HEALTH “USA BOYS”
(From DISCO2 out now on Lovepump United)

I can’t help but find humor in the fact that HEALTH might not be where they are today without the alley-oop of Crystal Castles’ “Crimewave” remix. That remix, along with tracks by Nosaj Thing and others on 2008’s DISCO, was a mostly successful attempt to bring the heady and abrasive sonic language of HEALTH to the dance scene. While a quarter of the same producers was brought on board for DISCO2, the second time around is a less electro and more chillwave/ambient endeavor (if I hear another electro remix!!!). While there are no tracks with the same immediacy as “Crimewave,” DISCO2 is a better album overall. Javelin’s ’80s re-envisioning of “In Heat” is a perfect summer jam with vintage slap basslines and synth marimba. Tobacco’s (of Black Moth Super Rainbow success) remix stands out with his recognizable prog synth. Then Blindoldfreak slays “Before Tigers” with a gorgeous ambient noise rendition—a truly epic and memorable way to close out the collection.

—Isaac Takeuchi

(From the self-titled LP out now on In the Red)

W Lion are punk at its irreducible minimum. That’s tons of fun because these songs shoot right through you; they’re that close to pure white light. “Degobah” rips, new “Carol Cloud” rips, new “Pony People” even tops the original classic by one fun percentage point. (If you like D chords and G chords as deployed by every much-loved lurcher from 1975-1979, believe me, you will D-G very much of this album.) But they’ve also got this barely there despair that comes from leaving so much unsaid. “The Twilight Zone” was great at this— remember the episode where the Navy guys hear faint tapping coming from the sub sunk twenty years before? That’s Lion—is something ALIVE down there? “Silver People” does it all: “Young people/speaking their minds/Coors Light/turning it loose/tonight!” approaches Flipper’s “Ha Ha Ha” for post-suburban nihilism, and that’s a big but neglected part what Lion does. Lot of V.U. here, lot of Clean, lot of Devo but lot of Flipper’s disgust and rage in here, too. Like the man says: “Who cares anyway? Who listens to what I say? This songs rhymes and we play it in tiiiiiiiiiiiime!” Screemin’ guitar solos on here, too.

—Chris Ziegler

Sammy Davis Jr. once called Merle Haggard the greatest country singer since Hank Williams. Haggard was in the audience—as an inmate—during three of Johnny Cash’s performances at San Quentin. He recently released I Am What I Am, his 76th album. We spoke to him as he was driving to his cabin in far-northern California with his wife in the front seat telling him not to forget Jesus. This interview by Daiana Feuer & Gerard Olson.

What is it like having your 17-year-old son touring with you?
It’s very complimentary. It’s inspiring. It makes me very proud. It makes my wife very proud. He’s not there because he’s my son. He’s there because he’s a great guitar player.
Your shows usually don’t have much of a set list—do you ever pull out songs he doesn’t know
No. He’s able to play songs he doesn’t know. He’s like working with a fully trained musician.
What is your reading on the current political situation? You wrote a song called ‘Hopes Are High’ as Obama was about to take his oath of office—how do you feel about him nowadays?
I chose to stay out of politics because I was so disappointed in the first six months. So … that’s all I want to say. Do you feel like there’s hope for the future?
Like I say, I’m just going to stay out of politics. I don’t have any wise words for anybody. I’m choosing to stay out of it.
If there was a lesson you were going to pass on to a younger generation so they didn’t have to wait their whole lives to find it out, what would you pass on?
Honesty. Above all—honesty and being faithful to what you believe in.
Theresa Haggard: And Jesus. And Jesus!
Did you end up installing 100-acres of solar panels at your house?
Yeah … the numbers don’t work out. If I was 30 years old, it’d be a great project. The numbers just don’t work out for a guy my age. It’s a good thing—if you’ve got 30 years to spend, it might be reasonable. But it’s not reasonable for me. It’s always been my desire—since I was 20 years old—to be somewhere off the grid. Somewhere self-sufficient—depending on no one for my existence.
In what ways have you achieved that?
We live in a place where there’s fish and there’s wildlife and there’s all kinds of things to eat, should we have to resort to that. But, mainly, we could be off grid at this moment. I’m pretty happy with it. I have a family and I just trust in Jesus.
What keeps you still wanting to be an entertainer then? It seems like those two things would be separate. Leading a self-sufficient life as opposed to going on the road, doing shows, entertaining people and needing to present yourself to them?
You’ve got to shift gears, don’t you? Well, that’s exactly what I have to do when I go on the road. I shift gears and go into that mode. And when I come home, I try to get back into the fatherly mode and the grandfather mode. The mode of family first.
Do you think you’ll ever give up music?
I hope I’ll always be able to do it. It keeps me younger. It keeps me healthy. It’s like screaming, you know. If you get up there and holler for an hour, you’ll feel better. So it’s good for my health. I’ll do it as long as I can.
Are there any contemporary musicians that you enjoy listening to?
I listen to very little of these things that are new. I have my favorites, I guess. Taylor Swift kind of knocks me out because she pisses everybody else off. I like her cuz she writes her songs. I like Joe Nichols. I like that little fat kid that sings with the—what the hell’s the name? Rascal Flatts. I like them.
You’ve said that Iris DeMent and Jimmie Rodgers do the same thing—they love the song so much that they get lost in the song, and you can see it in their eyes.
They’re both what I call lifers. You can like them or dislike them, but they’re here to stay. They’re not going to leave the business because they do a bad show. They’re here forever because they’re meant to be what they are. There seems to be a difference between people who just sing songs and perform to entertain and people who do it because they have to because they can’t do anything else. That’s probably true with the people you mentioned. Jimmie Rodgers was ill. He was too sick to be a railroad worker.
You escaped from seventeen correctional institutions by the time you were 21. How’d you find the best way to break out of prison?
Well, God—I can hardly remember. It seems so long ago. Things were different then—they weren’t as completely secure as they are now. It was easier to do. And I didn’t want to stay in prison. And I didn’t feel like I deserved to be in prison. So I didn’t stay there. And I escaped. My idol at that time was Willie Sutton. He was an escape artist and a hero of the world. He was my idol and I was going to try to out-escape him.
How did you get away with brewing beer in prison? What did you use?
Well, the prison is like a little city. There’s a kitchen, you know, and all the essential necessities are found there in the kitchen to make the beer. It was no big problem.
What’s the earliest memory from your career that you still hold on to?
You know, I’m still living in today, yesterday and tomorrow. About a three day period. Outside that little bubble, I’d be kind of drinking my own bath water if I spent much time outside that.
What is your best drinking song?
It’d have to be ‘This Bottle Let Me Down.’
What’s your drink these days?
I like to drink George Dickel whisky. It’s a Tennessee mash. It’s what I drink. I don’t drink much of anything, but when I do drink I don’t mess around with beer. Get straight to the point and water back.
Why do you think hearing a sad song makes someone happy?
I don’t know. I’m just the guy that writes the song. I don’t know why people like them. I wish you knew. If you knew the answer to that, I’d ask you. It’s about connecting to something that’s separate from you. It makes you feel that there’s other people out there that are real and feel things. Well, the subject matter is usually one word: love. And love is as big as the universe.
Your new album seems very much oriented around love. It’s very romantic in parts. Do you feel that you’re in a time of your life where you’re full of love?
I have a young wife and I’m taking her to the lake right now. I better be in love!
You said once that when you were growing up in America there was more choice than there is now. What did you mean?
Everything hadn’t been picked over like it is now. Everything’s picked over. There’s somebody living behind every tree. You have to go a long ways west in order to find anything that still resembles what was there 50 years ago. It’s changed and everything looks alike. Every off-ramp looks like the last off-ramp. There’s no character in anything like there used to be.
Have they really ‘outlawed fun’?
Maybe they just camouflaged it to a point where an old man like me don’t see it. It’s probably on the internet or something. I don’t see people out in the yard. I don’t see people gathered around a table playing cards. I see ’em all with some damn thing in front of their face, on their lap, wrapped up in something that I just don’t understand.
At the same time, people are interested in self-sufficiency—raising bees and making beer, listening to older music, as opposed to listening to more dispensable pop. People wish they could experience that time when there wasn’t a house behind every tree.
There’s no choice, though. This is just the way it is right now. The only chance you have of knowing what I’m talking about is if I explain it correctly. Or somebody else explains it.
Do you still get angry?
No. That’s the reason I’ve chosen to stay out of politics. I’m too old to get angry. So I might as well stay out of it.
By the way, how’s your dog?
My dog?
When we were supposed to have an interview on Friday, you had to take your dog to the hospital.
That’s right. We had a dog that lost its eye. We’re going to get it back today or tomorrow.
I hear you have a habit of picking up old dogs that are on their last legs.
They come to us. My family has a lot of love to give. My children enjoy helping things. We’ve got a long history of it and a lot of things to tell. In fact, you can write a book about that— about the children helping different animals. Birds. Ducks and turkeys. My wife giving up her time to keep a damn magpie alive. We live out in the wild and we don’t allow anybody to shoot out here or hunt—we have a virtual paradise where the animals are not afraid of us. They look to us for protection.
What’s the difference between the connection you make with animals as opposed to the one you make with humans? Why are you an animal lover?
Why am I an animal lover? Because I’m alive! Alive! [Laughs] Aren’t you an animal lover? I think most people that are red-blooded are animal lovers.
Is there one goal that you still would like to achieve in your lifetime, as a musician or as a person?
I’m just a songwriter and a husband and a messenger …
TH: A man of God. A man of God.
I’m an uncle and a grandpa and I am what I am.

MERLE HAGGARD’S I AM WHAT I AM IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM VANGUARD. VISIT MERLE HAGGARD AT MERLEHAGGARD.COM.

Download: The Slits “Ask Ma”

(from Trapped Animal out now on Narnack)

The Slits came up in a man’s world, overshadowed by their sloppy, destructive guy peers—but nevertheless they’ve left an imprint on the minds of many since the 1970s. We tried to break down reality with Ari Up & Tessa Pollitt. We went for full-on girl talk about boys, love, technology, the future, knitting, and girls pooping into each other’s mouths on the internet. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

Who initiated getting the Slits back together?
Tessa Pollitt (bass): It was very strange because I went to see Ari with her solo group, Ari Up & the True Warriors. And we had both been thinking that we would like to get the Slits back together at the same time. It was kind of quite spooky really. I saw her and I got really itchy to get back on stage again. We were both really thinking of the same thing at the same time.
What is the tie that binds you?
Tessa Pollitt: We grew up like sisters. I lived with her when she was 15. I left home when I was 16. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to have a roof over my head! We’ve lived quite parallel lives. Similar things have happened to us, even though we were apart for twenty years. We both lost the fathers of our children. We’re quite seriously linked. We both like the same music instinctively. There’s very few people I get on with. Me and Ari have a conflict sometimes and we’re quite opposite people in character but opposites attract, right? We both grew up with a strong Jamaican culture in England. In the ’70s, there was a lot of Jamaican culture in England because many Jamaicans came here in the ’50s to do all the jobs that English people were too lazy to do. We both admire the talent that comes from this one little island. And it’s not even the music, I swear, it’s the poetry, the dancing—it’s totally unique, Jamaica. There’s something about Jamaica that makes it like no other Caribbean island.
Me and a million girls learned to be non-‘typical girls’ from the Slits and all the lady punk groups. Do you feel that impact? Do you feel like a good example?
Tessa Pollitt: I would hope so. I have a daughter who is 25 now, and I think people from her generation are really inspired by us. Obviously they didn’t live through the time that we went through, and I think things have changed quite dramatically in a lot of ways—not just for women, but things have moved on. I do think we did change things slowly. Things have changed—not enough—but things have changed.
What has changed or what has not changed?
Tessa Pollitt: Good and bad things have changed for women. In England we’ve had this ladder culture where young girls feel like they’re in competition with men and that they have to act like men and that annoys me because that wasn’t really what it was about. We’re not in competition with men. I think we need to look back to—this sounds silly—but to old wives’ tales, all these things that are getting lost. Women need to embrace good things about the old ways; even when women were held back there were good things. Old-fashioned things. Women shouldn’t lose these skills. It sounds silly, but knitting and cooking are great. On an artistic level it’s been very tough. I think maybe it’s different in England from America but there’s a lot of work left to be done. Men and women, we’re just so different. We’re different creatures. It makes it work. The whole world is based on opposites. Hopefully the two things can meet somewhere. A bit of conflict is good.
Ari Up (vocals): Men and women are very, very, verrrry different. And that’s by nature and so it is, and that’s good. I think it’s good differences. If people could work together then it’s a really good balance. Right now, the indifference between men and women is growing and relationships are crumbling because they can’t meet eye-to-eye. Nobody seems to be able to relate anymore. It’s one of the biggest tragedies in the world. People of all ages. It’s heavy for me to see. I’ve got tons of kids around me all the time. They’re all different ages and I can see in my niece and son, who are teenagers, how hopeless it seems. They seem to have no hope of getting a relationship. The generation now that’s coming up has given up already on relationships. We’re so different and instead of trying to unite in our differences and make something of it, we’re separating and segregated. There’s no tolerance. My niece is like, ‘Oh, I’m going on a date with my boyfriend on Sunday.’ And she’s all excited. I call the next week and I say, ‘How’s it going?’ And she’s like, ‘No, no, that’s finished already. I can’t be bothered.’ No patience. The minute one little thing goes wrong. It can be a simple little thing, and there’s just no tolerance anymore.
Why do you think that is?
Ari Up: It’s the times. It’s the generations we’re in. It’s the old world crumbling. We have to make a unity now between souls and spirits instead of being less tolerant with character and personality differences—which we have as women among women and guys among guys as well—but especially with guys and women when they get together, it’s like they can’t even understand language anymore. If we could only be more tolerant and make compromises. The people who are together and making it, it’s not because they have a smooth relationship. It’s not all love and glossy. It’s about hard work and compromise and understanding each other, making the most of each other. Most guys and women who are together accept each other’s weird personalities and that you’re just never going to totally get along. You just have to make up your mind about how much you love that person. You’re not going to really get along with any man at this time. Every man for a woman right now is a problem. BUT, if you really love the guy, then you’re going to make compromises and exceptions to the rule. Oh yeah, I can overlook that he’s really fucked up when it comes to ‘such and such.’
So fuck-ups aren’t the reason to stop loving them?
Ari Up: That’s an objective thing. If the things they do are so bad that it throws off the balance, if it’s more bad than good, then you can’t tolerate it no matter how much you love the person. You can love the person but if they keep doing shit and you can’t keep up with it, then you can still say, yeah, you love them but can’t work with it. It’s like a science. The science of a relationship: can you work with it or not? You know you love them because you’re going with your feeling. You can’t deny it unless you’re in self-denial. But can you live with that you love the person or can you live with working on the relationship? If the person keeps doing shit all the time you know doesn’t fit into your life, then it doesn’t matter that you love the person anymore. Then you should just know that you love the person but you can’t live with the person.
What about the world crumbling?
Ari Up: It’s not we the people falling in 2012, it’s not like that. I think there’s this old system we’re living in. Like the Slits was the Dark Ages. I can’t even imagine how much the world has changed! It’s changed a lot since then. It was really the Dark Ages back then. Now we’re the leftover of the Dark Ages. We’re still not in the New World. The Dark Ages are crumbling. Medicine for instance—pharmaceuticals—that’s the Dark Ages. Now there’s a new world of medicine—Space Age, you know? That hasn’t come yet. In the same way that medicine is old, that’s how I see it with a lot of things. Education is old-fashioned, everything crumbling there with school systems. The music to me is more pushing the Dark Ages of total mainstream—nothing wrong with mainstream, I think it’s good for the Slits to be mainstream—but I think that it shouldn’t be just gimmick-type of image-making. The world of music right now is not so much about music as it is about image-making. The old-world system of Babylon, I call it, is falling. We’re seeing what’s happening in every way: the wars, politics, the system, religion, all these organized religions—it’s old Dark Ages.
In America, if a man kills a woman in a moment of anger, he is tried more leniently than if a woman waits until he falls asleep or goes to the kitchen for a knife.
Tessa Pollitt: Wow. That is different! Oh, wow. We don’t have the death penalty here. That’s really shocking. But at the same time I have compassion for men because men don’t have as much rights for children. If there’s a split-up in a family, then the rights immediately go to the women. So a lot of men are suffering because they don’t get to see their children legally. I don’t think that’s right. The children suffer and it’s a real mix-up and so many entanglements need to be sorted out. The Slits got labeled as feminists or lesbians but we weren’t that. It’s very hard to pinpoint what we were trying to do or what we’re still trying to do, but we are not man-haters or lesbians or feminists. I appreciate the struggle of the suffragettes and when women didn’t have the right to vote, but this is a different age we’re living in. Men and women need to have compassion for each other.
If you could go back in history and spend time with a woman from any era, who would you go hang out with for a day?
Ari Up: Growing up, I was never really inspired by any women really. Or any men! That was sort of the whole point of the Slits. We didn’t have any heroes or people to look up to. I love Billie Holiday. Great blues singer but very self-destructive. I’m not really into drugs and alcohol. Who would it be? I wrote a song about Cleopatra once. I like the idea that she could have many guys with no problem. Not that I want many guys, but the idea is so taboo. Guys can have many women and it’s nothing, and they can cheat all the time and it’s OK, no big deal. A woman is a whore or a slut, but Cleopatra had men at her feet—poof poof poof, give me a hot milk bath and have her guys around her massaging her. I don’t really want that but I’m just thinking about the equality for men and women, equal rights. You know Cleopatra was a murderer too. I think I’d like to talk to Patsy Cline. Those country and western girls went through so much shit of being the housewife in the ’50s. For Patsy Cline to break out like she did—I would have liked to talk to her or do a song with her! But for men I would like to talk to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky.
Tessa Pollitt: There’s a woman artist I really admire called Leonora Carrington who was I think a lover of Max Ernst. She was never really recognized as a female artist until she was a senior. I’d like to hang out with her. We’re still suffering the same problem as her. We’ve been written out of the history books as far as the punk story goes. It’s all about the male groups. And it’s gone on throughout history. You’re just swept under the carpet and you’re invisible. I don’t think we’ll be recognized until we’re dead. In England it’s problematic. They don’t get it. We constantly get bad press. We do a lot better in America. We’re far more suited for America to be quite frank.
What do you think of technology? Would you touch a digitizer?
Tessa Pollitt: I really do not like it. I think Ari’s a bit more open to it than me, but this is what slightly annoys me about our album. I’m much more organic, I much prefer the live feeling of music. I’ve noticed with our record, I didn’t number the tracks to be like that. On the A-side it’s the more programmed stuff and on the B-side it’s the more organic stuff. I would have preferred to mix up the numbering of the tracks, personally. I don’t use a computer, I don’t use a mobile phone. I’m a very down-to-earth person. I’ve chosen not to get involved with the future. I do not like the computer world at all.
Ari Up: That’s a love-hate relationship. I hate it in one way and love it in another way. It’s very practical and benefitting for people. In another way, it’s dramatically horrific. From a radiation perspective, it’s terrible. We’re all very radiated. Laptops, cell phones—it’s horrifying. Mentally as well, because I have kids, there are terrible things on the computer. It’s a mother’s worst nightmare for computers to exist. You have no protection. Have you heard about ‘One Cup’? All the kids know about it. Luckily my son is close to me and he showed me and I’ve never been the same. I’m mentally disturbed by what he showed me. It’s two women shitting and eating the shit and throwing up the shit and eating the vomit. It’s fucking disgusting. Two women sharing a cup of shit. We’re not protected! The children find this, think it’s hilarious and then mothers think they’re in touch with their kids. One mother I know thinks she’s in touch with her kids—we talked about it, and she was shocked. Her children didn’t want to tell her about this video on YouTube. The reason it got so famous is because everyone made video reactions, even ‘Family Guy’ made one. You’ll never be the same after seeing it. It wouldn’t be that bad if it was just adults seeing it, but kids—I really hate computers for this. I don’t have a computer either. I can do without it. Maybe I will have one eventually to check some e-mail or emergency thing. But the kids are on it all day, watching Japanese anime, heavy pornographic animation. You can’t monitor your children 24 hours a day. Their friends will show them. There are good things about the internet, but people go to extremes and let it control their minds. There are good things too. Someone made a video matching our song ‘Ask Ma’ to the Jungle Book cartoon, and it fit so well. You can do great stuff with the computer. But I don’t like the drug addiction to it.
Do you think there’s a chance this kind of world can explode and we can restart?
Tessa Pollitt: I hope so. I hope it all crashes and everyone loses all their information. I’m very old-fashioned like that. I like to hold a book. I like paper and string and earth. I’m a bit peculiar. I suppose you can call me a Luddite, I’m a bit anti-technology. I do have a TV.
What will be the organizing principle of the New World? What will be its main value?
Ari Up: Probably a book I have to write! I believe it’s a combination of ancient living and Space Age. It’s ‘Star Trek’ meets people 300 to 500 years ago. Not the civilized world, but the ancient tribal ethnic groups, like the Celtic world or the African tribal times or the Native American tribal times. It will be a tribal way of living mixed with ‘Star Trek’! Knowing that the earth is resilient and strong and people are strong, we’ll probably survive, but the world is going to completely change. I don’t think of it being all gone in 2012, I’m not one of those.
When you’re an old lady, what do you want to do all day?
Tessa Pollitt: I would like to have a lot of animals and do some gardening. I’d like to touch the earth. I’d like to play music and draw and paint and travel. I love to draw and paint. I like the feel, I like to touch things with my hands. I’m tactile. I did knit in the past. I’d like to get back to it in the future.

THE SLITS WITH WEAVE! ON SUN., DEC. 13, AT PART TIME PUNKS AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 10 PM / $10-$12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. THE SLITS’ TRAPPED ANIMAL IS OUT NOW ON NARNACK. VISIT THE SLITS AT THESLITS.CO.UK OR MYSPACE.COM/THESLITS.

Download: Rose Melberg “Old Days”

(from Homemade Ship out now on K)

Rose Melberg found fierceness in Tiger Trap and even more fierceness in softness with the Softies before beginning a solo career early in this millennium. Her new album Homemade Ship is out now on K and she speaks on Sunday morning from her mother’s house. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

When was the last time you stepped off a stage here in L.A.? Was it Jabberjaw?
Rose Melberg: Oh my God. I don’t know if it was Jabberjaw. I remember the last time I played at Jabberjaw because Melissa Auf Der Maur came to the show—not to see us but she was with someone, and I remember being like, ‘Shit—there’s a rock star at the show!’ But I don’t think she actually saw us play. The Softies did a tour with the All Girl Summer Fun Band… I’m trying to think of anything that would spark in my mind when that was. I wonder if it was when our last record came out? I just don’t remember. Some time no later than 2000. It’s been at least ten years.
Do you still get stage fright?
Rose Melberg: I kind of do but there’s some things I do to help. Maybe this should be off the record but I take a beta-blocker before I play. It just lowers your blood pressure.
Maybe that should be on the record because it could be helpful to people.
Rose Melberg: I guess so. A lot of people take it for giving speeches. It’s specifically for people with performance anxiety. It doesn’t affect your mind at all—you don’t get high. It just inhibits some of those chemical reactions that make your heart beat really fast. It just keeps away that rush that gets my heart pounding so fast that I can’t sing. Even though my mind always told me relax, my body would have this crazy reaction.
What’s your opposite of stage fright? What’s something you’re too confident about?
Rose Melberg: I talk too much in social situations. I talk and I talk and I talk. Even to strangers—I’ll tell my life’s story to a perfect stranger. When I used to work in retail I got comfortable talking to customers that I didn’t know about the most personal things. I couldn’t believe the things I said. Now I talk about parenting with people I don’t even know because I’m a mom. I will talk to other parents at the park about the most brutally personal things about our children.
This might actually be a gift.
Rose Melberg: I don’t have that filter. I’m not particularly suspicious of anyone. I go into most social situations giving everybody the benefit of the doubt. I think I came to it late in life. When I was younger I was a typical cynical punk bohemian human being where I didn’t trust anyone. Everyone was against me and nobody understood me. When I grew up I was like, ‘Oh my God, you don’t have to scratch the surface very far—everybody is kind of amazing in some way.’
So what concerns the modern stranger most these days?
Rose Melberg: Everybody is concerned about where the world is going. How everything is changing. They really want to make a connection with you because they want to be like, ‘We are on the other side of it.’ They want to make connections with people who still feel removed. They want to see that you have the same perspective—that we’re on the outside looking in. Like, ‘What’s happened to the world? Right? Right?’ The world is changing so much and we don’t know anything and they want to feel like they are still a part of something that isn’t moving quite so fast. They’re trying to seek that out in other people. ‘Have you seen these new-fangled blah-blah-blah? I don’t understand any of it!’ Everybody wants to hear someone say, ‘I know! Me too!’ I think it’s comforting to realize that the majority of people aren’t moving as quickly as the world seems to be moving. People feel like technology is taking over the world.
I’m told technology ate one of your old records. Is that true?
Rose Melberg: It wasn’t a computer that ate the album. There was a Softies record—the 10”. We recorded that entire record with Pat Maley at Yo Yo Studios and we had the whole thing mixed and done and we loved it. When we sent the master in, they said there’s this weird sound. This little buzzing sound that would come and go. We tried to isolate them and erase them and we realized they were all over the place. What it was—we recorded this backstage at the Capitol Theater, which is a really old building with old electricity, and every time somebody would use the elevator next door there was a surge. It was slight and subtle but it was all over the place and we realized, ‘Oh my God, I don’t think we can fix this.’ So we went in a few months later and in two days we re-recorded the entire record. So it’s an entirely different album than it was.
So there’s a lost elevator mix?
Rose Melberg: There’s a completely different version of that record—all eight of those songs. Far superior in my mind because the second one was rushed. We played them much faster and we settled for less good performances because we just needed to get it done.
Is that the most tension that’s ever been caused in your life by an inanimate object?
Rose Melberg: No, I’m a mom. That’s nothing.
When was the last time you broke a piece of glass?
Rose Melberg: I come from a long line of dish throwers in my family. You know—ladies that get mad and throw things when they get mad.
Does Tupperware take the thrill out of that?
Rose Melberg: I still have lots of glass. I have thrown a glass out of frustration within the last year. I will admit to that.
What’s the most unsatisfying thing you ever threw?
Rose Melberg: It’s always unsatisfying when you try to throw a piece of paper. There’s no velocity. You go, ‘Aaaah!’ and throw it and it just goes gently to the floor and you go, ‘That was not gratifying at all!’
You’ve recorded music almost your entire adult life—is there anything in the old songs you can’t recognize in yourself anymore?
Rose Melberg: I look back at the music that I made when I was really young—I was writing that music because it was all I knew how to do at the time. I didn’t know how to play an instrument, I didn’t know how to write a song—everything that I did came from that place of learning and trying. So I never look back and think, ‘I could have done that better’ or ‘Why did I write that song? It’s so stupid!’ I was just trying things out. And as much as I wouldn’t write that music today, I totally remember who I was when I wrote it. And I still feel really connected to it. It’s so fresh in my mind and it meant so much to me at the time.
How has it affected your later life to have that kind of a document of who you were?
Rose Melberg: It’s a pretty great diary. Especially because I don’t write anything down. I don’t even write lyrics down. Only before I go to the studio—I’ll write them down for reference. It’s all in my mind. I’ll record demos now that I have a computer but in the old days I didn’t, so it’s all from my mind. So it’s a great way to remember those times. What’s funny is trying not to get it mixed up. I try to be very clear about not mixing up my memories with other peoples’ memories of those experiences because I shared so many of them with a lot of people—the people that came to the shows and the people that I played music with. As much as it’s a really great document of a huge chunk of my life, it’s also a huge chunk of a lot of other people’s lives. I have to keep a clear image in my mind of what my experience actually was.
Is it true Tiger Trap broke up because you were getting too much attention from major labels? And you wanted to remove yourself from that situation?
Rose Melberg: That was a lot of what was happening. There were a lot of reasons why we broke up but there was some major label attention. We were so young, and in my mind I was really steeped in my beliefs about how music should be made. There was no way in a million years I would ever sign to a major label. I thought that it had nothing to do with why I was making music. There isn’t a doubt in my mind.
Why did you feel that way?
Rose Melberg: It’s still bullshit. Pardon my French—but it’s just silly. I’m not even going to go too much into it but it’s a very silly way to put art out into the world—to involve that many people and to spend that much money. It’s a phenomenal waste of resources and it’s not the most moral profession. It wasn’t my world. I didn’t buy records of the artists that were on those labels. It wasn’t my community. All I ever wanted going into playing music was to feel a sense of community—to play with the bands that I loved and to have recognition with my peers and to do business with people who I believed in how they did business and to support something and to have it reciprocated. That I would be giving and they would be giving—that’s all I ever wanted out of it. I was a young punk and still am in my heart, and it was all very clear to me. It never even occurred to me to even consider the option. When all these things started to happen, it was funny—guys with cologne are trying to give you money.
Shiny suits, too?
Rose Melberg: They looked like rock ‘n’ roll people but there’s just those things that give them away. There were a lot of personal issues within the band as well—we didn’t have the same ideas about what was important and there was quite a lot of conflict and I just didn’t want that life. Our last tour we were playing with bigger bands and we had a booking agent and it felt kind of yucky to me. It felt like I was straying from where my heart really was.
How much of that spirit do you think exists now?
Rose Melberg: I think it’s very much the same. The internet has changed everything. It’s made the community that was small and not spread out very big and very spread out. It’s changed the nature of independent music which is okay, and it’s changed local scenes. I think that people are more into the idea of developing a sense of community and supporting other bands within their community and creating their own local scene. People want to feel connected to something. Now that the outside world is so huge, it means that much more to create something at home that is special and unique. Everybody wants that set of conspiratorial feeling of ‘Us against the world! We are doing something special! We are subverting the mainstream!’ You want to have that feeling. I think it makes people want to build a more solid foundation within their own community. We are doing something special—we as a team are doing something special.
You said once that the Softies were deliberately trying to be kind of inaccessible—where ‘only the people who wanted to hear it would hear it.’ Is that part of what we’re talking about?
Rose Melberg: This is obviously very pre-Internet! But it just got to the point where you’re playing big rock shows and you’re the flavor of the month and you don’t really know if people really care about what you’re doing—or truly love what you’re doing. I needed to reclaim some of that sense of specialness. I don’t want some random guy wandering into the shows and saying, ‘Well, that’s a cool rock band.’ I wanted it to be something that was very special and personal and that was difficult for people to like—so they would either have to really like it or not listen to it. I didn’t want to do something that people would be offended by—I don’t think the Softies were particularly offensive—but I wanted something that people would have to really love.
No chance to be casual?
Rose Melberg: Yeah. You either love it or you just ignore it.
Do you think it worked?
Rose Melberg: Absolutely. I loved Tiger Trap—it was one of the funnest things I ever did and I’m so glad I had that experience and had we not had some of the issues it could have gone on longer. Musically it was a wonderful group. But the Softies resonated more with me as an experience because of the kinds of shows we were playing and the people we were traveling with. It was much more true to what my heart was crying out for as an artist. Once we started doing the record and touring it was like, ‘Ah, this is home! This is what I always wanted!’ Like when I was in high school and all I ever wanted to be in a band—I had found my place.
What is that feeling of ‘home’? Is that something you’ve always been after?
Rose Melberg: It’s when you walk into a place that you’ve never been and you feel a sense of familiarity. You feel a safety in the people around you. You look in their faces and you know there’s reverence and there’s respect and there’s familiarity. We’ve never met but there’s a sameness just because of what brought us together. It’s just that element of safety. It’s like being home everywhere you go no matter where you are in the world. You know these people understand.
Is this like how Kurt Vonnegut says part of life is the search for surrogate families?
Rose Melberg:Yeah—can you quote that and say that I said it?
You also said that it’s important that an artist be sincere because the fakers will be found out—does that connect here?
Rose Melberg: I think that was a joke! But once it’s printed it looks like I actually meant it.
Sounded OK to me!
Rose Melberg: It’s a bit confrontational, which it’s not in my nature to be. I meant that as far as the art that I connect to—I connect to all kinds of art. I love art in general and it doesn’t have to be sincere because I like the element of that completely created false approach. But I find that I personally connect to stuff that feels honest or real. It opens up that place in my heart. When somebody else opens up their heart, it’s like that invisible string that connects you—it’s permission to soften your own heart. And so I tend to seek that out in art that I enjoy. I see other people making music or visual art or anything and it inspires me to do the same and it inspires me to seek it out. It’s this wonderful cycle of how honesty and sincerity gives everyone permission to be honest.
Jen from the Softies said someone has to really hurt her before she’ll write about it. Are you the same way?
Rose Melberg: In the old days I was like that. A lot of the songs were coming from that place. My song writing has evolved a bit in that I don’t only write from pain or anger. But it does quite a bit come from… not necessarily sadness but those parts of you that don’t feel complete. Whether it’s confusion or a sadness or concern—those things that feel undone or unresolved. That’s why you write the song—you put it into place and you make sense of it. I also feel a need for a little bit more privacy when I write now. I have a family—I have a child that when he’s grown-up, I don’t want him to see our whole life spelled out for everyone to see. And yet these are still the things that I want to be writing about because it’s my sadnesses and my concerns. These things are still what make me sit down and write a song against my better judgement.
It’s that powerful?
Rose Melberg: Usually! It’s this one singular feeling and I just want to make a song out of that feeling. I’m going to sit down and do what comes out and I’ve been trying to wrap it up a bit more in pictures and images but buried in it is every bit of the story. I can pick it apart and sometimes I do that with my friends. ‘What is this song about?’ ‘Well, this is this and that line has to do with that thing that happened…’ It’s a little bit more shrouded now—a little bit more mysterious—but it’s basically the same. It’s just emotions. It’s not always anger or hurt—it’s just emotion.
Have you ever written a song that changed the relationship you had with someone?
Rose Melberg: I feel like sometimes it can create clarity. There are situations where I’ve been able to put something in a song that can simplify and clarify something so that it can be let go. If I can stop explaining and just go, ‘Here, this is how I feel.’ I think it’s happened a few times. Or sometimes it’s just for me so I can make sense of something and just let it go. I’ll put it in a really concise format where beginning to end I can understand a situation, and this little ball—this orb of a song!—contains all the emotions of that issue. And I can now get it out of my heart and my mind. It’s like my back-up hard drive. My back-up emotional hard drive. It helps me in that it creates that clarity in my mind so that it’s not so jumbled.
Does it work that way for your fans?
Rose Melberg: They sure tell me that it does. My fans are very vocal about the effects my songs had on them—which I don’t take that lightly. I ask them questions like, ‘In what way?’ And I try to help them understand and say, ‘What did you see in that song?’ As an artist, it’s the greatest thing you can expect from art—for people to respond in that way. Every show practically—someone has a story about a song helping them. A song that they fell in love to or ‘I sat and listened to that song twenty times and then cried my eyes out and then I felt better.’ Sometimes it’s really big and sometimes it’s a little story. From day one of making music, that was never my intent—I just want to make songs and sing them, and those are just the songs that came out. But this whole other thing happened where people connected really personally to songs that to me were just the words and music that came out of me. I didn’t expect that to happen. It’s been a very interesting career.
Have you ever told someone else that about one of their songs?
Rose Melberg: I actually did when I saw Vashti Bunyan a couple years ago. I went back and told her how when my son was a baby I would listen to Another Diamond Day. I would sing those songs to him. That was the soundtrack to his babyhood and those songs to me will forever be that—the most amazing thing that will ever happen to me in my life was the birth of my child and the early days of learning how to be a mom and loving my baby. And that these songs became such a big part of that and I was able to tell her that. After a show I went backstage and I was crying—‘I just wanted to tell you this—what that record means to me! I rocked my baby to these songs for the first year of his life!’ She was so sweet. And I was so glad I got to tell her that because of all the people who have told their stories to me.

ROSE MELBERG ON TUE., OCT. 27, AT VACATION VINYL, 4679 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., LOS FELIZ. 5:30 PM / FREE / ALL AGES. VACATIONVINYL.COM. AND WITH THE FINCHES, KELLARISSA AND ANNA OXYGEN ON TUE., OCT. 27, AT ECHO CURIO, 1519 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 9 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. ECHOCURIO.COM. ROSE MELBERG’S HOMEMADE SHIP IS OUT NOW ON K. VISIT ROSE MELBERG AT MYSPACE.COM/ROSEMELBERG.

Mary Wilson was one of the founding members of the Supremes and the only member who stayed through all the group’s incarnations. Her book Dreamgirls inspired the Beyonce movie that made your mom cry. While Mary may no longer wear thirty pounds of bejeweled dresses at every performance, she continues singing and supporting worldly causes. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

You’re an artist who has turned her work towards social justice—how can art serve as a force to mediate peace?
Music has always had a place as far as being an ambassador-type of influence for bringing joy and love to people. So I totally think that music has a place bringing overall healing for individuals as well as the world.
How can music be so personal for people and yet can reach so many different people at once?
I know that music throughout the ages has been used to entertain people, and people use music when they’re in pain—when they’re suffering, when they’ve lost a loved one, when they’re getting married, when they’re happy, when they’re sad. Music has been sort of a pacifier, let’s say, to people because on a personal level, it kind of gives a person comfort like a mother. Music is like a mother—it comforts you. That’s why I think personally it’s so important. It’s also important that music is in our school systems. There was a time when music kept children in school to study their academic subjects. They’re starting to take art out of the school system which I think is not good—if this is what keeps children there.
Growing up, how was music presented to you? Good? Bad? Frivolous?
When I was growing up, music was one of those new phenomena for us as teenagers because rock ‘n’ roll was very new. It was kind of like the new—like today they have the computers and the iPods, it was the new phenomena. I would compare it to what’s going on today with the technical advantages that we’re having with the computers and cyber world. It was something that young people could embrace and it certainly moved humanity into a different direction. Music like Motown from the beginning—it’s still around from 50 years ago. Everyone from that generation has now grown up with that music. It’s been the soundtrack to our lives.
If you did karaoke, what song would you choose?
I wouldn’t do karaoke! No. It’s not something I do or would like to do. I would never do it. I sing on stage to my music but I’m not one of those who just get up there and sing. I mean—I don’t even sing in the shower!
What was a sock hop like?
A sock hop was a dance in the early ‘60s—maybe later ‘50s and early ‘60s. It was basically a dance with 45 music playing rock ‘n’ roll, and that’s basically what it was. Kind of like a disco today, but everyone was wearing poodle skirts and oxford shoes. They were doing the twist and the chicken and dances like that. We performed at those type of dances. Basically they were dances put on by the radio stations and the DJs played the most current records and then they would bring out some of the current recording artists of the time.
What was your most treasured record from that period?
I really liked the Coasters, Chubby Checker, Bobby Freeman who did the song [sings], “Do you wanna dance?…” Those were some of them but I have many, many, many. I mean, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson—they were all my favorites.
How’s it feel to have witnessed almost the entire history of American music?
It’s been a great time, let me tell you.
What prompted you to become a public speaker? Do you get the same gratification from speaking as singing?
The common denominator between both is that people are important. If you’re a singer you got to have an audience—if you’re a speaker you’ve got to have an audience. That’s the common denominator but I wouldn’t compare the two. My singing is something that I absolutely just adore. Speaking is something I’ve had to learn to be comfortable with. I would always sing but as a young child I would never really talk a lot. I was brought up in a generation and time where children ought to be seen and not heard. So I had to grow into liking to be a motivational speaker but I do enjoy it now. I really do enjoy it now.
What unlocks the voice and lets it inspire people?
Experience. You can speak from a learned position in terms of one’s school and learning the facts. You can speak from that and it’s very informative. But if you’re speaking from experience, then that’s heartfelt and it comes out in that way. To me, people connect with that. That’s the way I speak. That is my way of speaking and connecting with people—through my experience. Because that’s something I know for certain. I didn’t learn it. I actually experienced it. It’s coming from the truth of my experience.
Do we make our own destinies?
That’s a good question. I think in terms of destiny, we do make our own destiny but I do also feel that our fate is something that’s already hit—we just experience it. So when we make our destiny that means the certain choices we make lead us towards that destiny. But sometimes the choices we make lead us away from it. Destiny, to me, is not always what was written.
What do you think you’ve spent the most time pondering in your life?
If I know what I know! Searching for wisdom and clarity.
Who is more attractive in person, Tom Jones or Steve McQueen?
I would never compare the two! They are both gorgeous! The most attractive man I ever laid my eyes on—oh boy, I don’t know. Probably my ex-husband Pedro Ferrer.
What smell makes you nostalgic?
That could be a couple of things. The smell of cornmeal—like corn bread? That makes me think of growing up.
Do you think your future is laid out or could you still be surprised?
I think at this stage in my life I’m planning for my future. I have not always done that. When I was younger, I lived for the now. And now I think I’m planning for my future, and I still want to be surprised.
What’s the last thing that you saw that you thought was beautiful?
My grandchildren.

MARY WILSON WITH LES NUBIANS, SONSOLES, SPENCER THE GARDENER, ROSE’S PAWN SHOP AND MORE ON SAT., AUG. 22, ON THE HOOVER STAGE AT SUNSET JUNCTION, 4200 SANTA MONICA BLVD., SILVERLAKE. SETS AT NOON / MARY WILSON AT 9 PM / $15-$20 / ALL AGES. SUNSETJUNCTION.ORG. VISIT MARY WILSON AT MARYWILSON.COM.

Stream: The Minutemen “History Lesson Part 2″

(from Double Nickels on the Dime available on SST)

The Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime is one of the several weathered foundations of L.A. RECORD and one of the few albums still alive with the weird outside-inside energy of punk as it was once in California and the world. Exactly twenty-five years later, it still starts bands and makes friends. Minutemen bassist Mike Watt meets for pizza at San Pedro’s excellent Pavich’s Pizza for remembering D. Boon and George Hurley and that guy Mike Watt in the summer of 1984. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

You turned fifty in December and now Double Nickels is having its 25th anniversary.
I was 25 or 26 when I recorded this? Half of my life. The biggest thing about that guy Mike Watt in those days of 25-year-olds was really getting my mind blown by Ulysses. That was the big thing in my mind right then. It had a big impact on me. It made me wonder so much about the world. It’s funny how things come around. That record was a trippy time in the Minutemen’s life. In the punk era. Going back 25 years—it’s part of the past now! It’s a signifier in some ways—my life and other peoples’ lives. Like people knowing us and the punk movement—people who got the record, never saw us live. Keith and Tim did the We Jam Econo documentary. A lot of bands from the older times don’t have things done on them like that. They didn’t know a lot about the band—they knew from the record, but they wanted to find out about us. It became a thing unto itself—a touchstone. Not unto itself because it was obviously a scene—without a scene, there woulda been no Nickels, no Minutemen, no Econo. I don’t wanna get carried away—conceited! It’s just how it works out. We never thought we were a better band than anybody. We were happy as hell to be along with the team. We didn’t wanna be on top of the pile. I think every band had its own trip. There’s enough people to tell what’s right and wrong with music in books and shit. I don’t get into that. One good thing I like about it—is for D. Boon. A lot of times you get killed in your younger days, you get forgotten. I know the reason in my case—I liked him a lot and the fella could pay really good. For other cats to be aware of him—keeping the Minutemen in mind like that—in a weird way, his art is living. Some of his spirit is out there. For me, I owe him everything.
Where can you hear Boon the most on Nickels?
Maybe ‘Anxious Mofo’—that solo he does! Hardly any notes! It’s just great. And he does a great one in the instrumental—‘June 16.’ A lot of the words were influenced by Jim Joyce. The glory of man and all this. On ‘June ’16,’ Boon does a really good guitar solo, too. Hurley plays smoking drums on almost all of it. There’s a lot of dynamics with those two guys. Little tiny song settings. I’m trying to glue things together. I don’t do much bass solo on that record. I don’t think any.
Who drew the anchor on the label?
D. Boon. Punk records only had the writing on one side. With the way the lyrics are on the sleeve, we got the idea from Wire. Just put it out like prose instead of poetry.
Who wrote ‘Arena rock is new wave’ in the dead wax?
Joe Carducci came up with all those. I don’t know his commentary. [Looking at the photos in the gatefold] These pictures—this is Richard Meltzer, this is Joe Baiza. I just cut these pictures out. I had a posterboard. This is our first paid gig at Starwood. These two school buses—we rented these and played in them in Mojave on a dry lakebed. We had to wear sunglasses because the dust was blowing so hard. This is the Federal Building in west L.A.—I think it’s Rock Against Racism or Reagan. Maybe both. The camera people were taking pictures of a girl with a mohawk—they were way more into that than filming bands, so I’m turning it up. You can see how the scissors I used—pinking shears! I like these pictures. I don’t know—so casual. Boon’s got his fist up! And Georgie…
I know you did the record like Ummagumma—everyone got a solo song. ‘Cohesion,’ ‘Take 5, D’…
Georgie’s is ‘You Need The Glory.’ D. Boon never wrote a song with my words. I would write with his words all the time, but they weren’t words he wrote for me. They were little thoughts he put on paper and left around. That shit didn’t have rhymes—it was just thoughts, observations. He would use his words if he had rhymes—‘This Ain’t No Picnic.’ There were some misfires on this, I think. We did another version of ‘Little Man With A Gun In His Hand’—this came out such a lame version!
You said before you gotta spread a lot of manure to be a farmer.
Well, we wanted to match up to the Huskers because they had a double album. Kind of a challenge. I thought the band always did better when we were challenged. And it caught the band at a great time when Georgie was still writing us words.
At work, right?
He’d have to go in and work a lathe, so they’re kind of abstract. And the band had played enough that we could bring songs together really quick. Me and D. Boon were always quick because we grew up together but it always took time to show Georgie. We never wanted him in back—we wanted him just as involved. We’d spend a lot of time working out. This time, he could learn to feel it. He knew when he’d have a break or pause. The songs were coming real quick. The big problem was how were we gonna put 45 songs in order? We knew it was gonna be four sides. The way a record works, the needle works its way to the label. I kinda figured we’d have the shitty ones on the label and the good ones outside. How is this gonna happen? If we draw straws to find an order—first second third, pick one at a time. And good songs go first and lame ones get left, and the fourth side is nobody. I think Georgie got first pick and what’s he pick? His solo song! If you look at his side—all Hurley! I got second pick—I picked ‘Mike Jackson’ first, and Boon got third and picked ‘Anxious Mofo.’ Here’s a weird one—Hurley/Boon. Not a lot of Hurley/Boon. ‘Two Beads At The End,’ which we used to always crack up. It was always hard to know what Georgie was singing about. Private meanings. So we thought two butt beads hanging out—start you up like a lawnmower! I haven’t looked at this in a long time. D. Boon’s side is a lot of his stuff. And mine—a lot of Watt ones! Maybe we were picking songs from our own stuff—I thought I was picking for good! And it turns out the good ones are kinda on the outside. We didn’t want no favoritism. All divided even. A democratic thing. D. Boon would like that political idea.
How did ‘History Lesson’ end up on the label? That’s one of the very best songs.
Nobody wanted it! Second to last pick. D. Boon’s last pick was ‘One Reporter’s Opinion.’ Liked the guitar, a lotta guitar solo—hated the idea of my name in the song. I did that a lot. And ‘History Lesson’ had my name in it, too. The last two songs picked. The fourth side all unpicked. The Henry song, D. Boon’s ‘Song for Latin America,’ Martin the Reactionaries singer—no one wanted them!
Where did ‘History Lesson’ come from?
I wrote it and I kinda got the lick from Velvet Underground ‘Here She Comes Now.’ Mugger kept playing it over and over. I wrote it kind of for hardcore kids. Velvet music is kind of slow, but I thought everybody should be able to relate to playing with your buddy in a band. I guess some dudes real young think of being a rock star, but a lot of dudes start just to be with their friend. A lot of the idea—we didn’t seem like guys in a band. Kind of strange in a way. But personable! People could know us. They like a song where we talk about each other. A lot of times, D. Boon would be pulled off stage by bouncers thinking he was just some dude in the crowd! Me sometimes but D. Boon a lot—they just couldn’t believe he was in a band!
‘And Mr. Narrator, this is like Bob Dylan to me?’
We didn’t know what words were for in songs when we were boys. We thought it was like lead guitar. We didn’t know meanings and shit. But Dylan seemed like a weird uncle at Thanksgiving, muttering and no one paying attention but here’s these weird kind of words. When we were making music as boys, we never thought of music as being expression. Used to get feelings. We thought it was to copy records. Never had the idea you try to get your own thoughts out! As we got older, it seemed maybe Dylan wasn’t so afraid. And if he wasn’t, maybe we shouldn’t be scared. It was kind of confidence for us. The narrator—like a voice in a movie explaining things. That’s who he was in our life. We were learning by doing. Now cats write tunes all the time! I gave a talk to my sister’s 6th grade—these kids, they’re in bands! Last year I did one here for 3rd graders—nine-year-olds!—and some girls had bands! But it was different in those days—you didn’t do it. Not like lemmings or sheep—though people are like lemmings a little bit. The best guy in town was the guy who could play ‘Black Dog’ the best. It was building models—‘Hey, kind of like the real thing.’ We don’t think soapbox derby—where you can roll around in the thing. Roll, not just look! So Dylan kind of helped us. We didn’t know what his words meant but we knew they meant something. Now we’re gonna write songs—what are words for? By Double Nickels, I’d been doing—I’d written my first ones—terrible ones—in the Reactionaries. That’s thirty years—1979! I made two cassettes. Ten songs. None made it to Minutemen. One I gave to Brendan Mullen—the only time I tried to get a gig. But by Double Nickels, I’d already written like 50 or 60 Minutemen songs. I was kinda havin’ fun. I’d write words sometimes just to hear D. Boon say them. In ‘It’s Expected I’m Gone’—let’s have D. Boon say ‘big fucking shit!’ right now! I just wanted to hear him say ‘big fucking shit!’ really loud like he did! Nothing to do with the song. Something to do with the James Joyce book.
‘I must look like a dork?’
No—I wanted Michael Jackson. If Michael Jackson sang our song, a lot of people would get the message of Minutemen. He had a big audience. A good singer. I sent him a cassette of it—to the management on the record cover. I wrote him a note. ‘This is a political song I think Michael Jackson should sing.’ I never got written back. ‘I must look like a dork’ I got from an interview with Iggy in Creem. They’d have spiel with questions and answers and they’d bold out a quote—‘I MUST LOOK LIKE A DORK.’ That magazine was very cool. Not like Rolling Stone and shit—good sense of humor. So I just lifted from Iggy. I thought Iggy was a balls-out dude—the Stooges a balls-out band. To be in that legacy—be part of a movement inspired by that band—so what if you look like a fucking dork! You tell people you are and you still go for it.
Is Double Nickels your Ulysses?
I try to be black-and-white about what Minutemen were trying to do with political songs. ‘Organizing the Boy Scouts for murder is wrong!’ It wasn’t supposed to be satire. We’re an anti-war band! A working people band! Kind of a weird-kind-of-people band! Dudes who didn’t fit in so much. To us, the message of our band and a little bit of punk, too—start your own band! Say what’s on your mind! Sometimes it was scary—there were skinhead bands and shit who were terribly enthusiastic in their message. But that’s the way the scene was. No rules. People went for it. I talk about Minutemen in two songs on that album—the one I actually mailed to Michael Jackson and ‘Politics of Time.’ I didn’t really sing about the band in ‘History Lesson’—because it was Hurley, too. On Punchline, the song ‘History Lesson’ is very hard-hitting. The story of most human civilization is killing each other. And I thought maybe there might be a part two—we don’t have to kill each other? So I’m gonna take it relaxed—talk about heroes like Richard Hell, Joe Strummer, John Doe. Those are my three songs that ain’t about Ulysses. About the band and my friend. Georgie’s? I don’t know what his are about—a working guy writing them at work. Boon—his tunes are usually about his beliefs. The outside writers—we never asked ‘em. It wasn’t important to us. It might have been like censorship. Just 100% used their words. And some of them were pretty cryptic. Like Dirk’s ‘The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts.’ And Jack Brewer’s cousin Joe—we didn’t even know the guy!—writes a weird one—‘Please Don’t Be Gentle With Me.’ I don’t know what the fuck—that’s a love song?
How many love songs are on Double Nickels?
‘Just wake me up and tug my hair!’ We took these at face value—we didn’t care! We made songs! A love song I got from Ulysses—‘My Heart In The Real World.’ Ulysses was bent a lot on language, so it was actually about language, but it has love song imagery. And war imagery. ‘Do You Want New Wave’ is about language too. ‘The World According To Nouns.’ All inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Have you re-read Ulysses?
I did in my forties. It seems a lot sadder book. Those days, when I wrote songs from that book, it was a big celebration! The glory of man! Now it’s more like—the glory hole of man! It seems like I could hear Joyce’s voice stronger. It seems like a lot of sadness with his mother and just the general condition of humans sometimes. So much failure. The only victories are tiny things between people in everyday stuff. The big joy is in the small middle things, because the big things are all fucking nightmare. ‘One Reporter’s Opinion’ seems like love, but it’s not. What struck me as trippy about Joyce was the technique in Ulysses changing the style with each episode—very scientific, dry, baby talk, opera, all these different trips. A lot of our shit was so… inside. It never got out to people. But it was very clear to us. Like the title. And the meaning of our lyrics. During this time, Boon worked in the van pool—one time the police were called on him—they said there was an insane man attacking the weeds! He was just a utility guy using the weed-whacker! But he had a mohawk! ‘The guy’s attacking the building!’ He’d write stuff while working and driving on little papers—this is what he would write and why there are no rhymes in them. And I’d find ‘em and make songs.
Did you ever talk to him about that?
No—I’d wonder if he would leave ‘em for me! I’d just find these things. Find ‘em in the van, in the car, all over the place. Just thinking about stuff.
How do you feel when you listen to Double Nickels now?
I didn’t listen for a long time. I listened around We Jam Econo. It was amazing! George said the same thing—‘How could I play that shit?’ It holds up, I think, for the most part. It doesn’t sound like, ‘Here’s my lame young days.’ It sounds like maybe the best thing about it!
Why?
I don’t know! Just listen! Goddamn! The way we played together—the way we were in our history. A lot of things happening at the right time. The way we were with other peoples’ lyrics and our own. We didn’t try to refine it or water it down. We just grabbed it by the bull horns and went for it, and the spirit shows through! It doesn’t sound forced—doesn’t sound fake. It’s very un-self-conscious. We did it without thinking—we wanted one because the Huskers had one! ‘We should, too!’ We just let it be it—we never thought in bigger terms. Now look—if you wanna know what was good about Minutemen, a lot of it’s in that record. We didn’t know at the time. But you ask perspective—like when I re-read Ulysses—that’s what I see. When I read it, I heard a different voice. The words were the same but I had changed. And maybe I identify more with the man. It seemed sadder. A lot of books from my 20s I’m re-reading seem a lot sadder. Kerouac—On The Road—very sad! These days it’s not a total ‘Yeah! Yeah, go for it!’ celebration firecracker. Dean Moriarty leaves him in the hospital with dysentery—that’s lame! It’s beat like ‘beat down.’ Minutemen—that is a young man’s record. And the spirit of young men is in that. It’s like—‘Wow, we got a chance to make a record! A chance to play together! To play a gig with Flag and Huskers! A chance to write music to Jack Brewer’s cousin Joe’s song about whatever the fuck tug my hair in the morning!’ We were just fucking lit about everything—all lit! Sometimes a young person is like that because they don’t have the worries of an older thing or a bad experience to keep them all wallowing or too safe. It has that spirit in it. And I can identify it because I was there. And I think about George and Boon and myself—man! That more than probably any other—we were all there with everything we had! More than any other of the Minutemen records. Buzz or Howl was actually two different things. I don’t think any Georgie songs are on it. One side Spot, one Ethan. No Georgie songs on 3 Way Tie or Project Mersh. What Makes A Man Start Fires, I had to write all the music—the only time D. Boon didn’t live in Pedro. Paranoid Time, Georgie wasn’t there with the songs. He came in later. Punchline was kind of Double Nickels. A little bit. An early version. Built on almost the same template except one or two outside writers. When we had the one album, most of the outside writers came on the second album of Double Nickels. The first was almost Punchline part 2—it actually was! And Punchline—goddamn! We make that—in the first year—December of ’80! Before we’d even been a year old. It’s not like Nickels—that’s why it holds up. It’s our signature. If you wanna know about the band and you only hear one record—that’s the one.

THE MINUTEMEN’S DOUBLE NICKELS ON THE DIME IS AVAILABLE FROM SST. VISIT MIKE WATT AT HOOTPAGE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/WATTFROMPEDRO.

Download: Femi Kuti “Eh Oh”

(from Day By Day out now on Mercer Street)

Femi Kuti is the son of Fela and the righteous leader of his own Positive Force. He speaks now just days after the Nigerian government shut down the Shrine, the historic venue that was the birthplace of Afrobeat. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

What’s the current status of the Shrine right now? The Nigerian government shut it down?
It was shut down for a week. They finally opened it today, about two or three hours ago. A lot of pressure has been coming on the state government to reopen it. We are going to start a very big international campaign. The excuses why they closed the place—that’s not our business. They said it was these people who are sitting on the streets in front of the Shrine. It is not our duty to clear the streets.
Did they wait until you left for tour to shut it down?
It looks like that. They say no, but I mean, I’m leaving for tour and then they close the place. And I can’t do anything—I can’t cancel the tour. So I have to go on tour. I think we’re going to direct people to sign a petition to make sure they never close the Shrine again. It has been going for so many years—it was my father’s thing.
Is it true that in addition to trying to suppress the music that you are making, the Nigerian government is actually funding musicians who make poor quality pro-government pop music?
Yeah. There is a lot of money pumped into that kind of music. These boys can’t afford it so somebody must be funding them.
Do you think any of that is ultimately coming from the American government?
I don’t think the American government would be involved. I don’t think your government is that kind of government. The Nigerian government is wise enough to know how to do this kind of campaign on their own.
What makes you so optimistic about the Obama administration?
I think he’s genuine. I mean, he’s definitely going to face a lot of difficulties, but I think he’s genuine about world peace, about rectifying America’s image and all those things. So I believe if he really has the opportunity to change many things, he will.
Does America seem different now as opposed to when you were here during the Bush administration?
A lot of people I’ve spoken to have complained about the recession, no jobs, things are slow. But this is not Obama’s fault. This started long before Obama became president. He’s already coming into pain. America, if you had given Bush four more years, you all would be dead probably! Obama can rectify the bad positions of a bad government, probably. Not probably—definitely. Toppling Saddam was not the issue, but the Bush administration could not see that. Even when the world kept saying he didn’t have chemical weapons. But America went into Iraq. The world could not understand that. A war like that… just pumping money, money, money into that war and it might be never ending. So Obama just took over in bad times. If he had come in in the Clinton era, things would probably be much easier for him. So I understand the times of which I am in America. Which is not just America, but the world probably. Even in Lagos, for somebody like me, in Lagos where we have had a difficult life… we have always had a hard life all our life. So when we come here and Americans complain that it is difficult, it is kind of funny. At least you still have electricity and hot water—running water. We don’t have electricity or running water. We have bad roads. It’s not too bad here—it’s not as bad as anywhere in Africa.
How do you feel when you meet musicians here that have never had to face the kinds of threats or struggles you’ve had to deal with? What are the conversations like when you’re talking about music?
It depends on the artist, really. Most of them just want to know what’s going on in Nigeria and I just let them know what is going on and that’s all, really. When I met people during my album Fight to Win, I was meeting with a lot of people and even if they didn’t start the conversation, I would let them know what was going on in Africa. They had to want to know what is going on in Africa because it is part of their heritage. And they were very interested. They wanted to know more and they were happy it was coming from me because knew a lot about my father and had heard about me, so we got along very well.
You’ve said a few times that music is the voice of truth. Is that connected to what we’re talking about here?
Yes—I think because music has a major role to play in anything. It moves you. Like if the Shrine was not opened immediately, I’m sure the outburst coming from the music world would put so much pressure on the Nigerian government to open the Shrine. Those people, those big artists… I wouldn’t be surprised if someone like Stevie Wonder campaigned. He knew my father very much. If he got wind that my father’s shrine was closed, he would sign the petition as well. I mean, big artists like that would be signing the petition against the government. All my friends in the hip-hop world—Mos Def, Common, Alicia Keys—everybody would be signing this, and these are people who are very very well known in the Nigerian scene.
You said once that we have to take beauty seriously, and that’s how the human race will get better. What did you mean by that?
Because the artist sings from within. If someone like Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday are taken seriously and people really followed the words of the songs, people would live those words. And if people lived those words, the world would become a better place. Even a lot of artists sing these words, but they don’t practice the words they sing. We sing but we don’t practice what we sing. If people did follow the words, the world would become a better place.
If a musician is a hypocrite, does that ruin their music?
Yes.
What’s an example of that?
Oh, I can’t give you an example. That would be wrong of me. When you want to capitalize… a lot of artists find that this is the fashion and they go into it because they want to make money or even a lot of people are going to sing politics because they believe it is the in thing now, but they don’t really believe what they’re saying. It’s just to cash in on it. Because one day you will be found out. The audience will find you out one day and then you will pay a very high price for it.
Do you think still want artists to be honest?
Definitely, yes. The world is always ready to bring the artist that is not sincere down quickly.
Would you say a song like “Tell Me” is a hopeful song?
Yes, because it’s really inspired people to understand where I’m coming from and it’s made people want to know more about issues. Like, why are they criticizing me? Don’t they see what I’m talking about? They are complaining about me. I’m not the problem. ‘Femi, what you mean?’ You don’t understand me. How can you not understand what I am talking about?
What do you most hope to do with your music?
I hope I can inspire a very energetic generation that will change things in the future.
Do you think you will see that in your lifetime? Is it coming?
Well, that is a very difficult question, but I know that I have influenced a lot of artists today and that is already a very major point. If people are not listening, then that would be sad. If I am even touring America today, it means people want to listen, people still love the music, so that is already a very major point. But it might take years. I believe sincerely if I live to my seventies or eighties, I will see that kind of change.
What exactly is a shoki shoki master?
It’s like a sex master. Is that a hard thing to become? It is, it is. It’s a subject of its own. If you are not educated properly about sex, you will not have a good sex life. You will never satisfy your partner. I think sex education has to be given, in a way. People need to understand what to do when they get married, when they meet their partner, what to do in bed. This was a discussion that the African culture had… it was always discussed. It’s only in this era that it has become taboo, that people are ashamed to discuss openly. America talks about a lot of other things, like HIV… Americans talk about that easily. I think it’s just the stage where we are. The world has passed through so many stages to get to where we are right now. Nobody believed that Obama could become president in America because everyone believed that America was full of a lot of racism. Now America seems to have overcome that. The majority of Americans, of young people, are not thinking along those lines. So that shows that America does have a bright future in that sense.
Do you think educating the young is the key to getting everything moving in the right direction?
Yes, because if I didn’t know about people like Malcolm X or my father, I would have a very stupid, uneducated life. We need to know history. We need to know about contributions, about how Columbus discovered America. And people need the truth. We need the truth to forge ahead.
I know you stopped school, but where do you think your best education came from?
From my father because he made me read a lot of books which opened my mind. I had to read books like Black Man of the Nile, Stolen Legacy, Malcolm X… I was reading books about the history of Africa and all these things. So that enlightened me. And then listening to his songs, listening to his lectures when he gave lectures, or his press conferences, I always wanted to hear what he had to say.
If someone just listened to his music and your music, would they be getting an accurate picture of what life is like?
Yes, definitely, definitely.
Do you think of yourself as a documentarian or journalist with the kind of music you’re making?
I know that definitely my father’s music is. I don’t want to sound too arrogant about myself. But if you listen to my father from his beginning to his end, you have a very very good picture of aspects of Nigerian politics, our way of life and Africa in general. And then the world too. You can picture your environments in the ’80s, what was going on in Nigeria at the time, with this music. And you can travel with this music in your mind.
Are there any American musicians who you think are doing the same thing?
I think all the great American jazz musicians did it. Stevie Wonder. I want to put so many names right now, but I can’t think of many names. A lot of them even listened to my father… James Brown, he was listening to my father as well. Miles Davis, definitely. It’s people like this who are doing it.
Out of all the books you read growing up, what is one you think everyone should read?
Wow, that is very difficult. I would probably choose two books. Stolen Legacy and Black Man of the Nile.
What’s one record everyone should listen to?
One record? My new album. It has everything for you. It has the ’70s, it has so much in it, it has a great future and gives you room to think about what it is going to do next.

FEMI KUTI AND THE POSITIVE FORCE WITH SANTIGOLD AND RAPHAEL SAADIQ ON SUN., JUNE 21, AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL, 2301 NORTH HIGHLAND AVE., HOLLYWOOD. 7PM / $10-$98 / ALL AGES. LAPHIL.COM. FEMI KUTI’S DAY BY DAY IS OUT NOW ON DOWNTOWN. VISIT FEMI KUTI AT SHRINETV.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/FEMIKUTI.

Download: The Flatlanders “Homeland Refugee”

(from Hills and Valleys out now on New West)

The Flatlanders knew everything that was going to happen to them when they named their first album—available if at all in the U.S. only on 8-track—More A Legend Than A Band. Founders Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore all won significant fame on their own—Ely would publish poetry and tour with the Clash besides releasing an impressive set of solo LPs—but they regroup on rare occasions just to see what happens. Their newest Hills and Valleys is out now on New West. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

Do you still have the guitar you bought off the street in Venice Beach?
Joe Ely (vocals/guitar): I’ve taken it out on the road for the first time in 20 years and I’ve been playing it for the first four or five songs. It sounds better than ever—it’s just aged really well. I’ve always played it in the studio because it sounds so sweet and I used to take it out on the road with me until the airlines punched a hole in it one time. But I got a nice case for it and I’ve been taking it out. What happened was I was playing down in Houston, alternating sets with ZZ Top when they were still called American Blues. We’d start at 6 PM and play until 6 AM. We’d play an hour, they’d play an hour—all night. And I had a falling out with the club owner and he pulled a gun on me so I hit the road—ran four blocks to the bus station and caught a bus to Fort Worth, and my friend in Fort Worth had just quit his job and he had enough money for two plane tickets to L.A. And my guitar had been stolen a few nights before at the club. I had stored in Fort Worth my Super Reverb amplifier and they actually let me strap it into the seat on the plane—like a baby! So we get to L.A. and I didn’t have any clothes or anything—just the amplifier. Well, there were a few shirts stuffed in the back of the amp. And we took turns carrying that thing from LAX to Venice Beach.
On foot?
Yeah. Well, we got a ride from a winged-out guy for a few blocks, but he was so crazy we said, ‘Let us out here.’ We get to Venice Beach and I was sleeping under the old pier that’s been torn down—I had my head on the Reverb to see if it moved. And then my friend knew someone out there so I put my amplifier at their house. I was out there about a week or two just doing whatever I could and I ran into some speed freak playing that old Gibson guitar at a bus stop right off of that main road—I guess it’s called Ocean or something. I can’t remember the streets in Venice anymore. He was sitting at a bus stop playing it and he had seashells glued all over it and I just came up and started talking to him and said, ‘That’s a real interesting guitar.’ And he looked at me all pissed-off and said, ‘Yeah? You wanna buy it?’ I said, ‘Well, what do you want for it?’ He said, ‘Ten dollars.’ And I thought, ‘God, a Gibson guitar for ten dollars!’ So I told him, ‘I don’t have one penny, but where are you going to be tomorrow?’ And he said ‘Oh, I’m always here—just get out of here if you don’t have any money!’ I spent 24 hours borrowing, begging, selling Coke bottles—whatever I could—and I came up with $5 and some change and I went back and told him, ‘Hey, man, I saw you yesterday and this is all I could scrape up.’ And he just looked at me like he was kinda needing a hit of speed or something and said, ‘All right, gimme the money—but I get to keep the seashells.’ So he starts ripping off the seashells and I was scared he was going to rip the top off because they were glued on with airplane glue. And he ripped all the shells off and I take the guitar and a couple months later I take it back to Texas with me and a guitar-and-violin maker in Lubbock, Texas, put a new bridge on it and new frets and sanded down the top. He just left the top all the same because he said if he refinished it, it would lose a lot of the sound. So it has the original finish and just a bunch of half circles where the seashells were ripped off. It’s an ugly guitar but boy, it sure sounds sweet. I think I’m going to bring it out to L.A. with me for these shows.
And that was your first week in L.A.?
That was basically my first week in L.A.
What was it like the first time you rode a freight train from L.A. back to Texas?
I’d run into some Texas buddies that had come out from Lubbock on a freight train and I asked them all kinds of questions about it. And I got called for the draft to go back to Lubbock and appear at the draft board in Amarillo, and I still didn’t have any money so I had somebody drop me at a San Bernardino freight yard. I asked which train went across to Albuquerque and they pointed it out and I made it all the way to Clovis, New Mexico—and hitch-hiked part of the way. But, boy, what an experience—flying across the desert in a boxcar with no weight in it so it’s just bumpy as shit. It literally knocks your brain out of your skull. Besides that, the girls that had given me a ride to the freight yards had given me a little package with some food in it—sandwiches and chips and brownies—so about dark I got hungry and I started eating their food and I ate the brownies and I’ll be damned if they hadn’t spiked the brownies with pot! I was riding 80 miles an hour in this boxcar and the brownies started coming on and I was bouncing towards the door—pushing myself back because I was scared shitless. And then I came out to Venice the next three summers. That was the winter of 1966 when I first went out there and then I went back to Texas for the draft, came back summer of ’67—the ‘Summer of Love,’ they called it. That was when Jim Morrison lived there and Venice was just a true bohemian spot—it wasn’t an upper-hunky place like it is now. It was a real bohemian village and I had a really great time working on music out there.
Didn’t the Seeds play there every day for a month?
At the Cheetah at Pacific Ocean Park—P.O.P. Some surfers showed me a way to climb on the outside of the pier and cut across through the middle and there was a hole and you could come up right underneath the stage. So we used to climb on the pier and sneak into shows at the Cheetah. The ocean was like six stories below. I didn’t have any good sense then—that was my problem!
I read when you were a kid, you liked to follow songs around—go where someone had sang about to see what it was really like. Why?
First it was Woody Guthrie, so I had to go everywhere that Woody Guthrie had gone. About the time I got that old guitar, I had to go to the towns that Woody talked about and then I heard ‘Go to San Francisco with flowers in your hair,’ so I went to San Francisco and made it up there in ’67 and ’68. I spent a whole lot of time in Berkeley. Mainly it was Berkeley, San Francisco and Venice. Being from Lubbock, Texas, where nothing ever happens to being right in the middle of the whole movement in 1966 and ’67—it was quite different than Lubbock and I found it totally fascinating.
The Flatlanders come back together every so often—is it because of something between the three of you or is there some outside force lets you know the world could use you for a bit?
There’s no outside force that gets us together. We don’t have much drive or ambition or anything like that. Between the three of us, you could put all of our ambition in a thimble! What it is is that we are truly dumbfounded and fascinated that we sit down and put a song together one word at a time—one note at a time—and we’re always fascinated at how it’s going to turn out. We never expected we would ever write a song together. That was just something that you didn’t do. Like this last record. Somewhere around the time Hurricane Katrina hit, we got together and started putting together some songs and it took us about five years to write these last songs. I think one song took two-and-a-half years to write. It’s almost like a game that we play—to see what happens. And even if we have songs, we don’t know if we have an album or not until we sit down and start recording it. So it’s quite a process. If we had someone looking over us saying, ‘You better get this record done!’ we would never do it. We just like to take time out from our own schedules every once in a while and just see what happens.
Butch told a reporter that you’ve ‘spent many hours in pancake houses across the country revealing the secrets of the universe to each other.’ What secrets can you share with us now?
We have come to the conclusion that sooner or later it’s now or never. And that’s about all we figured out. Anything that comes your way, just say to yourself, ‘Never mind.’ And everything will be all right—you won’t have any conflicts.
You’ve said before you cared much more about the live shows then the recording sessions when you were younger—what kind of things got lost because of that?
I’m sure I lost a whole lot of things—physically and mentally. One time I lost four years of songs I had written and stories in my journal. One time I lost an entire album—when I was coming back after we were touring with the Clash in London. I was over in Europe for a few months and had recorded an album on a little tape recorder and had it all pretty mapped out and was going to record it when I got back to Texas, but we got to New York City and the taxicab that took us from the airport to the Chelsea Hotel drove off and it had my bag in it with all four years of writings and a complete record album—all the notes on cassette tape—and it never came back. That night I kicked a table in my hotel room and broke my foot, so for the next three weeks I had to hobble along on tour from town to town with a cast on my foot and playing every night. It was miserable. The University of Texas just published a bunch of my journals that I kept on the road and those would have been four years of journals I probably would have included in this book and there’s a missing gap now. I’m amazed that this many things did survive because I’ve gone off and left whole record collections and whole houses full of stuff. I’ve gone off and left cars in airport parking lots and never gone back.
What’s it feel like to walk away from things like that?
Usually it’s not an impulse—it’s just a situation that I find myself in. It’s like, ‘Well, I’m here, but somebody called me and said to come up here and I know I won’t be back for six months so I’ll just call somebody and say, “Say, want a car? You can have it.”’ One time I had a collection of glass doorknobs that was my most prized possession. I don’t know why—I found these glass doorknobs in a house that had fallen down in Amarillo. I got a gig in New York playing with this theatre company which then went to Europe for six months and I knew I was going to lose my house and everything, and I called a friend and told him, ‘I’m going to donate to you my glass doorknobs.’ And he went, ‘What in the hell is a glass doorknob?’ And I said, ‘You know. Old houses in the ‘20s—everybody had glass and crystal doorknobs.’ That’s just kind of the way things are if you’re a rambler and that’s what I’ve always been.
But you’ve settled down in Austin for a bit, right?
I’ve had this house in Austin for 20 years now. There were a few places around there—one was one of the few settlements—at least in Texas—where the white settlers and the Indians lived side by side. The guy that built my house, his family settled Texas and came out with Steven F. Austin in the 1820s. He told me some stories and there’s been a couple of books written about one of the few places where the Indians had their teepees down by the river and the settlers were on the other side and they helped each other get food and pick pecans and all that stuff. I kind of feel like I was guided into that spot. I feel like I’ve found—after all that wandering—found that right spot.
Where do you feel the Flatlanders fit in your life now?
It’s a different kind of chemistry that happens when we sit down and work on something together. I cant put my finger on it—I don’t know what it is. All I can call it is kind of like mustard and mayonnaise—just a chemistry. We have tried to figure it out and we’ve never been able to. Probably something we’d be better off talking about at a pancake house! But if we figured it out, we probably wouldn’t have it anymore. It’s like the story of somebody asking the centipede about how he moves all his legs at one time and when the centipede thinks about it, he trips all over himself.
How did you happen to get bit by the world’s smallest horse?
When I came back from one of my trips from the East Coast, the Ringling Brothers circus was setting up in my hometown of Lubbock and I went out to watch them set up. And some guy walked over and handed me a jackhammer and said, ‘Go over and help those guys set up that tent.’ I was hired on the spot. And my first job after the tent was when we moved from the auditorium where we played back to the train yards which was several miles away—I was put in charge of two llamas and the world’s smallest horse. If you can imagine, his head was exactly knee-level to me. And he was a mean sonofabitch so every five seconds he would turn over and try to take a bite out of my knee. Napoleon complex. And when I would kick the horse off me, the llamas would rear up and look at me and spit at me. That was the worst job I ever had—leading the llamas and the world’s smallest horse. Within three weeks of being in the circus in what they call ringstock—which is taking care of the animals—I had the most seniority which goes to show you how long circus employees last. It’s usually guys running from the law who get a job so they can make it to the next town. So if you’re ever running from the law, just go join the circus.
You had a lyric on the new record that says, ‘the average person’s afraid of talking about death but not afraid of driving a car.’ What does that mean?
This world we live in is one big paradox. Everybody worries about the latest thing to worry about. Today it’s swine flu, but yet there’s a volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park that is 60,000 years overdue and if it goes off, it’ll cover the entire United States with fifty feet of ash. So I don’t worry about the latest things to worry about. I just think it’s better to make the best of what you got. My old BBQ friend Stubbs, I asked him once—‘What’s the secret to what you do, all the sauce and BBQing?’ And Stubbs said, ‘The secret of it all is to make do with what you got.’ So I figured that’s a good thing to live by.

THE FLATLANDERS FEATURING JIMMIE DALE GILMORE, JOE ELY AND BUTCH HANCOCK ON SAT., MAY 30, AT THE TROUBADOUR, 9081 SANTA MONICA BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8PM / $18-$20 / ALL AGES. WWW.TROUBADOUR.COM. THE FLATLANDERS’ HILLS AND VALLEYS IS OUT NOW ON NEW WEST. VISIT THE FLATLANDERS AT THEFLATLANDERS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THEFLATLANDERSTX.

Download: Ramblin’ Jack Elliott “Soul Of A Man”

(from A Stranger Here out now on Anti)

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s first job was a rodeo hand after he ran away from his childhood home in Brooklyn. Not long after, he apprenticed under Woody Guthrie. Not long after that, Bob Dylan apprenticed under Jack. He’s only written four songs in his entire life, but one of those songs was a personal favorite of Townes Van Zandt. His newest album A Stranger Here (out now on Anti) is made up of blues standards and features Van Dyke Parks on piano. He had his hip replaced just last week. This interview by Kevin Ferguson.

Can you still do the 45-second yodel at the end of ‘Muleskinner Blues?’
I haven’t sung ‘Muleskinner Blues’ in a couple of years. But actually I was going to get a lung test at the hospital one day. The doctors put me on this machine and they told me that I had a problem with my lungs—that it wasn’t reading good. And I thought, ‘Well, I’ll show you guys!’ So I looked at the clock on the wall and I waited ‘til the second hand came up the twelve and I started my yodel which I believe was supposed to be 45 seconds long. But under the added stimulation of having two young doctors watching me and the clock and all—and having just done the lung test, which was like a warm up exercise—I held that note for sixty seconds! A couple of years later I went back to the hospital for another lung test and I had two new doctors—but the same machine, the same old story. I did the test and they said it wasn’t a good reading and I said, ‘OK, I’ll show you guys, too!’ And I looked up at the wall for the second hand again and I started my sixty-second yodel again, but that time I held that note for seventy seconds! But I haven’t tried it much since then. And of course they repeated their diagnosis about what they thought was wrong, and I thought, ‘You guys are a bunch of spoilsports! I ain’t going back here!’
Does the yodel require practice?
I’ve never been known to do any practicing of the guitar or singing—the only practice I get is when I’m on stage. I’m gonna be practicing again soon though, because I need to learn these new songs that I recorded almost ten months ago. I recorded them last June—they’re on a new album that’s just coming out in a few days now? I don’t know any of those songs. I didn’t learn them when I went down there. I was just reading them off the paper.
How did you choose the songs for that album?
I didn’t choose them. The record company suggested them to me—they had this concept in their mind of me doing these funky old blues songs, and I thought, ‘OK, that sounds like a good idea!’ I didn’t want to be argumentative. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even like about half the songs! I listened to them for three months about five times a day, and I never learned a single one! There was only one that I already knew, and I had been singing it for about fifty years—the ‘How Long Blues.’ But I sang Leadbelly’s version, and this is not Leadbelly’s version. This is a different version—the one by the guy that wrote it. I think he was a piano player. The only reason that record so good is because the musicians who were backing me up are a bunch of geniuses! They had done their homework—they knew the songs pretty well, and we did it like a huge jam session. That too is unusual for me because I don’t normally do jam sessions. The best way you can learn and improve your technique on guitar is to work out with other musicians—to play live. I did a lot of that for the first ten years or so that I was playing guitar. But after I got to traveling around and playing professionally more and more, I sort of lost interest in going out and jamming all the time. I love playing with those guys! They were great. Jay Belrose on drums—Van Dyke Parks on piano. And I knew Van Dyke from about twenty years back—we were drinking buddies in L.A.!
What has been the biggest revelation in your life?
Biggest revelation! I had a marvelous time last night. I just got out of the hospital about ten days ago—had a new hip put in, and I just started to walk back to normal. I’m walking with a walking stick. A friend of mine told me that Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard were playing in a theatre near where I lived, so he drove me over there in my truck because I’m not ready to drive yet. I got a special cushion I can sit on ‘cause it’s kind of painful to sit in a car. I got about two more weeks to go—I’ll be ready to go on the road. But right now I’m just barely getting used to having this new hip in me, and it gets a little painful sometimes. But I walked a mile a day before yesterday, and that was a little bit too much. It took me an hour and a half to get the mail! But I went to see Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard last night! They did a great show. Joel Selvin was there from the San Francisco Chronicle, and he had just written a big story about them… so a good time was had by all, and I’m starting to like get ready to face show biz and being on the road again. So—the greatest revelation! Well, I guess it was when I climbed the rigging in an old whaler in a museum ship in Mystic, Connecticut. I’ve always loved boats—water and clipper ships. So I met some people who sailed in these old square riggers, and I was memorizing a lot of information about boats and navigation. I went and climbed up the rigging that cold winter’s day. My hands were so cold I could only go up about one third of the way! So then I climbed back down to the deck to warm my hands. It took me three separate climbs—about an hour—to gradually work my way up to the whale lookout about 125 feet above the deck on this old sailing whale ship called the Charles W. Morgan. That was kind of an exercise in control of cold and fear of heights, and learning to accept being alone in the cold. A lot of my heroes were singlehanded navigators, and I’d read about it. But I myself have never done a long trip solo. I had a small sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean about a mile offshore from when I was about 16 to when I was 20. When I’d sail it in the wintertime, they’d call that ‘frostbite dinghy sailing.’
Frostbite dinghy sailing?
Warmly dressed, of course. You’d wear ex-Navy foul-weather gear—wool and such. It was very fun. But then my first performance was playing for World War II survivors in a hospital in New York. These guys were pretty fucked-up from being in the war and they lost legs and arms and stuff—they didn’t make a very good audience. Some were laughing, some were crying, some were cussing, some were telling jokes, and some were even listening and enjoying the music! That was my first schooling in handling an audience. But I have never been able to handle drunks very well. My L.A. gigs are a bit trying, too, because the audience at McCabe’s guitar shop are mostly elderly people and they’re serious fans and they’re dead quiet—sort of like in church! I’ve been known to go asleep on stage in that venue! So I have to be a stand-up comic at the beginning. Get them out of their reverent worshipful mood that they’re in and wake ‘em up! Of course, there’s about a hundred guitars up on the wall there—people are afraid to clap for fear that they might start a guitar avalanche off the wall!
Do you still play your old Gretsch?
Well, it was stolen and it was missing for 23 years! I got it back—I had a local guitar maker take it back and glue it all together again. He did a pretty good job. It’s got a lot of scars of battle on it. I asked him to please not make it look any prettier than it did before I lost it. It’s been over the Alps on the back of a motor scooter in a blizzard, all over Europe for about three years! So I don’t need to kind of expose it to any more travel—it’s a museum piece. The other day, I hauled it out in its case and showed it to a friend who’s a boat builder. He stomped on it and he was amazed—I was amazed—how good the Gretsch still sounds and holds up despite all of the glue that’s been added to it. Because I got it back from this thief because he saw me singing with Kris Kristofferson in the same theater where I was last night to see Kris. He must have had a pang of guilt when he saw me playing on stage without it—he knocked on the stage door later and he said his name, said he was a friend of so-and-so. He gave me his number and I called him and went up to visit at his farm and got my guitar back. It looked like he carefully removed the guitar from the case, put it on the ground, and rolled over it with a tractor two or three times! It was a mess! Totally wrecked! He said a friend of his gave it to him and stuff like, ‘I didn’t know where you were. I thought you were out of town, Jack! Here’s the guitar—take good care of it.’ I was very tempted to say, ‘Why didn’t you take good care of it?’ But I thought it wouldn’t be polite. Especially when I’m sitting in his house drinking his wine and he’s treating me like a guest. I really think that kid stole my guitar. It took a couple of years for my guitar-maker friend to glue that thing back together again! You know, I loaned that guitar to the Experience Music Project museum and they had it travelling all over America for two years as an exhibit of early Bob Dylan influences. They had it in a glass case along with some pertinent information about the guitar because that was the guitar I had played on my first early recordings that Bob had gotten from some friends in Minneapolis when they first turned them on to Woody Guthrie and then to me.
Did you ever really call him your son?
No! I never did! The press called him ‘son of Jack Elliott.’ They thought it was kind of a cute way to announce the arrival of a new talent on the scene. And I was very proud of it because he was very obviously imitating me, although other people saw it more plainly than I could see it. I’d sing a song on stage and a minute later Bob would jump on and start doing something that he just noticed that I was doing—totally unabashedly! It used to piss people off—they didn’t understand why I was allowing it. They thought I ought to crack down on the bastard! But I liked him. He was my friend—sort of unofficially like a student. That’s the way I learned from Woody, too. I was out hanging out with Woody for about four years, starting in 1951. He just told me a lot of stories and we’d play music together. I learned a lot about guitar playing with Woody.
What was the first song he taught you?
Actually, I learned it off a record of his—it was called ‘Hard Travelling.’ I actually knew it by heart when I first met Woody. I’d been listening to that record for about two months before I finally called him one day. I got his phone number through a friend of mine. I called him up and said ‘I’ve been listening to your records, and I sure like your music.’ And he said ‘Well, come on over—bring your guitar! We’ll knock off a couple of tunes together! Don’t come today, though—I got a bellyache.’ And indeed, he almost died. He had appendicitis.
What’s the worst indignity about travelling by air?
Having to give them my guitar and put in baggage where they can break it! I was very lucky they’ve never broken it. But I’ve had many, many friends who had their valuable guitars broken by airlines, Earl Scruggs had his banjo broken by one of those airlines, and so he bought an airplane to learn how to fly on his own! I’ve had my suitcase lost four or five times—always got it back a few days back. I remember when they used to have beautiful stewardesses and nice food and silverware. Metal silverware! That was the old days when the plane stunk of cigarette smoke and coffee, and I didn’t mind!
How did it feel knowing that ‘912 Greens’ was one of the last songs Townes Van Zandt ever heard?
Well, it felt very good that night—I didn’t know that he was going to die. He didn’t even let me know that he had a broken hip. He had tripped over a tree stump the day before and he was frightened to go to a hospital. But he needed to get a surgical operation to get his hip fixed. He put it off ac couple of days before his loved ones finally talked him into going to the hospital. Now, my father was a surgeon. When you operate an alcoholic, you have to give them alcohol. Otherwise they’ll die of shock! And those doctors must’ve not known that. You know, there are a lot of doctors who just don’t know anything nowadays. Isn’t that funny? I don’t know what they teach in medical school. There’s a lot to be found out about the medical profession. He said he liked ‘912 Greens.’ I know he did because every time I talked to him he mentioned that. And I thanked him and I said, ‘You have a nice New Year’s.’ He died about eight hours after that.
What do you think America lost with the death of Odetta?
She had a great powerful voice and a lot of spirit. She was a wonderful, wonderful woman and I just don’t think they make a lot of people like that anymore. She sang Leadbelly songs and old folk songs. She sang a lot of Leadbelly songs. We did five or six concerts together, spread out over two years time. When she died they had a big tribute to Odetta, so I made a videotape and they played it on a big screen.
Is it true that her mom was the first person to call you ‘Ramblin’?’
That’s correct! I like to tell a lot of stories, you know—long stories. I had just met Odetta about a month before and she lived across the street from a man that had several Model A Fords. I had just purchased a Model A and I went to see the man about fixing this and that I because he was an expert. The first time I visited Odetta, her mother answered the door and said, ‘Odetta is in the bathtub—you can wait here in the living room.’ So I waited and I waited and I waited—I could hear the water splashing in the bathtub. I could hear Odetta singing to herself! She seemed very content to be in the bathroom for over a half hour. She’s a large person. Anyway, I got tired of waiting so I went up to the bathroom door and said ‘Hey, Odetta—it’s me, Jack! I’m here!’ and I started telling stories about my adventures. Her mother thought that was odd. The next time I visited Odetta and knocked on her door, her mother looks out the little peephole, saw my face and I heard her holler, ‘ODETTA, RAMBLIN’ JACK IS HERE!’ That was the first time I heard that name. I’ve heard it an awful lot since then!
Was On The Road the only manuscript that’s ever been read to you?
That’s the only one! I’ve read manuscripts for movies and stuff, but that was the first and last time anybody read me their manuscript. We drank some wine, had some other things and we sat on the floor. Jack read to us for three days!
How do you stay awake through that?
I don’t think we had any trouble staying awake—it was such a wonderful story. That was in the year 1953 and the book came out in 1956, or ‘57! Yeah, ‘57—it was four years prior to the publishing of the book. So when it finally came out I was in Paris and I gave a reading of some of the chapters of that book and along with a reading of some of Woody’s writings. I performed, too. I was performing in concert with Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso in Paris.
How do you survive on two dollars a day when you’re a rodeo hand?
Well, it was in 1947—I could get bacon and eggs and a cup of coffee and sometimes still have enough money left over for a malted milk later! But that was it—I was pretty much a one-meal-a-day kid for about three months. Well, the latter part of that time I was on the ranch I was paid 5 dollars a week, but they fed us. I had nineteen flapjacks every morning! The cook made the most delicious pancakes! To this day, I still love buckwheat pancakes—they’re very different. A unique flavor. They taste rich and healthy without being too sweet. It’s sort of like a good bowl of oatmeal!
Is there a trick to make the most money possible while busking?
Aw, I never made much money busking! When I was busking in Paris regularly—practically every night—in the wintertime, we would work for approximately one hour and collect the equivalent of about $8 U.S., which was about enough to pay our room rent and one or two meals. Breakfast was just coffee and a croissant, lunch was a ham sandwich, and dinner was a beefsteak and frites.
When was the last time you rode a horse?
I rode a horse when I was watching Larry Mayham practice roping. It was at a Colorado film festival. Before that, I rode a horse about a year ago on a round-up finding some cattle up in the mountains of Northern California. Bringing them down in a rainstorm and sleeping in a very leaky tent with a cowboy who snored. After about three hours of soaking in my sleep, I apologized to him for abandoning him and went into my Ford truck. There, I had a wool blanket and 2 full hours of good sleep until I heard the cook rustling up the coffee pot. I was up like a flash! We couldn’t even brand the calves—they were too wet! But I like riding horses—I just don’t get to ride them enough. I used to have a horse for twelve years and rode him constantly in the hills of Northern California.
What was his name?
His name was Young Brigham. I had him on a record album cover—the album was named after him, too. The saddle maker that sold me that horse told me, ‘You know, Jack, if you put a picture of Brigham on the cover of your record album, the hay will be tax deductible!’
Is that for real?
It was a good sales point! I was already in love with the horse, anyway.
How do you think your music and Woody’s music fits in with today, as we’re risking a second Great Depression?
I think it fits in perfectly. He was singing about hard times, and he went through the hard times and he saw it and he wrote about it. And now we’re getting ready to have some more. I think people appreciate the music because it means something to them. Back as recently as a year ago, the country was still in a blind bourgeois alcoholic drug-induced Hollywood-induced fog of, ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme! Gotta have a fast car, gotta have a big fat four-wheel drive, just like in the movies.’ We were totally stupid—in a crazed state of mind—which helped to bring about the fall. It’s like the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Stuff goes up and comes back down again. It’s gravity!
What’s the one lesson we all should have learned from history but never will?
I think that there’s a very good chance that most of the people will never have learned anything. Because it seems like it’s almost built into human nature that it’s easy for certain politicians to exist. As long as the politicians do exist, they’re always going to lie to the public and the deprivation and destruction of schools will continue. And California is the leading state in backwardness for education. It’s still shocking and hard to believe! I was raised on mom, apple pie, red white and blue, ‘America the Beautiful’—I was very patriotic in my heart, although I was lucky enough to not have to go to war. I was too young for World War II and later I just fell through the cracks. I probably would’ve had to be a draft dodger or refuse to go. I don’t approve of warfare and I don’t like killing animals or people. Although I used to love a good steak!
So you’re a vegetarian?
I’m part idealist and part hypocrite. I’m part yogi and part bull-rider. I’m all things good and all things bad! No, I’m not, Hitler was! No, I’m not a vegetarian. But I am trying to cut down on meat as I’ve found out that red meat is not as good for you as I had once supposed that it was. And yet I crave it! But I’m starting to eat more lamb. I love lamb curry and I love lamb chops. I like Indian food a lot, too. Theoretically, I’m much more a vegetarian than I am in practice. And I don’t smoke cigarettes. I did smoke cigarettes for about twenty years. I started when I was fifteen, rolling my own cigarettes at the rodeo ranch. I thought that was cool! Then I started smoking Camels and Luckys and all that trash. I was very lucky that I didn’t get seriously addicted to tobacco. One day I decided I was really tired and bored with it, and I just stopped buying and smoking cigarettes. I didn’t have a difficult time quitting tobacco. I know that most people have a hard time—they say it’s harder to kick than heroin!
What was it like getting an award from Bill Clinton?
Well, of course I don’t ever rehearse what I’m going to say. It seems like it comes out better ad-libbed, in the style of Woody Guthrie and Will Rogers. They never rehearsed or planned out what they were going to say. And so here comes the president and he’s about to shake hands with me in the White House. I said, ‘It’s wonderful to meet you, Bill! Is it ok if I call you Bill?’ And he said, ‘Of course, Jack.’ And I felt like he was my friend! I like him! And I had come in with no preconceived notion about him. I just looked in his eyes and I thought, ‘This guy is OK. Good man.’ When I met his wife, I said, ‘I’m Ramblin’ Jack!’ and she just hollered, ‘I KNOW YOU, RAMBLIN’ JACK!’ It reverberated down the hall of the White House! It was as if she was back in Arkansas knocking on the back porch to borrow some sugar. I thought, ‘These guys are down home folks!’
What was the most memorable time you sang the national anthem?
As a matter of fact, I sang it the one time we were being serenaded by some musicians on foot who were in blue. It was the U.S. Marine Corp band, and they were playing all these tunes, mostly patriotic songs. So I chimed in with them on, ‘America, America, God shed his grace on thee.’ I had had ONE shot of scotch and two glasses of red wine, which is about enough. I was a little bit in my cups—as they say—but I didn’t dare look but my wife sitting next to me peeked over. I was singing a little too loud because I was carried away with patriotic fervor. Bill was looking right at me, grinning broadly. He just dug it! And later after the dinner was over, immediately I had to scooch over and allow Bill to sneak past me, ahead of some other people. As he walked by me, I put my hand up to my mouth as if I had a secret to whisper to him. And in fact the G-Men by the other wall couldn’t see what I was saying, and I told Bill, ‘I heard a rumor that Bob Dylan is in town tonight and I thought we could dress you up in a disguise and sneak you over there.’ He threw his head back and laughed, ‘That would be fun!’

RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT ON FRI.. APR. 17, AND SAT., APR. 18, AT McCABE’S GUITAR SHOP, 3101 PICO BLVD., SANTA MONICA. 8 PM / $20 / ALL AGES. MCCABES.COM. RAMBLIN JACK ELLIOTT’S A STRANGER HERE RELEASES TUE., APR. 7, ON ANTI-. VISIT RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT AT RAMBLINJACK.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/RAMBLINJACKELLIOTT.