www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NlMTaI5FIY

We’d also like to introduce a new term into the English language. L.A. Record thanks Eli Stonberg for coining the official term, “mixtube,” a mixtape made of Youtube.

Joe Albanese’ mixtube even has a title. It’s called FROZEN WARNINGS.

John Cale -- Frozen Warnings

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFgqEb6v6Ow

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccu4EHwBdHE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNFoi2Lt_zk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sftEYVYEoew

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE46D2e4BpE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjvfgFYPOIU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS_NRR86Qnw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAbO87zDqx0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkripMvBTkc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGBV1WaQtQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7vX3s9Kd3I

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pJlmFyaLCk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzcdNwIkmYA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtlWrORwEoI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOgN_KmERY0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrr9YPYJONo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEy3fhrDYNY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pG_3jZxzlo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AAG4M6Yz_4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Azui-cs9DQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CK8KPh167g

Check out more of Joe’s mixtubes

For his first set, Cale and ensemble performed Paris 1919 with sensitivity and authority for the near capacity Royce Hall crowd. The 1973 album was recorded with members of UCLA Symphony Orchestra, albeit an older generation of musicians, so Cale’s return to the campus for this one-off performance seemed very appropriate and genuine. During the entirety of the nine-song set, Cale hovered over the electric piano and belted out the lyrics in his deep Welsh accent as the string section of the philharmonic and a few token horns carried the mood from staccato to tumultuous and back. Cale, now 68, can still command a crowd with his classically trained musicianship and striking voice, though he has slightly trimmed back his vocal range. Cale kept mostly true to the format of Paris 1919, despite moving “Macbeth,” the album’s token rocker, from the end of Side A to the end of the set. The highlights of the set included the staccato string and piano percussion of “Paris 1919,” though unlike on record backed by actual drums; the powerful mood exuded in “Endless Plain of Fortune” and “Half Past France;” and the violent climax of Macbeth, where the string section chopped at their instruments to create the fury and chaos of a swarm of bees.

After an intermission in which I noticed a group of UCLA music students try to transcribe the chorus of “Paris 1919” and overheard a group of older fans brag about seeing Cale with Chris Spedding decades ago and their dueling Flying-V guitars, the Welshman returned with an acoustic guitar. Backed by a four-piece band and the horn section of the philharmonic they dove into “Hello There” the opening track of his first solo album, Vintage Violence. The second song of the set was when the crowd really fired up, as the horn section left and Cale returned to the electric piano and decimated the Elvis Presley standard “Heartbreak Hotel” in a wash of feedback, vocal distortion, and a myriad of other effects. The result was fucked up beyond any version I’ve heard on record and he has been performing the song for decades.

Cale continued his set oscillating between the piano and acoustic guitar, revisiting mostly songs from his 1970s catalogue. In the middle of the set, Cale was joined by Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service) and Mark Lanegan who took their crack at some Cale classics. Gibbard attempted the Vintage Violence track “Gideon’s Bible” and though he stayed true to the original his vocals are nowhere near as dense and dominating as Cale’s original. Lanegan sang “Ghost Story,” also from Vintage Violence, where he came across as Leonard Cohen meets the Doors, though I don’t know if it added anything to the original; he also sang “Win A Few,” a song written by Nico and produced by Cale, which better suited his vocal style than “Ghost Story.” The stand out track of the collaborations was “Ship of Fools,” in which the harmony between Gibbard and Cale was reminiscent of Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon at their early 1970s best, two artists Cale openly admired during the recording of his early 1970s albums, according to his 1999 autobiography, What’s Welsh for Zen.

After the orchestra reappeared for the set’s closing tracks, “Secret Corrida” and “Hedda Gabler,” Cale walked off stage only to soon return with a Fender strat for an encore medley of “Gun” and the Modern Lover’s “Pablo Picasso,” off the Lovers’ self-titled debut produced by Cale in 1972. For a second encore, Cale returned again, this time with an acoustic guitar, and called back Gibbard and Lanegan to harmonize on “Chorale.” For someone hoping to hear Cale’s interpretation of Velvet Underground classics, or expecting him to play his signature viola, they may have been confused, but Cale demonstrated the depth of his recorded solo catalogue and he deserved every ounce of the standing ovation he received at the show’s close.

—Daniel Clodfelter

JOHN CALE + BEN GIBBARD + MARK LANEGAN AT UCLA’S ROYCE HALL ON THURS, SEPT. 30. 8PM / ALL AGES / $38-68. HTTP://WWW.UCLALIVE.ORG/.

John Cale beat Jason Voorhees to both hockey masks and striking terror into the heart of American suburbia. He recently performed his classic Paris 1919 at UCLA’s Royce Hall without the old headgear but with all the old energy. He speaks now from his manager’s office near the Blue Line downtown. This interview by Kevin Ferguson.

You once said, ‘Doing evil is better than doing nothing.’
I didn’t say that—Lou did. Actually, wait a minute … It was all very tied into literature and risk. We were talking about people’s definition of risk. And there was very little literature that was just about that. Except he was pushing Last Exit to Brooklyn—the Hubert Selby book. It ends up in a lot of capital letters, so there’s a lot of screaming that goes on in the entire last chapter. It’s very good. The dialogue at high volume. Sam Beckett, too. Every line is somebody shouting at somebody. And we were discussing how useless doing nothing is.
Dylan Thomas said, ‘He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.’
That’s a good work ethic. Good Labor Party ethic, too. My family were all coal miners. The idea that work was good for the soul was what they lived by.
Even evil work?
Yeah! I’m not doing much evil now. Most of my work is about creating things and has been for some time. Lou and I were trying to set our borders for what we believed in. And so it delineated the areas of activity that we were really passionate about.
How do you connect with Dylan Thomas?
He’s omnipresent when you’re a kid growing up in Wales. You never got anywhere without the education system teaching you about him. Some of those ideas were kind of spurious. The idea that Dylan Thomas was using language in the same way that the Welsh poets did with the Welsh language—it didn’t make sense because Welsh has specific rules. H is a vowel in Welsh! You can do a lot more with it. They were teaching us that alliteration and certain stuff in Thomas was related to the Welsh language. It didn’t strike me as accurate. But I did love his use of English language.
I’m from L.A., but I don’t like Bukowski much. What do you see in Thomas?
One of the things about this art piece I just did for the [Venice] Biennale is about what I carry around with me from my childhood that makes me work in the certain way that I work. You couldn’t get away from him growing up as a kid! I learned English when I was 7 and I was ready because my father was English—and my Grandma banned English in the home! And my relationship with my grandmother is nasty enough—every time I think about it it makes my blood boil! And why is it that a Welshman who grew up in a Welsh-speaking home ended up in New York making English his poetic language? The answer is because Dylan Thomas opened the door. I can understand what you mean by Bukowski, but I see him as more of a New York poet than an L.A. poet.
You said Los Angeles corrupted your life to its worst point—why did you stay as long as you did?
L.A. didn’t corrupt my life to the worst point—I did. I mean, I enjoy the climate out here. I loved New York for years. I still do. L.A. was always a company town. It still is. I came out here to learn more about corporate architecture and influence, so I did. I learned a lot about making alliances in corporations, but I didn’t really make the right number of alliances. And there was always this unrequited love of performing that I didn’t pursue while I was here. But when I left, it landed right in my lap in London. That was when I had a band and I could decide which direction the band was going to go in.
Too much producing?
It’s very difficult when you’re in the company. You have to do the work that you’re asked to do. But as far as I could, I did that. This opportunity of going to London and starting a solo career was very good.
Where were you in your life when Paris 1919 was written?
I had a lot of commitments at the time and I really had difficulty rationalizing them. It’s a very calm record—the one case where I wrote all the songs before I went into the studio. All the albums afterwards have sort of been improvised. Nowadays I just start off with a drum groove and it’s all improvised. That way you get further down the pike in production. But anyway, it was all very much emotion recollected in tranquility—that’s what Paris was. I was feeling very nostalgic for what I loved about Europe, and it all ended up in the album. A lot of those songs are really a little opaque.
Did that make the London move all the more welcome?
Funny thing was—when I got to London I spent all my time listening to a turntable that was stacked with Beach Boys records!
Did you ever meet Brian, by the way?
I went to say hello to him at the Javits Center in New York—it was like eight years ago. I caught him at the door. He didn’t know me from Adam. But I was just happy to say, ‘Look after yourself, Brian.’
What did London do for your music?
It was exciting for me. I got my teeth into having a band. I got a lot of help from Chris Spedding. It’s a little brutal, but he helped me figure out how to take what we did in the studio and make it work live. I had this penchant for making up new songs on stage. Chris was always there—he was like an eagle. He’d spot a change coming up. That’s where I got closer to the idea what the VU was—on stage.
Sounds like the trip back to New York was hard.
Yeah it was, actually. The punk scene in London was really solid. It had pretty good grounding. The Sex Pistols covered that ground pretty well. I wasn’t that much aware of that at the time until I got to New York. But in L.A. it seemed like the spiritual side of what punk was. It had much more energy than the one in New York. It reminded me a lot more of London than the ones in New York did. I don’t know why—whether it’s because the difference between the rich and the poor here is as graphic as it is in London or what? There was a lot of energy.
Did you hear about the John Cale Revival—the John Cale tribute band from Prague ?
No, but Prague makes kind of a sense. The Velvet Revolution was based on what we did in the Velvet Underground. People were passing around the lyrics in jail.
Were you the first person to frighten people in a hockey mask?
No, robbers would wear them back then! The idea was on the outside I had a hockey mask and on the inside I had reflective ski glasses that were sort of yellowish, and then underneath that I had a reflective steel scarf, and then under that I wore green reflective shades. They came off during different stages in the performance.
Sounds like a nightmare.
Yeah—you can’t see very well. You get down to the nitty gritty real fast. But at least something’s going on during the show. There was always stuff like that going on anyway. In Denmark I’d have some giant Viking guy carry a stepladder onto the stage without telling the band and then the band would play ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and I could hang upside down in the ladder while I was singing. You’d try to figure out different things in different clubs. You’d look at the place where you were playing that night and say, ‘OK, let’s turn all the lights off in here!’ And we’d start with ‘I Keep a Close Watch’ and from that we’d go into the hard rock stuff. But turning all the lights off—the club owner would say, ‘You can’t do that! You gotta have the exit signs on!’ And I’d say, ‘Yeah, but it’s only for like three minutes,’ and he’d say, ‘OK.’ There was always a plan to have some sort of theater going on. I had a ski outfit—I had a fencing outfit made by Betsey Johnson for me.
You couldn’t just buy one off the rack?
Well, I mean it’s much better to have one fitted—all the others are sort of generic. There’s a way of making them look zippier than the rest.
When was the last time you played piano with your elbows?
About ten years ago, I guess. I ended ‘Fear’ with elbows, it was a solo performance. Back in the day, there was a piece by La Monte Young—‘X for Henry Flynt’—that was about that. About human fallibility. When I played that song, the audience came up and dragged the piano away from me. I was on my knees so that the keyboard was at the right level, and somebody jumped up on stage and pulled the piano away from me! I had to go running after it. And Cornelius Cardew—my collaborator—came up and was really pissed off.
Did your avant-garde friends accept you as a pop musician?
They weren’t too impressed with it at first. But when they saw that we hooked up with Andy, they started paying attention! But I never inquired as to what they thought. I did take the Marble Index album to Aaron Copland. And he thought [Nico] had a very gravely voice. And that was about it. I never went and discussed it with them. They were watching Andy and what Andy was doing more than anything. The idea of a rock ‘n’ roll band that Andy got together was really the buzz.
Was Andy really that crucial?
Sure! I mean—having a co-conspirator was really important. But I think it was really a case … what happened was we got so much publicity so fast, and we were pretty rabid anyway—really interested in our work. And one of the things that really worked in those days was we went up to the Factory and would see how all they worked. We did all those rehearsals for the first album there, and that work ethic was important for Andy as well. It wasn’t just messing around. If you wanted to do a silk screen, you had to get down and do the silk screen. It takes time and effort.
Didn’t Lou write a song about that?
Exactly! Those were the topics we covered on that album.
I heard writing with Lou was a mixed bag back in the day.
We were working very hard to get this sound and idea going. That’s the way ‘Venus’ worked, ‘Heroin,’ ‘Black Angel’s Death Song.’ We were trying to force a square peg in a round hole. It was collaboration at its greasiest.
How greasy was Songs for Drella?
I don’t smoke. I didn’t like having to be in a room where Lou didn’t mind blowing smoke in your face every five minutes just to get you out of there. It was tough. The songwriting process was fine, but by the end of the process it really got hairy! We just bore down—we had three weeks and we just sort of methodically charted where we wanted to go. In the end we were like, ‘There’s no song about us!’ So we wrote one.
Why did you start playing pop music?
I decided not to do anything more with the avant-garde when I joined the VU, and after the VU I decided I could really be a producer. It just seemed to be at hand at the time. And I had these things with Terry [Riley]—he was an instrumentalist. I really wanted to take advantage of the fact that he could do boogie woogie in all sorts of time signatures. At the time, too, CBS corporate were really concerned with Vintage Violence—worried if the title had a political meaning.
Really? Even the Monkees had protest songs by then.
I think it was the Democratic Convention. They didn’t want to stir anything up. The album was harmless enough.
How did the VU prepare you to go solo?
It’s something I was shy about at first. But what became clear was there weren’t any rules for it. You just needed to focus your way through. The first song was ‘Winter Song’ for Nico on Chelsea Girls.
Do you still own that Mustang Cobra?
No, I don’t. I don’t know what I’d do with it if I had it anyway. The EPA is much tougher on Mustang Cobras than they were back then—except in Nevada.
Drive it to Vegas.
Yeah, I could leave it in Vegas!
My dad’s first car was a 1968 GT California Special.
I went to visit Jim Webb at one point who had an AC Cobra, and I just wanted to listen to it. ‘Just turn it on for me, Jim! Let me listen to it!’
Did you ever get back on speaking terms with Kevin Ayers?
Why? What happened?
Didn’t he sleep with your wife?
Oh yeah! But I really took that as a personal gesture from my spouse. I really didn’t blame Kevin for that. I talked to him. That really didn’t influence my relationship with Kevin at all!
What about ‘Guts’? ‘The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife’?
Ahhhh—not really. I mean … slightly.

VISIT JOHN CALE AT MYSPACE.COM/JOHNCALEOFFICIALSITE.

Stream: Happy Mondays “24 Hour Party People”

(from Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) on Factory)

Happy Mondays were the actual 24 hour party people and legendarily—but perhaps not actually, says drummer Gaz here—helped bankrupt Factory Records during the recording in Barbados. They have been banned from Disneyland and the BBC (but will still appear at both) and speak now despite a million mea culpas about being boring. This interview by Dan Collins.

I’m recording you on side two of the tape I interviewed Billy Bragg on.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan (drums): Okay! Just don’t ask any political questions. He knows a lot more than me about that.
Shaun Ryder flaked on the interview today. Is he out doing something he shouldn’t?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: He’s probably at home. We’re all really boring these days! I’m really boring. I’d lived in Australia for a few years, but that’s just too far.
You should try L.A.! It’s burning hot. I came home and poured myself a glass of Scotch and realized the Scotch is HOT!
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Ha ha! It’s warm here. It’s fantastic! I’ve been walking about in the briefest of shorts!
What were things like when you joined the Happy Mondays?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: From the very start of the band—from the very first song, it’s only been me and Shaun from the start to the very end. I was fifteen, back in the early eighties, and Shaun was about 19 or 20.
And you’ve always been a principal song writer.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Yeah! Shaun did the lyrics mainly.
I was listening to the ‘Delightful / This Feeling / Oasis’ EP from your early years. It sounds SO MUCH like Joy Division! Was that conscious?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: That’s just because we were fucking rubbish! Maybe. We tried not to sound like Joy Division, but the first couple songs when we first started… the thing when you start a band, you start a band and learn your instruments later. And so we tended to do Joy Division songs early on, and we did a Depeche Mode song. But we made a point of not sounding like that band. Can—I thought we sounded more like them than anything. But yeah, it’s probably inevitable. We’re all miserable fuckers in Manchester. It just fucking rains and it’s grey so you just end up being miserable. So you come up with good lyrics because there’s nothing else to do.
Your first album was produced by John Cale. I heard it didn’t go down quite like you’d expected.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: How he was then is how we are now. And he’d given up smoking the day before we started the album, which is probably bad timing. And he just ate oranges and tangerines all day. We got on quite well, but it wasn’t the session we expected it to be. I don’t think he really got us.
I was thinking about what you guys were doing in terms of the rave culture. It seems like you guys were part of the rave ‘culture’ without playing what I would consider ‘rave music.’
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Shaun only listens—as far as I can remember—to hip-hop, and I mainly listen to electronic and soul and Felix da Housecat. There’s lots of stuff I like. So when we get in the room with guitars and live drum kit, that’s the only way we know. We tried to do electronic music organically and sometimes make a mess of it. We were big fans of A Certain Ratio, who were kind of like Joy Division but with funk and a horn section—with the great Don Johnson, a great drummer who taught me how to play. They started on Factory, but like if Joy Division had a DJ in the band and a funk drummer.
It’s funny you mentioning Shaun’s love of hip-hop. I interviewed Chuck D a few months back, and he mentioned Public Enemy being sort of the Rolling Stones of rap. Do you think with the dynamic between Shaun and Bez, you guys are like the Public Enemy of rock?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: You know what? We’ve been likened to two U.S. acts—Public Enemy and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That’s absolutely spot on!
Is Shaun the Chuck D, or is that you?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: No, I’m more kind of the studio, um, who is that? Shocklee! Absolutely spot on!
It’s getting to surreal levels, with Flavor Flav becoming a reality show star in the U.S. and Bez being a reality star in the U.K. and winning Celebrity Big Brother.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Yeah, that’s exactly a similarity as well. Bez is good at it! He jumped off a cable car with Jack Osbourne! He’ll do anything. He always wins them all!
Bez was going to play with you guys in the States recently—at Coachella. But he couldn’t get in.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: He couldn’t get a visa. Because he’s a very naughty boy! He’s always going bankrupt.
How did he join the band?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: We’d been together probably four years, and we’d been doing gig shows for about two years, and Shaun was a bit embarrassed about not wanting to be seen as the front man, and so we had different friends of ours and buddies getting up and dancing with us. And he just did it once, and he’s never… we never actually asked him to join the band! He’s just never left. He just decided he’s in the band and that’s it. But it took the pressure off Shaun a little bit. He kind of took the pressure off all of us. He could just do his Flavor Flav thing! That’s all part of rock ‘n’ roll, innit? That’s what it’s all about. To me, anyway. You got to play the part.
Has his recent turn on reality TV helped or hurt the Happy Mondays?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Both! When he does these TV shows, people like him because he’s very genuine. He’s who he is. He’s actually quite a likable person. And he is hilarious—he says lots of ridiculous things. One of the first tours we did of the States—about 1990—we arrived in New York and we did a bit of a press conference. And there were journalists from different newspapers, and they spoke up and said what newspaper they were from. And one woman said she was from the Pennsylvania Tribune, or something and Bez said, ‘Pennsylvania? Perfect! Where Dracula’s from!’ He takes away the credibility, I suppose—but he’s funny.
Bez has been popular on TV, but Shaun was actually banned from the BBC’s Channel Four.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Yeah, he was actually named in the law. It’s the ‘Shaun Ryder’ something…
The ‘Shaun Ryder Rider!’ He’s literally the only person ever specifically mentioned in the Channel Four BBC Reference Guide as someone who’s not allowed to appear! But despite that, you guys appeared on there last year, right?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Yeah, we did a live gig. It’s all delayed. See, we’re groundbreaking! The problem, to be honest, is that we all swear when we speak to each other, and when we come do TV we find it hard not to! We’re just rubbish at playing the game! That’s been our downfall as well.
Steve Jones swore on TV in England, but they gave him a radio show here in L.A.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Me and Shaun did it last year. We got taken there really late and got lost. We were supposed to be there for two hours, and we only ended up doing ten minutes.
I’ve been talking with you eighteen minutes! So L.A. RECORD beats Steve Jones. Did you get to see him play with Hollywood United’s football team when you were in L.A.?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: No! I used to play professionally for six months for Everton in Liverpool, just down the road. I was just a rookie, and had to leave it because of the band.
Do you ever wonder what could have been?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Every fucking day! Every fucking day.
I think you did okay.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: I got lucky! I can’t complain. I complain all the time because I’m British—that’s what we do.
A lot of us in L.A. really like Black Grape a lot. Which band was better, Black Grape or the Happy Mondays?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: I prefer Black Grape! Shaun’s answer would be that they’re the same band, and they kind of were almost. We were veering towards what Black Grape were, anyway. We do a couple Black Grape songs when we play live.
I know you’ve been interviewed to death about 24 Hour Party People, but what percentage of the movie was actually true?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: I’ve not seen it properly! I’ve only seen bits of it but it’s poetic license, you know. A lot of their stories are mixed up.
There were lots of scenes of tour buses and snorting cocaine off naked women, and things like that.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: No! We used to play a lot. We used to play Scrabble.
You never snorted cocaine off the Scrabble table?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: No, ha ha! Absolutely not!
I have read interviews with Shaun—and maybe you—saying that in the early days of the band, he would walk around on ecstasy like every day. Just take a quarter tab or a half tab and walk through record stores.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: That’s back in the old days! I can’t remember when I was younger! Them days were pretty bad days. It’s like asking someone about the sixties. There were days in the eighties… I was teenaged and in my early twenties. I was out partying. I can’t remember!
Was ecstasy as important in your scene as LSD was in San Francisco in the Sixties?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Absolutely—without a doubt!
What do you tell your kids about your drug use?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: The funny thing is, they’re not old enough yet. But that’s my biggest fear! My parent instincts kick in.
Most parents can just lie, but you guys are on the public record. Like right now!
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Not me personally, so I’m okay! But I’m sure they’re going to come to me one day, and say, ‘Dad, you know your band, this and that.’ I’m sure that’s what Mick Jagger had to do.
At least your kids won’t ask if you had sex with David Bowie. But didn’t Shaun get kicked off a plane once for threatening a flight attendant with a plastic fork?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: No, that didn’t happen.
I looked it up on Wikipedia!
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: No way! Absolutely not. That never happened. Ian Brown from the Stone Roses got sent to jail for something on a plane, but it certainly wasn’t us!
Were the Stone Roses a band you felt pressure from—like competition? Were there other bands at the time you felt pressure from?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: We never felt pressure to do better.
Maybe it was the opposite? A rising tide hoists up all the boats?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Maybe. But we never thought about it. That was our problem. We never thought about things. We’d just do them!
Was there a particular show where you guys looked out in the audience, and you realized, ‘Wow, we’ve really done something. We’ve crossed a threshold?’
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: There was a gig at the Free Trade Hall, which is a famous building in Manchester where the Sex Pistols played and Bob Dylan played with his electric band. That was probably the one. Definitely. I think it could be ‘89. I could be way off.
Were you surprised when in the U.S., news about the Madchester scene became totally eclipsed by grunge band coverage?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Not surprised. I think punk rock was a very English thing, and grunge was a very American thing. I think it was great. I was never a huge fan, and then I saw Nirvana do MTV Unplugged, and they did ‘All Apologies,’ and I thought that was absolutely mind-blowing. Dinosaur Jr. I thought were great as well!
Were there some American bands in the late eighties that you were influenced by?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Talking Heads were a big influence early on. We were massive Talking Heads fans. We liked the Breeders; we liked the Pixies. We did our first U.S. tour with the Pixies, and became great friends. They were a massive influence. American music is the greatest music of all time!
I listen to it a lot.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: The Rolling Stones were the biggest influence though. Charlie Watts’s killer drumming—Mick Jagger was one of the greatest frontmen ever, along with Jim Morrison.
Those guys had a bad-boy image, which definitely you guys had as well. Was there a conscious decision to play up that side of yourselves?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: I don’t think so. That’s just who we listened to. It just found our way to our conscious soul, but it wasn’t a conscious decision. Early hip-hop was a massive massive influence, but we all read the Stones books and the Doors books.
Now that you guys are all friends again, what are some of the bad things that made you break up in the first place?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: We did years and years of touring—the usual one in the back of the small fucking van—and then all of a sudden we’re getting all these luxuries, and people are going off getting their own friends, and there’d be five or six different parties on the bus. We weren’t hanging round together. There’d be whispering—the he-say-she-says—and because they’re old friends, you don’t want to bring anything up. And then things fester. And then Factory went bankrupt.
Some blame has been thrown your way about that.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Someone said we spent too much money in Barbados. When actually we didn’t spend that much money. We were forced to do an album quickly because there hadn’t been an album out for a few years—an album we hadn’t finished writing. And then everyone thinks that because Factory went bankrupt, it was due to us. I think the film kind of portrayed that…
Giant booze and drug bills?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: I think we probably had a large bill, but I don’t think it was us at all. In fact, I think they probably owed us cash. It was just badly run financially. They were a great label—I would never have wanted another label. Tony Wilson was a great champion of us. One of my heroes—he was fantastic. At the time, a lot of major labels in the UK were interested in us, but they were trying to mold us into an image and have these haircuts and wear these silly clothes. And we went to Factory, and he said, ‘You’ve got no image—that’s your image!’ So we loved Factory, and were big fans. If we could go back to the beginning and knew what would happen, we would still go through them again because they were just fantastic. Financially, they just weren’t great. But that’s what was great about them! They just did things. A great idea—just go for it!
Tony Wilson actually introduced you at Coachella last year, right?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: That was the biggest disappointment—that that was the last time I saw him. He gave us this massive introduction, and we went on stage. And the guy who runs our computer with stuff on it, he hadn’t configured the power supply, and something didn’t happen, and a lot of stuff wasn’t working, and all the guys were playing different tempos. And the gig wasn’t very good. I thought we let Tony down. I was ashamed. It was beyond our power—the computer went just completely fucking barmy, but I just felt we let him down a little bit.
What’s the craziest time you’ve had in your most recent reformation?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: We’re all very boring these days. Seriously, we do the shows—and Bez is his own person—but as soon as we do the show, we’re back to the hotel, have a couple drinks, and that’s it. I never thought I’d say that, but we’re boring! I just can’t do it anymore. Shaun’s doing his own thing, I have this kind of electronic, guitar/hip hop band called the Hippie Mafia…
The ‘Hippie Mafia?’
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: It’s like Sweethearts of the Rodeo crossed with Public Enemy. I can’t party and be in two bands. I just can’t do it! How fucking sensible do I sound? That’s what happens when you grow up.
I’m in my early thirties. When can I expect that to kick in?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: When I had kids, it kicked in. The last two years. But I don’t like flying, so I always drink when I get on a plane.
Otherwise, you might threaten a flight attendant with a plastic fork! What are you guys doing next?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: We just got back from Australia. It was a long flight, so I had a lot of drinking to do.
Which airline has the best complimentary booze?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: We like Virgin! Virgin business class is the way to go.
Would you let them use one of your songs in a commercial?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: Anyone can use one of our songs in a commercial! Please do!
Where are you playing in L.A.?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: We’re playing Club Nokia in September, and in Anaheim at the House of Blues…
That’s next to Disneyland. Have you ever been?
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: I haven’t been. But we did our second or third album in the Capitol records studio where the Beach Boys did Pet Sounds, which we didn’t realize until later. Someone went to Disneyland—I can’t remember which one, but they called the studio and had got caught for pinching something from one of the shops and thrown out. So I think we’re banned from Disneyland! Is it good?
Space Mountain is pretty good.
Gary “Gaz” Whelan: I don’t like rides. I don’t like heights. I don’t even like being as tall as I am!

HAPPY MONDAYS WITH THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS ON FRI., SEPT. 18, AT CLUB NOKIA, 800 W. OLYMPIC BLVD., DOWNTOWN. 7 PM / $27.50-$35 / ALL AGES. CLUBNOKIA.COM. VISIT HAPPY MONDAYS AT HAPPYMONDAYSONLINE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/HAPPYMONDAYSONLINE.

(from Communion out now on Yep Roc)

The premiere psych-rockers of Scandinavia, Ebbot Lundberg (vocals), Mattias Bärjed (guitar), Kalle Gustafsson (bass), Martin Hederos (keys), Ian Person (guitar) and Fredrik Sandsten (drums) have redefined what it means to be influenced by ’70s psychedelia, prog pop and classic rock. Though Sweden’s economy is in as much trouble as ours, TSOOL wasn’t bashful about releasing their latest effort Communion—a discussion of the corporate mass psychosis that has slowly taken over the world—as an epic 90-minute double-CD. The band stopped by L.A. for the first time since opening for Robert Plant four years ago, having just enough time to do Leno, play a one-off at the Troubadour, and perform an acoustic set at a private party thrown by the Swedish Embassy in their honor. Just before sound check, Ebbot, Ian and Mattias strolled over to a nearby park to soak in some California sunshine, get trampled by frolicking dogs, and chat with Linda Rapka about their album.

Explain the cover art of your album Communion—a wealthy, middle-aged Caucasian couple drinking an ungodly concoction of fluorescent green alien juice.
Ian Person (guitar): We hired this guy to come up with some ideas about mass communication. So he came up with a few suggestions and this came up, and we kind of collaborated from there.
So what exactly is in that drink?
Ebbot Lundberg (vocals): Tomorrow we will find out, because they’re gonna have this party, and they’re gonna do these drinks. So I’m curious!
Ian: We’re going to a party at the Swedish Embassy.
Ebbot: There will be lots of them there…
The new album was based on a theme of modern mass psychosis—which I see happening here in the U.S. Was America a major source of inspiration?
Ebbot: It was a global thing. I don’t know if you’ve seen the whole [CD] package, but it’s not only Caucasians, but all people.
Ian: It’s like Noah’s Ark.
Ebbot: Yeah, it’s like an ark. It’s just pictures you see every day without even thinking about it. It can be plastic surgery, it can be like a life coach, or whatever. I’m curious about the people on the cover—they don’t really know they’re on the cover. So we’ll see what’s going to happen. We might get sued!
Releasing a double CD in today’s economy is pretty ballsy.
Ian: We didn’t go out and say, ‘Let’s do a double CD.’ It sort of evolved itself, really.
Mattias Bärjed (guitar): I guess we always wanted to do a double album as well and now it just felt natural to do that.
You recently got out of your contractual obligations from Warner. The last album you worked on—Origins: Vol. 1—they were pestering you about what was going to be the radio hit. That can be difficult when trying to create a work of art.
Ian: Especially when you’re in the studio and trying just to get everything going.
Ebbot: Well, I dunno. There’s a lot of singles on the new one, so we’re just gonna put out singles from the album and see what happens. Milk it as long as we can.
Ian: Basically Warner didn’t really have the money, ’cause we wanted a certain amount of money to do this album and they said no.
This album sounds a lot more energized than Origins.
Ian: We kind of had a lot more fun!
Mattias: We had some time off, actually like two years, before we started working on this album, so I guess that’s—you can hear that.
Ian: We had a lot of energy going in.
It sounds like it—which is probably why you ended up with so many songs.
Ian: For once it was quite easy to do the album. For once it was quite fun!
It always sounds like you guys are having fun.
Ian: But this time we actually had fun! We always had fun afterwards when the album is done. But now it was a nice process all the way.
I read that each of 24 tracks is supposed to symbolize each hour of the day.
Ebbot: It could be. It could be anything.
Were you trying to bring back the lost art of the concept album?
Ebbot: Yeah, why not? We grew up with it and we love it, so why not?
In today’s mp3 culture, is a concept album is a way to bring back listening to an entire album?
Ian: Absolutely. Take some time off and listen. That’s one thing to do. The vinyl is coming back. All the record stores back home now they carry as much CDs as vinyl these days. The kids are learning.
Ebbot: It’s more like you do something that you wish existed and then you do it. You kind of miss it, you miss idea of what this became.
Ian: Carry on with the old legacy.
You cover a Nick Drake song, which is an interesting choice—not many people are brave enough to take on Drake.
Ebbot: That was the reason. Nobody ever did it. Maybe it was the wrong idea, I don’t know! We kind of did it around the demo version, which is on ‘The Time of No Reply.’ The other one John Cale produced, and it doesn’t really sound that good.
Another track, ‘The Fan Who Wasn’t There,’ was based on a conversation that Ebbot had with Arthur Lee.
Ebbot: Yeah, some of it. He played in Gothenburg—his manager was there, who passed away like six months later, and then he passed away, sadly. It’s inspired by that conversation, having drinks for three hours. That was pretty fun. But it was sad…
It sounds like there were a lot of ’60s and ’70s influences going on.
Ebbot: Yes. And we DJed. It’s like all time is one time.
Ian: Squeeze them all in together. The best picks of raisins in the cookies.
I don’t like raisins.
Ian: Chocolate chips then.
Do you enjoy listening to your own records?
Ebbot: Yes. We’re warming up to it sometimes. Our own records. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s The Soundtrack of our Lives. We try to be what the name is. Sometimes it sucks. And sometimes it’s OK.
I stumbled upon a food blog where your bandmate Martin had posted his recipe for lamb tagine. Do any of you have any hidden surprises?
Ian: Martin and I are the chefs in the band. I’m into the Italian kitchen at the moment. A friend of mine had his wedding recently and I cooked for like 200 people.
Ebbot: Did you get paid?
Ian: No, I didn’t get paid. But the food was great. And I got to eat the food.
Mattias: When we come over here we try to eat as much Mexican food as possible because it’s really hard to find good Mexican food in Scandinavia—Sweden, Norway or Finland—it’s impossible.
Ebbot: There are no Mexicans. Just Finnish people.
You haven’t been to the U.S. since 2005.
Ebbot: We were actually here in 2007 in New York for a while.
Ian: And Austin last year, SXSW. We did a couple of hit and runs. Guerilla warfare.
But what about L.A.? We missed you.
Ian: We love L.A., so we’ve been sad.
Ebbot: We went to China last year.
Ian: But that’s not America.
Was that your first time in China? What was it like?
Ebbot: It was exactly like here. But it’s even more futuristic. It’s like beyond ‘Bladerunner.’
Ian: The director’s cut.
Ebbot: It’s happened. It’s really growing fast and scary.
Billions of people.
Ebbot: And they’re working all night. It’s like, ‘You’d better stop.’ They’re just like ants.
Mattias: We might go to Taiwan in a month.
Ian: And then South America in the fall.
Do you get time to actually enjoy the countries you visit?
Ian: We try and plan a couple of days. When we did those long tours we didn’t have much time, but now in China we had a few days off, Australia we had like five, six days to hang out.
Ebbot: We spent a lot of time in L.A. and had a lot of time off here.
If Obama’s stimulus package fails and I move to Sweden, whose couch can I stay on?
Ian: Kalle’s got a grand studio. It’s gigantic.
Mattias: My guitar tech is single.

THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES’ COMMUNION IS OUT NOW ON YEP ROC. VISIT THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES AT TSOOL.NET OR MYSPACE.COM/OFFICIALTSOOL.

Download: The Warlocks “Red Camera”

(from The Mirror Explodes out now on Tee Pee)

As Charlie Brown might say, good grief! So many reviewers for so many publications NOT based in L.A. have slammed the Warlocks time after time, treating them like pompous golden idols who needed to be melted with cruel words into the fire of TRUTH, the truth being that no one who dresses like the Velvet Underground that much can possibly be authentic. Even in the Warlocks’ golden age in, say, 2002, half their reviews were praise pieces, and the other half were “shit sandwich.” And when the band took an experimental misstep with 2005’s Surgery, critics forked them with epithets such as “monochromatic,” “the Snorelocks,” and even “un-magical ass clowns.” The Warlocks have been panned for both self-similarity and for trying different sounds, for taking drugs and not taking drugs, for their chaos and careerism. At this point in their career, if they made a fantastic album, would anyone stop coming up with memes long enough to notice?

Of course, the Warlocks have certainly encouraged meme queens with their own awkward attempts at self-branding. For their last album, they attempted to go “evil,” calling their album Heavy Deavy Skull Lover, putting a Kenneth Anger-esque red-tinted naked gypsy on the cover, and even releasing their album on Halloween. It didn’t work—the album was more dull than dark, much of its echoey guitar picking sounding like the incidental music from Twin Peaks.

But the past is the past, and like with Batman movies, you’ll enjoy the franchise a whole lot more if you employ some selective memory loss. If Surgery was the Warlocks’ End of the Century, and the last album was their Subterranean Jungle, then their new album The Mirror Explodes is at least Animal Boy, if not an out-and-out Brain Drain. It’s as if the last two albums never happened, yet all the best bits from that bizarro world got crystallized into good things. The Mirror Explodes has the concise, no-time-for-bullshit manner of Surgery, with all the shoe-gazey stuff Heavy Deavy Skull Lover was accused of, and yet says more and evokes more, all the while somehow being more true to the best parts of what has made the classic Warlocks a cut above their black-clad brethren.

By the way, if you’re listening for all this in the track that L.A. RECORD has been permitted to provide above, just stop—that’s the shittiest song on the album. Let’s start with track three: “Slowly Disappearing.” Predictably there’s a helluva lot of Spaceman 3 on this track, but so too is there some Sonic Youth-iness, the first direct influence I’ve ever seen from that band upon this band. And it works. I can’t make out who’s singing this song, but he/she’s doing one hell of a Kim Gordon imitation, straight off one of the moody songs on Goo. It’s Youth-y but toothy and droney in a way Thurston’s gang never really captured. In fact, this song’s shakers and booming drums and vision-invoking repetition make the new lineup of the Warlocks sound more than a bit like Indian Jewelry! Perhaps here is the tribalism that membership on Tee Pee Records promised.

Even the band’s lyrics, never their strong suit, seem very much improved from the recent past. For all the posturing they’ve been accused of, classic Warlocks songs like “Shake the Dope Out” really did ring true to anyone who’s taken downers to undilate their eyes before work—and “There Is a Formula to Your Despair” off this record feels just as human, perhaps more so, because it’s clearly a post-drug song as pitiful as a Woody Allen caricature. There’s a pace and progression similar to Matt Hollywood-era Brian Jonestown Massacre, but with better little feedback noises and drum build-ups that evoke Maureen Tucker, and a lysergic tremolo set to the square-wave pattern on somebody’s effect pedal. If you have friends as annoyingly self-pitying as mine, you will immediately relate to this song, even as you’re weirded out by the prospect of getting hooked every time Bobby Hecksher talks to you like a friend.

It’s like this band found a whole new side of the kraut-glam-Floyd-Velvets era to appreciate. “Standing Between the Lovers of Hell” starts where a normal Velvets songs ends, screechy and sanguine, with a Tucker “thump-thump” so primitive, it’s almost in 1:1 time, until halfway through the song when it jumps to the standard 4:4, and then phases into a Stooges wah-wah thing. This almost could have become “We Will Fall” if they’d gotten John Cale to play viola over it. And those vocals! I think it’s Bobby, but it sounds like if Tom Waits and Robert Smith gave birth to a singer with a penchant for helium.

I could go on and on. From the Public Image Ltd. guitars on “Frequency Meltdown” to the warped Joy Division keys on “Static Eyes” to the millions of sounds throughout the album that just cannot be identified, there’s so much to learn on each relistening. Hecksher and the gang have succeeded at making a record that’s both true to form and different, one that definitely tears the “monochromatic” tag to shreds. Oddly enough, as I was in the throes of composing this review, I ran into Bobby at a party, and he told me that he considered this album a capstone to allow the band to go in a completely new musical direction. If so, then The Mirror Explodes is an easy-to-enjoy adieu to a sound that has always been deeper than the affectations of hip. Adios, amigos!

—Dan Collins

The Warlocks’ The Mirror Explodes is out now on Tee Pee.