A Legend in the Making: Drummer Frankie Rose of Crystal Stilts

Frankie  Rose is blazing a trail and leaving no prisoners. Every band she plays in turns to gold. She is the original drummer and part time bassist/vocalist of the wildly popular Vivian Girls. In addition to playing drums in her current band Crystal Stilts, Frankie has a single of her own coming out on Slumberland records in the Fall.  I met Frankie around 2004 when she was living on the West Coast and touring with her band at the time Shitstorm. Watching her play then in my living room at The Woodser in Brooklyn was inspirational. Watching her play drums now is jaw dropping. Her drum beats are graceful, poised, innovative, hard-hitting and hard to forget.  I caught up with Frankie in Williamsburg Brooklyn right before she took off for a 40 day European tour with Crystal Stilts.

Exclusive Tom Tom Magazine photo by Jennifer Leigh Aschoff

Full name: Frankie M Rose
Nickname/pseudonym: Frankie
Age: Thirty-something
Hometown: San Francisco
Location: New York City
Bands you are drumming in currently: Crystal Stilts
Bands you were drumming for in the past: Vivian Girls, Shitstorm (now Grass Widow)
What you do for a living: Bartendress
Something outstanding about you: I  know what I like, and I know what I don’t like.

Exclusive Tom Tom Magazine photo by Jennifer Leigh Aschoff

“I just sat down behind the kit and it was decided that I would be the drummer.” – Frankie Rose

Tom Tom Magazine: When did you start playing the drums?

Frankie Rose: About 5 years ago now, maybe.

Tom Tom Magazine: Why did you start playing the drums?

Frankie Rose: Well, in my first band no one except the guitar player really knew how to play anything so I just sat down behind the kit and it was decided that I would be the drummer. Still don’t really know how to play actually.

Tom Tom Magazine: How long did it take til you felt like a “real” and legit drummer?

Frankie Rose: That’s funny, as far as I know I still am not.

Crystal Stilts

Tom Tom Magazine: What is your favorite set-up for your kit? Why?

Frankie Rose: I always prefer a simple kit really, just a kick, a snare, a floor tom, one cymbal, and a high hat.

Tom Tom Magazine: What would your dream kit consist of?

Frankie Rose: Maybe a 64 Slingerland or something.

Tom Tom Magazine: Do you remember how we met (me and you!)?

Frankie Rose: It’s a little fuzzy but i think it was when i first moved to New York and you were putting on a show at your house…But maybe just maybe Shitstorm and Taigaa played together at The Woodser.

Tom Tom Magazine: What was it like drumming for that band (Shitstorm)?

Frankie Rose: It was a beautiful thing… we mostly just laughed a lot. Those people continue to be like my family. I love them.

“…a drummer however is a key player, the drummer brings the party, so to speak.” – Frankie Rose

Crystal Stilts

TTM: What style drumming would you say you play?

FR: Absolutely my own weird style.

TTM: Are you self taught?

FR: Indeed. Very.

TTM: What do you do to get better at the drums / Best way to get chops?

FR: Man. I almost never practice playing drums. Thats the truth. I may never get better.

TTM: What is your favorite drum warm up / what do you do to warm up before playing?

FR: I don’t!

TTM: Have you experienced any setbacks as a female drummer?

FR: Not so much.

“I love the physicality of it.” – Frankie Rose

Exclusive Tom Tom Magazine photo by Jennifer Leigh Aschoff

TTM: What do you consider to be the most challenging thing about the drums?

FR: Having stamina.

TTM: What’s your favorite part about playing drums?

FR: I love the physicality of it.

TTM: What do you think the role of the drummer is in a band?

FR: This is a strange question for me because I suppose I don’t really identify as being only a drummer anymore. I often found it difficult to be a drummer in bands where I wrote songs or had a big part in the songwriting process. It can be tricky to hand over something you have written for someone else to play on the guitar…a drummer however is a key player, the drummer brings the party, so to speak.

“I  know what I like, and I know what I don’t like.” – Frankie Rose

TTM: What is your songwriting process?

FR: I write all my songs on a little electric guitar with a practice amp or an acoustic. as of late there is an organ in my house so I have been playing that a bunch… I’ll usually record a rough version, then I’ll re-record after everything is worked out.

Frankie

TTM: Do you play any other instruments? If so, how does that effect your drumming?

FR: I think drumming has made me a much better songwriter. I think you get a sense of timing for things you wouldn’t necessarily get otherwise.

TTM: What’s your favorite part about playing drums?

FR: Its good exercise.

TTM: Who are your favorite drummers?

FR: Paloma from The Raincoats, Jaki Liebezei, and Mo Tucker

TTM: Where do you shop for your drum gear?

FR: I almost never do! But I buy drumsticks at Main Drag most of the time.

TTM: Crystal Stilts has gotten a lot of attention lately…why do you think that is, and how does that feel?

FR: Its really nice to put work into something and have other people appreciate it. What more could you ask for?

TTM: What is the most stressful thing you have overcome at a show and how did you do it?

FR: Oh man…maybe being direct support for TV on the Radio in front of 2000 people. at the time , that was the biggest crowd I had ever played to.

“…drumming has made me a much better songwriter. I think you get a sense of timing for things you wouldn’t necessarily get otherwise.” – Frankie Rose

TTM: Best piece of advice you ever got as a drummer?

FR: Someone once said to me ” why don’t you try hitting the snare and the crash at the same time?” I found that helpful.

Crystal Stilts

TTM: Who are some of your favorite lady drummers right now?

FR: My  favorite  drummer of the moment is  from a band called Grand Ole Party from San Diego. She sings lead vocals and plays the drums. Brilliant.

TTM: Who are some of your favorite bands right now?

FR: Harlem, Dum Dum Girls, Reading Rainbow, Glass Widow, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps

Exclusive Tom Tom Magazine photo by Jennifer Leigh Aschoff

Exclusive Tom Tom Magazine photo by Jennifer Leigh Aschoff

Frankie Rose has a single coming out on Slumberland records at the end of summer/early fall and is working on a full length record. Frankie has most recently decided to join Dum Dum girls full time and will be touring with them in October.

Interview by:

Tom Tom Magazine Creator Mindy Abovitz

Fourth of July Woodsist / Captured Tracks Festival

Its Fourth of July weekend and Brooklyn’s alive with the sound of female drumming! There’s so much fun stuff happening in the next couple of days but none might be as fun as the Woodsist/Captured Tracks festival.

It’s all happening Friday and Saturday July 3rd and 4th at the Market Hotel and at the backyard of 979 Broadway both right next to each other in Bushwick. This event was conceived and curated by Jeremy Earl of Woodsist and Mike Sniper of Captured Tracks. These hometown veterans have put together a really great duo of shows, and it isn’t just because they were smart enough to have the festival headline with awesome female drummers. Highlights from each of the days include some of the foxiest drum chops around. Day one features one of our personal favorites Crystal Stilts’ Frankie Rose

who will soon wow us with a solo side project where she sings and plays guitar. Day two features Ali Koehler of Vivian Girls, who recently finished their second album Everything Goes Wrong (out September 8th on In the Red) and returned from a European tour. They’re going on tour again starting in August.  Think back to the last time you could say you saw the Vivian Girls in a Brooklyn backyard, so catch them while you can. Check out their new video for “Moped Girls”

I’m also especially excited about seeing Brilliant Colors.

They’re three girls out of the San Francisco scene (along with Grass Widow) with Diane on drums, Jess on guitar and vox and Michelle on bass. The song “I’m 16” is a perfect evocation of being exactly that, with a sigh and a snicker just as much as a snarl.

Last in celebration of Independence Day I want to post an “Old School Throwback” and ask if we agree that The Runaways are one of the most all-American bands of the ages?

The “Famous Five” version of the Runaways with Cherrie Currie’s equally infamous corset: Sandy West, Jackie Fox, Cherrie Currie, Lita Ford, Joan Jett. Listening to Sandy West’s drumming on Cherry Bomb makes me instantly want to spray some Sun-In in my hair, head over to a BBQ with shorts on, beer cozy in tow and throw some patties on the grill. The Japanese loved them and its the perfect song to celebrate the inauguration of a wet hot American summer.

By the time you read this I will be parked next to the stage at Market Hotel and 979 Broadway, but here’s to you lady drummers and a happy fourth of July to all! Cathy.

Tom Tom Video Review: Crystal Stilts – “Prismatic Room,” “Love is a Wave”

Crystal Stilts – “Prismatic Room” (2008), “Love is a Wave” (2009), both directed by Army of Kids

Shot on Super 8 the sun-splashed Crystal Stilts video for “Prismatic Rooms” from their debut Alight of Night (Slumberland 2008) feels like a rare peek into some stumbled upon vacation footage of a family of the coolest friends and misfits we’ve all yearned to belong to. There are glimpses of travels from the trails and sea sides of California and Oregon to a cozy kitchen in New York City and a living room full of playful, drunken masquerading. We’ve all been there, and if we haven’t, this video does a very good job of making us wish we had, with Alight of Night spinning on the record player in the background of course.

The Stilts in their new single “Love is a Wave” (Slumberland 2009, Angular Recording Co. in Europe) remain a master of mining their influences and weaving them into highly catchy, jangly songs, and the return of Army of Kids to direct the video for “Love is a Wave” is a perfect choice. They continue the breezy, summery feel of “Prismatic Room” but this time through juxtaposing stills and film snippets inter-spliced with stock footage of everything from eerie bicyclers to chimps on a date at the beach and a carnivalesque sequence of windmills and fireworks in black and white, creating a spiraling psychedelic montage that matches well the song’s more upbeat tempo. Though one misses the charming, shambling presence of the Stilts themselves, the borrowed images, much like the grainy texture that 8mm evokes, perhaps tap more fully the nostalgic feel of and for the eras they love. It all makes sense in these collected moments of the tongue-in-cheek and childhood ephemera as they balance the Stilt’s and especially Hargett’s lyrics, which are a horse of a slightly darker, more pensive breed.

The Crystal Stilts clearly have a thoughtful yet blithe musical and overall aesthetic philosophy, citing equally 17th century French mathematician and theologian Blaise Pascal, the Television Personalities, Communication Blur fanzine and Roadrunner cartoons. They couldn’t execute it so well, however, without the gracefully choreographed tambourined beats (often done standing up) of Frankie Rose on the drums, featured in an exclusive interview soon to be appearing in the premiere print edition of  Tom Tom Mag near you. She just might be the ‘heart that has its reasons which reason does not know’ behind Brad Hargett’s smoky haze of a voice, Andy Agner’s trembling bass lines, JB Townsend’s superfuzzed guitars and Kyle Forester’s mellifluous keyboards. Rose’s sunny smile is the counterpoint to Hargett and Townsend’s respective Dylan- and Warhol-esque aloofness in “Prismatic Rooms” just as her drums are the aural counterpunch to the rest of the band’s, filling out and inviting us into the perverse and happy melancholia that seems to be the Stilt’s signature sound. We feel it in a thousand ways, and Army of Kids’ work in both “Prismatic Room” and “Love is a Wave” delivers as if on a drowsily spinning palette wheel those delicate sonic things that the music of Crystal Stilts captures.

Cathy

5.22.09

Frankie of Crystal Stilts Interview Coming Soon!