The Big Ugly Yellow Couch

When Carlye Wisel and Donald Rasmussen made the big move to New York City from Chicago a few years ago, they dragged along with them a huge, battered, yellow couch they bought for $15. Throughout its time in NYC, “the dead lady’s couch” has been through its share of adventures—”a fire, a blizzard, an earthquake and recently a hurricane.” But its greatest adventure of them all as the platform for some fantastic live music.

Over the past year, Wisel and Rasmussen have invited artists and musicians across the city into their home and onto their couch. Against the backdrop of the bright yellow couch—which, after watching a few sessions take place on it, becomes a familiar sight—we see pure and potent live performances. Without the comfort and camouflage of studio and perfect sound systems, we are exposed to a raw sound that is usually a revealing departure from the studio recorded track.

As Rasmussen’s camera focuses on the incredible artists, against the backdrop of the homely and battered couch, it makes them reachable and allows us to believe that these talented musicians and artists could very well be sitting in our own homes and in our own versions of the Big Ugly Yellow Couch. We were so intrigued and delighted by Wisel and Rasmussen’s project, that we reached out to find out more.

Why is the couch so significant to the project?

Donald and I got the couch for $15 from a family friend in Chicago, and since we were too poor to buy a new one when we moved, we were stuck with this hideous, yellow blob taking up half our Brooklyn apartment. The idea to bring stripped-down music from our living room to everyone else’s just kind of popped into my head one day, and gave this awful 7-foot-long sofa some sort of validation (and a reason to make sure we wouldn’t get rid of it, since I personally adored it).

Since I had just left my local music blog behind in Illinois and Donald was looking to start dabbling in video, it all just sort of came together naturally. We never thought getting a dead lady’s old couch would be so beneficial, but we’re glad it all worked out the way it did.

How did the series get started?

We asked friends of friends to help us out for the first ones, and once we officially launched the site, it just picked up from there. We’ve always hoped to be known as a place that people can find phenomenal up-and-coming artists, and I think we’ve definitely maintained that over the course of the site. We set out to differentiate ourselves from the chillwave-loving blogs and mp3-heavy sites that repost what everyone that’s emerging and popular to “keep up with the Joneses”, so to speak, and we’ve stayed committed to aligning ourself with that original intent for the site.

Are you and Donald musicians? What made you make such a big investment in helping people pursue their music?

Though Donald’s been known to plunk out a Wilco song or two on the guitar, we’re both just music fans with an interest in helping get the word out about artists we adore. I actually work in the music industry, which when paired Donald’s photography background, translates well into a music-based project.

We essentially just started the site we personally wanted to read. We had gotten fed up with trying to find music we love, and found that if artists didn’t fit the hyper-indie mold of typical “music blogs”, it wouldn’t be getting exposure. We love a very specific type of folk-inspired rock, and upbeat electro-pop, so we started the site as a way to help expose bands going great things in the genres we felt were underserved. There’s nothing wrong with pop music! We love choruses! And hooks!  And sometimes, it’s hard to still feel that way after reading two hundred posts about spacey electronic music and being told chillwave or witch house the next great thing. That’s why we do what we do. And, because recording three songs, cooking a band their favorite food and hanging out for a couple of hours isn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Who shoots and edits the videos? What audio and video equipment do you use?

Donald, Donald, Donald. He’s the video and audio whiz behind it all. I book the sessions, write posts, handle Facebook and Twitter and take more of a lead with finding new artists for the site, while he shoots and edits every video we put out, maintains our YouTube and Vimeo accounts, and makes audio magic.

We use a Canon 7D DSLR to shoot and a Zoom H4N for audio, which yield a high quality product, but are still small and versatile enough to carry with us at concerts or outdoor festivals. We wanted HD video and camera capabilities that Donald could utilize for freelance photography work as well, so it seemed to be the perfect match.

How do you find new artists to feature? Do you scout for them at gigs and shows, or do they contact you?

I read a lot of music blogs and sites, poke around on Twitter and spend a lot of time on Hype Machine, but a lot of our sessions have come from people we know personally recommending bands they think would be a good fit for the site.

We’ll occasionally check out bands at Mercury Lounge or Pianos and have an inbox that we get pitches through, but we really base all of our decisions off our gut reaction to the music. Donald and I have to both absolutely love the artist in question to book a shoot, since we only do sessions with bands we fully support. We typically stay up-to-date with the artist throughout their career and even invite some back for sessions when they put out new albums, so being behind the music 100% is really the only guideline we have for who we book.

Although your first video was only posted a year ago, you have found a strong and dedicated audience. Are you putting more time, effort and investment in the project?

We’ve been working on it a bit less, but the real reason we haven’t had as many new sessions lately is simply because we haven’t been hearing music that’s blown us away. We won’t shoot a band just because we need to update the site, want to get more traffic or anything like that, which can be a double-edged sword. We believe so much in curating a set of artists that we wholeheartedly support and can continue to follow for months or years to come that it sometimes makes things more difficult.

That being said, by sticking to our guns, we’ve actually been getting more fans lately than ever before. A lot of bands we shot with a year ago are starting to gain traction, and we’ve been getting a ton of new viewers who are stumbling onto us via YouTube or other blogs, liking one of our sessions, and exploring the rest of our archive to see what else they like

Which has been the best video for you to shoot? Who are some of the best artists you have worked with?

I can’t pick one! It’s like choosing babies, you poop all of them out and put a lot of time and effort into each, so we love them all. The one that stands out  as most significant at this point is probably Phantogram — they performed two of their songs completely acoustic, with just singing and guitars, and it’s so drastically different from their album and from everything they’ve recorded since then that it feels inherently special.

How has the Big Yellow Couch grown from when you started it a year ago? Is it a direction you foresaw?

When we started, we had an end goal of what we wanted the site to be, but wasn’t really sure how to get there. Now that we’ve been in three apartments, lived through a fire and recorded with nearly forty bands, we’re at a point where we’re finally creating this portal into up-and-coming artists that we always hoped to have. Basically, the squishier our cushions get, the happier we are.

Details

• Directed by

  carlye wisel, donald rasmussen

• Production Company

  Big Ugly Yellow Couch