💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › ezines › textfiles › ezines › COSMIKDEBRIS › … captured on 2021-12-03 at 14:04:38.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ \\ \\ \\\\\\\\ \\ \\
\\ \ \\ \\ \\ \ \\\ \\\ \\ \\ \\
\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \ \ \\ \\ \\ \\
\\ \\ \\ \\\\ \\ \ \\ \\ \\\\\
\\ \\ \\ \\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\
\\ \ \\ \\ \ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\
\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ \\\\\\ \\ \\ \\\\\\\\ \\ \\
\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ \\\\\\ \\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\
\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \
\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\
\\ \\ \\\\\\ \\\ \\ \\\\\\ \\ \\\\
\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\\
\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \ \\
\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\ \\ \\ \\\\\\\\ \\\\\\
MAY, 1997 (Issue # 24)
- The Specialists -
DJ Johnson.................Editor
Wayne Burke................HTML
coLeSLaw...................Graphic Artist
Lauren Marshall............Administrative Assistant
Louise Johnson.............Administrative Assistant and
Keeper Of The Debris
- The Cosmik Writers -
Ann Arbor, coLeSLAw, Robert Cummings, Shaun Dale, Phil Dirt, Keith
Gillard, DJ Johnson, Louise Johnson, Steven Leith, Steve Marshall,
Rusty Pipes, Paul Remington, John Sekerka and David Walley.
____________________________________________________________________________
SOUND CLIPS AVAILABLE AT OUR WWW SITE
The following is a list of sound clips available at
http://www.cosmik.com/cosmikdebris, home of the
online version of Cosmik Debris. These are all
found in the current issue.
IN THE REVIEW SECTION
---------------------------------------------
Horace Andy: Roots & Branches (Reggae)
Backsliders: If You Talk To My Baby (Country/Rock)
Easy Big Fella: Rump Shaker (Ska)
Eric Marienthal: Tuesday's Delight (Jazz)
Los Meltones: Reef Patrol (Surf)
Pennywise: Get A Life (Punk)
V/A: Trash On Demand II - The Sinisters: Cap'n Weirdo (Punk/Power Pop)
Smokey Wilson: Too Drunk To Drive (Blues)
MERIDIAN ARTS ENSEMBLE INTERVIEW
---------------------------------------------
Big Swifty
Purple Haze
G.T. STRINGER INTERVIEW
---------------------------------------------
Scrapper
Surf Rescue
Time Out
Tsunami
(Plus a short clip called "Dipwad" found in
actual interview text)
___________________________________________________________________________
WE'RE GIVING AWAY LOTS OF STUFF, AS USUAL!
Make sure you take a moment to enter your name into our drawings. We're
giving away 5 copies of the new Meridian Arts Ensemble CD, 5 copies of G.T.
Stringer's latest CD, and one full set of 4 audiophile vinyl Jimi Hendrix
releases. Just send e-mail to moonbaby@serv.net with your name and the
contest you are entering. One entry per person, please, but you may enter
each of the contests. Good luck!
___________________________________________________________________________
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
SOUND FILES: A listing of the sound files available on our website that
correspond with this issue of Cosmik Debris.
EDITOR'S NOTES: Welcoming our new writer, Rusty Pipes.
AL HENDRIX - PAPA'S BRAND NEW BAG: Al Hendrix has always been an ambassador
for his late son, guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. As the family business,
Experience Hendrix, makes its first splash in the record biz, Al's
popping up in quite a few interviews. Hey, here's one now.
JANIE HENDRIX TAKES CARE OF BUSINESS: Jimi Hendrix is in the news and on the
new release list once again. After 27 years of alleged musical abuse by
what is now known as "the old regime," the Hendrix family is finally in
charge of the vaults. Jimi's half sister, Janie Hendrix-Wright, has taken
charge of the family business, Experience Hendrix. In this interview, she
talks about her family, lets us in on future plans for Jimi Hendrix
releases, and faces down her critics.
ACTIVE LISTENING - TUNING INTO JIMI FOR A BRAND NEW EXPERIENCE: Steve
Marshall takes a very close listen to each of the new releases from MCA
and Experience Hendrix, and compares them to previous versions. CDs and
180-gram audiophile vinyl, solo and head to head.
ON THE CUTTING EDGE - THE MERIDIANS CONTINUE TO SET THE PACE: The Meridian
Arts Ensemble has performed everything from intense classical works to
insightful interpretations of modern composers like Frank Zappa. Paul
Remington sat down with these extraordinary musicians after a concert
in Buffalo, New York.
G.T. STRINGER - SURF'S WONDER DOWN UNDER: A chat with Jim Redgate and Trevor
Ramsay of Australia's G.T. Stringer, who cover everything from record
collecting to stylish ways of wiping out on the big waves.
TAPE HISS (John Sekerka): Zine culture, tattoos, piercing, angry women,
comics... all of these things come into play as John presents separate
interviews with V. Vale and Andrea Juno.
RECORD REVIEWS: Bunches of stuff! Genre soup!
BETWEEN ZERO & ONE (Steven Leith): Is volunteerism the only logical
alternative to big government, or just the latest trend we can all get
carried away with?
PHIL'S GARAGE (Phil Dirt): Years of work behind the board in the studio has
taught Phil many things, and this month he shares some of his most
important pearls of wisdom. If you're part of a young band thinking about
making that first demo, you MUST read this.
WALLEY AT WITZEND (David Walley): This month, the tale of The Drugstore
Bohemian and the Great Poet.
STUFF I NOTICED (DJ Johnson): Remembering Pat Paulsen.
CLOSET PHILOSOPHY WITH RUSTY PIPES: Rusty tackles the V-Chip.
THE DEBRIS FIELD (Louise Johnson):
Movie reviews, poems, remembrances, concert reviews, and random stuff.
IF WE DON'T GET A LETTER THEN WE'LL KNOW YOU'RE IN JAIL: How do you write to
us? Here are some e-mail addresses to make it simpler.
____________________________________________________________________________
EDITOR'S NOTES
By DJ Johnson
Hi! We're running a little late because we just finished doing all our
interviews like... fifteen minutes ago, so I'll make this quick. Let's
see... Oh yeah! We have a new writer. His name is Rusty Pipes, and the
guy is good! Check out his new column, Closet Philosophy With Rusty Pipes.
And he also checked in with a review of a Firesign Theater release. Which
makes me crazy, not just because *I* wanted to review Firesign Theater, but
because, uh, he reviewed it so much better than I woulda. Damn him anyway.
So don't forget to wave to Rusty. He's waaaay in the back of the office in
the cubicle between the boiler room and Sparky Lou's desk. Sparky snores
real loud. Poor Rusty. That'll teach him, don't you think!?
We have all kinds of contest winners from last month, but because we changed
our entry forms, we don't know most of their names yet! A slight oversight
on somebody's part. Not mine, of course. But suffice to say that we had 15
winners spread all over the globe. Congratulations, whoever the hell you
all are.
Well, there's more, but we gotta go.
DJ
____________________________________________________________________________
PAPA'S BRAND NEW BAG: Checking In With The Patriarch Of The Hendrix Family
Al Hendrix interviewed by DJ Johnson
Many things have changed for the Hendrix family over the past few years,
but one thing has never wavered: they are extremely proud of Jimi. When
I was lucky enough to meet Al Hendrix 20 years ago, I was struck by the
bubbling pride and admiration he exhibited toward his late son. All these
years later, he still gets that "proud papa" tone when he talks about Jimi's
exploits and his music.
From the time of Jimi Hendrix's death (1970) until very recently, Al received
$50,000 per year from the group of businessmen now referred to as "the old
regime." He wasn't included in the decision process or any other phase of
the operation. In fact, he often didn't even know when new albums were
released. Many of the albums, once purchased by the family, left a bad
taste in their mouths, primarily because they didn't sound like anything
Jimi would have released. Studio musicians were brought in to finish basic
tracks at Electric Lady Studios, often playing competent but gutless
anonymous parts that seemed out of place behind Jimi's brilliant guitar work.
Those recordings have been the center of controversy ever since. Al, his
daughter Janie and other members of the Hendrix family resolved to gain
control of Jimi's recordings and, using a similar process with different
musicians, release them as they believe Jimi would have released them.
After a lengthy court battle, Al and his family got what they wanted. With
his daughter Janie (Jimi's half sister) in the driver's seat, Experience
Hendrix launched the first batch of recordings in April. Are You Experienced,
Axis: Bold As Love, and Electric Ladyland have all been released on compact
disc before, but this is the first time that any have utilized first
generation master tapes. The most intriguing release, however, is First
Rays Of The New Rising Sun, which is presented as the album Jimi never
finished. This time around, the tracks were recorded by musicians that Jimi
would (or at least might) have recorded with, and this time around, it sounded
like the Jimi Hendrix we all knew and loved. As far as the family is concerned,
this album rights a terrible wrong.
And so the first batch of material from Experience Hendrix is on the market,
in both CD and 180-gram audiophile vinyl formats. Now that the family has
control of "the vaults," fans can look forward to years and years of new
releases, some of which were never even a rumor between hardcore fans and
bootleg traders up until now.
The following interviews took place on an afternoon when scheduling snafus
had made Al and Janie's normally hectic routine absolutely chaotic. After
the roar died down, they were kind enough to give me even more time than we
had originally scheduled. First, I spoke with Al.
* * *
Cosmik: How is the pace for you? Are your days all jam packed with
interviews now?
Al: Yeah. [Laughs] It's a lot of runnin' and jumpin'.
Cosmik: Do you get a chance to get your bowling and your golf in anymore?
Al: Well, I'm through with the bowling season, though they got a spring
one. But I'm gonna be too busy this summer, it looks like, to try to
do any bowling.
Cosmik: Now that the legal stuff is over and the control has been given to
the family, how has your life changed? What is your role in Experience
Hendrix now?
Al: Well, I'm just doing the same ol' same ol'. I don't have no office down
here or anything. I just come in once in a while to sign papers or do
interviews, or things of that sort.
Cosmik: So you're doing the interviews and being the front man...
Al: Yeah.
Cosmik: ...and Janie's handling the business.
Al: Yeah. Janie and all the family takes care of all the business.
Cosmik: How did it effect you, personally, to hear First Rays of the New
Rising Sun for the first time?
Al: It was great. I mean, that was the original. The way it was supposed
to have been, instead of some of the stuff that other people have put out
that had a lot of people playin' with Jimi that never played with him
before. Hearin' this new stuff, I mean, that was really tops.
Cosmik: I have to admit it was really a shock to put the vinyl on and hear
those songs sounding that different and powerful. The songs had been
released before, but with different musicians dubbing parts after Jimi
had passed away. Were any of those musicians people Jimi would have
worked with?
Al: No, after I looked into it, I found out that they just came out of the
woodwork after Jimi's death. I didn't know ANY of them. The only one I
knew of that Jimi ever mentioned to me was Eddie Kramer. He said Kramer
and him used to work together a lot in the studio. See, Jimi would spend
a LOT of time in the studio. All night, sometimes. Kramer was the only
one I knew anything about. All these other people come out of the woodwork
saying "oh yeah, I knew Jimi, I was best friends with Jimi, through thick
and thin" and all that.
Cosmik: Sure are a lot of people who say that now, too.
Al: Oh yeah.
Cosmik: You'll always run into that, I think.
Al: OH yeah! [Laughs] I still run into it.
Cosmik: All the vinyl sounds incredible, at least to my ears. Have you
had a chance to really sit back and listen to it all?
Al: Yeah, I'm sittin' back just like the public, waitin' for it all to come
out. Of course, I get a preview. [Laughs]
Cosmik: [Laughs] Perks of the job! Have you listened to some of the stuff
in the vaults?
Al: Oh, well I know there's a lot of material there, but I haven't had a
chance to listen to all of it. So much stuff there.
Cosmik: Was there a lot of music you'd never heard before?
Al: Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm just as excited as the public is.
Cosmik: Aside from busy schedules and hectic days, how has all of this
changed your life?
Al: Well, I don't have as much free time as I had before. I'm more involved.
Before, people would just call me up and tell me about this and that, or
about new records coming out, or send me a T-Shirt. I wasn't involved at
all. And now, I mean, I'm right in there because the family's handling it.
I see and know what's happening now. I didn't know WHAT was happening
before.
Cosmik: I understand the old regime didn't even send releases to you, and
that you'd have to go out and buy them.
Al: Well, I didn't go out and buy any, but some of my friends had to buy them.
And they'd say "Al, you got that new record yet," and I'd say "No, I didn't
even know it was out!" [Laughs] So I'd have to call them people up and
wake 'em up! That happened several times.
Cosmik: They didn't have you in the loop at all. Do you have any contact with
those people now? Are they still trying to get their feet back in the door?
Al: Well... naw, I mean, I don't keep in touch with them in any way, shape or
form. [Laughs] No comment there.
Cosmik: Hands are washed, huh?
Al: Yeah. [Laughs] It's a bad past, you know.
Cosmik: What are your hopes for Experience Hendrix? What would you like to
see it accomplish?
Al: To get out all material that we can of Jimi's in its original form and
put it out the way Jimi would have put it out. That's what it was all
about. That's what he was writing it about. Don't dress it up in any
kind of different way than Jimi would of had it.
Cosmik: You feel you have the right people in place for that, correct? Eddie
Kramer and George Marino...
Al: Oh yeah, I feel confident with them. Like I was saying, Jimi used to work
with Kramer. Kramer's the only one I ever heard Jimi mention. They were
real good close friends.
Cosmik: What would you like people to know about Jimi?
Al: Well, he was just doin' his thing.
Cosmik: Are there any rumors that you would like to clear up, or things that
people don't know...
Al: Well, he was going into another phase of music, as he told me the last
time he was home. He didn't tell me exactly what it was going to be...
Cosmik: Do you think he might have been heading farther into the blues?
Al: Well, I remember he was talking about that trumpet player, Miles Davis.
They were real good friends. He might have had an idea of going into a
larger group of musicians.
Cosmik: A jazz setting?
Al: Something not too big. Not no big band, maybe somethin' larger than
what he'd been doing.
Cosmik: Did Jimi listen to a lot of jazz around the house?
Al: Oh yeah, well, Jimi liked all phases of music. Even a little country
western, you know? That's the way I am, too. I like all kinds of music.
Cosmik: When he was a kid and he was first starting to get into rock and roll,
were you into that idea? Because most parents in that era tried to
discourage that notion.
Al: Oh, no! Because I've had music around all my life. Any kind. Jazz...
I listened to music on the Gramophone a long time ago when I was a kid.
We had all kinds of music on there: longhair, western, blues...
Cosmik: Oh, yeah, you gotta figure he had a lot of good blues around him
when he was growing up.
Al: Yeah. I used to buy blues records, jazz records... different types.
Cosmik: And Jimi took to it all.
Al: Yeah, he did. We liked all phases and all races of music. We liked
oriental music, and East Indian, like Ravi Shankar. I liked that, and
Jimi did too. It's something else.
Cosmik: What's your very favorite Jimi Hendrix music?
Al: People always ask me that. [Laughs] Oh, whatever mood strikes me, that's
what I play, whether it's "Red House" or "Foxy Lady," or whatever. I liked
it all equally. I roll it all in one big bundle and play it.
Cosmik: Anything else you'd like to say to Jimi's fans before we close this
out?
Al: Just tell 'em to hang in there, because we got some goodies coming out.
____________________________________________________________________________
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS:
Janie Leads Experience Hendrix Forward
Now that we've talked to the head of the Hendrix family and Jimi's father,
Al Hendrix, it's time to pay a visit to the head of family business. Janie
Hendrix-Wright (Al's daughter and Jimi's half-sister) has taken the wheel,
and with it much of the responsibility for the future of Experience Hendrix.
Along with that task comes responsibility for Jimi's legacy and his good name.
Janie knows this, accepts it, and truth be known, wouldn't have it any other
way. That was, after all, at least part of the motivation behind the lengthy
litigation between the family and "the old administration," the conclusion
of which left the Hendrix family in control of Jimi's music, image and
likeness.
With this responsibility Janie has also had to take abuse from some of Jimi's
fans, the severity of which ranges from mild distrust to threat of bodily harm.
Every business decision is scrutinized, every personal statement dissected.
She expects it. Goes with the territory. As she says, "saint today, sinner
tomorrow."
Janie was quite willing to give answers to all my questions except for those
regarding the most tricky legal issues or trade secrets. Like her father,
her voice dances when she talks about Jimi. While some critics say she never
even met him, interviews with the guitar legend prove otherwise. She was
special to Jimi, and Jimi remains very special to her, as you'll see.
This early in the game, it's difficult to assess every decision accurately,
but one thing seems plain: Janie believes what she is doing is what's best
for Jimi's legacy. Only time will tell.
* * *
Cosmik: Now that things are popping, how do you feel it's going? Do you
ever think "what have I gotten myself into?"
Janie: [Laughs] Well, no, because when I was six years old I made a promise
to Jimi to take care of him, because I used to think that his managers
weren't doing a very good job as far as making sure that he ate in a
timely manner. He was the artist and he was performing, and I felt that
they could have taken better care of him. So in a sense, I got my wish.
I'm taking care of him, it's just that he's not physically here.
Cosmik: Do you think they made any attempt at all to take care of him?
Janie: I think that it was a good thing he was an adult so he could take
care of himself. I think that Chas Chandler was good for Jimi, but
some of his other managers didn't really look after his best interests.
And that was evident when he was in Toronto and they hired someone to
plant drugs on him before he went through customs, and also when he was
on the Monterey Pop stage and they hired someone to put some acid in his
drink. I think that's all evidence to show that they weren't looking
out for his best interests.
Cosmik: Because drug busts were in vogue at the time?
Janie: Yeah.
Cosmik: What were you doing before this?
Janie: Well, for three years I assisted the attorneys in gathering the
information for the litigation. We fought very hard to get the rights
back. Prior to that, besides having four boys and raising them, I was
also a school teacher, and I went back to school.
Cosmik: Did it prepare you for all of this?
Janie: I think teaching, in a sense... that all goes hand in hand. When you
run any company, it's almost like you're a parent to your employees, making
sure that things get done. As far as being a teacher, I always say I left
the classroom, but I teach people about Jimi. I teach them about what he
was trying to teach the world about civil rights and human rights. And
things he was trying to teach in the 60s are still very evident and
apparent today. Even though we don't have the Vietnam war, we still have
gang wars and wars in our own back yard. And there's still racism. It's
just an underlying factor that...
Cosmik: It's gone underground...
Janie: Yeah. So it's just basically educating people, in that sense.
Cosmik: There have been shots fired from both sides, of course, but for those
who don't know, how about running down some of the family's main complaints
with the way the old administration handled things?
Janie: I have to tell you, it was quite embarrassing for the family to never
receive product. Alan's [Douglas] response was always "Oh, well, if you
WANTED that CD, you should have called and asked us."
Cosmik: What, like they didn't think you would?
Janie: Like "We would have sent it to you." But a lot of times, we wouldn't
even know it was coming out until it was already out for a week or two, or
a fan would call and say "Oh, have you heard the new album," such and such,
that we would have to go out and buy. Merchandise like T-Shirts, posters
and things, we had to purchase all those things. They were not given to
us, they weren't sent to us, we weren't part of a mailing list like a lot
of people are. We don't feel bitter about it, which is good because we
aren't looking totally at the past and not being appreciative of the
present and the future. Part of that is my father's teachings, along with
my grandparents teachings, of treating people the way you want to be
treated. And not looking back, but looking forward. My dad's 77 years
old, and 20 years ago, when he was in his 50s, and I think that it would
have been wonderful to have allowed him to see how much the world loved
Jimi. And he really didn't see that until a few years ago when we
reattained the rights, and we had a festival here in Seattle, and it was
the 25th anniversary [of Jimi's death], and the festival here included
Noel and Mitch and Buddy and Billy and some other people who played with
Jimi, like Eric Burdon... and I think it was at that point that he really
realized the magnitude. It's really unfortunate that he was, in a sense,
robbed of 20 years of not being able to see those things. I don't know
if he really looks at it that way. It's nice that he gets to see, now,
what's happening. He comes into our office at least once or twice a
week, and he's really happy that we're based in Seattle. You know, he
comes in, he eats lunch and hangs out with us, he comes to the board
meetings and he helps us make decisions on things, too. He's very
valuable to us.
Cosmik: He told me he's doing a lot of interviews. Do you think he's
enjoying that?
Janie: I think that he is. He enjoys talking about Jimi and reminiscing.
He just recently completed his book called "My Son Jimi," which Jas
Obrecht, who's editor in chief of Guitar Player Magazine, helped him
write.
Cosmik: Is that out yet?
Janie: Not yet. Right now, we're shopping for a publisher for that. But
it was really nice to be able to experience that with him. It was very
emotional, like when he talked about what he was doing or how he felt
when Jimi died, because he went through the process of his upbringing,
my grandparents' vaudeville days, and the way he was raised. And
then his whole effort of... you know, when he was in the service, by
the time he got out, Jimi was three years old and he went to get Jimi
because Lucille wasn't raising Jimi. She was kinda doing her own thing.
She was young, like late teen, early 20s. He went to go get his son.
And he raised Jimi as a single father, which was really a rarity back
then. And it still is. So he went through the whole process of, you
know... the struggle of trying to make sure ends met and bills were
paid, and Jimi would help the cause by going to work with him in the
summer as a landscape gardener, which was my father's business, after
[years of] taking any job possible. He always laughs nowadays when
people say "I have a job for you" and people say "well, what is it?"
He says "In MY day, when people said they had a job for you, you didn't
ask 'what is it' or 'how much do I get paid,' because you just knew you
got money at the end of the day and you could pay your bills." So it
was nice to reminisce through all that. And then when we got to the
part about how did he feel when Jimi died," I mean, it was very emotional.
Some of those feelings you really suppress. I know for the first five
years after Jimi passed away, it was very very difficult for me to talk
about it without bursting into tears. Time heals, but there's still
times that we get that emotion. You know, the world looked at Jimi as
the greatest guitarist ever, or like one of the best guitarists... but
the family... we lost a very close family member who we miss dearly.
Cosmik: You know, there's so much misinformation out there... I've seen many
printed statements from people that say you never even knew Jimi.
Janie: It's really sad. I wish some things had happened differently. When
Jimi was here last, he was going to do Rainbow Bridge, and he said to me...
Well, you know, he was always really excited to see me, and there are
interviews in Europe where he talks about me and how he can't wait to get
back to see me, and how he has pictures of me, you know "you wanna see
the pictures?" [Laughs] And when he died, he had 12 pictures on him, and
9 of them were of me. I mean, no, I didn't get a chance to be raised in
the same household because he was so much older than I was, but every time
he came back he stayed in our house. He played Monopoly with us, and he
sat and talked for hours, until like early in the morning. And so, to me,
it's like... you cling to those times, because you may see somebody every
day and not know them. We cherished the moments the we got to spend with
Jimi, because we knew that he'd be going out of town again. But what a
lot of people don't realize is that Jimi phoned all the time. Wherever
he was, if he was in England, if he was in New York, if he was in the
studio, wherever he was he'd say "this is where I am, if you guys need
anything, call me." He always kept in touch. And that's a big
misconception, like "Oh, Jimi just came back a few times and that's all
you knew him." I mean, we talked to him all the time.
Cosmik: So he was the big brother in your life...
Janie: Absolutely. And the last time that he was here, he said to me
[whispering] "Don't you want to go to Hawaii with me?" Which sounded
like fun, because he'd brought me back a lai and I'd kept it in the
refrigerator until it was just crumbs. And I said "yeah, I'd love to
go." Well, his manager, Michael Jeffrey, said "No no no, the family
will just get in the way." And Jimi was really upset because he wanted
us to be there. He wanted family around him. He even asked my dad if
he wanted to be his road manager at one time, because he just wanted
that family...
Cosmik: Connection...
Janie: Yeah. That feeling, that love, to know somebody is watching your
back that has you covered.
Cosmik: Somebody who doesn't have ulterior motives.
Janie: Yeah, right! And I remember the last time that he was here was July
26th, 1970, and he even said to my dad "You know, it's summer break, so
let me take Janie with me because I'm going to all these places that I'd
love to take her. I was really a daddy's girl anyway, and my dad went
"How long??" [Laughs] "I don't think so." I couldn't even go to a friend's
house for a weekend without him pacing the floor by Sunday going "Uh, you
want me to come get her now?" [Laughs]
Cosmik: Sounds like a great dad.
Janie: My upbringing was the same as Jimi's. All the morals and the
teachings that were put into Jimi, my dad put into me. And I think
that's why right prevailed and we got our rights back, because that's
the way my father has lived his life: actions speak louder than words.
You can tell kids all you want, but... One of the things he taught us
was that trust is something that you never want to break, because it
takes a long time and maybe never will you ever trust that person again
if they break trust. You treat people the way you want to be treated.
If you know that that hurts when you hit somebody, you don't want to hit
somebody. But if you're PROTECTING yourself... It's like there's two
folds to that, because back in the day, we got threatened for everything.
He said "if somebody hits you, don't just stand there. Unless they're
WAY bigger than you. Then RUN!" [Laughs]
Cosmik: [Laughs] Now see, that's good advice!
Janie: But he always said if you treat people with kindness, it'll come back
to you. Anyone who has come to our house will tell you. Growing up, I
remember people would come from all over, hitchhiking from Miami or
wherever, and they'd say "I'm a big fan of Jimi's, can I come in." I
mean, it's fortunate that no psychos came in! [Laughs] Because my father
would invite them in the house, and they'd have coffee or tea or eat
dinner with us, and he would just sit and talk and reminisce. I never
thought anything was weird about it until I was dating my husband.
Somebody came over, and he said "Don't you find it strange?" And I said
"No..." He said "They could be mass murderers or something," and I said
"But they're Jimi fans, I mean, they're okay." And he says "No...Janie,
wake up! It's the 80s!" [Laughs]
Cosmik: Well, you know, Charles Manson was a Beatles fan. [Laughs]
Janie: [Laughs] Right! And only on one occasion did anyone come back and
break into our home. They stole some gold albums that had been in Jimi's
apartment and were hanging on our wall. They stole some other stuff, too.
He'd just bought some jeans, he had a video camera, a VCR... just various
things he had around the house.
Cosmik: It's possible it wasn't a fan, but just a random robbery. Those gold
records on the wall would catch their eyes and look valuable.
Janie: Well, we kind of have an idea of who it was.
Cosmik: Something you can't say?
Janie: Nooooo, I can't say.
Cosmik: That's okay, I couldn't print it anyway. [Laughs]
Janie: They know that we know, and that's the important part.
Cosmik: So they have to keep it buried in a closet somewhere.
Janie: And then they've had to live with it, too, and to me, that would
be even worse. I don't think that they could sleep too well at night.
Cosmik: I want to talk a bit about the game plan for Experience Hendrix.
When the legal battle was nearly over, did the family sit down together
and work out an actual strategy so you would have something to go on,
going into this venture?
Janie: We had sat down with John McDermott, who had really helped us during
the litigation, and we figured out a wonderful ten-year plan, which we
are still operating by. And we had also won the name, image and license
back early, so we were able to start doing merchandising during the
litigation, which kind of gets you into the groove of what's going on out
there and meeting people. It was a step-by-step process taking us through.
We had really good advisors around us to help us through.
Cosmik: What were the key elements and goals, besides the obvious business
goal of bringing in money?
Janie: Well, you know it's really interesting that you say that, because for
us, it really wasn't about the money. I know that sounds strange to people,
but we were offered a ton of money to just sell. And it would have been
very easy for us to say "you're gonna give me that much money and I don't
have to worry about this? Okay, here!" [Laughs] But it wasn't about money.
I'm not saying money's bad, or it's not good, because money's good. It's
a tool that helps you get through day to day life, but it wasn't looked
upon as "hmmmm, how much money can we get?" It was looked upon as... we
want to get the music as close as we can to what Jimi wanted it to be.
And we can go one step further because when Jimi was alive, the technology
was available as it is today. We wanted to retrieve the flat masters,
which we did, for the foundation of doing Electric Ladyland, Axis, and all
that. And then we also wanted to fulfill Jimi's wish for First Rays,
because that was the name of the album that he wanted, and although the old
administration divided everything up and did Cry Of Love and all those
different albums, that's not what Jimi wanted. And it was the same thing
with the European Electric Ladyland. He did not want that cover with the
naked ladies on it. I remember him even calling the house saying [in an
embarrassed voice] "You... haven't seen that cover, have you?" In fact,
if you see the documentary "The Making Of Electric Ladyland," the
photographer is interviewed in there, saying "it was kind of a last minute
decision where we said okay, we have all these women in the room... we'll
give you five pounds each to take your clothes off," and they dropped their
drawers.
Cosmik: I love that video, by the way. Being a musician, I love any chance
to see and hear the nuts and bolts of a recording like that. [Ed.note:
"The Making Of Electric Ladyland" includes lots of footage of Jimi's
engineer, Eddie Kramer, raising and lowering the volume of various tracks
so you can hear individual parts and sounds.] What else is in the video
AND audio vaults right now?
Janie: Our next plan is to give the fans a never-before heard product. Never
heard on bootleg, never heard anywhere.
Cosmik: That's hard, because the bootlegs are everywhere.
Janie: They are, but we've managed to find at least two albums worth of stuff
that has not been out in any way, shape of form.
Cosmik: When you go through the vaults, are you watching out for the
sub-standard work? Because he did have his bad days...
Janie: Yeah, but these aren't. [Laughs]
Cosmik: Okay, so these are hot stuff. Can you say what they are?
Janie: Uuuuum, no. [Laughs]
Cosmik: [Laughs] Aw, YOU'RE no fun!
Janie: I can only tell you that part. And then, of course, we've uncovered
video that you've never seen before, too.
Cosmik: I've seen lists of what people SUSPECT exists. I also saw a list
of what's already in your possession, and I was quite surprised at how
much you do already have. Who decides what's good enough to go and what
isn't?
Janie: We do. Our team. There's me, and there's John and there's Eddie.
We all sit down and listen and figure it out. Mainly John and I. Actually,
we're getting ready to go to New York this month to actually go back in
and start listening to things to create another project. To just basically
show the integrity of our family, I mean, before we even had an MCA contract
in hand, we made sure that the albums were ready to be released in a timely
manner.
Cosmik: That's gotta be a major job. I'm curious, also, about a particular
type of recording. It's well known that he used to carry tape recorders
with him to record his jam sessions, which involved some of the greatest
players of the day.
Janie: Yeah, you're absolutely right, because he DID do a lot of things on
cassette tape in his hotel rooms. But even better, he had his own studio.
Which... what a foresight for a musician, to have your own studio back in
the day. And he was one of the only two... I think the other was Nat King
Cole. So we have two musicians who had their own studios where they could
just go hit play and record and record for like 15 hours at a time without
paying that huge studio price that they try to put on you.
Cosmik: There's no pressure.
Janie: And everybody's just jamming and playing. The interesting thing that
I found, and it's kind of a side of Jimi that people don't see because...
I know I've been accused in the media, or at least on the Internet, of
trying to change Jimi's image. It's not so much changing it, but it's
educating people about how he really was, and not what the old
administration tried to make him appear to be, because he wasn't this
angry madman. But he would go into the studio and he would play with the
guys, and he was so far ahead in the music, that a lot of times they
didn't grasp what he wanted. So instead of getting angry... and believe
me, we've listened to at least six weeks worth of studio tape, he never
got angry or started screaming or yelling at people. He wanted people
to catch what he was doing, but if they couldn't get it, he'd spin off
into this huge solo. And that's how he'd relieve his anger and frustration.
Then he would go back into the same beat they left off in, and they'd
pick it back up. To me, that's an amazing genius and creator of music
who was in total control. And you knew he was in control when he was in
the studio. He was confident and he knew that this is what he was meant
to do.
Cosmik: Listening to those tapes and the conversations between takes, and
hearing him talking as if he was in the room... what was that like for you?
Janie: Very emotional. A lot of things he said made you laugh, though. Jimi
had a wonderful sense of humor that people really don't know about, and
that's why, in the liner notes and the booklets that we put out, we really
wanted to capture those pictures of him smiling and laughing. Because
that's the Jimi that WE know. That's the Jimi that WE got to see. He
would say things in the studio that nobody would get. One of the things
he said that was so funny, and nobody got this in the studio, and nobody
got this when we were listening to it but me, only because my Dad used to
talk about this woman named Mama Hankins. She used to help take care of
Jimi. Again, all the false information about my dad bouncing Jimi around
when he was working, well it's like when YOU go to work, where are YOUR
kids? At day care, at grandma's house, at auntie so and so's house.
Somebody's helping you take care of those kids so you can work. Basically,
Mama Hankins used to help take care of Jimi. So he was laughing and
joking in the studio, and he says "Well that's a Mama Hankins. Imamamama
Hankins! Right Devon?" And Devon starts laughing, and I don't know, maybe
Jimi had told her about Mama Hankins... Jimi's whole sense of humor was
like "I know something that you may not know what I'm talking about," and
if you figure it out, you're in on the joke. And if you didn't, well, then
the jokes kinda on you. He'd always do stuff, like at the dinner table
he'd make all these faces, or like take somebody's bread off their plate.
Then they're looking around like "Hey! Who did that!" And if you happened
to see him, then you were laughing because he was so comical about it.
That side of Jimi really comes through on those studio tapes.
Cosmik: So here you are in possession of all of that, your first salvo of
releases have hit the market... How would you rate the overall performance
of Experience Hendrix so far, based on the goals you set?
Janie: I think we've surpassed every goal that we've put before us. We
created a magazine, and we kept telling everybody that we wanted this
to be a magazine with glossy pages and four-color photos, but people
we originally brought on board didn't really see the vision. They kept
thinking newsletter, they kept thinking small. And now we have this
magazine that started out with 10,000 copies, which we made the first
time around, and now we have a distribution of 50,000. And that was
only within a couple months. We spoke with Elvis Presley's estate, and
what we accomplished in a couple months took them five years. We, through
I guess a lot of God-given instinct, have stayed away from people who
wanted to entrap... like there are licensees out there that really wanted
to give us like a million dollars. "We'll do your licensing" and all
this, but when you read the fine print, it's like "We get 30% of all your
licensees from now until..." you know? I know some estates that weren't
so fortunate. They signed on the dotted line and they're stuck.
Cosmik: What's the power structure now? How much control does MCA have, how
much does Experience Hendrix have, etc?
Janie: We have total control. The other false thing, if you want to clear
up rumors, is that we didn't sign a 90 million dollar deal. We don't
have 90 million dollars sitting in our coffers. We negotiated a deal
where... Well, basically, just to let people know, when you get an advance
on a record deal, it's basically a loan and you've got to repay that
through your record sales. We chose NOT to take a large advance so that
we could have control. We still own one hundred percent of the music,
we have our in-house publishing for domestic, we have our in-house
attorney... We use people here in our office to do a lot of it, and that
saves money because you're not having to pay huge percentages off your
music.
Cosmik: So does that make MCA, basically, one of your vendors?
Janie: MCA, basically, is our distributor. They make sure that it's marketed
and distributed, but we are right in there with them in the meetings for
the marketing. For example, last week or two weeks ago, we met with them
to discuss what our next release was. Although we have a ten-year plan,
there's a couple things that can be flip-flopped here and there. You know,
"we can do this this year, and that next year," or whatever. And they
were wanting to come out with the Smash Hits album. And I didn't think the
fans would like that too well. We just re-did four albums. Now we're going
to re-do the Smash Hits and say "here you go?!" My plan was to, by August,
give them something they've never heard before, and then a couple months
down the line we'll give them the Smash Hits album. And yes, it'll be
better, but in addition you'll have never before heard material in your
hand. So MCA listened to us, and they said "okay, why don't we release
it in September." Well... I'm a mother of four, and in September, I don't
HAVE money for that CD for my child. I've got to buy books, I've got to
buy clothes... If they go to private school, I've got to pay for tuition.
I have to make sure all of their supplies are taken care of. I don't have
and extra 20 dollars for a CD. But in August, I do. In August my kid may
take on a job at the neighbors to go weed a lawn or something, and they
have the time to do it. So that would be a good time to release it. And
so MCA listened to everything we had to say. For the releases of the core
albums, we said we wanted the original covers. We paid for that. That
money came from us because we felt that's what Jimi wanted, that's what
he intended to have. We wanted to put out the original albums. We went
to a design company in New York and I said "This is my vision for First
Rays Of The New Rising Sun. I want Jimi in kind of a sunset, and then I
want this unusual planet off to the side that's like this other planet
that we don't know about." So there were several things that came out
of that until we got to this part that was like "no, lower this, make the
sea less," and whatever we wanted, we worked together until we could say
"Okay, MCA, this is what we want for the cover of First Rays." And they
said okay and they did it. It's like a marriage. You work together.
They have ideas, we discuss them, but it's all through our approval.
We approve everything.
Cosmik: I'm curious about the situation with bootlegs. There are hundreds
of Jimi Hendrix bootlegs out there. Is there a "family plan" for dealing
with the bootleg situation?
Janie: Yes.
Cosmik: Can you tell us what it is?
Janie: No. [Laughs]
Cosmik: [Laughs] You know, Janie, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to do
this all over again. You're just not playing along.
Janie: No, well... Probably in a couple months, I can say. We've been working
with MCA on dealing with that, making sure the fans will be able to hear
that music without being robbed. I mean, the bootlegs being sold are like
30 dollars and 40 dollars! When you can get something like First Rays,
which is professionally done, professionally EQ'd, and we've had the best
people work with us on the project, like Eddie Kramer and George Marino.
And it's selling for... I don't know what it retails for... 13, 14 dollars.
Depends on where you buy it.
Cosmik: Do you know what the vinyl's retailing for?
Janie: I had heard two different prices. The suggested retail was supposed
to be 29.95.
Cosmik: And how much for the double albums?
Janie: That IS the double albums.
Cosmik: Wow! In the 180-plus audiophile vinyl market? That's cheap.
Janie: Really, we're not out there to try to gouge the consumer. We did it
the right way. We could have used half that weight of vinyl. I mean
those things are heavy! I carried the package at the airport, and we
were looking at each other and saying "Who's idea was it to do 180 vinyl!?"
My arms were falling off. [Laughs] We were able to give Jeff Gold a
set... He's the president of Warner, and he's been a wonderful friend and
cheerleader through all of this, and he said "I don't think the records
were this heavy when Jimi was alive!" [Laughs]
Cosmik: I'll tell you what, after listening to the vinyl, nobody will ever
convince me that CDs sound better than vinyl, at least when the vinyl is
done right. They sound incredible.
Janie: Oh, yeah. I had one guy call me who has been an avid collector, and
he said "I bought the vinyl instead of the CDs because I just love vinyl."
Cosmik: Vinyl has quite a fan base. And the 180-plus market is really
interesting. Do you plan to continue that?
Janie: I know we are for the Smash Hits project. We're going to do a run of
5000 for that. I'm not sure about the new releases. We're still discussing
that.
Cosmik: How far away is Band Of Gypsys?
Janie: [Pauses] ... Europe? [Laughs]
Cosmik: [Laughs] What?
Janie: It got distributed in Europe.
Cosmik: But not here.
Janie: It will be, but... Mmmm... We're working on it.
Cosmik: Okay, we'll come back to that next time we talk, right? [Laughs]
We started to talk about the tape recorders Jimi carried around with
him to record his jam sessions on. How much of that material do you
have?
Janie: Quite a bit.
Cosmik: Is a lot of it good enough quality to release?
Janie: Yes.
Cosmik: And will it be?
Janie: Oh yes.
Cosmik: Ah! A lot of that stuff is legendary, like the jams with Michael
Bloomfield. How do the jam tapes sound?
Janie: Some of them are so clear it's like you're sitting in the room with
them.
Cosmik: Boy... On the subject of concert footage... what does Experience
Hendrix have in the vaults, and how much has been sifted through?
Janie: We've gone through all the video footage, and we'll be able to do at
least another documentary. And we're also working on another short film
project with footage you haven't seen. Not to mention that our goal,
which we're working on right now, is an autobiography that's done by the
family, and of course later a real movie with actors. A lot of the rumors
that you hear about Hollywood working on a project like that aren't true.
We've talked to them and they say "No, we may be THINKING about it, but we
know we can't do it without your permission."
Cosmik: Those rumors go way back. I remember a time when the rumor was that
Phil Lynott [late bassist of Thin Lizzy] was going to star as Jimi.
Janie: Oh yeah, and then of course the Lawrence Fishburn rumor. It's so
funny, because it could just take an instant when Lawrence Fishburn or
Denzel Washington casually says "Oh sure, I'd love to play in it," and
BOOM! It's out there. They're playing in it, and they're already working
on it. And it's just not true.
Cosmik: Just writers dying to get readers by spreading rumors. So what about
the legendary lost ABC footage? Any news on that?
Janie: ... We're working on it.
Cosmik: Is it still lost?
Janie: We think we've located some of it. We're in negotiations with some
people right now.
Cosmik: That's going to be interesting to follow. Is there any fear of
overfishing the pond by putting out TOO many Jimi Hendrix releases?
Right off the bat, you re-released the first three albums and First
Rays in both CD and vinyl formats, and that's a lot of product all at
once. Do you think about over-saturation and what it could mean?
Janie: It's interesting that you say that... For right now, it was about
building a good foundation and making sure that what's out there is what
we want out there, because we had to pull back in what the old
administration had put out. Then we had to replace what was out there,
in addition to making sure that our new products are made. But no, we
don't want to over-saturate the market. I think at one point the old
administration was doing that. I think it's wrong. I think it's not
right to take a few songs from this album and a few songs from that
album and make a new album, and that's not what we're about. Although
it may seem that way for First Rays, to some people. That wasn't the
intent. The intent was to give you this album as Jimi saw fit for it
to happen. In addition to the fact that "Dolly Dagger" and "Night Bird
Flying" have never been on a CD. Basically, the new album will come
out, and then Smash Hits will come out to basically replace The Ultimate
Experience, and it also gives you the album as Jimi first made it, but it
will probably include some other songs to make it larger. From that
point on, the releases will come out more as a normal artist would put
out releases. So I guess for this year people might think we're flooding
the market. For us, it isn't, it's righting a wrong.
Cosmik: I want to talk a little bit about the negative things that are being
said by some of the core fans everywhere, but especially on the Internet.
Do you follow the discussions in the newsgroups and e-mail lists?
Janie: I hear some of it. I'm aware of some of the talk that's out there.
Cosmik: Some of those people are highly critical of Experience Hendrix, and
especially of you. Why do you think they're attacking you?
Janie: I think that anybody that has control of what Jimi is doing, they're
going to attack. Originally we came out and said we want to work with
bootleggers, that we wanted them to come to us and let work with the tapes
and remaster them. Our concern was for the fans, that they're not ripped
off. But it was looked at as "Oh, you're just trying to stop these people,
and you're just jealous because they're doing this," but that's not the
spirit in which it was done. The spirit was... if you're paying fifty
dollars for that project, that's not worth that much money. You know,
people are trading blank tapes with people, and that's wrong. That's
totally wrong. We're trying to right a LOT of wrongs. You know the old
saying, and my dad used to use it a lot, "you can please some of the
people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of
the time." And I think that, overall, when people see what we're doing,
I think they really admire that we're sticking our necks out.
Cosmik: While the ones who are critical think you're being greedy.
Janie: They don't know our upbringing. They don't know what we went
through. For 20 years, my father received 50,000 dollars per year,
which he had to pay taxes on. He was a landscape gardener at the same
time until 1979. Growing up only being able to have two pairs of
shoes, if you wore a hole in one, you had to cut a piece of cardboard
out and put it inside the shoe. While everyone else was wearing Levi's,
and they got 'em down at Penny's for 14 dollars, we had to go down to
Goodwill and pay two dollars. Yes, life is better now, but it took a
long time to get here. When my husband and I were first married, we
lived in a 1,000 square foot house while Leo and Alan Douglas were
living lavishly. We relied on one income because it wasn't worth two
people going in to work because half of your income goes to daycare and
gas and work clothes. That's a side that people don't see. You don't
know that during that three-year litigation, my father had three heart
surgeries. You don't know that we almost lost him. You don't know
that two weeks before everything was said and done, we almost lost him.
You don't know the pains that we feel. And people say "do you know
what they're saying about you?" I say "Yeah, but do I care?" Do they
know that days went by when Jimi only had a candy bar to eat? He created
all this wonderful music, and that's all you know him by, but you don't
know the struggles it took for him to get there. And it's the same for
our family. I just wish that people would know that we're going to try
to do the right thing, and yes, we're only human, and we may not always
please you because that album is missing ten of your favorite songs.
You're complaining, yet we have George Marino, we have Eddie Kramer...
Eddie Kramer, who's very valuable, is in there working with us. He
doesn't just work with anybody. He knows that we're doing the right
thing, and he wants to make sure it STAYS the right thing.
Cosmik: People are unsettled by change.
Janie: Well sure, but when Alan Douglas was in control, they were complaining
then! But then we take over, and... It's so funny because when the
releases came out, somebody called and said "Oh, you're an angel on the
Internet now," and I said "Yeah, I'm a saint today and I'm a sinner tomorrow.
And that's the way you've got to take it or you could go crazy. You know
the old saying is "sticks and stones can break my bones but words will
never hurt me." Yeah, but they hurt you. They can sting. But you just
learn to get tough skin. It's all that they want to be where we are, and
a lot of them, in a sense, feel justified, and... you know, "I ran a fanzine
for this long, so I deserve this and that." I mean, we've had people say
that to us. It's like "Yeah, we have pictures, and we have this fanzine,
so just tell me what you need and what you want it for and maybe we'll let
you use it." [Laughs]
Cosmik: Are you surprised by the severity and hostility of some of this?
Janie: Yeah. I had one guy call and complain about something... I don't
remember what it was now... but what really angered me was that I have
four children, my oldest is ten, and they printed my home address,
threatened to burn flags and throw grenades...
Cosmik: These are people from the Internet e-mail lists?
Janie: Yeah. They said very hurtful things, like "Janie's just waiting around
for her dad to die so that she can collect." And that's something that was
very hurtful to me, because they don't know that my dad is my best friend.
If I don't talk to my dad every other day, he's calling me to find out if
everything's okay. When he read that, he got so angry. I said "How stupid.
I would be the most miserable person on Earth if all I was doing was waiting
for somebody to die. The reason we went to litigation in the first place
was because I received documents from Leo Branton asking me... these
documents were supposedly written by my dad, which I knew they weren't...
and I was being asked to sign over all my rights to my father. And the
letter was very adversarial, and I thought this isn't like my dad. My
dad and I went bike riding together and swimming together, we'd go jogging
together... we do everything together. It was like "Dad, do you know what
this says?" He says "Yeah, it says you get some money now and I get to
watch you enjoy it, and I get some money, and you don't have to suffer a
lot." I said "No, dad, that's not what it says," and I explained it to
him. He was furious. "That's not what I want!" So I went and got some
attorneys, and Leo called my dad a week later and said "Why hasn't Janie
signed the papers yet? I have her money sitting right here." My dad
said "For Janie, it's not about the money. While everybody else sees a
block down the road, she sees miles. If you want to know why she didn't
sign, call her and ask her." A few weeks later, he was served and we were
suing him.
Cosmik: And that was the end of his road with Jimi.
Janie: Yep.
Cosmik: I'd like to shift a little bit here to talk about the releases
themselves, about a few problems that have been noticed. The lyrics in
the booklets are incorrect in several instances. How did that happen?
Janie: That happened in Europe, and it was MCA's fault, not our fault. When
we looked at the original draft, which is how it should have gone out,
it was approved and correct, but something happened at the printers. MCA
has admitted to the fault. It was their international department that
created the fault.
Cosmik: Is there anything that can be done about it now?
Janie: Yeah. What they've offered to people is that they're printing up new
booklets, and they can come and exchange the incorrect booklets for corrected
booklets.
Cosmik: The other major rumble I've heard, or complaints against the family,
come from people who feel that Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding should be
cut in for a share of the money from Experience Hendrix, that they were
screwed over by the old administration and it should be righted. What's
your side of that?
Janie: Well, all of that issue is between Noel, Mitch, Buddy, Billy and us.
On July 26th, 1995, we sat down with them. We explained to them that this
case cost us multimillion dollars, not to mention that my father had to
second-mortgage his home and we had to take out loans because when the
accounts closed--for the quote/unquote "Hendrix Trust Account,"--there was
less one million dollars in that account. Our former attorney had given
us the impression that all of the royalties, outside of the money being
used to keep the business alive, were being put into our trust accounts
for our education, family welfare, and because we received money for
various things along the way. We didn't have any reason to believe that
they weren't there. When all was said and done and we were starting the
litigation, they closed down three accounts, there's less than one million
dollars left in it. Unfortunately, while we were in the litigation, the
defendants were receiving OUR royalty checks, which helped fund them
against us, which cost us even more money because I think that if they
hadn't received that money they would have folded a long time ago. But
they kept it going until the end. We explained all that to Mitch and
Noel, and Buddy and Billy, and they all understand where we are financially
and how long it's going to take us to get out of debt. The money that comes
in, a portion of it, yes, runs the business, but a great portion of it goes
to pay off our debt. And they understand that, and we have an agreement
with them, which I'm not at liberty to discuss, but they know what it is.
Cosmik: So they will be receiving future compensation?
Janie: Well, they do know what the deal is and I can't discuss it. And Noel
knows it. I don't know why things are being said, but this was discussed
virtually the day after we won the case, about how things are going to be
set up. And they know what it is, which is why you don't hear from Buddy
and Billy and Mitch.
Cosmik: And why they participate in the videos...
Janie: Exactly. They participated in the documentary, in the festival, in
our festival that will happen later on this year... Yes, they participate,
because they know we have an understanding. And I don't think I owe that
explanation to anybody else. It's our business between us. I know what
Noel is saying, and it's unfortunate because he was in that room. We were
all in there together, and we discussed every option possible until like
two or three in the morning, and made sure that when they came for our
festival they were very well taken care of. Which we paid for, because we
didn't have a record deal at the time and we had no money coming in. So
we've been good for our word. Whatever we say, that's what we're going to
do. That's what we do.
Cosmik: I understand that during an interview the other day you had a disk
jockey telling you your brother died of a drug overdose, and that when
you tried to correct him...
Janie: Oh, in Boston! Yeah.
Cosmik: And he got...
Janie: Belligerent? [Laughs]
Cosmik: Yeah! [Laughs] Do you run into that a lot?
Janie: Yeah, and actually, it was kind of interesting... I had a couple
friends call me about that, and they were like "I can't believe he
was sitting there arguing with you about that. Like just because
somebody drank one night, and they got in a car wreck, they died of
alcohol intake? No, they died because they crashed the car!" [Laughs]
And I said "Yeah, but you know what? I wasn't saying it for him, because
deejay's are gonna think whatever they want, and for them it's kind of
like sensationalism, and they try to trap you." I even had one say to
me "Oh, I hear you're going to market a belt buckle shaped like a
Stratocaster that flashes." I said "Nooo, that's not in MY catalog."
For me, the issue about Jimi dying... it's always been very painful for
our family when somebody talks about him dying at 27 of a drug overdose.
It's like not only can you not give this man the honor that's due to
him... Not only was he the greatest guitarist ever, he was the first
African American to lead an all-white band. He was the first African
American to cross all the lines: whether it's by sex or by culture, he
crossed them. Why are you robbing him of that? Yes, he took drugs. It
was the 60s. It was a very experimental time. However, he did not die
of a drug overdose. Yes, I would say that sleeping pills are a drug that
you can buy over the counter. Not very many adults can say they've never
taken a sleeping pill. But when they re-opened the case again, though
Scotland Yard, which was about two and a half years ago when we started
the litigation, they wrote us an extensive letter. They said "We've gone
back and interviewed the doctors and nurses. Actually, we couldn't get
ahold of a couple of the nurses, so we talked to the ambulance driver,
we talked to this person, that person, Eric Burdon..." They did an
18-month inquest, and he says "I have to say that when we examined the
body, his organs were very clean. His lungs, his liver, his kidneys, they
weren't that of a frequent drug user or one that would overdo it and
destroy his body. If he had just taken the sleeping pills, he would have
been fine. If he had just drank the wine that he had earlier that night,
he would have been fine. But it was the mixture of the two chemicals that
caused him to vomit and die of asphyxiation." Now, in the 90s, we have
a warning on our medicine that says "don't take this with alcohol," but
they didn't have that then. Not to mention that it was German sleeping
pills. So my thing was not so much to convince the deejay or argue with
him, but to impress upon that teenager, that person listening out there,
that this is what really happened so maybe we can change the thinking of
future generations, so they're not so locked into "he died of a drug
overdose." So that's what that was all about. It's just about re-teaching
people.
Cosmik: Twenty or thirty years from now, what effect do you hope Experience
Hendrix will have had on Jimi's memory and his legacy?
Janie: That's why we started a family foundation. We would like to continue
to sponsor children's groups and youth groups and school programs. I
would like to make sure that at least... This is a small number, because
I think we'll do better than this, but I'd like to touch at least two
people's lives a year, where they say "because of you guys, I was able
to..." whatever. I've heard a lot of stories over the years where... for
instance, Bob Dylan's guitar tech pulled me aside one day and said "You
know, it's because of Jimi that I'm in this business. I was in Manny's
Music, I was plunking around on the guitar and not paying any attention,
and they announced for everybody to get out, that the store was closing,
and I wasn't paying attention. Then I look up and there's Jimi standing
over me. The owners are like "Get out! You've got to leave!" And Jimi
says "No, no, no. He can stay. It's cool. He's not hurting anybody."
And then he says "Jimi said to me, 'You know, I'm going to be down at the
studio tonight if you want to come by. Come by about eleven, eleven
thirty, that'd probably be a good time.' So here I am a 15 year old kid,
I go to Electric Lady studios, I'm there till five in the morning KNOWING
I'm gonna get killed when I get home, but I don't care. I'm with my
friend, I'm listening to Jimi and he just jams out all these songs in one
take for an album." He said it was the most incredible experience in his
life, and that's why he wanted to be in this business. And that's what
I want people to say. I want to hear people say "You know, your guitar
competition you did with Fender really encouraged me, now I'm a professional
musician" and this and that... That's what I want to hear. I just want
his legacy to continue, and I want it to continue to touch people's lives,
and for them to really understand and know the Jimi that we knew: a very
giving soul.
____________________________________________________________________________
ACTIVE LISTENING: Tuning Into Jimi For A Brand New Experience
Hendrix fans have a lot to be excited about these days. Experience Hendrix (the
family-owned company run by Jimi's dad, Al, and half-sister Janie
Hendrix-Wright) recently signed a deal with MCA to reissue Jimi's music on the
new Experience Hendrix label. Collectors will be thrilled to hear that MCA has
revived its audiophile 'Heavy Vinyl' series for the Hendrix titles. All four
albums are available in limited edition, 180-gram virgin vinyl pressings. While
this is the fourth time Hendrix's music has been reissued on CD (twice on
Reprise, and now twice on MCA), this time it's being done right.
Surprising as it may seem, this is the first time that they used the actual
master tapes in the production process. All the previous CDs, and all but the
original vinyl pressings in the 60's, were mastered from EQ'd production copies.
Jimi's original engineer and co-producer, Eddie Kramer, worked with George
Marino (noted engineer at Sterling Sound) and EH/MCA to ensure that the quality
and integrity of the music remain intact. "We went back to the original masters
and started from scratch, and the difference is quite stunning," said Kramer.
"It sounds like a cloth has been lifted from the speakers." Kramer's not
exaggerating--these CDs/albums sound better than ever.
EH sent noted Hendrix historian, John McDermott, to find the flat un-EQ'd master
tapes. After an extensive 14-month search, McDermott recovered over 200
tapes--including live material, original album masters, acoustic home demos,
alternate multi-track versions of Hendrix classics, and a few songs never before
heard. Some of the tapes include sessions with members of both the Experience
and the Band of Gypsies. "People have been coming forward with tapes that Jimi
gave them," said Janie Hendrix-Wright. "They've said, 'Here, Jimi gave me this
to hold. Now that the family is in control, I want you to have it.'" Alan
Douglas was responsible for Jimi's music before EH, and some fans were less than
happy with the things he released.
Let's get into the individual albums now, and do some comparisons.
The year was 1967. The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their debut album, Are
You Experienced?, on May 12, two weeks ahead of schedule. Hendrix once described
the album this way: "It has a little rock 'n' roll, and then it has a blues and
it has a few freak-out tunes. It's a collection of free feeling and imagination.
Imagination is very important." Luckily for us, Hendrix had a very fertile
imagination. Starting with the first notes of "Purple Haze," rock and roll would
never be the same.
The flat masters for Are You Experienced ended up in the hands of a collector,
who later sold them to McDermott. It's great to hear all the nuances that were
previously buried. You can hear Jimi turn the lyric sheet during "May This Be
Love." The guitar on "Manic Depression" is back where it belongs in the mix on
the EH CD. The previous MCA issue has better bass response on this song, but the
guitar track was pushed back. The muddiness on the previous MCA version of "51st
Anniversary" (the only Hendrix song without a guitar solo) has been corrected.
On the new CD, the song is noticeably brighter, especially in the quiet parts.
One of the most improved tracks is "Highway Chile." Even though they used the
mono version, it sounds better than ever. Each instrument is easily
distinguishable from one another. It has noticeably better dynamic range also,
as do "Love or Confusion" and "I Don't Live Today." "Foxey Lady" fades out a
couple seconds early on the EH disc. The ending notes on "Hey Joe" that were cut
from the previous MCA release have been restored, though. Give and take, right?
"Third Stone from the Sun" lacks the bass response of the last MCA disc, but the
vocals are much clearer now, and overall, the sound quality is improved.
The original running order of the songs was restored for the new version of this
landmark album, a fact that will make many fans happy. As far as packaging, the EH
CD includes new liner notes and photos (some of which are omitted from the LP
booklet), hand-written copies of lyrics in progress, recording session invoices,
and complete lyrics to all the songs. Purely in terms of sound quality, the
vinyl is noticeably superior. Where it really shines is on the quieter tracks,
like "The Wind Cries Mary" (written for his ex-girlfriend). You'll be blown away
when you hear how much better the LPs sound.
Hendrix started working on Axis: Bold as Love right after he finished Are You
Experienced. Axis was a highly experimental album for its time. Mitch added
elements of jazz with his slick brushwork on "Up From the Skies." Jimi
overdubbed a glockenspiel on "Little Wing." Eddie Kramer contributed the
harpsichord accompaniment on the title track. Sound quality was always a major
concern. The EH CD has considerable tape hiss on several tracks, but the album
has an increased sense of spaciousness to it now, and overall, markedly improved
sound. You can hear the snare vibrating on the verse intros in "Wait Until
Tomorrow" and the bass response is better than on any of the previous releases.
When you compare "Spanish Castle Magic" (written to commemorate a 1950's jazz
club in Seattle) to the compressed version on the last MCA disc, the sound is
more rich, and wide open. The Reprise disc had less tape hiss on "Little Wing,"
but the song is much clearer on the EH version and has better tone on the solo.
Tape hiss is a distraction on "If 6 Was 9," but the top end is more spacious and
open. "You Got Me Floatin'" is a highlight (and one of Jimi's favorites from the
album). They still haven't quite uncovered Noel's bass solo, but it's
considerably more distinct than on any of the previous issues.
On "Castles Made of Sand," the subtle nuances stand out more now, but the hiss
on the track is much worse. Noel's track, "She's So Fine" is clearer and has
much more impact than any of the previous releases. This was the first song
recorded for the album, but due to Jimi's lack of enthusiasm for the song, it
wasn't finished until the very last session. The sound quality of "One Rainy
Wish" is outstanding. The dynamic range on the end section of "Bold as Love"
will astound you--it's that good. Bass response is much better on the LP, which
makes the CD sound shallow by comparison. The vinyl inherently hides the tape
hiss better than the CD.
In terms of packaging and sound quality, the CD doesn't compare to the LP. All
the photos from the CD booklet are included in the LP booklet, although some are
in a different format (color vs. black & white), or cropped to fit, etc. The CD
booklet is missing the lyrics to the last four songs. Complete lyrics are
included on the inside of the LP's gatefold cover. In addition, the CD booklet
is formatted in such a way that you can't see the complete outer cover art
unless you either take your booklet apart or buy two CDs. The only thing the CD
has that isn't found in the LP booklet are the portions of Jimi's handwritten
lyrics to "Bold as Love" and "Up from the Skies."
Electric Ladyland is considered by many to be Hendrix's best work. Many people
consider it the best double album ever released -- by anyone. When you listen to
the tracks spread over this 1968 double album, it's hard to disagree. The album
contains some of his best work; inspired jamming throughout, and aural
landscapes that seemingly come from another world. Unfortunately, the one thing
it never had was good sound quality. Jimi publicly stated that he was not happy
with the mix. "We went on tour right before we finished and actually cut it," he
said. "We mixed it and produced it, and then when it was time for them to press
it, they screwed it up because they didn't know what we wanted. There's 3D sound
on there that you can't even appreciate now, because they didn't cut it
properly. They thought it was out of phase."
During his tape search, John McDermott's journeys took him to Shaggy Dog Studios
in Massachusetts. Alan Douglas had all the masters shipped there from Electric
Lady Studios. Due to unpaid bills, several tapes ended up being abandoned --
including the flat masters for Electric Ladyland. Some of the reels were
misfiled, but Kramer was able to identify his handwriting on the boxes. The
sound on the new disc isn't on the same level as the first two albums, but it's
considerably better than any of the previous CDs. The EH vinyl is better still.
The soundstage is much wider, and all the instruments and vocal tracks are more
defined. Most of the songs have better bass response, and overall, the vinyl has
a much fuller sound to it.
Jimi's soulful vocals on "Have You Ever Been (to Electric Ladyland)" now have an
openness that is unmatched on any of the previous CDs. Always adventurous in the
studio, Jimi used a comb and a piece of paper to get the kazoo sound on
"Crosstown Traffic." He recorded "Voodoo Chile"--the crown jewel of his blues
repertoire--live in the studio. There are a few songs in particular that sound
better than the rest of the CD. Lucky for us, this is one of them. During the
mastering process, Kramer was able to restore some of the 3D effects on "Gypsy
Eyes." Eddie elaborates, "If you listen very closely on headphones, it will seem
as though the kick drum is moving around your head."
The epic "1983" was his classical masterwork, clocking in (correctly now) at
almost 14 minutes. Previous CD releases had the track misindexed (the next
'song' began in the wrong place), but EH fixed it for the new disc. The songs
making up the third side of the album are musically and sonically outstanding.
"Still Raining, Still Dreaming" picks up where "Rainy Day, Dream Away" left
off. "Rainy Day" gets things warmed up, and then "Still Raining" comes along
and just blows you away. The sound on this track is much more open & loose
than before.
The packaging on the Electric Ladyland LP is beautiful. There are eight pages of
Jimi's handwritten notes to the label, explaining how he wants the cover to
look, etc., plus all the photos from the original album. The CD booklet, on the
other hand, is awful. Several pictures from the LP booklet are missing, and the
ones that do appear look like they've been photocopied three or four times.
Neither of the booklets include lyrics.
In early 1969, Hendrix arrived in London to announce plans for his next album.
Unfortunately, the public and critical impression of Jimi had changed. People
were calling him washed up, and past his prime. They weren't interested in the
music anymore; they wanted a show. Jimi had grown tired of all the theatrics on
stage. To him, the music is what mattered most. The breakup of the Experience
left him even more vulnerable. It seemed like nothing he could do would be able
to top the first three albums. First Rays of the New Rising Sun doesn't top his
work with the Experience, but it clearly shows that Jimi was in the midst of a
creative rejuvenation.
All the songs on First Rays have been previously released on posthumous albums.
However, this is the first time they have all appeared together the way Jimi
intended them (his handwritten notes were used as a reference). Alan Douglas put
Voodoo Soup together with the same idea in mind--creating what was supposed to
be Jimi's "last" album. To the dismay of the fans, what he ended up with was
little more than a remixing nightmare. Nine of the tracks from Voodoo Soup
appear on First Rays, but there are some major differences between the two. Not
just in sound quality, but also in the running times. Five of the songs are
longer on First Rays, mainly due to longer intros. All the tracks appearing on
both CDs have better sound on the new CD.
Voodoo Soup had Jimi's lead guitar channel switched on "Freedom." The new
version has the lead back where it should be (although there is a bit of
distortion on the first high note), and the drums are much clearer now. "Night
Bird Flying" (written for the late WNEW disk jockey, Alison Steele, a.k.a. The
Night Bird) is one of only four songs that Jimi had completed for the album. On
Voodoo Soup, this track was compressed beyond belief. On First Rays, the
soundstage is wide open and you can hear all the instruments clearly. "Room Full
of Mirrors" was a muddy mess on Voodoo Soup. The mix on First Rays is much less
cluttered. You can hear all the intricate drum fills that used to be buried,
plus the song is now 12 seconds longer.
"Ezy Rider" is the most problematic track on the CD. The first few seconds are
missing--on the CD and the vinyl. Overall, the song has a warmer sound than it
did on Voodoo Soup, but Jimi's vocals are still too far back in the mix.
"Drifting" is missing the last few seconds of the song (faded early to hide tape
hiss). However, the sound is warm, and the bass response is excellent. The First
Rays version of "In From the Storm" has the pre-song studio chatter that was
previously omitted. Also, the panning effect on the guitar is much more
noticeable now. First Rays comes to a close with Jimi's last studio recording,
"Belly Button Window." The song has slightly more high end than before, but
aside from that, it isn't much different.
In general, the sound quality on First Rays is better than Voodoo Soup. At high
volumes, though, it seems a bit harsh. The vinyl pressing is a bit warmer than
the CD, but it's still not what it should be (compared to the other albums).
There's no real difference between the CD and LP booklets for First Rays, aside
from the size. Even though the sound quality is not as good, Voodoo Soup has a
few songs that are sorely missing from First Rays. "Pali Gap" comes to mind, as
does "The New Rising Sun," and "Peace in Mississippi." On the other hand, First
Rays has "Straight Ahead" and "Hey Baby" (which sounds better than ever). Like I
said, give and take.
When all is said and done, the new Hendrix albums and CDs are better than
anything that's previously been available. The CDs have a higher output level
than the previous versions, as well as a new sense of openness and clarity. The
albums are even better. You get to experience the feeling of holding a new album
in your hands, the smell of the vinyl. You can fully appreciate the artwork that
way, also, whether it's a gatefold cover or a booklet that comes with it -
sometimes the CD format just doesn't cut it.
The next few years should prove very fruitful for Hendrix fans. According to
McDermott, there will be an album of BBC material, and a sequel to the Band of
Gypsies album. There are plans for a concert disc of the legendary 1969
performances at London's Royal Albert Hall, as well as a possible 3-tape home
video release taken from these shows. For this project, EH is working with the
same team that made The Beatles Anthology. As each succeeding rock generation
discovers Jimi's music, his legacy will live on forever.
____________________________________________________________________________
ON THE CUTTING EDGE: The Meridians Set the Pace
Interviewed by Paul Remington
Q) What do you get when you gather a tuba, a trombone, a flugelhorn, two
trumpets and a percussionist together, and have them prodigiously perform
a surprisingly diverse selection of material?
A) The Meridian Arts Ensemble.
Celebrating their tenth year, the Meridian Arts Ensemble is more active and
prolific than ever, spending almost six months out of the year touring,
preparing and solidifying material for recorded release, commissioning new
material, and adding new arrangements to their repertoire. While other brass
quintets share the same format as the Meridians, none approach their craft
in quite the same way.
The Meridians' motivation is simple: they stay true to their artistic
creativity and farsightedness, not their commercial appeal. Their own
creative ear defines the repertoire; a repertoire not solely based on what
sells, or what's popular, but what appeals to the ears and interest of each
band member. As the liner notes to their latest CD, Anxiety of Influence,
attests, "All artists seek their own creative identity or voice. This
process often begins with emulation and imitation of the models already
established. But the process can also involve rejection of that which has
come before. This desire, this need to be different and new, this distancing
from one's artistic forebears, is the anxiety of influence."
As a result of this motivation, their music is as varied and diverse as each
of their musical backgrounds and interests. Trombonist Ben Herrington, for
instance, is as well versed and comfortable talking about the rock music of
today as he is talking about 19th and 20th century composers. One gets the
feeling that anything goes with this ensemble, from Bach to Hendrix, Albinoni
to Zappa, and everything in-between.
Many brass ensembles feature a stock repertoire of material that is clearly
suited to satisfy the known interests of the classical consumer market.
Often times, we see the same popular symphonic or "pops" pieces rearranged,
offering little-to-nothing new except a different arrangement.
So, where does a music enthusiast find an ensemble performing something other
than brass arrangements of "West Side Story", or material by Mozart, Barber,
Debussy, Ravel, or Cole Porter? There is very little on the market to satisfy
those interested in truly "new" music. Let's limit our scope to brass
quintets. This narrows our selection considerably, and out of the
collection of brass quintets currently performing and/or recording, the
Meridian Arts Ensemble immediately bubbles to the surface.
The Meridian Arts Ensemble came into prominence after winning the 1990
Concert Artists Guild New York Competition. Their 1990 award resulted in
a recording contract with Channel Classics records. Owner and producer
Jared Sacks provided invaluable support for the ensemble, giving them carte
blanche on the selection of recorded repertoire. Sacks created a new
division of Channel Classics called Channel Crossings, devoted exclusively
to the Meridian Arts Ensemble, and groups with a similar musical mindset.
Since their 1990 award, the Meridians have released six CDs (with another
pending release), and have gained worldwide acceptance. In 1994, they
received the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Adventurous Programming Award,
establishing them as one of the most individualistic and unique chamber
ensembles in the business today.
Their contribution to 20th century music is not confined to adventurous
programming of musical repertoire. The Meridians are also known for their
commissioning of new works. Through the help of grants and private support,
they have collaborated with and commissioned new material from modern
composers such as Milton Babbit, Stephen Barber, Elliot Carter, and most
recently, Rob Maggio. Their collaboration with Frank Zappa, just prior to his
death, is now legendary and has had a profound impact on their repertoire.
The Meridians' contributions expand into the realms of education. Tours
frequently consist of master classes at universities and institutions, and
educating audiences during live concerts about each piece shares their
knowledge with their audience.
Each member has very specific ideas on how to present a repertoire during a
live performance. Through a personal approach, addressing the audience
between pieces, they have developed a natural knack for finding common
ground between themselves and their audience. This proves to be very
effective at eliminating the inevitable stage/audience barrier built-in
to most concert facilities.
Whether arranging, composing, collaborating, commissioning, performing or
recording, the Meridians are redefining a repertoire and style that will
have an effect for decades to come. The Meridian Arts Ensemble is the
cutting edge of modern brass quintets.
In early March, 1997, I met with four of the six members of the ensemble the
evening after their performance at Slee Chamber Hall on the SUNY Buffalo
campus in Amherst, New York. Their performance received a rousing ovation.
Feeling rested and content the following morning, over coffee, John Ferrari
(drums), Dan Grabois (flugelhorn), Ben Herrington (trombone), and Ray Stewart
(tuba) talked about music and their contribution to an artistic platform they
continue to refine and define. Jon Nelson [trumpet] also makes a very brief
but welcome appearance.
* * *
Cosmik: Where did it all begin? Tell me how the whole ensemble started.
Stewart: Jon [Nelson, trumpet] contacted me and asked if I wanted to be part
of a quintet. I said, "Yeah, sure." I had just graduated from graduate
school. I said, "I just met a trombone player, Ben Herrington, who just
moved into the area. He's probably looking for something to do," like
playing in a quintet. And, sure enough, he was. So, Jon called me, I
called Ben, and we took it from there.
Cosmik: So, the original personnel was you, Jon, Ben, and . . .
Stewart: Well, this was ten years ago, so the personnel was slightly
different. The other two members were Rolf Holly on trumpet and Tracy
Leonard on French Horn.
Cosmik: You didn't record with them, did you?
Stewart: No.
Cosmik: The ensemble has been a big advocate for adventurous programming.
Did that result over time, or was that an objective from the start?
Stewart: Yes... the intention of the group was to play interesting music,
and play it the way we wanted to. There was some inner struggle with Jon
and Ben and myself with playing for conductors and just sitting in the
back row of an orchestra, if we were lucky. If we started our own group,
we could decide immediately what we wanted to play, how we wanted to play
it, when to rehearse... there was more freedom that way, just to start
your group. There's more artistic freedom.
Cosmik: It's interesting to see the diversity of material. I mean, to arrange
and release material by Hendrix and material by Bach--that's quite a bold
move.
Stewart: Well, the arranging and writing came a little bit later. We started
with heavy pieces. We started with Lutoslawski and others. We were playing
some of the traditional brass quintets. We played a lot of Bach
arrangements. One of the pieces we played last night, "Acht Stucke" [Paul
Hindemith], was actually on our very first recital, on December 1, 1987, in
a church in New York.
Cosmik: So, it's been ten years. I'm sure it doesn't seem that long.
[Pause--Stewart smiles and Grabois laughs]
Stewart: Yes and no. In some ways yes, in some ways no.
Cosmik: Marilyn Nonkin [pianist, co-founder and director of Ensemble 21 in
New York City] has said "It's not enough to play well and pick good
pieces, what's necessary is imagination and programming. The Meridian
Arts Ensemble's programs stand out as being particularly creative." Such
high praise from another New York based ensemble is something worth
noting. New York is known for its musically competitive atmosphere. How
does the Meridian Arts Ensemble match-up against other New York based
ensembles?
Ferrari: I think there's a little bit of a difference between our group and
Ensemble 21. Ensemble 21 was formed by her and composer Jason Eckardt.
What started out as a composers' collective collaboration, I guess they
would hire musicians for each concert. So, the term "ensemble" should be
loosely used in that regard. It's not always the same musicians doing the
same material on every concert.
Herrington: I don't know how we're doing compared to the other groups in the
city. We...
Cosmik: Well, you don't really center yourself in the city. You tour around.
Herrington: That's right, we live in the city, but we only play in the city
maybe three times a year, give or take a concert or two.
Ferrari: And that's about how many concerts Ensemble 21 does, only in New
York--they have a series in New York. So, that's not a group that would
go on tour. A tour would not be likely for them.
Herrington: I definitely think there are not too many groups that are doing
the kind of diversity that we do and are playing the number of concerts
we're doing all over. I think we're a unique band in that respect.
Cosmik: In terms of deciding material that is adopted into your repertoire,
is that done collectively? Do each of you have equal say?
Herrington: We have equal say. Repertoire is always, probably, one of the
biggest issues of discussion in the group. We're always discussing how to
interpret the repertoire we're playing, and also how to seek out new
repertoire, and everyone contributes to that conversation.
Cosmik: I've noticed it's not just within the group that material is selected,
you also accept material from outside submissions. For instance, last
night, after the concert, a composer presented Jon Nelson his work
backstage, asking him to consider it for inclusion in your repertoire.
Is that a routine that you receive material following concerts?
Herrington: Yeah, it is pretty routine.
Cosmik: Are you impressed with what's been submitted?
Herrington: Sometimes. Sometimes it's garbage. We have a big huge pile of
music that we have read through that we just hated that we have asked
them if we could read some of their music, or they have asked us to read
through it. We try to have an open mind, because we're always searching
for new literature. But, we have a huge growing pile of music that we're
not interested in playing.
Cosmik: But you hang on to it; you don't throw it away.
Herrington: Well, yeah, you know... rather than throw it away, maybe someday
someone else may be interested in reading them again.
Cosmik: You also deal in the commissioning of works, which is interesting.
You seem to have it all. You have the performance, you have the programming,
you have people presenting you with material, you write your own material,
you arrange your own material, you commission material. What more is there
to do?
Herrington: Well, that's the idea, to try and draw from as many different
sources for the material that we play. We're always looking for the
highest quality musical selections that we can find. There's an
experimental element in that also. You're looking for that music, but
always looking sort of implies that you're not always going to find a
great piece of music, and some of our repertoire is better than others.
Some of the experiments work better than others. But, the idea is that
we're always trying to seek out new material, and find the good material
to play and keep it in our permanent repertoire.
Cosmik: Tell me about Channel Classics records. They've been a great support
to the ensemble, and you seem to be putting out a CD every eight to ten
months.
Stewart: I guess we've averaged about one a year, as of the Fall of this year
[1997], or maybe more... let's see. [Pauses to think] 1991 to 1997 we've
released seven CDs, so that's seven CDs over the span of about six and a
half years, maybe. Our fourth and fifth CDs ["Prime Meridian" and "Five"]
came out in the same year. They came out within months of each other. So
it just seems that they're just coming out in a flurry.
Grabois: We're not on a schedule as far as the CDs. When we're ready to
record a CD we go record it, and then when it's ready to be released we
release it. But we don't have a master plan that we're going to release
a CD a year.
Cosmik: What is the deciding factor that determines when you're ready to
release your next CD? Is that based on your developed repertoire or when
Channel Classics Records is ready?
Grabois: We decide when the repertoire is ready, and we have the kind of
repertoire that makes a coherent CD.
Herrington: Also, when we have enough new repertoire that we want to make a
new record. A lot of the CDs are like snapshots in time as far as our
repertoire. It depends on what we're we playing at that time? What were
the pieces that we were programming during our concerts, and so what was
polished and ready for performance decides what may be ready for recording.
That also has a lot to do with what determines what ends up on the CDs.
Cosmik: As far as new music, you guys are very much on the cutting edge of
what's being composed for brass ensemble. Composer David Diamond has said
"Composers don't compose for the now, they compose for the future." Would
you agree with that, and do you think of it that way in terms of developing
material for the ensemble?
Grabois: Well, I think I disagree with it. I don't know what he composes for,
and I'm not really familiar with his music. When we approach a composer,
they write a piece for us and what we do. Maybe he's thinking of
posterity--that's possible--but as far as we're concerned, the piece
represents a project and a challenge. We have to learn it and perform
it, and it happens very much in the present. If we decide we like it and
want to record it, then it becomes a future project as well. But, we're
not so concerned with leaving a legacy as we are trying to make good
concerts and good records. So, I think whatever the composers attitude
is, as far as we're concerned, is almost immaterial, because we're
concerned with the actual piece and the actual concerts and the actual
recordings.
Cosmik: Take me thorough the rehearsal of a new piece. You get a new piece
you decide you're going to learn. Obviously you have to practice it and
get it performance-ready. Do you have a set schedule which all of you
follow, and a process you go through with each piece?
Grabois: Nope.
Cosmik: For instance, do you all work on your own parts individually then
collectively get together, or do you all get together first, discuss it
with the composer, decide how it should be approached and presented, then
go off and learn the parts before getting back together?
Grabois: We usually hand out parts, everyone does what he needs to do to
look through the part, we get together... we don't have a process, we
just start to work. We try to figure out what the composer wants and also
what we think sounds good, and the piece grows almost like a human being
grows. It starts as nothing and it takes shape. We had comments from Rob
Maggio, whose piece we premiered last night, and his piece is now in the
middle of its evolution and will continue to grow, his comments will help
us figure out what he wants, and we'll figure out more and more as we
perform it what we want. A piece hasn't really taken shape until it's
been performed 15 or 20 times.
Cosmik: Last night, after the gig, while talking with Rob Maggio, you were
discussing different ideas relating to his composition. I know, a lot of
composers, after they hear the premier of their work, will sit down and
revise the work. Objectively, I would think that would be an exciting
aspect of what you're doing; to be able to communicate with these
composers.
Herrington: It is, very much! That's one of the great things about working
with composers that are still alive.
Cosmik: Where do you see the future of 20th century music going?
Ferrari: To the 21st century. [Laughter]
Herrington: I think that classical music and jazz music, and a lot of other
kinds of styles have come to a point where the development of new forms
of expression within those styles has been accelerated to the point where
everything is moving very quickly. Everybody's searching for something
unique and new, and I think that we've come to a point in the development
in the world community to where I see the future of these musics coming
together, and I think the people who are going to be doing the most
innovation in future music are those that can combine elements of the
music of different cultures and different sets of aesthetics and combine
them to make something new. And, that's what has always been done. For
instance, classical composers have always taken influences from the folk
music of their region--Bartok, Stravinsky, everybody, even back as far as
Bach and Mozart, have done that. But now, I think the crossover, or the
cross-influences, are maybe more pronounced than they used to be.
Cosmik: It seems the diversity is much more prominent than in Bach's day,
for instance.
Herrington: Yeah, and I think it's because it's so easy for everyone to hear
music from the other side of the world. All you have to do is turn on the
radio. If you're lucky, maybe there'll be a good public radio station in
your town where you can hear interesting music that's not just the
industry "same-old-same-old", but you can go to your record store.
There's always a huge World Music section in your major record stores
these days. The influence of Latin music is becoming more important in
this country. So, I see the most innovations coming from the combining
of different styles to try and create something new.
Cosmik: You all have been big proponents of that philosophy, and based on
the audience reaction during last night's concert, they really embraced
the material you selected and performed.
Ferrari: It was nice of them to be that acceptant. [Laughs]
Herrington: They're not always that acceptant!
Stewart: No.
Cosmik: They're not?
Grabois: No.
Cosmik: In general, do you usually receive such acceptance from your audience?
Ferrari: We generally get a good response. But sometimes everything isn't
always everybody's cup of tea, which, I guess, is okay.
Cosmik: But, isn't that one of the nice things about diversity? I mean, if
one piece really turns somebody off, the next piece may really turn them
on. Whereas, if you have one fixed format and somebody doesn't care for
that format, they're lost for the whole concert.
Ferrari: Yeah.
Herrington: That is true.
Ferrari: The one thing that makes the programming of musical repertoire
different compared to what an art museum might display is that if you
pay a dollar to get into an art museum, you could stare at or not stare
at the painting for as long as you want or don't want to, and move on.
For a concert, people are paying eight, 10, 15 or more dollars for a
ticket, and a piece is as long as it is and they have to sit there for
as long as it is, unless they want to leave. So, it's a difficult kind
of balance.
Stewart: I got a warm feeling from the audience last night.
Ferrari: Yeah, they were great.
Stewart: I felt they were somewhat educated about the Meridian Arts Ensemble.
They seemed to have brought to the hall some sort of history between
themselves and us. They seemed to know what to expect, and they embraced
everything we gave them. At least that was my feeling. They were very
acceptant of everything, and we didn't hit them over the head with our
20 minute [Milton] Babbitt piece, but I think they could have handled it
very nicely.
Ferrari: Yeah, they probably would have.
Stewart: Another thing that I liked from last night was there were program
notes in the program, in print, that the people could read at their leisure,
but we also gave some notes from the stage, which were also, maybe,
redundant, but I think in this case the redundancy worked in our favor
because it just further enforced what we were about. They read it, and they
heard it from the stage, and I felt they enjoyed the whole evening, as a
whole, much more because they had it in print in their hand and then we
also spoke from stage, on certain pieces.
Cosmik: That's something I really enjoyed--when Dan [Grabois] came up and gave
some historical background to the following piece. I think audiences respond
very positively towards that approach. They have a better understanding
about the piece which helps them appreciate it, and makes it interesting.
That seems to be another thing that you're about--educating the public
while providing a personal touch.
Grabois: Well, you have to learn how to do that, because you can not explain
a piece of music. There's no such thing as explaining a piece of music. And,
I think we've all found that there's a real limit to the amount you tell
people, like, "Listen for X," or "Listen for Y." That's, basically, a
pretty unhealthy way of introducing a piece, and you have to find something
that gives the piece a context, or sparks a little interest in the piece
within the listener without being a bully and telling them how to listen.
We've been working on that for 10 years. We'll get better at it as time
goes by.
Cosmik: I think you could draw them in through the history of the piece.
Grabois: That's a lot of it. Also, people like to see the personality of the
performers. We're in a world now where people don't go to concerts much.
People watch television and they listen to CDs, and they don't necessarily
have a sense of performers as human beings, and they like to see that.
And if you stand up and say something funny, or something human, they love
it. And they should, because performers are just people. Somebody was
saying last night--maybe it was you--that it would be really great to just
be able to sit up on the stage right next to the performer while they're
playing, and that would be a really cool way to play a concert. But, you
can't do that when there's 400 people in the audience. What you can do is
come to them by speaking to them as a person rather than as some world
expert on the music of Gesualdo, or whatever, which we aren't anyway.
Cosmik: Right, and you're not alienating yourselves from the audience by
thinking of them as just the audience. I mean, you're going outside the
musicians role by standing up and addressing the crowd as equals. You're
meeting them on common ground.
Grabois: Well, the modern concert setup for a stage is highly unsatisfactory.
There's clearly a barrier with the stage and an audience. Personally, I
don't think that's a great setup, although I understand why things work that
way.
Cosmik: What would be your idea of an optimal setup?
Grabois: Chamber music was originally developed to be played in a small room
with people hanging out and listening.
Cosmik: In a chamber.
Grabois: In a chamber. And our chambers now are gigantic. It's too alienating.
The performers don't have enough of a sense of the audience, and the
audience doesn't have a sense of the performers. If you look at some like
improvisatory theater, imagine an improvisatory group that's performing in
a small space. They interact with the audience, they'll involve the
audience. Sometimes they'll ask the audience for the next step of the
story--what's going to happen next? Now there's an involvement between the
people watching and the people performing. But, with us, we say we're going
to play these pieces and you're going to listen to them, and there's a
split. We try to lessen that split as much as we can, in whatever way
possible.
Cosmik: Do you ever play a gig where you do get that kind of setting?
Ferrari: A lot of the Master classes end up being that way.
Cosmik: I figured they probably would. I know you do a lot of Master classes,
which must be a better format for interaction.
Herrington: In Europe they have a lot of venues that are . . . one great venue,
like Dan is talking about, is the nightclub. It's very small, it's intimate,
the people are really close to you, and there are tables. You can drink a
beer or a glass of wine, or whatever you want to do, and there's an informal
air about it that, I think, makes it easier to relax and give the music an
open ear. On the other hand, sort of a down side to that is, it can be
distracting to hear glasses tinkling, and people having conversation.
[Ferrari smiles and begins noisily spinning a spoon in his empty coffee mug]
Stewart: Allright, we get the idea.
[Laughs]
Herrington: Some people are listening to the music and some people aren't. In
Europe they have a lot of venues that are the perfect blend of both the
concert hall setting and the nightclub. There's something to their
performance spaces that are more relaxed. They look like a modern nightclub,
but, at the same time, I think people are used to hearing performances there
and not just a background band. So, there's a respect for the musicians as
they're performing. I think, over there, they really have that venue down.
They know how to make that just the right performance setting.
Cosmik: Do you find the acceptance of the audience is increased when you're in
a setting like that? Last night, the audience certainly was receptive to
your approach, and was very acceptant, yet the setting was certainly not as
relaxed and intimate as the European venues you described.
Grabois: The easier the format the easier it works out. When we play at Master
classes and have students sitting next to us--practically in our laps--It's
very easy to engage them. In a situation like last night where we're in a
stage in a large hall it's harder, but everything worked out great last
night, as it often does.
Herrington: I think, also, one of the things about last night was that the
acoustics really were fantastic in that hall.
Grabois: I think the ideal setup would be that music is not something you pay
for. It's free and it's going on somewhere and you go and listen and
participate in some way, not by playing along, necessarily, but, you want to
go hear some music and you go and you sit wherever you want. You're involved
in some way. In our society, we have to earn a living, so . . .
Herrington: Music is a product.
Grabois: . . . it's a product. You pay to go hear it, and that sullies it, in
a way. But, there's ways to make concert situations work. And it's nice when
they do.
Cosmik: You've played all over the world, do you have any specific countries
that you favor?
Grabois: Holland.
[Stewart laughs]
Ferrari: I love Holland.
Cosmik: And why is that?
Ferrari: Great response from those folks. The crowds really, honestly seem to
dig us and show that appreciation at our concerts.
Cosmik: In what way? I mean, is it as an explosion of applause afterwards?
Herrington: Sometimes, yeah . . . a lot of times. I think that they have a
much longer tradition of the arts in Holland--all over Europe. The people
are a whole lot more familiar with the concept of going out to seek out
stimulating, artistic, entertainment. But, entertainment that has more than
just a surface entertaining quality. There's such a tradition for art on so
many other levels over there that I think it's in the culture. But, not only
that, the humanities, basically, are taught in schools in Europe. People are
exposed to a whole lot more diversity in music and art, and I think that
they are taught in their schools an appreciation and respect for the process
of creating art. I think that, what Dan said earlier, in this country music
is thought of, in many ways, as a product. People separate the artist from
the product . . . you know, the art. Here's an interesting story that I
think illustrates what I'm talking about: Some friends of mine from my home
town came to visit me in New York. We went to the Museum of Modern Art. And,
I couldn't seem to explain to them, as we were looking at all those
beautiful paintings, how seeing those paintings made me want to know, and
feel like actually I did know, the artists that painted them. They looked
at the paintings as though they were pictures, and even said, "Now, I like
this picture." "This picture's pretty." That was great that they could
appreciate it on that level, but it was frustrating for me to try and
explain the connection between the work of art and the artist that created
it. The crown jewel on that day was, at the end of the day, my friend
Brenda looked at the beautiful painting and she said, "Now, what I can't
get over is how beautiful all these frames are."
[Laughs]
Herrington: She looked at the frames! She was looking at the frames!
Ferrari: [Laughing] Like, that was the thing that she couldn't get over.
Herrington: Yeah, so . . . I think that in the schools and in the culture in
the United States we don't teach an appreciation for the process of creating
a piece of art, or music, or whatever.
Cosmik: With that in mind, there has to be a difference in the makeup of your
audience between the United States and Europe. How have you assessed that
difference? What is your audience? It's not 18 to 24 year olds in the
United States, is it?
Grabois: That's a good question. That's the issue.
Herrington: That's a question we've been trying to figure out for some time.
Cosmik: And, you still haven't been able to answer it.
Stewart: Who is our audience? Whoever will come.
Ferrari: Last night seemed like a petty good cross section, demographic of the
kind of people who come to our concerts.
Stewart: Yeah.
Cosmik: I was looking at that. There were people of all ages attending.
Grabois: University audiences tend to be very good. The music that we play,
some of it is very challenging. And, as Ben [Herrington] said, there's not
really any music education anymore in schools in America. People don't have
. . . I hate to use the word "sophisticated," but there's not a better one
that I can think of. A lot of people don't tend to have sophisticated
musical tastes, and we played a piece like "Moo Shu Rap Wrap", which has
some really hard parts in it. It's not like listening to pop music at all.
I mean, some of it is like listening to pop music. Or we play music that
you don't need an education, but you need a certain kind of mind to listen
to it. And, people at universities tend to come closer to that. I've found,
or observed, that in Europe, the general public appreciates us more than
the general public in America.
Cosmik: Do you feel the music the youth of America are exposed to by the media
affects what groups they follow? I mean, you turn on the radio and most of
what's played on the airwaves is rock music, and there's not an abundance
of diversity for exposure in rock.
Grabois: Yeah, but you'll hear some unbelievable crap on the radio in Europe.
Cosmik: Really?
Grabois: Oh my God!
Cosmik: But, aren't they exposed to a broader spectrum of music than the youth
of America, and could that constitute the lack of public acceptance here in
the States compared to Europe?
Ferrari: That's hard to say. I mean, with all the discussion about how much
more the Europeans seem to appreciate what we do, or art I general, it is
pretty interesting to turn on the television in the hotel room, or walk into
a caf� bar, or whatever, and most of the music is techno-disco, and the
television is playing . . . you know.
Grabois: American sitcoms. [Laughs]
Herrington: Americans don't have a monopoly on bad taste. That's not what we're
saying here.
Cosmik: They don't? Now, that's my cynicism. I know how I grew up. Thanks to a
musically minded family, I was exposed to a lot of different forms of
music. But, I pretty much centered on what my peers centered on, and what
they centered on was what was proliferated on the AM and FM bands, much of
which was not sophisticated.
Herrington: I think that the Europeans certainly have plenty of bad taste also.
But, I think that what you said earlier, that there is more opportunity for
people to get exposed to higher quality music and art in Europe, I think,
than in the Unites States--definitely, by far! And everybody certainly
understands the need and has an appreciation for a great art museum, or a
local opera company, or a local symphony, or a place where you can go and
listen to live music. Those places are a whole lot more abundant in Europe
then they are in the United States.
Grabois: I think you'd have a hard time in Europe finding a lot of people who
were unwilling to pay $8 a year, or whatever it is that we end up paying
per person on our taxes for the NEA [National Endowment for the Arts].
People believe in subsidizing the arts in Europe. And people in America
believe what they see on the news, and if Orrin Hatch gets on the news and
says, "Your tax money is supporting pornography and, therefore, we should
shut down the NEA," people believe it. And, maybe people aren't aware that
the average portion of their tax bill that goes to fund the NEA is around
80-something cents.
Cosmik: That seems awful low. They ask for a presidential campaign donation
of $1 on our tax forms, and that's even higher.
Grabois: Yes, it is low, and the NEA is very poorly funded. You don't have
that situation in Europe. You have people willing to pay for social
services, you have people who are willing to support the poor, and who are
happy to support the arts, because they think the arts are important. So,
things are scary in America because there's no education in schools. The
schools are broke too, because no one wants to pay for public education
either. So, I don't know what's going to happen.
Cosmik: Where does the Meridian Arts Ensemble's support come from? I know you
get grants.
Grabois: We get grants for commissioning and for records and we get concert
fees. But, it's a bleak future because the concert presenters are surely
getting their money from the NEA. If there's no NEA, that's less money for
us, although ultimately we've never gotten a grant directly from the NEA.
So, classical music is not a money making operation. It's society enhancing.
When Lincoln Center was built, it paid for itself very quickly because
businesses bloomed were Lincoln Center was, and the arts always have that
effect. The immediate effect of the arts is always a loss of money, and if
you live in a culture where the immediate gain of money is the definition
of "good," then you're not going to have classical art forms.
Cosmik: So, I guess the logical question would be, why did each of you choose
this as your vocation? It wasn't for monetary reasons, obviously.
Grabois: We chose it because we love it.
Ferrari: The thing about being a professional musician, or choosing to be a
professional musician--which is, arguably, an insane decision to make--you
find it's something you have to do. There's really nothing else I would
imagine doing as a career.
Cosmik: It's as much a labor of love as it is a career choice.
Ferrari: Yeah, and if I teach students and they're thinking of going to
college for music, the basic question I would pose to them is, music is a
difficult career choice, but if it's something you feel you have to do,
then go for it. It sort of chooses you, you don't always choose it. At
least, that's the case for me and many musicians I know. I can't speak for
anyone else here.
Herrington: Me too.
Grabois: People become monks also. People become things that they believe in.
Herrington: I've never had anything in my life that is as much fun as playing
music. It's so much fun. Even though it's difficult to make a living.
There's all kinds of problems becoming a professional musician. I guess,
for me, the bottom line is, when I go on stage to perform with this band, I
have a great time. It's almost like it feels like a sin to take money for
that. I'm just having fun.
Ferrari: I don't feel that guilty about it. [Smiles]
[Laughter]
Herrington: [Smiles] Don't get me wrong.
Cosmik: In general, what are some of the obstacles you've dealt with in an
attempt to stay afloat financially?
Ferrari: Having enough gigs to make enough money to live, which mostly, for
a musician, means being as busy as possible.
Cosmik: How much time are you on the road a year?
Ferrari: With this group, we're now averaging about three or four months, if
you add up all the weeks.
Cosmik: How much time do you spend performing in the states compared to abroad?
Ferrari: It's more in the states.
Herrington: Actually, this year it's going to be more like . . . more than
four months.
Cosmik: Talking with one of the Eastman School of Music brass faculty members,
I was told there weren't more then three or so brass ensembles with a
sit-down drummer performing/recording. Is that true? How many ensembles are
you aware of that have the same structured unit as the Meridian Arts
Ensemble?
Stewart: I don't know, maybe one or two . . . I don't know.
Ferrari: There was a group named the Dallas Brass that might have gone out a
little bit for a few tours, or made a record or so with a
drummer/percussionist . . .
Herrington: Rhythm and Brass. It's the second version of the Dallas Brass, and
is almost the same band.
Ferrari: The Canadian Brass . . . I think they made a record with a drummer
playing Dixieland.
Cosmik: Not all your releases feature a drummer.
Stewart: Not every release. There's no drummer on "Five".
Herrington: Three of our releases are without drums.
Grabois: "Five", "Visions of the Renaissance", and the Winning Artist Series
[premier release, "Brass Quintet"].
Stewart: When our new release comes out, four of the seven pieces will have
drums.
Cosmik: The musical format, with a sit-down drummer, opens you up to a more
select type of material.
Stewart: I would say so. In terms of adding percussion to the group . . .
the Dallas Brass--I think they had percussion in their group, but it was
more of an aural enhancer. It was like, chimes here, Glockenspiel here, for
effect, you know. Maybe a snare drum in a Holst march or something. But,
we've pretty much utilized the talents of a very talented drummer.
Ferrari: Shucks! [Smiles]
Stewart: That means playing the drum set, al-la rock, and also playing
percussion, with a full battery of percussion.
Cosmik: It's not just a secondary additive, it's a legitimate part of the
composition.
Stewart: Absolutely!
Ferrari: And much of that has to do with the repertoire. The Dallas Brass may
have done "West Side Story" . . .
Herrington: They did some pop stuff.
Ferrari: . . . yeah, more of a pop repertoire.
Cosmik: Have you ever received any feedback from any of these ensembles?
Herrington: We met a group called the Rhythm and Brass. They're a good group.
Ferrari: We've crossed paths on tour.
Herrington: But, they're a whole different band than us. They don't play the
same kind of stuff that we play. But, they're good guys. We were passing
through Fayetteville, Arkansas at the same time one year. We played a
nightclub after our concert hall venue that day. We played a dive nightclub
that night, and they came to that show and were very complementary.
Grabois: If you think of the program that we played last night, Jon Nelson's
piece, "Dream of Miles", was written with the drum set as an integral part.
Rob Maggio's piece, which was premiered, was written with the drum set as an
integral part; "Moo Shu Rap Wrap" by Su Lian Tan, likewise; my piece,
"Migration", likewise. The Zappa pieces ["Marqueson's Chicken" and "The
Black Page"] are arrangements, but right there you have four pieces--without
the Zappa pieces--that were commissioned by the group and written with the
drum set as an integral part, and I think that's unique. What we're doing
is unique. We think that it's a good combination. In Haydn's time, he
started writing music for two violins, viola and cello because he thought
it was a good combination, and he was right, and now there's an unbelievable
repertoire for the string quartet.
Cosmik: It became an accepted form.
Grabois: It became accepted because it worked and a repertoire has been
building for two hundred years. Now, we consider that we've stumbled on a
combination that's also really good. We're trying to start building
repertoire. Only time will tell if it catches on, but for us it works. So,
if other groups want to do it, that's great. If they don't want to do it,
that's great too. But, that's what we do because we think it works.
Ferrari: Of course, as the percussionist, I'll just say that anything works
good if you add percussion.
[Laughs]
Cosmik: When you consider all the various ensembles performing and recording
today, are there any that stand out to each of you as a real class act?
Herrington: I'm impressed and have been inspired by a string quartet called
the Kronos String Quartet. People have compared us to them. We're not
trying to copy the Kronos String Quartet by any stretch of the imagination.
But, I think that if the Kronos String Quartet hadn't done what they did
when they did it . . . I think that they've taken so many chances with new
music and different styles of music, that they're pioneers. If they hadn't
been able to do what they did, I don't think we'd be doing what we're doing.
Cosmik: So, it's progressive, with one ensemble influencing the other.
Ferrari: It's flattering to be compared to them.
Cosmik: At the same time, I'm certain others will be influenced by what you're
doing . . .
Herrington: Well, I hope so!
Cosmik: I think the most flattering thing would be to see other ensembles pop
up utilizing the same ensemble format as the Meridian's, and performing some
of the same original material.
Grabois: I had a very satisfying experience--I teach at a university. One of
my students asked if--for her lesson--I would coach a chamber group she was
playing with. I said, yes, of course. The piece they were playing was a
piece we had commissioned. It wasn't a piece with drums, but it was a piece
we commissioned, and that was a great feeling. Here's a piece we caused to
come into being is gonna be a part of their repertoire. It's cool.
Ferrari: What piece?
Grabois: It was [John] Halle's "Soft Shoe".
Cosmik: How did you first become associated with Frank Zappa?
Grabois: What happened was . . . we had a friend who passed us a . . . no one
had heard much of Zappa's music. I guess . . . Ray . . . did you hear
Zappa's music once, live?
Stewart: Yeah, I went to a Zappa concert.
Grabois: So, you were sort of familiar with his music. I had never heard a
single note that he wrote.
Cosmik: Really? And is that true for each of you?
Grabois: Probably, to a greater or lesser degree, people had heard a little
bit . . .
Ferrari: This was before I was in the group.
Stewart: I had Bongo Fury on 8-Track [Ferrari laughs], in, like, 8th grade.
Cosmik: And, John [Ferrari], when did you join the group?
Ferrari: I joined the group . . . three and a half years ago? [Looks towards
other members] Right?
Grabois: At least.
Ferrari: Fall of 1993.
Grabois: So, this was a tape that a friend of ours passed on to Jon [Nelson]
of Zappa's '88 band. Jon basically wore out the tape listening to it. He
passed it around and we all loved it and thought that kind of music would
work. For me, never having heard Zappa, the integration in his music of
rock and classical I thought was really amazing. I had never heard that
working so well. That's why I liked the music. Jon arranged "T'Mershi
Duween" and "Dupree's Paradise". We started playing it and that was why
we got a drummer. It was because those pieces, we thought . . . well . . .
they sound great, but they'd sound even better with a drummer. This was with
a different drummer, before we found John [Ferrari]. We started playing them
with drums, and they went over very well. It was an ideal situation where we
felt we were raising our artistic level, but at the same time we were
getting a great commercial response, which is fantastic! How often does that
happen? Not very often. Jon Nelson started arranging more and more pieces,
and that's how we got involved. We started sending tapes and our first CD
to Frank, and about nine months after sending the stuff--a couple of times
it got lost--after nine months, Frank called Jon. They had a 20 minute phone
conversation, and we got an invitation to go play for him. Shortly
thereafter we were going to LA, and we played for him then.
Cosmik: When was this?
Grabois: This was . . . well, ya got me. [Looks towards other members]
Who remembers dates?
Stewart: Frank called in January of '93, and we happened to be going out
there [Los Angeles, CA] in March of '93.
Grabois: We played for him down in the studio. We played for about an hour, and
he coached us.
Herrington: We played in the Utility Muffin Kitchen.
Cosmik: Utility Muffin Research Kitchen.
Grabois: Yes. And then, I don't know if you know of the margarita nights that
developed at his house.
Cosmik: Yes, I have. Go ahead.
Grabois: This was on a margarita night.
Cosmik: Frank would have friends over . . .
Grabois: Friends came over . . . on one of the margarita nights was when the
Chieftains and the Tuvan throat singers were there, and they collaborated.
We weren't there for that. This was a margarita night when there actually
weren't that many people around. There was a biographer who was working on
something about Frank there, and I forget who else. But, I remember that at
one point when we were working VERY hard--by the way, Frank was a very, very
serious musician--Gail came in and said the margaritas were ready, and Frank
said, "First they'll learn their parts, and then they'll have their
margaritas."
[Ferrari laughs]
Grabois: So, we worked for over an hour with him and then we went and had our
margaritas, and, for about two hours, we listened to pieces which he had
[composed] on the Synclavier.
Herrington: Some of which ended up on Civilization Phaze III.
Cosmik: And others that didn't?
Grabois: Others that underwent transformation. He was always changing and
tinkering. That was also an occasion--for myself--I heard even more the
integration of atonal music with rock that was just incredible! And he had
. . . I remember there was one piece called Goat Polo which changed by the
time we visited him a second time . . .
Cosmik: It evolved.
Grabois: It evolved. It involved the Tuvan throat singers, who he had sampled,
and . . .
Ferrari: The Chieftains.
Grabois: The Chieftains, a little bit. And, some atonal piano music he had
written, and some rock and roll kind of sounds all combined, but it worked.
It didn't sound like a collage, it sounded like a piece. It was very, very
cool. We just sat there and listened to music with him, just the way you do
when you're kids, you know, sitting around listening to music. So, that was
in the room with all the Zappa license plates. I'm sure everyone's seen it.
So that was the first time. Someone else can tell about the second time.
Cosmik: Before we get to that--you've worked with a lot of people, and have
had a lot of people work with you. How was Zappa unique to work with in
comparison to others?
Grabois: I think he was the most serious person we've ever worked with. I
didn't know what to expect. I had never met a rock person before, and he
didn't smile. He didn't crack jokes. He didn't use the word "groove" or
"vibe" or call us "man". You know? [Laughter] He was, like, "Do this!"
[Emphasizes each phrase banging fist on table] "This should be more this
way." "You're playing a wrong note." "The feel of this is wrong." It was
very serious.
Herrington: He coached us the way a university professor would coach a student
group. We went in and sat down. First, we performed the arrangements for
him . . .
Grabois: It was the Smart Went Crazy set. That was the set we were playing.
Herrington: He said, I guess, an obligatory compliment: "Well, that was very
good, now let's get to work."
Cosmik: So, he identified work to be done based on a single hearing.
Herrington: Oh yeah!
Grabois: He had amazing ears.
Stewart: He knew his music. He knew it cold, and if we missed one 16th note,
he knew about it, and he busted us on a couple of things. He said, "There's
a wrong note in there. Let's fix it. Let's hear it again." So we played it
slowly and figured out which note it was and changed it. But, we were in his
home which was also his work place, and he had this very serious way about
him. If you wanted to ask him something directly or make a comment, I found
myself thinking about what I wanted to say for about 10 minutes [Herrington
laughs] and then I would wait for the appropriate moment and then carefully
say or ask whatever it was I wanted to ask. You know, it was that kind of
aura.
Cosmik: You didn't necessarily feel relaxed enough to freely interject
comments?
Stewart: Well . . . we were there to work.
Ferrari: And it was our first meeting.
Stewart: You feel like, if you don't say something pertinent, you're just going
to waste his time.
Grabois: We knew he was sick.
Ferrari: You weren't getting into small talk, I bet.
Stewart: We did later. But, exactly . . . we knew he was sick. The second time,
he was in a lot of pain. But, one of the rewarding things about performing
his music on stage in a Meridian concert is that you can look out into the
audience and you can sort of pick out the people who are going to like the
Bach and the Scarlatti, and then, conversely, you can pick out the people
who maybe hear about our concert from the Zappa hotline [1-818-PUMPKIN], and
want to hear the more Zappa the better. When we perform our recitals for
these categories of people, we're sort of, I hope, bridging the gap to our
future audience. We do play Scarlatti and Bach and Hindemith, and the people
who are there just for the Zappa pieces get a dose of that, you know? And
they see us performing it, they hear it, they enjoy it, they clap, they do
everything "appropriate," and they have a good concert experience. In the
end, they hear what they came for, ultimately, which is Zappa, because we
generally end every concert playing some sort of Zappa or Latin music, or
something up-beat. But, on the other side of the coin, the older set--you
know, the fading chamber music patrons of today--they get what they came
for, but they also get some Zappa in the end. Nine times out of ten you can
look out in the audience, after we play Zappa, and the people that you think
won't like it are clapping, and they're clapping fervently. They're into it.
I can't tell you how many septuagenarians have been in our audience and they
say, "I've never heard a piece like that Zappa before. I liked it!" And,
of course, the hippie-freaks--the Zappa heads who come--they hear the
Scarlatti and the Bach and they get turned on to it. It's great music.
Grabois: [Smiling] They, of course, are more open-minded, usually, than the
other people.
Herrington: I think Zappa listeners are some of the most open-minded audience
member that we've ever encountered.
Cosmik: That's what Zappa was all about, really. [Addressing Grabois] You said
it yourself, he incorporated classical and rock, and many other forms. He
did what you as a unit are doing, unitizing many different musical forms in
the compositions you perform.
Stewart: Well, Frank liked the fact that we played his music among other
composers works. We weren't just a Zappa cover band.
Cosmik: Did you only play his music for him, or did you play other material
from your repertoire?
Grabois: No, just his music.
Stewart: We played other stuff for him.
Grabois: We did?
Stewart: On the second occasion.
Grabois: No . . . did we?
Ferrari: No . . . not that I remember.
Grabois: We just played the Prime Meridian set.
Stewart: Well, we were in there to perform his music with him.
Herrington: Didn't we play the Taxin "Fanfare" for Frank? We did play the Taxin
piece for Frank.
Ferrari: The first time?
Herrington: The second time.
Stewart: I seem to remember playing something a little different besides . . .
Herrington: Yeah, I remember he had said . . .
Ferrari: Oh yeah! I remember that!
Herrington: He had said, the first time we went to see him, that he really
enjoyed the piece by Ira Taxin on our first CD. And so, the next time we
were there, we had a very short fanfare by that composer, and we asked
Frank, "Would you like to hear this fanfare by that composer you said you
liked?" So, we played that for him.
Cosmik: And, he loved it.
Herrington: He loved it, yes.
Grabois: The second time he was very sick.
Ferrari: It was only a month or so before he died.
Grabois: It was three weeks before he died.
Cosmik: So, this was in November of '93.
Grabois: He was in bed, and we gathered around. We were worried that it was
going to be too loud. And he was like, "No, no." He really wanted to hear
it. And it was really loud. It was in this tiny room upstairs and we
played the Prime Meridian set, and he pointed out an error [Laughs] on
"Smart Went Crazy" that we hadn't caught.
Cosmik: Wow . . . he still had the ear. That ear was still sharp.
Grabois: Oh yeah.
Ferrari: It was nice that he listened to it.
Grabois: He listened to it carefully.
Cosmik: How long did you play?
Grabois: Maybe 20 minutes.
Stewart: I think it's an interesting fact that we recorded the Ira Taxin
brass quintet, which he thought was some of the best brass music ever
written. We recorded that on our first CD, Winning Artist Series. That CD
doesn't have immense commercial appeal. That's the CD that sells the least
of all our titles. We were over in Europe, and . . . the Zappa name has
opened some doors for us, but it's only part of what we do.
Cosmik: Most of your audience isn't coming primarily for the Zappa, don't you
think?
Stewart: If they do come just to hear Zappa, they quickly figure out that
that's not the case.
Grabois: Like, last night, we played two Zappa pieces in a two hour program.
So, people who came last night to hear lots of Zappa didn't hear lots of
Zappa. They heard a little bit.
Ferrari: Hopefully, they weren't too disappointed.
Cosmik: No! You all received an abrupt standing ovation.
Stewart: That's allright. So, if you want to hear lots of Zappa music,
unfortunately, you have to go hear a Zappa cover band, which we're not.
Or, you'll have to be satisfied with listening to Zappa CDs, of which there
are 65. [Laughs] So, I think Jon's made a conscious effort to slow down
on arranging Zappa's music, just because we have over 20 performable titles.
Cosmik: Do you plan to perform or record any Zappa compositions in the
future?
Stewart: We'll see. We'll see what happens. [General murmur of approval from
all members]
Grabois: The current set has been recorded as of last month. That's the CD
"Seven" that has "Marqueson's Chicken", "The Black Page", "Lumpy Gravy",
"King Kong", "Pygmy Twylyt" and "Hungry Freaks Daddy".
Cosmik: What other material was recorded for the CD?
Herrington: We have some original tunes.
Grabois: A piece by Ferrari.
Ferrari: A piece by Jon Nelson, as well, called "Sleepless".
Grabois: "Some Skunk Funk" by Randy Brecker.
Ferrari: Yeah, the Brecker Brothers tune.
Stewart: "Moo Shu Rap Wrap" by Su Lian Tan.
Grabois: The Bach "Prelude and Fugue in D minor".
Ferrari: That's going to be an interesting . . . "dish" on that CD.
Grabois: There's also a gospel kind of a tune on there. Isn't that how you'd
describe it?
Herrington: Sort of a gospel-jazz ballad called "Sanctity".
Grabois: . . . by Jason Forsythe, a New York composer.
Ferrari: There's also a jazz ballad called "Lullaby". My tunes are sort of
high energy fusion.
Cosmik: So you have the usual mix of style that's made all your releases
interesting.
Stewart: It's another grab-bag. It's representative of a recital. If you go to
hear one of our concerts, it's a big mix.
Cosmik: You're gonna get a grab-bag of material.
Grabois: What's also going to be fun about that CD is, we've been experimenting
with electronic effects, and there's some good ones on the CD. Some fun
stuff.
Cosmik: Really? That's a new approach. You haven't done that in the past.
Grabois: Yeah, it's the first time that we've brought the pedals into a
recording session. So, there's some very unbrass-like sounds in there.
Cosmik: So, you mike the brass instruments and control the effects with the
pedals.
Grabois: Yes, we mike them and mike them through the pedals.
Cosmik: What effects do you use?
Grabois: Some wah-wah . . .
Herrington: Some distortion . . .
Ferrari: Some guitar effects. The same thing that you'd buy at Sam Ash, if
you were a guitarist.
Cosmik: I'd think that would be a fantastic way to add color to the
compositions.
Ferrari: Yeah.
Herrington: That's right.
Grabois: Well, that's what a lot of rock and roll is--the groove patterns. A
lot of rock and roll is the energy. But, also, a lot of rock and roll is
the instruments; the sound of the instruments. We try to be true to
whatever style we're playing. When we play Salsa music, and I'm playing
the piano lines [on flugelhorn], I try and sound like a piano. So, when I'm
playing a guitar solo--like on a Zappa piece--I want to sound like a guitar,
and that means distortion, and whatever else.
Herrington: If we play, for instance, "Sonata in E flat" by Domenico Scarlatti,
which was originally written for the harpsichord, and when we perform that
piece on brass, we try to play it in a style that sort of imitates the
articulation of the notes on a harpsichord. Harpsichord strings are plucked
with quills, so it has a very light an bouncy kind of a sound. It's crisp.
And, so, when we play the Scarlatti on our brass instruments, we try and
imitate that crispness on the horns with the attack and the style that we
play with. The same with rock. You have the ability to plug in a device
that gives you an authentic rock sound. It's just like sticking a mute on
the end of a horn to change the sound. So, that's how we think of the
effects.
Cosmik: As far as your visits with Zappa, he seemed to be very acceptant of
you, as a group. Had he lived, do you think he would have been interested
in working with you?
Grabois: We were talking about a collaboration when he died.
Ferrari: Had he lived, we probably would have tried very hard to get a grant
to commission from him a piece. I'm sure of that, right? [Looks to other
members]
Herrington: Yeah, we would have definitely tried to commission a work, and we
had also talked with him . . . you know, he was making plans for future
projects the whole time.
Cosmik: Even in the end.
Herrington: He was working, always, under the assumption that, "Well, I'm going
to have at least one more week." So, he was working, pretty much, as much
as he could, literally until the day that he died. We had talked about
projects. There was one project that we were thinking about doing with his
music with the Portland Symphony. Was it the Portland? [Looks to other
members]
Stewart: Yeah, it was in Portland. It was The Grand Wazoo Dance Project or
something, wasn't it?
Herrington: Yeah, we were going to do a "Grand Wazoo" arrangement, and we
would have loved to have had him actually write us a piece, but . . .
Stewart: It's sad to think that we were knocking on his door for nine months
before he actually got our CD and actually listened to it. He finally called
Jon--the first point of contact was January of '93--and at that point he
only had about 11 months to live. We managed to see him twice in those 11
months, but, had he gotten our CD and packet the very first time we had
sent it to him, nine months prior, it would have nearly doubled the amount
of time we would have had with him. I don't think that would have affected
future projects with him, but it would have been nine months more time in
which ideas would ferment and germinate between him thinking about us and
how he could use us or work with us, or whatever. It's kind of sad to think
that our stuff got lost for nine months when there was only . . .
Cosmik: Makes you wonder how much material Zappa received from other groups.
Grabois: I'm sure he was sent a lot of material.
Ferrari: He probably got several packages a day in the mail.
Stewart: Maybe that's standard.
Ferrari: Musicians wanting to audition or whatever.
Grabois: So, since he's died we've been back twice.
Cosmik: Oh, really? I wasn't aware of that. When you were in the basement
working with him on margarita night, did he record the session? I understand
he recorded many of those margarita nights.
Grabois: No, those weren't recorded. Neither of our sessions with him were
recorded. However, we've been back twice since then, and the second time,
which wasn't too long ago, was recorded.
Cosmik: Who recorded it?
Grabois: Dweezil recorded it. Dweezil has taken a little nook of the Utility
Muffin Research Kitchen and built his own little studio in there. So, he
recorded that. We played two house concerts, and the second one Dweezil
recorded.
Cosmik: Will any of that material be released?
Grabois: I doubt it.
Stewart: No.
Ferrari: It's archives.
Grabois: It's good though.
Cosmik: You're in the vault. You made it! [Laughs]
Grabois: It's good though, it's a good concert.
Ferrari: I need to get a copy of that. Do you have a copy? [Looks to Grabois]
Grabois: Yeah, we have tapes . . .
Herrington: It's on DAT.
Cosmik: Great, you have it stored digitally.
Grabois: So, Gail has continued to be a supporter of ours and been really great
and accommodating.
Cosmik: I was going to ask about the Zappas' continued support of the ensemble.
Grabois: They've been really cool. And we've also . . . I don't know if you
know Dweezil's been working on a record . . . what is that record called?
[Looks to Stewart] Do you remember?
Stewart: It's a bunch of guest guitarists playing . . .
Cosmik: What the Hell was I Thinking.
Grabois: Yeah.
Herrington: Yeah! [Laughs]
Ferrari: It's not out yet.
Grabois: We did a two minute segment on that. While we were there, we recorded
a little something for that.
Ferrari: It was a Michael Hedges track.
Stewart: Yeah, the tune was [Zappa's] "Sofa".
Cosmik: That's a beautiful piece.
Ferrari: He wanted to add horns an marimba.
Cosmik: Yeah, Dweezil includes an astounding array of guitarists on that CD.
I'm quite interested in hearing it.
Ferrari: All the big heroes . . .
Grabois: He played us some of the stuff. It was kind of like hanging out with
Frank. I mean, he's very at home in the studio and he likes to hang out
there. He'd say things like, "Check this out!" "You won't believe this."
"Listen to this." [Smiles]
Ferrari: He played us a few minutes of music that he does not plan to put on
the CD that was very interesting. I'll leave out whose playing it is, but
it's very funny.
Cosmik: He seems to be carrying the torch, so to speak, in a very different
way.
Ferrari: Yeah.
Herrington: Yup.
Cosmik: So, what's next for the Meridian Arts Ensemble? You have a new release
coming out, you're touring . . .
Stewart: We've just started. We're one month into a five or six month cycle of
touring. I think it's the busiest point in the history of the group in terms
of number of concerts and the amount of travel. We just got back from three
weeks in Europe where we recorded the seventh CD, we're on a two week tour
of the States, we're going out for another two and a half weeks in April,
we're going to Mexico City, Brazil . . .
Ferrari: Taiwan.
Grabois: T'aipei.
Stewart: T'aipei, Taiwan . . .
Grabois: For one concert. [Smiles]
Cosmik: What? You're going all the way there for one concert? [Laughter]
Herrington: Yup.
Stewart: We're going to Ibiza . . .
Grabois: It's next to Majorca in the Mediterranean.
[Jon Nelson arrives]
Cosmik: Well, we have a new attendee. Say hello Jon.
Ferrari: State you name and record for the tape please. [Laughter]
Stewart: But, getting back to what we were talking about, it's non-stop for
about five months. It's sort of what we've all been working for, and here it
is. You know, finally. It's a five month spurt of exactly the kind of stuff
that we've been wanting to do. We have new music coming in from Latin
American composers and also Taiwanese composers which we will perform in
those countries.
Cosmik: Boy, that's fantastic. You can mix and share with all these countries.
Music truly is a universal language.
Stewart: Exactly. And, we've managed to put it together in a way that's not
a financial loss.
Cosmik: [Laughs] That, in itself, is a stroke of genius. As we spoke earlier,
efforts like this frequently result in a money losing project. Where does
Jared Sacks fit into all this? You all travel alone and don't seem to have
a crew or management traveling with you.
Stewart: Jared's our record producer.
Herrington: Jared has been a great ally since our first recording project. We
met Jared through the Concert Artists Guild organization In 1990 we applied
for this Concert Artists Guild competition--it's an international
competition--and we won that competition. Part of the prize--in addition to
a lot of career development and management help from Concert Artists Guild--
part of the prize was to do a recording with Channel Classics [Records,
Winning Artist Series]. Jared Sacks is the owner and producer of Channel
Classics. So, we did the Winning Artist Series project, which, artistically,
was a smash hit. The reviews across the board were great for that record.
Although it doesn't have a lot of commercial appeal, we were very, very
proud of that artistic effort. I think because of the quality that we were
able to achieve from that album, with Jared's help, it sparked a very
positive relationship with Jared. Jared has been so supportive of us in that
he has allowed us to take tremendous risks, as far as the repertoire of the
albums is concerned. Smart Went Crazy was our second album, and it was so
eclectic, and so difficult to define in category. Most record producers
would have look at what we wanted to do on that record and would have said,
"No way! There's no way I can sell this. They're not going to know where to
place it in the record store, there's so many different styles of music on
it. We won't do it." But Jared took a chance, and, in fact, actually formed
a branch of Channel Classics called Channel Crossings to accommodate us, and
maybe one or two other artists on his roster that wanted to do projects that
were not exactly easy to define, categorically. So, he created this division
of Channel Classics almost for us to do our stuff on. So he's been very
supportive, and has allowed us to record the material that we want. If we
called up tomorrow and said, "Jared, we have 60 minutes of material that's
ready to record," he'd probably say, "Well, let's look at the schedules.
When can you come over to record it?"
Cosmik: Interesting . . . so, you're not signed on for a specific number of
releases; contractually bound.
Herrington: We had a three year contract that actually is up for renewal.
Basically, the contract states that he will record as much stuff as he can
put out. As much as we can have prepared and ready to put down, he was
willing to . . .
Ferrari: . . . take the risk.
Herrington: . . . take the risk, record it, and try and find a way to release
it. So, he's a tremendous ally of the group. And, I think that because he's
based in Amsterdam, it's been a real plus for us, as far as our European
audience is concerned. Our strongest European audience is in Holland, by
far. And, I think it's because most of the publicity generates from Holland.
That's the hub of our operations in Europe, and that's largely due to
Channel Classics.
Cosmik: I want to thank each of you for the interview. This weekend's been a
pleasure.
[In unison] Thank you.
[Waitress approaches and hands each of us candy]
Jon Nelson: Smarties! I love Smarties! They're good for you. They make you
smart.
For more information on the Meridian Arts Ensemble, take a hop to their
Website (http://home.pi.net/~fg/mae.htm). There, you'll find detailed
information about the ensemble, its members, discography, interviews and
reviews, links to composers who have worked with and received commissions
from the Meridians, and the latest news and tour schedule.
CDs can be ordered directly from the Meridians on their Web page using the
following link: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/shebus/cdorder.htm
(C) - 1997 Paul Remington, All Rights Reserved
____________________________________________________________________________
G.T. STRINGER: Surf's Wonder Down Under
Interviewed by DJ Johnson
As many people know, the current instrumental surf scene has produced one
fantastic band after another, from strict traditionalists to post-modern
experimentalists to crazy-go-lucky punks. Just as soon as too many pile
onto one board, along comes somebody new riding a wave that no one saw
breaking.
Two years ago, I received a review copy of a CD called Sandcrack: The
Soundtrack, recorded by a band called G.T. Stringer, from Adelaide, South
Australia. Ten seconds into the first track, it was obvious this band had
something I'd never heard before. Their music fused the most tasteful
elements of surf, jazz, blues, and rock and roll without overcrowding
the soundscapes and making sound soup.
Though G.T. Stringer's music includes all of these elements, there are certain
constants. Over the solid rhythmic foundation supplied by Dennis Kipridis
(bass) and Steve Hearne (drums), guitarist Jim Redgate lays down gorgeous
chord textures that give the tracks depth, while saxophonist Trevor Ramsay
launches solos that are at once powerful and graceful. For their second
release, The Gasser, keyboardist Tristan Andrews was brought aboard to add
yet another texture to their rich sound.
Outside of their hometown, G.T. Stringer has had little exposure, yet word
of mouth has made their name familiar to surf fans in North America and
Europe. As their fan base grows, so does public curiosity. And that's why
we're here today: because I'M curious, too. When Jim and Trevor came in out
of the waves for a few minutes, I snagged 'em for this interview.
* * *
Cosmik: Could you tell us a bit about your home town and what it was like
growing up there?
Trevor: Adelaide lies sorta right in the middle on the bottom part of
Australia, sandwiched between endless desert stretching west and an 8 hour
drive east to the next largest city, Melbourne, so you could probably say
it's reasonably isolated compared with major towns in the states. The city
is ringed in by hills and faces out to the Spencer Gulf, one of two gulfs
before you reach the Great Australian bight. Population 1 million. We're
really spoilt as far as a laid back lifestyle and plenty of beaches. Jim
and myself grew up in the seaside suburb of Henley Beach - no great shakes
as a surfin beach, although in our early teens we battled storm surf and
jumped off jetties, and gave our skimboards a good workout.
Jim: Trevor and I went to the same primary school and grew up near the
beach. Plenty of fishing, surfing, skateboarding, etc. About a twenty
minute drive away is some great reef breaks which we still surf regularly
on vintage longboards. My favorite is a 1963 Barry Bennet 9'10" - almost
no rocker with a bit of tail kick and 50/50 rails. A great noserider.
I also have a Gordon Woods wafer thin trick board. Trevor took a huge
chunk out of the rail with his fin once prompting the nickname "ding"
to be given. The music scene was great when Trevor and I started our
first band, "The Luau," which of course was a surf instrumental outfit!
It was early 80's and there was all of these different influences from
rockabilly to ska, gothic, etc, but we were the only surf band in town.
We always have had a great humor in our music which means everyone has
fun at our gigs. Surf music and culture has a particular bent way of
looking at life and you can't take it too seriously.
Cosmik: I want to ask you guys more about surfing a bit later. When you were
first learning to play music, what were you being exposed to by the radio
stations there?
Jim: I don't think we really were influenced into playing surf music from
radio. The stations were really bad commercial rubbish except for a
station called 5mmm. They played mostly local bands. We were listening
to Sunnyboys, Pink Floyd, Cream, Led Zeppelin -- you have to remember we
were testosterone ridden young grommets! -- The Shadows, Elvis... "Edge
of reality" was a great song. We really watched a lot of Elvis and Gidget
movies. I was also really into old blues players like Sonny Terry and
Brownie McGhee and folk music like Joni Mitchell and John Martin. Also
jazz players like Oscar Peterson, George Benson's during his early
instrumental phase, and Barney Kessel. I think Trevor was heavily into
Acker Bilk. He's a romantic at heart.
Trevor: It must have been in the early eighties in our late teens that things
really progressed to actually getting serious about attempting our first
band. Jim and myself and our friends all went to High School together. We
surfed a bit together and drank cheap flagon wine at parties where endless
Neil Young played, and alpacca jumper-wearing types would dribble into
their harmonicas. We were probably more influenced in some ways by
British 80's music, mainly listening to local independent radio stations.
There was a real focus on 5mmm, who really supported local music and
played completely alternative music. Actually I can remember going to a
lot of NORML [Ed.Note: National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws] shows that they used to run, and being completely won over to
appreciating local independent music.
Cosmik: Trev, I hear some Coltrane in your playing. Am I close?
Trevor: I was accepted to study jazz about 8 years back but really didn't
have the discipline at the time to stick to formal study. I think you're
probably a bit on the generous side... I'm a big fan of players of that
caliber, but bebop and the like is best left to those who have the
passion for that particular genre.
Cosmik: Who else did you listen to that influenced your playing?
Trevor: I've always enjoyed players like King Curtis, and being a Tom Waits
fan I've always liked Ralph Carney. I picked up Orange Symphonette plays
Mancini a month or so back and really dug it.
Cosmik: What was it that turned you on to actually playing music?
Jim: I thought I could pick up girls easier.
Cosmik: Aha! Honesty! So did it work?
Jim: Well to a point... when you play surf guitar music you have a little
trouble with that moment when you get the girl in your pad and you pick
up your guitar and start playing Bombora or something. They just don't
understand - I think I need to learn some smooty songs... like Misty,
maybe... Maybe that's why Trev does so well.
Cosmik: How about you, Trev?
Trevor: Just had to get involved someway, really. I can remember bringing
home my first sax much to the delight of my mother, and ending up being
in a band about 10 months later. There was this guy who played alto sax
in a local band called The Screaming Believers. I think he was kinda
the person who made me want to play sax. I think it's really funny though
sometimes, because being a bit of a collector of a lot of different stuff
I constantly find myself looking at electric guitars and having the urge
to buy them even though I can't play guitar. Guitarists are spoilt for
crazy, cool, funky and wacky instrument types!
Cosmik: What made you decide to go the instro route?
Jim: We started instrumental music because we were all too self conscious
to sing, and any one who attempted would have been totally stirred up. I
think I knew "Wipeout" and "Rebel Rouser," so we started jamming on tunes
like that. We surfed, so there was a natural interest.
Cosmik: When I listen to your music, I hear a collision of four or five
genres. Jazz, obviously, and instrumental surf, plus some fusion and a
few other things. Did those influences come into the band one per member,
or were you all carrying some pretty diverse influences when you came in?
Jim: I think Trevor gives our band a jazz flavor. What he does is really
very distinctive and great. He has a soft spot for wacky bands and
really likes the theme to the Benny Hill Show. Da da da da da da...da da
da da da da... Steve, the drummer, is the fusion influence. He is really
great technically and can play anything. Dennis, the bass player, is
really into different sounds and plays very woolly bass. He turns off his
tone controls and has been known to blow the cones off his speakers. As
opposed to Steve blowin cones whenever he has the opportunity. You listen
to the bass on its own in a studio and it sounds really bad, but you put
it in the mix and it's wonderful. He is fully aware of his sound and he
and Steve play really well together. Dennis introduces the funk and blues
element. He really plays some hip lines! Tristan, the recent Hammond
addition, gives the band a groovier edge and has made the band appeal to
a wide range of people. A lot more people lose it on the dance floor these
days. He has a background of jazz and blues and is called Mr. Frosty by
the other band members. A frosty is a beer here. I play all sorts of
styles. I studied classical for a long time but I decided it was too
boring and shelved it for when I am about 50. I like to think I play
sounds and colors rather than cluttering things up with technical solos.
By the way, Hank Marvin is a great player. If he didn't look like such
a goober, I think I would like to be just like him. I really like the
corny/atmospheric surf sounds in some of those old surf movies. The ones
with the guy talking over the music about what a wonderful life they are
having and lots of major seventh chords.
Trevor: Jim and I played together in our first band, called The Luau, It was
a six-piece surf outfit and we were all really green players. We had quite
a good collection of vinyl that we used to pull songs from, and we covered
a lot of Ventures, Shadows and the like with this band in the early 80's.
Actually the band was very popular locally and often we'd gig about 3 or 4
times a week. Older band's got wise to our crowd pulling potential and
we'd find ourselves supporting some of the more obscure indie local act's
of the day. We ended up getting quite and education from these bands in
seedy bars at about 3 in the morning, listening to some great playing and
seeing some of the more unusual parts of the business.
Cosmik: Was it hard to find surf records in your town?
Jim: It was and is really hard. We initially had a few Ventures albums
and then I found an Atlantics album. We developed our style from this
isolation though because we became interested in all instrumental music,
like strange B-grade movie music. Surf music is not all content, a lot
is in the delivery.
Trevor: I'm sure there's some American vinyl I'll never see over here in
Australia, but on the other hand, I think plenty of UK 60's instrumental
music can be found.
Cosmik: What were some of your most prized records?
Trevor: I'm currently favoring my copy of Kai Windings "More". and an
album by an Australian 60s act called The Saints - Ski With The Saints.
This one sounds like James Taylor Quartet's Money Spyder CD with a
little Martin Denny and Atlantics thrown in.
Cosmik: How 'bout you, Jim?
Jim: The 4 Instants - Discotech, The Swingin Electric Sounds of the Ten Tuff
Guitars, Busby Lewis - International a Go Go, Bombora - The Atlantics,
The Boss Guitars play the Winners, Guitars a Go Go volume 2 - Jerry Cole
and the Stingers, Elvis - Spinout, The Ventures - Psychedelics, Sandy
Nelson - Drums Drums Drums, The Sound of the Shadows, Operation Xavier
Cugat... I could go on for a couple of pages. I have this obsession with
strange records and my house is filling up with them.
Trevor: Whoever drummed on That 4 Instants album must have consumed some
fruity substance and was not a stranger to the rubber suit.
Cosmik: Do you still have most of those records?
Trevor: Sure. Vinyl's becoming so pricey these days, even in Australia.
Jim: I never sell my records. I think Trevor pinched a couple, but I pinched
some of his!
Trevor: I'm currently working my way around to layin my hands on Jim's copy
of 10 Tuff Guitars. Next rehearsal I might snare the beauty.
Cosmik: Your music doesn't belong to any one genre, but you've been embraced
by the American surf community, and most of those people consider you a
surf band. Does that surprise you?
Jim: Not really, though it is fantastic to have our music played and talked
about overseas.
Trevor: I think it's really great that people dig what we do over in your
neck of the woods. It's a big question as to what really defines surf
music. There's got to be a few tell-tale signs that most people pick up
to nail a band to the surf moniker. Perhaps a sense of fun is the real
obvious one for me, mixed in with a dash of menace and drums that don't
quit.
Jim: We have a strong surf flavor, and what it comes down to is capturing
the essence of the surf sound and lifestyle. We have some tunes like
"Wall Of Blue" which are really straight surf tunes that could have
been written 30 years ago, though I don't think it's all about copying
what has been before. Trevor an I have played all the old instrumental
classics in previous surf bands and we know the style really well. This
comes through in our original music. We don't try to sound like anything
else, so what we do ends up being really original. What is important is
that we evoke the sounds which make you think of waxin your board or
loadin' up the woody and taking off for the coast. It also seems that we
fit into the vintage surf category, which is great. If you look at what
modern short board surfers are listening to, it is not really different
from what other people in their age group are into. The style of
longboard surfing seems to suit the surf genre best, and I like to think
our music also embodies these aspects. Words like "understatement,"
"smooth," "flowing," "stylish" and "quirky" spring to mind when I listen
to good surf music or watch good surfers.
Trevor: Having a large collection of surf and instrumental music, I'm not sure
myself that I'd be to keen to say what's surf and what's not. But as a
band we can usually decide pretty quick in rehearsal if there's enough in
a song to pass our aural surf barometer.
Cosmik: Do you think surfing tunes you in to the music in any way? Is there
a connection for you, or a vibe that you get on the waves that you can
translate into sounds?
Trevor: We'll Jim will probably say that I get my sufin vibe headed towards
the bottom doing a nasty pearlin expedition on my mal! Maybe I'm just
tryin to locate a suitable conch shell to augment my sax blowin exploits.
I tend to enjoy surfing for the fun release it bring's to day to day
things, I think it's part of riding longboards and longboarders in
general who seem to be a bit more easygoing and not into the general
hassle scene. I'm not sure about a necessary connection with the music as
such - look at them landlocked buddies Thee Phantom 5 - Todd told me once
their music is influenced by the tow truck business they run.
Jim: It's an attitude more than anything. Anyone who surfs will tell you
that the best way to wind down and mellow out is to catch some waves.
You can be in the worst mood, but an hour or two in the ocean will sort
you out. When you capture this in the music, as well as the adrenaline
that you can experience, you have a true surf feel.
Cosmik: Here's something I've always wondered. When I used to night-ski, I'd
get get off the lift, pop the walkman headphones on, and I'd fly down the
slope with something epic, like "Voodoo Chile," blasting away. I always
swore it had everything to do with the way I skied. I know you can't do
the walkman thing on the waves, but does your love for surf music have an
effect on your surfing?
Trevor: Well, Deej, look's like you've just solved the riddle to my sporadic
pearlin action. Must stop listening to Primus and the Spongedivers next
time I'm headin' down the coast. Jim and myself do come up with some
funny titles for songs and talkover pieces sometimes when we've been
[surfing] in between sets.
Jim: I guess that's why I get into longboarding. It goes hand in hand. The
feeling of taking the drop, transferring your weight to the back foot and
swinging a tight bottom turn into a tight trim. you feel the wave pick
up the back of the board as it accelerates and you cross step to the
nose of the board. You are only there for a second but it may as well be
timeless. At this point there is nothing else. You have ten toes hanging
in mid air for a moment before stepping back and leaning into a hard
cutback. Its a lot like music. You need timing, attitude, style and you
have to improvise and be able to wing it in a tight situation.
Cosmik: You know that debate goes on all the time. Bands that surf versus
bands that don't. Do you have an opinion on that?
Jim: Well, I think it makes it easier to understand if you surf but there
are always exceptions. What I don't like is bands who pretend they surf
when they don't ... Ah, not really - it just sounds good to say that! The
Beach boys never surfed. Are they a surf band?
Cosmik: Yeah, well there's a whole nuther debate.
Trevor: Well, I'd be keen to suggest to any surf deprived instrumentalist to
don the rubber gear anyway, and as often as possible - perhaps turn up
to rehearsal fully rubbered up when next springin' the new tune you've
been dying to try out with the band - it's a win-win situation all round!
Cosmik: The production on both of your CDs is credited to the band. Who
actually sits down at the mixdown console and tweaks the dials?
Trevor: Ugh. the whole band did for both our CD's. I'm not sure if it's a
great thing to do though. Everybody tends, naturally enough, to hear
things differently at the mixdown stage.
Jim: We all argue about it. I would actually like to get a producer for the
next CD so we have less conflict.
Trevor: But lacking money or contacts for a producer, it's usually the fate
of many independent releases.
Cosmik: Eddie Sikorski engineered both CDs. How much of the atmosphere
would you say he adds?
Jim: He has a style which comes through but we have control of the final
sound. Eddie actually played some organ on a tune on Sandcrack (Mrs.
Jones)
Trevor: Eddie certainly heard things that we couldn't notice, and wasn't
too precious about us getting our hands on the desk [console], as well.
Cosmik: Care to give away some of the secrets of your exquisite sound?
Jim: Eat lots of baked beans and practice fart retention. It gives you great
focus. Oh, and we use the minimum of gadgets and processing. A clean
signal is a lot fatter. Use only tube amps! You can blame the smell on
the hot valves.
Cosmik: Okay, I'll ask Trev then.
Trevor: Always make sure you pack the rubber suit.
Cosmik: Aw, c'mon! How much signal processing do you use live?
Jim: Almost nothing. I have an Ibanez Tube Screamer for the overdrive sound
and a wah wah. Other than that it is just a bit of reverb on the sax if
we can get it. We prefer to play through amps so most of the time all
that is going through the PA is the sax and an announcement mike
Cosmik: There hasn't been anything added to the signal at the board? Like a
little chorusing or phasing? I mean in the studio, too...
Jim: No, although on Sandcrack I was using a Boss ME5 pedal which had a
little chorus and echo on some tracks. On The Gasser I plugged straight
into my Fender '65 and cranked it up. The really crunchy guitar sounds
are mostly the amp breaking up.
Cosmik: Do you find it difficult to get a live sound similar to what you've
got on your albums?
Jim: No, because we play live in the studio. What you hear is what you get.
Having said that, it really isn't feasible to get the revving sounds of
the Gasser or some of the talkover in tunes like Surf Rescue.
Trevor: I think we tend tend to be a lot more into dynamics live, and it's
really what I tend to enjoy the most.
Cosmik: "Surf Rescue" is one of my favorites. What IS the talkover on that?
It sounds very real.
Jim: I have a really old personal tape recorder which I carry in my car and
write tunes on. I hum them in and work them out later. The "Dipwad"
sequence on Sandcrack, which is a stupid talkover about guitars being
like waves, was done in my car, right down to the car horn, when I was
driving back from a surf, and we put it on the CD I really love the
sound of the recorder, and when it came to surf rescue, Trevor and I just
improvised a sequence on it and dubbed it over the music. It's about a
surf rescue and the talking is supposed to be a radio conversation
between the rescue boat and the shore just as it gets swamped by a wave.
It was a totally improvised first take, as is a lot of our stuff in the
studio.
Cosmik: I'm drawn to the dramatic sounds and the turmoil in the songs like
"Surf Rescue" and "Walk The Plank." How do you feel about those tracks
and about creating wall of sound tunes like that?
Jim: It's great to put harder edge tunes amongst our other material. Our
CDs are a mix of widely varied styles and our specialty is making it
sound cohesive. Personally, I see us doing more tunes like that in the
future, but you won't get a CD that sounds the same all the way through.
We also still get that kooky sense of humor coming through even in our
hardest tunes, which is a great contrast, and in the spirit of true surf
music.
Cosmik: Sandcrack and The Gasser have some similar components, but there's
definitely a new thing happening on Gasser because you brought Tristan
Andrews in on keyboards. Was there a big adjustment period where you had
to readjust your playing habits?
Trevor: It took us a while, in a live sense, to get the levels right, and we
really gave Tristan a lot of rope. He'd been working in an R&B outfit that
really held tight reins on his solos. We basically let him go to town.
I think now we're starting to listen a bit closer to each other, and on
some of our moodier stuff we can really cook.
Jim: He joined us in the studio without even knowing the tunes. Our studio
sessions are terribly under-prepared, but somehow we pull it out of the
bag. We have to be a little careful of too much sound now and I find
myself playing less. I like space between the beats.
Cosmik: Do you think knowing when NOT to play is something that has come to
you with more experience?
Jim: Definitely. As soon as you give up that desire to be the "lead guitarist"
or whatever it is you play, you find you can drink more beer and no one
notices. I usually cut loose once or twice in a night and that is enough.
Leave the punters wanting more!
Cosmik: What do you like about playing with a keyboardist in the band?
Jim: He throws his arms about a lot which gives the audience a focus.
Being instrumental, the audience has no singer to watch. We have taken
to wearing silly clothes which gives the punters something to laugh at.
Now they are starting to copy us and turn up in Hawaiian shirts, Surfari
suits and bad ties. (I have a collection of Surfari suits as well as
wide ties.) Trevor bums fags from him and we get him to buy us beers.
He looks like Greg Brady. Is that enough reasons?
Cosmik: Both of your CDs have quite a few samples linking songs, but not in
the same style as Man Or Astro-Man, of course... Where do you find most
of your samples, and who usually comes up with the concepts?
Jim: We find the samples on sound effect CDs and old records. I came up with
the concepts for Sandcrack and Trevor was responsible for the Gasser. He
has a drag racing record from the '60's which we used.
Cosmik: What's the lowdown on your gear at this point? What are y'all
playing?
Jim: I play a guitar I put together myself with Seymour Duncan pickups. I
can have them as single coil or humbucking. I plug into a Fender '65
reissue twin reverb.
Trevor: Steve plays an old Ludwig kit, Tristan's doing the Hammond/Leslie
combo, Dennis plays some no name bass through a Gallien Krugar SWR box setup,
and my horns are a bunch of Mk6 Selmers.
Cosmik: Among the current surf bands, who has your attention right now?
Jim: The Exotics, 4 piece suit, Moment of Truth, Tsunami... You really
should ask Trevor, my specialty is weird old records with half dressed
women on the covers.
Cosmik: What are the plans for G.T. Stringer? How far do you want to take
it?
Jim: All the way baby. No use stoppin' at first base
Trevor: Well, our next goal will be a new CD which we look to record shortly.
There's been much debate about recording studios this time with the idea
that we may look at a studio which has hard drive mixing facilities to
speed the mixing process up. Actually, I reckon that this recording should
be quite an interesting one, with our lineup having been gigging so much,
we'll probably be a little more adventurous in the way we sonically
approach the tunes.
Jim: Maybe we will call it "Up Periscope." What do you think?
Cosmik: I like "Oh Christ! Sharks!," personally, but then I'm a noted sicko.
So anyway, tell us what it would take to get you stateside for a tour?
Jim: Just book us some gigs and send us the airfares!... Fat chance I'd say.
Trevor: There would have to be some sort of interest in our catalogue of
music from a record company I presume. I figure to sell in the states,
you really have to have played the circuit which supports your style
of music... Is there a surf music circuit over in the States? Personally
It would be great to hook up with another act over there for a tour.
It looks like we'll feature on some comps to be released over in your
neck of the woods this year, so hopefully some money drenched west
coast widow will fly us over and offer us her beachside surf pad for
the summer in exchange for free performances and Jim's complete home
brewing tip's. Has Jim mentioned he's been supplying the band with some
rather potent home brews at rehearsal lately? Last practice he brought
out a licorice flavored beer, which proved to be quite a gasser the next
morning!
Cosmik: Do you see a time coming when you won't get what you need from this
style of music anymore and you'll want to... I dunno... try Salsa or
something?
Trevor: As a horn player I could quite easily disappear down a lounge type
hole. Boy, there are some tasty little tunes for us blowers to tackle in
our twilight years, with Misty just for starters in my bag, its looking
ominous.
Cosmik: Jim? Any thoughts of abandoning...
Jim: Never! I'd rather eat a week old dead puffer fish on the high tide mark.
Cosmik: Well okay, then, I think we can call that a "no"... Okay! Any final
thoughts or pearls of wisdom that you'd like to pass along to our readers
before we pull the plug here?
Jim: When you take the drop, make sure you get to your feet in time to pull
a nice tight bottom turn into trim or you run the risk of pearlin'. I went
surfing with Trevor "the pearl king" the other day and he made just this
mistake. His board came out the back of the wave at just a tad under
escape velocity and nearly sconned me.
Trevor: I'd suggest that when pearlin on your board it's always best to
celebrate the event. Head to the bottom with dignity and pride. Think
of Primus and all the fun he had down there!
____________________________________________________________________________
TAPE HISS
By John Sekerka
[The following interviews are transcribed from John Sekerka's radio show,
Tape Hiss, which runs on CHUO FM in Ottawa, Canada. Each month, Cosmik
Debris will present a pair of Tape Hiss interviews. This month, we're
proud to present interviews with V. Vale and Andrea Juno.]
* * *
Publisher and editor of influential Re/Search and now V/Search books, V.
Vale started out with one of the very first punk zines, Search & Destroy.
I had the extreme privilege to interview this veteran interviewer, and new
father from his cluttered San Francisco home.
John: The Re/Search books deal with deviant subculture topics: piercings,
b-movies, sex and violence ...
V: We've never shied away from sex and violence.
John: When did you first start publishing?
V: I started Search and Destroy twenty years ago. The reason you publish a
zine is to change the world, because you certainly aren't going to make
any money at it. This was before punk rock was called punk rock. It not
only documented what I think was a new emerging subculture, but also
hopefully, catalyzed it. In the eighties I started another publication
called RE/Search in a book format, which made it possible, 16 years
later, to earn a living. It takes so long to get enough distribution
and readership. Of course if you believe in what you're doing, you pay
the price to do it.
John: Were you the first zine publisher?
V: It was hard to publish zines before the mid seventies simply because
there weren't any Xerox machines around. Before then you'd have to have
access to mimeograph machines, which Was pretty awkward and specialized.
Most zine publishers do a few, and lose their shirts. I knew in advance
that I would spend everything that I had to keep it going, so I wasn't
surprised when I lost money. That was my fate. The reason I didn't
continue with Search & Destroy after starting RE/Search, was because the
original movement is very personal and underground which in San Francisco,
comprised a few hundred weirdos, loners and artists. That first movement
was very social. Everyone knew each other by their first names. Of course
it was too good to last. What drove it off, in my opinion, was this young
macho white male element from the suburbs who started this slam dancing
and mosh pit gladiator stupidity. It didn't mean punk was invalidated, it
just hadda go underground for a while. In my mind the true spirit of punk
was resurrected in 1991 by the Riot Grrl movement. Riot Grrl is simply
punk rock principles - do it yourself - plus feminism. Of course that
movement got maligned and attacked. Most of the originators got ashamed
of being these incredible pioneers. That shows the power of the mass
media: to take away your own power.
John: Are you a closet Riot Grrl?
V: I'm not in any closet. I don't have to be. That's the nice thing about
publishing independently, is that you can put out anything you want
'cause you're paying for it. You don't have to be censored, you don't
have to answer to anybody. You can rip off illustrations, newspaper
articles or headlines ... use anybody's photo cuz you're just too small
to be sued. It is the only free press.
John: Why did you start your own zine?
V: I was totally Messianic about punk rock, or what I thought punk rock was,
which was the latest attempt at social revolution. Anyone who lived
through the early seventies knew how horrible life was. All the gains of
the sixties had been co-opted by corporations like Levis. Rolling Stone
magazine was completely irrelevant to your life - reading about superstars
that had nothing to do with you. I remember seeing Emerson Lake & Palmer
on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, the fore-runner of MTV. Emerson had his
grand piano hooked to a crane and his gimmick was that it rotated 360�. I
looked at this and thought, 'what does this have to do with me?' It was
just absurd. There had to be a grass roots rock'n'roll rebellion movement
in which people would protest the conditions of the times.
John: How successful was your initial run?
V: Oh it was completely unsuccessful. I was working at City Lights bookstore
and I knew Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Lawrence Ferlinghetti - my
beatnik forbearers - and told Ginsberg about my punk rock publication idea.
He knew what punk was and wrote me a cheque for $100. At the time I was
living for less than $200 a month from my job. My rent was $37.50. I
showed Allen's cheque to Lawrence and he wrote me a cheque for $100.
Another friend wrote me a cheque for $200. It cost $400 to do a thousand
copies of the first issue which was a tabloid on 11x17 inch newsprint. It
sold very slowly. I only got money from a small store in San Francisco.
Any time you send anything out of town, chances are you won't get paid. I
was only working two shifts a week, so I had plenty of time. I thought
life was great - got plenty of free records. At that time the zine
movement was more prominent in England, which is now a complete reversal.
There are allegedly 50,000 zines being produced in America alone. My next
three books are about people who put out zines, 'cause there are such a
variety of really interesting people doing them.
John: Are the nineties a zine generation?
V: Completely.
John: With distribution poor at best, circulation low, how do you find out
about zines?
V: Luck. There's a wonderful publication called Factsheet 5. Each issue lists
approximately 1500 zines and their addresses. That's a good starting point.
Often a zine editor will list a dozen or more zines and so on. But you
have to act fast because zines die, or change addresses quickly.
John: I was playing scrabble the other week and I used the word zine. It was
contested. Does the word officially exist?
V: I don't think it's made the dictionaries yet. Alt.Culture has an entry for
zines, that's probably the first dictionary or glossary definition.
Generally a zine has no advertising. It's done not for profit - strictly
out of passion. You have something to get off your chest, you're alienated
and you wanna find sympathetic supporters. A lot of people build their own
communities by putting out zines. It's creative self expression. There's
a thrill in doing it and you can say anything you want.
John: You've done hundreds of interviews. How do you conduct them?
V: I don't. I work strictly on intuition. There are no rules.
John: You seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject matter at hand. Do you
conduct a lot of research, or are you talking with people who's work you
are already familiar with?
V: I only interview people that I have an intuitive idea that I will like,
so I don't have to fulfill the myth of the objective journalist, which is
a lie anyway.
John: Have you ever been disappointed?
V: No, knock on wood.
John: Do you own all the records that are featured on Incredibly Strange
Music?
V: Almost. I own 11,000 albums. I'm not elitist about it. If I find something
interesting in any medium and I can afford it, I'll buy it. I do tend to
do most of my shopping at thrift stores and garage sales.
John: Are you a collector?
V: No.
John: But isn't your house chock full of stuff?
V: Oh yeah, there's probably about 20,000 books here. I'm completely curious
about everything and I'm trying to be completely international in my scope.
I used to go to Europe once a year, particularly Paris - my favourite city,
and every time I'd send back 20 boxes of books and records. Most of my
records I collected before Incredibly Strange Music, because after it came
out the prices jumped from a quarter to $25 and I couldn't afford them.
John: The Re/Search books have been tremendously influential, exposing exotica
music, b-movies ...
V: Yes they have. I'm tooting my own horn, but I seldom see RE/Search given
credit in print. Body piercing became a huge international movement.
John: So you're the one to blame.
V: I think so. My expressed purpose was to try and give every possible reason,
historically and philosophically and aesthetically, to personally engage
in body piercing and tattooing with absolute no guilt.
John: So Vale, when your daughter grows up and says 'I wanna get pierced and
tattooed all over', what are you gonna tell her?
V: I'm a total libertarian. It's all up to her, but I would never pierce her
ears when she's young like all Catholic parents do. I would never inflict
anything on her. I wear all black and have done so for almost twenty years,
and am a vegetarian, but I would never impinge that on anyone else.
..tape hiss
* * *
A N D R E A J U N O
We now present the other side of the coin, V. Vale's former partner in print,
and now publisher of Juno Books (Angry Women, Angry Women In Rock, Concrete
Jungle, Dangerous Drawings), Andrea Juno.
John: Why did you get into publishing?
Andrea: I couldn't do films at that time, which is what I had been doing
previously - we tried to invent a whole new forum and we thought, oh,
let's interview people and put it all together in theme books'. I seem
to be writing my own journals. I take whatever I'm interested in at the
time and get it in print to let everyone else in on it.
John: Is Juno Books an all encompassing publishing house?
Andrea: Well for the first ten years of RE/Search, 1980-1990, I was a
typesetter, so we had this typesetting company that paid the rent. It
was only in 1990 that things took off after Modern Primitives. Who
would've known?
John: What happened with RE/Search?
Andrea: We moved it from California to New York in '84. My partner (V. Vale)
and I had been together for so long that we just drifted apart. I'm just
continuing what I've been doing with Juno Books.
John: When I spoke to V. Vale he talked as if the punk scene was the impetus
for starting RE/Search. What were your initial interests?
Andrea: I wasn't so focused on the singular identity of punk rock, even
though it was really exciting in the late seventies - a really wonderful
motley crew that was drawn to one or two clubs in the city, and there was
a whole international network before the mainstream took over. It crossed
over a lot more territory than just music. Having a love for film,
literature, art, and sussing out what seems to be going on in this culture
that's falling apart - for me punk was more of what was interesting
artistically in that scene. Identifying solely on what you wear, what
clubs you go to is very limiting. I've always wanted to expand the
concepts of the books.
John: Even though punk has been bought and accepted by mainstream America,
there is still quite a lot of shock value left. What are you trying to do
with books like Concrete Jungle - which focuses on subjects like roadkill
decay - are you trying to educate, enlighten or horrify?
Andrea: Educate, enlighten ... hopefully the books are fun without being
frivolous. They are trying to get people to look at a subject from a
different viewpoint: askew, a little backwards, re-orient, to look at
the environment in a way that's not quite so dogmatic, that covers a lot
more levels and ramifications. Education without the hammer is a goal.
John: Do you think you reaching new readers, or just preaching to the
converted with such fringe material?
Andrea: The sales figures show we are reaching a lot of people. Angry Women
has had an enormous impact. It is sold as a textbook for college classes.
Obviously our readers are a small minority, but you can also say that
there's a small minority who read say, Stephen King novels. We've
definitely penetrated different markets. Modern Primitives took all of
us by surprise. We thought we'd lose our punk audience. In 1989 piercing
parlours were not on every street. It was weird stuff for that time. There
were only a handful of people involved. In essence the underground
connection formed only after the book was released.
John: How many rocks are there left to upturn?
Andrea: Many more. I've never tried to go after what's shocking, what's
weird. I'm not interested in shock for shock's sake. There are subject
matters that provoke controversy that the mainstream ignores, tend to
have a nerve center that usually speaks about a lot of other issues that
we need to hear about: social, political. Areas that are deemed low brow
are not acceptable, which can actually be quite fertile. Not everything
is fertile though. I don't think serial killers are too enlightening or
educational.
John: How long do you spend with your interview subjects?
Andrea: As long as I can. We have a new book out, Dangerous Drawings, about
comic artists, and I just spent six and a half hours with Art Spiegelman.
John: Being a comic buff myself, I think it's a great book. I like your
comparison of comics and film, that you can ponder over a strip whereas
film is so immediate that you can only think about it properly afterwards.
Andrea: Yeah, comics have a rewind, fast-forward and pause button built in.
John: Also, the medium is quite new, and really in it's infancy.
Andrea: I've always felt that the medium has an inherent creative take that's
similar to film - panels, a story line - yet different because perspectives
can be distorted and time is laid out on a page in a poetic way. The best
of these artists know how to manipulate these ideas. It wasn't until I
started to do these massively long interviews that I realized what depth
there was to their work. It was actually Spiegelman who mentioned this
early cartoonist from the 1830s, Rodolphe T�pffer [the first cartoonist],
that nobody's heard of - there are no books in print, in English that is,
on him. His work is very filmic, pre-dating cross-cutting and editing
techniques that are similar to a film story board. It is fantastic. I
knew the medium had great potential and to actually formulate a theory
was really fun. Talking with the underground cartoonists who have a whole
heritage of the autobiography and the confessional, so they're very used
to discussing intimate aspects of their lives. What I found is that
cartoons and comics don't have their roots in caveman drawings or Egyptian
hieroglyphs, but were actually borne out of mass media and the printing
press. The first comic came about from the culmination of the other arts
in the early 1800s. It is concurrent and parallels photography. There is
a very sophisticated formalist history which no one has tackled except
for other cartoonists.
John: Autobiographical cartoonists have been stereotyped as nerdy closet
sketchers who can only speak through their pens. Did you have any trouble
getting these artists to open up?
Andrea: No, not at all. Most of them were very forthcoming and quite
intelligent. Art Spiegelman talked candidly about his LSD experiences,
meeting Phillip K. Dick and his stay at a mental hospital. He, as well
as Chester Brown, talked about the whole notion of 'what is insanity?'
It's not just dismissed as 'oh yeah, I was in a mental hospital', but
'what are these altered states of consciousness?' Dealing with issues
like schizophrenia (Brown), the question of normality kept coming up.
On one level it's really fun reading, but there are other aspects as
well.
John: Were you a big comics fan before doing this book?
Andrea: Not really. I've always been a fan of Dan Clowes (8-Ball ) and Chris
Ware (Jimmy Corrigan ) and Chester Brown (Yummy Fur), but I'm not the type
to read daily strips or just anything that comes my way. But here are
comics out there which I consider very challenging art. Of course the
autobiography aspect and subversion in underground comics are appealing.
When RAW magazine (Spiegelman editor) came out - that was so exciting,
combining comics and illustration in a completely new way, and that piqued
my interest.
John: I remember one issue of RAW for which Spiegelman ripped a piece off
the cover and taped it inside another copy. They did that for the entire
run. Every copy was unique, with it's own signature stamp. I think the
hands-on nature of that idea was very influential on the zine scene. It
also made it a highly collectible item.
Andrea: I'm not a collector or an aficionado, just an average fan who saw a
potential to be creative in dealing with topics political and social that
were suppressed. That made me a convert. I don't hang out in comic stores.
John: Besides you and me, who reads these comic books? Isn't it still
considered a kids' thing?
Andrea: Dan Clowes' 8-Ball is available in bookstores. His work is taking the
medium past the comics world. I think it has its roots more in indie rock:
music scenes and art forms that sprung up in the early eighties.
John: I love Chris Ware's work, but on first look it seems very flat, usually
without dialogue, an obscure story line and very actionless. Most people
will not spend the time it takes to enter his bizarre little world.
Andrea: I force my friends to read it: 'I'll take you out to dinner if you
don't like it!' No one has taken me up on dinner.
John: You also included non-comic book artists in Dangerous Drawings. How do
they fit in?
Andrea: Illustrators have the same heritage: the single panel.
John: What about Eli Langer? He's infamous for political reasons, but his
work is really not known.
Andrea: His work is very explosive and yes, he did get arrested. Most
controversial cartoonists deal with censorship on an ongoing basis. In
America where we're very insular, the case is not known as it is in
Canada. His work was seized from a gallery and a court case followed,
charging him with child porn, which was dropped. Langer has a great
quote, 'real child molesters are not combing the streets for line
drawings'. They wanted to burn the work. A lot of issues came up: what
is art? It seems that a lot of art is not seen as respectable in our
culture. And his art is fantastic. Eli was a great interview: articulate,
poetic, sensitive and knowledgeable. Hopefully the book won't be banned
in Canada so the people can see his work at last, and they can question
the government for spending money trying to prosecute this artist.
John: What's up next for Juno Books?
Andrea: Sex, Stupidity and Greed. It's about the American movie business
caving in on itself. It's really fun and shocking, the kind of money
that's spent on a movie is equal to the gross national Product of a small
country. Bodies of Subversion traces the rise of tattooing with women
and feminism. I'm quite excited about that one.
John: Are there any angry women left to uncover?
Andrea: No I think that's it. You know they may have been angry politically,
but they were really nice people.
..tape hiss
============================================================================
[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[ [[ [[ [[[[[ [[[[[[ [[ [[ [[[[[[
[[ [[ [ [[ [[ [ [ [[ [ [[ [[
[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[ [[ [[ [ [[[[[[ [[ [ [[ [[[[[
[[ [[ [ [[[ [ [ [[[ [[[ [[
[[ [[ [[[[[[ [ [[[[[ [[[[[[ [[ [[ [[[[[[
============================================================================
THE ADDRISI BROTHERS: Cherrystone (Del-Fi)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale
This is Dick and Don, not Don and Phil, but the comparison of the
Addrisi's to the better known brothers Everly is inevitable. Taking
advantage of the Addrisi's facility with sibling harmonies, Del-Fi's
Bob Keane put out a number of Everly-like singles by the Addrisi's in
the late 50s.
There's more here than an Everly cover act here, though. The Addrisi's
own recording career extended over two decades, appearing on major
labels like Warner, Columbia and Buddah. These early tracks reveal a
talent for crafting pop songs in more than a couple styles and that
talent would reveal itself over the years through hits like the
Association's "Never My Love" and pop-culture treasures like the "Theme
from Nanny & the Professor". They also carved out careers as A&R men
and producers and soundtrack composers.
That there was some considerable talent underlying these tracks is,
then, apparent. What of this material itself? Well, while they were
more than capable of sounding dead on like the Everly's, and sometimes
did, they weren't playing in the Everly's neighborhood. As Del-Fi
artists, they were playing the same LA circuit that lifted their label
mate Richie Valens to stardom. "Bird Dog" just wasn't going to make it
at an East LA sock hop, and the Addrisi's prove themselves capable of
rocking just a little harder and hitting the kind of R&B tones that
would attract the attention of disk jockeys like LA's Art Laboe. The
strongest cut on the disc may be "Un Jarro", clearly created for its
appeal to the Southern California Latin audiences they played for.
This is a mix of singles, demos and unreleased cuts, and it's not for
everyone, really. But for collectors and students of early Rock n'
Roll, this is an interesting look at a pair of pioneers that became
survivors. More than a footnote, less than a chapter, the Addrisi
Brothers are a page of rock history serious students should read.
Track List:
Cherrystone * Back To The Old Salt Mine * Sugar Baby (unreleased) * It's
Love * Un Jarro * Saving My Kisses * Honey Baby (unreleased) * Lilies
Grow High * Gonna See My Baby * Von Ami * My Pretty Baby (unreleased) *
I'll Be True * Everybody Happy * Un Jarro (stereo version) * Back To The
Old Salt Mine (demo) * It's Love (demo) * Hurry Up (demo) * Cherrystone
(demo)
HORACE ANDY: Roots & Branches (Ariwa/RAS)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
Mad Professor's exquisite dubs and Horace Andy's emotional vocals are a
perfect fit on this reggae album filled with beauty, power and consciousness.
Some of the Prof's best dubs now have a voice to convey important messages.
The title track makes clear the futility of hatred and the need for Caribbean
unity. "Because you come from Barbados and I come from Antigua, you no like
me. Because I was born in the west and you born in Africa, you no like me.
Because I was born in Jamaica and you born in England, you no like me." By
the end of the song, so many national prejudices have been presented in the
same fashion that they are all exposed for the pointless distractions they
truly are. "Repatriation Is A Must" reiterates one of the most central
themes of the Rastafarian belief system in a matter of fact tone. The track
with the deepest cut is "Why Late And Regret," an epitaph for the violent
element of Jamaican society. I interpret this to mean the people known as
"the gunmen," who brought fear and paranoia to the island through senseless
random murder, but it could be about all violent people. It doesn't matter
if you interpret it to mean the thugs in America, the impact is the same.
Truth is, if you pay attention to the messages, Roots And Branches packs a
wallop from start to finish. And even if you don't, the riddims will still
float you away.
THE AUTHORITIES: Puppy Love (Get Hip)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale
Get Hip has resurrected a gem from punk history with the reissue of the
Authorities out of print performances from 1982 and 1983. It's a
worthwhile rescue.
The Authorities came out of California's Central Valley, the landscape
that produced "American Graffiti." The songs cover the full range of
the punk liturgy, from religious irreverence (Godhead) to a certain lack
of appreciation for the hard working boys in blue (I Hate Cops). Along
the way they sing about girl trouble, political ambivalence, social
apathy - yep, it's all here, boys and girls.
And it's all pretty good. The songwriting chores were split up among
various members of the band for various tunes, but the common thread was
a high energy instrumental assault behind a vocal mix that was clear
enough to make it fairly clear that these guys had thought about what they
were singing and wanted you to notice.
There's one cover among the 14 tracks - "Ballroom Blitz" is presented as
a battle between drums and guitar for best performance as a machine gun.
Vocalist Curt Hall delivers the lyric with the same level of energy and
commitment that the original tunes are favored with. If you like the
song, you've got to hear this version. If you hate the song, these guys
could change your mind.
This is a powerful set that deserves attention from more than just punk
completists. The original recordings may be dated, but the performances
aren't. This music should never have disappeared, and Get Hip deserves
praise for making it appear again.
Track List:
Godhead * Slam The Ham * Between The Thighs * Your Life * Faceless * Pig
Death On I-5 * Nobody Likes Him * Letter In The Mall * Park Song *
Ballroom Blitz * Achtung! * Shot In The Head * Radiomasturbation * I
Hate Cops
THE BACKSLIDERS: Throwin' Rocks At The Moon (Mammoth)
Reviewed by John Sekerka
There's no mistaking the sound. Right from the get-go you could swear this
is a Jason & The Scorchers record. The nasal delivery may be a different
pitch, but the classic punked up country sound is unmistakable. It's good
and earthy honky tonk heartbreak stuff, and if you ain't within swillin'
distance of a watering hole, then you are mighty parched. Anyone with a
fondness for this type of cow punk will welcome The Backsliders with open
arms. It doesn't hurt that these boys can also come up with some truly
engaging numbers. They can rip it up and slow it down so's you can sweat
all over yer partner in a hug-waltz. And just in case you were wondering,
yes, there is a train song (as if there were any doubts).
BARTOK: Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta.
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. SONY SK
62598 [DDD] 69:01
Reviewed by Robert Cummings
Salonen serves up a surprisingly laid-back performance of the Concerto, just
the work you'd think that would fit his generally cool, fleet style. The
first movement is ponderous and dark, almost as if we're hearing Bartok
under the spell of Shostakovich. The approach works because Salonen imparts
weight and tension and clarifies orchestral textures, even though there's a
misfire here and there: the harp effect at 9:31, for instance, sounds
artificial, not like part of the indigenous musical fabric. The middle
movements are also on the tame side but come across effectively for much
the same reasons. The Shostakovich parodying in the fourth movement is
especially well-rendered, especially witty. The finale seems to stimulate
Salonen's more spirited, more driven side, with tempos approaching record
pace. He seems to view this movement as an explosive culmination to this
work, not exactly a difficult stance to defend, what with the main theme
gloriously crowning the closing measures. This denouement is a bit corny in
any recording, but in Salonen's hands it sounds quite convincing.
More convincing still is his reading of Music for Strings. The eerie opening
movement deliciously forecasts some of the icy string writing in Bernard
Herrmann's brilliant score for Psycho (which Salonen recently recorded with
great success), and also harkens back to the night music of Bartok's own
Second Piano Concerto. The second movement sounds crisp, perfectly capturing
the Bartokian idiom, with the middle episode of xylophone, harp, and
pizzicato strings especially impressive. The next two movements are just as
compelling, just as incisively read and played. My previous favorite, the
Bernstein/New York Philharmonic from the 1960s will have to make room for
this new Sony entry.
While some may prefer Solti in the Concerto, Salonen's relatively relaxed
reading, not as dissimilar to Previn's Telarc or Ormandy's early digital RCA
effort as you might think, is fully competitive with the better versions,
not least because of the excellent work of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra. Sony offers good sound (though the bass drum booms annoyingly at
times) and very intelligent notes by the distinguished Alex Ross. But I must
quibble over his statement regarding the parodying of the Leningrad Symphony
in the Concerto: "Bartok entirely missed the point of Shostakovich's score."
Perhaps so, but how would that oversight make music that Bartok clearly
disliked any better, as Mr. Ross suggests? The "banality of evil" is, if
portrayed tritely, still banal. That march, even if it didn't depict heroic
Soviet resistance, but mocked Nazi pomp instead, is still a rather mediocre
creation. When a composer is portraying crass evil, he does not acquire an
artistic license to incarnate it in less than tasteful music. Bartok was
right to satirize the music. Anyway, lest I digress too long, this Salonen
disc is recommended.
THE BEAU BRUMMELS: San Fran Sessions (Sundazed)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
This strong recommendation is balanced by a strong warning. If you don't
have any Beau Brummels recordings and you're looking for the familiar cuts,
this isn't for you. If, on the other hand, you've already picked up the
other releases and you consider yourself a true blue fan, you're going to
flip over this 3 CD set of rarities, alternate takes and demos.
Because most of these were never considered final versions, the production
is wonderfully sparse, leaving the true elements of the band in plain view.
An unissued tune called "How Many Times" features untreated acoustic guitar,
raw bass and drums, and reverbless group harmonies, and it sounds fantastic.
Then again, some of the arrangements will make you appreciate the final
versions all the more. Two takes of "Just A Little" are included, the first
containing a unison lead vocal track that saps the beauty out of the piece,
the second landing closer to the mark but leaning a bit too far into the
reverb tank. It's interesting to follow the evolution of the tune. Though
you only get one alternate take of "Laugh Laugh," and one that's pretty
close to the final arrangement at that, it's a particularly interesting track
because there is no harmonica or acoustic guitar. If you ever wondered
about the importance of individual touches, here's your answer. The track
you really get to follow is "Sad Little Girl," which appears here in four
different versions.
While the unfamiliar-familiar tracks are fun to listen to, the most endearing
thing about San Fran Sessions is the abundance of demo tracks that work on
their own without fancy mixdown treatments, proving what you already knew: The
Beau Brummels were fine songwriters. The songs can stand on structure alone.
Several tracks are demo cuts by Sal Valentino and Ron Elliot, and while a
few from each are a bit dull, the majority are at least interesting (Sal's
"Forget It Babe") and at best inspired (Ron's "Kill").
All told, there are 60 tracks on these three CDs. Casual listeners won't be
amused by about half of these, but they'd have to read the liners to pick out
some of the demos. The Beau Brummels were known for their perfectionism in
the studio and in the songwriting process, and it's evident here. By the way,
those liner notes are more than a little entertaining, because they include
interviews with each band member, not to mention nice little footnotes for
each track. In other words, San Fran Sessions is a Brummels fan's dream.
BURNING SPEAR: Living Dub Volume 3 (Heartbeat)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale
There may be a couple things as welcome as the news that Winston Rodney
has put together a new album of Burning Spear songs. One of those
things is certainly the news that he's put together a new set of dubs.
For Living Dub Volume 3, the Spear has raided his Rasta Business album,
which has yielded 13 new tracks. Spear's approach to the art of dub
reflects his commitment to the song form, as the composer and original
artist on each of the cuts here. Rather than using excessive effects to
elaborate on a track, he pares his own material down to it's essential
ingredient. In the process he has created a set of penetrating rhythmic
assaults that are more expressively musical than the dub produced by
many DJs whose material is drawn from more external sources.
Paul Beckford's bass is, of course, punched up considerably in the mix,
and extra horns are added to the Burning Band lineup, but Spear's tenure
in the studio now spans nearly three decades (his first sessions with
Coxsone Dodd were in 1969) and he needs little in the way of modern
refinement to find the heart of his music.
This isn't the most inventive dub album I've heard this year, but it is
certainly one of the best. If you like the dub form, this is one you
have to hear. If you're unsure about dub, this is one to convince you.
But get plenty of rest before you put it on. When this beat hits your
brain, your brain's just likely to tell your butt to get up and dance.
Track List:
Dub Creation * African Dub * Stand * Smart Dub * Remember * Burning Dub