Wow & Flutter 007 | The Itch That Follows The Scratch
House of Egregious (Allyson Gonzalez) on curiosity, pleasure, and the HALgorithm.
I can tell when someone is creating for themselves because they radiate pleasure as they do things. Not that there’s a propensity for ripping it up and starting again, or bad days. My favorite kind of people in the world of music tend to have a creative output that doesn’t wait for permission. Today we celebrate Allyson Gonzalez— who you may have never heard of— as she duplicates her own cassettes, stuffs an envelope full of stickers and sends her first EP out into the world.
W&F: Hi Allyson, you caught my eye for your creative output across many disciplines. Illustration, puppets, building your own synths— and now making your first homemade tape. What drives you to make things?
A: The weight of my imagination is massive. Sometimes when a feeling or memory becomes consuming, it feels like there's a blizzard in my brain. Making things, especially the slow process analog work requires, helps me shovel my way out. There's no greater joy than translating a thought into a thing— especially when I can hold it and it exists in the world in the same creative capacity that it lived in my head— which tends to be a pretty flamboyant and fantastical place.
I'm a bit competitive, so the challenge of intricate fabrication has been a lifelong pursuit. I'm always pushing myself to build more elaborate mechs that surpass my last project - which is why shadow puppetry has eaten my life whole the way it has, and why I took to breadboarding sequencers quickly. Being an interdisciplinary artist, the medium always fluctuates, so as soon as you get good at one thing you start from scratch and push yourself to figure it out and grow quickly. Eventually they all start to inform each other, which is where I'm at now with House of Egregious.
W&F: House of Egregious is a self-described "sexy doom" synth project. I am truncating here, but tell me about sexy doom. Are we talking about vixen narratives like Lana Del Rey? Dark industrial missives like NIN? What are we working with?
A: I'll never not feel humbled when people say a song I've made has heavy NIN vibes, I've been bumping the Challengers soundtrack all summer. If I had to qualify “sexy doom pop”, it's sonically spooky and ominous sounding, but with a deep feral undercurrent that hopefully gets you hot. I have found zero thick brown girls playing synths in a way that invites the audience to objectify them like rockstars, especially when the crowd is like mine — full of delicious queer women and gender expansive people. Please universe, prove me wrong! It's ok to admit fat girls are hot, I promise. This entire genre isn't just for youth medium black zip up hoodies. I would say for fans of cumgirl8 and Peaches— try sexy doom pop.
W&F: What informs your DIY drive? Is it seated in activism? Is it seated in creative curiosity?
A: I'm not into gaining permission, clearance, or having a group of people tell me my ideas are good enough to be brought to life. I decided to stop directing plays early on and take a day job so I can fund my own shows without having to worry about mercilessly applying for funding and ultimately told no over and over. Or worse— having my work censored, which I've struggled with, due to the overt and uncompromising humanitarian and feminist themes my performance art often possesses. I don't have time to convince people to fund my dreams to make them a reality. I would rather build them with cardboard and upcycled materials than for them to not exist. DIY is usually my only option if I want my message to remain unobstructed, which is prioritized over all else.
W&F: How do you maintain curiosity and independent pleasure in a construct that demands content for public consumption?
A: My curiosity and pleasure are very sacred to me. I always create work for myself first— usually to make myself laugh or to vent out some big feelings, for my real friends second, and for public consumption last. I make art for other queers, women and gender expansive people, marginalized folks and COVID conscious cuties. After 30 years of making art for public consumption, I'm far more intentional and communicative about what I want my audience to look like now than ever before. House of Egregious attracts the very people I want to party with, the right people are finding me because this project has pushed me to directly connect with the communities I want to represent and lobby for.
W&F: How has it been playing synths live and staying patched into venues and bookings making a big move from Chicago proper to rural Michigan?
A: I moved from Chicago to coastal Michigan only a year into learning how to play. I was sad at first because I worried I was cutting off access to the place I needed to live in order to get into the community. I was super thankful to learn Michigan as a whole is a powerhouse of creativity. There's a huge, thriving DIY music scene out here that's interconnected from coast to coast. We have an obscenely kickass record store, guitar shop and recording studio, these usually aren't gems found in a town of ten thousand so I'm super lucky.
There's a really damaging lie that circulates saying you have to be in a city center to "make it" and "get connected with the scene". The decentralization of culture in a COVID world means you can be in the mix wherever you are. Moving from Chicago to coastal Michigan definitely pushed me to establish more of an online presence, which I'm always at odds with. I deeply cherish my privacy, I love throwing my phone into the river and disconnecting from the compulsion of scrolling and feeding the HALgorithm. On the other hand, I'm grateful for all the cool musicians and artists I've gotten to know that I wouldn't have if I didn't jump into the pool more often. All that to say— I've booked more gigs in Chicago since I moved onto a peninsula.
W&F: Where can we find your homemade cassette of sexy doom synth works?
A: Houseofegregious.bandcamp.com will be loaded with my first EP, The Itch That Follows The Scratch on Wednesday, July 31st at 11:59 pm. I'm a big fan of happy mail so if you buy a cassette you'll receive free stickers, buttons, magnets and/or zines!
You can find behind the scenes footage of the making of on Instagram @houseofegregious. I'll also be posting longer form process walk-throughs on my blog at allysongonzalez.com once the dust settles after my Comfort Station show:
Thursday 8/1 at 7:30p in Chicago, details at houseofegregious.com.
Photo Credits:
Portrait, Adrian Tiger
Rural Michigan Coast and Performance, Michael Heffler