Since 9/11, the real nature of “political correctness” in American media and culture has been on full, obscene display. This is not to say it isn’t still a term of abuse hurled by bigots at the tolerant. However, the guardians of mainstream political discourse have appropriated PC’s rancorous essence to serve the right-wing’s ancient purpose of determining who gets to speak and who is invited to shut the hell up. Artists, journalists, talk-show hosts and teachers have been fired, castigated, marginalized for inconvenient remarks or even showing less than the pre-measured amount grief and resolve. This is truly a new America.

That means, of course, examples are made of those determined to live in the old America. Roots-rock giant Steve Earle’s turn in the media meat-grinder came late last summer with release of his new album Jerusalem, and the song “John Walker’s Blues.” On his trip inside the head of an American misfit worthy of Randy Newman or Warren Zevon, Earle went well beyond either’s patented mischief-making shtick by refusing to undercut his subject with irony or distance. Like the wife-killers or half-repentant badasses that populate the blues, John Walker, the American Taliban soldier, gets the dignity of his monumental fuck-up. As if that weren’t bad enough, Earle filled the album with songs about migrant workers, class oppression, failed radicalism, the insanity of capital punishment and the Daniel-like vision of an American Empire dissolved to ash.

Scram editrix Kim Cooper and I met up with Mr. Earle at one of West Hollywood’s more fussy hotels. The interview was filmed by famed documentarian Amos Poe, and monitored by a clockwatching media rep. Earle was understandably a little wary of any political discussion, but we dove in regardless.

Scram: I spent much of yesterday with your music and the balance of the time with the controversy surrounding your new album, Jerusalem. “John Walker’s Blues” in particular.

Steve: Yeah, well, I mean, the only controversy on Jerusalem besides “John Walker’s Blues” is that I did get a one-star review in the New York Post, which will probably be the hallmark of my career, saying that the rest of the songs prove I have something else in common with John Walker Lindh, that I hated America.

Scram: They say that about everybody. They’re a right-wing paper.

Steve: It’s not really right-wing journalism. It’s just appealing to people’s worst instincts at a time when that’s really, really easy to do, because everybody’s really scared. The reason you see artists being slow to react to this, it isn’t because they’re afraid they’re not going to sell records. Not real artists. They’re genuinely afraid of offending the families of all those people who died, and that’s a very real thing. I deal with it around the death penalty all the time. You have to take victim’s family members’ feelings into consideration when you be working against the death penalty. I was absolutely ineffective as an activist against the death penalty until I realized that. The whole movement has started to realize that and it has finally started to get somewhere and I think that’s why. There’s been so many lost lives and everybody was scared by it and everybody was hurt by it. The way mourning is supposed to be anger as far as violent deaths are concerned, for a while. The question becomes ‘What are you going to do after that?’ And the whole system around the death penalty is whether institutionalized retribution, you know, helps people heal or does it make things worse. I think it makes things worse.

Scram: That dread word “closure.”…

Steve: Yeah, well, they sell the word “closure.” Prosecutors need for victim’s family members to get on the stand and cry or they’re not going to get a death penalty. They can get a conviction without that, but most people; we’re not really that willing to kill, and, because the capital process takes so long, and the appeals, well, there are less avenues for appeals than there ever have been, but there’s a lot that can’t be removed. When you’re dealing with somebody’s life, then they’re necessary. There’s not enough room Constitutionally, to shorten that process anymore. People have tried, but the wiggle room’s not there. So that means every single appeal, the family gets dragged back into it again, goes back on the stands. The prosecutor, who's supposed to be their friend and on their side, just sets them up to cry. Every single time. And we’re dealing with that around September 11th. But, there are groups of people who lost people on September 11th who are starting to speak out against the curtailment of civil liberties and a war with Iraq that this administration fully intended go through with before September 11th, and the racism inherent in making Al Queda, the Taliban and Iraq the same thing. Right there, you are fighting a war with Islam and that’s not a war we can win. Going to the entire Arab and Islamic world and drawing a line in the sand. That’s World War III. It’ll be jihad on a global basis. That won’t be go in, drop a couple of bombs, and come home. It will not be that type of war. I don’t know what they’re thinking about.

Scram: Well, obviously they’re thinking about gigantic defense budgets to infinity, about whipping up a panic so they can have Lockdown America.

Steve: Some people do, and some people want… trying to define this administration by any one agenda is, I think, a mistake. That’s one of the things… it makes them ineffective in some ways, but its also one of the reasons they’re kinda dangerous right now. I don’t think every faction of the administration knows what the other faction is doing, because they are the most fragmented administration we’ve probably ever had.

Scram: I’d like to set the next bit up with a few quotes I dug up from the barking spiders of the national press. You’ve been called “a tedious left-winger…”

Steve: Uh-huh.

Scram: “In the same category as Jane Fonda and others who hate America…"

Steve: Right.

Scram: “Politically insane…”

Yeah.

Scram: “A cocktail party rebel striking poses.”

Steve: I don’t drink and haven’t had a drink in over eight years.

Scram: The question is: what do you think of the American media these days?

Steve: A lot of those things came from definitely right-wing sources, one from a local radio talk-show host in Nashville. Those guys don’t even have a political agenda. They’re about ratings. The answer to stuff like that is “I’m not a liberal. I’m a real, live radical.” Not that there’s anything wrong with being liberal. I’m not morally opposed to somebody with really, really right-wing views that I don’t agree with. That’s what democracy is. There’s probably somebody on the right that balances me out and I’m comfortable with that process. It takes our Constitution a while to work sometimes, but it’s a pretty incredible document. I don’t think the people who wrote it knew how hip it was. I think it turned out to be something much hipper than they intended it to be. We’re not a nation that was formed by a revolution of people. We’re a nation formed by a revolution of rich farmers who didn’t want to pay taxes. We’re still basically a lot of rich farmers who don’t want to pay their taxes. That document is what will be remembered. We’re not going to be the richest, most powerful country in the world forever. History tells us that. We’re not going to even exist forever, and when they start shifting through our ashes, we’ll be remembered for, well, maybe rock 'n’ roll, maybe jazz, and our Constitution. The Constitution was brought to bear to end three separate witch-hunts centered around Communism. The Constitution was brought to bear to end slavery in the first place and it’ll be the Constitution which is brought to bear when—I believe the death penalty, left to its own devices, would die of natural causes like it did the first time if no activist anywhere in the country ever did another single thing. And this particular issue people don’t want to discuss, and we get more and more blood on our hands, which is what I object to with the death penalty. What I object to is, there’s no bad guy, it’s us. This is a democracy. I take responsibility for every death, because I have a voice in this democracy. So when they kill people, I’m killing people, and I object to what that does to my spirit. That’s what my poor objection to the death penalty is. And when the death penalty goes away again it will be the Constitution that’s actually brought to bear, and I firmly believe that.

Scram: Most people don’t know that Southerners had a strong role in writing the Constitution.

Steve: I think a lot differently than some people from the South do. I’m not a big state’s rights guy because if you don’t give Southern politicians the money, they’ll steal it. I don’t believe that the Civil War was fought over state’s rights, I think that it was fought over slavery. Some people fought over state’s right but it was all about money. And some people fought it as a class war—I mean on a rank and file basis, people—there were thousands of them—Europeans, people from Ireland, people from France came—and fought in the Union Army because they saw what was going on in the South. It was the feudal system and the industrial revolution was in the North at that time. They saw it as a place where a tiny part of the population still owned all the land and poor people were going to be poor forever. But I do believe in the Constitution. My patriotism is centered around the Constitution. I think it’s the best part of America.

Scram: There’s not all that much difference between Islamic fundamentalism and that of the American Christian variety…

Steve: Exactly. I mean, Islamic fundamentalists strap a bomb on themselves, walk into a shopping area crowded with people and—and Christian fundamentalists have been known to sit in vehicles with high-powered rifles and shoot at doctors who provide abortions. You know? That’s terrorism any way you look at it.

Scram: Yeah.

Steve: I felt John Walker was already searching for something outside of his own culture when he was twelve and thirteen years old, and that is how he came to Islam. And that is how he saw Malcolm X. By the end of it, here was Malcolm’s revelation that there were blonde, blue-eyes Muslims and all of a sudden—bongo! He could relate to that. And he went to Yemen. And Yemen is for a lot of reasons—he went to Yemen because he heard that the Arabic that was spoken in Yemen was what the Koran was written in. And it’s true—but it’s also been a hotbed for fundamentalism for a long time and he was a very, very radical Muslim… I learned more about Islam than I learned about anything else this year. And I think everybody needs to know more before we go to war. I didn’t even know that Muslims worshipped the same God as Christians. It’s not a similar God. It’s the same God. And you know, our news media and our government don’t want to know all of that. CNN is CNN because of the Gulf War. They were the first people to say, “war” and the first people to say, “we are at war.” Just like they were the first people to say three different times who was president of the United States and then Fox News said something and all of a sudden we have a different winner! (Laughs) So we get on the bus, and now normally I get on the bus and I go to sleep because I’ve got a show to do the next night. But this time we were up all night because they just kept changing their minds! (Laughs) Now when I go to airports, I may be randomly chosen by the computer for an extra check at the gate. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that every single Islamic looking, or dark skinned person with an accent will be checked. They will be racially profiled. And the reason I have a problem with that is that I don’t think you can do a random check on some people and then profile others. Those people should be in there with everybody else. They don’t single the people out to protect us. They single them out because they believe them to be acceptable to single out and that particular screening in public, where we see the dark skin and hear the accent—and it’s to make light skinned Christians and light skinned Jewish people feel safer—it doesn’t really make anybody safer. It’s done for show.

Scram: Public relations.

Steve: Yeah! That’s it! Public relations. About making us feel safe in a world where we’ve become scared to walk to our cars. That’s what it’s all about.

Scram: Jerusalem will probably go down as the essential album of the past year. Why is it musicians don’t tell the news, like Woody Guthrie and the old folk troubadours?

Steve: Well, I think it’s too early to think that I’m the only one who’s gonna do this. There are other people with different viewpoints, and that’s okay. And you’re gonna see other people with my viewpoint. It’s just very early. I mean, I just think people are getting very worried about disarming all those people and to the point—and the administration wants to disarm Iraq and then the other part of the administration—John Ashcroft’s agenda doesn’t have anything to do with the “War on Terror,” it has to do with abortion, it has to do with Fundamental Christians and it has to do with his inhibitions. John Ashcroft is the same thing that Osama Bin Laden is. He’s a fundamentalist. And he’s dangerous. I don’t think he’s as dangerous as some other people in the administration because he’s kind of a clown, you know? I think Dick Cheney is much more dangerous. He’s the guy I think that’s probably really calling the shots. He’s a true hawk and right now, Bush for some reason started listening to Colin Powell and gave the reins to Colin Powell. But it’s still based on, “we need to get our ducks in line internationally.” They’re still gonna go. They were gonna go before and they’re still gonna go. I hate to say that, but right now I don’t see much hope. They don’t seem to care, you know? I mean Tony Blair had—a really substantial majority of the citizens in his country are opposed to Britain being involved in a war in Iraq and he doesn’t care, for whatever reason. The Bush administration has its own power over Tony Blair and I don’t know exactly what it is, but there’s something there and he’s absolutely ignoring the people of his country. And he’ll pay for it.

Scram: And he doesn’t care about being publicly humiliated either. I mean, he tried to get negotiations going in the UN for Bush.

Steve: Yeah! It’ll be interesting to see how they’re gonna—the way they treated the Labor Party is the way they treated the Democratic Party here. Liberal became a dirty word, the party shifted further and further toward what they consider the center and what I consider the right. But I am much more comfortable in England where I can pick up The Guardian and The Times of London and I can sort it out for myself than I am with news that has no other agenda than what goes snap, crackle and pop! And this is—I mean CNN and most of the networks—I think the only exception, and they’re not really an exception but they’re run more like the networks were run—ABC, still sort of hanging in. Ted Koppel and a few other people. They’ve actually done some really good work. But CNN—they’re looking for a “Showdown With Saddam.” It’s bumper stickers.

Scram: Robert Christgau affected surprise that you’d include Aaron Burr in your list of Revolutionary heroes. Why did you?

Steve: I like Aaron Burr because he was one of the first people that sort of came from that Revolutionary War pedigree. Boy, he shot Alexander Hamilton’s ass, boy. (Scram laughs) But Aaron Burr was a really fascinating character and I think he’s a really American character. I’m not looking for everyone to link their agenda with mine. I believe I’m a pretty hardcore liberal. I believe everything Karl Marx said about economics. All those two big books say is that capitalism depends on a surplus of work force in order to flourish. In other words, you have to have a work force over here that’s out of work and disenfranchised to replace the workforce over here that has too much power. It is fundamentally oppressive.

Scram: The threat of poverty.

Steve: Absolutely. And rather than an approach where just realizing that there is enough for everybody in this world. There’s no reason for anybody to go hungry or go without a roof over their heads or go without medical care. I believe this! I live in a country where people don’t believe that. I also don’t believe that our democracy is—I hate the fact that we teach our children that we practice the only true form of democracy. I consider our form of democracy to be really, fatally flawed by the two-party system. England has a two-party system as well. There’s nothing in the Constitution about a two-party system. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s just the players wired it that way and they’ve kept it that way for long enough that they’re hoping nobody will notice that it’s not in the Constitution. (Scram laughs) I’m much more comfortable with a government like Sweden’s or France’s where there’s a lot of parties. They’re diverse. Even the European Parliament itself. And the European Union is becoming a force much earlier than people thought it would. That kind of globalization—the European Union is a product of corporate globalization because it’s the European Union dealing with the fact that all these individual countries on their own didn’t have a chance in that process. And already—they basically stood their ground on steel. They stopped the last attempt at a big entertainment conglomerate merger, you know? We have five major labels instead of only four now ‘cause the European Union’s setting up now, no matter what happens in the United States. So, they’ve become a force. And I’m more comfortable with democracy where we have diverse political parties and they all have a shot at gaining seats. And then the coalitions have seats. And that’s much more democratic to me. People in Europe think it’s funny that we think there’s a difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Scram: That joke’s beginning to catch on here too.

Steve: Yeah. But some of that is Europeans not understanding this whole deal of American politics. There is a difference. Bobby Muller, the President of Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, came up with this great definition of the difference between Democrats and Republicans. I couldn’t ever put my finger on it especially in the last few years. (Laughs) Then he said something: the Republican Party runs on ideology and the Democratic Party runs on the issues. It sorta hatches a much bigger, messier party and much more diverse. So you have to try to find some sort of consensus to build a platform based on the individual relations. The friends of the Republican Party for instance, will hold a dinner. They’re pretty consistent and they have been for a long time. And because of that they’re much more organized. They move much faster and much more effectively. And so they’ve been dominant for a long time. It took that long for the New Deal to wear off. We had socialism born of necessity in this country beginning with the Depression and World War II. Even though World War II yanked us out of the Depression, it took a long time for the idea—for one thing, we still have a Federal Income Tax, which was an emergency measure to help pay for World War II. It was supposed to temporary but it’s still there. Now I don’t have a problem with paying taxes, as long as somebody does something with the money—I’m perfectly willing to pay taxes to get medical care and—you know, people will hear—if you hold up Sweden as an example. Sweden is a very conservative country by current-day standards. They are. The joke in Denmark is that Swedes are Germans without the umlauts. And they are much more conservative than the Danes are. The Norwegians are just kinda rednecks. They’re not in the European Union for one reason. They got all that oil and they didn’t need to be so they just kinda said fuck you and they’ll pay for it. Oil doesn’t last forever as we’re finding out. But if you hold the Swedes up as an example to people in this country, the propaganda that they’ve absorbed is: “Well, they pay over half their income in taxes.” Sure. But their kids go to school for free, including a university education if they qualify for it. And if they don’t pass those tests, they can get vocational credits. For free. And in certain areas, very, very low cost loans. Now, they also get all their medical care for free. I’ve got kids and I promise you, most of my income goes for either educating my kids or paying for healthcare. That’s what most of us are gonna spend. That’s what the big expenditures in our life are gonna be. You know, what difference does it make? But people who don’t want to have that discussion have done a very good job over a long period of time of convincing Americans that they’re going to be taxed into non-existence if they try to just provide the basic medical care for people.

Scram: Of course, Americans are told Sweden is this socialist hell where the inhabitants all commit suicide…

Steve: For one thing it’s a myth. Norwegians earn a lot more than the Swedish do. When I play—I do really well in Scandinavia and the reason is that music is about language. So my strongest markets in Europe are where people can understand what I’m saying. So, obviously England and Ireland, but I do great in Holland, I do great in Sweden, I do great in Denmark and I do great in Norway. I can play Malmö in Sweden, which is right across the spit there from Copenhagen in Denmark. If a bunch of people misbehave at the gig or are rowdy, I’ll come off the stage and they say, “Oh, it’s the Danes. They came over on the boat.” (Scram laughs) The next night it’s Copenhagen and it’s, “Oh, it’s the Swedes.” (both laugh)

Scram: “Ashes to Ashes” is almost like biblical prophecy. A little like Dr. King’s final sermons.

Steve: It’s biblical language. It certainly is.

Scram: Using scripture to warn America that it can be pulled down.

Steve: Well it’s using pseudo scripture. It’s Old Testament language. And it’s poetic language that I don’t think I ever would have tackled if I hadn’t written outside of songwriting for a few years, you know? It never would have occurred to me to write that way if I hadn’t written some fiction and written some poetry. But, it’s about that. We’re not going to be the richest and the most powerful country in the world forever. And everybody else who’s been top dog has gone around acting like they’re gonna be top dog forever too. But we certainly don’t have any reason to think that. It’s just like oil. You know, oil is so important, and people are getting killed over oil—and this is in a time when people are—admittedly, oil companies are just one step behind the tobacco companies for continuing to provide a product and we continue to use a product—every machine that we use, directly or indirectly—is linked to oil. You know?

Scram: Yeah.

Steve: We’re so dependent on it. And it’s not because there isn’t technology available to replace it. It’s because there are very powerful people who have made a lot of money, which makes them even more powerful, who sell oil. And they know how to sell oil. And a lot of other things are dependent on oil. I mean this whole economy is based on oil. So they’re not gonna let it go. They’re not gonna worry about any sort of hydrogen or any other form of energy, until there’s no fucking oil left in the ground. It is strictly greed. (Scram laughs) Why would we go and develop that and spend all this money on research and development? That would make all this oil—and we know where it is—worthless. And the very powerful people spend the money in Washington, and this administration is the most unashamedly completely and totally bought and sold. It’s pretty scary.

Scram: So you meant the album as…

Steve: I meant it as—I didn’t even want to make the record. I was gonna try to take the year off. But I found myself making it. And then, making a record this year created deadlines. Some of them just had to do with where I sit in the hierarchy. I can’t release a record in November or December because I don’t sell enough records to complete with the record stores for space. September is the latest I can release them. And some of this is real perishable. I want it to be heard now. So I did rush it trying to get it out so I could make that deadline.

Scram: Of the response so far, is there anything that offends you?

Steve: No. I don’t really have it in me to regret. It’s not that I don’t think about what I did. I’ve fucked up some stuff in my life. It wasn’t like I wasn’t being careful. I’m also not too careful. I think the other danger is being too careful. It’s just the way I reacted to September 11th. It’s sad to think that there might be somebody else out there that has something else to contribute to this discussion and who has been hanging back and now they’ll see that it’s okay to talk about this. It’s okay and it’s important.

Scram: At this point, is there any way for America to wash away the blood from its hands?

Steve: Sure, but—it’s gonna take a long time. And we’re gonna really want to change. We can do anything. But we have to decide that—we’re a long way away from it. We’ve got to admit there’s a problem first. And we’re not there yet. But there are some of us that are there, and this is a democracy. And I think anybody really can—if they bother to do it—be heard. I’m very respectful of my audience and most of my audience doesn’t agree with everything I do—even about the death penalty. But they do respect how I feel and they realize that it’s a discussion and they want to be involved in it. And as long as it’s like that I feel pretty much all right.

Intro by Kim Cooper, editrix:

When I was a kid in Hollywood in the '80s, the folks who worked at record stores were much cooler than they are today. The city was still cheap enough that a clerk's wages could finance a civilized life, so hep cats with insatiable appetites for new vinyl could spend years behind the counter at Rhino, Aron's, or my uncle David's Record Connection, dispensing snarky opinions on your purchases or just leaning on the counters digging the latest sounds.

I'm not sure when I became aware that Rhino perennial Phast Phreddie Patterson had once been a principle in a mag called Back Door Man--possibly from Danielle Faye, the exquisitely laid back Record Connection staffer whose sister D.D. was also a BDM alum. I didn't see a copy until the mid-'90s, and when I finally did I was intrigued by the writers' passion and their efforts to locate and interpret worthy cultural excrescences in an era where bloated excess was too infrequently punctured by real, raw art. During the magazine's short life, punk rock exploded, making it much easier for weirdoes to find good stuff. Magazines like BDM had a small but undeniable influence on the emerging underground, and it's fun to go back and watch them grasping at the straws that would eventually form a movement.

I've seen BDM's Don Waller around for years, but first got talking with him while promoting the Scramarama festival. I called to see if he might want to write about the show for the L.A. Times, and ended up spending a couple hours enjoying his tales of SoCal childhood and thirty years as a rock and roll writer. When Dave Laing (whose Dog Meat Records in Australia released a posthumous LP by Don's Imperial Dogs) suggested we interview Don for Scram, I thought immediately of putting him together with Ron Garmon of Worldly Remains mag, since Don and Ron are two of the most verbally adept, opinionated and well-dressed writers on the LA scene. Sure enough, they hit it off famously…

(note: the conversation is punctuated with much coughing and gargling; Waller’s nasal rasp is funny and confiding, as is his feline moan over terminal vowels like “y’kno-ow”)

Scram: Great, the commentators now interview each other…

Don: Oh, I’ve interviewed writers before. I understand why Studs Terkel didn’t include writers in his book, Working. We think too much about stuff. (cigarettes are lit)

Scram: As background, what L.A. radio stations were you listening to back in the early '70s?

Don: In the very, very early ‘70s, way before we started Back Door Man, KDAY was still pretty cool, because Bob Wilson was programming it. He ran it like a Top 40 version of an FM station, where you had three songs in a row, then spots and promos, then three songs in a row, and he’d play a lot of weird stuff. You’d get things like “Rattlesnake Shake” or “Oh Well” by Fleetwood Mac, and odd things. It was kind of the free-form era. When that went off the air, KROQ was around for a while and went away for a while. Look, the standard AM/FM stations were just, by ’74, they were just hopeless. I mean, you heard what you heard.

Scram: To quote the biographical statement you gave Brendan Mullen for the We Got the Neutron Bomb LA punk book: “FM radio sucked. Everything was either paid-by-the-note prog shite, downer-fueled heavy metal or kozmik kowboys Eagles krap. This was 1975.”

Don: That’s pretty much the way it was.

Scram: At about what time did free-form FM radio begin to die in this town?

Don: (long pause, Waller’s face contorts into baroque angles suggestive of thought) About 1972, for sure it was dead. You started with B. Mitchell Reid and Tom Donahue doing KPPC out of that church in Pasadena. That was where it started and that was just it. They did six hours, three hours of each, before it became a full-time station. I was still in high school, so this hadda be about ’68, ‘69. There was a great poster I wish I had, which said, “What kind of person listens to KPPC?” and had a picture of Jimi Hendrix. I think they did a couple like that, but that one was the best. Then there was KLOS and KMET as yer big FM powerhouses, but they gradually got corporatized, and there were strikes and stuff like that. Occasionally you could listen to weird shit on the radio. I remember the Credibility Gap on KRLA, and I can also remember Radio Free Oz, with the Firesign Theatre guys on KPPC. Johnny Otis’s show used to be on Sunday night on one of the FM stations. He used to have Shuggie [Otis] on, and they’d play with people. KUSC, before it went Classical, used to have student bloc programming, and there was this guy named "Memory" Lane Quigley who played nothing but '50s-type oldies, which was kinda cool. This was before American Graffiti came out. I remember listening to that in college. Rock 'n’ roll wasn’t that old, so, like in the mid-'60s when the Beatles came out, on Memorial Day weekend they’d have these Million Dollar Weekends where they’d play the library of gold hits. You’d hear the Five Satins doing “In the Still of the Night,” or the Flamingos' “I Only Have Eyes For You” and go, “What the fuck was that? That was a great record.” There was also the Wolfman. I just discovered him one night. Really early on, he was playing Lightnin’ Hopkins and Big Mama Thornton. Later, he got into more contemporary R&B, but it was still great. And his act was just fuckin’ great. By ’74, this shit has all but vanished.

Scram: Tell us about the founding of Back Door Man. Who were the people involved?

Don: Okay, Phreddie called me up one day and said, "I wanna start a magazine and I wanna call it Back Door Man.” I was living in Carson at the time, and I said, “Yeah. Good. Let’s get D.D. Faye to write for it.” She was my girlfriend, and she could write. “Let’s get Bob Meyers”—‘cause he lived around the corner from me when I was a kid, and I still knew him and I knew he could write. We both wanted our pal Tom Gardner and the Underwoods, too. That was the original hard-core staff. We’d met the Underwoods when Phreddie and I taught an extension class at UCLA. Liz had a bunch of vintage photos and fancied herself a photographer. Don was just a funny, cool guy. In retrospect, I miss Don Underwood’s voice in the later issues. He was a big champion of Roxy Music and Eno and weird stuff like that. There was a whole horrible falling-out early on with all that.

Scram: Was it over the direction of the magazine?

Don: No, it was more of a personality conflict. There were issues of responsibility and who’s doing what, etc, etc. Certain people weren’t happy with Liz, and they were a package. Stones were thrown and stones were thrown back. But that was the original crew and that’s how it came together. Phreddie typed it over at El Camino College and that’s why those first issues were just rife with fuckin’ errors! Spelling errors, grammar, all that stuff. It was very much a learn-by-doing kind of experience for us. I mean, none of us were journalism majors; none of us had worked for newspapers. Or anything.

Scram: What kind of local rock press did L.A. have in those days?

Don: I think the L.A. Free Press had just about folded. There really wasn’t any. The Times didn’t do much with the local scene. There wasn’t much happening. Let’s review: At the time, the Whisky was closed for a coupla years. The Roxy was running this “El Grande de Coca Cola” musical thing in there. The only way you could get into the Starwood doing originals was if you had a record deal. Most of the time, it was Quiet Riot doing their Slade act or something like that. There was no club to play per se. If you were doing original material, there weren’t a lot of places to play. Local radio wasn’t giving anything out.

Scram: There wasn’t any local scene for the magazine to support.

Don: There wasn’t much of anything. You could rent a union hall, say Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow are gonna get married and you bring in a band. (pauses to consider)… Yeah. Yeah. It was a wasteland.

Scram: What was to be the point of the magazine, then?

Don: Well, we just thought the other magazines all sucked. We got really tired of ‘em all. Our goal was to write about music we cared about in a way we wanted to write about it. Nobody was saying anything about anything we cared about, so we thought we should do this ourselves. It was just frustration, I think.

Scram: I’ve had problems with printers over content. Did BDM?

Don: Yeah! We switched printers a coupla times, partly over rates, partly over who would do it. Most people didn’t want to bother with something that small. I remember that, after the last issue, the printer didn’t want to do it, and I think it was ‘cause of that shot in the back where all the one-liners are, where the girl's clutching that latex dress. We took that out of a magazine called The Lure of Latex or something like that. We did that as a center spread. It’s nothing revealing really, just suggestive. They said, “We don’t want this. We don’t like this. We don’t want the language.” I remember going down there in a suit to talk to people, saying, “C’mon, man, this is a money deal. We’re willing to pay. You can increase the price from what the previous printer was charging.” The manager of this place said, “No, we don’t wanna do it.” What can you say? The last two issues had foldouts in ‘em, for God’s sake. What good is that? The Johnny Rotten foldout is really good, and the flip of that, where D.D. does the reportage from the Winterland show with the Sex Pistols was the best thing we ever did. It’s a really good piece. I also liked the way that, when we got it in from D.D., we said, “Why typeset it? Let’s just shoot these pages with the editorial notes in the margins and all across." I thought that was the best piece of art direction I did. I’m very happy with that.

Scram: What was the record company gravy train like in those days?

Don: Probably richer than it’s been in the last three months. There were things like, say, when Ram Jam played the Starwood on the strength of “Black Betty.” Nobody wanted to go see ‘em, so Pat Siciliano, the publicist, ordered buckets and buckets and buckets of Pioneer Chicken. There were unlimited tabs, if you can believe that. We were never as abusive as some people were. Maybe there were some nights when Phreddie or somebody might’ve abused a tab. We would ask for multiple tickets, like all six of us needed to get in. Or eight, or whatever the fuck. Nobody gave a shit. There was certainly a lot of largesse back then, but we were so naïve! If I knew then what I know now! We didn’t loot ‘em. The people and companies who took out ads really liked, or pretended to like, what we were doing for their acts. It was all good publicity and all good. We actually did refuse certain advertising for acts we didn’t like, which was really dumb as shit. When Casablanca was running that ad for Angel [Punky Meadows’ cutie-pie '70s metal act whose White Hot (1975) was a stoner favorite and critic’s despair], we told them we hate that fuckin’ band. What the fuck were we thinking?

Scram: Probably of all the “sell-out” letters you’d get.

Don: At the end, we didn’t get a lot of letters because we started making fun of everybody in the letters so viciously that they’d never write in. Which was stupid! We’d take the hate mail and trash it. And if you didn’t hate us, we’d make fun of you, too.

Scram: What was performer access like in those days?

Don: Pretty good. When Patti Smith played the Whisky that was the first time we went backstage there. She played for a bunch of people who didn’t give a fuck. She was the opening act for some fucking band I can’t remember. There weren’t a lot of people there, but we went every night. It was amazing. We went back and hung out with her and Lenny Kaye. She emboldened us and encouraged us a great deal. We were The Press. We were always on the list at the Starwood, for example, and they made their money because we drank like fools. Part of that was because Eddie Nash owned it. Y’know who I’m talking about?

Scram: Tell me.

Don: Eddie Nash was the guy who was implicated in those Wonderland Murders [A particularly sordid affair involving racketeering, drug dealing and the 1981 beating deaths of four people in a “highly secured” house in Laurel Canyon; the bloody handprint of porn star John Holmes was found at the scene, but he was acquitted and the case remains unsolved.] He owned the Starwood, the Odyssey, the Seven Seas and a few other clubs in town. It was fucking organized crime, mostly a front for drug dealing. We’re talking Tony Soprano now.

Remember, things were a lot cheaper then. Tickets were a lot cheaper. There was no restricted parking. You could park for free in West Hollywood and walk up to the Whisky. Even if you got hosed for the ticket and hosed for drinks, you still could do it. We were big Iggy Pop fans and would hang out on the fuckin’ street for two hours waiting for the Whisky’s doors to open. We ate copious amounts of marijuana brownies and lots of white crosses too. Lids were ten bucks.

Scram: How was distribution?

Don: Of the publication? Well, originally we just sold it in local record stores, then we did a lot of mail order to stores across America. The last several issues, I think we were distributed by Jem, the import retailer that also handled Bomp! and that kind of stuff. Everything with a $1 cover price was distributed by Jem. A lot of people wrote in for subs. Remember, there was no MTV, no Internet, no way to get this stuff around, so it was all word of mouth. We tried to get into all the big record stores like Tower, or certain record stores in Cleveland, Boston or wherever.

Scram: Did you initially design it as a local magazine?

Don: No. We wanted to cover the local scene, because somebody should. The local scene shifted from the kind of bands playing hall parties in the South Bay to the Runaways, the glitter scene, stuff up here in the city. I covered Kim Fowley’s “New Wave Night” or whatever the fuck it was called at the Whisky, which was just (puckers) horrible. Kim just let whoever showed up first get up on stage. Don’t tell me that the Germs were a great band. They were horrible.

Scram: There’s still a rather silly personality cult around Darby Crash.

Don: Yeah… I’ll just say that that was a load of shite. The music was shite; Darby was a load of shite. I’ve talked about this before. I can remember where I was when Darby died. I was sitting in our apartment over in West L.A. and we’d eaten all these mushrooms and we were waiting for Charlotte Caffey to get there. It was a rainy Sunday night and Charlotte comes in and says, “Darby’s dead” and we just all started laughing.

Scram: At what point did you start putting out records?

Don: We did two singles by the Pop, one single by the Zippers and the one Imperial Dogs single that came out after the band had already broken up. Back Door Man Records was a joint venture of me, Tom Gardner and Gregg Turner. We did those four singles and then dissolved it. Twelve fuckin’ years later or something like that, Dave Laing in Australia calls Ken Barnes, who’s like this real avid record collector, and says he really likes the Imperial Dogs single, and Ken tells him the guy who made it is sitting in the next office! Dave talked to me and I said I had a bunch of other shit on tape. I picked the stuff I liked and sent it down there and we put that record out.

Scram: From a pure vibe standpoint, compare the L.A. scene then to that of today.

Don: Well, it’s different. Certainly there’s a lot more media out there. There’s the Internet. Fanzines, lots of ‘em. The clubs are kind of weird, because L.A.’s in kind of a downward spiral right now. Look at all the fuckin’ tribute bands and shit. There’s not one band that’s broken out of L.A. recently. Back in the '80s, you had Van Halen, X, the Go-Gos, the Bangles, the Blasters, the Minutemen. All different kinds of music and the clubs were hoppin’. How can Silver Lake be so happening when there’s only two fuckin’ places to play? And you can’t put twenty-one decent bands on in a week? To me, the scene is very fragmented here in L.A. They don’t like this, won’t go see that. And the dance music scene has been bad, ‘cause it’s really cheap to hire a DJ. That was a problem back in the '70s too, y’know, when the whole disco thing came in. It’s gotta be healthier overall, because of the support systems. But I go out a lot and there’s nobody for whom I’d say “You just gotta see these people or set yourself on fire.” Maybe I’m just too far from the street, but I don’t see it.

Scram: I get around quite a lot and can say that there’s no there out there. Nobody’s talking about anything going on.

Don: Certainly it’s easier to make a record nowadays. We never had rehearsal spaces. If things would’ve happened a little later, because I walked away from music at a certain point, I didn’t play anymore. If I knew that a punk revolution was gonna come in two years and change the world, I would have stayed at it. By then, people were paying me more money to write about music than to play it.

Scram: That’s still the same.

Don: And I wouldn’t have to split it up four ways at the end of the night. I had a career at that point. Phreddie is a club DJ and does liner notes and obits, and he worked at Warner-Chappell music publishing in New York and ran record stores and stuff like that. D.D. is teaching ESL classes at Santa Monica College and Glendale. She’s got a Master’s in Linguistics. Tom sells food to restaurants and plays guitar with Paul Therrio from the Imperial Dogs in a band called the Wig Titans. They’re good. Gregg formed the Angry Samoans and wrote for Creem, but he teaches math these days. Oh yeah, he makes records with the Bloodrained Cows. But I’m the one person who really became a pro writer out of the whole thing.

Scram: How much did Lester Bangs wind up influencing the style and editorial direction of BDM?

Don: Oh, well, Lester was a great influence. I’d stand up on the bar and shout that. Also people like John Mendelsohn, y’know, whose work was really good. Personally, the biggest single influence on my writing was Nik Cohn. His Rock from the Beginning, I read in 1969. I got it out of the library; I was a poor kid. I never read anything I agreed with so much. I loved the way he told the stories. He’s the person that I stole the most from. Everyone else is secondary, tertiary or worse. Lester and the whole Creem thing was a big influence on us. Other people were more influenced by R. Meltzer than I was. Maybe Gregg Turner. We were also influenced by Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.

Scram: What was the origin of the inside back cover ad in issue # 3 that has Kim Fowley soliciting a girlfriend?

Don: He paid for it.

Scram: Was he serious?

Don: I can only guess at his motivation. I think it’s obvious. (laughter). I’ve always thought of Kim as an eccentric uncle. He’s very funny when he’s not talking about his own projects. When he’s talking about his own stuff, its just bullshit on bullshit. I would watch him work the phones and come up with weird slang and say things like “Gram Parsons is just a guy who knew a lot of George Jones B-sides.” He’s a pig. I really must say that. A lot of women find him disgusting.

Scram: So I keep hearing. Quite. There was some controversy about racial jokes in BDM.

Don: That’s more later as people looked back on it. I think that was Chris Stigliano, who has that fanzine out of Pittsburgh, Black To Comm. He did a piece on BDM a few years ago and didn’t talk to anyone involved. He just did what Chris does, which is spin his own interpretation of events, which I suppose is what any writer does. Somehow this came to my attention and I wrote him back a long letter, trying to clear up errors and misconceptions. The remark “David Bowie, I hope you O.D. on Afro Sheen” is a reaction to Young Americans. It was a joke. I mean, Bowie’s face was pasted onto Sly Stone’s body on that picture. There were a lot of bad things happening in black music then. I’ll say this. Me and Bob Meyers went to see P-Funk play the Forum on the Mothership Connection tour. Bootsy Collins was the opening act. There were 18,000 people at the Forum, and sixteen other people besides me and Bob were white. I know. I counted us. If you’re lookin’ at James Brown or P-Funk, you think, “What the fuck is Donna Summer?” A lot of that stuff was pretty bad. Why listen to the Bee Gees when you can listen to Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding or P-Funk? The jokes we made were sex jokes or homosexual jokes or racist jokes. It wasn’t like we weren’t going to make fun of David Cassidy just because his dad got burnt to a crisp. We made fun of Johnny Winter (“Albino more of his records after hearing this.”) and the Eagles (“Pissing and moaning about the good life is uncalled for.”)—all classic stuff. Just take it in context. Nowadays, in my own stuff, I don’t do that kind of stuff unless it’s put in the mouth of a very stupid character. I love The Boondocks comic strip. Aaron McGruder’s very good, but he’s in the community. He’s a black person writing about black people for black people, so he can get away with saying all kinds of stuff. If I were to go on Comedy Central with that stuff, I don’t know if I’d get away with it. I’d have to prove my bona fides first. I just don’t feel like having to explain the jokes. (sighs, very tired) I think it was somewhat of a different time.

Scram: How did you get contributors?

Don: People came to us. Lisa Fancher. Bangs and Meltzer might’ve been solicited. The only person we paid was Meltzer, who asked for thirty-five bucks. It says so in the piece. Lester did it for free, ‘cause he was prolific and he liked us. We never really reached out to anyone.

Scram: At what point did BDM begin to get noticed nationally?

Don: Pretty quickly. Around about the time we did the Runaways stuff, we started getting new orders. We were written up in Bomp! and some of the other fanzines. I’ve got some of those.

Scram: What ended the magazine?

Don: The aforementioned printer problems, also we were only getting 50% from distributors. We didn’t make as much money when we went national as we got when we self-distributed. Also, people had kind of gotten into their own thing. D.D. was busy managing the Zippers. Phreddie was busy being Phreddie. I was working at Radio & Records back then, a day job that was pretty time-consuming. A sense of frustration set in. Slash came along and was very popular. It was all new and had no history. Slash was like the biggest little small-town newspaper. It was this small community that all had their pictures and records in there and all wrote about each other and was one big clusterfuck. We were kind of scrupulous about avoiding that kind of conflict of interest. We thought we were a national magazine and not a fanzine (laughs). We thought, “We’re dreaming if we think this is gonna change the world.” Of course it did, twenty years later, but that’s another story. But it was pretty hard to compete with what was going on. Today, the standard rap goes: “First there was the Ramones, then the Sex Pistols, then Nirvana!” There was like fourteen fuckin’ years or somethin’ between the Sex Pistols and Nirvana! The Pixies, the Minutemen, Camper Van Beethoven didn’t happen? No indie rock, no punk rock, no Sonic Youth, no Black Flag? Nothin’ happened?

Scram: One can almost understand ignorance of textbook history, given the shitty state of education, but ignorance of history you’ve lived through?

Don: Not all of them have lived through it, but basically that’s the thing. There’s Punk Rock Mach I, which is what you find on the Nuggets box, which is kids in garages wanting to be the Yardbirds and the Stones. Punk Rock Mach II is pretty much what the Ramones produced. A different style of punk rock, which is still around in a weird form nowadays. Half of it is the come-join-our-gang shit, which is all just done to sell skateboard wear. Then there’s a segment of it that’s a little more committed. Punk rock is like suburban blues, it’s a little like Muddy Waters, the same themes rehashed with little differences. Suburban frustration. I don’t have a problem with it, and I can’t tell some thirteen-year-old kid who’s getting drunk for the first time or losing their virginity that this is not a valid aesthetic experience. Sit there and say music hasn’t been any good since Buddy Holly died? Fuck you! Music is better than ever now because there’s more new shit to listen to and there’s always the old shit to listen to and any old shit you haven’t heard is new to you.

Plush—“Conversation with Schroeder”
by Jonathan Donaldson

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the work of Plush, let me begin with a little history. Plush is basically the work of Liam Hayes of Chicago, and whatever rock orchestra he can pull together for a given recording project. He began his career with a 1994 Drag City single, "Found a Little Baby" b/w "3/4 Blind Eyes," which was the best piece of sixties-style pop to bear the mark of a double A-side in years. Holding this single in my hand, I know that it's a pop classic. But is this Liam Hayes? I wonder, looking at the fuzzy haired cartoon caricature on the sleeve.

Hayes sings with the style and conviction of John Lennon and when he drifts into falsetto, as he often does, it evokes the sweetly feminine quality of Brian Wilson. Instrumentally, Plush's work could be compared to George Harrison's first solo record (think "I'll Have You Anytime") and The White Album (think "Dear Prudence") crossed with dead-on Wilson/ Bacharach style arranging. Plush has raised the bar for me on what I thought possible for orchestrally arranging rock music in this digital age where the life is compressed out of most every flat-sounding CD that hits the used bins.

With the delayed release of a follow up, 1998's More You Becomes You (also on Drag City), fans awaited the second coming of Plush as if he were George Martin himself in purple velvet hunched over a Gretch guitar, with the great ghosts of the past surrounding him for the session date. But instead of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Pet Sounds Band, we got Liam Hayes smacked-out on a grand piano, performing a solo song cycle. In the span of two releases, we went from grandiose to absolutely sparse. The songs on More You Becomes You weren't as strong as the "Found a Little Baby” single—but something of interest was happening here. We were seeing Hayes' pop smarts unfolding in a very raw form. One gets the impression that he's making it up as he goes along, finding a little groove and then going for a big, unusual chord change, waxing his most elusive as he goes for the odd Joni Mitchell- style melody. Hayes seems to be playing a game of challenging himself to keep the songs coming; being as daring as he can with his simple, but well defined color strokes, reaching deep into the well of his pop-consciousness for the most obtuse melodies he can find.

Hayes maybe have been attempting to deliver an anti-climax, much like The White Album was the opposite of Pepper with its blank cover, or how the greatest piece from the Beach Boys post-Pet Sounds project, “Surfs Up,” is basically a free-associative unaccompanied piano piece.

Notably on More You Becomes You, Hayes sounded depressed, with lyrics like "I didn't know life was so sad, I cried." I even heard some strains of classic torch-pop, ala Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry, showing how easily Hayes is able to tap into the feminine side of his persona with his melodic moodiness and that falsetto. But, man, what is this guy so depressed about? That he has remained relatively unknown? That he just wasn’t made for these times? That he woulda been big time about 35 years ago? That he is a master of one tiny little style of rock that now just has a cult following? Probably all of the above. Or that he has to spend all his dough to make the recordings he knows he's capable of—recordings on par with other holy grail-sters like Ron Sexsmith, Fugu, Jim O'Rourke, Jon Brion, Louis Phillipe—and half of these other guys are producers, with all the time in the world to sit around figuring out how to make shit sound great!

Now I'm confronted with the big daddy of them all—another four years later—my little shy depressed wonderboy returns with Fed on the Japanese label P-Vine. Let me just say that Mr. Hayes' proper follow up to the massive single he launched eight years ago has big hairy purple velvet balls. Gone are the slightly smacked out longings. Gone is Brian Wilson cooing paradoxically, and come is the cocaine hangover of—Robert Plant?!? Hayes leads a laser-tight band on a 1971-sounding tour-de-force. We have a full-on seventies horn section—at times resorting to soulful hits and accents—plus winds on some tracks and, most impressively, a full-on string section. We're not talking “Eleanor Rigby” though. Think Shaft, straight up. Orchestrations also sometimes echo Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. The songwriting is tight, with echoes of Carole King and John Lennon. But it sounds like the Brian Wilson part of the persona has been exiled for the time being. Apparently he just didn't fit in at this party; too insecure, maybe.

I conducted this interview with Liam Hayes in August of 2002, via email. I sent him a list of questions which he answered on a jetset bumpy flight from Sydney to Tokyo. In general, our correspondence was extraordinarily friendly, and I found his answers to be pointedly funny, at times sarcastic, and intelligent. Perhaps what was most revealing were the questions that he chose not to answer, most of which dealt with my comparing his music to other artists. If anything, I felt like he was mocking me. To that end, I compare him to Howard Roark, the protagonist of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, who when asked by a fellow architect what he thought of his work, replied, “I don’t.”

Scram: between 1999 and 2002, you disappeared from the music scene. Where did you go?
Liam Hayes: Where the action wasn’t. Part of the time was spent putting this record together.

Scram: I know you appeared in a movie [High Fidelity].
LH: Yes I did. I got to pretend I was playing and singing while the main character pretended to listen.

Scram: Well, I am so glad to see you’re back! I’ve been waiting. Once I thought that I discovered a new Plush record on-line, only to discover it was a Christian band. Rats! Ever heard of them?
LH: That’s interesting. Doesn’t the bible say something about not taking a trademarked name in vain? Time for them to have a prayer session with the lawyers.

Scram: In the meantime, you changed labels, from Chicago’s famous Drag City to the lesser known Japanese label P-Vine. What prompted a move?
LH: P-Vine believed in it, made a serious offer, and were willing to make it a priority.

Scram: Were there issues with Drag City?
LH: They’re a good label. It just ended up costing more than they were willing to pay.
[I've since found out the cost of Fed was well into six-figures. Understandably, Hayes was looking for significant compensation from a label to help cover the costs of recording for which he scraped together claw, tooth, and nail, and mostly on credit. A longtime friendship with a higher-up at Drag City could do little to keep Hayes faithful, since a label of that size simply doesn’t have that kind of cash to give to artists with extravagant/ perfectionist leanings. Rhetorically, how much do you think it costs to make a Smog record?]

Scram: Do you have a fan base in Japan? They are notorious for their love of soft-rock—which your work up to this point has certainly touched on auspiciously.
LH: I don’t know… could be.

Scram: Plush is really just you, right?
LH: Yes, I’m the sole survivor.

Scram: But you’re touring with a band?
LH: We just finished a tour of Japan.

Scram: Any big differences you can mention about Japan?
LH: People don’t act like naked savages in public there.

Scram: Let’s talk about people acting like savages. I live in Boston! Any memories of your last show here? I think it was at TT the Bears in Cambridge with Rufus Wainwright?
LH: Maybe that rogue Christian Plush was on the bill, but we certainly weren’t. I’ve never played Boston. We were supposed to. I think it was in ’98. We had come from NYC and were booked to TT the Bears. I remember reading some piece in a Boston rag… some girl saying she’d heard all this hype on our band and was going to check out the show just to confirm her negative expectations. Namely, that it wouldn’t be up to the hype. I don’t know what she ended up doing that evening, but the venue was closed due to fire damage from an overactive tandoori oven next door. I was happy to drive home.
Scram: That's Boston. People are so negative here. Look at the Red Sox—the only cheer we have for them is “Yankees Suck!” It’s ridiculous. You don’t want to play here anyway, and if you do, I’d recommend The Paradise. It’s really one of the last great clubs here and the bills are usually pretty solid.

Scram: Let’s dig into this beautiful new album. Track one, “Whose Blues”: you seem to be exiting the sensitive role you played on More You Becomes You and reappearing amid a bashing brass arrangement with a bit of a cocky swagger, ala Robert Plant. Is Zeppelin an influence on you?
LH: No. (…uncomfortable virtual silence…)

Scram: Well, let me milk you for another comparison. The legato string interlude introduced after the three-minute mark has a very Curtis Mayfield, Shaft-like feel to it. In other songs I hear bits of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Are you conscious that you might be moving from a sixties-inspired sound into a more seventies-inspired sound on this album?
LH: It’s partly Tom’s influence [arranger Tom Tom 84 who goes way back to Earth, Wind & Fire]. I heard quite a bit of that music growing up. It was popular, so it was everywhere and left an impression.

Scram: Tell me about Tom Tom—what exactly does he do? Score and everything? Where it says in the booklet that you did additional arrangements on certain songs, what does that mean? Did Tom Tom arrange “Found a Little Baby” as well?
LH: Tom worked with me, took what I had written and cleaned some of it up, prepared it for performance. There are parts throughout that are mine that he kept. In many songs he just did his thing… horns and strings and really shaped the tune. A lot of the winds are mine. “Additional arrangements” are the songs that I arranged from beginning to end.

Scram: “Whose Blues” comes to a climax with the jarring lyric, “my creation has drowned me,” which suggests to me Dr. Frankenstein. You also talk about living for “something else”… this may sound corny, but are you talking about being Plush, or growing into a cog in society?
LH: Both. Nobody knows what to do with a wish giving tree. It’s not the tree's fault.

Scram: Going along with this sentiment, I wonder if the thing to which you assert: “it’s my time” in track two, “I’ve Changed My Number” is related to your involvement in the music business, or rather something involving a personal relationship or your relationship with society.
LH: It’s my time and how I choose to use it. One way not to spend it: getting caught up in other people’s trips.

Scram: Well, thanks for not changing your number in this case. Are you tired of people interested in Plush trying to contact you?
LH: No. I like knowing that people are listening.

Scram: I get a sense that you have an interesting relationship with the character that is Plush. Are you more “Plush” in real life, or more Liam Hayes—or are the two inseparable? Like the Other Music review of Fed states about you, are you are an international man of mystery, like the James Bond of music? Or do you have a real life that is comprised of a job, bills, a lease, pals, a goldfish? Or are you a really a rock star?
LH: Please don’t include the goldfish in all that nonsense. He’s the only thing that’s real, the rest isn’t.

Scram: The bizarre photo montage within your CD features you in a Superman-like stature, a grocery stock boy, and a billy goat knocking down a pyramid of cans in a sterile white installation setting. Is it just for fun, or is that linked to any particular art movement?
LH: Yes, advertising.

Scram: I think I remember reading somewhere that you are like a rock n’ roll vagabond, sitting on the park benches of Chicago as in your new single “Greyhound Bus Station.” Also I have heard that like Mr. Morrissey, you’ve never had a job because you’ve never wanted one—any truth to this, or a bunch of crap?
LH: Never wanted one and never kept one. For me music is the only thing worth doing.

Scram: Back to “I’ve Changed My Number,” the chorus is very Carole King, with the lyric, “They say, isn’t that the way that it feels…” Are you commenting on depression and dealing with people confronting you about depression?
LH: Look, most of the people I’ve met want you to do more than simply acknowledge them and their condition. They want you to empathize. Now you have two depressed people where there was just one before.

Scram: I make this assertion about depression considering that your first single contains lyrics such as “gonna be another lonely day” and “what’s so bad about dying.” Likewise, on More You Becomes You, one can’t be sure if you are laughing or crying when you sing the lyric “it took me so long.” Clearly, yours are not the lyrics of someone perennially happy, like Stevie Wonder for instance.
LH: Do you think that Stevie Wonder needs therapy?

Scram: Maybe he does these days. There is something a little sinister about “I Just Called to Say I Love You” and “That’s What Friends Are For.” Sticking with this Motown theme, I want to go back to my earlier comment about Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. The over-all sounds of the first two songs are very similar—they were obviously meant to go together, as are “No Education” and “The Sound of San Francisco,” and “Unis” and “Born Together.” Is this intended to get that What’s Going On effect, where the songs actually run together?
LH: I like the idea of a record that has a beginning, middle, and end as opposed to just a collection of songs.

Scram: Were they recorded at the same time as a suite? It’s really neat to see two different songs come from the same seed. If the songs were in fact recorded separately, you all did a very nice job putting it together.
LH: No they were not recorded at the same time. And thanks.

Scram: Incidentally, how long did it take to record Fed?
LH: Years.

Scram: Was it recorded on tape or with a computer, or both?
LH: Tape. Computers take too long to do everything.

Scram: I've noticed that Chicago’s finest turned the knobs on this record—Steve Albini, John McEntire, Bob Weston—so you must not have been living in Japan.
LH: Don’t assume.

Scram: Either way, does being in the Chicago music “glitterati” afford you to work with these engineers? Are they the greatest in the world or what?
LH: Being a seventh degree glitterati prohibits me from discussing what goes on in our meetings. I can however tell you that they certainly do know how to rock the mic collection.

Scram: A fringe benefit of working with McEntire (Tortoise, Stereolab) must’ve been his drumming talents, which he lends so nicely to the jazzy feel of track three, “Blown Away.” The song also has a really enjoyable, slightly obtuse chordal/ melodic structure. The “one man dies” section is really breathtaking—it really reminds me of “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (Bacharach-David), which has that irregular waltz time feel as well.
LH: It didn’t start out that way. I originally wrote it for guitar and then moved it over to piano. I suppose the instrumentation (upright bass, piano, and drums) automatically puts it in some sort of jazz context.

Scram: What is your attitude towards chords? Are you pretty liberated with the movements that you make? Do you use them as the building blocks of the song and then impose the arrangements upon them?
LH: This is a hard question to answer. Chords. Can’t live without them. Chords move. They have to. Up and down they go. It’s very liberating, the movement, you know. Chords are imposing. You notice them when they enter a song.

Scram: Track 5, “Greyhound Bus Station,” is perhaps the happiest song you have ever released, a clear choice for a single, a relationship song for a relationship that didn’t quit get off the ground. Yet is the sun coming out here?
LH: I think it is a happy song. The other person that’s being addressed won’t sing along, but that doesn’t stop me from harmonizing.

Scram: But it's the happiest song and you still have to ride a Greyhound? What gives?
LH: Who cares if it’s a Greyhound? Sure, it’s depressing, but at least you’re out of the house having an adventure.

Scram: I really think that lyric is funny: “sitting in the park for lack of ambition.” Very Lennonesque, and the melody on the big chord change is bizarre in a Lennonesque way. You obviously don’t suffer from lack of ambition if you composed and produced this album together with some thirty people.
LH: It was a major undertaking. Everybody was challenged and we did what seemed impossible

Scram: Is that what you like to think of Plush, if you will forgive my pandering language: do you keep the rock star fantasy of Plush seated on a park bench too cool for school?
LH: Fantasy?
[I suppose I should acknowledge that I am projecting here. I think Liam is fantastic, so I must think he thinks he’s fantastic. Or something like that. Plus, I wouldn’t mind achieving his level of rock stardom, which to me, is fantasy.]

Scram: Or too smart for education? As we see in the next song, one of my favorites, “No Education”—it really just has such a beautiful lyric—“Never read a book in my life, but I feel just fine, I’m alright/ Now is the time that I feel so inspired.” It makes sense that a creature of the soul would never read a book, but turn instead to song, for music is pure emotion. Comment?
LH: I’m not saying that I don’t read, never read, or that it’s not a worthwhile activity. At the time I’d just met somebody who was very intellectual, a brainiac, and they were applying that to their music. Maybe it’s interesting in small doses, but I don’t want to be a brain in a jar. Many do. This song is not for them.

Scram: I hate to bring them up again, I’m not even a big fan, but “No Education” kind of has the same subtle sexy power of “No Quarter” by Led Zeppelin—or maybe it’s just the chorus on the guitar. Do you think that effects pedals are coming back in for guitar players, or is that just you experimenting with that sound?
LH: I don’t know what’s in or out. I’ve been playing with the same set-up for the last twelve years.

Scram: This is in fact a different version of the "No Education" single that was released in '97, correct?
LH: Yes.

Scram: What motivated you to re-record it?
LH: I’d always wanted to do it with an arrangement.

Scram: “No Education” really has a fantastic outro—you dueting with the French horn (or is it English?). Also, the strings are splendid on the “feel alright” section. Really an outstanding track—very powerful. By now you must be starting to learn more about what the different horns and winds sound like specifically, how and when to use them in an arrangement. Can you impart some of your discoveries on me?
LH: What you are refering to is a French horn and a Flugel horn. It’s really just what sounded good. I can recommend a book: “The Study of Orchestration” by Samuel Adler. That’s what I taught myself with.

Scram: You must be happy with track seven, “The Sound of San Francisco?” (which along with the diabolical title track, “Fed,” will really reward fans of "Found a Little Baby" / "3/4 Blind Eyes" with lush strings and horns, prominent organ and a chugging chorus-driven guitar). The way you say those “yeah’s” really makes me feel good!
LH: Good.

Scram: There’s actually some Christ imagery here, am I right? Mention of bread and the lyric “Woke up today, said who’d gonna be my keeper?/ Said on the way, who’s gonna feed these people?” Any explanation for this? Is this designed to go along with some of the other spiritual/ philosophical references on the record?
LH: It was taken from a dream. San Francisco was and still is a weird place. In the dream it was even weirder. There is a Christ-type figure, yes, but he’s really just as disconnected as everyone else. It’s not really religious.

Scram: I want to mention track nine, “Born Together,” the ballad of the album. It's a lovely, bittersweet song that grows on me with each listen, as I am able to absorb some of the frightful originality of it bit by bit. It features an acoustic guitar with what sounds like a string trio. The feminine side of your songwriting really comes out here. I imagine Phil Spector arranging a John Lennon song like “Julia” from The White Album. All the little pieces, how it is put together, very unique. Do you have any special feelings about it? Did you arrange the strings here or did Tom Tom?
LH: I really like the song and always enjoy playing it. I did the arrangement

Scram: My last question: What is next for Plush?
LH: Breakfast.

Scram #17 reviews (all by the editrix unless otherwise noted)

B00006AL7G

The Action Rolled Gold CD (Reaction) This unreleased 1968
set from a fine London mod-soul band possessed of emerging orchestral
and psychedelic pretensions is quite a find, with passionate Reg
King vocals, terrific songs, and deliciously chaotic arrangements
offset by moments of Holliesesque delicacy.

and spiders in the woods CD (We're Twins) Charming,
lo-fi, spooky countryish supergroup from the Ann Arbor DIY label's
stable, not so trad that an occasional batty techno injection
can't fit in. Kelly Caldwell's pretty, sleepy voice takes center
stage throughout, and it's a gem.

Atomic 7 Gowns by Edith Head CD (Mint) Upbeat instro twang trio featuring the chunky guitar stylings of Brian Connelly (Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet) and chuckle-worthy song titles.

The Beau Brummels Triangle CD (Collector's Choice)
Long-overdue reissue of the band's extraordinary second Warner's
waxing, a rich and haunting piece of Americana that uses their
strengths so wisely that it's tough to believe the same band/
label combo was lately responsible for the pathetic misstep of
Beau Brummels '66. Ron Elliot's distinctive guitar work
and increasingly abstract lyrics make a cozy nest for Sal Valentino's
gorgeous drawling vocals, and the remaster really brings out the
arrangements' complexity. As good as the early Beau Brummels were
as mournful British Invasion types, such confident sophistication
must have come as a shock to 1967 listeners. Highly recommended.

The Beau Brummels Bradley's Barn CD (Collector's Choice)
Recorded in 1968 with Nashville cats in Owen Bradley's titular
studio, Bradley's, while sleepier and less dramatic than
Triangle, is nevertheless a rootsy charmer that sneaks
in the stunning "Love Can Fall A Long Way Down" near
the end. If you're curious about the band's post-teenybop era,
pick up Triangle first, then this (and the excellent band-titled
reunion disk from '75, if you can find it).

Hudson Bell Captain of the Old Girls CD (Upperworks) Delicate,
intelligent songs of small town life and longings for change.
Bell's warm drawl nestles cozily among the inventive folk-punk
instrumentation.

Box-O-Car In the Future CD-EP (Modern) Catchy
power pop from Chicago with silly synths, crunchy drums and "heys"
straight out of the Gary Glitter bail fund.

The Bran Flakes Bounces! CD (Happi Tyme) Mostly witty,
occasionally headache inducing sampling project using thrift store
records to create rhythmic soundscapes that burble with weird
allure, Muppets and references to buttermilk.

R.L. Burnside Mississippi Hill Country Blues CD (Fat
Possum) Great re-release of a 1984 Swingmaster LP, recorded mostly
in the early '80s but with three late-'60s beauties. I could give
you some snooty spiel about the history of northern MS hill country
blues, but you can talk to some poseur for that nonsense, or read
the liner notes. What I will tell you is that this is quite serviceable
for needs traditionally met by the blues-numbing the senses when
you're down. You think the blues were invented so you'll look
cool at parties? No way, son. It's for sitting on the porch with
a bottle of some crappy homemade liquor and feeling sorry for
yourself because you're a big loser. Works better than Prozac™!
(Margaret Griffis)

Chargers Street Gang Holy The Bop Apocalypse
CD (Get Hip) Apropos name for a hopped up garage punk band.
This could be the whiplash choice of the year. The Chargers Street
Gang hails from Cleveland-and not that the Dead Boys imprint is
undetectable, but you'd sooner think Detroit Rock City than 0-hi-O.
Still, that industrial Midwest pollution-desperate rollicking
is unmistakable. (Didn't they get rid of those hellhole factory
towns and replace them with silicon valleys yet?) Except for the
ill-conceived Sticky Fingers-like ballad, the whole record
is wild-eyed, crash and burn rock, the kind that's best enjoyed
in some filthy brickwalled bar that thinks Labatt's is what you
mean by microbrew. Tim Kerr captured that beautifully. (Margaret
Griffis)

Claudia Malibu Silver Tangerine Hangover CD (Teardrop)
Gentle croony indiepop with twinned strands of romanticism and
silliness, making a fine little rope just right for pulling reaaaal
slow in front of kitty.

Josie Cotton Convertible Music/ From the Hip CD (Collectables)
Among the most vicious trends in New wave were the pervasive influences
of the '50s and surf music. These styles were okay when aped properly,
but could be nightmarish. Josie Cotton was severely guilty
of this aping, along with excessive use of high-pitched, nasal
vocals. If you separate out the songs she wrote, you sense she
just wanted to be a regular adult contemporary singer, but got
sucked into New wave by some evil svengali. Fame has a price,
I guess. She got to be in movies playing the Queen of New wave,
and had two of the great hits of the era ("Johnny, Are You
Queer?" and "He Could Be The One"), both on Convertible
Music. Follow up From The Hip tries to sound less cute
and fails horribly, schizophrenically moving from Missing Persons
synth schlock into that horrible mid-'80s midi pop and even to
C&W. The record is so bad that it practically negates anything
positive off the first. (Margaret Griffis)

Cry Baby Cry Jesus Loves Stacey CD (Skoda/ Dischord)
Riot grrl/ DC punk with Jimmy Page, Jr. (nowhere as good as dad)
on guitar. They make a brave attempt at making each song distinctive,
but do so by stealing gimmicks from other bands. The best songs
are influenced by the N. Carolina crowd of early '80s popsters
(dBs, Let's Active, etc.). Not a bad release, but I'd like to
see what they come up without mimicking the old folks. (Margaret
Griffis)

The Cynics Living is the Best Revenge CD (Get Hip)
Many revivalist acts fall flat because you can hear how hard they're
working to sound authentic, but Pittsburgh's Cynics have always
been the real thing, garage punks deluxe, and their seams don't
show. On this latest Tim Kerr-produced set, classic Elevators,
Prunes and Satans covers nestle comfortably beside soulful originals
that distill the essential elements of the genre (anger, longing,
arrogance, hope) into a beautifully brutish fuzztone-drenched
wash dotted with Michael Kastelic's patented screams.

The Doleful Lions Out Like A Lamb CD (Parasol) These
kitties are purveyors of glittering, delicate Wilsonesque pop
flourishes, sometimes peppered with witty synth goofs that ever
so patiently work their wiles upon receptive ears. Sixties referential,
yet hardly slavish.

Don and the Goodtimes The Original Northwest Sound of CD
(Sundazed) Sounds like the Sonics' pesky kid brothers sneaking
garage practice time while the big guys were out on dates, but
contemporary accounts say the Goodtimes were wilder live. This
retrospective compiles 25 deliciously dumb organ-drenched rockers,
including a "Louie Louie" that makes the Kingsmen sound
like national merit scholars. Puget-riffic!

Dressy Bessy Little Music CD (Kindercore) Singles, comp
tracks and demos from the Denver popsters helmed by Apples in
Stereo guitarist John Hill and the sweet voiced Tammy Ealom. Summery
froth with a spine of steel.

The Driving Stupid Horror Asparagus Stories CD (Sundazed)
These NJ freaks recorded one nutso 45 in 1966, and a whole album's
worth of absurdity that's only now seeing release. With silly
monster vocals, chord-impaired tunes and deliberately ridiculous
lyrics about lobsters, fat pig mothers and beaten-in brains, the
Driving Stupid sound like the garage band Alfred E. Neuman might
have formed, if only he existed. You have to be pretty smart to
sound this dumb-at least I hope so!.

Earlimart
The Avenues EP CD-EP (Palm Pictures) Languid,
whispery stuff in the Elliot Smith mold, with flashes of carnival
ambiance.

The Easybeats Friday on My Mind/ Falling off the
Edge of the World CD (Collectables) Compilation of the Aussie
garage ravers' two U.S. albums for UA. Little Stevie Wright's
laddish leer is one of the great punk voices, snotty, longing
and raw. The 1967 Shel Talmy produced Friday is chock full
of great Vanda-Young tunes and harmony-drenched teen trash swagger,
while the more erratic Falling (1968) adds soul, lite-psych
and orchestral bombast to the mix. The disk includes a bonus '67
A-side, "Heaven and Hell," but lacks useful liner notes
or photos.

The Flaming Sideburns Save
Rock 'n' Roll CD (Jetset) This is the same record as last
year's Hallelujah Rock 'n' Roll on Denmark's Bad Afro label.
Swaggering, reductive fuzz. I like that they can scream and howl
like ticked off monkeys, or slow it down to tap into a Stoogey
retard blues or surfy moan like "Lonesome Rain." Not
sure where these Finns come by the Latin influence that sneaks
into a few tracks, but it's a refreshing change from the usual
all-Detroit tip.

Fosca Diary of an Antibody CD (Shinkansen) Precious
and arch London pop, clearly meant to rouse mopes from their sorrows
with the relentlessness of the drum track, then soothe with the
cello and Dickon Edwards' charming nasal coo.

Fosca secret crush on third trombone CD-EP (Shinkansen)
The title track (also on the full-length) is gleeful teenybop
disco geekery, understated and irresistible at 2:24. Also included
are thirty short "Diary of an Antibody" entries, largely
erotic, spoken over a gently strummed backing.

Gigolo Aunts pacific ocean blues CD (Q Division) Sleek
and soothing harmony pop that's mostly upbeat and radio-ready,
though the title track has a mournfulness justifying its derivation
from an especially fucked up Dennis Wilson solo project.

Allen Ginsberg New York Blues: Rags, Ballads & Harmonium
Songs recorded by Harry Smith CD (Locust Music) Reissue
of a 1981 Folkways release documenting the time these old friends
met in Smith's room in the Chelsea and ran tape. Ginsberg introduces
his droning chant-poems with historical annotations that date
them within his Dylan-inspired attempts at learning to write songs.
The poet's riffs on boys, bedbugs, city life, the CIA's dope trade,
big tobacco, etc. are typically personal and verbose. He's not
much of a singer and the tunes are minimal, so unless you can't
get enough of Allen Ginsberg...

The Go-Betweens Bright Yellow, Bright Orange CD (Jetset)
It's just over two years an since Forster and McLennan resumed
their musical marriage with The Friends of Rachel Worth,
and the old Go-Be rituals apply: ten songs (presumably alternately
Grant's and Robert's), a casual midwife's perfection in the form
and delivery, hooks so finely wrought they're barely noticed until
you realize they've twined around your DNA, character studies
too subtle for contemporary literature, laughs at their own expense.
Oh yes, they're good, very very good, and we're damn lucky to
have them back. Hope for a tour in the spring. (Jetset has also
reissued much of the band's '80s output as remastered double albums
packed with outtakes and video footage, making these very happy
days for fans indeed.)

The Green Pajamas Narcotic Kisses CD (Camera Obscura)
Expanded edition of a 300-copies-pressed rarities LP that was
available for a millisecond in 2000, Narcotic Kisses compiles
outtakes, singles, fanzine comp tracks and remakes from the always-compelling
Portland psych popsters, and is a strong enough set that it can
be recommended to neophytes as well as fans.

Neil Hamburger "Laugh out Lord" CD (Drag City)
Don't worry, sinners, it's only late in the disk that $1 funnyman
Neil trots out the spiritual humor in a vain attempt to capture
a likely non-existent market. Up until then, Neil's in typically
frisky form riffing as only he can on family, celebrity and uncooperative
audience members. Recorded live in front of several surly crowds,
LoL also features an infectious disco remix of the Zipper
Lips schtick featuring Today's Sounds, a public service announcement
for Puerto Rican independence, and interesting insight into management
and the label's plans for Neil's career.

The Tim Heidecker Masterpiece presents Theatre of Magic
CD (Starcase) Oh man, oh man, oh man. You are not going to
believe this if you hear it. Lo and behold, wherefore the rock
opera romps this eve? There but for the grace of our Good Lord
goes the most pretentious Goths in the land. Nay, not Goths. Renaissance
men, Elizabethans! Hide the dauphin, he mustn't listen. Someone
who studied the Who a little bit too much and perhaps ate a significant
number of mushrooms while listening to Wistle Rhymes has to be
behind this. At times sounding like the Waterboys, Led Zeppelin,
the Simpsons' version of the Camelot soundtrack, Rocky
Horror and Spinal Tap, this is one ballsy release. It's the
kind of thing you dream about making at home but never ever intend
to allow people to hear (when you're thirteen, that is). It is
just unbelievable that anybody could create this today without
irony and drugs being two major factors. Not that there isn't
merit in this, but it's very difficult to listen through the first
time, even the second time (see, I'm really working for you, dear
readers). But then when one song ends, you are determined to see
what insanity they manage to deliver on the next track. When you
stop laughing there really is something there. I'm not sure what,
but there it is. (Margaret Griffis)

Skip Heller Quartet Homegoing CD (Innova) Heller
is admittedly a man who spent years playing organ jazz in bars
and wine joints, and this is really just above average music to
accompany your salmon tartar and steak in portobello sauce. Not
soulful enough to boogie to, not expressive enough to work as
jazz. Dave Alvin guests on a couple vocal numbers. Some of this
may make the playlist of Smooth Jazz stations, and baby, that
ain't a good sign. Modern retro lounge is a pretty limp dick musical
genre, and Skip is sadly no exception. (Keith Bearden)

Richard X. Heyman Basic Glee CD
(Turn-Up) RXH wrote some of the best songs you never heard, and
is a master of the sort of gentle jangle that Jim McGuinn brought
to the Byrds. His latest disk (home-recorded at feline friendly
"Tabby Road") bursts with sufficient energy, hooks and
unassuming charms to satisfy anyone's pop jones.

The Iditarod The River Nektar CD (Bluesanct) Extensively
expanded (9 extra tracks) reissue of 1998 Hub City release by
the hermetic folk duo of Jeffrey and Carin. The mysterious vocal
mutterings, spooky loops and hypnotically understated instrumentation
yield haunting results.

Henry Jacobs's Vortex Electronic Kabuki Mambo: highlights
from the legendary vortex sound & light experiments at San
Francisco's Morrison Planetarium CD (Locust Music) Originally
released in 1959 on Folkways, this intriguing disk samples the
early electronic soundscapes that accompanied elaborate mixed
media presentations hosted by Jacobs and filmmaker Jordan Belson
circa 1957. Drones, mysterious banging, eerie mechanical howls,
playful jolts and a glorious sense of imaginary space all make
one long for a chance to see and hear the Vortex in its far out
glory, just like those lucky folks at the S.F. Planetarium and
Brussels World Fair did. (Click here
for our Vortex offer to new subscribers, arranged for after
this review was written.)

The Kills black rooster e.p. CD-EP (Dim Mak)
Punk-bluesy two-piece from London that dulls the ragged edges
with twining boy/girl vocals that inevitably recalls Exene and
John Doe.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk The Man Who Cried Fire CD (Hyena) Unlike
their pop and country equals, jazz greats never make terrible
records, just more or less essential ones. Kirk, the blind man
who played three horns at once and at times honked so hard that
blood reportedly poured out, had one of the greatest ranges in
jazz, and while this live '80s-era reissue is no Bright Moments,
it does have some sweet high points. The ten minute "Slow
Blues" is gorgeous, you hear him imitate (and dis) Miles
Davis before making "Bye Bye Blackbird" soar, and he
even has the guts to go trad by creating his own funeral march
in "New Orleans Fantasy." Poorly edited odds and ends,
but there's much to love for the fan of the late great Rahsaan.
(Keith Bearden)

The Leeches Suck CD (British Medical Records)
Crass-ic Youth with the Cramps and Poly Styrene dropping by. It's
nice sound, but the songs aren't very memorable. (Margaret Griffis)

The Librarians The Pathetic Aesthetic CD (Pandacide)
The Librarians crank out a very catchy, melodic, emo-core colored
powerpop. Imagine if Elvis Costello were backed by the Fastbacks
with a little help from the fellas in Fugazi, the intent being
to just have a good fun time at a house party (and maybe get a
little action afterwards.) It's really hard not to just bang your
head to the beat, but at the same time there's an intellectual
feel that thankfully doesn't leave you resorting to dictionaries
for translation. Prepare to sing along... especially to the anthemic
"Peace and Quiet" which is a "hit single"
if ever I heard one. (Margaret Griffis)

The Lime Spiders Nine Miles High 1983-1990 CD (Raven)
Led by the improbably-named Mick Blood, and anchored by Richard
Jakimyszyn's acid-hued fretwork, Sydney's Lime Spiders unleashed
a series of strong, if gimmicky, Nuggetsy 45s in the mid-'80s.
Raven's chronological comp brings those rare early singles together
with live tracks, b-sides, and selections from the mellower albums
that I skipped first time around. This later material will probably
appeal to fans of Hoodoo Gurus-style pop, but the "Slave
Girl" era stuff remains my preference.

The Longhorn Devils Spitfire Bar Bee CD / Metalunas
Swingin Planet CD/ Man or Astroman? Beyond
the Black Hole CD (Wildebeest) Not again. It's amazing how
fans of surfabilly can just keep going to the buffet table and
getting plate after plate of this stuff. Or it is a new generation
of fans that spring up when the waters get warm and the guitars
start twangin'? The Longhorn Devils seem to have amassed a bit
of attention outside their Dutch homeland. They're all right at
what they do but you've heard it all before from some Ventures
or Duane Eddy clone. This time it's a little bit New wave (not
the first time that combination trolled the collegiate airwaves
either). Actually, the farther they roam from the cliché,
the less successful they are. You already know if you'll like
this or not. Canada's Metalunas have a better disc. A little more
trad and better executed. They rely on sci-fi trappings to stand
out from the crowd. The spacey darkness is a bit more comforting,
but you know Man or Astroman? have already cornered the market
on that genre (umm, if the Ventures didn't already...) Which brings
us to mentioning the latest re-release from Man or Astroman? Beyond
the Black Hole is a re-mastered, re-fashioned, re-release
of What Remains Inside a Black Hole from Au-go-go Records
circa 1966, er I mean '96. Best of the lot, but you knew that
already, too. (Margaret Griffis)

Loose Fur S/T CD (Drag City) This indie rock supergroup
(Jim O'Rourke with Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche of Wilco) plays
elegant, low-key, somewhat paranoiac art rock.

The M's S/T CD-EP (self released) Pop swagger
outta Chicago, jangly and tuneful and incredibly Bolanesque.

Malfuzah the adilorac CD (self released) In this
North Carolina duo, homegrown exotica is tempered with occasional
flashes of prog, surf and churchly organ music. The results are
playful, tasteful and well realized. It's neat to see young folks
with such an obvious affection for Baxter, Denny and Lyman.

Jesse Malin The Fine Art of Self-Destruction CD (Artemis)
On first spin this Ryan Adams-produced debut from the former D
Generation singer sounded self-conscious and overblown, but hearing
the songs in an acoustic set, with Malin's funny, self-deprecating
stories and without the over-production, their charms came through
hard. Sweetly cracked, heartfelt Americana that deserves your
attention, ideally in a live setting.

Aimee Mann Lost in Space CD (SuperEgo) Mann's second
self-released disk is a subtle collection of psychological portraits,
where losers and depressives air their failures with the what's-it-to-ya?
courage of the unredeemable. Don't expect soaring pop or offbeat
songs about world's fairs and elderly boyfriends: Mann has found
a new niche and seems content to pace it, digging out new ways
of revealing the small social crises that add up to a life of
hurt. Quiet, pretty and sad, with lyrical asides that can really
poke a nerve.

Dan Melchior's Broke Revue Bitterness, Spite, Rage & Scorn
CD (In The Red) You expect a certain quality from In The Red
and the Broke Revue does not disappoint. There's the distorted
guitars and vocals (why do you think it's called In The Red?).
The somewhat phony attempt to sound unprofessional and sloppy.
The subtle and obvious references to punk, garage and even the
blues. Each track could actually be included in a hypothetical
Killed by Nuggets compilation dedicated to psych garage.
The info sheet cites Billy Childish, the Rolling Stones and Stooges
as a few of the influences. Thanks! I'm going to ignore the ones
I disagreed with. (Margaret Griffis)

Mississippi Fred McDowell and Johnny Woods Mama Says I'm Crazy
CD (Fat Possum) This is some great shit. The sounds of creaky
old men forgetting that their joints are no longer greased and
their tickers barely powered anymore. Well, naturally powered,
anyway. The story behind this is just as juicy. Some city slicker
goes to find Fred McDowell in '67. He's working at a gas station
and agrees to record this gem if his buddy can play on it. The
both of them go on the hunt for Johnny Woods, who they find and
lose and find again in a whiskey and barbecue infused odyssey
across Mississippi. Finally, they get it together long enough
to deliver pure Delta magic. Doesn't at all sound like they haven't
played together in eight years, but then again maybe they wuz
foolin' that fancy pant'd boy with the 'cording 'quipment. Fine
vintage Delta Blues of both the sob- and dance-to varieties. (Margaret
Griffis)

The Mountain Goats Tallahassee CD (4AD) I first heard
the folksy Mountain Goats on the lovely then-cassette-only Shrimper
label. Very lo-fi, but great. A decade later comes Tallahassee,
released on one of the most aesthetically grand labels around.
Naw, there aren't a million sythn-olins or mumbly sirens wailing
their haunting songs. It's the same Mountain Goats, but clean
like mountain spring water. The emotional effect is similar thanks
to pretty songs that on second glance prove cold as ice. The overarching
theme remains toxic love. "No Children" could've been
a Hunky Dory cover, except Bowie was never this bitchy:
"I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can't
find one good thing to say." Ouch ouch ouch. It's like a
southern novel where the heartbreak happens because the star-crossed
lovers stay together, but set to music and with that wonderful
way John Darnielle has of wrapping his tongue around the black
humor. This time Darnielle has enlisted fellow Shrimpers Franklin
Bruno and Peter Hughes plus Flaming Lip Michael Ivins to back
him. (Margaret Griffis)

The Music Explosion Little Bit O' Soul: The Best of CD
(Sundazed) Entertaining garage-soul foolishness from the nascent
Kasenetz-Katz production stable, when the real band's identity
was allowed to shine through much brighter than in the bubblegum
era. Ohio's Music Explosion had a cool, aggressive sound and K&K's
house songwriters kept them supplied with catchy, derivative tunes
that grew progressively psychedelic as the band neared its 1968
demise.

The New Colony Six "Breakthrough" CD (Sundazed)
1966 debut from Chicago wimp-rockers, without the usual Sundazed
bonus tracks. I know they have their cult, but weak tunes make
it tough to see the appeal.

Doug Newman The
Cat Album CD (Sandthistle) Cat lovers and fans of gentle,
sixties-inflected pop alike will be tickled by Doug Newman's affectionate
tribute to the kitties in his life. I'm both, and really dig this
sweet and charming disk. The tunes are catchy and the themes clearly
drawn from life, with songs about cats lost and (happily) found,
not really wanting to give away that litter of kittens, honoring
a cat's need for independence, ear mite infestations and the weird
things cats like to eat. Includes a lyric sheet backed with photos
and paintings of the featured felines.

The Orgone Box things that happened then CD (Minus
Zero) The Orgone Box's self-titled 2001 album (recorded c. 1995)
was a revelation, proving that it was possible for a contemporary
songwriter to make psychedelia as memorable, inventive and personal
as his sixties heroes. This archival odds 'n' sods collection
of Rick Corcoran home recordings predates that record, but already
shows a deft and distinctive touch. While not as terrifyingly
great as the debut, it's still highly recommended for all fans
of smart, catchy, jangly pop. But what's it gonna take to get
a "new" record out of this guy? All this juvenilia's
terrific, but c'mon already!

The Preachers Moanin' CD (Bacchus Archives) Here
are the only eight songs recorded by The Preachers, a sixties
L.A. band with lamentable taste in collarless suits. The tracks
range from heavy r&b covers to goofy soul to gentle folk-rock
and even jazz, and show them to have been skilled at each. Maybe
if they'd stuck with one sound they would have made more of an
impression at the time, but they did leave behind a nice EP's
worth of music.

Puffball
The Super Commando CD (Gearhead) The Swedish Motorhead?
As infants, these guys probably set fire to the ABBA tourbus,
yet I almost didn't pick this up. With a name like Puffball, why
the fuck would I? Seeing the Gearhead label, I knew it couldn't
sound as weak as I'd imagined, and in fact I was pleasantly surprised
by their sonic assault. The moniker might leave me wanting, but
they've given me my new favorite motto: Puffball stays true to
the Anti-Ska Movement. Turn Madness into sanity. (Margaret Griffis)

The Queers Pleasant Screams CD (Lookout) Imagine the
Ramones covering an entire Beach Boys album... wait, don't wet
your pants just yet. This is a great album of fun, sing-a-long,
bubblegum punk, but you knew that. It could be the soundtrack
for a teen love flick where the hero mopes about then finally
catches the girl / boy. It's memorable and catchy with potential
for hit singles, if it weren't for the cussing. But there's a
bittersweet jewel among gems. The third track may be the best
Ramones song I've never heard, just the kind of sappy-sweet love
tune that I... I mean PJ Soles would fantasize Joey was singing
just to her. It turns out the song was a half-finished Joey composition
completed by the Queers! Bless their little punk rock hearts.
Now you can go wet your pants. (Margaret Griffis)

Redd Kross Neurotica CD (Five Foot Two) Remastered reish
of their long out of print 1987 trash pop opus, thickly larded
with retro references and the McDonald brothers' natural snottiness
to form a punky paste that tastes great. Bonus cuts include a
sunshiny cover of Sonny & Cher's "It's the Little Things"
featuring Vicki Peterson.

The Rotten Apples Real-Tuff (Durable Plastic) CD (eMpTy)
Finally the heiresses to the Runaways have been located. The Rotten
Apples can rock as hard as the boys without dropping estrogen
cliches all over the rock club, thus remaining even more true
to their sex (a concept that eluded the riot grrls). These lasses
sound like they actually sit around listening to old records instead
of just hopping on the current bandwagon. Snatches of bubblegum,
glam, new wave, and '60s girl groups permeate their punky rock
'n' roll. The various influences blend perfectly into a cohesive
sound and still sound fresh as a daisy. Hell, you should hear
the way they "own" their cover of Missing Persons' "Noticeable
One." Great vocals and tight playing-I really dig that guitar.
Lyrics are remarkably penetrating in their simplicity. Boys, if
you wanna know what women are thinking, listen carefully. Great
overall! (Margaret Griffis)

Run for Cover Lovers The Difficult Nature of Interpersonal
Relationships CD (Rockin' Pussy/ Good Forks) Favorite band
of Scram co-founder Steve Watson, this Oakland foursome
has a klutzy earnestness that gives their dark-tinged, organ-swathed
tunes a rare emotional richness.

Nate Ruth Whatever I Meant CD (Soundless) An
unexpectedly musical amalgam of textured feedback layers, rat-a-tat
drums and faux limey vocals, with an anthemic grandeur obviously
inspired by many long nights under the headphones.

Michael
J Sheehy No Longer My Concern CD (Beggars Banquet)
Weirdly programmed blend of pretty-if-samey troubadour ballads
and less appealing upbeat stuff that sounds like recent Tom Waits
gene-spliced with Birthday Party outtakes. There's a nice EP somewhere
here, but you'll have to dig it out yourself.

Nancy
Sinatra Lightning's Girl: Greatest Hits 1965-1971 CD
(Raven) Generous 26 track survey of tough/sweet Nancy's musical
activities, including her daffy theme from The Last of the
Secret Agents and the haunting "This Town" from
The Cool Ones, plus what would pass for a complete "best
of Nancy & Lee" from a cheaper label. Frank's little
girl wasn't a natural singer, but she did have plenty of sass
and great songs/production from Hazlewood, and together they came
up with some terrific, peculiar records. The package includes
vintage pix, a career survey, and the lady's own recollections
of her early career.

Sleater-Kinney
One Beat CD (Kill Rock Stars) The S-K Pop Osterizer
is packed to the spill line and set to puree. New wave conventions
rise to the surface only to be sucked back into the trio's relentless
rhythm, a raw and impassioned wave.

Smart Brown Handbag Fast Friends CD (Stonegarden)
This smart and catchy pop trio has a summery '80s British feel,
though they're actually from L.A. David Steinhart's romantic,
yearning songs work beautifully with the richly textured production
that makes the band sound bigger than just three.

The Solarflares Look What I Made Out of My Head CD
(Big Beat) After a couple of fine disks on Twist, Graham Day's
'flares have moved to one of the U.K.'s premier reissue labels.
While their sound has roots in mod and freakbeat, the band is
too powerful and Day's songs too personal and thoughtful to be
tagged as mere revivalism. Instro "Girl in a Briefcase"
shows them in a playful spy soundtrack vein, but mostly they ply
the distinctive sound of teenage idealists grown up miffed. And
while that can sound a bit formulaic, it's a pretty neat little
formula.

The Spits Self-Titled 12" CD (Slovenly)
Until recently, I was pretty sure "god" had a personal
vendetta-type relationship with me. Then another Spits record
came in to my life. I might even be persuaded to say this one
is even better than The Spits (also self-titled but on
Nickel and Dime Records). This platter too is Ramones-a-riffic,
but with a hearty dollop of (dare I say it) the Tubeway Army.
Just like a good assassination, everyone remembers when they first
heard the Spits. Your mind pauses to suck in the information.
Your heart feels like it might pop when the adrenaline reaches
it. Then the life affirming feeling of bliss. What a wonderful
thing they are. I'm fantasizing a punk rock Monkees where the
band drives around buying up terrible, forgotten punk/wave compilations
or one-off 7 inchers, find the worst track, study it and turn
it into gold. The third song, "PCT," I'm sure I remember
it. It was on that comp with the singles on it. You know. Yeah,
wait a second, let me go find it. There has to be something wrong,
sick and/or despicable about these people. Hey, isn't that Bill
Bartell I hear? (Margaret Griffis)

Nikki Sudden & Rowland S. Howard Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc/
Live in Augsburg double CD (Secretly Canadian) Sudden's
collaboration with ex-Birthday Party guitarist Howard produced
some exceptionally dark and heady stuff, a nearly seamless blend
of delicate romanticism and the shambling lurches of a soul possessed.
Closer to the Birthday Party than the Jacobites, but still among
Sudden's best work. The second disk is a previously unreleased
German live show from '87, happily much superior to the drunken
mess I witnessed the pair making in Ladbroke Grove some months
earlier.

Nikki Sudden & Dave Kusworth / Jacobites Ragged School
CD (Secretly Canadian) Heavily expanded (11 bonus tracks)
edition of the 1986 Twin/Tone comp that first brought Dave &
Nikki's shabby heroics to an American audience. The extra material
diffuses the original disk's cohesion, but I'm sure not complaining
about getting all those scarce UK EP tracks in one place. A velvetty,
jangly, heartbroke delight.

Sunstorm High Resolution CD-EP (self-released)
Dreamy stoner pop with a backbone, fluid, sexy and full of unexpected
sonic twists. Very nice.

Bert Switzer 1977-2002 CD (self-released) Opens
with a free jazz skronk fest from '02 that will peel the paint
off your shoes, but the real heart of this survey of projects
on which Switzer drummed is the insane stuff recorded by Boston's
the Destroyed between 1977-79. Snot-nosed Stoogey grunt and whine
veering into punk territory. The disk is available at a very fair
price from CDBaby.com, or directly from the artist.

Thee Midnighters Greatest CD (Thump) First CD
comp of the legendary East L.A. party band follows a mostly chronological
path from 1966's "Whittier Boulevard" and "Land
of 1000 Dances" through the politicized fusion of "Chicano
Power" (1969), with a whole lot of smooth Latin soul along
the way. Thee Midnighters could rip it up with the best garage
rats, but their secret weapon was Little Willie G's heart-tugging
voice, the sound that made a whole generation of Boyle Heights
prom dates dance too close.

Tijuana Hercules When the Moon Comes Up Wild
CD-EP (Black Pisces) Raw and propulsive punk-blues trio with drawling
vocals suggesting early Beefheart. They're probably real good
live.

Dean
Torrence Anthology: Legendary Masked Surfer Unmasked
CD (Varèse Sarabande) The highlight of this comp of
post-Jan vocal performances from eternal sideman (despite having
the sweetest voice in the J&D pair) Dean is the 1981 cassette-only
release "Ocean Park Angel," a perfect summery idyll
in the "Little Surfer Girl" vein. Also included are
the seldom heard Laughing Gravy version of "Vegetables,"
the "Yellow Balloon" single that so incensed songwriter
Gary Zekley prior to release that he rushed his own eponymous
band into existence, and fifteen more SoCal confections spanning
four decades, and pairing DT with such fellow travelers as Mike
Love, Flo & Eddie, Brian Wilson and the Honeys.

Mick Turner Moth CD (Drag City)
Another set of spare and languid guitar meanderings from the Dirty
Three leader, going nowhere quite prettily.

V/A Fuzz, Flaykes, & Shakes Vol. 6: Come on in
to my world/ Vol. 7 You make me lose my mind CD (Bacchus Archives)
More newly discovered garage 45 rarities from the collector scum
underground-no offence, Tony!-enhanced with informative notes
and cool pix. Volume 6 is overwhelmingly jangly, sad and sweet,
with some rougher psychedelic spice. Highlights include West Minist'r's
spookily urgent "Bright Lights, Windy City" and Chapter
VI's Music Machine-y "Fear." Vol. 7 is raunchier and
wackier, with the (Brooklyn) Outsiders' batty alibi "The
Guy with the Long Liverpool Hair," the Gass Co.'s snot-nosed
"First I Look at the Purse," and a swell Dylan parody
by the Intercoms. Both are strong comps worth picking up.

V/A
Right to Chews: Bubblegum Classics Revisited CD (Not
Lame) It wasn't long after the first Bubblegum Ball-when ten SoCal
bands turned out at World on Wheels roller rink to celebrate the
release of Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth with their
interpretations of vintage gum covers-that I heard this comp was
in the works. Coincidence? Whatever the inspiration, it's a fun
set of current popsters honoring that absurdly catchy AM goo and
pap. Highlights include the sparkle*jets u.k.'s J-5 tribute, Linus
of Hollywood's faithful take on the Banana Splits' "I Enjoy
Being a Boy," Doug Powell's almost Queen-ly "I Woke
Up in Love This Morning," and Jim Laspeza and Michael Quercio's
deliciously infantile "May I Take A Giant Step" (über-twee
Quercio was born to sing this stuff!).

The Volta Sound Fast Light with Radio Signal CD-EP
(Elephant Stone) Cool and languid Velvetsy sing-song drone-psych
that stretches out into supple strands that drape the speakers
when you close your eyes.

The Waistcoats All the Rage CD (Wildebeest) Holland's
Waistcoats are among the finest contemporary purveyors of faux
British invasion sounds, and this latest set of originals is full
of strong rockers, mournful Kinksy sob stories, unexpected bursts
of instro psychedelia, and of course a surplus of heartfelt yeahs.

Danny Weizmann S/T CD (Straw Hat) Old timey song
and dance man Danny (yep, he taps) has come a long way from his
former identity as teen punk scribe Shredder. His solo debut is
a confident and unpredictable melange of his dream version of
New York City sounds, from crooning to disco to cool jazz romance.
The results are fanciful and quite daffy.

The Zodiac Cosmic Sounds: Celestial Counterpoint with Words
and Music CD (Water) I sure don't remember hearing so
many undertones and details on my crackly Elektra vinyl copy of
Mort Garson (Cancer) and Jacques Wilson's (Leo) delightful 1967
electronic concept album, narrated by the seemingly sincere Cyrus
Faryar (Pisces). With soaring rock arrangements, tastefully utilized
Moog, a slew of oddball sonic effects and cheerfully overblown
prosody ("endless naked moonlight swims in the green sensational
sea/ throbbing with the wave-beat"), Cosmic Sounds
is a time-capsule trip, perfectly realized. This is a crisp, handsome
reissue of the scarce original, with Richie Unterberger's notes
revealing the project's backstory, including a surprising Rod
McKuen connection. Recommended.

 [interview excerpt]

Last of the Freaks: The Carl Franzoni Story as told to John Trubee

In 1973 I bought the Freak Out! double LP by the Mothers of Invention at a little record shop on Palmer Square in my hometown, Princeton, NJ. Its first song, "Hungry Freaks, Daddy," was written for someone named Carl Orestes Franzoni who, according to Zappa's liner notes, "is freaky down to his toe nails. Someday he will live next door to you and your lawn will die." The lyrics decried America's culture of mindless conformity and consumerism, with lines like:

"Mister America walk on by your schools that do not teach
Mister America walk on by the minds that won't be reached
Mister America try to hide the emptiness that's you inside
When once you find the way you lied
And all the corny tricks you tried
Will not forestall the rising tide of HUNGRY FREAKS, DADDY!"

This song became the anthem of my alienated and disenfranchised youth. I carried its lyrics around in my head for years.

Across the continent and nearly three decades later, I wandered across the campus at Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa, CA. It was May 2001. I headed into the student lounge to check out an art exhibit and noticed a strange-looking older man sitting on a sofa. He had short pants, leather vest, a leather hat festooned with various buttons, tattoos covering his arms and other exposed flesh, assorted wrist bracelets, beaded necklaces, and a presence that screamed that he had seen and done much in his life. One aging earth mother hippie-type woman was introducing him to another, asking "And have you met my friend Carl Franzoni?" My ears pricked up. A little later I walked over and introduced myself to Mr. Franzoni and it turned out that he was indeed the one for whom "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" was written. I was privileged to get better acquainted with Carl after that. He's 68 and today lives in Santa Rosa. His has been a colorful life-a young hood from Cincinnati who reformed, relocated to San Francisco in the late '50s, then gravitated to LA and, with Vito Paulekas, was a dancer/scenester/catalyst in the explosion of music, psychedelia, and mayhem on the Sunset Strip in the mid 1960s. Franzoni toured as a dancer with the Byrds and the Mothers of Invention in both bands' early days.

I interviewed Franzoni at his artifact-strewn apartment on Sunday evening, November 17th, 2002.

SCRAM: I'd like to start when you first arrived in LA and were involved in a mail order business.
CARL: My first job was Cecelia Desteffano of Hollywood. My partner was a guy named Joe. He brought me to Hollywood. There was a man I worked for in Menlo Park/Redwood City up in the Bay Area. They said to me, "Do you wanna get into a business?" I had a girlfriend that I met in a twist club, Cecelia. She had three children and a husband and lived in Menlo Park. She was tired because her husband was just a straight guy and there was no "oomph!" in her life. She was a really good-looking woman, very Italian-looking. Well, I had a lot of girlfriends in that twist place-the Peppermint Lounge in Redwood City. Cecelia came in there one night, so I said, "Why don't you come over to my place sometime?" My brother John and I were home and she knocked on the door and I said to John, "Take a walk." I got her in the bedroom and I'm taking her apart. Now she was really the old style woman: she wore a girdle, panties, her girdle held up her stockings, high heeled shoes, always made up really well like a secretary-and she was just a homemaker. So I took her apart. What I mean by that was that in order to fuck her I had to go through the girdle and go through the panties-but I got her. And she got off like she had never gotten off. Three kids and she'd never gotten off with this guy. She was married for twelve years with him. I had other girlfriends, but she wasn't gonna let me alone. And I like her a lot. I have an Italian thing anyway. If a woman's Italian... So my friend Joe said, '"My mother has got a thing for her tits. If you come and talk to her you'll see that my mother who's 56 or 57 has got tits like Marilyn Monroe's."
SCRAM: Was this about 1960?
CARL: No, this was '61 or '62. I went and met his mother. She was in her yard. I remember there was a low picket fence and she came out and she was watering or something. And I'm looking at this woman and I'm thinking, "How in the hell did she get tits like that?"
SCRAM: Were they big, or pointy, or what?
CARL: They were like a young woman's breasts. So I asked Joe, "How did this happen?" He says, " She sent to Milan, because she heard there was a bust-developer there that works." We sent for one. The mail order house sent back a bell jar with a tube and an atomizer. Very simple idea. Today if it was used it would ruin the business of breast implants. I used it on my own chest and it blew up into the bell jar. All you have to do is do ten or fifteen minutes with this bell jar daily, and it'll work! It stretches your tissues and it's like a super exercise.
SCRAM: The blood comes in and fills up the tissues?
CARL: And you're amazed by it. Then we got another thing from that idea and it was for the penis- the penis pump. But it never worked like the other did. So Cecelia Desteffano sells her house because she wants to come to Hollywood with me, and she fronts the business. We all moved to LA, including Cecelia and her daughter. The two boys stayed with her husband. My partner's name was Scallacci, Joe Scallacci-the same name as the famous murderer Scallacci. Probably from the same family. I think they were Sicilian.
SCRAM: Where was your mail order business office?
CARL: My office was on Melrose Avenue. Not the Melrose Avenue where all the shit's going on right now. Vito did one of his first things there and the band Love came out of Melrose Avenue. It was west of Fairfax, not east of Fairfax on Melrose.
SCRAM: Were the sales of penis pumps very good?
CARL: Well, yes. The bust developer was very successful, but we could never find enough names [sales leads from mail order lists]. I think there was one other company that had the breast pump, but they didn't know how to advertise it like we did. What we did was mail a pink folder to women. It looked very personal. We used Cecelia's picture. She was very voluptuous, good-looking, very Italian-looking girl, like somebody from Cleveland. Black raven hair and big brown eyes. I had these partners, but Cecelia put up the money. She had her money from her divorce so she could afford a nice apartment for us right off of Third Street, then she moved to south off Sepulveda with a 4-bedroom apartment. She had her girlfriend with her, who Joe liked, so it was like we were a foursome. One day I'm with Joe and we're having lunch on Sunset Boulevard and we go to this place called Ben Frank's. It's still there, a modernistic-looking place. We're sitting there and there's three hippie kind of girls-but there's not hippies yet. We're businessmen and they're bohemians. Now I had been in North Beach with the beatniks before I went to LA, so maybe these were beatnik women. They wore crazy clothes, not like the usual, and they way that they painted themselves was very different. So we're having lunch, talking, and I'm looking at this girl and she's small and has black hair and brown eyes-she's Italian. I know it, okay? So I said to Joe-he knows, he's Italian himself-"let's go over before we go and talk to them." I said, "Listen, I'm looking at you from across the room and I'd like to speak to you or get involved with you somehow. Is that possible?" And she said, "Yes! I'm a painter and I'm painting at Vito's studio, he's my mentor. Would you come and see my paintings and I'll introduce you to my friend Vito?" And as I'm walking away she said "And bring your friend." Her name was Mary Mancini. Joe and I decided to go there.
SCRAM: Where was Vito's studio?
CARL: 303 North Laurel, at Beverly. Eastman's Gym is upstairs. It's a funky dress shop with sculptures in the windows. We go in and then make a sharp right and see a fluorescent light in the basement. We go down and it's like no place you've ever been. It's like if you opened a Mayan tomb, with little things painted all over the walls. Then you see half-done sculpture, and there are two painters sitting there. One of them is this woman Mary Mancini. She was a schoolteacher -- but they couldn't let her teach, because the girls at the Catholic school where she worked liked her too much and she liked them. She had lesbianism going within her world and she was also a whore. I was interested in her painting and I bought the first one I saw there. I paid $350 for it. I was trying to get in her pants, true, but after a while that wasn't the object because I saw her predicament. I took her into our business. I told the other guys about her and they made her their secretary. She found me a secretary that was very Catholic and I told her that if I had a secretary I was gonna fuck her. So she'd better get ready. The one she got was a Chicano girl and she couldn't stand me-so I said "Mary, I've got to get another secretary, and I don't want her to be upset with me because I'm interested in her and she's not." So she went off got me another secretary who I married. Cecelia Desteffano was gone by now.
SCRAM: What happened to her?
CARL: She tried to commit suicide because I wouldn't pay attention to her anymore. I tried to bring her into Vito's scene and get her to understand my life was changing. I wasn't a dancer yet, but I was going to dance classes, and I was finding that thing with a group of people.
SCRAM: Were you dancing at Vito's studio?
CARL: Well, no. He had time in the Coronet Theater on La Cienega Boulevard, and upstairs there was dance studio. People that were in West Side Story used the facility. The main guy dancer from that film, we would comp off of each other. He would see what we were doing and we'd see what he was doing. Both of the classes were really good. We'd watch each other for a while, but you can't stay in a dance class very long. They want you to get out. They don't want you to steal from them. Anyway, I'm doing this stuff and Cecelia doesn't want to go along with it. She wants me to be a straight businessman. To me it was boring because I was seeing and finding other things. La Dolce Vita was in theatrical release at the time, all those Swedish movies, and Fellini. If you saw those movies, it would change your life. Plus, all the artists that were coming to Vito's place: Richard Avedon, Bert Schoenberg (who had done paintings on Sunset Boulevard), Valerie Porter, who was to became my girlfriend later. It was becoming a grand scene. Before I showed up Vito had a lot of movie stars that would come there and sculpt. Joe De Santis and Jonathan Winters and Mickey Rooney. Vito would hang out with them. Once in a while I'll see these guys on TV. The movie Around the World in 80 Days has most of these people that Vito knew at this time. Anyway, Cecelia couldn't make the grade. I get a phone call and she's in the hospital from a suicide attempt. I go to the hospital and I look at her and I go "Listen girl, lemme tell you something. You got three kids. You don't have to fuckin' kill yourself for me. What the fuck am I? Don't think that you have to do anything like that? Why are you ending your life? You're a beautiful woman!" I kind of yelled at her. "It's just the end of a thing. We can't make it. You're not interested in what I'm interested in." So it was cool. She had given me a brand new MG two-seater sports car, and I gave it back to her. I said, "I can't accept this car from you because our love affair is over."
SCRAM: You told me that when you first met Vito and his crew you'd just go to watch them dance, but you just hung back and didn't dance for the first six months?
CARL: Yeah, for about three to six months I just went with them to different places. We went to a rock 'n'roll place on Fairfax Avenue and I would just kinda peek in, but I wasn't ready to dance yet. Then we switched places to [the Purple Onion on] Sunset Boulevard where Bert Schoenberg had that billboard outside, that painting of a sunburst or whatever the hell it was. He was really famous in Hollywood at the time. Everybody wanted to own a Bert Schoenberg painting. It was a very funky place, right across the street from Ralph's on Sunset Boulevard near La Brea. I started dancing in there; I just let it go. Also my answering service was near there-yeah, everybody had to have an answering service...
SCRAM: That's something from a bygone era. Now everyone has answering machines or digital voicemail. How weird.
CARL: Yeah, it cost you a fortune.
SCRAM: When you did your business you gave people the phone number for your answering service and they'd leave a message with an operator? That seems like the dark ages now.
CARL: Right. Anyway, that was where I really got into the dance. Then we moved to the Whisky. There were no white bands yet. There were black bands and only black bands-Motown and that stuff was just hummin'. And Elvis Presley was just barely Elvis Presley. He was still a kid, y'know. There were no clubs on Sunset Boulevard. There was nothing there. Further down there were two clubs-there was that place at Vine and Sunset, it's still there, the Palladium. And across the street from that was where they shot the old TV show Queen For A Day, the Aquarius Theater. The Palladium is where the black bands played the most. Then Gazzari's was open, and then there was one that was run by this woman who owned the Body Shop-[The Galaxy.] That's where Tina Turner and the Iron Butterfly turned out. It was up near the Whisky. And then there was this little tiny club where the Doors played for three months [the London Fog]-nobody even thought about them. Somebody from the Whisky came over, 'cause the Whisky was turning. The Whisky was straight, it was just a dance club. It was women in the box. Frank Zappa had to play a straight number to get in there. They would yell at him if he played something crazy. There were no Byrds, no Buffalo Springfield, there was nothing. They were in incubation in the garage, all of them. Back in Hollywood we were dancing to records or R&B black bands. They got pushed out of Hollywood because of the white music. We would dance to whatever they had. The dancers Vito had at his class would go out at night. We'd have a destination; we would meet there. We would go out a couple of times a week and then it got more frequent. We became more and more popular and each club vied for our attention because if we would go there the club would become famous.
SCRAM: Because you brought all this energy and all these people...
CARL: And brought a dance that nobody else had ever seen. We were giving an original dance here. These were artists that were dancing. We were doing an art form.
SCRAM: How large was your average group of people with whom you'd go out to the clubs?
CARL: Well, I'd say no less than ten, but I remember one time when Herbie Cohen let us into the Shrine Auditorium, he let a hundred of us dancers in there. He counted us as we went in; Frank Zappa's on the stage. But the band we most liked to dance to was the Gauchos. The Gauchos were from Fresno. I tell people about the Gauchos all the time. They were an eleven-piece band with horns. They did "La Bamba" like nobody else-they put "La Bamba" on the map because they had brass for it. They were a tight band, they wore uniforms and when you danced to them you got so fucking high from it. I remember the club that was the Playboy Club-we shredded it! We were dancing on the bar and we were dancing on the tables. The place was almost ready to come apart! Anyway, that's what was going on in Hollywood at that moment until somebody said "Listen, there's a band that needs a job."
SCRAM: Are you referring to the Byrds?
CARL: That was the Byrds. They were a bunch of funky asshole dudes; they didn't know what to do with themselves. They had gone to San Francisco and had all of their equipment stolen out of their station wagon, which was parked out in front of the club. They had their tires stolen. They came out and there was nothing there. The thieves had ripped that thing to shreds.

Wanna read more about Carl's adventures with the Byrds, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, Dick Clark and Johnny Carson? Pick up Scram #17