There is no way in hell or on earth you can ever understand the torture and torment involved in obtaining and conducting the following interview. First there was finding them, not an easy task. Or was it a little too easy? I honestly don't know any more and now doubt if I ever did. Know that is.

I first heard Forked Yew while they were still in tape only format, I was at a friends house getting..., something or another and they said hey, you really need to check out this tape a friend of ours gave us. One of them popped the tape in and pushed play and within a matter of seconds my brain was rapidly shoved through sensations ranging from nausea to illumination. This was the????. Words quite simply cannot convey what this music is about or where it might be going. What the fuck is this mind stomping shit? None of their work can truly be placed into any category narrower than art. Which by nature and a whole lot more than that contains ranges yet to be defined. Surely it is not now nor ever will it be corporate drivel designed to keep the masses complacently chewing away at their cuds as they hurl towards death in front of whichever control device they happen to be hooked on. Be it television, the internet or what pisses for contemporary music, be it adult, teen, toddler, or pre focused eye-hand hookups.

I digressed there for a moment, but I'm back now with how hard it was to find these whatever the hell it is they are. I had a P.O. box and a phone number that I gleaned from one of their pages. The phone number was all but useless and I received only a package of weirdness when I wrote to the P.O box. Being curious and investigative by nature, or genetics. I staked out the post office hoping to see someone open the P.O. Box assigned to this collective of sonic freeks an mutants known as Forked Yew. Two weeks later my efforts finally paid off and someone finally showed up and opened the box., she turned out to be a homeless woman who said a man with a hat on gave her twenty dollars to pick up his mail for him and drop it next to the bus bench across from the post office.

I gave the lady another ten to show me the mail, (which consisted five pieces, three addressed to Bangin' Pots Music, one posted to dead joe, and one eight and a half by eleven 'lope sent to someone who cannot be mentioned due to security). I then watched as she dropped the mail by the bench then sat down to wait for the next bus. I on the other hand moved to a position where I could watch the bench and see what happened to the mail.

Thirty three minutes later I observed a rather large black dog pick up the mail and trot across the parking lot towards the rear of the shopping center across from the Post Office. I cranked up the car and tailed him across the lot towards the tracks. On the edge of the parking lot abutting the tracks there were several small portable buildings in varied cottage designs. It was to these that the dog brought the mail. It dropped the four letters and a package on the diminutive porch of a Queen Anne styled porta-building. I swear the hound turned and looked me in the eye just before it leapt across the tracks in front of an oncoming train. I thought for sure he would be hit, but he cleared the train by several inches. As the train moved by in front of me I got out of the car and walked over to where the dog had dropped the mail. There I found not five articles, but six. The sixth was addressed to me at my home and carried a local postmark. Not even puzzling over how the dog came to have it, I tore the envelope open to find a single page. Which contained rather terse and short instructions on what I needed to do if I were to ever to bear even the slightest hope of contacting any of the members of the group.

Following the instructions, I obtained a bottle of Thor's Hammer vodka and a bottle of Rebel Yell bourbon. Then I parked my car at the old Castaway Lounge (which was hell to find and even scarier when found, it having been closed for years and currently located in the midst of some serious gang turf). Taking the package of alcohol, along with my reporter set-up and purse, I proceeded to walk down Saint Vincent Avenue until I came to the cut-out in the road that contained the burnt up couch. Once there I waited in the dark and noisome night until a dark colored car pulled up and a shadow faced gent leaned out the window and asked if I was Anne.

Fearing to answer otherwise, I said yes, that's me. Shadow face lept out of the car and opened the rear door for me. But, before he allowed me entrance to the vehicle he ran several different types of detectors over me, snatched my purse, the package of liquor, and the bundle of mail. Once in the car the driver told me to please keep quiet and keep my eyes lowered if I wished to avoid grievous bodily injury.

Needless to say I kept quiet with eyes lowered. I did however pay attention to my watch and noticed that it was twenty three minutes later that we came to a stop at what appeared to be our destination. The driver got out of the car and opened the door for me. Shadow face flew into the dark with all my stuff. As I got out of the car I noticed that I was in the middle of some sort of salvage yard, or was it the city dump. It couldn't have been the dump, they do landfill around here. There was every sort of garbage imaginable ranging from cars and dishwashers to computers and eight-tracks stacked to teetering heights in all directions. In the midst of this swirl of debris there was a small building that looked as if it had once been owned by the national park service. All wrong earth tones that always seem to blend in with the environment. It was to the building that I was led.

Upon being escorted into the building I noticed that it was but a single room that somehow seemed larger than the building itself. It contained nothing more than a cluttered desk, several folding chairs and another door opposite the one I entered. The driver said, please take a chair and make yourself as comfortable as possible. He then turned and left through the door we had entered.

No sooner did my escort walk away than the other door opened and a mid-sized man entered the room. He was holding my possessions and placed them on the desk in front of me. He spoke, saying, we know more about you than you do, we even know more about you than they do. Should you care to examine them now you will find all of your things in order. However, I must inform you that your micro-tape is already rolling and all of your film has all been exposed to proper images and is being processed even as I speak. Pardon my rudeness, he added, I am the one known as Dead Joe, some of the others will be here in a moment.

Before we start the interview, he continued, I must humbly request that you not attempt a description of any of the members of the band you speak with this evening. Some of them pose as fairly well regarded normal citizens while they work at the craft of the Yew. Plus, some of them have children who might be forced to think of them as cool if you were to expose too much of what you are going to be exposed to here this evening. Now, I must ask that you please give me your watch. I removed my watch and handed it to him. He turned and moved towards the door. As he left, he said, I'll be back shortly with some of the others.

I rummaged through my things and noticed all was in order and that in fact the tape was rolling. After later timing out the tape I noticed it was exactly five point five five point five five five minutes before the door opened and several people entered the room. The one who called himself Dead Joe introduced me to Sean Mac10, Will O' Torture, Nick Clones, ADX23, Guido Satyr and Dick Blister.

The following is a transcript of the tape.

Dead Joe: Now that the requisite intros are taken care of, feel free to go on with your questions.

Anne Ono-Moose: Jeez, you folks have me a little disoriented, let's start with, how long have you been working together?

DJ: what is it guys twenty some years?

Will O' Torture: Just a few months or an eternity for me.

Sean Mac10: closer to just plain twenty.

ADX23: Fourteen more likely.

Dick Blister: Since the dawn of time.

Nick Clones: Dick you're out of it, it has been everything from just a few minutes from now to somewhere back in the mid to late seventies, nineteen seventies that is. What's this dawn of time shit?

DB: Well hasn't been since the cave dudes that we as humants have been getting into the sound of things?

DJ: Put in those terms, yeah, we, or something like us as been around since man first stood up on two legs and chewed a point on a stick.

AOM: How do you mean that?

NC: Just like he sez, some form of our project has been around for as long as there have been creative curious opposable thumb possessed creatures.

AOM: I see. Sort of. Let me rephrase my question to, how long have you been putting out Forked Yew releases?

DJ: That would have to be 4.

SMX: Uh huh, four is pretty much the correct answer, even though some of the material we have been working with is much, much older than that.

AOM: Why are you doing this? I mean you're not doing it for money and fame or you would be toning down your act and going for the public appeal.

NC: We do it because we have to. The public on average is dumb as a post and the majority of the people here in the United States have been brainwashed so thoroughly they have no real clue as to what's going on in their own neighborhoods, much less the country and the world as a whole.

SMX: Zackly, check out some Chomsky. We have been continuously getting screwed out of our lives so the power elite can live the way they want.

DJ: Sure, it's all there in the public record, the rich and powerful can do what they like and get away with it. They can murder, sexually abuse preteen boys and girls, poison your water and air, take away your job and give it to someone in another country (who'll do the job for a bowl of rice) then expect you to buy the products they generate. Which is mostly a lot of cheap plastic crap.

DB: We're just trying to get the message out before we get stomped to death by the man.

DJ: Right arms.

SMX: It's art, nothing more nor less.

ADX23: Not entirely true, the music of the Yew is also a weapon of near unimaginable power. Listen and you will SEE.

AOM: See what?

ADX23: fnords

DB: Great Balls of Fire

WOT: Shmoke

NC: Acid Visions

DJ: Where it all comes from and where it is all going.

SMX: The source of strangeness and charm, truth and beauty, and human consciousness.

NC: Remember this always, all systems crash. Not some but ALL systems cr

That's where the tape ended, there was more but they refused me a new tape. We talked for another hour or so before they told my time was up I had to go. They all backed out the door they came in and as soon as the last cleared the door Shadow face walked in and informed me he would be taking me home now.

What about my car?, what about my watch?, I asked as he led me to a different car than the one we arrived in. He mumbled something that sounded like don't sweat the small stuff get in the car. I did and he drove me all over town before pulling up in front of my apartment. I immediately noticed my car was in it's assigned space. As I was getting out of the car he reached over the seat and dangled my watch in front of my face.

I took it and stepped out of the car, as soon as both feet were on the ground he squealed off using the bumper of another car to shut the door.

Walking towards my apartment I noticed something odd about my watch. It now had eight hands, three moving clockwise, three moving counter-clockwise and two moving perpendicular to the plane.

Too much, never again, until next time. But, you really should try out some of their music (so called).

It repaired my mind, and maybe it could do the same for yours.