Miranda Sex Garden played a show in Chicago at the Avalon theater, where they will not, under any circumstances, allow anyone under twenty-one in without a fake I.D. Chicago is notorious in my mind as being the premier city for absolutely no parking spaces, and when you do find one, you return to your car an hour later to find a parking ticket because you parked a half a centimetre too close to the fire hydrant. So, in short, I wasn't able to attend MSG's show, but I think I know how it went... dreamy, like their music. Katherine Blake and the other members of MSG create a wave of ethereal sound, topped with anywhere from one to three of the female vocalists' medieval-style voices. If angels formed a rock band, this would be it. Imagine a cross between Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine mixed with a Vatican choir group. You get the picture.

Katherine's small frame harbours a very chaotic mind, which makes the following 'interview' fairly strange and somewhat hard to follow. We made no pretences about discussing MSG's music, but instead tried to find out what's going on inside of one of the main composers' mind. (Yes, each "song" by MSG should better be termed a "composition". Some of their tunes get quite complex.) Anyway, try to follow along...

$t. &reux: So, I'd rather not talk about the music because you've probably done a lot of interviews about the music...

Katherine Blake: Well, you can't talk about the music, can you? It's not possible. You can talk about the fact that you go into the studios and you can talk about that, but you can't talk about the music. And you can say that somebody writes the chord sequence and then somebody puts the melody to it, but that's not really talking about the music. That's why there's music. Because it's not really something you can talk about.

$&: Well, we can talk about the separate notes... What's your favourite note?

KB: My favourite note? I don't have a favourite note, I mean...

$&: I mean like an E flat or an F sharp...

KB: It doesn't really make that much of a difference to me. I kind of like the key of D. D and E. It seems to be the easiest ones to work on with guitars. It's not my favourite key, but it's the one that I end up writing in.

$&: Well, what is your favourite key, then?

KB: Well, it doesn't really make a difference. It's like asking what's your favourite colour. All of them. I like grass to be green, I like the walls of my house to be blue, whatever... I like wearing white, I want my shoes to be purple...

$&: If you were a colour, what colour would you be?

KB: Green, I think. Because its tranquil and calm.

$&: So, what's you favourite kind of food?

KB: Um, sushi. I like sushi.

$&: Why? Because it's green?

KB: No, it's because of the texture of it... I think it's really sensuous. A very sensuous kind of food.

$&: So we have your favourite colour being tranquil and your favourite food being sensuous. What kind of an image do you have in your mind of what you want your life to be like?

KB: Um, I don't have any one image. I'm multi-faceted. I like different things for different occasions, different lovers for different moods, different colours for different materials.

$&: Are there any addictions you have?

KB: I'm a nicotine addict. I'm addicted to...

$&: Sushi?

KB: ...being an exhibitionist. I'm a performer, that's what I do. I like to show off, I'm compelled to do it...

Talking to Katherine is like talking to a waterfall... It would seem that it's all travelling in one direction, but, in reality, that water is going every which way... which explains why the topic kept drifting. I just simply tried to keep up with it. I think I have a good idea of the "organized chaos" that is so integral to Miranda Sex Garden's music...

KB: I don't really get off on the idea of Martians coming down to the planet to save us. I think that's bullshit. I think that anything and everything can be inside ourselves. I think that we can find all of that stuff internally, inside us if we look for it.

$&: So you're saying there's a Martian in each of us?

KB: Everything exists inside us. There's this whole universe inside us and we can be the masters of that universe if we look inside for it and explore the possibilities. There's a lot more flexibility in that potential then just sending these enormous fucking phalluses into space.

$&: So we're back to the sex references again... Okay... how do you figure phalluses?

KB: Well, I think that the idea of sending a rocket into space is just the biggest joke ever! I mean, just how fucking big does a man's cock need to be?

$&: I don't know. I wouldn't know that. Just how big does a man's cock have to be?!?

KB:[laughter] It will never be big enough, that's the thing!

$&: Is this a set opinion? Or is it just a personal belief of yours?

KB: No, it's just something that women feel...

$&: Now, now, now... let's not get into these blanket statements.

KB: Let's get these really big ones and send them off into space! And then what? I truly think that something's being missed here. Something crucial. Something fundamental when it's a huge achievement for sending this enormous cock off into space...

$&: I never really thought of it that way... I wonder if JFK had this thought when he had his plans for putting a man on the moon... I noticed that you have some set opinions about sexuality...

KB: "Set opinions?" That implies that it's quite boring. A set agenda for sex would lose the point...

$&: Oh, I don't know... I would think that if you wrote down a schedule... [laughter and absurdity] Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

KB: I have absolutely no idea...

$&: Okay, where do you see yourself 10 years ago? You're 24 now, right?

KB: Yeah... 10 years ago I was in a music school, playing the recorder, feeling confused and claustrophobic...

$&: What's your religious affiliation?

KB: No damn religion...

$&: No damn religion at all?

KB: No. My parents were atheist, but I wouldn't describe myself as an atheist either.

$&: So you believe something is out there? You mention about finding things internally...

KB: You just have to believe in your own magic, really. Your own intuition. I think that everyone's full of magic that they don't fulfil because they don't believe in it enough. Being yourself, doing what you want to do, filling your potential, being free. That's ultimately empowering. And if it's empowering then it's magical and glorious.

$&: So there is a kind of mysticism in getting to the bottom of yourself?

KB: Kind of, yeah. There has to be a degree of faith and intuition, to follow your instincts.

$&: How far do you think you can go?

KB: All the way. Your instincts will take you where you want to go... to where you want to be. To follow your instincts is to let them help you and guide you. It's the reason for their existence.

$&: Hmm! I understand that completely! And, to follow that up, if you were a cheese, what kind would you be?

KB: A cheese?!?! Probably a goat cheese, but... a cheese?! I don't want to be a cheese! I just want to eat them!

$&: But why wouldn't you want to be a cheese? Maybe that's part of your potential that you haven't discovered yet by looking deep enough into you. Maybe we're all cheese, deep underneath...

KB: [laughter] I'm sorry, I just find that point too ridiculous to answer... [more laughter]

$&: Is there anything that you hate?

KB: I don't really hate things... things frustrate me. Hate implies some kind of long drawn out process. This obsession...

$&: The same thing could be said of love. In the converse, you don't truly love anything either?

KB: Yeah, I love things, I just tend to concentrate on the positive. Love can expand.

$&: So one kind of obsession is better than another...

KB: The obsessions that make you feel good, yeah.

$&: But, that's kind of selfish, isn't it?

KB: No, it's just very practical. You do things that make you feel good, y'know. I just think that nothing that feels bad can do you any long term good.

$&: So how can you tell the difference?

KB: Well, you just follow your instincts. That's what makes you feel good. When you over-analyze things, you sometimes miss the point.

$&: Like this entire conversation, right?

KB: Possibly, yeah. But that's my job. [laughter] I enjoy talking...

$&: So what moves you?

KB: Bach, the composer. It's one of the things that always moves me... LSD...

$&: The composer?

KB: No, the drug. [laughter] Good sex. When it's for the pure enjoyment of it, and not for some emotional bartering device.

$&: What do you dream about?

KB: I can't describe it in words, that's why I try to write music about it.

$&: Now we're back to the inadequacy of words for music. Well, if music describes dreams, but words can not describe music, nor can words describe dreams...

KB: Well, they can describe a linear structure in a dream, but that's why music can describe it better.

$&: But music is very linear, it's structured...

KB: Not in the same way a story is. When you think of a story, the importance is the order of the events. Where music is more of a feeling rather than an order of events.

$&: What do dreams describe then?

KB: Dreams describe the subconscious.

$&: And what does your subconscious describe.

KB: The part of you that is unfiltered, the part of you that is inside you. I think dreams are always surreal. They have completely obscure reference points. That's what makes them surreal, I suppose.

$&: So would dreams be more of a part of the music or the subconscious.

KB: The music is as close as I can get to my subconscious.

$&: So that's the goal is to try to make the music closer and closer to your subconscious?

KB: Yeah...

$&: Which explains the dream-like quality to your music...

KB: [thoughtful silence] ...

$&: Which is what I was trying to get to in this whole conversation, which is why cheese is related to your music which is related aliens which is related to green which is related to Miranda Sex Garden which is related to phallic rockets which is related to your dreams, right?

KB: [laughter] Well, I don't think cheese is something that I would be moved enough to write about.

$&: Maybe you should try it! It could be your big hit!

KB: I don't want to write about cheese... [laughter]

$&: Is there any message that you're trying to get across to your listeners?

KB: I don't have any particular message.

$&: Not even "Eat Corn Flakes"?

KB: I don't have a manifesto that I want to express apart from feel good, have a good time, have good sex... celebrate existence. Just because you're alive. Just because the sun comes up each day, that's a reason to celebrate.