There is an element of playful but unapologetic self-awareness to
the band Old Time Relijun that makes their explorations of music and
spiritualism more sophisticated, more sincere, and way more punk rock
than those of groups who, say, dress in cult robes or pretend to be
preachers. Indebted equally to the impassioned aesthetics of Albert
Ayler and the Nation of Ulysses, they are a band of, by, and for people
who believe that live music can be a means to transcendence, and boy do
they ever play like it.

Sadly, Portlanders have only one chance in 2009 to witness the
legendary musical maelstrom of the funny, the frightening, and the
frenzied that is Old Time Relijun live. I spoke with frontman Arrington
de Dionyso in the run-up to their hometown show about the band’s plans
for their 15th year and how they will move forward now that bassist
Aaron Hartman has left the Northwest for New York. 

MERCURY: Why is Old Time Relijun playing only three
shows in 2009, and only one in Portland?

ARRINGTON DE DIONYSO: Old Time Relijun was on tour roughly six
months a year from about 2003 until 2008. Working as hard as we were in
this extremely busy period, we all figured we’d be a little bit more
rich and famous by now with this project, and it hasn’t quite come to
pass, so we all figured it might make sense to pull back a bit and wait
until we’re invited to play All Tomorrow’s Parties or something. You
know, that stage where they’ll want us to only play the songs from our
first album from 1996 and have Daniel Johnston come up and do guest
vocals on a song with Joanna Newsom playing tambourine, just for
fun.

 There are plenty of models out there for cross-country
recording collaborations in the age of the internet. Will Old Time
Relijun continue to be a recording band?

The idea of band practice via email is pretty abhorrent to me. Our
music is energy music, it’s spirit music… you can’t fax that shit.
When we mix our albums, we are all crawling around each other in front
of the mixing board breathing on each other and leaving our
fingerprints all over the miles of two-inch tape that it takes to make
an Old Time Relijun album. The album I just finished kind of sounds a
little like an Old Time Relijun album, but I recorded most of the
instruments myself. All the songs are in Indonesian, there are a couple
tunes that started out like Old Time Relijun jams but they mutated in
the studio and now they’ve become something else entirely. I’m not sure
what to call it, but we might do a “cover” of one my Indonesian songs
at the Holocene show. It will be Old Time Relijun doing a cover of an
Arrington de Dionyso song written in tribute to Old Time Relijun.

You mentioned that there is an Old Time Relijun tribute record
coming out. How does it feel to be a band that folks as vaunted as
Mirah, Phil Elverum, and Mike Watt apparently feel is worthy of
tribute?

Well, the tribute idea wasn’t my idea, but it’s nice to be able to
show people who aren’t ready-made “fans” of Old Time Relijun that my
songwriting has a life of its own that still shines through, more or
less, when you hear other people doing the songs. I say “more or less”
because honestly I think it’s really weird to hear other people singing
my songs. It makes me slightly uncomfortable, really, to tell you the
truth. What does “vaunted” mean? Mirah did her very first tour ever
opening for Old Time Relijun on the West Coast, Phil [Elverum] played
drums in our band from 1998-2001 before anybody had ever heard of the
Microphones. We’ve left our special mark on people in all walks of
life—it’s about time they threw down some payback!

Old Time Relijun perform at Holocene on Thursday, May 14.