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==== ISSUE 151 ==== CONSUMABLE 5 YEARS! == [August 25, 1998]
Editor: Bob Gajarsky
E-mail: editor@consumableonline.com
Sr. Correspondents: Daniel Aloi, Joann Ball, Bill Holmes, Tim
Kennedy, Reto Koradi, David Landgren, Sean
Eric McGill, Tim Mohr, Al Muzer, Joe Silva,
Lang Whitaker
Correspondents: Tracey Bleile, Lee Graham Bridges, Scott
Byron, Jason Cahill, Patrick Carmosino,
Krisjanis Gale, Emma Green, Paul Hanson,
Chris Hill, Eric Hsu, Tim Hulsizer, Franklin
Johnson, Robin Lapid, Linda Scott, Scott
Slonaker, Chelsea Spear, Simon Speichert,
Jon Steltenpohl, Simon West
Technical Staff: Chris Candreva, Dave Pirmann
Also Contributing: Dan Enright, Nancy Price
Address all comments to staff@consumableonline.com ; subscription
information is given at the end of this issue.
==================================================================
All articles in Consumable remain (C) copyright their author(s).
Permission for re-publication in any form must be obtained from the
editor.
==================================================================
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| Contents |
`------------'
EDITORS'S NOTES - CONSUMABLE FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
CONCERT/ALBUM REVIEWS: Oasis - Jeremy Ashcroft, Bob Gajarsky
INTERVIEW: Radiohead - Nancy Price
REVIEW: Verve - Tracey Bleile
INTERVIEW: Ben Folds Five - Joe Silva, Lang Whitaker
CONCERT REVIEW: Beastie Boys in Scotland - Robin Lapid
INTERVIEW: Dave Matthews Band - Dan Enright
REVIEW: His Boy Elroy - Bob Gajarsky
INTERVIEW: Squirrel Nut Zippers - Dan Engith, Joe Silva
---
EDITOR'S NOTES ON OUR FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
In 1993, a small print magazine out of Central Jersey
named Consumable had started its publication run, of what would
subsequently be only two issues. At that time, it was decided
to take Consumable from a print version to both a print and
online version. Thus, a pioneering action - which countless
'mainstream' music publications would eventually follow - was born.
Celebrating its five year anniversary, Consumable Online
is the Internet's oldest music reviews publication. Initially
distributed as reviews were submitted (in a 'mailing list'
fashion), Consumable eventually became a regular scheduled
event, now being published approximately 35 times/year.
Since those beginnings, Consumable has grown to a staff
of more than 30 international writers, not dedicated to the
almighty buck, but spreading the word on good music. By
limiting each issue to 12 or so reviews and interviews,
we may omit many bands who we could provide 'fluff' pieces to -
and provide filler for their clip file - but we'd rather
stick to the key artists who we like, or who we feel our
subscribers would like. It's the quality of these reviews
that has earned us the respect of our peers, including
accolades such as 'the no-frills alternative music authority
packed with good writing' (Netguide) and 'excellent, smart
and chock-full of useful stuff' (Internet Underground).
Oasis' rise and success has closely paralleled that of
Consumable. We were the first non-daily American publication to
review their first American concert, and subsequent reviews of
other concerts, singles, and debut album provided readers with
the most significant band to come out of Britain in many years.
And while British press were initially dismissing Oasis second
album, and America was wondering what the hype was about, our
synopsis of _Morning Glory_ perfectly hit the nail on the head...
Consumable readers were able to read interviews with
Dave Matthews and Squirrel Nut Zippers before their star had fully
ascended, and interviews with bands such as XTC, Radiohead,
Manic Street Preachers, offered insights into what made those
bands tick, and sometimes, foreshadowing future events.
But interviews are only one small part of Consumable.
The main focus of each issue is reviews of today and tomorrow's
music, whether it be Jon Steltenpohl highlighting attempts to
bring Scandanavian and Swedish music to America, Tim Kennedy
providing us with several 'first in America' reviews, Sean McGill's
controversial review of gangsta rap or Robin Lapid's 1998 Beastie
Boys concert review (from Scotland), our readers can always
expect to get a straightforward assessment of an album before
plunking down their hard earned cash at the record store.
The first review to appear in Consumable Online, a
Seattle artist named Johnny Fly (with a group called His Boy Elroy),
is also included here. Fly may have disappeared, but the
review hasn't. It would have been so much more glamorous to
have the first review be of a bigger name artist, but in some ways,
it's appropriate that the album never made any mainstream waves.
So, in conclusion, thanks for the first five years of
Consumable Online. Despite no advertisement, or corporate
backing, we've managed to continue growing by word of mouth.
Thanks to all the staffers, past, present, and future who have
given far too much of themselves in order to ensure that the
original inspiration for Consumable Online would continue.
And, finally, thanks to our loyal readers - who have provided
invaluable support - without you, it just wouldn't be worth it.
This special five year look back is to all of you. Here's to
another five...
- Bob Gajarsky, Editor In Chief
---
CONCERT REVIEW: Oasis, New Music Seminar, New York 1994
- Bob Gajarsky
The band being hyped as the new Suede (or new Smiths)
out of England, Oasis, also played live. Despite being new
to America, the band appeared to be lackluster and tired. Was
it disgust at the primarily American audience not getting
"into" the music? It's hard to say, although there were more
than a few people wearing Oasis shirts, and a few people with
English accents were present at the show. The show closed with
a long version of the Beatles song, "I Am The Walrus".
They've been recently signed here in the States (I
believe to Sony, although I'm not positive - in the U.K., they are
on Creation Records), in the hopes that the Manchester-type sound
can catapult them to the top of the modern rock charts, a la the
Stone Roses or Charlatans, in a time that is much more receptive
to this format. A couple singles have been released in the U.K.,
including one which seems to take a bit from the 1970's song,
"I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing", used for a Coca Cola jingle
("I'd like to buy the world a coke..."), "Shakermaker".
Concert Review - Oasis Across the Ocean
August 31, United Kingdom
- Jeremy Ashcroft / Bob Gajarsky
The evening's big surprise was the unannounced guest -
good old "Evil Dildo" himself - Evan Dando. He just came on
solo with his guitar and sang a few songs. The audience seemed
to enjoy it and there was a really nice moment when a fan from
the audience got up onstage and sang harmony vocals on one
song! Evan was clearly surprised and delighted and the crowd
really cheered on their home-boy. At the end of the set - which
was only about 20-minutes long - an announcement came over the
PA to the effect that if you wanted to hear more of Evan, he
promised to play outside the stage door when the bars had shut
at midnight. (I was still inside at the time, so I can't tell
you if he followed up his promise.)
During his set myself and friends were watching from a
gallery overlooking the stage. Immediately behind me were Oasis
themselves, chatting and watching. They also had a professional
standard camcorder and were filming the set - later another
camera was brought out to film the entire Oasis set. I overheard
Liam saying that he'd been to this venue before, as a member of
the audience (it's just about 45-miles from Manchester).
Before Oasis came on stage, the DJ was playing a lot of
Manchester bands - I think The Charlatans were playing as the
band took the stage. "That's enough of that shite!" was how the
band introduced themselves!
The opener, "Rock and Roll Star", was one of my favourite
songs of the evening - it was more of an atmospheric song than
the singles. The audience enjoyed themselves throughout, which is
more than you can say for the band if their expressions were to
be believed. I found that to be really offputting, to see a band
playing and not even look like they're enjoying the music
themselves. Just three songs into the set and there was potential
trouble; I didn't even see anything being thrown, but Liam singled
out someone in the audience and said that he didn't like having
things thrown at him and that if they were going to do that he'd
like them to come on stage "so I can slap you in front of everyone".
They also showed that they weren't a particularly friendly
band a bit later. At one point Evan Dando came dancing on stage
with a young girl he'd been hanging around with that night. As
they were spinning around enjoying themselves, one of Oasis
security came from the side of the stage and bounced them off!
They played all their hits, which were great, but the whole
show lasted just 60-minutes. They closed with their now standard "I
Am The Walrus". That was great - just the idea of doing a
heavy-metal version (the intro at least) was great and the extended
playout set up a great groove. The only thing that spoiled it for
me were the vocals... he went from line to line without any gaps,
more like a recitation than with any feeling (even it he was trying
to sound deadpan, it didn't quite work). Still great though.
The bottom-line of a good concert is "Would I go again?"
And, in this case, the answer is a resounding yes.
Fast forward to late October, Hoboken, New Jersey...
Oasis is concluding their brief United States tour at the
famous Maxwell's. The fire code at Maxwell's is 125, but there are
easily 200 people packed tightly in the club; rumor has it that if
you slipped the doorman $25, you could get in once the show was
"sold out". Don't believe the hype that it's all teens into
Oasis - this show was packed with many people in their late 20s
and early 30s catching up with one of the hottest new bands of
the year.
Oasis didn't disappoint. From "Rock and Roll Star" to
the concluding "I Am The Walrus", the band sounded *perfect*.
The acoustics at Maxwell's leave a lot to be desired, but it was
overcome by a brilliant performance. Again, the band didn't
move around - not like they had room to - but lead singer Liam
Gallagher explains, "I've got no time for jumping about, do I?
I'm too busy singing the songs." His brother Noel chimes in, in
response to some critics questioning the band's arrogance, "We
wouldn't dare go on stage and prance around and preach to the
audience."
There was a mosh pit, too. Well - it was about 10 losers
who felt the need to slam to each song. The audience did a good
job of tossing elbows (and throwing down) the moshers, but the
small crowd irritated Liam. He yelled, to a standing ovation,
"Hey, Elvis! Why don't you stop running into these people and
let them enjoy the show?", after one of the songs.
The band is back in England and "Supersonic" is finally
receiving well-deserved airplay (top 15 on Billboard's Modern
Rock Charts). But, rather than lament missing one of the U.K.'s
top exports, check out the debut _Definitely Maybe_. Don't take
my word for it - your ears will do the talking for you.
REVIEW: Oasis, _(What's The Story) Morning Glory_ (Epic)
- Bob Gajarsky
When Oasis released their debut CD last year, _Definitely
Maybe_, amidst brotherly fighting, pissing off many of the
"business" people associated with the band, and in general being
hyped in the UK from here to the Mohave, I was certain that Oasis
would be a one album wonder. Well, it's nearly one year after that
release, more than ten strong B-sides later, and their second
album, _(What's The Story) Morning Glory_ has completely proven me
wrong.
It could be mentioned that the Gallagher brothers still
wear their late 1960's (see: Beatles) influences on their sleeve,
but also show a little more with their nicking of the Gary Glitter
track "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again" on the opening track "Hello".
Just as "Rock And Roll Star" was the perfect opening to _Maybe_
with its proclamation that Liam was, already a star, "Hello", via
Gary Glitter, lets the listener know that the band is back.
And, yes, the Beatles influence is still prominent; "She's
Electric" starts with a snippet from "With A Little Help From My
Friends" and ends with the Billy Shears fade from "Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band". "Don't Look Back In Anger" opens with a
"Let It Be" piano intro then launches into a powerful piece which
evokes a vision of an unmade video, with 20,000 people waving their
hands while Liam Gallagher warns "Please don't put your life in the
hands / of a rock and roll band / who'll throw it all away".
These influences, however, aren't ripped off, but fully
integrated into a blend which will make critics 20 years from now
talk about the "Oasis sound".
"Wonderwall" is "Live Forever", part 2, and will probably
be the band's American huge modern rock hit. And, the UK single
"Roll With It" actually comes off as a modern rock-by-numbers which
loses its flavor in several listens. Don't judge Oasis off their
slower commercial tracks, however - it would be throwing away the
rest of today's best rock and roll band. The closer, "Champagne
Supernova", brings in Paul Weller on an 8 minute epic jaunt that
could just be the song of a new generation.
The verdict is in, and _(What's The Story) Morning Glory?_
is a masterpiece from start to finish. Oasis is to the 1990's what
R.E.M. was to modern rock in the 1980's - definitely brilliant.
---
INTERVIEW: Radiohead
- Nancy Price
Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood - he of the manic, talking
guitar - is standing in the lobby as I arrive at the trendy San
Francisco hotel where the band is staying. Alas, Jonny isn't
waiting for me, and Ed O'Brien, Radiohead's other able guitarist
and my intended interview subject, is still asleep. Somewhere
between San Francisco and Capitol's offices in New York, wires
were crossed, and I got there an hour earlier than expected.
"He's just going to take a shower and will be right down," their
publicist apologizes.
Unexpected wakeup calls aside, things are looking good
for Radiohead. Their third LP, _OK Computer_ , debuted at number 21
in the US and easily reached the top of the charts in their native
Britain. O'Brien and Jonny Greenwood, together with Jonny's brother
Colin on bass, Phil Selway behind the drums and the owner of the
breathtakingly lovely vocal contortions - singer/guitarist Thom
Yorke - are Radiohead. The group (who don't consider themselves
part of the 'Britpop' movement), has been playing sold-out shows
across America, performing at venues with names including words
like Theatre, Ballroom and Arena: certainly a step up from the
club tours of the not-too-distant past.
This band has been busy this last year: recording, touring,
promoting, playing for Tibetan Freedom, and getting favorable
attention from the press and an ever-increasing legion of fans.
Even before the July first stateside release of the album, the band
was getting the kind of attention usually reserved for music legends,
fashion designers, and boxers. Face it: when you can count Madonna,
Marilyn Manson, Sheryl Crow and members of U2, REM, Oasis and Blur
among your fans, you're either doing something right or something
revolutionary... or, in the case of Radiohead, very probably both.
At the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, their tight
twenty-two-song set (including four songs over three encores),
included every track from _OK Computer_, half of _The Bends_, a
lone number from their debut, _Pablo Honey_, and one B-side for
the devout. The band's success would seem to be a natural result
of their clear passion for the music, an obvious and mutual
creative respect, and the fact that, well, they seem to be having
a good time just being Radiohead.
But was recording the songs as much fun as playing them
in front of an audience? O'Brien smiles, 'We did kind of go a bit
stir crazy recording _OK Computer_, when we were in Bath at Jane
Seymour's house, but we had to go through that. We got to
Christmas of '96, and we'd been kind of experimenting. The only
thing we'd finished was "Exit Music," because that had to go to
_Romeo and Juliet_ for the film. We had started about fourteen or
fifteen songs, and it was then that we said, 'Right, we're going to
have to start finishing stuff off.' What we'd do is half-finish
fourteen songs, and then go on to a new one. We get bored very
very quickly. So, by Christmas, it was basically that we wanted
an album out by the summer, and we had to finish it off.'
Well-versed in the fine art of procrastination, I imagine
it was difficult to complete those songs. Nodding a deep yes,
O'Brien says, 'It's all the little bits. We tracked a lot of this
album live.' He pauses and searches the air for an analogy, 'It
would be like building a kitchen. It's quite easy to get all the
wood in and see something fairly immediate - but all those little
joints and the hinges, and making sure the drawers and the cupboards
open properly, and fixing all the little things - that's what takes
a really long time. Smoothing down the edges. It's exactly the same
when making a record. And mixing... mixing is kind of like the
French polishing. It was fairly traumatic at times, because there's
so much going on.'
Radiohead's career development has been upward, if not
smooth, since their days playing around Oxford as a band called On
A Friday. Such progress comes directly from their unwavering
dedication to the cause. O'Brien reckons they've all known since
their mid-teens that they wanted to play together. 'There was never
any question that we weren't going to do it, really, in terms of
like make the effort to do it.' Although the band was on hold
during their college years - reforming only during school breaks -
they maintained that group cohesion, 'and [after] Thom finished
college, we were signed in about four or five months. Looking back
on it, what was amazing was the commitment. Ten years ago, we
talked about it. We knew we wanted to do this - there was never
any question.'
As most of the members are in their late twenties, it's
been nearly half a lifetime since the band's humble beginnings.
Has the success they've finally achieved with the release of _OK
Computer_ seemed a long time coming? 'It's been fine. You know,
the big thing was signing at the end of '91, then in '92 touring
around in a rusty white van. It was great to do small shows, opening
up for people. 1993 - the first half of the year was really the
same as '92, then of course "Creep" erupted, and we came over here,'
recalls O'Brien. ' "Creep" was not what we expected. We all
thought [the band's progress] would be slow - we didn't want any
kind of big explosion. We wanted to, each time you do a gig, a few
more people come along, word of mouth spreads, make a better
record...'
But are they satisfied? 'Yeah, now,' he concedes. 'We
played the Warfield in San Francisco, we played the Wiltern in Los
Angeles. We've played clubs, and they were great, but we've done
three [U.S.] tours of clubs and you get a bit sick of them. It
sounds better in these [larger] places. It looks amazing - you
look out from the stage and there's a balcony, and it's very
inspiring.'
Of course, as the band's fanbase grows, they'll start to
play larger venues. 'Obviously when you get great theaters, it would
be lovely to do a residency for three nights, but, America is such
a huge country that you wouldn't have the luxury of that. If you've
got one night, you don't want people to not get in. We've done that
where we played at a way way smaller venue than we should have.'
On the other end of the spectrum, does he see an arena tour
in the band's future? 'No, not really... we've never thought about
it. There's more talk about it around us - people speculating -
particularly in Britain. They all think we're going to be the next
stadium band. Take U2 and REM's baton,' he scoffs. 'If it happens,
it happens, but the only way it will happen is if we're comfortable
with that... which we're not at the moment. And as long as the
show's not compromised.' O'Brien explains, 'I know it's possible to
do amazing shows: I saw the U2 Pop-Mart thing. There's no way you
could do that inside - it's phenomenal. It was very moving, it was
very personal at times, and it was extravagant and over the top.
And it was fantastic. *That's* the way to do those things.'
Radiohead are one of a handful of bands who clearly seem to
be plugged into the nineties, and even own their namesake domains
(radiohead.com and, for Europe, radiohead.co.uk). The website itself
is certainly unique with its spartan content. "Stanley Donwood does
the website and does the artwork with Thom," explains O'Brien. 'We
just didn't want to do one of those websites that is basically like
`here's a picture of the band, here's the band on the set of their
latest video, you can buy the video, you can buy the new single
out now.' We wanted something that provoked a bit more of a
reaction - you either love it or hate it. People think it's
interesting... and then other people say "why can't I get the chords
to "Creep?" ' O'Brien was unaware that the website seems to be
having a bit of trouble, and, for the past couple months has
included the message, "This site, embarrassingly listed as the
official Radiohead site, has been left in a state of confusion by
Stanley Donwood, who has vanished."
Although the band may not visit their virtual home too often,
they are, at least, computer literate. "Oh, completely - yeah. Totally.
Colin and Thom have got Powerbooks out on the road, Jonny's going to
buy a Powerbook." So do they do much websurfing? "Yeah," O'Brien
replies, "I find it so boring, though. I personally feel the best
thing about the internet is the text. The graphics - it takes so
bloody long to download anything. The text is the stuff that
interests me." (His insistence upon his interest only in the text is
intriguing, as I made no effort to steer the conversation in that
direction. A couple days later, however, I learn from a writer from
Rolling Stone Online that she initially had an interview scheduled
with O'Brien to discuss sex-related websites... but the interview was
canceled without explanation.)
O'Brien does, however, attest to the power of the web. "When
we're in the studio - the day after we tracked the songs, there was a
website saying the songs we were recording. We have no idea - *no
idea* - how they got the names of the songs. Okay, some of them we
played live, some of them we haven't. There's no way. Stuff that
had been written the night before, been tracked. Really weird. I
just have got a feeling that one of the others in the band is going
onto the computer about three in the morning and being a mole... and
that's cool, that's fine."
There's certainly a major demand for news about the band in
the online world. Radiohead's internet devotees span the globe - in
fact, the UBL (Ultimate Band List) mentions more than seventy sites
dedicated to the band, and their high-volume mailing list has over
four hundred members... well, four hundred, and, on occasion,
another five. O'Brien smiles, "When we were in the studio, we'd
occasionally go in on that. They wouldn't believe who we were. They
told us to get off."
For real-time online interaction, fans will pretty much have
to wait for one of the numerous online chats featuring the band, or,
as the case may be, the band minus O'Brien: "I always avoid [chats].
I've done it once. I'm not that interested at all. You've always
got some person regulating it, and I don't want to have just the `good'
questions. I want to see what else is being said, and it's really
frustrating to have that `we can't show the band *that* question.' If
someone says `you guys, you suck, I hate your album' I want to retort,
I want to respond to that."
Personally, his favorite aspects of Internet connectivity
vary. On the web, he admits to liking "things like typing in a word
and seeing where it gets you. I'm also a big soccer fan - Manchester
United - so I check out the MU sites, and there are a lot." And
though he has a Mac at home, "on the road, I can't get any of the
world wide web. I do e-mail with a palmtop - you can get text only."
The written word - that text - again is apparently where his passion
lies. "I love e-mail, e-mail is brilliant. It changes the way we
talk. Suddenly, you're getting letters on the road. Contact, rather
than you sending and it being one way the whole time."
Contact with home and the outside world in general would
be vital for anyone on the road, holed up with other band members
and crew for sometimes months on end. Still, even when they're back
home, it sounds like they just can't be apart for too long. "We all
live in Oxford. If we're back for months, we see other friends and
chill out, and then by the second week, we're phoning one another up,
saying `what are you doing?'"
That honest, undiluted friendship is the foundation upon which
Radiohead have built their remarkable career. It is also what
motivates them to move forward. Of the future, O'Brien says he sees
the band's goal as, "fairly simply, to continue making good and better
records. And remain friends, really. Remain friends and remain human
beings." A moment's pause, then he clarifies, "If for one moment I
believed that me and the band as a whole had become rock and roll
casualties who don't get on, who become twisted... you see a lot of
these old rock and rollers - unwilling to take the rough, having had
the smooth... then I wouldn't carry on. I'm not interested in
compromising our characters or becoming rock and roll assholes - not
interested in that at all."
---
REVIEW: The Verve, _Urban Hymns_ (Virgin)
- Tracey Bleile
The music industry is currently fighting off one of its
more massive slumps and many setbacks in the quest to not only
find acts that have the talent to create great music, but to have
it happen on a regular basis ever after. It is at least a clear
turn for the good when a band that broke up finds their way back
together stronger than ever, and sends out a release that is
clearly a step forward while also packing an emotional wallop - it
bodes well for everyone involved. The success-cut-short story of
Britain's premiere beautiful noise/shoegazers The Verve, was nothing
short of a tragedy when they crashed and burned in late 1995,
quitting right in the middle of their tour for _Northern Soul_ .
Melodramatic? Maybe. Cliched? Probably. But even the most
cynical think-they've-heard-it-all types will find it difficult to
not be moved by the Verve's interpretation of what it's like to
re-join life in progress.
With the release of _Urban Hymns_ - I dare say the Verve
sound almost...happy? Well, Richard Ashcroft and Nick McCabe have
mended their ways and their relationship, Simon Jones and Peter
Salisbury are still the thunder and lightning of the storm, and
they've added a second guitarist, Simon Tong. So maybe they
aren't exactly leaping up and down, but after the overweening
sadness of _Northern_ , _Urban Hymns_ feels like their way of
giving thanks for just being alive. From the opening swells of
sonic strings and electronic bird trills in the lead track/first
single "Bitter Sweet Symphony" , you gain an immediate sense that
dealing with the experiences of real life, both good and painful,
is better than the agony and lack of control that drugs only
sharpen. Ashcroft's vocals have moved away from the keening warble
so prevalent on previous releases, and have extended into a gentle
Neil Finn/Crowded House tenor on many of the tracks. Even when he
moves into the higher ranges, it doesn't seem so painful - just damn
powerful. The second single, an acoustic and simple testament to
getting sober, "The Drugs Don't Work" , says it all.
_Urban Hymns_ is another lengthy effort, over 75 minutes
(which includes hidden tracks), but there's a lot more going on
than their trademark ethereal painting-with-sounds. Oh, never fear,
it's got the known-quantity Verve - great orchestral swellings of
keyboards and effects with Ashcroft rising and falling over the
melody, which are consistent with what drew people to the band in
the first place. What gives this release validity are the songs
that move far away from this norm. Their worth is proved with
the experimentation of everything from a trippy, glammy groove
in "The Rolling People" which, even though a seven minute song, flows
and pounds with all the insistence and energy of a high tide - to
the bouncy staccato backbone of "This Time" .
The Verve then proceeds to take on the Brit-pop sound
currently being defined by certain bands who shall remain
nameless (due to far too much publicity as it is), and stamps their
own distinctive emotion all over the second half of the disc, and
leave you stunned with their ability to do so much with so little.
To this end, the naked longing in a string of moody, simply
arranged songs with much toned-down guitars finds that they can
communicate their feelings just as well as when they deliver one
of their big, sweeping pieces. From "Space and Time" (if I had
a vote, I'd say make this a single) to "Lucky Man" , Ashcroft does
indeed sound like a supplicant giving thanks to the higher power
guiding him. In love and in music, he has found his calling.
The closing track "Come On" blends a little bit of the
old and new, psychedelic and heavy and echoey and swoony - to
Ashcroft's voice soaring and beckoning from above, and then
barking out defiantly 'Fuck you!', railing against whatever might
hold him down. Given the soundtrack feel of this disc, it is
fitting that it is the end credits. Anger, love, passion, hope,
and for once, a sense of purpose, even if you know life ain't so
great all the time. How's that for a real life happy ending?
---
INTERVIEW: Ben Folds Five (1996)
- Joe Silva
There's really no way that you can think of the piano as
one of pop's truly maligned instruments. Now the bassoon;
that's an entirely different matter. When was the last time
you heard the grandaddy woodwind coming to the fore of a
chart topper? Motown and Christmas 1970 are the only
clues I can offer without giving it away entirely. But while
there was much keyboard figuring into rock's nascent
moments, it's been backhanded and relegated to a second
class status ever since. Ergo, all the fuss afforded the Ben
Fold's Five since the release of their self titled debut last
year. Forget Keith Emerson, forget the former Mr. Christie
Brinkley, and for the moment you can put aside Elton as
well. So fervent was the noise that the North Carolina trio
was eventually asked to offset the power chords reigning
over Lolla-Metallica's mainstage this year and give the indie
kids something to gawk at on stage B.
While en route to one of those aforementioned gigs, Ben
Folds stepped out of the confines of their stylish Ryder
rental and phoned in from a truck stop for the following:
Consumable: Where you guys approached for the second
stage thing or did you want to be on it in particular?
Ben Folds Five: Well I think probably everybody want to be
on it. I'm not sure how it came about, but I think we were
asked to do it. Based on our positioning on the second stage
where we're basically opening up for the headliner. I don't
think this was one of those things that we got bought on to,
but you never know.
C: Is it comfortable to do, going from city to city for
this type of carnival thing?
BF: It's probably not bad. They just tell you when to show
up. They've got the piano to deal with stage wise, so we'll
probably have to be there before everyone else.
C: When I saw you play here, it didn't look like a
tremendous piano. I mean, you wouldn't think it would
be too difficult to cart around between, say three people.
Maybe I'm wrong.
BF: It's a thousand pound piano, and that was a big stage
with a lot of distance between everybody. I don't know,
put that thing in your living room and then check it out
(laughs). It's big.
C: Since the record came out back in, what, July last
year, has the material started to wear thin a bit?
BF: The rigor of six nights a week and some of the
traveling that we've been doing has made it seem like it
wears thin sometimes, but I think we're just in time for the
new record. It'll be a relief to play those songs in the middle
of a set where people don't know the new stuff. We have
hit that dirged out, shitty feeling very much. A couple of
times. Right now we're learning how to hold the songs back
and that may sound stupid, but we're really excited about it.
We're not playing too fast all of sudden.
C: You have stuff done up for the next record already?
BF: Yeah, I was just in the back of the Ryder on the couch
going through the number of possible songs. It's somewhere
around thirty solid, good starts.
C: And you've gen'd all that stuff up while traveling?
BF: A lot of it. I'm a real slow writer. I don't really write
that much. You know, I'll have an idea and three or four
years later, it's kind of mulled over in my head and turned
into something else. In fact one of the songs from the first
album, "Video", was for the most part finished when I was
in high school. It just kind of got the final touch on it right
before we [recorded]. So it's not like I've been slaving over
for ten years (laughs)! About half of what I'm walking on
now, the seeds are a year or so ago.
C: Are you guys sticking with Caroline Records for the
next one?
BF: No, we signed with Epic/550 a few months after the
record came out.
C: Was there any reason in particular? Was this a
distribution type thing?
BF: Well there was a lot of reasons, but it basically came
down to is with the kind of music we're making and the
direction we're going, it wasn't going to remain an honest
situation to remain with a label whose specialty is another kind of
music. For the first album I think it was an interesting thing
that we barely lapped over enough into the indie world by
the nature of what we were doing - it had some hint of
rebellion in there. And for them, they're an indie that goes just
enough into the side of pop music to where it worked out.
But beyond that, they're a grass roots organization and if
we write hit songs, it's hard for them to be hits. I'm sure
they would like to do that, but honestly, I think what they're
good at is discovering really cool stuff and making it work
in a real musical grass roots way. If we had been on a major
label, we would have been screwed. Not screwed by the
label, but screwed by circumstances. We wouldn't have had to
fight up from nothing like we had to and that gives
you a lot of stamina.
C: Is it getting to be a bit of a drag having to continually
talk about why your playing the piano and not a guitar?
BF: Nah, because I'm happy that they're noticing that and
it's setting us apart. We knew that was going to be the case
when we started. We could only hope that we would have
some kind of distinction. Think of how many bands are out
there. I mean we don't want to wear make up to stand out.
So the piano is a very dignified way of standing out in the
crowd. I don't mind talking about the piano because I play
it all the time.
C: I thought it was fun seeing the fair amount of abuse
you give it during a performance like lying on your back and
launching the stool at the keys.
BF: That was in lieu of diving into it. I had a broken rib
and I was wheezing through the gig. And when it was over I
was in a funny mood and I wanted to dive into it, which I
sometimes do, but I was hurting too bad.
C: You broke a rib?
BF: Yeah, I broke it doing the video [for the single "Uncle
Walter" ]. I dove off a box onto Darren [Jesse, drummer]
and he wasn't ready for me and I landed my full weight on
his knee.
C: Are you still doing the "Video Killed the Radio Star"
cover? I was amazed at how people just lost their minds
over it.
BF: Actually we're sort of getting ready to retire that. We
chose that song because there was a compilation album
coming out from Elektra of well known bands doing covers
of one hit wonders. Elektra just gives you a catalogue to
chose from and there's thousands of these one hit wonder
songs. You know they're all funny for a second, but then
you think "Fuck, this is a terrible song." Because with most
one hit wonders, truth is, they're horrible songs. This song
was one that once you get below the campy stuff, it really
has a cool sentiment to it and a lot of energy. The original's
not that energetic, and we put it in people's faces a little
more and they realize how much they really like it, because
it's a really good song.
C: Have you had any odd reactions from playing a song
like "Underground" which seems like a poke in the ribs at
indie culture, in front of this mass of alternative fans.
BF: It's like self-deprecation kinda. If you were like a Ray
Stevens or something singing about [inserts twangy vocal
here] 'them damn kids today..', it obviously comes from
an outside point of view. But this is so obviously from
within. Besides, people love making fun of themselves
anyway. It's kind of like being a hipster, scenester type in a
small town and everyone's walking around going 'There's a
couple of hipsters, they know what's going on.' But the
truth is they're looking at you saying the same thing if your
onto the same vibe. It's been cool to be cool for too long
now and now it's cool not to be cool.
INTERVIEW: Ben Folds Five (1997)
- Lang Whitaker
With his scrawny legs scissored wide open and all of his 130
pounds balanced precariously on a teetering drum stool, Ben Folds bobs
up and down while his hands furiously massage the 88 keys stretched
before him. His face fixed with an open-mouthed gape, Folds leans back
from the piano while bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jesse
show no mercy to their respective instruments. Folds delivers
alternating forearm shivers and foot stomps to the ivory, as the
crowd starts singing complicated doo-wop harmonies along with Sledge
and Jesse.
In the midst of the madness, Folds swivels to his right and
gives a goofy, slap-happy grin to the audience, who dutifully erupt
in appreciation. This moment of Zen is immediately interupted by
Sledge, who has unstrapped his bass and laid it across the closed
lid of Folds' baby grand. Unplugging the instrument, Sledge gently
touches the live-wire in his hands directly to the cardioid pick-ups
on the bass. An ungodly bassified belching noise loud enough to restore
Helen Keller's hearing shudders the venue. Pleased, Sledge begins tapping
out a funk inflected rhythm that sounds like a Morse Code call for help.
A smiling Jesse picks up the beat on the drums and runs with it. Not
wanting to be left out, Folds abandons his kung-fu playing style, rips
his microphone from the mike stand, and shoves it deep inside the
piano's lid. By scraping the mike back and forth across the metal
strings of the piano, Folds replicates a record scratching; the D.J.
in this junkyard rap band.
Listening to the bombastic sound generated by the three-piece
band, you're harkened back to the days when Elton John used to actually
sing fast songs. If piano rock has indeed returned, Ben Folds Five is
riding shotgun. BF5's bizarre yet melodic mix of show tunes and punk
rock blends together surprisingly well, possibly something like George
Gershwin would have sounded like if he'd grown up with a Marshall
stack. BF5's explosive sound bounced them out of the Chapel Hill, North
Carolina scene where they began, on to Caroline, and eventuaally snagged
them a major label deal with Sony/550 Music. Their first release with Sony,
last year's clevely titled _Whatever And Ever Amen_ , has done very
well in the states, and even better in, strangely enough, Japan and
England.
During a recent respite from shooting a video for their newest
single, "Brick," in Beverly Hills, BF5 bass player Sledge checked in
with Consumable while weighing options on an off day in L.A. "I thought
about going to Disneyland or the Universal Studios Tour," said Sledge,
"but I've got this amazing hotel room, and it's got a stereo in it with
auxilliary inputs. That means musicians can totally screw up a stereo
at that point. So, I'm doing that today."
After spending the greater part of the last two years on the
road, the BF5 live experience has grown tighter than Richard Simmons'
perm. According to bassist Sledge, "We're trying to be big, musical,
and entertaining, and entertain ourselves. We have this problem where
we keep trying to make ourselves more and more aggressive and more and
more large the more we play, because we're trying to stay interesting
to ourselves. So, people who saw us last year will come back now and
see a new show, and they'll be floored. They're like 'Oh my God! You
guys are like...devils now!', because we haven't stopped touring. We've
kept working on it, and so it's just gotten really out of hand."
The scary part of all of this is that there are still
territories uncharted by BF5. Part of this past summer was spent
touring with a string section, which Sledge really enjoyed. "It was
really, really interesting to have a string section on tour with you.
Everything has to be perfect. String players are really high strung,"
Sledge puns, "and they live in string player world. They try to really
relate and they try to do all these things, but at the end of the day,
I grew up learning Led Zeppelin songs, and they grew up learning
Mozart. But, we did really come together on a lot of things, and it
was really gigantic and a lot of fun."
A lot of fun is obviously the driving force behind BF5. No
matter where they take their self-proclaimed "Punk rock for sissies",
good times and strange situations find them, even in the land down
under - Australia.
"We were on this TV show called 'The Mid-Day Show'. When you
go to a foreign country, you have no expectations at all- you don't
know what it's going to be. So we get (to 'The Mid-Day Show'), we do
the soundcheck, and everything's cool. There's a bunch of
thirty-something aged people walking around, doing cables, monitors,
setting up the lights. Then they drew the curtains for the show and
said (fake announcer voice) "Ladies and Gentlemen, Ben Folds Five!!",
and everybody in the audience was over 50 years old!"
'So, we get up there and we're doing "One Angry Dwarf (and 200
Solemn Faces)", and we're raising hell. The only way we really know
how to play that song is to just go for it. And the way we end that
song, is usually Ben picks up the stool that he's sitting on, and the
final resolve of the song is him smashing the keys with the stool.'
"Well, Ben picked up the drum stool and tossed it into the
piano. We ended the song and felt really happy. The crowd goes wild,
because they've never seen anything like that in their life."
"The show goes out live on Australian TV, and so when they
cut to a commercial, the Australian band director-guy (Jeff Harvey)
comes up and he goes (in Aussie accent) 'You assholes; damn Americans.
That's my piano, you know?' He was tearing us a new asshole! You would
not believe how upset this guy was! He was just going on and on. Ben
just kind of walked away and said 'Cool man...'. And then the guy
starts cussin' at me, and I wouldn't listen to him, and he cussed our
sound guy, and he wouldn't listen to him.
"And then he gets back from commercial, and he had them replay
Ben throwing the stool, and he goes on and on about how 'musical
instruments shouldn't be treated that way...there's 40,000 Australian
bands who would love to be on...I don't know why we had this band
on...there's nothing musical about them'...(starts laughing
hysterically)...it was awful!! I mean, it was amazing for us..."
And therein lies the attraction- three guys who call themselves
five ("We liked the alliteration of Ben Folds Five," said Ben) and
actually enjoy getting cussed out on live TV by Australian band
leaders. For those of you under BF5's spell, look towards January, 1998
for a compilation release of B-sides and live tracks (through Caroline),
which Sledge says will also include a few covers. Tie down your piano
stools, Ben Folds Five is coming on strong.
---
CONCERT REVIEW: Beastie Boys, T in the Park Festival, Scotland
- Robin Lapid
Have you ever been to an outdoor festival -- in the summer,
mind you -- where the rain pounds on you relentlessly and you slosh
around in mud for 10 to 48 hours? Apparently this is de rigueur in
England. Unfortunately, being from sunny California, I wasn't quite
prepared for Scotland's cold and wet welcome at this year's Tennants
in the Park Festival in Kinross. About ready to ditch the bands and
prevent hypothermia, I resolutely decided to stick around for the
Beastie Boys' 9 p.m. set. Thank goodness I did.
Dressed strangely, albeit somewhat appropriately, in lab
coats and knee-high rain boots, the three MC's, along with DJ MixMaster
Mike of the Invisibl Skratch Picklz and old friend "Money Mark" Nishita
on keyboards, delivered old-skool flava with new-skool vibes. Apart
from headliners Pulp, this was probably the most anticipated set of
the day, considering the four-year wait for the Beasties' newest
album, _Hello Nasty_.
That considered, the performance was loose but fun, and showed
clear signs that the now-thirtysomething trio are still getting settled
into playing live again. AdRock, Mike D, and MC Adam Yauch set it all
off with "Shake Your Rump" from second-album masterpiece _Paul's
Boutique_. The hyper-raps on this track felt slightly neutralized by
MixMaster Mike's super-scratching, but the playful vibe still won out,
and it's a treat to hear the old-skool roots take over from _Ill
Communication_'s less rap-heavy fare. If you weren't jumping and
cheering along at the opening lines of this track, you would be for
the rest of the set -- not just because of the crowd's energy, but
also so you didn't sink into the mud. Spurred on by the crowd's
collective jump-start into the festival spirit, they showed off their
stop-action robotic moves and ran through a bunch of Nasty tracks as
well as greatest hits, including "So Whatcha Want," "Root Down," "Super
Disco Breakin'," and "Intergalactic."
From the between-set banter (including a lot of shout-outs to
nonviolence and world peace), the setlist and the vibe seemed pretty
flexible. "Yo, what song we doin' next?" asks MCA as the boys take an
impromptu vote amongst themselves. AdRock shouts out the opening lines
to "So Whatcha Want" with gangsta fury only to have everyone abruptly
start over. He shrugged his shoulders and explained to the crowd with
a smile, "Sorry, sorry...these things happen sometimes, you know."
Their punk roots also figured heavily, with the three getting
behind their instruments and banging out tracks like "Egg Raid On Mojo"
and "Sabotage," of course, which was part of the mix-mastered encore
that gamely teased us with samples from "Brass Monkey." Non-song
highlights included a birthday cake in the face of their tour manager,
and Money Mark ending the set by smashing his keyboards like a banshee.
The 3 MC's walked off quietly, with cordial goodbyes and smiles all
round. After a good 40-minute workout, the mud in my shoes was now a
warm, comforting goo.
---
INTERVIEW: Dave Matthews
- Dan Enright
Dave Matthews and his band appear to have sprung full
blown on the US music scene, but the reality is they're
another 5 year "overnight" success. If your only contact
with the band is the radio/video single, "What Would You
Say?" that's currently making the rounds, you aren't getting
the whole picture. This multi-talented group successfully
mixes jazz, pop, folk, and rock & roll to create a style that
is distinctly their own - and much more sophisticated than
most of the music that graces the air waves.
I caught up with Dave on one of the few days off from
his 200 dates-a-year touring schedule. Here's his view of being
a musician/songwriter and his first major label release, _Under
The Table and Dreaming_.
Consumable: What's been the biggest difference between
playing for yourself and being a professional musician?
Dave Matthews: With the grace of success comes certain
obligations. You have to perform, so there's confines on it that
can become frustrating. But that's why we have time off. You
lose the power to write, which is my real passion. There's not
too much inspiration for me to write on the road. The motel
rooms and highways haven't got a terrific appeal - but it's
still fun. The two hours we spend on stage every day is the
thing that keeps it all worthwhile. If it wasn't for that, I
certainly wouldn't be traveling around the country.
C: It's good you've kept that joy of performing.
DM: If we were to play the music exactly the same way
and do the same thing every night - the same set - then it
could get dull. But we try to keep it fresh because we feel, if
we're not having a good time with the music then people aren't
going to have a good time. Not really. They might come and say,
"Well, that was cool... They were good..." but to really appeal
to people, whether it's all of the audience or five people that
are really wanting to get thrilled, we can really reach those
people only if we're really havin' a good time.
C: That connection of the performer with the audience -
the pocket - is the real magic of music.
DM: Absolutely. It happens in different ways. Sometimes
it's because of us and sometimes it's regardless of us. Some
nights it's like, "Ok, we've gotta' go out, we gotta' play
now..." It's unusual, but if your spirit's down or you're low,
the next two hours seem like a real big thing. But there's a
thousand or five thousand people that have come to see us and
now we have to reach to the deepest quarter in your body, the
furthest spot in your soul and find the strength to put on the
show they'll feel was more than worth their coming out. That
happens some nights, then I think there's that pocket that is
more the road, from working and working. We reach that pocket
sometimes. But I know the pocket you're talking about, which is
almost like being in heaven, when you're not even there. That
has happened occasionally, too.
C: How does the songwriting and arranging work?
DM: On the albums, the way they've been recorded or the
songs we've chosen - up to this point I've brought the songs to
the band - here's the song, here's the melody, and here's the
music - now let's arrange it. What voices do we want, where do
we want to put them? Considering every single person a voice,
how do we want to treat it? So that becomes a discussion we all
have.
Now what's happening is there's songs I'm working on,
but there's also songs coming out of soundchecks - 'cause we're
on the road all the time. We're playing six, seven days a week,
so the only time we get to be creative is during soundchecks, if
it's long enough. So, what I think is, the next album will
reflect more whole-band arrangements and compositions and I'll
probably just stay as the sole lyricist. At the beginning it
was all songs I've written, then it's sort of been both, and
now it's going to lean toward the band doing a lot of it as well.
C: Is that due to the band being together so long?
DM: Yeah, everyone's roles are very important. These are
the same five people that were together the first day we played
in the basement. There's no change. It's not me and a band. The
name was deceiving more because of the lack of a name than it is
a name.
C: Well, you're the front man.
DM: It's not really how the band works. People who have
seen us live see it's definitely a five piece band and it comes
across that way. There's no dancing around me, we're all dancing
around the same thing. I think a lot of people that come to see
us realize, "Whoa! It's not focused on him."
The way I see it is, if one of us goes, we have to
carefully think about whether or not all of us should go. Every
member of the band - whatever it appears to people outside,
inside all five of us are equal and have as much right to shout
and say, "No! That's wrong..." or "That's right..." or "Change
that..." or "That's screwed up... " or "I have something to say
now, so I'm going to say it..." Which I think is good. There's
a lot more volatility, but that's healthy.
C: How do the lyrics develop?
DM: My approach to lyrics is, I don't want to be trite -
although on occasion triteness is good - but I don't want to be
too preachy. That's a little rule I made for myself. I do feel
very strongly about things that unify us, fears that unify and
separate us, and love people have...everyone likes sugar.
I was very lucky in my upbringing to be exposed to really
special people and my family had a lot of generous-spirited ideas.
I think that it's important of me to try and get that in my
lyrics: a sympathy and generosity toward anyone listening, with
occasional weird stories or frightening things that people in
general might be able to understand. Whether or not they're
going to be able to understand exactly what I'm talking about -
often it's impossible 'cause I'm not talkin' about exactly
anything [chuckle] - but to get a feeling.
I'm just trying to not write another "Baby I Love You/Baby
Don't Leave Me/Baby You Drove Me Down/Baby I'm Mad At You" or
another "I'm Gonna Rock You/I'm Gonna Rock You Down..." just
rock & roll. I know there's a lot of lyricists out there that
don't. They're people I look at and I think that's admirable. I
don't know where my lyrics come from. They're still my most
feared part of music because I'm just not confident about them.
C: You have to trust they'll come when ya need em.
DM: Yeah. I'm afraid of words because they can be
misunderstood. In some of the lyrics I'll have changes and other
times, exactly what's there is what I sang. Take the song "Pay
For What You Get". That one fell out like brick work. "Typical
Situation" took more time. That one seemed more difficult.
"Dancin' Nancies" wasn't too long, but that also had a lot more
lyrics to it than what's on the song. Usually, those edits
happened before we got to the studio.
C: I thought "What Would You Say" seemed out of place
with the rest of the album. Did you include it so RCA would
have a single to release?
Dave : We didn't do that one with anything in mind. It
was a song that [producer] Steve Lillywhite liked, so we did
that. I think one of the things that makes it stand out is it's
got different instruments on it. The way we approached that
song when we were recording it, was very humorously. It's
definitely the pop song on the album, which made me reluctant
to release it as a single. So we didn't release a single, but
they did release that to radio first, so it came across as a
single.
C: And as a video, right?
DM: Yeah. We made that after the album was recorded. It
had been chosen as the single for radio, so we just went ahead
and made it.
C: It doesn't really capture the spirit of the album though...
DM: That's why I didn't want to release it. We thought
people could hear that and think, "Oh! Well, that's a wacky song."
and then assume the rest of the album would be less wacky. It's
kind of a trite and joking and mocking of itself, because it's
nonsensical. Which is what's happening in the video. What we were
kind of shooting at was the emphasis being on the emptiness, with
lots of music. I'd love to do that experiment - if you took a
really wacked out song and played it over and over again on the
radio, it would sail. I always wanted to do that with a song
like "Satellite".
Check out the Dave Matthews band - they're touring all
over the world, and _Under The Table and Dreaming_ is receiving
airplay everywhere.
---
REVIEW: His Boy Elroy, His Boy Elroy
- Bob Gajarsky
Seattle, Washington has been the breeding ground to
many of the hottest bands around. However, in proving that
there are other bands from the Seattle area, His Boy Elroy has
taken a decidedly different approach to receiving airplay.
Rather than cashing in on the grunge-fad, main man Johnny Fly
has produced an album that leans heavily on the psychedelic
90's sound from British artists such as Jesus Jones, E.M.F.,
and the Soup Dragons to generate a new, catchy sound.
The first single from the His Boy Elroy album,
"Chains", weaves accessible music with lyrics strife with
references to Nancy Friday's classic book of female sexual
fantasy, "The Secret Garden". Phil Harding and Ian Curnow, who
worked on the recent Jesus Jones album, have remixed "Chains"
to bring the most out of the song.
In the song, "Fly", His Boy Elroy produces a song that
sounds like a combination of George Michael meets "Willie and
the Hand Jive". An odd combination, to be sure, but not unlike
others on the album. "Free" utilizes a "Theme From Shaft"-style
introduction, and "Receiving Me" uses the distorted, jangly guitar
sound prominent that brought the Charlatans and Stone Roses fame.
The entire album, which also includes potential future singles
"Fade To Black" and "Don't Leave Me", doesn't have a weak track
from start to finish.
Not unlike Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Fly has
bolstered the group's lineup while on the road. A full fledged
band is touring with Fly to help re-create the sound produced
in the studio. A summary? The eponymously titled debut is simply
one of this year's must-get purchases.
---
INTERVIEW: Squirrel Nut Zippers' Tom Maxwell (1995)
- Dan Enright
For those readers who don't know, the Squirrel Nut Zippers are
a seven piece swing jazz band from North Carolina that recently released
their debut self titled album on Mammoth Records. In case you wondered,
they've borrowed their name from a chewy, peanut-flavored confection
made in Massachusetts. While they've been influenced by small jazz "Hot Bands"
from the '20s and '30s, don't make the mistake of thinking they're mired
in the past. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Unleashed by founders Katherine Whalen (banjo, vocals) and James
Mathus (guitar, vocals), they've recruited Tom Maxwell (guitar, vocals,
percussion), Don Raleigh (string bass), Chris Phillips (drums), Ken Mosher
(alto/baritone sax, guitar, vocals) and Stacy Guess (trumpet) to bring
evening gown and tuxedo clad dance music to the world.
I recently spoke with guitarist and resident musical historian, Tom
Maxwell about the bands roots and style. So, without further ado...
Consumable: What's the philosophy behind this project?
Tom: We're trying to capture emotional content and feeling. I was
talking to the bass player before the interview and was reminded of the
parable of the blind men and the elephant. And basically, music can serve
as the elephant. It's a constant and it's universal, just like human
feeling. You can get bound by convention, which will obviously become
obsolete as it always does, but music is a constant. That's what we're
really interested in.
C: The members of the band come from a "college
radio/contemporary rock background. What inspired you to pursue this type
of music?
T: I started listening to this music in '88 when I was playing
rock and roll. I picked up Cab Calloway and was blown away! To me, it was
rock as much as anything else I heard, except it was a little bit more
subtle.
It's the difference between real and implied threat. I like Sonic
Youth a lot but their threat is real, whereas Cab Calloway singing "You
Rascal You" - I just couldn't get enough and started listening to Fats
Waller and everything else. When I became friends with Jim and Katherine
I found that they liked a lot of that music too. We would get together,
have dinner, and play records for each other.
C: A music club...
T: Oh yeah. It was a blast! So, I don't know. Is that
an accurate answer?
C: I don't know either..
T: Jim was, "I'm forming a jazz band." I was like, "Terrific,
that's great." But we never sit around and discuss authenticity, or what's
appropriate and what's not appropriate. We just get together and play. I
have a working knowledge of the history of a lot of the small band swing,
but most of the people in the band don't. They listen to all kinds of
music. We just intuitively know how to make the same sound.
C: You're contemporary musicians with a love for this
style of music so you're updating it...
T: Precisely. Jazz abandoned a lot of the tenets of this kind
of music in the '40s and went on and played Bop, that kind of music. This
kind of swing was enormously popular for a generation, so I can see that
people were ready to try something else. But rock and jazz never went
back and picked up on what I think is tremendously fertile ground.
This swing we're playing is so natural, such an easy thing to do
and in many ways lends itself to whatever you want to do with it. I feel
we are picking up a strain someone put down a few years ago. Which is
antithetical to the idea of recreating something, or trying to pander to
nostalgia. So, yes. That's what we're doing. We're updating it. I think
it's as viable right now as it was then.
C: And your lyrics are definitely contemporary...
T: Yeah. "Danny Diamond" is about a high school transvestite
Ken knew. That song is an example of bizarre subject matter and "Plenty
More" is... I still don't know how to take that song. I wrote the thing
and my friend John wrote the lyrics... I think it can be taken any number
of ways. I think most great music has a sense of irony to it. Hopefully we
do too and can get that across.
C: This album is twelve songs out of how many total in
your catalogue?
T: Oh gosh, upwards of 40. Since the time we've done this
record, we've written enough material for the second. And by the time we
get around to recording the second record, we'll probably have written
half the material for the next one. We work at a frenetic pace. There are
four songwriters in the band so there is never a dearth of material.
C: How does the songwriting work? Do you each write
complete songs, or do you collaborate...?
T: We each bring in a full song. I, or Jimbo, will write a song
and lyrics and bring it in... but then the song becomes "zipperized!" So
it doesn't do any good to have the thing down in your head. You can have a
chord progression worked out and a melody line, sometimes we'll have horn
ideas, most of the time we just go, "Play what you want." That's so
exciting because you end up with a song you never would have been able to
do on your own.
C: Everyone owns the song, in a sense...
T: And the song will never sound like it does unless the band
is playing it. Which is why we decided to split up royalties. The person
who wrote the chord progression will get the bulk of it. But the way we're
going about it, whoever played on the recording is entitled to a cut,
because in many ways they helped bring the song together. I think it's a
southern way of doing things. Each individual player is... we leave it up
to them as to what they want to play or how they want to interpret the
thing. What they want to add to it. And everyone does it well. It's one
of the true pleasures of playing in this band.
C: I wanted to ask you about your "image"...
T: A lot of people assume we have a marketing savvy which we
simply do not posses. They're like, "The clothes are important! What about
the clothes?" And that's something I wanted to talk about. When I first
got into the band, I fucking got a tuxedo, toot-sweet! For a number of
reasons. One, I saw pictures of Cab Calloway looking like a million bucks,
so why not? Wearin' that white tuxedo with all those paper mache lightning
bolts? Who wouldn't want to look like that? I certainly do!
The other thing is, I always get nervous and there is a certain
ritual to putting on a tuxedo. Mine has become quite elaborate. There's
all these studs and buttons and shit you put on. It's a ritual to help
assuage my bad nerves. I have found wearing these clothes, most of us
dress like this anyway. Jimbo and Stacy, if they didn't have day jobs,
would be wearin' a suit all day long.
There's a certain respect that is implied when you go on stage
wearing, say, tails. Not only are you showing respect for the music, you
are showing respect for the people for whom you're playing the music. If
you come on starin' at your shoes, ripped hole in your jeans, that's
fine. There's a lot of good stuff that has come out of the do-it-yourself
attitude in music. But that should not preclude a certain ritualism, or
properness, or just wanting to look good. People respond positively to
that.
C: That's how the original performers of this music
dressed.
T: And let's face it. When you are a performer, you are just
that. You're doing stuff that most people don't want to, or don't feel
they can do. You are, by definition, separating yourself from the
audience. So any attitude you take is going to be contrived. It's going
to be artifice.
You can study being nonchalant, wearing torn tennis shoes. I
mean a lot of young rock bands have paid the same kind of attention to
their clothes and attitude as we do. They simply are trying to look sort
of everyday. But they're still doing the exact same thing we are, dressing
up in monkey suits. So, to me it's all the same.
C: Do you think your costume colors the perception of
your performance?
T: Sure. And it also enhances the way we play. You just play
differently when you're wearing a tuxedo. When you're looking really good,
you change somehow. You play a little better, or more respect, or be more
attentive to what you're trying to do.
INTERVIEW: Squirrel Nut Zippers' Tom Maxwell (1997)
- Joe Silva
As is right by most Amerindie standards, the stage of
Athens, Georgia's 40 Watt Club remains the unadorned
pedestal of several generations of DIY rock heroes and
associated wannabees. Typically met at all flanks by
clutches of boho-baggy clad boys and girls who are usually
greeted by the mumbles and indirect glances of those they've
come to worship, the welcome cry of "Buh-ruthers
and Sistas!!" goes out to meet the throng. In the half-light,
evening jackets and strands of faux pearls can be seen
muscling for hip swinging room alongside the staid band shirts
and random piercings. The Squirrel Nut Zippers take the
stage armed with swing, smiles, and a flu bug that's
unoticeably tagged a few key members. The horns are
phat, the furnace is lit, and the the first congo lines
probably ever seen within the club's dingy walls are
drawn in the sands of the altera-nation. A day or so
later, Tom Maxwell elucidates from a hotel room the
satisfaction of the post-inaugural buzz and the stress
of being hot.
Consumable: Someone at the label (Mammoth) told me you were
sick during the Athens show.
Tom Maxwell: Oh yeah, absolutely. It's a winter tour
my friend. Jim (Mathus) and Katharine (Whalen) had
to actually go to the doctor. In fact, I spent the first
song and a half deciding whether or not I was going
to pass out.
C: And you had just come from the Inaugural didn't you?
TM: Yes, we played the inaugural ball. What a
whirlwind. We played a Rock The Vote party
the night before at this restaurant called the Red
Sage and astoundingly enough it made the front cover
of the Wall Street Journal, "Hottest party in town,
music by the Squirrel Nut Zippers." It was basically
like a frat party because there was too many Goddamned
people in there, but everybody looked great and one
of them happened to be Kevin Costner. Every so often
I'd turn around and there would be Uma Thurman or something.
C: I know there were a lot of parties up there, but was
there any sort of theme to the gig you played?
TM: Yeah, we were at the 21st Century Ball, the so-called
youth Ball and it was held at the Postal Museum.
C: So were you guys onstage when the President came in?
TM: No, I don't think anyone was onstage, because when
he comes in, they have a big 'ol lockdown and they pick
a few representatives from each band to come up. So like
a clutch of security guys come in and gather up everybody
in some room and basically I got to peek through a
curtain at the back of his head. However, Jim and Katharine
were onstage and they got to meet the President and
Vice-President and their wives. They were thrilled
to death. It's incredibly surreal.
C: Didn't you guys do a long engagement at the Olympics?
I remember thinking that when the bomb went off, that you
were one of the bands down there that week.
TM: We had played our last show the night before and I guess
it happened late Friday night, early Saturday morning. We
had really been held up getting out of town because the
President was coming in. So we go up to Asheville and play
a show and somebody comes up to us and says "Did you
hear about the bomb?" and we were just crushed. That
experience had been so positive for us. There was really
a good spirit there...a great spirit. For whatever reason,
we were part of a southern music showcase, and they
put us up in a dump of a motel but with all these
great cajun fiddlers, Austin two-step bands, American
Indian singers. So we all instantly congregated on the
deck outside of the bar and held jam sessions nightly until
six in the morning each night. And soon the performances
at Centennial Parl became secondary to these incredible
jam sessions that would take place.
C: Now just taking those two events into account, do you
guys consider yourselves "made" yet?
TM: If anything we're going to have to start cloning ourselves
to meet the demands being made on our time. We just started
receiving some airplay on some big FM stations and now the
ballgame is starting to change. We've gone from the kind of
band where it's "Just do your records, and do your thing." to
"Jesus, we NEED a video and we need it right now!!" So we're
kind of stunned. We spend most of our time being exhausted.
C: Did you guys put out a video for this record?
TM: Yeah, well I got to direct a video for "Put the Lid On It,"
but then came the one-two punch of that it didn't turn out
to be the radio single and MTV wouldn't play it because we
intimated that we might burn a house down. We're shooting
the video for "Hell" the day we finish this tour. It's my
goal to set it up to be as much like the Lawrence Welk
show; the way it's lit and shot and the costumes. How can you get any
better than that? I really want it to look like a late 60's broadcast.
C: Now is the third record more or less in the can now?
TM: Yeah, just about. It's recorded, mostly
mixed and we're going to master it out on the west
coast. We recorded it in an old house in my hometown
of Pittsboro, North Carolina. We had convinced the
label to let us do it ourselves. Instead of going back
to a studio, we took the money that was going to
be advanced to us and bough or borrowed a bunch of
a recording equipment. We brought up Mike Napolitano
how worked with us on _Hot_, and we just set up
this house. I mean the plumbing needed fixing, the
foundation was rotting, the electric wiring was
primitive to say the least and the heat wasn't on.
We had to get all this shit fixed up, and get this
equipment in, but it was a good old North Carolina
house. One room has a high ceiling and it sounds
good, and every room has different personalities
and we made a record. However hectic and stressful
a time it was, I think we knocked one out of the park.
I think it's better than the first two put together. We
were able to realize more of the production sound
that we've been trying to go for even though we were basically
reinventing the wheel. Not everything worked out as well as we
would have liked, but I think it starts where _Hot_ left off.
C: So how will that work now? I think you called it
from the stage, that this would come out in Spring.
TM: Not even brother. Summer or fall. We're pushing
it back a little bit because somebody smells money
on _Hot_. We're going to strike a delicate balance,
because the band wants to keep rolling and putting
out material. I don't want "Hell" to be played into
the ground on FM radio and to have people get sick
of it. This new one is more like Big Star's _Third
Record_. The songwriting is really great, but there's
also times when things kind of break down. We were
making weirder sounds on this record than we ever have.
I feel like we've gone onto a new level. It was like we
were getting our sound on _The Inevitable_, we became
a live band for _Hot_, and then on this record there's
this new thing going on that's weird and great.
C: I know you guys are into people like Cab Calloway
and Fats Waller, but do you find yourselves going back
to that well for inspiration or is that music around
you so much that it's ingrained at this point?
TM: Both. I actually wrote a tribute song to Fats
Waller's guitar player Al Casey on this record.
I got to meet him and it was the thrill of my
life. And I wrote a song for him. There's also a
song on there that's kind of a tribute to Cab
Calloway. I really didn't think about it when I
wrote it, but when it came out, I was definitely
going for that Cotton Club orchestra sound. So I
always go to that well. But even our weirdest and
darkest moments, I think we retain some of that
sensibility even though on the face of it what we're
doing doesn't bear much of any resemblance. It's
just damn good music. Are you saying that we're
at the point now where we can be musically self-sufficient?
C: Yeah.
TM: I think we always have been in that we haven't
covered people's songs or lifted people's riffs. We've
just always tried to go for the emotional nut of the
thing and proceed from there.
C: Does anyone ever come up and accuse you of
being derivative in that sense?
TM: Never. Never to my face. If some people come
away feeling like that, they don't ever tell us
about it. Besides by and large, I don't think most
people have ever heard of these guys. Rock and roll
didn't pick up on a lot of the things that were in
pre-war jazz that we like and jazz disassociated
itself from it and denied it. And when they do talk
about Fats it's much more of a condescending thing.
I mean they can't deny how popular he was, but nobody
is interested in giving him credit. I think he was the
greatest thing in the world.
C: But it's amazing how now that you guys are htting your
stride, whether it's commercially or just getting a bigger
fan base, you see things like swing nights in Atlanta rock clubs.
TM: Well, that's cool. I don't know how much we had to do
with that. Of course everybody wants to contextualize
what we're doing, which is the last thing that we want to do.
C: What sort of response do you get from older people?
TM: Overwhelmingly positive when we can reach them.
For example, you're not going to reach these people
playing the 40 Watt in Athens. But when you do NPR
people hear it. When we play early shows in Chapel
Hill, for instance, we're able to get the twelve year
olds that love us and the seventy year olds. The people
seem to be universally excited about it. But the market
is devisive where they say "You fit into this six year
age range, by God, and we don't expect anybody else
to listen to this." And it can be extrapolated just
as easily to race. I talked to our label about how can
we get black people to come out and they looked at
me like I was from Mars. "They have their own charts."
is what was told to me. Which is true, but it's FUCKING insane!!
C: But considering some of the roots of the stuff you're
doing, it seems sort of logical.
TM: Sure, it did to me too, but that doesn't seem to
be theway that things work out. I mean there are black
people that are fans of ours, but the percentages are
infinitessimal. We don't even physically move in the same circles.
C: Is the dynamic changing for you at all now that things
are taking off?
TM: Well we just fired our bass player, which was a traumatic
thing to do. That was a thing where friction that might have
been there when we were all dishwashing chumps didn't
make a difference and now three or four years down the
road, we couldn't work together. It was very painful for
everybody. When money gets involved everything changes.
And when you're not allowed to get together in a relaxed
manner and enjoy each others company and play music, it's
a sad thing. When we see each other, it's associated with
being tired, sick, being on the road, humping and doing our
thing. But right now the band's getting along great. We
split the publishing money equally, not just to the songwriters.
But you know, I've been in the thing for three years now,
and one day it will derail, but I'm just trying to do the
best job I can now and see this thing through.
---
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