Pop Culture Press, Issue 64

ISSUE 64 | SPRING & SUMMER 2007
features
The Decemberists
14
Andy Partridge
26
staff
Little Steven's Rock 'n' Roll Revolution
30
publisher/editor
Luke Torn
associate editors
Kent H. Benjamin
Andy Smith
managing editor
Kathleen McTee
art director
Nicole Truelock
design
Nicole Truelock
Mike Wachs
pcp website editor
R.U. Steinberg
articles
Hoodoo Gurus
2
Eleni Mandell
4
You Am I
6
The Hold Steady
8
What Made Milwaukee Famous
10
Ron Sexsmith
12
Charlie Louvin
16
Future Clouds & Radar
18
Eric Matthews
20
The PCP Interview: Richard Barone of the Bongos
22
The Apples in Stereo 24
d e p a r t m e n t s Mixtape
:: Andy Partridge of XTC 28
Reverberations :: Wincing With the Shins 36
Spotlight
:: The Service Industry
39
Spotlight
:: The Alice Rose
41
Dog-Eared : The PCP Bookshelf
44
Letter From London
51
Pop Culture Past
56
Pop Culture Past Exclusive: The Bee Gees' Robin Gibb
59
Back of the Book: Steve Young--The A&M Records Era
62
cover design
Nicole Truelock
contributors
Adi Anand, Brian T. Atkinson, Brian
Baker, Matt Fink, Gilbert Garcia, Frank
Gutch Jr, Bill Holmes, Rachel Leibrock,
d.n.l, Kevin Mathews, John L. Micek,
Matt Murphy, Wilson Neate, Andy
Partridge, David Pyndus, Charlie Sands,
Don Simpson, R.U. Steinberg, Jason
Stout, Andy Turner, Myke Weiskopf,
Nick West
special thanks
Andy Smith, Mike Wachs, Luann
Williams
extra special thanks
Bill Holmes
©2007 Pop Culture Press.
All Rights Reserved.
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Ooooops: On PCP #63’s sampler sleeve, we
mistakenly referred to singer/songwriter Jeffrey
Dean Foster as Jeffrey Lee Foster. PCP regrets
the error!
That Hoodoo That They Do So Well
After a break-up sent them on separate paths, the Hoodoo Gurus are back with their
catalog reissued, a possible new album, and a fresh lease on life.
by Brian Baker
how is it possible for one of australias
biggest bands to exist for a decade and a half,
break up, reform with the same line-up four
years later, and soldier on with their charm
and audience both relatively intact? Hoodoo
Gurus’ guitarist Dave Faulkner cites a delicately balanced formula for the band’s longevity and success.
“Circumstances and good luck and a lot of enjoyment have caused it to happen that way,” says
Faulkner with more than a little satisfaction.
Naturally, the Hoodoos’ resurfacing at home,
where they were chart-topping superstars, has
more momentum than here in the States,
where they were popular but relatively obscure
college radio icons. In Australia, the band’s
entire catalog has been reissued to great
acclaim; here in the U.S., only the Hoodoos’
first album, Stoneage Romeos, has been reissued on CD, while the remainder of the band’s
catalog is available only via digital download
through iTunes. Perhaps more significantly for
American fans who might never have had the
opportunity to see the Hoodoos is the emergence of the double-DVD set Tunnel Vision,
featuring all of the Hoodoos’ music videos as
well as vintage live footage and a documentary
on the band.
“It took 20 years to make...,” says Faulkner
with a laugh. “The hairstyles go up, go down,
and end up on the ground eventually, in my
case. Luckily we had a pretty good team. We
weren’t involved in every critical decision; we
just wanted everything that could fit into it
and they did an amazing job. The documentary was something I didn’t even realize was
happening. We did a bit of interview footage
thinking it was for an extras thing on the DVD
but then they ended up putting it into a long
form documentary.”
pop culture press
The band’s long history began an astonishing
26 years ago when members of the Scientists,
the Victims, and XL-Capris formed Le Hoodoo
Gurus, recording their first single, “Leilani,” in
1982. After the single, the band dropped the
“Le” from their banner for the simpler and less
pretentious Hoodoo Gurus. From the start,
the band’s blend of garage rock, classic pop,
and swirling psychedelia was wildly received
in Australia, where their singles and albums
routinely sold into high chart positions.
In the U.S., the Hoodoos were embraced by
the college radio/indie record store crowd and
were frequently seen on the newly launched
MTV. The band’s ‘80s albums --the aforementioned Stoneage Romeos, Mars Needs Guitars,
Blow Your Cool!, and Magnum Cum Louder
-- cemented their reputation as cult favorites
and ensured that their dozen or so U.S. tours
would compensate for the lack of massive
record sales with a passionate fan base.
“We were a bit ahead of the curve in terms of
supposedly alternative rock, whatever that is,”
says Faulkner. “When we were doing what we
were doing, it wasn’t in fashion yet. We had to
wait for Nirvana to make it okay to be the sort
of band that we are. Nevertheless, we carved
out a pretty good little niche for ourselves,
doing some quite major shows. I remember
playing the Fox Theater in Atlanta, which is
like a 6000-seater, and headlining there. We
had our moments that we really felt pretty
good. It wasn’t like we were always struggling
and waiting for the big break. We just enjoyed
ourselves and had a great time. To be honest, I
suppose our audience was as big in America [as
Australia], it’s just that it means a whole lot less
in the American market. But we certainly were
not desperate for attention. We always felt pretty happy with the people that were coming.”
Although the Hoodoos endured personnel
changes that stripped the original line-up,
eventually leaving Faulkner as the only founding member, all of it occurred in the first
six years of their existence. After the arrivals
of guitarist Brad Shepherd in 1982, drummer Mark Kingsmill in 1985 and bassist Rick
Grossman in 1988, the Hoodoos’ membership
has remained intact for two decades.
With a trio of excellent releases in the ’90s under
their belts—Kinky, Crank, and Blue Cave—the
Hoodoos announced that they would be disbanding after their 1997 tour. After a farewell
performance at Melbourne’s Palace in January
1998, the band was officially finished.
There is very little hesitation when Dave
Faulkner addresses the question of whether
the Hoodoo Gurus broke up in 1998, or if the
band’s separation was designed to serve as
more of a hiatus.
“No, it was a breakup,” says Faulkner. “I was
really proud of the last album we did at that
time, which was Blue Cave. It was just a terrific
record and I loved the production of it. It was
an album that I thought, ‘That’s a nice closer.’
I didn’t want to make an album where I didn’t
feel 100% committed to it and then turned out
[to be] substandard work. I was feeling like I’d
written myself out.”
Faulkner’s clear intention of never reuniting the Hoodoos makes their recent activities together all the sweeter. The first step to
coming back was an invitation to headline
2001’s Homebake Festival, an Australian version of Lollapalooza. It was the acid test for
the quartet.
“It was a strange sort of challenge to us,
because we’d never played it before, and here’s
all these young bands that were supposedly
the Hoodoos have officially reformed with
plans to return to the U.S. for a limited tour
and to possibly hit the studio with new material in 2007.
“Well, that’s actually hypothetical at this stage;
I’ve got to write it yet,” says Faulkner. “But
that’s our intention. I’ve just got to knuckle
down and get some inspiration going. I’ve been
a bit distracted with different things going on,
so I’m running a bit late on my agenda.”
tk
With a trio of excellent releases in the ’90s under
their belts—Kinky, Crank, and Blue Cave—the Hoodoos
announced that they would be disbanding after their
1997 tour.
inheriting our crown and ready to knock us
off the stage. It was just too hard to resist,”
says Faulkner. “It was a chance to put it out
there and see how it went across with new fans
and the local hotshots. We did a few shows
to warm up to make sure our first concert
wasn’t this huge festival. We did a few secret
shows and a few in my home state of Western
Australia, and from the first warm-up show it
was obvious that the band had lost nothing.
It was that strong Hoodoo Gurus personality, which is greater than the four of us indi-
vidually. The character of the band was really
strong. It was obvious that the band was still
alive even though I’d consigned it to the scrap
heap. It was still there, waiting for the oxygen
to catch it alight again.”
A new Hoodoos’ album may be hypothetical
at the moment but their renewed popularity
at home is all real. When they performed at
Homebake six years ago, they were looking
out at over 20,000 of their frenzied countrymen. When they performed at the NRL’s
Grand Final (one of two rugby Super Bowllike events), they played to an audience four
times that size. Obviously, neither event was
designed exclusively for the band, but the
adoration that has consistently greeted them
since their 2001 return has helped stoke their
creative fires. Faulkner knows the Hoodoo
Gurus are ready for the next phase in their
improbable career.
“The reason we have this longevity is because
we do put out on stage,” Faulkner says with a
laugh. “It’s one of those things that we live for.
It’s not a chore for us to play on stage, it’s the
reward. It tends to be where it all makes sense,
to be honest.” •
After appearances at the National Rugby
League’s Grand Final (spurred by the League’s
reconfigured use of “What’s My Scene” for its
ad campaign anthem) and Australia’s largest
music event, the Big Day Out, then the release
of a new studio album, Mach Schau in 2004,
www.popculturepress.com
Eleni Mandell: L.A. Confidential
by Brian T. Atkinson
eleni mandell's songs seem to drift blissfully through the clouds. The Los Angeles
native dreams up such airy, heavenly, spacious
melodies that it seems impossible to imagine
her song’s narrators walking the same sidewalk as, say, a bus boy. Truth is, they’d likely
buy the guy a drink. Yet unlike those ethereal
melodies, Mandell’s lyrics are grounded in the
same unsentimental grit as Skid Row laureate
Charles Bukowski.
“When I first read [Bukowski] in my early 20s
I was blown away that someone could be so
funny and base and real and crass – all of those
things that we love about him,” says Mandell,
now in her late 30s. “I drank in all his books,
looking at a darker side of life. I was inspired
by his characters. They might seem unattractive, but I realized that it doesn’t have to be
knight in shining armor stuff. There’s beauty
in places that aren’t always obvious.”
Mandell has applied that lesson to her own
songwriting, often finding illumination in
unexpected corners of a room. Miracle of
Five (Zedtone), her sixth album, is filled with
more light and joy than previous efforts (not
pop culture press
to mention crucial instrumental contributions by Nels Cline and DJ Bonebrake), but
Mandell’s keen interest in chipped-tooth
splendor remains on songs like “Moonglow,
Lamp Low,” “Wings in His Eyes,” and the title
track. Eschewing flowery lyrics in favor of aiming straight for the gut only adds authenticity
to her unpredictable views.
In fact, much like Bukowski, the approach
allows Mandell to reach unexpected poetic
depths. There’s a certain timelessness to her
lyrics, too. Case in point: “The sky says goodbye with the wink of an eye/Bright blue yawning to the west,” she sings on “Moonglow,
Lamp Low.” “Windows are shining as the sun
goes down fighting/And the houses on the hill
are getting undressed.”
To say the least, Mandell harbors a deep love
of language. “I’m most inspired by words,” she
explains. “Direct language is what attracted me
to Bukowski, and I hope I have that as well.
I love words. I don’t necessarily find myself
humming melodies. Usually, I’ll think of a
title or a phrase first when I’m writing a song.
For instance, I was at a restaurant a few weeks
ago making eyes at the waiter. My friend and
I were laughing at it. Just before we paid our
check, my friend said, ‘There’s still time for
parting glances.’ I went, ‘Oh that’s good’ – and
went home and wrote that song.”
That’s Mandell’s knack for capturing a fleeting
moment and sculpting it into slice-of-life art
in action. Perhaps her greatest songwriting gift
is the ability to glean universal themes from
those personal experiences. Take “Salt Truck.”
Over the course of four verses, the complexities of love emerge from a simple east coast
snow storm: “I want roads that I can drive on/I
want a love I can rely on.”
“We had a very harrowing tour experience
driving from Detroit to New York,” Mandell
recalls. “It was the worst winter in the US in
the last 100 years. There was so much black
ice on the road and the big rigs were swerving.
Being from California, that’s terrifying. Every
time we’d see a salt truck, I’d say, ‘Get behind
the truck – we’re gonna make it!’ As I started
writing and lost some of the literal meaning,
the salt truck became a metaphor for love.”
“ When I first read [Bukowski]
in my early 20s I was blown
away that someone could be
so funny and base and real
and crass – all of those things
that we love about him. ”
autumn de wilde
Mandell admits that love, in its many forms, inspires the majority of
her songs. For instance, the title track stems from the most innocent
gesture of burgeoning romance. “I was at a bar a couple Christmases
ago – a pretty dingy bar – and I was dancing with someone I had a crush
on,” Mandell recalls. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is so lovely, we’re holding
hands.’ The simple pleasures, you know? Five fingers on a hand, holding
mine.”
The sentiment of Miracle of Five is more upbeat than longtime fans--conversant with Mandell’s turn-of-the-century classics Thrill and Wishbone-might expect. It’s a trend. Songs like “Beautiful” highlight an optimistic
side that she offers nakedly throughout the new record. “You wake up
and you’re beautiful/Your everything is lovely,” she sings. “Your eyes are
the same eyes that you had yesterday…Today you’re beautiful.” Chalk it
up to Mandell finally accepting her status as a lifer in Los Angeles.
“L.A. is really ugly and spacious, but I’ve come to really value living here
and the friends I have here,” Mandell says. “I know how to avoid the
things that I don’t love about it. There’s sort of a classic noir L.A. thing
– all the Hollywood and beauty and fake stuff, and underneath that
there’s all this interesting, moody stuff. The juxtaposition of those two
things really makes life interesting.” •
www.popculturepress.com
You Am I
Bash, Booze & Pop
by Rachel Leibrock
tim rogers knows it's something of a
rock star cop-out—this attitude.
“I don’t mean to sound quite so smug -- I’m
just extraordinarily hungover,” he mumbles.
That would explain then, at least in part, why
the You Am I singer/songwriter answers his
Sydney home phone sounding sleepy and mushmouthed. So…, is this a bad time to talk?
”No, I should be up,” he says, talking over the
sound of clattering dishes and running water.
“Sorry about the noise, I need to make coffee.”
A pretty rough night of drinking, then?
“Well, that and taking lots of drugs that I said
I wouldn’t take again.”
Oh, OK.
Poncy?
And that’s fine by him.
For those not well-versed in British and
Australian slang, the not-always-flattering
term, Rogers explains, refers to a “man who’s
very in touch with his feminine side. The
overtly pop songs have a poncy element and
I’ve come to terms with that,” he says.
“It would be more surprising to me if we
became really big in Australia or anywhere
else,” he says. “There’s something about
the band that’s not supposed to be more
successful.”
Convicts maintains enough of the band’s rusted
razor’s edge, after all. Lyrics such as “now I
care for nothing at all” and “you’re watching
me decay” are sparked by a swaggering rock
’n’ roll sensibility.
Rogers founded You Am I in 1989 while still
in high school. The initial version of the
band, featuring high school pal Nick Tischler
and Rogers’ older brother Jaimme, eventually
disbanded after a 1990 fight between the
brothers; Tischler eventually left the band due
to the ever-reliable “creative differences.”
Again, Rogers insists, it’s not you -- it’s him.
Nothing new there. In the 18 years that Rogers
been bashing it out with You Am I, the band,
while praised for its country-tinged pop and
boozy rock, has often played second fiddle
to Rogers’ prickly nature and unpredictable
behavior. Among the dust-ups: A 2004 punchout with Australian Idol host Mark Holden—
Rogers confronted the TV personality at an
airport, indirectly blaming him for the singer’s
label woes. Later that year, You Am I was
forced to cut a festival set short thanks to
Rogers’ drunken state of disrepair.
Now the band’s latest album Convicts —
released stateside on the Yep Roc label—
seems to capture the nature of Rogers’ demons
(artistic, personal, and otherwise), distilling
them down to a concentrate of what Rogers
calls “poncy” moments and Replacementsesque bash and pop.
pop culture press
The band’s current line-up – Davey Lane
(guitar), Russell Hopkinson (drums), and
Andy Kent (bass)--has since endured as You
Am I’s core, seeing the band through two
major U.S. labels and several albums. Three
of those records hit number one in the band’s
native Australia and earned them several
ARIAS, Australia’s equivalent of the Grammy.
But, while ‘90s albums such as Hourly Daily
and Hi Fi Way also garnered the quartet
critical notice here in the U.S., Rogers quickly
dismisses the idea that You Am I has enjoyed
any real success either here or (especially)
Down Under.
“Our success at home has only been at a level
that people sometimes enjoy our band for
a period of time,” he says. “It’s a complete
misnomer that we’ve had any (bigger)
success.”
If it sounds like an overly pessimistic attitude,
well, yes and no. Rogers says he’d rather just
focus on the music and, to that end, going
back into the studio with his bandmates,
following the release his solo album My Better
Half, proved therapeutic.
“It’d been quite a while since we’d been together
and stylistically it was the first time we’d done
anything like this – just getting together and
making songs that sound like this,” he says.
“We never discussed (the album) intently as
a band because I just wanted to, for perhaps
the first time, make something that sounded
just like us – as if we’d just gotten together and
bashed up against one another.”
The idea of seeing his bandmates again, he
adds, was both exciting and scary. “I’ve got a
lot of respect for them – we’ve been partners
and friends for so long,” he says. “The songs
were so raw and I didn’t know if they’d (hear
them) and lose faith or friendship in me. I very
much hoped that they’d like them.”
What he found, Rogers adds, is that despite
the band’s occasionally rocky history, it always
comes down to this: “We love making a
record,” he says.
Rogers credits the quartet’s Australian identity
as another source of creative strength. “We’re
an odd little bunch, us Australians,” he says.
“It’s the same as the English sensibility – that
whole ‘stiff upper lip’ thing, the denying of
emotion.” The studio, he explains, is a place
to let that resolve melt away and go at it “like a
bull in a china shop.”
courtesy you am i
In the 18 years that Rogers been bashing it out
with You Am I, the band, while praised for its
country-tinged pop and boozy rock, has often
played second fiddle to Rogers’ prickly nature
and unpredictable behavior.
Joining them in various studios (no fewer
than six), veteran producer Greg Wales (No
Knife, Magic Dirt), helped bring the album
to fruition while preserving the songs’ rougharound-the-edges charm.
It’s an obvious question but what is it exactly
that, after numerous albums, labels, and
conflicts – not to mention Rogers’ perceived
lack of “success” - that keeps You Am I going
after nearly two decades?
The group’s first album since 2002’s Deliverence,
the resulting 12 songs are Aussie-style pub rock
tempered only by tinges of pop, twang, and
heart. Convicts opens with a wallop as Rogers
screams over a thrashing wall of guitars, “I’ve
got dime bags stacked up like trophy wives.”
“Amphetamines,” Rogers says, dryly.
Take that Pete Doherty.
Likewise, lyrics like “I’m gonna go down
by my own hand” blend angry despair with
a bittersweet (Paul) Westerberg-worthy
exuberance.
Now, with the Yep Roc release (don’t bother
asking Rogers how they ended up on the North
Carolina-based label, he doesn’t know), the
band is ready to tour Europe and, eventually,
the U.S.
Really?
“No.” Rogers laughs and then: “Sorry, it’s
just not that I’m the most self-promoting of
people and it’s not fair to not help people by
not explaining – but it’s becoming a situation.
There are a million rock bands out there with
talent and audacity and I don’t have the strength
to keep trying to rise above everybody else.”
“Playing in a rock band is just deeply wonderful
and to deny yourself that experience is cruel,”
he continues. “I’ve had the most extraordinary
time with this band. Writing songs is, for
better or for worse, all that I do, and in the
scheme of things who gets to care if anyone
hears them.”
And if Rogers has trouble talking about it it’s
only because he’d rather show you what he
means. “It’s difficult for me to put this all into
words – I’d just rather play and charm the
pants right off you.
Fair enough. •
Certainly, he adds, it’s not the money that
keeps him going.
“I need to get another job, I’m financially
desperate but if that means giving away the
sensation of putting a song together – well, I
won’t deny myself that experience.
www.popculturepress.com
The Pop Culture Press Interview:
Holding Steady with Craig Finn
By Don Simpson
way more attitude. Once people caught on
to Lifter-Puller, in no small part due to the
internet, it really set up the Hold Steady.
The first Hold Steady show was attended
by a decent amount of people. The years
between Lifter-Puller and the Hold Steady
really allowed people to catch up to us and
helped launch the Hold Steady.
PCP: I always thought of the Hold Steady
audience being a bunch of 30 year old dudes
standing around a bar drinking beer. Suddenly
all these kids appeared!
CF: The bigger venues give us more
opportunity to play in front of younger people.
It’s been good. We already had a pretty solid
group of the over 30s and we had room to
grow younger. Certainly being on Vagrant
[Records] helps and touring is one thing you
can’t deny, it just simply works.
PCP: The Hold Steady has developed a very close
relationship with your younger audience via
MySpace.com and boysandgirlsofamerica.com.
Boys and Girls in America welcomes a brave
new world for the Hold Steady; one in which
the Hold Steady grew up, matured, and evolved
into one tight-ass rock ‘n roll machine. Instead
of singing (talking? ranting? shouting?) against
the grain of the music as with Separation
Sunday and Almost Killed Me, Craig Finn’s
seasoned barfly narratives flow with the music,
allowing the band to grow and take shape
rather than being a mere onslaught of bar
chords and riffage. The result is one of the best
rock ‘n roll records of this decade as the Hold
Steady continue their seemingly unbreakable
stronghold on critics’ hearts, appearing on
practically every year-end top-10 list for three
years running.
PCP: Have you noticed the venue sizes on
your tours growing?
Craig Finn: All the shows are bigger than
they’ve ever been. We went up to the Metro
in Chicago this time and sold it out. We’ve
basically gone from four or five hundred to
pop culture press
Being in love is something you don’t know anymore
about when you’re 35 than you did when you were
17. That’s sort of what I was getting at.
one thousand seat rooms in the bigger cities.
We played Buffalo in August [2006] in a really
small place and tonight we’re playing in a much
bigger place there. We’re generally moving
up and there’s definitely growth. Which is
exciting; that growth is what artistically keeps
you going.
PCP: How does your Hold Steady experience
compare to the modest (though intense)
Lifter-Puller shows?
CF: Lifter-Puller’s audience didn’t really exist
outside of Minneapolis. That experience…I
think back and we were crazy. Our shows were
crazier then the Hold Steady ones. Everything
was amped up; we were younger and we had
CF: It’s a real challenge because you have
to keep some sort of mystery in rock ‘n
roll but the younger fans expect you to be
accessible, especially thru the internet. You
have to be careful about giving them too
much; I mean no one wants to know what
you ate for breakfast. I don’t get involved, Tad
communicates with our fans. It’s not that I
don’t want to or don’t like to, but my time is
best served…in other ways. That’s one way
for me to manage it and keep some mystery.
What I like about boysandgirlsofamerica.com
is that it’s not about interacting with the band,
but the fans interact with each other and that’s
taken a life of its own.
PCP: Separation Sunday was praised for its moral discussions; did you
set forth to build on that with Boys and Girls in America?
PCP: A common element in your lyrics is the perspective of the observer,
the voyeuristic storyteller.
CF: With Boys and Girls in America I was trying to raise different
questions. Tackle the whole thing of boys and girls in America; take
different sides of it or whatever. Tell the story from different angles. So
it’s much less of a cautionary tale; instead it’s “hey, there’s this one thing
that no one seems to have an answer for.” Being in love is something
you don’t know anymore about when you’re 35 than you did when you
were 17. That’s sort of what I was getting at. Most of the stories feature
one guy and one girl.
CF: That’s something with Kerouac. When I re-read On the Road I
thought he was really not much of a participant, he was more often a
recorder. I always had that relationship with even my friends; I’m the guy
trying to get my friends to do something stupid just so I can watch.
PCP: Who are your main literary influences; I’m assuming you’re a fan
of the Beats?
CF: [Jack] Kerouac is a big one, obviously, I mean that’s where I got
the title of the record from; the rhythm of his writing. Like any art, I
like when something makes me smirk. A songwriter like Bob Dylan or a
writer like John Updike or Kerouac or Larry McMurtry, all of those guys
are funny in a weird way. A lot of my stuff is just things that I think of to
try to make my friends laugh.
PCP: Kerouac also played a lot with reality and fiction, which you do
as well.
CF: Absolutely, they are the type of things that could happen. Very few
actually happened to me, mostly to the people around me. Especially
with Separation Sunday, I was thinking about the oral tradition before
cell phones and the internet. Some of the things you heard about in the
suburbs were sort of like whispers in the wind. “Oh there’s this guy a
town over and he was on acid and he fell off a roof.” Then you meet the
guy and you think “I’ve heard about this guy, he’s a legend.” Now you
would just Myspace him and he’d be like “no, that isn’t true.” •
www.popculturepress.com
Another Place,
Another Time
A Look at
What Made
Milwaukee
Famous
by Adi Anand
formed in austin in 2002, what made
Milwaukee Famous has been churning out
indie-rock of the finest quality for a few years
now. But the band is virtually impossible to
pigeonhole the band within that crowded
genre. WMMF’s debut record, Trying Never
To Catch Up, conjures up delightful poprock accentuated by a variety of sounds, be it
synthesizer beats or a flurry of horns. There
is a bit of The Cars in there, maybe even
some Strokes-esque rock, definitely traces of
Grandaddy, but the finished product is truly a
child of the band’s diverse talents.
Pop Culture Press recently caught up with
Michael Kingcaid and Jeremy Bruch to quiz
them on the queries facing this day and
age. But for starters, how and why What
Made Milwaukee Famous? Kingcaid recalls
September 2002 as the first time Drew Patrizi,
John Farmer, and himself got together. They
found each other through the classifieds section
in the local Austin Chronicle rag and eventually
added Bruch on drums to complete the current
lineup. As for the band name, Kingcaid is quick
to point out its benefits: “Our name has opened
so many doors for us,” he says. Kingcaid also
implies that it was a well-thought-out decision.
“Chances are, that if there’s one particular word
or phrase that sums up what your band is, then
it’s probably also one of those words or phrases
that has already been used for somebody’s
band, somewhere, at some time. So, out of
the five pages of band names that we had to
choose from, What Made Milwaukee Famous
is the best one that we could have ever come up
with. It has gotten people talking,” he explains.
But, to be brief, the band is named after Jerry
Lee Lewis’ 1968 hit, “What Made Milwaukee
Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me).”
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Although Trying Never To Catch Up was released
first in 2004, the band recently re-released the
record with some additional material on their
new label, Barsuk Records. Kingcaid explains
the decision to go with Barsuk with pleasure:
“They’re a great label that puts out great music.
We were definitely surprised and excited when
they took an interest in us. It was something
we had been hoping for, for a long time.”
However, Kingcaid is quick to note that there
might not be such a thing as a ‘dream’ label
these days since the “whole music industry is
a crazy place right now. Illegal downloads and
the death of the ‘mom and pop music store’
are making it difficult for labels to do what
they were made to do.”
Kingcaid realizes the importance of the web
in today’s fast moving world, that a band can
create their whole market themselves if they
utilize the internet to its maximum. But from
their choices of labels, Kingcaid is extremely
satisfied. “Barsuk was definitely in our top 3,”
he enthuses.
With fans yearning for new material, Bruch
reports that work on the next album is well
underway and that “there are tunes ready to
be released into the wild, and tunes that are
still wearing diapers.” Still others, he adds, are
a “mere twinkle in John (Farmer’s) steel blue
eyes.” Kingcaid notes that unrelenting tours
have slowed down the process marginally, and
decides to use this forum for a quick plea to
fulfill his desire for a quality producer, “This is
a call!! Bring it, great producers.”
WMMF is adept at utilizing assorted musical
instruments, and deriving catchy and unique
sounds that meld perfectly on recordings.
Kingcaid explains their philosophy: “We based
the band from the beginning on being openminded about music, so we’re always open
to try new things. There’s something to be
appreciated in every walk of music and I feel
like I wouldn’t be able to rightfully call myself
a musician unless I’m willing to embrace all
types of music. We’re really excited to try out
some new instruments on the next record.
Hopefully, we can learn enough about them to
achieve some proficiency.”
Bucher is more specific, and humorous: “I’ve
got a whole new rig of electronics to figure
out. Drew (Patrizi) just picked up a set of
chimes. Mike’s got a new laptop and some
fancy recording gear. John’s got an iPod,
finally.” The band currently reprises most of
those beats live but is in the process of moving
toward programming some of their sounds for
ease in concert use. Says Kingcaid, “We haven’t
really had the chance to implement as much
sequencing and electronic elements as we
would want to as of yet. Some arrangements
are programmed in advance, but for now a
majority of it is arranged live on the fly.”
Next, Kingcaid moves on to the songwriting
process: “Writing lyrics is the toughest part
about writing songs for me because I’m so
picky about saying exactly what I want to say.
I try to simplify it at times by basing songs on
one concrete emotion and working around
that. But at times, that kind of leaves you
sounding trite.
“Most of the time,” he explains, “inspiration
seldom strikes when you’re beckoning, so you
have to take full advantage of it when it does
come around. Once you get in the habit of
getting it out of you in a timely fashion, it
seems to come around a lot more often.”
Bettie Serveert
Outliving the Alternative Nation
by Andy Smith
So what about past inspirations and current
peers? Kingcaid credits the Beatles as his
favorite band of all time while Bucher claims
to be a child of 70’s rock and jazz. They admit
to some guilty pleasures from their childhood-Kingcaid poignantly citing Def Leppard as
a perennial. “I used to draw pictures of Joe
Elliott in elementary school. I wanted to be
that dude. In elementary school.”
Bucher’s namedropping includes Kiss and
Mötley Crüe although he reiterates his love
for jazz, and a newly found appreciation for
electronica. Kingcaid even has time for a Justin
Timberlake shout-out before confiding that
his current playlist includes Thin Lizzy and
M. Ward. As for tours, both of them place
the bill they recently shared with the Long
Winters and Menomena at the top of the heap.
Kingcaid adds one goal: “I’ve sworn to mark
off my list before I die to tour with Pearl Jam.
Might not be so realistic, but I’m keeping my
fingers crossed.”
There is no questioning the city of Austin’s
love for the band. They regularly play wellattended gigs in town, and in turn, love the
festivals that define Austin. Kingcaid is full of
praise. “Both SXSW and the Austin City Limits
(Music Festival) are such great events here in
Austin. We’re so lucky to have it happen every
year on our own turf. There are so many great
bands from all over the world that converge
in our city for a week in March and another
one in September. I definitely prefer the ACL
festival because everything is all in one place.
But they both have their benefits.”
And the future? Kingcaid waxes poetic when
asked where the band might want to be by
the year 2010: “World domination. A cereal
named after us, maybe. Have the van paid off.”
Mostly, the band just wants to keep putting
out new records. And a long career for What
Made Milwaukee Famous can only imply
plenty of affable, inventive pop for us lucky
aficionados. •
It’s hard to fathom that Bettie Serveert has
been active for 15 years. Back in the 1992, this
Dutch band burst onto the US indie rock scene
with it’s winning mix of singer Carol Van
Dijk’s charisma and guitarist Peter Visser’s
tastefully, chaotic riffing. On the strength
of steady airplay of the single “Tomboy” on
college radio, the band’s debut, Palomine,
became a must for young hipsters of the day,
even if there was more depth and power in the
band’s repertoire than bandwagon jumpers
cared about.
By 1995, the hipsters had abandoned the band
when Palomine’s follow-up, Lamprey arrived,
even though it was of the same fine quality, if
a bit darker. The splendid Dust Bunnies arrived
two years later and made a few critical ripples,
but by then the band’s US record buying
demographic had found other darlings.
Still, Bettie Serveert soldiered on into the
new millennium with its musical core of Van
Dijk, Visser, and bassist Herman Bunskoeke
intact. In their native Netherlands, they never
fell out of favor and recorded and toured
while American audiences thought the band
had faded away like so many of their more
forgettable contemporaries. Then in 2004, they
regained American notice with the release of
Log 22 (on Parasol), showing that their taut
guitar rock was back in vogue and that age had
actually served them well.
By 2005, Bettie Serveert signed to Minty Fresh
and released Attagirl, which featured songs
with less guitar edge and more pop emphasis,
as well as contributions by two new members-keyboardist Martijn Blankestijn and drummer
Gino Geudens. Visser explains that the new
approach was not due to some vain attempt to
be current: “After 15 years, we come up with a
song and we say ‘What are we gonna do with
it?’ Then the song demands what it has to be.”
Bettie Serveert shows a heavily acoustic side
to its personality. Van Dijk, who continues to
show more world-weary soul as the years pass,
delivers probably her finest performances to
date on the brilliant “Hell = Other People” and
“Love & Learn,” as well as a newly arranged
version of Palomine’s “Brain-Tag.” “We have
always embraced our older material,” offers
Visser about the inclusion of the 15-year-old
song. “A good song is a good song, even if you
try to fuck it up.”
But still, fans who expected to see the band
playing unplugged on stools during the fall
2006 US tour were instead greeted by a vintage
Bettie Serveert rock show with Van Dijk’s
carol van dyk
charismatic singing, Bunskoeke’s charming
irreverence, and Visser’s high-wire playing,
but this time with Blankestijn’s keyboard
swells and Geudens’ dexterous drumming and
vocal harmonies adding new dimensions.
It has been long time since they graced stages
with the likes of Dinosaur Jr., Belly, and
Buffalo Tom, but the current signs point to
Bettie Serveert being even more vital now
than they were back in the heady college rock
heyday. But they were always too good for
those fickle hipsters anyway. •
On its most recent release, Bare Stripped
Naked (released in the US in September 2006),
the songs apparently demanded even more
understated treatments than on Attagirl, as
www.popculturepress.com
11
Being Ron Sexsmith
by Myke Weiskopf
ron sexsmith is describing his majorlabel career. In the absence of strong language,
he has resorted to tragic literary allusions.
“You know that Dickens quote, ‘It was the
best of times, it was the worst of times?’” he
sighs. “I was touring and opening for all these
people, but I didn’t feel like I existed at all.”
By “all these people,” Sexsmith only refers to
top-tier songwriters like Aimee Mann, Difford
and Tillbrook, Suzanne Vega, Wilco, and,
most famously, Elvis Costello, whose oft-cited
thumbs-up to Sexsmith’s eponymous second
album was the saving grace of his early career.
Despite an arm’s-length roll call of highly
rated enthusiasts and a press fanfare that
bordered on the messianic, Sexsmith’s 1995
major-label debut suffered from a classic case
of conflicting expectations. “[My publisher]
wanted me to make a record that was more
like Bruce Hornsby or something,” he groans.
“That adult-contemporary thing. They actually wanted me to make the whole record over.
At the same time, Mitchell [Froom, producer]
and I were really both excited. When [Ron
Sexsmith] got all the press, we felt vindicated.”
Sexsmith’s growing reputation as a classicmodel songwriter in a long-neglected idiom
solidified with his glorious third album, 1997’s
Other Songs, a bona fide masterpiece which
many still regard as his finest hour. Sexsmith
partially attributes the album’s artistic success to his deepening rapport with Froom. “In
the beginning, it was very important to me,
because I had so many songs that I had no idea
which way I should go, and he steered me in
the right direction.”
The pair continued to collaborate through
the remainder of Sexsmith’s contract with
Interscope, but after being unceremoniously
dropped in June 2000, they amicably parted
ways. The intervening years were characterized by a disheartening zig-zag of labels – from
SpinArt and Nettwerk to Linus and the boutique label Ronboy Rhymes – but Froom and
Sexsmith kept in touch, with the songwriter
demonstrating an ever-more-confident hand
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in his own arrangements. When Sexsmith
casually sent Froom a provisional demo of new
material, the producer responded with enthusiasm and suggested they find a way to renew
their artistic partnership.
The result is Time Being, Sexsmith’s ninth
album and his first with Froom in nearly as
many years. “A lot of people thought I was
crazy that I was going back with him,” he
Indeed, Time Being matches Froom’s perfectlyattenuated production with some of Sexsmith’s
most ambitious material, including the unsettling shuffle of “The Grim Trucker,” the looselimbed swing of “Jazz at the Bookstore,” and
the almost high-life-tinted guitar arpeggios
of “Cold Hearted Wind.” Elsewhere, he offers
some of his most arrestingly catchy material
(“I Think We’re Lost,” “All In Good Time”)
since the halcyon days of “Average Joe” and
“It’s a hard business, but
I’ve got fans all over the
world; I get Christmas
cards from Elton John;
all this amazing stuff
has happened."
recalls. “Retriever was my most successful
album, and everyone’s like, ‘Why do you want
to go back to the guy who made [your] least
successful albums?’” Sexsmith laughs at the
memory, but he believes that the renewed
partnership is, in many ways, a more sympathetic environment. “When I look back on the
first three albums, I hear a lot of things that
went wrong – a lot of production [ideas] that
I don’t think were ultimately good choices.
[But] I learned a lot from him and took that
with me on my other projects, in terms of editing myself and getting inside the structures of
the songs. With this record, I felt like we were
on a more level playing field; it wasn’t so much
master/pupil.”
“Nothing Good.” Despite the album’s surefooted patina, however, Sexsmith had serious
reservations about the material. “I thought
they were all a bit dark,” he recalls. “On
Retriever, there were a lot of love songs; it was
almost a Britpop album, you know? And I’d
had some success at radio for the first time in
my life, so I was nervous about following that
up with an album that was about death and
mortality. Some of the songs were triggered by
the deaths of a couple of high school friends,
and it was strange to find myself going to the
funerals of people who were the same age as
me. Alongside those, I had these weird little
story-songs that I was writing. I sent [Mitchell]
a demo and he called me back, all excited
about the tunes, which got me thinking that
maybe they weren’t so bad after all.”
It’s an opinion he hopes is shared by his new
paymasters at IronWorks, the fledgling label
set up jointly by songwriter Jude Cole and
actor Kiefer Sutherland. Sexsmith is cautiously
optimistic about the renewed bid for a broader
American audience. “There’s been a lot of
bouncing around in my career, which isn’t the
way I planned it,” he says. “I always wanted
to be like Dylan, who’s been on Columbia
for every record. That was my dream, but I
guess that doesn’t really happen that much
anymore.”
Does Sexsmith see himself following the lead
of Aimee Mann or Jane Siberry, artists who
have established their own self-sustaining production networks as a means to continue
their craft? “I remember when Aimee started
[United Musicians], she was encouraging me
to do the same. [But] I’m not a business
person, and I’m also old-fashioned. I always
liked the idea of being on a label; I just can’t
see myself mailing out CDs to people and
doing all that stuff. It may come to that, and
I think Aimee’s done a great job, but we’ll see
how it goes. People will probably be sucking
music out of a straw in ten years or something
anyway.”
That said, Sexsmith bristles at the perception – usually offered in earnest by sympathetic fans, journalists, or both - that he’s
been unsuccessful. “It’s a hard business,” he
admits, “but I’ve got fans all over the world;
I get Christmas cards from Elton John; all
this amazing stuff has happened. I guess there
have been some songwriters who have broken
through in recent years, and maybe it’s not
in the cards [for me], but that gets tiresome.”
Rather, he takes solace in other songwriters
who have continued to ply their craft, regardless of the industry machinations involved.
“It’s always the possibility of more songs that
excites me. Ray Davies just made his first
album in thirteen years, and I was really excited; I stuck with him and bought all those Kinks
albums he made in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and I’m
glad he took the time. Songwriting is the one
thing where I feel that I’m making myself useful. I’m proud of every song on every album,
and I don’t know [how many] other people
can say that. That’s something that I always
strive for, because every time I make an album,
I see it as another chance for a first impression.
I’m always trying.” •
www.popculturepress.com
13
are crafted as oft-nightmarish memories,
Meloy’s songs are largely anchored in history –
imagined or otherwise. Castaway and Cutout’s
“July July!,” for example, is like an archivist’s
fairy tale with its story of Spanish war soldiers
and pirates, set against a vibrant array of pedal
steel, accordion, and Theremin.
The Decemberists
From DIY to Next Big Thing
by Rachel Leibrock
it started with a handful of cdrsfive
songs burned on Colin Meloy’s home
computer and sold at early shows. Now, six
years later, the Decemberists’ fourth album
The Crane Wife, produced by the band with
Tucker Martine and Chris Walla, is out
on Capitol Records and earning the band
significant critical and mainstream attention.
While publications as diverse as the New York
Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Billboard
praised its intricate, lush pop landscape, NPR
listeners named The Crane Wife their favorite
disc of 2006. Starbucks even added the disc to
its counter CD racks.
and then it was Kill Rock Stars – all that
happened within the first year or two.”
Call it a head-on attack of interest and
admiration strong enough to bowl over even
the most publicity-hungry band.
The Decemberists, grounded by Conlee’s
accordion and organ handiwork and Meloy’s
songwriting and gravelly wail of a voice, also
includes Chris Funk (guitar), Nate Query
(bass), and John Moen (drums). (Violist/
keyboardist Lisa Molinaro rounds out the
band’s current touring lineup.)
“It was definitely overwhelming,” says Jenny
Conlee, on the phone from her Portland home.
“It’s been scary—this band has really moved
quickly through the whole process,”
As a veteran Decemberist – her tenure in
the band is second only to Meloy’s – Conlee
remembers those early days of crudely crafted
CDs and shows played in tiny, cramped
venues.
The band’s relatively sudden success is both
exciting and intimidating, Conlee says. “First
it was Colin burning CDs on his computer,
then Hush Records picked up our first record
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That rapid acceleration from Portland DIY-ers
to Indie It Band has been, Conlee explains, a
lesson in letting go.
“The bigger you get the less control you have
over those little things like record sales or
planning for the future, and that’s still kind
of weird for me,” Conlee says. “It’s strange to
have someone like (our publicist) call to tell
me I have an interview, we’re so used to doing
all that stuff ourselves.”
Crafting twee indie pop from an arsenal of
instruments, the sound is at times intricately
delicate and exuberantly poppy. And, with
their ornately literate tales and elaborate
constructs, the quintet’s early works earned
the Decemberists comparisons to the likes of
the Polyphonic Spree and Neutral Milk Hotel.
Indeed, at first listen, Meloy sounds as if
he could be NMH frontman Jeff Mangum’s
sonic twin. But whereas Mangum’s opus tales
autumn de wilde
Certainly, over the span of the band’s four
albums, the Decemberists, named so for the
1825 Russian Decembrist Revolt and Meloy’s
love for the wintry month, have come into
their artistic own.
And growing up creatively meant growing
up in a business sense – a progression that
brought them to Capitol. While moving to
a major label didn’t profoundly change the
band’s artistic vision, Conlee says it did have
impact their latest record.
“(The Capitol deal) didn’t really affect the
songs themselves but it did allow us to use two
producers and to go into the studio for two
months--we could have never afforded that
kind of luxury,” avers Conlee. Although two
months is, relatively speaking, a short amount
of time for a major label band, “it was still
more time than we’d ever spent on a record,”
she says.
“It felt so luxurious to be able to start tracks
over, to say ‘I don’t like where this is going,
let’s do it again with a different approach,’” she
says. “Usually you don’t have that kind of time
- you just do it and that’s your final project.”
Working with Walla and Martine added creative
nuances and provided a sense of balance,
Conlee adds. Walla, already a Decemberists’
old hand for his work on 2005’s Picaresque,
brought a sense of fun to the album.
“(Walla’s) an old friend and very whimsical,
and we like his flair for new recording
techniques and fresh ideas,” Conlee says of the
Death Cab for Cutie guitarist/keyboardist. “In
this band, compared to (Death Cab), he gets to
experiment more because we’re pretty much
game for anything.”
With Walla spending only a few weeks behind
the boards, veteran producer Tucker Martine
(Mudhoney, Bill Frisell, the Long Winters)
added a calming stability, working with the
band for the whole of the recording sessions.
“Tucker’s got a very warm sound and his sensibility is really
straightforward,” Conlee says. “He’s great in the studio, very patient,
and that’s a good quality in an engineer and producer. It was a great
combination for us.”
The resulting album covers a broad landscape of history, folklore, and
fancy as detailed in Meloy’s lush narratives. Inspired by a Japaneseinfluenced children’s book by the same name, The Crane’s Wife features
recurring images and themes about ailing birds, bloodthirsty robbers,
trainwrecks, and star-crossed lovers. The 60-minute album is ambitious,
mythical, and yet always accessible, thanks to a steady diet of pretty pop
melodies and toe-tapping rhythms. Still, despite its repeated motifs, The
Crane’s Wife isn’t exactly a concept record.
“The initial idea was that Colin wanted to write two long concept pieces
and then the rest of the record would just be other songs,” Conlee
explains. “Some of the songs really are (connected) by themes but others
aren’t, so it’s not really a concept record in the classic sense like Rush’s
2112.”
Whatever the intention, the idea, invention, and process of each song
are almost 100 percent Colin Meloy. “Colin is the root of it all,” Conlee
says. “He writes all the lyrics and chord changes but we all add our own
little bits. We had two weeks of pre-production time on The Crane’s Wife
where we talked about ideas and arrangements.”
Meloy’s background as a short-story writer gives the Decemberists songs
a storybook feel. And, even if The Crane’s Wife isn’t strictly a concept
record, each of its songs stands alone as something of an aural novel in
miniature.
Conlee agrees that Meloy’s writerly inclinations give the songs depth
and intellectual intensity. “Colin is very comfortable writing them from
someone else’s perspective,” she says.
Still, while the band doesn’t shun its “literary” label, Conlee says, it’s
ultimately about the music. “It’s complimentary, but when people
hear us they realize that it’s pop music – and that the first thing they’re
attracted to is the sound,” she says. “It’s good they can dig deeper into
what the words mean and still enjoy the music.”
Because despite the widely held idea that the Decemberists are a serious
band with lofty, literary ideals, they really do just like to have fun, Conlee
says.
Especially in concert – Meloy’s a huge Replacements fan after all (he even
penned a book on the band’s seminal album Let it Be). “We’re pretty silly
on stage – the rockin’ songs can be a pretty big, manic experience. Colin
pulls from the Pogues and Shane McGown a lot,” Conlee says. “It’s high
energy – in a punk rock kind of way.”
“When people do get into the words, it’s like ‘wow that’s really great
that these words are paired with this music,” she says. “People can enjoy
us on both levels.” •
www.popculturepress.com
15
Charlie Louvin The Survivor
by Matt Fink
"what's the weather like there?" asks
Charlie Louvin, a Southern gentleman and
country music legend making conversation
on a snowy December morning. Calling from
his home in Manchester, Tennessee, the now
79-year-old man--who for 23 years comprised
half of the Louvin Brothers--is in good spirits.
And he should be. For the first time in ages
– since Emmylou Harris brought him back
to the limelight with her cover of the Louvin
Brothers’ standard “If I Could Only Win Your
Love” – he seems poised to be recognized as
the seminal influence on Americana music
that he is. Today, though, he mostly wants
to talk about the weather. “They say there’s a
big nor’easter coming in,” he says with a grim
tone. “But we’ll survive.”
For over 40 years, Charlie Louvin has been
doing just that. He survived the breakup of the
Louvin Brothers in 1963, launching a successful
solo career. He survived the death of his older
brother Ira just two years later. He survived
being dropped by Capitol Records in 1972.
And now, over 30 years since he and his
brother’s close harmony singing and soberly
vivid songwriting influenced a generation of
country-rock bands, musicians are again lining
up to pay tribute to him. With Charlie Louvin,
his first release on Tompkins Square Records,
he finally has an album that someone might
actually hear.
“Hell, I’ve recorded more than a dozen,
probably 15 or 20, pretty good CDs, but they
were on no-name labels, so most people never
did know about them except us,” Louvin
laughs, recalling his years of poor distribution.
“That’s what knocked me out about this. Josh
(Rosenthal) called me at the house, in the
spring of 2006, and he said, ‘I came to see your
show in Albany, New York, last year, and I
liked it. And I checked it out, and you ain’t had
an international release in 12 years.’ And I said,
‘Well, you’ve done your homework.’ And he
said, ‘How would you like to be on my label?’
So, of course, I was glad he called, and he flew
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alan messer
to Nashville and got a man to bring him to my
house. It’s a good contract, and I hope I make
Josh some money. If I make him some, a little
of it will be mine.”
With legends George Jones, Tom T. Hall, and
Elvis Costello joining a younger set of indie rock
denizens ranging from Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy to
Will Oldham to Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner,
that doesn’t seem like an unreasonable goal.
The all-star cast only goes to shine a brighter
spotlight on what really is a celebration of a
man and his music, as Louvin used his time
in the studio – only three two-hour sessions
– to revisit some familiar ground, picking out
favorites from the Delmore Brothers, the Carter
Family, and Jimmie Rodgers, and reviving a
few Louvin Brothers songs for good measure.
“Great Atomic Power” is one of those.
Originally recorded by the Louvin Brothers in
1962, the song was brought to a new generation
of listeners on Uncle Tupelo’s March 16-20,
1992. It’s only appropriate that Wilco’s Jeff
Tweedy would be Louvin’s duet partner for its
reprisal. “I don’t know who we were afraid of
-- I think it was Russia -- in the 50s,” he says of
the song’s portentous mix of apocalyptic Cold
Louvin finally and deservedly presented without polish and with the gravitas of
a man who has been making unforgettable music for over six decades.
War imagery and Christianity, “but today it’s
probably more real and possible than it was
then. There are a bunch of dudes over yonder
that if they could get a vehicle to send it on,
they’d send us one.
“I think the song is real ironic,” he continuess,
sounding a bit bemused as he describes the
howling wall of guitar feedback that ominously
swirls in the song’s background. “The way it
was cut, when he mixed it, the engineer didn’t
want me there. I’ve always been at the station
when it was mixed, because I know what
happens on a record if I don’t hear it when
it’s mixed. So when I first got a sample copy,
I hear that and I called Mark Nevers, and I
said, ‘Man, you’re going to have to mix that
again. You’ve got a hell of a feedback in it, and
it’s not my record player. It’s on there.’ And
I think Mark is kind of a baby; he didn’t deal
with me much. He called Mr. Rosenthal, and
he called me. “That’s what we wanted,” he said.
‘That’s supposed to be a siren. There’s a bomb
coming in. It’s supposed to be a signal. We
think it’s great.’ I said, ‘Fine. But I think people
will laugh at us when it’s released.’ I still don’t
think it’s necessary, but I don’t argue with the
top echelon.”
Renowned for the extraordinary sadness and
tragedy in the music of the Louvin Brothers,
it’s fitting that Charlie also chose to once
again explore what might rank as the most
disturbing song in their catalog--the infamous
murder ballad “Knoxville Girl.”
Appropriately, his duet partner for that song
is Will Oldham, an artist whose music has
often visited similarly haunted locales. “It is
an extremely morbid song,” Louvin admits.
“Most people listen to it and say, ‘I listened
to it, and it don’t say why. There’s got to be
a reason why he did that.’ I say, ‘Well, then
you didn’t listen to the song close enough,
because close to the front of the song, when
he threw her in the river, he said, ‘Go down,
go down you Knoxville girl/ with the dark
and roving eyes.’ She had eyes for somebody
else, and he didn’t appreciate that. So it was a
‘if I can’t have you, no one will’ type of thing.
There’s not much story, but it’s an extremely
gruesome song,” he says, brightening. “This
is hard to believe, but my brother and I never
played a show anywhere where we didn’t get
several requests for “Knoxville Girl.” Even
a song like “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My
Baby,” which was #1, they’d request “Knoxville
Girl” more than they did our #1 songs. It was
something that they’d start applauding when
the mandolin kicked it off. They knew exactly
what was coming. People would holler from
the audience if you went very far into a show
without singing that song.”
Of course, those songs are clearly in place as a
reference to where Louvin has been. Far more
surprising is the presence of “Ira,” a song more
reflective of where Louvin is today and just how
much his brother’s death still affects him. “The
LeClaire twins were out at my house once, and
we got to talking, and they said, ‘Why don’t
you write a song about your brother?’” Louvin
recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, you know, Ira and
I didn’t break up on good terms. He was a
drinker, and I just didn’t know how to handle
a drinker.’ I still don’t to this day. I never
thought of heaven and Ira in the same breath,
but we just started swapping ideas and put the
song together in an hour or less, and I recorded
it. I guess I’ve been stupid for several years, and
I guess the song says what should be said. It’s
hard for me to do it today. It mellows me out
to listen to it, and when you start doing it, it
goes so personal that it shows. The fact of it is
there’s a place [on the album] where I should
have said, ‘Oh, shit. Let’s cut that again.’ And
if I’d said something nasty, they would have. I
broke one time in there, and after it was over, I
told the engineer, ‘I need to do that again.’ And
he said, ‘Oh, no! That’s soul. You don’t need to
do that again.’ But I don’t like to release things
like that where I’ve got so deep in a song that I
couldn’t sing it.”
Of course, such vulnerability only underscores
the deep authenticity captured on the album,
Louvin finally and deservedly presented
without polish and with the gravitas of a man
who has been making unforgettable music for
over six decades.
“I guess it’s a chance that we’re taking, but
it’s not a bad record at all,” he says, with
resignation. “But it’s different from what
I’ve been doing. It’s aimed at…Americana, I
think,” he says, as if saying that word for the
first time. At any rate, Louvin seems ready to
handle whatever comes his way.
“I’m looking forward to the season this year.
It’s kind of rare to start your career over at
79, but I feel good, and I’m healthy as far as
I know. Another big thing that’s never been
done for me – Josh tells me that he’s going to
rent the Ryman Auditorium for my July 7th
birthday. Of course, I guess they’ll try to get
some of the people that were on the record
there, and if not, I’ll get some of my redneck
friends to help me, and we’ll celebrate the
birthday in style,” he says with a laugh. “If I
don’t do it, that just means that I’m lazy, and
God knows that I ain’t lazy. So we’re going to
give it a shot.” •
www.popculturepress.com
17
Overcast, with a Chance of Brilliance:
Introducing Future Clouds & Radar
by Kent H. Benjamin
cotton mather nearly made it big. formed
in Austin around 1991, Robert Harrison basically picked the band name off a book cover
(it truly never had significance) and initially, it
was an avant-pop outfit with guitar and cello.
By the time of their debut release in 1994, the
combo had evolved into a more standard rock
outfit. But in 1997, with a more permanent
lineup that included Josh Gravelin on bass,
guitar wizard Whit Williams, and drummer/
singer Dana Myzer, the group released the
landmark album Kontiki, featuring one of
the decade’s most stunningly perfect pop singles, “My Before And After,” and everything
changed. The little avant-pop group that could
barely get noticed in their own hometown was
suddenly getting huge amounts of airplay, and,
somehow, a copy of the album made its way
into the hands of Noel Gallagher, who raved
about the band in print and gave them opening
slot gigs for Oasis.
Hip indie Rainbow Quartz reissued the album
the following year (and again the year after
that). But in America, the tiny Houston label
that originally released the album was unable
to get actual product in the stores. So a hit
in Philly translated to no sales, as no one
could find the album in the stores. After an
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interesting, artsy EP—Hotel Baltimore (with
several brilliant songs), the group followed up
with 2001’s The Big Picture, which included
another masterpiece, “40 Watt Solution.”
The band, which had begun life as a quirky
avant-garde outfit, had morphed into a live
powerhouse, capable of playing onstage
alongside any great band anywhere. But along
the way, on the verge of a big European
tour that would’ve made the group a lot of
money, it all fell apart. Family issues had
arisen (young babies can turn touring dads
into stay-at-homes), and Harrison suffered
severe and long-lasting back problems as a
result of a serious car accident. When one of
his band members confided to Harrison that
it seemed to him that the band was holding
him (Harrison) back, Harrison realized that
it might be time to retire the ‘Cotton Mather’
brand, as it were, and start afresh. While the
music had been at times magnificent, and there
was a large cult audience for it, the possibilities
inherent in the music had always been so much
greater than cult success would ever allow.
For several years, Harrison was basically
prone, unable to play guitar. Little by little
he started to pick up the ukulele (which
didn’t hurt his back), and wonderful new
songs like “Quicksilver” (the first tune written
for the new album) literally started to pour
out.. Harrison’s little garage set-up had been
turned into a full-fledged recording studio,
where he worked produced and engineered
projects like ‘s Carrie Clark’s (ex-Sixteen
Deluxe_ band The Pretty Please. One of the
band names mooted for that project really
caught Harrison’s fancy -- Future Clouds &
Radar -- which that band voted down; but
it became increasingly clear to Harrison that
that might indeed be exactly the right name
for his new, evocative, more expansive sound.
Indeed, some time later, his new band (the
touring version of which includes Gravelin on
bass, a lead guitarist, drummer, and a multiinstrumentalist on vibes, horns, and keys) have
actually started referring to Harrison himself
as ‘Future Clouds’ (a funny and somewhat
apropos moniker, I must say).
Six years on from Cotton Mather, and the
future’s looking really bright for the newly
christened Future Clouds & Radar. Over three
albums worth of material -- much of it brilliant,
fully textured pop songs--has been recorded.
One of America’s biggest name PR firms has
fallen in love with the music, and agreed to take
on the project. Past label woes have been solved
by the formation of a new label, The Star Apple
Kingdom, which Harrison asserts has enough
financial clout to get the job done this time. A
major US distribution deal is pending.
For their eponymous debut Harrison insisted
that artistically it just had to be released as a
double album. Furthermore, instead of just
selecting all the best pop songs, the album
was carefully crafted as a listening experience,
with interstitial pieces of music and links
that serve to enhance and set off some of the
finest songs of his career. With Harrison’s
distinctive, powerful lead vocals, it does in
fact sound very much like Cotton Mather. The
biggest differences are really internal, not so
much things that the listener will hear.
With Cotton Mather, particularly with the
final lineup of the band, it had developed to a
point where the band would very much put its
own identifiable stamp on the music. Harrison
now uses a rotating group of friends and
session musicians in his studio, most of them
Cotton Mather fans, to be fair, but people
who play more nearly a sideman function. If
you look at the whole Cotton Mather catalog,
you’ll hear precedents for most of the new
record’s sonic palettes. But overall, the sound
is less easily classifiable, and ultimately, almost
breathtakingly fresh.
In the past, writers felt obliged to point out
similarities in Harrison’s music to White
Album-era Beatles (particularly to John
Lennon and George Harrison), ELO, and the
Waterboys. That shouldn’t be an issue anymore.
Each Future Clouds track was approached
separately, with its own textures and little bits
of instrumental colour: Full horn arrangements
in places, faux keyboard horns elsewhere. It’s
not guitar-lite, but is rather less reliant on
guitar heroics. Harrison’s songwriting keeps
getting better and better; full of hooks, with
beautiful melodies and strong lyrics (that are
sometimes cryptic, but always evocative and
effective). Best of all, the lengthy gestation
time of this album has given them time to
add hundreds of brilliant little arrangement
flourishes that enhance and reward repeated
spins. And unlike many double albums, this
one could easily have been at least a triple;
there simply aren’t any crap songs.
In fact, at least a half dozen of them are
starting to sound nearly as perfect as “My
Before And After” and “40 Watt Solution.”
Check out a few highlights: “You Will Be
Loved,” “Build Havana,” “Back Seat Silver
Jet Sighter,” “Hurricane Judy,” “Altitude,”
“Quicksilver,” or “Drugstore Bust.” It’s multihued, challenging, and ultimately scintillating
new material -- you won’t be overwhelmed on
first listen, but give it 10 plays, and you’ll likely
be a fan for life.
One way of looking at the difference between
Cotton Mather and Future Clouds is to look
at a similar musical direction change taken
by another major artist, Paul Weller. When
he felt constricted by his long-time band,
for which he was the main songwriter, he
changed band names and musicians, evolving
into The Style Council. And yet much of
the early Style Council material could easily
have been performed and recorded by The
Jam; however, that change led Weller to write
some of the sharpest lyrics of his career and
to reach a whole new audience (Style Council
were more popular than the Jam in America,
for instance). Ultimately, it gave Weller the
freedom to experiment, until, currently, he’s
come full circle back to music that sounds
for all the world just like The Jam. And that
may well be pretty much what happens here.
It’s not so much a radical direction change
as a new brand name, mostly (but not all)
different musicians, and most importantly
of all, a newfound sense of artistic freedom,
enabling Harrison to produce what is arguably
not only the finest music of his career, but
music on a par with anything in popular music
circa 2007.
Asked to characterize the album, Harrison
simply declared that it was “the most honest
record” he’s ever made. As for me, I can
honestly say that Kontiki was one of the alltime best Austin or Texas albums, and as
I write this in January 2007, it’s becoming
increasingly clear to me that this new one
just may be significantly better. And for
Robert Harrison—paraphrasing what George
Harrison once said about Paul McCartney on
stage—’opportunity knocks.’ If the new PR
team and new label can get this (admittedly)
somewhat challenging record heard, 2007 may
well be the year of Future Clouds & Radar.
For sure Harrison’s pals in Oasis -- with all
their unrealized potential now that Gem and
Andy Bell are in the band -- will never make
an album this brilliant. •
www.popculturepress.com
19
Lullabies of the Damned: The Quotable Eric Matthews
by d.n.l
sometimes it just happens that way; you
get someone affable on the other end of the
phone and end up with two hour-long tapes
to transcribe. With Eric Matthews, this was
the case, and there was so much to talk about:
What with his two classic Sub Pop albums
from a decade ago resonating ever brightly, the
time in between full of label woes but constant,
consistent work, and finally the re-emergence,
first with ‘05’s mini-album, Six Kinds of Passion
Looking For an Exit, and then ‘06’s triple dose
of the long Foundation Sounds album, an additional five-song EP, and the remixed, reissued
Cardinal album (out now on Empyrean) with
11 additional tracks, there was plenty to discuss. The following are all quotes, Matthews
weighing in on a variety of subjects, from the
master of modern chamber rock himself.
RECORD NERDS:
I think my generation is the beginning of the
tail-end of generations who will have the desire
to hold a CD in their hands; we certainly can’t
count on the kids in their 20s or the teenagers,
and the world is for them.
I’ve got a lot of friends who, for some reason,
started to have kids at age 40, but these are kids
being raised around LPs. I just think “what a
dorky bunch of kids that’s going to be in 10,
15, years”...
I don’t even record shop anymore, and I spent
20 years being a record fiend, just traveling
around buying records wherever I went, and I
just stopped. It was like I was a heroin addict...
THE HAND:
I do a lot of construction stuff at our house,
my wife and I bought an old home from 1909,
it was a church originally, it was this big,
cool building that has been developed into a
residence, and so there’s always projects and
I’m always sawing things and I got careless,
and made a risky sort of decision, and a saw
jumped and landed on my right hand, severing completely the tendon leading to the little
finger. A month after that I had surgery, and
I’m well into rehab where it’s been probably
three weeks where I have full ability in playing
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guitar, piano, trumpet, all of the things I need
to do, and I must also confess, I’ve been sawing
as well...I used the skill saw three times today...
I’m back to sawing, back to playing music,
everything’s fine!
It was very painful, I was home alone, and
it was scary, but I kept my cool, called 911,
I didn’t pass out, I have a strong survival
instinct. I had no business dealing with power
tools in the first place, but I’m not going to
stop doing that!
CARDINAL:
In the industry, or the subsection of the industry which is indie rock, so many records come
out that are very much of their time; they tend
to be dated, very much fad- and gimmick-oriented I believe, and that was definitely true in
the early and mid-90s when I started making
albums. Not that I was making a conscious
effort; one cannot make a conscious effort to
make timeless music. That’s not a decision
that people get to make, but I was aware that
the music I was making, that what I was writing would’ve sounded good 10 years prior, 20
years prior, or 10 years in the future, you can
never predict the future, but I was aware that I
was making records that were nothing like the
indie-rock explosion of 1994.
BURT BACHARACH:
(Sings Geico commercial) The truth of it is, he
would never have been capable of self-deprecation in the 1960s. That guy was as serious as
a man who has ever walked the planet, listen,
he’s an old man, he still has some of his musical powers intact, not a great percentage, but
he’s old, rich, probably starting to get fat for
the first time in his life, this is probably the
time, while you’re alive and you’re beautiful
and you’re rich...
SUB POP:
Nils Bernstein, the somewhat famous music
publicist of that era, was working at Sub Pop,
and he may have been the one who said “who’s
this Eric Matthews and what is he doing,”
because we made it pretty clear that Cardinal
was a one-off project. It was neat, I was mind-
I used the skill saw
three times today...
I’m back to sawing,
back to playing music,
everything’s fine!
ing my own business, enjoying the success of
the Cardinal record, and I suddenly had people calling me, magazines, record labels, and
I’d never even sent demos out. And Jonathan
Poneman, the somewhat legendary head of
the label, fell in love with my set of 4-track
demos. It coincided with their association with
Warner, but they started signing things that
were somewhat experimental, signing bands
that weren’t like other Sub Pop bands, and a
surprising amount of good records came out
of that three- to four-year period, including
my friends Sebadoh, who put out several great
records. But sadly it was an experiment that
didn’t work, and we helped drive that whole
big thing into the ground.
Eric Matthews, Sebadoh, and Jeremy Enigk
were not the kind of artists who were going
MADONNA DOCTRINE:
I have a very strong artistic vision and I’d like
to think that, for those perceptive enough to
see it, if you put on all of my records, it’s really
very distinct, very samey, I have a thing and I
do that thing, and I plan on doing it to death,
and F’ everybody who doesn’t like that!
There are a lot of people who pull a lot of
weight in this world and who pool a lot of
ink and they’re disappointed when somebody
doesn’t follow the sort of Madonna doctrine,
of constant transforming. That has somehow
become somewhat virtuous. If you fall in love
with an artist it’s not because you fall in love
with the artist or his vision, you fall in love
with the artist because “wow, it’s so different
every time!” If you’re waiting for some vastly
experimental take on the Eric Matthews sound
then you’re not going to get it. Not from me, at
least. We’ll leave that up to somebody else.
SINKING
SHIPS
(AND
FORESEEABLE FUTURE):
to afford 10 more years of extravagance, and
Sub Pop went into an extreme belt-tightening
mode, made some incredibly good signings,
with the Postal Service and the Shins; they’ve
been smart and their business plan has turned
out well, and they rescued themselves from
obscurity. They moved down from an opulent
two floors into a smaller space, they got lean
and mean, and they should sign me again.
It’s harder to sell records now than it ever was,
and no artist in their right mind is looking to
spend a lot of label money; then if you only
sell 10,000 of your record then you can still
recoup. I try to keep my needs lean and mean,
and I try to keep my needs with my current
label, Empyrean, rather modest.
THE
This fellow hired me to arrange and produce his “thing” and I sort of produced and
arranged so much of it that it was just turning
out too cool, I sort of couldn’t let it get away.
I put so much into it. What would start out
with him sort of playing a few keyboards and
guitars I’d then turn into these huge sound
and musical landscapes. We’ve formed a thing,
and we’ve got it together and we’ve got an
EP coming out and we’ve got our first album
about 95% in the can and ready to go. The first
EP is completely instrumental, then the first
LP is going to be about 70-80% instrumental,
and a really great singer, Lush’s Miki Berenyi,
is going to be involved in singing on three
songs, Then the next album she’ll probably
be involved with singing on about half, I’ll be
writing all of the melodies and lyrics. I just
wanted to do something with a female vocalist involved, and I found the right person and
it turns out she’d been a fan of mine and is
excited to be working with me. •
www.popculturepress.com
21
Numbers With Wings
An Interview with The Bongos’ Richard Barone
by Steve Elliott
in hoboken, circa 1980, photo by phil marino
When Steve Elliott contacted us, saying he’d been
in contact with Richard Barone and offering an
interview, we jumped at the chance. Bands like
the Bongos, with their perfect guitar pop, were
and still are the inspiration for Pop Culture
Press. So, without further adieu, let’s catch up
with one of pop’s all-time unsung geniuses! –ed.
PCP: Hello Richard! You’ve written some great
songs, what inspires you when you’re composing
a song?
Richard Barone: Thank you for your kind
words! Well, what inspires me is always different. Sometimes, in fact most often, it’s a
person. Other times it’s a concept that I don’t
particularly understand myself—and the song
is sometimes a device for working out a problem, or trying to get my head around an issue
or an emotion that baffles me. Ultimately,
though, inspiration is a sacred mystery. I don’t
question it—I just surrender to it. I’m usually
as surprised by the outcome as anyone else.
PCP: Take us back to the beginning when you first
formed The Bongos with Rob Norris and Frank
Giannini. How did you guys first come together?
What was the music scene like then?
RB: The Bongos met at a time when anything was possible. There was a wonderfully
eclectic music scene in New York (the new
documentary, The Nomi Song (Palm Pictures
DVD) portrays that period nicely). It was
the beginning of the DIY movement, and we
had a great time creating our own sound and
image. We made Hoboken, New Jersey our
home—directly across the Hudson River from
Manhattan, but a world away. It set us apart
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from the other bands in the area, and gave us,
early on, a nurturing environment to develop
our sound. In general, a very generous and
mutually supportive music scene is what we
emerged from.
PCP: You guys then released your first album,
Drums along the Hudson (1982) on the Indie label,
PVC, containing the classics, “In the Congo,” “The
Bulrushes,” and your fab T-Rex cover, “Mambo
Sun”! What do you think of this album now?
RB: I will always have a special place in my
heart for Drums Along The Hudson. The tracks
on Drums were originally recorded for the
Fetish label in England, as singles and EPs.
PVC licensed it for the US, and turned it into
a full-length album. “Mambo Sun” was almost
an afterthought. We were rehearsing “In The
Congo” the night before the session, and suddenly started jamming on “Mambo Sun.” We
came up with kind of an extended arrangement, and it became our first tune to chart on
the Billboard Dance chart. Most of Drums was
recorded in Surrey, just outside of London, in
a beautiful residential studio on a sheep farm. I
was forever spoiled by that lovely experience!
PCP: Moving on to your superb & classic second
release, the mini-LP Numbers With Wings (1983)
on RCA Records, James Mastro (guitar & vocals)
joins the group, thus completing the essential
line-up of the Bongos. Was Numbers With Wings
ever intended by the band to be a full length
album vs. just being a 5-song record?
RB: Again, thank you for your kind words! We
were very pleased with the Numbers Mini-LP,
too. On vinyl, the 12-inch, mini-LP format
allowed the actual grooves to be quite wide,
which in turn allowed us to create a massive
sound, with a good amount of bass. This would
have been impossible on a normal length LP
where the grooves must be compressed to
accommodate 20+ minutes per side. It didn’t
bother us at all to have our first major label
release an EP—we actually liked the single and
EP formats, and felt that those formats suited
our songs and style. The original intention for
the Bongos was to only make 7-inch singles.
The Drums LP, as I mentioned previously, was
really just a compilation of our British singles,
and not recorded as an album. The songs on
the mini-LP were written during and after
our trip to the UK to record Drums and tour
Europe. So, part of the continuity of that minicollection stems from the fact that we were still
riding the creative wave from Drums.
PCP: You all sounded like a band on a mission on
this record? There’s so much passion & energy
dripping off of each song. Let’s talk about each
of the songs. "Numbers With Wings," "Tiger
Nights," "Barbarella," "Skydiving," and "Sweet
Blue Cage."
RB: Yes, there was a tremendous amount of
passion surrounding those sessions. One of
the goals was to create a sound that was larger
than life. Whereas Drums had captured a kind
of garage rock sound, we wanted to widen the
stereo image and add a lot of atmosphere for
the Numbers mini-album.
The title song was mostly written in London. I
was walking near Victoria Station with a pocket
sized Casio VL-1 keyboard that would allow me
to program and save a short sequence. I keyedin the bass line that became the song, brought
it back to my hotel room and strummed the E
minor/A minor progression over it on my guitar, and the lyrics came very naturally. The second verse, my favorite, was written in the studio at the actual recording session. As with all
the songs, it came fully to life when I brought
it to the rest of the band. Rob played the bass
line, adding his own, almost “surf ” feel, Frank
added his massive backbeat, and James colored
the chords by accenting each with harmonics and tremolo. Richard Gottehrer was the
perfect producer for us at that time, adding
touches of brilliance throughout (like the little
skyrocket tambourine hit on the choruses).
“Tiger Nights” was written during a telephone
conversation with James. It’s one of the most
romantic songs we ever recorded, and our first
collaboration. I remember Richard Gottehrer
conducting me when I played the 12-string
guitar solo, as if he were conducting a symphony orchestra.
“Barbarella” was not only inspired by the sexy
queen of outer space played by Jane Fonda
in the film. It was also a nod to our RCA
labelmates Annabella, and drummer (Dave)
Barbarosa, of the group Bow Wow Wow. It
was a combination of their names, too. Again,
Gottehrer was the perfect producer, since, as a
member of The Strangeloves, he had employed
the same Bo Diddley beat on their big hit, “I
Want Candy” (which was later covered by
Annabella and Bow Wow Wow, bringing the
whole thing full circle!).
“Skydiving” was a track that took shape mostly
in the studio. Even though we may have performed it live, the studio version took on a
far more atmospheric, ambient, and sensual
mood. It was like lovemaking.
Musically, I thought of “Sweet Blue Cage” as
a bookend to “Numbers With Wings.” It is
based on the same two verse chords, but in
reverse. Lyrically, it is about my own birth,
and the feeling of sometimes wanting to go
back into the womb. Well, YOU asked! I really
like the sound of the vintage drum machine
we used on the track, and the spare percussion
overdubs. The dual e-bow solo was played by
James and me, and the whole watery sound of
the mix is exactly what I heard in my head for
this song.
PCP: What led you and James Mastro to release
a duo album, Nuts & Bolts (Passport) around
this time in 1983 vs. just releasing another new
Bongos album?
RB: Well, there were a few reasons. James and
I had written a song or two together while we
were on a US Bongos tour (as special guests
for the B-52’s), and we wanted to record
them ASAP. At first, James had not been fully
integrated into the band as a full member.
(He actually joined the group officially when
we signed with RCA.) Also, when we knew
we were signing with a major label, I wanted
to take advantage of the time before actually signing to release one more indie album,
in the DIY vein of Drums, while we could. I
had already relegated five new songs to the
Numbers mini, and had five other new tunes
(on “Richard’s Side” of Nuts & Bolts) that I
wanted to record. Also, I wanted to work with
Mitch Easter again, at his Drive-In Studio in
North Carolina, where I had recently produced
a solo EP for Steve Almaas (Beat Rodeo). So,
I invited James to add some of his new songs,
and make it a duo album. It was meant to
fill the gap between Drums and Numbers…
although, looking back, I’m not exactly sure
when it actually came out. It was a very special
and fun experience, and Mitch’s studio was as
“garage” as it gets... it was his parents’ actual
garage. But, with great gear and great mics,
and Mitch was a spectacular drummer on that
album. Listen to his serious, seamless tomtom rolls on “Five Years Old.” Mitch was also
a genius engineer; our experimentation with
analogue tape on that album could fill a book.
PCP: Is it fair to say that the Beat Hotel (1985)
album on RCA, your 3rd Bongos release, was
more of a pop oriented album than your previous
records? What did you all want to achieve with
this album and what do you think of it now?
RB: Beat Hotel was full of great intentions, but
I have never been particularly thrilled with the
mix on that album. The plan was to explore
some very exciting Brazilian percussion, and
‘power samba’ styles mixed in with hyped up,
power pop guitars. The demos were filled with
potential, but the result was not what I had in
mind. It was fun, though, experimenting with
an early Roland guitar synthesizer (which I
borrowed from Kool & the Gang, recording
next door). My favorite track was the last one,
“Blow Up.”
PCP: At some point, you guys broke up after Beat
Hotel. What happened?
RB: Interestingly, we never actually ‘broke
up.’ Like that final song on Beat Hotel, I think
we ‘blew up.’ There will be a whole chapter
dedicated to that period in my book. After
the “Beat Hotel” tour, Chris Blackwell (of
Island Records) took us down to his studio in
Compass Point, and we recorded a final album
that remains unreleased to this day.
PCP: I see that The Bongos reunited for a couple
of shows in October 2006 and also in 2007!
How’d it go for you all?
RB: Yes, we had a blast in October. It was the
first time we had performed the Drums Along
The Hudson album as a concert piece, from
beginning to end. The songs were so carefully
sequenced when we made that album originally, that the flow was very natural in a live
setting, too. It plays as a kind of little journey.
The shows were completely sold-out, so the
Public Theater asked us to return and do it
again, February 17, 2007. When Rob, Frank,
and I get together to play, it is always very
natural and spontaneous, just as it was the first
time we ever did it. At the February shows we
will be joined onstage by a very special guest,
my good friend Rolan Bolan, son of Marc,
who will sing with us on “Mambo Sun.” The
Bongos were the first American group to have
a hit with a T. Rex cover in the 80s, so it’s very
special that Rolan will be joining us onstage for
that tune. We are also filming the shows for a
future special DVD release.
PCP: I understand that you guys are reissuing
Drums Along The Hudson on CD in January 2007?
What can your fans look forward to with this
reissue? Any further Bongos unreleased material
being considered for release?
RB: This is not a reissue but a Special Edition,
which will include the complete original
album remastered, several songs from the first
recorded Bongos show in 1980, two live tracks
recorded at the Rainbow in London, where
we are joined onstage by Throbbing Gristle
in 1981, the original video for “The Bulrushes”
from 1982, and an entirely new recording of
“The Bulrushes” produced by Moby, who also
played with us on the track. It was recorded in
New York in 2006. •
For a much longer version of this interview, with plenty
of insight into Richard Barone’s terrific post-Bongos
career, please see our website, popculturepress.com
www.popculturepress.com
23
Getting To The
Core Of The Matter
A Talk with Apples In
Stereo’s Robert Schneider
By John L. Micek
josh kessler
24
pop culture press
fair warning: those engaging in
conversation with Robert Schneider should
do so only with seatbelts firmly engaged. The
35-year-old frontman for popsters The Apples
In Stereo has one of the fastest-moving minds
this writer has ever encountered. Over the course of three phone calls on a chilly
December afternoon, we move from the best
way to fight off daycare-borne infections (It’s
something called “Airborne,” and Schneider
swears by it); the rebirth of his Elephant Six
label; his love of physics and mathematics;
and whether the prominence of downloading
has really signaled the death of the LP.
“You can buy it in the drugstore in the vitamin
section,” Schneider says of Airborrne. “It’s a
preventive created by a second-grade teacher.
It kind of tastes like Alka-Seltzer.” Somewhere in the middle of this three-hour
endurance test, we also manage to squeeze
in discussion of his combo’s first long-player
since 2002, the effervescent New Magnetic
Wonder. And, of course, he has plenty to say
about that too.
But first things first: What’s Schneider been
up to since the last Apples’ LP, The Velocity of
Sound, was released in 2002? As it turns out, he
was anything but idle.
After getting married and relocating to
Lexington, Kentucky, Schneider started a
combo called Ulysses. He also found time to
squeeze out another of his periodic ‘Marbles’
solo LPs with longtime E6 collaborator
William Cullen Hart. Adding to the already
busy musical landscape, Schneider started yet
another band with his brother-in-law called
The American Revolution.
“I’ve got so many good things in my life right
now, and that translated into my [Apples]
record,” he says. “I attribute it largely to
Marcy, my wife.”
Sprawling over almost two-dozen tracks,
Wonder is the band’s sixth LP, and the first
not to be released by longtime label SpinArt,
ending a decade-long relationship between
band and label. Instead, the record will be
released by actor Elijah Wood’s new Simian
Records. Schneider met Wood, a longtime
Apples fan, at the annual South by Southwest
festival in Austin in 2003.
And Schneider is quick to stress that this new
venture is no busman’s holiday for Wood, best
known for his role as Frodo Baggins in director
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
“He’s an amazing person,” Schneider enthuses.
”He’s as into music as anyone I’ve ever met.
He’s completely obsessed. He’s incredibly
obsessed with the history and process of
music. He loves music the way I did when I
was his age.”
This, the inaugural release from Wood’s
label, is also being co-released through the
reinvigorated Elephant 6 label, as well as
stalwart North Carolina indie Yep Roc, and its
distribution arm, RedEye.
Schneider has equally high praise for Yep Roc.
“They’re super guys,” he says. “They also own
RedEye, and that’s part of the deal.”
In fact, change pervaded the atmosphere that
led to Wonder. For this new outing, Schneider
is without the services of longtime Apples
drummer Hilarie Sidney. Sidney was replaced
by drummer John Duhfiho of Dallas outfit
Deathray Davies.
“He’s perfect,” Schneider gushes. ”Drums
aren’t his No. 1 instrument, and that’s exactly
the kind of thing that we wanted. I don’t mean
to sound arrogant, but when we’re playing
live, I feel like we’re the best fucking band in
the world.”
Wonder also finds Schneider working again with
longtime Elephant Six friend Bill Doss (formerly
of The Olivia Tremor Control), who joined the
band as one of its touring keyboard players. “I basically wanted to get all my best friends
on the record,” he says. “I just wanted to feel
the love.”
After shedding much of his band’s psychedelic
trappings with 2002’s punky Velocity of Sound,
Schneider said he felt liberated enough to
return to familiar territory with a fresh eye. “I
set out to do something crafted like Smile, but
with the fire of Plastic Ono Band, and [Electric
Light Orchestra’s] Greatest Hits,” he explains. The end result is a record that, according to
Schneider, can be listened to in two parts. The
first 11 tracks, he explains, are the ones you
listen to as you’re getting ready for a night out
on the town. The back 13, meanwhile, are the
ones you listen to after you get home.
“I’ve always looked at the Apples as a pop
band,” he says. “I’ve always felt like I was
making singles. I’ve always felt we were a pop
band before we were an indie rock band.”
And that, he says, is an approach that’s served
the band well in the new download-age. With
each track crafted for maximum listenability,
that’s made it easier for the band to approach
the single-track-directed musical blogosphere.
“Yep Roc has a person who only does Internet
promotion, who works with ‘blogs and stuff,”
Schneider says. ”The record has two singles:
‘Energy,’ which is the commercial single, and
‘Same Old Drag,’ which is the Internet single.
It’s more for the iPod.”
Talk of downloading inevitably leads to
speculation over the changing landscape of
indie rock, at a time when it’s just as likely
that you’ll find one of Schneider’s tunes in a
commercial as you would on college radio.
“It’s great to write something you know will
come out, to make something that’s poppy
as fuck,” Schneider says, without a trace of
apology in his voice. ”Then I can go be in an
indie rock band and not worry about it.”
Yeah…but would Paul Westerberg have done that?
Cementing the vibe was the addition of exNeutral Milk Hotel leader Jeff Mangum, who
played drums on a pair of tracks and helped
Schneider wrestle his songs onto tape.
“It’s so like our generation to be offended
like that,” he laughs. “The kids don’t care. I
attribute it all to college radio kids getting day
jobs in advertising.” •
“On certain songs,I just wanted the best takes,”
Schneider recalled. “I had Jeff out to record
with me. He just helped me. He has a great
ear. In the future, when we’re old, we’ll be
producers together.”
www.popculturepress.com
25
original photo by steve gullick
Andy
Partridge’s
Monumental Array of
Fuzzy Warbles
by don simpson
26
pop culture press
Welcome
to a historical review of XTC in celebration of the wonderfully enormous
Fuzzy Warbles box set. Pop Culture Press has the ultimate definer of pop,
Andy Partridge, on the line. He is at home in England, recovering from
a cold and in a wee silly state of mind.
“I’m historical at the moment, hysterical more like it. Yeah, I’m just a
walking museum. It gets a bit dusty and you’re not allowed to touch;
hands off the exhibits, madam.”
Firstly, much thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Partridge for gifting (after much
requisite pestering) to young Andy his first handheld tape recorder at
Christmas 1965; without which, music history may have been forever altered.
Let’s get right to those fuzzy, yet untouchable, exhibits. Fuzzy Warbles
catholically historicizes Partridge’s demo career from the mono cassette
tapes of the early days of XTC to his more current digital recordings.
“Originally, demos were me stomping my foot into a little mono cassette
machine, I’d strum a guitar, yell how the song went and play that to the
band in rehearsal; I would have to describe all of the other parts to the
band. When I got my cassette Tascam Porta 1 Portastudio in ’82, I stopped
doing the describing and played all the parts myself. I could give the others
more of an idea of how it went in a more fleshed out form; which must
have been a real piss-off for them because it left fewer holes for them to
fill, or put their personality, in. Rehearsals could be frustrating trying to
describe the stuff in my head without snatching the instruments from
their hands and screaming ‘it goes like this!’ I didn’t wanna McCartney
them. Colin tended to demo things in different ways, then we would still
kick around his songs in other ways again during rehearsals. He wasn’t
always sure about what he wanted; he used demos as a way of finding
out what pleased him. There’s more of a fog in his head, he has to work
towards something. Whereas for me, it was a way to get things down that
were in my head. I tended to hear it all as one thing.”
XTC’s 30-year career has been quite prolific, with numerous brilliant
releases under their belt; yet there are still so many great songs on Fuzzy
Warbles that fell by the wayside and never received proper attention.
“Oh! There’s a whole bunch of stuff that I really wish we had done;
but for whatever reason, somebody didn’t like a song. We tried to be
as democratic as possible. Everybody in the band, the producer, and
a couple people from the record company would hear all of the songs
for any given album and then write down a list of their favorite ones.
There’d be some surprises because a song you thought might be weak,
everybody else might think was the best one on the disc or you’d really
love a song and nobody would vote for it. Let me grab the box. I can’t
remember all the titles, there are so many on these bloody discs. Do you
know that I’ve lived in smaller houses than this box set? Your average
English house is a lot smaller than this box. Oh, I was so miffed that we
didn’t do “Wonder Annual” and why didn’t we do “Dame Fortune” for
chrissakes?! With “Shalloween,” I was lazy, I didn’t finish the lyrics off in
time and I thought maybe we’d got enough material so I didn’t bother
finishing it. “I Can’t Tell What Truth Is Anymore” we kicked around
for a little bit but I couldn’t see the band’s faces lighting up, so I didn’t
push it. If I demanded that certain songs be done, none of Colin’s songs
would have gotten a looking. That would have made me really popular.
I tried to be nice.”
Fuzzy Warbles truly showcases the evolution of XTC. Initially, as they
pushed the boundaries of Post-Punk and New Wave in the direction of
skillfully crafted pop songwriting, the composition and production of
the music always took priority. XTC matured and their lyrics became less
of a repetitive and monotonous background, garnering more attention
and prominence in the foreground.
“The lyrics for the first few albums were just as if they had been plucked
for the joy of the sound of the words or the impressionistic process that
the blast of the words created in your head. If you sat and read them,
they’d probably come out as nonsense. I think I actually got a lot better
as a songwriter as the albums went on; which is unusual, because bands
when they first appear are usually pretty good and then they go off to
boil. Seeing as we weren’t that great to start with, we could only get ideas
and get better.”
XTC truly did only get better, peaking (so far) at the grand genius of
1998’s Apple Venus.
“I’m very fond of Apple Venus, actually; I think that is my overall favorite
album. It’s a close call; I like big chunks of Nonsuch and Skylarking as
well. It’s tricky to say, ‘well, this album’s got all the best stuff and every
other album is just full of b-sides.’ I have favorite things from all over,
but we hit something with Apple Venus that transcended ordinariness
and gone into something quite…okay. I’m trying to be modest. Maybe
I should start being immodest now? Every other sort of rock person is
pretty immodest; maybe I should give it a whirl? ‘Yeah, we’re shockingly
good. Best thing to come out of England since the Beatles! No doubt!’”
Taken out of context, that last comment would make a great headline
for this story.
“Make sure you put the provision over it that I am trying out immodesty.
I don’t know if it fits me.”
While on the subject of the Beatles, the liner notes of Fuzzy Warbles list
the usual suspects (Monkees, Kinks, Beatles, Rolling Stones and Beach
Boys) as influences while Partridge was growing up; but as for specific
albums that made an impact…
“Tony Williams’ Lifetime Emergency! -- I heard that at the age of 16 or
17. That made a huge impression on me. Tony Williams is a drummer
who makes a constant ebbing and flowing thunderstorm of drums. The
lineup was Williams on drums, an organist called Larry Young who
played bass pedals with his feet and hands who sounded not like regular
organ stuff but more like something from Forbidden Planet. There was a
young guitarist, John McLaughlin, playing this great scratchy stuff over
the top. He is wrestling with the effects pedals and can’t get them to
work properly. They’re crackling and hissing and buzzing all the time.
That adds to the air of desperate electricity on the record. It’s really
pretty stunning. Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Rolling Stones
was so bad that it made a great impression on me. The Stones can’t do
psychedelia. It came out really wrong but really sort of charming in a
bad kind of way. It’s too aggressive and really hard-fisted. It’s so wrong
it makes a different thing. It didn’t sound like anybody else’s psychedelia.
They fell on their flowered asses in rather spectacular fashion, but I love
them for getting it wrong.”
www.popculturepress.com
27
Patto - “Air Raid Shelter”
How to tear up a guitar in a totally non-corny, non-clichéd way. Ollie
Halsall was the best guitarist England ever produced. Fact. Taught
me all I know about busting musical rules.
Third Ear Band
- “Fire”
Pop Culture Press asked the legendary and
prolific pop genius Andy Partridge to
assemble his ideal mixtape, resulting in
the following rather marvelous collection
of cuts, accompanied by some beautifully
funny insights. Anybody got a blank CDr?
Sarah Vaughan - “September Song”
The sound of leaves turning slowly gold and that beautiful, awful
feeling that age is creeping on and nothing can be spring again. Sigh.
It’s very very romantic in a down kind of way. What a voice.
The Pretty Things - “Talking About the Good Times”
Fades in where “Strawberry Fields” fades out, the clattering rolling
drums, the droney Indian thingey, colliding twangerous guitars.
Almost textbook old school psychedelia. From the same band who
brought you the epitome of snarling punk, “Rosalyn.”
The Savoy Havana Band - “Masculine Women and
Feminine Men”
Infectiously syncopated tiger-by-the-tail of a track. All about the
gender confusion between the boys and girls of the 20s. The same
arguments surfaced again in the 60s. “Girls were girls and boys were
boys when I was a tot, nowadays we don’t know who is who or
who’s got what’s what.”
From the Elements
album. If you built a
pyre and threw 1,000
plague victims on it,
this is what you should
have on your ipod as
you stoke. Demonic,
lascivious, cleansing.
The sound of mediaeval
hell. Sexy with it.
Syd Barrett “Octopus”
A ride around inside
the frightened kid mind
of a troubled troubadour. Disconnected musically and lyrically, a
nevertheless thrilling nightmare spree from which we can walk away
shaking, but unfortunately poor Syd couldn’t. An enormous, naive
talent, the Alfred Wallis of the underground scene.
patto’s ollie halsall
Pharoah Sanders - “The Creator Has a Master Plan”
32 minutes and 45 seconds of, well, frankly, loopy out-there jazz,
complete with druggy lounge repetitive vocals. Very odd, very loveable, very Pharoah. I first heard this in my teens and came out like I
did no doubt because of it. Singalong now...
Bee Gees - “Jumbo”
Infectious nursery rhyme from the nearest contenders to the Beatle
crown, that is until they discovered DISCO. This song has a buoyancy
and helium lightness all its own. Their early career was pretty faultless, here is a primary coloured slice of it.
Nellie McKay - “I Wanna Get Married”
Goofus girl with piano from the Big Apple who appeals to me. Tori
Amos drunk on a surfeit of lemonade. This song is however a more
smoochy affair that resonated deep inside me, for reasons I won’t go
into. Cried like a baby when I first heard it.
Anthony Newley - “That Noise”
This is the man David Bowie wishes he was, the vocal mannerisms,
the subject matter, the show biz-ness. Check out David’s early career
and you’ll hear what I mean. Tony wrestles with an irritating sound
loop and comically loses the day. Love it. Novelty records RULE. *
The She Beats - “Music Knows”
So my daughter Holly starts writing songs, with no help from old
dad, and look what falls out. Where do I spit, it’s great pop. My first
300 songs were dogshit, her first few are golden. Bah!
Napoleon XIIV - “They’re Coming to Take Me Away
Ha Ha”
pharaoah sanders
28
pop culture press
I’m on a novelty song roll now. This scared the shirt off of me as a
kid. Real fever dream soundtrack and bi-polar bop all wrapped up in
one straitjacket. Minimal head hurt rock. The B side is even odder. It’s
just the A side played backwards. Put it on a juke box and watch the
place empty in record time.
XTC didn’t fall on their flowered asses; instead
the Dukes of the Stratosphear recordings are
lauded by many as XTC’s best work. It’s
confounding that Partridge and company
chose an alter-ego for their psychedelic
homage to the 60s since the pseudonym
may well have destined the Dukes recordings
to music geek obscurity by disassociating
the releases from XTC. (Fans of the Dukes,
rejoice; there are a couple Dukes-era demos
in the Fuzzy Warbles collection.)
“When I was a schoolkid and I would watch
bands on Top of the Pops or at youth clubs
or wherever; I would say, ‘yup, when I grow
up I am going to be in a band just like
that.’ Bands like early Pink Floyd (with Syd
Barrett) or the Beatles or Stones (during their
wonderfully bad psychedelic period) or Keith
West’s Tomorrow. Then I grew up and I was
in a band unlike anything I really loved as a
kid; so it was a case of ‘hey fellas do you fancy
making a record under another name? I want
to say thank you to the sort of bands I always
thought I was going to be in but never was.’
It’s not such an unusual idea; you have Frank
Zappa’s Ruben & the Jets, Beach Boys’ Kenny
& the Cadets, The Move’s [Roy Wood’s
Wizzard] Introducing Eddy and the Falcons.
Quite a few bands made alter-egos of the kind
of music they liked as kids. Besides, the Dukes
were a great way to be in the studio and have
tons of fun. Like a carnival, we could put on
masks and pretend to be John Lennon or Syd
Barrett. There was no pressure. We didn’t
have to be ourselves and we could write any
gibberish and it would work; with psychedelic
music the more gibberish the better for the
lyrics. A couple of the Dukes songs were
actually XTC songs that were put back in
the cupboard because they sounded too old
fashioned. ‘You’re My Drug’ was written
around ’79 or ’80; I figured we couldn’t do
that because it sounded too much like the
Byrds. Colin’s song ‘Shiny Cage’ was written
for The Big Express but we all thought it might
be a bit too retro-y.”
XTC is one of the very few studio-only bands
able to sell records, defying the traditional
record label logic that you must tour to sell
records. They only toured for the first five
years of their career, so practically their entire
fan base has never seen them perform.
“I think we were pretty damn good [as a live
band], until I stopped taking Valium and
then the world came crashing in. After five years of touring we hadn’t
seen a penny. There were 10,000 people in auditoriums paying X amount
of dollars and we didn’t see a penny. We were told that we were running
at a loss even though we stayed in Best Western motels and toured
around in the back of a van. I was taking valium for 13 years. It’s deadly
stuff. When I stopped, I didn’t know anything about withdrawal and
came unwound. I started to get extremely discontent with being stuck
on the road earning money for other people. This was not what I wanted
to do; I wanted to make better records. When we came off the road, our
records got better. Sorry for people who want something to adore, but
they should have been quicker off the mark. They could have seen us for
five whole years!”
As you may guess, Mr. Partridge was never a fan of rock concerts.
“[Rock concerts] bored the ass off me. I’d just stand there thinking,
‘that’s not a light show. What are you wearing? For chrissakes, tune up.
Is that it? Is that the best song you got?’ Every band I saw, the majority
of them at least, really let me down. I could play their record at home
whenever I was in the mood. I didn’t need to go and worship at their
altar. You start realizing that music is not going to change the world.
It’s no more than perfume or chocolate, something pleasant you do now
and then but won’t actually change the world. When you’re 16 you think
music really is going to change the world but it’s actually your 16-yearold desire for you to change the world.”
Speaking of, I was 15 years old when Skylarking’s “Dear God” was
released. The lyrics of that song changed my view of the world and
religion immensely. I was shocked to hear the demo on Fuzzy Warbles
sans the lyrical meat; a song with such stunning lyrics reduced to a mere
“skiffle” and mumbled vocals.
“The intention to write it was there and I was stumbling through different
styles, like the fast kind of skiffly style on the demo. I knew I wanted to
write a song about that subject but I didn’t quite know how I was going
to do it. You would be surprised, even now you read people saying ‘why’s
he writing to God if he doesn’t believe in him?’ It’s a paradox you asshole!
You’re not going to get the paradox unless you actually address God and
then say you don’t believe in him. If I have to explain it, it kills the gag.
People, you can’t live with them and you can’t really shoot them…unless
you live in Texas.” •
www.popculturepress.com
29
Little Steven Is Rock’s
Renaissance Man…
and thank God
for that.
tk
by Bill Holmes
¶ What drives a man of accomplishment to take stock in himself, decide
(against all popular opinion) that maybe he hasn’t done quite enough
on this mortal coil, and that it’s time to raise the bar a notch?
30
pop culture press
If your name is Steve Van Zandt, maybe it’s
watching something you have always loved
starting to wither and die before your eyes.
Garage rock is a common but misappropriated term. Too often it’s used as a catchall
phrase for embryonic upstarts too painful to
be heard as far away as the sidewalk, let alone
the radio. But in Little Steven’s eyes, it’s all
about “hearing the roots, the ability to connect
to the 50s and 60s more directly,” regardless of
the era. And while radio was once a vast, open
playground of discovery, now rigid formats,
consultants, and greed have changed the rules.
A generation of music was being forgotten,
and a new generation was growing up ignorant
to its loss.
Anyone familiar with Little Steven’s sermons
about commitment and spiritual awakening
might have seen this coming. Too often people
talk the talk but fade when it comes time to
deliver. But here was a man who saw injustice
across the globe in South Africa, and promptly
organized Artists United Against Apartheid;
the resulting video and Top 40 single “Sun
City” brought much needed awareness to an
important social issue. When he was outraged
by the politics and greed of the Reagan era, he
let his mouth and music do the talking, without concern for career damage or retribution
(oh, how times have changed…). So it was no
different when Little Steven saw an art form he
loved being cast by the wayside. He knew that
something needed to be done. So he stepped
up again.
It’s now been five years since the Underground
Garage burst onto the cultural landscape to
reanimate the forgotten tenets of rock’n’roll
– direct, honest, heartfelt music from the
soul. And what started out as a singular effort
to get real rock ’n’ roll music back on the
radio has blossomed into a syndicated radio
show, a satellite channel (Sirius channel 25),
a touring company, a record label, and, soon,
an Internet television station. But the King
of this Underground Empire remains just as
approachable and passionate as ever, focused
and determined to set things right.
Born Again Savage, the Voice of America
Flash back to the start of the decade, when
Steven felt like he had really lost the connection to the music. “At that stage of the game,
I’m thinking music’s kind of over for me.
I mean I like a song here or there, a couple
of bands, but it felt over.” But a friend (Jon
Weiss of The Vipers) talked him into attending Cave Stomp, an annual garage festival in
New York.
“It was fantastic – some older bands, some
newer bands, it was really great to see something that was meaningful to me,” enthuses
Van Zandt. Hearing the “roots” in a number
of the lesser-known acts, he excitedly quizzed
Weiss about what he presumed to be a forgotten scene and learned that it had never really
gone away. In fact there were numerous bands
across the country flying the flag, albeit not
(commercially) successfully. Inspired, Steven
approached Weiss to become partners and
try to produce a show every month instead of
every year (they did, and ended up doing sixteen shows). But when he started meeting the
bands and asked if they were getting airplay,
he found the answer was almost always “no.”
How could this be?
He was also surprised to find the resistance
he met trying to get the Underground Garage
started. “It took a full year to get enough stations to even launch this thing…I think we
started with 20, 23 stations. It was a long fight
to get on, and this was after The Sopranos success and after the Springsteen reunion. Nobody
wanted the show, Nobody wanted rock ’n’ roll
on the radio that didn’t fit this new, very narrow world where they’re basically playing three
hundred records everywhere in America.”
Finally, a handful of brave souls came on
board and the first rating book was so high they
couldn’t deny the success of the concept.
“We were literally the only game in town,” he
explains, “and my syndicated show still is. But
no regular radio station would play my format
24 hours a day; I had to go to Sirius for that.”
Van Zandt sees satellite and broadcast radio
as kindred spirits; satellite as a perfect place
to experiment and have a little more focus,
“Basically all of the greatest music ever made
or being made, is not on the radio. And that is really, really…fucked up. This is wrong!”
So Van Zandt turned on the radio…you can
probably imagine the shock after not listening
for so many years. “I was surprised how things
had narrowed. Man, not only am I not hearing any of these cool new bands, but I’m not
hearing a lot of the songs from the early cool
bands either!” Unable to find the classics from
his youth -- Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent
– he wasn’t even hearing the Beatles, Stones,
Animals, or Yardbirds. It was as if two whole
decades just…vanished.
“All this is going on at the same time and I’m
thinking…the mainstream FM stations have
eliminated the 60s, now the oldies stations
have eliminated the 50s. And there is nobody
playing the new stuff. Basically all of the greatest music ever made or being made, is not on
the radio, And that is really, really…fucked
up. This is wrong! So I don’t know what I can
do, but I just did the Springsteen tour and we
just finished The Sopranos first season, both of
which were very successful. And I thought, I
got a little ‘celebrity capital,’ let me spend it on
this. Let me get a radio show. So that’s how it
started … a desire to get stuff heard and make
sure the second generation of kids get a chance
to hear real rock ’n’ roll.”
with broadcast radio still the main conduit to
the people. While he enjoys the freedom and
knows it will be the dominant player for years
to come, he’s aware that satellite radio is also
years away from the sheer numbers its elder
brother can reach.
Little Steven says he is still exclusively a DJ
on his own show because he wants to support
broadcast radio and see it make a comeback.
But he also wants to see more new music
played on his syndicated classic rock affiliates. “I’m always discussing it with them in a
respectful way. I mean, I know you’re doing
great, very successful, but it wouldn’t hurt to
add a couple of new records now and then.”
It’s frustrating, he says, to have to listen to
excuse after excuse why music that is jumping
out of the speakers can’t find a bigger home,
especially when he has watched it work on his
own program. “I’m a little old fashioned in
this sense, but I’m sorry, I really think there
should be a connection between playing music
on the radio and people going out and buying
those records. And that kind of went sideways
somewhere along the way.”
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Underground
Garage Spotlight
The Paybacks tk
By Bill Holmes
Detroit has always been an amazing hotbed of rock ’n’ roll greatness, where classic rock inhabits the DNA of every resident. Disco
never caught on in the Motor City, and whatever passes for pop
music these days is laughed at. So if your band is going to survive,
you had better rock. Wendy Case, lead singer and songwriter for
The Paybacks, knows this well.
“Detroit just has a culture of kids who crave rock ’n’ roll. They were
raised and taught by the greatest – The Who, Ted Nugent, Iggy,
the whole legacy of Detroit music. Grand Funk is still a name people
say with reverence in Detroit!”
Like many bands at their level, The Paybacks have a great ally in
Little Steven and the Underground Garage. “Steven has been a
real big booster of the band right from the beginning”, Case says.
He knew her from her band Ten High, contemporaries of other 90s
legends like The Cynics and The Fleshtones. “Once the Paybacks
started making records he was on that right away. He’s been just
fantastic about embracing us and bringing us along.”
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pop culture press
But after two successful releases on Get Hip (Knock Loud, Harder
and Harder), The Paybacks decided that it was time to take matters into their own hands and worked out a new plan and strategy,
including the release of album three (Love, Not Reason) on their
own Savage Jams label. When Little Steven’s Wicked Cool label
launched late last year they approached the band to sign on, but
too much had already been set in motion. Still, Case was flattered
by the invitation, just as she is having The Paybacks featured on his
radio show and Underground Garage tours. “It means a lot to see
someone like Steven who genuinely loves the stuff. Its not like he
has anything to gain from this, he has a very successful career…he
doesn’t need to mix with the riff raff, he does it because it’s
meaningful to him.”
Someone once mused that an album is like a journal, and if
you’re doing it right each one should accurately reflect a particular
period or moment in your life. And while Case admits “the first two
records were crazy party records full of sex and drunkenness and
juvenile behavior,” it’s what the band was going through at the
time. If the cover art from Love, Not Reason wasn’t enough of a
tip-off, the songs within drill home the point that love can rip you
a new one, as art imitates life once again.
“This (album) is about a breakup, trying to bury it, live through
it…trying to absorb it all instead of just crying boo-hoo.” While
the band always records live in the studio before adding vocals
and lead guitars, this album’s basic tracks were recorded in one
weekend, thanks to Chicago’s Volume Studios losing its lease
during the sessions. The results are dynamic, stripped down and
often sexual in nature, musically powerful yet speaking from the
unusual perspective of missing the passion as well as the person.
And if working in a new drummer wasn’t enough change, bassist
John Szymanski departed after recording because of commitments
to his other projects, although the shape-shifting band added Dave
Malosh with John’s blessing.
Now back on the road, The Paybacks still blast out vintage Detroit
take no prisoners rock ’n’ roll, featuring Wendy’s electric vocals
and the explosive guitar playing of Danny Methric. And there are
plenty of people to rock. “Kids are pretty savvy these days and
they’re sick of being spoon-fed this corporate shit for music,” Case
rails. “They’re had enough. And when the kids have had enough,
generally the tide will turn…People can supersede the traditional
channels. There’s an audience for (crap) and the people who cater
to that audience are making their money, but the kids who want
something real are unearthing it.”
Van Zandt misses the fun and energy of classic AM radio that he grew up listening to;
where in one set you could hear Dean Martin,
Motown, and The Beatles. As a listener, you
were exposed to so much just by leaving the
radio on. And when FM radio came of age,
with album cuts and personality-driven DJs
like Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee Alison
Steele, the wealth of new bands was enormous.
While Steven understands radio can never
truly go back to those simpler times, he insists
on capturing the spirit. “The closest thing (to
that) is probably our Underground Garage
format where we play all six decades of rock ’n’
roll in the same place. And we throw in some
fun, some various kinds of comedy or campy
stuff or an Ann-Margaret track. I love that attitude when it was pure fun…so we mix it up.”
Of course, part of the allure of radio was not
only the magic of the music itself, but the belief
that you might even be part of it. “When we
grew up, it was a long shot, but by the 70s it
was sort of a pretty reasonable expectation that
with a little bit of luck and a little bit of hard
work, you could make a living playing rock ’n’
roll. There was an infrastructure there. If you
were able to climb that mountain, there was a
reward. But that’s not true anymore.”
And with the advent of cable television, personal computers, the Internet and – yes – even satellite radio, the splintering and isolation makes
it even less possible to make a huge impact
as an artist these days. “That is over,” Steven
agrees. “That was the star-making machinery
from the big record companies. The record
business right now is about 80 percent different than it was ten years ago, never mind thirty
years ago. Just in the last five years things are
radically changing and no one knows where
it’s going to end up for sure, except that the
concept of developing a band, investing in that
band, and hanging out for four or five albums
until they break…that’s gone.”
Radio fragmentation is no different. What’s
missing is that monolithic mass cultural experience that just isn’t possible anymore. “We
listened to one station, and there was one in
every town. That creation of a mass experience
grew from the entire family, every family in
every house watching Ed Sullivan on Sunday
night. I mean one show – bang! Yesterday
people never heard of you? Today you are a
star, nationwide! You know how hard it is to
Disciples of Soul
For those who remember the package tours
of the early rock ‘n’ roll era, the Underground
Garage Tour is a godsend. The blueprint has
been around since the 50s rock caravans and
the Motown bus tours of the 60s, but for
some reason no one picked up the ball with
the garage bands…until now. And of course,
pulling it off was anything but easy. “It was
tough to get started," Steven says, "and it
will continue to be tough, because it requires
sponsors to pay for it, and to acknowledge
that it’s important to support up and coming
bands.” Where corporate sponsorship used to
be vilified, the relationship has changed with
the Underground Garage. Steven believes the
sponsors benefit because people understand
that the tour doesn’t happen without them
being there, and that creates a lot of goodwill,
as opposed to the stadium shows where you
don’t feel that same connection.
Steven is no stranger to the realities of trying
to succeed on the road and the misconceptions
that it’s a wonderful life. “I’m very hands-on
about everything. I want the experience to be
great for the audience and I want the experience
to be great for the bands. Whenever we can, we
always try to keep the ticket prices cheap but
give them the best show they’re ever seen. Pay
the bands as much as we can. Overpay them
when we can, because we know they’re not
making much money anywhere else.”
Underground
Garage Spotlight
The Charms By Bill Holmes
When singer/songwriter Ellie Vee formed The Charms with guitarist Joe Wizdas, they never intended to join a garage rock
movement. They were “just a rock band that happened to have
a Farfisa” playing a lot of rockabilly shows. But one constant from
heavy touring was discovering that there were bands everywhere
playing exciting music, not only nationally but internationally. Little
Steven Van Zandt came to a similar realization and decided to take
action by creating his Underground Garage radio show. “Steven
sort of brought those bands together”, says Vee. “It’s important to
have a lot of allies.”
Now Steven’s Wicked Cool label is home to the Charms’ fourth
album, Strange Magic, an eclectic mix of sounds and arrangements that somehow remains cohesive, a compliment Vee passes
along to producer Jim Diamond. “The band worked on the basic
arrangements but Jim got adventurous. He knows the production
techniques of all the records we ever loved (and) got really excited
about things, but he put creativity before technical things. He uses
his ears rather than the tools.”
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break in America (today)? It’s almost impossible! We’re like 50 different countries.”
The club shows are extremely well organized.
Shows start on time; short breaks between
sets feature go-go dancers and great singles.
The four-or five-band lineups feature local
bands opening for upcoming stars like The
Charms and The Paybacks and headline acts
like The New York Dolls and The Romantics.
But despite the excitement and the success, the
whole process has to start all over next year.
Steven’s not certain if he’ll be able to do it
again, but he’s hopeful.
One of the highlights for his live enterprise was pulling off the 2004 International
Underground Garage Festival on Randall’s
Island in New York City, where legends like
the Dolls, Dictators, and Stooges shared the
glory with the successors to their throne. It
was the Woodstock of garage music, 43 bands
When on the Underground Tour, she was especially blown away
by another Detroit rock institution, The Romantics, who took The
Charms under their wing. An inspired Vee penned “So Romantic”
(the Romantics’ Wally Palmar “thought it sounded like The Kinks!”
she laughs), is likely the first single from Strange Magic. Other
standouts include the hook-driven “LTD” (about her childhood
awakening to pop music) and the Bowie-esque “Star Rider,” a
sonic kissing cousin to “Cracked Actor.” Kim Fowley was also a big
influence on the record; his advocacy of rock ’n’ roll being “stupid
and basic and sexual” resulted in the “Wild Thing” sound-alike “My
Friends,” which Vee wrote on a lark.
The Charms also released the DVD Easy Trouble, an introspective
and sometimes unflinchingly honest look at a group on the road.
Where most band documentary projects are an after-breakup apology to their fans, this fly-on-the-wall film shows a band as it tries
to climb the ladder one day at a time.
“There are a lot of people that just cannot deal with being on
the road,” Vee explains. “Sometimes it’s having so much time to
yourself to think about things more than being with other people.
But ‘Personality Crisis’ should be the theme song!” And 2007 will
feature another full itinerary as the band shares stages with The
Zombies, Glenn Tilbrook, and Ian Hunter among others. Each year
finds the growing audiences becoming increasingly responsive,
especially the younger fans. “They don’t care about saving rock ’n’
roll or resuscitating it like it’s a dead body. (Bands like ours) don’t
sound stale or retro. To them our sound is new!”
Vee thinks Strange Magic is their strongest album because the
songs are not only her most personal to date (“I used to shroud
my feelings with characters”) but they’re also representative of the
group in present day. She believes the desire to make every record
the best ever is a lot of pressure to put on oneself. “I’m a big believer in capturing where your band’s at and who you are at that exact
moment in time. You can’t control whether it’s going to be great or
not. But if you lose that moment, it will never come back.”
Vee recalled a seminar by legendary producer Eddie Kramer where
he talked about how bands rely on ProTools to chop and splice
today and lose the magic of playing together. She cites the band’s
new track “American Way” as an example. “You can’t get an ending like that not playing together and using a click track, you have
to watch the drummer!”
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33
LITTLE
STEVEN'S
UNDERGROUND
GARAGE
Episode 1: It’s Alive
April 7, 2002
1. I Can Only Give You Everything, Them
2. Any Way You Want It, Dave Clark 5
3. You Can Make It Alright, Richard & the
Young Lions
4. Have Love Will Travel, The Sonics
5. Over Under Sideways Down, Yardbirds
6. Toys in the Attic, Aerosmith
7. Lies, The Knickerbockers
8. On the Airwaves, The Shazam
9. I’m Alive, The Hollies
10. Believe in Love, Enuff Z’enuff
11. She Said She Said, The Beatles
12. Stepping Out, Paul Revere & the Raiders
13. You’re Gonna Miss Me, Thirteenth Floor
Elevators
14. Maria Bartiromo, Joey Ramone
15. Bad Girl, New York Dolls
16. I’m Crying, The Animals
17. Restless Nights, Bruce Springsteen & the
E Street Band
18. Talk Talk, The Music Machine
19. Channel Surfing, The Dictators
20. ‘Till the End of the Day, The Kinks
21. Much Too Much, The Who
22. Making Time, The Creation
23. Friday on My Mind, The Easybeats
24. No Good Without You Baby, The Birds
25. Take It So Hard, Keith Richards
26. Empty Heart, Rolling Stones
27. I Don’t Need You No More, The J. Geils
Band
28. She Told Me Lies, The Chesterfield Kings
29. See, The Rascals
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pop culture press
in one day, and despite several obstacles it was
an unforgettable event.
sometimes you reinvent the wheel by taking
it apart.
“We wanted to try one, and I’d love to do one
every year, but that’s obviously more expensive. I mean we had a hurricane coming at us
(laughs), but we hung in there and we still had
16,000 people! So it was a great success.” Sets
were short but it was an incredible showcase
for a lot of the lesser known artists. “It’s a great
way to introduce 20 bands that no one has ever
heard of. You get a taste of what the bands
“So the first thing that I wanted to do was rewrite the old record deal and create the first
fair record contract ever written. I’ve been on
the other side for so long I know everything
about it, bad and good.” Of course, there’s no
lack of bands willing to sign up. Street scouts
(“we got plenty of them,” he laughs) range
from longtime friends to the DJs and bands in
every city in America.
sound like, and if you like them, go buy their
record, or go see them when they come back
through town at the club.”
“We’re a little bit limited but we have a street
marketing team, and a full-time sales team and
publicist. But finding bands isn’t the problem,
it’s finding ways to make the bands self-sufficient. Honestly that’s as high as I can see
right now as far as a goal…if I can get them to
support themselves by recording and touring
and they’re able to quit their day jobs, well,
that’s the new measure of success. That’s the
ultimate goal these days.”
“You know how hard it is to break in America?
It’s almost impossible! We’re like fifty different
countries.”
Unfortunately, the likelihood of a DVD release
of the event is slim. Chris Columbus (Harry
Potter, Home Alone) was set to direct the multicamera event, but a freak accident involving
his daughter caused him to head back to
Chicago. “She ended up okay, but he wasn’t
there to physically direct the movie, and the
funding went away. We never really recovered,” says Van Zandt.
A few screenings were set to try and raise a couple of million dollars to continue the original
plan to craft something really unique instead
of a formula concert film. “First of all, it would
have been the first 3-D concert ever done. I’m
telling you, when Iggy Pop jumps up on one of
the 3-D cameras, it’s the most amazing thing
you’ve seen in your life. It’s like Iggy is jumping
into your mind!” Not getting the film out was a
disappointment (“it’s probably one of the top
20 tragedies of my life”) but just another in a
series of setbacks that he will overcome. “We
probably will start using pieces of it on our
Internet TV show in a couple of months.”
Freedom No Compromise
And now Steven is a label owner; his Wicked
Cool imprint a home for bands that need and
deserve the opportunity to take the next step.
While partially an extension of his relationship
with the bands, he’s also clearly motivated to
tackle yet another area where no one seems to
be doing what is right…or what is necessary.
Not that it’s going to be easy. “It’s a challenge. I mean how do you even have a record
company in the twenty-first century?” Well,
Having a radio empire to broadcast from
gives Wicked Cool artists a leg up, but no one
would accuse Steven of self-payola, since he’s
been playing most of these bands right along.
Having been the beacon of promotion for the
genre, he’s already introduced his audience to
more than 150 new bands over the past five
years. But he can’t sign everyone; he assumed
it might be ten.
In addition, Wicked Cool will make an effort
to reissue worthy out-of-print titles and introduce overseas bands to the American market.
But he’s careful not to bite off too big a chunk;
he sees the industry circling back to the early
50s, with albums becoming less relevant and
singles ruling the day. It was an odd time
recalled with mixed emotions. “In the 50s and
60s it was really hit and miss, and…well, it
was kind of sleazy. But in the sleaziness, looking back on it now, there was an unwritten
trade-off (with the labels). Like we’re going
to sell records and we’re gonna keep all that
money—screw you out of that money—but
we’re going to make you stars, and you’re
going to have a career. And you’re going to be
able to play live for the rest of your life. And
you know what? Looking back, it wasn’t such
a bad trade-off.”
The first Wicked Cool releases were exclusively available at the Best Buy chain, a seemingly ironic start for an “underground” label.
Weren’t the Independent stores miffed? “We
started with Best Buy because that was a very
difficult deal to close. Partly because most of
our bands have never been in Best Buy and
never would be, and partly because I didn’t
want any limitations imposed on the garage
rock world. It’s all very cute and elitist to be
this underground cult, and that’s cool maybe if
you’re in a band and want to make sure you’re
discovered by the scene. But that doesn’t help
these people make a living, and I have to think
about that. How do I spread this word as
much as I can? Best Buy isn’t a compromise
for me, we have a distribution deal we’re finalizing that will put us in all the mom & pops
and everywhere else we can get it. We’ll try to
duplicate what we’re doing with our own section which separates it from the pack and helps
people find these records for the first time.”
Best Buy will still get an occasional jump on
“Coolest Song in the World” compilations,
but new artists will not be exclusives. “We’re
big supporters of independent record stores
– to this day, we have every store on a list on
our website. But when we did the research on
this we found that in most cases there’s not a
lot of overlap. It’s almost two entirely different
clienteles.”
Frank Barsalona founded Premier Talent, the
first agency to focus on rock and R&B acts
that were being ignored or railroaded by a
blatantly corrupt music industry. Steven says
he took his friend’s concept to heart when it
came to choosing bands to work with. “He
said the first and most important thing is that
they’re great live. All you can do is continue to
get better and better live and make better and
better records. Keep the expectations low and
the costs low, and realize you need to redefine
what success is in the twenty-first century. And
I think success is basically being able to make a
living if you can. Not necessarily get rich, but
sell enough records to make the next one and
make enough from the tour to keep going.”
seen five, six bands break that you could call
garage bands, from Jet to The White Stripes
to The Hives…so we’ve seen some success.
But what’s amazing is how many bands there
are playing this type of music with no hope of
success. We’re the only place that these records
can be played. And I really respect the fact that
these guys and girls – and there’s a lot of girls in
fact—are forming rock’n’roll bands with very
little hope of financial success. That said a lot
to me. That means that these people are doing
it because they love it, or because they have to
do it. And I just want to support that.”
The conversation hasn’t even touched upon
the future encounters with the E Street Band,
or the bittersweet coda to his work on The
Sopranos, because it’s obvious where the passion lies right now for Little Steven. It’s still an
uphill battle in a changing landscape, but when
you ask for the reason behind it all, the answer
is simple and direct.
Revolution
So has the Underground Garage movement
accomplished what it has set out to do? Steven
pauses…”Yeah a little bit, but not as much as
I hoped by now. Over the last few years we’ve
“Why do I keep doing this? Rock ’n’ roll has
been taken for granted for too long” •
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