It's Psychedelic Baby:
Ted Milton | Interview | Blurt and Beyond ( march 2025 )

Ted Milton emerges as a true original in a world awash with recycled ideas.

An artist, poet, and musical innovator, his work spans performance, visual art, and literary creation. In this revealing interview, Milton reflects on his journey from Nigerian nights under colonial skies, immersed in the rhythmic pulse of distant drumming, to the founding of Blurt and beyond. He discusses his daring projects, memorable collaborations, and the evolution of his multifaceted creative career. Milton invites us to explore a life lived at the intersection of art, music, and unyielding creative spirit.

Kornel: Zagreb-based artist Igor Hofbauer Hof, who is connected to the cult club Močvara, has illustrated four of your releases, with a fifth cover on the way for the upcoming album. He has also created many Blurt posters and included you in some of his other drawings. It seems like there is mutual inspiration between you two. How did you end up working with him so frequently, and how did you connect?

Ted Milton: I hope you’ll be able to reproduce the cartoon Hof did of me climbing out of the boot of a car and ending up in a bath with two young ladies! Guess we must have bumped into each other at one or more of the shows at Močvara during the days when my basic diet was one going on two bottles of Jim Beam a day, so you can imagine I don’t remember much from that period. I have the feeling that the last time our paths crossed was in Paris. It could have been at least 15 years ago. Yes! Hof is a genius! And it’s possible he saw something in my work that, on occasion, inspired him to produce brilliant posters and artwork for our releases.

 

Kornel: One of your Zagreb shows was described as “pogo jazz noir,” a term you later used for other performances. Does this description best capture what Blurt is all about?

Ted Milton: Hof again! “Pogo Jazz Noir” appeared on a poster he designed for one of our shows. I’d never come across the term before. Yes, it did and does chime with our approach. Yes, indeed! However, we had been used to marketing ourselves as a psycho-funk, afro-punk, fake no-wave, pogo-jazz trio. .

Klemen: Would you elaborate on the main idea behind the formation of Blurt? Do you feel that you still follow the same concept?

The main idea behind forming Blurt was that after more than a decade confined within the puppet theatre, I became frustrated and needed to break free to confront people face to face. When I was suddenly struck by the sound of a saxophone, the band formed almost immediately; what had to come out simply did. As for sticking to the same concept, it’s all about one thing leading to another—also, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

Klemen: Would you elaborate on the main idea behind the formation of Blurt? Do you feel that you still follow the same concept? The main idea behind forming Blurt was that after more than a decade confined within the puppet theatre, I became frustrated and needed to break free to confront people face to face. When I was suddenly struck by the sound of a saxophone, the band formed almost immediately; what had to come out simply did. As for sticking to the same concept, it’s all about one thing leading to another—also, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

Continuation