Uterus Women
NICK CARLISLE from THE UTERUS WOMEN
1. Who are you?
Nick Carlisle, of The Uterus Women, a group I’ve been ‘doing’ since the end of 2003 when my last band split. I come from a small town in rural Northern Ireland and currently live in Brighton in the Death Bed Sit where I come to sleep and eat and watch TV and make visceral music when I’m not doing my miserable
day job.
2. No, really, who are you?
I don’t dwell on who I “really” am, in fact I like to avoid the subject altogether, which may or may not speak volumes.
3. What are you up to at the moment?
I’m just back from seeing my mates band play down the road, I’m tired and have to do a triple shift in a call centre tomorrow. I’m also engrossed in making the next Uterus Women album “Britain’s Biggest Killer” which should be finished in a month or two, if I finish writing the lyrics in time. We’ve just started a residency at The Verge in London and I’ve been busy rehearsing with my new bass player for those dates.
4. What three rules would make up your manifesto?
I’m far too scatter-brained to start making up rules or manifestos. I think the idea of bands with manifestos is terribly exciting and I envy bands in the past like Throbbing Gristle or the Manics who’ve come out with BIG IDEAS as well as good tunes, but I’m generally quite forgetful, contradictory and obtuse so me and manifestos don’t really mix. I find the idea of making rules a bit of a non-starter too because I don’t feel I can be 100% certain about anything- so I’d always doubt the validity of my own rules and forever get caught bending them.
5. If you were the dictator of a modern industrial country, what would
you abolish? What laws would you implement?
The last thing I would ever want to do is to organise other people- I have no interest in what other people are up to, and if you tell people not to do something they’ll just do it behind your back. I’d find the whole thing very frustrating and pointless and no doubt I’d just get really paranoid and go all corrupt on your ass. Sound familiar?
6. What are your lyrics about?
If there’s a theme running through the lyrics I’ve done it’s probably connected with life’s frustrations and absurdities. Who you feel you are in relation to everybody else, what other people expect you to be, what you expect from yourself. I’m reading ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ by Anita Loos at the moment, and a comment she makes in her foreword struck me as something I can empathise with: “my slant on life was that of a child of ten, chortling with excitement over a disaster”.
7. What is your opinion on the contemporary music scene? What do you
like/dislike?
Like any time there’s good stuff and bad stuff. Off the top of my head I like LCD Soundsystem and The Vichy Government, I’m looking forward to the new Le Tigre album, I’m one of the few to actually like the new Prodigy album…I was really impressed by Simon Bookish when I saw him support Miss Pain in Brighton a week or two ago. Along with everyone else I’m a bit tired of the whole electroclash thing but he managed to transcend any tired 80’s electro cliches with his manic performance. Bands I have a current dislike for are the vacuous Fame Academy-type indie bands like Keane and Jet, the kind of stuff major record companies love, whose target audience are the ‘serious’ music fans who buy back catalogue ‘quality’ stuff like The Rolling Stones and Radiohead.
8. What distinguishes you from your peers?
Well I’m wondering who my peers are. I’m mates with some bands in Brighton but The Uterus Women sound nothing like them. I think what sets us aside is that any ‘feel-good factor’ we may have is marred by my miserable cynicism, and generally unhelpful tendency towards sabotage.
9. Where do you see yourself in five years time?
I don’t look that far ahead; in fact I dread to think what I’ll be doing in five years time. I’d like to think I’ll have acquired my team of ‘yes men’ by then.
10. Any regrets?
Yes I have some regrets and as I get older they increase as generally they take the form of “Why didn’t I…?” If only I’d had a manifesto I could have been in Smash Hits by now…