In Greenpoint, TAGABOW opened the night with five songs from gestures been, a record Doug Dulgarian has not spent much time thinking about for years. Horse Jumper of Love were there celebrating ten years of their self-titled record, but before that anniversary set started, TAGABOW briefly brought their own past back into the room.
The set had only been practiced a few days earlier. Evan Moffitt, who played bass on the record, was back onstage, and for a little while TAGABOW looked less like the band as it exists now and more like a version of it that had been sitting untouched somewhere since 2018. “fake twenty,” “houseplant,” “jadakiss,” “yawner,” “daytime europa stuff.” Songs made when the project occupied a much smaller world, now being played inside Warsaw to people who may not have found TAGABOW until years after this wasreleased.
The night before the show, Doug told me they did not plan on playing the set again. So before any of it happened, the night already felt precious. gestures been came out eight years ago. The people around the record changed, the band changed, the rooms got bigger. Then, for a few days, they had to go back and figure out how those songs lived in their hands again, just to play them once and put them away.
Below is a conversation with Doug about what gestures been actually becomes once you pick it back up and play it after all these years.
You said you practiced these songs only a few days before the show. Did you approach it like relearning old TAGABOW songs, or did having Evan there make it feel more like temporarily stepping back into the band that actually made gestures been?
Good question. I think it was all pretty natural, Evan knew the roots and we could kind of fill out the rest from there. Definitely felt like the same band that recorded it all.
When you only have a few days to relearn something you made eight years ago, how much do you actually try to figure out what you originally did versus just trusting whatever your hands want to do with it now?
A lot of it is kind of approximation. Music is weird man, it’s so specific to so many separate times. Life is like that. I could never be the same person I was in 2017 again. So in that way it’s like we’re just playing these old songs as modern versions of ourselves. In that way it’s an even totally different thing.
When you set out to play this set, were you trying to make the set sound like gestures been in 2018, or was it inevitably gestures been filtered through everything TAGABOW has become since then?
Very much the latter. I don’t think we really have a choice on that.
Of the five songs you brought back, was there one that surprised you by feeling much better or more natural to play now than you expected it to?
yeah yawner felt very very natural to play. It was utilizing a lot of mechanics I would continue to use for years. Funny to think these simple songs were the framework for the rest of my music making life but they definitely were.
When you relearned “fake twenty,” were there any choices in the writing or arrangement that immediately felt like early versions of things TAGABOW still does now, or did it mostly feel like a language you’d stopped using?
I keep answering your questions one before- a sure sign that you’re a great interviewer. But yes, definitely framework.
“houseplant” starts with these really specific physical details about another person, then moves into the plant in the bathtub and window, and by the end you’re calling yourself the houseplant and looking at the sun as something temporary. Coming back to the song all these years later, do you still remember the actual people, places, and circumstances those details came from, or have parts of it become detached from whatever originally happened?
Yes definitely. There was a house venue that kept a large houseplant in the bathtub all the time. And I was at this show just feeling really weird and alien to everybody else. That’s kind of the gist of it.
With “yawner,” do you still remember what “put on your jazz voice” was referring to? It feels so much like something somebody actually said or did that I’ve always wondered whether there’s a specific person or moment buried in that line.
Not at all. I think I was referring to myself code switching trying to make new friends.
When gestures been came out, those songs existed in a much smaller world. What did it feel like to play them all these years later in a room like that, with that many people there to actually receive them?
Dude very weird. At the end of the day, I think the special part was playing with Evan again, and with Ben on these old songs, and with PJ who is now a staple in making music for me. It was really cool to be honest. A full circle thing.
You said you don’t plan on ever playing this set again. Did knowing that from the start change the way you experienced the show, especially with Evan back onstage and that older version of TAGABOW only really existing again for that one night?
Yeah totally. A one and done was cool. It was like well, we just gotta represent the old shit once, and we’re done. And in that way, it was like a level of a video game. Playing new songs is so much scarier. Because it’s like yo this is who I am NOW. And it’s weirdly definitive. Even tho we all change. Even tho you won’t be that person in a few years. It’s weird to acknowledge the person you are right now. Because that’s the most important one. It’s relieving maybe to think that it’s also completely composed of all these former versions of ourselves. That’s cool
Thanks Will!!