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Archived: Shmat's Features
The Shmat has decided to discontinue the Features section for Shmat Records. That is to say, there will be no NEW interviews or features. If you are a band that was featured here earlier, rest assured that your feature will be archived here for eternity (or somewhere near that).
Like Shmat's Reviews, any future Interviews and Features will appear on the Palebear site.
Please note that the Shmat and his Peoples take no responsibility for typos, inaccuracies or misinterpretations contained within these articles.
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November 22, 2004 :
Some of the shmats saw the mellow droning, xylophone wielding American Analog Set play some wonderful songs at a show last year. Just who are these five un-assuming lads who delight in creating these indiepop dream pastiches for the masses? The Shmat had a chat with lead singer and guitarist Andrew Kenny to delve into the mysteries of one of the best psuedo-rock bands to come out of the Lone Star State. And yes, you can call 'em AmAnSet, they wonıt mind too terribly...
- interview by
 This is somewhat embarrassing, but even though I'm a big fan I don't know all the names of the members of the band, and rather than try piece it together from second hand sources... can you give me a quick current run-down on who's who and who plays what?
AK: Sure thing... here goes... alpha order
Lee Gillespie - bass
Andrew Kenny - guitar, voice
Craig McCaffrey - organ, electric piano
Sean Ripple - vibraphone, percussion
Mark Smith - drums
Ok, now that I know everyoneıs name... I saw you play I think in 2003 at an awesome show at the L.A. Knitting Factory. One of the highlights for me was Sean playing vibraphone and maracas. Man, he was getting off on just the maracas, I loved that energy. Hope he doesn't take it the wrong way, but he was like the equivalent of multi-instrumentalist Bob Nastanovitch from Pavement. It was also cool, you did a switcheroo with him where you ran over to the vibraphone just in time to play a line. Yeah, so I guess I don't know where I'm going with this question, I just thought it was cool. So let's see... uh, what are some of the bands you enjoyed touring with the most?
AK: Touring with? Seely was the first band we toured with. They were in support of "Seconds" and I will always remember those shows. First time.. good band.. good kids.. etc. Macha was awesome. Still getting goosebumps 19 shows into the tour awesome. We've played a few shows over the last few years with DCFC and that is always fun because I like them a lot. But mostly we tour by ourselves. We're not a band with a great deal of networking experience.
Do you ever play covers on tour, or do you stick to your own material usually...
 AK: Yeah we have.. like one a tour usually and then they're retired. On the Know By Heart tour we played the Magnetic Fields' "The Dreaming Moon". We played Her Space Holiday's "Keystroke" when we were on tour with them. Wow.. looking back, that was kinda lame. And how often to I find myself saying THAT? And last winter we played Codeine's "J.R.".
Sorry if you've answered this one a million times, but are there any interesting factoids regarding the band name? It's funny, there are two other bands I know from Texas with "set" in there name... Subset and The Soft Set. And there's also The Aislers Set from San Fran of course...
AK: Nope.. no factoids. We played with the Aislers' in 1999 and I mentioned the name relationship to them and they were.. um.. unimpressed.
Our name was meant to be a reflection of what we were about when we first got together. Nostalgic about where we're from. An all analog home recording project. More of a club of friends than a band, really. Now I haven't talked to Lisa in what seems like a lifetime. I only see Mark and Lee when I fly home for tour / recording (though we're still tight). Our last two records were tracked on an old analog machine but mixed in pro-tools. And we've been around along enough to tour overseas and experience first hand just how embarassing it is to be an american anywhere but in the states. But then again, we were always more the "TexAnSet" then the "AmAnSet" but it doesn't have nearly the same ring.
AmAnSet is pretty well known now, but when you first formed, did you find that the indie community in Texas and elsewhere was pretty supportive of the music?
AK: I'd like to play a show in Fort Worth someday because we ARE, in fact, from there originally. But even now.. there'd be like 6 people there to see us. And we were fully laughed out of Dallas in 1995. In Dallas we'll always be Lo-Fi hacks that saw too many Bedhead shows. Sad but true. We had NO idea what we were getting into. I still don't like playing there. I wish that us not playing somewhere meant something so I could not play there, you know?? Ha ha. Denton's always been OK for us I suppose. Over time, it's gotten a little better everywhere. Early on though.. man.. it was rough. It was hard being in Texas' lamest band.
I'd like to think that Austin's got our back though. I've never felt weird saying we're from Austin even though it's an adopted home. We played our second show there and by the time we played our 5th or 6th, we were all living there. I live in Brooklyn now, but we're an Austin band.
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Archived Shmat Features
February 2005
Anamude
November 2004
American Analog Set
October 2004
Pants Yell!
July 2004
Snoozer
June 2004
Elk City
May 2004
Popgun Recordings
April 2004
East River Pipe
February 2004
Elliott The Letter Ostrich
January 2004
Damon of the Swirlies
December 2003
The Ladybug Transistor
November 2003
Bill Ricchini
October 2003
Shiny Around The Edges
September 2003
Dave Klotz of Fonda
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