Wow! You like us! You really like us! The numbers for Episode 1 of The Popdose Podcast were so high that we knew we had to come back for a second episode. (In all honesty, we were coming back regardless. We had too much fun last time, and none of us know how to take a hint anyway.)

With Halloween just a week away at the time of this recording, we decided to ask ourselves: what scared the crap out of us as children? Although our therapy bills this week have definitely skyrocketed, we hope you’ll find our confessions entertaining — and if not, you can count on plenty — plenty! — of digressions into other topics on the way.

So listen away! You can download here, or subscribe in iTunes (link below). Please leave us your thoughts in the comments, and if you like the show, please leave a review on iTunes. Enjoy!

The Popdose Podcast, Episode 2: Dixie Carter’s Laundry (1:01:36, 56.5 MB), featuring Jeff Giles, Jason Hare, and Dave Lifton.
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Show Notes

0:00 Intro, including an unfortunate digression into having sex with soup.

Theme: Things That Scared the Crap Out of Us as Children

4:08 Jason: E.T. — The Extra Terrestrial, including digressions into The Wizard of Oz and America (the band, not the country).

18:17 Dave reveals himself to have once been scared of his own shadow, then talks about his fears of Ayatollah Khomeini, the threat of nuclear war and Reagan’s “We begin bombing in five minutes” joke, leading into digressions on Red Dawn, the power of imagination, Muammar al-Gaddafi & Oates, current events’ influence on movie villians, and Amir Talai kissing a camel.

30:04 Jeff attempts to discuss his fear, but digressions immediately lead us into watching Poltergeist, Misery, The Shining and the re-cut trailer for The Shining. That leads us to the re-cut opening of Diff’rent Strokes, Conrad Bain and the associated haircut, Bananas, George Gaines and Alex Karras, and Space: 1999. Finally we get to Jeff’s fear of department store mannequins, which, of course, leads us in numerous digressions, including Mannequin, Meshach Taylor, Robbie Nevil/Matthew Wilder/Gina Schock writing for Disney, “Hole Hearted” and “More Than Words.” It’s a wonder we ever remember what we were supposed to talk about in the first place.

Popdose Endorsements (leave a suggestion for a better title in the comments!)

46:11 Jason endorses Guggenheim Grotto. Digressions include trying to get Jason to do the podcast either with an Irish dialect, while using a talkbox, or possibly both, and Jeff’s brilliant review of the GG album. (song: “Fee Da Da Dee”)

53:59 Dave endorses The Light in Darkness, a new book about Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town album and tour, compiled by Lawrence Kirsch and featuring an essay written by Dave. (Song: “Darkness on the Edge of Town”)

56:52 Jeff endoses Matthew Ryan’s newest album, Dear Lover. See the Popdose review, Jeff’s interview with Matthew, and Jeff’s Popdose Guide to Matthew Ryan for more. Digressions include Dave’s memory of the Rambler 65 album by Ben Vaughn.

58:46 Outro: If you like the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes to help increase the show’s visibility. Thanks for listening!

Last week was an absolute nightmare for the computer, as favorites covered the spread in all but two instances (plus a push) and my season’s winnings so far went up in smoke. It was particularly heartbreaking to see Miami blow a lead of 21 points (especially considering they were getting an extra 6.5 points from the spread) and then get my hopes up by holding tough on their goal line to preserve the cover, only to toss up a completely meaningless pick-six at the end of the game. I was the beneficiary of an identical finish in Pittsburgh in my second-biggest bet of the week, so I suppose I ought to be grateful the week wasn’t even worse, but it’s hard to find much joy when your bets go 3-9-1 and your top bet loses by a score of 38-0. My own picks were pretty good, going 8-4-1, but that’s scant consolation for such an awful, awful week.

I wasn’t alone in my anguish last week – last week practically bankrupted a number of sportsbooks. Most of the games that featured lopsided betting on the favorites – New England (87%), Green Bay (91%), San Diego (91%), Indianapolis (95%), the New York Jets (76%), New Orleans (90%), and Philadelphia (89%) – ended up being blowouts and a lot of parlays paid off. In terms of competitive football, it was actually the most uninteresting weekend we’ve seen all year. The disparity in talent between NFL teams this year is pretty amazing; if the NFL were run like the Premier League in England you could expect a few teams to be relegated at the end of the season in favor of some of the more competitive college squads. From a fantasy perspective, though, it was an exciting week, as a number of players had spectacular offensive performances and lots of matchups turned into shootouts that weren’t decided until Monday night.

(To watch this video, right-click and hit play)

Fantasy football has sometimes been described as "dungeons and dragons for jocks". There are certainly a few parallels - each player (owner) develops a character (team) whose abilities are determined by a roll of the dice (random draft order). Players develop a deep affinity for their creation, and can spend inordinate amounts of time selecting a name and drawing sketches (designing logos) of their alter-ego. The campaign (season) is overseen by a dungeon master (commissioner) who manages the adventure and adjudicates disputes, but ultimately the success or failure of the players is left up to how well they allocate their resources such as weapons, spells, and magic items (quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers) with an element of random chance (injuries and turnovers) thrown in. Not to mention that participants can display a level of obsession that is terrifying to those unfamiliar with the game.

Proponents of fantasy football argue that since the games take place in the real world with flesh and blood players, and since real treasure is often awarded to the winner of the league, the two aren't all that similar. And although fantasy football has enjoyed a huge surge in popularity in recent years due to the accessibility of the internet, the game itself actually predates Dungeons and Dragons. The concept of fantasy football originated amongst a group of team employees and sportswriters in Oakland, who created the first league in 1962, just a few years after the invention of fantasy baseball. Dungeons and Dragons didn't surface until 1971, when Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren published Chainmail, a set of rules for warfare with miniature figurines (a pastime that lives on in such tabletop games as Warhammer 40K and the currently endangered Heroclix) that ultimately evolved into Dungeons and Dragons, the first box set of which was published by TSR in 1974.

Now of course most jocks wouldn't hesitate to stuff your head in a toilet if you accused them of playing with figurines of elven warriors and twelve-sided dice, but for Halloween, I thought it would be fun to count down 5 of the monsters from the AD&D's Monster Manual along with their 5 counterparts from the NFL. Taking over from here is the lovely Shi Ne of The Sports Report Girl.com.

Gamblor is doubling down this week, taking yet another broad selection of underdogs - but this time for even higher stakes. And as queasy as it makes me feel, I'm glad. It's not possible for the sportsbooks to take another beating like they did last week - it just won't happen. There's simply no way, or sports gambling as we know it will come to an end. Here's the picks.

HOUSTON TEXANS at BUFFALO BILLS Gamblor's Pick: Buffalo (+3.5) Bet Amount: $39.06 (Hedge)

WHY I AGREE: There's a general sense that on a good day, the Houston Texans can beat just about anybody.  While this is certainly true of an offense that can put up so many points so fast, Houston's defense hasn't shown that they can stop anybody (except for Oakland, who doesn't count).  Although Buffalo's fans are dying to get rid of Dick Jauron, they haven't yet given up on the team and are likely to show up in full force.  Buffalo's got a bye week coming while Houston is looking ahead to their matchup with the heretofore invincible Colts next week, so as uneasy as it makes me feel to pick against the Houston points machine, I'm taking Buffalo here.

CLEVELAND BROWNS at CHICAGO BEARS Gamblor's Pick: Cleveland (+13.5) Bet Amount: $23.43 (Hedge)

WHY I AGREE: The Bears will certainly be stinging after last week's humiliating loss to Cincinnati.  But it took Cincinnati until the very last seconds of overtime to beat Cleveland.  So why such a large spread?  Hint: it's because Cleveland sucks.  Cutler hasn't turned out so great yet, but he won't be called on to do all that much here - expect the Bears to keep the ball on the ground against Cleveland's truly pathetic run defense - much as Green Bay did last week.  The only problem is that this won't lead to blowout-level points.  I just don't see Chicago putting enough points on the board to cover a spread this large, and I see this one turning out as Vegas' revenge on gamblers who saw all the big spreads last week get covered easily and are getting a bit too greedy.

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS at DALLAS COWBOYS Gamblor's Pick: Seattle (+9.5) Bet Amount: $31.99 (Hedge)

WHY IT'S WRONG: I really have no idea what to expect from Seattle during any given week.  I'm still convinced that they're terrible, but every time I put that in print they burn me.  Then again, Dallas looked spectacular last week and Miles Austin looks like Calvin Johnson decided to dress up in a Cowboys uniform for Halloween just to experience what it's like to play for a winning team.  Dallas is a very public team and their lines tend to get inflated, though Gamblor doesn't see that being the case here.  A victory of greater than 9 points is a lot for this unreliable offense to deliver.  I think they will probably succeed, but I'm no more confident of that than I am of the outcome of a coin toss.

SAINT LOUIS RAMS at DETROIT LIONS Gamblor's Pick: St. Louis (+4.5) Bet Amount: $39.06 (Hedge)

WHY IT'S WRONG: There's no line yet for this game.  And I don't really care what it is.  Detroit is a terrible team that can't stop anyone, but they actually can put of a few points of their own.  St. Louis can do neither.  It feels strange to describe any game as a routine blowout for the Lions, but that's what I see happening here.

NEW YORK GIANTS at PHILADELPHIA EAGLES Gamblor's Pick: New York Giants (Pk) Bet Amount: $2.23 (Flip)

WHY I AGREE: The books have been sliding this line towards Philadelphia all week long.  Would you believe that this one opened up at -3?  It's a pretty classic example of what Gamblor looks for - Vegas not giving the New York Giants the points they ought to be getting.  Although looking at the score last week would convince you that Philadelphia won pretty convincingly, they actually looked terrible.  They couldn't move the ball at all, and really only were able to build a big lead based on Jason Campbell's turnovers.  I don't see them standing a chance against a Giants team that is looking to lash out against anyone - particularly a divisional rival.  Tom Coughlin will have no trouble motivating his men for this contest, and I think they'll be able to win this one with ease.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS at INDIANAPOLIS COLTS Gamblor's Pick: San Francisco (+13) Bet Amount: $15.06 (Hedge)

WHY IT'S WRONG: As I said before and intend to keep saying until someone makes me eat my words, I'm with the Colts all the way.

MIAMI DOLPHINS at NEW YORK JETS Gamblor's Pick: New York Jets (-3.5) Bet Amount: $2.79 (Flip)

WHY I AGREE: Nothing can help a team get their mojo back more than playing the Raiders.  The Jets rushed for over three hundred yards against the Raiders, which is even more impressive when you consider the amazingly short fields that Jamarcus Russel was giving them to work with.  Like all the other suckers who bet against New Orleans last week, I'm furious with Miami for blowing a 27.5 point (spread-adjusted) lead.  After such a spectacular meltdown, I wouldn't trust them to carry my bag, let alone try to take control of a team like the Jets.

DENVER BRONCOS at BALTIMORE RAVENS Gamblor's Pick: Denver (+3) Bet Amount: $16.18 (Flip)

WHY I AGREE: Once again, Denver is being treated as equal to or inferior to a team with a far worse record than their own.  They can only summon the energy for these contests so many times before they run out of gas, but this is a seriously disrespectful line.  The only decent opponent Baltimore has beaten has been San Diego, and they would have been beaten there as well if it weren't for Ray Lewis' late-game heroics.  Gamblor sees this line as a trap because Baltimore was so tough at home last season; it expects Denver to be getting more points.  I think a more appropriate line would be +1.5 or so, but right now the money is pretty much split between the two teams.  I like Denver here, pulling off one more win before their winning streak finally comes to an end next week against Pittsburgh.

OAKLAND RAIDERS at SAN DIEGO CHARGERS Gamblor's Pick: Oakland (+16.5) Bet Amount: $18.41 (Hedge)

WHY IT'S WRONG: I'm amazed that during the season so far, Gamblor has actually made money betting on the Raiders - even including last week's disaster, the computer has earned $9.84 from their victories against the spread - but I think this week is where that dives back down into negative territory.  It's amazing to think that the Raiders practically beat San Diego in their opening game this year.  The team hasn't gained or lost any signifincant personnel, but that doesn't matter to the oddmakers in the slightest - they're telling us loud and clear to expect Oakland to be blown out.  But is that really how things are going to turn out?  Home field advantage shouldn't matter too much; the annual Raiders-Chargers game in San Diego is famous for how many Raiders fans turn up in the stands.  But I think what this game will come down to is coaching - Norv Turner is smart enough to make adjustments to his game plan based on what he saw in Week 1, while Tom Cable is still puzzling over the "shoelace matrix."

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS at TENNESSEE TITANS Gamblor's Pick: Jacksonville (+3) Bet Amount: $39.61 (Hedge)

WHY IT'S WRONG: Every week during the early part of the season, everyone expected the Titans to turn things around.  This week, we said, is the week they finally get their first win.  Well, it's been seven weeks so far, and literally every week the margin has gotten worse.  Just look at the progression: -3 (OT), -3, -7, -20, -22, -59...and now they're favored?  Vince Young is great at winning games, and I think if he starts here he'll be inspired to play his best football in ages.  But Jacksonville already put up 37 points against the broken secondary of the Titans - they won't score as many this time around, but they'll score enough that the spread will factor in and put them over the top (if they don't win outright).

MINNESOTA VIKINGS at GREEN BAY PACKERS Gamblor's Pick: Minnesota (+3) Bet Amount: $24.18 (Hedge)

WHY I AGREE: A lot is being made out of Brett Farve's return to Green Bay this weekend, but I'm not actually all that concerned about it as a factor in this game.  I think it's a lot simpler than that - Minnesota is the better team.  They proved it when they beat the Packers at home - it was a very solid victory before Green Bay scored 10 points in the final 5 minutes to pull within a touchdown.  The only decent team that Green Bay has beat this season was Chicago - and it took a late game drive to pull that one off.  The points are a gift here - take 'em.

CAROLINA PANTHERS at ARIZONA CARDINALS Gamblor's Pick: Carolina (+10) Bet Amount: $17.11 (Hedge)

WHY I AGREE: Arizona's defense has been looking unbelievably fierce lately.  And I'd expect them to eat Jake Delhomme for lunch.  Arizona's offense has also been looking really tough, and should have an easy time working with the short fields they'll get after Delhomme inevitably turns it over two or three times.  But something here makes me uneasy.  Arizona isn't going to take Carolina seriously, and with San Francisco expected to lose to Indianapolis, they won't feel any pressure to win to hang onto their division lead.  I doubt that the Cardinals will lose to the lowly Panthers (especially in front of their home crowd), but I do think that 10 points is too many for them to cover.

ATLANTA FALCONS at NEW ORLEANS SAINTS Gamblor's Pick: Atlanta (+10) Bet Amount: $21.20 (Hedge)

WHY IT'S WRONG: I'm not picking against New Orleans.  I could talk myself into seeing reasons for Atlanta to keep this one close, but after last week it's going to take more than just 10 points for me to pick against the Saints.

For legality purposes, this website does not promote or advocate gambling. This is solely for entertainment purposes only.

So open up your pod, baby, and let us in — and remember, this is only our debut. Even television classics like According to Jim didn’t enjoy their finest moments until they’d had a little time to hit their stride, and you have no idea what we have in store for you during the coming months. (Note: neither do we.) Like what you hear? Hate it? Drop us a line in the comments and let us know. And now, without further ado…

The Popdose Podcast, Episode 1: Donkey Eatin’ a Pony (1:09:49, 64.9 MB), featuring Jeff Giles, Jason Hare, and Dave Lifton.
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Show Notes

0:00 Intro, including digressions into the end of Guiding Light, and Jason’s ass.

5:05 Jeff Giles discusses ASCAP and BMI demanding fees for 30-second samples on iTunes, plus, how Popdose may be affected.

18:53 Dave Lifton discusses hipsters ironically nostalgic for the ’80s, which leads to digressions into Lionel Richie, J-Stache, his taint and Richard Marx sniffing it, the Michael McDonald/Grizzly Bear collaboration, Jason Lytle covering Billy Joel, Daryl Hall’s expensive house, and Smokey Robinson & George Michael singing “Careless Whisper.”

38:20 Jason Hare credits Terje Fjelde’s awesome Popdose podcast contributions, then discusses Mariah Carey appearing on Oprah and covering Foreigner. Digressions continue into Mariah’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Journey, The Saw Lady, and Wing.

54:31 Popdose Endorsements (official title yet to be determined; offer your suggestions in the comments!): Jeff endorses fun. (song clip: “Benson Hedges”)

57:06 Popdose Endorsements: Dave endorses Robbie Fulks (song clip: “Papa Was A Steel-Headed Man”)

58:51 Popdose Endorsements: Jason endorses the Damnwells and Tragedy: An All-Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees (song clip: “Stayin’ Alive)

1:02:00 Outro: Jeff highlights his interview with Zach Curd of Desktop (song: “My Boo,” a Popdose exclusive track)

When we last left our hero, Gary Clark, he was discussing his career as a recording artist…and if you missed it, then you must immediately haul yourself over to Part One, which can be found right here. Now, can we presume everyone’s on the same page? Excellent. Then we can get to the matter at hand, which involves Mr. Clark chatting about some of the work he’s been doing in recent years as a songwriter and producer for hire…

Popdose: Obviously, you’ve been doing a lot more songwriting and producing for other people than recording yourself for the last several years, but what I’ve been wondering is whether or not you do the demos yourself, and if you do, then will we ever get to hear them?

Gary Clark: I do record demos, but I don’t always sing them. Usually, I try and choose a session singer who suits whoever I’m pitching for, but sometimes, either for lack of somebody who suits or whatever, I do sing them. I haven’t really even thought about whether I’d release them! (Laughs) Very often, what happens is, if you get a cut on a record…if it’s a song that’s been pitched, one that you’re not writing with the artist, then they very often want the production as well. They then pay for the master, therefore you don’t own the master anymore. The label owns the master. But in the case of those that don’t get cut…the bad ones… (Laughs) …you never know. One of these days, maybe I will.

I just wanted to run through some of the songs you’ve written. I just recently heard Mark Owen’s “Kill With Your Smile” (In Your Own Time) and the songs that you wrote for Emma Bunton for her Life in Mono album (“Perfect Strangers” and “Take Me To Another Town“). When it comes to writing someone who’s a former member of Take That or the Spice Girls or whoever, how does that happen? Do their “handlers” approach you, or are you pitching the songs?

No, in those cases, the artist came in, and we wrote songs together. The labels kind of get to know you after awhile, which…I kind of knew a lot of them in the UK, but I’ve recently moved here to L.A., so I’m beginning again here. But they get to know you, and they sort of think, “That might work if you put them in a room together,” so they call you up, and…basically, it starts off as something you do on spec, unless you’re Timbaland or someone, in which case people charge to get in a room with you. But for me, you just get together, write a song, record the vocal, they’ll leave, I’ll finish the track, give it to the label, and if they like it, they pay for it to go on the record. And if they don’t…? Well, in fact, at that point, if they really like it, sometimes you get the budget extended to the point where you can maybe add some real drums or strings or whatever. So that’s kind of the way that a lot of records are made nowadays, because the budgets are such rubbish.

When you contributed to Liz Phair’s self-titled album, she was a pretty big name in alternative music moreso than pop music.

Yeah, I was a fan, actually.

Oh, okay. So what the process of writing “Red Light Fever” for her like?

Well, that was one I wrote with Liz. We wrote about ten songs, and…she basically made that album twice. She made a whole album with Michael Penn, on which there were lot of my songs – like, eight songs or something – and I have never heard it to this day. I was never given a copy. But, basically, when she took it to the record label, the record label said, “It’s too alternative, we need you to go more mainstream.” And that’s when she worked with The Matrix, and The Matrix wrote the singles that were on that album…and there’s Lauren Christy again. So that was kind of Liz’s foray into the mainstream…and she kind of got beat up for it, too. (Laughs) But the only surviving song from those Michael Penn songs of mine…and as I say, I’ve never heard the others…was “Red Light Fever.”

I’d love to hear those songs. I’m a big Michael Penn fan.

Yeah, I’d love to hear it as well. (Laughs) Honestly, Liz is super lo-fi, and she would only record demos on my little Walkman in the middle of the table. She and I would play live. And at one point, they contacted us…her label…to ask us if they could use one of these demos as an iTunes free download or something, and we agreed. So I guess it’s out there somewhere! But, yeah, it’s literally just a cassette recorder in the middle of the table, and Liz and I doing it live. I don’t even remember which song it was!

You co-wrote “That Boy” with Lloyd Cole. So had you guys fallen into the same circles in the late ’80s?

Yeah, I met Lloyd a few times in the process of gigging and doing promotion and stuff. We were both published by the same publisher, and he suggested that we would be good to write together, so I went to New York and wrote two or three songs with him, of which “That Boy” was one. The interesting thing about Lloyd is that…he’s brilliant, but he doesn’t want to do lyrics with anybody else. He wants to do the lyrics himself. I was used to being very involved in the lyrics, so it was kind of a weird dynamic trying to work with him, because I’d suggest things, and I could feel him pulling away, and I’d suggest more, and he’d just kind of close the song down, as if to say, “Ah, let’s more on to something else.” So I left New York thinking that we had a bunch of unfinished things, and then he finished the lyrics once I’d gone.

Well, it’s one of my favorite songs of his.

Oh, thank you. You know, it’s weird, that song, because it’s actually been released on three different records of his. He had it on the Negatives’ record, then he had it on the greatest-hits disc, and then there’s one more, though I can’t remember what it’s on! (Laughs) But, anyway, it’s the gift that keeps on giving!

Getting a song (“Got Dynamite“) on Demi Lovato’s new album, Here We Go Again, must’ve been a major coup for you. I mean, in the States, she’s huge in the ‘tweener market.

Well, it really made us feel that the move here was worthwhile. It was a huge thing for us, because…I mean, I’d done stuff with the Matrix, but when I stepped outside of the Matrix, that was the first production I got on my own. It was done unbelievably quickly. I had the track done with a demo singer, but once they wanted to do it, the turnaround was…I have never seen anything like it. It was like lightning. They had it turned around within the week. Everything: recording, editing, mastering, mixing. When they move, that machine…it’s amazing.

So how did you come to meet Ferras?

That’s kind of…the album is produced by me and The Matrix, and one member of The Matrix is Lauren Christy, who I worked with a long time ago. Basically, she came out to London to do some meetings or something, and we had dinner, and she told me that they were supposed to start Ferras’s record in January or something, and they were worried because they were going over schedule with another album that they were working on. I think it was the Korn album. And, basically, they needed another pair of hands, and would I come out first? Initially, it was going to be three weeks or something, just to kind of help them out, and I really clicked with Ferras. It was just working. And so they then asked me to stay on and contribute from the writing point of view, since initially I was just producing. And I just ended up staying on for the entire album. And the time I was staying here, I just loved it, and it made for the final decision to renew my visa and stay out here for a bit.

I know you need to get back to the studio, but I did have one more co-write I wanted to ask about: “Katydids,” the song you did with Swan Dive for their June album. Whose concept was the song’s subject matter, and is it safe to presume that Danny Wilson and the Katydids were gigging through the UK at approximately the same time?

Ah, Bill. Always love writing with Bill DeMain. Such a lovely and talented man. Boo Hewerdine suggested we write together, and Katydids was the song that came out of the first session – we recently wrote three in a day here in L.A. – and I remember it was a beautiful day in London. I lived on a garden square, and it was so nice that we took an acoustic guitar over to the garden and sat under the shade of a tree. Bill tends to have lyrics pre-written before a session, and it’s not the way I tend to work, but in his case, the lyrics are so good and musical and inspiring that I love doing it. So although I was aware of and was into the band, “Katydids” was entirely Bill’s concept and the music was written pretty quickly on that afternoon. But although I never encountered the Katydids around the Danny Wilson period, I remember my friends from Del Amitri did some gigs with them in the States, and more recently, through the Swandive song, I chatted with Suzy Hug on MySpace.

Lastly, do you have a favorite song that people might not have heard that you’ve written for someone else?

Well, you know, it would have to be one of the ones on the Ferras record, Aliens & Rainbows. That album is really dear to my heart, and it’s just a shame that he basically got lost in the EMI takeover of Capitol, and the album didn’t get the weight behind it that I wish it had’ve gotten. But I’d say there are two or three on there. “Liberation Day,” for one. And I love “Soul Rock,” which is kind of a throwback to my youth. To my Hall and Oates records. (Laughs) And I like the title track, “Aliens & Rainbows.” Working with Ferras was the closest thing I think I’ve done in a long time to the kind of record that I’d make…on the rare occasions that I do.

So do you forsee a time when you yourself will return to recording?

I never say never. There are things I miss about it and things I don’t miss about it. I don’t miss the process of being an artist, where most of your time – and I’m sure you believe it, because you’re on the other end of the phone! – is spent doing interviews and traveling and appearing on television and being made up. All the stuff that has nothing to do with music. So all of that, I don’t really miss. But the hour that you’re on stage, I miss. And I miss the joy that you get from making something that you love when it’s your own record, when you’ve written it and sung it and seen it through to the end. But at least I still get to make records. It’s a tough music business out there, so I’m just happy to be still making records.

Well, I’m officially pitching the idea that you should do some sort of live residency, where you just pop out and play for an hour a week.

I’ve actually thought about it, and I’ve ever talked about doing stuff with some other people, but my problem is just the scheduling. It’s really, really hard, because I just never know when I’m going to have somebody in to sing a vocal or to have a mix done. All the time, I’m chasing deadlines. But I think if I just forced myself to do it, if it was just once a fortnight or something, I could probably do it. So it’s a possibility.

As your Facebook friend, I’m sure I’ll be one of the first to hear about it if it happens.

Absolutely. Just don’t hold your breath. (Laughs)

A Six Pack of Other Gary Clark Co-Writes For Ya’ll:

* Ashley Parker Angel, “Perfect Now” (Soundtrack To Your Life)
* Nick Carter, “Is It Saturday Yet?” (Now or Never)
* Natalie Imbruglia, “Wrong Impression” (White Lilies Island)
* Jack Savoretti, “Dr. Frankenstein” (Between The Minds)
* Skin, “Purple” (Fake Chemical State)
* McFly, “The End” (Radio: ACTIVE)

Popdose: So how did you and your brother Kit first get started playing music? Did you grow up in a musical family?

Gary Clark: Not really. My grandfather played accordion…well, not really played, but he played at parties and stuff. Everybody was kind of a good singer. Like, my mum and dad would sing, again, at parties. It’s kind of a Scottish thing: we’d only sing at New Year’s Eve parties and stuff. But my mum and my dad were quite good singers, and…actually, I guess Ged (Grimes) and I started working together first, ’cause Kit’s younger than me by about five years, and Ged and I are about the same age. So we had a school band and stuff, and it kind of developed from there. He and I stayed together through a few different things until we worked in Danny Wilson with Kit.

You guys were originally called Spencer Tracy. Did you just get, like, a cease-and-desist order from his estate?

Yeah, we did. (Laughs) The album was done, the artwork was done…it was a real last-minute crazy, fearful moment. Basically, the US label checked it out here, and I believe that because Spencer Tracy had lived and died in California…in this state, you can copyright a person’s name. So we were just told, “If you try and use this, you will be sued.” And so the label just went, “Nope. Change it. Now.”

So how quickly did you come up with the new name, Danny Wilson?

Unbelievably quick. I mean, we’d sort of gotten used to the idea that the band had a person’s name, and so I guess that was the next train of thought. Kit came up with it, as it was a movie that my dad used to always talk about as being one of his favorite Sinatra movies…usually when he was complaining that they didn’t show it on TV anymore. (Laughs) So Kip had that idea, and it just really fit with the album being called Meet Danny Wilson, which was the name of the Sinatra film.

Only recently did I finally get a chance to see that film, when it came out on DVD not too long ago.

Me, too! (Laughs) All through that period, I never saw the movie. Not until much later.

So how surprised were you when, after a couple of tries, “Mary’s Prayer” finally became a hit for the band?

Well, it kind of happened in the States before it happened in the UK, and because of that, it triggered the UK label to re-release it. By this time, I was going, “No, please, no…” I thought it was flogging a dead horse. But the third time we released it, it was…it was Radio One, which was the biggest station there and still is, but at the time, when it got to the end of the year, Christmas or whatever, they had a phone-in vote for people’s favorite songs that missed the chart or whatever, and “Mary’s Prayer” won by quite a big margin. And that, combined with the fact that it was doing really well over here in the States, convinced Virgin to release it for the third time. They did a remix on it, but it was essentially the same record. And this time, it just went all the way pretty quickly. By the second week, it was #2 or #3 or something like that. So that was exciting.

It’s one of those songs that, even now, remains one of the great ’80s songs that everyone remembers but no one remembers who did it.

(Laughs) True! Well, that’s okay. I get to keep my anonymity. (Laughs)

And, yet, all you have to do is sing the briefest bit of the chorus, and people immediately go, “Oh, of course, that song!”

But, you know, that’s kind of a testament to one thing that I love about the States: you have radio stations that are just dedicated to keeping songs alive. Which is not as much the case in the UK. I mean, people know the songs, but here you have the classic rock stations that just keep playing things. I love that.

By the way, I just had to mention that, when I came over to the UK in 1992 after graduating from college, I had a Britrail pass, and I made a point of stopping in Aberdeen – even though I had no real reason to do so – just because of the song “Aberdeen.”

I’m so sorry. (Laughs)

I hope you’re proud of yourself! (Laughs)

The funny thing is that I’ve had quite a few people say that they’re curious about Aberdeen or that they’ve been to Aberdeen because of the song, but, y’know, there was nothing particularly magical about the town of Aberdeen. My brother was at university there, and I used to go visit him on weekends, so I spent a little bit of time there. I basically was trying to write the Scottish version of “Do You Know The Way To San Jose?” or “Galveston” or something. It always seems to be these quite obscure American towns that make it into songs, so I thought I’d give it a go for Scotland. (Laughs)

I think my favorite song from Meet Danny Wilson that didn’t get released as a single was probably “Lorraine Parade.”

Oh, wow, thank you. Yeah, I like that song.

Do you have any other favorites that weren’t released as singles that you still remember with particular fondness?

On the second album, I always liked “The Ballad Of Me And Shirley Maclaine,” but the first album…? I don’t know. I’d probably need to see a track listing. (Laughs) And I don’t really think of them as favorites, you know?

Well, they say you have your entire life to write your first album, then only about six weeks to write the second. How many songs did you have stockpiled when it came to write Bebop Moptop?

Not that many. Really, for the first album, I had cherry-picked over quite a long period. I mean, some of the songs were older, “Mary’s Prayer” being one of them. So was “Davy,” and “Steamtrains to the Milky Way” was older. I felt like I’d used the best stuff, so that album was basically written from scratch. I’m trying to think of how long we had to do it, actually. It didn’t feel like a rush at the time. The only thing I remember was that, when I first started writing it, I got my first serious case of writer’s block.

Ugh.

I guess it was because I had so much to live up to with the first album, and I just wouldn’t finish anything, because I felt like it was all rubbish. But I somehow convinced myself, “Look, if you just finish stuff, just finish it, then at least you’ll be moving forward.” And when I decided that I was just going to finish it, that’s when it kind of started to work again, and it slowly came together…thank God! (Laughs)

I understand that “Second Summer Of Love” barely existed as a song and actually had to be extended to make it into a single.

Yeah. It was kind of a joke, really. I actually remember writing it. We were in my girlfriend at the time’s apartment, and we were waiting to do a bunch of phone interviews, I think it was, so we all had to be in one place. It was kind of a long, boring day, and I basically went out to the store around the corner to get some stuff, and it honestly just wrote itself in my head between the house and the store. I went back, grabbed a guitar, and scribbled it down. And it was honestly just a laugh, a bit of a joke. A few friends of ours were getting into that acid house scene at the time, and Kit was born in 1967, which was the first Summer of Love, and we’d just been joking about his birthday and…I don’t know, I just wrote it as a one-minute joke. But the label heard it, and they were, like, “This is your single!” And we’re going, “How in the hell are we going to double the length of this?” (Laughs) And, so, we added that harmonica solo!

It seemed as though Virgin tried everything in their power to make a hit out of that album. I mean, there were something like five singles released from that album between the UK and States.

(And if you’d like to hear them, here they are!)

* “I Can’t Wait”
* “If Everything You Said Was True”
* “Never Gonna Be The Same”
* “If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go)”

Yeah, absolutely. Virgin were really great at that time, and, y’know, we didn’t really fit what was on the radio at any time. We kind of got lucky with “Mary’s Prayer,” in the sense that it just happened to fit, whereas the records were pretty eclectic. And Virgin, even though they loved the band and loved the stuff, they obviously had trouble at radio. It didn’t fit with what was going on.

When I was over in the UK, I actually managed to find a copy of the multi-disc Sweet Danny Wilson compilation, so I came to love the band’s versions of “Kooks” and ABBA’s “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” In fact, I actually heard your version of “Kooks” years before I ever heard Bowie’s.

Oh, did you really? I loved the Bowie version since I was a kid. Hunky Dory was one of my super-landmark albums, and I still kind of use that as a kind of reference point. I used it for Ferras. He’d never heard it before we were working on his album. That one goes way back for me. (Laughs) And that version was done at a small studio in Dundee. We just did it as a fun B-side kind of a thing, but it was really good fun that day.

So who did Danny Wilson view as their peers, as far as the music you were putting out, who did you feel was putting out the same kind of music?

You mean contemporaries?

Yeah.

(Sighs) There wasn’t really anyone. We always felt like we were slightly out of time, because the people that we loved kind of came from another era. They were either the Bacharach & David ’60s kind of stuff, or the obvious Steely Dan reference, or…I was a huge Stevie Wonder and David Bowie fan. But at the time…? I don’t know. There weren’t that many. We didn’t fit in with anyone, really. Even the sort of Scottish scene of bands, like Deacon Blue, Hue & Cry, and Love & Money, I don’t think we really sounded like any of them.

When I listen to Danny Wilson, I often think of Prefab Sprout.

Oh, that’s a great example, actually. Prefab Sprout were probably the only group at the time where I actually thought, “Well, that’s not so dissimilar from the ground we’re trying to cover.” I was a huge fan, and Steve McQueen is still one of my favorite records. And I also felt a kinship with the Blue Nile, who also seemed to exist in their own timezone, regardless of what was playing on the radio at the time. I adore their records as well.

So when you went to do your solo album, Ten Short Songs About Love, in 1993, you were still pretty much working with Ged and Kit, at least to a certain extent.

Yeah. But Kit’s my brother, and Ged and I are, like, best friends from way back. I think Ten Short Songs is the Danny Wilson album that I wanted to make, and the guys…well, part of the reason that the band split up was that they had started writing, and so when we got to the point where we were trying to choose songs for what would have been the third Danny Wilson album, instead of being able to write the album as I had done before, I was now kind of inundated with tons of songs, and it turned into a difficult situation, because it was, like, “We don’t like all of them, we don’t want to sing them,” and so on. And so Kit’s suggestion to that was that he wanted to make a solo record. In fact, he went to see the A&R people at Virgin, who basically said, “No, you’re contracted to do another Danny Wilson album.” That kind of didn’t sit well with him. He wanted to leave. And, basically, I thought that the band would be just so different without him, so much weaker…not necessarily musicianship-wise, but he was kind of a really good force just in terms of ideas and the flavor of things. And I just felt that, with just me and Ged, it would be a completely different thing. So I decided that was the time to call it a day. We were still friends, but the songs that I had started to prepare for the third Danny Wilson album basically became Ten Short Songs.

Well, I will tell you that it was a tremendous struggle to hunt down a copy of the CD back in the days before internet shopping was a regular thing.

Yeah, it was never released here. I remember at the time doing meetings here with record labels, and the reaction was quite simply that there were no singles on it that fit in with any radio format that existed. (Laughs) It fell between the cracks.

* “We Sail On The Stormy Waters” (Ten Short Songs About Love)
* “Freefloating” (Ten Short Songs About Love)
* “Make A Family” (Ten Short Songs About Love)

And a few years ago, when I was on my honeymoon in the UK, I managed to hunt down a copy of Great Day for Gravity, the album by King L, which was you, Eric Pressly, Neill MacColl, and Matt Laug. I really enjoyed it. How was the experience for you?

Well, it was kind of…I was still under the same deal that I had with Virgin after Ten Short Songs, and looking back on it, I think I was so disappointed in the sales of Ten Short Songs that I just needed to rip it up and start again. (Laughs) And the thing that I hadn’t been doing…’cause all of those records were really made with a small group of people in studios with overdubs and blah, blah, blah. I just missed that thing of standing with a live band in a room, and that was kind of the trigger for what became King L, you know? It started as sessions where I’d bring in musicians to try and cut tracks live, which we did, and when I found my kind of favorite players, it developed into a band thing. It seemed obvious to get the sound, and the band was great live as well, though… (Laughs) …hardly anyone ever saw us! But it was a good band. It was a reaction, I guess, to what was going on at the time.

* “Life After You” Great Day for Gravity
* “First Man On The Sun” Great Day for Gravity

And then King L more or less evolved into Transister?

Yeah, that was interesting. What happened, really, was that the label dropped King L. King L sold even less…by quite a long shot…than Ten Short Songs, and the label dropped me and, therefore, dropped the band as well. And Eric, who was in King L, is from L.A., had four weeks left on his work visa, and in the process of working a lot in the UK with King L, he had met and fallen in love with Keely (Hawkes). And he basically said, “With these four weeks that I have left, how do you feel about writing some songs and producing some tracks so that I can try and get Keely a record deal?” And I said, “Sure.” It sounded like fun, and I needed the distraction from the misery of being dropped. So we just went into my studio and did the first four or five tracks in that four weeks, and Eric went back to the States. And a friend of a friend played it to Chris Douridas, who’s a radio DJ in California and, at the time, had the morning show on KCRW. It was a pretty free show called “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” so he could play demos and stuff, and that’s where he started to play the Transister demos…before we were even Transister! (Laughs) And it kind of got the record companies interested again…including Virgin, who had just dropped us, which was funny. And at the time, it was kind of a, “Whoa, this thing’s kind of taking off,” and my initial job was producer / songwriter, and in some ways, I wish I had kept it at that! But at the time, I was persuaded to sort of jump on board and join the band…and that was a whole lot of jumping! But that album (Transister) and the Lauren Christy album…and I don’t know if you’ve heard that, but I did this album with Lauren Christy…was kind of the beginning of me starting to do what I do now, which is write and produce for other people.

* “Look Who’s Perfect Now” Transister
* “Dizzy Moon” Transister
* “Head” Transister
* “Flow” Transister

Stay tuned for the second part of my conversation with Mr. Clark, in which we discuss his work with artists like Ferras, Demi Lovato, Liz Phair, Swan Dive, and members of the Spice Girls and Take That.

This first song is the Bat Boys’ version of the Batman theme song. This really isn’t too bad, with a nice swinging organ solo.

Batman Theme

I hope you liked the previous song because, despite the name Batman and all the sound effects on the album cover, absolutely nothing else on this album is remotely Batman related! There’s not even any name checking in the song titles. What the songs I picked from this album do have in common, though, is that they’re jazzed-up versions of classical tunes. The first, “Uppercut Blues,” borrows heavily from “Flight of the Bumblebee” (which was actually the Green Hornet’s theme song). The titles of these songs seem to be pretty random. You can maybe imagine people punching each other while listening to this song, but there’s nothing bluesy about the song at all!

Uppercut Blues

If you watched The Ed Sullivan Show, you might remember the song “Saber Dance.” It was used a lot for death-defying acts like the Flying Wallendas and people who juggled swords. This is the basis for the song “It’s Murder!” This doesn’t have much to do with the Batman show either, since I don’t think anybody ever got murdered on the show. Jill St. John fell into the Batcave’s atomic pile and Catwoman fell to her supposed death a number of times, but that was the closest they got.

It’s Murder!

The last song featured here, “Mars Visitor,” is based on the song “Funeral March for a Marionette,” probably best known as the theme to Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I know that whenever I think of little green men from Mars, Hitchcock is the first person that comes to mind!

Mars Visitor

If you’d like to hear the rest of this album, which contains more jazzy instrumentals that have little to do with Batman and less to do with their song titles, you can get it here!

Why, then, choose “Above the Storm”? Indulge me, for a moment:

A week from tomorrow, I will have been a parent for ten years. That milestone and a recent event in my extended family got me thinking about perfectionism and parenthood, and how the twain never, ever meet. Oh, sure, I’ve had my moments. Like the time when Dylan was small and suffering from an ear infection, when I rocked him to sleep and, with that sleep, provided him some modicum of relief. I also felt pretty good recently, when he proudly showed off his new copy of the Guinness Book of World Records by showing me the entry for the woman with the world’s biggest breasts. He did this in front of his aftercare attendant, who proceeded to give him no small amount of grief before I took her aside and explained to her that the only thing funnier to a nine-year-old than boobs are farts, and if the Guinness Book of World Records could have passed gas, that’s what he would have shown me.

Truth of the matter is, I’ve screwed up, many times. All parents do. I’m going to do it again, probably as soon as I leave my office, and if not then, certainly in the next 24 hours. I’ve yelled when I should have been calm; chastised when I should have instructed; turned down an activity when I should have participated; let him down in several small ways that only occur to a parent after the fact.We forgive the minor offenses of our parents as we get older; things that to a young boy or girl appear unforgivable are eventually reconciled and/or forgotten. We let go. We move on. We pray our children do the same, much as our parents were able to let go of their own parents’ downfalls and dust-ups. Forgiving the little stuff helps when it’s time to forgive the big stuff, the real lifetime-of-resentment bile that can sit in your throat for years, bubbling up and burning you when you least expect it. To let go is to take control of your hurt, even your hatred, setting it aside in an effort to cleanse yourself, make yourself whole again. The best way to retaliate is to live the best, cleanest life you can.

My father, the only hero I’ve ever had (except for Joe Walsh, when I’m really drunk), had a profoundly contentious relationship with his parents, who never seemed to quite muster love or support for him. With virtually nothing and no one to use as a model, he became a husband and father, building from within himself — and himself only –  the capacity to love, to teach, and to care for his wife and kids.

It is his example I use when I consider the job I have done as a father this last decade. I can imagine no better man to use as a role model, or a measuring stick.

What does this have to do with Jim Peterik? “Above the Storm” states, in very simple terms, the hope all parents have as they show love for and struggle to protect their kids. Using a child’s fear of storms as a metaphor, Peterik’s words offer comfort and a promise of safety:

The sun’s gonna shine
The rain will stop
The healing wind’s gonna fill your heart
My love will keep you safe and warm
Little one, I’ll carry you above the storm.

Granted, there’s not much power in this here ballad — the strings and background vocals ooh-ing and ahh-ing hint not even a bit at the dynamics and bombast the man typically has at his command.  Air Supply would blush at these production values; the song kinda makes Graham Russell look like a badass.  There’s no hairspray or fire or codpieces or leather jackets or groveling or groupies or paeans to life on the road.

It’s gooey and sentimental, just like I get when I see this:

Happy birthday, Dylan. And thank you, Dad.

Now, where were we?

Oh, that’s right: we were chatting with the one and only Francis Reader, frontman for the Trashcan Sinatras. If you tuned in last week (and you really should have, you know), then you’re already aware that the conversation between Frank and myself was one that was a little freewheeling in its form, but the end result seems to be well appreciated by fans of the band…and, indeed, by members of the band. Our own David Medsker spoke with Paul Livingston a few days later – look for that interview on Bullz-Eye.com in the very near future – and remarked that I really seemed to have caught Mr. Reader in a talkative mood. Well, all I can tell you is that the decision to make it less of an interview and more of a conversation seems to have worked in my favor, and I’m glad that it seems to be going over well. Now, mind you, I did hear from one friend of mine who, after praising the piece, noted that it perhaps wasn’t the kind of interview that the band’s manager would want, given that there was zero mention of the band’s latest album, In the Music.

What luck, then, that there’s quite a bit of chat about the record in the second and final part of our conversation.

Popdose: So what’s Davy Hughes’ status with the band? Did he drop out? Did he just not want to participate anymore?

Frank Reader: Well, Davy’s still involved, but he’s…you know, he’s got a family, and it’s just not the kind of thing, really, where you can give your all your time to it when you’ve got a family and kids to support. Neither me or Paul or Steven or John have got kids, and although three of us are married, John’s married to another musician, and me and Paul are married to very understanding, beautiful women. (Laughs) For Davy, it was just a case where we had to work out a different way of having him involved, and that was…what we kind of do now is that we keep in touch, obviously, and every now and again, he’ll say, “You know, I managed to get ten minutes’ peace from the kids…” (Laughs) “…and I sat down and did a bit of writing, and here it is. If there’s anything you can do with it, do something with it.” So he contributed to In the Music in that way. And it’s great, because it feels good to have him involved, because he’s a touchstone in my life. He was there in the very beginning, although he didn’t play on Cake. He was actually playing with us once or twice before we made an album – when we were just doing covers, he was around then – so it’s good to have involved. It’s kind of “once a Trashcan, always a Trashcan” with him, you know? (Laughs) And the keyboard player we have, Stevie, has been with us off and on since ‘95, so he’s more permanent now, too.

With In the Music, I have to ask: how did Carly Simon come to appear on “Should I Pray?“

Well, we recorded part of it in Martha’s Vineyard at Andy Chase’s, and he was virtually a next-door neighbor of hers, so he knows her and her friends. I think that’s right. I’m trying to remember the relationships and the way the jigsaw goes together. He invited a couple of her friends over, and she wasn’t around, but we’d obviously said, “Can Carly come to the house?” And he said that she was out of town but that he was going to invite a couple of her friends. And we said, “Well, that’s close enough. We can talk to them about Carly Simon!” (Laughs) But we got on well with her friends, and they promised to give her a CD, so we gave her a couple of songs and a couple of ideas, and we wrote her a note with it, just basically saying how much we admired her, especially the No Secrets album. That was one of John’s favorites. And I think “You’re So Vain” was the first song I ever remember hearing, actually, so I waxed a little bit about that. It was all stuff that I’m sure she’s heard before, but much to our surprise, she got in touch with Andy after we left and she said that she loved one of the songs and asked if she could try doing a backing vocal on it. She was very gracious about it and very not at all pushy. She was very…I got the feeling that wasn’t completely sure of herself, which is a trait I always like in people. So she did some tracks, some recording with Andy over one of the songs. We never actually met, though. We were obviously just totally thrilled to have her involved. It’s a great, great honor to have her do something like that.

I understand that “Oranges and Apples” was inspired by Syd Barrett. Even without listening to the song, that certainly makes sense to me, given that I’m familiar with his early Pink Floyd single, “Apples and Oranges.”

Oh, you know “Apples and Oranges”?

Absolutely. I’m a big Barrett fan.

Oh, cool! Well, what had happened is that…well, he had died, obviously… (Laughs) …and we had been reading all about it, and there were all of the articles and the tributes, but a lot of them had been focusing on how he was an acid casualty, and…you probably know Boo Hewerdine, right?

Sure, from The Bible.

Yeah, and he plays a lot with my sister and John as well. Well, Boo’s a Cambridge man, and he was telling John that he often saw Syd around, and he always thought that Syd looked really happy. In fact, Boo actually helped him when he fell off his bike in front of him. Syd fell off his bike, and Boo helped him back on. And John started thinking about it in terms of how people like to focus on the idea of Syd Barrett and that he was a casualty because of that period of his life in the late ’60s, but you can have another perspective on his life if you read the stories from people who knew him. His sister, particularly. He was quite at peace and he was enjoying himself, and he was very, very creative still, just in a different, non-pop way. John, who’s the main writer of that song, his idea was to try and kind of write something focusing on that side of him, you know? Focusing on the positive side of actually being Syd Barrett and living your life day to day. And I think sometimes that, when people die like that, the whole story sort of falls into place in your mind. It’s no longer an open-ended story, so you can reflect on it then. It’s a lot like what people are doing right now with Michael Jackson.

We’ve always been fans of Syd, and I think that came out in the end. We knew exactly what John was talking about when he brought it in, and we had great fun getting that kind of soundscape together. We just played for hours and hours and hours, going around all of those chords, stoned out of our heads, but putting it all together…it all came together rather magically. And then the City Wakes people in Cambridge were organizing a two-week festival in tribute to Syd, with art, photography, films, and, of course, music, and we asked them if we could donate the song to the Mental Health Trust as a single, because we’d already mixed it by that point. And the proceeds, as much or as meager as they may have been, it still felt good to be involved with it. And Storm Thorgerson, he did the sleeve for it, too. So it was just a great…well, it was like the Carly Simon thing: it was great for us. We were so pleased. You open one door, and you don’t really know where it’s going to lead you, and the next thing you know, you’ve got the guy who did the Dark Side of the Moon sleeve doing your sleeve. (Laughs) And we’ll always have that! It’s the little things in life that keep you going.

Absolutely.

So it’s just been great, you know? The whole album’s been a great experience, as far as all that’s gone. It was lovely to be able to pay tribute to someone like Syd like that. We’ve always been more Syd than Roger, ourselves, and understood about the fragility of people like that. We kind of feel an empathy to him more than we do… (Starts singing) “Money!” (Laughs) All that stuff with public schoolboys whining about money. But we love Floyd.

My introduction to Syd Barrett was all hosed up. I discovered Robyn Hitchcock first, then through him I found Syd Barrett…and, then, my first Barrett album wasn’t even a proper album. It was Opel.

Oh, right, which was…was that the last one he made?

It was kind of an odds-and-sods collection.

Right. Yeah, right around 1991, we had Pete Jenner as a manager for about a year, and, of course, he was Syd’s manager while he was the Floyd’s manager. And when the band split and Syd was forced out, he obviously thought, “Well, Syd’s the guy to go with!” And he managed him all through The Madcap Laughs and right up to the point where he left and gave up making music. He was an interesting person to talk to about that, because he was so old-school business. He was still very much in the Allen Klein kind of vibe…but without the violence, probably. He was very much, like, “Just get it done! Get in the studio, and a few years later, you should have a hit single.” And we were, like, “Yeah, but it takes us six months to write one song, and even then we’ll want to start again!” So it was a bit of a mismatch, but it was interesting to get close to someone like that, who managed in that way and who knew someone so luminous in our lives. He was Billy Bragg’s manager at the time, and I think he managed Eddi, too. But after us, actually, I think. We had a bit of a connection there, too. I haven’t heard much Robyn Hitchcock, actually. I always think I’ll get round to kind of listening to some Robyn Hitchcock, but other than what I’ve heard in passing, I don’t know his stuff at all.

I should make you a Best of Robyn Hitchcock disc.

Yeah! I’d really like to hear some of that stuff.

Really? Hey, if you want one, I’ll make you one. I mean, I literally have all of his albums, so it wouldn’t be hard to put one together.

Yeah, whatever you think is the best. That’d be cool!

Okay, you asked for it!

Well, I like all of those gentle Englishmen. (Laughs)

I’ve done a couple of interviews with him, and he’s a really nice guy, always very interesting to talk with.

Yeah, he’s one of those guys who I’ve heard talk more than I’ve actually heard his music, but he’s always more than just a talking head. His perspective always seems to be a bit above the cliche and the rabble. I think we had some friends in common at one point. Tim Keegan was playing with him for awhile, wasn’t he?

He was.

We’ve had a lot of friends like that. The Blue Aeroplanes, he played with them.

Oh, sure, I remember them. Particularly “Jacket Hangs.”

Yeah, “Jacket Hangs,” and “…And Stones” was a cracker of a song. We would meet a lot of these bands on tour, you know. I remember Gerard from the Blue Aeroplanes being a sweet, sweet guy, taking us for a walk around historic Bristol after the gig. You don’t always want to just sit down and have a few beers after a show, and he said, “Come on, I’ll show you some architecture.” (Laughs) Okay, fair enough! So, yeah, lovely people.

Well, I’ve only got a couple more for you, because I’ve already talked your ear off…and vice versa! (Laughs) But I was wondering how you came to hook up with Andy Chase in the first place. I know he helped to mix Weightlifting, but how did that come about?

He came through our Japanese publisher. He’d worked with, I think, Tahiti 80, it was. You know that mob? They’re French. And we had heard his production…not his music, but his production. I think he was just getting started in production roundabout when we first heard his name, in ‘98 or something. So our publishers in Japan had wanted us to consult with the guy from Tahiti 80, because they’re always trying to push you into doing, like, songwriting. We have enough trouble getting ourselves together! But the name “Andy” stuck around, and when Weightlifting was being made, which was our first album in eight years, we sat down in front of the mixing desk, and we were, like, “We don’t actually know what the hell we’re doing here! We haven’t the faintest idea how to mix a record!” I mean, it takes practice. You have to keep your hand in, and we hadn’t done it. So we sent him a tape of a couple of songs, ’cause we knew that he was interested and really wanted to do it, and that that he liked the band a lot. So we asked him to mix a track for free. And he’s a canny soul, so it took a bit of persuading, but he did it, and he sent us a copy of a song, “All the Dark Horses.” No, he did two. He also did “Leave Me Alone.” So he sent them to us, and we just thought they sounded terrible. We were actually kind of smug about it, how we were right not to have that guy. “We’ve made the right decision!” (Laughs) We were kind of happy about it! And then we went back to try and mix it, and we had gotten an engineer friend, but we ended up somewhat mixing it ourselves…just kind of pushing faders up randomly, basically. And then we thought we had a great, great mix of “All the Dark Horses.” But just on a whim, Paul and I, after listening to our mix and seeing how great it was, we put on Andy’s…and it just blew ours out of the water. It was, like, “Fuck, we’d better phone that guy back!” So we phoned him back, and we were saying, “Look, we’re really sorry about that. I don’t know what we were thinking, but we really love the mixes now, actually.” It just sort of came to us what was there and what he was doing. It’s very strange and hard to explain how you can hear the same thing in one environment and it doesn’t sound the same as in another, or at another time of the day or in another headspace. But he was very gracious about that, and he kind of said, “Ah, I thought you’d be back with your tail between your legs!” (Laughs) So we got involved, and he was always a saint when we went over to do the mixing in New York, John, Paul, and I. He’d often say, “I wish I could’ve had this record from the start. I really want to try and make a record with you guys.” And when we got In the Music together, we had a short list of producers…and my choice was Barry Gibb. And I wasn’t even high! I really wanted Barry Gibb to do it! (Laughs) I don’t know why I came up with that idea. Maybe it’s one for the next album.

Hey, I’m behind you. I’m a big Bee Gees fan.

Yeah, so you know what I mean, then! I just love the man. He’s one of my all-time heroes, and he’s very underrated as an arranger and producer, I think, though not by me, and I’m sure not by you, either. But Andy Chase was really glad to be involved, and he has a studio in New York, of course, so we were all up for the adventure of trying it. So we had some songs, and we did a little back-and-forth with E-mail and MP3s and demos, and he helped us along, and after about six months of that, we thought we were ready to all go over. And that was a big leap for us to do that, to gather all the money we’d got and take six people over to New York. That’s not an easy or cheap thing to do. But, thankfully, we got there and the set-up was fantastic. Andy and his really amazing engineer, Rudyard, had a great sound going from the start. Andy was a little cautious. I think he’s a bit…well, it’s like I was saying about building records up a bit studio-precise, and the records that you make from scratch are like that. He uses quite a bit of machinery. It’s well-managed and I think for the most part that he keeps it in mind that if he wants to retain the soul of something, but he still uses a lot more machinery than, for instance, a band like us would use.

But he was a bit wary of our ideas because, by this point, we had been rehearsing a lot in Glasgow, and I had kind of conceptualized the album as being one that we would do completely live, maybe apart from the singing. Again, I think he kind of nodded his head and said, “Yeah, right, we’ll see.” But we went in and we did the music, and we took an extra guitarist with us, a friend of ours from Kilmarnock, so we could try and do it all live. And the very first night, we did In the Music, and it just sounded like a record. It was, like, “Wow, this is fantastic!” And we did that for about one and a half weeks, got all the tracks down, and for the rest of the time, we played internet poker, did a few overdubs, and watched him on the computer, chopping up files. I don’t know what he was doing, but, basically, it was done in a week and a half.

Wow.

It was great! It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. It was the way we had to make this record, and he was surprised that the sound was so good straight away. That won him over to the idea of us doing it live. We’d been able to capture it. We’ve got those twenty years of experience, you know, so it’s something that we should use to our advantage! It was something we had to do, though, because there was the element of sense in the band that we couldn’t really make an album like Weightlifting again. We couldn’t, like, “Right, that’s the drums down, let’s get the bass down, and, Paul, let’s get a guitar sound together.” It wasn’t really interesting to us anymore to do it like that. The excitement of sitting in the chair next to the producer had kind of worn off. Now, the excitement was sitting in the room and making the big, soupy noise and just getting lost in it. That was the excitement for us. There are plenty of 16-year-old guys in bands who start off making music like that, but our time and our experience was different. Our time and experience was a more separate recording fashion, and it took us a long time to come around to the best way of doing stuff. (Pauses) Excuse me, Will, it’s my wife. She’s just come in. (Leans away from the phone for a moment to address his wife and make sure she’s well, then explains to her that he’s just doing an interview and will be finished momentarily) So, yeah, Andy was a great facilitator for that, and very organized as well.

Well, I’ll officially start the wrapping-up process, but…are there any songs that fans should not expect to hear during the upcoming tour?

That depends on the fan, I think. (Laughs) You know, when we were making this record, I was thinking, “You know, I could see a lot of Trashcan fans not really being into this kind of thing,” and it’s been borne out, but there’s not really anything we can do about that. The Cake stuff really isn’t…we have to feel it. Sometime maybe some of those songs will talk to us again, but at the moment, a lot of them don’t, and we’re really only interested in playing songs that excite us and interest us, so I would say that if you went along thinking that you were going to hear “Who’s He,” you would probably be disappointed. And that would go all of the first album, probably. I don’t know, it’s just that…I’m over 40 now. I’m 43, and some of that stuff was done when I was 22. And it’s not just me. There are five people in the band, and I think Paul would’ve gladly stopped doing Cake stuff in, like, 1992 or something. (Laughs) He’s been a trouper, I’ll have to say that for him. He’s been a real trouper about that. But I’ve noticed that a lot of people who haven’t really responded to this record very well have been the kind of people that like the kind of Trashcan music that *I* don’t like anymore or that I’ve never really felt comfortable with. When you’ve got three or four songwriters in the band and you’re working in a collective way, that’s always going to be that way. There’s always going to be a little bit of where you’re doing things for your friends sometimes. Like, “Okay, John really believes in this, and I love John, so I’m going to give it my all,” you know? And vice versa them for us. But that doesn’t mean that, on a Wednesday night in Manchester, you feel like getting out there and doing it. And with one or two of our songs, it’s been like that, and those have been the ones that have kind of died away, but we’ve got a catalog of about a hundred songs that were recorded, and we’re really, really proud of all of them for what they are, but most of them we’re still keen on, which is nice. And, again, our collective songwriting team is what’s really helped us stay interested. I think very few bands with single songwriters last more than a couple of albums and do anything of any real interest. If you think about it, all of the big bands who’ve managed to sustain themselves for more than ten years and are still making great records…you throw in your U2, R.E.M., the Beatles, even…have at least two songwriters, sometimes three. The only bands that have sustained on the basis of one songwriter that I can think of are the Kinks and the Who. Maybe you can think of more. But I think it’s helped, because…oh, Radiohead, there’s another example. There’s too much for one person to take on. It’ll burn you out! (Laughs) That’s why bands like Coldplay make one great, great record, and the rest of them are, like, “Well, so what?”

Well, that’ll do it for me, then, Frank.

That’s actually good, because I have to go! (Laughs) We’re just dashing off. But it was nice speaking to you, and let us know if you’re at one of the shows!

As people eat more meals outside the home, they consume more calories, less fiber, and more fat. Commodity prices have fallen so low that the fast food industry has greatly increased its portion sizes, without reducing profits, in order to attract customers. The size of a burger has become one of its main selling points. Wendy’s offers the Triple Decker; Burger King, the Great American; and Hardee’s sells a hamburger called the Monster. The Little Caesars slogan “Big! Big!” now applies not just to the industry’s portions, but to its customers. Over the past forty years in the United States, per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks has more than quadrupled. During the late 1950s the typical soft drink order at a fast food restaurant contained about eight ounces of soda; today a “Child” order of Coke at McDonald’s is twelve ounces. A “Large” Coke is thirty-two ounces-and about 310 calories. In 1972, McDonald’s added Large French Fries to its menu; twenty years later, the chain added Super Size Fries, a serving three times larger than what McDonald’s offered a generation ago. Super Size Fries have 610 calories and 29 grams of fat. At Carl’s Jr. restaurants, an order of CrissCut Fries and a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger boasts 73 grams of fat — more fat than ten of the chain’s milk shakes.

–from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Michael McDonald – “It Keeps You Runnin’”

Placebo – “Burger Queen”

Concrete Blonde – “Tomorrow, Wendy”

Carl Dobkins, Jr. – “For Your Love”

Ice Cube – “Jack N the Box”

Semisonic – “Closing Time”

Phoenix – “Rally”

The Smithereens – “Whitecastle Blues”

Iced Out Eskimoz – “Whataburger”

Bon Jovi – “In and Out of Love”

Morrissey – “You’re the One for Me, Fatty”

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Last week most voters appeared to abstain, as Regina Spektor’s Samson took home a weak victory with a 42 percent plurality of the vote. Join us again next week as we pay tribute to the World Series of Poker main event with songs about gambling.

“A fatal stone there was which, cunningly made, could be raised from below the step of the altar in the little Christian temple we discerned from the gallery; beneath that stone one behld a spiral stairway, very narrow and very steep, whose three hundred steps could convey you down into the bowels of the earth, to a kind of vaulted dungeon, closed by triple doors of iron, and in which was displayed everything the cruelest art and the most refined barbarity could invent of the most atrocious, as much for gripping one with terror as for proceeding to horrors.”

—the Marquis de Sade, 120 Days of Sodom

Iron Maiden – “Cross-Eyed Mary”

Catherine Wheel – “Show Me Mary”

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Last week the favorite, Don McLean, made mincemeat of the competition, as “American Pie” took at least three times as many votes as anything else. Join us again next week as we tackle the subject of mail-order products.