An Interview with Karl Blau

Karl Blau is a musician, songwriter, and producer whose career spans over three decades, rooted in the music scene of Anacortes, Washington. His work has ranged from solo 4-track recordings to collaborations with artists like Laura Veirs & Phil Elverum and bands such as D+ and Old Time Relijun. After his recent album release, Vultures of Love, caught the attention of KCSB’s Avery Morgan, she chatted with him about making his own radio station, DIY touring, and his memories playing in Santa Barbara.

Interview By Avery Morgan

 

Avery Morgan: Thank you so much for coming in today! For people who are new to your music, would you be able to give a brief introduction about where you’re from and how you describe your music to a new listener? 

Karl Blau: I’ve been living in Philadelphia for six years now, but I’m from the Northwest. I grew up on Samoan Island and lived in Anacortes for a long time, which is northwest of Washington state. And music, I mean, it’s just kind of always been all over the map. I feel like my voice and the melodic signatures that I have lead the listener through.  I think that’s the thread that goes through my music. I’m a singer and a producer and I just really enjoy making music that I’ve never heard before or just things that I’ve never done before with music. 

AM: I was looking at your website, the last update on your bio, I think was from 2015-ish–

KB: –Yeah, I think I started that in like 2022 where I was trying to do my bio and I kind of stopped. 

AM: Yeah, it’s a lot to go through, but I noticed in the most recent update you’re talking about the Anacortes Music Channel and I tuned in to it for a bit. But I was hoping you could describe to the listeners how you started that and how involved you are with it now?

KB: Well, it was a physical space when it started, and of course, a music channel. And the idea was you tune yourself in by stepping into the door.. like the tuner is your body in the space. And it was just a real experiment. I wanted to keep the Anacortes Music thing alive and we’d had venues in the past and we just had gone through a dry spell of not having really any places for bands to come through town and so I started that space. 

It was right downtown Anacortes across from these big shipbuilding operations. And just a really fun kind of wild space that we just had all kinds of music come through. Over the years playing shows all over the place, I have met so many people and have all these contacts, and people would get in touch with me about playing and I’d host them there! 

I had a free choir for a while that met there. We just learned local songs and turned them into kind of choir songs. And then we had a thing called Moon Ra that was just this improvisational meetup for an hour on Monday nights where we just played loose improv sounds and music. And no songs really but we did that for a long time. I think Moon Ra kept meeting up until last year. And that just kind of became its own thing. 

And then people kept coming in almost daily going like “Is this a radio station? Anacortes Music Channel… Sounds like a radio station.” Like maybe it is a radio station. So we started the online thing. It’s just a big pool of Anacortes Music – I think there’s like four days of solid music that just kind of keeps repeating and randomizing. And then, I was looking at what it takes to make an FM station, but the FCC only opens up those gates, you know, every so often. And just last December they opened them up again. So I actually applied for Anacortes to have a radio station and I got accepted. Then, we started Showtime, which is like a monthly music magazine and that’s still going. So that’s yeah, so I’m not boots-on-the-ground living there anymore, but I’m still really involved in the music scene there. 

AM: That’s awesome. So it’s on FM radio right now?

KB: It’s not! We have three years to figure the station out So, we’re just building the antenna up and we have a space for it… and there seems to be some excitement and interest. 

AM: Congrats, that’s huge. FCC stuff can be really complicated.. Well, I wanted to make sure to give you a chance to shout out any lesser known musicians.

KB: Man, yeah, my band has a bunch of great songwriters in it right now. My bass player is not playing with me anymore, but Strawberry Hands (Jacob Brunner), his band is just incredible. Joseph Krause has a really awesome band called J Salvage. And I just played a show with Carly Brand, who’s a yoga instructor who does this really cool thing with jazz overtones in it. 

And let’s see, I just played a show with Jeremy Ferrara. I’m doing a tour coming up with this band called St. Yuma, which is the Alva brothers, Zach and Stevan. And Zach has a band called Westmoreland which is really good. And they’re almost country-ish. I don’t know what you call it… Folk? Also the band Lake, and Mega Bog.

AM: Thanks! Everyone should go check all those out. In a similar vein of question… you have a bunch of collaborators like Adrian Orange of Thanksgiving or Laura Veirs or Dear Nora, people that you’ve known for possibly 20 years now. And when you’re doing things DIY, you sort of get to be your own boss. You have many people who overlap as collaborators and friends, and music is your job – how do you manage a balance in relationship dynamics?

KB: That’s a great question. I don’t want to be telling people what they should do for my music, I just want people to be curious, to show up, and together take it to where it wants to go, but it’s very much on the friendly side. There’s professionalism when you’re on the road, like getting up on time and getting out the door, but my crew is so great. 

AM: Thanks. Another curiosity, I think you would describe yourself as very very DIY, and my show on KCSB for a while had been called DIY Dive, but the more I would look into this type of music, the more I realized it doesn’t have a strict definition.. I don’t know if you know Jeffrey Lewis –  

KB: –I’m a big fan. 

AM: When I interviewed him, he was saying what’s weird now about DIY is when you’re promoting your music nowadays rather than just giving out a CD at shows, you have to say a corporation’s name along with your music like “go listen to my Spotify” or “go check out my Instagram”… and it’s like your music is forever tied to these mega corporations. So, I’m curious how you felt that shift?

KB: One thing I’m going to say is that I have been involved in the music industry for 30 years now. When I was 20, I started touring. And it’s just changed the whole time. I mean it’s never been anything to rely on. And that has its benefits and drawbacks. The drawbacks are that you’re always having to reinvent the wheel of how you’re promoting yourself and what you’re releasing yourself. You know, the formats you’re releasing on are changing all the time. It’s really annoying. But then again, I guess the era of CDs is kind of gross because of all the plastic. Although that was a real golden age for like, being able to make stuff for how easy it was to make a product and make some money off of it.

I am kind of the worst at self-promoting… I don’t want to be part of the noise. I think there’s a lot of good information out there that needs to be disseminated. Not necessarily good. There’s just a lot of information out there. But I don’t want to be part of the noise. I just want people to be curious because they heard what I did somewhere and they come check out what I’ve done. I try not to be too noisy out there, but that’s sort of a detriment to my own promoting myself because I’ll just avoid it. It feels kind of gross or something. 

AM: For sure. Well, your most recent album, Vultures of Love, came out in October and you embarked on that mini tour right after the release. I was hoping to go to the LA show, but I had some weird sickness that happens every fall– 

KB: –My daughter gets that too. Every fall. Is your birthday around this time too? 

AM: Yeah, October 23rd. Do you think it’s a birthday thing? 

KB: Well, hers is the 16th. We were just wondering today if it was something tied to some kind of birthday or some expectation of that. 

AM: I’ve never thought of it as a birthday thing, but that could make sense. 

KB: Yeah, I know. It’s a curious thing. 

AM: Anyways, how did it feel to play those songs, maybe live for the first time ever? And how did your relationship with the album change in the past weeks… are you more fond of it or sick of it or anything? 

KB: No, it was unbelievably thrilling to get this band together and play the songs. It’s a huge band. 

AM: It looked like there were like 15 people on the stage in videos I saw. 

KB: There were a lot. Well, I think there were nine of us. A couple horn players, a couple backup singers, keyboard player, two guitars, bass and drums. And it was just so thrilling to have all the parts there. To be able to work with this group for so long, to be able to kind of get a rapport together, it was awesome. I approach these songs with a lot of improvisation still within the structure, so it just keeps it really fresh and fun. I love singing with harmonies and to have four part harmonies and three part harmonies… it’s very luxurious and fun for me, I can’t get enough of it. I’m going to start integrating some other songs, like back catalog songs for the Northwest trip. I think there’s a whole bunch of us going on that too. I think we’re going to have drums, backup singers, and I think my brother’s going to even join us. I have two horn playing brothers, Eddie and Pete– 

AM: –You guys had a band together once, the Blau brothers? 

KB: Yeah, we did. Yeah, Eddie and I have had a band together… the Blau brothers… I think we went through a couple different incarnations. My brothers Pete and Eddie have a band together right now called Grizzly Troubadour, which is out of the Bellingham area. 

AM: Yeah, I used to live in Whidbey Island, which is northern, but I’d never heard of Anacortes before hearing about you. 

KB: Well, Whidbey is the next island south of Anacortes. Did you ever go north there up to like the San Juan Islands or anything? 

AM: Yeah!

KB: Anacortes is like the doormat to the San Juan Islands. To go to the San Juan Islands, you have to go through. The ferry leaves from Anacortes. 

AM: Oh, well, I’ve been there. Wow, that’s special! Speaking of your West Coast tour and when we were planning this interview beforehand, you’d mentioned you’ve come to Santa Barbara before. Do you have any fond Santa Barbara touring memories? 

KB: Gosh, those shows were so off the hook. They were so energetic and crazy. I just remembered it. Well, one show in particular, I think it was Golden Shoulders, Kyle Field (of Little Wings) and Phil Elverum and I. I’m going to say this is 2002, maybe. And it was just wild. I mean, I don’t remember exactly why, but at one point we were playing songs and everyone was running back and forth from side to side of the room. 

AM: And you had mentioned an old local venue called Pink Mailbox? 

[Here’s a Daily Nexus article from 2006 about the venue]

KB: I think that was actually at a different place, but it was close. There was… houses near the college…

AM: Like housing co-ops that like to host? 

KB: Right. Yeah. Housing co-ops. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the Pink Mailbox was there. It might have been there because that was definitely the place we usually played. Candice Kim put on these shows, at the Pink Mailbox. It was just this cool little house that had concerts. And I think they had shows like that all the time. Is that culture still kind of happening there? 

AM: Housing co-ops still host shows, yeah, like you know Little Wings? He did a show at one of the housing co-ops recently. I think he’s from nearby? 

KB: He lives in Malibu. He was playing at that show where the people were acting crazy! That was back in 2002. Yeah. That’s cool.

AM: Well, a change of topic… What do you like to do outside of music in your free time? I know you’re a father?

KB: Yeah, I have my daughters who are 24 and 13 now. So that’s been a real blessing. With the 13 year old, it’s all about K-pop and K-dramas and dancing… not that I do the dancing. I’m trying. I love getting into the woods here. I love making visual art too. So doing a little bit of that. 

AM: Did you paint the Vultures of Love Album Art? 

KB: I did. I’ve been doing some acrylic painting and some sculpture. I’ve been doing a lot of odd jobs. But my favorite lately is doing tiling. This is what I’m really into. But I hope to not do that as a job, I’d rather just do music. But it’s really fulfilling. 

AM: I’d imagine that to be meditative. 

KB: Exactly. Being a musician in this day and age actually means having a 9 to 5 job, especially if you have a family. So whenever I see a little time, I go to the studio and I write songs. 

AM: Well, Thanks for coming on and everyone keep an eye out for when Karl comes back to Santa Barbara, maybe. 

KB: Rad, definitely. Thank you, Avery. Thanks.

 

Keep updated with Karl’s music through his Bandcamp or Instagram!