More than just the guy who plays keyboards for David Letterman, Paul Shaffer is really one of the more underrated musical icons of the last 35 years — something illustrated in Shaffer’s new autobiography, We’ll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives, as well as his Popdose Interview with Will Harris.
Wolfgang’s Vault is one of the Internet’s greatest treasures for music lovers. The site hosts thousands of concerts that are available for free streaming, as well as vintage memorabilia that includes t-shirts, posters, photographs, tickets, and other items of interest. Thus far, only a limited number of the shows in the Concert Vault have been available for download. That’s about to change tomorrow. Last week, I had a chance to speak with Wolfgang’s Vault President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Johnson from his office in San Francisco.
Let’s start with a bit of the history of Wolfgang’s Vault. How did it come into being?
Wolfgang’s Vault began in 2003 with the acquisition of the Bill Graham archives. Bill’s real name was Wolfgang Grajonca. That’s how the site got its name. Our founder, Bill Sagan, originally acquired these assets from Clear Channel as they were spinning off Live Nation. The Bill Graham archives contained the collection of what he had amassed over his 30-year career in the music business, and then ten years after he died. Bill Graham was one of the early inventors of the rock concert, and in this archive was posters, tickets, handbills, you name it, from classic shows and classic venues like the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, Winterland, Graham’s Day on the Green shows. There were also audio and video recordings of some of these legendary bands like the Grateful Dead, Santana, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, the Who. It was just a who’s who list of what was out there.
Bill Graham was one of the first to present certain artists. On the site you can get Elton John playing his first show on the west coast. It’s just an amazing, awesome raw show. In addition to that, we’ve acquired another dozen or so archives that include different collections of both memorabilia, vintage posters and photography, and recordings. So we have the recordings of the King Biscuit Flower Hour, Silver Eagle Cross Country, which is the country version of King Biscuit, the Ash Grove, which was a club that was open in L.A. from 1958-1973 with just amazing early folk and delta blues performers, and the Newport Festivals. It’s just a huge array of music spanning 50-plus years, and about 20 different genres of music. (more…)
Although he’s known to many simply as the eccentric bespectacled guy who serves as the band leader for the CBS Orchestra on The Late Show with David Letterman, Paul Shaffer’s career has been a wide and varied one, taking him from the position of musical director for the Toronto production of “Godspell” in 1972 all the way to being the musical director and producer for the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony…and, trust me, you don’t get a gig like that without some serious music street cred. Shaffer has detailed many of his experiences – with the help of David Ritz – in his newly-released autobiography, We’ll Be Here For The Rest Of Our Lives, a light and breezy trip through his life and times in which he chats about Saturday Night Live, This is Spinal Tap, and many, many more topics which would appeal to the average Popdose reader. And what luck: although his press schedule was decidedly rigorous, your pals here at Popdose managed to score ten minutes to chat with Mr. Shaffer about his book and some of the topics contained therein.
It’s great to talk to you, Paul. I’m a big fan.
Hi! Thank you. How are you?
I’m great. I just finished your book yesterday, and it’s fantastic.
Thank you!
Now, how long was the idea of doing an autobiography gestating?
Oh, you know, I’ve wanted to do one for years. Some ten years ago, I got a book deal and tried to do it. I wrote three stories up, and I just never had time to go back to it. So this time, when I was re-introduced to David Ritz, who is the A-list celebrity biographer, just a couple of years ago, he said, “If you ever want to do a book”… I thought, “Well, that’s the way to do it: do it with somebody, and that way, he has the responsibility of turning it in on time.” And we did! But we had fun together, the two of us, and he…besides doing all of the music biographies, like Ray Charles and Smokey Robinson, he also did Don Rickles. So I knew he had me covered. And he was able to get my voice down and, of course, we worked well together as well. It really was co-writing.
If Howard Jones wasn’t the definitive poster boy for synthpop during the 1980s, he was certainly one of the leaders of the pack, spending many a week in the charts during the course of the decade. We won’t waste our time by listing off every single hit single the man had, but…oh, sorry, perhaps some readers do need a brief refresher course. For those of us who may not have lived through the decade in which Mr. Jones saw his greatest success, we speak of the man responsible for such memorable ditties as “New Song,” “Things Can Only Get Better,” “No One Is To Blame,” and “Everlasting Love.” Indeed, he even managed to maintain his success into the ’90s, scoring a substantial hit in 1992 with “Lift Me Up.”
Although he departed the ranks of Elektra Records not long after the label released his best-of collection in 1993, Jones has continued to release records throughout the years, including Angels and Lovers (1997), People (1998), and Revolution of the Heart (2005); his latest album, Ordinary Heroes, will see release on Nov. 9th, 2009, preceded on Oct. 26th by the single, “Soon You’ll Go.” As part of the pre-release press blitz, Popdose was provided with the opportunity to do an E-mail interview, and it was an offer we could not refuse.
E Street Band saxophone player Clarence Clemons, known the world over as the “Big Man,” has written a new book with his friend Don Reo. As the subtitle, “Real Life & Tall Tales,” suggests, the book is a wildly entertaining blend of autobiography and a substantial amount of myth. You can read Pete Chianca’s review for Popdose here. The mythmaking comes via tall tales that Clarence calls “Legends.” Whether he’s riding big waves with Oprah, playing pool in Havana with Fidel Castro, or hanging out with Bruce Springsteen in a remote area of Hawaii, it’s clear that Clarence Clemons has led an extraordinary life. I had a chance to speak with him on the telephone last week.
Hi, Clarence. Are you there?
I’m here. I didn’t do it. I’m innocent. (laughs)
Are you on the road today?
I’m in Philadelphia. We have two more shows here, then I’ll go back to New York. (more…)
Last month we brought you an exclusive interview with Daryl Hall & John Oates, whose four-disc box set Do What You Want, Be What You Are arrives in nonexistent record stores today. Unfortunately, Oates’s legendary facial hair stayed silent throughout, even as its owner bristled at some of Hall’s answers. Now, in another Popdose exclusive, it breaks that silence (mainly so it can promote its J-Stache website and its videos on Funny or Die, but beggars can’t be choosers).
Is it true that you did both Wilson sisters at the same time but only after you finished a three-day four-way with Bananarama?
Carnie Wilson put a right angle on my dong, dude. No lie — I was north and south while me-will-willy was looking around the corner! I’d do it all over again given the opportunity. In fact, Carnie, call me, love. Let’s get twisted on fried foods, perks, and Arsenio Hall reruns. You know, see what happens. The ladies in Bananarama are into some strange stuff too. I’ve never been able to look at latex or eat oatmeal in the same way since. True story. (We meant Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, but we’ll take any gossip we can get. —Ed.)
Is it true what you sang about Italian girls, or was that just a marketing scheme?
Well, I did write the line “I eat so much pasta pasta, I am so full and yet so lonely.” The autonomy of art, man. Leave it there, homes.
If Brian Wilson and David Mead adopted a baby, he’d grow up to be Brandon Schott, the L.A.-based singer/songwriter whose lush harmonies, heartfelt lyrics, and gentle, sun-baked melodies have earned him a steadily growing fanbase since he made his solo debut with Releasein 2003. Now he’s back with a new album, Dandelion, which forms a sort of song cycle around the year Schott spent learning he had cancer, struggling with the disease, and finally learning he was in remission. For fans of his last album, 2007’s Golden State, the new songs won’t disappoint, but they’re also a progression — they feel deeper, rawer, and less meticulously assembled, while still glowing with the melodic beauty of Schott’s best work.
Brandon was kind enough to take some time to talk with Popdose about what went into the making of Dandelion, which arrives in all the finer digital outlets today.
Okay, let’s start at the beginning: “Seasons Turn,” Dandelion’s opening track. It’s beautiful — more of an invocation than a first song. Can you talk about how it came together?
Thanks! I definitely wanted it to feel like an opening prayer, set that kind of tone for the record. It was written a cappella in the car one afternoon — very shortly after finishing treatment and finding out I was officially in remission. The lyrics and melody all came in that one sitting — just kind of poured through me (I had to pull over a few times to keep up). The track was one of the only ones on the project that wasn’t initiated from scratch for the record during our sessions in the church — a good bit of the song was initially completed at home. When we started tracking the rest of Dandelion in the church the intention was to go in and just record the lead vocal on this one and call it. However, being that we had a pipe organ at our disposal that was aching to be part of the tune, and the harmonium and piano sounded so glorious in this space, the textures kept getting deeper and deeper — and naturally evolved into where it rests now. (more…)
The new benefit album from Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide collective, The Sun Came Out, doesn’t aspire to the sorts of Grand Gestures that mark so many multi-artist charity compilations. Instead, its charms are subdued and homespun, and its songs (such as “Learn to Crawl”) are intoxicating in their low-key tunefulness. Those same qualities, along with an enormous generosity of spirit, are the ones that have sustained Finn through three decades as a recording artist — perhaps the most underrated artist of his era, as wearepronetosuggestfrequently here at Popdose.
The album comes by those characteristics naturally. Finn and his family opened their home (and his home studio) in New Zealand for three weeks last Christmastime to most of the crew from the previous 7 Worlds incarnation — Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead, Sebastian Steinberg, Lisa Germano — as well as newbies including Wilco, KT Tunstall, and down-under singer-songwriters Don McGlashan, Bic Runga, and Glenn Richards. The sessions were, by all accounts, full of frivolity, on-the-spot collaboration, and various forms (this being the holiday season) of good cheer; they also marked a musical reunion for various Finn family members including brother Tim, sons Liam and Elroy, and — singing on record for the first time — Neil’s wife Sharon.
In addition to preparing and publicizing The Sun Came Out (which emerges tomorrow in the U.S.), Finn has been readying a new Crowded House album for release this winter and has recently found time to play a few gigs (with and without his 7 Worlds compatriots) in London and Los Angeles. His interview with Popdose, patched in from New Zealand through his U.S. publicist’s office (thus saving your intrepid interviewer a whopping phone bill), found him answering queries about the minutiae of long-past Crowded House gigs as well as reader questions ranging from the profound to the ridiculous. (Sadly, dear reader who calls himself “maxus,” he had no answer whatsoever for the question, “Imagine if writing songs in flat keys suddenly became a major felony. How would you imagine a day in Neil Finn’s Violent Life of Crime, circa September 2010?”) Here’s a live clip from the first 7 Worlds Collide project:(more…)
On the grand spectrum of things a person can do with his money, “starting a record label” ranks somewhere near “setting it on fire,” so we’re always very happy when an indie imprint finds success — for instance, Detroit’s Suburban Sprawl Music, home of Javelins, the Word Play, and Desktop, a new collaboration between label honcho Zach Curd (who also records for Suburban Sprawl as a member of the Pop Project) and Keith Thompson of the Electric Six.
Desktop came together earlier this year, releasing an EP of synthified pop jams that meet, in the words of the duo, “somewhere between Stevie
Wonder, New Order and ’80s Detroit techno.” And then they went and gave it away for free at their website. Naturally, we were intrigued — both by the EP and Desktop’s marketing plan — and jumped at the opportunity to interview Zach Curd, especially when Desktop agreed to provide Popdose with an exclusive Desktop track, a cover of Ghost Town DJs’ “My Boo” (download). We had a wide-ranging chat that covered the band, the music, and the state of online music marketing in general — and it’s all right here. Read on!
Okay, let’s start with the obvious: How did Desktop come together? Having heard some of your earlier stuff, the new project’s sound is an unexpected twist.
The Detroit indie music scene is super tiny (and the non-”DETROIT ROCK” scene is even smaller), so I knew of Keith’s projects (Johnny Headband, Electric Six), but hadn’t met him. We met at a show in January 08, and agreed to make some music together. We initially had the intention of working on stuff together in real life, but I’m pretty busy doing Suburban Sprawl stuff, and Keith is also kind of perpetually on tour with E6, so it ended up being an Internet thing. (more…)
I recall in the late ’80s reading a Rolling Stone review of Richard Thompson’s Amnesia that began “Ho-hum, another first-rate Richard Thompson album.” The uniform excellence of Thompson’s work, particularly in that period, could indeed lull one into complacency, to the point where that excellence could easily be taken for granted.
I thought something similar in 2005, about the work of another UK singer/songwriter, David Gray. That year, he released Life in Slow Motion, a devastatingly gorgeous collection of songs that extended a winning streak begun with White Ladder, his breakout record of six years previous (you remember “Babylon,” don’t you?), and continued through 2002’s New Day at Midnight. Each of them set Gray’s reedy, plaintive voice against a musical backdrop that melded acoustic instrumentation with electronic flourishes, in the service of deeply personal, deeply resonant songs. Combined with a compilation of the best early tracks from his decade-plus career (Lost Songs, 2001), these exceptional discs alluded to a talent whose excellence we could take for granted.
Four years have passed since Life in Slow Motion, and, if anything, Gray’s new record, Draw the Line, raises the bar even higher. Sporting a new band with a fuller, richer sound than he’s managed previously (as well as guest turns from Jolie Holland and Annie Lennox), Gray has written a record that easily stands with his best work, perhaps even surpasses it. You get the feeling he knows it, too—he’s put on a full-court promotional press in advance of the record’s release (September 22), including a ton of interviews (a metric ton, actually—he’s British, after all), showcase gigs, and an appearance on Letterman, and will be returning to the U.S. this fall for a more extensive tour.
Gray was doing promo work in London when I spoke with him on the phone, about two and a half weeks before Draw the Line’s release. (more…)
Let’s start with a bit of the history of Wolfgang’s Vault. How did it come into being?
If Howard Jones wasn’t the definitive poster boy for synthpop during the 1980s, he was certainly one of the leaders of the pack, spending many a week in the charts during the course of the decade. We won’t waste our time by listing off every single hit single the man had, but…oh, sorry, perhaps some readers do need a brief refresher course. For those of us who may not have lived through the decade in which Mr. Jones saw his greatest success, we speak of the man responsible for such memorable ditties as “
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