Who are you (individually and collectively)? What does each member bring to the group? (musical and familial/friend group role plz)

Well, my name’s Allen Roizman… and i’m the guy behind all the buttons. Technically, I’m the only member of the band… but fortunately we live in a modern world… so I’d kind of consider the band being 15-17 copies or clones of myself playing simultaneously with the help of a delay/loop pedal. So sometimes I’m in charge of, I dunno, playing some guitar parts, while a loop I recorded earlier of some noise coming from a phaser pedal or an organ i found in the trash plays.

What are you? Define the essence or spirit of SN!TA.

If you don’t mind the grandeur, I wouldn’t mind being considered a harbringer of the apocalypse… at some point in grade school I read some kind of entry in an encyclopedia that said the world will end in 1996… since then I always thought it was around the corner.

Where are you from? How did that shape/inspire/injure you? What’s the best thing about there? Where are you aimed next?

I was born in Flushing, Queens to Soviet Immigrants. At some point early in my life, my parents moved to Plainview, you’re run-of-the-mill nyc suburb… the people have enough money to not care what they do with it… so I grew up around a lot of arrogant, spoiled, brats… There’s a kind of arrogance that only exsists here. Everyone knows everything here, and everything YOU know is wrong. I made few friends…

There are no cultural centers… just a lot of people buying stuff… and completely satisfied with that. Basically i ended up in the perfect backdrop to just fall into my own head.

Despite all that… there are some nice beaches around here.

How did you first meet? What were yr first impressions of each other? The moment you knew you were *destined* to be in a band together?

My Grandmother had a mirrored cabinet in her living room. Sometimes at dinner I’d look into the mirror until my face looked like it melted. I guess in retrospect, that’s probably the first time I met the me that I’d start a band with.

What makes you more special and unique than all the other legions of bands queuing to be friendly on MySpace?

I don’t think most bands induce out of body experiences.

Who are yr main ‘influences’? (Or, who have you come together to DESTROY?) Which other new bands would you recommend (if any)?

As far as influences go… Godspeed You Black Emperor! came to me at a very immpressionable age… My favorite song is ‘Ceremony’ by New Order… (the 7″ version), Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is one of my favorite albums.

As far as other NEW bands… the one artist that I’ve been DYING to play a show with is Philadelphia’s Tickley Feather - her split 7″ with Serpents of wisdom (available on badmaster records) is AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING. She recently played shows with Panda Bear, and Animal Collective… so her future’s looking bright… but seriously… buy her 7″ and you’ll fall in love too.

[Additionally, here’s a link to Allen’s comrades in the Ghost Hunters Co-Operative]

What d’you think of the current music scene? How will you fit in (or not)?

I’ve been seeing a lot of change in the music scene lately. The old scene is dying. nobody in NYC wants to see NYC bands. Nobody in Long Island wants to see Long Island bands. They all want to see touring bands. You can’t get a show in the city unless your from, I dunno, Kansas.

Everyone’s signed nowaday, and nowadays there’s definately a backlash building up towards the corporate model of a music industry. Anyhow lots more kids (myself included) are having shows at their houses… exposing more youth to strange intruging sounds that just don’t sell… and so long as their are people who are ambitious enough to be driven by intent and not $$$, then there’ll continually be new eras, new forms of music… and I’m glad I’m a part of that spirit.

What are yr songs mostly, y’know, ‘about’? What’s the song (so far) (um, on yr MySpace page) that says the most about you and why?

This is where it gets tricky. Sometimes I try telling stories… just using abstract sounds… last year I put out a super-limited 90 minute cassette which followed two teenagers’ journey into a barren, war-torn landscape, which eventually ends in the complete annihilation of the planet. I’m a bit obsessive.

I feel like Psychic Teens [the next project] says a lot: I ended up living in my head for most of my life, so I’m so concious of all my thoughts at all time. Psychic Teens is just like that… at first it just sounds like a mess… which my head usually is… but then one sound starts taking prevalence and it decays away as another one replaces it. It’s a fight for control of your ears, for control of your brains. As each sound decays it gets higher pitched and more violent and piercing and once it seems like you can’t take it anymore it all just balances out. There is peace at the end of it.

What is: a) Yr three-point manifesto, b) Yr immediate plan-of-action? c) Yr long-term goal?

a) Part 1- No degree? No Problem. Part 2- one guy with a lot of pedals beats a lot of guys with a lot of makeup anyday. Part 3- make up isn’t really that bad. b) Finish the Psychic Teens LP already. c) Put on Guerilla shows in beach tunnels using generators. yeah!

Best gig/tour/rehearsal anecdote goes here:

So last winter, NYC’s favorite underground venue, Cake Shop, put on a 25 band tribute to Weird Science’s Kelly LeBrock, for which I volunteered to do a set.

So I went on, I played, I hung around a lil while, and then it came time to leave. I wanted to make sure I said goodbye to Andy, the guy who booked the show, and made sure I showed him I appreciated him having me there… So I went into the soundbooth to talk to him and give him a CD. He was busy spinning records, I was facing his back and rather than just wait to get his attention I wrote a quick note on the inside of the sleeve and asked the sound guy to give it to him for me.

As soon as I handed it to the soundguy he pulled the back of Andy’s pants open (boxers included) and shoved the cd straight down his ass. As quickly as the soundguy shoved it into his ass, Andy pulled it out and SLAMMED it into my chest, knocking me out of the soundbooth.

Never rely on a soundguy to make a good impression for you.

Posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007by kicking_k