#18
Scram #18 record reviews
Scram #18 reviews
(all by the editrix unless otherwise noted)
David Ackles David Ackles, Subway
to the Country, American
Gothic CDs (Collectors' Choice)... It's always been hard
to talk about Ackles in the context of modern pop music, but looking
back at the five years spanned by these reissues of his first
three releases on Elektra (from 1968-72), it's no easier to put
him in historical perspective. Whether your reference point is
the singer-songwriter crowd of the period, the Jesse Winchester-type
folkies, or the Laurel Canyon shitkickers, these records just
don't make sense. It gets worse when you try and shove him into
some kind of concept artist ghetto with Van Dyke Parks or Lee
Hazelwood. Except for American Gothic, where there is a
musical and lyrical unity that comes the closest to a concept,
these are records filled with story songs, but they don't necessarily
hang together. The standout tunes on David Ackles are "The
Road to Cairo," a traveling song with biblical overtones
and "Sonny Come Home" which with its off-kilter American
carny feel points the way toward American Gothic. The liner
notes on the reissue try comparing such work to Kurt Weill, but
once Ackles hit his stride on Subway to the Country the
only thing I hear is mid-fifties Rodgers and Hammerstein. The
sinister, melodramatic feel of Picnic is all over "Candy
Man," one of the better child molester ballads in anyone's
recorded cannon. Occasionally, as on American Gothic's
"Love's Enough" and "One Night Stand," Ackles
slips into a kind of mellow Neil Diamond lyricism which is pleasant
enough, but not his strength. Instead, plow your way into the
heart of Gothic and bathe in the pungent, hurdy-gurdy bombast
of the title tune or "The Ballad of the Ship of State"
or "Midnight Carousel." It's there you can witness the
flowering of an iconoclastic vision from a time where a major
label could at least temporarily find a place for something so
amazingly out of place and time. (Ken Rudman)
Mark Bacino The Million Dollar Milkshake CD (Parasol)... Shimmery hand-clappy
tunes sure to please fans of Marshall Crenshaw and regional soda
pops.
Frank Bango The Unstudied Sea CD (Sincere)... Mr. Bango and his partner
Richy Vesecky specialize in sweet and witty pop ala Elvis Costello's
take on Bacharach-David, and it's nicely realized here, if a bit
samey.
Tywanna Jo Baskette Fancy Blue CD (Sweet Tea)... This is one of those discs that'll
either charm the socks off you or make you run screaming out of
the room. Baskette's a genuine Southern oddball with a cracked,
babyish voice and a sensibility to match. Her low-key, improvisational
songs reveal a deeply personal mythoverse packed with strange
animals, out-of-season flowers, the magic power of names and language,
and always the shadow of death hanging overhead. "1985/1998,"
an a cappella memorial for her parents, both dead of lung cancer,
entwined with a rendering of the Winston jingle, is about as wrenching
and lovely a listen as you'll find. Baskette's debut is precious,
certainly, but it's awfully good.
birddog songs from willipa bay CD (Karma)...
Rangy, understated kosmic kountry, very pleasant.
Bobby Birdman Born Free Forever CD (Hush)... Restrained, strained pop cycle
ala Plush's More You Becomes You-though not as catchy-distinguished
by pretty if monotonous singing and a sense that this Birdman's
taking us nowhere in no particular hurry.
Black Keys thickfreakness
CD (Fat Possum)...The natural blues howl that Dan Auerbach channels
on this raunchy, unpredictable set may be surprising coming out
of his young, white throat, but it's no less effecting for that.
Feverish punk-blues with flavorful jolts of psych and funk.
Tony Borlotti & I suoi Flauers il mondo È
strano LP (Teen Sound)... What does it say about the garage
scene that it's this refreshing to hear an overseas act
sing in its native tongue? Tony and his pals play silly, upbeat
folk rock with all the fuzz guitar, Farfisa abuse and snazzy harmonies
you could possibly want, and would be a hoot to dance to.
The Briefs Off the Charts CD (Dirtnap)... Fun pop akin to Buzzcocks,
Dickies, Oi bands and others featured on the gazillion punk comps
released circa 1980. Strong songwriting skills and good sense
of humor in lyrics, presentation and stage name. Perhaps a bit
derivative for some, but if you can show me one band that you
think isn't these days, I'll show you the suckers they ripped-off.
There's no reason the Briefs' video isn't already on the MTV punk
rock cycle except that they haven't sold out to a big label...
yet. When you do, guys, don't let "them" change a thing.
(Margaret Griffis)
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Bands Railroadism:
Live in the USA 72-81 CD (Viper)... Following Viper's
comp of UK audience recordings comes a homeland bookend, featuring
batty, impassioned takes on faves like "The Blimp" and
"Big Eyed Beans from Venus." The sound quality's not
bad considering the source(s), and live, the tunes hold together
better than you'd think. For fans only, but they'll be stoked.
The title refers to a newly discovered blues vamp that evolves
out of a long version of "China Pig."
Chaino New Sounds in Rock 'N' Roll - Jungle Rock CD (Bacchus Archives)...
Now that Chaino's several years deceased, his pals at BA are spilling
the bones that spell out the mysterious African percussionist's
true ID as Leon Johnson, late of Philly. These tracks were meant
to cash in on the success of his manic Bagdasarian-damaged "Pygmy
Song," but that 1958 side didn't do much and they were packed
away to molder. Ignore the title-this is sleazy jazzbo dementia
punctuated by lewd grunts 'n' giggles, faux African invocations,
and the sound of session guys giving in to all the excesses usually
forbidden them. Half these tracks were previously available on
scarce Tampa and Orb 45s.
Gene Clark No Other CD (Collector's Choice)... The wayward Byrd
never spent more on a record than on this coke-era L.A. artifact,
a weird mix of Clark's trademark yearning melodies and ambitious
arrangements packed with gospel choruses, funk overlays and other
excesses typical of folks living with 24 tracks and no curfew.
There are some pretty songs, and I love the cover art, but as
an album it's a tough sell.
Cobra Verde easy listening CD (Muscletone)... How're we ever gonna bury
Rock's suppurating corpse as long as these marvelous dopes insist
on crawling inside and making it all sound great again? A personal-as-political
glam fag testament that works on about eight simultaneous levels,
every one a blast. See 'em live.
The Cuts 2 Over Ten CD (Birdman)... On their second disc, the Cuts
ply a smart, edgy sound reminiscent of Television, but warmer
and poppier. "Paradise" is a sweet piece of early '70s
fluff right out of Pete Ham's pocket. If you can handle Andy Jordan's
strangled vocal stylings, there's a lot of interesting stuff here.
Jeff Dahl I Was a Teenage Glam-Fag Volume 2 CD
(UU)... It's clear from past releases that Jeff Dahl never got
over the damage inflected by prolonged exposure to unpasteurized
'70s cheese, and on this ltd. fan club issue he pays direct, trashy
tribute to his fave glitter-daubed names (Lou, David, Marc) and
never weres (Smokey, Berlin Brats). The results: good dirty fun.
Evan Dando Baby I'm Bored CD (Bar/ None)... If you're bored, baby, change
careers because your heart doesn't sound in it anymore. Baby
I'm Bored falls short of the creative spark that made the
Lemonheads beloved by their fan base. It's weirdly uninteresting,
like watching an ambulance speed by. He seems to want to be a
contemplative or maybe "adult contemporary" singer-songwriter.
While that worked for some old punks (Nick Cave) it totally failed
for others (Paul Westerberg). Dando needs to get rid of all the
yes-men in his life who agreed this was a great idea. (Margaret
Griffis)
The Deadly Snakes Ode to Joy CD (In The Red)... Hauty, sneering gospel / garage
that stutters and veers like a high-powered engine run too long
on the cheap stuff. Real loose and real wild.
The Decembrists Castaways and Cutouts CD (Kill Rock Stars)... Since KRS has mysteriously
seen fit to reissue the Decembrists' year-old debut, I guess I'll
recycle the review I wrote when it was released on Hush: "If
the long silence of Neutral Milk Hotel chafes at you, try rubbing
these marvelous Portlanders on the sore spot. I am charmed by
their rollicking modernist sea chanteys peopled by ghostly infants,
self-reflexive legionnaires, bedwetters and assorted oddballs.
A Dame Darcy drawing on the cover is all that's missing."
The Decemberists 5 Songs CD-EP (Hush)... A fairly straightforward set from
the jangly and mournful Portland magical pop realists, though
"My Mother was a Chinese Trapeze Artist" charts them
squarely back into zany waters. Extra track "Apology Song"
is an appealing acknowledgment of a failure between friends and
the inborn nobility of inanimate objects. A very odd and interesting
band, though the vocals are a taste some won't ever acquire.
Jonathan Donaldson & The Color Forms Beyond Blue
Bells CD (Traveling Talons)... The debut by occasional Scram
contributor Donaldson's combo is an emotion-soaked trip on an
anglophilic '80s rocket, with propulsive, clever tunes anchored
by JD's soaring, Orange Juicy vocals.
The Easybeats The Very Best of the Easybeats: Friday On My Mind CD (Varèse
Sarabande)... Sure, "Friday On My Mind" has been overplayed
on Goldies stations worldwide, but comparing "Friday"
to the rest of their tunes is like judging the Rolling Stones
on the basis of "She's A Rainbow" alone. This comp reveals
a natural progression of styles paralleling the '60s in general
but without the insane commercial success of a Stones or Beatles.
"Sorry," "The Music Goes Round My Head" and
"Bring A Little Lovin'" are just three of the should've-beens
that oughtta crowd out the Motown infesting AM today. Too heavy
for '60s throwback radio, I guess. Easybeats Vanda and Young were
musical nursemaids to Young's little pipsqueak brothers who went
on to form AC/DC. If that ain't street cred... (Margaret Griffis)
Electric Turn To Me S/T CD-EP (No Quarter)...
Elegantly lush and eerie goth-pop, featuring their own mono-monickered
German chanteuse, Silke.
El Guapo Fake
French CD (Dischord)... Electro post punk dragged through
an indie rock/ Fugazi filter, not bad if you dig the California
weird crowd like the Residents, Centimeters, Screamers and electro
pop ala early Depeche Mode. They're affected by DC/ Dischord,
but not in a heavy-handed way. Fairly interesting, though I found
the repetitiveness of some of the songs irritating on second and
third play-which doesn't mean you won't absolutely love it. (Margaret
Griffis)
Ron Elliott The
Candlestickmaker CD (Collector's Choice)... Sole solo
outing from the Beau Brummels' chief songwriter and guitarist,
here backed by Chris Ethridge, Dennis Dragon and assorted session
cats. Elliott's no Sal Valentino, and his gruff vocals can't enliven
these dirgelike country-folk tunes, which lack the inspired magical
realism of the Triangle/ Bradley's era. There's some nice
picking and typically classy Waronker stable arrangements, but
just too little in the way of hooks and energy. As a solo artist,
Ron Elliott is one hell of a sideman.
Epoxies
S/T CD (Dirtnap)... It's rarely acknowledged, but the
most startling accomplishment of the first new wave was that it
momentarily made yodeling cool-Lene Lovich, anyone?-and neo-wave
siren Roxy Epoxy and her compadres give the gimmick another shot
with their stylish, catchy and surprisingly sincere sound.
The Fleshtones Do
You Swing? CD (Yep Roc)... The last 'tones disc I heard
was disconcertingly "mature," with lyrics suggesting
these longtime party rockers had settled into straight jobs and
comfy relationships. The garage revival has roused them from their
languor to turn in a trashy, jangly set more in keeping with fans'
expectations. While they rarely come up with a great hook, this
is solid, nicely produced foolishness that will give them a welcome
excuse to hit te road again.
Freddy & the Four Gone Conclusions Wigged Out
Sounds CD (Get Hip)... Post-collegiate frat rockers Fortune
& Maltese are no more, but Freddy Fortune's back with a new
outfit that knock out more of that utterly convincing retro rock
that makes the kids dance funny. Shame-on-you-girl lyrics, check.
Sneery vocal action, check. Matching suits-canary yellow, no less-check.
All kindsa organ, check. Someone dust off the temporal skip panel
and book these boys on Happening '68, stat.
Bobbie Gentry An
American Quilt 1967-1974 CD (Raven)... This is a revelation.
If, like me, all you knew of Bobbie G. was "Ode to Billie
Joe," you're likely to be gob-smacked by the lady's sure
and striking amalgam of country, soul and subtle psychedelia.
Gentry was raised in Mississippi, studied philosophy at UCLA and
worked as a Vegas showgirl, and these apparently contradictory
experiences prove surprisingly cohesive in her art. The regional
portraiture is imbued with a rich psychological understanding
and a streak of dark and giddy humor, her voice is warm and knowing,
and the arrangements terrific. From the erotic maternalism of
"Jessye' Lisabeth" to the arch "Casket Vignette"
to "Fancy," the irresistible tale of a streetwalker's
rise to semi respectability, this Australian comp (composed almost
exclusively of Gentry's originals) should go a long way towards
restoring the reputation of a mysteriously neglected singer-songwriter.
Highly recommended, nay, essential.
Hearts and Flowers The
Complete double CD (Collector's Choice)... In the late
'60s, Hearts and Flowers' spare country-folk made them an oddity
on the L.A. scene, and, while perfectly pleasant, their two Nik
Venet produced Capitol discs failed to sell them to a larger audience.
There's nothing extraordinary here, but if your tastes run to
close harmonies and down home versions of Donovan and Goffin-King
tunes, it's well worth a spin. Disk two is mainly unreleased,
unfinished material, including an interesting, disjointed take
on Phil Ochs' "Flower Lady." Late member Bernie Leadon
was a founding Eagle.
The High Dials A
New Devotion CD (Rainbow Quartz)... Rainbow Quartz specializes
in quality contemporary psych, and disc #2 from this Montreal
act is one of their best picks yet, an Eastern-inflected concept
album that keeps the concept (man struggles to escape from nightmarish
city) refreshingly low-key. The energy level suggests the Jam,
but a dreamy Sunday morning Jam you can spread on your crumpets.
Yum.
Dotti Holmberg Sometimes
Happy Times CD (Sundazed)... Ms. Holmberg was an early
Curt Boettcher collaborator (one of the black haired gypsies backing
up the Greenwich Village GoldeBriars) with a breathy little girl
voice that could give Boettcher's sunshine pop confections the
extra dash of powdered sugar required to send them over the top.
On its own, that voice is too sweet to take in large doses, but
for a track or two it's charming. This disc compiled unreleased
solo Dotti tracks recorded at Columbia during the Millennium era,
plus some home demos.
The Incredible String Band U
double CD (Collector's Choice)... Studio recreation of the ISB's
1970 theatrical presentation which played briefly at London's
Roundhouse and the Fillmore East. On stage, the band was augmented
by Stone Monkey, a troupe that evolved out of happenings artist
/ bubble sculptor David Medalla's Exploding Galaxy. U is
a musical mishmash, with the band's usual eclectic hobbit meandering
grafted to old timey fiddle-fueled wackiness, robotic laments
and mysterious invocations. Very weird and unpredictable, but
it obviously loses a lot from the absence of the visual element.
Insect Surfers Mojave Reef CD (Marlin)... After
nearly 25 years honoring the instrumental surf traditions while
striking off on their own abstract melodic trails, the Surfers'
third disc is just the warm, high energy blast you'd expect. Close
your eyes and see spies, fast cars, huge swells and swirling colors
shifting almost too fast to register.
Insta Checklist for Love CD (Sunday)... Fine
girlie pop as gooily infectious as warm, fresh nougat.
Irving Good
Morning Beautiful CD (Eenie Meenie)... Fresh, eclectic
sixties-inflected sounds with a dash of frenetic new wave goofery.
Demure and sweet.
The Kills Keep
On Your Mean Side CD (Rough Trade)... Hipswing minimalist
punk-blues that veers between snotty, sexy and annoying, pretty
much in that order. The latter's largely due to pointless spoken
asides delivered in that bored Kim Gordon fashion, throwing a
wet towel over otherwise cool twining boy/girl vocals and low-fi
guitar rumble.
The Lazily Spun S/T
CD (Camera Obscura)... Reunion of the mid-'90s Manchester DIY
psych act whose demos gained support from the Ptolemaic Terrascope
crowd. Slow, moody layers of very English melancholia, with occasional
found sounds, Indian instruments and theremin. I like that these
guys are professional psychedelicians-the bassist does
post-graduate MDMA research, and their name derives from early
acid and mescaline experiments on spiders. But I don't like the
ugly stoned doodles on the cover, ugh.
Let's Active Cypress/
Afoot (Collector's Choice) This disc plugs a big hole
in the '80s Southern jangle pop revival. Let's Active was formed
in Chapel Hill in 1981 by Mitch Easter, a Dixie wonder boy who,
with future dB Chris Stamey, had a long stint during the '70 in
Sneakers (another influential, long dead power pop act whose catalog
badly wants a reissue), before going on to produce R.E.M.'s first
single "Radio Free Europe," their Chronic Town
EP and the epochal Murmur. The demos that became the brilliant
1983 Afoot EP evoke the frothy, pessimistic, dancing-on-the-deck
atmosphere of the Southern early '80s. Easter's sweet-boy vocals
on "Every Word Means No" and "Leader of Men"
glided ecstatically on power pop's dazzling membrane stretched
tight over general disaster. 1984's Cypress should've been
the band's breakout-twelve exuberant nightmares comparable to
Dramarama's Cinema Verite and sweetly gloomy as Georgia
mist. The band took to unsuccessful commerce for the next two
albums (also available on Collector's Choice) before dying in
obscurity in 1988. This is my odds-on favorite for reissue of
the year. (Ron Garmon)
Richard Lloyd
and Tom Verlaine S/T
CD (Collector's Choice)... After Television broke up, Elektra
cannily kept both guitarists on with solo deals, and while the
results were hardly as anxiously thrilling as Marquee Moon,
Lloyd and Verlaine's 1979 debuts are each worth hearing. Verlaine's
is closest to Television, with nervous, obtuse, jittering tunes
that betray a deep vein of silliness. The songs on the original
side two ("Flash Lightning" through "Breakin' in
My Heart") are the most serious and striking, and had their
mood been maintained over the course of the disc it might have
made more of a splash. Coming to it as a Television fan soon after
its release, I found Alchemy a startling surprise. Richard
Lloyd, the pretty boy who stood in the shadows behind Verlaine,
turned out to be an excellent pop songwriter with a lazily cool
performance style, kind of like a softer-edged Johnny Thunders.
The disc is catchy, jangly and heartfelt, with some terrifically
inventive guitar playing.
The Lovin' Spoonful Hums
of CD (Buddha/ BMG)... When I was a gnash-toothed teenage
record clerk, one of my co-workers made it a habit to try and
convince me of the genius of his pet band, but while I loved "Summer
in the City," I couldn't get past the faux-naïf cover
of Everything Playing and the Kotter theme. Now
I'm probably older than that seemingly doddering fellow, and damned
if he wasn't right! Album #3 (originally issued by Kama Sutra
in '66) is as warm and charming and genuine and rocking a set
as any group issued in that sparkling year. A stone delight, with
bonus tracks.
Lulu To
Sir With Love: The Best of 1967-1968 CD (Taragon)... Lulu
packed a lot of recording into her first couple years on Epic,
where under Mickie Most's tutelage she knocked out some fine tracks.
But was she the snarling little rocker chick discovered grooving
with the Luvvers in Glasgow, or an idiosyncratic soul belter with
an air of continental sophistication? You'll find both Lulus here,
and it's a treat to see the woman emerging from the little girl
persona of the title track. And while the orchestral stuff's fun
in an Anthony-Newley-in-drag kinda way, it's as a rocker that
Lulu most impresses. Highlights include her fabulously miffed
reworking of "Day Tripper," a haunted, desolate "Morning
Dew," and the defiantly un-pretty "Love Loves to Love
Love."
The Maharajas h-minor LP (Teen Sound) Jens Lindberg
(the Swedish Russell Quan) leads these gloomstruck purveyors of
minor key folk rock revivalism, replete with Beatley oooos and
a positively Blue Things style raver "Anything Right"
(as in "I can't do"). Not the real thing, but a most
tasteful imitation.
Mando Diao bring
'em in CD (Mute) Kinda interesting young Swedish combo
mixing sixties pop and r&b influences with more commercial
contemporary hard rock and punk sounds, all over the place and
unsure of their strengths. Main weakness: one of the two singing
guitarists has a decent grasp of English, but the other uh she
is not so goodly spoken.
Many Birthdays 35 Minutes CD (Red Cake) Textured,
whispery, subterranean loops and outsider singalongs. Sounds like
the music discarded dolls might make in the dumpster.
Mensen Oslo
City CD (Gearhead) Deliciously energetic union of buzzsaw
guitars, bored girl vocals and a punk + Detroit sensibility that
reminds me a little of the '80s Sydney scene. Solid kicks.
Milo Darkside
of the Rumours CD (Gloomy Tunes) Milo is a little bit
country, 5% goth, a bit avant-pop, and all unpredictable. From
the "peel it and see" banana cover parody to the nifty
version of Shari Elf's "Happy World" to the low-key
incest ballad, you never know what'll be subverted next. Many
of these could be tagged as novelty songs-Dr. Demento plays Milo
music-but the gag is never telescoped.
Monster Island Dream Tiger CD (End is Near) While
we don't usually review older stuff, this 2001 disc is so gloriously
haunted, rhythmic and childlike that an exception must be made.
Using oud, harmonium, sitar, toy piano and something called Chinese
organ, in addition to the usual rock instrumentation, the band
unfurls each song like a found fairy tale gene spliced with the
most exotic of flowers. The results are most lovely and imaginative.
Monster Island & John Sinclair Peyotemind
CD (End is Near) Time is the least of our concerns here, but let's
review. Some while before he transformed an Ann Arbor garage band
into a ten-legged, tongue-wagging symbol of socio-political confrontation
(MC5), John Sinclair kept a handwritten journal of his peyote
observations, a document that was later deposited in a local archive.
Monster Island's Cary Loren uncovered the text and its related
series of poems, and conceived this free form musical backdrop
over which Sinclair intones his nearly forty-year-old texts. The
result: thought-provoking jazzy psychedelia, seasoned with spookhouse
Moog and a sense of delicate spaciousness.
The New Christs We
Got This! CD (Laughing Outlaw import, Smog Veil domestic)
Rob Younger says this is the last New Christs record. We've heard
that before, but the paranoid mess described in a recent Bucketful
of Brains interview certainly seems to guarantee that this
version of the band won't be back. They leave as proof of their
existence a rough, angry disk in the New Christs distinctive,
swaggering style. There aren't many singers who can make cynicism
sound like fun, but when Younger turns his tonsils to denunciation
the results are positively inspiring. Let's hear it for hatred!
The New Creation Troubled CD (Companion) One
of my favorite stops on the web is www.showandtellmusic.com, with
its galleries of offbeat cover art. Webmaster Will Louviere was
so blown away by the sole, self-released 1970 album by these Vancouver
Jesus People, he started a label to reissue it. Troubled
starts off with a disturbing four-minute sound collage in which
old and young male and female voices intone snippets reflecting
contemporary political, cultural and religious thought over war
sounds and outer space echo effects. Wild! But it's their shambling
garagey originals that have made this a much-traded CDR. The New
Creation weren't particularly skilled musicians-I'm being generous-but
their love of the Lord let them put self-consciousness aside to
share their belief in a new form of revolutionary Christianity.
The main vocalist is the guitarist's mom, and the effect of her
mature, British-tinged vocals over the primitive drumming and
guitar is truly strange. Pick hit: "No Excuse," with
its jaw-dropping lyrics blaming the older generation for providing
heroin, whiskey and war to innocent kids. If you always wished
the Shaggs were more spiritually minded-and I figure if such a
person exists, they read Scram-this is for you.
Nineteen Forty-Five I
Saw A Bright Light CD (Daemon) Katharine McElroy, one
third of this Birmingham pop juggernaut, formerly led the excellent
Three Finger Cowboy. Their warm, smart songs have a folky coziness
even at their most fierce and prickly. Cool and weird.
Jerry J. Nixon Gentleman of Rock 'n' Roll: The Q-Recordings,
New Mexico '58-'64 CD (Voodoo Rhythm) Man, what a story! Failed
teenage bank robber Gerald Hall splits Yorkshire with the merchant
marine, turning up in the US with a ridiculous accent, claiming
he's a Minnesotan who lost his passport. Some wit in the Customs
Office went for it, and "Nixon" migrated down southwest,
where he joined the Communist Party (for the dames and conversation)
and recorded these deliriously amateurish, yet truly inspired
rockabilly sides with a local band called the Volcanoes. JJ wasn't
a great singer, but with that pedigree you just know he could
sell a tune. This cool comp has all the 45s from the Q
label, previously unreleased live cuts and demos and some hilarious
radio spots with JJ's remarkable "New Mexican" accent
on display.
The Operators Citizens Band CD (Unstoppable)
Boston's Operators are flagship members of the Handstand Command,
a small, loose-knit group of friends and musical associates. They
play in each other's bands and set up residencies in local clubs.
I think more bands should do this-get together, take on a catchy
name and form their own gangs. Certainly Citizens Band,
the Operators' debut, is infused with that spirit of rambunctious
friendship. You'll feel an instant sense of rapport with these
three gals and one guy, as if they were people you see at shows
and bars all the time. The chugging guitars, ragged 'n' bittersweet
melodies and raspy harmonies are reminiscent of early Scrawl,
while the song structures and call-and-response vocals (more like
"yell-and-response" on the title track and "Rock
City") betray a Sleater-Kinney influence. Occasionally a
Flying Nun/New Zealand feel shines through-particularly in "Running
Late," with woozy tempo and acoustic guitars straight out
of the Look Blue Go Purple songbook. A couple of songs don't quite
coalesce, but as a whole Citizens Band is impressive and
addictive. (Mike Appelstein)
Orchestra Superstring S/T
CD (Dionysus) Convincingly '56-sounding set of exotica originals
(plus a cover of Sun Ra's "A Call for All Demons"),
languidly spun by a (sm)all star L.A. band featuring X's D.J.
Bonebrake and Carey Fosse from Possum Dixon.
Bruce Palmer The
Cycle is Complete CD (Collector's Choice) Buffalo Springfield
bassist Palmer took a few hours from his busy schedule quitting
bands and getting deported for possession to record this improvisational
psych-jazz ramble with Rick James, Big Black and members of the
west coast Kaleidoscope. Barely released by Verve in '71 and subject
to a scathing Lester Bangs review in Rolling Stone, thirty-plus
years on it reads as a playful, Eastern-tinged jam that's surprisingly
listenable considering the sheer volume of individual instruments
(including wayyyy too much flute) battling for attention. A very
neat rediscovery.
Pearlene Murder
Blues and Prayer CD (Dim Mak) Soledad Brothers side project
with a meaty, energetic blues-punk sound, and a sensibility closer
to Detroit party rock than porch-sittin' bellyachin'.
Linda Perhacs Parallelograms CD (The Wild Places)
I've been obsessed with this gorgeous 1970 record since finding
it at a yard sale a couple years back. This expanded edition,
taken from the artist's original masters, makes the Kapp LP sound
like the Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz look.
Delicate little effects trill around the edges, building to crescendos
of rattling sonic force, and always there's Linda's gently layered
voice, praising the rain and the rocks and the river, erotic,
exquisitely simple, utterly original. The title track especially
is a psychedelic classic, a multi-tracked crazy quilt celebrating
shapes and their qualities before segueing into some of the most
ghostly, weird sounds ever put on tape. Parallelograms
really sounds like my baby memories of Venice and driving up the
coast in the bread van my hippie folks outfitted as a temporary
home. Wind chimes, soft winds, swirling colors and magic made
manifest. Bonus tracks include alternate takes and demos, Linda's
narrated tape of potential manipulated sound effects for producer
Leonard Rosenman, and two versions of a surprisingly poppy, unreleased
song, "If You Were My Man," that could almost be a Carpenters
outtake. Watch for our interview with Linda in the next Scram.
The Petals Butterfly Mountain CD (Camera Obscura)
First release in nine years from Milwaukee neo-psych outfit whose
pastoral themes and oddball phrasing suggest a punky homegrown
Incredible String Band.
The Pillbugs The
3-Dimensional In Pop-Cycle Dream CD (Proverus) The first
cut sounds so much like the Lemon Pipers it's scary-could Ohio
still be hiding a secret stash of great bubblegum acts? The other
songs don't sound so Pipery, more like tasteful, impressively
realized UK-obsessed pop-psych with a hint of prog. The singing,
so often the weak spot on such projects, is strong throughout.
Plus the CD comes with a custom ViewMaster reel!
The Poets Surrealistic Rain LP (Teen Sound) This
contemporary Italian trio (no relation to the legendary Scots)
have sixties pop ambitions that veer from early Searchers beat
to "Midas"-era Hollies, and if their reach exceeds their
grasp, you gotta respect 'em for trying-plus they write all their
own songs. The blend of accented English vocals, oddly lush instrumentation
and sudden tempo changes gives the whole affair a weird air akin
to riding a carousel on heavy meds. None of the other revivalists
sounds a bit like 'em.
Alasdair Roberts Farewell
Sorrow CD (Drag City) Ancient-sounding courtly balladry
from the Appendix Out leader. Some tunes are partly adapted from
traditional British songs, and chords and capo positions are provided,
but the lyrical abstractions and ghostly orchestration place it
nearer to postmodern pop than trad folk.
Shutdown 66 Welcome
to Dumpsville CD (Get Hip) Swellsville's more like it,
assuming you're looking for snotnosed contempo organ splat that'd
fit just fine on a Back from the Grave comp. If Nicky Shutdown
had been around in his beloved '66, five hundred bands called
the Outsiders woulda covered his howling, reject anthems. From
Australia, where garage fans demand that little bit more from
their combos.
Sidonie let
it flow CD (Rainbow Quartz) Spacious, whispery Britpop/psych
from Spain, laced with traditional Indian instruments and Byrdsy
harmonies. An attempt to reclaim Madonna's Love-steal "Beautiful
Stranger" is unfortunately accented by shrill synth lines,
but overall this is a warm and pretty selection.
Simply Saucer Cyborgs
Revisited CD (Sonic Unyon) One leg clad in post-Warhol
Velvet, the other teetering somewhere between psyched-out space
rock and Stoogey primitivism, these Cannucks made sounds too delightfully
wobbly to fly when initially launched ('73-79), though a posthumous
LP blew a lot of influential minds in the late '80s. This comp
brings that disc together with the legendary early 45s plus previously
unreleased demos and live cuts, and it's an absolute gas, retroactively
sounding positively sophisticated, in a brain damaged kinda way.
The Small Faces
Nut Gone Flake CD (Fuel 2000) The Small Faces' final disc
is a schizophrenic affair, kicking off with six scrumptious rockers,
layered like some tottering sonic trifle, the whole thing suffused
with pot smoke instead of sherry. Part two smells more like hash
oil, with its meandering thematic fantasy narrated by babbling
Brit comic Stan Unwin, leading into disjointed jolts of psychedelia
that lack the band's usual tautness and melodicism. Too bad they
felt they had to compete with the Beatles and Who in the concept
stakes, especially since they were so deeply out of their element.
This reish includes some strong live tracks recorded at a November
1968 show in Newcastle, accompanied by screaming teenies.
Soledad Brothers Steal
Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit to Move CD (Estrus) Another
set of mostly tough and swaggering white boy blues from the Toledo
three-piece, the kind of record that makes good background music
but doesn't require serious attention. Still, "This Guitar
Says I'm Sorry" is a surprisingly pretty folk-tinged instro,
and a couple other cuts have that sleepy late Velvets vibe.
Soltero Defrocked and Kicking the Habit CD (Handsome)
Loping lo-fi minimalist country-folk / indie-rock, fully loaded
with banjo and apologies.
Sun Zoom Spark Electricity CD (SlowBurn) Eclectic,
intriguing blend of loping '70s stoner rock, hypno-exoticism and
tape collage, compiled by an insular trio of Tucson four-trackers,
later associated with Black Sun Ensemble. Originally released
in 1999 in an edition of thirty copies, this repressing is sure
to please fans of homegrown psychedelia and unselfconscious thud.
Deniz Tek & the Golden Breed Glass
Eye World CD (Career) Career is a new label founded by
Deniz Tek and Donovan's Brain leader Ron Sanchez as an outlet
for their recent recordings that don't fit elsewhere, and this
is certainly a raw little morsel, partly live and live in the
studio. The Golden Breed features Deniz' American touring band,
the Godoy twins, and their U.K. punk influences get spliced onto
Deniz' languid guitar mystics with unexpected results. Closer
"Baja Confidential" is a classic spaced-out DT instro.
The Telepathic Butterflies Introducing
CD (Rainbow Quartz) Familiar but enjoyable Beatle/ Floydesque
jangle pop, the band name and record jacket cribbed from Vonnegut's
Breakfast of Champions. Includes a cover of Donovan's "Epistle
to Dippy," hardly the first (or even fifth) Donovan track
I'd expect to hear revived.
The Third Rail Id
Music CD (Rev-Ola) Id Music is the result of teen
songwriter Joey Levine's initial collaboration with older husband
and wife writing team Kris and Artie Resnick. Joey was a hungry,
talented kid, Artie had had some success in the Brill Building,
penning "Under the Boardwalk" and "Good Lovin',"
while Kris brought a classically trained sensibility to the proceedings.
Their sole Epic LP is an unpredictable melange of delicate chamber
pop, politically charged lyrics and goofball satire. Joey sings
almost entirely in a punky falsetto, avoiding the nasal tones
that would make him a bubblegum sensation. The Resnick-Levine
partnership would later yield smash Buddah singles like "Yummy
Yummy Yummy," but this Third Rail music has its own daffy
charms. The comp includes all the 45 mixes and informative liner
notes.
Tokyo Sex Destruction Le
Red Soul Comunnitte (10 Points Program) CD (Dim Mak) These
Spaniards got so high from sniffing the MC5's revolutionary shtick
that they took the collective surname Sinclair-though they eschew
hippie garb for a Hives-cum-Make-Up button down uniform. Sonically
speaking, they're a less tuneful Mooney Suzuki, spouting incomprehensible
dogma about landlords and girls over a wall of chunky guitars.
Rock 'n' roll déjà vu.
Toothpaste 2000 Catch-22
CD (Parasol) Crunchy, riff-laden goodies from Seattle three-piece
led by Donna Esposito, who mews like a sweet little kitten and
plays some awfully tuff guitar.
Townes Van Zandt In The Beginning CD (Compadre)
Lots of cool new Townes releases lately, including these rediscovered
1966 solo recordings that predate Townes' debut album by two years.
He already sounds like a mature artist, alternately positioning
himself as raunchy bluesman and folk romancer. The songs aren't
masterpieces, but solid compositions that obviously belong in
the body of work. A major find, despite some problems with tape
hiss.
Townes Van Zandt
Mother the Mountain CD (Tomato) TVZ's 1969 second record,
where lush arrangements cushion his plainspoken country-folk originals.
At this stage Townes was already capable of penning an iconic
piece of poetry like "Tecumseh Valley," a stark inversion
of the humorous American motif of the doomed miner's daughter
Clementine rendered here as Caroline, who deliberately becomes
a whore from grief. The rest of the material is strong lyrically
and quite beautifully sung, but suffers from simple, samey tunes
causing the songs to blend into a piece. Quite listenable and
a must for fans, but better things were to come.
Townes Van Zandt Delta
Momma Blues CD (Tomato) While the cover photo's a classic
in hippie kitsch (a smirking Townes leans on some steps with The
Last Unicorn poking out of his suede pocket, as a pair of
grimy, androgynous love children grope behind him), this is deep,
dark stuff, not cute at all. Townes drank, and he had demons that
yanked him around by his hair whenever he got too close to happiness.
DMB is a portrait of the great American fuck up, yearning
for grace, failing every time, and documenting his flaws with
wry, elegant precision. Townes' fourth disc contains some of his
most philosophical songs, including misfit waltz "Tower Song,"
and "Nothin'," an existential boot to the skull. And
then there's "Rake," a Beaudelaire-by-way-of-Hogarth
fantasy of a reprobate whose spiritual and physical decay culminate
in vampirism. Sure it's just the blues, but as literate, startling
and refined a blues as we're likely to get. And we think you should
hear it, so when Tomato offered us one of their TVZ reissues for
new subscribers, this is the one we picked. See the last page
for details, and reserve yours quick.
Townes Van Zandt Flyin'
Shoes CD (Tomato) Townes took a long break from recording
in the mid-seventies, and when he went back into the studio with
Chips Moman, he had a fine set of songs on hand. Some folks shy
away from the more heavily produced TVZ discs, and certain early
Poppy albums did go overboard with strings, but Moman's crew-including
Randy Scruggs, Spooner Oldham and Moman's wife Toni Wine-forge
a sympathetic framing for these tender, taut ballads with their
lonesome, Southwestern feel. Side two of the LP has been resequenced
to start this remaster, which I've got no problem with, as that's
the way I usually play the record. Apparently I ain't the only
one.
Townes Van Zandt The
Nashville Sessions CD (Tomato) This is all wrong: sleepy,
sweetened 1993 rerecordings of some of Townes' best songs that
just make me long for the stark originals. Townes sounds like
he's medicated, the chorus is annoying and the arrangements suck
every bit of soul from the material. I really hope no one ever
makes this their first TVZ purchase.
V/A The
American Song-Poem Anthology CD (Bar/None) Carnage Press
has put out several song-poem anthologies over the years, but
this latest set, compiled by American Song-Poem Music Archives
curator Phil Milstein, is a good single-disk introduction to the
genre. The focus is on the weirder juxtapositions of "lyric"
and performance, with brain bogglers from masters Rodd Keith,
Gene Marshall and Norm Burns and his spooky singers, working with
words provided by inspired, endlessly hopeful (mostly senior)
citizens who truly believed tunes like "Jimmy Carter Says
'Yes'" just needed a little push to make it to the hit parade.
Includes John Trubee's "Blind Man's Penis," which is
a ringer, but still nice to have on disk.
V/A California Ain't Fun No More CD (Just Add
Water) It ain't easy to put together a comp that holds together
as a piece, but a strong line up of back-catalog-delving left
coast garage rats makes this a treat straight through, from the
Loose Lips' Cynics-style sleaze through the Pinkz' little girlz
lost vamp on the Scientists' "Last Night," the Bobbyteens'
lurching Gears cover to the Fevers' sticky sticky bubblegum tribute
"Ohio Express." But how come Russell Quan's only in
three of these bands? Someone's laying down on the job!
V/A
in the Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s 1926-1937
CD (Old Hat) A preteen Joe Bussard started knocking on neighbors'
doors asking if they had any old records they didn't want in the
mid-'40s, expanding his operation to the rural states surrounding
his Maryland home once he learned to drive. Along the way he saved
many a rarity from the dump or careless butterfingers. The result
is a basement stacked floor to ceiling with salvaged shellac relics
documenting the many fascinating, lost strands of American pop
and roots music. The basement's a national treasure, and DJ/ raconteur
Joe's no slouch himself. This lovingly compiled collection highlights
24 of Joe's favorite tracks-jazz, blues, gospel, old timey country
and uncategorizable blends-and there's not a dull 'un in the bunch.
Highlights include A.A. Gray & Seven-Foot Dilly's infectious
"The Old Ark's A'Moving," the Dixon Brothers' gruesome,
matter-of-fact "The School House Fire" and the Corley
Family's deliciously amateurish, kiddy-drenched "Give the
World a Smile." Included in the thick booklet are individual
track notes, handsome sleeve reproductions and transcriptions
of Joe gloating over his most fruitful record raccoon rambles.
If you can't pay a visit to Joe's basement yourself, this is a
pretty good substitute.
V/A Inside Deep Note: Music of 1970s Adult Cinema
CD (O.S.T. Grammo-fonpladen) Seventy-odd minutes of hack funk-jazz
purportedly from various obscuro '70s skinflicks (Soul Sisters,
Brighton Beach Bunnies), this collection is more like one
of Big Chief's old fake-blaxploitation albums than a legit archival
find. The music is strictly pastiche, but the accompanying booklet
has many pictures of truly stunning nudes, as well as a delightfully
dubious reminisce from a female porn director on her start in
the biz. The package is a welcome trip back to the era of polyester
and the bucket-seat blowjob. '70s nostalgia is as durable as ever,
probably because people were having a demonstrably better time
of it than in the repressed, glumly politicized present. (Ron
Garmon)
V/A Songs
in the Key of Z, Vol. 2: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music
CD (Gammon) Irwin Chusid presents yet more examples of music made
by divinely or otherwise inspired nuts, culled from the tape trader
underground, self-released singles, song-poem LPs, etc. Highlights
include contributions from scatman Shooby Taylor, nerdy anger-rocker
Alvin Dahn, trumpet overdub fantasist Luie Luie and some unknown,
twangy dame delighted to be stripping to her black pantyhose.
Jaw-dropping good fun interspersed with quite startling levels
of tedium.
V/A You
Can Never Go Fast Enough CD (Plain) High concept tribute
to Monte Hellman's Two Lane Highway, a project probably
best known 'round these parts for featuring Dennis Wilson's sleepy
cinematic debut. Using new and vintage material from folks like
Leadbelly, Cat Power, Wilco and Giant Sand, the compilers create
a rangy, lonesome mood that may well evoke TLB in your
mind.
Viva L'American Death Ray Music A New Commotion A
Delicate Tension (And the Exquisite Corpse of Mr. Jimmy) CD
(Misprint) These Memphis cats thrive on change, whether it means
Frenchifying their name, stripping down to a three piece, or alternating
releases on local label Misprint and Sympathy. Here they plug
into a chunky Velvety groove-writing one song called "The
New Age" and adding "Sister Ray" lyrics to another
to make it easy on us scribblers-then introduce all manner of
post-punk twitchery and spaciousness. Sometimes krab-with-a-k
can be pretty tasty, too.
Vue Babies
are for Petting CD-EP (RCA) Punky glam from San Francisco,
with a Lust for Life rhythm track, Jaggery sneer and loping
erotic energy. They're pretty enough to back it up, too. A little
monochromatic, but interesting. Partly produced by Don Was?
Alan Watts Om:
The Sound of Hinduism CD (Collector's Choice) High-minded
1967 disc intended to introduce a Western audience to the themes
and sounds of the Hindu faith, partly narrated by the British
religious scholar, broadcaster and author. The hypnotically simple
tabla and tampura parts are played by one Vincent Delgado, and
when Watts proclaims that "all of us are rays from one center,
tits on one sow, sounds one on flute, forever and ever,"
it seems quite feasible. Damn big sow, though.
Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 Static
Transmission CD (Down There) The feel's lazy, longing
and expansive on this follow up to Here Come the Miracles,
again recorded in Tucson with Chris Cacavas guesting on keys.
Wynn & co. are quite adept at playing out haunting grooves,
here seasoned with a nice jolt of silliness, "California
Style." The longer he lives in NYC, the more it seems L.A.
turns up in his songs. Neat to see the old Down There logo on
the back, vestige of Wynn's paisley underground-era label that
issued early Dream Syndicate and Green on Red EPs.
Geza X and the Mommymen You
Goddam Kids! CD (Bacchus Archives) Geza X, strange person,
is better known as a record producer and all around hipster, but
he wasn't immune to the performance bug. You Goddam Kids!
is probably only interesting to music history junkies and those
who didn't pick up the record when they were pub-crawling LA circa
1980. It's an interesting snippet of a style that's almost forgotten,
a new wavey mix of Residents and Broadwayish tunes with keyboards,
marimbas and "Gezatone" guitar. Lots of famous people
involved here like Josie Cotton plus various Germs, Screamers
and X-es. (Margaret Griffis)
Warren Zevon The
First Sessions CD (Varèse Sarabande) The apparently
unkillable Zevon has lingered long enough to see a slew of reissues
of his older material, including this comp of solo and Lyme &
Cybelle demos. L&C were a folk-pop duo composed of Zevon and
Violet Santangelo, and their '66 White Whale single "Follow
Me" (written by the pair) is a neat propulsive jangler that
charted locally. The demos are a weird, mixed bag, with Dylan,
Beatles and Jimmy Reed covers adding little to the source material,
but their own songs having an eerie, romantic ambiance. Zevon's
solo juvenilia, recorded with Bones Howe, includes his original
"Outside Chance" with its arrangement almost identical
to the Turtles cover. Nothing great, but fans will be curious
to see him messing with styles on the way to finding a voice of
his own, hinted at with the creepy "A Bullet for Ramona."
Bonus tracks include the Zevon-less Lyme & Cybelle single
that Curt Boettcher produced, a giddy piece of old timey California
pop.
The Zombies Zombies
featuring She's Not There / Tell Her No CD (Varèse Sarabande)
There's scads of Zombies material out there, so why pick up this latest reish?
For context, that's why. This mono mix of the band's American debut (plus
six early domestic singles) serves as a snapshot of the precise schoolboy
R&B that turned them into stars off their native shores. Only with Chris
White's yearning 1965 b-side "I Love You" is there a hint of the
baroque A-level pop that would come with the posthumous Odessey & Oracle.
Call it Zombies Mach I, a fun, somewhat unsung body of work.
Emitt Rhodes
A Visit with Emitt Rhodes, Hawthorne's OTHER Pop Legend by Kim Cooper and P. Edwin Letcher
When Edwin announced his intention to interview Emitt Rhodes for Garage and Beat, I discouraged him. Sure, Emitt had sufficient neglected pop genius cred to fuel three feature stories, but he also had a reputation as a reluctant, peculiar interview subject. Certainly he'd demur. But as Edwin made initial telephone contact with Emitt, and found him willing to talk, I got excited and volunteered to help out. Originally we planned to split the resulting interview between Scram and GAB, but the conversation proved so organic, and so entertaining, that we're each running the full version. However, the vintage photos included in Scram #18 are unique to Scram, and come courtesy of Emitt's mother's archive.
With the Merry-Go-Round, and on his three solo (and I do mean solo) albums, Emitt Rhodes perfected a stunning strain of romantic power pop, rooted in personal experience, yet with universal appeal. The records are often described as McCartneyesque, but don't mistake the work for clever mimicry. Emitt's songs are totally his own and quite as good as those of the similar-voiced Beatle. Working alone under increasingly hostile record company pressure, he decided in his early 20s to move to the production side of the industry. He was a staff producer at Elektra through most of the '70s. These days he reads theoretical physics and astronomy texts and records bands in the double-wide garage behind his Hawthorne home, directly across the street from his parents' house where he recorded Emitt Rhodes, Mirror and Farewell to Paradise.
Looking back at Emitt's career, it's clear that he never found the creative support system that he needed. His publisher Eddie Shaw convinced him to sign away songwriting rights, and locked him into an impossibly strict contract with ABC that required Emitt to write, perform, record and produce complete albums in six months. When he failed to deliver, ABC sued him for loss of potential earnings. No one ever stood up for his interests, made an effort to place his songs with other performers or on soundtracks, or encouraged him to find collaborators to take some of the creative pressure off his head. Considering the unhappy circumstances, the joyous quality of the music he made is all the more impressive.
Emitt asked if we could conduct the interview at Red Lobster. It was an honor to treat one of my favorite songwriters to a shellfish feast. -Kim Cooper
Edwin: When did you first start playing music? Was it in high school?
Emitt: I was nine years old. I was offered: "you go beat on a bench and learn how to play drums or spend the next hour in class." I decided that, yeah, I can go beat on a bench for an hour-maybe it was a half-hour, I don't really remember-but I was really good at beating on a bench. I was like better than everybody else beating on the bench.
Kim: Was that a music class or just a way for kids to learn their instrument?
Emitt: It was drum class. And I learned how to do flam tap paradiddle on a bench... and the double stroke roll.
Kim: How soon after that until you got your first drum kit?
Emitt: It was pretty immediate. My mother-I'm not sure if she liked drummers-was really behind music, and she liked to play and sing herself.
Kim: So, after you showed some aptitude, they got you a drum kit?
Emitt: No, I was a child prodigy. I beat on the bench better than everybody else.
Edwin: Did you enjoy it?
Emitt: Hey! Did I enjoy it? (laughs)
Edwin: Was the Palace Guard the first band you played in?
Emitt: (with a sour look) Nooooooooooo.
Kim: The Emerals.
Emitt: (laughs) Yes, the Emerals.
Kim: No "D."
Emitt: Same band. Same guys. They were all old guys.
Kim: What about those satin shirts that you guys had? Were those bright green?
Emitt: They were bowling shirts.
Kim: Were they green?
Emitt: Yes, they were green. They weren't emerald. They were green colored satin shirts with our names.
Kim: They looked pretty swell. They had your names on the back?
Emitt: They had our names somewhere; I don't remember now where. I was a young guy.
Edwin: Did you have the shirts first or the name of the band first?
Emitt: We had the name first. I had green drums. Everybody was looking for any reason to pick a name. I had green drums so they called us the Emerals, and they spelled it wrong. Or so I've been told. I didn't know; I was fourteen. If they spelled it funny, I wasn't paying any attention.
Kim: Most of the guys in that band were brothers, right?
Emitt: It was seven of us and three of them were brothers.
Kim: So, they didn't have a majority for voting things for the band?
Emitt: Yeah, they did. Don Beaudoin was the leader of the band. I wrote some liner notes for the Palace Guard [singles compilation recently released by Gear Fab].
Kim: I thought you didn't write the notes?
Emitt: I did, but I was late handing them in I guess, so I returned the money that the guy gave me. It was child abuse. D... B... was the same age as I was and he was abused by G... B... who ran the Hullabaloo and who was the head of Orange Empire Records.
Kim: Was it sexual abuse or physical abuse?
Emitt: Yes, he fucked him.
Kim: Did all you guys in the band know that was going on?
Emitt: I was fourteen at the time and I knew, so I would imagine his brothers knew also and that his parents knew too. He was like the sacrificial goat.
Kim: So that you guys could get that big plum job at the Hullabaloo?
Emitt: Yeah, that was kind of it.
Kim: Terrible.
Edwin: How is he doing now? Do you keep in touch with him?
Emitt: He's a strange guy. I saw him on TV once. I like to watch the news. I turned the news on, this was years ago, and he had parked some RV in front of the Hullabaloo club, which is now the Nickelodeon...
Kim: That's the place that was the Aquarius Theater later on. Near Amoeba.
Emitt: Right, it's on Sunset and Vine or just a few blocks away.
Kim: At Argyle, I believe.
Emitt: Yeah, D... parked in front of the club and said he had a bomb... or explosives.
Edwin: I heard about that! I didn't know it was him. That was pretty big.
Emitt: I feel so sorry for him.
Kim: Is the guy who was molesting him around or is he dead?
Emitt: I have no idea. I don't know what happened to G... B...I turned fifteen and decided to form my own band and write my own songs.
Kim: You just wanted to get out of that situation?
Emitt: Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to do. I was ashamed. I'm wondering where D...'s parents were and what they were feeling.
Kim: But you ended up going back and still playing music with those guys I heard.
Emitt: Boy, was that stupid.
(we turned the tape off and dealt with the waiter bringing salads or some such and assured Emitt we wouldn't use anything he told us not to)
Emitt: Thanks, I appreciate that. That's what I ask at every interview; please don't make me sound stupid, okay.
Edwin: Were you happy with the music that the guys in the Palace Guard were writing?
Emitt: They didn't write it. I didn't write it either. I wrote songs that the Merry Go Round did later, that were hits to some degree, but...
Kim: Did you write "Falling Sugar"?
Emitt: No, I have no idea who wrote that, but it wasn't anybody in the band. That was all stuff that was put together by this guy G... B... who liked to fuck D... B... in the butt.
Edwin: So he was writing the songs and you guys were playing them?
Emitt: No.
Kim: He was buying songs.
Emitt: He bought them. He was buying everything. He was like Michael Jackson... butt fucker... Michael Jackson... child molester. Sorry. I'm still like people are what they do.
Kim: So this B... guy liked the new uniforms? He set those up for you guys?
Emitt: He bought the uniforms, he put us in the Hullabaloo, he ran the Hullabaloo. I'm not certain how he did it, but he was the guy.
Kim: Did you have national touring bands coming through and playing there?
Emitt: Everybody. Every famous person imaginable... except for the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but everybody else played the Hullabaloo.
Kim: What were some of the bands you remember enjoying?
Emitt: I don't remember any of them. I don't want to remember that.
Kim: You were too young to get in some of the other clubs weren't you?
Emitt: I was fourteen. I was as young as D... B... and I'm just lucky he didn't like my ass better. I'm lucky I was ugly.
Edwin: At what point did you decide that you wanted to write music? Was that something you were doing already?
Emitt: I did at the Hullabaloo. I wrote songs that I used later in my group while I was at the Hullabaloo. I was the drummer and I realized that everybody up front was getting laid.
Kim: But you were only fourteen. Maybe that was part of it.
Emitt: Okay, I could get laid by fourteen. I think it was about eleven. I don't know the first orgasm you had, but I think I was eleven. By fourteen I was ready. All the guys in the front got to take their shirts off and shake their hips, that kind of stuff. I was way in the back...
Kim: Okay, wait a minute. We were talking about Dennis Wilson on the way over here. Now he was the sex symbol of the Beach Boys and he was the drummer.
Emitt: So?
Kim: So?
Emitt: He killed himself.
Kim: That was years later.
Emitt: Yeah, well... they were... I don't know... I was in the back.
Edwin: That was your perception anyway, you were in the back so you weren't getting any action.
Emitt: I wanted to be up front. I wanted to sing and I was writing songs. I learned how to play the guitar. I love the drums. The drums are great and I love the drums and it's boom boom boom boom boom boom, but I'm good at spacial relationships.
Edwin: Did you kind of know how to play guitar before you ever picked one up?
Emit: No, in fact the first song I ever wrote, I just tuned the guitar to where it sounded good to me, wrote a song and was never able to sing it again. That was it. But I realized that I like doing it so now I have things (calluses?) on my fingers.
Edwin: About how many songs had you written when you started the Merry Go Round?
Emitt: I don't know. I have no idea. I just realized that being up front and playing the guitar and singing was something I wanted to do rather than being behind everybody playing drums.
(We turned the tape off when more food was brought to the table and we started eating. While we were eating we engaged in a discussion of the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which are unknown quantities that make up a majority of the Universe, as well as ghosts. Kim and I decided the discussion was fun so we turned the tape back on mid sentence.)
Emitt: ... it has nothing to do with spirits.
Edwin: The thing about it is, we don't know that. The basic premise that most cosmologists operate under is the fact that we don't know... Let's talk about rock and roll.
Emitt: Okay, rock and roll I know.
Edwin: Who were the first bands that you liked when you were a kid?
Emitt: The Beach Boys. They went to my school.
Kim: Were you a little kid and they were the big kids?
Emitt: (Instead of answering Emitt started playing drums on the table with his fingers.)
Edwin: Did you play Beach Boys music when you learned to drum?
Emitt: You bet I did! Yeah, it was the Beach Boys stuff. Let's see the Turtles...
Edwin: The Crossfires.
Emitt: Okay, the Crossfires and they became the Turtles later. (Emitt switched back to a thread we had been following while the tape wasn't running.) I had a deja vu in some club once. It was in Redondo Beach and I was sitting there behind the drums, playing with the Palace Guard, and it was like I had done this before. I believe in all of the above because I've been half crazy in my life so I believe I all of the above. I read my physics book so I understand the mechanics of the universe.
Kim: What were the Wilson brothers like in high school?
Emitt: I don't know them. I only knew Dennis Wilson. He broke my drum pedal. That's what I remember. I was at this high school dance and it was my drums and he was playing my drums and he broke my drum pedal and he said he'd replace it and he never did.
Kim: Did you get to play or did that ruin your chance to play?
Emitt: I think I played before he played so all I had to do was collect my broken pedal.
Kim: I think that man went through life breaking things.
Emitt: He wasn't a great drummer. He played drums funny, I thought. I was taught by Emery Desso, who played the drums correctly. Dennis played it backwards or something. I feel sorry for Brian Wilson; he could have had a better drummer if it wasn't his brother.
Edwin: Wow.
Emitt: I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt his feelings, but if I were his producer, that's what I would have told him.
Kim: Actually, on the records he did have a better drummer. That was Hal Blaine.
Emitt: Good because I didn't think Dennis Wilson was a great drummer.
Edwin: Who were some of your guitar heroes?
Emitt: George Harrison. He came up with a lot of lines that you can recognize. I thought he was an impressive player. But I know most of the guys in the Rolling Stones. Ron Wood, I've met him and he's a good player. There are a lot of good players. I know a lot of good players.
Edwin: When you started the Merry Go Round, were there others besides the Beatles that you were totally into?
Emitt: Mozart. I like Mozart. He's pretty good.
Kim: Didn't Fairport Convention do "Time Will Show the Wiser"? Did you ever hear that?
Emitt: I know Ian Matthews. He's a really wonderful guy. Good singer, wonderful voice.
Kim: Edwin's a big Ian Matthews fan.
Edwin: Yeah, I love his stuff.
Kim: They did that song of yours, "Time Will Show the Wiser."
Emitt: Yes, and it's probably his fault. Shame on him. (laughs)
Kim: Did you know him before that?
Emitt: No, I met him when I worked for Elektra/Asylum. He was on the label.
Edwin: How long were you at Elektra?
Emitt: Six or seven years, something like that. Long enough to where I felt like an old guy.
Kim: Was that around '73 or so?
Emitt: Yeah, later than that, actually.
Kim: So you were there when Television was there?
Emitt: Pardon?
Kim: The band Television from New York. Were they one of the bands that Elektra had when you were there?
Emitt: The Cars. I don't know Television. The Cars, I know... Queen...
Kim: They were big. I loved Queen when I was a kid. They were my favorite band.
Emitt: I just didn't want to bend over in front of them. I thought his pants were too tight.
Kim: His pants were really too tight.
Emitt: Yeah, but see, I'm not a girl.
Kim: I was shocked when I found out he was gay.
Edwin: Freddie Mercury?
Kim: I was like ten when someone told me he was gay.
Emitt: That was scary to me.
Edwin: You didn't know?
Kim: I was just a little girl, I didn't know. I just thought he was pretty.
Emitt: (laughing) Yeah, anyway, the Eagles... I was hired to say no. That was my job. The head or A&R basically told me to say no unless I was willing to stake my life on it.
Kim: You said yes to Bim?
Emitt: Yeah, because I thought he was great.
Kim: "Right After My Heart."
Emitt: What a wonderful tune. I love that.
Kim: You produced it.
Emitt: Yeah, and he was just thrown to the wind.
Kim: My copy is a promo copy. Do you know if it actually got a proper release?
Emitt: I have no idea what they did or why they did it, but they just threw it to the wind. I was told there was a quarter of a million bucks... that's what you spend on a record.
Kim: That's a lot more than you would ever spend on one of your own records.
Emitt: (laughs) Me?? It was 15... and then I was asking for a kick back because I'd work a whole year for five thousand dollars or no money at all. I made no money. I made no money in the business.
Kim: Do you still own your song writing?
Emitt: Uh... The Royal Tenenbaums. They sent me a check for that.
Kim: It's pretty good to get a check.
Emitt: Oh yeah, no question about it. My problem is "Live." I've had friends tell me this; I don't really know. The Bangles did it and they put it on compilations and I should have got paid for it, but my publisher sent me a statement saying I didn't, that he took the rights to the song back or something. I look at the contracts I signed when I was a sixteen year old, it's child abuse.
Kim: But you can't legally sign a contract. That's how David Cassidy got out of his bad contracts, because he was under age.
Emitt: My mother and my father signed with me. I just wanted to make music. My mother and father didn't know any better so they just signed with me and I have contracts that say "for perpetuity." "We own these songs for perpetuity."
Kim: ‘Til the end of the universe, right?
Edwin: Forever.
Emitt: (laughs) Yeah, forever, and I'm going "oh, okay." I was only fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old and I didn't understand.
Edwin: One thing we want to talk to you about is all the stuff that you've recorded as demos and home recordings.
Emitt: I'm going to release those. I've put together a whole bunch of stuff that I've recorded... It's all horrible and I apologize to everybody. But I have new stuff that is the best stuff that I've ever written. I wrote the best song I've ever written in my life last week.
Kim: What's it called?
Emitt: I'm not real sure, but it could be "Rainbows Ends," which doesn't mean anything, but it's about being optimistic. I'm kind of an optimist even though I'm an old guy.
Edwin: Does it surprise you that there are so many people that are eager to hear what you've been recording for the last thirty years?
Emitt: No, I'm glad.
Edwin: I would imagine.
Emitt: I really meant it. I've written songs for a long time, I mean what I say and say what I mean and write from the heart. I'm hoping that there's people that like that because that's what I always liked.
Kim: When you write your songs, are they about specific people and situations or do you just draw on universal feelings. I noticed on the map as we were coming down here there's a Holly Park right over by your house and you wrote a song about "Holly Park."
Emitt: I went there and wrote it about that. It's all metaphor to me... and I'm a scientist.
Kim: You're a social scientist?
Emitt: I'm a scientist. That's my belief system; it's a metaphor. I went for child custody and I said I was a scientist and the child custody evaluator thought I was deranged.
Kim: A mad scientist.
Emitt: Yeah, I was a mad person.
Kim: So there wasn't really a birthday lady and you liked her sandals?
Emitt: Oh yes, that was my first wife... But she hates me and I don't know why... Well I do know why; I wasn't very much fun. I'm a lot more fun now. (laughs)
Kim: So there you are, you're in the Merry Go Round and you record these demos and they become a surprise hit and then you have to rush an album out, right?
Emitt: Yeah.
Kim: How long did you spend on that album?
Emitt: We didn't spend any time at all because we had recorded the whole thing as demos.
Kim: Where did you record it?
Emitt: At their studios. They took the sound stages and they turned them into studios. I learned how to engineer at A&M studios. I saw the first 8-track in my life. You know what they did at A&M studios, they put eight speakers along the ceiling so you could hear all eight tracks separate. I mean, Aye yi yi. I'm an old guy; I was learning while everybody else was learning.
Kim: Did you find A&M an artist friendly environment?
Emitt: Yes, no question about it. It was Herb Alpert. He's an artist.
Kim: Was Jerry Moss more the business side of it?
Emitt: Herb Alpert was an artist and Jerry Moss was kind of the business guy for Herb Alpert.
Edwin: What about Chris Montez, one of my favorites? Did you ever meet him?
Emitt: Yeah, of course I did.
Kim: (laughs) Emitt is rolling his eyes.
Edwin: Was he a nice guy?
Emitt: Yeah, he was a nice guy, but he couldn't sing in pitch.
Edwin: But he sure could sing high.
Emitt: It was this falsetto and " ughhh... Call me... wooooooo."
Edwin: (laughs) I love it, though.
Emitt: I don't blame you. Okay, good for you. I'm not going to hurt your feelings, give me a break. I'm just telling you he wasn't in pitch.
Kim: Your label mate, at the time, over at A&M was Phil Ochs, who was going kind of psychedelic...
Emitt: Nobody liked Phil Ochs. Did you like Phil Ochs?
Edwin: I loved his music.
Kim: I heard he was a horrible human being, by all accounts, but I still liked his records.
Emitt: You mean you liked him??
(The waiter walked up at this point to ask if we needed anything and Emitt addressed him.)
Emitt: Ever heard of Phil Ochs?
Waiter: Uhhh...
Emitt: How old are you?
Waiter: I'm nineteen.
Emitt: No, you've never heard of Phil Ochs. Forget it.
(The waiter left and we continued this thread)
Emitt: He had a hit. What was Phill Ochs' hit?
Kim: "Flower Lady" was a hit.
Emitt: "Flower Lady"?? No, that's not the one I remember. (Emitt signaled the waiter over)
Would you get me a Mexican coffee?
Waiter: A regular coffee?
Emitt: No, a Mexican coffee. It's Kahlua, tequilla and then just as much coffee with whipped cream on top and a cherry on top, like dessert.
(After a while, Emitt explained the intricacies of this exotic adult beverage, Kim decided to try one as well and the waiter left to see if he could remember all the details.)
Edwin: I saw Phil Ochs shortly before he killed himself.
Emitt: Everyone liked Phil Ochs, but he wasn't popular.
Kim: In retrospect, those records were really interesting. He was working with Lincoln Mayorga and did all these weird orchestrations.
Emitt: Yeah, they're great, but nobody liked him.
Kim: Did you ever run into Joe Byrd?
Edwin: He was in that band called the United States of America.
Kim: He was a UCLA professor and an electronic music guy. They (the United States of America) were on Columbia, but he worked on that Ochs record, "Pleasures of the Harbor."
Emitt: No, I was in the studio when I was in the studio and when I was in the studio they locked the door and I got to turn all the knobs myself and it was wonderful.
Kim: So you produced your own stuff?
Emitt: No, I just learned how to engineer at that time and then I met Keith Olsen and then I really learned how to engineer.
Kim: He was from the Music Machine.
Emitt: Right.
Kim: It's a wonderful, interesting, weird band. We actually brought Sean Bonniwell out of retirement to play a festival a couple years ago. They had a Music Machine reunion.
Emitt: Keith played the bass. I was real lucky that I played bass too and drums and everything.
Edwin: What other instruments do you play besides guitar, piano, bass and drums?
Emitt: Nothing. Is there anything?? For me it's one-four-five. It's Pythagorean Theorum. For me it's mathematics. I love Pythagoras. Everybody else in rock and roll loves Pythagoras, too, even if they don't know it. I'm just telling you that Pythagoras was a wonderful guy. He lived a long time ago, nobody knows him and nobody cares. He gave us do re mi fa sol la ti do. Without him... somebody else would have had to do it. I love math. I love science. I love that stuff.
Edwin: Yeah, math and music are pretty much synonymous.
Emitt: It's Pythagoras. You split the string in half and you get an octave. You split it into thirds and you get a third.
Edwin: Yeah, but with music, it depends on who does the splitting.
Emitt: Well, alright...
Edwin: I'm serious.
Emitt: For me... it's just say what you feel, feel what you say.
Kim: Did you guys go out on the road with the Merry Go Round?
Emitt: Yeah, I did first class everywhere.
Kim: Why didn't you stick it out and do another record?
Emitt: Because our first record didn't make money.
Kim: Really? Even with "Live" a hit single?
Edwin: Did it make money for somebody else maybe?
Emitt: It did make some money, but...
(The Mexican coffees arrived and Emitt was a little leery of the waiter's claim that the bartender had made them extra strong for us.)
Emitt: I believe that... my ass. (laughs)
Edwin: You'll know in about half an hour.
Emitt: No, I'll know that in the next sip. (sip) Oh yeah, he did good! He did good!! (laughs)
Edwin: I have an odd question for you. Did you look at McCartney as an idol or did that just come naturally?
Emitt: No, John Lennon. I liked Paul McCartney very much, but John Lennon was my idol. He really bared himself.
Kim: But when you opened your mouth to sing, you sounded more like Paul.
Emitt: Well, yeah, I can't help that.
Edwin: Actually, that was my question, was it natural?
Emitt: Well, yeah, I didn't want to sing like Brian Wilson. (laughs) Or Mike Love. (laughs even louder)
Edwin: Understandable.
Emitt: So I wound up singing like Paul McCartney, but I really liked John Lennon. I liked Paul McCartney too. I think he's a wonderful writer, but John Lennon was my idol because he said what he felt even though people didn't like it.
Edwin: What were you doing when you found out he had died?
Emitt: I don't know; I was probably in the studio. I heard it on the radio from the studio. It wasn't a good thing. What's the guy's name who killed him? (Mark Chapman) I'd eat his liver. He's a horrible person. The guy's still alive and he doesn't deserve to be.
Kim: Do you believe in the death penalty?
Emitt: I believe in death. It works. It goes black and then you're not there anymore. I've been there a few times. Yeah, I believe in the death penalty and Mark Chapman should be dead. He shouldn't be alive. I don't know why we still feed him. I'm against death. I believe in life. I have my own religion. I'm an atheist. I believe in life being the most important thing there is. Life is it. I believe everybody will agree that life's important. I've been dead so I know what death is.
Kim: Is that when you had blackouts?
Emitt: Yeah, you go black. Kind of whiteout really.
Kim: Do you see the light and you go to it?
Emitt: Yeah.
Kim: Do you think that's all just a biological effect?
Emitt: Yeah. Your brain works up until the time that it doesn't work anymore.
Edwin: Accepting any explanation of what goes on afterwards is a huge leap of faith...
Emitt: I've been there afterwards.
Edwin: Well then your afterwards is here, though.
Emitt: My afterwards is different than yours might be. My afterwards is I don't have blood sugar. My brain dies. It's like I can't think anymore because I don't have enough blood sugar for my brain to function anymore. The last experience I had is that I was lying in the middle of my room trying not to drown on my own saliva because I couldn't swallow because swallowing means that muscle has blood sugar to do it. I was beyond that.
Kim: How did you get out of it?
Emitt: My little girl called me on the phone and I was real lucky and knocked the phone off the hook and mumbled and she called 911. She's a smart little girl. Of course, I don't see her anymore.
Kim: She saved your life.
Emitt: Yeah, she saved my life, but I don't see her anymore.
Edwin: Hopefully, you can save her life someday.
Emitt: Hey, I caused her life, what are you talking about? I've helped her a lot. I taught her how to read whether she knows that or not. We read Harry Potter, the two of us. She asked me, "How am I going to learn how to read? There's so many words." I said, "Okay, you'll learn one at a time." That's what we did.
Edwin: I'm sure you read reviews of your records as they came out. How much in agreement were you with the reviews as the records came out?
Emitt: I never read anything. I don't read that stuff. I read science books.
Edwin: Did you read them for a while, though?
Emitt: No, I never wanted to read anything that I thought, "Hey, I might say something stupid."
Edwin: I'm talking about reviews of the records, what people thought of your music.
Emitt: Okay, I never read anything. If this comes out in your magazine, Garage & Beat!... hey I've got a garage, I have to show you my garage. I'm pretty much a garage kind of guy. I don't read the stuff because I may say something I don't like.
Kim: What were you ambitions as your solo records started to come out?
Emitt: I wanted to be the best drummer in the world.
Kim: What about when you were making your own records? Did you still want to be the best drummer?
Emitt: No, I had already done that. Then I wanted to write the best songs in the world...
Kim: You did real well at that.
Emitt: ...but I hadn't done that until just a few days ago,
Edwin: An awful lot of the songs on your albums are very, very good songs.
Kim: And considering that you did it all by yourself, it's really incredible.
Emitt: I'm a prodigy, what can I say. I mean, I read my physics books. I bought a tape machine and learned how to turn the knobs.
Kim: What was ABC like for you?
Emitt: Who was the head of the record label?
Kim: Lasker.
Emitt: Yeah, Lasker. It was like Lasker because he ran everything. What was his first name?
Kim: Jay.
Emitt: Yeah, Jay Lasker. He ran the whole label.
Kim: They were really demanding on you.
Emitt: They just didn't have any idea what the hell I was doing.
Kim: How come you didn't stay at A&M?
Emitt: Because they didn't have any idea what I was doing either. I mean, nobody did.
Kim: You had all these demos put together...
Emitt: I recorded my own record in a little shed behind my parents garage.
Kim: You hadn't done the whole record by yourself before you got the deal, did you?
Emitt: I did half the record by myself before I got the deal. I met Harvey Bruce and played him the tracks that I had recorded on this four-track machine that I had purchased and sang the songs. He liked them and that's how I got the deal.
Kim: What were the first songs you recorded?
Emitt: (zombie voice) "With-my-face-on-the-floor."
Kim: First song on the album.
Emitt: Yeah, that was pretty much it.
Kim: I gotta tell you, when I first heard that record--and I got it for a quarter, at a thrift store--I put it on, heard the first ten seconds of "With My Face on the Floor" and thought, "This is such a good record, I'm going to save it for when I'm in a bad mood. I'm gonna know I have a really good record that I can listen to, and that's what I did. It cheered me up.
Emitt: (long pause) All right. Can we have sex now? (nervous laughter all around) Well, do you have a girl friend, cos I'm an old guy, and I kinda don't remember anymore. (A nearby table is celebrating, and Emitt begins singing loudly) "Happy Birthdayyyy to you!" (applause)
Edwin: Don't you wish you'd written that song?
Emitt: Yeah! I'd get royalties then!
Kim: You got royalties from The Royal Tanenbaums.
Emitt: I had to elicit it. I called up Universal and said, "Look, I have a song in a movie of yours--don't I get paid?" And then like a half hour later, Eddie Shaw's surviving son calls me up and tells me that he couldn't find my number.
Kim: Oh, I talked to Eddie Shaw years ago--I wanted to interview you--and he told me he didn't know where you were.
Emitt: I love Eddie Shaw, like my father, but he wasn't very good to me.
Kim: He was your agent?
Emitt: Yeah, he was my agent, my publisher, he was my mentor. But he was a crook, I think. And of course in the latter part of his life he was an angry person. What was it, the Bangles did "Live"? It's one of the first songs I can remember writing. It was an early song for me that he published, and it was for perpetuity. And somewhere down the line he just decided he wasn't gonna pay me for it, because he was making money.
Kim: Damn.
Emitt: I'm poor. I've been poor my whole life.
Edwin: Do you have a number of people interested in releasing your demos from the last thirty years?
Emitt: Yeah, I've got this guy who's going to give me money for that, but I didn't play him enough songs, so I have to send him a demonstration tape. He's not a record guy, he's in New York and he does lighting, or something.
Edwin: How many songs do you think you have--thirty years worth of recording--is that in the hundreds?
Emitt: Naw. Thirty. I dunno, something like that.
Kim: A song a year?
Emitt: Probably more than that, but some of 'em were rewritten. I wrote the best song I've ever written a week ago, and it was kind of three songs stuck together. Well, it's actually two songs stuck together, with a third part that became the verse. So I had a verse and a chorus, and I didn't decide that I had a chorus up until a few minutes before you came by.
Kim: Can you tell us about the "Tame the Lion" single that came out with your third album?
Emitt: I didn't like the Viet Nam war. Saddam Hussein? Yeah, kill that motherfucker. But Viet Nam? It didn't sound like the kind of war that we wanted to win, and I don't think we should fight a war that we don't want to win.
Kim: So that was your statement on the war?
Emitt: Okay. I've never killed anybody. I'm kind of proud of that. I could have, but I didn't.
Kim: If you did, you'd have to live with it.
Emitt: I just didn't want to kill anybody that I didn't think deserved it. (laughs)
Kim: But you'd go back in time and kill Hitler?
Emitt: (chortling) Oh, I'd kill Hitler, no prob! I'd kill Saddam Hussein. Show him to me, I'll go for him. (drives his butter knife against table repeatedly)
Kim: Put the knife down.
Emitt: I just didn't have anybody in Viet Nam that I didn't like enough to kill them.
Edwin: Did you do miletary service?
Emitt: No. I'm a diabetic, I have a bad back, I'm not healthy.
Edwin: I didn't either.
Kim: What is it about the South Bay? You guys are a mess!
Edwin: Well, I didn't register until it was too late--
Kim: But you couldn't have gotten in anyway--
Edwin: Yeah.
Emitt: I suppose I could have gone if I'd wanted to, but I didn't want to kill anybody. I didn't want to kill the Viet Namese because I didn't agree with what was going on.
(the waiter comes and we order a slice of key lime pie)
Edwin: How many other songs have you written which are, if not political, just about what's going on in the world?
Emitt: It's not about what's goin on in the world, it's about what's going on in my head. Every song I've ever written is aboutwhat's going on in my head.
Kim: You've written a lot of songs about girls.
Emitt: Oh, okay. I like girls.
Kim: You write songs about grandparents and families--
Emitt: I wish I had a family.
Kim: You did when you were writing those songs.
Emitt: I'm an orphan now.
Kim: That's pretty recent for you.
Emitt: Yeah, the last three years.
Kim: You're lucky, you had them for a long time.
Emitt: Yeah, I was a lucky man.
Kim: Did you socialize a lot with your parents when they lived across the street from you?
Emitt: Yes. I wish I had recognized my mother's illness before I did. My sister did. She knew my mother was sick and allowed my mother to die.
Kim: What did your mother have?
Emitt: A brain tumor. And my mother became less and less coherent as time went on. (A family at a nearby table begins singing "Happy Birthday," and Emitt joins in boisterously, then laughs.) They [the employees] can't sing happy birthday here--
Edwin: That's why everyone sings it themselves.
Emitt: That's why I sing it, anyway.
Edwin: About the girls in the songs, how many of them are about real girls, and how many of them are, ah... science?
Emitt: It's all real girls.
Kim: You'd say, "Hey honey, I wrote you a song" and you'd play it?
Emitt: No, I never wrote anybody a song. I wrote songs about what I understood.
Kim: What about "With My Face on the Floor," is that a real song?
Emitt: Yeah, that's about being unhappy and being shitfaced and falling on the floor. It's a kind of simple thing. You might watch that. Keep this going, and as we get out of here... (laughter) And you can say "Yeah, I saw him do that!" I'm a straight guy, I like girls.
Edwin: I can see that.
Kim: Okay, now you're on ABC. And Jay Lasker runs everything. You brought them half a record, and they gave you, what? $5000 to finish it?
Emitt: Yeah, that was it.
Kim: They must have pushed it, 'cause it did well.
Emitt: Yeah, it was great for them. But for me, I was poor.
Kim: You made a weird little video that we saw on the internet [insert link here], where you're playing all the instruments.
Emitt: That's when I went to London. It was Bristol train station or something. And this was before video, it was all film. The closest thing I ever did to-- (Emitt trails off and checks out a loud table nearby)
Edwin: Is that another birthday?
Kim: Emitt, you gotta wait til they start singing, you can't start it.
Edwin: Don't jump the gun!
Emitt: (clears his throat and tries the first notes) H...hap... happy birthday to--
Edwin and
Kim: shhh!
(the family begins singing the alternate "It's your birthday" cha-cha version, much to Emitt's dismay)
Kim: Was that for British television?
Emitt: Yeah. I never saw it. I didn't see it until a few months ago.
Kim: Who keeps your website up and running?
Emitt: Oh, a friend, a guy named Kevin Ryan.
Kim: He's found some really wild, rare stuff. He's got The Dating Game, radio clips--
Emitt: I saw The Dating Game. I remember, I was asked--and this is a lousy question--"If at twelve o'clock I turn into a pumpkin, what will you do?" And the first thing that came to my mind was (chortling), "I'll eat you!" And then I'm going, "Oh! I can't say that on television!"
Edwin: When's the last time you played live?
Emitt: I did the--
Kim: I was there!
Emitt: Rocktopia, Poptopia, yeah. I wanted to remember what it was like to be onstage.
Kim: You only played half the songs, Ray Paul played the rest.
Emitt: I played three tunes. My friend Ray Paul played three songs, and I played three songs.
Kim: Yeah, I wanted you to play twelve songs.
Emitt: Thanks, but that wasn't the deal. It was like twenty minutes apiece or something, and he said look, "You play three songs, I'll play three songs, I'll put everything together. All you gotta do is show up, do a rehearsal, and there you go." And that was that. I hadn't been on a stage for so long that I didn't remember what it was like to be on a stage.
Kim: When your solo albums came out did you go out and play by yourself?
Emitt: Yeah, I did. For a while I had a band too.
Kim: Who was in your band?
Emitt: I don't remember now, it's so long ago. You're talking thirty years ago.
Kim: Do you remember for which record you put the band together?
Emitt: It was the first record. And then I figured out I hate flying.
Kim: That'll really mess with a career.
Emitt: Oh, it's horrible. I want a train car! I wanna take a train. I like trains. A plane, you fall out of the sky. I hate falling. I can remember I was five years old, and my dad throwing me up in the air and going crazy because he was throwing me up in the air and he wouldn't stop. He didn't know. But I've got this phobia against falling.
Edwin: Do you still play the old songs from time to time on the acoustic guitar, for yourself or for friends?
Emitt: I don't remember any of them.
Kim: When you did the Poptopia show did you have to relearn your songs?
Emitt: Yeah. Ray Paul--
Kim: He brought you the records?
Emitt: (laughing) He brought me a chord chart and said "Here, your songs!" And I said "Oh!"
Kim: Did it come right back to you?
Emitt: No, it took me a while to learn them!
Kim: Ouch.
Emitt: You forget them.
Edwin: There's no reason to remember unless you're playing them. That's why I asked.
Kim: So after that first record you went out on the road with a band, and then you came home. You went to England. Where else did you go?
Emitt: I went around the US too. And then I was off on vacation. What was the guy's name that did Motown?
Kim and
Edwin: Barry Gordy?
Emitt: After Gordy. ABC/ Dunhill.
Kim: Jay Lasker.
Emitt. Jay Lasker, he did Motown too. He wanted me to go out and do like fifty cities in a Lear Jet.
Kim: At that point you were scared of flying.
Emitt: I'm still scared of flying. I want a parachute.
Kim: Was Lou Adler at ABC at all at this point?
Emitt: No, not that I remember.
Kim: Dunhill was his label, right?
Emitt: It was... who was the gay guy?
Kim: Producer?
Emitt: No, record guy. Dreamworks.
Kim and
Edwin: David Geffen!
Emitt: Yes!
Kim: Everyone knows he's gay, it's okay. (laughter)
Edwin: He even knows he's gay!
Emitt: I don't wanna say anything bad about him, 'cause I don't know him.
Kim: But he was Elektra/Asylum.
Emitt: Yeah, and I basically got hired by a fella he hired. And I became an A&R person, which was a good job for me, because I wan't making records then and nobody was really interested in what I was doing anyway. So it gave me something that I got paid for.
Edwin: Did you do any touring for Mirror?
Emitt: I stopped, no, I didn't do any touring. I guess the first record I did touring for, and then I didn't want to do it anymore. I'm not an entertainer, I'm a songwriter.
Kim: How come you didn't just sell your songs to other performers?
Emitt: Well, I didn't have a publisher that was into doing that, I guess.
Kim: I think a lot of your songs would have worked well for the female singers that were coming up--Linda Ronstadt could have done your songs.
Emitt: Oh, yeah. Well, she's a nice girl. She's as big as I am! (chuckles all around) But I like her, okay? You know what I mean.
Kim: You got sued by ABC because you hadn't delivered a record.
Emitt: Yeah. I don't know, somehow they figure out how much money you owe them by how much money they would have made had you put a record out--and they sued me for more money than I'd ever seen! And I'm going--
Kim: It was like a half million bucks, right?
Emitt: Yeah! And I'm going, "I've never even seen this amount--I'm, like, poor! How can you sue me for this amount?" It didn't make any sense at all. They were suing me for more money than I'd ever sen in my whole life.
Kim: Had they been bothering you for a long time?
Emitt: No. I signed a deal with them that I shouldn't have signed. I signed a deal where I was supposedly gonna make a record every six months. And it took me nine months to make the first record. And I was convinced by Eddie Shaw that I should sign the deal, because I could make records quicker.
Kim: By yourself?
Emitt: Yeah. And then I realized, hold it, when am I supposed to live? When am I supposed to vacation? When am I supposed to go on tour? When am I supposed to write these songs?
Edwin: I know this is completely hypothetical, but was there ever a point in your life when you thought, "Why don't I just crank out some songs--?"
Emitt: Nah.
Edwin: Okay, 'cause that's not what you're about.
Emitt: Yeah, I can do that, I just don't... (trails off)
Kim: Did you think about getting a band again?
Emitt: Yeah. I had players that were willing to play with me. It just wasn't what I wanted to do. I had learned--I had my Mel Bay song book, for how to play the saxophone, and the violin--
Kim: God, you learned how to play everything!
Emitt: Yeah, it was before the synthesizer, so for me, I spent six months learning how to play the saxophone. (laughing) And then I played it for a couple of hours, and then never played it again!
Kim: What was it like working with Curt Boettcher in the studio?
Emitt: Well, Curt Boettcher was a gay guy!
Kim: Yeah. But what was he like?
Emitt: He was just gay.
Kim: He liked those high pitched vocals, a lot of harmonies--
Emitt: Yeah, he wanted to fuck me in the butt.
Kim: Well, that was awkward.
Emitt: Nooo, it's just not what I do. (laughs)
Kim: Did you make music with Curt?
Emitt: Yeah, I kinda wrote music. And I'm sorry, Curt, but my butt is my territory.
Kim: So Keith Olsen was more the guy that you--?
Emitt: Yeah, Keith Olsen was the straight of the two. I liked Curt Boettcher, but I'm just not gay.
Kim: What did you think of that Sagitarius record?
Emitt: Sagitarius? I know nothing about it. All I know is I was up in his house in a spire in Lookout Mountain or something, and he wanted to fuck me in the ass. Sorry, I don't go that way. I didn't have that problem with Keith.
Kim: You did come back and did Mirror for ABC, and they put it out.
Emitt: Yeah. (waiter comes by and asks if we're okay) Yeah, unless there's something else you can bring us.
Waiter: Water?
Emitt: Yeah, okay, water.
Kim: They sued you, you got the whole record together--
Emitt: I'm not good with pressure. I just do it when I can. I finished it and gave it to 'em.
Kim: So you didn't let the pressure effect your work?
Emitt: Oh, no no no, it effected me, but it was like, it wasn't as if I was going to stand up and sprint because of it. I just did what I normally do. I'm not good with pressure.
Kim: Do you feel like they were behind that record?
Emitt: No, they weren't behind it. They just wanted to make money. They were shoe salesmen--they just wanted to sell shoes.
Kim: But they pushed the first record and it did well.
Emitt: Yeah, that's right. I don't know, maybe they thought the first, the shoe people would like. What was his name again?
Kim: Jay Lasker.
Emitt: Jay Lasker. He was a weird--he was a strange person. He's the kind of guy who would hurt himself to hurt you if he thought that's what he wanted to do. It's a weird feeling. You don't want to deal with people like that. I'm an old guy now, and you don't want to deal with people like that. You want to deal with people that are nice people that want to do the right thing.
Kim: Do you think if you had done your record a couple of years later and worked with Geffen and come out on Asylum--?
Emitt: Oh, I have no idea. I never met Geffen, so I don't know.
Kim: He's more of an artist's manager--
Emitt: I met Chuck Plotkin, who Geffen signed as the head of A&R. My impression is that David Geffen is probably a nicer guy than Jay Lasker. He signed Chuck Plotkin, who's a weird dude who didn't sign me. (chuckles) Nonetheless, he signed other people who didn't make money. So there! But I liked them, too. Hey, I just write songs, make noise.
Kim: What about Farewell to Paradise? It was a departure from the earlier style.
Emitt: Yeah. I learned how to engineer, so Farewell to Paradise was probably the best-engineered record I made, but at the time it was--it was so long ago. It was way before digital. I just read my physics book and saw God. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I just do it because I don't know any better.
Edwin: Which is your favorite of the three albums?
Emitt: None. None of the above.
Kim: Even when you were working on them?
Emitt: Oh, I enjoyed all of them, but I didn't like any of them. I never like what I do.
Kim: Are you to much of a perfectionist?
Emitt: No, I just don't like what I do. (laughs)
Kim: Why not? Other people like what you do.
Emitt: Okay. I can't tell the difference. I know Pythagorus' theorum--hey! 1-4-5! And then all the chords in between. (giggling maniacally) See, I know there's twelve of them. Sometimes I use all twelve. It's a silly thing, but I do that. It doesn't mean that other people do it.
Edwin: I think that's a good place to stop. Anything you'd like to add?
Emitt: Oh. Hi, Mom. I'll be there someday. Oh yeah, I did an 18-second commercial for the Yellow Pages, called--I think they called it "The Light Show" or something. They asked me to write a song that sounded like "Help!" and it was supposed to be 18 seconds long, so it took me 18 seconds to write it. And it sounded like "Help!"
Kim: How does it go?
Emitt: I can't remember! (laughter) Now you're asking for too much. I can remember I did it.
Edwin: (singing) "The Yellow Pages, dip dip dip."
Emitt: I wrote another one after that (singing) "Da-da-da-da-da, Yellow Pages." Whatever. The one they wanted to sound like "Help!" sounded just like "Help!" except it was 18 seconds long, and I didn't get sued, and neither did they, so it must not have been that close to "Help!"
Kim: Or nobody cared.
Edwin: Or caught it.
Kim: When was that?
Emitt: Oh, that was long ago, that was before I was old and gray.
Kim: You can shave your beard, Emitt.
Emitt: Yeah, I do. I shave my beard, I look a lot younger.
Kim: The beard's the first thing that goes gray. Your hair isn't--
Emitt: Okay. Neither is my pubics! (laughter) There's a few gray ones, but the beard, that's the first thing.
Kim: You're not one of those guys who grows a scrawny beard.
Edwin: Like me. I have bald spots, I have huge bald spots!
Emitt: I'm working on bald spots. At least my dad had one of those, right here. It was like he was a monk, but it was after sixty. So maybe.
Kim: It runs down the mother's side of the line.
Emitt: In that case my mother had a lot of hair. She didn't have any bald spots at all.
Kim: You said your mom was a psychic? Did she charge people?
Emitt: Ahhh, donations. She was the real thing, if you believe it.
Kim: If you had problems?
Emitt: Oh, she'd make you feel better. She might as well have become a psychiatrist. She would have probably made more money doing that. Hey, I went through levitation, ouija boards, numerology, astrology--
Kim: What's your number?
Emitt: I don't know.
Kim: Do you have a middle name?
Emitt: Lynn. Emitt Lynn Rhodes, it's kind of like, I could be a country artist. I'm working on it.
Edwin: Was Emitt a family name?
Emitt: Yes, my uncle's name was Emitt, but he went by Jackson, or Jack. He didn't like Emitt. But I was too stupid to know any different. And in my time there wasn't an Emitt Smith, you know what I mean? Hey, I'm Emitt, emit, emit me!
Kim: You have a hard time with people mangling your name?
Emitt: Yeah.
Edwin: Where were you born?
Emitt: Decatur, Illinois. Not Chicago, but just south.
Kim: When did your family come out here?
Emitt: I was five years old, so all I remember is being an LA person.
Kim: What brought your folks out here?
Emitt: Jobs. My dad worked in aerospace. He did A-4s, Macdonald Douglas.
Edwin: My dad did, too. My mom worked at North American Rockwell. They did a lot of the space shuttle stuff--
Emitt: Well, rockets. They didn't really do space shutte stuff. And nobody's proud of that any more.
Kim: Oh, that was just a mistake! They didn't mean to do that.
Emitt: (dripping sarcasm) Why would you launch a rocket, and then have it normal to have flotsum fall off of the gas tank and destroy your wing?
Kim: The worst thing is they knew the whole damn time and they kept those slobs in the dark.
Emitt: Yes, I believe that too. I believe they knew at launch that they were doomed.
Kim: There are emails that show that they knew.
Emitt: And they didn't have any way to bring them back, so they just kind of let them die. And I think that sucks. I agree. Hey, let's go to space, let's do all that stuff. But it costs money. And I'd rather spend it on going into space than fighting Saddam. Ten billion--
Kim: Eighty billion.
Emitt: We could have a sattelite with a laser beam on it that coulda just spotted Saddam and vaporized him! I'd rather go for that!
Kim: And we can fry someone else with it later.
Emitt: Exactly! We run the world! You don't wanna go outside, do you? Because if you do... By all means. If we're gonna run the world, let's run the world.
Edwin: That money could've been spent to check out the planets--
Emitt: Oh, all of the above.
Edwin: We're gonna do that if we have an administration that considers it important.
Kim: Why does that stuff have to cost money? Why don't we just do it?
Emitt: The money gets spent here, it's Americans paying Americans.
Kim: But if everyone had everything they needed you wouldn't have to pay for the work, you'd just pay for the equipment.
Emitt: We go the Mars and we buy the vehicle from TRW, we don't buy it from Saddam Hussein. We buy it from Americans.
Kim: Who overcharge us.
Emitt: They charge whatever they charge. I don't believe in interest!
Kim: You don't? That's how the Jews survived.
Emitt: Yeah, I don't believe in it, Jews or not.
Kim: Why should anybody risk their money for someone else?
Emitt: They shouldn't, unless they want to profit. And interest is--do you own a house? We buy a house for a quarter of a million and we pay two and a half million by the time we're done. It's five times.
Kim: Screw that, I'm buying my house with cash--back in West Virginia. Bye, guys.
Emitt: I had grandparents there. My grandfather, he never went fifty miles from where he was born. I was there one time, when I was fourteen years old.
Kim: Your family came to America early on?
Emitt: I don't know when my family came to America. I just know that my grandfather was an American.
Kim: A lot of people in the Appalachians came over in the 1600s. What's your mother's family name?
Emitt: Kramer. My father's name was Rhodes, my mother's name was Kramer, both real English names. I know my grandfather never went fifty miles from where he was born. My dad of course went to Europe and got Hitler, and died because of it. He died much younger than his father, and I think it was just from stress. I don't think it was a good thing. Killing people isn't some honor. I never killed anyone.
Kim: Me neither. I never killed anything. You ever kill anything?
Edwin: Well, yeah.
Emitt: A bird.
Kim: You shoot a bird?
Emitt: I was at my grandfather's house. He gave me a .22 and I went out in the woods and saw a bird in a tree and just lifted up the rifle and pointed at it and pulled the trigger and the bird went, boof, to the ground. That was the last thing I ever killed.
Kim: I've heard that story enough times from other people to almost make me think the birds are put out there to stop people from killing other people.
Emitt: Huh, okay. I think they're just dumb and they're in the trees and they make noise! It's like a target for me.
Edwin: That's pretty obvious, when you first get your first BB gun. That's about it.
Kim: Couldn't you shoot ...flower?
Edwin: Yeah, you do that too, but then a bird is the ultimate, when you're a kid.
Emitt: It was a bird in a tree, and it was singing, and it was alive, and it was a target and I hit it and that was it. I decided I didn't want to kill anything.
Kim: Be glad no one ever put a gun in my hand when I was a kid. I probably would have killed a person. (long silence)
Emitt: Well, I'd do that now, but it would have to be Saddam. (laughing)
Kim: I threw a rock at a girl's head when I was eleven years old. I was an angry little kid.
Emitt: I'm older now. I was young then.
Wanna have your own copy of the Scram portion of this interview, and see the previously unpublished photos from Emitt's mom's collection? Scram #18 is available on this website. For details click here.
- kim's blog
- Login or register to post comments
