Since I did pretty good on exclusives last year—Dengue Fever/Chicha Libre split, Sonic Youth/Beck split and This LP Crashes Hard Drives, among others—I thought I would post my shortlist of 2010 Record Store Day exclusives that I’ll be looking for early Saturday morning. The full list is here if you wanna look, and if I actually get some of these, maybe I will splat ‘em down at Big Freak and try them out.

—Chris Ziegler

Budos Band/Sharon Jones & The Dapkings “Day Tripper”/”Money” 7” (Daptone, pressing details unknown)
I already have a few soul 45s that do Beatles songs—actually, “Daytripper” but by the Vontastics—and that’s how I know this will at least be good, and since it’s Sharon, the Dap-Kings and the Budos Band, I know it will actually be great.

Daedelus Righteous Fists of Harmony LP (Brainfeeder, pressing details unknown)
If I do nothing else, I will get everything Brainfeeder puts out on vinyl.

dios “we are dios” 7” (Buddyhead, pressing details unknown)
Been waiting so long! The new dios album is one of the best records I’ve heard for a long long time. Until the whole thing hits vinyl, this will heroically hold the line.

Fela Kuti 10” EP (Knitting Factory/MRI)
Four early Fela tracks—“My Lady Frustration” / “Wayo” / “Lover” / “Eko”—recorded in L.A. in 1969. Good from every possible angle and for every possible situation.

Happy Birthday “Shampoo” b/w “Alien” (Sub Pop, 750 made)
Wild Kyle from King Tuff’s new band. Saw ‘em break amps in Texas and wanna hear more! Sparks / Milk ‘n’ Cookies / Only Ones goof-glam with ambitious falsetto.

John Fahey The Yellow Princess LP (Vanguard)
I need some nice new Fahey, even though he translates pretty well on furry bottom-of-the-new-arrivals-box rescue LPs. But this one will never be left to suffer like that. Guitar how a guitar wants to be played, if you haven’t heard this.

John Lennon 3 x 7” box set (individually numbered, w/3 7” singles, 3 postcards, 24 X 36 poster, and custom 45 adaptor hub; Capitol, 5000 made)
“Mother” b/w Yoko Ono “Why” and “Imagine” b/w “It’s So Hard” and “Watching The Wheels” b/w Yoko Ono “Yes, I’m Your Angel.” Only if this is kinda gently priced, but it’s a nice thing to have hanging around the house.

Mississippi John Hurt Today LP (Vanguard)
Another in the fancy Vanguard reissues series. It’ll be hazed by all the thick scratchy Folkways records filed alongside it.

The Rationals Rationalism 7” (Ace Records, 1000 mades)
Cool early Detroit soul ‘n’ roll. You can play Bob Seger System next to Stax stuff and you can probably work that with the Rationals, too.

Rodriguez “Inner City Blues” (recorded live in the streets of Paris) b/w “I’m Gonna Live Til I Die” (live cover of Frank Sinatra song) 7” (Light In the Attic)
Got into Rodriguez long after he’d had his first moment but before Light In The Attic did the good work of reissuing him, which is why my pre-authorized Rodriguez LP is on vinyl that flops around like a tortilla. Tuff folk from a real sweetheart.

V/A Fragments From A Work In Progress (4AD)
Live Ariel Pink and Haunted Graffiti (“Menopause Man”) plus Gang Gang Dance, Blonde Redhead and unreleased Big Pink and tUnE-yArDs who I should check out, I think.

V/A Radio Galaxia (B-Music / Finders Keepers)
My psychic suspicion to be this year’s This LP Crashes Hard Drives, which was last year’s one-stop for revelatory rippers. (Worth it for Monks and Pisces alone.) Also has the words GASLAMP KILLER on the cover, which in English means BUY THIS RECORD.

Download: Dinosaur Jr. “I Want You To Know”

(from Farm out now on Jagjaguwar)

Rather than interview J Mascis ourselves, we thought it would be more fun to continue our tradition of getting famous people to interview famous people for nothing more than the thrill of schmoozing with each other and taking work off our hands. This interview was conducted by director Allison Anders, who cast Mascis in films such as Grace of My Heart, and Tiffany Anders, the musician/singer/co-curator of Don’t Knock the Rock and also Allison’s daughter. Though the transcript below may make Mascis seem like a lively, free-spirited music buff, rest assured that on tape he sounded like Benicio Del Toro in The Usual Suspects as interpreted by Cookie Monster on lithium. This interview was curated and painfully transcribed by Dan Collins, with much-needed help by the Anders.

Allison Anders: We want to talk about the fact that you were never in Mi Vida Loca when you were supposed to be, so you’ll have to be in it this time!
Tiffany Anders: He does need you to make another movie. His acting career is starting to slip.
Allison Anders: Well, I’m going to do Mi Vida Loca II. Tiffany, remember? You, Jason and Spike ended up buying drugs, but it was supposed to be you, J and Mike.
J Mascis (guitar/vocals): What happened?
Tiffany Anders: I think it was your schedule. You guys were recording, and they showed up to the set the day that the other girl shoots Ernesto, so you didn’t have time to shoot the scene.
J Mascis: I don’t want to buy drugs.
Allison Anders: It would have been really interesting twenty years ago, but it would be a little inappropriate now that you’re a father.
Tiffany Anders: What’s up with the Dino movie?
J Mascis: He’s just filmed a lot of interviews with different people, a lot of shows and … I dunno. I don’t know if he’ll ever finish it. Give him a date that he has to finish it by and maybe he’ll finish it.
Allison Anders: Actually, you know what? Krakow!
J Mascis: Krakow? Auschwitz!
Allison Anders: How did you know? Have you been there? To Krakow? It was kind of surprising when we were over [in Europe]. There are so many young people with babies! And they were not stressed out! Young people who didn’t look totally broke and that were really in love with their babies. And then Tiffany’s friend said that they get quite a nice subsidy from the government.
Tiffany Anders: For babies. And dogs.
J Mascis: I think that’s why the punk rockers have dogs. I don’t know if they do that anymore, though.
Allison Anders: Has fatherhood changed your records? Do you think you would have made the same record if you hadn’t become a father?
J Mascis: Possibly no.
Allison Anders: I think sometimes I know if I hadn’t had a big experience, the work may have gone in a different direction.
J Mascis: I have no idea. But there seems to be a lot less time. So we did it in less time. Three or four months. The last album was probably over nine months.
Tiffany Anders: Lou’s a dad too?
J Mascis: And another one on the way.
Allison Anders: Dinosaur Jr. juniors!
Tiffany Anders: So I am supposed to ask about Witch? What’s up with Witch? What are the plans? I saw they were playing All Tomorrow’s Parties.
J Mascis: Yeah, we had one gig! Woo hoo!
Allison Anders: I love that song ‘Isadora.’ That’s my favorite. I’m a big Isadora Duncan fan. It reminds me of—I don’t even know what. I would say Quicksilver Messenger Service, but that wouldn’t be right. But it reminds me of a San Francisco band.
J Mascis: Flipper? Are there any good bands from San Francisco? We were having a discussion the other day in the van.
Allison Anders: I don’t like things that people are jumping around with their fists to. You know, just kind of doing a little hoedown. I’m not into hoedown kind of things.
J Mascis: What’s a hoedown band?
Allison Anders: The Grateful Dead! I don’t mind the psychedelic kind of dancing that’s like, ‘Ooh, I’m on acid, and I’m floating through air!’ But I don’t like the jug band-y kind of thing.
J Mascis: Thigh slappin’?
Allison Anders: I’m not into that! It bothers me a little bit. And somehow—I may be wrong—but it seems like the Flying Burrito Brothers never inspired that kind of hoedown dancin’. But who knows?
J Mascis: Well, it’s because they didn’t have any fans.
Allison Anders: Ha! There were just people standing around going, ‘I want to party with these guys when the set is over.’
J Mascis: They were all backstage, maybe.
Allison Anders: Who are some people that you are listening to now that we should know about? Because you are the first person who alerted us to Scott Walker. All those many years ago—in the ’90s.
Tiffany Anders: He was the first person who alerted me to Sandy Denny!
Tiffany Anders: But I have a feeling that you turned him on to Nick Drake!
J Mascis: I’m sick of Nick Drake since he’s on the cover of MOJO every week.
Allison Anders: Well, that’s kind of the problem. We have to wait a while before we can get close to him again. It’s hard when the whole world finally discovers somebody. But back then, nobody knew! I tried to tell her about Rodriguez and she already has his records! I can’t tell her anything anymore. I thought I was really going to be onto something! I buy a lot of tunes. If I go into a record store, I get too overwhelmed. You should be doing ‘What’s in your bag?’ at Amoeba. You shop, and then you open your bag. They just videotape you saying what you bought. They want me to do one, and I haven’t gone and done it yet. Maybe I’ll do it this weekend.
J Mascis: It’ll be like one single. For a hundred dollars!
Allison Anders: For a while, the only Bags single was there for a hundred bucks, for the longest time. But it’s not there anymore! Somebody bought it.
J Mascis: What do they have back there, behind those doors?
Tiffany Anders: Oh, tons! And apparently there’s another warehouse off-site.
J Mascis: I found a record there I’d been looking for since I was 15. And it was there on the wall for 30 bucks. I know a lot of record nerds and none of them knew about it. This band called the Mirrors. ‘Cure for Cancer.’ I guess they’re English, but there’s some Detroit band same name. I had to have it.
Allison Anders: I love that there are still some records that people don’t know anything about. Except Tiffany!
J Mascis: It’s weird what people know about, like kids. They know really obscure things about certain things, but there are these big holes where they don’t know things. It’s really odd.
Allison Anders: I found out with my students because often I make them do a mix CD as part of their assignment. It’s supposed to be like the songs of their life—it’s supposed to have a kind of narrative. I’m always amazed at the vast knowledge they have, but yet if you mention a certain band in the class, somebody really obvious, they don’t know anything about that band. But they’ll know something super-obscure. Needless to say, they know that funk stuff so well. I’ll never catch up to their knowledge of that. I didn’t grow up with anybody aspiring to be a DJ, you know? They’ve actually grown up thinking, when they were 14 years old, I want to be a DJ some day!
J Mascis: I need to go to Amoeba to get out of some crappy interviews. They’re filling up my schedule with crap. It’s so weird, because Al Gore’s TV channel—
Allison Anders: Current TV?
J Mascis: Yeah. They wanted to go with me where I would go in L.A., but then they wouldn’t let me go where I would go! ‘No Amoeba. Too many bands have gone there.’ I wanted to go to Erewhon. They’re like ‘That’s a grocery store.’ So what if it’s a grocery store? That’s so weird.
Allison Anders: Like, ‘Where do you want to go? Go here!’ After you’ve been coming here for like twenty years.
J Mascis: Black Market Music is closed. I used to go there.
Allison Anders: I do have a record store for you out in the valley. Freakbeat!
J Mascis: That already sounds like somewhere I’ll never go!
Tiffany Anders: Apparently Jimmy Page was in Freakbeat. He likes to go to record stores.
J Mascis: He used to go to Black Market.
Allison Anders: In fact, this Sunday, I just got a coupon for Freakbeat! Ten percent off! Because it’s a vinyl record day. So I’m gonna buy some vinyl.
J Mascis: Ten percent isn’t much of an incentive. How about like 87 percent off?
Allison Anders: They have a documentary this year about the death of the independent record store, which is a sad thing. Thurston’s in it. Which is a sad thing. I don’t like that—I need a place to go and listen.
J Mascis: And some nerd to talk to you to tell you what records to buy.
Tiffany Anders: If those nerds are nice and not jerks!
Allison Anders: You really need that! That’s in the documentary. This guy is saying, ‘When I was a kid in the ’70s, everything on the radio was just this crap, classic rock shit! And then I went to a record store and learned about Gun Club. That record saved my life!’ It’s like countless people saying how they were steered in the right direction by somebody in the record store. Because you can’t rely on radio to do that.
J Mascis: And guitar stores are similarly closing.
Tiffany Anders: Why is that, do you think?
J Mascis: The Internet! The people who make it still have stores, just somewhere where people can come in. But if they don’t also sell stuff on the Internet, they can’t make it.
Allison Anders: Seems to be like that guitar we sold, that we sold on eBay with you playing it! It was like a bright yellow guitar, a really terrible color. But you were playing it—I used that picture on eBay, ha ha! Played only once by this guy! But there are a lot of people who collect these guitars. Guys who were in bands when they were teenagers, and now they have made a fortune in real estate or something, and then they collect guitars and just buy them.
J Mascis: As an investment it’s kind of weird. But it seems to have done better than the stock market. It’s hard. I can’t really think in that way. ‘Investment-grade guitars.’
Allison Anders: I just think about which ones are pretty. Jesse Ed Davis’ guitar was really pretty, and had all the flowers painted on it and stuff. Where do these guitars go? When somebody like that is dead, where’s the guitar? Or do you think maybe they get rid of it beforehand?
J Mascis: Probably.
Tiffany Anders: Or it goes in a museum, like J’s guitar.
J Mascis: A Jazzmaster. I don’t know if it’s in a warehouse somewhere that the museum has. What’s it called? The one in Seattle? The Paul Allen Experience Music Project. But they always rotate stuff and store it.
Allison Anders: So you just donated it.
J Mascis: No, they paid me. They paid a lot of money. I wonder how much he’s got left. Still, if you have 40 billion and now you only have 20 billion, I wonder if you feel it. I saw somewhere how Bill Gates went from 58 billion to 40 billion, but somehow he had gone up in Richest Guys, because all the other guys had all gone down and he was still the richest guy. He’d only lost like a third.
Tiffany Anders: I’m also supposed to ask about the Witch album cover of [Dave] Sweetapple’s dog and your dog. But I haven’t seen it!
Allison Anders: I like how she keeps saying, ‘I’m supposed to ask you …’
J Mascis: I dunno. I’m just the drummer.
Allison Anders: Is playing drums like a break for you? Do you have as much pressure? Is it a little more fun?
J Mascis: Yeah, I’m really tired of electricity. I need a break from having to rely on electricity, of things breaking all the time. I like that. I really don’t do much! I’m waiting for it to become bigger. I’m waiting for our legend to build.
Allison Anders: Maybe it will happen at ATP.
Tiffany Anders: Maybe! Maybe you should get up to some shenanigans. Fistfight with Kevin!
Allison Anders: That would definitely make NME. That’s all you gotta do over there. Get some scandal in NME and then Witch is like, everybody knows.
Tiffany Anders: ‘Didya hear about the fight between Kevin Shields and Witch?’
J Mascis: The kung fu master.
Allison Anders: I’m tellin’ ya, that’s some good advice there! Look at these punch-ups. Look at what that did for Oasis!
J Mascis: I know! I like when that guy pushed the guitar player over. That was funny. Some guy knocked over Noel … I mean, you’re just standing there and he just pushes you over—you’re not really ready. And then the brother, you know—I read somewhere he was like, ‘Yeah, it was just like a pub fight.’ He waits for all these other people to go run after the guy and then he takes a little fake swing like, ‘Noel’s gotta get in there.’ We have an open guitar spot. Maybe we need a wild man.
Allison Anders: Not hard to find in Britain. Harder to find in American rock ‘n’ roll.
Tiffany Anders: Like the Primal Scream guitar player worked in a guitar shop. J was saying that the Primal Scream guitar player was working at a guitar shop.
J Mascis: He was like the nice guy. Everybody liked him.
Allison Anders: What happens when Dinosaur Jr. plays in Japan? You played that crazy festival a couple years ago, right? It was on a mountaintop.
J Mascis: Kind of on a lame ski area. That’s weird—that festival—because everyone there is there for the show, and they’re all music fans. So it’s hard to like go anywhere. We played at another one, Summer Sonic, which is a bit more commercial. I saw Fergie at catering!
Allison Anders: Nice! What was she eating? She’s got quite a body.
J Mascis: It seems like a lot of girls hate Fergie.
Tiffany Anders: She’s kind of repulsive.
J Mascis: See?
Allison Anders: How does it work technically playing in a place that big? How do you hear everything?
J Mascis: They have in-ear monitors, and maybe they have little amps next to their guitar tech. So if you’re on the side of the stage, all you hear is like wimpy drums, that’s about all you can hear. Because they all have monitors in their ear, and it’s eerily quiet!
Allison Anders: That’s really weird. I’d probably want to keep everything a bit more organic and not get in that direction.
J Mascis: Yeah, I’ve always been more in a Woodstock frame of mind. ‘Oh, it worked at Woodstock, having all these amps and just playing loud!’
Tiffany Anders: I interviewed Nancy Nevins from Sweetwater and she was talking about how there were no monitors onstage at Woodstock. They were the first band. She was like, ‘You couldn’t hear anything at all!’ She thought it probably sounded horrible, being up there.
J Mascis: But monitors are the downfall of society! All these bands who rely on them now, especially English bands or something … ‘Where’s my monitor?’ If you have them, that’s fine, but you should be able to play without a monitor.
Allison Anders: All this second-guessing technology! We have the same thing in film. We have the video feed and people can’t seem to make movies without it now. It used to be that you looked into the camera. You could see the light! You can’t even see the light through a monitor. It’s a nightmare! Everybody’s crowding around. As a director, you’ll be sitting there and some makeup person is looking over your shoulder to make sure the makeup’s okay. Everybody’s hyper-reacting. I’m going to do this show ‘Southland,’ and he doesn’t allow any monitors, which I love. You have to rely on your own instincts and your own abilities to know what’s going on in the scene.
Tiffany Anders: Nancy said the sound system was just completely inadequate! She said that basically they were the soundcheck band because they were the first real band.
J Mascis: Did someone play before them?
Tiffany Anders: Richie Havens. They were supposed to be first, but it was so disorganized that they got to the Holiday Inn, and of course they didn’t know it was going to be as huge as it was. Traffic was a nightmare and they had to take a helicopter, so they were late. And Richie Havens was basically playing forever until they got there.
J Mascis: He comes off pretty good in that movie. It only got three stars in MOJO.
Allison Anders: I heard that the Grateful Dead started quite a set-up with their amps onstage, right? I always thought it was Blue Cheer that started the tower of amps.
J Mascis: All the Dead had was a PA, so they had the whole PA behind them so they could mix it themselves, and it was spilling out into the audience. It’s interesting. I had some Jerry Garcia skis! Somehow they were painted with some Jerry artwork or something. Like he had ties. He had glasses made.
Allison Anders: I can’t imagine Jerry Garcia on skis! I can’t imagine him wearing a tie either! J’s seen it though, I can tell!
J Mascis: I can see him skiing off into the woods and smoking a bowl with some other hippies.
Allison Anders: When is your son learning to ski?
Tiffany Anders: You put him on a snowboard, then you put him on a skateboard. There are Dinosaur Jr. skateboards.
Allison Anders: I’m sure you’ve seen the YouTube videos of the skating bulldogs, right?
J Mascis: In the video they say, ‘He just did it!’ Like they didn’t teach him. They’re lazy-ass fucking dogs! But he’s amazing. He can push and turn …
Allison Anders: It’s not you putting him on the board? He gets on the board himself!
Tiffany Anders: If I could teach my kitty to do that, it would be great.
J Mascis: Tell us about the knee?
Allison Anders: I fell down in Elysian Park! I went running to take a picture of these people in their low rider, and I tripped over a log and just went flying! If I keep it straight, it helps. It’s not feeling very well.
J Mascis: I had poison ivy and someone was like, ‘Why don’t you put bleach on it?’ And I did and it really helped. It dried out the oil.
Allison Anders: I don’t like the direction this conversation is going! L.A. RECORD doesn’t need to put that in there. Any last words?
J Mascis: Message to Japanese fans? They always ask me in Japan, ‘Can we have a message for the Japanese fans?’

DINOSAUR JR. WITH LOU BARLOW ON THUR., NOV. 5, AT THE HOUSE OF BLUES, 8430 SUNSET BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / $25.50-$27.50 / ALL AGES. HOB.COM. DINOSAUR JR.’S FARM IS OUT NOW ON JAGJAGUWAR. VISIT DINOSAUR JR. AT DINOSAURJR.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/DINOSAURJR.

Download: The Fresh & Onlys “Dude’s Got A Tender Heart”

(from Grey-Eyed Girl out now on Woodsist)

Tim Cohen and Shayde Sartin were music buffs who met after working at Amoeba in San Francisco for almost a decade. One day, they decided to make music rather than just stacking it on shelves. They dumped their other bands (but not their jobs) and brought on Wymond Miles and Kyle Gibson for last spring’s self-titled LP, a record as infectious as raw meat festering in a garage. This fall’s Grey-Eyed Girls once again delivers much more than dude music—it’s romantic. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

What went into making this new album so romantic?
Shayde Sartin (bass): It was a joyous time when we made the record. The whole album embraces positive love songs. We were so happy then, defining our sound and broadening our sound. The old album was more punk and garage. But on the second record we were embracing that we weren’t writing aggressive dude music. ‘Grey-Eyed Girls’ is a positive affirmation of love for someone. It ends on a dark song, though—‘The Delusion Of Man.’ Right at that point we started writing the new batch of songs. The new batch is more paranoid and full of tension. There’s a lot of personal stuff, break ups, people moving on, money, things stressing us out. Paranoia has crept into our hearts. That’s just how it happened. There’s plenty to be paranoid about. Paying bills. All this extra stuff keeps us from being happy.
If you took out the words, would the romanticism be retained in the instrumentals?
Shayde Sartin: Totally. Tim has a soft, warm croon—his voice does add romanticism. He can also reach out. He has a beautiful voice. But I think that a lot of the romantic is in Wymond’s guitar playing.
What’s an example of paranoia that ruined a romance for you?
Shayde Sartin: I hate when people chew with their mouth open. I actually broke up with a girl during breakfast. I was watching her chew, and she was talking and I was like, ‘Can you just shut your mouth when you eat?’ She got super hurt. That was the beginning of the end. We all have different habits or whatever!
What emotion would you ascribe to each band member’s instrument?
Shayde Sartin: My bass playing carries depression. Kyle’s drumming has a very jolly, sweet, humorous personality. He hits hard as a hammer but it’s just humorous. Wymond is melancholy on the guitar—the sweetest kind of melancholy. Not morose, but a rainy-day feeling. Tim’s keyboard playing would be pure excitement—a really manic feel on the keyboard.
What do you think you guys would be most apt to do together—rob a bank, run a childcare center, play soccer, or bake a glorious wedding cake?
Shayde Sartin: I am going to go with the wedding cake. We would bicker too much about the robbery. Everyone would be trying to figure out who would get to drive. Tim would drive in the end. He is the most stubborn. I would be the wild card that shoots somebody. Kyle would be the mastermind. Wymond wouldn’t get involved. He would sit in the car and put his head down in disappointment.
When you toured as his band, how many times did Rodriguez say ‘baby’ in conversation?
Shayde Sartin: At least two or three times every hour. He was a trip. He was such a funny guy. I noticed that we all started picking up his speech. It’s pretty infectious. He’s got a real strange way of talking. If I were to characterize it, it’s the typical ’60s ex-hippie kind of burnout guy.
Speaking of touring, do you make a deliberate attempt to play gay biker bars?
Shayde Sartin: Gay bars are the best bars to play. I don’t know why. In San Francisco—The Eagle, which is this gay leather bar—they are so cool and the vibe is good. Better than your rock or punk dive. And they give you a great percentage. It makes me feel at home, a little, when we play those kinds of places out of town. It’d be cool to do a tour where we only play gay bars. We can sell Fresh & Onlys sex toys.
What would the sex toy be?
Shayde Sartin: None of us are really into sex toys, actually. A brand of condoms with holes in it. Fresh & Onlys mesh condoms.
What does the name actually refer to?
Shayde Sartin: It’s best left up to imagination. Some say it makes them think of a feminine product or a grocery store. One of our bandmates came up with it. She was all crazy and ranting and that one stood out. I think it sounds like a virgin. Which is sinister and dark. It’s pretty creepy of me but that’s who I am! I like that it also makes me think of mundane and domestic things.
How does the band’s sound reflect domesticity?
Shayde Sartin: We have a pretty accessible pop sound. There are a lot of extremely damaged bands out there that we really enjoy. But a side of us comes from a pure pop thing. The Clash or R.E.M. wouldn’t be too far off. We get lumped in with the trashier psych-punk stuff. I enjoy that, of course. I wouldn’t distance myself from that. It’s who likes us that likes us. But pop, for us, is a source of inspiration and making pop music is really fun—not burying melodies or obscuring the songiness.
Would you say pop is being embraced in ‘alternative’ music?
Shayde Sartin: I love seeing all these bands embracing pop wholeheartedly. Everything goes in waves. There’s always trends and I enjoy that stuff and I think it is useless to try and push against everything happening. At certain times things get more popular than others. Wounded Lion has their own brand of pop that I think is amazing.
What does it mean to write a pop song instead of a rock song?
Shayde Sartin: ‘Pop’ gets used like ‘punk’ and ‘garage’—as popular music. That’s a great question. When people refer to pop, they refer to an embrace of saccharine melodies, music that’s joyful or gleeful. Pop is an easy way to describe that we aren’t making tragic drone music. We write simple pop songs. Then in journalism those words get used, and a lot of times they start to lose their meanings. We are a rock ‘n’ roll band. I don’t think there really should be a distinction at the very heart of it.
Where does the name Shayde come from?
Shayde Sartin: It’s actually a name common in the Appalachians—where I’m from. I’m told it’s popular in New Zealand, but I’ve never met anyone from New Zealand before.
Was Appalachian music part of your upbringing?
Shayde Sartin: It’s not as popular as people would want to think it is. When I was growing up, ‘80s radio is what we listened to. All new wave. But a lot of the old timers still have a relationship with the music. It wasn’t a part of my life growing up, though. A few years ago I took an interest in it and learned stuff about the music. I even learned how to play banjo. My curiosity would be to see how certain songs have evolved and changed over hundreds of years and taken on different structures, and the vocal accents in speech as well.
Does your bass playing honor any traditions? Would you consider it essential to the Fresh & Onlys sound?
Shayde Sartin: A lot of punk rock that I first discovered and even still that I see—the ones that don’t have a bass, they kind of blow my mind. Even Thee Oh Sees use a guitar in the role of a bass. One of my fave bands is Beat Happening and they don’t have a bass. The Cramps’ first album doesn’t have a bass, which is so crazy and punk rock, and then I love Nirvana, and their bass sets them apart from the scene they were in. Something that was perceived at their time as alternative. I wouldn’t say that the bass sets us apart from other bands but it is an essential part of our music. I don’t spend time when we are recording in laying out my bass lines, though—I try to see what happens and then take it from there. It’s about going all over the place when we record so I don’t have to just sit there. I have the stock of fills and moves that I make on the bass so I just rip into these. There are still bass lines I recorded that I can’t play because I can’t remember what I played. I don’t know what is going on there but I am glad that it at least gets recorded.
How’s it feel to know people far away sink their teeth deep into your work?
Shayde Sartin: The greatest gift you can have with music is for someone to really get into it. It’s one thing to create something and lay into it yourself. You have a definition of where it’s coming from. The greatest aspiration is to give something to someone else. When I started absorbing records for real—not just putting it on to listen—I was in a really oppressive environment in Florida and being able to hear the Smiths—something exotic from my immediate environment—it was the key to my sanity. It made me really get to wonder what it feels like to be in another place, or imagine another place. It was culture shock back in Florida. I grew up in an old part of the country. I had never met a black person or a Hispanic person before. I was a white hillbilly kid. I didn’t know what a skateboarder was. All I knew was basketball and new wave cassettes. Lake Wells in Polk County—if you put your finger in the middle of the state, you’d have your finger on it. People don’t understand what it’s like to live in Florida. But I am actually proud about Florida being part of me.

THE FRESH & ONLYS WITH THEE OH SEES AND DAN MELCHIOR ON THUR., OCT. 22, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. THE FRESH & ONLYS’ GREY-EYED GIRL IS OUT NOW ON WOODSIST. VISIT THE FRESH & ONLYS AT THEFRESHANDONLYS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THEFRESHONLYS.

Here’s Rodriguez live at San Francisco’s Amoeba with the same backing band—the Fresh and Onlys!—that he’ll have tonight at the El Rey. Read our interviews with him and opening band Glasser and see you tonight!

Buy Tickets

Download: Rodriguez “Sugar Man”

(from Cold Fact out now on Light In The Attic)

(from Cold Fact out now on Light In The Attic)

Rodriguez was the Detroit folk-rock songwriter who played guitar a little like Dylan and sang about the scenes on the sidewalks a little like Lou Reed. His excellent 1970 Cold Fact LP had Dennis Coffey’s backing but never caught on in America, but did become so colossal in South Africa that people cover him in coffeeshops there the way they do Bob Marley here. It was finally reissued on Light In The Attic this year, prompting new interest and a string of shows. This will actually be his second-ever show in L.A.—he will be backed this time by Connie Price and the Keystones—and his first in over thirty years. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

So this is your second L.A. show, but your first without the Brown Berets as an opening act?
I did that and I got the worst reviews! It’s in the Hollywood Reporter in the ‘70s. He had come to Detroit—this guy named Sanchez. He was complaining that six or seven Mexicans or Hispanics had been killed in the L.A. jail in a short period of time. So when I got to L.A.—because my label was out there—I met him again, and he told me again, and I said, ‘Well, come up and you can talk to my audience!’ Because I don’t know what’s happening over here. The other thing—the grapes were being boycotted. I’m politically involved and I had my kids with me—we’re involved, you know? So they said I should just leave the stage forever because I wasn’t at a political rally! The thing is—that’s an antiquated view of it. Don’t look to the side, just see straight ahead! I think there’s more communication happening in the world than ever before. And music is at the forefront of technology. It’s a social thing. We bring people together, we create revenue.
How do you feel about your revival? It’s the year of Rodriguez.
Keep talking, baby!
What was Detroit like when you first started?
In those times, there was a lot more pubs, taverns, bars, lounges—and they had all these names. There was more nightlife. What’d they call ‘em, the baby boomers? Trying to give a name to a generation. But those times—with the advent of TV—TV used to only broadcast til 9 here and they’d cut off the station at 1 in the morning.
And play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’?
There you go! So in the confines of those time—those things were happening. And we’re a gorgeous city. The Canadians love us, you know.
What were the first songs you were writing about?
At that point—you have to take that step from doing covers. But covers keep you going. I put two songs together—‘Slip Away’ and ‘You’d Like To Admit It’—for Impact Records. The guy who had that label worked with a lot of Detroit artists, and he went to Motown and they said he had a great deal to do with Marvin Gaye getting What’s Goin’ On to be recorded as that. So I got a chance to meet him and he was the first guy I signed with and we just put a few things out. Just starting out. A lot of activity—industrial, you know. Urban. As opposed to rural—country, you know? Which were all influences on artists and musicians but I’m totally urban.
The Detroit heritage?
I think so. Well, Liverpool is industrial, too, and London was one of the first industrialized cities. So anywhere where that kind of resonates—that machinery that’s forever on. It’s good not to live too close to a main street, you know what I mean? Because it stays active all the time.
The city that really never sleeps?
I think so. I have a lot of confidence in America and it’s ingenuity. They came up with the Internet! This changing world—it’s ever on.
Where do you get this optimism?
Well, geez—you know what I mean. I hide my despondency well, like everybody else. I mean, look at Exxon-Mobil—they made so many billions. It’s really rich against the poor—that’s really true. And what keeps us separated is the military between us. The cops and the military. It’s a tripod society. They talk about it in Greek times—Plato and Aristotle. The same kind of model there. In America, the multinationals got their cheap labor, and now they’re hiking the prices. It’s as clear as that. And the Iraq war—Cheney’s people—it’s so blatant, and there it is!
Why do you think you’ve stayed engaged with politics?
Well—my role model was my father, and I can see that very clear. You got to think of the future generations for sure. I think we have purpose. I’m a grandfather. I want to correct the social-security system and get that fixed—maybe they can take a couple months off and fix that, too! General Motors is gonna hook up with Chrysler and they’re asking for a bailout—well, that’s just the news, but they already gave Chrysler one bailout and then they sold it to the Germans and here they come back again asking for some more! I don’t know how to respond to it. It’s just—wow. But there was so much music in those times coming out. The music industry was really hot in those years. One guy from—one of the big guys in music—said there was too much money to be made to let personal taste get in the way. This was the best times and the most young energies were out there. You got Morrison, the Monterey Festival—those were living times! Unheard of before! Woodstock!
What were your favorite albums the year Cold Fact came out?
The influences of the English sound came through. The Beatles. Because they changed up. Much like they say about keeping up on stage—you got to change up and not be so predictable. Well, the Beatles followed that pattern. They went into Sgt. Pepper and they went into the Far East with gurus—and Harrison, he’s the one who brought the world consciousness about Bangladesh. These guys out there—Farm Aid and Live Aid—they’re doing things like social workers in a bigger space. And Midnight Oil—I gotta brag about that guy!
You played with them, right?
We were on the same bill. The top Australian bands and I was the American band. I did a single then. Men At Work was there before they got the haircuts. But he made Minister of the Environment in Australia. They think he’s gonna be the next governor of his state. They’re current news! He’s accessible, too. They’re having things in Sydney. I consider Sydney the capital of the world.
Do you ever think about running for office again?
No, I don’t. I got the Light In The Attic thing in front of me and it’s such a powerful thing—I have a real opportunity to break in the states and maybe I can do a couple gigs here and there. You’re right, man—every two years, an election. About running for office—to run for mayor in the city of Detroit, you need five hundred and eighty signatures. And they have a special election, and they’re gonna have another one in two years, and if you get youngbloods in there, they’ll change it, I feel. And with term limitations—that’s another thing that has happened, so they can’t run. So that’s gonna be almost—running against no one there. It’s a mechanism to change things.
So do you think the system works?
What ruins it is stolen elections. That’s clear—I feel we’re almost in South America, man! They’re wrecking everything. Look at Mugabe, man. In Zimbabwe. He killed the opposition.
Are we really at that point?
No, no—well, I don’t know. There’s Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, all these music people getting offed. You know Detroit had that heavy murder rate. One year we hit a little over 800. In Chicago, they were talking their crime rate was 450. So Detroit in itself—a lot of activity here. And people say we’re doing the drugs—the LSD people. And the war was still very much in the paper. But with journalists, man—this is another way to inform people. We still have the tools. And creative people they can’t mess with because they come up with the ideas.
Did you think of yourself as a reporter when you were writing your early songs?
It’s a social thing starting to surface there. Like Simon and Garfunkel—‘Crosstown Bus.’ And you hear the lyrics and you can exactly relate. And with photography now and the Internet, you can get through. We’re reaching a global audience here. I did a thing with Rolling Stone, and then this French music weekly—I got the copies and there it is! Reaching through Light In The Attic—much further and much quicker and much more independently! You can get swallowed up in the world with the ‘gotta do this because you’re connected with that.’
The rock bureaucracy?
There you go! So it’s all very real.
Did you feel lost when you everyone said you were lost?
I consider the music a odyssey. South Africa, Australia—I been at least three times to each place if not more. I went to Namibia! It’s big enough to put England, Ireland and Scotland in there. It’s all about world paradigms. These people have all those ideas that will day off and then the young people will come in. It’s Kuhn—his idea of paradigms. Get a formal education, as I like to say. Musicians if they make it, they don’t like change. So if it’s not coming from the schools, it’s not coming from anywhere. With Zimbabwe—I went to South Africa, so I learned what was happening in that region. And once you hear about it, you want to speak about it, just like Bangladesh—how we became aware of the Indian culture and the sitar.
How did the South African military get so into your music?
Everybody in South Africa had to do duty—it’s compulsory. So they put these guys at the edge of the country—Namibia took the most fighting. And they found these tapes and they were passing them around. They were all that age group, and apartheid was happening, and they were starting to question what they were doing out there and what it was all about. In America, they not only protested the war—they were burning their draft cards and going to Canada. So these kinds of movements—and the demonstrations in the city—this is the news! You don’t know who to believe about the Iraq question and all this stuff now—we’ll see. It’s almost like the early part of the century—Cubism and Picasso and Stravinsky, stuff like that. Well, anyway—I’m getting into time periods.
Do you think the problems you sang about in the ‘60s still persist?
They’re still sadly true. But I feel it can be fixed. They’ve spent billions to bailout people or do this or that—they can fix the system. They need to create more doctors. Stuff like that. I think it’s all possible. They created the FBI—and I think 100,000 signed up! It starts evolving somewhere. The American government should be investing in young people. And the military largely made up of women now—that’s where they get their personnel. But I think—well, we’ll see after the election! When times are good, music goes up—and when times are bad, music goes up! It’s an industry and it’s global—a person doesn’t have hit in the United States to go overseas, and so can they the other way. It’s gonna be an honest pleasure and a privilege to be out there, man! Say hello to everybody, man!

RODRIGUEZ WITH CONNIE PRICE AND THE KEYSTONES AND SLEEPY SUN ON FRI., NOV. 21, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8 PM / $12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. RODRIGUEZ’ COLD FACT IS OUT NOW ON LIGHT IN THE ATTIC. VISIT RODRIGUEZ AT SUGARMAN.ORG.