Like Getting My Balls Kicked In: An Interview with Dino DiMuro

Dino DiMuro is a true renaissance man. In addition to working as a sound effects editor for some major films (more on that later), he’s the author of a book based on his adventurous youth, an incredibly inventive and talented recording artist, and visual artist as well. Given my own interests, I naturally see him as a kindred spirit and wanted to know more, so I dropped him a line…

Your Twitter bio says you’re a former sound effects editor. What kind of work did you do? What was involved?

My job was to edit sound effects and create sound design sequences for movies, TV and cable. I began by working on 35mm sound film (like regular movie film but with a magnetic stripe instead of pictures) by literally cutting pieces with a splicer and matching sounds to action. When the industry converted to digital, I learned to edit on both PC and Mac. The skills I learned doing movie tracks were later utilized to make my albums when I moved away from four-track tape.

I would create sound for most things you saw onscreen, except for dialogue and music (though sometimes I did that, too). Anything from door handles to cars to explosions to space ships. Most people have heard of Foley Walkers, and part of my job was to take their sounds and tweak them into perfect sync.

I was sometimes credited as a Sound Designer, though strictly speaking a designer spends most of his time creating new sound effects with a huge arsenal of outboard gear, or by recording new and interesting effects. My skill was taking standard library sounds or newly recorded effects and using them in unique ways, often creating movie sequences that were technically “designed.” It’s a distinction I never cared about, but the people who assign credits always wanted to know.

The credits I always point to are: the Home Alone series, Gladiator and other films by Ridley Scott, JFK, Jackass, Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, the Bond film Skyfall, The Revenant, and finally the cable series Narcos where I did about 80% of the sound effects.

You recently posted a fairly large selection of digital images on Twitter – really wild stuff that included what I’m guessing are digitally enhanced photos of rock icons like Brian Wilson and Frank Zappa, as well as pop culture mash-ups like Batman drinking beer. And my favorite, Train Ride In Hell – Dedicated to Thomas, Kavanaugh, and the Rest. How did you make these images, and what was the idea behind them?

That’s an online site called Craiyon.com where you can enter any kind of prompt, and their AI interface will draw the pictures for you. It’s fun and addictive, though there’s limitations. I’m thinking of using a Craiyon picture for a future CD cover. As I tried some of my ideas, it became clear that some ideas worked better on the program than others, which is why I started doing musical artists. As you noted, these turned out quite interesting!

Like me, you seem to have a love-hate relationship with SubmitHub. Can you comment on that?

Just to wind back a bit, I had been out of the music networking scene for several years. I got remarried, and though my wife Sharon is 100% supportive of my music, we had to move several times in a few years. Also, my work career had to change because feature film jobs became difficult to find, and cable TV took up most of my creative time. Finally, my recording software went out of date and I wasn’t ready to upgrade.

When I finally reemerged, the entire music scene I had known was gone. All the indie music zines had folded, along with most review websites. The Mail Music Network had morphed into online sharing and Spotify playlists. I wrote emails to as many websites or Playlisters as I could, but my entreaties were totally ignored. Then I discovered SubmitHub, which guarantees at least one listen and a Yes or No, but you’ve got to pay for the privilege. Turns out some of the people I’d already reached out to actually responded on SubmitHub, because there was now money involved.

Anyway, though I found a few sites that did accept my music, for the most part my stuff is too offbeat and “primitive” for Playlisters to bother with. They don’t like my vocals, or it’s not their genre, or it’s not slick or modern enough. These are things that rarely would have mattered in the old home taping network. The better zines would review a tape based on what it tried to be, not what it WASN’T. Also, it’s amazing to me how so many Spotify curators have no frame of reference for my music, even when I point it out. They’ll criticize a Beefheart tribute track like I made it up out of thin air!

So any time I use SubmitHub, I know it’s going to feel like getting my balls kicked in over and over, just to find one or two open-minded sites. As a result I’m trying to use them less often, but I’m sure I’ll be back under the whip soon.

You also write indie music album reviews for Divide and Conquer. Does writing reviews of other people’s music give you a sense of perspective on reviews of—or just reactions to—your own music?

Absolutely. Part of the reason I wanted to review for Divide was because in the old cassette days, it really helped that I was a writer for Option Magazine, which was the most slick publication for indie musicians in the ‘80s. I would often get to know the people I reviewed, or artists would contact me based on my name. I thought a similar thing might happen by reviewing on a blog, and I was right: between Divide and Twitter, I’ve pretty much rebuilt a music network for myself that is almost as rewarding as the old one. Sadly, though, without getting zines or physical media in the mail, it will never be quite the same.

But to answer your question: yes, I am always hyper aware while reviewing new music that it could be ME I’m listening to, and if I have a problem with a track, I try to put myself in that artist’s shoes to see where they’re coming from. If I note that the EQ is off or there’s too much reverb, I know damned well that similar things can and will be said about me, and I try to remember that when it’s my turn on the chopping block.

I’m also curious about your book, Elmwood. I understand that it’s based on true events from your childhood: forming a rock band without instruments and setting out to create the greatest school newspaper ever (among other things). What inspired you to look back on your early years and write it all down? Was there something bittersweet about doing so?

My friendship with the guy I call Elmwood was the greatest time of my life. I don’t know how I would have turned out if I hadn’t met him when I did. We were very different people from each other but total misfits around our peers, so we locked into each other’s worlds with a shared love of music and the desire to be Rock Stars. Not sure how it is now, but when I was growing up, pretending you had a rock group was something that could get you beat up or at least humiliated. We had to keep it a secret, and that bonded us even more. I can’t believe it’s that way for kids nowadays, with all the affordable starter kits you can get from Guitar Center. Wish they had those then! My generation had to shop with the “grownups.”

Because that time with my best friend was so important, I was constantly documenting our adventures on paper, along with countless tapes and a good memory. As a result, the earliest versions of “Elmwood” were started just a couple years after the events happened, and then revised over time. I’m so glad I did that because I would have lost so many of those memories by now. The memories themselves are bittersweet, but finally finishing the book was only a good thing. I was hoping someone would buy it for a feature, but… oh, well!

And, of course, there’s your music. Your latest single, “Comma Visit Hollywood” offers a quirky take on tourist culture, and one of your previous releases, “Like an Almond Joy,” is funky paean to the candy bar and the consequences of over-indulging. Lyrically, I feel like you’re balancing humor with a little bit of cultural criticism, or maybe vice-versa. Is that a fair assessment? What’s your approach to writing lyrics?

Most of my lyrics turn out somewhat humorous. I’d like to be more like Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan but you can’t hide who you are! It’s always been hard for me to keep a straight face in my everyday life. I don’t start out saying: “Here’s a funny song!” But often the topic just lends itself.

The Hollywood single follows a tradition of “Hollywood Songs” that my friend John and I have done for years, because there’s so much you can say. Hollywood is a great place and it’s a horrible place. Good weather, and horrifically hot weather. Movie Stars, and lame reality stars. So I guess my approach is to let the topic take me wherever it wants to go.

Generally I get a song idea or a title, then grab a guitar and just start playing and singing whatever comes out. Later I edit both the music and the lyrics, though I admit that the lyrics get the least amount of changes. I always try, but then I start missing what I began with and often go back. Or, I’ll have a guitar track and then “graft” some lyrics on top of it. “South Bay Wine Bar” from my last CD is an example of that. It was originally called “South Bay Brothel,” but I was no longer interested in that idea and did a complete rewrite. That’s rare, but I’m starting to do that more often.

I’m hearing echoes of Frank Zappa in your lyrics as well as your music. What draws you to his music?

My first exposure to Frank was “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It” and you can imagine the effect that song had on a twelve-year-old! It was nasty, of course, but also had this wild balance of classical complexity and unbridled madness, like a bunch of friends just making it up as they went along.

But my first full Mothers album was “We’re Only In It For The Money” which was a total life-changer for me. I don’t mean to say that Frank “taught” me to do music like this, but hearing that kind of stuff coming off a real vinyl record – crazy songs, phone calls, voice snippets, experimental sounds, razor-tight editing – only confirmed that the music I wanted to do really COULD be done. It took me much longer to appreciate what Frank was doing musically because I was so blown away by his presentation and audacity. Of course, Frank led me to Captain Beefheart, who is probably my favorite artist of all time, but you can probably hear more of Frank in my music because we were already in sync when I discovered him. With Beefheart I really have to make an effort to “pay tribute” to his sound.

I’m also hearing a bit of Brian Wilson in your voice—latter-day mature-voiced Brian, if I can put it that way. Plus the album art for your Project 5 album is reminiscent of Pet Sounds. So I’m guessing there’s a little bit of an influence there. Are you a fan?

Yes, I love Brian, always have. I hate to age myself but I grew up when the Beatles and Beach Boys were new! In fact the studio where Brian cut “Surfin’” is literally two blocks from my house right now. I was a little young to buy or understand Pet Sounds when it came out, but by the time of the Surf’s Up album I started to see what Brian was doing and have been following him ever since. I think I literally cried when I first played the Brian version of SMiLE after waiting so many years. My friend Greg designed the Project 5 cover. All I wanted was the Pet Sounds font, but Greg decided to go all the way and I was totally thrilled with the result.

And you have a double-CD coming out soon—Heatstroke Alley. It’s definitely an evocative title! Is it a concept album? When will it be available?

Not really a concept album, except that I’ve started to prefer double albums because I can stretch out thematically. I can include spare instrumental interludes or jam fragments that might unbalance a single disc. They also take longer to finish making, and I was getting so prolific that I wanted to give both my wife and my cover designer a little break. Of course that’s a lot of music to ask my few fans to absorb, but I have always loved epics (Uncle Meat, Trout Mask Replica, Mellon Collie, Double Nickels on the Dime) and even if it takes more time to listen, I’m hoping the effort is worth it.

Heatstroke was supposed to be ready around now, and it’s getting closer, but now that the summer heat has settled in, my pace will be slowing. It could be a couple or three months from now. But besides the first two singles already released, there will be two more. Even hoping for a surprise guest who many Twitter people will know!

Intriguing! Anything else on the horizon?

I always have at least three albums planned in advance, but the main one after Heatstroke will be called Machine. It’s another double and will be totally based on drum machines, beat samples, and a few specially recorded drum tracks (by Rob Steadman of Kritters). Musically a lot of it will be built on improvisation. This is because there’s probably another move in my near future, so If I record a big hunk of raw material first, I can spend any spare time I have editing what I’ve got without worrying about my entire studio being up and running.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!

Thanks for asking!

Life Is Funny: All About Frankie Lumlit

Life is funny. I had my friend Tim Simmons over to my house to play some music a while back, and he made an offhand comment: “Dude, you have the jankiest drumkit!”

To be fair, he was right. I bought my drumkit a year ago from a guy on the edge of town. The morning I picked it up, he was sharpening knives in his basement and eagerly awaiting a shipment of AK-47 rounds. I know this because he told me so.

He also threw a bunch of additional drums I didn’t need into the deal, telling me that he had to make room in the basement. For what, I wasn’t sure, but I also didn’t want to ask, as I didn’t really want to know how many AK-47 rounds he was waiting on. Mainly, I just wanted to leave before the ammunition arrived.

All of this is to say that it’s a previously-owned drumkit. Or, to put it another way, a recycled drumkit. Which means I’ve also had to make a few adaptations to make it sound the way I want it to sound: mixing and matching the various drums that my knife-sharpening friend foisted upon me, employing a vast array of odds and ends (including but not limited to duct tape, tea towels, a circle of plastic sheeting I cut from a shelf liner, and a polishing cloth that came with a pair of glasses) to get the heads to sound just right, and a length of chain on my crash cymbal to give it some “sizzle.”

Also worth noting, the kit is wedged into a tight corner in a tiny room in my basement. To get situated behind the drums, I need to squeeze between the ride cymbal and a worktable while trying not to knock over a stack of milk crates loaded with old recording gear.

So, yeah, Tim was right. My drumkit is definitely janky.

But here’s the thing: Tim loves the way it sounds, so he wasn’t criticizing my kit so much as marveling at how I’ve managed to jerry-rig it.

In any case, we played music for a bit, laying down some tracks for the follow-up to the first Simmons and Schuster album, and I pretty much forgot about Tim’s comment—until a few days later when I sat down to play my drums.

It really is a janky drumkit, I thought. Maybe there’s a story there.

Stories about music were on my mind (again) because of Tim. He had written a children’s book called Serafine Learns to Sing a few years earlier and was now teaching a course on writing stories for young readers. I’d also done a little bit of writing in the past myself, so I had a basic understanding of things like plot, character, and setting. So why not?

Concept sketch for cover.

My original thought was to write a story called The Jankiest Drumkit. It would be told from the drumkit’s perspective and be about how the world’s jankiest drumkit was always being passed over until someone special discovered it and realized that it sounded amazing. The problem, though, was that I wasn’t sure how to tell the story from the perspective of an inanimate object. Also, if the drumkit were sentient, would there be ethical issues in terms of beating it with sticks?

So, no, the story wouldn’t be told from the drumkit’s perspective. Instead, I decided it would be about a child with a janky drumkit. And the child’s name would have to rhyme with “janky drumkit.” I’m not sure why. Maybe a hint of Dr. Seuss.

Curiously, it took me a while to come up with the name Frankie Lumlit. The Frankie part came pretty quickly. But the last name was the real mystery to me. I remember lying awake at night cycling through names: Gumbit? Humrit? Bumpit? Dumbwit? The list went on and on.

Once I settled on a name, I had an inkling that Frankie’s story shouldn’t be too close to my own. Something about buying a drumkit from a creepy survivalist sharpening knives in his basement while waiting for a shipment of AK-47 ammunition struck me as not quite right for a children’s book.

Also, if Frankie was supposed to be a child, how would he drive out to the edge of town to get the drumkit? It just didn’t make sense. That’s when I hit on the idea that Frankie might build his own drumkit. From there, it all came together very quickly—the story, anyway:

Frankie Lumlit leads a quiet life until he hears a song that changes everything for him (an experience that I imagine a lot of us have had). He’s so taken by the music that he wants to be a musician, too, but he can’t afford an instrument, so he builds a drumkit out of odds and ends he finds in the recycling bin (an echo of my own “recycled” drums). He’s proud of his drumkit until a friend of his laughs at it (shades of Tim Simmons!), but eventually his drumkit takes center stage at a big rock concert.

Once the story was written, I had to figure out how to illustrate it. I’d done some drawing and digital art in the past, so I knew I could start with some basic sketches on paper and then play with them in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. But I also wanted to make sure I came at it from the right angle, so I sketched out a bunch of possibilities for Frankie: a timid-looking kid with chubby cheeks, a round-headed Muppet, a pointy-eared gnome.

Early sketches.

Eventually I decided that I was overcomplicating things and decided to do a quick sketch without thinking too much about it. Whatever I drew, that would be Frankie, and the other characters would follow from there.

As for the rest of it, I spent the next few weeks taking pictures and figuring out how to turn them into illustrations. A lot of tracing was involved. And a lot of superimposing of images on top of each other.

I should note that I owe a debt to my friend and colleague Wayne Brew for the image of the theater where the story reaches its climax; with his blessing, I traced a photo of an abandoned movie theater that he had posted on Instagram. I also put myself into that illustration as the “man with a clipboard.”

Altogether, it took me about a month to illustrate the book. When I was finished, I queried a few agents but never heard back, which is fine. I’d had a lot of luck with publishing my book about the Beach Boys’ Holland album directly through Amazon, so I figured I’d try the same thing with this one.

I suppose at this point I should mention the title of the book: Frankie Lumlit’s Janky Drumkit. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s what people in the industry call an “early reader,” which is to say that it’s written with an audience of six-to-eight-year-olds in mind.

My goal, as you might guess, was to write a book about creativity—something that can get a child’s imagination going, particularly with respect to music. For some reason, I imagine aunts and uncles who are into music buying it for their nieces and nephews who live in quiet homes like Frankie does at the beginning of the story. With any luck, it will open up a world of possibilities and encourage the kind of do-it-yourself ethos that inspires so many of the musicians and artists that I’ve grown to admire over the years.

If you’re curious, I’d love for you to give it a read:

Available on AMAZON USA

Available on AMAZON UK

Dutch for Forest: An Interview with Cosmic Bos

Wading into the world of Cosmic Bos is not for the faint of heart, but I highly recommend it nonetheless. Over the past five years, the band has released twenty albums of improvised music along with videos and a podcast documenting their process. The self-contained unit does everything in-house—including music, video production, and marketing—so as to maintain full creative control over their art. I dropped them a line recently to see what makes Cosmic Bos tick and to learn a little more about their latest endeavor, Improv Squared, which allows other musicians to join in the fun. 

Let’s start with your name. “Cosmic” I get, but can you explain “Bos”?

Bos is Dutch for forest, also in English it’s a very lazy way to write boss. We had wanted our name to reflect the spiritual journey of music creation, to evoke the musical nature within us all, to give us all control over our creative destinies, to become our own Boss, to channel the Cosmic Forest, so yeah, Bos is Dutch for forest.

Cosmic Bos consists of Nick Jackson, Andy Jackson, and Joe Philogene. What does each of you bring to the project, and how did you start making music together? 

Andy and Nick are brothers and have been making music together for a very long time, Joe has been working with the pair for several years, appearing on the Cosmic Bos Improv Music podcast since the first season back in 2019. Andy and Nick are both seasoned singer/songwriters with a rich history of improvisation and worked together on previous projects including Products of Monkey Love Podcast (the original improv music podcast from 15 years ago), Vocalizer, Donny Stax & and Meta-Cassette. 

Joe became a full member of Cosmic Bos back at the start of 2021, with four full improvisation sessions making up the backbone of the third season of Cosmic Bos Improv Music Podcast. Joe brings a worldly vibe and rich musical knowledge and history to the project, with his traditional African instruments and his wise soul. 

Andy and Nick are multi-instrumentalists, and both do all the parts of the project, playing the music, mixing the music, releasing the music, shooting the music videos, editing the music videos and releasing the music videos.

What drew you to improv music in particular?

Andy – “the rush you get when you make something up on the spot and it lands is like drugs, and when you can do that with other people it’s an almost transcendent experience, like all taking drugs together. The music side of it was born out of my love for improv comedy, and not quite understanding why improv musical comedy followed such rigid rules for improvisation on the music side of the equation, all geared up for the comedy but little to no freedom in the music.”

Both Andy and Nick grew up with Whose Line is it Anyway? Which certainly helped with a love of improv. 

I’m curious about the extent of your improvisation. A track like “Space Babies,” for example, sounds very polished to me. Is it all just off the top of your heads, as it were? Lyrics, chords, and melody? Do you have any material or framework in place before you start recording? More broadly, how does your process work? 

Well, in the case of “Space Babies” that was indeed a prewritten set of lyrics. Andy has a big Book of Songs (Big B.o.S) full of poems/lyrics which often help inform the music creating process. The music in our sessions is always completely improvised, but if you hear well polished rhymes then the lyric is most likely prewritten, with the melody being improvised over the improv music. Our process is one of removal rather than overdubbing, so if something doesn’t sound quite right then we will just remove it.

On our record “Sunrise Reflections,” you can hear the original improvised version of Space Babies, this is also the version we made the first Space Babies video to, where Baby Theo is literally floating about in space. We were really pleased with how the song had come out of the improv, so we rerecorded it, so we could tighten up its structure, make it a tiny bit faster and put on a ridiculous intro. Then we made another video, this time allowing Baby Theo to build a rocket to take into space. So the extend of the improv is loose, but having a set of lyrics in front of you doesn’t dictate melodies, so sometimes you have to drop words or add in ones to make the lyrics fit the music. We have done it so much by this point that it feels like a game, one with surprising outcomes each time.

Your podcast offers an incredibly detailed look at how you make music. I’m reminded of the old saying about not wanting to know how the sausage is made. Cosmic Bos turns that notion on its head, taking listeners behind the scenes and, in effect, provides a glimpse into the sausage-making. What’s the idea there? 

Because we’ve made so many albums over the years, and have learnt all the in’s and out’s associated with the process, it only seemed right to lay it all out in the open. Back in 2019 we made a documentary about our process, and in the interim years our process has changed considerably. We also wanted to take a bit of a break from releasing improv music every month, and go back to our roots. Cosmic Bos put out our debut album back in 2017 and since then we realised we haven’t actually made an album in the traditional way for five years. It feels right to us to show our process, in the hope that it inspires others to have a go, making music is the most fun thing we know how to do and sharing that with people is the next most fun thing to do.

Humor is also a major element of what you do, but I wouldn’t describe your songs as “jokey.” Why is humor important to you, and how do you balance it with the more “serious” side of making music, for lack of a better term?

Because improvisation is usually associated with comedy it seemed only natural to include some of it in our work. For both Nick and Andy it’s fair to say they are heavily influenced by The Beatles, and in particular the fun loving approach to music that they had. You would never call The Beatles a comedy band, but songs like “Yellow Submarine,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” and “Piggies” to name a few, are clearly meant to invoke humour, while also not being laugh out loud funny. It’s a unique place in music and we love to explore it. We also find that having humour in our work allows for the serious songs to hit with more gravitas, for example, our latest single ‘Vaccine’ is a very heavy song comparing humanity to a virus, but it is paired up with ‘Sir, France is ‘cross the Sea, See’ which is a silly quirky song about language and the French. We have to give a big shout out to our comedy musical influences, with Monty Python, Weird Al, Flight of the Conchords, Tenacious D and The Lonely Island all being inspirations. And finally, Nick and Andy are brothers and as such are mandated to try and make each other laugh at all times.

I definitely hear the Flight of the Conchords influence! You also have a pretty strong following. I saw, for example, that your video for “Astral Underwear” had 7,000 views within weeks of its release. Do you have any advice for building a following? 

Just do your craft, that’s the best advice we can give. Andy and Nick have both been releasing music and video content for 20 years, and for 14 years YouTube has hosted that. We are part of the YouTube partnership program meaning we can host ads on our videos and also promote ourselves, which helps with building a following on that platform, but we had to get to over a thousand subscribers and something like 140,000 hours watched before we got to that point. We always try to make content that we want to share with the world, rather then chasing trends, and our following has grown steadily over time, there must be better ways to build bigger audiences, but they most likely would include compromises to artistry, and at the end of the day we consider ourselves artists.

Do what you love doing, and if no one will help you, then just do it all yourself, it has never been easier to make music then it is right now. Building a following is a byproduct of doing what you love, at least, if you want that following to stick around.

And what about Improv Squared? What’s the idea there, and how is the project coming along? 

Improv Squared is our latest distillation of the music making process. For the first two years of our podcast we made improv-revisation with a producer and performer Chris Mace. That process involved a day of improvising music, followed by a month of revising that music. It was long winded, but we managed to get seventeen albums out of it, with a variety of musicians joining us along the way for an episode or two (which is how we first worked with Joe). For the third year of our podcast we made completely improvised albums, four in total, with Chris stepping aside and Joe becoming the third member. We were searching for the space between these two improv techniques, and we think we found it.

Back in October last year (2021) we started work on Improv Squared, with “Astral Underwear” and “Ensemble Story” being the first two songs we made using the process. It was done by improvising for four minutes, and then overdubbing that improv with another improv, and then another. We put out videos to both these songs which shows us literally recording them. We then booked up sessions with Chris Mace and Joe Philogene to craft five more songs (“Vaccine” and “Back is Back” with Chris, “Champignon, Lumiere,” “Badder Decisions,” and “Talking Frog” with Joe), did an improv squared session with our good friend Donny Stax (“Magic Fun Guy”), crafted two songs using lyrics by Dayne Howcroft (“Faded Memories” and “Forever Bruised”) and constructed our French language dance track (“Sir, France is ‘cross the Sea, See”). These eleven tracks make up the first Improv Squared album titled Petite Champignon de Lumiere which is available on Bandcamp and everywhere else 1st April 2022.

We are already constructing the next set of improv squared songs to send out to other artists to build up album two, and if you are a musician and you would like to get involved then drop us an email at cosmicbos@gmail.com  

Anything else on the horizon?

Hopefully more live performances, but other than that, focusing on making our album ‘The O Door’ and podcasting out the whole process, and improv squareding with all the wonderfully creative musicians around the world.  

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! 

It was a pleasure, thanks for asking.

Interview by Marc Schuster.