Jimmy Cliff is to Jamaican music what James Brown was to R&B, if Brown had just worked a little harder. Cliff helped get ska off the ground, he popularized reggae, he wrote huge hits for himself and other artists during all eras of Jamaican music, and he even starred in the first reggae movie, The Harder They Come. His uplifting soulful island rhythms have inspired fans as diverse as Jerry Garcia, Keith Richards, Madness, Willie Nelson and Arthur Lee—and of course punkers such as the Clash, who referenced him in their song “Guns of Brixton.” In the present day, Cliff has returned the favor by covering that song on his recent EP, which was produced by Tim Armstrong of Operation Ivy and Rancid. Touring this year with Armstrong and a tight band of mod-looking youngsters who know their history and have mastered the 60s rocksteady sound, Cliff seems set to inspire the world yet again. This interview by D.M. Collins.

You were 14 when you had your first hit!
Jimmy Cliff: Yes! It started in Jamaica. It was a song called ‘Hurricane Hattie.’ It was a song about a hurricane that took place in Belize and was quite dangerous. I made it into a type of love song.
Is it true that famed record producer Leslie Kong founded Beverley’s Records because of you—you ran into him at a restaurant and he got the idea from you to start a label?
Jimmy Cliff: It’s true! He had a restaurant, ice cream parlor and record shop called Beverley’s. And one night I was passing by after being a little frustrated, not getting through with other producers. I saw the name ‘Beverley’s,’ and I had an idea about a song. And I just kind of finished the song, and I walked in with the song. And they were closing, and I stopped them and tell them I was a singer, and it was three brothers, and one liked my voice and the other two didn’t like my voice. And Leslie Kong was the one who liked my voice.
And he started his label just to make that voice be heard?
Jimmy Cliff: Right! He said he’s not in the business. I said, ‘But you could be! Why not get into it? I know people, I know bands, and I know some other artists that you could get.’ And so we took it from there, and that’s how it took off.
That’s pretty visionary for an adolescent! I guess only a few years later, while you were still a young teen, you were brought to New York City to represent Jamaica at the World’s Fair in 1964?
Jimmy Cliff: It was the World’s Fair, so they had people from different parts of the world representing their countries for different things. For Jamaica, it was music. And I was one of the artists there. And it was a very successful thing for me, because I got a record deal from there, which was Island Records! The Island Records boss was Chris Blackwell, and he had his eyes on me from Jamaica, and I also had him in mind—I’d heard about him. It so happened that we met in New York after that World’s Fair.
And he took you and moved you to England, where you lived for a couple years in the late 60s. Was that a culture shock, after living in Jamaica?
Jimmy Cliff: England was not such a culture shock after New York. But to live there, facing things I’d never faced in Jamaica, like cold, snow and racism, all of those things … ha ha ha!
In America, we may have had even worse racism, but what were things like in the 60s in England?
Jimmy Cliff: In England it was equal! I’ve never experienced someone tell me to move out of a property because they don’t like blacks. I’ve never heard that in my life! That was shocking for me.
Did you ever meet the band the Equals—one of the first interracial rock bands in England?
Jimmy Cliff: Oh, yes! Actually, I know Eddy Grant—the leader, writer, the engine of that band. We met over there, yeah, and we talked. We actually were planning to do some things together! It never took place then. It could still happen!
You toured with the Spencer Davis Group, right?
Jimmy Cliff: Well, we were on the same label, Island. Their first hit was ‘Keep on Running,’ and I was in the studio when they were cutting it. And they were having a difficult time getting it together. And I was just sitting there, and when they’d start I’d stand up and count it off, and say ‘Yeah! Yeah! Alright! Yeah! Okay! Yeah!’ And if you listen to the record, you’ll hear my voice on the leakage of that song.
What other bands did you see?
Jimmy Cliff: One of the best bands I’ve seen! They were so unique, blending rock with funk—it was a fantastic band! I saw Cream, with Ginger Baker, and Steve Winwood was also in the band, and Eric Clapton. I saw Hendrix. Hendrix actually opened for me when he just came over! I did two sets, and he did one set, and he was so unique and creative!
Did you worry that hard rock bands were going to be the new thing, and that danceable music such as yours was on its way out?
Jimmy Cliff: Well, Hendrix came up and he said to me, ‘What’s the name of your band, man?’ I said, ‘Jimmy Cliff and the Shakedown Sounds.’ He said to me, ‘Maaaaaan, you can sing! I can’t sing, I can just play my guitar.’ So he confirmed: I knew I had one thing going for me, which is my voice. That’s still quite unique! And I could lend my voice to any type of music form. And I can still do that. So I really didn’t have much fear of change.
That was around the time that Desmond Dekker had the first big international ska hit, with ‘Israelites.’ Were you jealous?
Jimmy Cliff: Oh no, I auditioned Desmond Dekker for Beverley! I had hits in Jamaica before him, and he had a hit in England before me while I was in England. So no, we were really kind of proud of each other, and the proof of that is that after that, he recorded one of my songs, ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want,’ which was a hit for him in Europe.
At what point did you realize you had really actually made it?
Jimmy Cliff: ‘Wonderful World, Beautiful People.’ I wrote it in South America, and went back to Jamaica and recorded it, and it became a hit! I saw that I had photos in the international market all over the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, Africa … all over the world! So, from then.
But then you became a Muslim.
Jimmy Cliff: You know, in our search in life, searching for self-identity, we go through many doors. The religious thing was one of the many doors I went through. It was just another classroom I studied. I’m graduated now! I was raised into Christianity, and most Jamaicans are Christian. Then later I became a Muslim, and was for many years. But now I believe in science.
I don’t hear Rastafarianism in that list.
Jimmy Cliff: Oh yes, in a very, very small period between being Christian and finding Islam. Rastafarianism is very much like Christianity, so it was not a hard change from Christianity to that as it was to converting to Islam.
Now Jamaican music has moved from positivity to a lot of thuggish violence, as well as some questionable stylistic choices. Has it lost its way?
Jimmy Cliff: I think they are expressing the times. There are two versions: one is girls and cars and superstars, and the other is what we call roots and culture! But the sound on this album I have just completed is like the completion of a path or door that I had not completed. After I had that hit record with ‘Wonderful World, Beautiful People,’ I left and went to Muscle Shoals, a completely different type of music there. I was kind of criticized by reggae purists for leaving reggae! So it was an uncompleted chapter. Of course, in the rocksteady era I was not even in Jamaica, so I didn’t record much rocksteady. Even though this isn’t a rocksteady album, it’s still reggae from the origins, from ska coming up. I decided it’s the way to close that chapter.
Until recently, Bob Marley has been the face of reggae internationally. For many people, he is the only reggae star they know and the only one they listen to. If it had gone a different way, do you think you would have been that figure?
Jimmy Cliff: No, I wouldn’t have been that figure. He became what he should have become. I did what I had to do, and I’m still completing my path.
You seem to have inspired more cover songs than he did, if that’s an indicator. But what is your favorite song that you have covered?
Jimmy Cliff: Well, let’s say for instance, the cover of Cat Stevens’ ‘Wild World.’ We were, again, with Island Records, and the same publisher. One day they played me this demo, and they said, ‘Steve [sic—Ed.] wrote this song, but he doesn’t like it.’ I said, ‘WHAAAAAAAAAT!?! Ha ha ha! I like it!’ So I called Steve up right away and I said, ‘Yeah, I like the song!’ So he took his guitar up over the phone, and said, ‘What is your key?’ And I start singing, and he just played it in my key. And with what I gave him over the phone, he went out right away and got a West Indian band and went in, cut the track, and called me up and said, ‘Come listen to this!’ I went in, put my voice on it, and boom! Smash! It went smash, right up the UK charts, and then smash, all over Europe. But then, we were both on A&M Records in the U.S., and A&M chose to put out his version and not my version in the U.S. So that’s why my version didn’t come out in the U.S. But I recorded the song before him!
Perhaps you could return the favor by giving him some advice on how to ‘graduate’ from fundamentalist Islam?
Jimmy Cliff: Ha ha! Well, it was one of the collaborations that I did that I really appreciate. I had a really good rapport and good artistic exchange with him. He’s one of the artists where, if the door opened again, I would be open to collaborate again, with Yusuf Islam as he’s called now.
The first time I became aware of you, I was a young boy, and I saw you in the movie
with Robin Williams.
Jimmy Cliff: Fun, fun, fun memories! With Robin Williams, it was never a dull moment. He’s a hilarious man! Always keeps you laughing! For the other comedians, they had their other moments—even Peter O’Toole was a really fun man to have around you!
Aside from Club Paradise and The Harder They Come, what other films have you been in?
Jimmy Cliff: In Marked for Death with Steven Seagal, I played a singer in a club, like a cameo role. But then I had another kind of autobiographical movie called Bongo Man, which was kind of my concept. There was this German producer who wanted to do the movie. That’s another one.
How much of The Harder They Come was similar to your own life’s story?
Jimmy Cliff: Most of the first part of the movie, a lot of it is like my story. The second part, where he became really violent, I just don’t have experience of that. But the first part—country boy comes to town, innocence, pure, has to learn the ways of the city—when I first came to Kingston, I could have gone either way! If it hadn’t been for music, for me, I could have gone the way of Ivan [Cliff’s character in the film].
Are things the same in Jamaica now? Could Ivan’s story be told now, just with updated music and updated clothes?
Jimmy Cliff: Strangest thing is, the movie had some kind of impact on the violence situation in Jamaica. Sadly for me, when I look at it. So yes, you will find that today.
You think your film promoted and glorified violence?
Jimmy Cliff: In a lot of ways. It was black on black violence! There were two things that I disagreed about with the director and the producer. I don’t think my character had to die. And again, I don’t think everything—everyone that comes out of the so-called ghetto has to take a violent path in order to make a positive impression on society. And I’ve always had an idea about making a sequel that could show that. I’ve been working on it, and it’s still on the table.
Right now in Jamaica, homophobic violence is still a huge problem, and dancehall artists like Beenie Man and Elephant Man have had hits with songs that call for the murder of gays. As an influential role model in Jamaica, how do you feel about that?
Jimmy Cliff: Well, Jamaica … it’s a complexity of Jamaica, with strong Christian background, and so it’s one of the things that I say … I’ve graduated from the religious view of things. Because if you look scientifically at the gay situation—when a child is in the womb at four months, it’s four months before you know whether the child is going to be a man or a woman, male or female! And some people are born male in a female body, and vice versa! From the scientific part of me, there it is. So, if like gays are in the army or whatnot, why not? Everyone has got a right.
Much of your music speaks out against violence. You’ve decried the evils of war in songs like ‘Vietnam’—and in fact when I saw you last, you’d changed the lyrics to ‘Afghanistan’ and spoke of the urgency of getting our soldiers out of Afghanistan.
Jimmy Cliff: Yeah, it’s very important to me! I think the duality of the human being, the good and bad … we can polarize that duality to more on the positive. I am confident of that because of my own experience in life. So yes, I don’t think we as human beings are ever completely peaceful, because if you look at a baby—a baby growing up, a year old, if two babies meet each other, the first thing they do is not hug and kiss, the first thing they do is ‘Give me that! Give me that! It’s mine!’ You know? It’s in our nature to challenge: the war part of us is there! But I am more for the peace situation. I think that we’re able to do this as human beings.
On your recent EP, you cover ‘Guns of Brixton’ by the Clash, which celebrates taking up arms. Did you have a problem with the sentiment of that song?
Jimmy Cliff: Well, again, that’s a song expressing one of the human conditions that I have experience of. I lived in England for a number of years, plus I knew Joe Strummer fairly well. The last song he recorded was with me! Plus the song talks about The Harder They Come and all of that, so I felt very comfortable to record it. I like to flow naturally. This thing with Tim Armstrong, it flowed so naturally!
Maybe because he knows your history! What are some your favorite moments of your career?
Jimmy Cliff: The time I went to South Africa. It was during the apartheid years, and I played in Soweto, I played in Durban, I played in Cape Town, and it was the first time people of all races came to that concert, particularly the one in Soweto. So that was a part of the beginning of breaking down the apartheid system. I met Nelson Mandela once, and he said that we in Jamaica with our music had helped to overthrow apartheid!
Any final words for our readers?
Jimmy Cliff: I think we’re coming into a new civilization. People talk about the Mayan’s calendar … actually, we, the ancient Egyptians gave it to the Mayans. We gave it to the Tibetans, who gave it to the Hindus, who gave it to the Babylonians. And yes, I know from studying ancient Egyptian tablets that we are coming into civilization this year. It’s just a new positive energy that’s come to take over the world. It’s started already. People are going to want more proof of things, rather than fictional bits. The higher energy is going to be ruling in the new civilization. And it kicks in in December. I’d just like to put it out there to make people feel more hopeful! Not that we’re going to go through political and economic changes, but to see that a better day is coming!

JIMMY CLIFF PLAYS APRIL 13 AND APRIL 20 AT COACHELLA. VISIT JIMMY CLIFF AT JIMMYCLIFF.COM.

(from Rent Party on Sympathy For The Record Industry)

Walter Lure was with the Heartbreakers during everything that would later become history—L.A.M.F., the Anarchy tour with the Sex Pistols and Live At Max’s and whatever else it says in Please Kill Me, which he hasn’t read. He speaks now before performing at the Knitting Factory with his band the Waldos. This interview by Daniel Clodfelter.

How to you get asked to play guitar for the Heartbreakers?
[My earlier band] the Demons were the lucky contact for me. You see, the singer of the Demons—Elliot—was a friend of the Dolls. I think he was actually their drug dealer! Elliot was looking for a band and it just turned out that we wound up sharing the Dolls’ rehearsal space. I would run into the Dolls from time to time—I had sort of known the Dolls, not personally, but since they were playing New York a lot I knew who they were. But then we started chatting, and Johnny came down to one of the Demons shows—I think it was our first gig at the 82 Club. You see, Johnny was always a sneaky little fuck—he pulls me over to the side and asked me if I wanted to join the band and my eyes just lit up! And I said, ‘Yeah, sure. Why not?’ But that was Johnny—he was probably out of his mind or whatever. Just putting the bug out there. Then a few months passed and I hadn’t heard anything until that gig the Demons played with them at the pub in Queens. There was hardly anyone there and we were just sitting around and Jerry pulled me aside and asked, ‘Do you like any of the Heartbreaker songs at all?’ ‘Yeah, I love ‘em.’ ‘Well, I think we want you to play.’ And that was it. I didn’t even know they were even thinking about me since it had been months. Soon after we started rehearsing and I was in the band.
How was it working with Johnny, Jerry, and Richard with their drug habits and conflicting egos? I know it led to Richard Hell leaving the band somewhat early on.
Richard leaving the band had more to do with ego than drugs. It was definitely challenging, since I was the new kid on the block. Johnny and Jerry were from the Dolls and they had the credibility—‘street cred,’ if you want—from that, and Richard had also been around. He already had the one song ‘Blank Generation.’ It was a great combination but they just needed another guitar player to hold it all together. And that’s what I was there for. I didn’t have any musical credentials like they all did. The ego battle was mostly Johnny versus Richard, with Jerry sort of playing the middle but mostly staying on Johnny’s side. Hell was sort of funny in the beginning because he all these wacky lyrics that made everyone laugh—you know, they were all junkies so they all had the same sort of humor—but that changed as time went on. It was a good combination. It was rock—the Hell songs were just sort of wimpy without a rock band behind him, and he added that sort of ‘Blank Generation’ element to the Heartbreakers stuff. A lot of people already had an idea of Johnny and Jerry, since they had already been around in the Dolls. It’s funny since there was only like a two- or three-year difference between the older generation and us, and there was a sort of a credibility gap. So the combination of Hell, who was sort of the newer wave, with Johnny and Jerry, who were more part of the tail end of glam, worked well. As much as I loved the Dolls—they wore some fucked-up clothes!—they were more of a transition between the glam and what became the punk scene. The actually brought the rock ‘n’ roll back to the forefront as opposed to the orchestral shit that was consuming everything before. I guess for that you could call them the godfathers of punk. That’s where the whole scene started—from them—but they weren’t really afforded the recognition.
You mentioned that Richard Hell was better when backed by a rock ‘n’ roll band—what was your impression of the Voidoids and his albums with them?
Let me start by saying that I remained good friends with them over the years and we still are friends. So I’m not going to say that I didn’t like it, but it didn’t have the same edge. For my own personal taste I tend to like rock more than clanky noises. They just didn’t have the same punch to it compared to with the Heartbreakers. For instance, ‘Love Comes in Spurts’ doesn’t even come close to ‘One Track Mind,’ which I wrote the music to and Hell added the lyrics over it—and once he left I just changed up the lyrics. [The Voidoids] didn’t have the same feel, but I’m sure he didn’t want it to be the same. They didn’t play the music like we did—which was more rock—but Hell didn’t necessarily want that. He had it with the Heartbreakers but he didn’t have to have it. He tried to do it on his own terms, but I don’t think that any of those songs have any sort of lasting power compared to what we had with the Heartbreakers.
After Hell left, you and Johnny Thunders were the main songwriters of the Heartbreakers—what was it like writing with him?
I didn’t really write anything with Johnny. Johnny would just show up to the rehearsal studio with a song and we’d just work on it. He was always running around really high. It was hard to hold a conversation with him—same with Dee Dee Ramone. You couldn’t really get a word in—at least that was my experience. However, I did write a few with Jerry. Jerry would have a guitar riff or chord progression and we’d play along and I would finish off the words or what not. With John, the only song we actually worked together on was ‘London Boys.’ I deliberately structured the music to sound like a Sex Pistols song and Johnny wanted to write the lyrics. The other ones, like ‘(Too Much) Junkie Business’—Johnny would just stick his name on it years later because he liked it so much and he wished he’d wrote it, even though I actually had.
The Heartbreakers—along with the Sex Pistols and the Clash—became part of the British Anarchy tour in 1976 that introduced the masses to punk rock. What are your most vivid memories from that tour?
The lack of gigs! It might have exposed British kids to our New York punk, but they already had their own type of punk before we got there. We didn’t realize until we got there how big it actually was—it was much bigger over there than in New York and the States. It was already mainstream over there, as opposed to still being underground here. And it was a different version as well. I thought the Sex Pistols were the best band I had seen in ages, and being on tour with them—it was great! And the Clash! The Damned didn’t really tour with us—they maybe played one or two shows. We all got along pretty well and everyone was still pretty innocent to a point—less egos involved. They were all in awe of Johnny and Jerry since the Dolls were basically their inspiration. Those were some of the best times! I’ve told this story about a hundred times—about being outside a theatre in Wales and the local priest and a bunch of parents were in a parking lot across the street with loud speakers and megaphones saying, ‘Tell your kids not to go into the theatre because the devil’s inside!’ while praying and waving bibles at us. We were all looking at the people like it was hilarious, and there were still all these kids inside the theatre.
On your website it says that after the Heartbreakers you worked the Ramones for a little bit—on Subterranean Jungle and Too Tough to Die. What was your role on those albums?
If you look at those albums on the record sleeves, hidden some place buried in a corner it says ‘special thanks to Walter Lure.’ I played the solos and guitar work on a lot of the stuff. On Subterranean Jungle, I played on every song. The next one, which I was think was Too Tough to Die, I played on like half of that. The one after that, Animal Boy, I played on like two or three songs. They were looking for something—a different sound—trying to get a hit record. They were popular but they weren’t making a lot of money—they made most their money touring and stuff. So they tried to do other things. Phil Spector and so on. Then they decided to get another guitar player and they asked me.
Did you ever play live with them or was it strictly studio stuff?
Just studio stuff. Johnny [Ramone] didn’t want people to know that he didn’t play all the songs—that’s why they didn’t really give me credit on the albums. Even live, they’d have their roadie do all the solos playing backstage on a milk crate. Johnny didn’t really want people to know that he couldn’t play that kind of guitar. He played his own thing but he had some sort of image issue. Not that it really made any difference because he had his own style.
What was your reaction to the passing of Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan in the early 1990s?
It was weird. It’s always a shock when you hear it, but Johnny was due for years—he was just going deeper and deeper. He just couldn’t get out of that whole drug syndrome. I remember when we were doing the Heartbreakers reunion in I guess November 1990. We had done a couple of rehearsals and it was Jerry, Johnny, myself and this guy Tony on bass. We’d be rehearsing, and Jerry’s calm now—he’d been on methadone for like 20 years. But Johnny was still running off every twenty minutes to do a shot or whatever. We had all gotten past the whole drug thing but Johnny was still going. When I heard it, it was still a shock, but I can’t say it was unexpected. With Jerry, he had a stroke and was in the hospital and I had a feeling he wasn’t going to come out of it. I went to visit him at one point and he was just a body lying on a bed with tubes running though him. They’re buried about twenty feet from each other in a cemetery in Queens.
You’re now playing with the Waldos—a band named after yourself which you’ve been doing for the past 20 years or so.
It was just me playing around New York getting people to play together with. There have been several incarnations as several people have died over the years. We did the CD in 1993, then Tony got sick and died in 1995 and I was ready to give it up because too many people were dying on me. Then we got asked to do a couple of shows at the Continental—a few nights as the Waldos and then a few as the Lures, and then there were these Japanese kids who were fans and came over with their own band and set up some shows. Then also the guitar player from Sonic Youth set up a few shows with us, and then it has become what it is now—with the two Japanese kids and Joe on drums. This has actually been the longest standing version, since like 1996 or 1995. It hasn’t changed much since—no one’s dropped dead on me for a while.

WALTER LURE AND THE WALDOS WITH THE STITCHES AND KEVIN K AND THE HITZ ON THU., AUG. 27, AT THE KNITTING FACTORY, 7021 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., HOLLYWOOD. 8PM / $10-$12 / ALL AGES. LA.KNITTINGFACTORY.COM. VISIT WALTER LURE AT MYSPACE.COM/LUREWALTER.

Download: Screaming Females “Bell”

(from Power Move out now on Don Giovanni)

Screaming Females fire right down the middle between Husker Du, Damaged Black Flag and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and occupy more psychic space as an irreducibly solid three-piece than bands several times their age and weight combined. There are many gerunds that begin with ‘S in English and they use the ten best in every set. Their newest Power Move is out now on Don Giovanni. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

You’re from New Brunswick—have you seen the grave of Mary Ellis?
Jarrett Dougherty (drums): I have—behind the movie theater. Behind the giant movie theater there’s this huge platform with a grave on top of it. It’s really strange—I have no idea. My dad told me that there was some one hit wonder from New Jersey from the ’50s or ’60s who wrote a song dedicated to that gravestone.
Have you picked out the New Jersey parking lot that you eventually hope to be laid to rest in?
JD: You can just dump me in the Raritan—that’s fine. The river that runs by New Brunswick.
Is it true that the beginning of Screaming Females grew from Marissa needing treatment for ringworm?
JD: So many people have asked us that story—‘So tell me how the band got started.’
I just want to know about the ringworm.
JD: Yeah, I know—I was gonna tell you. So instead of answering that question, I decided to tell a much more important part of our history because Marissa had this awful case of ringworm and was living on a remote campus of Rutgers where she didn’t know anybody. We had just started hanging out so I was like, ‘Marissa, we’re gonna get you to the health facility to get your ringworm cleared up and you’re also gonna move off this campus.’ We got both things taken care of in the same day and I think it was a very important event in Screaming Females history.
So you owe a real debt to that fungal infection.
JD: We do owe a debt to a fungal infection. Maybe more so to the people who cleared it up.
Rolling Stone said Marissa is known for ‘ripping til her fingers bleed,’ but has your music ever caused any of you to bleed in any way?
JD: Music? Yeah. Marissa—there’s pictures of her where the guitar is all splattered in blood, but it’s just because she dropped picks and strummed with her fingers—which started bleeding. I busted a few knuckles on drum rims. I think it happens to anyone who plays music—you end up hitting your hand somewhere. I cracked a knuckle last night on a drum rim and it was instant. People could feel my pain.
You’ve talked before how you like that the Minutemen were so into Creedence—what classic band is somewhere deep in the heart of Screaming Females?
JD: It’s different for each one of us but as a whole it would probably be the Clash. The Clash is a common meeting place for all of us. Mike brought almost every Clash album except for the last one on this tour.
The Clash were country fans, so who’s your favorite country musician?
JD: Favorite country musician? I’ll go with Hank. You gotta go with the lonely songs. He was a pretty blue kinda guy. Didn’t he die from overdosing on pills or something?
In the back of a Cadillac.
JD: That’s how life should be lived.
What’s the most self-reliant moment you’ve shared on tour?
JD: We were at this one house show where this guy started giving these kids a ton of booze and was egging them on and had a video camera and started playing Slayer. He was like, ‘You guys gotta beat the crap out of each other!’ And they started punching each other in the face and all our gear was in the house and there was blood flying everywhere. So we all ran in there and grabbed our gear and took off out of that house and found somewhere else to stay. I would say that is a pretty good moment where we came together to get the hell out of there.
What is the dirtiest house that you’ve ever played in?
Marissa Paternoster (guitar/vocals): The dirtiest house we ever played was in Greenville, North Carolina—I’m not going to say anything else. I don’t want to offend anyone. I mean, I think they knew it was dirty anyway. So it was at this house and we walked in and there were lots of people hanging out and it was an eclectic crowd.
Did they smell eclectic?
MP: Oh yeah, they had all kinds of smells. So there was no bathroom. We had to go to McDonald’s to use the bathroom. Typically when you’re in the little punk houses, they are fairly dirty, or maybe not dirty but there’s just stuff everywhere. I think there was food taped to the floor at this house. I don’t know what it really smelled like—kinda like poop and rotting food. What else happened that night? I don’t know—I really can’t emphasize or describe how dirty and filthy it really was. I don’t think I’ll ever smell anything like that again. I didn’t even want to sit on the couch. And I’m not like a snobby person about that but there was mold, mange—I don’t know. It was a weird place.
What’s the weirdest thing you ever had to choke down on tour that some nice people cooked for you?
MP: Tater tot casserole. It was like two pints of heavy cream and all this cheese and stuff. It was vegetarian because we’re all vegetarian, but it was really intense. There was a layer of tater tots on the top.
Did you guys fake smiles?
MP: We were probably hungry. We probably ate the shit out of it. It’s a rough world.
So someone once called you a ‘musical messiah dinosaur descended from the moon.’
MP: Oh, that’s true.

SCREAMING FEMALES WITH SHELLSHAG, UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TO CANDYLAND AND KILLER DREAMER ON THU., AUG. 13, AT BABE’S WAREHOUSE, LONG BEACH. 9 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. MORE INFORMATION AT MYSPACE.COM/SCREAMINGFEMALES. AND WITH SHELLSHAG, PROTECT ME AND SIGNALS ON FRI., AUG. 14, AT SPACELAND, 1717 SILVERLAKE BLVD., SILVERLAKE. 8:30 PM / $8 / 21+. CLUBSPACELAND.COM. SCREAMING FEMALES’ POWER MOVE IS OUT NOW ON DON GIOVANNI. VISIT SCREAMING FEMALES AT SCREAMINGFEMALES.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/SCREAMINGFEMALES.

Download: The Aggrolites “The Sufferer”

(from IV out now on Hellcat)

Since its 2002 birth by amalgamation, the Aggrolites have evolved from one more clutch of L.A. punks making rattletrap ska-noises to a slick and durable roadshow-reggae act, opening for cult-heroic likes of Madness and Michael Franti & Spearhead. This 21-track sprawl feels like an attempt at a kind of Exile on Main Street—a welter of hooks and ferocity whirling inside a restricted sonic space as emotionally expressive as the blues-rock the Stones pioneered. Results are closer to Sandinista’s Romper Room marathon, as these distant spawn of the Clash wear the complete fuck out of another genre in a series of virtuosic fits. “Firecracker” starts things off in a burst of 1970s soundtrack funk and “Gotta Find Someone Better” wouldn’t be out of place on either Reprise-era Meters album, but the rest of the bill sticks to what passes the dutchie out on the festival circuit. If their Combat Crunk is next, this could get interesting.

—Ron Garmon

Download: The Sonics “Strychnine”

(from Here Are The Sonics! available now on Norton)

The Sonics weren’t pioneers so much as cavemen—the first humans to discover tools, fire and the absolute rudiments of chemistry. Their original ‘60s songs still sound wild and feral today, and their debut Here Are The Sonics! devours most of the million punk rock records that timidly followed it. This will be their first Los Angeles-area show ever. This interview by Dan Collins.

When was the last time you guys played the Los Angeles area?
Larry Parypa (guitar/vocals): I don’t think we ever did. We recorded down there a bunch. We went to the Whisky a Go Go and the Turtles and the Doors were there, before they got really popular.
Gerry Roslie (vocals/organ): We saw Ike and Tina Turner! It was extremely happening down there. We were like wide-eyed country boys.
A lot of L.A. bands really emulated the Beatles. But you guys didn’t seem to be Anglophiles.
LP: We loved the Beatles, and we even played some of their songs, but in no way did we try to emulate the Beatles. We were a very minor, dark sounding group for those days.
GR: We’d try to do a pretty song, and it’d just end up getting ‘nice and rough!’
Rob Lind (sax/harmonica/vocals): We loved the Kinks. We actually traveled with them and opened a number of shows for them.
LP: We played the way that we played, which was without a whole lot of technique, and real hard. A live performance—I mean, the room would almost breathe because it was so powerful. Knowing that we weren’t masterful musicians or anything, knowing that we weren’t a vocal group, we were there to pound it out. It was our style. Nobody was doing 1-3-4 progressions, real minor progressions. And they weren’t singing about the topics we sang about. And nobody was screaming!
You both had brothers in the band. Did Larry and Andy ever fight like Ray and Dave Davies did?
GR: When didn’t they? They had some real sessions. We were heading down around the Portland area, and Larry had a brand new Buick, and had his radio on real loud, and me and Andy were in the back seat. Andy was like, ‘Turn that volume down back here at least!’ And finally Andy had enough getting Larry to do it, and he was drinking a bottle of grape pop, and he poured it down Larry’s speakers while the car was going down the freeway, and the speakers go ‘bloooblublublublublublublu!’ And he pulled over, and I think they were just about ready to go to blows right there on the side of the freeway. Andy was always on Larry’s case for playing too loud.
Why did you decide to scream about things like drinking strychnine? It seems like that would kill you.
GR: Well, I’m kind of crazy by nature. I do crazy things and think of crazy things. But I’m not dangerous—heh heh. Honest, judge!
RL: The PA systems were normally pretty bad. Sometimes we just had metal horns. And so Gerry started screaming so he could hear himself.
GR: It’s a wonder I’ve got a voice left! I screamed myself silly. I was inspired by the voices of Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis of course. I liked their energy, but I don’t remember anybody doing witchy stuff. It’s just a crazy, psychotic thing. After we got going, there did start to be crazy, witchy things, like Ozzy. Everything was kind of like, ‘love and marriage, la la la la la,’ and I went ‘Nah! That’s not dirty enough! That’s not the way I feel!’
A lot of your songs seem to be about revenge—particularly upon some girl! Was there a particular relationship in your life where you’re like ‘I’m going to get even with her and write a song about it?’
GR: Do you have a couple hours, my friend? Who hasn’t been screwed over—guys or girls?
Do you secretly hope to yourself that some day, that girl is going to walk into a record store and see a Sonics poster and think to herself, ‘I blew it!’?
GR: Oh, yeah, I do hope that happens! That would be sweet!
You guys are often cited as the original punk band. Did you feel a kinship with bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols?
RL: The Clash, I thought they were hard-rocking gods. The Sex Pistols, I didn’t like a whole lot of the stuff they did, but I liked their attitude, and every once in a while I’d hear one of their songs and go ‘Whoa, that’s good. Way to go, guys!’
LP: After the late ‘60s, I didn’t listen to music much. If I did, it was probably more country.
RL: Yeah, more the Seattle guys—that’s really where garage rock started with us, and it was like Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney, and Screaming Trees, and Alice and Chains—it was kind of like those guys were our sons! We were real proud of them.
Let’s talk about the earlier Northwest scene. It seems like the first breakout bands were instrumental combos like the Ventures and the Frantics.
RL: The Frantics and the Ventures and Paul Revere kind of predated us. I think one of the first rock songs I ever heard was ‘Walk, Don’t Run,’ and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
LP: God, the Frantics were just a fantastic group! Even today, they really stand up. The first interest I ever had in guitar was Duane Eddy—actually it was ‘Rumble’ by Link Wray, but then Duane Eddy had a song out that was all instrumental, and just really got me stimulated to want to play guitar. Not long after that, the Ventures came out with their stuff, and I tried to learn every song on the Ventures album. Another band that was more regional was the Wailers. They came out with instrumentals that had much harder rhythms than what the Ventures were doing, but then they got Rockin’ Roberts, and Gail Harris, and they would do vocals.
I used to have their album Live at the Castle. Did you ever play at the Castle in Tacoma?
LP: Yeah! In fact, we turned down Jimi Hendrix there, before he was the Jimi Hendix. He came and wanted to sit in, and we told him to get lost! It was a big club—a big dance spot for the Seattle area. You’d maybe get a thousand kids in there. There was a place called the Crescent Ballroom in Tacoma, where the Wailers played a lot. It’s like the first time I ever played there—I was 14 or 15, and probably didn’t have a clue about what I was doing. Lesley Gore came through town and for some reason, my brother [Andy] and I were part of the backup group for her. We did that with the Shangri-Las also, and we just ruined them! We knew we were going to back them up, but we didn’t learn their songs! Their songs had a lot of breaks in them, and we’d play right through them.
RL: The lead singer of the Shangri-Las said something snarky about us. So next time we played with them, we made fun of them. They were doing ‘Leader of the Pack,’ and Gerry was riding his piano like a motorcycle, and I was down on my knees, being like, ‘No, Danny, please please don’t go!’ We just humiliated them. You don’t come to Seattle and trash the Sonics! So they said they’d never play with us again.
We interviewed Mary Weiss last year. Do you want to tell her publicly that you’re sorry?
LP: We’re sorry! We played in Barcelona last year, and she was also on the bill. And she remembered! Oh, yeah!
RL: We smoothed things over. She’s playing with the guy from the Smithereens, Dennis, and we drank a lot of Scotch in the hotel in Barcelona, and we sat and chatted with Mary and her husband. Things are fine now.
How about Paul Revere and the Raiders? Any bad grudges there you want to settle? Like, who played ‘Louie Louie’ better?
RL: Oh, I think we did! I don’t think there’s any question!
Did you get just a little pissed off when the Raiders got to be on TV and in Teen Beat and you guys didn’t?
RL: Not at the time. I used to know Paul Revere, and Paul is the epitome of a businessman. The problem with Northwest rock ‘n’ roll bands—with the exception of the Ventures who broke out and became worldwide—was that us and the Wailers got trapped in the Northwest.
LP: We didn’t even think too much about what we were doing musically or where we were going. We’d hardly ever practice or anything. We would throw our instruments in the van maybe Sunday night after doing some weekend stuff, and wouldn’t pull them out again until we’d play again. We were more interested in whether we could get girls into the motel rooms that night.
It was kind of the cusp of the Summer of Love! Did you guys get to have drug orgies?
LP: We’d have the bathtub full of beer and stuff—to try to ply them with liquor. That really was a key objective. The music was just a vehicle to get us in some parties! You’d hit the road in summers, just playing one-night-stands all over the place. That was an exciting way to spend your teenage life!
The Meters recorded a live album on the Queen Mary—are you guys planning on recording one there too?
RL: No, we’re not doing that. We’re actually planning on going back into the studio in July. All new material. We need to get new stuff out.
LP: We don’t know what’s going to happen because we don’t practice. We go months and don’t touch our instruments. For this show we’re going to get together for an hour and a half at my house before going to L.A. and run through the songs again just so we can make sure we remember them. And sometimes we don’t!
I’ve heard a couple cuts from your previous 1972 reunion, which Norton added as a bonus on the Sonics Boom album. It sounds even more hard than your sixties recordings. How did you guys resist the urge to get all bluesy like Foghat?
RL: We never sat there and scratched our heads and said ‘What could our gimmick be?’ We always played real hard. Larry played guitar as hard as he could. Bob Bennett played drums as hard as he could. Jerry screamed and banged on the piano. I tried to play sax the way Larry played guitar. I tried to play as hard-dirty-nasty as I could. We used to play dances in armories or big roller rinks, where we’d have three-four-five thousand people. And we didn’t want people standing around with their arms folded staring at us. We wanted people to start dancing immediately. What a lot of bands would do is blow two or three songs and get the level right and then get into it. We wanted to get into it as soon as we hit the stage, so we came out blasting from the get-go! And that’s exactly what we do now. We are going to come out blastin’ and attempt to blow the place up.
GR: We don’t tone it down! We don’t try to blow people’s heads off, but… well, yeah, we might try to blow people’s heads off. What the heck?
Ar the end of your career, suddenly a basketball team starts up in your own town and calls itself the ‘Supersonics.’ Did you feel your name had been usurped?
LP: We thought it would be good publicity to sue them, even though we’d lose—just to say, ‘Hey, the Sonics are suing the Sonics!’
GR: It was kind of a shock! But we were out of the business. But now they’re gone, and we’re back!

THE SONICS WITH THE FUZZTONES, THE WOGGLES, THE VOODUO, GIZELLE, THE NEW FIDELITY AND MANY MORE ON SAT., JUNE 6, AT THE INK-N-IRON FESTIVAL AT THE QUEEN MARY, 1126 QUEENS HWY., LONG BEACH. DOORS AT 11 AM / BANDS AT NOON / SONICS AT 10 PM / $35-$70 / 7+. COMPLETE FESTIVAL LINE-UP AND MORE INFO AT INK-N-IRON.COM. THE SONICS’ RECORDS ARE AVAILABLE NOW ON NORTON. VISIT THE SONICS AT MYSPACE.COM/THESONICSBOOM.

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.