It’s rare that I get a chance to talk to the artists whose music I steal each week, so when the opportunity arises, I seize it, no matter the consequences. Recently, word got out that I’d be featuring “Waiting for Lou,” the bootleg of Lou Reed’s performance at Konserthuset, a.k.a. the Stockholm Concert Hall, on May 14, 1974. But soon after I received a call from Reed’s manager, who said his client was interested in a “chat.”
That made me nervous, since the godfather of punk isn’t known for his sunny disposition. He was described by Legs McNeil in his and Gillian McCain’s book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (1996) as being “old, and snotty, and like someone’s cranky old drunken father” when McNeil interviewed him in the mid-’70s for the first issue of Punk magazine. And director Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho), who wrote for Punk and tagged along for the interview, noted Reed’s “famous nastiness” and said the interview didn’t end well “because of Lou lashing out or getting bored or whatever…. Lou started getting so hostile. I can’t remember why. He got very mad at Legs, he just hated him.”
With that in mind, I gave Lou a call a few Saturdays ago. Here’s what he had to say …
The summer movie season finally begins to wind down this weekend with the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. So what’s next in Hollywood’s blockbuster pipeline? Would you believe a song-and-dance remake of The Bodyguard starring Hugh Jackman and Miley Cyrus? As of July that was the case, but earlier this month a spokesperson for the Wolverine star denied he was involved in the project.
It’s just as well since “Personal Security” sounded like an April Fool’s Day joke in the first place, but these days it can be difficult to tell when Hollywood’s being serious about its various remakes (The Last Dragon, The Secret of NIMH, and even 1985’s Clue, among many others, are currently in development), sequels (a second Bull Durham, a fourth Beverly Hills Cop, a fifth Indiana Jones adventure), and adaptations of everything under the sun. (By the way, I loved that comment you left on the site that one time. In fact, that comment would make a great movie!)
Can you believe everything you read? Well, of course you can, but that doesn’t mean you should. Without consulting any sources, including all your friends who work at Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, take the quiz below and submit your answers to me via e-mail. A winner will be chosen at random and will receive a prize package that includes Hannah Montana: The Movie on Blu-ray, the first season of Peyton Place on DVD, and a free copy of Jack Wagner’s Don’t Give Up Your Day Job, recently reissued on CD by Friday Music. Hey, remember when the General Hospital star made the jump to the big screen in 1984’s Hard to Hold? Or maybe that was somebody else. Oh well, on with the quiz!
For this special edition of Bootleg City, I’m spotlighting the top 17 songs of the ’90s, a decade we can all officially start nostalgicizing on January 1, 2010. Until then we’re in limbo, if you’ll pardon the expression — the untimely deaths of Michael Jackson and JohnHughes in the past six weeks have put a damper on the last blast of ’80s nostalgia in this decade. But life goes on, of course, as does pop culture’s never-ending look backward.
I was beginning to think I’d never find a tough lawman to clean up Bootleg City, especially after my faux pas-filled interview with Marshall Crenshaw. (I won’t bore you with the details of my preliminary talks with the Police. They work well as a team, but who needs all that drama?) But last weekend, as I was digging through CDs at the one place left in town to shop for music — the local Christian thrift store, Heaven Is One Coffee-Stained Couch Donation Away — I ran across a copy of Law and Order by Lindsey Buckingham.
Of course! Who better to scare the crap out of criminals than the man who followed up Law and Order with Go Insane? Here in America we can’t get enough of “maverick cops” who have trouble “playing by the rules” and are willing to risk “life and limb” to nab the bad guys, possibly because they’re “mentally unstable” or just plain “suicidal,” and years down the road may end up making “anti-Semitic comments” to arresting officers while “hammered out of their gourds on Cazadores tequila” behind the wheel of an automobile. In order to catch the bad guys, you have to think like the bad guys, but sometimes that means you end up talking and even acting like the bad guys. But isn’t it worth all the apologetic “Whoopsy!” meetings with rabbis and the stints in rehab and the worldwide public condemnation if it eventually translates to some face time with Diane Sawyer?
It’s no wonder Mayor P.R. Nelson of Erotic City was upset when he found out I’d hired Lindsey — no one had told him that Stevie Nicks’s ex was available as a gun for hire in the first place. His brisk e-mail said it all: “How come U don’t call me anymore?” His second e-mail was even more to the point: “I hate U.”
Don’t worry, he’ll get over it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about freaky people, it’s that they keep on comin’.
When the economy’s bad, crime get worse. That’s why I decided to hire a new lawman to clean up this one-horse-because-of-all-the-horse-thieves town.
I know what you’re thinking: “It’s called Bootleg City. If you outlaw the outlaws and start doing everything by the book, aren’t you defeating the purpose of the place? Isn’t there some sort of town charter you’d be violating? Seriously, Mr. Mayor, how stupid can you be?” The thing is, I agree with you. (Well, except for that rude rhetorical question you tacked onto the end of your thought. That seemed unnecessary.) After all, the welcome sign at the edge of town says the following: BOOTLEG CITY — A PLACE FOR BOOTLEGGERS AND SCOUNDRELS AND EVEN RAPISTS, AS LONG AS IT’S JUST THE VIKING KIND OF RAPE WHERE YOU WANTONLY DESTROY THE LAND, BUT BE A DEAR AND JUST DESTROY THE POOR SIDE OF TOWN, OKAY? WE’VE BEEN MEANING TO LAY WASTE TO THAT EYESORE FOR YEARS NOW. THANKS, AND ENJOY YOUR STAY!
Eventually we got the whole thing sorted out and had a few laughs about it. He told me I was his new favorite waste of time, so I told him rape was my favorite waste of time but go-nowhere interviews were a close second. At that point he started looking for the door and said he had to get to the hotel and take a shower before his show.
Musicians are so hard to read. Maybe I just need new glasses.
The budget cuts continue in Bootleg City. This week I had to lay off the village idiot.
It was a tough call. On the one hand, he’s provided countless hours of “It’s funny because it’s not me” entertainment. On the other hand, he’s a symbol of a more ignorant time in human history, when those with limited mental capacities were openly encouraged to humiliate themselves, only to be mocked by society for their efforts.
Luckily, Bootleg City’s village idiot took it in stride. “I’ll be honest with you — I’m relieved,” he said. “My last job, I was there too long. The first two years were pretty good, but then it started to get really hard, and my boss turned into a real jerk, and everybody started blaming me for everything. Here I just could be myself, but six months was a good run. Any longer and y’all would’ve started hating me, probably saying I was only here in the first place because somebody pulled some strings.”
I asked about his plans for the future. He said he might look into adjunct faculty positions at Yale. I thought he was making one last joke, but he was serious. All I could do was smile, pat him on the back, and say, “Good luck, George.”
“We’ve kinda found that people really dig one record of ours or another, and then kinda want that version of Wheat to be the one that they always get,” said Brendan Harney, one half of the Boston-area indie-pop band, in a recent interview for the website of Express, an offshoot of the Washington Post. “And that seems to leave a trail of disappointment here and there. We are a tough band to follow ’cause of the constant changing, but, you know, ‘Change is / The better part of me.’”
Harney was borrowing a couple lines from “Changes Is,” one of the highlights of Wheat’s latest album, White Ink Black Ink (The Rebel Group): “Change is / The better part of me / Boom, boom / I’m getting out of here.” In that simple sing-along chorus, he and his partner, Scott Levesque, encapsulate all that is good about Wheat: a never-ending exploration of pop melodies backed by a propulsive rhythm that represents the heartbeat of their life-affirming music.
Like Radiohead or Wilco, Wheat switch gears with each album. “It’s not [about] being willfully obscure; it’s more about being very easily bored,” Harney told Express’s Christopher Porter, “and never wanting to even come close to repeating ourselves. We really do love pop, but we really also do love strange and difficult beauty.”
But unlike Radiohead or Wilco, Wheat remain relatively obscure in terms of popularity, having recorded for four different labels over the course of five albums. And that’s a real shame, because their third LP, 2003’s Per Second, Per Second, Per Second … Every Second, is the best album of the decade. (That’s another discussion for another day, of course.) Wheat create soaring anthems big enough to fill stadiums. If only enough people were familiar with their work to fill those stadiums …
I’m not going to lie to you — even though I’m the most powerful figurehead in Bootleg City, I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I often turn to other mayors of other imaginary cities so we can talk shop, compare mistresses, and swap cookie recipes. Recently I called Mayor P.R. Nelson of Erotic City to find out what he’s learned at the top of the municipal food chain.
Me: Mayor Nelson, thank you for taking the time to do this interview.
Nelson: I would die 4 U.
Me: Why, thank you! It’s rare to have that kind of support from another politician. Now, Mr. Mayor–
Nelson: My name is Prince. And I am funky.
Me: Good, I was hoping we could skip the formalities right up front. You can call me Robert. Now, Prince, your critics have accused you of — and I’m quoting here — “doing something close to nothing but different than the day before.” Of course, you’ve been in office since the mid-’80s, so clearly you’re doing something the people of Erotic City appreciate, but does criticism like that ever get under your skin?
Nelson: I just can’t believe all the things people say. Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay? Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me?
Me: So it does get to you. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one. And for the record, I always thought you were black and straight. But speaking of God, in recent years you’ve been referencing him more and more in your speeches. Do you ever worry that you might alienate some of your more liberal supporters with your religious views?
Nelson: Am I the weaker man because I understand that love must be the master plan?
Me: I don’t think so, but let’s not pretend elected officials don’t have to hug the middle of the road sometimes to get the votes they need.
I realized the other day that it’s been a couple months since I updated you on my personal life. No one’s asked for an update, of course, but I figured the fan letter that said “Send me the music from Running Scarred because I dont know how to use the internet except for email and this is the first time I have used email – I swear – so please hurry” was probably from a non-English speaker who really meant to say, “How’s your girlfriend, Aimiee, and the child you abandoned in Nebraska last fall?”
Well, I have good and bad news about Xing, our adopted son who’s really our daughter. The good news is she’s doing really well for herself in Lincoln, Nebraska, having been accepted for early enrollment at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln at the tender age of seven. She’s also reclaimed her natural name of Zhen, along with the gender Aimiee and I denied her. (Every parent makes mistakes. Don’t judge our gender reassignment until you’ve seen for yourself how it can have an unexpected negative side.)
As is the case with almost all children, Zhen got bored while waiting for school to start, so she took advantage of her free time and created a new iPhone application. Her “app” tells you how much longer you’ll be able to hold out before you break down and buy the latest iPhone.
I’m so proud of my little boy-girl! She’s all grown up now. This bird has flown, it’s time to let her make her own mistakes, we set the bar as low as possible as parents so she’d have nowhere to go but up, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. Of course her new family in Lincoln still sees her as a seven-year-old who needs love and attention and discipline, even if she is a genius, but frankly I think that’s an insult to someone of her caliber.
Last Saturday I discussed the global economic woes that have trickled down to many American cities in the past year, including Bootleg City. The recession has led to crippling budget cuts here, and now there’s even more bad news — I’ve had to sell the Bootleg City Boutonnières baseball team!
The Bouts were a symbol of civic pride and, most importantly, gratuitous wealth, but I’ll be the first to admit that the games never drew big crowds outside of prom season. Thankfully, we were able to unload plenty of “I Went All the Way at a Bootleg City Boutonnières Game” T-shirts during that time.
I first tried to sell the French-sounding team to Montreal, the former home of the Expos, but after my bad joke two weeks ago about Quebec’s biggest city being “a desolate backwater” — and my refusal to pronounce the English translation of “boutonnière” without making the second syllable silent — negotations quickly broke down. Your loss, buttonholes.
(By the by, the Expos were the best team in baseball in 1994 before that season was cut short due to an infamous players’ strike. It wasn’t until four years later that fans’ goodwill in the game was restored with the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home-run race. Is it possible upper management encouraged them and other players, like Barry Bonds, to take steroids and display feats of superhuman strength so strike-jaded fans — not to mention their children, the next generation of stats hounds — would be lured back to the stands? Discuss.)
Eventually I was able to make a highly profitable deal with neighboring Tuxedoville: instead of buying the team outright, they’re going to rent it for each game. They have a strange way of doing things over there in T-ville, but you won’t hear me complaining.
Now that the Boutonnières are gone, all I have to offer you in terms of vaguely baseball-related entertainment is English pop-rock group the Outfield, performing at Harpos in Detroit in the fall of ‘85 and at the Caldwell Auditorium in Tyler, Texas, the following summer. (Trivia buffs, take note: “Turn and Run” is an early version of the song “Winning It All” from the Outfield’s 1992 album Rockeye.) Thanks once again to Matt Wardlaw for another fine bootleg. Even after all these years, “Your Love” still knocks it out of the park.
It’s rare that I get a chance to talk to the artists whose music I steal each week, so when the opportunity arises, I seize it, no matter the consequences. Recently, word got out that I’d be featuring “Waiting for Lou,” the bootleg of Lou Reed’s performance at Konserthuset, a.k.a. the Stockholm Concert Hall, on May 14, 1974. But soon after I received a call from Reed’s manager, who said his client was interested in a “chat.”
Of course! Who better to scare the crap out of criminals than the man who followed up Law and Order with Go Insane? Here in America we can’t get enough of “maverick cops” who have trouble “playing by the rules” and are willing to risk “life and limb” to nab the bad guys, possibly because they’re “mentally unstable” or just plain “suicidal,” and years down the road may end up making “anti-Semitic comments” to arresting officers while “hammered out of their gourds on Cazadores tequila” behind the wheel of an automobile. In order to catch the bad guys, you have to think like the bad guys, but sometimes that means you end up talking and even acting like the bad guys. But isn’t it worth all the apologetic “Whoopsy!” meetings with rabbis and the stints in rehab and the worldwide public condemnation if it eventually translates to some face time with Diane Sawyer?
Even so, crime is out of control here, so I’ve started interviewing candidates for the job of police chief (and judge, jury, and executioner if they have a talent for multitasking). Unfortunately, due to a nearsighted oversight on my part, I misread the caption on one particular photograph attached to a candidate’s resumé and ended up scheduling an interview with a guy named 
“We’ve kinda found that people really dig one record of ours or another, and then kinda want that version of Wheat to be the one that they always get,” said Brendan Harney, one half of the Boston-area indie-pop band, in a recent 
Me: Mayor Nelson, thank you for taking the time to do this interview.
