Paul Kelly is a national treasure; it’s just a shame he’s not our nation’s to claim. He’s Australian—born in Adelaide, living in Melbourne, and exporting his wonderful songs to a planet’s worth of fans in albums like 1987′s

In 2010, he released a box set in his native land—an eight-disc compilation culling live takes of 105 of his best and best-known songs, arranged, oddly enough, in alphabetical order. A–to–Z Recordings emerged out of a series of live shows Kelly had performed since 2004 with the same conceit—multiple-night, career-spanning gigs, with songs played in A-to-Z order. The box had an accompanying book called How to Make Gravy (after one of his most beloved songs)—an over-500-page tome containing the stories behind each track, in effect forming the largest set of liner notes you’ve ever read. The two projects, taken together, are a primer on great songwriting—if you’re a songwriter or wish to become a songwriter, you simply must hear these songs, to hear how the one of the best plies his craft.

The box and book saw their U.S. release back in March, and Kelly did a short run of A–to–Z shows in the States to promote them. Since then, his mid-tour performance on the public radio program Mountain Stage Live has aired (you’ll be able to hear a stream of it on NPR Music, starting May 20). A reissue campaign will kick off July 17, with three great titles—the addiction-obsessed Post (1985), the aforementioned Comedy, and 1994′s Wanted Man (which features my favorite Kelly song, “Love Never Runs on Time”)—back in print. Finally, Paul Kelly fans will rejoice at the news that November will see the release of a brand new Paul Kelly studio album, his first in five years.

I spoke with Kelly at the beginning of his spring tour. He was in Austin, TX, shortly before soundcheck for that night’s performance.

Congratulations on the box set and the book. It’s really impressive stuff—eight CDs, 500-plus pages. There aren’t that many people who could pull that off as successfully as you’ve done. Tell me a bit about how it all came about, how you decided to approach the project this way.

I really didn’t know what I was doing from the start; I never imagined what it would roll into, something so large. It all started with me doing a series of four nights at a venue in Melbourne. I decided to do something different and perform 100 songs in alphabetical order, over those four nights. Each night would be a different set list, a different pace. I thought that would be a one-off event. And I realized after I’d done the first one, that this would be the kind of thing I could keep coming back to—it was a new way of doing songs and it sort of sidestepped the eternal performance dilemma of putting together a show, of balancing your old and your new material.

Right.

It took all that out of the equation. I didn’t even think in terms of old or new, because the set was ruled by the alphabet. It gave me a new way to structure shows and it gave the audience a different way to come and listen. It changed the audience’s expectations. I realized I was onto something there, and it also put me back in touch with a lot of my songs that I hadn’t played much, for no good reason other than when you’re putting together a 75-minute or a 90-minute show, you have other things you’re thinking about—the structure, the dynamics, the pacing. You have certain songs that have always worked at various points in the set, so you tend to use them. I found out that over the years I would vary songs in shows and on tours, even when being conscious of that, there were some songs that just never got a run. It brought all those songs back into play. It made performing fresh again.

So I thought it would be a one-off, but I decided to keep doing this, and I kept doing these series of shows once or twice a year. And I recorded them, and I thought after a while I could put them out as a series of recordings. My next thought was, if I was going to put out a hundred songs or so, which I knew would be a lot of CDs, I should make a really beautiful object out of it. I didn’t want to just stick the CDs in plastic covers. I thought I’d include some liner notes and pictures and such. My idea for the notes was to tell stories around the songs, talk about influences, whatever. I started with the very first song, which was “Adelaide,” and I wrote ten pages on it! A little light bulb went off in my head, and I thought, “Ah, if I keep doing this, I could have a book.”

I carried on for a while, not knowing whether I’d be able to sustain it. After a while I realized if I kept at it, I really could make a book. I put touring aside for a couple years and the rest is history.

That’s wonderful.

The book came out in Australia at the end of 2010, and I started doing more A-to-Z shows, to tie in with the book and all that. Then we stepped it up. We brought the first A-to-Z shows to the States the next September, but we didn’t have much time. We booked a few cities, and now we’re back on a second run.

I remember reading about the project on your Web site, when it came out in Australia, and hoping it would come out here. It’s great that your fans here in the States can get it now. What was your criteria for selecting songs for the box? Of course, there are always going to be songs that people love that didn’t make the cut.

What was selected for the box set in the end was based on what was in the book, and what was in the book was really songs that I wanted to write about—each time I would sit down to write, I’d focus on one song. Sometimes I’d select a song and sit down and not have anything to write about, or couldn’t find a way into writing about it, so I’d just set it aside and move onto the next one. But I wanted the box set to mirror the book, so in the end, that’s how I chose songs for the box.

I wound up recording about 140 songs or so. It’s not like I left a lot of songs out, because 105 songs is a lot anyway. I’ve probably written about 300 songs in 35 years, plus, you know, co-writes, or songs that didn’t quite translate with the band. These songs have pretty much all been acoustic, either solo or with my nephew, Dan Kelly—that’s the way they work. So as it is I probably have about 150 songs in play that I can still connect with. But those 105 songs in the box set were the ones I could write some prose about.

I’ve been telling people that if you’re a songwriter, you have to listen to this box—it’s like a clinic of great songwriting. Do you feel a sense of accomplishment when you consider the work you’ve done here?

I think I felt that more about writing the book, because that’s new for me; I never thought I’d write a book. I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, but one who writes songs; to write the book was definitely an accomplishment. By the time I finished the book and got the book and the box set out, I felt like I’d been looking back for a long time. I’d always felt rather useful when I wrote a new song, no matter how many songs I’d written. I’ve always wanted to write the next song; I don’t want to write the next book, but I want to write the next song. The thought is, you’re only as good as your last song.

[Laughs] That’s not true.

Yeah, but when I wrote the book—in the three years it took me to write it, I didn’t write a song in that time. It wasn’t a choice; it’s just the way it happened. It was like flipping a switch; I would sit down every day at the desk to write the book—I tried to do that every day—and I just didn’t write songs. Then, of course, the book came out and there was a fit of promotion around that and touring and A-to-Z shows. So it took four years between writing songs. I finally got back around to scratching out a few songs last year, and I’ve written a few more this year, and I’ll start recording in July. I’m really ready to start doing something new.

Was it just a matter of time or creative energy that kept you from writing, or a little bit of everything?

No, it was just time. It was having the time.

You’ve been writing songs since your early twenties, and I’m curious, since you’ve had to look back for this project, do you remember what led you to want to create something new, instead of simply playing other people’s material?

That was always what I wanted to do, from the first. I wanted to be a writer, since I was about the age of 15. Like a lot of people, I wrote poetry when I was 15 or 16. Then I just kept going; I wrote a lot of short stories, or sort of prose poems. So I had it in my head to be a writer. And then, I picked up the guitar around the age of 18. I started learning songs, of course, and I wrote my first song when I was 21. So, I guess I’ve always thought of myself as a writer first, and not a performer. I never thought of myself as competing against great singers or great performers. For me, it was the writing first. I started performing because I wrote things.

I was listening to So Much Water So Close to Home in the car this morning, and “The Most Wanted Man in the World” came on, and it occurred to me that it sounds like an old Stax/Volt song, in the melody and the way that it’s structured. What did you listen to growing up? What was the radio like in Australia when you were a kid?

Well you’re right with the Stax/Volt thing; that was me trying to write a Spooner Oldham song, you know? It wasn’t much about the radio, though. In my late teens, I was trying to figure out music, and one thing just led to another. I discovered soul music, things like James Carr, “Dark End of the Street” and songs like that.

Absolutely. I hear a lot of American influences.

Yeah. A lot [laughs]. It’s a huge well of incredible music. It’s always been the kind of stuff I listen to. The Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe, or –

You’ve done some bluegrass music, too.

Yeah, but it’s also things like John Lee Hooker. All those rivers of music were ones I would jump into. In Australia, we also had a lot of our own bands and British influences as well. In the early Eighties, I was really trying to get a handle on some of the Australian bands like the Saints and the Triffids and the Go-Betweens.

Was the touring circuit in Australia as tough as we’ve heard about it here? I remember reading about bands like AC/DC having to practically fight their way out of clubs some nights. Was it as rough an audience as it was made out to be?

I’m sure some of those stories have been exaggerated. We had what was called a pub rock culture. I wouldn’t say it was a tough thing; I would say it was a great thing. It was a way for bands to cut their teeth. Sure, you’re playing in a pub, you’re playing to people drinking, and you’ve got to cut through that. But when you start playing, you’re playing through a lot of background noise—glasses clinking and people drinking and talking, people who are either picking each other up or trying to get into a fight. But it’s good for you to play through that; you get your chops. If you keep going, you work up to playing places where people come just to see you.

Obviously, “Everything’s Turning to White” was based on a Raymond Carver short story, and you talked about writing prose and short stories as a kid. What inspiration do you draw from reading prose writing, from reading fiction, from things that aren’t musical in the accepted sense of being musical?

I’ve always been a big reader, and as a touring musician I wouldn’t survive without things to read; I spend a lot of time in airports and in vans. I don’t know how I would survive touring if I didn’t read, or couldn’t—you know, some people can’t read in the car; they get sick. That’s the best time for me to read, though, to get me through long miles and long waits. Charlie Watts once said that most of the time spent in a band is waiting around. So I always make sure I have a book with me. Songwriters are magpies; they have to be familiar with the things people say, or what they overhear in a bar, or what they hear in poetry or other songs, or things they read in a book—it’s all grist for the mill.

When I first discovered Raymond Carver in the early Eighties, he had a big impact on me, because I think his stories had many similarities to songs. They were quite spare, quite sparse. Yeah, he was an influence, in that he could get a lot of information across in as few words as possible. I was trying to do that too. You know in folk music you have long ballads and things like that; I had a pretty strong pop music streak, particularly when I was with my band. I wanted to write short songs, but I was also interested in storytelling as well. I wanted to be able to combine both, to use words pretty carefully. Carver was very much like that. He also in a lot of his stories seemed to have things going on at the edges that were implied. That’s a really useful thing for a songwriter to absorb.

He was indirectly influential in terms of that, but that song just sort of sat back in my subconscious, that story, “So Much Water So Close to Home.” It just came out in the song.

One last question for you. You mentioned you’ve got some recording coming up; what’s next for you after this run of shows?

Some down time for a while—April, May, June—during which time I’ll keep writing. And I plan on booking some studio time in the second half of July, and record the ten best songs I’ve got.

Print PDF

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved the harmonica the way Christopher Walken loves the cowbell. Unfortunately, I grew up in the ’80s, a.k.a. the synthmonica decade, so my fondness for the instrument has always been coupled with a tinge of sadness and a sort of defensive craving for more. You just don’t hear it that often — and in the ’90s, its mini-renaissance was sparked by the bandolier-sporting showoff John Popper, whose needlepoint soloing style left no room for the genuine warmth of, say, Toots Thielemans or Stevie Wonder.

All of which is to say that it gives me a particular thrill to hear young harmonica players challenging the boundaries of the instrument. To a certain degree, it’s broken out of the musical ghetto it occupied when Larry Adler started doing his groundbreaking work in the ’30s and ’40s, but the harmonica still boasts a lot of untapped potential — and it’s being explored by Grégoire Maret, who’s stepping out on his own with a self-titled debut album after making a name for himself as an extraordinary session player for the likes of Cassandra Wilson, Charlie Hunter, and Herbie Hancock.

Grégoire’s record incorporates strains of Thielemans — and countless other influences — while presenting a series of smoothly performed, smartly arranged covers and originals. I was excited to talk to the man behind the record, and he didn’t disappoint, proving just as thoughtful as his music.

I was excited to hear that you were releasing a solo album, because we don’t get to hear the harmonica take the spotlight very often. Why do you think it’s such an under-appreciated instrument?

Well, I think it’s an instrument that everyone has at home, but very few people know how to play. It has a reputation of being a toy, almost. Nothing really special. Certain people play it really well in blues or country music, but very, very rarely in jazz. People just aren’t aware of what you can do with the instrument. Stevie Wonder and Toots Thielemans opened people’s eyes a little, but there’s still a negative connotation that goes along with the instruments.

It’s hard to guess at specific reasons. I just think people look at it almost as a toy — that’s the reaction I get all the time, anyway. People hear me play and they say they had no idea you could do that kind of thing with the harmonica. I say yeah, it’s an instrument with as much range as any other. You can do just about anything with it — it has a beautiful voice and a rich, expressive range. And one of the good aspects of playing it is that there’s still so much to discover, you know what I mean? If you play piano, trumpet, or saxophone, you can still find new stuff to play, but it’s going to be much harder. Harmonica is still uncharted territory to an extent, and that’s exciting.

I want to talk about that uncharted territory. As a young harmonica player, did you feel a sense of freedom because of what we’re discussing, or was it more daunting to try and find a voice without a lot of established parameters?

I didn’t have any examples of people doing what I wanted to do. I mean, there was Toots, obviously. But when I started playing with Steve Coleman, there wasn’t anyone to guide me into the notes and phrases I needed to use. I had to practice, and find a way of playing that music. It was really difficult, but it was also really rewarding — once I hit on it, I felt like it was fresh and new.

What do you think drew you in that direction, as opposed to sticking with the blues? That’s where most harmonica players begin and end.

I started with blues harmonica, and then when I was in high school in Switzerland, I switched to the chromatic. From there, it was just a question of my musical tastes. I guess I’ve always been pretty open-minded, so when people showed me a guy like Steve Coleman, for example, I was just like “wow, this is incredible.” I wanted to see how I could fit the harmonica into that musical vocabulary. A lot of it also had to do with what kind of calls I’d get — for a couple of years I’d play with Ravi Coltrane, then Steve Coleman — the M-Base Collective guys — so I was really intensely studying that stuff. Then I got a call from Charlie Hunter, so I had to adapt to that — a totally different way of playing. Each different environment pushed me to grow. And I really love music, so for me, it was very exciting to have those opportunities to explore. It was also difficult — there were always moments where I’d have to make those choices, to figure out how and where to fit in. I had to trust my instincts.

In the electronic press kit for the album, you talk about hearing music in terms of color.

It’s true that when I think about music, it’s hard for me to talk about it in musical terms. It’s much easier for me to talk about it in visual terms. I mean, I’m not going to be the guy who leads a session by saying, “We’re going to play in yellow, green, and blue,” but very often when I write, I see that in my head. It’s very visual. That’s why I think there’s sort of a movie soundtrack quality to this music — I think it helps you travel to different places because there were those images in my head when I started off.

Not a lot of people write for the harmonica, so I wanted to talk about songwriting, and how that process works for you.

I generally write on piano. And I’m also really old school in that I always write on paper. I’ll sit on the piano and come up with a melody idea, or a couple of chords, and see where I can go with it. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes, sometimes a couple of days, but I always try to write. Always. It’s a skill that grows. You can be gifted, but it’s also something that you can learn how to improve — and it’s also a really good way of expressing who you are. When you only take songs that have already been written, you’ll always be using other people’s material to get your ideas across. Which is fine, but at this stage in my career, it’s exciting to start from scratch; to express everything.

I like what you’re saying about honing your craft and not falling back on your natural gifts. I think that’s a valuable lesson for anyone engaged in creative pursuits.

A lot of people feel like if you’re gifted, there’s no work involved. It isn’t true. These are things you work at — you practice, you get better every day. It’s a lifelong quest. I’ll play differently in 20, 30, or 50 years than I do today. That’s a great thing; there’s always something new coming. I mean, look at Toots Thielemans — he plays completely differently now than he did when he was 30 years old. Both are great, but they’re different. You have to evolve, and that’s also why I think it’s important to write.

There’s always a tension between honing your craft and remaining connected to your muse, and I think that tension is more pronounced in jazz; it’s a discipline that requires you to balance a lot of technical knowledge with an ability to express yourself through improvisation. How do you find the right balance?

You know, there are times when I’ll sit down and think, “Okay, I want to use these chords, or do something with this triad” — an intellectual way of writing. Still being musical, but with that in mind. And sometimes it’s just sheer inspiration, and it feels great to see where that can take me. Sometimes it’s a mix of both. It’s hard to describe how to combine those approaches. But I think it’s important to increase your knowledge, and to work on your craft, so that when you get stuck, you have that to fall back on — to help you see where you can turn instead of just waiting for inspiration.

You’ve obviously done a fair amount of recording, but it’s a very different experience when you’re the one calling the shots. Do you have a sense of the lessons you took away from this album, and how you might apply them to future releases?

Everyone I’ve worked with has added something to my music. Once I worked with Herbie Hancock, or Cassandra Wilson, or anyone else — there’s no going back. That takes you to a new level. But I learned a lot from this for sure. I was very influenced by all the people I got to play with, and in a way, this album was a sort of tribute to them. I was able to invite a few of the people who have really mattered in my musical life, and it gave me an opportunity to look back while moving forward. And they all accepted the invitation, which was really beautiful.

Print PDF

Eric Hutchinson‘s new album Moving Up Living Down is a giddy patchwork of pop styles, tying up brass-laced arrangements and hip-hop beats with a Technicolor bow — but it starts off with nothing more than Hutchinson’s voice and the strum of a guitar, which gets pretty much directly to the heart of what separates him from his increasingly Pro Tooled and Auto-Tuned peers. Destructive as it is to speak in stereotypes, there’s no getting around it: this isn’t the type of album you’d expect to hear from a major label in 2012.

The sweet spot between “commercially viable” and “human-sounding” has shrunk almost to the point of invisibility for singer/songwriters in the 21st century (just ask the guys in fun., currently being raked over the coals by fans who think they sold out on their way to Number One) — but Hutchinson finds it on Moving Up Living Down, exploiting current technology while taking care not to suck all the air out of his songs. The result is that rarest of modern records: A pop record that sounds like it could be performed by a band on stage and fit in on Top 40 radio.

Currently touring behind Moving Up Living Down — which arrives in stores today — and its leadoff single, “Watching You Watch Him,” Hutchinson checked in with Popdose to talk about the new music, his songwriting process, and life on a major label.

So let’s talk about this new record, shall we?

Yes, let’s. If I’m not mistaken, you and I were tweeting previously…

Right — I tweeted that you sounded like Jason Mraz, only not shitty, and you retweeted it. I was impressed by your sense of humor.

You mean you were impressed by your own sense of humor!

Well, that could have been taken as a backhanded compliment — or you might not have wanted to send that out for fear of looking like you were insulting Jason Mraz.

No, no, he’s a pal. We’ve done some shows together.

It seems like you’ve done shows with just about everyone, actually.

It does feel that way sometimes, yeah — although one person I’ve never performed with, and would really like to, is Ben Folds. I think I’ve ended up on stage with everyone from that era except him.

But you’ve played with someone who influenced him — Joe Jackson.

Yeah, we used to share a manager. I was big into him during my teenage years, and it was cool sharing a stage with him.

We’re talking about all these singer/songwriters, so I think we should discuss the tricky business of actually being one in the current musical climate. You’ve clearly been influenced by artists who were around when rock radio was healthier, but I imagine you have to play the game where you need to think about fitting your sound into what happens to be commercially viable at the moment.

I agree to a certain extent, but I try really hard not to think about that. I mean, if I’m being perfectly honest, there were days when I was working on the album and I’d look at the iTunes charts and think, “Man, how am I going to fit in with this?” But, you know, Mumford and Sons broke out, and Adele is really big. Their success has been really inspiring to me. I think people just want music they can connect with, and they don’t really care how it sounds. I think the parameters are bigger than ever now. Hopefully if I can bring something with heart, there’s an audience for it.

Hopefully if I can bring something with heart, there’s an audience for it.

The parameters are certainly bigger, but the price for that is that every audience is just a niche now.

I think so. But I’ve given up on trying to figure out who my audience will be — all I can do is just make music that feels right and hopefully, people will like it.

What has your experience with being on a major label been like so far?

Warner Bros. have been very supportive, honestly. Making Moving Up Living Down was a very different experience from my last album, which I made independently, and therefore I had to deal with all the stuff: finding musicians, lining up studio time, things like that. I had less time to think about the music. Whereas this time, Warner Bros. handled that side, and hooked me up with some amazing producers, so it was the reverse situation — I got to spend more time thinking about the music, which is probably the opposite of what I think a lot of people would expect.

I look at it as a partnership. Like a lot of partnerships, it may not last forever, but I want to make the best of it now — and like I said, they’ve been very supportive. They were really excited when I turned this record in. There are a lot of great music lovers over there.

Well, their excitement is understandable. It’s a really solid set of songs, and a smart evolution for your sound. And that single doesn’t quit.

Thank you — that was definitely a goal. I hope it comes through. And I will say, sometimes when I’m out doing promotion, I’ll end up playing that song 5-10 times a day, and I’m always excited to do it. That’s always a good sign, and the number one thing I want out of the music — durability. I really road test my songs. I think that’s how you make an album that people don’t get tired of.

Did you write with anyone else for this, or was it all on your own?

No, I take a lot of pride in doing all the writing myself. I live in New York now, and I have a little studio where I write. I’ll go out and eat and drink at night, come back the next day and write some more. I feel like I hit the inspiration cycle that way. There are definitely times when I’m beating my head against the wall, but I like that struggle. You make fewer albums that way, but I like the idea that if my mother never met my father, this album wouldn’t exist.

Are you the type of person who clocks in and writes every day, or do you wait for inspiration to strike?

I do tend to clock in. I’ve gotten a little more relaxed with it — when I’m not feeling it, or if I really don’t want to do it that day, I won’t make myself. But I have a friend who’s fond of saying “You’ll never get a home run if you don’t step up to bat,” and even when I’m not feeling inspired, sometimes I’ll sit down and something will come along. I don’t know that many authors, but I think my schedule is similar to that kind of work. Get up, write for a few hours, have lunch — that kind of thing. And there are days when it all just seems to flow, and there are days when I think I’m never going to write a good song again. I try really hard to give myself a break on those days.

Just like a painter, you have to step away from the canvas at a certain point, or else everything just turns brown.

What’s your songwriting split between guitar and piano?

I kind of go in phases. I try and keep it as 50/50 as possible — even if I’m not playing a song a certain way live, I’ll try and approach it that way writing-wise. A trick I learned from a Chris Martin interview was to switch instruments anytime I feel like I’ve gotten myself stuck in a corner. Different guitar, or a piano, or even get off all the instruments and hum it for awhile. Sometimes those chords can sound different, and it’ll lead me to a different place in the song.

What’s your method if you’re starting from scratch — just sitting down and picking up the instrument without having a plan?

These days, a lot of it is about rhythm. That’s how “Watching You, Watching Me” started — it came out of that conga beat you hear on the record, and I think starting from there got me to write the song differently than I would have if I’d just started playing it. I have a lot of rhythms I’ll put together and see what sounds good. I think the new album has a strong rhythmic component as a result of that.

Do you remember at what point you started to feel like you had an album here?

No, and in fact, there were times when I’d call my manager and say “I’ve gotta do more!” There are always more songs, but just like a painter, you have to step away from the canvas at a certain point, or else everything just turns brown.

That’s an interesting point, because I think learning when to step away is crucial for artists who are recording your style of music right now. With all of the available technology, you can do pretty much anything.

Yeah, and I’m zero percent Auto-Tuning on this album. The technology is interesting, because I want my music to sound current, but I also want it to retain those classic elements, and I want the recording process to be the same way. But, you know, if the Beatles were still together…I mean, they were always into the latest technology. They’d probably use Pro Tools. There are parts of it that are really cool — I’m a huge fan of hip-hop, and there are loops on the new album. Newer things, but I tried to do them with a classic sensibility in the songwriting.

Print PDF

Man, did this one sting. I had set up an interview time to speak with Karl Wallinger, the creative director behind pop chameleons World Party, who’s doing press in support of Arkeology, a sprawling five-disc set of World Party live tracks, covers, demos and other assorted rarities, packaged in a day planner filled with pictures of the band throughout its existence. In terms of the packaging and the content, it’s an extraordinary piece of work.

I spoke with Wallinger once before in 2006, and he was extremely generous with his time, gave me smart, well-considered answers to my questions, and was just an all-around nice guy. He’s one of those guys where the music has always come first. Sadly, this would explain why he has largely toiled in obscurity.

So, back to our recent chat: after a brief false start (Skype said he was online but he wasn’t), Karl called me on the phone to apologize, and asked if I was still free. As it turned out I was, so I hit him back up through Skype. We spoke for 57 minutes. He was just as funny and candid as he was six years ago, and often broke into song when the moment called for it.

And exactly two minutes of that conversation wound up on tape. Fuck my life.

To date, I’m still not sure what happened. He asked me to send a video feed, which was really cute when my son popped up behind me after his nap and Wallinger said, “Oh hey, there’s Junior!” and waved at him. I suspected that switching from audio only to video is what compromised the recording, but some of the conversation after I turned on my video feed is on the tape. Not even the makers of the recorder can tell me what went wrong.

This unfortunate turn of events, then, has forced me to look at things differently. Wallinger and I spoke for 57 minutes. Fifty, seven, minutes. Do you really want to read the full transcription of a 57-minute conversation? To quote Jonah Hill in Moneyball, you do not. So here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to post the questions that I asked him, and paraphrase his responses, using direct quotes for the bits I remember. (Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve done this.) Given that some of Wallinger’s responses were rather lengthy, think of this as going straight to the meat of the answer. I know, I suck, but this is the best I can do. For the record, Wallinger volunteered to do the interview again – because he’s awesome – but I declined, fearful that my Skype recorder would fail me a second time.

When his video feed starts up, I see Wallinger holding a cigarette. “Mind if I smoke?” he asks. We both laugh. “It’s almost gotten that bad,” in terms of having to ask permission to smoke, he says. He then talks about the price of cigarettes going up 37 pence in the UK. I tell him that I remember when they were 45 cents a pack. Moral of the story: we’re old.

Back in 2006, you told me that you’d have a new record out the next year. Please to explain.

Wallinger pretends to not hear me when I ask him this. “What? I said what? A lot of the times I say that, I’m talking to myself more than the person I’m actually talking to, to talk myself into it. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m going have a new record out next year!’” I took this to mean that the new tracks on Arkeology will have to do for now.

With regard to the new song “Photograph,” you told me once that you thought about making an electronic record. Listening to this box set, you already did; you just spread the tracks over the course of five records.

Wallinger explained how he was never one to do just one thing. Being inspired by Dylan, the Beatles and Kraftwerk, the albums were always going to be a hodgepodge of influences and styles, and he was never concerned about the impact that mixing things up would have on his commercial viability. This led to talk about how a lot of bands these days hone in on one style, or think of themselves as a brand, a concept that is completely foreign to him.

In the opening liner notes, you say, “I’m glad the whole CD format is dying.” And you wrote this inside the most ornate box set released in the last 15 years.

And here is where I lost the best piece of the interview.

It begins with Wallinger talking about how he never liked CDs, mainly because he used to get lost in album artwork, and would love soaking in the visuals. Albums also had an additional bonus, he says, and at this point, he leaves the room and comes back with an album in his hands. “I used to use the album cover to make my voice sound like the people on the radio,” he explains, and then he starts quickly pushing in and out on the open end of the album cover like an accordion, places it just under his mouth, and starts singing “Good Vibrations” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “Picture yourself in a boat on a river…” while creating this waffling effect using nothing but an album cover. Had I been able to record it, an mp3 of this exchange would be sitting below this paragraph for you to hear yourself. Because it was fucking awesome to hear, never mind watch, Wallinger do this.

Wallinger then said that despite doing that for years as a kid, he’s never done the album cover trick on one of his albums. He plans to amend that in the future.

One other interesting bit: he originally thought about putting the music on a flash drive instead of five CDs, since flash drives are more practical and practicality was the idea behind the packaging, but decided to go with CDs for people who still use a CD player in the kitchen or in the car.

“Break Me Again” – how on earth did this song never end up on one of your albums?

This is a song Wallinger recorded by himself in 1989. Powerful and dramatic, it’s the shortest nine-and-a-half-minute song you’ll ever hear. Wallinger never put it on an album because he thought it was too angry. The song was written about an unpleasant experience (he declined to elaborate any further), and while he’s proud of it, he prefers not to go back to that dark place again.

Follow-up question: I hear a little bit of “Fisherman’s Blues” in the verse.

This surprises him – he doesn’t hear a connection at all. I explain that three of the four chords in the verse are the same (G, F, A minor), plus the vocal is a bit like the “Fisherman’s” verse. He gets it then, but makes it clear that he was definitely not trying to emulate the Waterboys track. He also lets slip that he and Waterboys singer Mike Scott are not on good terms, but again declines to elaborate, and I didn’t push the matter.

Who is this?

I hold up the Arkeology day planner to a picture of Wallinger, a drink in each hand, with his arms around a lovely brunette.

“That’s my wife,” he says. They’ve been married 33 years (it could be 31, I’m a little fuzzy on the number). Well done, I tell him.

There are a ton of covers on Arkeology, but there are still a few that are missing, namely “Penny Lane,” “All the Young Dudes,” and “Martha My Dear.”

Given that the set already includes covers of “Fixing a Hole,” “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” “Dear Prudence,” Macca’s “Man We Was Lonely,” and two original songs modeled after “I’m Only Sleeping” and “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” (“I’m Only Dozing” and “The Good Old Human Race,” respectively), Wallinger felt as though the Beatles were more than adequately represented on the set. He did talk a bit about the “Penny Lane” cover, explaining how he played the piccolo trumpet solo on a keyboard, but kept having to cut the notes shorter and shorter to recreate the staccato sound of the original recording. He also said that one of the reasons that he left “Penny Lane” off of Arkeology is because he adores Paul McCartney’s vocal on that song, while he feels that his own performance of the song doesn’t measure up. As for “All the Young Dudes,” he joked that it’s the “slowest version ever recorded.”

I liked seeing the pictures from the unfinished video for “God on My Side.” Pity you didn’t finish that clip, because I love that song.

He said they shot some nighttime sequence in all white like a bunch of Christian pilgrims, and that it’s just as well that no one ever saw the finished product, since he’s rarely happy with how his videos turn out. He cites the video for “All I Gave” as the ultimate example, saying he looked like a menopausal woman in that one. “With all due respect to menopausal women,” he’s quick to add.

Wikipedia wasn’t as prominent when we last spoke, so I’ve learned some new things about you in the meantime, namely that you were once musical director to The Rocky Horror Show.

He loved doing this. He basically got the gig because he worked in the house band and found out the current musical director was leaving the show before anyone else did, so he told the producers, “Hey, let me do the job.” And so they did. He also loved hearing that Rocky writer Richard O’Brien voices a character on “Phineas and Ferb.” (He’s the boys’ dad.)

One of our writers wanted me to ask you about Big Blue Ball (the long-gestating world music project of Peter Gabriel) and your experience working on that.
Great experience, he says. He told this story about a guy from Papua New Guinea with a stern face (Wallinger then makes the stern face, which I wish I had screen grabbed in retrospect), who played some octave-jumping wind instrument that had only three or so notes total, yet he managed to produce these incredible melodies with it. After the album was finally released in 2008, he said he could immediately tell from some accompanying video that “that was from 1994. I could tell because I was skinny.”

I was surprised that you did both of the voices in “And God Said…” I mean, I know you’re the singer, but that doesn’t sound like you at all.

Wallinger then does a pitch-perfect imitation of the first line on the song. He said that he was never an opera fan though his son is, which we joked was a rock star’s son’s way of rebelling. He said Peter Sellers was the inspiration behind the use of opera as a way of sending an environmental message with a twist. “He loved taking something upper class and pompous and having fun with it, which is why I thought that was the perfect medium for a song to end with, ‘Fuck you!’”

He then says that more people should be required to smoke marijuana, so they would stop taking everything so seriously. All he’s really cared about, he says, is frivolity, then quickly corrects himself. “And environmentalism. Frivolous environmentalism.”

Can you explain the note at the end of the day planner that describes you as “not the most stable and reliable person on earth,” and later says, “he has also too often played to the crowd”?

That came from his teacher when he was 16, when the only thing he wanted to do in class was have fun at the expense of the guy in front of him, who had an afro. He would keep sticking Biros in his hair to see how many he could get in there before the guy noticed. “The record was 12,” he says.

Print PDF

Being I was all of seven or eight years old when the Del Fuegos were in their prime, I didn’t fully grasp their music at the time. I only had vague memories of my sister listening to Boston, Mass on vinyl and me really, really liking it. Fast forward to me being a parent 25 years later and imagine my excitement when discovering Del Fuegos frontman Dan Zanes was making music for kids.

Dan was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule to talk about the reunion tour, making new music, the music industry, endorsing Miller High Life and why they connected to the Midwest so much.

Why do a reunion tour now?

The really easy answer is because we can. We did two reunion shows in June for the Right Turn organization that was formed by Woody, expecting that would be the end of it. We had such a good time, I had the most fun I have ever had with these guys, and the promoter said, “Why don’t you do some more?” It was easy for us. It was really good to reconnect with our fans. It was really surprising. That was the reason we started the band, to have fun. It’s kind of fun to be an “oldies act” — it’s kind of a rock ‘n’ roll tradition. However, we did just record an EP of new songs.

Speaking of the new EP, how was the transition from writing kids’ music to writing with the old bandmates?

It was really easy, because it all got hardwired in our system back in the ’80s when we doing it for the first time. It was back to four white guys making music. The family music has been pretty diverse and interesting, so it was nice to get back to basics. Making the kids’ music always felt like an extension of the Del Fuegos. We were always felt we were a ’50s rock and roll band. It always felt to us that the gig never happened if people didn’t dance. It was a very social thing and that’s the spirit of the family music I make. It’s a lot more similar than it is different.

Is old soul and R&B music still a major influence on the new EP?

It is. When we were younger we thought about it all the time. Now, our influences are so ingrained we didn’t really think about it all. We just wanted to write the best songs we could. We did it all in a week; recorded, mixed, mastered it and made the artwork. It was very similar to how we made our first 45. We did everything ourselves. We did it fast and didn’t try to overthink it. We used Rob Friedman, who has produced my kids’ records.

The EP is eight tracks long. Was there any thought of making it a full blown record?

There wasn’t until a couple days ago. The thought now, maybe after this tour is finished, is of giving it a full and proper full-length release. The plan was to go in and write three songs, then that turned into eight songs. That’s the way it always happens — we start small and things sort of get carried away.

You weren’t a huge band. You had more of a cult-like following, yet 20+ years later you’re going to be playing some sold out shows on this tour. How has the Del Fuegos’ music survived all these years?

It’s a mysterious thing. I think the myth about the band was bigger than the reality ever was. I don’t know. We booked the tour without knowing if people would care or not. We’re really doing it to have a vacation together. We spent our 20s touring the US and Europe. It’s like college roommates getting back together and heading to Vegas.

You handpicked the cities this tour, and they’re mostly in the Midwest. Why not play larger markets?

We picked the cities where we had the most fun. It wasn’t always the biggest crowds, but it was more based on an experience we couldn’t forget. The first time we came through the Midwest we played Cleveland, Chicago and Minneapolis, and that was pretty much it. It really blew our minds. Coming from New Hampshire, for me, it felt like we found an extension of what we were familiar with. It was like an exotic extension of New Hampshire but with better food, friendlier people and prettier women. It was something we could understand. It wasn’t pretentious. It felt like the real American experience. That was always the most comfortable. It’s very stressful being on the East Coast; we always felt like we had to prove ourselves. In the Midwest we always found fans who were ready to go at it with us.

Was Milwaukee picked because of your infamous endorsement deal with Miller High Life?

[Laughs] Good question. It probably didn’t hurt.  Again, with the TV commercial, a lot of the rock critics on the east and west coasts looked down upon it. But when we got to the midwest, people saw it for what it was. On one level it was a beer commercial, but we always thought of it as an advertisement for the band. Our commercial debuted during Live Aid. So the record industry was all going in one direction and we were out there trying to sell beer. In hindsight, the ups and downs from it make perfect sense in a sort of cosmic matter. It was probably best that we didn’t find more success than we did. Because at a certain point, we just got way too caught up in the rock and roll lifestyle, and it may have killed us.

In your wildest dreams would you ever imagined two of your bandmates would have Ph. Ds and you’d have a Grammy for making a family album?

No way. I couldn’t have predicted our post-Del Fuegos success.  Not a single thing. I couldn’t have imagined Woody starting the Right Turn organization. I couldn’t have imagined Tom and Warren’s Ph.Ds. When we were touring with Tom Petty, the last thing I would have predicted is that Warren would be writing the authorized biography of Tom Petty 25 years later. Certainly the kids music wasn’t on my radar. I thought I would be making pop music for the rest of my life. I didn’t know there was something better out there. But I found it — and that’s what makes it so easy to get back together. We all have such incredible day jobs that we want and love, that we feel no pressure to turn this in to something that will continue on. It’s an experience we wanted to have together.

Does this feel like the start of the band back in the early ’80s?

Absolutely. The not knowing what’s going on, the making a recording where we don’t know what we’re doing.  We’re just winging it all over again, not overthinking it. Doing everything we can to reach out to fans, digging up fans everywhere we can. All that stuff feels like the early days of the band. Those were the fun days. It was the most fun when we hadn’t figured any of it out.

The music industry can be brutal on bands, but now is a shell of what it once was. With band websites, social media, it almost seems easier for bands to have their music heard.

I don’t know, I’m so far removed from the music industry that I didn’t even know the music industry even still existed. That said, the music industry was very good to us. We signed a pretty bad deal with Slash Records, but we knew we signed a bad deal with Slash. We just wanted to be on Slash. The reasons that things didn’t work longer than they did had more do with us as a band then it did with the music business.  I know I wouldn’t want to be a band coming up today. On the other hand, there are tools available to get your name out easier. It just seems like there are millions and millions of bands and trying to cut through that noise is something I wouldn’t want to be doing.

Any odd requests that you’ve added to your tour rider?

[Laughs] You mean besides the lobsters? We need deep fried lobsters on our rider. Have you heard of Snoots? I think that might be available only in St. Louis. It’s deep fried pig snouts. It was one of the most memorable meals when we were on our first tour.

The Winter 2012 Reunion Tour:

Wed., Feb. 22  BOSTON, MA  The Paradise Rock Club
Thurs., Feb. 23  NEW YORK, NY  Bowery Ballroom
Fri., Feb. 24  CLEVELAND, OH  Beachland Ballroom
Sat., Feb. 25  CHICAGO, IL  Lincoln Hall
Sun., Feb 26  EVANSTON, IL  Space
Tues., Feb. 28  MINNEAPOLIS, MN  Varsity Club
Wed., Feb. 29  MILWAUKEE, WI  Turner Hall
Thurs., March 1  ST. LOUIS, MO  The Old Rock House
Fri., March 2  KENT, OH  The Kent Stage
Sat., March 3  BROOKLYN, NY  The Bell House
Sun., March 4  CONCORD, NH  The Capital Center

Print PDF

Without a doubt the most recognizable brand in the insurance industry is care of GEICO, a vehicle insurer that has courted customers with a wide variety of clever characters and gimmicks. The most popular of them is undoubtedly The Gecko, a computer-animated lizard with an English accent whose congeniality and enthusiasm for GEICO have brought scads of customers to the company. Recently, The Gecko has been at the front of a new social networking push with GEICO, including a press tour during which the elusive character has been granting interviews with various media outlets.  I arrived at the historic Sorrento Hotel in Seattle, Washington to conduct my own interview with The Gecko on behalf of Popdose. Though I can’t say I went in with informed expectations for interviewing a fictional marketing mascot, the experience was nonetheless not what I signed up for.

The room, an elegantly appointed suite, was dimly lit. I had been escorted from the lobby to the suite by what can best be described as a nigh-fantastical sufferer of excessive pituitary function. The human hulk, hairless but for a fuzz on his pate, loomed behind me with the gentle menace of an early scene in an Expressionist silent film. We entered the suite where The Gecko sat in a wood-and-leather chair, a blonde-haired man in a tan suit at his right.

“Ah, Mr. Sarko. Good to see you,” the man in the tan suit said, “I see you’ve met Mr. Gecko’s publicist.”

I nodded in time with a leap of doubt in my heartbeat. The towering publicist took his place at The Gecko’s left and I sat in the chair across from the mascot, proceeding with the interview.

Popdose: Mr. Gecko, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. It’s not every day we at Popdose get to chat with a nationally recognized icon such as yourself. That fame in mind, do you get as much attention in foreign nations as you do in the States?

GECKO: GEICO commercials only run in America, so I guess everywhere else, I’m just your average gecko.

P: I understand you’re currently on a journey across America. What is the most interesting thing you’ve seen so far?

G: When I was in New York, I met a man who called himself the Naked Cowboy. Although he wasn’t really naked. He wore a guitar, underpants and a cowboy hat. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything quite like that. I shot a video with my Gecko Cam to introduce him to my Facebook friends. Sometimes being 6.9 inches tall is a rather unfortunate vantage point.

P: How do you decide where you’ll go next on your journey?

G: There are some places I’ve always wanted to visit, like the Stockyards in Ft. Worth, Texas and well, Vegas. But I also count on my Facebook friends to suggest places for me to go. I never would have known about Magnolia Bakery in New York or Foamhenge in Virginia.

P: A lot of your long-time fans have been perplexed about your accent. You’ve been in America for so long now, have you noticed any shift in the way you speak?

G: When I first started doing commercials, I took a more classical Shakespearean approach to my delivery. But then me mum suggested I just be myself. I think she was right. She usually is.

P: GEICO, your employer, has implemented a variety of marketing concepts over the years. These days, the stage is pretty crowded. In addition to your own TV, Internet and radio spots, the company has its “Adages Taken Literally” commercials and the “That’s Amazing” campaign. Do you enjoy the collaboration with other marketing concepts or do you fear that you are, to coin a phrase, “going the way of the caveman?”

At this point, the man in the tan suit stepped forward.

“The Gecko doesn’t have the authority to speak on behalf of the company’s marketing department. He will not be taking this question,” he said. I was a bit put off by how much he bristled at the question, but I kept myself composed. I can clock a lawyer for what he is by the way he speaks. I decided to let the question go. Moving on, I swallowed a knot of fear and turned the page of my notebook.

P: You’ve spent a lot of time in the United States. You no doubt have absorbed the ubiquitous political content pervading our media. What are your thoughts on the upcoming presidential election? Any opinions on the Republican nomination race or President Obama’s chances of re-election?

The Gecko stammered and his eyes widened. Being unable to sweat or internally regulate his body temperature, he began pouring a small glass of water over his head. The publicist beast lurched forward, twisting my arm behind my back at an angle I never imagined was possible.

“That was not an appropriate question, Mr. Sarko,” he growled, “Perhaps you would consider discussing the country music stars The Gecko can’t stop listening to…”

Being a man of journalistic integrity and apparently little self-preservation instinct, I continued in my original line of questioning, even as the pain in my shoulder entered a new realm of excruciating agony.

P: How about your thoughts on the ongoing global economic crisis? One of GEICO’s main marketing thrusts is the idea of saving people money. As a long-time spokeslizard, does that mean you stand with America’s at-risk middle and working classes? Are we one day going to hear your distinct cockney lilt echoed in an Occupy demonstration?

As my shoulder loosed from its socket with a sickening pop, I began to doubt that the man behind me had sufficient legitimate experience in the field of public relations.

“Talk about the Facebook page!” he snarled, “Tell your readers to Like it! Like the ever-living hell out of it!”

I tasted blood well up from my cheek as I bit into it by instinct. The pain and the visceral panic were taking over. I wouldn’t be conscious much longer.

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be this way…” The Gecko muttered shakily. I managed to croak out one last question, though I don’t know if it was my own or something the lawyer in the tan suit whispered into my ear.

P: Lastly and perhaps most importantly, Popdose readers understand that music is the language of the soul. What are the top albums that express your innermost sense of self?

G: Oh goodness, that’s a tough one. Let’s see…basically, anything that you can shake your tail to. Like…Wrinkle Neck Mules (I have a cameo in their music video on YouTube.  Just sayin’.

The sweet oblivion of unconsciousness took me and when I awoke, hours later in a gutter somewhere on the south side of Seattle, I counted myself lucky to both be alive and still in possession of my digital audio recorder, secreted away in a hidden pocket on my person. Though I wouldn’t advise any aspiring journalist to cross the PR division of a multinational corporation, those intrepid and foolish enough to pursue the truth at all costs should at least know what this life entails.

Print PDF

Cassie Jaye is a young filmmaker whose work has included the award-winning documentaries Daddy I Do and Faces Overlooked.  She started in the film industry at the age of 16 and has worked as an actress in film and TV and had appeared in The O.C., Alias, Entourage, and much more.  In 2008, Jaye wanted to explore the topic of marriage in the United State when voters in California passed Proposition 8 that amended the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. Being single, straight, and raised as an evangelical Christian, Jaye became fascinated with the issue and set her sights on making a film that would enlighten many folks in the straight community whose views of gays are often framed by cultural stereotypes, religious dogma, and fear of difference.

I had a chance to interview Cassie about the film, the family she chose to focus upon, the upcoming premiere at the Castro Theatre, and how Popdose readers in the Bay Area can win ticket to see The Right to Love:  An American Family on February 6^th.

Ted:  Thanks for taking time to talk about your film The Right to Love: An American Family.

Cassie:  Absolutely.  Thanks for your interest in the film.

Ted: The subjects of your film are Jay and Bryan Leffew –a gay couple with two kids living in the Bay Area. So what drew you to their story?

Cassie: Well, at the time, I was making my first documentary Daddy I Do.  We started thinking about our second film, because we enjoy filmmaking so much. When I say “we” I’m talking about my family. Because we are a family production company – which consists of me, my mom, my sister, my step dad and my uncle. During post-production work for Daddy I Do, we came up with the idea to make our next documentary about marriage, which was a natural extension of our first film [that centered on] sex education and the debate between abstinence only programs and comprehensive sex education which says you can wait until marriage if you want, but if you don’t, here’s how to protect yourself.  And when we starting working on the next film on marriage, Proposition 8 happened, and it was impossible not to look at the issue of same-sex marriage – and that really fascinated us.

I think for The Right To Love, no one involved on the production end of the film was gay or lesbian.  So, we’re all straight and my whole family never had any first hand experience knowing anyone who was a gay.  So we came to the movie as a kind of blank canvass – because we didn’t know a lot about the issues. And we wanted to take on this topic from this perspective of being straight all of our lives — and having a background of being evangelical Christian.  We all grew up very strict, Bible-believing Christians and were taught that homosexuality was wrong. And with The Right to Love … well, we are all for the right of same-sex marriage, but we (my family)  all come from that point of view of knowing the opposing views of same-sex marriage.  We used a lot of footage in the film that really affected us, and made us believe that equality for all is what’s right.

Ted:  How did you connect with Jay and Bryan?

Cassie:  It was originally my sister, Christina Clack, who was researching marriage and same-sex marriage, and she found the Leffew’s You Tube channel called Gay Family Values. And at this point, they only had  two or three videos on their You Tube channel as a kind of indirect protest in response to Proposition 8 passing.  They wanted to show the humanity of their family, and how they are like any other family… very loving, normal, and nothing to fear. And the You Tube channel really took off. There was a lot of support from the LGBT community for showing a loving, committed family. There were a lot of opposing comments (about their videos) that said their life was wrong and they were an abomination. We contacted them right away, and asked if we could interview them for our film. Jay and Bryan were a little hesitant at first because Jaye Bird productions didn’t have anything on the map like a resume of films that they could search for.

Ted:  They must have thought “Oh great.  It’s a student film maker who wants to talk to us.”

Cassie:  Exactly.  They didn’t think much of us at first.  So we went to meet with them in Santa Rosa, and when we left the meeting, we gave them a copy of our film, Daddy I Do, and that was when their attitude to us changed because they saw our filmmaking style – which is very much fly on the wall. We don’t tell the audience what to think. We just show the story and the people and let the audience make their own opinions.  We’re not like a Michael Moore type of filmmaker…

Ted:  Right… advocacy documentaries.

When the movie trailer premiered, there was some hubbub over a scene where the entire family was shown praying at the kitchen table.  Can you elaborate on what got people’s dander up about this?

Cassie: Yeah, that was such an odd thing to arise. I think it happened last October or November.  We included the shot of the family sitting at the table for breakfast — where they hold hands and pray – on the trailer.  As the one who edited the trailer, I never thought that scene would have been as controversial as it became. What happened was that we actually filmed that shot at the table on the very last day, and they (the Leffews) didn’t know that we were rolling sound on that.  They just thought we were getting B roll – which is the imagery of the family getting ready to go to school.  And looking through that footage, I thought the prayer was…from my background growing up in a evangelical household, you always thought that the LGBT community was anti-religion…anti-Christ, you know, something like that. But there was so much love and humility in their prayer and…I just love that scene so much that I thought putting it in the trailer would be a nice way to open the trailer as a kind of non-threatening thing. Ironically enough, that was the most threatening thing to some people who watched it.

Ted:  The controversy kind of came from an unusual source.  These were some LGBT folks who were not thrilled by the depiction of this family as having religious views, and incorporating it in their family ritual before eating a meal.  Like I said, it seemed like an odd source of criticism to me.  You know, when gays and lesbians are put in the spotlight in front of a mainstream audience, there’s a kind of expected criticism from the more culturally conservative parts of the country.  But this came from individuals who would most likely self-identify as progressives – which surprised me.

Cassie:  I agree.  I think some people in the LGBT community were kind of damning them (the Leffews) for still being part of the church that attacks their community. So, why would you want to be part of a religion that doesn’t support the LGBT community?  That’s a pretty bold statement to make from a 30 second clip in the trailer.  They don’t know where the Leffew’s prayer comes from, or what kind of spirituality they subscribe to. So, like I said, it was a pretty bold statement from part of LGBT community to say that they don’t support the Leffews because they are religious.

Ted: Do you explore Jay and Bryan’s religious views in the film?

Cassie:  We do, but not in a big way. We do mention that one of the dads (Bryan) did grow up very religious and is still Christian. And with Jay – the other husband — we don’t really explore it in the film, but he is more open to spirituality, but he doesn’t consider himself a member of any one religion, nor does he pray to any one god.  With the prayer at the table, it’s really just more of a tradition of uniting the family together – which is kind of sweet.  There aren’t many families that have breakfast together or say grace before their meals.  I think that’s one thing about the Leffew family …they are a kind of bridge between [parts of] the straight community – who are very traditional, and wanting to protect the tradition of marriage.  The Leffews are very traditional. They are very much about family and being together for dinner and doing everything together.  And that’s hard to find in a lot of families today.

Ted:  What would you say you’ve learned in process of making this film?

Cassie:  Before I started The Right to Love, I supported marriage equality in the voting booth, but I wasn’t vocal about it to my family or strangers.  And now after making the film, I realize the importance of speaking out –and especially for the straight community to stand with the LGBT community to say “we support you.”  They (the LGBT community) are not going to get equal rights ‘til the majority stands with the minority.  I think that’s been the biggest change through this process…you know, the importance of speaking up and standing up for marriage equality.

Ted: The question of the constitutionality of Prop 8 is now in the federal courts.  As the constitutional question of marriage equality goes through the justice system and will ultimately reach a conclusion, do you think you’ll need make a “part 2” to your film?

Cassie:  I would love to make a part 2.  I’d really like to show the kids because I think a lot people raise questions about how kids will be raised with two dads or moms.  That would be a great part 2 to the film…show how Daniel and Selena (the Leffew’s kids) grow up. And hopefully at that point, there will be equal rights for everyone and they are one of the families that helped make that happen.

Ted: I had a chance to look at a number of videos that Jay and Bryan posted on their You Tube channel, and they are pretty compelling.  The Leffews decided that they were going to show the world how normal and loving a gay couple with kids could be.  But I gotta tell you, the Alice in Wonderland birthday party they threw for their daughter was way more than any birthday party I’ve either thrown for my daughter or have been to.  If anything, these guys are making poor, schlub parents like me look bad!

Cassie: (Laughs)  Jay and Bryan go above and beyond expectations on how to raise kids.  Their kids are their world…and I don’t know how much you know about Daniel and Selena, but Daniel was deemed unadoptable by the adoption agency.  The reason why is that he as a medical condition called Goldenhar syndrome – which causes half of the body to develop at a slower rate than the other half.  I believe he was in foster homes for the first six years of his life.  And no straight family wanted to take on the responsibility for his medical care.  When Selena was born – who is his (Daniel’s) biological sibling – she was placed with him in foster care.  They tried to keep them together for two years. But once the two-year mark was reached, and the kids weren’t adopted, they split up the children to better their chances of getting adopted. So Selena had parents on the waiting list wanting to adopt her when she was separated from Daniel. And the adoption agency actually called Jay and Bryan (who had filed adoption forms with the agency) and told them that they had two siblings who were about to be broken up, and would they be willing to adopt them both so they could stay together.  And that’s how their family came together…

Ted: That’s a great story!

Cassie: Yeah, it’s really heart-warming. And that’s the one thing that really touched me was the need for great adoptive parents.  And another thing is that when I was growing up evangelical one of the big arguments against gay adopting children was that kids need a mother and a father.  And I learned through the making of The Right to Love that a great number of single parents can adopt kids, and I’ve never heard the argument that single parents shouldn’t be able to adopt.  And to have two dads – and one is a stay at home dad – who are loving and adore their family… why shouldn’t they have the same rights as straight couples?

Ted: Absolutely.  I was reading Jay and Bryan’s blog, and there’s a great graphic of what makes a family, and there were stick images of a man and woman holding a hand of a child, and two women holding the hand of a child, two men doing the same, and individual adults of various genders holding the hand of a child.  And then there’s just a child alone with the caption “Batman” over him.

Cassie:  (Laughs)

Ted: And in that graphic it just sums up that what makes a family is support from someone who loves you.  And if a child doesn’t have that support, they may end up like The Dark Knight.

So let’s talk about the premiere that’s going to be at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco…You have a whole day’s worth of events planned, so tell us the details.

Cassie:  Well, we’re going to premiere the film on Monday February 6^th and we have three screenings. We have a box lunch mixer starting at 11:30am – with the screening at noon.

And then we have a 4pm screening aimed at high school students — who can get in free with their student ID. Then we have our big red carpet premier at 7:30pm – with the red carpet opening at 6:30pm.  After the film, we’ll do a short Q&A, and then we go to the after party with live music with some of the musicians whose music is featured in the film.  Oh, and we’ll have hors d’oeuvres and swag bags as well.  And one of honored guests is Zach Wahls (who was raised by two women and whose family opposed House Joint Resolution 6 in Iowa House of Representatives that would end civil unions in Iowa). Zach became an Internet phenomenon when the video of him speaking in front of the Iowa House of Representatives went viral.  The video is about Zach speaking about his lesbian moms and how the sexual orientation of his parents has had zero effect on the content of his character – which was the final quote in his really compelling speech.  So he’ll be flying out from Iowa for the premiere.

Ted: And we’re giving Popdose readers in the Bay Area a chance to go to the premier on Monday February 6^th at 7:30pm. All they have to do is email me at Ted @ Popdose dot com.  I’ll pick two winners in a random drawing, and notify them by email they have won the prize pack.  What will the winners get?

Cassie:  The winners will receive two tickets to the 7:30pm red carpet screening at the Castro Theatre, and they will also receive a copy of the soundtrack to The Right to Love: An American Family.  The winners just have to go to will call at the theatre to get their tickets and CD anytime after 6:30pm… and then they can enjoy the film, meet the film makers, and have a good time.

Ted: Cassie, all the best on the film and thanks for taking time to talk to me about your film on Popdose.

Cassie:  Thanks so much, Ted.

Print PDF

All good sitcom episodes have happy endings. So it stands to reason that the uncertainty over whether there would ever be a DVD release of the seldom-seen fourth season of The Donna Reed Show resolved itself like an episode of the show – cheerfully. The Donna Reed Show: Season Four – The Lost Episodes will be released through MPI Home Video Dec. 20, after having been originally slated for a Mother’s Day release earlier in the year.

One reason for the release is the enthusiasm of the show’s fans, which include two generations of viewers: those who followed it during its initial airing (1958-66) and those who discovered it in its decade-long run on Nick at Nite (1985-94). Both generations lobbied for the release of the fourth season, voicing their complaints on message boards and launching a campaign called “Bring The Donna Reed Show Season Four to DVD” on Facebook (the page is now deleted, but a related YouTube video survives).

Had this been an episode of the show, Reed’s fictional daughter, Mary Stone, would have probably played into the plot. But in this real life drama, it was Reed’s actual daughter, Mary Owen, who saved the day by making it her priority to make sure the fourth season of the show got released.

“It’s been a huge learning curve for me,” Owen says by phone from her home in New York. “But I feel it’s really important — I consider the show part of our American heritage and think it’s really important to keep the DVD releases going.”

To understand why the fourth season’s DVD release was delayed for over a year, some back story is in order.

First, it’s been up to Owen and her siblings to see that the show made it to DVD, since the rights to the show (or at least the first five seasons) are owned by them personally, not a media conglomerate. Owen’s mother and father (Tony Owen), who co-produced the show, had entered into a distribution agreement with the show’s production company, Screen Gems, way back in the 1960s. Since this was before DVDs or even VCR tapes were invented, there was no thought that there would be much of a market for the show in the distant future, so Screen Gems gave the show’s rights back to the family starting in 2003.

“When my parents died, we found out the show’s rights reverted back to us (children),” Owen explains. “I’m sure in their minds not only had they moved on, but probably never thought The Donna Reed Show would ever see the light of day again.”

For the first three seasons, Owen chose Allied Arts Alliance America (which became Virgil Films Entertainment) to put out the DVDs. “We signed up with them and we were really excited and the president is a huge fan of my mother’s career,” she says.

But she found she needed to change companies when producing the fourth season on DVD posed a challenge. Since the season had never been syndicated as part of the Nick at Night package, the episodes were disorganized and sometimes had to be pieced back together. Of course, it was the very fact that this season hadn’t been broadcast since the early 1970s that had fans of the show wanting to see it.

Why did Nick at Nite decide never to broadcast the fourth season (as well as the sixth and seventh)?

“I think because the show had a total of 275 episodes, they just didn’t want that much volume,” Owen says. “So somebody just made a decision to snip here and there and chose to broadcast mostly seasons 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8.”

After the release of the shows’ third season on DVD in 2009, “the market started tumbling down and putting out the fourth season was going to prove to be expensive because of the lack of syndication,” Owen says. So she chose to go with MPI Home Video which, she says, “has more experience with classic television.

“Season Four was never transferred to tape, so the digitizing is all from the original 35 millimeter stock,” Owen explains. “And there were a lot of missing end credits because of the way the original show ran. Originally it had a lot of sponsors and there were product placements in the end credits as well as in the intros. So it’s been a matter of finding the pieces and putting them all back together.”

Matching the various end credits to the right episodes became, she says, “kind of like a Sherlock Holmes investigation but luckily everything was found. MPI was incredible at finding everything. We’re so lucky — a lot of older shows weren’t that well cared for and a lot of stuff is missing.”

According to Owen, a DVD set for the show’s fifth season is already being planned and should be much easier to assemble since most of those episodes were syndicated. Sony holds the rights to the final three seasons of the show and Owen isn’t certain about whether those will come out on DVD.

But the fourth season DVD set, which contains 39 episodes spread over five discs, should be enough to keep fans occupied for a while. The episode that is likely to receive the most attention is Donna’s Prima Donna, which has Mary Stone forsaking college to start a singing career and debuting the song “Johnny Angel” on national television. The song, as released on the Colpix Records label, became a number one hit for Shelley Fabares, who starred as Mary.

The season four DVD package, Owen says, is also the first to feature bonus material, which will come in the form of interviews with both Fabares and Stu Phillips, the latter of whom founded the Colpix label, produced “Johnny Angel,” and then went on to work on another show that heavily featured pop music, “The Monkees.”

The season also featured a plethora of guest stars, including James Darren (another Colpix artist), Cloris Leachman, John Astin, Swoozie Kurtz and baseball great Don Drysdale.

To celebrate the launch of the new DVD set, MPI organized a reunion and tribute program featuring some of the show’s surviving actors (Reed passed away in 1986). The event was held Dec. 6 in Los Angeles’ Paley Center and was attended by Fabares, co-star Paul Petersen, Darren and Phillips.

Watching the “lost” episodes again on DVD left a big impression on Owen. “There are some poignant and subtly dramatic moments that are impressive and just make me think that it’s time again for ‘The Donna Reed Show,’” she says. “There are so many gentle lessons and great images about the American family, which I feel is not currently in the best condition.”

The Donna Reed Show’s depiction of the American family is what it’s best remembered for, and likely the reason viewers from two separate generations made it a hit. When the show started, it centered around the adventures of the four-member Stone family, which included Donna (played by Reed), her physician husband Alex (Carl Betz), their teenage daughter Mary and their precocious pre-adolescent son Jeff (Paul Petersen).

As the show progressed, that formula would be altered, with Paul Petersen’s younger sister Patty becoming a cast member when Fabares left the show. But it was the family-centric thrust of the show that attracted its initial flurry of viewers, who probably saw it was a reflection of their own lives when it originally aired.

Scroll ahead twenty years to the Generation Xers who rediscovered it in reruns, and you’d probably find they saw the show as an expression of what they would have liked their family lives to be like: harmonious, with an intact family unit and parents that actually cared and gave good advice to the kids.

The show’s purported “wholesomeness” drew its share of criticism over the years, as Donna Reed came to symbolize the stereotypical 1950s suburban housewife, with all the cultural baggage that comes with that image. Although there’s some truth to that, the show was never that simplistic. The dynamic between the characters was more believable than that of most other shows of its era, and it sometimes dealt with real life issues, albeit gently. Once in a while the show even tackled risky subjects like drug abuse, which was the central theme of the eighth season episode The Big League Shock.

The show was actually proto-feminist in some respects. Not only did it bear the name of its star, it was partly developed by Reed and invariably showed Reed’s character as being the backbone of the family – solving the problems, keeping things running. And while the show’s initial opening segment did picture Reed’s character as the standard “happy housewife” seeing her family off as they go out the door in the morning, later seasons showed her leaving for work as well.

That sounds like subversion of the norm of the 1950s and 1960s rather than the norm itself. All of which may have endeared it to its second generation audience, which was able to see the show as nostalgic, but not embarrassingly so.

“It’s been frustrating for me, especially when I was in college because the ’70s wave of feminism considered what she represented in the show to be pretty bad,” Owen says. “I felt like they were missing the fact that she was way ahead of her time. They had it completely wrong.

“My mother grew up on a farm,” she continues, “and in those days the work was equally divided between men and women. I don’t think my mother was consciously a feminist, but I think she naturally felt having worked early in her life and been part of the MGM film system that women were just as capable as men.”

By the time the show started, Reed was also a veteran film actress who had won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in “From Here to Eternity.” She and producer/husband Tony Owen had heavy input into the creative process of the show throughout the show’s run.

“Her creative input can be seen by the way the show was run,” Owen says. “Ida Lupino directed a couple of episodes and Barbara Avedon cut her teeth there, writing and directing episodes, and she went on to create (the 1980s female detective show) ‘Cagney & Lacey.’”

Some of the above issues might be familiar to viewers of more modern television, since they were raised in an early “Gilmore Girls” episode, That Damn Donna Reed. In fact, the small town world of Hilldale depicted on “The Donna Reed Show” isn’t so far removed from the town of Stars Hollow where “Gilmore Girls” took place – only there’s less irony and fewer references to pop culture.

“I think Donna Stone was a very modern character,” Owen says. “Within each episode she kind of went outside the boundaries of being a 1950s stay at home mom. And by the end of each episode she kind of comes back to that role. But I think she’s got a very modern quality, which is why it was so popular on Nick at Nite.”

Print PDF

It’s easy to misunderstand the Bangles—or underestimate their talent. After forming in the early ‘80s, the quartet became part of L.A.’s Paisley Underground scene, which was indebted to California’s garage and psych-pop acts of the ‘60s. Early live and recorded footage—especially a 1984 live performances of “Hero Takes A Fall” from Late Night With David Letterman

But just a few years into their career, the Bangles experienced something very familiar to other bands of that era: overproduction. And while gloss and keyboards oppressed their rawer influences, playing nice with the day’s fads ensured they were soon a staple of the pop charts. Two songs hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart—the Prince-penned “Manic Monday” and Paul Simon-written “Hazy Shade Of Winter”—and two more hit No. 1: the slow dance “Eternal Flame” and, of course, “Walk Like An Egyptian.”

Despite this success, the Bangles remain quite underrated; they’ve never received their proper due perhaps because their frivolous-pop reputation overshadows their talents. And make no mistake: Vocalist/guitarist Susanna Hoffs, and sisters Vicki (vocalist/guitarist) and Debbi Peterson (vocalist/drummer) were (and are) all ferocious players and vocalists—just ask anyone who’s been lucky enough to catch them live in recent years.

Down to the core trio of Hoffs and the Peterson sisters since long-time bassist Michael Steele parted ways with the band in 2005, the Bangles have also continued to record. The band’s long-awaited new album, Sweetheart Of The Sun, is a loving homage to the ‘60s rock they’ve embraced since day one; the music brings with picture-perfect harmonies, jangly guitars with hints of psych-pop and warm, honeyed textures. There’s not a trace of kitsch or nostalgia, however; as always, the Bangles are adept at making retro influences feel modern.

In late summer, Popdose and Vicki Peterson chatted about Sweetheart Of The Sun, the Bangles’ status as role models for women and her memories of filming videos for MTV.

Lay out the challenges and scheduling obstacles you faced when recording the album.

Yeah, it did take us way too long—or all things happen when they’re supposed to, so maybe it wasn’t too long, but it seemed like it was too long. [Laughs.] We did work on the record for almost two years, and it definitely was scheduling issues for a lot of it. Debbi still has young kids, so we literally had this very tight window to work in on a daily basis, and it was hard to sort of get a flow. Even the last record we did, Doll Revolution, we rented a house and we didn’t work 18-hour days but we definitely would do a full day of work, stop and have dinner at the house and it was that kind of a flow. But this was much more difficult; Debbi had to be out of there by 2:30 to get the kids, you know what I mean? So it was a bit fragmented, in a way, and it was kind of hard to get momentum going. The surprise for me—and I think probably for all of us—was when we stepped back and saw what we had as a collection of songs. They kind of hung together in this nice way that I didn’t really expect!

That’s what I was just going to say, that the album was very, very cohesive. The sound and the aesthetic—you’d never know it was fragmented at all.

I think a lot of that just has to do with the fact that we were so in tune with each other as far as what we wanted things to sound like. It’s kind of mysterious to me and I’m very happy about it. We didn’t record it in the same place; we recorded it in three different studios at various times. Toward the end, I just took myself down into my own home studio and put guitars on, or did a lot of my guitars by myself. I just engineered it myself or Debbi would come over and we’d go through it. It’s crazy that it sounds as cohesive as it does.

Every studio has its own character, history, ghosts and things like that. What did all of the different studios then bring to the process?

These were all home studios. We started the whole thing at Matthew Sweet’s home studio, and that really kind of kicked everything off for us, because there is a vibe there. Matthew has a really specific way of working that we would fall into when we were working with him. He has a very positive outlook and is really enthusiastic, and that was just a great way to start the whole process. From there, we moved over to Susanna’s home studio, which she was kind of building up during this whole thing; she actually started it a couple of years ago. So that was really nice and lovely and had a whole different feel. But again, it just seems crazy—there were just these moments when someone would go, “You know what, on the bridge we should have bagpipes!” and then somebody else would go “Oh my God, I was just going to say that!” Just crazy stuff.

That’s the kind of band chemistry you can’t just create. That’s just the function of being in a band for so many years.

Yeah, we’ve known each other for this long—and because it’s the foundation of the band. The music that inspired us to play in the first place when we were kids is the music of the ’60s, for the most part, and it’s just all over this record. I laugh when I hear some of the [references]; there are so many musical references, it’s almost like we’re not wearing it on our sleeve, we’re broadcasting it across our chests. It’s just a love affair to all these bands we love. You definitely can hear it throughout the whole record, and that’s just something that we’ve shared from day one. It’s very easy to throw out even obscure musical references, and the other guy will get it.

I saw you guys live in St. Louis last year, and you covered Nazz’s “Open Your Eyes.” I was so excited to hear a studio version of that song, because it was so great live then. Why did you gravitate towards that song?

Believe it or not, we started playing that in the early ’80s. It was one of the many covers that we liked to do, and it’s something that we kind of stopped doing for a while, but we started doing it in the early ’80s, and it’s just so fun. It’s such a wacky song—that bridge is what? What? But it’s so fun to play, and it was so fun to record that.

“Ball & Chain” has also been kicking around for a while, since the early ’90s, is that correct? So why record it now?

Why now? Why not now is sort of the reason! We really just were collecting songs and recordings in the early days of the recording [process]. I think at one point we were just like, “We could really use another kickass rock & roll kind of song,” and Debbi goes, “Well, I do have this one,” and it was a hilarious demo on a cassette tape that she played us. It was like, “Oh, wow, that is so ’80s!” It was like, “Woo!” I think we kept some of that feel, but hopefully not all of it. [Laughs.] It was this great, tongue-in-cheek, snotty song that we liked. It’s funny, some of the songs date back to the ’90s, believe it or not. One of my songs, “Lay Yourself Down,” I wrote in the ’90s. It’s just a song that I never had a chance to record—and somehow it felt like now was the time.

I interviewed Tori Amos once and she was talking about songwriting, and she was like, “You know, the songs just kind of come to me and some are right and some are not.” It’s all in the timing.

And sometimes they’re right at one point where they weren’t before. The song “Through Your Eyes” and “One of Two” especially started out when we were writing songs for Doll Revolution. We wrote a version of that song—it’s not the same, we changed it and tweaked the approach to it, etc. but we really wanted that to sound like a three-part harmony, [with] a Crosby, Stills and Nash approach to it. That was [always] the inspiration—let’s write a song like that. Again, it wasn’t right for Doll Revolution for whatever reason, and we didn’t even track it, so it’s just been waiting for its moment.

All of the harmonies on this record are just gorgeous. Having seen you guys live, it sounds effortless—and you know that it’s totally not. But I’m a sucker for a good harmony.

Oh, me too! [Laughs.] That’s one of the best sounds on the planet, really. Just human voices and harmony to me is great. It does something… it’s like some physics thing involved with the vibrations and how it affects us; I don’t know. But it can get to your core and for us, it’s always been a huge part of what we do and for me, [it’s] one of my favorite things about the band, definitely. And again, it’s sort of a chemistry blend—and the sibling thing helps and it is kinda easy! [Laughs.] Maybe it’s because it’s the right people, you know? That stuff is always one of my favorite things to record and to work on and to arrange, but that’s not the hard part.

Tell me a little bit more about the label you’re on, Model Music Group. How did you guys get on their radar?

They kind of found us, and I’m not even sure how. We had a bit of a listening party, while we were mixing the record. We were mixing it with Jim Scott and he has this great, amazing space that he works in and we had a party and we invited some people who had been sort of sniffing around and interested. And Tony [Valenziano] from Model was just like a terrier—he wouldn’t let go. He heard the record and he said, “Yes, I’m going to have it.” He was calling our manager every single day [and] he just had this great enthusiasm for it—and that, to me, goes a long way. You can’t make somebody feel that way about your music, so that was a lot of it. And it just worked out with how they’re set up; they’re basically working through Universal, so we have the advantage of that machinery behind us.

Earlier this year, you guys participated in the Small Town Sound contest with clothing store maurices. And then you partnered with Daisy Rock Girl, the guitar company, for a sponsorship. For you, what does it mean to help out younger female musicians like this?

It’s really inspiring, and I’ve been coming across more and more of them. And part of it is through my association with Daisy Rock. I love it when a girl comes up and says, “You know, I play guitar because of you.” What? To me, that’s so inspiring and humbling and exciting. I get really excited about that, because that’s what it’s all about. I mean, if you can actually get to somebody and make an emotional change in them in some way—that makes them want to do something as challenging on a lot of levels as learning to play an instrument— that’s amazing! And plus, I just want more girls playing guitars.

I’m always railing about the lack of women on rock radio. I always tell people, “I grew up in the ’90s and I could name you 10-15 artists that were on alternative rock radio, not a problem at all.” And now, it’s like, where are the girls? It makes me mad. I wonder what girls growing up now, what kind of role models they have?

They’re all over in pop.

I know! You know, some them are good role models and some of them aren’t, it depends on the day and the song.

Well, here’s the weird thing—and it’s the mystery of the ages that we talk about all the time. We don’t really understand why there aren’t more all-girl bands. Why there aren’t more girls banding together and wanting to play, because it’s so fun and it’s this great club mentality that you get to share. It’s highly recommended, I’d say. [Laughs.] There are a lot of female musicians out there; they just aren’t getting heard.

I mean, I personally know two really good, very different—I know more than two, but off the top of my head—all-girl bands who are very young. They started out when they were 16. I know another all-girl band that started out when the drummer was 11 and she’s now 17 and really, really good. But they’re out there. As easy as it is to get your music on the internet—and therefore, theoretically out to the entire world—it’s really hard to get heard, I think. So it’s a bit of a paradox. It used to be you had to go through the channels and then you had to go through a very pre-described way to get your music heard. That’s all blown up and now it’s kind of a free-for-all, and there’s a million ways to get your music out to the world. But to actually get anyone’s ears, I don’t know how you do it. It’s tough; there’s so much out there.

It’s overwhelming, just the amount of music.

Yeah, but they’re out there, believe me, I see them—they’re just not on what is left of radio. [Laughs.]

What can we do? How can we change this?

I don’t know. It’s almost like watching to see how the industry settles into itself. What’s going to come next? Because it seems to me that it’s still in such a state of flux that everyone’s kind of looking around, trying to see what the other guy is going to come up with next. Labels—are they completely antiquated? I don’t know. It seems to me like it does help to have some way to channel the music to a certain set of ears, you know? I was just telling another journalist that I listen to public radio a lot and I find that a lot of times, I’ll discover new music through one of the music programs, because I guess I’m a target demographic for NPR. [Laughs.] Which is fine! Because I love it, and that’s the first place I heard Adele and that’s the first place I heard Florence and the Machine. If I really knew the answer, I’d be a manager and make a lot of money!

The Continental Drifters reunited a little bit in 2009. Do you have any more plans to do things with them? I know you’re busy doing other stuff. Are there any other plans in the works?

No, nothing concrete. But it doesn’t take that much. It was really somebody asked the question, “What would it take to get the Continental Drifters to play my party for Jazzfest?” And that’s [all it took]—the question had to get said out loud and then repeated enough times that we managed to make it happen. It was really great; it was amazing. I’ve always said—and I will continue to say—that Continental Drifters is a band that we’ll be in our eighties, and we’ll be on somebody’s front porch playing, absolutely. We still exist, even though we don’t perform. You know, we’re not a dynamic band; we don’t perform consistently or record or anything, other than the fact that I will always be a Continental Drifter, and that’s how that is.

It’s pretty unique in identity and personality. I like that.

Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean, that band saved my life in a lot of ways, and it’s near and dear to my heart, that music.

I know you guys got on stage with Elvis Costello not long ago. How much fun was that?

Oh, could there be any more fun? Could there be any more fun than go-go dancing next to Elvis Costello with that band that he has and getting in the cage? [Laughs.] Which is a personal favorite of mine to do. I must be a go-go dancer in a previous life! It was so much fun. We were really happy he asked us back too; we did that [previously] back in ’86 with him in Los Angeles, the first time he did the Spinning Wheel concert. So when he decided to revive it, we were so happy he asked us to come and sing again.

He just has so much fun on tour. And doing the spinning wheel thing, it’s just so awesome to see a musician enjoying himself so much.

He’s kind of ridiculously talented, and one of his gifts is that he’s a great master of ceremonies. He really does that well, and he knows his music; he’s like a musicologist, practically, and he just has so much fun. And that band, they’ve known each other for decades. It just couldn’t have been more fun.

As I said, I saw you guys last year. And then I saw you opening for Heart in Illinois a couple of years ago, and it was just so awesome, seeing really talented musicians on stage having so much fun. You just leave those shows so happy.

Yeah, we have fun and we love playing with Heart too, that’s always one of my favorite pairings, because they’re one of my influences. Because I was in high school and learning to play electric guitar, it was like, Nancy Wilson, excuse me? Are you allowed to be that beautiful and that talented? It’s really not fair. [Laughs.]

I think she’s one of the more underrated guitarists, too.

I totally agree. Especially her acoustic work, I mean, she’s really good and innovative. When she plays, she’s not playing folk 12-string—she’s playing rock guitar, but on an acoustic.

With MTV celebrating it’s 30^th birthday this year, looking back, how do you think the channel has affected the Bangles’ career?

They did a lot for us in a lot of ways. And it’s funny, because we started as a band almost around the same time, so it was such new technology…or it wasn’t even considered technology, it was just this thing that a lot of people thought was invasive and non-creative. Sort of like I guess how radio people felt when television really kind of took over.

And there was some skepticism about it when it first arrived, but it very quickly established itself. It was a non-question: Of course you made a video when you put out your first single—and then if you could afford it, you did another one! So many of them were like little mini-films and not that different from the “promotional films” that the Beatles and some bands did in the ’60s. They did short films for things like “I Am The Walrus,” “Strawberry Fields Forever” and that kind of thing. So it wasn’t that different from that for me. I always had fun doing them. It’s a lot of work—more work than you think, unless you’re a film actor and you’re used to that. After about 12 to 14 hours, you’re going, “I just want a shower!” [Laughs.]

Which video required the most work?

Mmm, it depends on what you meant by “work.” Probably “If She Knew What She Wants,” which we actually shot twice—once in London and then a different version in Los Angeles. I don’t know, maybe they’re not my faves. Being double the work I guess, that one gets to be the most work. Weirdly enough to me, probably one of our most popular videos was the least amount of work and that’s “Walk Like An Egyptian.” That was just playing in front of the audience that we pulled in off the streets of New York City, while we were on the road. We fit it into our tour schedule, and it was just a blast. And then Gary [video director Weis] went out with a camera and started shooting people on the street, getting reactions and stuff.

Anything else that you want to cover?

We’re really happy that the record is coming out. Other than my parents—who just love it, and they’re completely unbiased—I’m looking forward to see what sort of reaction it garners.

Do they come out to your shows?

Yeah. They do when they can. My father is a bit of an audiophile and he has this surround sound system in his house and Debbi and I were both out there because my mother just had a birthday and they literally forced us to sit down and listen to our record with Dad’s sound system. [Laughs]

Wow.

I know, adorable—and slightly torturous! But actually, also an interesting experiment to hear it. You work so hard to make things sound a certain way to really try to get the best sounds that you can, and you definitely really slave over the mix and really try to create an ambience and a mood and a feel. And then people download it on a downgraded MP3 and then put earbuds in their ears and that’s how they listen to it. [Laughs.]

Sad but true. This album, it feels like it needs to be listened to on vinyl, because it’s so warm. It feels like you need the vinyl crackling as you’re listening to it.

I will look forward to that moment when we get to hear the vinyl crackle.

So you didn’t have the vinyl crackle for dad’s sound system? What did you have, like the master tape?

We had a master CD, so it was still digital, but it was okay.

It passed muster.

It did, yeah!

Print PDF

Valentine’s Day 2012 will mark 35 years since the new wave band the B-52′s performed their first live show in their hometown of Athens, GA. But in a humorous twist keeping with the band’s sense of the absurd, the group decided to instead commemorate their 34th anniversary by recording their first-ever live CD on that date in Feb. 2011. The result is With the Wild Crowd! – Live in Athens, GA., getting an Oct. 11 release by Eagle Rock Entertainment (a DVD version of the concert will follow in early 2012). The group’s penchant for silliness, wig-wearing and retro-styled music got them pegged by some as lightweight entertainment when they emerged nationally. But in retrospect, their more outré, ironic and gender-inclusive approach to pop was arguably more pioneering than some of their band’s 1980s peers who were taken much more seriously. We spoke with Cindy Wilson, who has fronted the band since its inception.

What inspired you to want to put out a live CD after all these years?

Well, you know, we felt it was time. We haven’t actually put one out before and we always wanted to do it. We filmed it at an anniversary concert in our hometown, Athens, for our 34th anniversary. It’s our 35th anniversary next year. But it was a huge event, held at the Athens’ Classic Center, so we decided it was a good place to film. It turned out great and we mixed it in L.A. and it’s being released Oct. 11. It’s going to be very exciting to see it come out. I think fans and everybody will love it.

Did having so many fan-filmed videos of the band playing live on YouTube prompt fans to request the B-52′s finally put out a live release?

Yes. We’ve had a lot of requests for that. I watch YouTube daily and it’s like art — the camera’s moving around and everything. But having a professionally-filmed show, we’ve never had that before. So it really is an exceptional thing.

There’s been sort of an uptick in interest in ’80s retro culture amongst twentysomethings recently. Do you find you’re getting younger fans at your shows?

Well, we’ve always had a wide array of people of all ages come to our shows. The people that came to see us in the old days have kids. So it’s really amazing that it keeps being passed around. We get a great crowd — all ages. And its still one of the great fun shows to go to.

How difficult was it for you coming up in the music industry being a band that played music that was different from what was on the radio and had two women as members?

In one way, it was very easy for us because we were a group of friends. It wasn’t like being a hired performer to come in and be in a group. It was a bunch of friends getting together — artists and free thinkers. We’re from a college town, Athens, which was a great place to grow up because it wasn’t conservative. It was a very artistic scene there. So we came up through a more open-minded feeling, and had the sense of having fun and being outrageous and making each other laugh. We were lucky that we kind of came up through an organic situation like that.

What happened when you left Athens to play for a bigger audience?

Well, when we came to New York and people started coming to see us, I’m sure we looked like we were from a different planet. But we started getting an audience there and definitely hit a nerve, so it just became bigger and bigger after that. We were kind of our own thing.

These days, do you hear from artists or bands who tell you that you’ve been an influence on them?

Absolutely. That’s the natural way with music. Your take influences and make them your own. And you bring something that you have to it because of the way it speaks to you. And so, yeah, artists build upon a theme and God bless them, that’s just the way it is. I get artists on my Facebook page from different levels of success that say we’ve influenced them and it’s really wonderful to see. And there are also B52′s cover bands that are really fun too.

Print PDF