were getting too rough or something?
Jeffrey Thomas: We never broke up the knot, so those are just rumors. We don't think we'll ever break up. Even if we don't play for 40 years and we get together when we are 60-70 and jam some songs, ha.
What made me think such crazy thoughts?
Well, in 2006, 2007, our activity was still happening but started to slow down. Then I traveled for a bit and was trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do in life. We started playing with some other people. Evan was playing with Saffron Bloods and some other things at home; I did some solo stuff and jammed with other people. I started some new projects, one of which was called Common Families with Matt Z from Tyvek. After that I moved those songs and new ones to a current project I'm heavily doing now called Gardens. But we never gave up on Genders.
Yeah, so you just played a release show for some insane project. Tell me more.
All throughout I had been working on transferring all the Genders practice and jam tapes onto my computer. It took me a year to sort through them, edit them, all that. I wanted to just make a big release that sums up what we are about better then just six rushed songs on some EP on a label that doesn't respond to my emails and a bunch of other things I could rant about, but whatever. So I have finally finished it and we are launching our new label releasing it called Holographic Resonance. The release is called 13 Moons. It's roughly 14 hours of music on 13 discs, narrowed down from 24 hours of stuff I sifted through. The last (13th) disc is actually the precursor band to Genders called Via Employee. Each box comes with a booklet with all the track titles and it is all completely hand assembled and painted by me. It costs only $30 and is a total deal. I probably won't keep it for that price for too long.
Wow. So I'm guessing you haven't had time for much else, not that there's much to do in Detroit anymore, right?
No, I've been studying permaculture and appropriate technology and plan on implementing some serious farming and building projects in new Detroit. Detroit is wide open for all kinds of things, a big open playing ground for anyone who has some willpower and creative ideas. We do a website company called trees and started a new project to be better then MySpace and Facebook, starting with this message board. The name will change, but it's something better for artists/musicians and just people in general, that isn't corporately polluted, isn't used to spy on us, technically has rights to our songs, loads big flashy advertisements first, etc. bullshit etc.
I was actually kidding!
Here's video from their show a couple nights ago...
now that is some bouncy psych rock. they should consider spinning that color wheel and handing out 3d glasses at their shows. it could be like captain eo at epcot before mj got all touchy-feely with young blonde boys.
Posted by: | 27/02/2009 at 19:39
"14 hours of music on 13 discs"
yeah right. no one likes Gender that much okay?
Posted by: freddy | 27/02/2009 at 19:45
"permaculture and appropriate technology" blah blah hippy talk blah blah
Posted by: froget | 27/02/2009 at 19:48
damn shame. i like their music but then i clicked on the link and it's all crop circles and rainbow pyramids. leave that crap for sound tribe sector 9.
Posted by: | 27/02/2009 at 20:28
i barfed when i found out you were playing again
Posted by: Paul Pringle | 28/02/2009 at 02:09
I love Genders and what they create is raw art.
I hope to see you again someday!
Posted by: cherry408 | 28/02/2009 at 14:24
well, when you don't have any food to eat or any water to drink, look to the people that all along have been looking out for you, while you spend your time dissing them. calling permaculture science "hippy" is just so ignorant it's actually quite sad. you probably stuff your face with all kinds of things, what's wrong with getting it from somewhere in a process that actually makes sense? i guarantee you're probably taking part in raping the earth, economic colonialism, and human rights violations with most food you touch. plus there's a giant nuclear heat device in the sky everyday that gives free energy that we hardly are taking advantage of as a species that's supposed to be intelligent? so why not design buildings to use it more and save money? what does that have to do with some glossed over generalization of some culture in some time ago?
crop circles are interesting. i think people forget that they are OFFICIALLY SCIENTIFICALLY UNEXPLAINABLE. doesn't that mean anything to anyone?!
it's like you have your fucking heads in the sand or something. going on thinking about everything in the little quadrants someone probably told you to think like in some movie you watched or something. everything doesn't fit into two categories, hippy or not hippy. stop living in black or white and join the colored world.
Posted by: cliche | 02/03/2009 at 07:12
Total Shit ? I thought because of how you hyped them they would be good, but i suppose you are a pretty left of the middle magazine.............. So..... That was great wow really cool !
Posted by: 8balltheband | 08/08/2009 at 08:54
What a huge. huge bummer. Evan Johnson of Genders passed away quite tragically a few days ago...
Posted by: kgb | 21/04/2010 at 18:55
What????!!!! you serious kgb?
Posted by: pete | 30/04/2010 at 18:05