You Never Know When You’re Gonna Need a New 7″

Words by Erin Wolf

Margaret Stutt gives the term ‘busy bee’ a facelift. The Milwaukee accordionist/pianist known as Pezzettino has been in non-stop motion since last year, writing, recording and performing. Although Stutt’s most recent release, Lion, had her on a relentless tour schedule, she still managed to churn out countless creative and energetic videos to accompany her songs and special request videos for her fans. The above video heralds Pezzettino’s forthcoming single “You Never Know”, this time pairing up the visual with a classic audio format — vinyl.

This Friday, “You Never Know” will be available on 7″ at Hot*Pop and Stutt takes it a performance-art-step further by having local artist Dwellephant hand-paint each sleeve of each 7″ purchased at the release, demonstrating her love for combining the artistic with the musical. Stutt talks to Fan-belt about dropping her new tracks on wax, performance art penchants and guerrilla-tactic video editing.

Is this your first release on vinyl? Why?

Wahoo, yes it is and I’m nerding out!  Over the past year I’ve realized that the Pezz Posse drools over vinyl for its sound and art advantage over the CD.  I like the increased landscape for album art, and it reminds me of flipping through crates as a kid in dance class.  It’s an experiment.  I’m giving the mp3 for free online to encourage introducing music to friends, and providing the vinyl to collect, something very tactile, tangible.  

You’re presenting “You Never Know” at Hot*Pop in a pretty extravagantly thought-out, four-part, live-art, costumed shindig.  Explain how this all works.

Show up as yourself and roll with it.  It’s play time!  Watch out for the extension cords.  There will be four short sets in the gallery: Lion, Lamb, Pedestrian Drama, and Glock.  Mostly unreleased solo material.  Dwellephant will paint album art live at the show.  Try to imagine what a sandwich would be like if it were a character in Cirque du Soleil… remember to bring your keys.  

You’ve been on the road quite a bit lately. Was your video for “You Never Know” shot on location?

Yes! I ran, skipped, frolicked, and was generally an idiot in New York.  It was a ton of fun and nobody was arrested.  Thank you, Dr. Scholl’s.  
Who’s your videographer? Your videos are fantastic.

Darren Cole!  We’ve released two videos together, the first was “Walk From Here.”  I’m honored to be working with him, he’s one of the most dedicated artists I know!  We have a great collaborative relationship, he does the fancy camera work and I edit, I think we’re both pushing each other’s abilities and style.  He’s been teaching me a lot of new editing tricks, and my contribution seems to be guerrilla tactics.  

Do you always feel as though music and visual arts will go hand in hand for you?

In an ideal world, we’d be able to teletransport the listener to a mystical land where everything looked, smelled, tasted, and felt like the music they were hearing.  A fully integrated experience, an exact communication of the thought or emotion in a song.

Pezzettino releases “You Never Know” on wax at Hot*Pop (213 N. Broadway) at 7 p.m. DJ DwooD of No Request Sound will be spinning in between sets.

Tags: Darren Cole, Dwellephant, DwooD, Hot*Pop, Pezzettino