Almost as regular and welcome as the seasons, in the lands where seasons turn, Geography of the Moon is back in Cambodia after nearly a year of adventures. Virginie and Andrea sat down with LengPleng to recap their activities, beginning as usual with Twin Peaks references inspired by the handheld recorder.
VI: Dianne, it’s Wednesday, 12.30, I’m looking at a white car. Isn’t like just wonderful. I see ducks swimming on a lake. I used to have a massive crush on Agent Dale Cooper. What a great character.
AD: I’m getting nervous here.
VI: I should watch Twin Peaks again, it’s been a long time. We should totally do that. We barely ever have time to watch anything. We watched Princess Mononoke one night because we were really tired and hungover and had nothing else to do.
AD: We went to watch Barbie at the cinema in Osaka.
LP: So what’s been happening in GOTM world?
VI: We were in Thailand and did the first trip to Japan. Then we went to India for two and a half months.
AD: We toured the UK, played in France, then we came back to Thailand before we going to Japan for two months.
VI: Then back to Thailand and then here. So that’s been our year.
LP: All the time living out of suitcases.
AD: After the second tour the left side of my body has tensed up from carrying luggage.
VI: If we were small enough we could probably live inside our suitcases.
AD: My suitcase just broke.
VI: You should see the state of them. Well used.
AD: It’s good that you can bring your entire life to 39 kilos.
VI: It’s nice to travel but it’s also nice to stop.
LP: But you have to keep working for the income.
VI: We never really stop working. The travelling takes it out of you – we spend a lot on travelling but we’re always on a budget, so we never travel in comfort. Last week we came from Pai to Bangkok by bus and mini-van – it took three days. Normal people will just fly, but we are carrying instruments and so on.
AD: I was thinking we should ask for sponsorship from Samsonite.
VI: And Thai Airways.
AD: Geography of the Moon sponsored by Thai Airways and Samsonite.
VI: Home doesn’t really mean anything now – it’s more a feeling than a place.
AD: Home is coming back a year later to see all your friends – we’ve made a lot of friends. We went to a little town in Japan that I didn’t want to leave, I felt like we’d lived there forever. I want to go back there. It was like that the first time in Chiang Mai. Not with Phnom Penh – fell in love with that later, not straight away.
VI: It’s a grower. When we come back we see what’s changed and what hasn’t changed. How many people who come and see you, and knowing most of them, which is cool.
AD: And there’s always new people.
VI: In Phnom Penh it’s easy to get comfortable, and feel like you’re really someone. Then going somewhere new is the reality check: you’re not as big as you think.
AD: It’s nice to be back with the familiar. In between gigs I love to go out, walk around and see if there’s anyone I know. Every area, every city that we go to is different. The beauty of the job is that you keep seeing new places.
LP: Highlights of the year?
VI: Definitely Japan.
AD: Thinking chronologically – we did really well in Bangkok, starting to play bigger clubs. We discovered India, which was great but really challenging, mostly in Chennai, Pondicherry, Goa and Gokarna. We met great musicians and people – which we do everywhere of course. In the UK we played Eden Festival on the same bill as Sister Sledge and the amazing Scottish super-hippy band Jam on Planet Love. We played in a punk festival in Sheffield, the only non-punk band – people still liked us.
VI: We were in jeans and sneakers amongst the leathers and the mohawks.
AD: In t-shirts, shaking, because we weren’t ready for the weather in northern England.
VI: Then Paris was amazing.
AD: We played the L’International, a packed show, great sound, great show. So Parisian people discovered us – we need to go back.
VI: That was my favourite gig of the whole year.
AD: The other bands on the night were DALTON…
VI: And Munchhausen.
AD: Post-rock, alternative rock. And then there was us playing Geography of the Moon music.
LP: And do tell us about Japan.
AD: We travelled a lot around Japan. The public and the bands are really interested in each other. People will come to see you not because they’re a friend of someone but because they read something on Twitter, there’s going to be weird post punk tonight, they come and ask you questions. We played 27 gigs in Japan in a little over two months.
VI: We travelled quite a bit.
AD: Three gigs on Kishu Island out of new connections, not the ones from the previous tour.
VI: But some of the people knew the people we already knew in Osaka, which was interesting.
AD: Once I contacted them they said we know you, come and play. We didn’t play in the prefecture of Hiroshima but we went to check a couple of places. And oh my God the food.
VI: The food.
AD: Osaka, Kyoto. We toured with a band called Ikamegane Suu Suu.
VI: They’re called Come Back, My Squid on socials. But what it actually means sleeping bespectacled squid. They had to explain it word by word.
AD: Every song they sing is about animals – squid, bears, tragicomic stories we don’t understand. In Japanese they are really funny – everyone who listens to them laughs a lot. They’re something like new wave, post-rock, grunge. Their new album will come out in December.
VI: We’re very excited about that.
AD: One of the favourite bands that I’ve ever played with.
VI: They are a married couple, they said we turned 45 and we were bored so we decided to start a band.
AD: They were going to gigs since they were 16, 17.
VI: Their knowledge of music is extensive and their heir collection of music is insane, and. They are doing well.
AD: They’d never played guitars before. Honestly, they sound incredible. They still go to lessons in the evenings.
VI: They found their sound. And they helped us a lot.
AD: We met them last year, when we played in Japan on the first tour. They had discovered us through Bandcamp a year before. So they came to the gig and were first row, dancing and singing along.
VI: They said: we’ve been listening to you every day!
AD: They wanted vinyl, autographs. They gave us their demo CD – it was amazing! So this time we did a tour of about ten dates with them just in Osaka and Kyoto. And then we played eight gigs in a row in Tokyo.
VI: We played some big clubs.
AD: We can play eight gigs in a row and it’s possible, but only just. Tokyo is known for its size. And also the soundcheck. If you’re headlining a show at 10 o’clock you are there at 3 or 4 doing the soundcheck.
VI: You have to be there five hours before. Then you stay to the end. So it’s an eight, nine hour day. And being on time means being half an hour early.
AD: Sometimes we were staying two and a half hours away from the venue.
VI: At half past three somebody calls to ask where you are. We’re coming at four!
AD: It can take 14 hours of a day to go and play for 40 minutes, so it’s quite intense.
VI: It was good practice, we saw some great bands, but it was gruelling.
AD: In Tokyo there’s a different way of getting paid, you don’t share equally between bands. Every band takes personal ticket sales in advance, and if ten people come to see your band and 20 people go to see the other bands the club might take something and then pay you with the rest.
If the person at the door taking money doesn’t say anything the money goes straight to the band that has more people or to the club. And nothing to the other people. So sometimes people were unable to pronounce our name to have their money come to us. We played some really kick-ass gigs in Tokyo, particularly Shibuya. At Ruby’s Room there was an event called Berlin Party. We all smelled of cigarettes after that.
VI: You can smoke in lot of the clubs, but not all of them. You can’t smoke in the street but you can smoke indoors.
AD: There’s no windows.
VI: We posted a video of the Berlin Party show.
LP: With all these bands fighting for attention, do you find there’s a sense of competition or is there a spirit of camaraderie?
VI: We are all supporting and inspiring each other. We get to see great bands, but we’re not going to other countries to take other people’s spot. Being creative means no one does the same thing, which means there’s a space for everyone. Diversity is what makes the world interesting. And if we all do the same thing then we’ll be competing, but what’s the point of doing anything if everybody does the same? It’s boring if it’s not evolving, so there is a place for everyone. You want to be there and you want to support others because they bring music to the world.
Of course sometimes you play a great set and you think, yeah, follow that! You can be proud of yourself for five minutes, pat yourself on the back. But it’s good to be around other bands, it keeps you going. You don’t want to lose the spark.
LP: Any new releases to be looking forward to?
VI: There will be a second live EP soon – maybe for December.
AD: There’s a lot of material to go through. In Japan we got recorded at the mixing desk a lot, as a present from the sound engineer. They were giving us video, thank you for coming here, please come back. For most of the gigs in Tokyo you have to give your setlist in advance to register for the royalties. Also what kind of lights you want for each song – timing, colours. You have the guy at the mixing desk for the entire gig looking at the specs of each band – even if you are no one coming from nowhere, at 3:20 there is a lighting cue for a solo, they will do it for you. It’s incredible. If you have the production ready for you they make the perfect gig for you.
VI: In the next month or so we’re playing Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, Koh Rong Samloen and we will get to Kampot also. Christmas is a perfect time for having a break.
And speaking of Christmas, the last few vinyl copies of Fake Flowers Never Die are for sale at upcoming gigs, and there are T-shirts on the way.
Find Geography of the Moon at Sra’Art this Friday, at The Deck on Saturday, and in Siem Reap next weekend at Laundry on the Friday and as part of the Bon Om Touk Festival at 60 Road Studios on the Saturday.
All photos supplied