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Justin Duerr; a secret revolution
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By the time you pull up curbside at the venue, the show is well underway. You hurry to the door, pay the six-dollar entry fee, and walk through the main corridor, which is like a narrow throat leading to the guts of a hungry giant. A large crowd is gathered in a half-circle around the floor space where the band is playing. There is no air circulation and the overall feel of the room is thick and hot, while you push your way through the wall of sweaty bodies to the front to get a better view.
A fair-haired young man with tattooed arms is moving spastically about as if in a sort of frenzied trance, screaming and singing and speaking into a microphone in turns. He is tall, slender, and clean-shaven, unlike his bandmates and many of those in attendance, and he is wearing a form-fitting, powder-blue woman’s dress, also unlike his bandmates and those in attendance. From the bottom of the knee-high dress extend manly legs which end in beat-up combat boots. Stranger still, his face is covered in white makeup, making him look part ghostly, part albino, and partly like a lunatic clown who ran away from the circus but wasn’t quite able to wash away the pale base. Throughout the songs, the singer occasionally straps on a set of marching band drums, upon which he pounds and taps remarkably skilled examples of experimental percussion, with lightening fast rolls and rim-work and seemingly impossible changeovers from one arrangement to the next, all while unrestrainedly singing his words in brilliant twists and turns of unique vocal delivery.
Now you’re sweating and panting with the rest of the audience, like so many dogs attached to outdoor leashes on a sweltering summer afternoon. Despite the small degree of discomfort, you continue to absorbedly watch the show, unfazed. Quickly you notice that the band doesn’t have a guitarist, and just as quickly you realize that they don’t need one, as the bassist is murdering his fat strings in great note combinations and vicious low-end power chords. And the trio is complete, at last, with the drummer, who, shirtless and bearded, utilizes all of his kit in thundering kickdrum and tom-tom parts, the tight snapping of the tortured snare accompanied by the hi-hat, and the occasional crash of the cymbals punctuating a transition or an especially intense part of the composition. Together, they are weaving a tightly knit soundscape of avant garde punk, neo-trash rock, progressive riot-core, and something else entirely…something that is otherworldly, psychedelic, bizzare, and filled with a crazy, haunting energy which translates like something ripped from that place between the mortal world and the afterlife. Perhaps that's why the term "Ghost Punk" has been assigned to their music.
At the end of the show, you find yourself with the sound of their songs still ringing in your ears, with a lingering feeling of magic and mystery and multi-dimensional realization, as well as the knowledge that you have just experienced something wholly unique and meaningful. Wanting to know the name of the band that had just played, you ask the guy beside you. “They’re called Northern Liberties,” he replies. Northern Liberties, you repeat to yourself silently, turning it over and over in your mind, like a rare tribal artifact discovered on the floor of an unexplored ancient cave dwelling in the jungles of…wherever. For the music of Northern Liberties is something simultaneously foreign and familiar, riotous and tranquil, wild and harnessed, mad and sane, human and supernatural, and so on in the countless contraries that are the two sides to the Northern Liberties coin. But, like William Blake, the 18th Century European poet and philosopher, wrote: “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”
Later you discover that the eccentric, charismatic singer for Northern Liberties is named Justin Duerr. You learn that he is a well known artist and musician in Philadelphia. By observing photographs of he and the band online, you learn that he doesn't always perform in a dress but sometimes goes about the show in a more stripped-down and natural sense, appearing shirtless and in commonplace men's slacks, almost like a modern day Iggy Pop. And with a little research you also find out that he’s not just the singer and secondary percussionist for Northern Liberties, but a well established and extraordinary visual artist, whose drawings and paintings have appeared on cd jackets and record sleeves, giant posters, t-shirts, stickers, and online art galleries, among a number of other places. In addition to Northern Liberties and his visual arts endeavors, Justin, an avid Toynbee tile enthusiast, is also very much involved in a documentary about the Toynbee tile phenomenon. For those who have never heard of Toynbee tiles, they are, according to Wikipedia: “…messages of mysterious origin found embedded in asphalt in about two dozen major cities in the United States and three South American capitals.” Out of all the cities where Toynbee tiles have been discovered, Philadelphia has the most. And the message is typically a variation of the following:
Toynbee Idea
In Kubrick’s 2001
Resurrect Dead
On Planet Jupiter
When he is not engaged in events for Northern Liberties, drawing or painting away on some masterpiece or other, or working on his Toynbee research, Justin is either collaborating with other musicians and singer/songwriters or writing and playing his own solo material. In fact, Justin’s first solo effort, Justin Duerr & the Etheric Phoenix of Love’s Constellatory Musical Time Machine: A Selection of Solo Recordings, 2004-2006 A.D., was released on Worldeater Records. It would seem, however, that Justin’s solo moniker is an ever-changing one, as it has recently become: Justin Duerr & the Auric Doves of Avalon. While there hasn’t been a record released under the Auric Doves of Avalon title, Justin has given the world a sneak peak at one of his most recent projects, Hex Nine, in which he collaborates with Marybeth Chew of Philadelphia’s Bad News Bats. Another musical contribution worth listing among Justin’s many others is the Vivian Girls Experience, which he
wrote and performed along with artist/photographer Enid Crow out of New York City.
Shortly after contacting Justin to see if he was interested in being featured in one of my articles, he sent me a remarkably terrific press package unlike any other I have received to this day. Quite simply, he had taken an old cigar box, painted it silver, arranged original pieces of his artwork on and under the lid, and filled it with cd’s of his musical projects, pages of artwork, and other wonderful tidbits. I still have the box displayed on a shelf in my writing room, in fact, and it is probably the coolest thing I have received from an artist in a long time, if ever. And I will always cherish it.
After both familiarizing myself with Justin’s artwork and listening to all the cd’s in his press package, I sent him a list of interview questions. Excited to begin the piece, I delved into the writing process and its attendant research. More and more, I was able to peer deeper into the music to see the ways it bridged dimensional gaps, the way it embraced the arts, and the way it conveyed a message more complex and important to fully grasp in a single listen or even half a dozen listens. So, I wrote furiously, watching the article take form. Meanwhile, Justin and I carried on a rather involved correspondence, which only served to further help the article along. Originally the article was intended for the Urban Artist Group's "Sounds from the City Earth Underground" segment, for which Justin also contributed the cover art. Interestingly enough, it just turned out that it was better suited for the Philadelphia Examiner, since Justin and his many artistic endeavors represent a part of Philadelphia too often neglected by the mainstream, even the mid-stream, a part of Philadelphia that I thought perfect to mention in the Indie Music segment of the Examiner.
Throughout our correspondence and interview, I learned much of Justin's story. And it is an very interesting story, indeed.
It was 1994 when visual artist and musician Justin Duerr dropped out of high school and made his way from rural Pennsylvania to the city of Philadelphia. Having arrived with few possessions and even less money, Justin resorted to living in various squat houses for a while. At that time there was an abundance of abandoned buildings and condemned properties for the taking, and groups of rejects and runaways, junkies and criminals, starving artists and political activists, and those from a number of other walks of life, all having wandered to the city when the going got rough, moved in and called them home. Of course some of the squatters were locals. But, whether locals or outsiders, they all had one thing in common: none of them had anywhere else to go in the world. Thus "home" had become the Philadelphia Underground. Whether it had become home or not, Justin had other plans.
For a time, Justin worked on fishing boats in the Bering Sea. That was until about 1999, when he returned home to Philadelphia, where he began working various odd jobs, primarily house painting. Throughout his many years of squatting, traveling, fishing boat work, house painting, and everything else his life consisted of, he maintained a dedicated focus on his creativity and stayed artistically active. There is no single artistic medium for Justin. He is just as much a musician and singer/songwriter as he is a visual artist, as well as a number of other things. And I don't see that ever changing for him.
"I'm not sure if I need to seek out inspiration," said Justin in our 2008 interview. "I just forge ahead without very much conscious control. I find that, in doing that, I can tap into another dimension, so to speak, where there are guides to help me move ahead creatively with no question or doubt. The art, especially the visual art, is sort of the product of its own world. I see myself more or less as a medium, or an interpreter, translating the language into geometric form understandable/visible in this dimension."
One of the first things one learns about Justin is that he is rather preoccupied with birds. Yes, birds---the winged, feather-covered creatures that soar through the sky. Birds often appear in his drawings and paintings as a recurring theme. He actually has a pigeon, not a pet but a companion, named DaisyGeorge Pennyfeather. And when I asked him about this preoccupation with birds, he explained...
"My love an affinity for birds dates way back to my earliest memories. When I was a kid, me and my brother rescued a pair of pigeon squabs (squabs are baby pigeons) from a nearby barn. One of them didn't survive, but the one that did became very tame and was a wonderful companion. Over the course of the next few years, though a connection with our grandfather who raised pigeons, ended up with a loft of thirty or so pigeons. We had all sorts of different breeds (pigeons come in all sorts of fancy breeds, similar to dogs and cats). Since we didn't care about breeding them for traits, we just loved having them around as companions. Like all of the topics we've discussed over the weeks, I could get sidetracked talking about my experiences with pigeons, and birds in general, for a long time. But, suffice to say that through my younger years they were my best and truest friends. When I was living on the street and as a squatter in Philly, I felt a strong kinship with the pigeon populaiton of the city. And while on the fishing boats in the Bering Sea, I spent a lot of time watching the sea birds that would follow the boats, and one season even attempted to rehabilitate a lost fledgling Puffin, which was sadly unsuccessful."
As is customary in my interviews with Philadelphia bands and singer/songwriters, I asked Justin about his connection with Philadelphia, and whether or not it has had an affect on his art. To which he replied...
“I definitely agree with your sentiments about Philadelphia. There is a quality about this city that is so magical. And yes, it is hard to describe. It’s somehow very stern, and gothic, but also awe-inspiring, mysterious, and beautiful. While I said before that I don’t really actively seek out inspiration, I will also say that the spirit of Philadelphia, whatever that ineffable, vaporous quality is---the scent of the night air, the pallid streetlights reflected across the river, etc---has had some effect. It has permeated into my creative vision without a doubt.”
With the idea of forming a band, Justin and his brother, Marc Duerr, approached their long-time friend, Kevin Riley, who agreed to play bass. From the start, the band has been Justin (vocals/percussion), Marc (drums), and Kevin (bass), who have kept the lineup the way it is for lack of wanting to bring anyting unfamiliar or impersonal into their circle. So far it has worked out rather well. And besides, their idiosyncratic sound wouldn't be what it is today had they chosen to tread a different path nine years ago when they began Northern Liberties. Over the course of the past eight years this Philadelphia trio has released a number of recordings, including a split with Massachusettes punk rock and noise-core outfit Bugs & Rats, a live acoustic album (now out of print), the Easter Island 7inch, and then their two other full-length albums, Secret Revolution and Ghost Mind Electricity. Most recently, however, Northern Liberties has released a 12inch record called Suffocation---the title track for the only song on the record, which in its entirety is thirty minutes long. All of the records and cd's listed here include sleeves and jackets with original artwork by Justin. And they have played countless shows around the country, sharing stages with the likes of: the Low Budgets, Bad News Bats, Lungfish, Pony Pants, Stinking Lizaveta, Mike Watt, Bunnydrums, Notekillers, and several others. 
2009 is already proving a remarkably busy year for Jusin Duerr, with both music and visual arts. This month, for example, Northern Liberties are scheduled to play their thirty minute song, Suffocation, first at Johnny Brenda's on Frankford Avenue in Philadelphia, and then at a location "to be announced" in Bethlehem. At the former, they are playing with Mischief Brew, Kiss Kiss Kill, and the Late Nights, while at the latter no other bands have been added to the bill.
As for Justin's other endeavors, his artwork will be on display at the Saint Asaph Gallery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, from March 6th to April 5th. According to Justin, it is the first time his art has been featured in such an environment. And he is confessedly more than a little excited to be a part of this particular art show.
All of this creative focus and artistic activity is wonderful, as Justin admitted to me in our interview that...
"My life is one of constant artistic labor. It's a shield against falling into insanity. If I stop, I start to feel my mind fragment. It's a sort of necessary meditative device for me."
To be sure, the future is absolutely uncertain for all of us, and doubly so for our chosen endeavors. But I would venture a guess that Justin will continue planting his creative seeds throughout Philadelphia and the world beyond, watching them grow to maturity, and bloom in wild, brilliant displays of artistic contribution. So, keep a lookout for Northern Liberties albums and shows, as well as Justin's several other musical projects. And be sure to take a look at his visual art if you get the chance. There is nothing else like it in the contemporary arts, at least not that I've experienced. Nor is there any other music quite like his. He is definitely one of a kind. And I can't wait to see what he does next.
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