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Spotlight: Conspirator

Photo by Dave Vann

The timing couldn’t be more perfect to talk with Philadelphia-based livetronica outfit Conspirator. Well, sonically speaking that is.

Two hours—and two subway trips back-and-forth from Brooklyn—after my scheduled interview time, I am face to face with gregarious and raspy-voiced Conspirator co-founder and bass player Marc Brownstein in the green room at Irving Plaza in New York City. Sporting an off-kilter baseball hat affixed with an “I Love Tour” pin, Brownstein is seething with energy and excitement—and understandably so.

Conspirator’s seamless live album Unlocked: Live from the Georgia Theatre has been well received by both headphone-wearing fans digesting the effort in all of its recorded glory and the concertgoers dancing into a tizzy at the live show, which according to Brownstein, is only going to get better.

“[The live show] is changing so fast right now,” he enthusiastically explains between the jazzy guitar riffs emanating from the opening band’s sound check just outside the door. “Up until this week, I would describe it completely differently. It was like a dance party but now it’s turning into more of a journey.”

Conspirator, which originally formed in 2004 as a side-project for Disco Biscuits bandmates Marc Brownstein and keyboardist Aron Magner, along with New York-based producer DJ Omen, now features the guitar skills of Chris Michetti (RAQ) as well as a rotating cast of superstar drummers like Lotus’ Mike Greenfield, who performed on the live album. What initially began as a way to kill time while the Biscuits were between drummers eventually became an almost scientific attempt to fully understand the art of crafting electro tunes the right way.

“Part of the idea was to learn how to make electronic music,” continues Brownstein in between sips of soda. “We were mimicking electronic music like through a jam lens, but we wanted to learn how to make it the real way.”

The ever-changing electronic genre keeps Brownstein, the band and their fans on their toes. “The style of electronic music evolves so rapidly that there is always new shit to learn,” opines the bassplayer while ordering an impressive pre-show sushi dinner. “You hear something and you’re like, ‘What is that ? How is everyone fucking doing that !’ It’s like science. Music is science. It’s just physics. If you’re synthesizing sounds, you need to know something about the physics [of them] or you’ll end up making a musical mess.”

And on Unlocked: Live from the Georgia Theatre, the resulting sound is anything but. Polished riffs, exalted synth tones, thundering bass blasts and prog-tastic jams meld together to make a cohesive whole that’s both innovatively genre defying and comfortably familiar.

While Magner and Brownstein have aesthetically separated themselves from the Disco Biscuits by infusing their sound with drum n’ bass and techno elements, Conspirator still indulges in jam-heavy moments that keep the improv-loving purists happy. It’s these Biscuit-inspired musical meanderings that helped transform the Conspirator live set from DJ-centric to a build-and-crescendo-driven aural narrative, which relies more on improvisation and live instrumentation than the traditional beats-and-synth formula.

“The truth is, as much as we love to believe that we’re an electronic band—which we are—the fans are from the jamband world, and they want us to fucking jam,” Brownstein remarks with a chuckle. “And they’re very clear about it! It’s going to get boring to us, and the fans, if we don’t mix it up.”

It’s this desire to keep the music new and spontaneous that’s deeply embedded in the ethos of the band—even down to its deceivingly sinister moniker. “The whole idea behind Conspirator was to conspire with people,” he continues about the philosophy of the band. “It started out with Joe Russo or the guys in Umphrey’s McGee—it was always somebody coming to join us that had never played with us before along the way. We’ve always wanted to change it [up], bring in other people and keep it fresh.”

During Conspirator’s two-set performance on that same balmy Saturday evening, the onstage chemistry was palpable as was the perceptible fervor of the dance floor, showing that the crowd approved of the recently tweaked live show experiment.

Watching the diverse crowd physically ebb and flow as the wave of beats and jammy guitar wails reached their inevitable peak, I am reminded of the Conspirator band mantra. “If it’s burnin’ then you’re earnin’!” Brownstein stated matter-of-factly. “That is our philosophy, like, ‘Keep it hot’! It’s gotta be always good and we can’t have off-nights. We won’t phone it in—ever.”

Comments

There are 2 comments associated with this post

Diana July 20, 2012, 16:10:23

, however, the Supreme Court has never been cellad upon to render a decision whether executive privilege can overcome a congressional demand.Presidents will attempt to increase their power at the expense of other branches of government and even the people. This despite those provisions of the Constitution that make it clear that powers not granted specifically should not be inferred. That this proclivity should increase in time of war should surprise nobody. Presidents for the most part seem to take the Constitution seriously but unquestionably war will strain their abilities to live within its bounds. War will strain the ability of all its participants to uphold values that routinely pertain in normal times. Presidents use wars and security concerns to replace the old Constitution, which limited federal powers, with a new one that does not. The argument could be made more simply without sacrificing much accuracy: The federal government expands its powers by all available means, and the written Constitution has little power to prevent this. An excellent example of the enabling of the expansion and extension of executive privilege ensued after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln when the executive branch [which still existed, of course, in the form, manner, and shape of Stanton] not the legislative or judicial, controlled the trial of the so-called conspirators.“The Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime president,” wrote Francis Biddle, F.D.R.’s attorney general during World War II. Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, and in several states he ordered the trial of civilians by military tribunals. “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” [Article 1, Section 9, clause 2, U.S. Constitution]. During the Civil War, once Congress classified the conflict as a “Rebellion” it clearly had the right to suspend hapeas corpus. Although Congress explicitly authorized Lincoln to suspend the writ, it was a draconian measure that the president believed essential to preserve the Union. “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?” he asked. Lincoln, of course was responding to an armed insurrection which threatened the nation’s survival. Most historians have judged his action as commensurate with the threat. There is an old legal maxim that in time of war the laws are silent: Inter arma silent leges. But the critical and crucial issue is the extent to which the nation is threatened. In the case of Lincoln, the survival of the United States hung in the balance. A president will be forgiven by his contemporaries, though not necessarily by later generations and historians, for acting outside the law when that is the case. As more than one Supreme Court justice has said, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. When national survival is not threatened, however, it is essential for a chief executive to resist an unwarranted enlargement of his powers. Though the best case for the Confederacy to succeed was still a long shot, does anyone seriously argue that suspending the writ of habeas corpus for the supposed “enemy within” in the North materially influenced the outcome of the Civil War? I seem to recall that the Supreme Court reprimanded Abraham Lincoln when he ignored a writ of habeas corpus, and he continued to do so in spite of the court’s decision: ex parte Merryman. Therefore, it’s no accident the one president who had legitimate Constitutional authority to do what he did- Lincoln- is remembered as the greatest President of them all.

Claudia July 26, 2012, 00:14:45

is factual and is the same hoitsry that we have told for 36 years at Surratt House Museum. However, I disagree that the movie made her appear an innocent victim. They clearly left you with the opinion that she was on the fringes of the capture plot and was therefore being tried for conspiracy and treason protecting her son after the fact, yes. but also committing suspicious deeds before the assassination. That is the position of the museum also, and many of our supporters go so far as to pronounce her guilty of aiding in the murder. That’s what makes this hoitsry so very interesting to many, many people.You failed to mention that the call for a military court is dependent upon the legislative branch not the executive branch since Congress is given the war powers by the Constitution. Also, treason is defined as a civilian crime, not a military crime. That same Constitution requires that no one be convicted of treason without the testimony of two reliable witnesses. Even Jefferson did not propose a military tribunal be used in the case of Aaron Burr.There is a statute dealing with military courts and a phrase persons not belonging to the army cannot be subjected to its jurisdiction. That was used within the past decade to plead the Dr. Mudd case, and it backfired.As citizens of a state (Maryland) that had not left the Union, all of the conspirators with the exception of Herold (from D.C.) and Powell (from Florida) were entitled to an indictment by a grand jury and due process of law under the Fifth Amendment and a right to a public trial by an impartial jury under the Sixth Amendment. In his excellent book, Civil War Lawyers, author and lawyer Arthur Downey makes a very good point of this.Downey also points out that, while the Conspiracy Trial was going on in the military tribunal, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, was being indicted by a grand jury! He also escaped any trial.I believe that I am correct that the first suspensions of habeas corpus occurred in Maryland shortly after the Baltimore Riots of April 19, 1861, and were constantly enforced after Gen. Benjamin Butler invaded that city in May and placed cannons on Federal Hill pointing into the heart of Baltimore. He also declared martial law.That said, as director of Surratt House, I can honestly say that I have spent over fifty years of my life (since I was about 10) studying the assassination and the Civil War in general. I can understand why the U.S. government chose to ignore (or re-interpret) the constitutional rights of the conspirators because of the temper of the times and the fact that it was the first presidential assassination and there were no precedent guidelines as to how to handle the situation. Hindsight is 20/20.I notice that the media is trying very hard to overshadow the movie with comments on the 9/11 situation which still is in the news. Since it’s still a debatable subject about trying civilians, enemy belligerents, etc. in a military court after 146 years, maybe it’s time to seriously study past, present, and future circumstances.P.S. This is a MOVIE, not a DOCUMENTARY, so please don’t turn it into a criticism of what they didn’t say. I may be a trained historian and museum director, but my motto is: To learn hoitsry, one must enjoy hoitsry. From what I have seen, people are enjoying it and asking questions. I don’t care what purist historians think of it. I want it to interest the 6th grader or the 60-year-old who slept through hoitsry class in high school!