CocoRosie
Maybe Have Pretty Decent Personalities

I’m not really sure how most journalists go about doing interviews. The whole thing is a pain in the ass. The interview subjects are worried that they’ll be skewered by the media’s prime concern, that of creating some overblown persona and/or dismantling that persona to reveal a whimpering, pathetic, egomaniacal bore/blow-hard or (on a bi-polar journalist’s upswing) an unfaltering and totally excusable genius. In general, though, most musicians are pretty much normal fucking people. They’re people, at least, for sure.

And, from my end, (what the fuck?) I am the media. All I wanted to do was chat a bit. I mean, I’m interviewing these people because I like them, respect them. I don’t have any vendetta to figure with transparent, pointed questions. Although I’m totally willing to sell out at any moment, I haven’t quite yet. So, all the smoke I blow up their asses (I’m a smoker) is pretty genuine.

That said, CocoRosie are overwhelmingly adorable. Is that really my favorite part about them? I don’t know. Is it some quick and lame summary remark used to objectify them as simply commentary, rather than focus on their music? Maybe. I could call their songs heartfelt and ethereal over and over, but would you hear that in your mind?

When I listened back to the interview tape, my favorite part was the drive there. I was fucking around with the tape recorder, and my friends and I (there were three of us to interview two—not very journalisy) were singing along with Styx’ “Sail Away”. It sounded like fun. The actual recording of the conversation we’d had with CocoRosie, on the other hand, sounded stilted (in the entertaining parts) and uncomfortable (in the natural ones). In my mind it hadn’t gone poorly, by any means, but a “Q&A” style interview it wasn’t. It’s tough as hell (not to mention totally contrived) to try to figure out someone’s personality in an hour or so of asking her leading questions about collaboration (laaaaaaaaaame!) with her sister or her influences (snooze,).

CocoRosie’s music is heartfelt and ethereal. Their names are Sierra and Bianca (I used to think it was Coco and Rosie) Cassidy. They were estranged for some years and reunited suddenly, on a call from the airport. When we met them, they were just beginning to pack up after the show and were upset about the venue’s sound. They didn’t really bitch about it or anything, just said it sucked. And I suppose, as they’re professional musicians, that kind of shit would really get them down. They tolerated our obnoxious questions about sibling quarrels (they have them a lot) and crushes (they’ve never had one together). We mostly tried to make them laugh, and although it didn’t go as planned (parking lot make-out sesh), we weren’t total pricks.

At one point on their debut album, La Maison de Mon Rêve, I think they play change. One of the instruments is a cupped hand with coins in it. It seems fitting that it was recorded, more or less, on lockdown in Sierra’s apartment. They had the music all worked out in their minds and just needed to find some shit lying around the house that could become the instruments. It sounds like some old worlde traditional music that you’ve just discovered and instantly connect with. For fans of early American feminist fiction, it’s like the end of The Awakening, when Edna goes out for a swim. Their music is gloomy but not wallowing. Edna swims out to the ocean to die, and she’s totally cool with it.

CocoRosie could be a couple of 19th century European aristocrats that married Appalachian hillbillies (to spite their parents, no doubt) but quickly became bored sitting around watching shit stink. So they’d find some solace out by the creek, singing songs to each other and DUI’ing haggard (but loveable) horses around the woods.