...for Australian noise zine Night Science. Hope posting it here is
OK, Joel.

Russ

*

Pasaquoyanism
The Meaning of Which Humectant Interruption Does Not Talk
Dirty In Bed

Ross Wasserman

This past Saturday found us in a small theatre on Ludlow Street
in Manhattan. The thing I remember most clearly is Joel St.
Germain, shirtless, dancing, and wearing the biggest shit-eating
grin I've ever seen. We've just smoked out, and some skinny
dude in a thong is rubbing all up on Joel, convinced he's
seduced a straight-boy. Right. If this limp-wristed lisper were a
few inches taller, about a hundred pounds heavier, with a tough
guy head and some scruff, well, then Joel might be interested.
However, the one guy in the theatre to fit that MO is in all
likelihood a straight and surly porn jockey.

We've just endured a couple hours of the movie director's
tortuous feel-good-about-your body rhetoric. This is the
Windham Hill of porn shoots; some ugly dudes are getting
blown by chicks, chicks are pissing on dudes, and some other
chick is shooting paint out of her butt onto a piece of canvas, just
missing some dude. It's all retarded. Shut off from the
downstairs where they're filming the hardcore shit, we amuse
ourselves by drinking Buds and eating from the 6-foot pastrami
hero.

But there's Joel again, dancing and having a good time. The rest
of us are too uptight, or maybe just exhausted. There's some
prog band jamming and right now they sound a lot like Goblin.
The drummer keeps making these expressions that look like a
pig, and the keyboardist has a scarf over his face so nobody can
recognize him later. I swear it's one of the Bishop brothers.
Jamie Gillis is a few feet away, getting his dick sucked by a
bleached blonde actress. Honestly, she doesn't look too happy.
We try to pass a joint to the veteran porn star, as a token of our
appreciation, but he declines. Later, Joel admits, "Jamie was
probably the coolest dude I've ever seen."


I started corresponding with Joel in 1997 when I ordered a
Mlehst tape on Spite. He was still living with his parents in rural
New Hampshire, but had already put out some very cool stuff.
For whatever reason he immediately started telling me the most
intimate shit about his teenage sexcapades, but in a
matter-of-fact style that was both disarming and completely
hilarious.

At that time I was just getting my own label off the ground, and
Joel asked me to release something that another label had
dropped the ball on. Just based on the decisions he'd made
with Spite, and the name Humectant Interruption, I said yes.
"Certain Blacks": muddy, warbly, sea-sick accordion and muffled
voices with sporadic drum loops...so good. Other people loved it
too, and many more tapes and CDRs followed on virtually every
important late-90s underground weirdo-music label.

After moving to Kalamazoo, to Detroit, back home to New
Hampshire, and finally to New York, Humectant Interruption is
back and in demand.


SO WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN THE WORKS FOR NEW HI
RELEASES?
Joel: I don't have any answers for new releases yet, but I wrote
something for it/maybe for it the other night. Last time you called
I was laying on my bed in Brooklyn, outlining the cum stains on
the walls with a black marker, the black walls around my bed.
There is not one piece of the artistic process at this stage that is
more important than another - that type of idea/scope doesn't
come in 'til the mixdown/dump.
Ross (for Joel): HI is working on an LP for Hanson. Tapes for
Heresee, Since 1972, and Veglia. A 7" for some new,
as-yet-unnamed label. Discwoman collabs with Andy Bolus.
"Veins" with Aaron Dilloway. A collab LP with Dylan Nyoukis for
Polyamory, and I'm sure some others.

WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS STUFF? WHAT DO YOU NEED?
Joel: My soul is deep in the squish of my brain, man. I don't
NEED any particular stimulation anymore - as soon as it's past
the inputs and power supply on my face it's my own thing (for
example I spent half of my Christmas vacation in New
Hampshire this year in a waterbed watching the rodeo on cable
TV while my brother-in-law smoked crack out of a homemade
vodka bottle crackbong next to me and had a fine time). That
being said, there is a whole black angus steak on my braincap
devoted to anthropology. I feel lucky - these days the input and
the trigger have a system so complex and tight, stimulation takes
care of itself and I can devote more really needed are my output
jacks and own excretion. Constantly making modifications and
crossing wires in my skull for different effects - I must draw or
compose make music with my hands or sing or at least puke or
something manifested from my guts it stinks but you have to.

DRUGS - GOOD FOR WHAT?
Joel: I like to take marijuana, psiloids. One time for Westchester
Scumbag Night and Crash I took PCP. I know you're worried
about me taking the locker room weight training speed
supplements every morning. You think my heart is going to
mutate into a cow's heart and rotted back problems.

ARE YOU A TALKER IN BED?
Joel: Only when talking to the Tygers of Pan Tang.