DR.Interview.001 - Jim Swill - Screenage Angst
Jim Swill is a spokenword artist from Cincinnati Ohio, with over a decade of speaking his words and projecting his voice to ears all over the globe Swill has taken some time to answer some questions we had for him in the first installment of the DeathRave interviews.
Q. Tell us a little bit about yourself, name, place, age, favorite food.
My name is Jim Swill. I currently live in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm twenty six. I guess my favorite food is Korean Bibimbap.
Q. How long have you been doing spoken word?
I've been doing spoken word performances for about ten years now. I didn't start incorporating video into the live shows until the past two years. I was usually incorporating spoken word pieces into recordings and live shows when I was performing with "Realicide" and "Evolve Project". I would do a spoken piece as the intro to add emphasis on our lyrical content being important seeing as most of the time it was extremely noisy and loud. The past few years or so I've focussed more on solo work and utilizing my written work as a live show, whether it was in an art gallery or a club.
Q. Any other spoken word artists whose work you enjoy currently?
I love Byran Lewis Saunder's work. If you haven't checked out his work it's amazing.
Q. What songs have you had on repeat lately?
I've totally been looping the track "Lock Your Doors" by Death Grips over and over. Just any song starting with a man screaming "I got some shit to say just for the fuck of it!" gets me pretty amped. I love running to that song and picturing someone sloshing buckets of black paint on billboards.
Q. Swill, amazing work with the video for screenage angst, I recall you saying that you filmed it all on a cellphone?
Yeah I film a lot of my newer material with an iPhone. I have access to professional cameras but right now I'm more interested in working within limitations. There is an emerging potential for DIY everything due to technology becoming so user friendly, to a disarming degree. It's becoming inescapable. Some people I know especially in deeper subcultures of DIY have a weird recoil towards newer devices and gadgets. I understand the desire to avoid materialistic trends, but I personally think that things like smartphones with high quality cameras and microphones open up a whole new realm of possibilities for assembling something yourself. I think the point of DIY isn't about making it appear to be something of lower quality, but to strive for something higher than what you thought was possible. So even tho the films I'm making aren't of the highest cinematic caliber, I still believe they exceed the advertised potential of said device. I work primarily as a collage artist, but for the videos I consider them more as montage, seeing as they aren't layered bits of footage but short clips compiled together.
Q. What do you think about the current events in America?
I think current events in America are just like current events anywhere and primarily hold little relevance to me or my life until you know, they do. There is always an emphasis on violence and carnage whenever you see the word "current events". Personally I like to take notice of scientific discoveries and issues related to food ethics as opposed to giving my attention to a murder oriented circus.
Q. Any plans of a spoken word tour or any upcoming gigs?
I have a performance coming up June 10, 2013 at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center. That show will primarily consist of my latest video work as well as readings from my current novel.
Q. Parachute pants; do you own some?
Never owned any. Even when I was going thru years of listening to happy hardcore and hard style electronic music.
Q. Anything you'd like to say to those screen lit faces reading this in their basements?
You can follow me on different screen based outlets like instagram, twitter, tumblr, and sound cloud. It's all just Jim Swill, so it's not that hard to find. The video work however is on youtube as http://www.youtube.com/officialjimswill . I also run a strange image blog called Noided with a collection of other weirdos. Check that out at www.noided.net
Download the audio to 'Screenage Angst' here: https://soundcloud.com/jimswill/screenage-angst
And as an added bonus, Jim Swill and Mavis Concave's song oceanflood
right here on the deathrave soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/deathrave/jim-swill-mavis-concave-ocean
